"Gods… that's the mountain god, how could we ever see something like that?" Huzi's(Tiger) expression was still a bit dazed, but he still answered Mu Anqi's question.[T/N: I believe Huzi is better than calling it tiger, so it's Huzi from here]
Black Mirror vortices usually replay events that have already happened—at least, most of the ones Mu Anqi had experienced were like that. Of course, there were exceptions, like the "Deadly Contamination" vortex that tried to build an "ideal nation," or the one General Ji mentioned, which specifically tested players and forced them to make choices—or even let her re-experience everything from her own perspective. If this scenario was really limited to being the mountain god's bride…
Was the central figure of this Black Mirror vortex the "bride" who died tragically because of feudal ignorance?
Mu Anqi pondered. Every time she used a skill, it reset… perhaps that central figure wanted her to experience being her past self? She'd have to test whether using an item would also cause a reset later. If it did, Mu Anqi would probably be able to guess what this Black Mirror vortex wanted to see.
——To become an ordinary person, with no external power to rely on, and still face such a situation—just how far could one go?
The villagers' accusations and persuasion, the family's persuasion—all revolved around "this is your fate," "accept your fate." But was this really "her" destiny? Could a person's fate truly not be broken? Could the so-called play of fate really control everything, making everyone just puppets on strings?
Mu Anqi exploited the game's mechanics—or rather, her skills had always taken an unconventional path, unlike ordinary players. This time, by sending red envelopes… she directly hired the NPCs. The reset NPCs might not understand why, but subconsciously they would provide her with whatever help they could—instead of seeing her and assuming she was trying to escape, dragging her home and locking her up, or telling her absurd things like "accept your fate," "this is your destiny," "this is your blessing."
"What are the signs when the mountain god gets angry?" Mu Anqi asked. "Will it kill everyone in the village?"
"…That, I don't know. Maybe… bad harvests and such." Huzi scratched his head, his tiger head looking dumb and silly. "Maybe there'll be a plague or something. Anyway, it's just… anger. After rain, huge rocks roll down the mountain, the earth shakes…"
Aren't those all natural disasters? Mu Anqi sighed. Of course, in a Black Mirror vortex, their form would probably lean more toward the supernatural. She rolled up her sleeves—fine then, let's see just how far a person can go in defying fate!
"What's your relation to the village chief?"
"What's wrong with you? I'm the village chief's son."
Mu Anqi went home and stuffed all the firewood and straw piled up in the kitchen into her storage ring. Perhaps because using the storage ring didn't affect the NPCs, it didn't trigger a reset. Encouraged, Mu Anqi continued—she searched the house and found several boxes of matches, then took the jar of oil stored in an iron can in the kitchen as well. When she came out, her hands were empty, so Huzi naturally didn't suspect anything. Mu Anqi then asked where the village chief's house was, and added, "Does everyone in the village know about the mountain god and the bride?"
"Of course they do. Don't take it so hard. This time the mountain god chose you, next time it'll be someone else. Everyone's gotten by like this," Huzi comforted her.
"That's only because the mountain god doesn't want men, so you can afford to comfort me," Mu Anqi said coldly. "Heh, who's to say the mountain god doesn't like eating men's flesh? Since you all believe the mountain god wants to marry a bride, then he must be male. And as the saying goes—'you are what you eat,' so shouldn't he be eating men?!"
Huzi's face turned red at her words, and he shouted angrily, "What nonsense are you raving about again?!"
"Is my life not a life too? Everyone's a human being—how can there be any difference in worth between us?" Mu Anqi thought this might trigger another reset, so she quickly walked toward the village chief's house. The chief's home was truly grand, far more refined than the others. That single jar of oil definitely wouldn't be enough.
Mu Anqi struck a match and tossed it into the straw pile outside the courtyard, then sprinted forward, pushed off the wall, and leapt directly into the chief's yard.
——"What are you doing?!"
Mu Anqi completely ignored Huzi's shout. She raised her hand and dumped the straw and firewood directly onto the first floor of the chief's house, poured out the entire jar of oil, struck another match, and threw it down—the flames flared up instantly.
——"Fire! Fire!"
Huzi was still shouting outside. Mu Anqi clapped her hands, then climbed back over the wall and went to several nearby houses, setting them on fire in the same way.
If natural disasters were the mountain god's anger, then what about man-made disasters?
People toyed with by "fate" had the right to be angry too. [T/N: Based Mu Anqi XD]
Thick smoke billowed, flames shot toward the sky. The houses in this village weren't modern buildings—most were made of brick and tile, their roofs covered with red or black shingles. Some were even built from mud bricks, with wooden beams supporting the single-story structures.
Cries for help, screams, thick smoke, blazing fire. The air burned and twisted, and with it, the whole world seemed to warp. Amid the distortion, Mu Anqi saw the villagers with animal heads rushing toward her—some trying to fight the fire, others trying to catch her. Mu Anqi didn't move. She looked up at the empty sky; the flames couldn't reach its height.
The noise and curses faded away. Black mist surged, then dispersed. Mu Anqi appeared outside her own courtyard again and saw Huzi wandering nearby.
Mu Anqi ignored him and headed straight for the village chief's house. She climbed the wall and shouted, "Village Chief!" A regular hand grenade was clenched in her hand, and the moment the tiger-headed man hurried out of the house—boom!
Reset again.
——"How's it going on your end?"
"I'm making some attempts," Mu Anqi replied inwardly. "Don't worry, General. I'll be fine—at worst, I'll just keep getting reset."
She didn't use the storage ring again, nor any other items. In the courtyard, Mu Anqi found a thick wooden stick and once more went to visit the village chief's house. She first tossed the stick over the courtyard wall, then climbed in after it. The front door on the first floor wasn't even closed, so Mu Anqi walked straight in—just in time to run into the chief, who had come downstairs to check the noise. Without a word, Mu Anqi swung the stick and struck the tiger head directly, then tripped and kicked him down, following up with another blow to his back, then another to his head.
Only when the chief lay unconscious and motionless on the ground did Mu Anqi sling the stick over her shoulder, kick open the gate, and leave to visit other villagers' homes.
She went around clubbing villagers unconscious to vent her anger—after all, they were either accomplices in truth or accomplices in silence, not a single good person among them. As long as this so-called "fate" hadn't fallen upon them, they would only cheer and call it a "blessing." It wasn't until Mu Anqi was surrounded by dozens of villagers with no way to escape that she sighed, tossed the stick aside, drew her demon blade, and began a massacre.
—Naturally, the world reset again.
This time, the courtyard had changed a lot: no wooden stick, no matches, not even a straw pile. Huzi, standing outside the yard, looked at her with a complicated, conflicted expression, even saying with a questioning tone, "I feel like I should help you appropriately, but I also feel I can't leave you alone."
It had finally altered the script.
Mu Anqi smiled helplessly. She couldn't find a cleaver in the kitchen, and not even the fire tongs were there. Hoes, sickles, shovels… nothing. Mu Anqi sighed and found a large pair of scissors in a room.
"People aren't puppets on strings. You can manipulate, reset, even kill me again and again, but you cannot make me bow to fate."
Scissors weren't an ideal weapon, but if you stabbed them into someone's neck, the lethality was still great.
Mu Anqi had never been so grateful for how hard she had trained. With her previous physical condition, there was no way she could have ambushed and killed those beast-headed villagers with only a pair of scissors. The facts proved that effort pays off.
The scissors disappeared. The needle and thread disappeared. The square stool became round.
After reset after reset, Mu Anqi finally felt her strength weakening—it seemed she'd been given a "Weakness" debuff.
But she still had her hands and feet, her teeth; as long as she could strike at a vital point, she could still knock out villagers—it would just be much more difficult.
What exactly did the creator of this Black Mirror vortex want to see?
To see someone retrace "her" tragic path and die in regret—or to see someone break free from fate and change everything? Perhaps "she" too had been complicated, unwilling, and conflicted.
Mu Anqi didn't stir up trouble again—mainly because she wanted to eat the food she had ordered.
After finishing the boiled pork slices, sausage rice, and stir-fried vegetables that the wolf-headed couple had specially prepared for her, her Weakness debuff seemed to lessen quite a bit. Mu Anqi sat directly on the courtyard floor, gazing at the yellow dog under the tree and pondering the philosophy of life: what should she do now?
Did she really have to wait until the wedding day for a turning point?
Come to think of it, the world hadn't reset when she hadn't completely destroyed the village. The time she went around knocking people out only reset because she had drawn her demon blade after being surrounded by the villagers.
So where exactly was the boundary of the reset? … The Black Mirror vortex clearly wanted to see how she would deal with the mountain god when the time came. That meant her actions couldn't affect the wedding two days later—she couldn't kill the whole village or any NPCs who had roles in the later part of the story.
"Huzi, I'm going out for a bit. Wait for me here in the yard. No matter who asks you later, you must say I've been locked in the courtyard the whole time and never left," Mu Anqi said seriously. "You said you'd help me."
Even without the red-envelope bribe… Mu Anqi would still hurry back to her room and act ignorant. After all, this was the Mountain God Village—whatever happened could just be blamed on the mountain god's anger. Whether the villagers believed it or not didn't matter. She was getting married in two days; they wouldn't dare touch her. Saying this to Huzi was merely an extra layer of insurance—to fool that bunch of villagers.
Mu Anqi climbed over the courtyard wall. She had entered too many people's yards by now and knew their layouts and belongings like the back of her hand. Before long, she found a box of matches in a household kitchen. Throwing on a coarse robe that had been hanging outside to dry, she moved quickly, striking matches and tossing them into one straw pile after another. When a villager spotted her, shouts to put out the fire rang out. Mu Anqi didn't overdo it—she finally lit the straw pile in front of her own house, tossed both the matches and the robe into the flames, then vaulted back into her yard, grabbed Huzi by the arm, and pulled him into the house.