Chapter 64 Thus Ends

[Host, in this way, those things have all been eliminated, and the game is about to end.]

Gui Gui watched Mingmei sitting on the threshold of the Mountain God Temple's gate, her hands propping up her chin in a daze, and couldn't help but ask [Is this the ending you wanted to see?]

"Well, pretty much, you could say... popular, and everyone's happy?"

Mingmei turned her head to look at the hideous stone statue head in the main hall of the temple, which had shattered after Lu Xiaoyao and the others revealed the weasels mixed in with the villagers down the mountain, and the corners of her mouth gently curved up.

"My believers still exist, and this has even removed those with desires. Those people are grateful to me, so I can be considered to have maintained my faith."

As Wang Wenfei and the others went down the mountain to join Mu Chen and the others, they mentioned what they had seen and heard when they strayed into the world of murals. The kind and gentle Mountain God on Crescent Moon Mountain seemed to have become deeply rooted in people's hearts.

The Mountain God, whose temple was eroded by evil spirits, couldn't deal with them but still had good intentions, so she took those deceived people into a small world to live in peace.

Mingmei felt embarrassed when she heard Mei Ruita and the others describe the gesture.

Although the game was cleared, it didn't mean that the players had sorted out all the plots.

Just like now, when the game was about to end, Mingmei stood up, patted the dust off her body, and was about to go offline with the secret of the Mountain God when an unexpected but expected person came.

Mu Chen looked at Mingmei standing at the gate of the Mountain God Temple, and Mingmei looked at the other party under the steps.

Although he wasn't panting, the sweat on his forehead still revealed his rush to get here.

"Looks like I'm not late." Mu Chen smiled, "Lord Mountain God."

Hearing Mu Chen call her that, Mingmei just smiled without saying a word, turned her head and said, "Lord Mountain God is in the temple, don't shout randomly."

Mingmei didn't admit it, and Mu Chen raised his foot and walked up the steps, standing in front of Mingmei, and said softly, "I found a strange place, I wonder... can the boss explain it to me?"

Mu Chen also changed his address.

"What's the problem?"

Mingmei asked him, but he didn't speak immediately, but got up and walked towards the temple.

Although Mingmei was a little suspicious, and even thinking about whether she had revealed any flaws, she heard Mu Chen say, "Everyone says that the Mountain God Temple has been occupied by evil spirits, the true god is missing, and even the idol inside is a hairy-faced and human-bodied evil thing."

Mu Chen entered the hall, stepped on the shattered stone statue debris, and walked straight to the statue, reaching out his hand to touch the statue.

"Hey, you..."

"But, when I came yesterday, I secretly came back to take a look, thinking, it should be very profitable to break off a piece of such a big gold statue, right?"

Mingmei: "..."

Mu Chen's last sentence was unconvincing.

"Then I found a sandalwood statue inside the back of the idol." Suddenly, a palm-sized Mountain God statue appeared in Mu Chen's hand.

Mingmei could see clearly that the small nose, small mouth, and small face were just a scaled-down version of herself, weren't they?

Whoa!

This is really... something even she didn't know!

"So, later I thought... if the Mountain God Temple was occupied by evil spirits and drove away the Mountain God, why would they be willing to incorporate the real Mountain God into their body?"

Mingmei stared at the well-preserved statue, which was still glowing with a faint white light, and didn't know what to say for a moment.

Pretend to be stupid, maybe.

However, Mu Chen looked at Mingmei for a while, then stared at the Mountain God statue in his hand, and suddenly smiled: "However, such a beautiful Mountain God statue, if it were me, I would be reluctant to part with it."

After saying that, in front of Mingmei, Mu Chen directly put the small statue that looked exactly like her into his arms.

Mingmei: ?????

Gui Gui: [...]

Sure enough, this man is very coquettish!

Seeing Mingmei stunned, Mu Chen continued to look at Mingmei and said, "Next, can I ask this boss, who looks almost exactly like the Mountain God, to tell me what you know about the story?"

Now that things had reached this point, Mingmei already knew through the background that all the other players had gone offline.

And since Mu Chen had said so much, without affecting her own mission, she was willing to share with him the hidden main line about the Mountain God.

"The people of New Moon Village have worshiped the Mountain God for generations, praying for favorable weather, good harvests, and a peaceful place." Mingmei said the news that Mu Chen and the others already knew.

"However, with the changes of the times, favorable weather and good harvests can be achieved by human power itself. Therefore, the faith in the Mountain God has gradually weakened. Without the power of faith, the Mountain God naturally cannot suppress some of the evil spirits that arise in the mountains."

"So?"

If he only heard this, plus the information they had collected before, he would almost believe that the Mountain God was a poor little thing who was bullied by evil spirits after losing the power of faith.

But it seemed different from the current situation.

"So, in order to regain faith, the Mountain God began to respond to the other wishes of the villagers. Asking for wealth and getting wealth, asking for longevity and getting longevity, the only condition is—not to leave New Moon Village, and to worship the Mountain God forever."

"This condition... sounds pretty good? Wouldn't the Mountain God lose out? If the Mountain God could manage so much of mortals' fortune, wealth, and longevity, she wouldn't just be a small Mountain God."

"Yes, but what does it matter, as long as they believe. Those who ask for wealth exchange it for lifespan, and those who ask for longevity can exchange luck, money, etc."

"But what does the Mountain God do with these things?"

Mu Chen asked the most critical question. All of this sounded like another kind of equivalent exchange, but these equivalent exchange things were useless in the hands of the Mountain God. All she wanted was faith.

"The Mountain God has no use for them, but the evil spirits do."

Speaking of this, Mingmei finally said the relationship between the Mountain God and the evil spirits, "In order to regain faith, the Mountain God reached a cooperation with the evil spirits. A temporary cooperation with the evil spirits, she turned a blind eye to what the evil spirits did, and she secretly accumulated faith, waiting for the day when she could suppress the evil spirits in this land."

"But the Mountain God didn't expect that the evil spirits would intensify, taking the benefits from the mortals down the mountain was not enough, and they also wanted to wear human skin and have fun down the mountain. And the Mountain God also found that her power of faith was gradually becoming strange, right?"

After Mu Chen finished speaking, Mingmei nodded: "Fewer and fewer villagers down the mountain truly believe in her. Even if she used murals to create a world of believers, sheltering those souls who were deceived by evil spirits, the power of faith was still decreasing. And the faith of the people in the village was gradually eroded by desires, becoming more and more impure."

"It just so happened that a group of outsiders came at this time." Mingmei smiled and looked at Mu Chen, "She wanted to use the mouths of these outsiders to reveal the truth here, to scare and deter these villagers who were bewitched by evil spirits, so that they could wake up from their greed and continue to be honest and duty-bound farmers."

"No." Mu Chen suddenly opened his mouth, and Mingmei looked up and saw that the other party was smiling and said, "It should be to continue to be honest and duty-bound believers of the Mountain God, right? You said earlier, they must not leave New Moon Village, so... what about the Wang family?

What did Wang Laosan's wife wish for on the mountain before their child's college entrance examination? And why did Wang Laosan go crazy and run to the mountain, and then get skinned? What's going on?"

This time, after they revealed the weasel evil spirits at the foot of the mountain, Cuihua, the mother of the character played by Wang Wenfei, was so frightened that she was tottering.

The sharp-tongued and greedy woman of the day before was rarely clear-headed this time, saying sorry to her daughter and her husband, saying that she shouldn't have made a wish.

Mu Chen was a little curious about what happened here.

"Actually, it's nothing. Cuihua went up the mountain to make a wish for her daughter's college entrance examination. At that time, Huang Er in the temple impersonated the Mountain God and said that if the child was successfully admitted to a good school, as long as they came back after graduation to serve the Mountain God as a temple assistant for two years. In fact, he was just eyeing Cuihua's daughter's skin and found an excuse."

"What happened later?"

"Later, their child was admitted to university, but Wang Laosan accidentally found out the truth, so he was very angry and wanted his daughter not to come back after going out.

In the end, the old Wang family had vaguely discovered the changes in the mountains since Wang Laosan's father's generation, saying that he had a big brain and could guess, or that his intuition was very strong, anyway, the old Wang family no longer believed in me since that generation."

As she spoke, Mingmei stopped pretending. She felt that it was meaningless for her to pretend.

Didn't she see that Mu Chen was staring straight at her and said so much, and still reaching out to play with the small statue in his arms?

Mingmei simply changed from "the Mountain God" to "I" as she spoke. When Mu Chen heard it in the middle, he chuckled, which made Mingmei simply roll her eyes at him.

"After that, Cuihua intensified her wish to me for a windfall. She went astray with this kind of wish, so I handed this matter over to Huang Er at that time. Then, Wang Laosan had the previous incident of Wang Wenfei going home and his father absconding with the money."

"Wang Laosan took all the money back to the Mountain God Temple, vainly trying to eliminate the wish Cuihua had made. Huang Er naturally disagreed. Wang Laosan scolded me in the temple, saying that I was incompetent, sick, and tricked mortals...

So, Huang Er killed him, skinned him, and gave him to his companions. That body... since he wasn't my believer, I didn't let them put him in the painting mirror."

After Mingmei confessed, she felt a little guilty when she met Mu Chen's complicated eyes.

"Actually, you were pretty good when you said Mountain God."

Mu Chen said this last sentence.

"What?" Mingmei didn't understand what he was talking about for a moment.

"I'll talk to your father about this matter after the game ends."

Mingmei: ???

"What are you going to say?"

"I think, Mr. Yan Hui may really deserve a beating."