Npc 78

[40%...45%...]

The mechanical voice of the main system echoed, accompanied by the wailing sounds emanating from the surrounding abandoned graves, signaling Jiang Yan’s impending death.

"It’s over," Cao Youfeng sighed in defeat.

"No..." Jian Hou widened his eyes.

As an NPC in the system, Jiang Yan’s mother couldn’t hear the system’s broadcast and didn’t understand what "contamination" meant. However, seeing the scene before her, she understood that her son was in grave danger!

[55%...60%...70%...]

As the voice neared [100% contamination], it seemed that Jiang Yan, the real NPC who had caused quite a stir in the game for a short time, was about to perish.

At this moment, players on the game forum began to voice their reactions, either sighing or gloating.

[They hyped him up so much! I said all along that with his talent, he was just lucky!]

[Yeah! Even with an S-level item, he's still just a C-level NPC. His talent wasn’t enough; he just had good luck earlier and got elevated!]

[Honestly, I felt like he knew this! He should have just stayed as the bride and waited for the pros to finish the dungeon. That would’ve been his safest bet!]

[Could be! The goal of Puppet Workshop is probably him. Yu Jia isn’t here to win points, he’s here to kill him! Even if he turns invisible, he can't escape.]

[That's right! In the previous dungeon, he was the pet of the BOSS, and the one before that, he himself was the BOSS. He even had a husband NPC whose values couldn’t be measured, so he could lie back and win.]

[Exactly, this dungeon’s identity card looked important, but actually, it was nothing. His husband seemed ominous, but it doesn’t seem that useful.]

[Wait, wasn’t Jiang Yan the Mountain God in this dungeon?]

[75%...80%...]

Suddenly, the main system’s voice cut off.

The wailing from the graves stopped abruptly, and the blood stopped seeping out.

"Why... why is it silent?" Jian Hou stammered. "Has it ended? Is Jiang Yan... gone...?"

Tao Shi and Cao Youfeng exchanged glances and began observing their surroundings.

Yu Jia, who had been grinning, now frowned slightly. He felt something unusual with the Puppet Strings tied around his middle finger, and his brow furrowed as he looked up at the pale sky, his expression turning serious.

After a while, the main system's voice echoed once more:

[Congratulations to real NPC Jiang Yan: You have broken the curse!]

[You have earned an additional reward: 500 points]

With a soft snap, the Puppet Strings around Yu Jia's middle finger broke.

"Impossible?!!"

Yu Jia’s eyes widened in disbelief.

"Are you serious?!" Cao Youfeng swore loudly.

Jian Hou let out a long sigh of relief.

"What the hell?! How could this happen?!" Tao Shi muttered, rubbing his blue hair in confusion.

In an instant, the game forum erupted into chaos!

[What the hell?! Contamination at 80% can still reverse?!]

[My god?! How could it reverse when the contamination was already at 80%?!]

[I told you! Jiang Yan was the Mountain God all along! The Red Ghost Lady was under his control, so how could he be contaminated by her?!]

[Yes, exactly! Plus he had an S-level item! When the Red Ghost Lady carried him, he didn’t even resist, just let the Cang Rou take him away!]

[So was it intentional?! Impossible, how could he have predicted that Yu Jia would use the Puppet Strings to control Cang Rou?!]

[It probably wasn’t intentional. Did anyone see the camera focused on Jiang Yan just now? What happened?]

[The system didn’t show Jiang Yan’s camera angle! Jiang Yan is an NPC, not a player, so the camera doesn’t always focus on him.]

"So... does this mean Jiang Yan survived?" Jian Hou asked.

Yu Jia glanced at the broken Puppet Strings in his hand, then looked up at Jian Hou with a meaningful glance. "Jian Hou, so you were playing the long con, huh?"

Jian Hou silently took a small step closer to Tao Shi and muttered, "No, I was just genuinely concerned. After all, I’ve known Jiang Yan since we were in the womb, so it’s normal to be worried about his safety!"

Yu Jia raised an eyebrow. At this point, if he still believed Jian Hou’s words, he would really be a fool!

He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected Jiang Yan to play such a deep game either!

Even more surprising, this newcomer, Jian Hou, had shown impressive qualities across the board.

Logically, a newbie who drew any level item on their first dungeon run would be flustered and make all sorts of mistakes, eventually being scared out of their mind as the dungeon progressed. Most would either panic and die in the game or break down completely.

Even the seasoned players, Fang Rui and Ling Kang, two A-tiers had perished in the game.

But this Jian Hou, despite being a newcomer, didn’t crumble as the dungeon progressed—in fact, he remained calm, almost like he had become familiar with the map!

Normally, a new player would panic, but he was steadily performing well, making moves that even Yu Jia couldn’t underestimate.

Yu Jia had originally thought he was just an average player. Little did he know that this person dared to play such a deep game with him!

Nice. Very impressive. The future held great potential.

However...

"You’ve already signed a contract with Puppet Workshop. Do you understand the cost of betrayal?" Yu Jia’s voice grew heavy as he fixed his gaze on him.

Tao Shi stepped forward and stood in front of Jian Hou, saying, "Jian Hou is my teacher."

The meaning was clear. Even though Jian Hou had signed a contract with Puppet Workshop, he still had the protection of the Dawn Guild.

Jian Hou flashed a smug smile at Yu Jia.

Seeing this, Yu Jia’s ring finger flicked, and the Puppet Strings embedded in Jian Hou's body moved. Jian Hou felt as though his soul had been jolted.

“Hiss…”

Jian Hou couldn’t help but let out a soft groan.

[Ping!]

[Item: Adam's Ring]

A silver halo turned into a sharp blade and directly severed the transparent thread.

“Snap.”

Another crisp, faint sound of the thread breaking.

Yu Jia, seeing the Puppet Strings in his hand break again, wasn’t angry but instead shrugged nonchalantly.

"Sometimes, when entering a dungeon alone, one might find themselves in a situation of isolation and helplessness," Yu Jia said.

They had been careless!

During the guild meeting, he had suggested that going in alone might not be the best option. But the leader had insisted that Jiang Yan was just a C-tier NPC.

Ha! Now look at them, stunned!

Look at the Dawn Guild! They actually sent out two people!

However, even though their target was Jiang Yan, not completing the mission wasn’t a big issue. They’d treat this as a test to gauge Jiang Yan’s depth.

“Contamination exceeding 80% and still breaking free? I don’t believe the main system was going easy on him,” Yu Jia said.

At this moment, he really wanted a cigarette.

“This is indeed…” Tao Shi turned to look at Jian Hou, “Teacher Jian?”

Jian Hou shrugged, “Don’t look at me, I don’t know anything about it.”

Yu Jia said, “So, why did Jiang Yan make you act as his spy?”

“To ensure his safety!”

A crisp voice suddenly rang out.

Everyone turned toward the sound and saw the handsome, black-haired young man standing amidst the abandoned graves, his feet on the blood-soaked, pitch-black earth.

Beside him stood Cang Rou, now no longer in her ghostly form, and two young girls, dressed in simple clothes, peeking from behind Cang Rou’s skirts, looking at the group curiously.

The curse of [Paper Transformation] was lifted, and the obsession in the Red Ghost Lady had vanished. Her obsession had been to find her daughter.

It was clear that the two young girls by Cang Rou’s side were the daughters of the Red Ghost Lady.

"Yan Yan"

Seeing this, Jiang Yan’s mother rushed toward her son.

Jiang Yan caught her.

“What do you mean ‘to ensure his safety’?” Tao Shi asked.

“How… how did you find them?” Yu Jia asked, his gaze fixed on the two little girls beside Cang Rou.

Jiang Yan didn’t answer, because he couldn’t. It was beyond his character's storyline.

At this moment, he still had to continue acting as the bride who had been driven mad by the old town.

And what would a mad person do when faced with so many abandoned graves?

Dig!

[Ping!]

[Item: Lost Rose]

Along with the sound of the item, everyone stared in shock as Jiang Yan began controlling the rose vines to dig up graves.

After a long pause, everyone finally snapped out of it.

The first to react was Jiang Yan’s mother, who rushed to hug her frenzied son, crying, “Yan Yan! What are you doing? What are you doing?!”

Seeing this, everyone quickly crossed over the abandoned graves to stop Jiang Yan’s incomprehensible actions.

“Jiang Yan! What are you doing? Calm down!”

“You’re desecrating graves! How can you dig up people’s graves? They’ve suffered enough!”

But Jiang Yan seemed to ignore their words, his face twisted into a manic grin, as the rose vines tirelessly continued to dig.

“Which bride digs up graves?! This is clearly a madwoman!”

“Damn it! Stop! Jiang Yan! Have some public decency!” Tao Shi shouted.

Jian Hou, holding onto one of Jiang Yan’s arms, looked at him, who seemed not to hear a thing, and said, “Hey! What’s going on? Did you really go mad? Don’t scare me!”

Jiang Yan’s mother cried out, “Yan Yan! What’s happening? Wake up and look at me! Where’s Xiao Xiu? Where’s Xiao Xiu? Didn’t they come to see me?”

At this moment, everyone came to their senses—Jiang Yan’s two strange twin husbands were gone!

Hearing their names, Jiang Yan seemed to calm down a little.

He looked at them, his blue eyes flickering with a mad grin, “He went to chop trees. Why? For our wedding preparations.”

“Chop trees? Wedding?”

Jian Hou was confused.

Before he could speak further, a loud crash echoed from the distance!

Everyone stiffened.

Jiang Yan smiled, “The tree has fallen.”

In the next moment, a series of suppressed roars came from the abandoned graves.

First, a decaying hand emerged, followed by a broken body, a shattered head... one after another, women dressed in red, just like the Red Ghost Lady crawled out of the graves.

They ignored the group and began crawling toward the town at the foot of the mountain, growling like wild beasts, letting out wailing cries, “Niu—!”

“Ahhh!”

From the town in the distance, the sharp, ear-piercing wails of children echoed, filling the sky.

Even from far away, the group could see the stone-paved street, now turned into a river of blood, with little heads emerging one after another.

From a distance, it looked like countless fleshy tumors had grown along the blood-covered path.

“Boom!”

Another loud crash.

The last locust tree fell.

“Heh…”

Soon, the sounds of slaughter came from the town below.

Jiang Yan smiled, “They’re my guests, my wedding guests. They’re now helping to prepare the fireworks.”

“Fireworks?”

At this moment, a manic voice from behind them rang out.

Yu Xiu, grinning wildly, said, “I’m so glad you could all come to our wedding! You can enter now!”

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