The NPCs were crying and calling the police, and among them, only the players were able to remain calm.
Although it was also the players who died.
They were already mentally prepared for this; they were facing an invisible enemy, an existence that worldly forces could not resist.
The NPCs, however, were unaware of the seriousness of the situation and placed their hopes on official forces such as the police.
Admittedly, the authorities could speed up their deciphering of the plot, but they couldn't prevent them from dying.
"So how did he die?"
This is a mystery. Although the body was lying right in front of them, allowing them to look at it rudely and condescendingly, there was nothing wrong with the body surface, nor any signs of poisoning.
"Even with the interference of a mysterious force, a person's death always has a triggering cause, such as illness, poisoning, or even choking on a pearl falling into the trachea. But it doesn't seem like he died of suffocation or poisoning. There isn't much blood on the straw in his throat; it's more like bleeding caused by a ruptured skin. Could it have triggered some kind of illness?"
"Ah, I remember... he has a heart condition. I've forgotten the specifics, but I heard him mention it before, that he shouldn't be too agitated." An NPC recalled this.
This indirectly explains why the player died silently; he must have 'seen' or felt something that caused his heart to stop.
Thinking about it this way, people without heart disease can breathe a sigh of relief... just kidding.
Since that very existence can cause a heart attack at any moment, it can also dull their senses when they're collapsing stairs or facing danger. The principle is the same: we're all sacrifices, and no one can escape.
They were at their wits' end, and everyone felt the weight of those four words. They were now like unlucky souls forced to the edge of a cliff by a tiger; they had no choice but to face the tiger or choose the cliff.
"The best course of action now is to find the real priest," one player said.
He was saying this to the NPCs, but the players understood the hidden meaning: find the 'ghost'. As the priest, the ghost knows how to start, and therefore knows how to end.
The ghosts' obsessions... they probably have some ideas. Since this is such a fierce person who sacrifices others and then sacrifices himself, then this priest must be a very qualified fanatic. Do we even need to guess the obsessions of this kind of fanatic?
It wants to see its God and the gods. In other words, the ghost wants to die, to return to the mysterious death.
Therefore, 'it' created a passage connecting the two dimensions through sacrificial rituals.
Now that a passage exists, meeting the 'mysterious power' should have been a simple matter, but 'it' failed to do so.
Something must have happened here before 'it' was sacrificed to some being, preventing him from dying as he was supposed to be cursed.
This could be caused by external factors, such as a ghost accidentally getting into a car accident.
However, it could also be due to internal factors, such as the ghost not being qualified to see the mysterious power at all—that is, as Wenli said, the artist's talent is insufficient.
If it's the latter, then it has to be said that this is a great irony.
In fact, if we follow this line of thought backwards, the 'ghost' is more likely to appear in the first group of people who sensed the mysterious power, such as 'Zhang Zhengyuan, Zhao Rui, and Chen Rui' that Ke Bei mentioned at the beginning.
Now that Chen Rui is dead, Zhang Zhengyuan's behavior is normal, and Zhao Rui has an advantage: she has a friend who knows her very well. If the 'ghost' were to impersonate Zhao Rui, Yu Yan would see through it in no time, unless the 'ghost' is an exceptionally skilled actor.
No matter which angle you look at it from, it is an undeniable fact that ghosts are fanatical believers. Therefore, even if 'it' chooses a role, it will definitely choose someone who is qualified to approach its deity.
Therefore, it is highly likely that the ghost is among this group of NPCs who can already dream of abnormalities.
The reason for excluding the 'ghost' disguised as a player is that this is a welfare dungeon and also the 'ghost's' first game. 'It' has no understanding of the player group at all.
"Why not have them all perform their best artistic talents? The one who lacks artistic talent and whose abilities don't match the original owner's will be chosen," a player muttered to himself.
Ren Yifei: ...That makes a lot of sense.
Although it's a foolproof method of elimination, it really works. Unfortunately, these NPCs are unlikely to cooperate, and unlike math and science, this doesn't have standardized criteria, making it difficult to judge whether someone has artistic talent.
The police arrived quickly, earlier than expected, and they also brought a vehicle to transport the body.
After watching the body disappear into the distance, everyone present had to wait for the police to register and take their statements one by one.
There was no dispute about this player's death; everyone witnessed him fall. From being lively and energetic to dying with his eyes wide open, it only took ten or twenty minutes, and there were no other unusual occurrences during that time.
So the police were taking statements mainly because they were curious about the purpose of such a large gathering.
The NPCs were already terrified, so when the police came to ask them questions, they naturally told them everything, wishing they could request the police officers' personal protection.
Although the players were reluctant, they didn't show it and all went along with the crowd, explaining why they had come. Chen Shen, as she had suggested, copied all the information and gave it to the police.
"How can you kids dare to play with anything?" The policewoman sighed after hearing the whole story. She looked older than her age, but she still looked dashing in her police uniform.
The commune members looked at each other in bewilderment: "We don't know what came over us at the time, we were bewitched."
Why else? Young people are seeking thrills, right? And honestly, I never expected things to develop this way. If I had known, they wouldn't have dared to do it even if they had a hundred lives.
It took more than an hour for the two police officers to take all the statements, and then they let them go back, telling them to stay in their rooms and not to wander around outside.
Even though they were college students, these police officers still saw them as immature as children. Therefore, they never considered involving them in such important matters.
Ren Yifei readily agreed. He returned to his dormitory and, unsurprisingly, found his roommate there, sitting in a chair reading a book. He greeted him and then sat down in his own seat.
After packing his backpack, he climbed into bed, then took out his earphones and phone. There were two newly created groups on the screen: a large group where players were secretly in charge, and a small group where he, Zhao Rui, Yu Yan, and Yu Yan's father were.
With his daughter speaking up, Yu Yan's father indeed put in his best effort, and within a few hours they had found a lot of the information they wanted.
"What is this?" Ren Yifei stared at the photo in surprise. The photo showed an underwater altar, shaped like a pyramid, but with the top flattened and several stone pillars standing on it. As for the rest, it had been almost completely eroded by water, leaving only mottled traces.
"This is an altar beneath Fuxian Lake. These photos were taken during a diving expedition. Besides this one, there are several other altars here."
"At first, everyone thought these were relics left by the ancient Dian people. But after careful investigation, we found that these altars were left from different periods. And this altar, the orientation of its stone pillars and the age of its existence are more in line with your requirements."
Yu Yan's father sent a voice message directly, and he spoke with a Yunnan accent.
"The ownership of this stone platform is still undetermined in history. What is certain is that this tall, pyramid-shaped altar existed before the ancient Dian Kingdom. There were originally reliefs on the stone platform, but due to the erosion of water and microorganisms over the years, they are no longer visible."
"However, I saw the monster carvings on top of the stone pillar you mentioned, and that reminded me of this. Look at the stone pillars in the picture; they also have irregularly shaped stone carvings on them. ...Hey, wait a minute, I'll post a video later."
After a couple of sentences, he seemed to feel that using voice was still not enough, so he sent a video a little while later, which was about the same thing, but in more detail, because a professor was pointing to the pictures on the computer with a pen and explaining them one by one.
Wow, that's overflowing with fatherly love!
"Thank you, Dad," Yu Yan said earnestly.
"Hehe, actually, Dad is also very curious about the information you brought me, especially that kind of hieroglyphic script." Yu Yan's father sent a voice message. "It is very similar to the script on some pottery shards we found in Yunnan. However, this pottery shard is not from the ancient Dian people in Yunnan, but from an earlier era. It has also been found in Vietnam."
Since it was hard to explain, Yu Yan's father then produced a video, which showed a map.
"In ancient times, there was actually a waterway connecting Yunnan and Vietnam. From here, via the Yuanjiang River and then the Red River, one could reach the coastal areas of Vietnam's border." In the video, a hand draws a line with a red pen, depicting a waterway that is no longer navigable.
"It's hard to say whether it was a tribe from Vietnam that traveled along the Red River to Yunnan, or a tribe from Yunnan that followed the river to Vietnam. But it's certain that this small tribe has a water worship tradition."
Yu Yan's father used his professional skills to analyze the information on the remaining pottery fragments with those outside the video. Water ripples, fishing net patterns, fish patterns, boat patterns, seashells... all served as evidence.
Even many of those pictographs are related to the sea and water. They are a different kind of writing system from the pictographs of the Central Plains, but they have commonalities.
This small tribe not only liked to write on pottery, but they also liked to leave inscriptions on jade and bone artifacts. There is a burial ground for this tribe near Fuxian Lake.
Because Yu Yan's father is an expert who specializes in the study of the ancient Dian Kingdom, he also has some knowledge of the pictographic script of this tribe.
"This." Ren Yifei suddenly noticed a red painting on a three-legged pottery piece. It depicted a monster that looked like a mountain, with two eyes staring down at it. Humans, like ants, were dancing and drumming at the foot of the mountain, seemingly celebrating or perhaps performing a ritual.
He took a screenshot of this page, circled it, and showed it to Yu Yan's father: "Teacher, what do the characters on this pottery mean? Are they performing a ritual?"
"Judging from the image, this is part of the primitive worship of this small tribe. What's particularly interesting are the two lines above and below the mountain and the spiral pattern below."
"The curved lines above represent 'heaven,' the straight lines below represent 'earth,' and the circular spiral pattern representing the sun below 'earth' signifies 'darkness and sleep.'"
In the video, the pen points to the hieroglyphs on the mountain-shaped monster in the middle: "Heaven, Earth, Master, Powerful, Sleep..."
"Combined with the hieroglyphs above, the meaning of this picture can be translated as: the sole ruler of heaven and earth, the king of all things, the land of slumber."