Infinity Flow: The Man Assigned by the Game Cannot Be Wanted! - Chapter 5

Night fell, and a half-moon hung in the branches. The sound of horse hooves approached from afar, and the wooden sedan on the carriage behind rattled and creaked over the stones, coming to a halt at the back door of the inn.

Yet this carriage was extremely eerie, having neither horses nor people, as if the sound of horse hooves just now was entirely a product of their imagination.

The innkeeper stood in front of the carriage, rubbing his hands. After a long while, he fished a token out of his pocket and tremblingly placed it inside the sedan, which seemed to sink slightly as if sensing the weight.

Then the door curtain of the sedan closed automatically, and the sound of horse hooves rang out once more, carrying the sedan away into the distance.

Although this was different from their speculation that someone would act as a decoy, the three of them did not hesitate. Ye Zhou instantly summoned his wings and, carrying the other two, trailed behind the carriage.

Before long, they spotted a village shrouded in a faint black mist. Looking closely, there was another black moon stained with blood streaks, almost invisible in the night.

A gemstone emitting a dim green light in the night was embedded in a scepter. An old man stood at the village entrance holding the scepter, followed by two attendants.

The sound of horse hooves drew closer. When it was almost there, the withered arm gently moved the scepter, and the eerie carriage came to a steady halt right in front of them.

The old man opened his eyes slightly, glanced at the token inside, and muttered a few words to the attendants behind him, whereupon the attendants frantically ran into the village.

The old man seemed to be able to sense their presence, raising his head and fixing his turbid eyes on the spot where the three of them had just been standing.

Thud, thud, thud. As the door was knocked upon, the long-absent character panel appeared once again.

Congratulations to the player for arriving at He Village! Task: Survive for seven days. Players, please enjoy yourselves to the fullest!

The door slowly pushed open a crack, revealing half a wrinkle-covered face. Turbid eyes swept over the three people standing before it.

The man in the very front had tattered clothes with traces of blood on his sleeves, and he was supporting two others. The young man in red he was embracing had an injured leg, walking with a limp and shaking his disheveled, messy hair. Following behind them seemed to be their younger brother, who muttered incessantly as if suffering from shock.

“Hello, we lost our way in the mountains, and our two younger brothers were injured. Could we stay here for the night? We can pay you.” The man at the very front spoke up.

The eyes inside the door swept across everyone, finally landing on the incessantly muttering younger brother and the knees of the young man in red. The person sighed softly and slowly pushed the door wide open.

The smell of decaying wood inside the room hit them full in the face, but unexpectedly, the interior was extremely clean and tidy. When Ye Zhou stepped inside, he lowered his head slightly: “Sorry to intrude.”

The middle-aged woman waved her hand, pulled out a long bench, and settled the three of them down: “It is the period of sacrificial offerings now, so I must go and report to the village chief first.”

With that, she intended to lift her foot and walk outside. However, as if remembering something, she let out a breath of stale air, reached into the cupboard, and pulled out three sets of old clothes: “Change your clothes. Our village chief hates unfaithful men who elope.”

As soon as the woman stepped out of the door, the terror on Song Siyun’s face vanished completely, and he even had the headspace to joke around: “Heartless man, time to change clothes.”

Lin, the heartless man, Chubai ignored his joke, nor did he panic over the woman noticing he was wearing wedding attire. He simply frowned, casually picked up a plain white garment, and began to change.

Heartless man? A ghost marriage? Then who was the bride? Lin Chubai thought to himself.

“Can you manage?” Ye Zhou, who had already started changing, looked at the large swelling on Lin Chubai’s knee.

“It is fine. I will push it out for him and then apply some acupuncture, and it will feel much better.” Song Siyun acted as soon as he spoke, pressing Lin Chubai, who had just taken off his upper garments, down onto the chair, and began to apply rough treatment using his ancestral massage technique.

Lin Chubai only let out a muffled groan at the very first press and made no further sound, while Ye Zhou’s gaze fell squarely upon his back.

Lin Chubai’s skin was fair yet not delicate, and the three raised scars on his back appeared even more glaring against the surrounding whiteness.

Sensing Ye Zhou’s gaze lingering on his back, he said, “I got these falling from a tree when I was mischievous as a child.” He did not know why he felt the need to explain, but he said it anyway.

“Yo! Why are you not crying out blindly anymore? You used to be quite fond of shouting, especially in front of your sister, which caused her to beat me up every day.” Terrified that this topic would continue, Song Siyun hurriedly interrupted Ye Zhou, who looked like he wanted to speak. However, saying this too hastily without thinking directly caused the atmosphere to plunge into a heavy silence.

“Nanzhi will definitely be fine. A master calculated his fortune, saying he will live a safe and smooth life.” Song Siyun hurriedly tried to patch things up.

Hearing this, Lin Chubai did not want the silent atmosphere to drag on either, so he forced an awkward smile at the corner of his lips: “Which master? How come even I did not know about this?”

“It must be me, Master Song!”

Before long, the sound of a cane striking the ground and low murmurs from a crowd came from outside the door, interrupting the brief moment of ease they had managed to hold onto since the beginning.

The door was opened by the woman who had sheltered them, leading in a man who claimed to be the village chief and an old man, while other villagers gathered thickly outside the house.

The village chief approached Song Siyun, who had been muttering to himself ever since they entered, with a face full of kindness, his rough hands gently caressing the boy’s cheeks: “Child, what did you see?”

“Blood! All blood! And hair, hair!” Siyun’s face was filled with terror, his hands frantically clawing at his head as he carried his act of feigning madness through to the end.

The village chief wiped his face helplessly, turned his head to look through the window at the farmland outside, and let out a low sob from his throat. The sobbing suddenly stopped as he raised a hand and tightly gripped Lin Chubai, who was sitting beside him: “You! You did not eat the crops outside, did you?”

Lin Chubai felt quite uncomfortable from the sudden restraint, but it was not the time to fall out: “No.”

Hearing his reply, the village chief slowly withdrew his hand: “It is good that you did not. It is good that you did not. You should not have appeared here. Tomorrow! Tomorrow I will have you taken out of here. Old Ding, give them a pill of steadfast heart.”

Upon receiving the order, Old Ding stepped forward slowly, fished a red box out of his sleeve, and handed it to Ye Zhou.

“Village chief, what happened here?” Lin Chubai did not pass the pill to Song Siyun, instead looking straight at the village chief.

The village chief sighed slightly, heavily rubbing his face: “You should not know. Do not ask anymore. We will send you away tomorrow.” With that, he turned and left without looking back, and the rest of the villagers followed the village chief outside.

These villagers are very strange, Lin Chubai thought to himself.

With few stars in the sky and black mist permeating the air, where there are no stars, there are no human hearts.

The old man raised his hand to pour two cups of tea, slowly pushing one of them toward the person in front of him. Afterward, he took a stick of incense from the drawer, placed it into the incense burner before him, and lit it, sending curls of pale blue smoke drifting upward.

Meanwhile, Ye Zhou neither accepted the tea nor spoke, simply keeping his eyes fixed on the old man’s every move out of the corner of his eye.

The old man pulled at his sleeve, picked up his teacup, and took a light sip: “You must be very curious about what happened here, right?”

Ye Zhou did not reply, waiting for the old man to continue.

“Thirty years ago, I was asked by the village chief, who said that the resentment in the village was extremely heavy, that hair and blood were growing beneath the crops, and that several people who were starved out of their minds ate those crops, contracted madness, and died in their dreams.

I tried many ways to resolve this resentment, but it was too deep. Too deep, and it even showed signs of spreading outward. With no other choice left, I had to resort to forbidden arts, sacrificing three men every year, using their masculine vigor to temporarily suppress this resentment.”

“So you paint those men with rouge and dress them in wedding gowns?” Ye Zhou pushed the tea the old man had handed him back across the table.

The old man seemed not to expect him to have figured things out to this extent, so he raised a hand and wiped his face: “When I first arrived here, the villagers all said that there was once a woman from a neighboring village who offended someone in the underworld. When she passed by the entrance of our village on her way back, she was beaten to death by people, leaving hardly any intact flesh on her face.

Therefore, looking for men serves two purposes: first for their masculine vigor, and second to perform a ghost marriage.”

“What about the resentment of those three men?”

“They will not generate resentment; we only look for people who are seeking death.” The old man coughed heavily, and streaks of blood stained his handkerchief.

“Why tell us all this?” Ye Zhou looked at the old man with a hint of scrutiny in his eyes.

“All of this should come to an end. I foresee that it is up to you to put an end to it.”