Chapter 415: Snow Mountain (15) — “The Envoy’s Body Is Bright and Shiny”

Blood, everywhere was blood… Zhis stood in a pool of blood, gazing into the distance. The continuous mountain ridges lay on the vast earth, like a sleeping woman.

For a moment, he saw the white-haired, white-robed Ancestral God crouching like a beast, slightly raising its head, looking at him sideways.

The tent behind him had disappeared at some point, and golden vines began to drift between heaven and earth, falling from the high sky without root or source, lightly brushing his cheeks.

He raised his hand to touch them, but his fingertips passed through the illusionary vines, as if entering an invisible realm, and the leaves scattered into golden motes of light the moment they were touched.

Baima stood among the sheep, watching Zhis from a distance; the goats also turned their heads, their horizontal pupils cold and eerie.

“Your hands are stained with blood,” Baima and the goats said calmly, their mouths opening and closing.

Zhis lowered his eyes and looked at the bloodstains on his palms, scarlet like ribbons falling from both sides of his hands, like hada offered by herdsmen to travelers.

Zhis grinned, revealing a mouthful of chilling white teeth, and laughed: “Yes, I’ve killed many people, so my hands are naturally covered in blood.”

He conjured the Divine Chisel in his hand and stabbed the nearest goat.

The sharp carving knife pierced the goat’s neck, and blood gushed out, staining its white fur.

One goat fell, but the other goats remained calm and indifferent, staring at Zhis, motionless as statues.

Zhis suddenly remembered that for a long time, there was a period when he intensely disliked goats.

They were animals lacking empathy; even if their kind were killed in front of them, they would still calmly lower their heads and chew on blood-stained grass — this made Zhis feel very bored.

The malice released received no feedback, the act of killing did not evoke fear, and even a god would inevitably lose interest.

Zhis looked at Baima and asked, “I killed your sheep, aren’t you angry?”

Baima stroked the soft fur of the goat beside her and smiled, saying, “There is no death here; all living beings that die will return to this mountain, and I will soon find it again.”

The woman slowly turned and walked towards the depths of the snow mountain, a vast flock of sheep following behind her, maintaining a consistent distance, exhibiting an unsettling regularity.

Zhis asked, “Where are you going?”

Baima said, “I’m going to find my sheep.”

Zhis stood up and chased after her, but as soon as he took a step, his ankle was grabbed. A bluish-black hand reached out from beneath the ice, firmly clamping his ankle.

He lowered his head and saw a familiar face, a twelve-year-old boy staring at him malevolently, his flesh dug out piece by piece with a spoon, leaving only bloody bones.

This was the first person he had personally killed in his twenty-two years as “Zhis,” and also his first “friend.”

“Do you want to be killed by me again?” Zhis asked with a smile, casually using the Divine Chisel to sever his “friend’s” wrist.

His “friend” watched him through the ice, his face blurred by blood. More and more hands emerged from underground, a chaotic mix of bluish-purple and blood-red.

Zhis saw more and more familiar faces: his cousin, his uncle and aunt, Liu Ajiu, Zou Yan, Yang Yundong… The dead stared at him, some merely lying silently and sadly beneath the ice, others clawing at the ice with both hands, crawling out onto the surface.

One by one, they stood up; some stood still, some bared their teeth menacingly, and others reached out their claws to grab Zhis… “Zhis, it’s all your fault… Why am I dead and you’re still alive?” his cousin sobbed, her dark hair growing longer and longer, surging towards Zhis.

“Go to hell… go to hell… let’s die together…” His uncle and aunt staggered over, their necks and limbs twisting unnaturally, emitting strange creaking sounds.

Zhis summoned the Straw Tiger, and the monstrous beast with terrifying horns and fangs stood between the ghosts and Zhis, opening its bloody maw.

His uncle’s family shrieked in terror and scattered, the Straw Tiger pursued them through the ice and snow, biting his cousin’s waist.

Zhis lowered his head slightly and continued forward.

Baima’s shadow was no longer visible; ahead lay only endless snow mountains, their ridgelines etched against the sky like blades, long, sharp, and rigid.

Zhis didn’t know why he was moving forward, but he did so, simply because there was no reason to stop or turn in any other direction.

The rustling sound of growing vines came from the side, and a blood-soaked Zou Yan suddenly appeared before Zhis, her chest hollow, half her body covered in climbing rose vines.

“We are the same kind of people.” Zou Yan smiled and raised her hand, a gentle smile appearing on her blood-stained face. “I truly understand you; if we had met at another time, we might have been very good friends.”

“I don’t need friends, and I don’t think I’d become friends with you.” Zhis took half a step back, and Zou Yan’s rose-covered hand missed its target.

“Is that so? What a pity. But I know, after all, we’re too similar.” A compassionate expression appeared on the woman’s beautiful face, and the roses swayed wildly, lunging at Zhis’s face. “So… let’s just die together.”

Zhis dodged the vines that stabbed at him, but he was still a step too slow, and the thorny flower vines scratched his cheek, leaving a deep, long bloodstain.

“Are you a ghost or a human now?” Zhis calmly asked Zou Yan.

“There’s no difference anymore, humans and ghosts are the same…” Zou Yan shook her head, her expression growing softer, but then it abruptly froze. The Straw Tiger pounced on her from behind, biting off her neck.

“Zhis, come here, I’ll hide you for a while, it’ll be fine when it’s light!” A sweet female voice came from behind a nearby boulder, with a hint of coaxing. “Wuwuwu… it’s really scary, so many ghosts… Zhis, hurry up, if you don’t come, I won’t help you anymore…”

Zhis ignored her and ran towards the Straw Tiger. The female voice instantly turned venomous: “Come here, why aren’t you coming? What went wrong? Why won’t you come?”

The female voice cried and laughed, gradually becoming familiar; it was clearly Zhou Yilin’s voice. A strong wind struck behind his ear, and Zhao Feng, whose neck was still bleeding, rushed towards Zhis, clutching a cross and shouting ferociously: “I’ll kill you, you bastard, you liar!”

The Divine Chisel was too short, so Zhis drew out the Sea God’s Scepter, braced it against Zhao Feng’s arm, and pushed forward with all his might. Zhao Feng stumbled back two steps, quickly regained his balance, and was about to lunge forward again, but in the next second, he fell to the ground.

Yang Yundong grabbed his leg, then held him tightly around the waist. “Some things just can’t be done; man proposes, God disposes.” The old adage, the man’s weary eyes gazed at Zhis. “You should take care of yourself.”

Zhis pretended not to hear, took a few more steps, and successfully reached the Straw Tiger. He grabbed the Straw Tiger’s fur, pushed off the ground for leverage, and climbed onto its back.

A chill blew against his neck, and Shang Qingbei, holding an English dictionary, watched him eerily: “I shouldn’t have died… it’s all because of you… Zhis, you scoundrel!”

Zhis casually grabbed the underage’s collar and flung him off the tiger’s back, but then Du Xiaoyu’s voice rang out from the other side: “Brother Zhis, I trusted you so much, why did you harm me? I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die…”

The tiger’s skin beneath him ripped open from the middle, and countless human faces surged from the tiger’s flesh: Angela, Liu Yuhan, Liu Bingding… Every one of them had died by Zhis’s hand, and now they were resurrected as vengeful spirits, coming to claim his life.

“Zhi Wen, run!” A female voice, tinged with palpable worry, rang out from beneath the tiger. Li Yao, dressed in a black bodysuit, stood on the snow, extending her hand to Zhis: “Come with me, I know where we can hide from them. Trust me, I won’t harm you…”

Zhis trusted neither ghost nor man. He avoided Li Yao’s hand, leaped off the tiger, and continued to run deeper into the snow mountain. The ghosts pursued him, and Zhis, holding the Sea God’s Scepter in a reverse grip, drew a wide trench right behind his heels.

The smell of the sea permeated the cracks in the ice, and warm sea breeze and cold mountain wind collided from two directions, bringing a sky full of rain and snow. Fish scales and bird feathers danced and drifted, and snowflakes softly fell to the ground.

Zhis could no longer see Baima or the sheep, nor could he discern his direction. He only knew he had to keep going, not stop.

He couldn’t judge how long he had walked across the boundless ice field, nor could he remember how many footprints he had left on the snow-covered mountain path. Time became intangible and immeasurable; in this world, he seemed to be the only one.

“Zhou Ke!” someone shrieked in unison, voices filled with anger, sorrow, malice, and calmness.

The path ahead changed, and transparent ice walls rose from the ground. Cynthia, cloaked in black, stood among the upright ice blocks, slowly raising her hand, and a massive ice cone smashed towards Zhis. Hansen’s face was contorted as he glared at the two, ice-blue flames burning at his feet.

He Hui huddled behind an ice wall, looking up at Zhis, her pupil-less eyes reflecting Zhis’s face: “Zhou Ke, I’m so scared, can you take me with you? Please save me…”

“No.” Zhis bypassed the towering ice sculptures and saw his own face at the last ice wall. He suspected it was a mirror, but the person in the mirror smiled at him.

“Hello, Zhis, I am Zhou Ke,” the person said.

Zhis then noticed that the person was sitting cross-legged in a golden cage, surrounded by golden-red flames. This was clearly a scene from the “Grand Performance” instance, yet there was an indescribable difference.

“You seem to have encountered some trouble and are deeply trapped. And I happen to have a way to break the deadlock.” Zhou Ke’s lips curved into the smile of a malevolent god tempting a believer. “Do you want to make a trade with me?”

“No.” Zhis turned and walked away.

“You’ll be back,” Zhou Ke sneered chillingly. “After all, I’m the one who understands you best.

“And, I really want to kill you myself. Making myself into a specimen sounds interesting, doesn’t it?”

Zhis didn’t look back. He walked a little further, and suddenly two cold hands grabbed his shoulders.

Zhou Datong and Chen Lidong stood on either side of him, yellow butterfly larvae wriggling beneath their faces covered in yellow flowers. They stared at Zhis and said in unison: “You lied to us! You lied to us!”

“I’m sorry, I did deceive you, but I had no choice.” Zhis couldn’t shake them off, so he simply gave up struggling and put on an apologetic expression.

As the grip on his shoulders loosened slightly, he subtly flipped his wrist.

Lingzi’s Blessing Ribbon flew out of his sleeve, the crimson silk wrapping around Zhou Datong’s neck. Chen Lidong quickly tried to pull the ribbon off, but Zhis pushed them both aside and sprinted forward.

“Cheng An, do you think you can survive to the end by deceiving us? You will die, you will definitely die here.” A venomous voice rose from beneath his feet, and the world suddenly inverted.

Zhis found himself lying in an ice pit at some point, Huang Xiaofei and Lu Zimo looking down at him hand-in-hand, their gazes resentful and sorrowful. He was entangled in paper chains, and Lu Zimo was holding a shovel, scooping handfuls of snow onto his head.

Cold, darkness, suffocation… Lingzi’s ghost flew towards Huang Xiaofei, her sharp nails digging into the woman’s flesh. The Luo Haohua couple crawled out of the ice pit beneath him, helped Zhis up, and frantically pushed him: “Child, run! Don’t look back!”

Zhis ran a few more steps, then could run no longer, his legs heavy as if filled with lead. He clutched his forehead, dragging his feet, slowly shuffling along.

The distant wind and snow obscured the path, painting the sky and earth in a uniform greyish-white, and a colossal figure loomed in the grey sky, like some man-eating beast.

Zhis saw the Straw Tiger again, but this time it was whole, not torn apart. A girl sat on its back; it was Nian Fu.

Nian Fu rode the Straw Tiger to Zhis, extending her hand: “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

Zhis took the girl’s hand, sat on the tiger’s back, and asked, “You died too?”

The girl giggled: “Yes, and I died because of you.”

Zhis said, “I don’t remember killing you in the ‘Coliseum’ instance.”

The girl smiled even brighter: “But a liar killed me because I had seen you.”

Before Zhis could ask further, the girl suddenly pointed ahead: “A tricky fellow is coming, good luck. I can only take you this far.”

The tiger beneath him, along with the girl, vanished. Zhis looked up and saw Chang Xu’s figure. Chang Xu, dressed in black, watched him coldly, raising his black scythe high, and brought it down heavily towards him with a biting cold wind.

Zhis dodged back, and a frantic laugh suddenly echoed in the wind, accompanied by words filled with malice.

“Zhis, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you: you wear my face, and you dare to think you are me — are you worthy?”

Zhis noticed that it was his own voice; he raised a hand to touch his lips, but found that he hadn’t spoken.

The voice continued: “You hesitate, you are cautious, you resist risks and changes, you no longer pursue fun, you no longer gamble, you want to live… Is such a mediocre you still worthy of being Zhis?”

Zhis looked sideways in the direction of the voice; he had unknowingly returned to the ice wall, where Zhou Ke sat in the golden cage, grabbing the golden bars and laughing wildly at him.

“Hahahahaha! You’re afraid! Zhis is actually afraid!”

“I understand the conspiracy of the rules now. Knowing that you and I would re-enter the game and return to godhood, yet still turning a blind eye… He wants to use a game to make you learn fear and possess desires!

“A you who can fear and possess desires, are you still worthy of being a god?”

Zhis also laughed: “Desires? I don’t even know what my desires are…”

Zhou Ke’s smile vanished in a second, and he watched him with pity and mockery: “Zhis, admit it, you want to live.”