Huang Facai was also a human-headed rat.
This realization echoed in the minds of the three, but none of them dared to move, even slowing their breathing to a crawl.
The human head paused for a few seconds, seemingly detecting nothing out of the ordinary, and slowly retracted.
Immediately after, its entire body slowly squeezed out of the hole.
It was an exceptionally massive human-headed rat.
A human head on a rat's body.
Its entire body was covered in fine, grayish-black fur, slick and glossy, looking as if it had been coated in a layer of mucus.
Its limbs ended in sharp rat claws with long, black nails.
He—or rather, “it”—deftly clawed at the blue bricks of the hole's opening and leapt down with light, agile movements.
It didn't make a single sound upon landing, like a ball of cotton.
Despite its bloated body, it was as nimble as a feather.
Ouyang Qiu didn't even know why she could find this amusing under such circumstances.
Huang Facai's body was covered in a thin, greasy layer of transparent mucus that dripped directly down his fur.
The air was instantly filled with a sweet, metallic, and nauseating stench.
For some reason, Zhou Hui found the smell somewhat familiar.
After the first human-headed rat landed, it tilted its head to listen, making no further move.
Immediately after, a second, third, and fourth rat emerged from the hole.
They began to pour out of the various rat holes like a continuous tide.
There were old and young, male and female.
Every human face was different.
Some were villagers they had seen in the village during the day, some were unfamiliar faces, and two... vaguely resembled the two players who had gone missing the day before yesterday.
What they had in common was that every single face wore an identical, eager grin.
Their eyes were closed, and their mouths were stretched wide.
The angle of their grins was exactly the same, as if their faces were covered by masks cast from the same mold.
Over a dozen human-headed rats packed tightly into the empty space in the corner, forming a dense, dark mass.
Huang Facai's body was covered in a thin, greasy layer of transparent mucus that dripped directly down his fur, the dripping sound merging into a continuous, pitter-patter sound that made one's skin crawl.
The three of them didn't even dare to think of resisting.
It was too bizarre.
And there were simply too many of them.
Fortunately, the human-headed rats didn't seem to have any intention of attacking them.
They huddled together in the open space, as if waiting for some command.
Then, the largest human-headed rat at the very front—Huang Facai, who had been the first to emerge—suddenly rolled on the ground.
“Crack... crack, crack...”
The crisp, eerie sounds of bones dislocating were exceptionally clear in the dead silence of the night.
It sounded like bones being forcefully snapped and reshaped, or joints being violently dislocated and popped back into place. One sound followed another, setting their teeth on edge.
As it rolled, the rat's body began to transform.
The grayish-black fur retracted into the skin at a visible rate, slowly revealing pale, paper-white human skin.
The folds slowly smoothed out, turning into normal skin texture.
The head expanded accordingly, the rat snout retracted, and the facial features slowly unfurled, restoring themselves to normal human proportions.
The rat skin transformed into a white mourning shroud made of coarse burlap, still retaining a slightly paper-mâché-like texture.
With a soft “poof” sound.
The final roll came to a stop, and he stood up.
Huang Facai was dressed in a white mourning shroud and a white mourning hat, holding a bronze suona in his hand.
The entire process was eerie, seamless, and indescribably nauseating.
It was like a snake shedding its skin, or an insect emerging from its cocoon.
Except the process was reversed—it was forcefully “stretching” from a beastly form into a human shape.
Where there was a first, there was a second.
The cracking of dislocating bones, the rustling of retracting fur, the soft sounds of clothing manifesting... all sorts of noises intertwined, sounding absolutely hair-raising in the dead of night.
The “crack, crack” sounds rose and fell in a continuous wave, like countless needles pricking at the trio's nerves.
One by one, the human-headed rats shed their rat bodies and donned human skins, turning into villagers dressed in mourning clothes.
Some held gongs, some held drums, some carried mourning staffs, and others shouldered white paper banners.
After transforming, the last four largest human-headed rats worked together to lift a pitch-black coffin.
The coffin was covered in black paper, painted with golden longevity patterns, with its corners slightly peeling.
It looked heavy, yet it was carried steadily by the four of them, appearing light as a feather as if it had no weight at all.
Over a dozen villagers stood in neat alignment, forming a funeral procession.
Then, Huang Facai cast a fleeting glance at them, blew into his suona, and pushed through the door of the eastern side room, walking right out.
...
...
“What... what are they going to do?”
Ouyang Qiu whispered, her voice trembling violently.
“Did they not see us, or... or did they spare us because we're also turning into human-headed rats?”
Lin Hao said nothing, gesturing for silence.
He crept to the door and peered out through the crack.
Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu also carefully shuffled over, leaning against the cracks in the windows on either side, holding their breath as they looked out.
The door to the western side room had opened silently at some point.
Following the sound of the suona, terrified screams of players drifted out from inside.
“What the hell is that?!”
“Village Chief? What are you trying to do?!”
“Let go! Let go of me! Don't touch me!”
“Help! Help! My dad is ***! If you touch me, he won't let you get away with it! Please, I don't want to die, I don't want to die!”
“My family has money! I can give you money! Don't touch me! Get away! Get away!!”
The hearts of the three leapt into their throats.
What did those villagers want with the players?
Were they going to kill everyone inside?
After about a minute, the funeral procession emerged from the room.
Those at the very front blew the suona and beat the gongs and drums. The rhythm was slow, carrying an indescribable sorrow, yet also a bizarre sense of celebration.
The four coffin-bearers in the middle now had the coffin lid shut.
The coffin was far heavier than before, sagging downward, and the sound of nails scratching against the wooden boards could be heard from within.
Through the coffin wood, muffled whimpers and pleas could be faintly heard, as if someone was desperately struggling and crying for help.
The sounds were loud, but mingled with the suona, they could easily be overlooked if one didn't pay close attention.
Where were they taking the players?
No one knew.
Just then, the shrill cries of cats suddenly echoed from the distance.
“Meowww!!”
“Meow! Screech!”
“Meow meow meow!”
They were sharp and loud, filled with anger, sounding like a demonstration of power, yet also like excitement.
Immediately after, a second, third, and fourth cat cry followed. The cries rose and fell, closing in from all directions.
Lin Hao and the other two had to cover their ears.
Cats were cute creatures.
Big round eyes, soft paws, and fluffy bellies.
But when countless sharp cat cries blended together, it only made one feel dizzy and lightheaded.
“Why... why are there so many cats?”
Ouyang Qiu grit her teeth. Because she clenched them so hard, she could taste a hint of rust in her mouth. “There are too many of them—”
...
The funeral procession paused.
In the next second, the sound of the suona suddenly pitched higher, and the rhythm of the gongs and drums quickened, carrying a hint of urgency and panic.
They picked up their pace, carrying the coffin, and hurried out of the ancestral hall's main gate.
The cat cries drew closer and more frantic, interspersed with the squeaks of rats.
The procession moved very quickly, passing through the main gate in the blink of an eye, before finally turning into the village road and vanishing into the night.
The sounds of the suona, gongs, drums, cries for help, and cat cries grew more and more distant, gradually fading into inaudibility.
It was as if they had entered another dimension.
Dead silence returned to the courtyard of the ancestral hall.
The door to the western side room remained wide open, and all was quiet inside.
The three people behind the cracks in the door didn't move for a long time.
They were drenched in cold sweat, their clothes sticking to their backs, cold and clammy.
The scene just now had been too shocking, like an absurd and terrifying nightmare.
Human-headed rats turning into villagers, a midnight funeral procession, carrying away sleeping players, a pack of cats hunting...
Every single element shattered their understanding of reality.
It was hard to say how much time had passed before Zhou Hui finally let out a long breath, trembling as she spoke two sentences with the lingering aftershocks of terror:
“When we arrived, Old Lady Huang had already been dead for three days. So logically, today is the Seventh-Day Return.”
“And what was dripping from Huang Facai's body... was amniotic fluid.”
Wispy black characters materialized once more, as if validating her words:
【Congratulations to players Zhou Hui, Lin Hao, and Ouyang Qiu for successfully solving the mystery of “Origin of the Human-Headed Rats”.】
【Plot progress +10%. Players Zhou Hui, Lin Hao, and Ouyang Qiu receive 10 points.】
【Obtained Clue Fragment 1: Old Lady Huang cursed the entire Wenshan Village, cursing those cowardly-as-rats villagers and turning them into actual rats.】
【Congratulations to player Zhou Hui for successfully solving the mysteries of “The Seventh-Day Return” and “The Mystery of the Amniotic Fluid”. Plot progress +20%.】
【Player “Zhou Hui” receives 60 bonus points.】
【Obtained Clue Fragment 2: The day Old Lady Huang died was the winter solstice. She was very hungry, and her cats were very hungry too.】
【Obtained Critical Clue Fragment: During his lifetime, Huang Facai once cursed his mother: “If you didn't have the ability, why did you give birth to me? You shouldn't have given birth to me at all! If you're so capable, why don't you stuff me back into your womb!”】
...
“It couldn't be... what I'm thinking, right?”
Ouyang Qiu shuddered violently, her voice rising uncontrollably:
“So the old lady was abused to death by her son, and then eaten by cats, and after her death, she cursed everyone in the village to turn into rats? Then where did the corpse we saw come from?”
...
...
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