This Damned Thirst for Survival
chapter-43

It was not the first time the village headman had treated the chosen girl in this way.

Is this the real purpose of the Shrine’s selection?

Jiang Luo had his hands behind his back, leaving them deliberately empty. He faked a struggle for a moment and was then obediently tied up by the village chief.

The village chief did not tie her up very tightly because of her “womanhood”. After wrapping Jiang Luo’s body with several loops of rope, the village chief said, “Godfather, I have tied her up.

The Lord of the Gods looked back and sighed, “Village Chief, is this how you tie it?”

The mayor rubbed his hands together in confusion and looked at Jiang Luo, wondering what had gone wrong, “This is the way it used to be tied.”

Jiang Luo’s forehead twitched.

He already had a feeling that Chi You was going to come after him again.

Sure enough, the divine male walked towards him, his wet black robe having dried at some point. The enigmatic god-duke stood in front of Jiang Luo, head bowed, looking at the dark-haired youth.

Jiang Luo looked coldly at what he was planning to do.

He lifted his hand, which was wrapped in layers of black cloth, and uncovered this layer of fabric on his arm, and the two-finger-thick cloth slowly fell off his hand.

The black cloth draped down to reveal the green and white complexion of the god-duke’s hands. He held the long length of fabric in his hands, “It is not enough to just bind the man.”

The goddess lifted his hand and the black cloth came close to Jiang Luo’s eyes, and in the eyes of the dark-haired youth, which seemed to burn with a lotus of fire, he gently covered those beautiful eyes that hid a brilliant star.

“And strap on his eyes.”

Shit.

Jiang Luo could definitely hear the hidden laughter in the voice of the Divine Principle.

Dogby Chi You, as expected, has given him a new problem.

The eyes are covered and the vision returns to darkness. The loss of sight in the face of the unknown and of the enemy has obviously caused Jiang Luo some panic. His lips are pursed, the corners of his mouth drawn into a straight line.

The Divine Principle gently tied a black cloth behind his head.

When one’s eyes are blind, one’s ears are particularly sensitive. Jiang Luo listened to the sound of his clothes brushing against his ears and could almost imagine the way the Godfather’s black robe brushed against his shoulders.

The tip of his nose caught the vague scent of the divine male.

It is the scent of incense from sandalwood and candlelight.

The divine Duke’s movements were slow and deliberate. To onlookers, the divine Duke’s wide black robe enveloped the dark-haired youth in his arms the moment he opened them, and the dark-haired youth ducked, his braid showing outside the black robe for a moment before it was tightly blocked again.

The only village elder who was acting as a spectator was wondering, the God-god had never done this before, had he?

Only after he had bound Jiang Luo’s eyes did the god-god step back, and with a glance at the dark-haired youth, securely bound and with his eyes bound up, a smile flickered across his pale lips as he said hoarsely, “Come with me to get the offering, village chief.”

The village headman hastily responded, and the two men’s footsteps faded away.

Jiang Luo waited patiently for another twenty seconds to make sure the place was clear before slipping a small knife out of his sleeve, flashing its face and cutting the rope cleanly.

After releasing his hands, Jiang Luo pulled the blindfold off and was about to throw it on the floor when he remembered something and put the long black fabric back on his body.

Perhaps he could also play the role of a divine male.

Jiang Luo took the time to look around the shrine before the Godfather and the village chief returned. He carried a candle to the stone walls on either side and examined the frescoes above.

Two scenes are depicted in the mural.

One is a picture of the villagers worshipping. The villagers are kneeling respectfully on the ground, praying for eternal life, and in front of them is a black and white statue of a smiling god with a frown.

Beside the idol stand two men who appear to be protectors, one holding a large sword and the other dressed in red. Behind the idol is a rolling stream of water and a neat patch of trees.

Jiang Luo’s gaze is on the guardian on his left, holding a large sword.

Is this one a dead ghost?

The second painting shows a scene of the girls offering sacrifice. One by one, the girls line up to enter the secret passage and meet the idol. They kneel in front of the idol, their eyes peacefully closed.

Roughly, it looks sacred and beautiful, but on closer inspection, the girl’s wrist is slashed with a large gash, and blood flows from her wrist onto the body of the idol, turning it from colourless to painted.

It was as if the idol had taken over their lives and gradually came to life from a stone.

Jiang Luo looks back at the idol.

The idol is sitting cross-legged, with the same kind smile as above the mural. Jiang Luo approaches with a candlestick and now looks at the image more closely.

Apart from the stone colour of the feet, the idol is already almost coloured.

What do the colours on the idols represent?

Jiang Luo frowned as two footsteps came from behind him, it was the Godfather and the village headman returning.

Jiang Luo jumped on the platform at the first opportunity and hid behind the idol.

Luckily, the statue was big enough to hide Jiang Luo, who was crouched on his knees. Almost immediately after Jiang Luo had taken cover, the Godfather and the village chief entered the shrine.

The village chief’s panicked voice rang out as the shrine was empty of the offerings they had tied up, “Where are the people? Why are the people gone!”

The Divine Principle did not make a sound.

The village headman’s voice grew shrill with fear, “Godfather, what shall we do!”

Jiang Luo pricked up his ears and listened to their conversation.

The Godfather didn’t say anything for some reason, and only after a while did he say, “The underground is like a maze, he can’t get very far.”

“Yes, yes, she can’t run very far,” the village chief looked at the rope thrown at the passage, “God-gong, she must have gone outside, let’s hurry and catch up.”

Jiang Luo’s grip on the knife tightened, his hands sweating a little as he waited with bated breath for the Godfather’s answer.

Shinto: “Then go after it.”

The two men gradually move away.

Jiang Luo, however, did not rush out, but looked at the back of the idol and counted a minute in his mind.

Only after no one came back to make a comeback was he convinced that the two men had gone.

Jiang Luo put away his pocket knife and did not go down, but instead took the opportunity to take a closer look at the idol.

Cautiously, he first summoned the Serpent of the Sixth Year to wrap around him and wrapped his right hand in the black cloth left by the Divine Lord before carefully touching the idol.

Surprisingly, the texture of the statue is much softer than Jiang Luo had imagined.

Jiang Luo’s brow jumped and he even had the sensation of touching the skin of a dead man.

Soft, cold, and completely different from the touch of stone.

His hand slowly went upwards towards the neck of the idol, trying to test whether it was alive or not.

Just as Jiang Luo’s hand is about to reach the neck of the idol, a hand carved in stone clutches his wrist.

Jiang Luo immediately looked up, his breath catching.

The head of the idol was twisted to ninety degrees and was looking at him with kindly eyes.

The serpent smelled something evil and lashed out at the idol. While the idol’s smile remained unchanged, his other hand grabbed Jiang Luo’s calf, his stone hard fingers piercing Jiang Luo’s skin and poking into the flesh, leaving five ghastly finger marks.

Jiang Luo grunted and kicked the idol’s hand away. The serpent slammed into the idol again, and the divine platform, unable to withstand the two heavy blows, collapsed completely, revealing a huge hole in the ground.

Jiang Luo was caught off guard and fell into the hole in the ground. The serpent chased him so violently that the idol rolled forward with a smile and also rumbled into the hole.

The hole in the ground is very long.

The wind blew past Jiang Luo’s ears and a large amount of blood flowed from his lower leg, which was blown backwards by the wind.

Is this the bad fortune Feng Li has divined for him? Jiang Luo thought to himself.

But the look in his eyes was becoming more and more calm and composed. Having died eighteen times long ago, this wound was not enough to make him surrender and resign himself to his fate.

Behind him, the serpent surrounded him, carrying him slowly to the ground. But Jiang Luo withdrew the serpent into the Ring of Yin and Yang the moment he landed.

The golden runes disappeared and the cave was plunged into darkness where no one could see. Jiang Luo took refuge in a corner, dragging his wounded calf, and used a hemostatic Fu Lu to stop the wound, then tore off the fabric he was wearing to wipe away the blood and threw it on the other side. After this was done, a loud bang fell and the idol went into the hole in the ground.

Jiang Luo’s face is unchanged as he turns his head sideways and stares into the darkness from which the sound emanates.

In the brief moment when he fell, Jiang Luo was thinking about something.

Why is the shrine above ground not lit and the stone steps to the ground floor not lit, but the shrine below is lit with candles?

He guessed it was the inability of the idol to see in the dark.

That is why someone used this one device to keep the idol from leaving the ground and reaching above it.

Of course, this is just a guess and Jiang Luo has no evidence to prove that he is right, but he wants to take a gamble at this point.

He slowed his breathing and listened for movement not far away.

In the darkness, the idol stood up. He was made of stone, and each foot moved with extreme force. His smiling face looked around in the darkness but saw no sign of the sacrifice.

After a brief silence, the idol rumbled and moved again.

Headed in the direction of Jiang Luo.

Jiang Luo holds onto the wall and moves slowly without making a single movement to change places.

Instead, the idol stopped at the spot where he had previously thrown down his blood-stained clothes.

One can smell the blood.

Jiang Luo judges calmly.

The idol attacked the clothes. Jiang Luo heard the sound of the stone wall cracking, as if realising that there was no one at the clothes, before the idol stopped moving.

It is true that you cannot see in the dark.

Jiang Luo felt that although he was unlucky, at least he was not unlucky to the end. He held onto the wall and gently moved the Yin-Yang ring.

A golden talisman became a mouse and darted like lightning in the opposite direction. The idol, attracted by the mouse emanating Jin Guang, ran heavily after the mouse.

The ground trembled for a while and then gradually regained its calm.

Jiang Luo sat on the floor propped up against the wall, his head covered in cold sweat but conscious. Jiang Luo rested for a while, tore a piece of fabric off his body to bind the wound and waited for the throbbing pain in his left calf to subside before getting back to his feet.

The wound only penetrated the flesh, but luckily it didn’t hurt the bones or the tendons, and at this point Jiang Luo really envied the dead ghost’s ability to heal in a second.

He summoned the golden rune and looked the place over with the help of Jin Guang. The cave below was a cavern, and Jiang Luo even doubted that he had reached fifty metres below the ground.

He waved the Yin-Yang ring, which showed him the north. Jiang Luo looked into the deep, bottomless north, exhaled a foul breath and walked slowly forward.

*

On the ground, Wen Renlian is using divination to determine Jiang Luo’s position as soon as he enters the shrine.

As they went further and further off the ground, they reached the mountains, but once there, Wen Renlian’s compass became disordered by magnetic interference, and he was even more cautious and slow in his divination.

The dead ghost, however, felt something familiar about the place.

He didn’t know why it felt familiar, but he followed his instincts and walked under a giant tree. He thrust his greatsword into the ground with all his might and pressed down, and the ground here caved in violently, revealing a dark hole.

Lu Youyi and Wen Renlian, who were startled by the sound, looked at the black hole in shock and quickly gathered around, “What is this?”

The dead ghost said honestly, “I don’t know.”

He paused, “But Jiang Luo should be right down there.”

That’s how deadbeats feel.

Wen Renlian divined the situation and said, “The dead ghost is right, it must be down here.

But the dead ghost stopped Wen Renlian, saying, “You can’t go down there.”

Wen Renlian’s face went cold and his eyes, which had always been gently narrowed, opened for the rare time, revealing the aggressive sharpness of his male side, “Why.”

The dead ghost said, “Your birth name is Yin.”

Wen Renlian was stunned, and in a moment he understood what he meant.

The shrine needs offerings with yin in their eight characters, and if he goes down there, he may instead become a drag, or even a tool for something to become stronger.

Wen Renlian let out a low curse and then moved out of the way as he looked deeply at Lu Youyi and the dead ghost, “Then I’ll be counting on you.”

Lu Youyi nodded solemnly and prepared to go down the hole without delay, when Wen Renlian suddenly said, “Lu Youyi.”

Lu Youyi looks back at him.

Wen Renlian opened and closed his lips for a moment, threw a packet of cigarettes from his body and whispered, “Come back alive with him.”

Lu Youyi grabbed his cigarette, “Don’t worry about it.”

He and the dead ghost jumped down the hole.

Wen Renlian’s left eyelid fluttered several times as he watched their disappearing figures.

It is not that he does not believe in Lu Youyi’s abilities, he just does not believe in the stability of dead ghosts.

This living dead man had only been in contact with them for less than a day, and even if the other party seemed harmless now, whether he was ultimately a friend or foe was anyone’s guess.

If the dead man had stabbed him in the back midway, Lu Youyi’s unsuspecting personality would have been in danger.

Wen Renlian’s heart was worried as he took out a thousand paper crane folded with yellow talismans from his bosom and wrote the word “Come quickly” on the crane with a pen, patting it gently, “Go.”

The thousand paper cranes stagger away and fly towards the bottom of the hill.

*

Lu Youyi and the dead ghost fell straight down into a darkness.

Lu Youyi fell on his buttocks, “Hiss – where is this place?”

The dead ghost covered his mouth and his cold eyes looked into the darkness, “Don’t make a sound.”

They walked tentatively forward, with the dead ghost leading the way. In the darkness, something on the ground tossed them a few times, and after walking for who knows how long, they finally saw a faint glimmer of light.

Beneath the light is a large dome.

There were dense figures on the ground, but on closer inspection it became clear that they were all life-like paper figures. The paper figures were standing on the ground and it was a hairy sight. Lu Youyi’s scalp tingled, “This is ……”

A hand suddenly reached out from the side and pulled him and the dead ghost into a hidden recessed cavern.

Lu Youyi almost jumped and was about to struggle when he heard a familiar voice ringing in his ears, “It’s me.”

It’s Jiang Luo.

Lu Youyi breathed a long sigh of relief, and the dead ghost put away his big sword and followed Jiang Luo peacefully into hiding.

Jiang Luo is in a terrible state of disarray, leaning against the wall with a few dirty patches of dust on his face. His hair is sticky with sweat and his braid, which rests on his left shoulder, is almost falling apart. His lower skirt-like robe has been torn off in two places, revealing an appalling five-finger print on his straight calf.

But Jiang Luo’s demeanour is so calm that he doesn’t even seem to be in such a state of distress, but rather strangely moving.

But Lu Youyi almost burst into tears as he lowered his voice and said, “Jiang Luo, are you all right?”

Jiang Luo shook his head and raised his eyes to look at the dead ghost, “Why are you here too?”

The dead ghost said, “You are my friend, and it is only right that I should come to save my friend.”

Jiang Luo smiled inexplicably at his words and he asked, “Do you feel familiar with this place?”

The dead ghost nodded slowly.

Although he didn’t know why, he did feel a few moments of familiarity.

Jiang Luo said to himself, “That’s it.”

The dead ghost is really the guardian of the idol’s side.

It seems reasonable then that he and Lu Youyi were decapitated by each other in the middle of the night when they went to dig a grave.

For the truth that the idol needs a sacrifice cannot be discovered by outsiders.

Jiang Luo felt that the difficulty of this level was beyond the judgement of the event organisers and the judges, and that the idols, living idols, were too difficult for a group of pre-graduates to deal with.

But Jiang Luo doesn’t like to think about other things, not only when it comes to Chi You, but also when it comes to other gods, men and dogs.

–He just wanted to return this wound on his leg to the idol.

“Do you know where this place is?” He asked.

The dead ghost said hesitantly, “Under the ground?”

Jiang Luo : “……”

I almost forgot, this guy is currently suffering from amnesia.

Jiang Luo withdrew his gaze helplessly, but Yu Guang caught a glimpse of the cigarettes in Lu Youyi’s hand. He couldn’t help but smile, “Lu Youyi, did you bring me a pack of cigarettes when you came down?”

Jiang Luo smiled again and skilfully lit a cigarette, squinting and relaxing his nerves.

Lu Youyi asked in a whisper, ” Jiang Luo , what’s all that out there?”

“Paper people,” Jiang Luo said, “they look dead, but they are actually alive. At the slightest sound, they will swarm around you.”

Lu Youyi was horrified to hear, “Paper people are still alive?”

Jiang Luo laughed coldly, “The idols are all fucking alive.”

He finished a cigarette, pressed it out and took out the talisman paper from his body, “How many more fire talismans do you have there?”

Lu Youyi counted them all, “Five.”

“Five? That’s enough,” Jiang Luo unbuttoned his shirt and tossed aside his not-so-mobile coat, leaving only his short-sleeved vest underneath, “enough to burn all these paper figures.”

Lu Youyi and the dead ghost followed his example and took off their inconvenient clothes. Once their arms were free to stretch, Jiang Luo asked, “Did you get a good look at the paper figures?”

Lu Youyi froze and quietly stepped out of the cave to take a look outside.

The nearest paper figure was dressed in red and green, with two piles of red plateau red on his face. The bright colour did not make the paper figure look even remotely relatable, but rather eerie and chilling.

Lu Youyi did not see anything wrong at a cursory glance, but after a strange look again, he suddenly turned pale and retreated back into the cave in a trance.

Jiang Luo lifted his eyes to look at him, “Did you find out?”

“There was a paper man,” Lu Youyi’s teeth clattered, “like, like He Zhi.”

He Zhi, from the University of Venus, was the one who was the first to go to Shen Tucun alone.

They have not seen He Zhi since they arrived in Shen Tucun.

Why is there a paper figure here that looks so much like He Zhi?

Jiang Luo : “It’s not just He Zhi, the vast majority of people in the village can find a paper figure that resembles them here.”

Lu Youyi swallowed, “What does this mean?”

“It means that those people on the ground have probably been replaced by paper people,” Jiang Luo throws down a shocking thunderbolt without a ripple in his voice, “and the paper people under the ground represent their true state. The people of this village sought eternal life, so they begged the gods and worshipped them, and the gods told them that if they hanged or drowned they would get eternal life, and they believed them, and sure enough, the people who hung and drowned became young and healthy again, and they came to life.”

“No one knew that the ones who came to life were just paper people who looked like the dead ones, but the little girl in red found out that something was wrong,” Jiang Luo smiled, “the hanged and drowned people could not be reincarnated, and their souls were probably used to become fodder for the gods, helping them to become powerful Is it possible that they became living creatures?”

Lu Youyi has froze.

Jiang Luo continues, “When I first came to Shen Tucun I thought it was strange why the staff said ‘for every person who dies, a new life will be born in the village’ and not ‘for every new life, a person dies’. One person’, it’s easy to want people to die but hard to get life to come on time, it’s a strange statement.”

“I even suspect that the police who came to the transfer didn’t get the truth about the ‘new life’ either and the people at Shen Tucun wouldn’t have told them the truth, they probably just counted the total number in the village after they were sure that one person had died and came up with the number 311. ”

Jiang Luo’s words ended abruptly, “This is just my own idea, I’ll elaborate on it when we get out. For now, we have to burn these paper people before we can move on, otherwise they will catch up with us even if we pass the nest of paper people and make a sound.”

Lu Youyi was so dizzy that he just didn’t think about it, “So how are we going to finish burning them? I looked and they weren’t even gathered together.”

“Draw them together,” Jiang Luo drew out a fire talisman, “make a sound after you go over to the opposite side to draw them over and burn them all in one go.”

Neither the dead ghost nor Lu Youyi objected, and Jiang Luo even doubted that they had thought about the feasibility of the method at all before nodding neatly.

Jiang Luo sighed and led them out of the cave.

Once the three men were ready, they stepped into the nest of paper figures.

The paper people were stacked in twos and threes, and it was actually a little difficult to get past them without disturbing them. Fortunately, all three were careful and they managed to walk across the big dome and reach the opposite side.

Jiang Luo picks up a stone from the ground and throws it down from a height.

A crisp sound rang out and the lifeless paper figures instantly came to life, lunging towards the place where the sound came from.

Jiang Luo threw three fire talismans at them and the flames sprang up, engulfing the paper figures in flames that continued to fuel the fire.

The three left the area just in time as the fire reached the entrance to the cave.

At the moment of turning around, Jiang Luo suddenly remembered a question.

Chi You Why are you pretending to be the Godfather here?

Jiang Luo believed that Chi You would not be so idle. It would make sense for him to take on a contestant and enter the competition to get first place and get Yuan Tianzhu, but what did he want to do when he became the god-god of a village?