Chapter 409: Snow Mountain (9) “The Great Sheet of Skin is a Human Husk”

“Turning back into a child” was an abstract expression, but combined with Yu Su’s current behavior, the players felt that only such an expression could vividly summarize the current situation.

Since last night, Yu Su’s state had been off. First, she spoke rudely to Lu Li, then she pointed out issues with the rice regardless of the occasion, and this morning she was weeping over a companion’s death—this was definitely not the behavior of a mature player.

Qualification for the Final Dungeon was hard to come by; players who could make it here must have been carefully selected by Identity Card holders. It was absolutely impossible for someone as emotional as Yu Su to appear.

Yu Su’s behavior could only be an instance mechanism, just like how players in Red Maple Boarding School experienced symptoms like memory loss under the influence of insomnia syndrome.

Li Yunyang pondered for a moment, stood up, and said, “I can’t see what the trigger condition for this instance mechanism is.”

“During the period before arriving at the inn, Yu Su was with me the whole time. She sat next to me on the train, didn’t do anything special, and didn’t encounter any abnormal situations.”

Fu Jue said, “Random death points have no trigger conditions, only trigger probabilities. The moment you enter the instance, everyone becomes a denominator of probability, and the numerator is the actual number of people who trigger the death point.”

“Then what is the purpose?” Li Yunyang’s brows furrowed tightly. “Turning back into a child, and then what? Weakening our thinking ability and making us childish?”

“You can understand it that way.” Fu Jue’s voice was calm. “Combined with the background of this instance, it can also be understood as reincarnation. According to real-world research on Alzheimer’s disease, patient symptoms include memory impairment, aphasia, apraxia, agnosia, and impaired visuospatial abilities; their abstract thinking and calculation abilities are also damaged, often accompanied by changes in personality and behavior. Some Scholars describe it as ‘turning back into a child’.”

“Elderly people present a child-like state during Alzheimer’s episodes; after death, the soul enters reincarnation and starts as a child as well. This instance has no death and no specific time; reincarnation may unfold and manifest in another form. If ‘turning back into a child’ is a manifestation of reincarnation, then the complete loss of thinking ability corresponds to death in the traditional sense.”

The players were thoughtful. Li Yunyang’s voice sank slightly: “I see. In other words, encountering this mechanism means being unable to leave the instance, is that right?”

“No.” Fu Jue shook his head. “Clearing this instance as soon as possible might bring a turning point.”

Li Yunyang pursed her lips and stopped speaking, leaning over to help the still-weeping Yu Su up from the floor.

Nothing more could be discussed by staying in the corridor. Faced with the blood all over the floor and the tragically dead corpse, an uncontrollable layer of depression and gloom cast a shadow over the players’ hearts.

The people from Jiuzhou and Tingfeng walked downstairs in a grand procession. Qi Si had no intention of following them. Lu Li and Xu Yao naturally stayed behind, waiting for the next command.

Lu Li stared at the corpse’s abdomen where the large intestine was exposed, recalling, “Last night, Xu Yao and I saw the deceased. She was holding her large intestine and knocking on the door, saying we were next. But I don’t think that was a certain-death death point…”

“Of course not for you.” Xu Yao interrupted him, looking at Qi Si and adding, “I’m the next one. Lu Li is a man; it’s useless to look for him to make a Human Skin Thangka.”

Lu Li ignored his roommate’s rebuttal and continued, “Although this instance has no clear time limit, it uses a constant stream of death points to urge us to take action. Staying in the inn is just waiting for death; we must actively explore this place. Qi Si, what do you think?”

This was the obvious answer. The purpose of the Final Dungeon was selection and competition, so it naturally wouldn’t allow players to hunker down in the inn and wait for others to actively seek death.

After all, with the strength of the players in the instance, even if they couldn’t successfully solve the mystery and find a way to clear it, they could still easily survive by relying on their accumulated experience to avoid the attacks of Ghosts.

To prevent the competition among the gods from falling into a boring situation of who could live longer, it was imperative to set up certain mechanisms that forced players to act.

Qi Si pulled Chu Yining’s diary from his pocket and handed it to Lu Li. “All the clues I’ve obtained point to the snow mountain. I’m afraid we’ll have to set off to climb the snow mountain by tonight at the latest. Of course, the same goes for them.”

Lu Li flipped through the diary in his hand and made a judgment: “Indeed, all the death points set in the inn at the foot of the mountain seem avoidable by going up the mountain. On the snow mountain where the temperature is below minus twenty degrees, blood will quickly freeze into ice crystals, damaging the skin texture. I don’t think Ghosts would kill people on the snow mountain to take their skin.”

He handed the diary back to Qi Si, a bitter smile appearing at the corners of his mouth. “During the day, let’s walk around the town first to gather all potentially useful clues and items. In ‘Lost Horizon’, travelers arrived and were trapped in Shangri-La Town because of the Lama’s succession; we might be able to gather information following this line of thought.”

“I know,” Qi Si said.

He had read the book ‘Lost Horizon’ in middle school, exchanging it with a classmate and even designing word-deciphering games for each other. Of course, that was in the past.

He was no longer a child; he wouldn’t be easily moved by a few words, nor was he satisfied with just the stories in books, let alone being trapped in boring emotions.

Whether in the billions of years belonging to the gods or in his twenty-two years as a human, childhood was neither beautiful nor pure for Qi Si; on the contrary, it was a synonym for weakness, powerlessness, and lack of freedom.

He hated children, even if it was himself. Low-value souls, childishly stupid behavior, and a lingering shred of unrealistic delusion about the world—any of these was enough to make him feel sick to his stomach.

Qi Si lowered his eyelashes to hide the malice in his eyes and said calmly, “Then let’s split into two groups as usual. Stay in touch through the Team Ring and meet back at the inn once we’ve collected enough clues.”

Lu Li nodded. “Alright, Xu Yao and I will go explore near the city gate.”

After Lu Li and Xu Yao left, Qi Si turned his gaze to Lin Chen, who hadn’t said a word beside him.

This guild leader had hidden himself behind Qi Si ever since they stepped out of the room. Seeing that most people had left, he finally let out a breath and bent over, retching with his back to the corpse.

Qi Si looked at Lin Chen’s pale face and asked out of the blue, “Lin Chen, how old are you this year?”

“Fourteen… no, twenty.” Lin Chen looked left and right, awkwardly trying to cover it up. “I was thinking about something just now, I don’t know why I had a slip of the tongue…”

When suddenly questioned, a person subconsciously gives the true answer. A simple question like age couldn’t have a slip of the tongue. In other words, in Lin Chen’s subconscious perception, he was exactly fourteen years old at this moment.

Qi Si nodded understandingly and perfunctorily said with a straight face, “It’s fine, it just shows you have a young heart.”

Silence spread through the empty space. Lin Chen belatedly realized something was wrong, his already pale face turning even whiter. “Brother Qi, have I triggered a death point? Just like Yu Su…”

His state today was definitely not normal. He hadn’t slept in for a long time, and he had long since become accustomed to bloody scenes, yet he suddenly started staying in bed and feeling fear—

It was as if he had returned to the past overnight, turning back into that useless little kid from many years ago.

He had once missed the carefree days of childhood, but he absolutely didn’t want to turn back into a child under these circumstances. He didn’t want to become a childish monster occupying an adult’s shell, nor did he want to hold Qi Si back in the peril-filled Final Dungeon… If he was destined to become increasingly stupid under the instance mechanism, perhaps the best way was to die as soon as possible? Before causing irreparable trouble for his teammates… perhaps he didn’t even need to commit suicide; the moment the mechanism was triggered, he was destined for a dead end… “What are you thinking about?” Qi Si looked into Lin Chen’s eyes, as if seeing through his thoughts, and comforted him warmly, “Yu Su lived until today, which means you won’t die immediately. You’ll live until tomorrow at least.”

Lin Chen: Thank you, I don’t feel comforted at all.

But he still heard that Qi Si didn’t mean to loathe him, and he inexplicably relaxed. Yes, triggering the mechanism wasn’t what he wanted, and there was no room for change, but he at least had a whole day to exert as much of his remaining value as possible.

Then he heard Qi Si continue, “Before things reach an irreparable stage, gather more clues. Who knows, your luck might be as good as ever, and you might find a way to break the situation before completely turning into a child?”

“Mm-hmm! Thank you, Brother Qi!”

…On the other side, Dong Xiwen was awakened by a shrill scream.

Hearing the palpable fear in that scream, a realization suddenly popped into his mind—”Someone died.”

Zhang Yiyu jumped up from the bed, scurrying to the side like a startled bird. Then she remembered her determination from yesterday to “save her old man” and turned to approach Zhou Ke with a sycophantic face: “Boss, did something happen outside? Should we go take a look?”

Zhou Ke hadn’t slept all night, standing by the French window fiddling with the Recorder. Now he was in high spirits, showing no signs of fatigue.

He nodded slightly at Zhang Yiyu and smiled, “It seems that three people staying in one room isn’t a trigger condition for a death point. That old man downstairs can’t be fully trusted.”

His casual remark gave Dong Xiwen goosebumps.

When rooms were being assigned last night, Sang Ji had hinted that travelers should try to stay two to a room. He originally thought that was a hidden rule. When Zhou Ke entered the room in the middle of the night as if nothing had happened, he thought the latter had been wandering outside for a long time and found new clues… Only now did he realize that the guy simply wanted to court death once to test the death point. If something went wrong, he could just throw in some tool person, right?

Dong Xiwen felt like there was too much to criticize. After hesitating for a while, he simply asked, “Big brother, last night I saw you using the Recorder to lead those Ghosts around. Did you find anything? Can you give us a heads-up so we can cooperate and avoid wasting our lives prematurely?”

He used a heart-to-heart tone, as if trying to reduce labor costs for a capitalist. Zhou Ke nodded slightly and said, “A discovery? Well, hymns can attract some sinful pilgrims, making them gather toward where the hymn sounds. It’s quite a grand sight, looks pretty intimidating, maybe it can be used as Chips for negotiation.”

“Negotiation?” Dong Xiwen blinked. “You want to cooperate with those people?”

Although he, Zhou Ke, and Zhang Yiyu had sat in the lobby for a while last night and met all the travelers who arrived first, considering that those people’s life or death was unknown, they didn’t make further contact. They didn’t even eat dinner before hurrying upstairs.

He caught a glimpse of “Yuan,” but he didn’t know if this “Yuan” was pretending or if something had happened; from his expression and behavior, he didn’t seem to recognize him.

Moreover, upon closer observation, he found that this “Yuan” was much younger than the one he knew in reality. Although he looked a bit old because of his beard, he was far from the look of someone who had suffered too many hardships.

With so many suspicious points, choosing to cooperate was a complete gamble; one wrong move and they would be doomed.

Dong Xiwen whispered his advice: “Actually, Qi Si, I feel like with our current strength, we can totally go it alone. There’s no need to give them the time of day…”

“It’s not cooperation.” The young man interrupted him, his lips curling slightly into a malicious smile. “I’m just curious to what extent that legendary Ark guild, which takes saving everyone as its responsibility, can go to keep more people alive. By the way—” He changed the subject and looked at Dong Xiwen sideways, “In this instance, especially in front of others, my name is ‘Zhou Ke’, not ‘Qi Si’.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll definitely be careful. So, what’s the next step?”

“Let’s go out and see the situation first.”

The three of them walked out of the room one after another, heading toward the direction where the scream had come from.

Crimson blood permeated the air. In the middle of the corridor stood a skinned corpse, flesh exposed and blood gushing.

A girl sat in a wheelchair, her face pale, staring intently at the corpse. Dong Xiwen remembered this girl was named “Chu Yining”; they had introduced themselves after their first meeting, but at that time, no one was sure about the other’s situation, so they parted without much talk.

At this moment, other travelers were coming out of their rooms one after another, gathering around the corpse, most of them looking quite unwell.

Xiao Fengchao was combing his hair while rambling on like a machine gun: “This instance is too much of a mind game, isn’t it? There are no rules or anything, and people die before we can even react. This isn’t fair, is it? Don’t they know about ‘courtesy before force’?”

Chu Yining took a deep breath and said, “The one who died is Vasilievna. Clearly, she and I were together all last night, and clearly, we were already very careful… How could this happen?”

Her voice was bitter, and she was clearly taking it hard. Xiao Fengchao sensed the wrong atmosphere and fell silent on his own.

Lin Jue adjusted his glasses and made a judgment: “It might be a random death point, but the possibility of hidden rules can’t be ruled out. Last night, I searched my and Zhang Hongbin’s room and only found a Mahakala statue; other than that, there was nothing unusual.”

“There was nothing in our room…” Chu Yining thought of something and murmured to herself, “Could it be because of the missing Buddha statue that something happened to her?”

“Not necessarily.” Zhou Ke spoke up at the right time. “There was no Buddha statue in our room either, but there were three of us in one room last night.”

Given that the NPC had repeatedly hinted at two people per room, a three-person configuration was rebellious enough to suggest they either disregarded life and death or had quite a few trump cards and backup plans.

The travelers’ attention briefly focused on Zhou Ke, who timely showed a deceptive smile: “There’s too little information in this instance, and the rules are completely different from previous ones. One wrong move and it’s a total wipeout.”

“I think we might be able to have a deeper cooperation and share clues.”