Their own haystack was burned, and the Wolf-head couple wailed like ghosts. The villagers tried to save it, but even if they managed to, those haystacks couldn't be used anymore, at best, they could be buried in the ground as fertilizer. The villagers, full of anger, quickly stormed into the yard to demand an explanation.
At this moment, Mu Anqi could walk out with an innocent yet sorrowful face: "I never even left the yard! Huzi can testify! You keep saying I did it, do you have any proof?"
Perhaps because of the red envelopes, or maybe for self-preservation, the Wolf-head couple also started defending Mu Anqi. The Wolf-head woman put her hands on her hips and said angrily, "She's been locked up in the house properly. If you want to throw dirty water on someone, don't go this far! The Mountain God has chosen our family, we are blessed by the Mountain God, and she is the Mountain God's bride!"
"I think… maybe the Mountain God got angry," Mu Anqi said softly, covering her face and pretending to hesitate. "You caught me like that and restricted my freedom. The Mountain God must think you've disrespected His bride, so a small punishment as a warning is possible."
"I clearly saw the person in the long robe setting the fire!"
"But there's no such robe in my house."
"My clothes were stolen!"
"But my house doesn't have the clothes you said were stolen."
Back and forth they argued, but the villagers had no evidence at all. Combined with the "Mountain God Village's" feudal superstitions, quite a few people actually started to believe they had angered the Mountain God and brought punishment upon themselves.
"You all ganged up to bully me, a weak woman. If the Mountain God finds out, He might get angry again."
As soon as she said this, some of the villagers were enraged, while others felt guilty and backed off. The angry ones had no proof, and Mu Anqi had witnesses, so naturally, the matter came to nothing.
That night, the homes of those villagers who had aggressively pointed at Mu Anqi's nose and accused her of arson caught fire again.
After running around half the night and then sneaking back, Mu Anqi hid her achievements and fame. She thought: in all the previous Black Mirror vortexes, she had never had this much exercise. Of course, before doing all this, Mu Anqi had told the General in advance, otherwise, if she returned only to be reset the next moment, Mu Anqi might actually cry.
Since the villagers were so afraid of the Mountain God's anger, it would be better if the Mountain God got angry a few more times. As for the reason, after all, it was those villagers, who recklessly caused people's deaths, who angered the Mountain God; that was something they should think about, not Mu Anqi.
Mu Anqi found some pesticide. In the latter half of the night after the fires, she went out at once and fed it to the village chief's livestock and the few cows the village jointly kept, poisoning a whole group so they wouldn't even dare to eat the meat.
The next early morning, the villagers collapsed again. Some suspected Mu Anqi of stirring trouble, but had no evidence; besides, Mu Anqi was about to marry the Mountain God, so they couldn't do anything to her. Mu Anqi, however, insisted, "You must have angered the Mountain God in some way, otherwise such divine punishment wouldn't have come down!"
Mu Anqi didn't know whether the owner of this Black Mirror vortex had self-awareness, or whether only its obsession remained. But if there were no reset restrictions, she would have poured that pesticide straight into the village well by the bucket.
If she hadn't sent the red envelopes, she would probably have been locked in the house and unable to get out; those people certainly wouldn't give her food or water. As long as they starved her and left a single breath in her, she would have no strength to flee or resist. They all knew she would die; they only wanted her to die where she deserved.
Thinking of all the previous "wives" who had been offered to the Mountain God under this same identity, Mu Anqi felt furious. Since everything was done in the name of the Mountain God… as long as she couldn't kill the villagers, making them live in fear for a day would still be good.
She did everything she could to disgust them, when no one was around, she secretly slaughtered a few of her own chickens, then took the chance to climb into the village chief's house and smear chicken blood all over their walls.
That wasn't all. Mu Anqi also picked up many large stones, and whenever no one was watching, she'd sneak out to smash people's bricks and tiles, the village roofs were all tiled, and breaking a hole in them literally opened a "skylight."
Until the villagers couldn't stand it anymore and sent two women to watch her inside the house, yet Mu Anqi still had her ways. She only spent 400 guansi, and those two women became "blind with open eyes," helping her cover for what she did.
In the past two days, the village had suffered more misfortune than it had in two years.
Unfortunately, no matter how much trouble Mu Anqi caused, when the two days ended, she still headed toward the "marrying the Mountain God" storyline.
When this part of the story unfolded, Mu Anqi was shocked to find that she could no longer control her own body. From noon onward, she lost control and was locked in a room to be dressed up—makeup? wedding robe? red veil… By the time everything was ready, it was already dusk.
She was escorted into the bridal sedan chair.
The moment she got inside, Mu Anqi regained control of her body. She guessed at the Black Mirror vortex owner's intention, was it to make her behave, so it deliberately used power to control her? But why withdraw that control once she entered the sedan chair? Could it be that the required plot segment had finished, and now she was free to act?
That was what Mu Anqi thought. Just as she was about to lift the veil to take a look around, a sudden chill ran down her back—even without lifting the veil, she felt a sharp blade's aura slash past the sedan.
The swaying sedan stopped. In the next instant, the veil was lifted, and Ji Huaichu appeared before her in armor, her battle robe fluttering as she looked down at her. "I came to find you."
Mu Anqi quickly pieced everything together—the being behind her had been using most of its power to maintain the formation that controlled Ji Huaichu. Then, realizing she herself wasn't the obedient type, it must have diverted some of that power to control her instead, afraid that if she acted freely, the marriage scene wouldn't go smoothly.
General Ji seized the opportunity, broke through the formation, escaped, and found her?
Mu Anqi got out of the sedan chair and threw her arms around Ji Huaichu. Seeing that the general wasn't hurt, she finally relaxed and asked in confusion, "The plot… why hasn't it reset?"
"I wounded It," Ji Huaichu said. She held Mu Anqi's shoulders, carefully taking in the sight of the little money tree dressed like this. She suppressed the dark emotions in her eyes and, with restraint yet gentleness, lowered her head to brush against Mu Anqi's lips, bit by bit tasting the crimson lip color away. "But I wanted to come find you first."
Mu Anqi was startled by this sudden "invasion" of tenderness; the corners of her eyes flushed red, and her cheeks and ears grew hot. Ji Huaichu wrapped an arm around her waist, steadying her so she wouldn't go weak and slip down… This intimacy lasted until the red of Mu Anqi's lips changed from the lip color's hue to another shade of red. Only then did Ji Huaichu lift her head, unable to resist pressing another kiss to the tip of Mu Anqi's ear.
"I really want to bite you," Ji Huaichu said.
"But I've never bitten you," Mu Anqi complained softly. "I can't even bear to."
When the little money tree said this, her eyes were misty, and the hint of coy grievance between her brows made Ji Huaichu's heart soften. She only murmured quietly, "Because I'm not a good person."
"Nor a benevolent ghost either."
Mu Anqi covered Ji Huaichu's mouth, and the general simply looked at her quietly. Mu Anqi's cheeks grew hot as she whispered, "We're still in the game… The one you injured—was it the Mountain God or the master of the Black Mirror vortex? Or were they one and the same?"
"There was never a Mountain God," Ji Huaichu said. "From the very beginning, there was only an evil spirit on the mountain."
Ji Huaichu had struck the being hidden above the sky, the one overlooking this "play," the manipulator who had created this Black Mirror vortex. In the instant when its power weakened under restriction, she tore open the formation and used her own ability to cover the entire mountain, slashing toward the creature lurking atop the peak, too afraid to show itself. That thing, naturally, had to defend itself, and in doing so exposed its form. Ji Huaichu pursued relentlessly, and with her final strike, severed the "female ghost's" arm, scattering her power and the invisible domain that shrouded the so-called Mountain God.
Once the domain was broken, the plot reset naturally collapsed.
Mu Anqi, hand in Ji Huaichu's, followed her up the mountain.
The mountains were lush and green, trees and weeds growing thick on both sides. It should have been a scene full of life, yet a sinister haze seemed to hang over it, turning everything eerily strange. Along the mountain path there were no broken bones to be seen; only when they reached the altar at the summit did they find it completely bare. There were no offerings, only fallen leaves scattered across it. When Mu Anqi brushed her hand over the altar, she found several layers of dust.
"No Mountain God?"
Then why was there a need for a bride? What about those natural disasters… and the so-called mark of the Mountain God?
"They picked out pretty girls, forcing their parents to 'marry' them to the Mountain God in His name. But in truth, they were selling them to evil spirits for money. The mountain path is rugged but free of bones, only because those evil spirits devoured everything, leaving not even the bones behind."
The voice didn't belong to Ji Huaichu, but to a stranger. Mu Anqi looked up and saw a female ghost on the altar, her long hair hanging loose as she slowly revealed her form. She gave a bitter smile. "As for me, I merely happened to see the village chief leaving the 'Mountain God's mark' at another family's door and accidentally uncovered the truth."
She hadn't been able to save that girl, nor herself. Entangled by overwhelming resentment and unwillingness, she couldn't let go even in death, turning into a vengeful spirit. As for that so-called word "fate," it was just something she sometimes fixated on in her moments of hatred and despair—
It was clearly man-made, clearly not the work of any god, yet no one believed her words. Everyone told her to "accept her fate," and the village chief who had orchestrated it all said the same: "It wasn't supposed to be your turn, but since you saw what you shouldn't have… this is your fate."
When she first wove this Black Mirror vortex, she herself didn't know what her goal was. But when she discovered that the two who entered had a huge difference in strength, curiosity arose—if she trapped the strong one, and placed the weak one within the story as the chosen bride, what would she do? Accept fate? Or fight back?
The female ghost's expression was indifferent as she sat on the altar and sighed. In the end, she still hadn't been able to see everything. She had wanted to know—if Mu Anqi were dragged up the mountain, only to find there was no Mountain God, only a group of man-eating evil spirits, and that everything stemmed from a transaction for money—what kind of expression and reaction would she have? …But she had been interrupted.
"Well, if you hadn't restricted my items, I probably would've exorcised those evil spirits physically," Mu Anqi couldn't help but say. "And if you hadn't controlled me, I wouldn't have obediently gotten in that bridal sedan either."
Author's Note: Some readers might wonder, "Evil spirits" here is a metaphor! It broadly refers to "evil people," not that the female ghost was literally eaten by ghosts when she was alive.