When the night canopy drooped and the mountain range quieted, the other group still hadn’t returned.
The dark clouds that had coagulated finally saw some change.
An uninterrupted, incessant drizzle showered down from the leaden dark horizon, becoming heavier the more it fell. It drummed on the eaves, producing a furious pitter-patter, splashing into spray, like little droplets of water flowers.
A spell of silence held in the mud house.
It was like the previous night. Everyone sat huddled around the fire, staring at the leaping dance of the flickering firelight.
Since the other group of people was not yet back, the group that hadn’t handed over food appropriated the other’s nest for themselves, giving an insincere, courteous smile to the original mud house that they had put up with.
All else aside, sitting in the house was much more comfortable than sitting outside. They were sheltered from the wind and rain; with a house to stay in, would anyone be willing to get whipped by the cold winds outside?
Dusk always tended to fall early when it neared winter. They had returned from the temple long before the skylight extinguished, wanting to come back to have a rest.
After experiencing the events of the day, the hearts of the newcomers were quite distressed.
Just now at the temple, Grandma Yin made a clean breast of what the village head had said little by little.
The voice under the hood was unpleasantly shrill. “On a night three years ago, the legendary bodhisattva appeared in Tongbai village. All the villages within a fifty-kilometer vicinity were aware that the one tending to the yard with the bodhisattva soil was that elderly woman.”
“I came to the temple of this village three years ago. By then, the elderly woman had already passed on. Afterward, not only were no traces of her enlightenment left behind, but the village also turned increasingly monstrous and strange.”
“There must be something afoot about this. In three calendar days, I’ll have to personally make a trip down to the nether world to search around. When that time comes I’ll need some manpower… if you encounter danger in the village, or are willing to help, please drop by the temple.”
Although the plot introduction had mentally prepared them, hearing this still made everyone furious.
Not only did this village engage in human trafficking, but they’d even starved an elderly to death. It could be said that they were steeped in evil and deserved damnation. If a malevolent demon came seeking revenge, that would only be the consequence of their own making. If it were possible, they really would rather not do this protective duty.
In the end, as they rested, it started to pour down in buckets outside.
At first, they had intended to set their minds at ease as they waited out the rain, however, the other group had still not turned up until now.
Even if they had encountered danger, it wasn’t possible that the whole group of them had simultaneously disappeared, right?
As they rested, Xu Sen, having just awoken, asked, “Why aren’t they back yet?”
Zong Jiu flippantly picked up firewood from the ground, shoving it into the fire. “What does their return have anything to do with us? In my opinion, it’s best that they don’t come back tonight. After all, they are capable of protecting themselves, if they’re out there, they can also protect the villagers. Then, it isn’t necessary for us to go out and keep watch. Isn’t that a good thing? Or do you want to go out there and get wet in the rain?”
The trainees by the fire and the audience in the bullet chat were deeply astonished.
[Fuck, he really makes sense. He’s worthy of being the mole!]
[Legitimately using the IQ of the masses to fondle fish. The way he fondles it is too fragrant, a true master.]
[They’re clearly all trainees, yet why is it that half of them are beating up monsters, while the other half of them are fondling fishes??]
“However, we should still check the situation outside. The sky has pretty much turned completely dark.”
The white-haired young man gauged the time, then clapped his hands together. “Wake up, wake up. Time to get to work.”
They had agreed to take the risk tonight and rescue that woman from the woodshed. Now that it was the dead of night, it was naturally time to go.
Initially, they had thought of waiting out the rain, but there were still advantages to the rain not stopping. Regardless, they had to go. It was a key juncture in their task; no one would mind being sprinkled by a little rain.
After hearing Zong Jiu, the trainees who were haphazardly sleeping on the ground climbed up to their feet one by one.
Pa mifjgis kjr j tbggbg lcrajcmf. Pc jcs batfg lcrajcmf, atfs’v yf ilxf ylgvr fjrlis rajgaifv ja atf wfgf akjcu bo j ybk, cba vjglcu ab riffq obg j rfmbcv. Dea joafg fcafglcu atlr lcrajcmf, fnfgsbcf ofia jc fzagj ijsfg bo rfmeglas.
Ktf qfgrbcji bcf-wjc rtbk lc atf olgra gbecv bo atf Ktgliifg Kgjlcff vlgfmais filwlcjafv atgff-obegatr bo atf cfkmbwfgr. Pa kjrc’a fjrs obg atbrf ktb tjv regnlnfv.
The newcomers had nothing other than the bare necessities. They had no special props to protect themselves with. They could only fight with their luck and their wit, or mooch off a veteran. However, the veterans were people who had seen winds and waves of all kinds, and each was more indifferent than the next; how would they be so generous as to allow that?
At least for the first instance, everyone essentially walked their own way. They were disorganized and dispersed; the probability of them being in any sort of guild was slim.
Back when they first entered the mud house behind the old locust tree, Zong Jiu had walked to the front, taking the lead without a word. This one action had won him everyone’s gratitude, not to mention their heart-to-heart talk that night. After discovering his grandiose ambition to save everyone, it was impossible to say that they weren’t moved.
Right as everyone was getting ready to set off, there was a sudden knock on the wooden door of the mud house.
“Rapt, rapt, rapt.”
The sound was very calm, evenly spaced, and unhurried.
It was raining heavily outside, drumming noisily on the eaves, trickling down by the ridges of the roof. However, this only further amplified the eeriness of this sound.
Because the door wasn’t locked.
Zong Jiu swiftly reacted.
Almost at the exact moment that the knocking began, several poker cards appeared between his fingers. They streaked forth like lightning and embedded into the mud-brick walls; their positions firmly jutted into where the wooden door and the door frame intersected, just in time to block the door that was about to be pushed open.
“Quick, lock the door!”
He shouted at the trainee closest to the door. The latter reflexively followed his order.
With a loud bang, the bolt latched across the door frame.
Everyone could sense that there was something wrong. All the trainees had taken out their props, warily watching the door.
A chilly gust of wind scraped through the window just at that moment, causing the firelight to flicker a few times before soundlessly extinguishing. In the darkness, only a lone wisp of white smoke was left behind.
It was like an omen.
[Crap! I’m so nervous and keyed up, it’s time.]
[Is this instance so intense? A group attack right off the bat?]
[Not bad, they’ve got pretty good chemistry. Usually, only a team that has worked together for a long time can act reflexively on command. There wasn’t a single second of drag.]
Xu Sen’s expression turned serious.
The veterans all knew that no matter how terrifying horror instances were, at the end of the day, there were still laws that were set in stone.
Even S-rank instances couldn’t whimsically put people to death. This was especially true for instances that involved supernatural elements. When something unholy made an appearance, indicators would surely be given in its surroundings.
As for what omens would trigger at the arrival of a chillingly dark Yin entity, there were no more than those few.
The best indicators were all in the present.
It was extremely tense in the mud house. This was many of the newcomers’ first time facing such a situation, also the first time that they were fighting a supernatural being head-on. A layer of sweat thickly beaded on their palms.
At this time, Zong Jiu’s reassurance was effective. “Don’t panic. There are so many of us. Don’t you see that there’s still a No. 3 bigshot in this room, even if the sky caves there’s still a giant to hold it up, there’s nothing to fear.”
Zhuge An, who had been sitting silently in a corner this whole time, indifferently raised his gaze.
Zong Jiu knew that if he really waited for Zhuge An to step in, then the pact between them could be treated as null and void.
After all, the condition was that Zhuge An wouldn’t give any help, whereas Zong Jiu had to prove his worth before he could get the ins and outs of intel and the prophecy from him.
Still, this didn’t stop him from spouting empty talk to pump spirits.
Zhuge An not helping him was one thing. But at a time like this, namedropping No. 3 would be more effective as reassurance, so why not?
Sure enough, after Zong Jiu said so, the expressions of everyone in the mud house were not as taut as before.
But during their conversation, the knocking on the door didn’t stop.
It started off slow, like someone was holding a small hammer, knocking on the door each time with utmost care.
But once the door was locked from the inside, the knocking increased in urgency.
“BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG—”
It was like someone impatient was urgently knocking on the door. The massive force seemed to traverse space from outside
A rainy night. A knock on the door. Darkness.
Those three phrases were terrifying when strung together.
The trainees nearest to the wooden door quaked in fear.
Possibly, the long, fruitless wait had enraged the being outside. The force behind the knocks steeply increased by a notch once more.
The old wooden door couldn’t withstand such force. The knocking had deformed the surrounding door frame; it creaked ominously, overwhelmed.
Wooden doors in rural areas were never known for their sturdiness. Although the bolt was latched from the inside, many times, the door didn’t look like it was going to hold under the knocking, rattling so hard that wooden scraps broke off of it.
Zong Jiu said in a low voice, “Get your props ready. On my command, don’t care about the rest, just attack it with everything you got.”
The trainees held their breaths in concentration, each replying in assent.
“Three, two, one. Attack!”
As soon as his voice fell, the door frame suddenly splintered apart, and a palm-wide gap appeared above the wooden door.
Abruptly, a glacial chill that seemed to be born from the nether world quietly began to encroach from outside the door, slowly baring its sharp, protruding teeth that reeked of blood.
A narrow, shadowy apparition loomed behind that crack.
A barrage of attacks burst forth from inside the mud house.
Some people threw talismans, some brandished their swords, some formed seals on the spot, and some even fired bullets towards the door.
Zong Jiu had a stack of paper cards on his left palm. His right index and middle fingers pointed out, aiming and streaking towards that gap.
With his wrist strength now enhanced to its peak, the paper cards were like incisive blades that slashed powerfully across.
No one cared about saving their cooldown timings. It was telling from how the supernatural being had dared to come up to the doorstep when there were so many of them in the mud house—this surely couldn’t be any sort of benevolent being.
After about thirty seconds, it suddenly quietened outside the door.
All that could be heard from inside was the monotonous and ceaseless pounding of the torrential rain on the ridges and eaves of the house.
“Is that the end of it?” Xu Su asked, his voice tremoring.
No one spoke. The silence held for several minutes.
Zhuge An unhurriedly took out his Taiji Eight Trigrams dial. Once again, it spun to the Li trigram, lighting the firewood in the middle of the house.
The firelight puttered once in the frigid air and rose, illuminating the dark interior of the house.
Zong Jiu released the breath he had been holding. “I’ll go take a look.”
With that, with one hand holding cards, the young white-haired man walked straight to the wooden door that had been knocked half-open, putting his hand on the iron latch that was only nominally locking the door.
[Holy shit, aren’t you going to wait just a bit more? He’s really too gutsy, I’m scared.]
[My secondhand fear is striking again! What if that thing comes killing right as he opens the door?]
The others watched his movements with trepidation.
The iron latch was bent out of shape.
Zong Jiu didn’t doubt that had the onslaught stopped just a bit later, the door would have been knocked right off.
He cautiously gazed through the gap.
It was the same deep, dark shade of night outside. At most, a few stray drops of icy rain now flew in, and the shadowy silhouettes of the trees were more forbidding.
With Zong Jiu’s eyesight, for the time being, he couldn’t see any particular anomalies.
“Clack.”
The wooden door staggered under the force of the wind and rain blowing at it from the outside. It groaned, opening.
Tattered leaves danced in, carried by the rain. Within seconds, a small puddle of water pooled on the floor.
Zong Jiu’s reaction was prompt.
Almost as soon as the door showed abnormal movement, he acted.
He struck out obliquely. Fortunately, the people outside had rich fighting experience, barely escaping the danger with a tilt of their heads.
His attacks struck air. But Zong Jiu didn’t persist in attacking.
He had made out who the people outside were.
Anthony and Lin Guoxing were standing outside the door, and there were another ten or so men from the other group behind them. The gaze that Anthony directed at him was still brimming with hostility, whereas Lin Guoxing gave him an amicable, faintly apologetic smile.
A heavy downpour descended from the sky, blanketing the earth. Rainwater slid down from the crown of their heads down to their jawlines, dripping down to their clothes, wetting them like drowned rats.
After seeing that it was only them outside, the trainees in the mud house let out a relieved exhale.
Only Zong Jiu kept watching as they filed in, still standing in place.
The white-haired young man surreptitiously glanced at his own hands.
There was nothing but empty space. Their skin was smooth and whole, without the slightest traces of any bindings.
And yet. Somehow or other, when his palm had unwittingly swept across the top of their heads earlier, Zong Jiu had distinctly felt a disconcerting sense of obstruction.
As if… there were strings tied to their heads from above.
When the night canopy drooped and the mountain range quieted, the other group still hadn’t returned.
The dark clouds that had coagulated finally saw some change.
An uninterrupted, incessant drizzle showered down from the leaden dark horizon, becoming heavier the more it fell. It drummed on the eaves, producing a furious pitter-patter, splashing into spray, like little droplets of water flowers.
A spell of silence held in the mud house.
It was like the previous night. Everyone sat huddled around the fire, staring at the leaping dance of the flickering firelight.
Since the other group of people was not yet back, the group that hadn’t handed over food appropriated the other’s nest for themselves, giving an insincere, courteous smile to the original mud house that they had put up with.
All else aside, sitting in the house was much more comfortable than sitting outside. They were sheltered from the wind and rain; with a house to stay in, would anyone be willing to get whipped by the cold winds outside?
Dusk always tended to fall early when it neared winter. They had returned from the temple long before the skylight extinguished, wanting to come back to have a rest.
After experiencing the events of the day, the hearts of the newcomers were quite distressed.
Just now at the temple, Grandma Yin made a clean breast of what the village head had said little by little.
The voice under the hood was unpleasantly shrill. “On a night three years ago, the legendary bodhisattva appeared in Tongbai village. All the villages within a fifty-kilometer vicinity were aware that the one tending to the yard with the bodhisattva soil was that elderly woman.”
“I came to the temple of this village three years ago. By then, the elderly woman had already passed on. Afterward, not only were no traces of her enlightenment left behind, but the village also turned increasingly monstrous and strange.”
“There must be something afoot about this. In three calendar days, I’ll have to personally make a trip down to the nether world to search around. When that time comes I’ll need some manpower… if you encounter danger in the village, or are willing to help, please drop by the temple.”
Although the plot introduction had mentally prepared them, hearing this still made everyone furious.
Not only did this village engage in human trafficking, but they’d even starved an elderly to death. It could be said that they were steeped in evil and deserved damnation. If a malevolent demon came seeking revenge, that would only be the consequence of their own making. If it were possible, they really would rather not do this protective duty.
In the end, as they rested, it started to pour down in buckets outside.
At first, they had intended to set their minds at ease as they waited out the rain, however, the other group had still not turned up until now.
Even if they had encountered danger, it wasn’t possible that the whole group of them had simultaneously disappeared, right?
As they rested, Xu Sen, having just awoken, asked, “Why aren’t they back yet?”
Zong Jiu flippantly picked up firewood from the ground, shoving it into the fire. “What does their return have anything to do with us? In my opinion, it’s best that they don’t come back tonight. After all, they are capable of protecting themselves, if they’re out there, they can also protect the villagers. Then, it isn’t necessary for us to go out and keep watch. Isn’t that a good thing? Or do you want to go out there and get wet in the rain?”
The trainees by the fire and the audience in the bullet chat were deeply astonished.
[Fuck, he really makes sense. He’s worthy of being the mole!]
[Legitimately using the IQ of the masses to fondle fish. The way he fondles it is too fragrant, a true master.]
[They’re clearly all trainees, yet why is it that half of them are beating up monsters, while the other half of them are fondling fishes??]
“However, we should still check the situation outside. The sky has pretty much turned completely dark.”
The white-haired young man gauged the time, then clapped his hands together. “Wake up, wake up. Time to get to work.”
They had agreed to take the risk tonight and rescue that woman from the woodshed. Now that it was the dead of night, it was naturally time to go.
Initially, they had thought of waiting out the rain, but there were still advantages to the rain not stopping. Regardless, they had to go. It was a key juncture in their task; no one would mind being sprinkled by a little rain.
After hearing Zong Jiu, the trainees who were haphazardly sleeping on the ground climbed up to their feet one by one.
Pa mifjgis kjr j tbggbg lcrajcmf. Pc jcs batfg lcrajcmf, atfs’v yf ilxf ylgvr fjrlis rajgaifv ja atf wfgf akjcu bo j ybk, cba vjglcu ab riffq obg j rfmbcv. Dea joafg fcafglcu atlr lcrajcmf, fnfgsbcf ofia jc fzagj ijsfg bo rfmeglas.
Ktf qfgrbcji bcf-wjc rtbk lc atf olgra gbecv bo atf Ktgliifg Kgjlcff vlgfmais filwlcjafv atgff-obegatr bo atf cfkmbwfgr. Pa kjrc’a fjrs obg atbrf ktb tjv regnlnfv.
The newcomers had nothing other than the bare necessities. They had no special props to protect themselves with. They could only fight with their luck and their wit, or mooch off a veteran. However, the veterans were people who had seen winds and waves of all kinds, and each was more indifferent than the next; how would they be so generous as to allow that?
At least for the first instance, everyone essentially walked their own way. They were disorganized and dispersed; the probability of them being in any sort of guild was slim.
Back when they first entered the mud house behind the old locust tree, Zong Jiu had walked to the front, taking the lead without a word. This one action had won him everyone’s gratitude, not to mention their heart-to-heart talk that night. After discovering his grandiose ambition to save everyone, it was impossible to say that they weren’t moved.
Right as everyone was getting ready to set off, there was a sudden knock on the wooden door of the mud house.
“Rapt, rapt, rapt.”
The sound was very calm, evenly spaced, and unhurried.
It was raining heavily outside, drumming noisily on the eaves, trickling down by the ridges of the roof. However, this only further amplified the eeriness of this sound.
Because the door wasn’t locked.
Zong Jiu swiftly reacted.
Almost at the exact moment that the knocking began, several poker cards appeared between his fingers. They streaked forth like lightning and embedded into the mud-brick walls; their positions firmly jutted into where the wooden door and the door frame intersected, just in time to block the door that was about to be pushed open.
“Quick, lock the door!”
He shouted at the trainee closest to the door. The latter reflexively followed his order.
With a loud bang, the bolt latched across the door frame.
Everyone could sense that there was something wrong. All the trainees had taken out their props, warily watching the door.
A chilly gust of wind scraped through the window just at that moment, causing the firelight to flicker a few times before soundlessly extinguishing. In the darkness, only a lone wisp of white smoke was left behind.
It was like an omen.
[Crap! I’m so nervous and keyed up, it’s time.]
[Is this instance so intense? A group attack right off the bat?]
[Not bad, they’ve got pretty good chemistry. Usually, only a team that has worked together for a long time can act reflexively on command. There wasn’t a single second of drag.]
Xu Sen’s expression turned serious.
The veterans all knew that no matter how terrifying horror instances were, at the end of the day, there were still laws that were set in stone.
Even S-rank instances couldn’t whimsically put people to death. This was especially true for instances that involved supernatural elements. When something unholy made an appearance, indicators would surely be given in its surroundings.
As for what omens would trigger at the arrival of a chillingly dark Yin entity, there were no more than those few.
The best indicators were all in the present.
It was extremely tense in the mud house. This was many of the newcomers’ first time facing such a situation, also the first time that they were fighting a supernatural being head-on. A layer of sweat thickly beaded on their palms.
At this time, Zong Jiu’s reassurance was effective. “Don’t panic. There are so many of us. Don’t you see that there’s still a No. 3 bigshot in this room, even if the sky caves there’s still a giant to hold it up, there’s nothing to fear.”
Zhuge An, who had been sitting silently in a corner this whole time, indifferently raised his gaze.
Zong Jiu knew that if he really waited for Zhuge An to step in, then the pact between them could be treated as null and void.
After all, the condition was that Zhuge An wouldn’t give any help, whereas Zong Jiu had to prove his worth before he could get the ins and outs of intel and the prophecy from him.
Still, this didn’t stop him from spouting empty talk to pump spirits.
Zhuge An not helping him was one thing. But at a time like this, namedropping No. 3 would be more effective as reassurance, so why not?
Sure enough, after Zong Jiu said so, the expressions of everyone in the mud house were not as taut as before.
But during their conversation, the knocking on the door didn’t stop.
It started off slow, like someone was holding a small hammer, knocking on the door each time with utmost care.
But once the door was locked from the inside, the knocking increased in urgency.
“BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG—”
It was like someone impatient was urgently knocking on the door. The massive force seemed to traverse space from outside
A rainy night. A knock on the door. Darkness.
Those three phrases were terrifying when strung together.
The trainees nearest to the wooden door quaked in fear.
Possibly, the long, fruitless wait had enraged the being outside. The force behind the knocks steeply increased by a notch once more.
The old wooden door couldn’t withstand such force. The knocking had deformed the surrounding door frame; it creaked ominously, overwhelmed.
Wooden doors in rural areas were never known for their sturdiness. Although the bolt was latched from the inside, many times, the door didn’t look like it was going to hold under the knocking, rattling so hard that wooden scraps broke off of it.
Zong Jiu said in a low voice, “Get your props ready. On my command, don’t care about the rest, just attack it with everything you got.”
The trainees held their breaths in concentration, each replying in assent.
“Three, two, one. Attack!”
As soon as his voice fell, the door frame suddenly splintered apart, and a palm-wide gap appeared above the wooden door.
Abruptly, a glacial chill that seemed to be born from the nether world quietly began to encroach from outside the door, slowly baring its sharp, protruding teeth that reeked of blood.
A narrow, shadowy apparition loomed behind that crack.
A barrage of attacks burst forth from inside the mud house.
Some people threw talismans, some brandished their swords, some formed seals on the spot, and some even fired bullets towards the door.
Zong Jiu had a stack of paper cards on his left palm. His right index and middle fingers pointed out, aiming and streaking towards that gap.
With his wrist strength now enhanced to its peak, the paper cards were like incisive blades that slashed powerfully across.
No one cared about saving their cooldown timings. It was telling from how the supernatural being had dared to come up to the doorstep when there were so many of them in the mud house—this surely couldn’t be any sort of benevolent being.
After about thirty seconds, it suddenly quietened outside the door.
All that could be heard from inside was the monotonous and ceaseless pounding of the torrential rain on the ridges and eaves of the house.
“Is that the end of it?” Xu Su asked, his voice tremoring.
No one spoke. The silence held for several minutes.
Zhuge An unhurriedly took out his Taiji Eight Trigrams dial. Once again, it spun to the Li trigram, lighting the firewood in the middle of the house.
The firelight puttered once in the frigid air and rose, illuminating the dark interior of the house.
Zong Jiu released the breath he had been holding. “I’ll go take a look.”
With that, with one hand holding cards, the young white-haired man walked straight to the wooden door that had been knocked half-open, putting his hand on the iron latch that was only nominally locking the door.
[Holy shit, aren’t you going to wait just a bit more? He’s really too gutsy, I’m scared.]
[My secondhand fear is striking again! What if that thing comes killing right as he opens the door?]
The others watched his movements with trepidation.
The iron latch was bent out of shape.
Zong Jiu didn’t doubt that had the onslaught stopped just a bit later, the door would have been knocked right off.
He cautiously gazed through the gap.
It was the same deep, dark shade of night outside. At most, a few stray drops of icy rain now flew in, and the shadowy silhouettes of the trees were more forbidding.
With Zong Jiu’s eyesight, for the time being, he couldn’t see any particular anomalies.
“Clack.”
The wooden door staggered under the force of the wind and rain blowing at it from the outside. It groaned, opening.
Tattered leaves danced in, carried by the rain. Within seconds, a small puddle of water pooled on the floor.
Zong Jiu’s reaction was prompt.
Almost as soon as the door showed abnormal movement, he acted.
He struck out obliquely. Fortunately, the people outside had rich fighting experience, barely escaping the danger with a tilt of their heads.
His attacks struck air. But Zong Jiu didn’t persist in attacking.
He had made out who the people outside were.
Anthony and Lin Guoxing were standing outside the door, and there were another ten or so men from the other group behind them. The gaze that Anthony directed at him was still brimming with hostility, whereas Lin Guoxing gave him an amicable, faintly apologetic smile.
A heavy downpour descended from the sky, blanketing the earth. Rainwater slid down from the crown of their heads down to their jawlines, dripping down to their clothes, wetting them like drowned rats.
After seeing that it was only them outside, the trainees in the mud house let out a relieved exhale.
Only Zong Jiu kept watching as they filed in, still standing in place.
The white-haired young man surreptitiously glanced at his own hands.
There was nothing but empty space. Their skin was smooth and whole, without the slightest traces of any bindings.
And yet. Somehow or other, when his palm had unwittingly swept across the top of their heads earlier, Zong Jiu had distinctly felt a disconcerting sense of obstruction.
As if… there were strings tied to their heads from above.
