Chapter 346 Beware of Rabbits (Twenty-one) Bamboo Cage Eye Game
"Poor child, let him be our god..." An old voice sounded from behind, hoarse and deep.
Qisi put away the carving knife and turned to look.
The smoke from the incense burner spread out, creating a phantom.
The naked young man was sitting cross-legged on the futon. His face was pale and his eyes were closed. He looked like a corpse, but his chest was rising and falling slightly, and his heart was still beating.
The old priest in black hunting clothes is hunched over, holding a piece of longevity incense in his left hand, standing with his back to the statue of the Rabbit God.
He held a carving knife wrapped with a red ribbon in his right hand, and gently dropped it on the young man's back, piercing the skin, and the blood that flowed out was golden and red.
Densely dense and strange symbols were carved under the blade, and bright red threads connected the boy and the rabbit statue.
The boy's body and appearance changed at a speed visible to the naked eye. His body became slender and well-proportioned, and his face became soft and lacked features.
It was as if a piece of marble was being carved out of the stone into a human-shaped statue.
A new god is being carved, or someone is trying to carve a god.
"The corpse suffers pain, but the soul is immortal... The Rabbit God descended into the human body and blessed all generations..."
The priest lowered his voice and recited the words very quickly, as if he was whispering like a mouse.
The runes all over the young man's body glowed with a sacred golden light. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that it was not light, but the color of blood.
——The golden blood belonging to the existence of gods.
The phantom of the Rabbit God rose from the shrine and slowly attached itself to the boy. Fine hairs grew on the boy's face, and his eyes suddenly opened, revealing the blood-red color of rabbit eyes.
Not only his face, but his naked body was also covered in rabbit fur. With his protruding snout and sharp teeth, he was clearly a human-shaped rabbit!
The Rabbit God has been imprisoned in the young man's body, but the priest's face does not show the relief of completing a major event, but instead shows a feeling of loss.
The wind chimes swayed outside the house and the wooden plaques vibrated. He tremblingly placed the carving knife on the tables and sighed: "It failed...it was polluted by the Rabbit God again, and there will be another ghost in the forest..."< br>
The picture came to an abrupt end. Qisi clicked on the information in it, vaguely making some guesses.
The purpose of the three families holding the Rabbit God Festival is not only to imprison the Rabbit God and avoid revenge and curse.
Otherwise, they can reach a new contract with the Rabbit God under the witness of the rules.
The Rabbit God hopes to break free from the shackles of the three families, and the heads of the three families hope to escape the shadow of the Rabbit God. They all want something, so why not each get what they need?
The answer is simple, it's just because one party is unwilling.
The good thing that only needs to sacrifice one person to realize the wish has continued for hundreds of years, and the greed and laziness in the bones have taken root and lingered.
Human desires are ever-present and never-ending. While they are afraid of the Rabbit God's curse, they are unwilling to give up the benefits that are readily available to them.
So... they wanted to create a new god.
The one who inherits the power of the Rabbit God is completely under their control, a god who will not or dare not betray.
Based on this, there are quite a few explanations for the five precautions for [God Lord].
The first is that he is afraid that the Rabbit God will reveal many secrets that are detrimental to Rabbit God Town, so he asks the God Master not to trust what he sees and hears after entering the residence.
If Zis was a child born and raised in three families, he might really think that the illusion he saw was an illusion made up by ghosts to confuse him.
Unfortunately, based on all the information, he was able to judge that what he saw in front of him was most likely what really happened, but it was recreated at this time.
The third and fourth items are preparations for carving the god into a god. In many religious god-making ceremonies, there are requirements to keep the body clean.
As for the purpose of the second and fifth items, there are too few clues to make a definite judgment at the moment.
The wind chimes outside the door were blown by the wind, making a tinkling sound, which was also mixed with the sound of wooden signs slapping against the wooden windows.
The window was locked from the outside and had not been opened for a long time. It was slapped like this, sending down a cloud of dust like rain and snow.
Qisi stepped closer to the door and turned the doorknob tentatively, only to find that the door was locked and could not be pushed open.
The lot has not been cast yet, and his identity as the divine master has not yet been determined. How could he lock the door today?
No one else came just now. He was the only one in the shrine. Who locked the door?
"Eye of the bamboo cage, eye of the bamboo cage, when will the bird in the cage be released to fly?"
A crisp nursery rhyme sounded in the room, and several children in kimonos held hands and danced around a shadow.
Their faces were pale, their eyes were dark and dull, and their mouths were opening and closing to utter words, which sounded gloomy in the cold night.
"In the early hours of the night, a crane and a turtle fell down, and the child behind asked who it was?"
The children stopped and turned their heads to look at Qiss. Their hands were raised stiffly, and their joints made a "clicking" sound like an old puppet.
The "Bamboo Cage Eye" game is a weird game where one person is chosen to play the role of a "ghost" and sits in the center of a circle surrounded by others, asking him to guess who is behind him.
In the horrific legends that Qis learned about, the person chosen as a "ghost" will bear all disasters and misfortunes, and in the end often will not end well and die miserably.
His only chance is to tell the person behind him right in the bamboo cage game and let the other person become a "ghost" on his behalf.
Someone always has to sacrifice, it's just a question of who to sacrifice. Its core seems to be similar to the Rabbit God Festival, or in other words——
The concept of sacrificing one person to achieve the majority has almost run through history and the present, and often wins the support of many people.
Of course, for Ziss, if he is among the majority, the act of sacrificing a person for benefits is naturally worthy of applause.
If he were in the minority, then the death of thousands of creatures in the world would be far less important than his temporary happiness.
But what does the game "Bamboo Cage Eyes" mean when it appears here and now?
‘Xiaoqi, what’s wrong with you? You look very different today. It’s because you were asked to play ghost yesterday while playing bamboo cage eyes. Aren’t you happy? ’
‘Let me play ghost next time. If they insist on letting you play ghost, I will quietly stand behind you and pat your shoulder...’
The brisk voice of Reiko from Usagiami Town echoed in her ears, and in an instant it was replaced by the malicious whispers of the students of Hope Middle School.
'It's really unlucky. I just played the bamboo cage game for a while and asked her to pretend to be a ghost. She just acted like this, pretending to be dead. ’
‘Who wants to play bamboo cage eyes? Let's let Lu Ming play the ghost. If he can't catch us, he will always be the ghost among us! ’
It seems that there is a clue connecting Usagiami Town and Hope Middle School hidden in the dark, and it has not quietly surfaced until this moment.
"Shichiro Kanna, do you want to play bamboo cage eyes with us?" The children looked directly at Qisi and chuckled.
The faces of several of them began to rot, with black and green juice flowing downwards.
The entire face of one of them disappeared, leaving only a white skeleton; the other one still had a few pieces of flesh hanging on his face, floating with laughter.
Zis held the carving knife in his left hand, his right hand covering the fate pocket watch on his left wrist, and looked directly at the children with a lukewarm look. In the silence, inspiration came to him, and he couldn't help but smile: "Okay, let's play together. Who is pretending to be a ghost?"
"Of course it's you! It was agreed last time!" The children didn't seem to notice his ulterior motives, and ran over to surround him with a smile.
They took each other's hands again and spun around.
"Eye of the bamboo cage, eye of the bamboo cage, when will the bird in the cage be released to fly?"
The moment the song started to sing, Qisi suddenly lost his vision, and there was only darkness left in front of him, as if the lights had been turned off, or he had fallen into blindness.
He pinched his pulse and counted the seconds silently in his mind.
"In the early hours of the night, a crane and a turtle fell down, and the child behind asked who it was?"
The singing stopped for exactly thirty-two seconds, and a voice asked coldly: "Who is the person standing behind you?"
Other children began to count down: "Ten, nine, eight..."
"Edo Reiko." Zeiss said.
Reiko said that she would play ghost next time in the bamboo cage game. Even if she was not selected initially, she would stand behind Kanna Shichiro and replace Kanna Shichiro.
Just like in the world line of Hope Middle School, the students said they wanted Lu Ming to play ghost, but it was Reiko who died in the bamboo cage eye game in the end.
Although Reiko has died in this world line, the current bamboo cage game is undoubtedly the "next time" in her context.
Zeiss is betting that even if the blade of Reiko's soul in Usagiami Town has been shattered by him, the process of this word game will still operate according to the prescribed pattern, achieving a certain image that corresponds to what happened in Nozomi Middle School.
If you lose the bet, you can just use the Destiny Pocket Watch to go back once; if you win the bet, the authenticity of this Usagiami Town time and space needs to be questioned...
"Congratulations, you guessed it right!" The children applauded.
With a "bang", something fell down and rolled to Qis's feet.
Reiko's head rested in front of Qisi with her eyes wide open, looking up to the sky.
Qisi has always been good at remembering the details of corpses. He is extremely sure that the head in front of him is the one lying in the utility room of the Hope Middle School cafeteria...
Is Usagiami Town really located in the past time and space?
Are there really the remains of Usagiami Town under the foundation of Hope Middle School?
The children jumped away, and Reiko's head on the ground turned into a pool of blood, seeping into the vermilion ground.
Initially, Qisi thought the color of the ground was that of cinnabar, but now the more he looked at it, the more he felt that it was blood all over the ground.
The wind chimes outside the window were ringing wildly, and a few strands of wind invaded the room through the gaps, blowing the hair on the side of Qisi's ears, and the red kimono on his body also rippled like waves.
The light of the oil lamp flickered twice and became dimmer.
The Rabbit God in the shrine didn't know when he opened his eyes. His blood-red eyes stared at Qiss, and his mouth opened in an exaggerated arc, revealing its fine fangs.
His upper body leaned forward, and his skinny claws stretched out of the shrine, as if he wanted to grab something, but held it back at the last moment.
Judging from the direction the arm was pointing, it seemed that his target was Zeiss's neck.
The Rabbit God wants to escape from Rabbit God Town and continue to exist; and the God Lords who enter the shrine, whether voluntarily or deceived, will eventually have the opportunity to seize the Rabbit God's power and become new gods.
The two are undoubtedly antagonistic.
It would be too troublesome and unrealistic to tell the children who were chosen as God Lords and establish alliances with them. For the Rabbit God, the easiest way is to kill all the God Lords.
As for how the previous divine masters who entered the divine residence survived until the Rabbit God Festival...
Zeiss remembered the second point of caution.
[2. The congratulatory message should be recited on the futon at least once a day and must be pious without interruption. 】
The adults in Usagi-gami Town clearly want children to replace the Rabbit-god, but they also make them devoutly believe in the Rabbit-god. They know the privacy of this, but they spread the legend of the Rabbit-god among the people. There must be some reason behind it.
"Faith is poisonous." There is a voice in the memory chuckling at the bottom of my mind, with giant golden trees and bloody vines blooming behind it.
Qisi knelt down on the futon and read word for word: "The Rabbit God descended to the northwest, draped in red and colorful and sitting on a high platform, blessing all generations. Three families celebrated fireworks, drove through Southeast Street, and was buried deep in front of the cave."
He read without a trace of emotion and without a hint of sincerity, but a few bloody threads condensed in the air, entangling the Rabbit God from all directions.
The ends of those silk threads were connected to the bottom of the shrine, dragging the Rabbit God's limbs backward like chains.
On the surface, the rules are always fair and ruthless. The gods enjoy the sacrifices of believers, and in turn should satisfy the wishes of believers. The beliefs of believers can even influence gods, imprison gods, and restrain gods...
When he was sixteen years old, Qi came to Qisi at the summer camp base of the Tianping Church and said to him——
"Believers who seek gods in vain imprison their gods. It's like a ridiculous joke."
At this moment, Qisi took out the tape recorder from the toolbar, called up the story of the Rabbit God told by Reiko that he had recorded before, and set it to play in a loop.
The girl's soft and sincere voice hovered in the room. Under Qis's gaze, the rabbit statue slowly retreated into the shrine and resumed its posture of sitting cross-legged with eyes closed to rest.
Only the slightly trembling black robe on his body showed the unwillingness and resentment in his heart.
Qisi stood up with the tape recorder, stepped over the futon, approached the shrine, and looked at the bottom of the shrine through the statue.
A portrait is drawn on a dark brown background, with a blurry figure wearing a red hunting coat and a fox mask.
But almost as soon as he saw it, Qisi confirmed his identity——
Deed.
The Rabbit God was imprisoned in the Rabbit Shrine's residence by contract and was not allowed to leave for two hundred years.
Qisi laughed out loud: "Interesting, can a god who is restricted by others and trapped in the world still be called a god?"
There was only one person and one god standing opposite each other in the room. The god closed his eyes and said nothing, and no one responded to Qisi's words.
On the game panel, new text refreshed:
【Obtain save point ⑤ Imprisoned God】
[After Reiko's death, you replaced her as the god's master. You were imprisoned in the god's residence and saw the Rabbit God imprisoned in the shrine.
[During this doomed restless night, you encountered frights from illusions and intrusions from ghosts, but fortunately, you were able to resolve them one by one.
[You know a lot of secrets about Rabbit God Town and the Rabbit God belief, and you also realize that your situation is full of dangers. When the firework festival is held on August 7, you will die at the Rabbit God Festival without any accident.
[How should you fight against the evil intentions of the Rabbit God? How to survive the ritual of the Rabbit God Festival? Is there really the best of both worlds? You are not sure, but it will still be a long time...】
(End of chapter)