Chapter 407: Snow Mountain |
In Room 9, Xu Yao lay on the wooden bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.
Though she had been a ghost for centuries, steeped in the bottom of a well, her recent period of recuperation in Qi Family Village had reawakened her desire for a certain quality of life. Now, everything about this inn grated on her nerves.
The bed was as hard as a board and in serious disrepair, groaning and creaking with her slightest movement. The bedding smelled as if it hadn’t been aired out in ages, and a damp, musty odor tickled her nose, making her stomach turn.
Ghosts required no sleep, and by the same token, they shouldn’t possess the five senses. But the moment Xu Yao had stepped into Shangri-La, her long-lost sense of smell and taste had returned, as if she were alive once more.
Even the ache in her eyes and the weariness deep in her bones felt jarringly real, as if she were truly exhausted from a long day’s journey.
Xu Yao struggled for a while longer, but sleep refused to come. Deciding not to torture herself any further, she sat up and studied Lu Li, who was crouching by the nightstand. "Hey," she said, "you've been rummaging through that thing for ages. Found anything?"
"I'm trying to figure out the purpose of this dungeon," Lu Li replied. He pulled a sheaf of manuscript paper from a hidden compartment in the drawer, spread it out on the bed, and began to read the text carefully.
"If the goal is simply to reclaim the Identity Cards and restart the world, then no matter what we do, we'll end up trapped in Shangri-La Town until we die, one by one."
"But if, besides reclamation, there's also a need to select a winner, then what would the criteria be? The simplest method would be a battle royale—we kill the other participants until only one team is left..."
The woman in red stretched languidly and tried to float up to the ceiling, but her body felt surprisingly heavy. She only managed a small hop on the bed, which landed with a dull thud.
"It might not come to that." Lu Li shook his head. He produced a blank notebook from somewhere and began to write and sketch in it with a pen.
As he wrote, he spoke. "Lin Chen is also an Identity Card holder. If Qi Si wanted to take the 'kill everyone and be the sole survivor' route, he would have to kill Lin Chen. He won't do that."
Xu Yao tilted her head, considering this for a moment before clicking her tongue. "You still don't get what kind of person Qi Si is. From what I've seen, he'd be willing to die himself just to clear a dungeon. As for things like friends and family... in his eyes, it's probably more convenient to just get rid of them early on."
"No. Lin Chen's death would be a major problem for him," Lu Li said without looking up. "Qi Si is extremely suspicious, paranoid even. So far in this dungeon, including him and Lin Chen, only four Identity Card holders have appeared, yet there are twenty-two cards in total."
"Based on the available information, he would conclude that this isn't the only Final Instance, and clearing this one doesn't mean the selection process is over. To gain an advantage in the competitions to come, he will definitely try to keep Lin Chen alive as long as possible."
"So, if we want to leave Shangri-La Town, there's only one path left..."
Xu Yao leaned closer to Lu Li and finally saw what he was writing. It was a record, clearly intended for those who would come after:
[May 5, 2035]
[My name is Lu Li. I am from the Kyushu Guild...]
"Huh? Lu Li, aren't you with Sila? When did you join Kyushu?" Xu Yao asked curiously. "From what I know, Kyushu and Sila have never gotten along..."
Lu Li didn’t answer. Unbothered, Xu Yao changed the subject. "By the way, what's the deal between you and Qi Si? I've noticed he acts a little strange around you..."
Lu Li set down his pen. Still not answering, he frowned and looked toward the door.
A slow, deliberate "knock, knock, knock" echoed through the room. It sounded like a rap on the door, yet also like the beat of a drum. Over this rhythm floated a low, urgent chanting, clinging to the wooden door and seeping through the thin panel into the room.
Xu Yao listened for a moment as goosebumps prickled her skin. She found it hard to believe that even after being a ghost for so long, she could still feel fear of the supernatural.
No, what was outside the door wasn't a ghost. Ghosts didn't chant scriptures. And it was precisely because it *wasn't* a ghost that she felt such an irrepressible unease...
It was a god, a Buddha, a cultivator, a demon slayer—a being cloaked in a shell of sanctity, tasked with vanquishing evil.
A single word suddenly surfaced in Xu Yao's mind—"Deliverance."
She would be delivered, her soul scattered to the winds, reduced to nothing but dust...
"Calm down. I'll go look," Lu Li soothed, muffling his footsteps as he crept toward the door and peered through the peephole.
A blurry, bloody figure stood in the hallway outside, holding a long whip, its uneven surface slick with crimson blood.
A closer look revealed it wasn't a whip at all, but a large intestine, violently ripped from the person's own abdominal cavity!
The person wasn't covered in blood from an injury; they had been brutally flayed, their torso split open to expose raw, glistening flesh, bone, and organs.
The skinless humanoid creature stood there for a moment, blood dripping and pooling at its feet. It seemed to feel no pain at all as it mechanically raised its right hand and continued to knock, again and again, on the door.
"Knock... knock... knock..."
...
Qi Si lay in bed, the haunting hymn still echoing in his ears as he began to review the day's events.
First, there was the record left by Chu Yining.
From the looks of it, the group from twenty-two years ago hadn't died in the Twilight of the Gods as it seemed. They were actually pulled into the Final Instance, trapped here, their fates unknown.
Qi Si was familiar with the name Lin Jue. The founder of the Ark Guild, one of the first players to enter the Weird Game. Thirty-six years ago, he had risen from number one on the rookie rankings to the top of the overall leaderboard—a truly dazzling ascent.
If even someone like that couldn't escape Shangri-La, the difficulty of the death traps that lay ahead was easy to imagine.
Second, there was Fu Jue's situation.
He was now in power. Judging from what he had done to the representatives, his seizure of control must have been anything but peaceful, and likely quite bloody.
But from the players' reactions, it was clear Fu Jue hadn't revealed his identity as the Puppet Master. At least, most of them were unaware of this secret.
After all, the Puppet Master had a notorious reputation. Revealing that identity would be like dropping a depth charge, guaranteed to trigger even greater turmoil amid the existing chaos.
Fu Jue wouldn't allow the situation to spiral out of his control. As long as he could manage it, he would most likely continue to hide this identity from the public.
And this, perhaps, could be used as leverage for mutual restraint in any future cooperation...
Finally... Qi Si noticed his own state was strange. He seemed to have lost interest in many things, unable to muster any strong reactions.
He'd once thought that if he ever saw Lu Li again, he would ridicule him relentlessly. At the very least, he would have peppered him with a few sarcastic, cutting remarks.
And upon meeting Jiang Junjue—a dead man living on borrowed time—he should have seized the opportunity to mock the Kyushu and Listening Wind guilds for their hypocrisy and double standards. But the truth was, he had felt no surprise at seeing an old acquaintance, nor any of his innate malice. The other party, likewise, had shown none of the usual reactions one would expect when meeting someone they knew.
Everything had felt perfectly natural, as mundane as eating or drinking. It was as if everyone had already foreseen the future and accepted that this was how things were always meant to be.
It wasn't just him; Lin Chen's state wasn't quite right either.
From what Qi Si knew of Lin Chen, although the guy had gone through a lot and was much calmer than he had been back in *Rose Manor*, he was still far from being unflappable.
After seeing the name "Lin Jue" in Chu Yining's diary, Lin Chen's normal first reaction would have been to make a huge fuss, overanalyzing everything and spouting a series of wild speculations.
He definitely wouldn't have calmly accepted the fact that "Lin Jue had been in the Final Instance before" without batting an eye, as he was doing now.
Qi Si had a nagging feeling that ever since arriving in Shangri-La, everyone's emotions had been weakened, or rather—dulled.
It was as if the cold air of the Snow Mountain had swept through them, from their hearts to their minds, leaving behind a thin layer of frost—pure, vacant, and empty.
This was most likely not a built-in mechanic of the dungeon itself; after all, judging from Chu Yining's diary, the girl had been full of emotion.
So... where exactly had things changed?
"What is Kapala"
"A dead man's skull"
"Wasidayan is the large intestine..."
Outside the window, the hymn that enveloped the entire inn finished one cycle and began again from the top, in the exact same tone.
Perhaps because his ears had grown accustomed to the melody and lyrics, the hymn sounded clearer this time, as if it were coming from just outside the window, only a step away.
Qi Si cracked his eyes open a sliver. Through the floor-to-ceiling window, he saw countless human figures standing on the snowy mountain, packed together, as silent and orderly as terracotta warriors in a burial pit.
These people had no skin. Their raw, bloody flesh was exposed, and on their blurred, decaying faces, bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets, staring in unison at Qi Si.
They seemed to have crawled out from beneath the ice. Their flesh was covered in a layer of ice shards, which caught droplets of blood and turned a pale pink, glittering translucently under the crimson moonlight.
Qi Si watched for a moment and felt a sympathetic tingling itch on his own skin, as if icicles were growing from beneath his flesh.
He rolled over, turning his back to the window, and the prickling sensation gradually subsided.
Lin Chen, sleeping on the side of the bed closer to the door, clutched a corner of the blanket. His eyes were tightly shut, and he smacked his lips from time to time, sleeping soundly.
Unaware of the situation outside, he was naturally unaffected by the strange phenomena, which for some reason reminded Qi Si of their time in *Rose Manor*.
He had to admit, his tool's quality of sleep was as good as ever. In a way, it was a constitution perfectly suited for the Weird Game.
The sound of his shallow, gentle breathing filled the room, clearer and more real than the noises from outside, possessing a strangely calming power.
Qi Si listened for a while longer, and drowsiness began to creep in. He drifted off into a hazy sleep.
...
Meanwhile, in Room 6, Dong Xiwen and Zhang Yiyu sat in a corner, staring at the full-length mirror opposite the bathroom door and chatting idly.
The mirror reflected no image of them. After their initial shock, they had quickly accepted the conclusion that since they weren't bound to a main card, they didn't count as human in the eyes of the Final Instance.
Zhang Yiyu stared into the empty space before her and murmured, "I think I saw my dad."
"Hold on, let me analyze this," Dong Xiwen said, clicking his tongue. "I remember you said your dad died in a car accident when you were two, and after that, it was just you and your mom. So, was that statement just a figure of speech, like saying you saw your great-great-grandmother?"
"I really saw him," Zhang Yiyu said, her expression dazed. "Down in the lobby, he was wearing a yellow T-shirt, the exact same one he wore the day of the accident. He took a photo with my mom and me right before he left that day. It's been hanging on our wall for over a decade. I wouldn't forget."
"His name is Zhang Hongbin. I think I heard someone call that name. I'm wondering... could my dad have been a player, too? And died in this dungeon..."
The girl's last few words were choked with tears. Dong Xiwen turned his head to see her reddened eyes and quickly tried to comfort her. "Look on the bright side. In this timeline, your dad is still alive. Traveling to the past to save your parents is a classic movie trope."
"Even if the two of us together can't save your dad, Qi Si is here. Maybe he'll find the way to get the True End tomorrow."
Outside the window, Zhou Ke, dressed in a blood-stained white shirt, was walking back and forth in the icy landscape, holding a recorder. The hordes of flayed corpses covering the mountainside would draw near, then retreat, drawn by the sound.
If you ignored how terrifying the scene was, it actually looked kind of fun. He had no idea what Qi Si was trying to accomplish by wandering around like that for so long. Surely he wasn't just doing it for fun, right?
Dong Xiwen sighed to himself again: *The thought process of a humanoid evil is hard to understand.*
His few words of comfort were enough for Zhang Yiyu to dry her tears, but she couldn't help but recall the horrifying scenes of hell on earth back in Jiang City.
She had been manipulated into taking up a blade, her heart filled with hatred. Her ghostly instincts had briefly overwhelmed her humanity, and then there was red... so much red...
Tears blurred her vision until she could no longer distinguish between humans and ghosts. She could only rely on her sense of smell to locate the sweet scent of human flesh. Amid the screams of the crowd, she had tasted the salt and iron of blood...
Zhang Yiyu shivered and asked softly, "Do you think Qi Si would be willing to save them? I feel like we'd be lucky if he doesn't just harm them..."
"No, things are different now," Dong Xiwen said seriously. "We need more people to survive on this mountain. Even if it's just to maintain his quality of life for the next few days, I bet Qi Si will bother to save a few people..."
He bluffed, lacking any real confidence, as the worst-case scenario occurred to him.
The players they met in the lobby were all confirmed to be dead. So what about them?
Were they, like those other players, already dead in the Final Instance without even knowing it?
Why else would they, of all people, have been separated from the main group and ended up in this space reserved for the dead?
The door opened. Zhou Ke had turned off the recorder at some point and returned to the inn.
Seeing their anxious expressions, the young man seemed to guess their thoughts. He clicked his tongue. "What are you thinking about? Just touch your own heart and you'll know if you're dead or alive. Or do you need me to perform an autopsy for you?"
Dong Xiwen's eyes fell on Zhou Ke's right index finger. There was a long, thin, bloody gash across it, as if it had been sliced by a knife...