Chapter 119: The Human Skin Drum (23)

"Who are you?"

An Xiaoying looked down at her with cold eyes. The woman before her gave off a dangerous vibe—a sensation identical to the aura Tang Mu exuded, and just as repulsive.

"I am no one. I am merely a traveler." She gazed at the scenery beyond the pavilion, her eyes reflecting a sense of peace and a yearning for beauty.

"I once loved every flower, blade of grass, stone, and tree in this world. I loved it so much that I could close my eyes and savor every soft breeze that touched me. Later, the tour bus colluded with the local villagers to drug my food. I missed my return bus, and so, my personal hell began."

As she recounted these things, the woman spoke as if they hadn't happened to her at all. She seemed to be a bystander, slowly detailing the experiences of someone entirely unrelated to her.

There was no sorrow, no resentment.

It was innocent, pure, and peaceful to the point of cruelty.

"And so, I turned this place into a purgatory in return." The woman maintained that same tranquil, dignified smile. Even though she hadn't fallen into the mud, one could feel her intangible, noble aura. "Compared to men, women may lack physical strength. But do you know? In the face of absolute intellect, strength is merely a puppet of the brain."

"...So, what actually happened back then?" Tang Mu watched the woman, feeling a subtle sense of dissonance.

If this woman was the final boss of the dungeon and the so-called "Birth Mother," then the way she entered the village was different from the woman they had seen in the tofu factory.

How many women had this village ruined? Surely not just one, right?

"What happened?" The woman rested her chin on her hand, her gaze drifting as if she were remembering. "Ah, it was so long ago; I can barely recall. I only know that whether it was the Luo River or the rice paddies, the sewing room or the ceramic factory, the tofu shop or this pavilion, the carpenter's workshop or the attic—all of them echoed with the agonizing groans of women. Their souls wept and mourned day and night, and so, I came."

"I was a journalist. Working undercover. When they drugged my food, I was actually well aware of it. But I pretended not to know and let them succeed."

"To gather first-hand information, I endured many things while alive. Later, once I had gathered enough, I intended to send the data out. But I never expected that the women here, having been enslaved, had rotted minds. They themselves became lackeys for the local clans. They actually reported me and exposed my identity."

"And so, my eyes, nose, and mouth were sealed shut with sticky rice paste. They said that even if I went to hell, I would have no way to file a grievance."

"Ha, look. How ridiculous it all is. You come with the determination to save them, enduring suffering you never needed to face, only for them to not feel gratitude in the end. Instead, they blame you for resisting, for not being one of them."

***

Faced with this unexpected story, no one knew what to say.

Tang Mu, as always, preferred to ask questions that cut to the core.

"Who is the Birth Mother?"

"You aren't the Birth Mother, are you?" Tang Mu stared coldly. "The woman in the tofu factory's projection had her teeth filed down, but your teeth are intact. So, the real Birth Mother isn't you; it's her. Am I right?"

The woman did not respond to Tang Mu's accusation. Her figure began to fade away slowly.

"The remaining days will be very difficult for you. Good luck."

As the woman vanished, the pavilion instantly became desolate. The round table, which had been clean and laden with tofu snacks, was suddenly covered in dust.

Time flew by.

It hadn't even been half an hour, yet the sky had already turned pitch black.

An Xiaoying snorted, "As expected, an A-rank dungeon isn't easy to clear. We've only reached the third stage, and so many people have already died."

"Those who make it to the end are the ones who won't die easily. After all, they have their own ways of preserving their lives," Qiao Yuan remarked. "Count them—how many are left?"

An Xiaoying scanned the group. "Fifteen."

"Let's get to know each other. We're only halfway through this stage; we'll need to look out for each other in the coming days."

Ge Wenqian, Lu Zhengqing, Qiao Se, and Tang Mu needed no introduction; they were all members of the A-Yu Association.

Yu Peng was also about to join the association, given the one-million-point debt he still had to repay.

Among the remaining nine, there were five men and four women.

The men were Song Hua, Cai Jinglun, Xie Xianying, Zou Qiwen, and Tian Junfeng.

The women were Qiao Youling, Fu Qiling, Li Manrou, and Lou Xiaoyao.

After introductions, everyone looked at each other, wondering what strange and eerie events would unfold tonight.

"Will there be water-pouch monsters and man-eating flowers tonight too?" Qiao Youling asked in a voice as thin as a mosquito's hum.

"Probably not," Tang Mu took out a sheet of paper and began writing and drawing in front of everyone. "The night's anomalies only persist for that night; they don't carry over to the second night. The theme changes daily, and consequently, the types of anomalies encountered each night will shift."

"Think carefully about what we've encountered over these past few days."

"The camera, the Luo River, the stone statue of the woman; the mutated pothos and the spider lilies; the rice that could be ground into white paste and the stone mill; the alien species that catalyzes under moonlight. And now, today, the tofu factory and the pavilion."

"I have always been vigilant and suspicious regarding the camera. But just now, that woman's words settled my doubts."

"You mean?"

"Exactly. That woman just said that while the women were being tortured, there was always the sound of cameras clicking. It seems the so-called 'Birth Mother' deeply loathes being photographed. While we don't yet know the relationship between the 'journalist' and the 'Birth Mother,' we cannot rule out that the journalist is not the Birth Mother. After all, the images could have been deliberately misleading, grafting the experiences of other women onto her own."

"Perhaps it's a timeline issue? If all these events happened to multiple women, a single anomaly's power wouldn't reach A-rank, and this wouldn't be an A-rank dungeon. But if everything happened to one woman... we need to map out the timeline. We need to see when her teeth were ground down and when her mouth was sealed with sticky rice."

They sketched on the white paper.

The observant girls gestured toward the sky outside, urging them to hurry.

"I think we should figure out what kind of anomalies will appear tonight as soon as possible."

"Don't you feel like the night is falling faster and faster?"