novelraw Chapter 705: He Wishes to End Everything with His Own Hands
Chapter 705: He Wishes to End Everything with His Own Hands
The moonless night seemed to affect the strange villagers as well. As twilight fell, lights flickered on behind the windows of the houses, and a bonfire began to blaze in the center of the village.
Rustle...
A folded piece of paper slid under the door. Lu Li crossed the room, picked it up, and unfolded it. It was covered in strange, elongated script, the letters drawn out like the necks of the villagers themselves.
"Hello, stranger... My name is Johnstris. We haven't had any outsiders here in a long time, and I'm desperate to know about the world beyond our village. The elder said strangers are easily frightened and told us not to approach you, but I'm just so curious... Can I please talk to you?"
A long shadow, the silhouette of a neck, was faintly visible behind the curtain.
Lu Li placed the note on the table, stood up, unlatched the bolt, and opened the door.
A shy head slipped inside, followed by a girl's body. Quietly closing the door behind her, the girl lowered her head, bringing herself to Lu Li's eye level.
"Hello, stranger."
"Hello."
The girl's neck was even thinner and longer than those of the other villagers, with a ribbon tied in a bow at its base. The effect was so jarring it made her head and body seem like two separate entities.The girl regarded Lu Li with a mixture of curiosity and bashfulness, her gaze lingering on his neck.
"Many of the strangers who came before had short necks. They say the world outside is full of people... afflicted like you. Is it true?"
"We've always been this way. We're not sick," Lu Li replied.
Lu Li surmised that the locals must have a warped perception of reality. Their isolation prevented them from recognizing their own abnormality. A stranger, after all, is simply one who differs from the majority. In a village where every inhabitant was bizarre, an ordinary person became the true outsider.
As for the cause of their strange appearance... it was likely connected to the Siltfruit. He theorized the villagers had once been normal, but consuming the fruit—or perhaps exposure to something else—had caused their necks to lengthen over time. That would explain why the village's architecture and furnishings were built to a normal human scale.
"If you're not sick, then maybe... we are?" the girl whispered, her face growing pale.
Another traveler might have tried to soften the blow or evade the question, but Lu Li was direct. "Yes," he said.
"So that's how it really is..."
The girl, who had long harbored her own suspicions, looked utterly dejected.
For a long time, she had felt something was wrong. Why did she have to stoop to get through doorways built too low? Why did she have to sleep curled in an awkward ball on a bed that was too short? Why were there no necklaces made to adorn a neck like hers? Why, in the romance novels she read, did lovers not wrap their necks around each other when they kissed?...
"But why can't we see it? It feels as if our necks have always been like this..."
"Your perception is distorted."
The girl remembered a recent traveler. He had been terrified of the villagers, calling them monsters. But after eating the Siltfruit, his own neck had begun to stretch, and soon he no longer found it strange. He had even settled down in the village.
"Thank you, stranger."
The truth revealed, the girl departed. Lu Li bolted the door once more and returned to the bed.
Night descended. The strange fog was only just beginning to form, still far from reaching these inland parts.
A bonfire now blazed in the center of the village, and around it swayed figures with necks like coiling snakes.
Late in the night, Lu Li, who had been resting on the bed with his eyes closed, opened them. His gaze shifted to the curtained window.
A low murmur drifted from the bonfire, seeping into the house.
Lu Li rose from the bed and approached the window. The locals had gathered around the bonfire, its light pushing back the strange fog. Their long necks, topped with heads, resembled strands of seaweed swaying gently to the rhythm of the whispers.
It was as if the villagers were performing some ancient, sinister ritual.
Then, the elder's head swiveled abruptly. In the firelight, his grim face fixed upon the house where Lu Li stood...
Lu Li stepped back from the window and returned to the bed, leaning against the headboard to rest.
A short while later, a frantic, muffled knock suddenly echoed from the door.
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock!
An anxious whisper hissed from the crack in the door. "Are you in there? The elder... he says you've come to spread sickness and plague! He wants to sacrifice you!"
Click.
The bolt slid back and the door creaked open, revealing Lu Li's calm expression.
The girl dipped her head, her voice a hurried whisper. "I can hide you! Quickly, come with me!"
Lu Li remained silent. The elder's warning echoed in his mind: Don't go outside. Don't look outside.
"What's wrong? We have to hurry... They could be back any second!" the girl outside the door urged, her head constantly swiveling back toward the bonfire as if afraid the villagers might see them.
"I just need to grab something," Lu Li said, turning back to the bed to retrieve the Beacon. He walked back to the doorway, the lamp held in his hand.
The Beacon suddenly flared to life. A soft, vital glow, like the first rays of dawn, filled the room, passing straight through the figure of the girl in the doorway.
She had no body, no shadow.
She stood outside the door, not crossing the threshold.
"Hurry..." the girl urged Lu Li, who stood frozen in the doorway.
Lu Li lifted a hand and shut the door, sliding the bolt home. Outside, the girl's anxious expression dissolved into blank impassivity.
After dark, don't go out. Don't look out.
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock!
The frantic knocking resumed, but this time there were no words—only the unnerving, incessant pounding.
The ominous rapping continued for a minute or so before fading into silence.
Beyond the window, hazy figures still swayed by the bonfire, and it seemed none of the villagers had noticed a thing.
Lu Li sat cross-legged on the bed, the Beacon resting on the mattress an arm's length before him.
He hadn't fallen for the otherworldly creature's ploy, but now he faced a more insidious problem: alone in the dark, it was becoming difficult to distinguish reality from the illusions created by the Door.
A single mistake—opening the wrong door, answering a phantom voice, a careless touch—could be enough to spring the Door's trap and plunge him into the third stage of its influence.
His only hope was that the Rope of Descent's ritual would prevent the Door from interfering.
And yet, it felt as though the Door had just paid him a visit.
Outside, the strange fog muffled the world in silence. After that incident, Lu Li was left undisturbed for the rest of the night.
The bonfire burned all night and only began to die down before dawn.
The first ray of dawn pierced the gap in the curtains.
Lu Li, a light sleeper, was instantly awake. He waited a few moments for his head to clear, then rose from the bed, donned his cloak, took his oil lamp, and opened the door.
A chill washed over him. The morning fog enveloped the village, and the acrid smell of burnt wood hung in the air.
A thin wisp of smoke curled up from the dead bonfire. Seated around it were... the villagers, now strangely short.
Their necks and heads had vanished. All that remained were torsos, their open chest cavities brimming with blood.
In the silence of the fog, the villagers' bodies, already cold, sat around the dead fire, their hands folded over their chests as if in prayer.
It was a scene of gruesome, terrible beauty.
Lu Li's eyes scanned the dozens of bodies, finally resting on one in particular.
He saw a blood-stained bow.
"At dawn, you must leave."
Recalling the elder's warning, Lu Li silently pulled his hood over his head and walked away from the silent village.