269. The black-haired and black-eyed exorcist helps the desperate
"Wrapped in mud, it has the outline of a pig and will grow when fed." This is how Abdel village chief described it.
Rather than a sculpture, it is more vivid to describe it as a clay sculpture, or in other words: a pig covered in mud.
It is a dead thing, but alive in another way.
The villager told the village chief about it on the third day after he brought it back, claiming that it could protect the village and give those who believed in it magical power: relieve pain.
Or become numb.
The village chief believed it after the villagers cut open their arms with a dagger without changing their expressions. Although he was a little wary of the weirdness, the statue didn't seem to have high requirements as long as he was fed food.
"How does it eat?" Lu Li asked.
"When no one is watching, there will be a sound like a pig eating... and then the food will disappear." The village chief Abdel answered.
Maybe it's a psychological effect, maybe it protects the village, the appearance of the statue does make the villagers feel at ease.
But as time went by, problems began to arise.
"It ate more and more, and we couldn't feed it meat, so we started feeding jicama. It also accepted the jicama, but soon we couldn't feed it anymore..."
Here’s an ad, I’m using the Zhuishu app recently. [app] caches books for reading and reads aloud offline!
The united villagers split at this time. Some villagers, led by the village chief Abdel, wanted to send the sculpture away. Otherwise, if it were not needed to protect the village, people would die of hunger.
The remaining villagers, who were mainly believers, refused because they wanted to gain more abilities.
Because of their faith, they are not afraid of pain and will not feel hungry.
However, rather than the believers gaining strength due to their piety, it is more like they have been infected by the weirdness due to gathering around the statue for a long time.
Because the village chief of Abdel said that the statue can do nothing but eat. The so-called "revelations and visions" are all fabricated by believers or made by themselves.
The village chief of Abdel was ousted, and the villagers were ordered not to get close to the statue, but this also prevented them from being numbed by the statue.
Even when the believers went out hunting, they could not satisfy the statue's appetite.
Believers began to set their coveted eyes on the merchants and travelers coming and going.
They carry food.
They carry money that can be exchanged for food.
They are both food.
Although the endless disasters and times of silence make people reluctant to leave the gathering place, there are always migrating people and businessmen passing through this village less than 70 miles away from the Spin City.
The former will pass by every once in a while, not too many, but it is more stable. The latter passes by occasionally, but both themselves and the money and goods they carry can last for a long time, provided that the villagers do not feed them endlessly.
Those believers obviously won't do this.
As a result, the statue became more and more bloated, and it had to be moved into a barn named "Church" by believers.
Under endless feeding, hunting and plundering passers-by could not satisfy the statue's appetite, so tonight, the village chief Abdel and other villagers, who had already been controlled, were sent to the pigsty with the travelers captured yesterday to prepare
The statue is dedicated after a bonfire ceremony.
Then Lu Li and Elena arrived and saved everyone from being reduced to meat.
The statue event is similar to the believer event, but it is not the same event, and there is no sign of Anna here.
Lu Li looked around the campfire. The villagers who had collected clothes and water were giving them to everyone.
Five or six believer villagers were tied up with ropes and led to the outside of the bonfire, with cloth strips in their mouths to stop their vicious curses.
A villager came to the village chief Abdel with a male lion fur blanket, and he was motioned by the village chief to hand it over to Elena.
"I don't need it." Elena ignored the soft and fluttering fur that was handed to her in the firelight. "So the hyenas will come to attack the village. You have hunted all the food nearby, and they can only attack you."
"Maybe out of hatred... they killed many wild animals nearby, including hyenas, because they felt no pain."
"Mr. Exorcist, can you please destroy that monster?" Village Chief Abdel begged Lu Li.
After the words fell, the rescued people gathered around the bonfire and looked forward to it.
"Staying outside the village overnight and migrating to Spin City in the early morning is the best option," Lu Li said.
In any case, it was a monster. It would be unwise to confront a monster at night, and there was no need to anger a monster that was not actively attacking people for the time being.
The village chief Abdel sighed in frustration. Of course he knew it, but he couldn't bear the high price in his heart: the village would be abandoned and most of the population would be lost.
"The fog is coming!"
Shouts echoed in the night sky, and a villager ran over holding a torch.
People turned their heads one after another, but could see nothing except the darkness of the bonfire.
"Sorry Mr. Exorcist, I have to try..."
The village chief Abdel made up his mind, saluted Lu Li and walked towards the bonfire. The high temperature made his hair curl, and the village chief Abdel pulled out a torch and turned around to walk towards the vague outline of the barn.
Some villagers guessed something and drew out their torches, leaving a trail of sparks behind to catch up with the village chief Abdel.
They stopped more than ten meters away from the barn, and the village chief Abdel threw the torches in unison as he yelled, hitting the barn and bouncing down.
The straw that decorated the "church" was ignited and burned quickly. The only wooden building in the village gradually burned.
The bigger "bonfire" gradually dispersed the darkness, revealing the strange fog that had swallowed up the outermost houses of the village.
At this moment, a painful and helpless scream came from the barn.
It was not the scream of a human being... but a scream like that of a slaughtered pig, but it was thicker and duller, and it seemed that people could feel the pain in the scream.
Many people showed unbearable expressions, including the villagers who threw torches.
"That's a weird howl, and this is the price it deserves!" Village Chief Abdel shouted. He used his words to confirm everyone's thoughts...including himself.
The dry barn burned completely, the walls collapsed, and sparks flew out, revealing the scene of the barn: a three-meter-long giant pig statue covered in mud, like a fat man sitting slumped, stood in the barn.
Screams echoed from around it, while the statue remained strangely motionless.
Mu Su silently felt the emotions of the screams, suddenly pulled out his psychic gun, pointed it at the statue, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
…
Lu Li stood in a quiet plain in the evening.
Hum hum…
A pig snorted not far away. Lu Li turned his head and saw a several-month-old pig wandering a few meters away, sniffing as if there was danger around him.
A line of human child's footprints extends from beside it into the distance.
Lu Li lowered his eyes thoughtfully, stood up on tiptoe with his left foot, and gently touched the "ground" under his feet.
The toes of his shoes sank into the gray, sticky mud.
This is a swamp, and at dusk the Danger Swamp looks like plains.
The domestic pig then raised its head, sniffed, and looked at Lu Li with bright eyes.
Lu Li raised his arm and pointed in the direction where the footprints extended.
The little pig snorted in response, followed the extended child's footsteps, and gradually disappeared into the darkness.
