Chapter 22

Feng Yushu moved her gaze away from Ning Zhe and didn't speak for a long time.

After figuring out that the medium for the ghost to steal identities was "cognition," many previous things were explained, such as the deaths of Xie Sining and Gu Yunqing, Zhang Yangxu's experience, and... Ning Zhe's deliberate sarcasm and ridicule toward Ye Miaozhu earlier.

The more things she figured out, the more difficult it was to suppress the fear and coldness in Feng Yushu's heart. Looking back at the past with everything she knew now, she found that almost every inexplicable move of Ning Zhe had a perfect logic and a clear purpose, and behind every seemingly adventurous decision was a steady certainty.

This person Ning Zhe seemed to never know what fear or confusion was. He examined every person's death from a transcendent perspective, thought about every seemingly nonsensical event with absolute rationality, found the key thread to untie the dead knot from a mess, and outlined the elephant in the room in the darkness.

What kind of person is he...? The more she thought, the more Feng Yushu felt that Ning Zhe was so strange to her, so strange that he didn't seem like a 17-18-year-old adolescent boy, and didn't even seem like a "person."

"You deliberately provoked Ye Miaozhu, making her lose control of her emotions and thus be targeted by the ghost," Feng Yushu lowered her voice and asked softly: "Are you using her life to test your guess about the rules?"

"Otherwise?" Ning Zhe smiled slightly: "If I were a ghost, in order to trigger my killing rules, my first choice would be to pick people who are alone, especially fools who are emotionally overwhelmed. This kind of person is the easiest to deal with."

If he didn't find a way to scatter everyone and let the vigilant crowd stay together, the ghost would find it hard to find an opportunity to act, and Ning Zhe would have no way to verify his guess about the ghost's killing rules.

Fortunately, Ye Miaozhu was emotional enough and stupid enough. She used her own death to put a lid on Ning Zhe's guess.

"The puzzle has been solved. What to do next is to crack the rules here step by step," Ning Zhe said, letting go of Feng Yushu's hand, gently patting her face with tear stains, and turning to walk into the residential house.

Looking at his leisurely back, Feng Yushu suddenly understood one thing.

The so-called rules are rigid, absolute, without ambiguity or hypocrisy. Black is black, white is white, and there is never a gray area in between. This entire world operates according to established rules of non-black and non-white. Obeying the rules is a prerequisite for existing in this world.

"God is no exception," Feng Yushu murmured: "Yes, any existence must obey the rules, even God is no exception..."

She took out her phone and checked the time. It was past 7 o'clock in the morning, not yet 8 o'clock. There was still a long way to go until lunch time.

Ning Zhe strolled into the room where the Serpent God portrait was worshipped. This time, there was no doubt in Feng Yushu's heart. She already understood what Ning Zhe was doing, and Ning Zhe himself had always known.

Imagine, if Ning Zhe continued to crazily steal the Serpent God's offerings from house to house like this, what would happen? By noon, when the villagers of each household scooped out a small bowl of rice and dishes before lunch as usual and came to the Serpent God's portrait, they would see that the food offered in the morning had already been eaten. Eaten by whom?

What would they think then? Was it a wild cat stealing it? Was it an ignorant child? Or...

Ning Zhe couldn't control what people's thoughts believed, and neither could the ghost. Therefore, he could only constantly expand the sample size, tirelessly stealing the Serpent God's offerings from house to house, maximizing the probability of "that thing" happening.

"As long as one household, no... as long as one person, even if one person thinks that this might have been eaten by the Serpent God after seeing the eaten offerings, then..."

Ning Zhe raised his head and stared at the soaring Serpent God in the portrait, picked up a piece of green bean with chopsticks, and chewed it in his mouth: "Then, I have a possibility of winning."

This was of course a very ideal situation. He couldn't be sure whether what he was doing was meaningful, and whether this method would work was also an unknown. However, he had no other choice. In this eerie world dominated by rules, finding a path that "might win" was already very rare. Even if there was a bottomless abyss in front of this path, he had to keep walking. Walking at night on the edge of an abyss, as if walking on thin ice.

Ning Zhe's expression was calm, his hollow eyes as dead and silent as a pool of solidified stagnant water.

But the next moment, his expression changed drastically, and his hands uncontrollably strangled his own throat, looking very painful: "Damn, it's so fucking spicy."

A few minutes later, Ning Zhe walked out of the fasting hall where the Serpent God was worshipped, called Feng Yushu, and walked toward the next household together.

A woman's mind is delicate. Feng Yushu noticed that Ning Zhe's eye sockets were slightly red, looking as if he had just cried, but he quickly wiped away the tears.

For some reason, seeing this scene, Feng Yushu felt a long-lost sense of "peace of mind" in her heart, perhaps because she had finally captured Ning Zhe's weak side, or rather, his human side.

So he also gets afraid, also gets scared, also cries secretly in a corner where no one is around, and then suppresses all emotions, pretending to be nonchalant and strong...

"So you also cry?" Feng Yushu whispered to herself, and the gaze looking at Ning Zhe's shoulder became soft.

At the same time, Ning Zhe was hissing and inhaling cold air, because the thing he just ate wasn't a green bean at all, but a piece of green chili disguised as a green bean.

"If I were the Serpent God, I would have to judge you for blasphemy..." Ning Zhe cursed in his heart.

The two, each with different thoughts, lightened their footsteps and walked through the streets and alleys of He Family Village, stealing the Serpent God's offerings from house to house. Although the amount eaten each time wasn't large, after the accumulation of many times, Ning Zhe still inevitably ate until he was a bit full. A teenager who is growing his body can't stand this kind of force-feeding method.

But in order to expand the sample size as much as possible, Ning Zhe still forced himself not to stop his footsteps, continuing to eat from house to house.

While stealing the offerings, Ning Zhe and Feng Yushu both maintained a high degree of vigilance, never letting the other leave their line of sight.

"I don't know what method it uses, but that ghost once showed the ability to 'teleport' within the scope of He Family Village. It must be guarded against," Feng Yushu thought nervously.

She didn't dare to let Ning Zhe leave her line of sight for too long. Who knew if the next person to push open the door would definitely be him? And Ning Zhe was thinking about another question.

"There are two puzzles in He Family Village, only the one about the ghost has been accurately solved, and my guess about the Serpent God has not yet been verified."

"... What if I'm wrong?"

Furthermore, would the ghost really let him continue like this without taking any countermeasures, just sitting and waiting for death?

(End of chapter)