Chapter 65: You Will Rule the Weird |
The temple's intricate corridors twisted and turned like a labyrinth. Countless passages converged and diverged, and figures of all sizes ran through them, their expressions turning to shock or keen interest upon an unexpected encounter.
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
After meeting, the figures would ask the same question in different voices—some childish, some mature, but all with the exact same intonation.
"I am Qi Si."
"I am Qi Si."
"I am Qi Si."
They answered with the same unwavering certainty before dissolving into specks of black foam that vanished into the shadow-draped walls.
Among a tour group climbing the snow-capped mountain was a quiet boy led by a smiling couple. Their faces were radiant, but the boy merely lifted his gaze to a nearby cableway. His dark eyes were devoid of emotion, as gloomy as a ghost trapped in an old mansion.
Wisps of spectral shadows coiled around the cable car's ropes. Twelve-year-old Qi Si stared, unblinking. When the car plummeted, amidst the crowd's horrified screams, a cruel and innocent smile spread across his face, as if he had just witnessed a birthday surprise.
The memory was repainted, rendered more vivid, but this time Qi Si saw things he had never noticed before.
Golden vines twisted in the shadows, stretching toward him as if to touch his body. But they seemed to be held back by an invisible force, reluctantly swerving away from him to entangle the parents who stood protectively at his side.
The twelve-year-old Qi Si ran, growing older with each step—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...
A substantial black shadow accompanied him, brandishing its claws with palpable malice. The golden vines flickered within the darkness, trying relentlessly to touch him, yet each time they could only wrap around the people nearest to him.
One by one, familiar yet distant figures were dragged into the darkness by the vines. Qi Si vaguely remembered that they had all died, and their deaths had always been unexpected.
As the running figure in the corridor reached the age of sixteen, the Qi Si seated in the temple narrowed his eyes.
He saw a car crash. Amidst a pool of blood littered with fragments of flesh, his sixteen-year-old self covered his face with his hands, his shoulders trembling.
He knew he was smiling. It was the same reaction he had to every scene of gore—a physiological excitement. The fact that the deceased were people close to him only intensified the thrill, a perverse sense of transgression that made him more frenzied than he had ever been when faced with death.
But he didn't dare laugh out loud in public. It would brand him as an outcast and cause a great deal of trouble. So he pretended to be sad. He pretended to be crying.
His performance was convincing. The police saw him and, meddling, gathered around to comfort him. A few of the unlucky ones were ensnared by the golden vines, becoming part of the crowd sinking into the gray mist.
Qi Si slowed his pace. The golden vines around him grew denser, their tendrils and leaves now just millimeters away.
The gray mist separated and reformed, constructing a low-slung building hidden deep in the mountains. A patch of flat ground was enclosed by barbed wire, and figures in white robes carrying guns patrolled inside.
Qi Si recognized it. It was the cult's base, disguised as a summer camp, where he had been confined for a time.
He saw countless ghosts flocking around him, gathering in the iron-walled room where he was kept. Unfortunately, for some reason, he could no longer see ghosts as frequently back then, so he remained oblivious to everything happening around him.
A voice chuckled softly in his ear. "Worshippers seeking their god have imprisoned him. What an absurd joke."
"It's clear you lack a sense of humor, because I don't find that joke the least bit funny." The sixteen-year-old Qi Si's tone was cold. "Are you trying to say that you, a god, are imprisoned here?"
The voice said, "Faith is a poison."
Qi Si didn't reply. At that time, he had no fondness for gods or anything of the sort.
The punk girl who shared his room, however, seemed to sense something. She grew anxious and irritable, constantly picking fights with him.
After evening prayers one day, the girl was beaten with a rifle butt for mispronouncing a word. Back in their room, she blamed him for not correcting her, shoved him to the floor, and in that instant, the vines coiled around her wrist.
No one could see the vines, but that very night, the girl's agonized screams echoed as she was burned to a crisp.
Back then, Qi Si was unaware of the Weird Game's existence and naturally didn't know his roommate had died in a dungeon. He wasn't particularly afraid; rather, he found it interesting. He leaned in and poked the charred corpse's skin with his finger.
The moment his finger made contact, a few lines of text materialized before his eyes:
[Weirdness Name: The Unquenchable Fire]
[Note: The ghost of a fire victim is trapped within the flames, its existence sustained by their continuation. To avoid complete annihilation, it ceaselessly ignites new fires, burning more and more passersby. Thousands of newly deceased souls join it in sustaining the flames, making them eternal.]
A wingless god materialized as a phantom behind Qi Si and told him, "You can ignite this great fire in the real world. You can bring pain, death, and disaster to all."
Qi Si blinked and asked, "I happen to live in this world. What good would turning it into a complete mess do for me?"
The god laughed. "Once a monster hiding among the masses is exposed, ostracism and hatred will follow like a shadow. You have only two choices: be nailed to the stake by insignificant mortals, or become a new god in a grand bonfire."
"Well said." Qi Si continued to play with the corpse's charred hand, not even looking up. "You're trying to tempt me while I'm in a tight spot, which reminds me of certain stories about devils luring people to their doom."
The god pressed a finger to its lips and lowered its eyes. "I have no intention of deceiving you into doing anything for me. You have ample time to make your decision. I came here only to give you a gift."
"What gift?"
"A belated sixteenth birthday present. A spectacular performance—or rather, a disaster." Qi Si tilted his head, thinking for a moment before dropping the charred remains. A smile touched his lips as well. "An interesting turn of phrase, but I have no desire to burn to death here."
The god said, "You are the greatest weirdness in this world. You will never be destroyed by another. On the brink of death, you will enter the Weird Game and obtain everything you desire."
"The Weird Game? What's that?"
"It is a lethal game filled with ghosts and puzzles, but it is also a grand carnival, an absurd farce. There are no morals or laws. You can do whatever you want, including becoming the most terrifying ghost in the world, a harbinger of despair, destruction, and sorrow."
Qi Si asked, "What do I need to do?"
"You need to..."
The voice stopped abruptly, as if torn apart by an extreme force.
The gray mist that had formed the image shattered into fragments. Qi Si's vision jolted violently, and when it settled again, his panoramic view was gone, returning him to the temple.
His vision flickered between black and white before dissolving into a chaotic static of light.
The memories that had been so abruptly forced into his mind merged with his own impressions, like scattered puzzle pieces finally clicking into place to form a complete picture.
After a long moment of silence, Qi Si meticulously smoothed out his thoughts and narrowed his eyes. "So, am I to understand that you've had your eye on me for a long time, and you're at least partly to blame for my lifelong bad luck?"
The god sighed. "It seems you have many misunderstandings about me. You carry the world's most concentrated and purest form of sin; you are inherently rejected by the world itself. It's nothing short of a miracle that you've survived this long. You should even be grateful to me. Did you really think those two incidents when you were twelve and sixteen were seamless?"
"You're not going to tell me you helped cover up my crimes, are you?" Qi Si said, his eyes half-lidded. "I figured with juvenile protection laws, even a few years in detention wouldn't have been too bad. When no one came after me, I just assumed they didn't connect the dots because I was so young and the cases were so vicious..."
He tilted his head. "But I am curious. Why did you help me? To relieve your boredom?"
"You will know when the time is right," the god recited in a deadpan tone. "For now, you can think of it as... 'I'm playing the long game.'"
It was a joke.
"Alright, alright." Qi Si offered a couple of dry, accommodating laughs. "In that case, I got a raw deal. You've invested over twenty years of sunk costs. I should be able to drive a much harder bargain."
The god laughed as well. "A transaction is founded on the ability of both parties to collect payment. You are clearly in no position to haggle right now. I could even violate our agreement, and you would be powerless to stop me."
Qi Si scoffed. "If I'm not mistaken, you're bound by the rules. A deal witnessed by the rules gives you no opportunity to back out either, does it?"
"Your probing is amusing, and your guess is entirely correct—there's no harm in telling you that now." The god's voice was cheerful. "After all, to use a human phrase, we're in the same boat now."
"What do you mean?"
"I was once exiled by the rules to Su Clan Village, and it was through your sin that I was able to break free. You might soon find yourself graduating from being rejected by a single world to being rejected by the rules themselves."
Qi Si's expression grew grim. "I've been meaning to ask. What did you do to get yourself killed and dumped in Su Clan Village?"
The god's laughter grew even more joyful. "You can try to guess. Of course, there's no prize for being right."
"I'm not guessing," Qi Si sneered. "If I recall correctly, the rules are the supreme existence in the Weird Game, something not even you can defy. You acted half-dead in Su Clan Village, luring me into kicking you while you were down and making a deal, never letting on that you were the one who couldn't lose..."
"You needn't be so angry. I have watched you for twenty-two years. You can trust that my interests will always align with yours," the god said with a smile. "The rules are like the sun, moon, and stars; they don't deign to notice every ant on the ground. And the pleasure and profit you gain from our deal will far outweigh the risks posed by the rules. That is how you're accustomed to thinking, isn't it?"
The words were spoken as if they were self-evident, and indeed, they resonated with the logic Qi Si knew and trusted.
Qi Si understood then that no amount of haggling would get him a better deal.
His smile vanished, and he spoke calmly, "It's clear you know me well, so let's be direct. What do you need me to do, and what's in it for me?"
The god's demeanor turned serious. "I can only tell you this: a divine gamble involving the past, the present, and the future has begun. I have wagered everything, and I expect you to keep winning until you claim the final crown of the Sunset Ruins..."
The scarlet eye above them dissolved into a red mist, which then condensed into a streak of light that shot toward the space behind Qi Si.
Qi Si turned his head slightly, following the red light's direction. On the wall at the far end of the temple, a network of intersecting fissures had appeared. Golden light pulsed within them, looking from a distance like countless growing vines.
Qi Si thought of the vines from his visions, the ones that had tried to touch him, and his gaze sharpened. "What is this?"
"The Weird Game is a tree," the god explained. "The tree's vines grow wild, plucking soul leaves one by one to hang upon its branches. Those are the players."
Qi Si rose from the high-backed chair and walked toward the shimmering golden wall, studying the tree's silhouette.
The great golden tree in the temple was bare. Its leafless branches were stark and ugly, looking as though they might wither and decay at any moment.
The god continued, "There is a tree in this temple as well. You can hang the soul leaves you acquire upon it, until it is lush and flourishing."
"And then?" Qi Si asked.
"And then..."
The red light shattered into a bloody mist, dissolving ethereally into the dim dust. The god's voice drifted from far away, like a whisper in a dream:
"You will rule the weird."
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