Chapter 30: Flawless Execution

The three of them crouched by the riverbank, washing and eating as they worked. In no time at all, they had finished off a large pile of wild vegetables.

Liang Dan caught the breeze blowing in; it carried a crisp, aquatic scent that was deeply refreshing. She gazed ahead, but no matter how far she looked, there was nothing to see but an endless expanse of river.

Suddenly, Liang Dan turned back and asked, "That girl who saved us in the house that day—was she also one of her manifestations?"

Yang Liuqing paused for a second. Liang Dan nodded. "I see."

Still, Yang Liuqing replied, "I cannot be certain."

Liang Dan stood up. "The statue I damaged—did you two repair it?"

"I fixed it," Shen Si said. "Not long after we damaged the statue, they were all repaired. I suspect it was those little girls; perhaps those statues hold some special significance for them."

Seeing no change in Liang Dan’s expression, Shen Si continued, "I don’t know if that person yesterday was lying to us. If the information she gave us was true, then we have likely found the explanation for many of our questions."

Yang Liuqing raised an eyebrow. "For example?"

Shen Si said, "Suppose—just suppose—that the River God is a disguise used by those little girls. A question we have is why they hate the little boy so much and why they specifically designated him to be the priest."

"That can be explained now: it was because of that boy’s report that their school was torn down."

"There is another issue: the bridge built by the villagers. Why does it vanish as soon as it is built? It is because the villagers' ultimate goal in building this bridge is to go outside and capture the little girls' mothers. To prevent their mothers from being taken, the girls sabotage the bridge."

"To stop the villagers from building, they resort to tearing down the bridge at night and killing people both inside and outside the village. These actions instill such terror in the villagers that it successfully halts their progress."

Yang Liuqing listened intently, nodding from time to time. When Shen Si finished her long explanation, she said calmly, "It sounds perfect—flawless, even."

Encouraged, Shen Si continued, "Right? I also think my reasoning is foolproof. This explains everything! Doesn't this prove that we have uncovered the entire truth about this village?"

Yang Liuqing spread her hands. "I don't know. If our mission is to uncover the truth, the system's prompt will tell you whether your deduction is correct or not."

Liang Dan looked up. "But there is still one more question."

Yang Liuqing and Shen Si asked in unison, "What is it?"

"The sacrifice," Liang Dan said. "If those girls are indeed the River God, why did they instigate such a massive sacrificial rite and take so many lives?"

Liang Dan continued, "If they only wanted to stop the bridge from being built, a warning should have sufficed."

Shen Si argued, "But warnings are too low-level; they wouldn't have been effective."

Liang Dan replied, "True, but after their warnings failed, they could have escalated to killing people in the village, outside the village, and at the temple."

Shen Si was confused. "That sounds exactly like what I just said."

Liang Dan clarified, "I mean, if they could just kill people, why did they have to do it through a sacrificial ritual?"

Shen Si hissed, biting her lip subconsciously. "Perhaps... that brings up another question."

"Are they simply demanding the sacrifice continue for forty-nine days, or did they promise the villagers that the bridge could be built once the forty-nine days of sacrifice were complete?"

Yang Liuqing said, "That is indeed a good question, but we would need to ask the villagers."

Shen Si dropped her head, then suddenly looked up, her eyes bright. "We could search the ruins of those houses. Even though the dead can't speak, maybe there’s something there that can answer our questions."

"We could," Yang Liuqing said, "but there is one more thing."

"What is it now? My head starts to ache whenever I hear the words 'one more thing'!"

Yang Liuqing turned to look at Liang Dan, who was standing behind them. "Before we ate, you called us over and said you had something to discuss. What was it?"

"Oh my god!" Shen Si exclaimed. "I’m so sorry, Sister Liang. I completely forgot. What was it you wanted to see us about?"

"It’s nothing," Liang Dan said. "I just happened to see the corn over there and thought that the women must have poured a lot of heart and soul into them before they left the village. But now, no one is tending to them, and they’re just left to rot in the fields."

Shen Si asked, "But Sister Liang, didn't you say earlier that the corn was too old to eat? We gnawed on a few before, and they were hard as rock. If we weren't young, strong, and blessed with good teeth, we wouldn't have been able to eat them at all!"

Liang Dan explained, "This type of corn is indeed meant for consumption, but if it's extremely old, you can shell the kernels; there are many uses for corn kernels."

No sooner said than done, Shen Si headed straight for the ruins of a storeroom, digging out several large iron basins. After finding the basins, she unearthed a few pairs of cloth farming gloves. Liang Dan joined her in the search. "Is this the storeroom where you were kept?"

"Yeah," Shen Si said. "This dump of a room didn't even have a bed, so I had to rest on these big basins."

Shen Si pointed at the basins. "This one is for the corn, or rather, the kernels. This one is for the husks... but what about the stalks?"

Liang Dan replied, "The stalks can be used as firewood for cooking."

Yang Liuqing, who had rummaged a sickle out of some ruins, slung it over her shoulder. "Speaking of firewood, I just remembered: when we went into that woman's kitchen, there was no firewood inside."

Shen Si added, "It wasn't just the kitchen; there was none in the storeroom, and none outside either!"

Liang Dan said, "They must have had a designated place for firewood; we just haven't found it yet."

Shen Si sighed. "Let's finish the farm work first. Brain work can wait until we're done with the manual labor."

Shen Si and Liang Dan ducked into the cornfield, starting from the outermost rows. Within minutes, the large basins Shen Si had found were filled to the brim. They stacked the corn on the path outside, and soon it had formed a small, green mountain.

As they picked the corn, Yang Liuqing worked outside, cutting down the stalks and stacking them separately. As the two piles grew higher, their field of vision widened, revealing a large expanse of land.

Having pushed her brain to the limit these past few days with her nerves stretched thin, Liang Dan found that performing these repetitive, mechanical tasks actually allowed her to exhale. Both her body and mind felt less exhausted than they had before.