Free Web NovelChapter 7: The Return
Immediately, Zhang Yuanqing's sanity meter hit zero.
An icy chill surged up through him, from the base of his tailbone straight to the crown of his skull. He launched himself into the air like a startled cat with its fur standing on end, and a vulgar expletive escaped his lips before he could stop it.
"Holy shit!"
It was pure instinct, the involuntary response of a human being subjected to overwhelming shock.
He finally understood why his shoulders had been aching so badly. He also understood why the corpse by the window had been carrying a bronze mirror. It was for checking whether a vengeful spirit had latched onto your shoulder.
When had this thing clambered onto him? When he'd entered the courtyard, or perhaps when he'd stepped into this room?
Who had given him the courage to go out exploring? Was it Liang Jingru[1]?!
His brain felt like a pot boiling over. Thoughts overflowed in every direction all at once, and terror crashed over him like a tidal wave. He'd known he would find eerie and terrifying things within this temple and had mentally prepared himself for it, but actually coming face to face with the supernatural still flooded him with indescribable panic.
Right, the talisman! he suddenly remembered.
He reached into the left pocket of his windbreaker with trembling hands, pulled out the yellow paper talisman, and slapped it onto his shoulder in a last ditch attempt to save himself. After all, he had nothing to lose.
Smack!
The Corpse Suppression Talisman affixed itself onto his shoulder. He raised the bronze mirror and cautiously angled it to look. The figure with the deathly white face, blackened lips, and lifeless white pupils was still clinging to his back.
He felt a wave of despair. Useless! It seems this thing doesn't count as a corpse-type yin entity...
His last shred of hope evaporated. Zhang Yuanqing felt the ache in his shoulder intensifying by the second, and his hands and feet were also growing colder.
These weren't illusions. His Yang Qi was draining away, tangibly and relentlessly.
At that moment, he thought of the skeleton beneath the table in the main hall, as well as the other miner who had died a miserable death beside the very window in front of him. It seemed likely he would suffer the same fate.
A bone-deep chill seeped into his heart, filling it.
Just as he thought things could not get worse, he heard the sound of faint footsteps drifting in from the corridor outside. The footsteps were light, but in the dead silence of the night, they sounded impossibly clear.
Zhang Yuanqing's blood ran cold. He dropped into a crouch beside the corpse beneath the window.
The footsteps sounded familiar. They were similar to what he'd heard when he'd first entered the temple.
Tap, tap, tap...
They drew closer, heading his way. He didn't dare breathe. Every muscle in his body was wound tight, and he could faintly hear his own heartbeat hammering out of control.
As the sound of the footsteps passed by the window, he found himself unable to resist his curiosity. He turned his gaze toward the floor of the room.
Moonlight streamed in from outside, casting the lattice window's shadow across the ground. The window was low, only waist height, and any normal person walking past it would have their shadow cast onto the floor by the moonlight. However, as the footsteps passed by the window, he saw nothing.
That meant whatever was passing by the window had no body.
Fortunately, the sound of the footsteps did not cease. Whatever was creating them did not enter the room. Eventually, the footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
Zhang Yuanqing silently let out a breath. He strained his ears, tracking the receding footsteps as they crossed into the courtyard, producing the soft swish-swish sound of trampled weeds.
Then, they stopped. A few seconds later, the footsteps resumed, but it did not sound like the regular rhythm of walking. They had started up a distinct rhythm and pattern.
What was the entity doing in the courtyard?
He braced his freezing body and stood with some difficulty, peering through the torn paper that clung to the lattice window.
Under the moonlight, among the weeds, a pair of brand new red Western-style dancing shoes was performing a tap dance.
A moonlit night. A desolate temple. A pair of red dancing shoes. A solo performance.
The scene was absurdly eerie yet tinged with something hard to put into words.
Could it be loneliness? mused Zhang Yuanqing.
But how could a pair of Western-style dance shoes exist in a Ming Dynasty temple dedicated to a mountain goddess?
This wretched temple was getting stranger by the minute.
Zhang Yuanqing quietly sank back down and waited. Minutes crawled by. The vengeful spirit on his shoulder continued siphoning his Yang Qi without pause. The stiffness in his body grew heavier, and the dull ache in his shoulder sharpened into a stabbing pain.
He could feel that if this continued, he would either die from complete yang depletion or from his shoulder blade shattering under the strain.
After a long and agonizing wait, the dancing in the courtyard finally ceased.
Zhang Yuanqing still didn't dare raise his head. He waited a while longer before cautiously peeking over the windowsill into the courtyard.
The empty courtyard was awash with moonlight. The weeds stood perfectly still. The eerie dance shoes were gone.
"Haaah..." He exhaled with immense relief. But the moment he tried to stand, his knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor.
Now that his taut nerves were finally loosening and the adrenaline was receding, Zhang Yuanqing realized his condition was far worse than he'd thought. His shoulder burned with searing pain, as though the bone underneath was about to split apart. His knees were stiff, almost completely locked up, and it felt as if his blood had frozen solid.
He grabbed the bronze mirror with shaky hands. In the grimy reflection, his face was ghastly white, his expression haggard, his pupils dull and clouded. He didn't look like a living person. He looked like someone on death's doorstep, whose life-force had been nearly spent.
Perched on his shoulder, the black-lipped vengeful spirit gazed at him in eerie silence.
If this continued, death was certain. But what could he do? He couldn't touch or interact with the spirit on his shoulder in any way.
The excruciating pain in his shoulder forced him to lean against the wall for support. He turned his head and glanced at the worker's remains beside him. The two of them made quite the pair. One living, one dead, sitting in the exact same position.
Zhang Yuanqing smiled bitterly.
"So that's how it ends..." he muttered wryly.
He felt as though he were staring at his own fate. At any moment, he would hear death's quiet sigh.
However, he hadn't surrendered the will to survive. His brain was still firing, running like an overclocked CPU, desperately searching for any thread of hope in the abyss.
Like a sudden flash of inspiration, the image of the skeleton beneath the table in the main hall flickered through the chaotic torrent of information in his mind.
The damage suffered by the shoulder blades of the two skeletons was different. The shoulder injury suffered by the dead person in the main hall had not been fatal. Did the spirit let him go? No, a vengeful spirit wouldn't show mercy... And why did he hide under the table...?
Another thought followed. The red shoes began to follow me from the moment I entered the temple, but the instant I went into the main hall, they stopped...
At that thought, a spark of hope ignited in Zhang Yuanqing's dim, clouded eyes.
The main hall. I must get back to the main hall. Now!
He forced himself to his feet and staggered out of the room. Every step was a battle, as if an entire mountain sat on his shoulders.
Thud!
He collapsed in the courtyard, crashing into the weeds, and was unable to stand again.
His teeth chattered violently, rattling against each other as though he were caught in the dead of winter. The cold continued to spread. He was being robbed of warmth, and his will was being slowly eroded away.
Zhang Yuanqing crawled toward the main hall, inch by inch, pouring every ounce of strength he had left into forward motion. He kept his head raised, making sure the silhouette of the building ahead never left his sight.
As long as he could see it, hope would not die.
The walk from the main hall had taken barely a minute. But at this point in time, the distance felt as vast as the gap between heaven and earth.
The instant he crawled beneath the main hall's eaves, a phantom shriek tore through his ears, and the weight on his shoulder vanished. The cold, the dizziness, the stiffness—every affliction evaporated in an instant.
Zhang Yuanqing scrambled up the stone steps and stumbled around to the front of the main hall. He shoved the lattice doors open and threw himself over the threshold.
The flickering candle flame, small as a bean, pushed back the gloom and brought warmth that washed over him like a spring breeze.
He lay spread-eagled on the floor, chest heaving as he gasped for air. He stayed like that for two or three minutes before he finally felt alive again.
That was terrifying. Absolutely terrifying... he thought. My guess was right. The main hall is a safe haven.
Based on the differences in the shoulder injuries between the two skeletons, he'd deduced that something had interrupted the vengeful spirit's assault on the person who had made it to the hall. The worker curled up beneath the table had died in the fetal position of someone hiding in abject terror. In that person's mind, the main hall meant safety.
The further fact that the red shoes had abandoned their pursuit of him earlier provided further confirmation.
For the rest of the time, Zhang Yuanqing stayed in the main hall, waiting until the pain in his shoulder subsided and his body temperature returned to normal. True to his theory, he encountered no further danger.
If the main hall is a safe room, then my chances of survival have just increased dramatically, he mused. Even if that shoulder spirit drains me again, I can flee back here. But if I run into both the spirit and the red shoes at the same time, I probably won't make it back.
And the most terrifying thing in this temple, the true source of it all, is definitely more than just the vengeful spirit...
He wasn't going to let one brush with death go to his head. This temple was far from simple. An entire construction crew had died in this place before him.
After resting for a long while, his fear gradually receded. Just as he was deliberating whether to venture out again, the voice in his mind returned.
【Main Quest 1: Survive for three hours (Complete)】
【Main Quest 2: Explore Spirit Realm 0079. Progress: 20%】
【Yuanshi Tianzun, congratulations on completing one main quest. Calculating rewards...】
【Item acquired: Corpse Suppression Talisman (viewable in inventory).】
【Experience gained: 15%】
【Inventory unlocked.】
【You will receive 36 hours of rest. Spirit Realm 0079 next opens in: 35:59:40.】
The main hall began to warp, rippling like water disturbed by the wind.
When the image before his eyes stabilized, Zhang Yuanqing saw bright energy-saving lights overhead. He saw his spacious bed, his desk, his PS5, and the open window, with the curtains in front of them swaying gently in the breeze.
He was back in the real world.
"I'm... back?" he whispered in a daze.
He looked around in astonishment. Once he confirmed he was truly in his room, his knees gave out and he let himself collapse onto the soft bed.
He drew a deep breath and found that even the air tasted sweet.
Being alive was wonderful. The real world was wonderful.
After a few minutes of recovery, he sat up and unzipped his windbreaker. Just as expected, the Corpse Suppression Talisman was gone.
The thought of retrieving an item surfaced naturally in his mind, and in the next instant, a row of glowing blue squares materialized before his eyes. There were five slots in total. In the first one lay the yellow paper talisman.
It was a strange experience. The moment the inventory had been unlocked, the action had been instinctive. He somehow simply knew how to access it without being taught.
He took a moment to consider what had happened. Besides the Corpse Suppression Talisman, I also gained 15% experience. But my level is still zero, which means I haven't become a Nocturnal Specter yet. I'm still just an ordinary person.
Surviving three hours nearly killed me. How am I supposed to complete the second quest? Is this what S-rank difficulty means?
The more Zhang Yuanqing thought about it, the more hopeless it felt. He was starting to suspect Bro Bing had screwed him over.
The card could indeed change a life, but it also seemed genuinely impossible to master.
He had a clear read on his own abilities. He was just a college student who had never even killed a chicken before. Completing the second quest solo would be incredibly difficult.
As an upstanding young citizen of a socialist society, the obvious move in such a situation was to lean on the state and the government.
He picked up his phone, ready to dial his cousin's number, but his finger hovered over the screen and stopped.
It occurred to him that there might be a better option.
He hopped off the bed and rummaged through his desk drawer until he found the business card the gentleman with the slicked-back hair had left behind. On it was listed a name and a phone number.
The ordeal he had just gone through that night made him think about Bro Bing's mysterious disappearance. If he himself hadn't made it out alive, he would have vanished just as mysteriously as Bro Bing.
It was safe to assume that Bro Bing had encountered the Spirit Realm long before him. That meant his disappearance might have been the result of entering some Spirit Realm of his own.
If he followed that logic, then the bureau investigators had to be trustworthy. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
There was another reason that prompted him to contact the gentleman. The man had said Zhang Yuanqing might be the next to disappear, which was practically a hint that he would enter the Spirit Realm.
Adding in the fact that his cousin had been kept completely in the dark, Zhang Yuanqing had reasonable grounds to deduce that those three were special operatives who dealt specifically with cases like this.
With his mind made up, he dialed the number on the card.
The phone rang for a few seconds before someone on the other end picked up.
"Who is this?" a deep, mature male voice asked.
1. Liang Jingru, or Fish Leong, is a popular Malaysian Chinese Mandopop artist. One of her hit songs is "勇气", or "Courage", released in 2000. ☜
