Chapter 176

Su Mian felt a wave of nausea.

This sound was very familiar; it was the sound the players had heard a few days ago of someone stepping on branches behind their house.

It wasn't someone passing by at all, but this monster squatting on the ground gnawing on human bones.

Su Mian took a step back and went downstairs; the hall had completely changed, filled with festive silk ribbons, window paper-cuts, and tables full of wedding candies and melon seeds.

The courtyard, however, was empty, save for a person in Taoist robes standing at the entrance of the first-floor hall, leisurely wiping a copper coin sword.

The players had already gathered here, their expressions grave, and Qiao Yinuo had extremely heavy dark circles under his eyes.

Meng Yaya was crying while holding her hand, her body trembling slightly.

Her little finger was bandaged, and there were bloodstains on it, as if it had been bitten by something.

Qiao Yinuo had heard these sounds last night, and they were even louder than the previous nights; he hadn't slept well at all.

When he came to the residence to gather this morning, he saw Meng Yaya running over crying; it seemed to be the punishment for wearing the red cheongsam. Everyone was someone who had experienced horror games, so they didn't pity her, only thinking it was normal.

After all, in the Infinite Game, mistakes are always punished.

Being able to survive was already a blessing.

However, before all the people decorating the house had arrived, a group of bizarre, zombie-like things rushed in.

Seeing them, Meng Yaya's legs shook like a sieve, her face instantly losing all color, saying that one had rushed into her room this morning and bitten off her finger.

Taoist: "It's actually a Bone-Eating Puppet? Your village is really lucky; if I hadn't happened to come by, tsk tsk tsk... I'm afraid this wedding wouldn't be able to go on."

Tiffany looked at him, "What is a Bone-Eating Puppet?"

"Simply put, it's a living dead," the Taoist said with a grin, showing no panic at all.

"If they eat some human bones, they won't go out and cause trouble; the last time they caused trouble was a year ago, but alas... Yin year, Yin month, Yin day, and it just happened to coincide with the Red Evil in the sky."

"At this time, the living dead won't disappear; you can't solve it with force, and in fact, there will be more and more of them."

Everyone looked at the sky; amidst the overcast clouds, they could indeed see a hint of red light.

"On a day like this, normal people would hide as fast as they could, but you lot—decorating with lanterns and beating gongs and drums, as if you're afraid those from underground won't find the door, right?"

Meng Yaya hid in the kitchen, holding a kitchen knife to her chest and shivering, "It's not like we wanted to hold this wedding..."

"Then what should we do now?"

Su Mian asked, and the Taoist shook his head, fanning himself with a cattail leaf fan even in mid-autumn.

"These things want to eat the bride; according to Yin-Yang theory, women belong to Yin, and a new bride is the purest of Yin."

"Anyway, you are all brides," he smiled sinisterly, "Just throw one out to feed them, and they'll leave."

Some of the living dead began to ram the door; the twins wanted to ask something else, but the Taoist flashed away and disappeared into thin air.

This one sentence alone would cause the seemingly harmonious players to fall apart.

Just throw one out to feed them—how could it be said so easily? Who is willing to die? Who is willing to sacrifice themselves? The answer is no one.

But if they let the living dead break in, it probably wouldn't be just one person who dies.

"Go to the second floor first."

Su Mian spoke coldly, and everyone followed; the silent twins finally spoke.

Sun Er: "Those living dead."

Sun Jiu: "Come from Ya Shan Village."

Seeing that the older sister had something to say, Su Mian immediately covered the younger sister's ears, signaling her to speak.

"Our task, to find the impostor, is today's living dead, and in the process of finding people, we specifically noted which neighbors were from Ya Shan Village and which were from Xiang Shan Village."

"So those living dead downstairs are all from Ya Shan Village?"

Qiao Yinuo asked, and Sun Er nodded.

Su Mian's eyes lit up immediately; the task the twins were doing was related to the mutation that had broken out at this moment.

Players who wore red cheongsams were also more likely to die, so their tasks over the past few days were all related to this.

She immediately thought of the last rule of the family rules she had memorized.

Any foreign object, return to its origin, return to its owner.

"We have to lead them back to Ya Shan Village."

Su Mian's words caused a momentary stagnation in the dead-silent hall.

Everyone looked up in unison, their gazes fixed on the most conspicuous position in the center of the hall.

There was a brand-new wedding dress, ironed just this morning, embroidered with intricate gold-threaded dragons and phoenixes, gorgeous and solemn.

There was only one set.

Which meant only one person could become this bait.

In the corner, Meng Yaya suddenly covered her left hand, her voice broken.

"No... I don't want to... I've already lost a finger... why do I have to be the one to die?" She looked around at the others in terror, curling her body into a ball.

No one had asked her to go; she was clearly having a mental breakdown.

Tiffany and Qiao Yinuo looked at each other, both seeing confusion and a trace of fear in the other's eyes.

They didn't remember the way to Ya Shan Village; the twins couldn't be separated, otherwise the younger sister would go crazy, and the only one here with the ability to never forget what she had seen was Su Mian.

The ramming against the door became more violent, cracks appeared on the door panels, and the smell of decay and blood seeped through the gaps.

Su Mian took a step forward and looked at the wedding dress high up.

She didn't want to be the sacrifice; Su Mian wasn't that selfless, but in the dark, she felt something calling her, very anxiously, wanting her to see something, to go somewhere.

"I'll go."

"Wait."

"Wait."

The twins stopped Su Mian and gave her a bell; it was a prop the sisters had just bought by pooling their points, and the older sister had already habitually covered her younger sister's ears.

"Sorry, letting you bear the burden alone is not what we hoped to see; this bell can slow down the movement speed of all alien creatures, take it."

【I'm going... buying a 12,000-point prop just like that, these two sisters are so generous.】

Su Mian nodded, feeling no embarrassment, and took it directly in her hand; it felt cold and heavy.

Outside the window, the sky had darkened completely at some point, thick dark clouds pressing down on the horizon, with no stars or moon to be seen.

A mountain wind rose suddenly, carrying the cold, damp smell of earth, blowing the wild grass by the ridges to bow and dance wildly.

A storm was coming.

A slender figure dressed in a bright red wedding dress stepped alone into this dim world, and the crisp "ding-ling" sound of the copper bell in her hand pierced the suffocating silence.

In the direction of the main entrance of the hall, the sounds of scratching and ramming against the door stopped abruptly.

Immediately, heavy, dragging footsteps began to move, bypassing the residence and gathering toward the eastern ridge where the bell sound originated.

Su Mian just looked at the field path blurred in the dimness ahead, walking forward step by step, the copper bell in her hand shaking rhythmically.

Ding-ling... ding-ling...

Most of them were wearing tattered Ya Shan Village clothing, their skin blue-gray, their eyes murky, some still having expressions of terror or numbness from when they were alive, but now only the instinctive pursuit of that flash of red and the bell sound remained.