A ghost storyteller can lose his life but cannot lose his job

Chapter 29: Discover the rules, study the rules, and use the rules
The decisiveness of Zhong Xie's action far exceeded the expectations of the village chief. No one could have imagined that they were still chatting normally in the previous second, and Zhong Xie listened and nodded frequently, and the next second he took out the hoe that had been hidden behind his back for a long time, and cut off half of the village chief's shoulder with one hoe.

"Ah..." The pain was so severe that the sound made by the village chief was even faint. Only the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead could prove his pain at the moment.

Zhong Xie also seized the opportunity to knock down the village chief with a hoe, and then wandered around the stone house with the hoe on his shoulder.

Although it was just speculation and there was no actual evidence, he still swung the hoe at the weaker one.

A stranger appeared in the village, but the village chief was not on guard at all. He might have known that Zhong Xie existed in this village two days ago, but he still sent away the two sheep-headed men and invited him into the stone house.

It's weird no matter how you think about it, right?
The village chief is not afraid that outsiders like Zhong Xie have bad intentions. The more likely possibility is that he himself has bad intentions, and he does not want the sheep-headed man to discover the existence of Zhong Xie.

He ate the delicious food alone, or maybe he didn't want the villagers to discover that he was a cannibal.

No matter which guess it is, it at least proves that the only person in the village who knows about Zhong Xie’s existence is the village chief.

That would be easy.

"How dare you attack me, attack me... You can't escape from the village. When they find you, they will kill you and sacrifice you to the gods!" The village chief covered his bloody shoulder and gritted his teeth.

But Zhong Xie ignored him. When he wandered to the cupboard, he noticed a small bag of powder wrapped in paper under the iron basin. He immediately realized that the village chief must have put drugs in the water cup. Unfortunately, as a foreigner, he would never eat or drink anything from this village.

I would rather go to the mountains to find food than eat a single bite of meat in the fields.

Zhong Xie shook the medicine bag twice, signaling everyone to stop pretending, and then continued to ask: "Tell me what is going on in your village?"

At this time, the village chief could no longer support himself and sat down on the ground. He kept gasping for breath. After suffering such a severe blow, his old body could hardly resist the young Zhong Xie and could only let him do whatever he wanted.

Seeing that the village chief was using the pain to avoid answering, Zhong Xie suddenly hit the village chief's toes, just like breaking a glass bead, and the blood inside immediately burst out.

"I'll tell you, I'll tell you!" The village chief finally behaved himself. He secretly looked up at Zhong Xie.

At this time, Zhong Xie was happily playing with the hoe, like spinning a pen. Every time the hoe turned, he would turn his head to avoid the sharp edge of the tetanus blade, as if all his energy was focused on this.

"Then hurry up and tell me. The more you tell me, the easier it will be for you to survive until the villagers on the mountain find out you're missing. When they come looking for me, I might flee in a hurry and not be able to take care of you, right?"

Zhong Xie politely reminded: "But don't deliberately say too much and don't try to deceive me. I have studied psychology, you can't deceive me."

"Then I'll tell you everything. Can you please not kill me?" Seeing that Zhong Xie's tone was softening, the village chief immediately began to make demands.

However, these were not the words Zhong Xie wanted to hear, so the rotating hoe fell on the village chief's other foot. He did not say anything and continued to concentrate on playing with the hoe.

"Everyone in our village has sinned. Offering sacrifices to the goddess is a way to atone for our sins. Every death and rebirth is a way to cleanse our souls." The village chief didn't dare to have any more thoughts and could only tremble and tell the story from the beginning, "Becoming people with pig heads and sheep heads is our punishment."

"At first, I woke up in the morning and found myself turned into a pig's head. It was a bad omen. I was very scared and hid in my house for several days without going out or seeing anyone. I said I was sick and would go out when I felt better."

"On the second night, my neighbor brought me a small bowl of mutton soup for me to eat. Because I am the village chief and they usually respect me, I asked him to leave it at the door."

"The day after I ate the mutton, I found myself turned into a goat-headed man again."

"I know what the problem is. It must be the meat I eat. You become the animal you eat."

"On the fourth day, I realized that I couldn't stay in the house any longer. I was the only one in charge of the village. If I continued like this, the villagers would rebel. I had to become a human again."

"One village scoundrel dies and someone who can take charge survives. This deal is definitely worthwhile for the village. I really wanted to do good for the village at that time."

"After I became a sheep's head, my health improved. I found an opportunity to drug a village swindler and threw some of his meat into the river in the backyard. I also put his fishing rod by the river and pretended that he had accidentally fallen in while fishing."

"I succeeded. I turned back into a human being, back into the old village chief that everyone in the village loves."

"Later, the other people in the village started to turn into pigs, sheep, and so on, which caused some panic. Fortunately, I came out to calm them down. I told the villagers about my discovery."

"At this time, the crops in the fields have produced pork and mutton, which are the only meat we can eat."

"It was a bit scary at first, and no one dared to eat it, but after a few villagers secretly tried it, nothing happened, and the villagers felt relieved."

"On weekdays, we can't eat meat at all. At first, some people thought that eating meat would turn them into monsters with pig and sheep heads, which was too scary. As time went by, more and more people became monsters. Filling their stomachs was more important than appearance."

"Life was normal until I saw the guy I killed growing out of the ground."

"When I looked over, I saw only pig heads and sheep heads in the field, and his was the only human head. I recognized it immediately. I thought at that time that I couldn't let him come back to life. I had to kill him in the middle of the night when no one was around."

Hearing this, Zhong Xie raised his hand and actively asked, "How do you know that he came out of the field to be resurrected?"

The village chief was stunned, and his clear eyes showed that he seemed to be thinking about this question for the first time: "I... I don't know either. It seems that someone told me, but I don't know who it was."

"Okay, continue." Zhong Xie pushed the doubt to "Strange Talk". Although this old guy was deliberately talking nonsense, the ideas in his head were still gradually becoming clearer.

He already vaguely understood some of the conditions.

The village chief continued to tell his story: "I can't let others see it, so I set rules during the day. The first few fields are miracles from the goddess of the land. Don't disturb them unless necessary. And you can't go out at will at night. If you don't obey, disaster may happen."

Zhong Xie suddenly realized that it was no wonder that he had never suffered any backlash for breaking the rules. It turned out that these rules were made up by the old man in front of him.

"That night, I went to the field and tried to chop off the guy's head, but I died as soon as my knife touched him."

"Dead?" Zhong Xie blinked. This was beyond his expectations, but it also meant a real clue.

"Yes, I died. When I woke up, I found that I was growing next to the villager's head. At this time, I could still feel the presence of the Earth Goddess. She seemed to be using the branches and vines growing on my head to suck out the things in my head and spit out some new things for me."

"I heard the Queen say——"

"My soul will return to this land. We grew up on this land. It is our root."

"We will never die. All deaths are to bring our souls closer to this land. She will know everything in our souls."

Zhong Xie frowned and hit the old man's calf with a hoe: "No, you are still hiding it. If you are not going to die, then you are not afraid of death. If you are not afraid of death, why are you afraid of me? Tell me everything?"

The village chief hurriedly defended himself, "No, no, no, I'm telling the truth. I can't say more. We really can't die so easily. Otherwise, the goddess will disappear and won't bless us for a long time. Then we will starve to death!"

"Okay, then we can play slowly and see when you can make up your mind to tell me."

Zhong Xie put down the hoe in his hand with a smile, and walked towards the village chief holding an empty water cup. Ordinary people could not understand what kind of tormenting thoughts popped up in his mind.

“No, no, no, no! No!” The village chief dragged his bleeding lower body and crawled back desperately. He felt genuine fear at the big boy in front of him with a sunny and cheerful smile, so he begged for mercy again and again, “I really can’t tell you. The rules of the queen can only be understood by understanding, and can’t be told to outsiders.”

Perhaps his injuries have stabilized a little, and now he has the strength to scream.

However, after saying these words, the village chief's eyes suddenly became dazed, and he murmured, "Yes, this sentence is also part of the rules. I said it accidentally. Damn it, my queen."

After he finished speaking, the village chief fell to the ground and died due to excessive blood loss.

Zhong Xie stepped forward to sniff his breath and confirmed the village chief's death. The cause of death was indeed excessive blood loss, but it was definitely not excessive blood loss.

Zhong Xie knew that he had acted with discretion and that the village chief should not die. He was in very good condition a minute ago, but now he suddenly died.

It must be the interference of the "Niangniang" ghost story.

The village chief passed on the rules, and the rules were "the rules can only be understood and cannot be passed on to others." This violated the rules, so he died in a forced and reasonable way.

It sounds a bit like a tongue twister, but it is true. The "rule of outside communication" itself is one of the rules that cannot be communicated outside.

The way the ghost story kills the offending village chief is not by his direct appearance, nor by pretending to be other real things, but simply by "excessive blood loss", which shows that its operation may need to be logical.

Or in other words, it needs to be as logical as possible.

Self-restriction is the characteristic of rule-based weirdness.

Generally speaking, only rule-based ghost stories are so awkward. They are the makers and maintainers of the rules, and they also need to abide by the rules.

The rules of ghost stories cannot be double-standard on this point, and even Miss Black Goat is no exception.

Even if there are special methods to bypass the restrictions of its own rules, they are loopholes in the rules set in advance, and others can also take advantage of them.

That is why rule-based weird stories are also the fairest weird stories.

Discover the rules, study the rules, and use the rules.

This is the most basic idea when dealing with strange stories caused by rule-based strange stories.

Unfortunately, since rule-based ghost stories have the first-mover advantage, most people are often killed at the step of "discovering the rules" and there is no subsequent research and application of the rules.

Of course, now that the clues to the rules have appeared in front of Zhong Xie, he can start studying the rules.

Before that, the crime scene needs to be processed.

He quickly dragged the village chief's body under the bed and hid it, and then simply cleaned up the bloodstains in the house, so that at least he would not discover a murder case as soon as he entered the door.

After doing all this, Zhong Xie quickly ran towards the farmland to see if there would be another head like the village chief's in the farmland.

If anything, the rule that proves it is violated is "out there," and the punishment is that it grows out of the land.

Secondly, don’t think that you can refresh your status by breaking the rules and “dying and reborn”. I will guard the body!
There was still no one in the village, so Zhong Xie ran away without any worries and soon searched around the farmland.

The wind was still noisy, and when the grass was low, the pigs' and sheep's heads were visible.

But there was no head.

The village chief did not resurrect?

Zhong Xie stopped and thought for a moment.

No, it’s dark under the lamp!
This old guy was still setting a trap in his words. The place where he was reborn was not in the field of pig heads and sheep heads, but in the most obvious and least obvious place.

backyard!

As a village chief, how can your resurrection point be the same as that of ordinary people?

Fortunately, this body had strong leg strength, and in just two minutes Zhong Xie ran back to the village chief's desk. He jumped high and landed gently, then tiptoed into the yard.

Everything was just as he had left it, except for some dirt marks on the path from the backyard to the house.

Scattered, even, and neat.

A mud dot is paired with a larger mud dot, and the pattern looks like footprints, extending from one end to the other.

Hush

Zhong Xie couldn't help but reveal an excited smile on his face. He walked into the house along the mud trails, trying his best to control his steps without making any sound.

The muddy footprints led into the bedroom inside, which was the room where Zhong Xie hid the village chief's body.

He walked to the door and stood there, using the wall to cover his tracks, then carefully observed the movements inside.

I saw a head with fleshy buds similar to plant roots biting the corpse under the bed and dragging it out with great effort, while looking towards the door from time to time.

"Hurry, hurry, put the head back on while that guy is away. I'll be safe once I find the others!"

The head muttered this, bit the clothes and dragged the corpse.

With his efforts, the upper half of the corpse finally faced outwards, leaving a space large enough for it to pass through.

So the head moved sideways to under the bed, found the position of the head on the corpse, squeezed out the dead head, and took root the granulation tissue one by one.

Zhong Xie outside the room watched silently, his eyes fixed on the empty field and the window on the wall next to the bed.

The village chief in this state seemed unable to detect what was happening in the village.

Now the head and the corpse were tinkering under the bed, concentrating on the installation work, while Zhong Xie walked lightly out of the house, climbed through the window and onto the bed, hiding in the head's blind spot the whole time.

He lay on the bed, waiting for something intently.

Soon, the village chief, who had recovered with full blood, dragged his sluggish body out from under the bed with difficulty. At this time, he felt something knocking on his back.

Ok?
The village chief turned his head and looked upwards, which was the direction of the bed.

A face suddenly appeared almost right next to his eyes, with eyes wide open with excitement, corners of the mouth raised high, a stiff and twisted smile showing all the upper teeth.

"Hehe, so you are here!"

Cardiac arrest

"Ah ah ah ah ah!"

The village chief crawled quickly on the ground and rolled out from under the bed. His movements were so fast that he seemed to be decades younger. However, he was too flustered and almost fell several times in just a few steps.

“The old man is not easy to tease.” Zhong Xie shrugged, jumped off the bed and chased after the running old man, with an even more wild smile on his face, “Hehe hahaha, wait for me, village chief, wait for me!”

　I feel like it might be stuck in review and will probably come out later. Can you guess where it is?

　　
　
(End of this chapter)