Chapter 404 Snowy Mountain (IV) They Started Singing

The old man put down the rice basin and returned to the counter for bowls. A total of twenty-two bowls were stacked in four piles and placed steadily on the table.

The players each took a wooden bowl, filled it with rice, and found a corner to sit down. Shuomeng stepped forward and chatted with the old man, quickly gathering most of the information.

The old man’s name was Sang Ji, the owner of this inn. He managed everything alone, and it was hard to say how much effort and how many years he had poured into this wooden building.

Shuomeng said with a chuckle, “Looking at your age, you must have been managing this inn for fifty or sixty years, right?”

“No, no, no!” Sang Ji kept waving his hands, his face turning panicked, as if he knew Ghosts would appear but didn’t know when. “There are no years, no months. The gods are watching Shangri-La; it’s not good to speak of these things carelessly…”

He mumbled as he walked away with a staggering gait. His pant legs, which didn’t reach his ankles, swayed with his movements, and his legs were nowhere to be seen.

Lu Li looked at Sang Ji’s back and said, “In many superstitious places, asking an old person’s age is a major taboo. Legend has it that as long as a person doesn’t let the gods know their exact age, they can cheat life and death and live forever. Conversely, if their age is exposed and the deception is revealed, their life will be taken away.”

“It’s not that simple,” Fu Jue said. “The name ‘Sang Ji’ means ‘Buddha’ in Tibetan. Buddha has no form or desire, no birth or death, and certainly no time. We know the core elements of this instance include reincarnation, time, life and death, and so on. We need to pay close attention.”

“Indeed,” Jiang Junjue agreed. “As expected of the Final Dungeon, it’s both complex and philosophical, and we still don’t know the main quest.”

“I suggest we set aside any grudges and tone down the competitive spirit. Let’s cooperate to figure out what’s going on first.”

This was the thought of most normal people.

Lin Chen spoke up at the right time: “We have never taken the initiative to start a conflict. As long as you can manage your people, we are happy to cooperate.”

The talkative female player from before whispered, “What’s that supposed to mean? So sarcastic…”

“Yu Su,” Li Yunyang called out to her with a frown, “What’s wrong with you? You don’t seem to be in the right state right now.”

“I’m not,” Yu Su pouted. “I think I’m fine, perfectly fine.”

After being interrupted like this, the players lost the intention for further deep communication and lowered their heads to dig into their rice.

In places with low air pressure, the boiling point is also low. The rice in the bowls was half-cooked, hard and astringent. Qi Si took a few bites and put down his chopsticks.

Yu Su cried out in dissatisfaction, “This rice is raw. How is anyone supposed to eat it?”

Her voice wasn’t quiet. Sang Ji, standing in the shadows behind the counter, turned his head and gave her two strange looks.

A male player quickly tried to smooth things over: “It’s not that raw, it’s manageable. You’ve just never been hungry…”

Sang Ji turned back, his hands trembling as he worked behind the counter, doing who knows what. The female player gave him a suspicious look and whispered, “Anyway, this rice is inedible. Under-cooked rice is for dead people…”

Once she said that, the other players also lost their appetite. Material life in the 21st century was abundant enough, and few of those sitting there came from poor backgrounds; there was no need to eat such an unpalatable and unlucky meal.

Another fifteen minutes passed, and Sang Ji tottered over, placed eleven room keys on the table, and left carrying the full basin of rice.

There were twenty-two players and eleven rooms, exactly two people per room.

Both factions entering the instance had an even number of people, so there wouldn’t be any awkward situations of strangers being forced together.

The sky outside the window was completely dark. The moon had risen, its bloodshot surface casting down crimson beams of light. The cold wind blowing down from the mountain rattled the windows and doors, and the bone tiles hanging from the wind chimes clattered loudly.

Qi Si randomly grabbed a key numbered ‘6,’ which was neither at the end of the corridor nor near the stairs.

Lin Chen looked around at everyone and said, “It’s getting late. We’ll head upstairs to rest first. Qi Si and I will share a room, and Xu Yao and Lu Li will share another.”

Xu Yao picked through the remaining keys for a while, pulled out one numbered ‘9,’ and smiled with squinted eyes. “You guys go ahead; we’ll sit for a bit longer.”

One team going up first to investigate while the other stayed behind to monitor the movements of other forces was the most rational arrangement.

Lin Chen took the key from Qi Si’s hand and stood up to lead the way. Maintaining his role as the Vice Guild Master, Qi Si silently followed behind him.

There was a distance to walk from the hall to the stairs. The walls on both sides were hollowed out, forming a corridor that leaked wind and light.

White bone tiles were hung on both sides of the corridor, carved with strange scriptures. When the wind blew, they slapped against the walls with a clatter.

Amidst the subtle noises, Qi Si heard light footsteps again. They clearly belonged to the same person he had heard during the day. It wasn’t a paranoid delusion or a groundless fantasy.

He turned his head toward the source of the sound. The believer wrapped in linen had appeared outside the inn at some point, bowing incessantly toward the corridor while chanting something.

The believer’s head was facing Qi Si. From this angle, Qi Si could see his face clearly by the crimson moonlight—an empty mouth, eye sockets rotting with maggots, and a nose that was just a hole… He was clearly a corpse, and one that had been decaying for a long time, almost turning into a skeleton.

“Brother Qi, I think I understand…” Lin Chen had also seen the believer’s face, his voice slightly strained. “There is no death here, so even if the believers die, they live on as the walking dead, mechanically repeating what they did in life.”

Yes, in many people’s eyes, death is the end of life, symbolizing nothingness and destruction, but it is actually the beginning of reincarnation.

Weary souls drift away, decaying bodies return to the soil, and rotting matter turns into nutrients to nourish new life. The species continues through the cycle, and everything in the world remains in order.

If the World Rules are compared to a program, when the element of ‘death’ is deleted for no reason, countless errors and glitches will arise.

The body decays and the soul dissipates, but with no way to find the release of death, they can only linger in the world as empty shells.

Lin Chen observed the believer for a while and asked thoughtfully, “Brother Qi, do you think our items can still kill them?”

“You can try. Perhaps they will die, but after death, they might revive after being buried in the snowy mountain for seven days to complete a loading bar for resurrection.” Qi Si spoke casually, looking back the way they came.

The place where the hall should have been was replaced by the corridor, stretching out as far as the eye could see. It was as if this long path had no beginning and no end.

The sound of scriptures lingering in his ears suddenly rang out loudly. Together, they formed a ballad, sounding like countless people chanting in unison from all directions:

“What is Kapala…”

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The singing grew louder and louder. A touch of perceptible eeriness was mixed into the sacred and solemn tune, quickly developing into a lush sense of gloom. It was like being in a primeval forest where seeds could sprout upon landing; ancient shamans held high their scepters, singing and dancing, while plants and insects grew vigorously between the cracks of bones.

The believer who was originally outside the corridor appeared inside it in the blink of an eye. His figure flickered not far ahead of Qi Si, still maintaining the frequency of bowing every step, still facing Qi Si.

He drew closer and closer. The maggots in his eye sockets stretched their bodies, looking as if they were about to fly out and burrow into the players’ bodies.

Lin Chen raised the Umbrella Filled with Pain, ready to activate its effect at any moment.

Although he didn’t know if the Ghosts in the immortal Shangri-La could be killed, a one-minute summoning time was enough for the Shadow Ghost to take the two of them away.

Lin Chen placed his thumb on the umbrella’s mechanism and was about to press it when he saw Qi Si shake his head. “Wait a bit longer. Save the one-time items.”

Although he didn’t know the reason behind it, Lin Chen still trusted Qi Si’s judgment. He put away the umbrella and gave Qi Si an inquiring look.

Qi Si said nothing, staring into the believer’s eyes and backing away step by step, maintaining the same pace as the believer and keeping a distance of one meter from him at all times.

The song “What is Kapala” played over and over again. He vaguely heard electromagnetic noise in it, which sounded familiar—it was exactly the broadcast effect of the Ghost Drivers Recorder.

As a player who habitually recorded the ballads heard in instances and played them back later, Qi Si was absolutely certain that the music playing now came from the Ghost Drivers Recorder.

The believer’s provocation couldn’t be for no reason. This strange ballad in his ears was likely the crux of the matter.

When Qi Si was a child, he had heard the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin: a piper came to a town infested with rats and used his flute to lure the rats into the river one by one. But the townspeople did not pay the reward as agreed. One late night, the piper played his magic flute again, and all the children in the town followed him and never appeared again.

In the myths of various countries, singing has always been a metaphor for guidance and temptation, and naturally, it includes guiding Ghosts.

What concerned Qi Si the most was that he had just exchanged the Ghost Drivers Recorder for a bus ticket on the bus, and now this item had appeared as a death point targeted at him.

Could there be a mechanism in this instance where consumed items are transformed into part of the instance to be used against the players?

After all, everything in the world is an externalization of the Ancestral God, and items are no exception. Being reclaimed by the Ancestral God after use fit the tone of doomsday and apocalypse, which was perfectly logical.

Time during the confrontation felt stretched. Qi Si and the believer stood opposite each other, moving in tandem. He looked like a ferryman guiding souls into reincarnation, patiently and calmly leading the believer toward the destined end.

Lin Chen had been standing by Qi Si’s side with the Umbrella Filled with Pain, ready to activate the item’s effect at any sign of change. After walking like this for a while, he gradually relaxed.

It seemed that although the Final Dungeon had increased in difficulty, it still followed basic rules; at least it wouldn’t present a certain-death crisis on the first day.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, a faint light appeared behind them. In addition to the original sound of wind, singing, and footsteps, a new sound was added.

The clatter of a metal scroll shaking mixed with a low rubbing sound. Accompanied by the faint sound of chanting, it formed a harmonious rhythm.

Sang Ji, who was supposed to be behind the counter, stood at the junction of the corridor and the hall at some point. He held a Prayer wheel in one hand and held the other palm upright in front of him, chanting something.

His voice was extremely soft and low, making it impossible to hear specific words or tones. It sounded like a natural sound emitted by some dead object, easily blending into the background of the environment.

Because of this, it was as pure as the snowy mountains and as vast as the grasslands. It was as if it had come straight from a void devoid of malice, desire, and pain, blowing away all filth and terror, and was exceptionally soothing to the soul.

The believer’s steps stopped, like a sleepwalker about to wake up, trying to remember where he was in his ignorance. The maggots in his eye sockets hung limply and crawled back into his skull.

He slowly turned around, his figure flickering twice. Two seconds later, he appeared outside the corridor and walked in the direction opposite the snowy mountain.

The ballad still echoed in the corridor, but under the coordination of the chanting, all the eerie feelings dissipated. It became sacred, no different from the sound heard on the street during the day.

The believer staggered forward, turning away from the corridor where the singing echoed, walking further and further away until he vanished into the dark night as a black-gray phantom.

With the crisis averted, Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief. He habitually began to review whether he had missed any key clues; otherwise, why did Qi Si know the solution to the death point while he couldn’t understand it?

Of course, Qi Si hadn’t actually expected Sang Ji, as an NPC belonging to the inn, to suddenly come to the rescue. He had originally intended to lead the believer back to the hall to drag Jiuzhou and Tingfeng into the mess.

These two guilds had a total of eighteen people. In an emergency, it was impossible for them to reach an agreement immediately. Someone would always be unable to resist stepping in, like that noisy Yu Su, who somehow got selected for the Final Dungeon.

This way, others would also step in one after another out of a sense of responsibility and habitual thinking, which would serve his purpose—

He already had an item being used by the instance against him; he had to pull everyone down to the same level to feel at ease.

As for now… Qi Si was a little disappointed, but not much.

There would surely be more death points later. There would be plenty of opportunities to morally hijack the people from Jiuzhou to get involved. The situation would eventually be stirred into a mess.

Sang Ji shook his wrist, continuously spinning the Prayer wheel in his hand while staring in the direction where the believer had disappeared.

After a long silence, he turned his face toward Qi Si, his voice hoarse: “What you saw just now were sinners who failed to complete their purification. Although the Mother Goddess mercifully granted them eternal life, they must still redeem their sins through their actions. When night falls and evil thoughts are too thick, they inevitably lose their reason.

“The sacred song is ringing here tonight, and the sinners of the Holy City will all gather here. I’m afraid they might harm you. Let me take you back to your rooms. Remember, you must not go out at night.”

His voice was gentle, like a kind old grandfather who often sat under a tree telling stories to children, making people willing to believe his words from the bottom of their hearts.

Qi Si asked, “How can one redeem their sin? They say ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ Do we travelers from outside also need to redeem our sins?”

Sang Ji stared into his eyes and said with a chuckle, “Chant scriptures and kowtow to show your devotion to the Mother Goddess. The Mother Goddess will forgive all children who return to the right path. If you want to stay and have eternal life like us, you naturally must also redeem your sins to the Mother Goddess and obtain Her permission.”

Qi Si suddenly seemed to see a glint of silver in Sang Ji’s eyes and couldn’t help but wonder if the Ancestral God was applying some kind of induction or suggestion to him again.

But that light was only a flash. Sang Ji’s eyes quickly returned to their cloudy state. What he had seen just now seemed to be just an illusion created by the interplay of light and shadow.

Sang Ji held the Prayer wheel, swaying as he walked ahead, chanting as he went. It was as if he were walking on the path to the underworld, leading people to their rebirth.

The low chanting naturally had the effect of calming the mind. The earlier encounter with the crisis was brushed aside like a page being turned; it felt as if it had sunk to the bottom of their memories, impossible to recall without a deliberate effort.

Qi Si and Lin Chen followed Sang Ji through the long corridor to the second floor. The Thangka paintings on the walls looked like people standing in the dark under the dim light, their eyes, replaced by gemstones, watching everyone who passed by.

Lin Chen sent a message through the Soul Leaf: “Brother Qi, these paintings are alive. Their eyes have been following us, and the edges and surfaces facing us haven’t changed. It can’t be caused by light and perspective.”

“A classic horror design,” Qi Si commented calmly, looking away. “A soul sealed in every painting is also a very cliché horror novel setting.”

Sang Ji couldn’t hear their conversation, but he still noticed Lin Chen’s attention to the paintings. He slowly turned his head toward him and said with a chuckle, “The Thangkas I make are the most beautiful in Shangri-La. There will be new Thangkas tomorrow. You must remember to admire them…”

Lin Chen sensed a deeper meaning in these words and couldn’t help but ask, “What happens if I miss the time or forget to admire them?”

“Time? There is no time…” Sang Ji murmured to himself, looking at him in confusion. “How could anyone not admire Thangkas? Everyone in Shangri-La loves Thangkas…”