Doomsday Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 250: Chapter 54: The Truth about the Water Ghost and the Lake God

"Suddenly, a white fog enveloped me, and I found myself thinking of those words, Red Yin said."

"...When Red Yin was a child, I helped her comb her hair. It might just be because I miss my grandmother so much that I feel like Red Yin has come to this village. But when I think about it..."

"There’s obviously no connection between Red Yin and this accident with the grandmother, but Red Yin’s sudden mention of her disturbed the white fog a bit."

"In truth, I’ve been thinking too much about my grandmother. I’ve even mistaken people for her, and I’m just like them, brother... that’s what it is."

"Not too good... I’m scared of these people down there,"

"You’re overthinking it, Red Yin," he said smoothly, his expression becoming stern again. This accident also came as a surprise at the end of the welcoming route."

Maybe some of those stone heads were just played by ordinary people, or the main characters in a marriage ceremony in the main hall, for some coffin material issue.

This incident, starting from the Cui family offerings, meant something strange—it would be strange for papier-mâché figures to emerge from a cellar. And it was even stranger and harder to escape once inside the red and white manor at the entrance on the lower level.

"It might not be anything evil like those stone heads. All of them noticed it, including Uncle Feng from the white shop and... even Zhu Jin is involved, and your brother who’s playing the role of Zhao’s eldest son. In truth, not even one person understands those stone heads,"

Realizing she misspoke, Red Yin thought about how her grievances had become particularly light and frail, making her seem quite vulnerable. Her words now carried a sense of self-blame, and White Mist heard that in her voice.

Red Yin’s words were filled with a sense of self-blame,

Growing more and more distant... it seems the villagers can only walk further and further away. They can’t do anything about it, it’s truly cursed.

In truth, White Mist felt more despair than the stone heads could ever experience, but the thought of his own father’s painful, hateful experiences made him feel a bit more sensitive to what was happening.

"Brother... that stone head from back then must have suffered greatly..."

"Although he could feel his father’s self-hatred, he couldn’t speak out, for it wasn’t smart enough. One day, the stone head, not being seen ever again, was probably because it saw talismans stuck behind the papier-mâché figures... perhaps for this very reason,"

This child was just thinking too much about his father. It’s not that Cui Zheng came to see him because he saw the stone head—Cui Zheng didn’t become the first one... It wasn’t because the stone head had seen someone die."

These talismans were stuck behind the papier-mâché figures, even on the jars and urns in the cellar, many water ghost talismans were prepared in advance. White Mist still remembered this part of content, unaware that Cui Zheng had already been notified.

"Deserve to die! Deserve to die, with such long, long hair and an all-black body—it’s that thing I saw... I never thought this day would come so quickly. I knew it would be my turn one day,"

Afterward, Cui Zheng made countless paper dolls, at first persuaded by God Granny, to have company for the soul of his child when returning home.

Cui Zheng was writing many incidents from the past days on the first sheet inside that iron box. White Mist started remembering...

"I couldn’t let the stone head leave this place. Cui Zheng was scared out of his wits by the sudden scream of terror, his soul scattering, finally discovering the stone head hiding behind the papier-mâché figures."

What was written on the red cushion turned out to be a teasing joke for the child, Cui Zheng... it was sarcasm.

Li He stared intently at the man in the paper, who had dug out the eyes of the paper man and was hiding behind it, as if the Stone Head was lurking there.

Maybe it would be frightened by its own father, or horrified to know it looked like such an ugly child. It thought too much about its father. After hiding in a pile of paper men, it turned into a water ghost with a face painted like that, just like how it appeared in the mirror.

"Cui Pingzhen detested it too, clearly, it was aware of that hatred towards its own father..."

"...Like the Dugu, sitting by the lake in a peculiar way, it seemed like a different kind of person. The more definitive the family’s belief that it was evil and sinister, the harder they insisted on it, especially each time it made an appearance,"

"Even though it could sense that the family strongly disliked it, and it was indeed afraid of being too frightening, every time a blood disaster occurred, it would still appear stubbornly. Fundamentally, the family didn’t realize it had already been seen as some kind of disaster or evil... It wasn’t nearly as clever as the Stone Head,"

"It was just an ugly, water ghost-like monster that brought successive disasters and death upon the village, leaving everyone in constant dread. It wasn’t a White Deer as the Stone Head claimed... Maybe no one believed it. It was going to warn the families of an impending disaster... The Stone Head would appear before every death,"

One of his little hands clenched tightly into a fist, visibly red with exertion.

"This year, stories of hauntings started to emerge in the village as if it had been cursed, with mysterious diseases, transforming beasts, and Spiritual Possession. It began with the Wang family. The Stone Head sensed the approaching danger very quickly and very soon, the Wang family encountered terrible events,"

"This was also the first time the Stone Head appeared before the Wang family. Eventually, it was the Wang family who gathered their courage and chased the Stone Head away with sticks. No one else knew how urgent it was,"

"No one could understand what the Stone Head was saying... It was only shrieking and chattering in front of the Wang home, trying to warn Li He’s and Wang’s families of the impending danger. The family should have been able to understand, but they were so terrified that everyone was scared witless,"

Even though it was a transformation, it was still a regression compared to the rest of them. A paragon of wicked intelligence.

"...Even its memory wasn’t complete. It was just a very low level of evil, it did not possess full intellectual capacity. The Stone Head managed to sense this danger, and it was the first one to report to the Wang family, although it appeared in an ugly state in front of the house,"

He didn’t have any ill intentions towards the villagers, even though he was harming them. She didn’t seem to be in the same predicament as the Stone Head.

In reality, she was more fearful than at any other time. But she thought she was just playing with those doctors.

Suddenly, a white mist made him remember those times with Jing, and he should have hated some of them.

"It should hate them for taking their lives, for a crowd of people disappearing. But it never forgot them, even though it turned into a monster. I never could have imagined that I would meet someone so similar to me, so real like the Stone Head,"

It was as if that huge resentment from times past had completely vanished.

His aura felt very clean, almost as if... Jing was suddenly aware of the smell of blood on his hand as he held the white mist. The Stone Head’s tragic experiences allowed her good inner nature to be felt,

White mist could somehow feel the emotions of the little girl; suddenly, Jing spoke up.

"...He has already turned into a monster like me... Maybe he is the Stone Head,"

One had turned into a monster from the lake, and another had become a god, in contrast to that deer. The muddy one, that figure you saw that was your brother, has also been transformed into another form, and indeed... the Stone Head has returned,"

"Since he started playing with the paper men, there have been people to accompany him. If the Stone Head ever comes back one day, he would probably think that since he was made into a paper man to ward off misfortune, it must be for a reason,"

"Being made into a paper man could perhaps ward off misfortune, and the God Granny would tell him that. He was deeply preoccupied with the Stone Head. Although he resented how ugly his child looked, he did not enjoy all this. Just like Cui Pingzhen did not like that deer,"

How could these villagers still hold such unwavering belief in the Divine Lake, amidst a white mist so dense that no one could fathom?

Could there exist... a higher form of existence still?

If it were not just a distortion in the white mist’s eye, an evil metamorphosis, but a simple measure of pure strength – one that did not need, could not, and indeed should not exhibit any signs of external transformation...

"Is it truly undergoing some form of mutation, the earliest manifestations of change... or could it not be?"

Other than the unique sinking moon, what other warped fruit or cracked jujube could cause such abrupt cessation? Including himself, could the deer – no, the White Mist itself – even fathom how this oddity came to be?

The deer’s horn seemed ever more majestic as if carved out of pristine white jade, lending the onlooker an impression of innumerable possibilities.

No wonder the villagers found it difficult to question their belief in the Divine Lake when faced with the sheer beauty of this deer.

Although Erleipu’s eyes did not offer any concrete evidence, the White Mist always had a lingering feeling that this deer... was not simply some malevolent creature.

Its body, unblemished and white as frost, shone under the moonlight as if white blossoms were unfurling. The deer’s horn, rugged and magnificent, barely caused a ripple as its hooves lightly touched the lake’s surface.

Even the White Mist had seen this deer.

Like a painting, the deer seemed to reflect a narrative alongside the fervent recollections of Red Yin, conveying no intent of human aggression.

It was an oddity in itself.

It was, after all, situated well beyond the boundaries of the place marked as The Well on the traveler’s map.

Could it perhaps also relate to Li He...? It struck the White Mist suddenly, like an epiphany; the world hadn’t yet witnessed the birth of any evil entity on the eve of the day of reckoning, and Dugu, among his heroic peers, was still absorbing the teachings of Dedan.

Even the Ninth Mental Institution couldn’t compare, nor could Purple Orchids or Dedan itself – the White Mist was aware of any evildoing far earlier than anyone else.

Indeed, it had already encountered not a few such instances during the Dazhong Lake Great Sacrifice twelve years ago, simply because they followed the instructions of the God Granny.

This deer – the White Mist currently knew of no other significant clue – was the first deviant, as per God Granny’s narrative.

But the White Mist knew this was not so strange; this deer had already become an evil incarnate. It did seem to have an otherworldly aura, though, one heard of in legends, treading water, sprouting horns from flowers. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

"He only knew the stony path and would never return. Why should he care about that myriad god-like deer or wonder how a deer can sprout blossoms from its horn? Maybe this world is slowly changing... Perhaps the Divine Lake is but a sham. That’s where his doubts began, but this was only a start," he mused.

"He has chosen the old ways, at least when it comes to his own children and their customs, he believes. No doubt he’s not a good father. Since the stone head of the Dugu family sank into the lake, he started doubting everything, which is not a normal zhu family elder’s thought," he mused.

"Any villager who encounters that horn sprouting from the deer would believe the Divine Lake would indeed bring them good fortune. Zhu Lao contemplates, ’The Divine Lake must be as auspicious as its birth, for anyone who has witnessed it must believe it is indeed a reflection of the same.’"

"How can you just break a connection here, in this place? Isn’t this place the accumulation of generational blessings from our ancestors? Could anyone have glimpsed the Divine Lake’s spirit manifestations, for thousands of years? How can the Cui family just let go of a fresh offering after the completion of their dedicated sacrifice? You say to do away with it once it reaches your generation after others’ sacrifices," God Granny said.

In this village, there were still people living as though they belonged to an era long past. If such an entirely insular community still existed, then surely in another world, before this age, the White Mist knew.

"...they were going to make her marry at the tender age of just twenty-three, you see, my brother might not have known how terrible it was for her... for them... It was the Zhu family’s turn to offer their tribute during the Grand Lake Sacrifice, exactly when Zhu Jinyin and Zhao Kuan got married. They tried devising a way to get around it, but the God Granny imposed a ban, since it was only once every fifty years."

"Each and every household had to contribute a sacrificial animal for the Grand Lake Sacrifice, something that had long become a common practice among them. Indeed, some people did think about challenging this custom, including Old Master Zhu after the grand sacrifice, since Chu Pingzhou’s family had suffered too much, indeed, having lost their child to this practice; Chu Pingzhou himself was doing all sorts of paper figures at home, sighing all day."

"...those things in the lake to the east had already started to awaken. They didn’t really need to bind him and throw him into the lake, because this sort of thing happens bit by bit. There was no one to save him; he was tied up on the wooden frame above the Stone Mirror lake."

Screaming at the wolf-like man in front of him, Cui Zhengping, who was tied up hand and foot, being pounced on, could only start to lift his head, intertwined with the drawing at this moment: he was the one bound and hanging on the wooden frame above the Stone Mirror in the drawing.

"Daddy, save me," he screamed, crying out in desperation as he neared the Stone Mirror, about to be submerged in the lake. It was then that Li He heard his cries.

"That day, they bound Stone Mirror on the wooden frame, surrounded by the heads of livestock, mumbling a set of incantations to the Lake God for protection. They were all having a great time, with the whole family laughing and chatting away, only Cui Zhengping had drips of blood in his heart. Indeed, there was a water calamity because of Stone Mirror’s presence. What they said wasn’t wrong; that was the person calculated to be the sacrifice."

"Since then, the name Stone Mirror had a character, predicting a water calamity would come when there were five surplus waters in the year," said the diviner. Stone Mirror was actually Cui Zhengping’s ugly child. Cui Zhengping, a talented artist from the remote and secluded village, was alive in that era; it is indeed very hard to imagine, Brother."

"This matter has been a sacred tradition, passed on for thousands of years among the people of Dazhong Lake, considering it a heavenly duty. Every one to fifty years, a child aged between twenty and fifty must be sacrificed for the Grand Lake Sacrifice."

The mirror slowly started to float to the surface... and along with the reddish sound resonating, following the mirror surface, all sorts of accidents transpired.

Although Li He felt a great sense of danger, he didn’t understand what this meant; Yin Hong always had the air ball in her hand... but he didn’t pay attention to the white mist.

A mirror-like surface appeared out of the white fog, before her, and beside her, sat Yin Hong with her horribly pale face in the white mist.

But her whole person seemed even more haggard and distinct, with black spots emerging on her red dress, her bare feet, and Yin Hong appeared out of the white mist beside her.

Although this weird thing in her brain had two meanings... the white mist indeed contained some weird thing.

This could indeed allow a person to depart from this world, thoroughly soothing these obsessions.

All of them... were obsessions, whether it’s Old Plank Feng Tianhai’s overthinking, Cui Zhengping losing his child, Zhu Jinyin and Zhao Kuan, these obsessions in their heads were just too much.

This time, Bai Wu underestimated the twisted nature of this spiritual world; facing Yin Hong for the very first time was like... manifesting a weird creature after uttering an incomprehensible language, exactly what Bai Wu had been looking for—the obsession of this weird creature.

The accident shifted the course of events thoroughly, starting with Bai Wu leaving the vicinity of God Granny.

Because of the strange transformations among the livestock outside her house, at this moment in the Zhao residence, there rose a fire.

Bai Wu looked around at the neighborhood being dissected one tile at a time, as if the whole area began to undergo changes, much like when she returned to Well Number Six and the telecommunication area. Suddenly, she heard the sound of Yin Hong amidst the fire she could not ignore.

"Yin Hong?"

(The White Alliance leader always spoke of pigeons, yet he never tasted anything like one, maybe it’s a different kind of pigeon? ~Completed at 05/5, Irreparable, the machine... couldn’t be used any more.)