Lin Zhen opened his mouth, then chose to shut himself off completely.
This matter seemed even more terrifying to him than the current instance. Earlier, he had watched the struggling coffin being thrown into the water, yet he still hopped onto the carriage with a spring in his step. Now, however, he looked utterly dejected.
Yan Wei hadn’t expected much from a discussion with Lin Zhen to begin with. Now that Lin Zhen had quieted down, Yan Wei was content to focus his thoughts.
His body swayed slightly with the motion of the carriage. Cold wind seeped in through the cloth curtains on either side. Leaning to one side, he gently lifted the curtain.
The entire Guanyin Town was blanketed in snow, though it didn’t seem to be deep winter yet. The snow on the tiled roofs on either side had already melted significantly. The further they went, the less visible the stark contrast between the white snow and the dark rooftops became, replaced by a bustling town and layers upon layers of rooftops stretching into the distance.
The snow on the road had likely melted into damp puddles due to the heavy foot traffic. Several carriages passed by slowly, the sound of hooves hitting the ground echoing with a “plop, plop.”
As they moved away from the bustling market, the cries of vendors gradually faded. On either side of the road were rows of similar houses, with what appeared to be cured meats hanging inside.
This area was clearly a small residential district.
Yan Wei watched as the houses slid by, when suddenly, a few white paper coins drifted toward him, carried by the slanting snow.
His gaze paused.
Ahead, two long bamboo poles stood at the entrance of a house, each topped with a thick stack of paper coins. The drifting coins must have been blown off the top by the wind. A white cloth flower knot hung on the horizontal bar of the gate, with pale, flowing cloth draping down on either side. Peering inside, he noticed white lanterns hanging throughout the house.
Could this be the family that had just held a funeral?
As the carriage passed the house, Yan Wei was about to look away when more paper coins mixed with the snow drifted toward him.
Moments later, another house ahead was in the midst of a funeral.
He reached out from the small window on the side of the carriage and lightly caught one of the paper coins. The cold touch of the paper made him shiver in the wind, and he quickly pulled his hand back inside.
The paper coin was still dotted with snowflakes. As Yan Wei brought it inside, the snow melted, slightly dampening the coin.
He lowered his gaze, examining the ordinary paper coin, and said, “Lin Zhen, take a look out your window.”
“Oh, okay.”
A moment later, Lin Zhen practically stuck his head out the window, exclaiming, “This town’s pretty interesting, huh? Quite a few houses are holding funerals.”
Yan Wei’s brow twitched slightly. He lifted his eyelids, glancing toward Lin Zhen’s window, where he vaguely caught sight of something white.
“There’s a lot on my side too,” he said.
“But their lives seem pretty normal. Could it just be that more elderly people can’t make it through the winter? I remember before I entered the Tower, every winter there’d be a lot of elderly people who didn’t make it, and you’d often see emergency vehicles and funerals on the streets.” Lin Zhen pulled his head back in and closed the curtain.
“The density is too high. Guanyin Town isn’t that large or densely populated. Having three or four houses on one street holding funerals at the same time—it’s unlikely to be normal deaths. As for their lives seeming normal… that just means they’re either numb or getting used to it, but they’re still scared.” Yan Wei recalled the scene at the Black Shore earlier. “When the coffin was thrown, even the servant boy jumped when I called out, and the others were visibly tense.”
“Why’s that?”
“…” Yan Wei didn’t feel like engaging. “You think I know?”
“Aren’t you supposed to know everything?”
“Should I throw you into the sea to find out? Maybe then you’ll figure it out.”
“…”
“For people to become so accustomed to corpses rising, it’s not something that happens overnight. Guanyin Town must have been dealing with this for years. The sea turning black might be related to their funeral customs, but those customs couldn’t have only started a few years ago. It’s definitely not just about the funeral practices.”
Suddenly, the carriage came to a stop.
The drivers of several carriages pulled their horses to the side of the road. Ahead, Yan Wei heard the mournful music he’d heard earlier by the shore, along with the sound of many footsteps. Some of the footsteps were heavy, as if carrying something weighty.
Once the carriage stopped, Yan Wei lifted the curtain slightly to take a look. Sure enough, a funeral procession was passing by. A group of nervous-looking people stood at the front and back, with several others carrying a coffin in the middle. This coffin was even more tightly sealed than the previous one, with nails visible around its entire circumference and thick ropes binding it.
Another funeral procession.
Once the procession passed, the carriage driver urged the horses forward again.
Yan Wei patted Lin Zhen.
“What?”
“I think we don’t need to wait until we reach the school to start investigating,” he said. “It’s just past noon now. If we wait until we get to the school and then come back out, it’ll waste time.”
Earlier, he had thought there were no other clues, and that they’d have to wait until they reached the school to see if there was more information. But after traveling this far, it was clear that something unusual was happening.
Yan Wei couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about their current task. Although he and Lin Zhen had the same objective, the system’s specific wording couldn’t have been without reason.
What if their tasks were actually different, and the Players’ goals diverged? If he were in competition with those Players—none of whom were pushovers—time couldn’t be measured by the baseline for completing the task. What he needed to do wasn’t just complete the task, but finish it as quickly as possible, ahead of his competitors.
Yan Wei leaned out and called to the driver, “Sir, we forgot to bring some things with us. We just saw a few shops selling what we need along the way. Could we get off to buy them?”
The driver pulled the horses to a stop. “Can you find your way, young master? Should I drive you there?”
This was probably just an ordinary NPC.
Yan Wei said, “No need. The shops are at the intersection we just passed. The road there is a bit narrow, and the carriage won’t fit. We remember the way.”
The driver didn’t object and spoke to the servant boy who had come to pick them up. The boy came over and instructed them to come back as soon as they were done and not to wander off. They got out of the carriage, and the other carriages continued on toward Guanyin Academy, while theirs was pulled to the side, with the driver waiting for their return.
Yan Wei and Lin Zhen got out but didn’t head to the shops. Instead, they turned a few corners and returned to the spot where they had crossed paths with the funeral procession earlier.
Since this house was in the midst of a funeral, something must have happened. Compared to the houses that had already closed their doors for funerals, this one at least had people visible.
“Not following them?”
“No. They’re still carrying the coffin. Following them would just mean watching them throw it into the water again. They’ll come back this way, so they’ll return.”
Yan Wei and Lin Zhen found a relatively hidden spot by the road and waited for a while. Yan Wei’s cheeks grew red from the cold, making his already fair complexion appear even more delicate, though his amber eyes remained sharp and lively.
Fortunately, this instance didn’t suppress their stats. Though he felt cold, it wasn’t unbearable.
After a while, the funeral procession returned.
The coffin was gone, leaving only the two thick wooden poles that had been used to carry it. The group walked hurriedly, their expressions tense, with paper coins fluttering at the front.
Yan Wei led Lin Zhen, following these people from a distance. They wound through several streets, but fortunately, the layout of Guanyin Town was straightforward, with a grid-like structure that made it easy to remember the way. These were just ordinary NPCs, so they didn’t notice the two Players tailing them.
When the group reached the house, Yan Wei saw the open door and the memorial tablet inside. A servant boy in mourning clothes stood at the entrance, greeting those who had come to pay their respects.
He nudged Lin Zhen. “Go knock out one of the coffin bearers, put on their mourning clothes, and go inside.”
“Won’t they recognize me as soon as they see my face?”
“No. The coffin bearers are all quite burly, and their expressions are a bit more relaxed than the others. They seem like hired hands who do this kind of work for quick money. They’re definitely not regulars. As long as you don’t show your face, the person you knock out won’t suspect it was a person—they’ll think it’s something supernatural, like a ghost or a rising corpse. Nothing will happen.”
Lin Zhen understood and rolled up his sleeves, about to go. Yan Wei stopped him and said, “Once you’re inside, just find out who died, roughly when they died, and what kind of person they were.”
“Not asking about the Black Sea?”
“You want to get caught as an intruder?”
“Fair enough.” Lin Zhen flicked his sleeves and said, “I’m off.”
Yan Wei hid nearby, waiting for Lin Zhen to return.
This area wasn’t bustling, mostly just townsfolk coming and going. Not many people were out and about. Yan Wei watched the drifting snow, waiting idly, when his thoughts inevitably turned to Yan Mingguang.
Where had Yan Mingguang been scattered in this instance? What identity had he taken? In this top-tier instance, how would the malice play its tricks? Could there… be two Yan Mingguangs?
Yan Wei didn’t know yet.
They had been inseparable all this time, and even when they were apart, it was only for a moment. Now, having entered the instance and not seen him yet, Yan Wei felt uneasy.
It was as if, if he didn’t keep an eye on Yan Mingguang, the man might vanish into thin air.
He knew Yan Mingguang had secrets, but he was also certain Yan Mingguang wouldn’t do anything to harm him. He wanted to ask, but he knew Yan Mingguang wouldn’t tell him. His mind wandered, speculating, and the more he speculated, the more this unease grew.
This man had always been by his side on this journey.
He must be missing a crucial piece of memory—a memory that held the most real version of Yan Mingguang, the one he was searching for, the one that would bring him peace.
After a while, Lin Zhen returned, swaggering out of the house in mourning clothes.
The solemnity of the mourning attire made him look eerily like Lin Qing for a moment, but the seriousness was quickly shattered when Lin Zhen opened his mouth. “Here you go, little pet. I found out—it was too easy. As soon as I went in, there was the memorial tablet with the name and date of death. Then I just listened to what they were saying, and I got everything you wanted to know.”
“How is it?” Yan Wei asked.
“The deceased is named He Qu, 32 years old, died thirteen days ago. The snow was heavier a few days ago, but today’s a bit warmer, so they arranged for the funeral today. The others probably did the same, which is why we saw so many. He died under strange circumstances. He was alive and well one day, and the next morning, he was found dead in bed, his body already covered in corpse spots, as if he’d been dead for days. As for the rest, they seemed to avoid talking about it.”
“Was there anything special about this person?”
“Not really. He was pretty ordinary, could read a bit, and made a living by writing and selling paintings. Sometimes he’d sneak off to the brothel behind his wife’s back, and when he got caught, they’d just argue. Oh, and he has a six-year-old child. That’s all I got. I stayed for a bit, but they didn’t talk about anything else. I went in as a worker, so I couldn’t exactly ask questions. I came out.”
Yan Wei nodded. “That’s enough.”
“They didn’t mention anything about the Black Sea, water burials, or rising corpses. Should we go back in and ask? But if we do, they’ll definitely realize we’re not locals.”
“We do need to go back in and ask,” Yan Wei said. “Our goal is to uncover the secret related to the Black Sea—or rather, the unspoken but taboo knowledge of everyone in Guanyin Town. Let’s go to the clothing shop next door and buy something first.”
“Buying stuff isn’t the reason, is it?”
Yan Wei just smiled.
He took Lin Zhen and, using the silver they had on them, bought two new sets of mourning clothes that fit them well.
Lin Zhen: “Oh, right. Change clothes first, then sneak in.”
Yan Wei gave him a sidelong glance and led him back to the house.
Just as Lin Zhen was about to steal an invitation from one of the mourners, Yan Wei turned a corner and led him to… the house across the street.
Lin Zhen: “?”
Yan Wei had already knocked on the door of the house opposite the one holding the funeral.
If he went directly to the house holding the funeral to ask questions, his “outsider” status would surely raise suspicions. If he went to the house across the street directly, the people there wouldn’t trust him either. By using the information from the funeral house to knock on the door across the street, he created a gap in their knowledge.
After all, the strangeness of Guanyin Town was something everyone in the town knew about. There was no need to go specifically to the house holding the funeral to ask.
The door was opened by a child, not even up to Yan Wei’s chest. The child cracked the door open slightly and looked up at him with a wary, childish voice. “Who are you, sir?”
The young man was dressed in coarse mourning clothes, the white fabric tinged with yellow, complementing his already fair complexion. In the snowy weather, he looked pale and delicate. His cheeks were slightly red, as if from the cold.
The child, seeing this, unconsciously opened the door a bit wider, not as wary as before.
Lin Zhen, standing behind Yan Wei, rolled his eyes, completely clueless about what Yan Wei was up to.
Yan Wei maintained a tense expression, just like those at the funeral, and whispered nervously, “Could I come in? He Qu was my cousin. My sister-in-law couldn’t bear the suddenness of his passing and secretly invited a master to perform additional rites a few days ago. The master mentioned some unsettling things about the house, and it’s affecting your family as well. He asked me to come and inform you.”
The child said, “Wait a moment,” then closed the door again. Footsteps could be heard running inside.
A moment later, an elderly woman came to the door.
The woman looked haggard, with dark circles under her eyes. She opened the door fully and said, “Please come in, young masters.”
Yan Wei and Lin Zhen followed her inside. As soon as they entered, the child with a topknot quickly closed the door, as if afraid something unclean might slip in.
The house had a central courtyard with drainage channels on all sides, now filled with frozen snow. Further inside was the main hall, simple and unadorned, with only a tea table, chairs, and a small stool piled with children’s toys. A red ribbon was tied to the arm of one of the chairs, but there was little else to see.
The elderly woman invited them to sit and asked anxiously, “Did the master see something unclean?”
Lin Zhen, unable to sit still, wandered off to play. Yan Wei knew he wouldn’t cause trouble and didn’t bother to stop him.
Yan Wei walked over to the empty chair next to the stool with the toys and sat down in front of the elderly woman. In a low voice, he said, “Yes, he did. We hired a master from out of town and didn’t tell him about the situation in the town. After the master finished, he said something had entered my cousin’s house, and now that my cousin is… well, that thing has come to your house.”
The elderly woman was startled. She stood up abruptly, then sat back down, trembling. “This thing has been causing trouble for years. Why has it come to our house now…”
This thing?
Yan Wei’s eyes flickered slightly, but he remained calm on the surface. “Please, stay calm—”
“How can I stay calm?” The woman’s face was twisted with worry. “My daughter suddenly told me half a month ago that she’d seen something unclean. She’s been acting strange ever since, and that night, she was scared out of her mind. We took her to the doctor, who said she’s suffering from soul loss. We’ve been treating her for days, but there’s been no improvement. You young people always say it’s because of the water burials, that too many bodies have accumulated, and the resentment from the sea has brought these unclean things. But water burials have been around for ages! My grandparents were buried at sea, and back then, the town was peaceful.
“I think it’s the ghost of some woman who died a wrongful death, coming back to claim lives. All the victims are young men… and they don’t die peacefully. Even after they’re buried, their corpses rise. Doesn’t that sound like they’re seeking revenge against the female ghost?”
A female ghost?
The sea wasn’t originally black, but it turned that way after this female ghost appeared in Guanyin Town?
Yan Wei said, “Don’t worry, the sea turning black hasn’t been that long—”
“Four or five years isn’t long? Maybe for you young people, but for someone like me, with half my life already lived, these four or five years have been terrifying. When outsiders ask, we have to lie and say it’s just sea monsters! My poor daughter, widowed young, raising a child alone, and now she’s lost her soul, leaving us as an orphan and widow…”
Yan Wei lowered his gaze, feeling the paper coin he’d casually caught earlier in his sleeve. He finally understood why Guanyin Town was so strange.
He stood up and said, “Don’t be afraid. The master said that while the thing has come to your house, the female ghost here isn’t too malicious. She doesn’t want to harm anyone and will leave after a while. The master said you should buy some pieces of agarwood and burn them. Agarwood wards off evil spirits. If you burn it long enough, she’ll move on. The older the agarwood, the more effective it is.”
The elderly woman thanked him profusely.
Having achieved his goal, Yan Wei excused himself, saying there were still many funeral arrangements to attend to. He called Lin Zhen, and they turned to leave.
As soon as they turned around, Yan Wei’s gaze met someone else’s.
A woman with disheveled hair and wearing light-colored clothes stood at the door, staring blankly in their direction. Lin Zhen had already noticed her and was standing beside her, waving a hand in front of her face with a grin.
Yan Wei: “…”
The woman seemed not to notice Lin Zhen at all. She stared for a moment, then suddenly looked terrified, turned, and ran toward a side room.
The elderly woman hurried after her.
This must be the daughter who had been frightened into soul loss by the female ghost.
In such a situation, the elderly woman naturally had no time to attend to them. Yan Wei patted the child’s head, slipped him some silver, and dragged Lin Zhen out of the house.
The moment they stepped out the door, the Tower’s notification sounded in Yan Wei’s mind.
[Congratulations, Player. You have completed your current main task—understanding the origin of the Black Sea around Guanyin Town, learning about the water burial customs and the town’s strange occurrences. You have been awarded 5 instance progress points and have unlocked the next stage of the task.]
[Attention, all Players: A Player has completed the first main task corresponding to their role, unlocking the next stage. Please continue to work hard and keep up with the progress.]
At the Guanyin Town docks, a young man in a blue-gray Daoist robe, holding a Tai Chi compass, paused.
“…Someone completed the first task?”
At the foot of the Endless Monument.
The crowd erupted into a tenfold, hundredfold wave of discussion.
“The instance gave until midnight, right? It’s still afternoon, the sun hasn’t even set, and he’s already finished…”
“Has Yan Wei really only cleared a few instances? From our god’s-eye view, we know this top-tier instance has different factions. How did he figure out so quickly that he needed to be faster than the opposing faction?”
“Song Cheng’an has never lost in instance progress exploration, and Yan Wei is even faster than him?? Song Cheng’an was at the docks, just a little bit away!!”
“…”
In the distance, within the apartment where the lower-tier Players resided, an ordinary Player watched Yan Wei through Lin Zhen’s perspective.
He was just one of the many Players struggling through one instance after another in the Tower World. He had no special qualities or advantages. Unlike those geniuses who could ascend and raise buildings the moment they entered an instance, sprinting ahead of everyone else.
He simply climbed the floors one by one—finishing the first floor and moving to the second, completing the second and advancing to the third. Sometimes he even failed in instances, narrowly escaping death and being demoted, only to start over from the lower floors.
Ordinary and unremarkable, like everyone else, he paid attention to the top-tier instance that had shaken the entire Tower World.
As he gazed at the projection of the young man dressed in plain white mourning attire, exuding a clear and ethereal aura, he felt a sense of familiarity with that face. Such a striking face wasn’t easily forgotten.
It seemed like years ago, he had encountered this person in an instance around the fifth or sixth floor. That instance had reached an unprecedented level of difficulty. Many people entered, and every day, countless died—bloodstains littered the ground wherever you went. Only that person remained calm from start to finish, ultimately driving the rampaging NPCs to flee in disarray.
He had managed to survive until the end, thanks to that person, and successfully exited the instance. Because of the extreme difficulty, the rewards from that instance had greatly benefited him in subsequent ones.
He couldn’t remember many of the people he had met in instances, but he remembered this one clearly. The Best Player of that instance, code-named “V,” later became the legendary leader of the Blackbird, a figure spoken of in legends throughout the Tower World. While he was still struggling on the lower floors, V had already opened the top-tier instance, causing a major upheaval in the Tower World years ago.
This young man before him looked so much like…
He shook his head.
How could it be? V was a figure from years ago. Either he had died in the 99th-floor instance years ago, or he had long since left the Tower World with his abilities.
He must have been mistaken.
Guanyin Town.
Players scattered across various locations gasped in unison upon hearing the prompt.
The source of the prompt—Yan Wei—simply walked out of the old woman’s house and approached the door of the family holding the funeral across the street. He took out the paper money he had caught in the carriage earlier and tossed it into the air.
The white paper money, along with the snow and other paper money flying out from the house, rose with the wind before gently falling back down.
Lin Zhen scratched his head. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m borrowing flowers to offer to Buddha, so to speak. A thank-you to the deceased for the clues they’ve given us.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Wei and Lin Zhen both heard the prompt for the next phase of the task.
