I deliver food in a bizarre world

With his spiritual eyes activated, Chen Mo saw that the door of that house was indeed ajar in the thick fog, but because of the distance, he could only see a blurry scene.

It was pitch black behind the door, and nothing could be seen, but soon, a figure emerged from inside.

The movements were slow and stiff.

It was a paper figure wearing a blue floral jacket; judging from its makeup, it seemed to be a middle-aged woman.

On the white paper pasted on the dough, the facial features were roughly outlined with ink.

His eyebrows were two short horizontal lines, his eyes were two black holes, and his lips were a bright red smear, as rough as a child's doodle.

But when applied to that round, flat face, it exudes a chilling, sinister aura.

It raised one leg, its movement stiff like a marionette, the angle of its knee bend unnatural.

There was no sound when the foot landed; the paper shoe sole touched the ground silently.

It walked out of the gate, but did not leave the courtyard and enter the main road. Instead, it stood in the middle of the path, facing the direction of Chen Mo and the others, and then remained still.

"Is he looking at us, or something else?" Zhou Mingyu's heart suddenly raced as he was being stared at like that.

Chen Mo: "Maybe..."

Lin Xiao stared at the paper figure for a few seconds, then suddenly picked up a clod of hard soil from the ground and weighed it in his hand.

Although it's made of paper, the density is quite high, so it should be sufficient...

He glanced at Chen Mo, and seeing that the other party did not object, he waved his arm, and the clod of earth flew in an arc into the courtyard and landed three feet away from the paper figure's feet.

pat!

The paper figure's entire head spun around, with the paper surface depicting the facial features facing the clod of earth that had fallen to the ground.

Like the first paper figure they encountered, its movements were so fluid, like a rotating puzzle toy, with its head and body able to rotate freely.

After three seconds, the paper figure slowly turned back to face Chen Mo and the others.

"They react to sound!" Lin Xiao whispered.

Anyone present who wasn't blind could see it.

Li Haojie licked his lips: "How about... I run a little further away and shout it out?"

"You're really not afraid of death, are you?" Lin Xiao glanced at him.

Su Yifan crossed his arms: "Try it and you'll die."

"What do we do now?" Jiang Mingyang asked, holding his phone and hanging at the back of the line. "We can't just stand here staring at them... we still have a time limit!"

Before he could finish speaking, the paper figure's black, hollow eyes "looked" in the direction of the crowd outside the crack in the door, and its paper head tilted slightly, as if trying to identify something.

Then, it reached out and pressed its hand on the gate, which creaked open.

Chen Xing: "That's weird... How can something made of paper make that kind of sound?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Mo's face darkened...

You call others strange? At a time like this, your focus is the strangest thing of all!

The paper figure stepped across the threshold and onto the gray dirt road, and only then did everyone see its full form.

It was about 1.6 meters tall, and its paper clothes and pants made a soft rustling sound as it moved.

Chen Mo had been dealing with this thing since he was a child. He could see that there were obvious traces of bamboo strips supporting its joints. Although its movements were stiff, it was not slow.

Lin Xiao gripped the dagger tightly in his right hand, while Chen Mo pressed down on his shoulder and shook his head.

"Don't move yet," Chen Mo said in a low voice. "Let's see what it's going to do."

The paper figure stood in the middle of the alley, its head slowly turning, looking from Lin Xiao to Chen Mo, and then from Chen Mo to Chen Xing behind him.

Its face was expressionless, but the pair of dark holes exuded an extremely strong sense of oppression, sending chills down one's spine.

After about five or six seconds, it suddenly raised its right hand and pointed to the other end of the alley, its arm straight!

Amidst the puzzled gazes of the crowd, it lowered its hand, turned around, and walked back into the courtyard with a zombie-like gait, closing the door behind it.

As the door closed, it creaked shut again, and the alley fell silent once more.

"Is it... pointing the way?" Li Haojie asked in a low voice.

"Not necessarily," Su Yifan said.

"What else could it mean?" Li Haojie asked, looking confused. "If you say half of it again next time, I'll hit you!"

Su Yifan: "You reckless fool, this thing might also be telling us that we can't go over there."

Li Haojie: "..."

Li Haojie: "Fine, fine! You riddle tellers are such a hassle..."

"Didn't Brother Mo say we shouldn't trust anything from the village?"

Chen Xing stared at the closed courtyard gate and suddenly said, "Brother, there are words on it."

Chen Mo didn't see it clearly and asked, "What character?"

"On the back, below the collar, there are some small characters." Chen Xing thought for a moment, "I can't see them all, but it seems to be the character for filial piety."

孝？

Chen Xing had seen those characters when he was a child, so he shouldn't have made a mistake.

Chen Mo remembered his grandfather saying that in some places, paper figures are made to accompany ancestors in burial, and their identities are written on their backs, such as "filial son" or "filial grandson," representing that the younger generation serves in the underworld.

If this village is indeed made of paper, then these paper figures were probably all originally sacrificial offerings!

"Never mind that for now," Chen Mo said. "We need to explore the village and find the House of Origin. There's no point in staying here; let's at least get moving."

The eight people walked slowly into the depths of the village, hugging the left courtyard wall.

After leaving the alley, the group arrived at a small open space, which looked like a threshing ground in the village, with several haystacks piled up around it.

However, upon closer inspection, everyone discovered that the haystacks were also made of strips of paper dyed a dull yellow and glued together.

Opposite the open space was a row of neat houses with white walls and gray tiles, and paper lanterns hanging under the eaves.

However, the lanterns were not lit; in the night fog, they looked like a string of pale tumors hanging in the air.

"This area is open for now, let's stop for a bit." After surveying the area, Lin Xiao said, "Let's organize the intelligence."

After everyone gathered in the center of the open space, Jiang Mingyang checked his phone signal: "The network is still working, but the location service is still not working. The number of viewers in the live stream... has already exceeded one million."

Several people on both sides crowded around to look at the comments, which were still discussing the previous paper figure they had encountered.

What was the meaning of that paper figure pointing the way earlier?

[The character "孝" (filial piety)? Does this mean this village used to be a cemetery?]

[Is there anyone knowledgeable in Feng Shui who can share their insights?]

[Feng shui is utterly useless; it's not just metaphysics, it's pure fantasy!]

"Based on our current observations, the paper figures exhibit three main behavioral patterns: First, they are sensitive to sound. Second, they can move and perform simple actions at a considerable speed. Third, they may exhibit some form of guidance behavior, such as pointing the way just now."

"But as I said before, you can't trust the messages from paper figures... that could be a dead end..."

"But there are too many of these," Chen Xing said softly.

There are more than twenty of them just by looking at them...

Lin Xiao's face darkened as he thought of that number.

If these paper figures swarm in, even with weapons, they would have a hard time dealing with them...

Li Haojie, unusually attentive, suddenly pricked up his ears, paused for a moment, and asked in confusion, "What's that sound?"