Chapter 123: The Curse

In other words, what was recorded in this diary was not an event that had already occurred in this merman village.

It was a book of prophecy; its contents were meant to be predictions of things yet to come!

With this realization, Qin Fei immediately flipped to the last page of the notebook and began reading backward.

The contents illustrated on the final page and the penultimate page depicted the entire village transforming from mermen back into humans.

This served as the prophecy fulfilled.

From the third-to-last page all the way to the first, the notebook detailed the specific methods required to realize that prophecy.

Of course, this was still just a conjecture.

As for whether it would actually work, he would have to test it to find out.

Qin Fei began searching every house in the merman village. He was looking for the tableware mentioned in the notebook, the items the villagers used to serve their food.

The mermen were incredibly dim-witted.

They basically turned a blind eye to Qin Fei rummaging through their homes.

After several hours of searching, Qin Fei finally managed to collect a large batch of tableware that matched the shapes depicted in the notebook.

Finding these items further solidified his theory.

These dishes were likely left behind by the person who wrote the prophecy, intended to help whoever solved the riddle break the curse!

Following the notebook’s reverse order, Qin Fei took the honeyed ham, radish-stewed fish, meatballs, berry-meat skewers, and roasted frog legs from the altar.

Then, mimicking the scenes drawn in the notebook, he placed the tableware he had found in their corresponding positions and arranged the food items inside them.

Qin Fei was meticulously recreating the scenes from the notebook in reverse.

The moment he finished, three white goat statues of varying forms appeared near the altar.

Did it work?

Qin Fei was slightly surprised to see the three goat statues.

But he quickly recognized them. These were the very same three goat stone carvings that were placed near the altar during the "Gorge" event in *Don't Starve*.

As Qin Fei examined the statues, two of them began to transform from stone into living, breathing goats.

The two goats stepped down from their pedestals.

One was older, the other quite young. They were dressed in a distinctly feminine style, resembling a mother and daughter.

Qin Fei stared at the two goats, his eyes filled with caution. As they approached the altar, he retreated a few steps, leaving no trace of his movement.

Both the elder and younger goats stood over four meters tall.

The creatures in the *Don't Starve* world were notoriously dangerous. A creature of this size was certainly beyond what Qin Fei could handle at the moment.

Qin Fei retreated and gently patted the rump of Big Nose, who had been resting on the ground, waking him up.

Unable to determine if they were friend or foe, Qin Fei prepared to mount Big Nose and flee at a moment's notice.

However, the two goats ignored Qin Fei entirely. After stepping off the pedestals, they walked straight to the altar.

The older goat touched the goat-head symbol on the altar. A few seconds later, it suddenly turned back and said something that left Qin Fei bewildered.

"New Gatekeeper, well done."

*Gatekeeper?*

Qin Fei was stunned.

"Gatekeeper" was a title earned by the game's protagonists only after completing the entire storyline.

To finish the game, the protagonist group had to locate the Ancient Fuelweaver deep underground and defeat it. Only by passing through the Shadow Gate could they clear the game and earn the title of "Gatekeeper."

The "gate" here referred to the Shadow Gate.

Qin Fei surmised that since he and the protagonists were of the same race—human—the goat had mistaken him for a member of the protagonist team, the Gatekeeper.

The goat had misidentified him.

But that wasn't the point.

The real issue was that, if his assumptions were correct, the timeline he had traveled to was after the protagonists had already defeated the Ancient Fuelweaver.

At this point, Wilson and the others should have long since passed through the Shadow Gate and moved on to other chapters.

Of course, there was another possibility: other transmigrators might have beaten Qin Fei to it and killed the Ancient Fuelweaver.

Regardless of the outcome, Qin Fei was certain he would not be meeting the protagonists of the game in this realm.

While Qin Fei was contemplating this, the elder goat spoke again: "Congratulations, Gatekeeper. You have found the way to rid us of the plague."

"May I ask who you are, and what plague you are referring to?"

Qin Fei kept a safe distance from the elder goat and countered with a question.

Worried about being attacked, he kept his tone extremely polite.

The two goats did not answer him, instead saying something inexplicable: "Billy and I are heading back now."

With that, they stepped onto the altar.

Suddenly, countless strange black lines appeared around the altar.

They looked as if they had been drawn out of thin air with a pencil.

Their numbers grew rapidly, gradually enveloping the entire altar and the two goats, before they vanished into the void.

At the same time, the tableware and the food disappeared as well.

How eerie.

Only after the two goats had left did Qin Fei finally lower his guard.

After the altar vanished, he began to hear "snorting" sounds and a series of conversations coming from the merman village.

*I wonder if the curse is broken...*

Qin Fei walked to a more populated area of the village.

The scene before him left him stunned.

The clumsy, dim-witted mermen were indeed gone. In their place was a group of pig-headed monsters wearing grass skirts, chatting with one another!

These were the Pigmen from *Don't Starve*!

Qin Fei finally understood: the mermen had not been humans transformed; they were Pigmen who had been afflicted by some sort of "plague."

Upon noticing Qin Fei, the Pigmen walked over and surrounded him, maintaining a slight distance as they began to discuss him.

"Aha! Isn't this guy a pig who can stand?"

"Look! Another monkey-man!"

"He’s so ugly!"

"Brother, got any meat?"

Hearing the Pigmen's chatter, Qin Fei was speechless.

One thing was certain: now that the curse had been lifted, the Pigmen who had returned were still just as annoying, but their speech was much more logical than before.

And at the very least, they knew to wear clothes—no, wait, grass skirts.

As the Pigmen grew noisy and chaotic, a familiar voice suddenly rang in Qin Fei's ears.

"Qin Fei!"

Hearing someone call his name, Qin Fei turned his head instinctively.

Not far away, Xie Nainai stood there, wearing a dress made of grass, looking utterly disheveled.

"Seriously? Xie Nainai?"

Looking at the suddenly appearing Xie Nainai, a strange thought occurred to Qin Fei: "Don't tell me you turned into a merman too?"