...
“Sister Su Ya, there seem to be living people over there.”
Yang Asha suddenly nudged Su Ya's arm, pointing toward a table diagonally behind them.
Su Ya looked in the direction she was pointing.
Three people were sitting at a table in the corner.
Two women and one man.
The two women were deathly pale, warily scanning their surroundings.
The man had his back to them; his shoulders were broad, but he sat extremely stiffly, as if he had been severely injured.
They weren't paper dolls, nor were they cats, but like them, their faces were covered in thick rat fur.
They were living players.
“Are those other players?”
Yang Hexuan also looked over, his eyes lighting up. “There really are players from the other mirrored instances! The instances really have merged!”
“Let's go take a look,” Su Ya decided on the spot.
At a time like this, every extra person meant more strength.
Besides, if they really were players from another mirrored instance, they might hold clues that their group lacked.
The four of them quietly stood up, bypassed the villagers serving dishes, and sat down at that table.
Su Ya recognized Lin Hao at a single glance, her emotions turning complicated.
So he had entered too.
—The background of the umbilical cord around Lin Hao's neck could not be hidden from the Special Incident Investigation Department, so Su Ya naturally knew about it.
The two of them hadn't spoken much since leaving Taiping Cemetery.
Only now, he looked even more miserable; the right side of his face was completely ruined.
A deep, bone-deep cat claw mark slashed diagonally from his forehead to his jaw, tearing his entire face in two.
His right eyeball was gone, leaving only a dark, hollow socket.
The pant leg of his right leg was empty, severed from the ankle down; the fabric was blackened with dried blood, hanging stiffly.
Even knowing that sustaining severe injuries inside an Instance would not lead to actual death, seeing it with one's own eyes was still a massive shock.
...
Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu also noticed their movements, a trace of life finally returning to their faces.
“Are you guys players too?”
They weren't in much better shape either, their faces smudged with blood and soot, their eyes filled with lingering terror.
“We are players from The First Mirrored Instance.”
Su Ya pulled Yang Asha down to sit quickly. “My name is Su Ya. We are also players who chose the villager faction.”
“The villager faction?” Ouyang Qiu was startled. “The rats are the villager faction?”
Su Ya nodded.
Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu exchanged a look. The former pointed at the man beside them, her voice thick with resentment:
“We are from The Second Mirrored Instance. Lin Hao dripped blood onto the coffin, causing the Cat-Faced Old Lady to awaken. When she broke out... he was bitten by the cat.”
Lin Hao sat like a corpse, offering no reaction whatsoever.
—If the situation hadn't been so dire, Yang Hexuan and Lin Jianguo would have loved to jump up and beat him to death.
“What's the situation on your end?” Su Ya pressed, wasting no time to exchange clues. “How did the mirrored instances merge?”
She looked around but didn't seem to see anyone else.
“How should we know?”
Zhou Hui let out a bitter laugh. “Halfway through the vigil, the Cat-Faced Old Lady burst out of the coffin. We ran for our lives. As we ran, we felt something was off. The village had grown larger, and the roads had changed. Then we saw the birthday feast on the threshing ground, and we were dragged here in a daze.”
“It was the same for us,” Yang Hexuan chimed in. “Right after the system notified us of the quest failure, music suddenly started playing outside. When we came out, everything had completely changed.”
“It's possible the rules broke down,” Su Ya speculated. “The vigil quest failed, the Cat-Faced Old Lady broke out of her coffin, the rat-people faction failed to suppress her, and then the birthday feast began.”
If they had completed all their previous quests perfectly, perhaps the rat-people faction would have won, and the Cat-Faced Old Lady wouldn't have awakened at all.
The others nodded. Su Ya's guess was close to what they knew.
“Now is not the time to dwell on this.” Ouyang Qiu's tone was urgent. “Let's pool our clues. How much information do you have?”
—Since they were at the brink of life and death, there was no point in holding anything back.
Su Ya's side also temporarily set aside their grievances and shared their clues:
The shrouding quest, faction selection, the Clay Sculpture Ghost Shop, the Seventh-Day Return trap, Old Lady Huang being starved to death by her four sons, the entire village refusing to help, and the black cat becoming a spirit to seek revenge.
Once the clues from both sides were pieced together, about eighty percent of the Instance's background instantly became clear.
Of course, Su Ya and the others also learned that Xiao Ding had given false information.
But they had absolutely no time to pursue it—the culprit was currently sitting on a plate as a human-headed rat.
...
“So it's a faction war. If we completed the quests and successfully buried her, the rat-people faction would win, appeasing Old Lady Huang's resentment. If we failed during the quests, the corpse would awake, and the cat faction would win.”
Perhaps pushed to her limits by the life-and-death crisis, Su Ya's mind raced.
“Old Lady Huang was starved to death by her four sons while the entire village watched coldly. The black cat she raised absorbed her resentment, possessed her corpse, and became the Cat-Faced Old Lady to seek revenge.”
“The villagers were cursed to turn into human-headed rats, hunted by cats for generations as punishment.”
“When players enter, choosing the villager faction causes them to slowly undergo rat transformation, acting as shields to take the fall for the villagers. Choosing the cat faction means helping to kill the human-headed rats, but they would be hated by the villagers.”
“Then what is the Instance clear condition?” Yang Hexuan asked. “Is it really just surviving until the end of the birthday feast?”
Lin Jianguo shook his head.
“It's probably not that simple. The Instance wouldn't design a birthday feast for no reason. What is Old Lady Huang's wish? To have a peaceful birthday celebration? Impossible. She died wrongfully. Her greatest wish must be revenge.”
“Kill the four unfilial sons,” Su Ya immediately followed up. “If we kill Huang Facai and his three brothers, her resentment will dissipate, and the Instance will naturally end.”
“It must be that.”
Yang Hexuan felt like he had found a way out and said excitedly, “Either we endure until the birthday feast ends and rely on the rules to force a clear, or we find Huang Facai and his three brothers, kill them, and resolve the old lady's resentment ahead of time.”
“Four sons? We've only seen Huang Facai so far,” Zhou Hui said apprehensively.
“The other three must be in the village as well, maybe hidden after turning into human-headed rats. That should be where the quest difficulty lies,” Ouyang Qiu added in a low voice. “We are currently in the rat faction, which makes us hostile targets, right? Besides, with so many cats around, we can't even leave. How do we search?”
Throughout the discussion, Lin Hao remained completely silent.
Yang Asha stared at the flesh-colored umbilical cord around his neck, her face full of vigilance.
Suddenly, the sound of the suona on the stage stopped.
The entire venue instantly fell silent.
The paper dolls stopped clapping, and the wild cats stopped purring, all of them turning their gazes toward the high stage.
Thud—
A heavy, dull sound rang out.
Eight villagers carried a massive black-lacquered coffin, walking up to the high stage step by step.
The coffin was placed securely in the center of the stage, its lid wide open.
Then, a dark shadow slowly sat up from within the coffin, crossing its legs like an old lady.
It was the Cat-Faced Old Lady.
...
She—or rather, it—wore that expensive shroud, but her chest was soaked with a large patch of blood.
Hunching her back, her face remained half-cat and half-human.
The left side of her face was human skin, wrinkled and bearing Old Lady Huang's features, her eyes filled with venomous malice.
The right side of her face was covered in black fur, her cat mouth pulled back to reveal sharp fangs, saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth.
Its lower body was undergoing some kind of transformation.
Its two thin legs were mutating into cat legs, the joints bending backward, its claws growing longer and longer.
Thick black fur sprouted from beneath its pant legs.
Its behavior carried no trace of humanity; it simply crouched on the edge of the coffin like a giant cat, looking down over the entire venue.
Its eyes swept across the paper dolls and the cats below, finally locking onto Su Ya's table.
Its gaze was cold and sinister, as if looking at dishes on a plate.
The entire venue was dead silent.
Everyone held their breath.
“Mother!”
Huang Facai scurried up to the high stage, bowing deeply to the Cat-Faced Old Lady with a flattering smile plastered across his face.
“Mother! The birthday feast is ready. Please take the seat of honor! Today's dishes are all your favorites.”
The Cat-Faced Old Lady ignored him, her nose twitching twice as if sniffing for something.
Then, she extended a claw and pointed below the stage.
Her fingertip pointed directly at a table filled with human-headed rat dishes.
Huang Facai understood instantly, nodding with a fawning smile. “Yes! Yes! Your son knows you love this! I'll have it brought up to you right away!”
With a wave of his hand, two villagers immediately carried a plate up to the high stage, placing a full plate of human-headed rats on the small table in front of the Cat-Faced Old Lady.
The Cat-Faced Old Lady lowered her head, bringing her nose close to the plate to sniff.
Then, she opened her mouth.
Crunch.
With one bite, she bit off the head of a human-headed rat.
The crisp sound echoed clearly across the entire threshing ground.
She chewed very slowly, as if savoring a delicacy.
Blood and brain matter dripped from the corners of her mouth, down her chin, and onto her shroud, blooming into dark, messy stains.
One, two, three.
The human-headed rats on the plate were quickly devoured.
She licked her claws. The human skin on her face seemed to plump up slightly, no longer as withered and gray as before.
The black fur on her lower body grew denser, and her leg shape became closer and closer to that of an actual cat.
She was growing stronger—visibly stronger.
【Announcement: Player Zhuang Butong has died.】
【Announcement: Player Liu Dong has died.】
【Announcement: Player Qian Da has died.】
【Announcement: Player Ding Ruowei has died.】
The ink-wash text rippled out one after another. Each death announcement felt like the King of Hell calling roll.
It was the human-headed rats on the plates.
They were all transformed players.
Every time one was eaten, the system broadcasted a death.
It felt like a countdown, ticking away the remaining time for the players in the rat-people faction.
“That thing... is growing.”
Fear welled up in Yang Asha's eyes. She could clearly feel the changes happening to the Cat-Faced Old Lady.
It was getting stronger.
With every human-headed rat it consumed, it grew more powerful.
“She is evolving. Look at her legs, the fur is growing,” Su Ya said urgently. “We can't let her eat anymore. If she continues and completely transforms into a cat, none of us players in the rat faction will escape.”
“Then what do we do?” Yang Hexuan was utterly disgusted. “Rush up and fight her? Can we even win?”
“We have to fight even if we can't win,” Lin Jianguo said, his face filled with the grim determination of a last stand. “If we just sit here and wait, we'll only die faster.”
“If she has a physical body, she can be hurt,” Ouyang Qiu spoke quickly. “We still have two bags of evil-expelling lime in our hands. That should be useful.”
“Uncle Lin and I have yellow talismans.” At this critical juncture, Yang Hexuan no longer held back his items. “The problem is how to get close.”
The group looked at the dense crowd of black cats surrounding the high stage, their scalps tingling.
Cats of all sizes packed the area. Before they could even charge up, they would likely be torn to shreds by the furious feline horde.
Su Ya's heart beat faster and faster.
They couldn't wait.
If they waited any longer and the Cat-Faced Old Lady fully transformed, they wouldn't even have a chance to fight back.
She abruptly looked up, swallowing hard to summon her courage.
“We can't just sit here and wait to die.”
“Let's charge out and fight them.”
“While she hasn't completely transformed yet, we still have a chance.”
“If we fight, we might live. If we don't even dare to resist, we'll just end up as another dish on the table.”
Rate on N.U.
