Chapter 230: The Great Terror

Zhang Yuanqing realized he'd been chasing the wrong goal all along.

Going off his experience at the Temple to the Three Paths Mountain Goddess and everything he'd picked up reading pile after pile of strategy guides, he'd assumed without thinking that a survival dungeon like this only worked one way: the Spirit Realm Walker had to dig up the clues himself and figure out how to meet each crisis one by one. That was what he'd done back in the Temple to the Three Paths Mountain Goddess.

Therefore, after he'd leaned on the intel he had earned to get past the ghost girl, he'd gone hunting for the rouge box, confident it held the trick to overcoming the paper figure, and it had. It was how he'd worked out the pattern that the thing would kill once a night at most, and stop once it had fed on enough blood essence. That was how he'd stayed alive.

However, it wasn't reasonable. Not every Nocturnal Specter came in with the resources he had. The difficulty of the first two trials alone meant that 99.9 percent of Nocturnal Specters would never make it through. They would be dead, with no questions asked, and that still wasn't the dungeon's biggest threat.

After going back through his memories, he realized he'd gotten it backwards. Mute Village was a survival dungeon, not a combat one (even if fighting seemed necessary for survival). Survival was the main quest. He shouldn't have been fighting in the first place.

When in the village, not fighting meant death. The ghost girl that came and went like smoke, and the paper figure that blinked across space... The moment the time was up, they would appear, and one would never survive by refusing to fight. Therefore the right way to go about it was simple. Leave the village and go to the ancient tomb.

Indeed, the tomb and the village together were the full extent of the Mute Village dungeon.

From the introduction to this Spirit Realm dungeon, to Wang Xiao'er's account, to the old man's description, right down to the tomb's location which Mr. Xu had deciphered, every one of those clues had been telling the Walker the same thing: there was another location within this dungeon. The tomb was safe. At night, at least.

After all, the introductory blurb had spelled it out plain enough: That night, she followed him out...

The provincial princess and the haunted items had already either left the tomb or been taken out of it. The most dangerous place, then, was the village. The tomb, by contrast, was safe.

Which meant the Cat King Speaker's instruction to run hadn't been a way to deal with the paper figure; it was the way to clear this whole dungeon.

Still, after figuring this out, he didn't leave right away. He stayed sitting on the edge of the bed, his thumb working its way across the cold metal shell of the Cat King Speaker.

"Still there’s one thing that doesn't fit," he muttered to himself. "And one open question.”

The one thing that doesn't fit is that no crisis appears during the third watch, while during the fourth watch, the whole village died. Going by the pattern so far, the mirror should conjure up some form of danger during the third watch, while the princess comes during the fourth watch. The princess is the cruelest, so the whole village was slaughtered.

But there was no danger during the third watch. So is the threat that appears at the fourth watch whatever is conjured up by the mirror, or is it the appearance of the princess? If it's the mirror, then where is it? Is it just set dressing?

Then there's the open question. The tomb might be safe at night, but what about during the day? Is it safe in the daytime? The main quest is to survive for twenty-four hours. I won't be going home the second the sun comes up, since I entered this dungeon around ten this morning.

He didn't have enough to go on, so it was impossible to make a decent guess. He set the question aside for the moment, took Corpse No. 1, and left Mr. Xu's yard for the tomb.

Creeeak.

Corpse No. 1 pulled the gate shut behind them, being very polite about it.

Zhang Yuanqing stood by the little river and looked carefully around. He was deep within the village, and the houses made of rammed earth and stone had been thrown up haphazardly, with no order to them. He did not have a clear line of sight, but his senses didn’t pick up any gathering of yin energy nearby. The paper figure wasn't close by.

I have to get moving, fast. He led the yin corpse and walked a few strides, then his foot stuck to the ground and he stood there like a fool.

Zhang Yuanqing had run into a lethal little problem. He couldn't tell which way was which anymore.

The usual nighttime tricks for finding your bearings were reading the position of the moon and the constellations, but the sky in this dungeon was as dark as spilled ink. There were no stars and no moon. There was nothing to get his bearings.

Moreover, there was no living grass or tree in the village either, so he couldn't figure out the direction of the sunlight from how the leaves had grown.

Time passes the same inside this place as outside, and it's summer now. A southeastern wind usually blows during summer, if I remember right...

However, the yin energy that shrouded the village worked like an unseen fog, disrupting the natural wind and dissipating it to nothing.

Zhang Yuanqing raked his brains and came up empty.

He stood there, stuck. A top student of Songhai University, one of the finest schools in the country, and a piddling little detail like this is what beats me?

Then his eye caught the river running merrily along, and he hit upon a roundabout means of getting to the answer.

Water always flowed from high to low ground, and the mountain was definitely higher ground. Therefore, he could rule out the direction the stream was running to. The mountain wasn't that way. While the river didn't have to originate in the mountains, so long as he walked against the current, it wouldn’t be the wrong way.

One li is five hundred meters, so twenty-three li is about eleven kilometers. It's harder to traverse mountain paths than flat ground, and then there's the time I need to actually find the tomb...

The third watch was close. Zhang Yuanqing ran the numbers in his head. Reaching the tomb before the third watch would be hard. However, if he had until the fourth watch, the amount of time grew generous.

One man and one corpse walked through the deathly still village. Their footsteps and the sloshing water braided into one lonely, monotone drone that filled the otherwise-silent darkness.

An ordinary person of weaker nerve would have lost their mind even with no real danger anywhere. These Nocturnal Specter-exclusive dungeons really were a touch too scary.

He counted his steps as he went, and after roughly fifteen minutes, he finally cleared the village. A packed dirt road ran out into the fields beyond, and at the far end of the fields stood a great range of tall hills, rolling and unbroken, towering in the dark.

Zhang Yuanqing let out a sigh of relief. My luck's not bad. The river does flow out of the mountains.

Then, just as he meant to walk clear of the village into the fields, his spine went cold. Something behind him seemed to be watching him.

He whipped around. Behind him lay the ruined, worn-out village, drowned in grim darkness, its quiet lanes winding in towards its center.

Something's wrong here.

Zhang Yuanqing frowned in silence. He didn't linger. He led his yin corpse and broke into a hard run, farther and farther, until he vanished into the fields.

The two sprinted across ridge after muddy field ridge and soon reached the foot of the mountain.

Once he was in the hills, the ways to navigate multiplied. The sunny side of a lone tree faced south, while the shaded side was north. In dense woods, the drier face of a rock was south, the wetter, mossy face, north. Even the mouth of an ant nest was an indicator, as it usually sat facing south.

Once he determined which direction was southwest, Zhang Yuanqing quickly led his yin corpse deep into the trees, through the thicket and over the stream.

Every few minutes, he stopped to check his bearings before adjusting his direction so he didn't lose his sense of direction in the thick woods. As for measuring out twenty-three li, there was no good way. He would just have to estimate it as best he could.

After maybe a dozen li, Zhang Yuanqing halted beside a pine tree and breathed out a mouthful of yin energy.

The soft cloud of yin energy drifted down to the ground, coiling about, then coalesced into a plump, round little baby with a head of wispy hair.

"Abba, abba..."

Little Goofball blinked his large, dark eyes, looked all around, then scurried in fright to his master's feet and clung to his shin.

Come to think of it, as big as Little Goofball had gotten—well, not very big—he had never once seen deep, rolling hills and thick woods since the day he came into being. It was no wonder this strange place stuck him with an instinctive fear.

Zhang Yuanqing soothed him, and at the same time gave him an order. "Go find treasure!"

Finding the tomb wasn't hard. He'd put Little Goofball's treasure-hunting abilities to sensible use, and before long, he'd locate the tomb’s location in the deep hills, so long as it wasn't too far off. If he'd let him out inside the village, odds were he'd go for the rouge box instead.

Little Goofball accepted the order—"Abba, abba"—and scurried toward where Zhang Yuanqing had come from.

I told you to find the tomb, not go back to the village for the rouge box... Zhang Yuanqing grabbed a chubby little leg, dangled him up in the air, and tossed him forward.

"Wrong way," he said. "Look over there!"

Little Goofball stared blankly, as though he didn't understand why his master had contradicted himself. Still, he obeyed, pushing down his initial instinct and crawling off in the direction he'd been pointed.

The little infant spirit paddled his limbs like a nimble little spider, and Zhang Yuanqing followed behind him at an easy pace.

Little Goofball crawled for a while, then suddenly cut back around and started to go back the way he'd come.

"Wrong way!" Zhang Yuanqing declared, cutting him off in a hurry and adjusting his heading up again.

He followed behind with his yin corpse, and a few minutes later, Little Goofball spun around once more and tried to head back.

Aiya, you little blockhead, you're going the wrong way again... Zhang Yuanqing bent and scooped Little Goofball up, not letting him lead them further, frowning deeply.

He thought it over carefully and came to a conclusion. The tomb very likely had no treasure left, or whatever remained wasn't worth much, which was why Little Goofball kept crawling back to the village. The rouge box, the ghost doll and the mirror were all in the village. Even though they were haunted objects, they were still top-tier items, which was why Little Goofball felt such attraction to them.

If that's how it is, it still comes down to doing it myself, Zhang Yuanqing decided, swallowing the little infant spirit in one gulp and pressing on with his yin corpse in tow.

The night hung heavy, and time slipped away quietly. After about forty minutes, Zhang Yuanqing finally found the robber's shaft[1]. It sat in a weed-choked hollow between hills, with no rocks around it. It was just a round, bare hole that opened up out of the green tangle. Thick yin energy poured out from that deep pit in a steady stream.

Found it. Zhang Yuanqing couldn't have been happier.

He had no clear way to track time, but based on his estimates, it would soon be the fourth watch.

To be safe, Zhang Yuanqing split his consciousness in two, took over the yin corpse, and dropped into the shaft. It wasn't deep, maybe two meters down. Corpse No. 1 landed and pushed on blindly down the narrow shaft, which was only wide enough for one.

A dozen meters on, the shaft ended. The rim at that exit wasn't earth, but a thick ring of grey brick.

The shaft had been bored through the top of the tomb, and the burial chamber lay below. Zhang Yuanqing, in the yin corpse's body, picked up a chipped hunk of stone and dropped it into the dark under him. He caught the faint sound of it hitting the bottom.

About four meters down, he estimated, then leapt into the chamber.

Outside, the real Zhang Yuanqing waited a few seconds. Once he'd confirmed nothing was wrong inside, he dropped down into the shaft too, followed the low passage, and swung himself into the tomb.

His night vision allowed him to take in everything the chamber held.

The tomb was roughly forty square meters in size, with walls of grey brick. In each of the four corners stood two clay attendants, a maid and a guard. The long years had caused the clay to crack, and the limbs had fallen off.

Outside the chamber, a stepped path led upward, laid with cobblestone. Behind the chamber was another doorway that led to somewhere deeper.

This should be the front chamber, Zhang Yuanqing surmised from the clay figures in the corners.

Perhaps because the shaft linked it to the outside, the air in the chamber wasn't stale. There was plenty of oxygen.

He ordered the yin corpse ahead to scout and followed behind, studying the brick around him. The bricks were laid in a staggered fashion, bonded with white lime, and the doorway of the passage was even more elaborate, with three sets of upright bricks laid over three sets of flat ones. In archaeological jargon, it was called three arch, three roll brickwork. Only burial chambers of the wealthy or those in high society used this kind of bricklaying techniques.

All this was something Zhang Yuanqing had picked up from tomb raiding novels. Schools did not teach such information.

Zhang Yuanqing and his yin corpse made it through the six-meter-long passage and entered the main chamber.

The main chamber was vast, as big as the lobby of a five-star hotel. At the center sat a stone dais, and on it rested a white jade coffin. There were niches in the east, west, and south walls of the main chamber. Some niches held porcelain and pottery, some had bronze items that had oxidized, while others held black wooden chests half a man high. At the four corners of the main tomb stood bronze ceremonial pieces.

Zhang Yuanqing pulled his gaze back and quietly withdrew from the main chamber. He stood at the opening of the passage, and maneuvered Corpse No. 1 inside to push open the lid of the coffin.

He was going to test out a theory. If the princess's body lay in that coffin, then the threat that terrorized the village during the fourth watch had to come from the bronze mirror. If not, then the dungeon's final boss would be the princess herself.

Surprisingly, even with Corpse No. 1's brute strength, the coffin's lid wouldn't budge. Zhang Yuanqing entered the main chamber and applied his own strength alongside the yin corpse's. Even with the two of them together, it still wouldn't move.

What's going on? Is the Spirit Realm holding me back, or is the coffin sealed by some secret art no outsider can open? He mulled it over a few seconds, then gave up on the idea of opening the coffin.

As soon as he did so, he felt a tightness in his chest ease. It was almost like a sense of relief. Ever since the business with that old hag, opening coffins had left a mental scar on him.

He turned the yin corpse around and made it haul over a wooden chest from a niche instead, but he found that it wouldn't open either.

Fine, he conceded. It looks like this is just a shelter.

He sat down on the chest after he was done fussing with it, and waited for daylight.

The tomb was dark and soundless. He sat for a few minutes and got a little bored, and since Corpse No. 1 was hardly someone he could talk to, he went back to pondering over the things that still didn’t make sense about this dungeon.

He'd reached the tomb, but his two previous questions hadn't resolved themselves, leaving him without any solid footing.

I’ll wait till dawn first. Once the sun's up, the village should be safe, and the villagers should have turned back to normal. I'll go find another old man and dig up for more information. If the mirror was sold off, that would explain why there was no trouble when the third watch rolled around. The danger that appears during the fourth watch has to be the princess. But why won't the coffin open...?

Right. The wandering daoist.

Going by Wang Xiao'er's account, the wandering daoist had entered the tomb as well. Pair that with the coffin that wouldn't open, and Zhang Yuanqing already had a theory. The one lying in the coffin was the wandering daoist, and since he didn't belong to this dungeon's storyline, no Walker could open the coffin.

If only that old hag’s stone coffin had been as considerate...

As the thoughts ran through his mind, his gaze crossed the chamber, and something kept feeling wrong. He mulled it over for a few more seconds, then fished out the Observer glasses.

With his glasses on, he swept the room again, and his eyes narrowed all at once. Through the lenses, he noticed the finer details of the main tomb, and finally understood what felt off.

The burial goods were arranged too neatly. They shouldn't have been so tidy. Wang Xiao'er had been inside, and he was a thief who had broken in. No thief left without turning out every box and chest. Yet all the items, from the porcelain and the pottery to the chests and the ceremonial pieces, were all neatly arranged.

At that moment, an electric current seemed to run through Zhang Yuanqing's body, bringing with it a shudder of pure dread.

He hurriedly spat Little Goofball, fixed his eyes on that plump, round baby, and gave him a quiet order. "Find treasure!"

Little Goofball accepted the order, paddled his limbs briskly, and crawled off out of the main chamber. The infant spirit ignored the coffin, ignored the priceless burial goods and crawled away.

Instantly, Zhang Yuanqing's face fell. All at once, he understood why Little Goofball had kept turning back, and why the coffin and the chests wouldn't open.

None of it was real. This was no tomb. He'd never gotten near the tomb at all. He'd walked into an illusion. He had fallen under the influence of a Charm spell.

When had it ensnared him? And who had cast it upon him?

Zhang Yuanqing thought back to the moment he was leaving the village, and that grim sensation of someone watching him that caused a shiver to run down his spine. From start to finish, that was the only moment he'd felt anything wrong.

As for who had cast it, the answer all but spoke for itself. It was the bronze mirror. From his estimate, it had been just around the third watch when he'd left the village.

Now I get why there was no trouble during the third watch. An ordinary person cannot sense the mirror's illusion, and it does no real harm. It wasn't that nothing happened during the third watch. It's that nobody noticed.

If that's it, then I never left the village at all.

If I never left...

The terror climbed into Zhang Yuanqing's eyes bit by bit, draining the color draining from his face until there was no blood left in it.

"What hour is it right now?!" he cried out sharply, though no one was ever going to answer.

As his voice echoed around the room, a fierce wind kicked up within the sealed chamber, a yin wind cold enough to reach the bone, sweeping in from every side at once.

As the yin wind shrieked in his ears, the brick walls, the coffin, the burial goods, and everything in front of him was torn to shreds.

However strong an illusion was, once the outside world disturbed it, it would shatter on the spot.

The princess was here.

1. This is an archeological term for a vertical or sloping tunnel dug into an ancient tomb or burial mound by grave robbers seeking to bypass original security measures and steal treasures. ☜