Chapter 74: Folklore Horror (4)
“I want you to teach me how to truly fall in love with you.” The little fox crouched by the riverbank as moonlight flowed down in shimmering strands, casting a faint silvery glow over his snow-white fur.
After a brief pause, he asked again, “Is that alright?”
The moment those words were spoken—
Even Deng Ran was stunned.
Jian Yuntai was equally baffled.
How was he supposed to teach something like that?
Let alone a fox— even if a living, breathing human had been standing in front of him, he would not have wanted to teach them.
He had no particular reason.
He simply did not want to.
Jian Yuntai did not want anyone to fall in love with him.
Although that was what he thought inside, not a trace of it showed on his face. The moment he opened his mouth, he spoke nothing but perfunctory nonsense. “Sure. I’m actually very good at matters of the heart.”
The livestream viewers immediately stifled their laughter:
“LOL spread the word—Jian Dadan was best at emotional entanglements. You little love scammer!!!”
“Hahahaha this scene looked so familiar… Didn’t Jian Dadan trick Cui Yu like this at the beginning of the King of Hell’s Wedding instance? Every word out of his mouth was nonsense. His ability to make things up was practically divine.”
“Why was Jian Dadan so attractive to NPCs hhhhhh?”
“Because he was good-looking and had charisma, obviously. Otherwise how could he be so many people’s Wife~”
After receiving Jian Yuntai’s affirmative reply, Fuzhu seemed delighted and did not delay any longer.
The fox’s figure gradually grew faint, replaced by an adult man dressed in coarse cloth. He stood with his back to Jian Yuntai, so the latter could not see his face.
—So this was the Drowned Ghost’s lover?
“Your contracted demon beast was pretty impressive.” Deng Ran leaned closer and whispered, “When I saw you choose this fox yesterday, I thought you’d lost your mind. Turns out the idiot was me. If I’d known, I would’ve picked him.”
Jian Yuntai said, “Your tiger wasn’t bad either.”
“Let’s skip the commercial mutual flattery.” Deng Ran sighed and said, “You’re a Sinister Ghost Type, so you probably don’t understand how we Sinister Monster Types feel. Sometimes I felt like a soldier charging into battle—every time I rushed forward, I could only fight one enemy. But you Ghost Types were different. You were like strategists standing atop the city walls. With a wave of your hand, one person could contend against an entire army.”
Jian Yuntai was not a Sinister Ghost Type, but he did not correct her. He decided to let this beautiful misunderstanding continue.
After thinking for a moment, he said, “Fatty was a Sinister Ghost Type too.”
“……” Deng Ran glanced at Fatty. After a few seconds of silence, he said, “Suddenly I wasn’t that envious of Ghost Types anymore. Their growth period was too long. Every Ghost Type I’ve seen so far was still in the sneaky development phase. Before they could fully grow, click—dead.”
During their brief exchange, Fatty had not said a word. It was as if his entire mind had gone blank.
He could only sit there stiffly, staring blankly at the surface of the water.
Splash—
Water sprayed into the air.
Sure enough, the Drowned Ghosts were drawn to the movement.
Both Drowned Ghosts stared blankly at Fuzhu. Across the rippling river, their faces looked as though they were on the verge of tears. After standing in silence for a long while, they unexpectedly began moving toward the riverbank at the same time.
Jinjin seized the opportunity and quickly surfaced.
The little creature was clever. Knowing that this was not the time for big movements, it paddled gently like a kitten being bathed, its paws lightly slicing through the water as it quietly circled around the Drowned Ghosts.
Seeing this, Jian Yuntai and Deng Ran stopped talking.
The riverbank became utterly still, with only the constant sound of rushing water filling the air.
Just as Jinjin was about to climb ashore—
The situation suddenly changed!
Fuzhu’s figure flickered and distorted, like the reflection of the moon in water shattered by a tossed pebble. The moon’s image broke apart.
In the blink of an eye, he turned back into a little fox.
“!!!” One of the Drowned Ghosts snapped out of it almost instantly and screamed, “Don’t come any closer! It’s a trap!”
That Drowned Ghost immediately turned and fled.
The other Drowned Ghost still stared blankly at the little fox, seeming slow to react. By the time she realized what had happened and tried to escape, the cat demon had already crouched and leapt into the river.
Its sharp claws rose high—
With a tearing sound, it pierced straight through the Drowned Ghost’s chest, leaving a bloody, gaping hole. She did not even have time to scream before her body lost all strength. From the hole in her chest, a round white inner core popped out. When her companion saw this, she was so terrified that she fled even faster than before.
Blood quickly spread through the water, turning the once-clear riverbank into a murky, fleshy red.
Crunch, crunch—
The cat demon tossed the inner core into its mouth and chewed it into pieces in just a few bites.
Afterward, with a flick of its paw, it dragged the Drowned Ghost’s corpse onto the shore and kicked it in front of Jinjin.
It was as if the cat demon was avenging Jinjin.
The two cats circled the corpse, sniffing it over and over.
Fatty immediately rushed forward. Stepping on the Drowned Ghost’s corpse, he scooped Jinjin into his arms. His face was pale, and though his lips trembled, he still could not speak.
Jinjin obediently curled up in his embrace.
Seeing this, the cat demon said to Fatty, “Was this cat also your contracted demon beast? You didn’t need to treasure it so excessively. In a world full of danger, our duty was to fight enemies for our master. And once there was battle, there would inevitably be victory and defeat. One day, I would die.”
“……” Fatty looked at the cat demon, his face deathly pale.
The cat demon licked its paw and continued, “This contracted beast called Jinjin would also die in battle sooner or later.”
Fatty had a fiery temper. Upon hearing that, he immediately wanted to refute it. But he realized, dejectedly, that the cat demon was completely right.
Who could play house in the apocalypse?
By then, the group had gathered around the Drowned Ghost’s corpse. After swallowing the inner core, the cat demon seemed to sense a change within its body. It dug a pit in the ground and crouched inside.
Deng Ran said, “He was about to transform.”
At those words, the others instinctively gathered closer around the cat demon. Beneath the bleak moonlight, the little fox lay alone on the riverbank.
It hurt—his heart hurt so much.
After Fuzhu reverted to his original form, he could no longer sit upright. He trembled as he lay flat against the ground.
The earth was filthy.
His snow-white fur was stained with dirt, like pristine snow splashed with muddy water.
Just as the pain became unbearable, his body was lifted gently into someone’s arms. Through his hazy consciousness, Fuzhu struggled to open his eyes and met a pair of beautiful eyes tinged with concern.
Jian Yuntai asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
With his back to the noise, it felt as though the entire world had faded away, leaving only the person before him.
Fuzhu’s voice carried a faint smile. “I was just a little drained.”
Jian Yuntai looked at him suspiciously. “Did forcing yourself to take human form hurt you?”
Fuzhu changed the subject. “That didn’t count as transforming. It was just a special ability unique to the fox clan. If my inner core hadn’t been dug out…”
Even though he did not finish the sentence, Jian Yuntai could roughly guess the rest. As for the matter of his inner core being removed, Jian Yuntai had always followed his first rule—pretend not to know.
The moment Fuzhu mentioned it, Jian Yuntai lost the desire to continue the conversation and did not press further about his injuries.
For demon clans, transforming into human form took time.
The duration varied depending on the specific demon. For example, the cat demon’s transformation took a full half hour, and he could not be moved easily during the process.
While waiting, Deng Ran grew impatient. After saying goodbye, she left first.
Fatty sat down beside the cat demon, still holding Jinjin in his arms, wearing a thoughtful expression.
Today’s calamity had struck him like a harsh warning bell, forcing him to think about something he had never considered before.
—What if one day Jinjin died?
What would he do then?
Jian Yuntai sat down on the ground as well, still holding the little fox.
“What were you thinking about?”
Fatty had been lost in his thoughts. Hearing the voice, he jolted and muttered, “I was wondering… was there any meaning in me joining the Livestream Team? It felt like I’d only been seeking protection—moving from one dangerous place to an even more dangerous one.”
Jian Yuntai frowned. “What did you mean?”
Fatty said dejectedly, “Before I joined the Livestream Team, I used to hang around in E-level instances every day, like a fish in water. After joining, the organization never arranged an E-level instance for me again…”
Jian Yuntai’s gaze flickered, and he cut him off immediately. “We were livestreaming. Did you think it was appropriate to say that?”
It was like an employee ranting about the boss in the company group chat—basically asking to get fired.
Fatty knew Jian Yuntai could not understand him. He shook his head and sighed. “When you one day had something—or someone—you wanted to protect, you’d understand how I felt right now.”
“The only person I ever wanted to protect was myself.” Jian Yuntai did not want to dwell on the topic. Seeing Fatty in low spirits, he deliberately changed the subject. “How did you two meet?”
“Which two?”
“You and Deng Ran.”
“Oh—oh.” At the mention of that, Fatty’s eyes filled with something like painful nostalgia. “We’d known each other for years. She was my doctoral classmate’s girlfriend. Uh… ex-girlfriend. Back then, before the world mutated, my classmate cheated. Deng Ran stormed straight from another university to our teaching building and, in front of the whole class screaming their heads off, smashed my classmate with a construction-site iron rod until he got a concussion. I thought she was fierce—and strong, too. Later, during a field study, I asked her to help carry bricks. After going back and forth a few times, we got to know each other.”
A muffled laugh came from Jian Yuntai’s arms. The little fox narrowed his vertical pupils, and a clear male voice sounded.
“What did ‘cheating’ mean?”
Fatty laughed awkwardly and said nothing.
So Fuzhu turned to Jian Yuntai. “You promised you would teach me how to truly fall in love with you. I wanted to know what cheating meant.”
“…………” Seeing Fatty’s teasing expression, clearly enjoying the spectacle, Jian Yuntai kept his face calm and said, “Cheating meant liking someone while also liking someone else at the same time. That wasn’t right.”
Nonsense. Illogical. Avoiding the real issue.
Jian Yuntai knew it himself, but he did not want to discuss sex with a little fox, so he simply made something up.
Note: the cheating Fatty refers to is sleeping with someone else.
Fu Zhu actually believed him. After thinking for a moment, he asked, “Then did you have someone you liked?”
“…………”
This time, the silence lasted especially long—so long that clouds drifted across the sky and covered the moon, plunging the earth into ink-darkness. So long that the clouds passed again, and moonlight poured down once more.
Moonlight danced upon Jian Yuntai’s eyelashes. Half of his face seemed wrapped in silver frost, while the other half was hidden in shadow.
In the suffocating stillness—
The cat demon suddenly shuddered. A series of cracking sounds came from his body, like bones breaking and reconnecting. The excruciating pain forced him to howl and scream.
After the inhuman torment—
A cat-eared boy lay quietly in the pit he had dug for himself, unconscious.
“It finally worked.” Fatty stepped forward, hoisted the cat demon onto his back, and hurried away. “Let’s head back first.”
Jian Yuntai had no objections. He only stepped closer to examine the cat demon carefully. The boy’s face was dotted with a few freckles. He looked youthful and cute, with a trace of boyish innocence.
“How did demons get their human appearances when they transformed?” he asked Fuzhu.
Fuzhu replied, “Most were like humans—they were born looking that way. Only the fox clan was special. Our willpower could influence our transformed appearance, though not by much.” Otherwise, his clan would not be full of beauties. There were always demons who did not want to look too stunning.
Jian Yuntai walked behind Fatty, glancing at the cat demon’s tail swaying behind him, then at the cat ears on his head.
He had a human form, yet still retained animal features.
He wondered whether the demons in this instance were edible. If he ate one, would it nourish Black Lotus?
At the thought, he could not resist reaching out to touch the cat ears. They felt quite nice.
Jian Yuntai squeezed them a few more times.
“Did that count as cheating?” Fuzhu’s chilly voice suddenly sounded beside his ear. “You were holding me while craving him.”
“…” Jian Yuntai said, “That didn’t count!”
Fuzhu let out an “Oh,” his tone still cool. “I could transform too in the future.”
Jian Yuntai glanced at him, confused. “So?”
Fuzhu’s fluffy tail tightened firmly around Jian Yuntai’s waist. “So you could only crave me.”
“You should succeed in taking human form first before saying something like that.”
Jian Yuntai laughed and reached out to pry that tail away, feeling as though he had been coiled up by a water snake. The instance mission was already tense enough; he had no interest in taking the little fox’s possessiveness to heart.
But Fuzhu’s eyes darkened quietly.
—He wanted to take human form.
The elder had once told him that when he wished to seduce a human, that would be the time he could transform.
Seduce?
Fuzhu did not understand what seduction meant.
All he knew was that he desperately wanted to seize all of Jian Yuntai’s attention. That pale, slender hand—
could touch him, and only him.
※※※
After going through that ordeal, both Jian Yuntai and Fatty felt exhausted. Once they returned to their room, no matter how much Sun Bin pressed them with questions, neither of them wanted to speak.
They collapsed onto their beds and slept straight through until morning.
Jian Yuntai was awakened by the blare of suona horns and the pounding of drums. Outside came waves of noise, mixed with the crackle of firecrackers.
When he opened the door, he saw that quite a few players were already up—some of them might not have slept at all.
Scattered among them, each player had brought along various beast-eared boys and girls. After transforming, these monsters bore some resemblance to the Sinister Monster Type, and if not for the differences in age and build, Jian Yuntai might have thought the instance had admitted new players.
“So early in the morning—what are they doing?” Fatty walked over with a washbasin and handed Jian Yuntai a disposable toothbrush.
Brushing his own teeth, foam spraying as he spoke unclearly, he asked, “Is someone getting married?”
Jian Yuntai crouched at the doorway and brushed his teeth. “The Mother Goddess Festival.”
Fatty slapped his forehead. “Damn, I almost forgot about that. Hurry up and brush. Later we’ll sneak into the banquet and grab something to eat. If you don’t start eating properly, you’re going to starve.”
Just as he finished speaking, a ‘lion’ came dancing over.
Jian Yuntai sidestepped, and the child beneath the lion dance costume yanked off the headpiece. Standing crookedly on stilts, he pulled a face and stuck out his tongue. “The sun’s already high in the sky and you’re still sleeping? You really can sleep, huh.”
It was Xiao Liuliu.
Yesterday, Jian Yuntai had slammed him into the wall. He hadn’t expected the boy to still have the nerve to come provoke him today.
Xiao Liuliu seemed to have developed a peculiar interest in Jian Yuntai. Even though many “outsiders” stood in the empty street, he danced his lion only around Jian Yuntai, wobbling on stilts and performing all sorts of playful tricks.
With a loud clatter, he suddenly lost his balance.
And fell flat on his face.
“Impressive. Truly impressive,” Jian Yuntai chuckled leisurely and clapped twice from the side.
Furious, Xiao Liuliu tore off the lion head and was about to lash out at Jian Yuntai—only to freeze.
Jian Yuntai was half-crouched by the doorway, bathed in warm sunlight. The smile on his face was light and casual, and his dark brown eyes gleamed like the most brilliant cat’s-eye gemstones in the world.
When his lips curved, his brows and eyes looked as if they had been painted.
“…………”
Xiao Liuliu’s face flushed bright red. He stared at Jian Yuntai for a long moment, holding his breath, then suddenly scrambled to his feet. Snatching up the stilts from the ground, he ran off in a flash, disappearing from sight.
“What was wrong with him?” Fatty glanced outside.
Jian Yuntai shrugged, baffled. “How would I know?”
After getting ready, the three of them quickly headed out.
By now, quite a few players had gathered at the village committee office. The Sinister Monster Types had assembled together, each accompanied by their demon beasts.
At a glance, the whole scene resembled a circus.
The villagers, however, seemed not the least bit curious. One after another, they stood lifelessly on the open ground in front of the village office.
Though the village was small, the annual Mother Goddess Festival meant everything to them. For its sake, Mother Goddess Village had abolished all other ordinary holidays. It could be said that an entire year of farming and herding had been devoted to preparing for this single day.
The spectacle was therefore quite grand.
A procession carried a heavy golden statue of the Mother Goddess from the empty street. After parading it around the entire village once, they finally placed it before the village committee office.
Crackle, crackle—
Firecrackers exploded without pause.
The golden statue of the Mother Goddess looked nothing like Jian Yuntai had imagined.
He had originally thought that a “god” should be solemn and dignified—something like a Bodhisattva had formed in his mind.
Yet the statue before him had nothing to do with solemnity or dignity. What met his eyes was a woman with a graceful figure, dressed in ancient robes, a thin veil draped over her head.
As the wind blew, the veil fluttered gently—revealing a face without features.
A group of men dressed in shamanic attire danced strangely beside the golden statue, circling it as they sang a fertility song:
“The sun rises high, the sun sinks low.”
“Let evil scatter, let divine light shine.”
“May offspring be summoned—”
He had seen rituals praying for rain, and rituals praying to ward off disaster.
But this was the first time he had seen one praying for children.
With a soft pat, Fatty placed a hand on Jian Yuntai’s shoulder, about to speak. But when his gaze met Fuzhu’s icy stare, he quietly withdrew his hand.
After a pause, he said in surprise, “Looks like you were right before. This village really can’t produce children. I bet the kids here—the ones born to middle-aged parents—were all obtained through this kind of prayer.”
“Let evil scatter, let divine light shine—may offspring be summoned!” The shamans were not true shamans at all. They were merely villagers dressed in shamanic robes, looking rather mismatched.
The villagers called them—the High Priests.
The High Priests scattered fragrant rice, peanuts, and melon seeds beside the golden statue.
The children eagerly scrambled on the ground to pick them up and eat.
Looking closely, they were all boys.
Xiao Liuliu was right there among them. He circled around a bridal sedan chair, constantly grabbing melon seeds from the ground and hurling them at it. The villagers scolded him for being “naughty” and dragged him away.
Before long, several people carried the bridal sedan chair to the front of the golden statue.
“Wel-come! The! Sac-ri-fi-cial! Of-fer-ing!” the High Priest cried out in a drawn-out voice. As if in response, the suona horns suddenly rose to a shrill and excited pitch.
Someone lifted the curtain of the sedan chair and brought out the paper bride inside.
The paper figure was crudely made. Bits of thread and straw stuck out from within. The bride’s facial features were painted just as carelessly—two red dots for eyes, and a stiff, awkward smile outlined in black ink.
Everything about it looked like nothing more than an ordinary village festival.
There was nothing unusual.
At least, neither Fatty nor Sun Bin noticed anything strange.
After watching from the side for quite a while and seeing players gradually enter the village committee building for the feast, Fatty finally asked, “Do you see anything odd?”
“Hmm…” Jian Yuntai walked toward the village committee as well. Before leaving, he frowned and glanced at the paper bride several times.
This was the only grand celebration held once a year. The fragrant rice, the golden statue, the bridal sedan chair, the lion dance, the suona horns… everything was so ceremonious it was astonishing. Only this paper bride felt perfunctory to an extreme.
After all, this had been a grand event passed down for nearly a hundred years. Every ritual should have been like a seasoned craft, inherited generation after generation. Making paper figures was indeed somewhat difficult—but painting a bride’s face? Honestly, even he could not have painted something that ugly.
Fatty asked again, “Something weird?”
Jian Yuntai gave the paper bride one last look, then shook his head. “No. Let’s go eat.”
After he left, the suona horns continued to blare.
The paper bride was hoisted high in the air, facing the golden statue of the Mother Goddess. One wore a gauzy veil over a faceless countenance; the other had a deathly pale face with crudely painted, eerie features.
The paper bride’s thin, threadlike black mouth slowly curled upward, trembling like a tadpole. The red dots in its eye sockets spun wildly and erratically.
Bit by bit, they shifted to the very edges of the sockets, eerily “gazing” toward the village committee building.
Clatter, clatter—
Xiao Liuliu grabbed another large handful of melon seeds and peanuts and viciously hurled them at the paper bride.
“Pah!” he spat angrily.
……
……
The banquet at the village committee was held in separate rooms.
For such a small village, the rules were surprisingly strict—men and women were not allowed to dine together. Jian Yuntai and the other male players were arranged in the room on the left, while the female players were placed in the adjacent room.
The dishes served were mutton, beef, and the like.
There were also plates of fried insects and fried scorpions.
Fatty frowned at the sight. With beef and mutton available, Jian Yuntai had no interest in eating bugs. He kept moving his chopsticks steadily. At first, the players had been discussing the strange demons they encountered the previous night, but eventually they all fell silent, staring at Jian Yuntai in suffocated disbelief.
Why.
Could he.
Eat.
So.
Much.
“Hahahaha, the best part of watching this livestream every time is seeing someone get scared by wife’s appetite.”
“They still haven’t realized how serious this is. If they keep spacing out like that, Jian Dadan is going to eat everything hahaha.”
“It looks like the reputation of wife for ripping off King of Hell’s head has spread pretty far, but word about his huge appetite hasn’t gotten out yet. Sigh… are we not working hard enough? Maybe we need to promote him more on Weibo.”
“I’m dying of laughter. Who would even like that kind of promotion? A vicious beauty who eats a ton—if you kept him at home, you’d go bankrupt.”
“Hehehe, I’ve noticed that up to now, everyone Jian Dadan has met has been shocked by how much he eats. Without exception.”
“There is one exception! Cui Yu!”
At the mention of Cui Yu, the livestream chat noticeably slowed for a moment. Before the viewers could sink into grief—
Fuzhu crouched beside Jian Yuntai’s chair. After watching for a while, he said, “You are too thin. You needed to eat more.”
“???” This time, not only the livestream viewers but even the players stared blankly at Fuzhu.
Jian Yuntai’s chopsticks paused as well. The corner of his mouth twitched. “I was already eating ‘a bit’ more than the average person.”
Fuzhu’s vertical pupils swept across the other male players, and he let out a disdainful snort through his nose. “They are the ones eating too little.”
The players, caught in the crossfire: “…………” Damn it!
“Eating too much isn’t good either. I can barely afford to feed myself as it is.” Thinking of the newly grown white lotus “money-eating beast” in the lotus pond, Jian Yuntai let out a long sigh.
Fuzhu said earnestly, “I will raise you.”
Jian Yuntai laughed lightly and replied offhandedly, “You should focus on taking human form first instead of talking nonsense.”
Fuzhu did not blink as he looked at Jian Yuntai, silently placing transforming into human form back onto his priority list.
Only after transforming could he contact the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox clan.
As the future leader of the King of Ten Thousand Demons’ race, Fuzhu was not boasting—he genuinely intended to raise Jian Yuntai.
Unfortunately, Jian Yuntai did not take him seriously at all.
Fatty had gone around asking the other players for information. He returned and sat down regretfully. “No one ran into the Slit-Mouthed Woman last night.”
Jian Yuntai leaned back, his brows tightly furrowed.
There were too many demons in the village. Simply searching blindly would make it extremely difficult to find the Slit-Mouthed Woman. So what should they do?
Just as he was struggling with this, a loud bang suddenly rang out. All the players startled and snapped their heads toward the doorway.
Guide Black Dog came scrambling in, practically rolling as he ran, even tripping over the threshold. He lay on the ground groaning for quite a while before climbing up with a pale face.
“This is bad!”
As soon as those words came out, the players exchanged looks. Their eyes were filled with excitement.
The worst thing was for nothing to happen.
The first day had already passed, and they had yet to trigger even the main quest. If this dragged on, they might not earn a single day of survival time after leaving the instance. Wouldn’t that mean they had come here for nothing?
Jian Yuntai needed survival time even more than they did.
He had only a little over two hours left.
If this instance failed to trigger the main quest, he would die on the spot after exiting. Not even a god could save him.
At that thought, Jian Yuntai straightened in his seat and asked directly, “What happened?”
Black Dog said anxiously, “Someone went missing!”
—Following Nong Lingling from the missing-person notice, on the second day of the instance, someone had disappeared again.
The players grew even more excited, guessing that whatever was happening must be connected to the main quest. Even Jian Yuntai could not help curling his lips slightly as he pressed, “Who went missing?”
Who could it be?
There were no young men or women left in the village—not even teenagers. Could it be an even younger child this time?
Under everyone’s anxious gaze, Black Dog’s expression turned strange. He opened his mouth several times but failed to speak. In the end, he could only raise his arm and point with his index finger.
Everyone followed the direction of his finger.
It was a wall.
“Why are you pointing at a wall?” one player asked in confusion. But Jian Yuntai immediately understood.
Black Dog was not pointing at the wall—he was pointing at the room next door!
The male and female players had been separated for the banquet, but both doors had remained open. The clinking of bowls and plates, the murmur of conversation… everything had been clearly audible.
Yet at some unknown moment, all sound from the adjacent room had vanished. It was as silent as an empty grave.
It was not one person who had gone missing.
It was a whole group.
By then, more and more players realized what had happened, their faces filling with terror and shock.
A cold wind blew in from outside. Goosebumps prickled across their skin, as if a basin of icy water had been poured over their heads.
—When… had they disappeared?
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