Zhang Minge was attacked, his vision darkened, and he collapsed softly to the ground. Chu Tianshu patted his face, placed him against the wall, and sighed, “I told you earlier, we were supposed to coordinate from inside and out—well, it was more like my unilateral coordination.”
Then, he whistled, casually picked up the radio from the cage, and swaggered toward the front yard. As he approached the south side, he listened with some concern to the loud banging sounds of the barrier being struck: “Oh dear, with this commotion, I hope they don’t end up fracturing their hands.”
As if his words had cursed it, the already shaky barrier finally shattered under Lin Huai’s final kick.
“The barrier is broken! The barrier is broken!”
The people in the Taoist temple screamed in terror, scattering in all directions. Wang Zhanpeng, seeing the scene before him, was so anxious that sweat poured down his face. He pushed his sister, who was leaning on him, and thought of the back door of the Qingxu Temple, deciding to make his escape from there.
However, when he rushed to the back door, he was frightened by a blood-stained white figure, causing him to shout and retreat several steps.
“I, I didn’t mean to!” he shouted, “Please spare me—”
He didn’t get a chance to speak further, as a ghostly claw plunged deep into his heart.
After fully absorbing the blood from the heart, the ghost claw’s owner, whose face had been swollen, began to slowly return to normal, and blood spots started to appear on her body.
“First one,” she said softly.
Wang Zhanyuan, who had followed her brother, also let out a scream. She turned to run but was caught by the other party’s long hair, which wrapped around her calf.
“Ahhh—”
She screamed, unable to stop herself from being dragged back into the land of death behind her. The female ghost, whose face was gradually becoming less swollen, tilted her head and looked at her, then plunged her hand into her heart.
Next, she heard the other party’s emotionless voice.
“Second one.”
The screams continued one after another. Du Xiaoran hid behind a tree, holding a knife, her teeth chattering as she watched the scene before her.
Several bodies fell in front of her, and she covered her lips, finally unable to suppress a scream.
Finally, the half-red-robed killer stopped in front of her.
A slender figure, a delicate face, a dazed expression…
It was Ren Chun, the Fierce Ghost who had crawled out of the grave.
Ren Chun looked at her, seemingly puzzled as to why she was present. Du Xiaoran closed her eyes tightly, brandishing the knife and screaming, “Don’t come any closer, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die…”
But the next moment, her blade was caught by something and stopped mid-air.
Du Xiaoran closed her eyes in despair, but the expected pain did not come from her chest. When she opened her eyes in confusion, she saw the Fierce Ghost pulling the knife from her hand and slowly tossing it aside.
Then, the Fierce Ghost reached out to her, seemingly just wanting to touch Du Xiaoran’s body, but Du Xiaoran screamed and dodged away.
At that moment, those dazed eyes seemed to darken, but Du Xiaoran didn’t see it.
She only saw the mouth that had only ever uttered “first one” and “seventh one” form other words.
But she didn’t have time to think about it. Extreme fear had already caused her to faint.
—It was much later that she understood the meaning of Ren Chun’s words.
She had said: Don’t be afraid.
And she also remembered that on that hellish day… she had been wearing a pure white dress.
And when the Fierce Ghost Ren Chun reached out… perhaps she just wanted to touch it… to touch her pure white… dress.
After the chaos in the Qingxu Temple had subsided, Lin Huai, who had been squatting outside the temple quietly observing everything, heard the system’s notification.
“Beginner Field: Jiang Village, Task One, Protect the Villagers (1/8) failed.”
“Beginner Field: Jiang Village, Task Two, Eliminate the Culprits (Wang Family) completed.”
“Hidden Task Unlocked—Eliminate the Evil God in the Temple.”
For some reason, Lin Huai felt a hint of excitement in the system’s voice. He licked his lips, wiping away the blood that had flowed from his arm after smashing the barrier. Ying Xia stood silently behind him, watching.
“…You could have come at night, sneakily picking them off one by one, then killing them,” he said. “Why choose this…”
Why choose such a strenuous method?
His question was met with a soft chuckle. Then, he watched as the young man in black, facing the flames, raised his head in enjoyment.
“Because it’s more fun this way,” he said. “Invading the Qingxu Temple in broad daylight, openly, is more interesting than sneaking around in the shadows, don’t you think?”
“Speaking of which, Ren Chun must have become a Red-robed ghost by now,” Lin Huai said. “It’s a shame I can’t go and congratulate her…”
He tilted his head and smiled, “But it’s fine, she might not even thank me.”
Ying Xia watched him quietly for a long time before finally saying, “You… why don’t you stand up?”
Lin Huai was silent for a moment, then said, “My leg’s broken.”
Ying Xia: …
“Don’t expose me like that,” Lin Huai said. “Let me bask in the glory of my superhero entrance for a while…”
“So the sound I heard earlier wasn’t just the barrier breaking, but also your leg bone shattering…” Ying Xia didn’t know what to say.
“It’s fine, it’ll heal soon, just give me ten minutes,” Lin Huai said. “By the way, I have a gift for you… you’ll find out when you get back to Ren Qiu’s house.”
“What’s inside?”
“Wait until everything is over, then go back and get it,” Lin Huai answered evasively. “Now I finally understand what it means to be ‘lucky.’ The item I drew is actually meaningful in a way. And now, I… and him,”
He looked at the person who was rushing toward him from the sea of flames.
“Have other things to do.”
The two of them met, glanced at each other, and laughed in unison.
Lin Huai: “You’re so lame. I heard you got caught by these people?”
Chu Tianshu said, “That’s called infiltration.”
Lin Huai shrugged, “Even without your infiltration, I could have broken the barrier…”
“Then you’d have more than just one broken leg,” Chu Tianshu retorted, pulling a red potion from his backpack. “This potion is expensive, so drink it properly! Don’t leave half like last time! You owe me for every drop you leave!”
“Damn it, you saw through me,” Lin Huai slumped against the tree. “My black disguise… now I can’t pretend to have easily broken the barrier…”
He drank the red potion, noticing Chu Tianshu swaying slightly, looking dizzy, so he asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Probably from squatting in the cage for too long,” Chu Tianshu said. “Get on. I’ll carry you.”
Lin Huai stared at his back: “…Oh?”
“Don’t get the wrong idea, I just think it’s more efficient this way!” Chu Tianshu retorted.
“…I wasn’t getting the wrong idea, but the more you say it, the weirder it feels…” Lin Huai said weakly. “Maybe you should just put me down…”
“Would this make it better?” Chu Tianshu coughed, then started singing loudly, “The little girl picking mushrooms, carrying a big basket…”
Lin Huai: “…”
Chu Tianshu said, “I’m the little girl, and you’re the big basket, hehehe.”
Lin Huai: “Do you want to die?”
The two of them sang all the way to the dark red temple. Chu Tianshu rubbed his chin and said, “This aura… it’s troublesome.”
“Yeah,” Lin Huai, who was on his back, also rubbed his chin. “Should we make a wish like the grandfather paradox and delete it?”
“…Make a wish?” Chu Tianshu looked at him in confusion. “Why make a wish?”
Lin Huai: “What do you suggest then?”
“Of course, we should assemble a tractor and flatten it…”
Lin Huai: “…”
“Speaking of which, there’s an evil god inside this temple, right? Judging by the temple’s decorations, it doesn’t seem very expensive…” Standing in front of the temple door, Chu Tianshu scratched his head. “Should we find some gold coins to bribe it? That would definitely work…”
“You think everyone is as poor as Cl○y?”
“Or we could tell it to eliminate all the witches from the past, the future, and all… by my own hand…”
“Suddenly turning into a magical girl!”
“…Then this.” Chu Tianshu walked into the temple and bowed to the evil god. “Oh evil god, please tell me…”
Lin Huai swallowed.
“What is the last digit of π?”
When he turned around, he was met with Lin Huai’s look of observing an idiot. Lin Huai twitched his mouth and said, “Aren’t you afraid it might actually calculate it for you?”
“π is an irrational number.”
“I mean, what if…”
Chu Tianshu said solemnly, “To hear the truth in the morning, and die in the evening is acceptable.”
As the two of them were talking, the ground beneath them began to heat up, and the idol in front of them started to sway. Chu Tianshu immediately picked up Lin Huai and ran outside. By the time the two of them ran out of the temple, the entire structure had collapsed.
Chu Tianshu said, “Lin Huai, do you see that exploding mountain over there?”
Lin Huai: “…”
Chu Tianshu said, “That’s what your computer looks like when it hits an infinite loop nested within an infinite loop nested within an infinite loop nested within an infinite loop.”
Lin Huai: “…”
Chu Tianshu said, “That’s also what your Photoshop looks like when it opens thousands of layers and crashes simultaneously.”
Lin Huai: “…”
Chu Tianshu continued, “That’s also what your graduation project CAD looks like when it suddenly crashes after you forgot to save.”
Lin Huai: “…”
Chu Tianshu said, “Hahaha, isn’t it thrilling? Ugh…”
Lin Huai: “I think hitting you is more thrilling, wait…”
“Speaking of which, do you suddenly feel like there’s an earthquake here? It feels like something is swaying…” Lin Huai said, just as Chu Tianshu shook him off his body. “Chu Tianshu? Chu Tianshu? Chu Tianshu?”
“Wait a second, I think I’m a little dizzy…” Chu Tianshu touched his head, saying groggily, “Let me sleep for a while, I’ll wake up soon… by the way, this is the first time I’ve said something that sounds so much like a death flag…”
“Hey hey… don’t die here,” Lin Huai was startled.
Despite saying that, Lin Huai, lying on the ground, opened Chu Tianshu’s clothes. When he saw the wound beneath, his eyes narrowed—
The wound on Chu Tianshu’s abdomen, where he had been hit by an arrow, seemed to be infected.
Lin Huai reached out to touch the wound, but Chu Tianshu used his last bit of strength to grab his hand: “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. We’ll be teleported back to reality in a day, and I won’t die… at most, this level of injury will just turn into pneumonia in the real world…”
“At most just pneumonia?” Lin Huai was speechless. “What do you think you are, some kind of indestructible creature…”
Despite the sarcasm, Lin Huai still bravely dragged the unconscious Chu Tianshu and walked step by step down the mountain. Chu Tianshu seemed to be delirious from the fever, lying on his back, and after a while, he said, “Am I heavy?”
“If I say yes, will you give me money?” Lin Huai asked.
“Hehe, no,” Chu Tianshu said. “It’s normal to be heavy because I’m a big basket.”
Lin Huai: …Looking at him with the eyes of someone caring for an idiot.
He carried Chu Tianshu for the second part of the mountain path. Chu Tianshu seemed to realize he was a patient and became even more presumptuous: “Lin Huai, I’m a big basket, what are you?”
Lin Huai wasn’t sure if this statement was intentional or if he was just delirious from the fever. After a moment of silence, he said, “I’m human during the day, and a ghost at night.”
