Translator: RogueKat | Editor: RogueKat
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Shit... Zhang Yuanqing suddenly didn't want to stay in the main hall anymore.
He felt a sense of desperation, where even calling out to the heavens or the earth would be of no use. The place was extremely dangerous, but he couldn't seek help from the outside world; he could only rely on himself.
After much hesitation, he gritted his teeth and pulled out the skeleton wrapped in work clothes.
Rip!
During the process of pulling and dragging, with a tearing sound, the protective clothing was easily torn apart. After so many years, the clothes had long since decayed.
He dragged the body over to the candlelight and, enduring the discomfort, began to examine it.
Although the person was dead, the body could still tell a story. By understanding the cause of death could help him avoid many dangers.
"A few ribs and the sternum are broken, and there are fine cracks in the right shoulder, but it's not too serious..."
The deceased had suffered severe injuries before death, but due to the passage of time, it was impossible to determine the exact cause of death.
As Zhang Yuanqing examined the deceased worker's body, he discovered several yellowed and brittle pieces of paper tucked away in the worker's pocket, their small and neat characters written in regular script indicating they had been there for quite some time.
Upon seeing the paper, Zhang Yuanqing felt a sense of excitement. The paper was clearly found by the worker in the temple, which would help him understand the situation of the ancient temple.
With the help of candlelight, he focused on reading the contents of the paper.
"Last night, another junior martial brother went missing. This is already the third fellow disciple who has disappeared mysteriously from the temple. Some of our senior martial brothers say that ghosts are haunting the San Dao Mountain, or perhaps a powerful demon or monster has come and is coming to the temple every night to capture people for food. However, the temple has many disciples with high cultivation levels and our respected master has a renowned reputation within a hundred-miles radius. What kind of demon or monster would be so foolish to come here and seek food?"
"As for ghosts, my corpse-sealing talisman and spirit-summoning talisman are enough to deal with them, without bothering the master. I have a bad feeling in my heart and need to discuss it with the eldest senior martial brother..."
"Today, another person has gone missing. This is the fifth one. Our master has instructed us to keep it a secret from the visitors, otherwise, it will affect the temple's reputation. He must know something. The eldest senior martial brother and I plan to patrol at night..."
"Three days have passed, and during this time, three more people have disappeared. However, the eldest senior martial brother and I have not found any clues. The nights are calm and peaceful. My sense of unease grows deeper."
"The eldest senior martial brother acted strange today. He seems to have discovered something and is very angry. I asked him, but he didn't tell me. His mood was not good, so I'll ask him again tomorrow."
"Today, the person who disappeared is...the eldest senior martial brother. I searched the entire San Dao Mountain, but I couldn't find him. I, I can't take it anymore. I need to find the master and ask for answers. My fellow disciples in the temple also agree with me because they are equally fearful..."
The handwriting of this passage was somewhat messy, indicating that the writer's mental state was somewhat unstable.
Zhang Yuanqing continued reading: "After my persistent questioning, the master finally agreed to tell me the truth. My intuition was correct, and he indeed knew the reason behind the fellow disciples' mysterious disappearances. However, the master said that there were too many people during the day, and he will come to my room after the sun sets to tell me a huge secret that has been passed down for thousands of years. This secret is related to the rise and fall of the temple."
"After dinner, I waited in my room for the sun to set. Since someone disappeared at night, I have never looked forward to the night as much as I did today..."
The content recorded on the paper ended here.
Is this all? This fragment is a bit unsettling... Zhang Yuanqing grimaced.
He reviewed the information on the paper and discovered that in a certain year, disciples of this Mountain God Temple disappeared one after another under strange circumstances.
The disciples were at a loss, and panic spread. However, their master, the temple priest, appeared to know the reason behind it.
This reason was tied to a great secret that had been associated with the temple's rise and fall for thousands of years.
"Since the cause of the decline of the mountain temple is unknown. Is discovering the source of the decline the key to completing the second main task?" Zhang Yuanqing speculated.
He placed the brittle paper back into the protective clothing of the skeleton, pushed it back under the table, and pretended as if nothing had happened. Then he started thinking about his next step.
"There is only so much information in the main hall. Since I have to explore this ancient temple to complete the task, then I'll have to go outside, which also means that I have to face the dangers in and around this temple..."
"Legend has it that a worker managed to survive the She Ling Tunnel. Perhaps by following his footsteps, maybe I can find a way to survive."
After careful consideration, Zhang Yuanqing walked to the door of the main hall and opened the two well-preserved lattice doors.
"Squeak~"
The wooden door hinge made an unpleasant grating sound.
He leaned against the door frame, looked around with his head, and saw nothing outside but desolation and an eerie atmosphere.
After observing for a while, he stepped out of the threshold and walked along the cobblestone path on the left side of the main hall, heading towards the backyard of the Mountain God Temple.
The moonlight was as clear, and the weeds undulated. After walking for a while, a group of buildings appeared in front of him.
There were several one-story houses connected together forming a huge courtyard. The roofs were made of black tiles while the walls were made of white ones and a linear ridge. The eaves were adorned with lattice windows and doors.
The lattice doors were gray and dusty, some were open, some were tilted, and some were tightly closed. The paper used to paste the windows had become tattered and worn over time.
Under the bright moonlight, he took a glance at the layout of the backyard of the Mountain God Temple.
In addition to the courtyard in front of him, there was also an arched door on the east side, which looked like the backyard of a wealthy family in a TV drama. There would always be an arched door to connect different courtyards.
In the adjacent courtyard, there was a towering tree with lush branches and twisted roots.
"Hmm..."
As he walked through the weed-covered courtyard, he found several skeletons wrapped in protective clothing.
He carefully approached them and examined them closely. Every skeleton was severely damaged, with broken bones under the protective clothing. However, except for the one in the main hall, the shoulder bones of these skeletons were well-preserved and without any cracks.
"These people suffered terrible injuries before they died, it was a terrible way to go..."
A gust of wind blew, and the leaves rustled. Faintly, Zhang Yuanqing heard the whispering cries for help mixed with the rustling sound of the wind:
"Help me, help me..."
On this desolate and silent night, cold sweat broke out on Zhang Yuanqing's back.
He stood frozen in place for a while, and after the wind stopped, the mournful whispers also ceased with it.
That courtyard next door seems a bit dangerous, but nothing has come out from there… He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped on the overgrown grass, walking towards the eaves, intending to explore this courtyard.
It appears to be where the disciples of the temple live, with piles of dilapidated and dusty furniture, and a faint, decaying odor permeating the air.
Zhang Yuanqing explored each room one by one, but he didn't find anything special until he pushed open the lattice door on the far east side.
"Creak~"
The door, covered in dust from who knows how many years, was pushed open once again, and the dust fell off with a rustling sound. Zhang Yuanqing brushed off the dust on his shoulders and looked warily around the room.
In this abandoned room that had been deserted for many years, there was a body leaning against the wall, lying crookedly there.
Judging from the clothing and the fallen miner's hat, it was another predecessor.
As he crossed the threshold and entered the room, Zhang Yuanqing shuddered and felt that the temperature around him seemed to have dropped significantly.
"It's a bit cold..."
He cautiously approached the body, untied its tattered clothes, and inspected the bones of the corpse as usual. But this time, he did not see any shattered bones, and the skeleton was intact.
But when he looked at the shoulder bone, his pupils constricted. There were exaggerated cracks on the shoulder bones of this skeleton.
The crack on the shoulder of this skeleton was just like the one on the body in the main hall, except that the injuries on this skeleton in front of him were more severe.
"Is it just a coincidence that both the skeletons in the room and the main hall have broken shoulders?" he muttered anxiously to himself.
Then, Zhang Yuanqing noticed that the pockets on the skeleton's pants were bulging as if there was something hidden inside.
He reached in and pulled out a yellowed ancient book, a dusty bronze mirror, and a yellow paper talisman.
The talisman was inscribed with twisted patterns in cinnabar, resembling runes, which together formed a complex character resembling the traditional Chinese character for "corpse".
As Zhang Yuanqing examined the talisman, a glowing blue message appeared before his eyes:
【Name: Corpse-Sealing Talisman】
【Type: Consumable】
【Function: Seals corpses】
【Description: A powerful talisman created by the Night Walker, the bane of all undead and yin creatures. It seals them when attached to their foreheads.】
【Note: Can only be used once.】
The glowing blue message resembled his attribute panel and it was obvious that it was a hint from the "Spirit Realm".
Since entering the eerie ancient temple, this was the first time Zhang Yuanqing had seen such a message.
"This should be an important item," Zhang Yuanqing folded the talisman and put it in the pocket of his jacket, then zipped it up.
After a moment of thought, he unzipped the jacket again.
Because he remembered a scene from a martial arts novel, in which a highly skilled swordsman liked to wrap his sword in cloth and carry it on his back.
One day, while the swordsman was eating, a challenger challenged him to a duel.
Unfortunately, the swordsman died because he couldn't unwrap the cloth quickly enough…
Zhang Yuanqing then picked up an ancient book and a bronze mirror, but no relevant information appeared. He set the bronze mirror aside and carefully unrolled the yellowed, fragile pages at the bottom of the book.
It read: "For two and a half years, I have studied at the San Dao Mountain's Goddess Temple. I have learned to read and write, and my eldest senior martial brother promises that our master will accept me as his disciple when he returns from guiding the souls of the dead. Then I will begin training in the "Moon Swallowing Souls Nurturing" technique, the first step toward becoming a Night Walker."
"When the King of Yan rebelled and the flames of war spread throughout the land, our master, the most powerful practitioner of the Night Walker Lineage in the Song Prefecture, had to leave the mountain to guide the souls of the dead. If the conflict were left unresolved, evil would surely resurface, and the people's restlessness would only grow..."
Zhang Yuanqing felt a slight ache in his shoulders, rubbed it, and tentatively concluded that this was a collection of essays or a diary.
The content of the diary described the "author's" experiences and life while practicing and living in the temple. Based on the handwriting, this diary and the paper on the body of the main hall's corpse came from the same source.
Based on phrases like "King of Yan Rebellion", the timeline was during the Jingnan Rebellion.
However, he was unsure if the temple actually existed in history because the diary contained words like "Cultivation", "Night Walker", "Breathing techniques", and "Talismans", which were all unfamiliar to him.
Zhang Yuanqing stretched his sore shoulder and glanced around the room cautiously, listening for any sounds outside. Once he confirmed there was nothing unusual, he continued reading the diary.
Soon, he flipped to the continuation of the main hall's content. The first few pages were torn off, and the following content was written: "The sun had set, and the sky had finally turned dark. I heard knocking at the door and eagerly opened it. It wasn't the master standing outside, but the eldest senior martial brother who had disappeared the night before."
"The eldest senior martial brother, who had been missing for a day and a night, had returned, but I felt no joy because... he was already dead. What came back was a corpse. His chest was covered in blood, and someone or something had taken his heart."
"My eldest senior martial brother stared straight at me and said: 'Don't trust our master...'"
These few lines were written crookedly, and it's easy to imagine that the writer was in a state of turmoil when he wrote this.
As Zhang Yuanqing flipped to the next page, he found that there was no continuation to the diary. The owner of the diary never wrote another entry.
"Hiss... What does 'don't trust our master' mean?"
Zhang Yuanqing was shocked by this revelation and felt chills run down his spine.
Did the temple master kill that senior brother? Was he also the culprit behind the consecutive disappearances of disciples?
Zhang Yuanqing rubbed his shoulders and put the booklet back into the pocket of the corpse. Then, he picked up the bronze mirror and was about to leave.
But when he caught a glimpse of the bronze mirror, his body suddenly stiffened.
Moonlight spilled onto the mirror's surface, reflecting his appearance in the mirror, and behind him, there was someone lying on his back.
That person's face was pale, with black lips, and a pair of white pupil-less eyes, and was leaning his head on Zhang Yuanqing's shoulder. Those lifeless eyes stared straight at him.