Chapter 40: The Village of Martyred Women

​​The courtyard was pitch black and deathly quiet.

Li Zhi didn’t rush to find Zhenzhen right away. Instead, she carefully circled the area, making sure no one was inside the house before approaching the locked door. She knocked softly. “Zhenzhen.”

“Li Zhi?” Zhenzhen, who had already gone to bed, was startled but quickly sat up. After a rustling sound, the dim yellow light of an oil lamp shone through the small window. Holding the lamp up to the window, Zhenzhen saw two figures outside. Her eyes, reflecting the light, sparkled with joy. “You really came to see me!”

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Li Zhi would come back for her—after all, they had just met—but ever since she left that morning, her in-laws had tightened their grip on her. The two of them no longer left the house together; one of them always stayed behind to watch her.

Zhenzhen had tried peeking out the window several times, only to feel those prying, watchful eyes following her every move.

It wasn’t until nightfall that she heard the neighbors calling her in-laws to go watch a free opera performance. Farmers worked in the fields all year round, and the people of Martyred Women Village rarely left the village—there was little entertainment to be had. Now that a traveling opera troupe had arrived, and it was free, they couldn’t afford to miss it.

Her in-laws had hesitated at first, thinking about leaving someone behind to guard the house. But seeing everyone else in the village heading out, they felt like they’d be losing out if they didn’t go. After some discussion, they added another lock to her door and left together to enjoy the show.

Zhenzhen had no idea this was all part of a plan the players had come up with just for her. She was simply overjoyed at the chance to see her new friend again.

She curiously glanced at Chi Yi, who was standing beside Li Zhi. Chi Yi quickly introduced herself. “Zhenzhen, my name is Chi Yi—‘Chi’ as in pond, ‘Yi’ as in rely. We’re here to help you!”

Zhenzhen blinked in surprise. “Help me with what?”

Chi Yi said firmly, “Help you escape this place. In four days, you don’t have to die!”

Zhenzhen’s eyes widened involuntarily, the flickering candlelight reflecting her shock. She took an unconscious step back. “No… I can’t leave.”

Chi Yi sounded a bit anxious. “You’re still so young. Do you really want to throw your life away like this?”

Zhenzhen shook her head again. “This is my fate. My life has been unlucky, and I’ve accepted it.”

Chi Yi opened her mouth to argue, but Li Zhi gently stopped her. Peering through the narrow gap in the window at the girl inside, her gaze and voice were both calm and gentle. “Zhenzhen, did you really choose to die in mourning of your own free will?”

Zhenzhen replied softly, “Yes.”

Li Zhi asked quietly, “Then why did they lock you up?”

Zhenzhen froze, unable to speak for a long moment.

Li Zhi looked at her steadily. “If you truly wanted to die in mourning, they could’ve just let you stay outside as usual. You would’ve died on your own when the time came. Why go through the trouble of locking you up—and even adding an extra lock to the door?”

When they had visited earlier that day, there had only been one lock on the door. Now there were two.

Zhenzhen’s lips parted as if to say something, but Li Zhi didn’t give her the chance. “Because they know deep down that what they’re doing is wrong. They’re afraid you’ll run away, so they locked you up.”

Her voice was soft, yet it cut through the night like a cold wind, making Zhenzhen shudder involuntarily. “If even they think this is wrong and need to use force to make you comply… haven’t you ever, even for just a second, questioned this? Haven’t you ever wanted to defy your fate?”

Haven’t you ever wanted to defy your fate?

The oil lamp in Zhenzhen’s hand trembled, casting a faint, flickering light. Her breathing grew heavier, and after a long pause, she whispered, “But it’s always been this way. For hundreds of years, every woman in our village who lost her husband chose to die in mourning. Why should I be the one to refuse? Everyone else does it.”

Her lowered eyelashes fluttered slightly, and she repeated, “It’s always been this way.”

Chi Yi couldn’t hold back any longer. “Just because it’s always been this way doesn’t make it right. What if it was wrong from the very beginning?!”

In the cramped, dark room, the girl’s once-bright eyes were now filled with confusion and helplessness.

“No… no!” She took two steps back, her voice panicked. “You should go. Don’t come back anymore.”

For the first time, Chi Yi truly understood the feeling Lu Xun described—anger at someone’s unwillingness to fight for themselves, and sorrow for their misfortune.

Li Zhi said nothing more. Instead, she pulled out a book she had found earlier among the opera troupe’s belongings and slipped it through the narrow gap in the window. “Zhenzhen, this is for you. You like reading, don’t you?”

Zhenzhen hesitated before moving closer to the window again, a mix of happiness and uncertainty on her face. “But I can’t read.”

Li Zhi smiled. “It’s a picture book. It’s all illustrations—you’ll be able to understand it.”

Only then did Zhenzhen take the book, her face lighting up with joy. “Li Zhi, thank you!”

Li Zhi’s voice was warm as she said, “We’ve met, and being able to become friends before you die… that’s also a kind of fate. Zhenzhen, do you have any wishes? I can help you fulfill them.”

“Wishes?” She thought for a moment. “I don’t really have any special wishes. If I had to say… I hope that after I die, my grandmother and my younger sister can live better lives—have enough to eat, warm clothes, and not be bullied. I hope my grandmother lives a long life, and that my sister marries a man who will also live a long life, so she won’t end up as unlucky as me.”

“I understand. Then tomorrow, I’ll visit your grandmother and sister on your behalf, okay? The autumn harvest is coming soon, and I can help them with the farm work.”

Zhenzhen’s eyes lit up with surprise. “Really? That would be wonderful. I’ve been so worried that without me, they’ll have a hard time during the harvest. Li Zhi, you’re so kind. When I die and enter the Martyred Women Shrine, I’ll definitely bless you!”

Li Zhi smiled and nodded. After confirming where her grandmother lived, she and Chi Yi left.

They climbed back over the wall the way they had come. The pink-haired player, hearing the noise, rushed over. “This plan worked perfectly. None of the villagers came back—they’re all at the opera. Did you manage to get any useful clues?”

Chi Yi clenched her fists, furious. “She’s already been brainwashed. This place is like one giant psychological manipulation cult. I just want to kill them all—every last one of them!”

Li Zhi glanced back. “Let’s go. We’ll visit her grandmother tomorrow.”

Back at the courtyard house, the performance at the opera stage was still ongoing. Tao Yu was really pulling out all the stops to keep the villagers entertained. Listening to the faint strains of opera drifting from afar, Chi Yi sighed. “You can’t treat these NPCs like data points. They’re real people—living, breathing human beings. It’s impossible to stay detached.”

By the time the opera ended, the players began to return one by one.

The plan hadn’t gone wrong, but the outcome was still far from optimistic.

After hearing Chi Yi’s report, the others were almost driven to despair. “Her wish is for her grandmother to live a long life and for her sister to marry a good man when she grows up. How are we supposed to fulfill that? We can’t exactly stay in this instance until her grandmother dies and her sister grows up. That wish is way too vague.”

Wen Qianxue said, “It seems the real challenge of this mission lies in figuring out what Zhenzhen’s true wish is. If we can’t uncover it before she dies, then the mission will fail.”

At first, when they heard the system assign this task, they thought it would be simple. Now they realized the system would never make things easy for them. No one could be certain what Zhenzhen’s true wish was—even if she voiced it, was that really what she wanted deep down?

After discussing for a while with no clear answers, they decided to visit Zhenzhen’s grandmother’s house tomorrow and headed off to their rooms.

Since nothing had happened the night before, the players didn’t do anything particularly risky today, so the chances of triggering a death condition were low. As a result, everyone slept more soundly tonight. It wasn’t until nearly midnight that the faint sound of opera singing reached their ears.

Tao Yu and the others often practiced their vocal exercises by singing opera, so the players were already used to the sound and didn’t think anything of it.

But as the high-pitched, piercing opera voice drifted through the hanging flower gates, growing closer and clearer with each passing moment, it finally stopped right next to the water vat they used to store water.

The players, now fully awake, finally made out the words of the aria: “…Shangxiang bids farewell to her nurturing grace, leaving behind her mother to end her life.” The singing was mournful and sorrowful, rising sharply in pitch, the voice so thin and sharp it felt like it was being squeezed through a needle’s eye. It cried out just outside their door: “It is better to die and join my husband!”

Sleeping Chi Yi was jolted awake by the shrill, grating sound. She mumbled sleepily, still half-conscious, when a pair of hands clamped over her mouth. A low whisper tickled her ear. “Don’t make a sound.”