Famine 143: Immobility

Si Zhiyan made his decision quickly.

“We’re going to the cult again.”

As he spoke, he summoned a mist of cloud, letting it gradually fill the entire room.

Ye Xianqing asked, “Back to the cult? But we’ve already searched every corner…”

“No matter, let’s go,” replied Si Zhiyan. “We shouldn’t go empty-handed though. Come here for a moment…”

……
…

【6:30 pm / 1.5 hours until the appreciation gathering begins】

Under the gaze of all, the cult leader’s voice turned chilly.

“You all are going a bit too far.”

“Coming and going as you please—what do you take us for?”

His followers bristled in indignation behind him.

“Who do you really think wants your stuff?” Hang Feng said with a twisted expression. “Our cult leader is merciful and kind, so people think they can treat him like this.”

Another cult bloodfolk snapped, “Do you think we’d have any need for that? Are there cripples here so weak they’d want to soak in those pods?”

“The soil of the holy land is blessed by my Lord, far better than any sleep pod you could offer. Here in the holy ground, we can sleep soundly for six or seven hours—no problem!”

“You’re just jealous, aren’t you?”

Other cultists turned their heads to gaze at him.

That bloodfolk blushed and stammered, “Y-yes, sorry. I… I dozed off on the path this morning. It’s true!”

The clamor grew, and even those around them began to sound uncertain. But Si Zhiyan merely stood firm and replied, cool and dignified:

“If, after this search, we still find nothing, I will publicly apologize and leave the Nest immediately. On behalf of the farm, I will donate twenty treatment pods, fifteen jin of desserts, and fifteen kilos of vegetables and meat to the cult as compensation.”

Hang Feng raised his voice, “Who would want so—”

The cult leader stretched out a hand to silence him. “Enough, that’s enough.”

He shook his head with resignation. “If you’re this determined, let them search one last time. If nothing was done, then nothing was done—no matter what, the truth cannot be bent.”

“But this time, if you come up empty-handed again, we will not be so accommodating.”

Si Zhiyan gave a slight nod.

With the mist swirling about them, they entered the cult’s territory once more.

This time, they moved very slowly, examining every inch with meticulous care.

Especially Havana.
He’d never been nimble, and now he went even slower, treading extremely cautiously.

Climbing over the wooden carvings, just getting down from a tall one took him ages—like he feared spraining his ankle at any moment.

The cultists all shot him contemptuous looks. Hang Feng even sneered, “Cripple.”

Si Zhiyan cocked his head. “Have you often been called a cripple yourself?”

Hang Feng was instantly enraged, but was at a loss for words.

Si Zhiyan smiled and turned away. “No offense, just making conversation. I don’t see you that way.”

Hang Feng moved his lips but ultimately fell silent.

They passed through the cult’s central courtyard; Si Zhiyan did not stop.

……
…

【7:00 pm / 1 hour until the appreciation gathering begins】

By now, two-thirds of the area had been searched again.
The commotion was so great that nearly every cult member—hundreds of bloodfolk—stood nearby, glowering at them with hostile eyes.

“The cult leader has always said: pain is our Lord’s medicine. To think we need those things is nothing but an insult…”

The air thickened with tension, and Ye Xianqing and the others wiped cold sweat from their brows.

Until, at last, a small cry broke the silence—

“Whimper…”
“Woof!”

Everyone froze.

Si Zhiyan looked up, curling his finger, and the mist that had cloaked them dissipated at once.

In Havana’s arms was a portable sterile pod, cradling a black dog swaddled in bandages and plaster, soaked in blood.

It was HACK.

HACK struggled to lift his little body, raising his head and twitching his nose, letting out noises somewhere between a whine and a summons.

“Woof! …Grk, woof! Woof woof!”

He was plainly fighting hard, tugging at Havana’s sleeve from inside the isolation pod and thrashing his head forward, but he was so weak that his effort was barely perceptible, scratching helplessly at the pod in anxiety.

Bloodfolk exchanged baffled glances.

A dog?

Havana had been moving so slowly because he was carrying this dog?
They brought this badly injured dog here? And concealed it with mist? Why?

Before anyone could figure it out, Si Zhiyan spoke up. “Yan Cheng, do it.”

“Yes!” Yan Cheng replied. He hefted his hunter’s axe in both hands, following HACK’s indication, and with a surge of crackling electricity, brought the weapon down hard!

Boom!!

A brittle crack of splitting wood exploded outward—centered on Yan Cheng, the planks in a wide arc ahead were smashed to splinters!

The crowd erupted in an uproar. Hang Feng, fuming, straightened his hunched back and brandished his pair of bladed weapons. “You maniacs! How dare you!!”

Ye Xianqing, anticipating perfectly, flung out a hand. [Spatial Surgery Room] bloomed from her white doctor’s coat, an immovable transparent dome wrapping precisely around the area of demolished boards. Its ceiling was low, barely a meter high.

Everyone had to stoop and crouch inside, peering out from the back.

Hang Feng bellowed, “You think this little bubble can keep me out?!”

He barreled straight for the surgery room, like a furious miniature lion, brandishing his blades at Si Zhiyan—

Thud!
A muffled, bone-deep crash.

To stunned silence, Hang Feng was thrown back from the invisible wall. He’d rushed so fast, so recklessly, that he smashed his head and face open, blood spilling, as he let out a startled, agonized howl.

For a moment, everyone was paralyzed with shock.

Hang Feng’s face was a bloodied mess as he staggered up, touching the invisible barrier.

There was nothing there at all.
Yet he couldn’t get through.

…

But… was there really nothing at all?

In the moment everyone realized this, a line of text suddenly flashed through their minds:

[S-Class Cursed Item: The Cripple’s Lantern]
An old brass lantern, its paint chipped away to reveal dents, bruises, and scars from heavy use.
It once hung from a wheelchair, belonging to a seventy-year-old woman who perished on an “accessible” ramp.
As the wheels spun in the pool of blood, the light of the lantern began to flicker.

Bearer’s Requirements: The lantern may only be used by a [Disabled Person] or someone closely bonded to such a person. A [Disabled Person] is defined as one with a significant and obvious physical deficiency, either congenital or acquired.

Effect: Within the lantern’s range, the bearer—and any object so designated—become as “accessibility features”: immediately [Ignored] by all. No human can consciously perceive them, no matter the means. The mind will automatically overlook them, filling the gap with a more plausible reality. Their summons cannot be heard, their presence cannot be recalled. They stand in plain sight, yet all will instinctively avoid them, finding some other way forward.

Note: If an [Ignored Object] is noticed by any player, the lantern’s effect ends instantly, and its full description is revealed to all.
Once conscious attention is lost for over 48 hours, the effect reactivates.

Nothing at all changes; the starting point returns.

—

In an instant, the wall of cognitive interference collapsed.

As minds reeled, people realized all at once that the open space was lined, one after another, by rows of sleep pods!

—They were right here.
—They had never left.

The entire place erupted in exclamations!

And as eyes widened across the crowd, Si Zhiyan’s calm voice sounded among them.

“The moment the sleep pods went missing, when only HACK noticed something was wrong… I realized there must be some [irregularity].”

“My sleep is light, and my sensitivity to the pods is deep. There’s no way I should have been unaware. Whoever stole them must have hidden themselves via some special means.”

“There are many ways to distort perception. It’s easy to fool the eyes, easy to fool the ears.”

“But there is one thing that is hard to hide.”

Si Zhiyan looked up.

“—Physical space.”

“No matter how you mask sight, if someone bumps into an object, they’ll notice—the laws of physics don’t lie. The Nest is a maze of close-set wooden houses; pods this size would absolutely block passage. Whether you go around them or scramble over them, their presence would register and leave an impression.”

“Before we set out, I specifically warned about this. We combed every street of the Nest. Large skateboards, medical carts, whatever else—all could pass without hindrance. The available space matched the minimum width for passage. There simply wasn’t any leftover room for sleep pods except here—within the cult’s holy ground. Everyone was so busy climbing over carvings, going up and down, that even if we did it twice, it never struck us as odd.”

Beyond the wall, onlookers from the Nest’s ordinary bloodfolk, drawn by the commotion inside, began to gather. Some, unable to resist their curiosity, snuck up onto the wall—ignoring the Nest’s ban on flight—craning their necks for a look.

Si Zhiyan smiled.
“Of course, that was only a hypothesis.”

“My connection to the springs was utterly cut off—no response at all—which is very, very strange. In a place like Tianman Blessed Land, there shouldn’t be anything able to block that sense… Unless, perhaps, the disturbance was not to the spring, but to [my own] perception?”

“If this cursed object works by directly tampering with perception, no matter how many times I checked, I couldn’t discover it.”

“But there was one companion who could break through its cognitive interference.”
“That night, when the thief brought their hiding artifact to the encampment, only he perceived them—and paid a terrible price for it.”

Si Zhiyan raised his hand and gently patted the sterile pod. HACK lay inside, licking his hand across the barrier.

“HACK. Thank you.”

“Woof!”
HACK, painfully but happily, wagged his tail.

“Now it’s clear: this curse item works by analogy to an ‘accessibility channel’—it fails on animals, which makes sense. Able-bodied humans pass by accessibility features without noticing, but earthworms move along the ramps, and guide dogs lead the blind, avoiding obstacles. What people overlook, animals pay attention to.”

In front of them, across the holy ground, fifteen sleep pods stood in neat, interlocking ranks, their pearly sheen glowing softly.
That glow came from the original gemstone dust, worked into the shells by Si Zhiyan as he built them—extracted from a glowing ore beneath the farm’s gemstone territory.

Though they couldn’t yet mine in bulk, the hamsters had reluctantly agreed to offer a little raw stone, pushing it back and forth for a long while first.

It was this dust that made the shells so light yet strong—enough to withstand Yan Cheng’s blow, with only some minor damage.
…Just a pinch of ore for such an effect; it left Si Zhiyan all the more eager to see the mines in full production.

On the wall now, more and more bloodfolk appeared, their heads creeping curiously into view. The entire rampart was soon lined with anxious, chattering onlookers.

Everyone was whispering, nudging, marveling.

No one tried to stop them.
The cult’s bloodfolk were utterly stupefied, staring blankly at Si Zhiyan as he spoke.

“Oh, that’s right,” said Si Zhiyan suddenly, peering into the crowd with pinpoint accuracy. “That friend in the front row.”

“I recall you saying, earlier on the wall, that you napped here in the holy ground all morning without issue? You must have been sleeping nearby, close enough to be covered by the treatment pods’ glow.”

“Be careful next time—it was dangerous.”