“Some players who encountered the Ghost Fire game mentioned that this kind of injury can only heal on its own — medicine and items are useless,” Du Lai said. “The fastest healing comes from plenty of sunlight, but in a cursed place like this, getting sunlight easily isn’t likely.” He paused, then added: “And if you stay somewhere with heavy yin energy, the injury will continue to worsen.”

Bai Youwei stared at the wounds on Shen Mo’s back with a furrowed brow and said quietly: “We need to get out as quickly as possible.”

“Let’s sort through the clues we have first.” Shen Mo’s tone remained as measured as ever. “We can now confirm that the remains the Bone-Hauling Woman is hauling are actually her own. And the women of the village who hear the singing will, in a state of complete unawareness, use a wood-chopping cleaver to hack off their husband’s head.”

Bai Youwei said: “Looking at it this way, Li Shi must have been the one who killed Scabby Li. As for why she’s making the other village women repeat what she herself once did — it must be motivated by a desire for revenge.”

Fu Miaoxue couldn’t help adding: “If Li Shi keeps up this revenge, sooner or later she’ll kill everyone in the village. Could it be that the game can only be cleared once that happens?”

Du Lai slowly shook his head. “I still think the key is in those remains. She’s so fiercely protective of them — there has to be a reason.”

“The reason…” Bai Youwei considered this, then said hesitatingly, “Maybe she… is afraid of being buried together with Scabby Li again, or buried anonymously without her identity known?”

Fu Miaoxue blinked as if struck by an idea. “That could be it — after all, from her perspective, we’re no different from the villagers. She harbors hostility toward the entire village, so she definitely wouldn’t trust us.”

Bai Youwei nodded. “Exactly.”

Fu Miaoxue mused: “Which means… as long as we convince her that we’re here to help her, she would let us take the remains and bury them properly?”

Once the remains were buried, the whole ordeal of hauling them would cease, wouldn’t it?

The four of them looked at each other in silence for a moment.

Games always carried an element of luck. Sometimes, when your thinking was right, one road stretched wide and open — the game seemed almost easy. But sometimes, when your thinking was wrong, you walked a road straight into darkness; you reached the end, hit a wall, and only then realized you had turned down a dead end.

Fu Miaoxue’s theory hadn’t been verified — no one could be certain it would work.

Bai Youwei said: “Given the game’s usual style, to make Li Shi trust us, we need either a particular action or a particular object.

For example — if we were to uncover Li Shi’s true identity and call out her real name to her, might she regain her clarity of mind?

Or — if we were to find a token belonging to someone from Li Shi’s family, might she begin to trust us?”

Shen Mo inclined his head slightly. “Tomorrow we’ll go back into the village and look for more clues. We’ll stop by the Li house again too — see if we can find anything resembling such a token.”

His voice was flat and calm as always, but his complexion was poor — the wound on his back was likely affecting him.

Bai Youwei couldn’t bear to see him exhaust himself further. “Let’s rest first — we can talk about everything else tomorrow, it’ll keep.”

Fu Miaoxue also felt tender toward Du Lai’s foot. “Yes, yes, let’s rest — it’s too late to figure anything out now anyway.”

She pulled Du Lai along and left for the adjacent side room.

Once the door was closed, Fu Miaoxue immediately pressed herself close to Du Lai’s ear and said in a low voice:

“I think I know how to clear the game!”

Du Lai was taken aback and looked at her. “You know?”

“Mm~” Fu Miaoxue smiled with satisfaction. “Thanks to what Bai Youwei said — she just mentioned finding a token, didn’t she? I know what it is~”

She hooked her arms around Du Lai’s neck and dropped her voice even lower, making it even softer: “Didn’t you say she took a bunch of your puzzle pieces? Hmph, that scheming woman… just you wait~ I’m going to take back all her puzzle pieces and her items! To avenge you!”

—