Chapter 404: They Began to Sing |
The old man set down the basin of rice and shuffled back to the counter. He returned with twenty-two bowls stacked in four neat piles, which he placed firmly on the table.
The players each took a wooden bowl, filled it with rice, and found a corner to sit in. Shuo Meng ambled over to the old man and struck up a casual conversation, quickly gathering the essential information.
The old man’s name was Sang Ji. He was the owner of the inn and managed everything by himself. It was impossible to say how much of his life, how many years of sweat and blood, he had poured into the old wooden building.
Shuo Meng chuckled. "Judging by your age, you must have been running this inn for fifty or sixty years, haven't you?"
"No, no, no!" Sang Ji waved his hands frantically, his expression turning to one of alarm, as if he knew a monster was lurking nearby but couldn't pinpoint its arrival. "There are no years, no months. The gods watch over Shangri-La. One must not speak of such things..."
Muttering to himself, he shuffled away. His gait was unsteady, and his ankle-length trousers billowed around his legs, making it impossible to see his feet as he moved.
Watching Sang Ji's retreating back, Lu Li remarked, "In many superstitious cultures, asking an elder their age is a serious taboo. Legend has it that if you can keep your true age hidden from the gods, you can cheat death and live forever. Conversely, if your age is spoken aloud, the trick is revealed, and your life is forfeit."
"It's not that simple," Fu Jue countered. "The name 'Sang Ji' means 'Buddha' in Tibetan. Buddha is formless, without desire, beyond birth and death, and outside of time. We already know the core elements of this instance include reincarnation, time, and the cycle of life and death. This requires our full attention."
"Exactly," Jiang Junjue agreed. "It's certainly living up to its name as the Final Instance—complex, philosophical, and we still don't even have our main objective.
This was a sentiment most of the rational players shared.
Lin Chen chose this moment to speak. "We've never been the ones to initiate conflict. As long as you can keep your own people in line, we're willing to cooperate."
The sharp-tongued female player from before muttered under her breath, "What's that supposed to mean? So passive-aggressive..."
"Yu Su," Li Yunyang called out, her brow furrowed with concern. "What's gotten into you? You don't seem to be yourself."
"What are you talking about?" Yu Su pouted. "I feel fine. Perfectly fine, in fact."
The interruption killed any desire for further discussion. The players fell silent, focusing on shoveling rice into their mouths.
At high altitudes, the lower air pressure means a lower boiling point for water. The rice was undercooked, leaving it hard and starchy. Qi Si managed a few bites before setting down his chopsticks.
Yu Su cried out in frustration, "This rice is raw! How can anyone eat this?"
Her voice was not quiet. From the shadows behind the counter, Sang Ji turned his head and gave her a peculiar stare.
A male player quickly tried to smooth things over. "It's not that bad, it's edible. You've just never been truly hungry..."
Sang Ji turned back around, his trembling hands disappearing behind the counter as he busied himself with some unseen task. Yu Su shot him a suspicious glance and whispered, "I don't care, I'm not eating it. Undercooked rice is food for the dead..."
Her words instantly killed what little appetite the others had. Life in the twenty-first century was comfortable, and few players present came from poor families. There was no reason to force down a meal that was both unpleasant and unlucky.
A quarter of an hour later, Sang Ji shuffled over to their table. He placed eleven room keys on the surface, then picked up the nearly full basin of rice and walked away.
Twenty-two players, eleven rooms. A perfect two to a room.
Both factions that had entered the instance had an even number of members, so there would be no awkward pairings of strangers.
Outside, the sky had turned completely black. A moon rose, its surface veined with red, casting down a crimson light. A cold wind swept down from the mountain, rattling the windows and doorframes. Bone tablets hanging from a wind chime clattered against each other with a sharp, dry sound.
Qi Si casually picked up a key. It was number six—neither at the end of the hall nor next to the stairs.
Lin Chen glanced at the others. "It's getting late. We're going to head up and rest. Qi Si and I will share a room, and Xu Yao and Lu Li will take another."
Xu Yao sifted through the remaining keys before plucking out number nine. She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "You two go on ahead. We'll wait down here for a little while."
One team to scout the upstairs area while the other remained below to monitor the other factions—it was the most logical arrangement.
Lin Chen took the key from Qi Si and led the way. Maintaining his public persona as the guild's vice president, Qi Si followed silently behind him.
The path from the main hall to the staircase passed through an open-air corridor. The walls on either side were made of an open latticework that let in the wind and the eerie moonlight.
White bone tablets, etched with bizarre scriptures, hung from both sides of the corridor. The wind sent them clattering against the walls with a dry, rattling sound.
Amid the soft clatter, Qi Si heard them again—light footsteps. It was unmistakably the same person he had heard during the day. This was no trick of over-strained nerves, no groundless paranoia.
He turned his head toward the sound. The pilgrim wrapped in burlap had appeared outside the inn sometime without him noticing. The figure was prostrating repeatedly in the direction of the corridor, muttering incessantly.
The pilgrim's head was facing directly toward Qi Si. From this angle, the crimson moonlight revealed his face in gruesome detail: a gaping mouth, rotting eye sockets squirming with maggots, and a nose that had decayed into a single dark cavity.
He was unmistakably a corpse, and one that had been decaying for so long it was nearly a skeleton.
"Qi Si, I think I understand..." Lin Chen had also seen the pilgrim's face, and his voice was strained. "There's no death here. So even when these pilgrims die, they just keep going as walking corpses, mechanically repeating the actions of their lives."
Indeed. To many, death is the end of life, a symbol of nothingness and destruction. But it is also, in its own way, the beginning of a cycle.
A weary soul departs, a decaying body returns to the soil, and rotting matter becomes nourishment for new life. The entire ecosystem continues through this cycle, maintaining the order of the world.
If the world's rules were a program, then deleting the "death" function without reason would inevitably lead to countless errors and system failures.
Their bodies decay and their souls scatter, yet they can find no release in death. They are forced to linger in the world as empty shells.
Lin Chen watched the pilgrim for a moment longer before asking thoughtfully, "Qi Si, do you think our items can still kill them?"
"You could always try," Qi Si said casually, glancing back the way they had come. "Perhaps they can die, but they just respawn after being buried in the mountains for seven days."
Where the main hall should have been, the corridor now stretched endlessly in both directions. It was as if the long path had no beginning and no end.
The murmuring scriptures that had been lingering in the air suddenly swelled in volume, merging into a distinct song. It sounded like countless voices singing in unison from all directions:
"What is Gabala..."
(404 Not Found. The lyrics that followed were redacted, as if by some internal protocol. The full version would only be revealed through the titles of subsequent chapters.)
The singing swelled, becoming louder and more resonant. The melody, though sacred and solemn, was laced with a palpable strangeness that quickly blossomed into a thick, pervasive dread. It felt like standing in a primeval forest where seeds sprouted the instant they hit the soil, where ancient shamans danced and chanted with scepters held high, and where plants and insects thrived in the crevices of bleached bones.
In the blink of an eye, the pilgrim who had been outside was now inside the corridor. Its form flickered in and out of sight just a short distance ahead of Qi Si, still maintaining its one-step, one-prostration rhythm, its decayed face still turned toward him.
It drew closer, the maggots in its eye sockets stretching their bodies, looking as if they might launch themselves out and burrow into the players' flesh. Lin Chen raised his [Pain-Filled Umbrella], ready to activate it in an instant.
He didn't know if the monsters in this deathless Shangri-La could even be killed, but the umbrella's one-minute summoning duration would be more than enough time for the shadow ghost to get them away.
Lin Chen placed his thumb on the release switch, about to press it, when Qi Si shook his head. "Wait," he advised. "Let's be frugal with our single-use items."
Though he didn't understand the reasoning, Lin Chen trusted Qi Si's judgment completely. He lowered the umbrella and shot Qi Si an inquisitive glance.
Qi Si remained silent, his gaze fixed on the pilgrim's eyes. He began to back away, matching the creature's pace step for step, maintaining a constant distance of one meter between them.
The "What is Gabala" song echoed again and again. Faintly, beneath the voices, Qi Si detected a hint of electronic static. It sounded familiar—it was the distinct playback effect of his [Ghost Driver's Recorder].
As a player who made it a habit to record any songs he heard in an instance for later use, Qi Si was absolutely certain the music was coming from his [Ghost Driver's Recorder].
The pilgrim wouldn't have attacked without a reason, and this bizarre song was almost certainly the trigger.
Qi Si remembered a story from his childhood, the Pied Piper of Hamelin. A piper came to a town plagued by rats and, with his music, lured every last one of them into a river to drown. When the townsfolk refused to pay him as promised, the piper played his flute once more in the dead of night, and all the children of the town followed him away, never to return.
In myths from all over the world, songs often serve as metaphors for guidance and temptation. Luring spirits and monsters was a common theme.
What concerned Qi Si most was the timing. He had just used the [Ghost Driver's Recorder] on the bus in exchange for his ticket, and now that same item was being turned against him as a death trap.
Could this instance have a mechanic where consumed items are absorbed into the game world and turned back against the players?
After all, if everything in this world was an externalization of the Ancestral God, then items were no exception. It was perfectly logical that once used, they would be reclaimed by the god, a theme fitting for an apocalypse.
Time seemed to stretch during the standoff. As Qi Si and the pilgrim faced each other, moving in perfect sync, it was as if Qi Si had become a psychopomp, patiently and calmly guiding a lost soul toward its final destination.
Lin Chen had been clutching the [Pain-Filled Umbrella] at Qi Si's side, ready to trigger it at the first sign of danger, but after walking like this for some time, he began to relax.
It seemed that while the Final Instance was more difficult, it still adhered to a set of fundamental rules. At the very least, it wouldn't spring a no-win scenario on them on the very first day.
He didn't know how long they walked before a faint light appeared behind them, accompanied by a new sound that cut through the whistle of the wind, the eerie song, and their own footsteps.
The soft clanking of a metal cylinder mixed with a low, rhythmic rubbing, accompanied by a faint, droning chant. The sounds blended into a strangely harmonious rhythm.
Sang Ji, who should have been behind the counter, was now standing at the junction of the corridor and the main hall. He held a prayer wheel in one hand, his other palm held vertically before him in a gesture of prayer, his lips moving silently.
His voice was so soft and low that no distinct words or tones could be made out. It sounded more like a natural, ambient noise, like the hum of an inanimate object, easily blending into the background.
And for that reason, it felt as pure as the snow on the mountains, as vast as the open plains. It seemed to descend from a void free of malice, desire, and suffering, a cleansing force that swept away all filth and terror, bringing with it an extraordinary sense of peace.
The pilgrim’s steps faltered. It was like a sleepwalker on the verge of waking, struggling to recall its location from a fog of unknowing. The maggots in its eye sockets drooped limply, wriggling back into the depths of its skull.
It slowly turned, its form flickering twice before reappearing outside the corridor two seconds later. It began to walk away, heading in the direction opposite the snow mountain.
The song still echoed through the corridor, but now, harmonized with the chanting, its eerie quality dissolved. It became a sacred hymn, indistinguishable from the prayers they had heard in the streets during the day.
The pilgrim shuffled onward, away from the song-filled corridor, its figure shrinking with distance until it faded into a gray-black shadow and vanished into the night.
With the crisis averted, Lin Chen let out a sigh of relief. He instinctively began to review the events, wondering what crucial clue he must have missed. How else could Qi Si have known the solution to the death trap when he himself had been completely lost?
Of course, Qi Si hadn't actually anticipated Sang Ji, the inn's resident NPC, suddenly arriving to save them. His original plan had been to lure the pilgrim back to the main hall and drag both the Kyushu and Listening Wind guilds into the fray.
With eighteen members between them, the two guilds would never reach a consensus in time to handle a sudden crisis. Someone was bound to act impulsively—that loud, reckless Yu Su, for instance, who had somehow made it into the Final Instance.
Once that happened, the others would inevitably be drawn in, whether out of a sense of duty or simple momentum. And that would have suited his plan perfectly—
the instance had already turned one of his own items against him. He wouldn't rest easy until everyone else was on the same playing field.
As for what actually happened... Qi Si was a little disappointed, but not by much.
There would surely be more death traps to come, and plenty of opportunities to morally blackmail the Kyushu guild into action. Sooner or later, he would get his chance to muddy the waters.
Sang Ji flicked his wrist, keeping the prayer wheel in his hand spinning without pause as he stared in the direction the pilgrim had vanished.
After a long silence, he turned to face Qi Si. "What you just saw was a sinner who failed to achieve purification," he said, his voice raspy. "Though the Mother God mercifully granted them eternal life, they must still atone for their sins through their deeds. When night falls, their malevolent thoughts grow too strong, and it is easy for them to lose their reason.
"The holy song has sounded here tonight, and the sinners of this holy city will gather. I fear they may harm you. Let me see you to your room. And remember, do not leave it after dark."
His voice was gentle, as comforting as a village grandfather telling stories to children under a tree. It was the kind of voice that made you want to believe every word he said.
Qi Si asked, "How does one atone for these sins? As the saying goes, 'When in Rome...' Do we travelers from the outside also need to atone for something?"
Sang Ji met his gaze and chuckled. "By chanting the scriptures and prostrating yourselves. Show your devotion to the Mother God, and She will forgive all her children who have lost their way. If you wish to stay here and become immortal like us, you too must atone to the Mother God and earn Her grace."
For a fleeting moment, Qi Si thought he saw a flash of silver in Sang Ji's eyes. He couldn't help but wonder if the Ancestral God was once again trying to guide or manipulate him with some subtle suggestion.
But the glint vanished as quickly as it appeared. Sang Ji's eyes returned to their usual clouded state, and Qi Si dismissed the vision as a trick of the light.
Paying them no further mind, Sang Ji clutched his prayer wheel and shuffled ahead, muttering under his breath. He looked like a guide on the road to the underworld, leading souls to their final rest.
The low, droning chant had a naturally calming effect. The memory of the recent crisis seemed to fade, sinking to the bottom of their minds, where it would remain unless deliberately dredged up.
Qi Si and Lin Chen followed Sang Ji through the corridor and up to the second floor. In the dim light, the Thangka paintings on the walls looked uncannily like figures standing in the shadows, their gemstone eyes following every person who walked by.
Lin Chen sent a message through his Soul Leaf. *Qi Si, these paintings are alive. Their eyes are following our every move. The angles of the gem facets aren't changing, so it can't be an optical illusion caused by the light or our perspective.*
*A classic horror trope,* Qi Si replied, averting his gaze. *A soul sealed inside every painting. It's a tired cliché from old horror stories.*
Sang Ji couldn't hear their exchange, but he seemed to notice Lin Chen's fixation on the paintings. He slowly turned his head to face him and chuckled. "The Thangkas I create are the most beautiful in all of Shangri-La. There will be new ones tomorrow. You must be sure to admire them..."
Lin Chen sensed a hidden meaning in his words and couldn't help but ask, "And what happens if I miss them? Or if I forget to look?"
"Time? There is no time..." Sang Ji murmured, looking at him with a bewildered expression. "And why would anyone not admire the Thangkas? Everyone in Shangri-La loves them..."