​​Chapter 152: Butterfly Village

​How could he not recognize his own lover?

They had grown from school uniforms to wedding gowns, spending so many years together—even taking wedding photos. Yet on that day, she removed her engagement ring and coldly declared their breakup. Her eyes, filled with mockery, looked at him as if he were a stranger.

All these years, he simply couldn’t believe it. He refused to accept it.

He just wanted to see her one more time—the real Yin Fu.

They hadn’t even had a proper farewell. He knew Yin Fu would never return. He just wanted to say goodbye to her properly.

Yin Fu felt the tears fall onto her cheeks, the warmth of the droplets turning cold as they slid into her hairline, as if they were Yin Fu’s own tears for her beloved.

She smiled at Le Yan. "You won’t see her." The smile was dazzling, like a flower blooming one last time. "She died long ago. I devoured her bit by bit, leaving nothing behind."

"Ah—! I’ll kill you!!!"

Le Yan let out a roar of anguish, his hands tightening around her throat.

Yin Fu continued to smile, a strange glint flashing in her eyes.

Li Zhi sensed something was wrong and rushed forward. "Le Yan, move!"

But she was too late.

A hardened insect limb, covered in barbed spikes, pierced through Le Yan’s chest, bursting out from his back.

It was Yin Fu’s arm. She had begun to mutate.

Blood gushed from Le Yan’s mouth, splattering onto Yin Fu’s snow-white neck. His gaze locked onto the person beneath him, his eyes gradually losing focus.

An invisible sonic wave exploded outward. Li Zhi was forced back several steps by the unbearable frequency, while the other players in the room clutched their ears in agony.

Le Yan’s body slumped limply forward. A strange, satisfied smile spread across his face. "Yin Fu… I’m coming to be with you…"

His face buried in her bloodstained neck, he never saw his lover’s face fully transform.

Yin Fu’s mouth stretched to an impossible width, her face sprouting mandibles. Compound eyes bulged from her skin, and a pair of golden butterfly wings tore through her beautiful facade, unfurling from her shoulder blades. Her arms and legs mutated into sharp, spiked limbs, her entire body now covered in dense, thorny protrusions.

Without returning to her birth cocoon in time, she had fully transformed into a butterfly monster.

Her appearance was even more horrifying than Li Jianxi’s failed metamorphosis—she had almost entirely lost her human features.

Emitting ultrasonic screeches, she broke free of the ropes binding her and took flight, her massive golden wings flapping violently.

The sonic waves were clearly a mental attack. Li Zhi watched as several players collapsed, clutching their heads in agony. Jiao Shen braced himself against the wall, swaying drunkenly as he gripped his knife, trying to approach the monster.

"Yin Fu" knocked him aside with her wings, then grabbed Le Yan’s corpse and crashed through the window, fleeing the inn.

Only when the sonic waves faded did the others recover, sitting on the floor with pale faces, gasping for breath.

The mutated Yin Fu hadn’t attacked them. Staring at the shattered window, Li Zhi thought that perhaps she still retained a shred of human reason.

Maybe she wasn’t entirely evil—after all, she had sought out the missing Tao Tao. Becoming a parasitic butterfly creature might not have been her choice. Born into this clan, she had no other path. But over the centuries, she had undoubtedly taken countless lives.

She had long been a monster.

Jiao Shen picked up the military knife from the floor. "We need to enter the mountains."

Night had fallen, and the streets were empty.

Li Zhi’s fever worsened at night, leaving her at her weakest. Leading the charge fell to Jiao Shen and Xu Yan.

Jiao Shen had scouted the area before and knew where the hidden sentries at the mountain entrance were stationed. As a seasoned dungeon player, he had plenty of stealth tools. With Xu Yan’s help, they took out the nearby sentries in under ten minutes.

Xu Yan emerged, signaling the others to advance. The group hurried past the "No Entry" sign and began their ascent.

Pale moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting a frost-like glow on the mountain path. Li Zhi pulled out her ever-functional flashlight, its beam cutting through the dark forest.

At first, they simply trudged forward in silence. But soon, just as Li Zhi had predicted, their bodies instinctively guided them along the correct path. After about half an hour of trekking through dense woods, a clear, winding mountain trail appeared before them.

Li Zhi said, "Follow this path to reach the Cocoon Grove."

The others recalled her description of the grove—trees draped with countless cocoons—and suddenly, the serene trail seemed eerie.

No one spoke. The only sounds in the night forest were their increasingly hurried footsteps.

Finally, after climbing a slope, the Cocoon Grove came into view.

Deep in the heart of the mountains, ancient trees blocked out the moonlight, plunging the area into darkness. Yet the Cocoon Grove emitted an eerie green glow, as if each hanging cocoon housed ghostly flames.

Li Zhi shone her flashlight on the nearest cocoon.

It was half the size of a human. The beam penetrated the thin membrane, revealing a pool of rotting fluid inside. Something squirmed within, startled by the sudden light, and burrowed into a half-decomposed skull to hide.

"The mark on my back is burning," Jiao Shen muttered, frowning as he looked deeper into the grove. "I can sense which cocoon is mine."

One player gagged. "We have torches, right? Let’s just burn this place down! It’s too damn creepy!"

"No." Li Zhi shook her head. "The system’s task requires us to complete a seven-day tourist festival. Today is the fourth day. We must stay the full week to finish the mission. If we burn the grove now and any villagers need to enter their cocoons in the next three days, they’ll mutate into monsters like Yin Fu. If too many transform, we won’t be able to handle them."

"Burning the grove would destroy Butterfly Village," Xu Yan added. "The villagers would know it was us, making the next three days dangerous. The safest option is to burn this place right before we leave the dungeon."

The others grew restless. "Then what do we do now?"

Li Zhi raised her flashlight and stepped into the grove. "Find your own cocoon and destroy it."

Butterfly people were born from cocoons. After emerging, they had to return every forty-nine days for purification. Upon death, they were placed back inside to undergo metamorphosis again.

Every butterfly person had a corresponding cocoon—a tomb and a womb. They were buried in it and reborn from it.

What would happen if they destroyed the cocoons before the parasitic butterflies inside them fully matured?

The closer they got to the grove, the more their back marks burned. Some players winced in pain, their expressions twisting with struggle.

That lingering consciousness was resisting them.

Gritting her teeth, Guan Xiaoxing slashed her arm with her knife, using pain to fight the mental intrusion. The others followed suit—now wasn’t the time for mistakes.

The stench of decay filled the air. The once-silent grove grew restless, the cocoons swaying as if disturbed by the intruders.

Xu Yan whispered, "What about Nie Miao and the others?"

Nie Miao and two others were still tied up at the inn. Without them, no one knew which cocoons were theirs.

Li Zhi said, "Find yours first."

Entering the grove, the seven players spread out.

Li Zhi followed the pull of her mark until she paused before an enormous cocoon.

This one dwarfed the others—likely belonging to a recently deceased butterfly person. Inside, a corpse pressed against the membrane, eyes closed, a satisfied smile frozen on its lips.

Li Zhi shone her flashlight, confirming it was A Tai.

When A Tai had kidnapped Tao Tao, everyone assumed it was lust. But now, it was clear—he had chosen Tao Tao as his new vessel.

The way he looked at Tao Tao wasn’t desire. It was the same greedy hunger the witch doctor had shown Li Zhi—a craving to claim that body for himself.

A Tai had disappeared the same day as Tao Tao. He had sealed himself inside a cocoon, waiting forty-nine days to emerge and parasitize Tao Tao for rebirth.

That meant Tao Tao was likely still alive, imprisoned in the heavily guarded village leader’s estate, awaiting A Tai’s possession.

Li Zhi suddenly thought of A Tai’s "sister."

A Tai appeared to be in his prime, yet he was already desperate for a new body—even switching genders. Perhaps their genders had already been swapped before. Maybe A Tai was originally the village leader’s daughter, and his "sister" the true brother.

When Yin Fu had angrily confronted them days ago, she must have disapproved of A Tai’s reckless body-swapping.

Li Zhi’s gaze turned icy.

By her estimate, A Tai had only been in his cocoon for two days. Two days wasn’t enough for the butterfly people to fully mutate.

Drawing her dagger, Li Zhi drove it into the top of the cocoon. A shrill, hissing noise erupted as the sticky membrane clung to the blade, contracting violently as if trying to swallow it whole.

Clenching the flashlight between her teeth, Li Zhi gripped the dagger with both hands and sliced downward.

A sound like tearing flesh echoed as thick, viscous threads snapped. A Tai’s putrid corpse spilled out.

Li Zhi crouched and, to prevent any monstrous revival, swiftly decapitated him.

The rotting head rolled aside. Peering down, Li Zhi saw a black caterpillar crawl from the bloody stump of his neck.

Caterpillars were the larval stage before butterflies formed chrysalises. But this one was as thick as a wrist and a handspan long, covered in toxic black bristles with countless legs. It moved unnaturally fast, coiling before springing straight at Li Zhi’s face.

Li Zhi sidestepped, expression cold. With a flick of her wrist, she impaled the caterpillar mid-air, pinning it to the leaf-covered ground.

Black blood oozed out as the creature writhed. It lifted its head, and Li Zhi could swear its tiny, compound eyes glared at her with fury and terror.

Li Zhi raised a brow. "A Tai?" Tightening her grip, she yanked the blade free and struck again, severing its head. "You deserve to die too."