Chapter 215
Chapter 215
When they woke the next morning, Lin Zhu was visibly more listless. Cheng Miao’s worry was almost choking her.
Qin Musong was doing better. He coughed now and then, but it was hard to tell whether he was ill or simply had an irritated throat.
“Did you dream again last night?” Cheng Miao kept Lin Zhu in bed and brought him a bowl of water.
Drinking the cool water revived him a little. He tilted his head and thought. “Yeah. I think I was in a cave… but I can’t remember what happened.”
Cheng Miao turned to Qin Musong. He shook his head. “I dreamed too. There was a woman, but I can’t remember what she said.”
Both had received grass bracelets, both had dreamed, and both remembered part of the content.
Cheng Miao was now certain that the dreams were connected with the bracelets. She, Qi Jiajia, and Qiudong hadn’t had a single dream since entering the instance.
She went to the others’ rooms. Freckles was as low on energy as Lin Zhu. She remembered dreaming, but not what she’d dreamed about.
Yang Ke was anxious. Cheng Miao reassured him briefly, then went to find the others.
Song Guoqiang and Zhao Jiangong both remembered dreaming. One had a cold and the other a headache, and they lay in bed unable to remember anything from their dreams.
Tan Wu had dreamed too. She vaguely recalled seeing a man, but couldn’t remember what had happened or been said.
She was already frail, and nothing else appeared to be wrong with her now. Her little face was simply paler.
Chang Qing surprised Cheng Miao. Previously desperate to leave the village, he was unexpectedly calm today, even seeming a little detached from worldly cares.
“A dream? I had one. I can’t remember anything, but I feel much better. The Tree Deity’s protection really is real.”
Miao Jie was pleased by her boyfriend’s change too. She already held mountain spirits and tree deities in great reverence. His finally ceasing to be suspicious of everything took a great weight off her mind.
There was, of course, an exception.
Zu Gehan was washing up by the well. When Cheng Miao questioned him, he raised his brows and, unexpectedly, gave a detailed answer. “I did dream. In a cave, a woman who called herself the Tree Deity asked what I wished for.”
“Did you make a wish?” Cheng Miao frowned slightly at him.
Zu Gehan shook the water off his hands and chuckled twice. “I’m a cleared player. Do I need some deity inside an instance to grant my wishes?”
Cheng Miao’s mouth twitched. She said nothing.
Zhu Cong remembered about as much as Qin Musong. He couldn’t recall as much as Zu Gehan, but unlike Song Guoqiang and the others, he hadn’t forgotten everything.
Fang Jing, however, looked increasingly abnormal.
In only a day, her once smooth, plump skin had sunk slightly against her bones, making her look like a woman worn down by years of hardship.
She had no illness or pain, yet her instability had worsened still further. Now even Zhu Cong couldn’t approach her.
She huddled on the bed, clutching her blanket and screaming abuse in a shrill voice.
If her decent looks had once let people glimpse a little youthful exuberance beneath her domineering behavior, she was now simply an unpleasant woman.
Ma Yang and Kong Fan had disliked her to begin with. Now that she’d become like this, they avoided her more than ever.
“There’s no way to ask whether she dreamed or feels unwell like this.” Kong Fan wiped the sweat from his forehead. When he’d tried to ask earlier, Fang Jing had nearly hit him in the head with a ceramic cup.
Cheng Miao watched her silently for a long time, then shook her head. “No need to ask. She’s different from the others.”
Zhu Cong looked toward Cheng Miao. Hearing her voice, the already deranged Fang Jing suddenly grew more frantic. She seized everything within reach and hurled it their way.
Zhu Cong hurried to shield Cheng Miao. After Ma Yang and Kong Fan finally restrained Fang Jing, he turned around and saw Qiudong watching her calmly.
His heart suddenly missed a beat. Without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and dislocated both Fang Jing’s wrists.
As she collapsed on the bed, crying out in pain, Cheng Miao studied this good-tempered sucker seriously for the first time.
He was a very clever veteran player. To prevent Qiudong from acting, he had incapacitated Fang Jing himself first.
Not only did it prove that nobody else on his team had any ill intentions, it might also keep this madwoman alive.
Anyone who could weigh the advantages and disadvantages in such a short time was smart.
Cheng Miao stopped looking at the disheveled woman on the bed and gestured for everyone to come outside.
“We can summarize a few issues now. First, everyone who receives a grass bracelet does dream, and they experience some degree of physical discomfort.”
Looking at Qin Musong and Lin Zhu, she added, “How severe that discomfort is may depend on the player’s physical condition.”
“Second, Fang Jing is an exception. Her instability can also be regarded as an illness, but it came on too suddenly and is far more severe than anyone else’s.”
Listening carefully to her analysis, Kong Fan timidly raised a hand. “Fang Jing isn’t very fit. She’s delicate.”
“But she’s definitely healthier than Tan Wu.” Cheng Miao rejected that idea.
She looked at Tan Wu, who sat in the sun, still pale and frail. She was sitting by herself, and although she looked weak, her mind was clear.
Kong Fan nodded to show he had no further questions.
“I’ve thought about why Fang Jing might be an exception. There’s only one possibility.” Cheng Miao shrugged and looked at Zhu Cong.
“She tried to hide her grass bracelet in your room.” Zhu Cong’s face turned cold. He wasn’t a fool. When Fang Jing had let it slip yesterday, he had known she’d completely lost her mind.
She wasn’t his wife. However much they looked alike, she wasn’t.
His wife would never have been so selfish and ignorant.
Once he came back to his senses, he realized how terribly wrong he’d been all along.
But Zhu Cong really was a decent man. After so much time, he did feel some sympathy, so he hadn’t completely abandoned Fang Jing.
Cheng Miao nodded. “Yes. She tried to dump her grass bracelet on us. That angered the Tree Deity, so her symptoms came on fiercely.”
She looked at the room from which groans kept emerging. “And I suspect the Tree Deity won’t marry her.”
Everyone’s heart sank. For a moment, they couldn’t decide which was crueler: letting Fang Jing go on living in this deranged state, or struggling in the Survival Inn without any ability to protect herself, or hoping the supposed Tree Deity would take her away painlessly in this instance.
Unfortunately, even that last option was no longer available.
“If receiving the Tree Deity’s bracelet is supposed to bring blessings and protection, why would people get sick?” Miao Jie found it hard to believe. Chang Qing might not look particularly energetic, but she thought he was much better than when he’d been so jumpy yesterday.
Besides, the village elders all said they had to believe sincerely in mountain spirits and tree deities. Perhaps things were going wrong precisely because these people didn’t believe.
“I hear the Tree Deity generally chooses young people to marry. But this village…” Cheng Miao left the thought unfinished.