Chapter 86: Folklore Horror (16)
In the instant Li Mingsha collapsed, Jian Yuntai immediately stood up without hesitation and grabbed Nong Lingling.
Fortunately, Nong Lingling was timid and a bit socially anxious, so she didn’t even dare to drink the tea in such a tense atmosphere. Otherwise, right now Jian Yuntai wouldn’t be dragging her, but rather carrying her as he sprinted.
“Run! Run faster!” the livestream viewers couldn’t help but shout in worry, “Run faster!!!”
“Damn, Jian Dadan’s Light Injury buff hasn’t fully worn off yet. Otherwise, he wouldn’t need to run at all.”
“They’re rushing to finish the quest. At first, no one expected the high priest to be evil. The background sound of this instance is misleading, we’ve all been fooled!”
“Nong Lingling’s running too slowly, she can’t keep up with Jian Dadan. I think it’s better to just pick her up and carry her.”
“Damn it, all the other priests are chasing them now!”
Jian Yuntai glanced back, his eyes sweeping over Nong Lingling’s panicked face, his gaze fixed behind her.
This was quite a spectacle.
Almost forty or fifty masked men rushed out from all directions, forming a half-circle around them. At the same time, the noise near the small temple doors suddenly erupted.
“What’s going on?!” Two gatekeeping priests stood by the door, looking confused and stunned.
The high priest shouted angrily, “Close the door!!!”
Without thinking, almost immediately after the high priest spoke, the two priests slammed the door shut.
Screech—
Screech—
The sound of the long-neglected bronze doors screeching was ear-piercing. The gap between the doors shrank, and the priest holding the key swiftly tried to squeeze through. The light from outside the door cast a narrow shadow over Jian Yuntai’s face, growing ever smaller.
The light was narrowing, narrowing…
The door was about to close! Once the key was locked outside, it would be a disaster—Jian Yuntai could try to climb over the wall, but he certainly wouldn’t have the strength to carry Nong Lingling with him.
Nong Lingling was a key figure in the quest. He couldn’t leave her behind in the small temple no matter what.
In a split second, as the viewers watched in horror, Jian Yuntai suddenly grabbed Nong Lingling by the collar.
“Go, run!” He lifted Nong Lingling and threw her with all his strength. She nearly flew off the ground, screaming in shock as she tumbled through the door gap and thudded into the snow.
At the same moment, the door slammed shut.
Click— The lock clicked into place.
Jian Yuntai stood in front of the door, not looking back. He grabbed the raised gold rivet on the bronze door and began to climb like a rock climber. He silently thanked the slum district for teaching him the basics of survival. After all, he had been chased before, and if he hadn’t learned how to scale walls, he would have been beaten mercilessly.
Eventually, without specifically learning, he became adept at it.
With a long step, Jian Yuntai nimbly climbed over the top of the bronze door and stepped on the ring at the top to go higher. Below, someone grabbed his leg, desperately trying to pull him down.
Normally, Jian Yuntai could have kicked that person away effortlessly, but with the Light Injury buff still affecting him, he lacked the strength. His kicks didn’t have the usual force.
Even so, the men who usually spent their time in the small temple couldn’t compare to him. After pulling his leg half a meter off the ground, the person gave up and released him.
Bang! Bang! Dozens of people gathered below, slamming against the bronze door. The entire door rattled with each impact. Jian Yuntai’s body shook, and every time his balance faltered, the livestream viewers gasped.
It felt like a race against time. By the time Jian Yuntai reached the top of the bronze door, he was more than ten meters from the ground.
He took a deep breath, then jumped.
His feet slipped slightly, but he barely managed to steady himself. Two priests nearby stumbled back, still holding the key.
“Spare key! Who has the spare key? Quickly, take it out and open the door!” A shout came from inside the bronze door.
At first, Jian Yuntai had planned to snatch the key and run, but the next second, he heard the sound of someone fumbling with the key at the lock, their fingers trembling and unable to align the key properly.
“……” Jian Yuntai cursed under his breath, his face darkening as he continued running, his speed still incredibly fast.
When he reached the drawbridge, the bronze door was finally opened, and a group of priests surged out like a tide.
“Come on!” Nong Lingling yelled from the other side of the bridge, urging, “Don’t just stand there, get on the bridge!!!”
The chase was intense, and the audience was on edge. When Jian Yuntai stepped onto the wooden bridge, they all sighed in relief, wiping away the cold sweat on their brows.
“The distance has opened up. As long as the gap stays wide, with Jian Dadan’s speed, they won’t catch up.”
“Holy shit, there are so many of them! Forget Jian Dadan, even a demon-type wouldn’t be able to hold them off. And they’re all wearing the same outfit—so creepy.”
“Escaping is victory! I’m so happy!”
The viewers felt like they had been granted a reprieve, but Jian Yuntai didn’t share their joy. As soon as his foot hit the wooden bridge, all the priests halted, standing on the other side of the bridge.
“No need to chase.” The high priest’s cold voice, carried by the biting wind, reached Jian Yuntai’s ears.
No need to chase… What did that mean?
Why weren’t they crossing the bridge?
Jian Yuntai’s heart sank. Something felt off, but with the situation so urgent, he couldn’t pay attention to it. The wooden bridge was only about fifty meters long.
Run! He needed to get across the bridge first!
Clank! Clank! The chains and planks creaked under the weight. Jian Yuntai’s every step was heavy, and with each footfall, the noise echoed loudly.
It felt as though he were walking on thin ice, and if he stepped too hard, the bridge would snap. Below him, the river was several meters away, the winter air so cold that Jian Yuntai could almost see a cold mist rising from the surface.
As he covered more than half the distance, the sound of footsteps behind him still hadn’t come. Jian Yuntai couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. He turned his head quickly to look back.
The priests had multiplied. A group of them, dressed in shamanistic attire with bright red and brown robes, stood out starkly against the white snow, like frozen statues.
Clink! Clink! The brass mirrors hanging on their chests swayed with the wind. The mirrors, adorned with animal and bird motifs, reflected a faint, divine glow in the morning light.
Everyone—everyone he saw—wore gilded animal masks. They stood silently, their gazes fixed on him, as if waiting for something.
What were they waiting for?
Jian Yuntai’s mind raced with countless thoughts, yet he dismissed each one.
Mother Goddess? Impossible!
The Mother Goddess had lost a fragment of divine grace to Fuzhu and had been severely injured. She had long since gone into hiding to recover.
The bridge? Also impossible!
The wooden bridge had stood in Mother Goddess Village for many years. It wasn’t as if stepping on it would instantly break it.
Then the high priest… what exactly was he waiting for?
Jian Yuntai’s gaze, full of doubt, swept over the high priest—but in that single glance, he suddenly felt all the blood in his body freeze in an instant, as if every vein had solidified.
The high priest… wasn’t even looking at him!
Following the high priest’s line of sight, Jian Yuntai twisted his head inch by inch—
And saw Nong Lingling.
It was like a field of ice and snow had descended into his eyes. Nong Lingling stood at the edge of the bridge, holding a huge stone in her hands. She lifted her eyes toward Jian Yuntai and gave a mournful, tearful smile.
“But I can’t get out.” Her smile was tinged with tears.
A jagged rift seemed to tear across the horizon, and the morning light, drifting with fine snowflakes like ethereal spirits, fell onto Nong Lingling’s black hair.
Her hair dusted with snow made her, from a distance, appear both youthful and ancient at once.
On the way to the small temple, Nong Lingling had kept clinging to Jian Yuntai, asking what the world outside was like.
“When this is over, you can go see it yourself,” Jian Yuntai had said. Nong Lingling had smiled silently at the time, her delayed reply now arriving: “But I can’t get out…”
As she spoke, the tens of thousands of viewers in the livestream screamed. She raised the massive stone high and smashed it down onto the bridge’s bolt. Her fingers, red and numb from the icy snow, had lost all sensation, and even she hadn’t realized her fingers were crushed under the stone. Blood poured immediately.
Plop—
A drop of blood fell onto the white snow, and the stone followed, crashing heavily into the snow. The bridge bolt flew into the air like a kite with a cut string.
What followed was a breathtaking chain reaction. One bolt snapped, then several others. Chains flew, planks tore, dust and snow whirled together in chaotic harmony, creating a scene as majestic and terrifying as a painting come to life.
But Jian Yuntai only felt urgency pressing down.
The clatter of chains at his ears and the squeaking boards under his feet sounded like nails scratching a chalkboard, making one’s teeth ache.
Thud—
He fell into the icy water below.
“Pull him up,” the high priest said, looking down at Jian Yuntai plunging through the ice, his tone indifferent. “He’s to live.”
※※※
“Oh my god, shocking my whole family! The priests turning traitor already made my heart skip a beat, and now this…”
“Why Nong Lingling?!”
“I’m stunned. Isn’t Nong Lingling supposed to be a victim of the Mother Goddess Village cult? How can the victim grab a weapon and slaughter the people who wanted to save her from the abyss?”
“No wonder! I knew from the start—she’s human. How could she have escaped the Mother Goddess’s pursuit? This has been a trap from the beginning! She deliberately lured Jian Dadan into it!”
“This reminds me of a serial murder case before the world distorted. The victim, to save their own life, helped the killer trap others. That way, they wouldn’t die.”
“I have someone in my family who was in a pyramid scheme. People who haven’t experienced it can’t imagine. It’s basically stepping into a swamp: the more you struggle, the deeper you sink. You can’t escape, and even if someone wants to save you, they can’t.”
After nearly four hours of unconsciousness, the livestream audience hadn’t decreased—in fact, it had grown. People were left in stunned silence.
Finally, “Jian Yuntai woke up!”
Struggling to open his eyes, Jian Yuntai felt weak in his limbs. His icy, wet clothes clung to his body. Lying on the ground, he felt the world spinning, darkness in his vision, with white specks flashing across.
He saw shadows moving out of the corner of his eye.
Jian Yuntai immediately grabbed one of them, flipping the person to the ground with his knee pressed on their back.
“Ouch—ouch!” came the pig-like screams. Fatty cursed, “Who the hell do you think you’re hitting?!”
Jian Yuntai frowned. Fatty seemed like a layered image to him; it took him a moment to recognize him clearly.
Still, he didn’t let go. He demanded, “How can you prove you’re Chen Sanxian?”
“I’m not the Mother Goddess!” Fatty had been asked this many times before. Grumbling, he finally said, seeing Jian Yuntai still holding him, “Ask me something only the two of us know. Will that do?”
Jian Yuntai asked, “The plate of dried fish I put under the dorm tea table, bought for Jinjin’s extra meal. Three bags, but one is missing—who ate it?”
Without hesitation, Fatty said, “Yu Xingcao.”
Immediately after saying it, he screamed again like a butcher and hurriedly corrected himself: “It was me!” Earlier, he hadn’t admitted it; now he finally did.
Yet Jian Yuntai still didn’t release him.
Fatty’s eyes darted around, and with a forlorn expression he said, “You buried it pretty inconspicuously. What dried fish? No, you bought freeze-dried quail!”
“….” Jian Yuntai finally let go, collapsing to the side with a thud, saying weakly, “Oh, you admit it? After we get out, you better buy a few more bags for Jinjin. Really brave of you to steal from the cat.”
Fatty huffed, “You’ve eaten my stuff too, what am I gonna say? Besides, that freeze-dried quail is awful—and expensive.”
“They’re all products from before the world distorted, nearing expiration, meant for the cat. Expensive and terrible is normal,” Jian Yuntai said, looking at him with disbelief. “I really can’t imagine anyone wanting to eat that. Are you sick or what?”
Fatty rolled his eyes. “Haven’t you tasted Jinjin’s cat food?”
“Meow… meow…” Jinjin squatted nearby, angrily tapping the ground with its tiny paws.
These two gluttons were just too much, sobs…
The livestream viewers had initially been worried about Jian Yuntai’s state, seeing him struggle to rescue Nong Lingling from the temple, only for him to get stabbed in the back—anyone else would have been disheartened.
But Jian Yuntai wasn’t an ordinary person.
His mindset was steadier than most of the livestream audience. To him, this was a trivial matter.
From the start, he hadn’t placed much hope or trust in Nong Lingling.
Without hope or trust, he couldn’t feel disheartened.
Breathing shallowly, Jian Yuntai sat back down. His brows furrowed, and he slowly exhaled.
At last, he figured out what had felt wrong.
Nong Lingling had been missing for at least seven days. According to her own account, she had also spent several days inside the underground palace. There had been no water and no food down there—so how had she survived?
And her mental state had seemed perfectly fine. She hadn’t looked like someone who had been starving for days. After entering the small temple, there had been that cup of tea—yet despite having gone so many days without water, Nong Lingling hadn’t even glanced at it.
That meant she had already known there was something wrong with the tea.
Before the world distortion, Jian Yuntai would absolutely have noticed something was off. But after the world distortion, humans had evolved. The people around him could go days without food or water and still remain clear-headed. They could walk miles without fatigue.
He had grown used to these evolved humans. In comparison, Nong Lingling’s strangeness had seemed normal to him.
“How did you get caught?” Fatty interrupted Jian Yuntai’s train of thought. “Last night, Sun Bin got caught too. He said the Mother Goddess disguised herself as you and tricked him into coming. I thought you’d been captured as well, but apparently not.”
“It wasn’t the Mother Goddess who tricked me.”
“Then who was it?”
“Nong Lingling.”
“…???” Fatty’s face filled with shock. It took him a long moment to recover. “You saw Nong Lingling?!”
“Yeah.” Jian Yuntai briefly recounted what had happened last night and early this morning, leaving out the part about Fuzhu. Fatty listened in a daze, his mouth opening wider and wider until it could have fit an egg.
Jian Yuntai manually pushed his jaw closed and asked, “Did your main quest three trigger?”
“It did.” Fatty was still staring in shock.
Jian Yuntai gave him a moment to digest the overwhelming information, then slowly surveyed the dungeon in front of him.
It looked like he had returned to the underground palace.
The dungeon was about the size of an elementary school playground, yet it was illuminated only by two rows of white candles. The light barely made a difference; beyond a meter, one could only see silhouettes.
Looking more closely, he could see the missing female players were all here, most of them still unconscious.
“They were drugged,” Fatty explained. “They were already unconscious when I got locked in here, and they still haven’t woken up. A few of the Sinister Monster Type players had better physical condition and woke up a couple of times. They tried to break open the cell door but couldn’t.”
Then Jian Yuntai definitely wouldn’t be able to open it.
His physical strength couldn’t compare to a Sinister Monster Type.
With that thought, Jian Yuntai looked at Sun Bin lying on the ground nearby. “Was he drugged too?”
Fatty said, “Does it look like it?”
Jian Yuntai’s lips twitched. “Not really.”
Sun Bin’s face was pale, his forehead drenched in cold sweat streaming down his temples. He seemed semi-conscious, tossing and turning while muttering the word “pain” over and over.
Looking lower, there was a large hole in his abdomen. His white shirt was soaked red with blood, pooling beneath him.
Fatty stood up and pulled aside Sun Bin’s coat, checking the bleeding. It had already stopped. Only then did he turn back to Jian Yuntai and sigh. “Sun Bin’s digging out the rabbit demon’s inner core got exposed. His inner core was dug out too. Now he’s stacked with a Heavy Injury buff. He can’t even move.”
Jian Yuntai froze. “His inner core was dug out?”
“Yeah. What about it?” Fatty looked at him strangely, then asked curiously, “Where’s Fuzhu?”
“….” Jian Yuntai lowered his eyes with a complicated expression.
So even after being exposed, there was still a chance the inner core would be dug out?
Then why had Fuzhu cut off his own tail to sever the contract?
He had thought other players’ contracted demon beasts would act the same as Fuzhu and choose to sever the contract. That way, other players wouldn’t stack a Heavy Injury buff.
But… Fuzhu had actually been an exception?
The livestream chat exploded:
“Wuwuwu Fuzhu is so heartbreaking. He would rather cut off his own tail and sever the contract so the demon core’s power wouldn’t continue weakening Jian Dadan.”
“But all the pain was borne by Fuzhu… and when he left he looked so devastated. I bet he’s hiding somewhere licking his wounds.”
“Thinking about it like this, Fuzhu is so miserable. My heart aches qaq.”
After regaining his thoughts, Jian Yuntai said hoarsely, “He left.”
“What do you mean he left?”
“He left.”
Seeing that Jian Yuntai clearly didn’t want to elaborate, Fatty tactfully didn’t press further. Instead he asked, “Then did you complete side quest two? The one about your body no longer being weak?”
“I did.”
Fatty looked at him several times in confusion. That quest only completed after the inner core was dug out. Jian Yuntai hadn’t had his dug out—had he found some kind of bug?
Thinking that, Fatty patted Sun Bin’s head with both pity and amusement. “You’re really miserable. Both of you completed side quest two—how is the difference this big?”
“…………”
Sun Bin was awake; he just didn’t have the strength to speak. Hearing that, he coughed weakly, curling up from abdominal pain. He trembled, yet stubbornly defended himself. “I completed side quest three too.”
Jian Yuntai’s eyes lit up. He still hadn’t triggered side quest three!
He immediately leaned closer. “What’s side quest three?”
“Cough—cough cough…” Sun Bin weakly spat out blood, despair written across his face. “After my inner core was dug out, the rabbit demon ran away. That’s when side quest three triggered. Only then did I find out that back then, it wasn’t me who dug out the inner core. It was a misunderstanding.”
He had his inner core dug out for nothing—and got beaten half to death by the rabbit demon too!
“A misunderstanding…” Jian Yuntai pressed his hand to his forehead.
He knew it. This instance was really ruthless.
【Player side quest updated】
【STEP3: Investigate the truth】
【The player must uncover the truth of that year, prove to the contracted demon beast that there were hidden circumstances, and reconcile with it. This is the final step of the side quest. Upon completion, you will receive an unknown item at the end of the instance.】
【Attention, player!】
【Attention, player!】
【There are only 12 hours left until the Night of Gratitude. At that time, you must ensure the contracted demon beast is by your side. Otherwise, your probability of death will be maximized. Please keep this firmly in mind!】
…Keeping it in mind was useless.
Jian Yuntai pressed his forehead again. The situation now was this: either the player simply didn’t complete side quest two, so the contracted demon beast would never learn about the inner core being dug out and therefore wouldn’t leave.
But if side quest two was completed, then before the main quest’s Night of Gratitude, side quest three had to be finished. And finishing it wasn’t enough—he also had to let the contracted demon beast know the hidden truth.
He had to persuade it to come back.
This was practically apocalyptic.
There were only twelve hours left until the deadline. Jian Yuntai had to uncover the truth of that year within the time limit, find Fuzhu, explain that he had his reasons, then on the Night of Gratitude expose the high priest’s crimes and stop the villagers’ orgy.
And before all that, he at least had to get out of this dungeon. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.
“You can’t get out.” Fatty saw the flicker in Jian Yuntai’s eyes and immediately knew what he was thinking. “Don’t try to force the door open. If there’s too much noise, the priests will come in and release poison gas into the dungeon. Everyone will pass out. And by the time you wake up, several more hours will be wasted.”
Jian Yuntai said with a headache, “Side quest three says that on the Night of Gratitude, the contracted demon beast must be by my side. Otherwise, the death rate will be maximized.”
Fatty froze. “What does ‘maximized death rate’ even mean?”
Jian Yuntai shook his head. “Whatever it means, it’s definitely not good. I used to wonder why this instance felt so simple, yet its magnetic field rating was ranked C-level. Now I understand… all the simplicity before was just buildup. In the end, it’s a guaranteed death scenario.”
And this was probably only the beginning of that guaranteed death scenario.
The last time Young Master Xue entered a folklore horror instance, including himself, only eight people had survived in the end.
Looking over the dungeon at this moment, the female players had been captured right at the start. Their contracted demon beasts were still by their sides, and because they had remained unconscious until now, they had not completed Side Quest Two—Digging Core Revenge. That meant that if they simply stayed hidden in the dungeon, they could actually clear the instance without taking any damage.
Even if, during this time, some capable warriors managed to break out of the dungeon and rush to Night of Gratitude, as long as they had their contracted demon beasts with them, the mortality rate would not plummet into the same miserable state as in the previous instance.
All of this showed that what they were seeing now was only the tip of the iceberg. There were likely far more dangerous events waiting ahead.
Earlier, Jian Yuntai had lamented that this instance was suspiciously easy. Now he only felt that once it became difficult, it was truly difficult.
It was not any easier than the King of Hell’s Wedding instance.
Just as Jian Yuntai was struck by wave after wave of headache, Sun Bin’s weak voice suddenly came from the side. “Why didn’t you ask me?”
Jian Yuntai looked at him. “Ask you what?”
Sun Bin replied, “Ask me how I completed Side Quest Three. I finished it after I was captured and thrown into the dungeon.”
“…?” Jian Yuntai froze slightly.
Investigate the old events—this kind of task required finding someone who knew the inside story from back then and questioning them, didn’t it? Sun Bin had been locked in the dungeon, unable even to move. How had he completed the task?
After a pause, Jian Yuntai looked at him strangely and asked, “Don’t tell me you just guessed blindly and somehow got it right?”
Sun Bin: “…………”
Before Sun Bin could retort, Jian Yuntai suddenly had a flash of inspiration and blurted out in realization, “Your skill!”
In the previous instance, King of Hell’s Wedding, Sun Bin had used his skill to help Jian Yuntai and Cui Yu enter a dream, completing the First Taboo of the Yin Officials—Do Not Speak of the Past.
At the time, however, Sun Bin had said that his skill had to be activated beside a person. It also had to be used beside the owner of the dream—which was why, that time, Sun Bin had slept on the floor beneath the bed.
Under Jian Yuntai’s steady gaze, Sun Bin grinned. “I don’t need to be next to the dream’s owner anymore. And you were right about something you said last time…”
After Jian Yuntai had exited the dream in the previous instance, he had told Sun Bin that this skill of his probably was not just about entering dreams as a bystander to witness past events. Because in that dream, the Divine Lord had been able to see Jian Yuntai.
That meant Jian Yuntai had not merely been an observer.
If it were properly developed, perhaps in the future Sun Bin’s skill… could even change things that had already happened in the past.
And now—
Sun Bin twitched in pain at the thought of the cost. All this time, he had been both terrible and addicted to playing. Both times he had entered C-level instances, he had ended up miserable. But if you asked him whether he would enter again if given another chance—
Sun Bin would definitely say yes.
It was not easy being the son of the political elite. Everyone surrounded him, never losing their temper, always like wooden puppets who would not fight back when hit or talk back when scolded.
A social circle so mild it bordered on distorted had left him, deep down, someone who craved challenges intensely. The more afraid he was, the more thrilling it felt; the more thrilling it was, the more he wanted to challenge it. For that, even death was worth it.
“I can use my skill to bring you into a dream and go back to the world of ten years ago. But it’s still the same as last time—only one person can enter at a time.” When he spoke again, Sun Bin was extremely excited. His eyes shone with eagerness as he looked at Jian Yuntai.
“Do you want to try it? See if you can… change the fact that Fuzhu’s demon core was dug out?!”
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