The Paper Man's Nest

Looking at the village chief's skillful manner, this was definitely not the first time he had treated a chosen girl this way.

Is this the real purpose of the Shrine's selection?

Jiang Luo had his hands behind his back, deliberately leaving a tricky space. He pretended to struggle for a moment, and then he was tied up by the village chief in a natural way.

Because of her status as a woman, the village chief did not tie her up very tightly. After wrapping Jiang Luo's body in several loops of rope, the village chief said, "Godfather, I have tied her up."

Shen Gong looked back and sighed, "Village Chief, is this how you tie it?"

The village chief rubbed his hands together in confusion, looked at Jiang Luo, and did not understand what had gone wrong, "It used to be tied like this."

Jiang Luo's forehead twitched.

He already had a feeling that Chi You was going to come after him again.

Sure enough, the divine Lord walked towards him, and his wet black robe unexpectedly dried up at some point. The mysterious and enigmatic Godfather stood in front of Jiang Luo, lowered his head, and looked at the black-haired youth.

Jiang Luo witnessed what he was going to do.

Shen Gong raised his hand wrapped in layers of black cloth, he uncovered this layer of fabric on his arm, and the two-finger-thick cloth slowly fell off from his hand.

The black cloth draped down, revealing the greenish-white complexion of the god-duke's hand. He held this long section of fabric in his hands, "It is not enough to tie a man down."

The Divine Lord raised his hand and the black cloth approached Jiang Luo's eyes, gently covering the pair of eyes so beautiful that they hid brilliant stars in the eyes of the dark-haired youth who seemed to be burning a fiery lotus.

"And tie up his eyes."

Shit.

Jiang Luo definitely heard the hidden laughter in the voice of the God Duke.

Dogby Chi You, sure enough, has added a new dimension to his troubles.

The eyes were covered and the sight returned to darkness. The loss of vision in front of the unknown and the enemy obviously made Jiang Luo a bit panicky. His lips were pursed, and the corners of his mouth were drawn into a straight line.

The divine male gently tied a black cloth behind his head.

After his eyes were blinded, his ears became extra sensitive. Jiang Luo listened to the sound of clothing rubbing against his ears, and could almost visualize the black robes of the Divine Lord brushing against his shoulders.

The tip of his nose caught the vague scent of the god-duke's body.

It's the scent of incense from sandalwood and candles.

The Divine Lord's movements were slow and methodical, in the eyes of the onlookers, the Divine Lord's wide black robe encircled the black-haired youth in the instant he opened his arms, the black-haired youth dodged, his braid exposed outside the black robe for a few moments, and then it was again blocked tightly by the black robe.

The only village chief who acted as a spectator beside him was strange in his mind, the God Duke had never had this set before, right?

Only after tying Jiang Luo's eyes did the God Duke step back, he glanced at the black-haired youth who was tied securely and had his eyes bound up for a moment, a smile flickering at the corners of his pale lips as he said hoarsely, "Village Chief, come with me to get the sacrifices."

The village headman hurriedly answered yes, and the footsteps of the two men gradually drifted away.

Jiang Luo waited another twenty seconds with extreme patience, and after making sure there was no one else here, he slipped a small knife out of his sleeve, flashed the blade, and cleanly cut the rope.

After freeing his hands, Jiang Luo ripped off the blindfold and was about to throw it on the ground, but then remembered something and put the long black fabric back on his body.

Perhaps he could also play the role of a god-duke for a time.

Jiang Luo took the time to look around the shrine before the Godfather and the village chief returned. Holding a candle, he went to the stone walls on both sides and scrutinized the murals above him.

The mural depicts two scenes.

One is a picture of the villagers worshipping. The villagers are kneeling respectfully on the ground, praying for immortality, and right in front of them is a black and white statue of a frowning and smiling god.

Beside the idol stood two men who seemed to be guardians, one with a large sword in his hand and the other dressed in red. Behind the idol were rolling streams of water and a neat patch of trees.

Jiang Luo's eyes were on the guardian on the left, holding a large sword.

Is this one a deadbeat?

The second painting shows the scene of the girls' sacrifice. One by one, the girls line up to enter the secret passage and meet the idol. The girls kneel in front of the idol and close their eyes peacefully.

Roughly, it looked sacred and beautiful, but upon closer inspection, the girl had a large cut at her wrist, and blood flowed from her wrist onto the body of the idol, turning it from colorless to painted.

It was as if the idol had taken their lives and gradually came to life from a stone.

Jiang Luo looks back at the idol.

The idol sits cross-legged, with the same kindly smile as above the mural. Jiang Luo approaches with a candlestick and gets a closer look at the idol.

Except for the stone hue of the feet, the idol has been almost colored.

What do the colors on the idol represent?

Jiang Luo frowned as two footsteps came from behind him, it was the God Duke and the village head returning.

Jiang Luo jumped onto the platform and hid behind the idol.

Fortunately, the statue was large enough to hide Jiang Luo, who was crouching on his knees. Almost instantly after Jiang Luo had taken cover, the Godfather and the village chief entered the shrine.

Without their tied up offerings in the shrine, the village chief's panicked voice rang out, "Where are the people? Why are the people gone!"

The Divine Lord did not make a sound.

The village chief's voice grew shrill with fear, "Shen Gong, what should we do!"

Jiang Luo pricked up his ears and listened to their conversation.

Shen Gong didn't say anything for some reason, and after a while, he said, "The underground can be like a labyrinth, he can't run far."

"Yes, yes, yes, she can't run far," the village chief looked at the rope that had been thrown at the passageway, "Shen Gong, she must have run outside, let's hurry and go after her."

Jiang Luo gripped his sword tightly, his hand sweating a little as he waited with bated breath for the Godfather's reply.

Kamikado: "Then go after it."

The two faded away.

Jiang Luo, however, did not rush out, but looked at the back of the statue and counted one minute in his heart.

After no one came back to make a return shot, he was sure the two were gone.

Jiang Luo put away his knife and didn't go down, instead he took the opportunity, intending to take a closer look at the idol.

Cautiously, he first summoned the serpent of the Si to wrap around him, and wrapped his right hand in the black cloth left behind by the God Duke, before carefully touching the idol.

Surprisingly, the texture of the statue is much softer than Jiang Luo had imagined.

Jiang Luo's eyebrows jumped, he even had the feeling of touching the skin of a dead person.

Soft, cold, and a complete polar opposite to the touch of stone.

His hand slowly moved upwards towards the idol's neck, trying to test if it had any life in it.

The statue was motionless, and just as Jiang Luo's hand reached the statue's neck, a hand carved out of stone violently clutched his wrist.

Jiang Luo immediately looked up and his breath caught.

The idol's head was twisted to ninety degrees and was looking at him kindly.

The Si Snake smelled the evil and violently attacked towards the idol. The idol's smile remained unchanged, but his other hand grabbed Jiang Luo's calf, and his stone-hard fingers penetrated Jiang Luo's skin and poked into the flesh, leaving gruesome five finger marks.

Jiang Luo stifled a grunt and viciously kicked away the idol's hand. The Si Snake slammed into the idol again, and the divine platform couldn't withstand the two heavy blows, and unexpectedly collapsed completely, revealing a huge hole in the ground.

Jiang Luo unexpectedly fell into the hole in the ground, the serpent fiercely chased after him, the idol laughed and rolled forward, also rumbled into the hole in the ground.

The hole in the ground is long.

The wind whistled past Jiang Luo's ears, and a large amount of blood flowed out of Jiang Luo's calf, which was blown up by the wind and flew backward.

Is this the evil hexagram that Feng Li had divined for him? Jiang Luo thought to himself.

However, the look in his eyes was becoming more and more calm and composed, having died eighteen times long ago, this injury was not enough to make him surrender and resign to his fate.

The Snake behind him surrounded him and brought him down to the ground slowly. Jiang Luo, however, retrieved the Snake into the Yin Yang Ring the moment he landed.

The golden runes disappeared, and the whole cave was plunged into darkness. Jiang Luo dragged his injured calf to hide in the corner, he used a charm to stop the bleeding to stop the wound, and then tore off the cloth on his body with force to wipe over the blood and threw it on the other side. After doing all this, a loud bang fell and the idol entered the hole in the ground.

Jiang Luo's face did not change as he turned his head sideways and stared into the darkness from which the sound came.

For a few moments after the fall, Jiang Luo was thinking about something.

Why are the above ground shrines not lit and the stone steps to the ground floor not lit, but the underground shrines are lit with candles?

His guess was that the idol was unable to see in the darkness.

That is why this one means was used so that the idol could not leave the ground and reach above the surface.

Of course, this was just a guess, and Jiang Luo had no proof that what he was thinking was right, but he wanted to take a gamble at this point.

He slowed his breathing and listened for movement not far away.

In the darkness, the idol stood up. He was made of stone, and the movement of each foot was extremely loud. His smiling face looked around in the darkness, but he didn't see the sacrifice.

After a short silence, the idol rumbled and moved again.

Going in the direction of Jiang Luo.

Jiang Luo held onto the wall and moved slowly without making a sound as he changed places.

Instead, the idol stopped at the location where he had previously thrown down his blood-stained clothes.

You can smell the blood.

Jiang Luo judged calmly.

The idol launches an attack on the clothes, and Jiang Luo hears the sound of the stone wall cracking, seemingly realizing that there is no one at the clothes, before the idol stops moving.

Sure enough you can't see in the dark.

Jiang Luo felt that although he was unlucky, at least he was not unlucky to the end. He held onto the wall and gently moved the Yin Yang Ring.

A golden rune became a mouse and scurried in the opposite direction like lightning, the idol was attracted by the mouse emitting golden light and ran heavily after the mouse.

The ground trembled for a while of time before gradually regaining its calm.

Jiang Luo sat down on the floor, propped up against the wall, his head covered in a cold sweat, but his consciousness clear. Jiang Luo rested for a while, tore off a piece of fabric to bind the wound, and waited for the throbbing pain in his left calf to subside before standing up again.

The wound only penetrated into the flesh, fortunately did not hurt the bones and tendons, at this time, Jiang Luo really envied the dead ghost's physique of healing in a second.

He summoned the golden rune, through the golden light will be here to see once again, below the hole in the ground is a cave, Jiang Luo even doubt that he went to the bottom of the ground below fifty meters, this underground even underground, can only say that the deep soil village is worthy of being called the deep soil village, really deep enough.

He shook the yin and yang ring, which showed him the north. Jiang Luo looked to the deep, bottomless north, exhaled a mouthful of turbid air, and walked slowly towards the front.

*

On the ground, once Jiang Luo entered the shrine, Wen Renlian was using divination numbers to determine Jiang Luo's location.

The more they walked on the ground, the more they strayed, and they even went to the mountains, but after arriving at the mountains, Wen Renlian's compass became messed up by the magnetic field interference, and even he divined more cautiously and slowly.

Deadbeat, however, felt something familiar about this place.

He didn't know why it felt familiar, but he followed his instincts and walked under a giant tree. He thrust his greatsword into the ground with all his might and pressed down with all his might, and a piece of the ground here collapsed violently, revealing a dark hole.

Lu Youyi and Wen Renlian, who were startled by the sound, looked at the black hole in shock and quickly gathered around, "What is this?"

The deadbeat honestly said, "I don't know."

He paused, "But Jiang Luo should be down there."

That's how deadbeats feel.

Wenren Lian divined and said with a gloomy expression, "The dead ghost is right, it should be right down here, let's hurry down."

But the Dead Ghost stopped Wenren Lian and said, "You can't go down there."

Wenren Lian's face went cold, his eyes, which had always been gently narrowed, rarely opened, displaying the aggressive sharpness of his male side, "Why."

The Dead Ghost said, "Your birthdate, it's yin."

Wenren Lian was stunned and understood his meaning in a moment.

The shrine needed sacrifices with yin in their eight characters, so if he went down there, he might instead become a drag, or even a tool for something to become stronger.

Wen Renlian cursed lowly, then stepped aside as he looked deeply at Lu Youyi and the Dead Ghost, "I'll leave you to it then."

Lu Youyi nodded gravely and prepared to descend into the cave without delay, when Wen Renlian suddenly said, "Lu Youyi."

Lu Youyi looks back at him.

Wenren Lian's lips opened and closed for a moment, threw a pack of cigarettes from his body to him, and whispered, "Come back with him alive."

Lu Youyi gripped the cigarette, "Don't worry."

He and Deadshot jumped down the hole.

Wen Renlian watched their disappearing figures and his left eyelid jumped several times.

It wasn't that he didn't believe in Lu Youyi's ability, he just didn't believe in the stability of dead ghosts.

This living dead person had only been in contact with them for less than a day, and even if the other party seemed harmless now, no one could be sure if he was ultimately a foe or a friend.

If the dead ghost stabbed him in the back in the middle of the day, with Lu Youyi's unguarded character, he would definitely be in danger.

Wenren Lian's heart was worried, he drew out a crane folded with yellow talisman from his bosom, wrote the word "come quickly" on the crane with a pen, and gently patted the crane, "Go."

A thousand paper cranes staggered away, toward the mountain.

*

Lu Youyi and the Dead Ghost fell straight into a darkness.

Lu Youyi's butt hurt from the fall, "Hiss-where is this place?"

The Deadman covered his mouth and his cold eyes looked into the darkness, "Don't make a sound."

They tentatively walked forward, the dead ghost leading the way. In the darkness, something on the ground tossed them a few times, and after walking for who knows how long, they finally saw a faint bit of light.

Beneath the light was a large dome.

There were densely packed figures on the ground, but a closer look revealed that they were all lifelike paper people. Paper people standing, see people hairy. Lu Youyi scalp numb, "This is ......"

A hand suddenly reached out from the side and pulled him and the dead ghost into a hidden recessed cavern.

Lu Youyi nearly jumped to his feet and was about to struggle when he heard a familiar voice ringing in his ear, "It's me."

It's Jiang Luo.

Lu Youyi suddenly breathed a long sigh of relief, and the dead ghost also put away his big sword and peacefully followed Jiang Luo to hide.

Jiang Luo was in a sorry state, leaning against the wall with a few patches of dirty dust on his face. Sweat clung to his hair, and the braid he wore on his left shoulder was almost falling apart. Two of his long skirt-like robes had been torn off his lower body, revealing a lurid five-finger print on his straight calf.

However, Jiang Luo's expression is very calm, and even his wretchedness seems not to be wretchedness, but rather a strange kind of movement.

But looking at Lu Youyi almost in tears, he lowered his voice and said, "Jiang Luo, are you alright?"

Jiang Luo shook his head and raised his eyes to the dead ghost, "Why are you here too?"

Dead Ghost said, "You are my friend, it is only right that I come to save my friend."

Jiang Luo smiled inexplicably at his words as he asked, "Do you feel familiar about this place?"

The dead ghost nodded slowly.

Though he didn't know why, he did feel a bit of familiarity.

Jiang Luo said to himself, "That's it."

The dead ghost is really a guardian around the idol.

Then there seems to be a reason why he and Lu Youyi went to dig a grave in the middle of the night and were decapitated by the other side.

Because the truth that the idol needs a sacrifice cannot be discovered by outsiders.

Jiang Luo felt that the difficulty of this level of the competition had exceeded the judgment of the tournament organizers and the judges, and that the idol, the living idol, was too much for them, a group of not-yet-graduated Xuan students, to deal with.

But already in the vortex, Jiang Luo doesn't like to think about other things, not only when he is facing Chi You, but also when he is facing other gods, men, and dogs, he doesn't want to take a step back at all.

--He just wanted to return this wound on his leg to the idol.

"Do you know where this place is?" He asked.

The deadbeat hesitantly said, "Under the ground?"

Jiang Luo: "......"

Almost forgot, this guy is currently in a state of amnesia.

Jiang Luo helplessly withdrew his gaze, but Yu Guang caught a glimpse of the cigarettes in Lu Youyi's hand. He couldn't help but smile, "Lu Youyi, you brought me a pack of cigarettes on your way down?"

He took the cigarettes, a lighter was placed inside the box, Jiang Luo smiled again and skillfully lit a cigarette, squinting his eyes to relax his tense nerves.

Lu Youyi asked in a low voice, "Jiang Luo, what's all that out there?"

"Paper people," Jiang Luo said, "they look dead, but they're actually alive. At the slightest sound, they will swarm around you."

Lu Youyi was creeped out, "Paper people are still alive?"

Jiang Luo sneered, "The idols are fucking alive."

He finished a cigarette, pressed it out, and pulled out the runes from his body, "How many more fire runes do you have there?"

Lu Youyi busily counted, "Five."

"Five? Enough," Jiang Luo unbuttoned his shirt, tossing aside his less mobile outerwear, leaving only the short-sleeved undershirt he wore underneath, "Enough to burn all these paper people."

Lu Youyi and the Dead Ghost followed his lead and took off their inconvenient clothes. After their arms were able to stretch freely, Jiang Luo asked, "Did you guys get a good look at those paper people?"

Lu Youyi froze and quietly stepped out of the cave to look outside.

The nearest paper man wore red and green, with two piles of red plateau red on his face. The bright colors didn't make the paper man look halfway relatable, but rather eerie and chilling.

Lu Youyi did not see anything wrong under a cursory look, and strangely looked again, suddenly turned pale and retreated into the cave in a trance.

Jiang Luo lifted his eyelids to look at him, "Did you find out?"

"There's a paper man," Lu Youyi's teeth knocked together, "as if, as if Hochi."

That He Zhi from Wenxing University was the very person who took the lead in traveling to Deep Earth Village alone.

They hadn't seen He Zhi since they came to Deep Earth Village.

Why is there a paper man here that looks so much like He Zhi?

Jiang Luo : "Not only He Zhi, but the vast majority of people in the village, can find a paper figure here that resembles them."

Lu Youyi gulped, "What does that mean?"

"It represents those people on the ground, who have most likely been replaced by paper people," Jiang Luo throws down a shocking thunderbolt without a ripple in his voice, "The paper people under the ground represent their true state. The people of this village pursued eternal life, so they begged the gods and worshipped the Buddha, and the gods told them that if they hanged or drowned, they would get eternal life, and they believed it, and sure enough, the hanged and drowned people became young and healthy again, and they came back to life."

"No one knew that the ones that came to life were just paper people that looked like the dead ones, but that little girl in red found out something was wrong before," Jiang Luo smiled, "Hanged and drowned people can't be reincarnated, and their souls were most likely used to become fodder for the gods, to help the gods become powerful and become living things, is there any possibility of that?"

Lu Youyi had frozen.

Jiang Luo continued, "When I first came to Deep Earth Village I thought it was strange, why did the staff say 'for every person who dies, a new life will come out of the village' instead of 'for every new life that comes out, a person dies ' It's a strange statement to say that it's easy to want people to die, but it's hard to want life to be born on time."

"I even suspect that the police who came to the transfer didn't get the truth about the 'new life' either, and that the people of Shamrock Village wouldn't have told them the truth; they probably just counted the total number of people in the village once they were sure one person had died, and came up with the 311 number. "

Jiang Luo's words came to an abrupt end, "This is just my own idea, I'll elaborate when we get out. For now, we have to burn these paper people before we can continue to move forward, otherwise even if we pass the nest of paper people and make a sound they will still catch up."

Lu Youyi's brain was dizzy, so he simply didn't think about it, "Then how are we going to burn through them? I've looked around, and they're not even gathered together."

"Lure them together," Jiang Luo drew out a fire talisman, "Make a noise after you go over to the opposite side to lure them over, and burn them all in one fell swoop."

Neither Dead Ghost nor Lu Youyi had any objections, and Jiang Luo nodded cleanly without even suspecting that they had even thought about the feasibility of the method.

Jiang Luo sighed and led them out of the cave.

Once the three were ready, they stepped into the paper man's nest.

The paper people were stacked in twos and threes, and it was actually a bit difficult to get past them without disturbing them. Fortunately, all three were careful, and they managed to walk through the large dome and reach the opposite side.

Jiang Luo picks up a stone from the ground and throws it down from a high place.

A crisp sound rang out, and the lifeless-like paper figures instantly came to life, lunging toward the place where the sound came from.

Jiang Luo threw three fire talismans at them, and the flames rose suddenly, the paper people were engulfed in flames that continued to fuel the fire.

The three got out of the area just in time as the fire reached the entrance to the cave.

The moment he turned around, Jiang Luo suddenly remembered a problem.

Chi You, why are you pretending to be the Godfather here?

Jiang Luo believes Chi You won't be so idle, he possessed a contestant to participate in the competition wanting to get the first to get Primordial Heavenly Pearl can be justified, but to become a village's God Gong, what does he want to do?