Chapter 19: Return to the Temple
The villager at the front called out with a trembling voice, “Run quickly!”
As soon as he finished speaking, all the villagers bolted back like mad, disappearing from sight in an instant.
Shen Si was puzzled. “What does that mean? Are my words really that intimidating?”
Liang Dan lightly tapped her arm. “We’re back at that temple.”
The three of them looked back. The temple still stood in the distance, unchanged from usual.
Nearby, the ruins of the large building remained exactly the same.
Yang Liuqing asked, “Should we go inside and take a look?”
Liang Dan replied, “If we don’t go in, we’ll have to sleep out here.”
Shen Si smiled. “Everyone’s going to be sleeping outside anyway, those villagers have nowhere to go. Thinking about that, I feel a lot better.”
Yang Liuqing said, “But the villagers staying outside is safer than us staying out here.”
With that, Yang Liuqing took a few steps forward and knocked on the temple door.
The sound of knocking echoed hollowly, with no response at all.
Yang Liuqing gently pushed, and the temple door swung open. Liang Dan and Shen Si hurried forward, gripping their scissors and fruit knives tightly.
It was now completely dark outside, but the round moon allowed them to make out the scene clearly.
Inside the temple was pitch black; nothing was visible. The candles were all unlit, and it was unclear if they were still in their original places since they couldn’t see anything.
A gust of wind blew against Liang Dan, standing at the temple entrance, raising goosebumps all over her.
Shen Si’s voice trembled, “Maybe we should just sleep on the streets. That feels a bit safer than this temple.”
“It’s fine,” Liang Dan said. “We sealed off all the sculptures. There’s nowhere for anyone to hide here.”
Taking a big step forward, Liang Dan said, “Is anyone inside? Sorry to disturb you.”
“Ouch.”
Liang Dan stumbled over something and nearly fell. Yang Liuqing quickly steadied her.
Without looking away, Yang Liuqing strode forward. “Wait here. I’ll light the candles.”
There was a clatter as Yang Liuqing bumped into the nearest table, the iron basin atop it ringing out.
She fumbled on the table for a moment before lighting a thick incense stick, instantly illuminating her surroundings.
Yang Liuqing took a big step forward and stood by the table, lighting candles one by one—one, two, three...
On the table to her right, a whole row of candles flared to life, revealing everything inside the temple clearly.
“Ah!”
Suddenly, Shen Si screamed and staggered backward, falling to the ground trembling uncontrollably.
Liang Dan instinctively crouched to help her, but her legs gave way and she sat down beside Shen Si.
From their seated position, the objects lying on the ground came into sharper view, even the expressions on the faces of those people.
The floor was littered with corpses.
From the temple entrance extending all the way to the front table, just one glance revealed seven bodies.
No wonder, when Yang Liuqing was walking with such large strides, each step meant she was stepping over a corpse.
Shen Si shivered, and the hand Liang Dan placed on her shoulder trembled as well. “Don’t be afraid. They’re all dead.”
Yang Liuqing lit all the candles on another row of tables. Shen Si raised her head, still shaking. “No wonder the villagers didn’t dare to come near here. How did they know there were dead people inside?”
Yang Liuqing grabbed the foot of one corpse and began dragging it toward the door. Shen Si screamed repeatedly.
Frowning, Yang Liuqing said, “Either you two help me drag these bodies out, or I’ll throw you both out too.”
Liang Dan stood up, feeling her heart pounding loudly, as if she could hear it in her ears.
In these past two days, they had endured so much that fear no longer took hold of her.
Releasing Shen Si, she steeled herself, gritted her teeth, grabbed the foot of the nearest corpse, and dragged it outside.
Shen Si also stood and began dragging the corpse in front of her.
Shen Si asked, “What do we do with them?”
“Throw them out,” Yang Liuqing said with a light laugh. “Or do you want them sleeping next to us?”
Before long, the three of them had dragged every corpse out of the temple and dumped them onto the ruins of the large building.
Afterward, they thoroughly searched the temple, then firmly closed the door and barricaded it with a table.
The floor bore marks of a struggle and bloodstains. The water in the basin was gone. The sealed sculpture shells had been reopened.
Even the patched gaps they had nailed shut were covered again with a layer of dried mud.
The three lay close together, much nearer than the previous night.
Shen Si had calmed down. “Do you think the people who died today were villagers or players?”
Yang Liuqing said, “Players.”
Liang Dan asked, “Why do you say that?”
“Because they were all strangers. I’ve never seen those faces before.”
Shen Si said, “But there are so many villagers. Have you recognized all of them?”
“Though there are many villagers, most are middle-aged or elderly men. These corpses are all young men.”
“But,” Liang Dan counted on her fingers, “six turned into pigs, eight died inside the temple, plus the two women who knocked asking for food, and the one who saved us—that’s at least seventeen players who came today.”
After speaking, Liang Dan shook her head to herself. “No, that’s not right.”
Yang Liuqing and Shen Si asked in unison, “What’s not right?”
Liang Dan said, “These people didn’t all come in at the same time, or at least these corpses and those two women weren’t from the same group.”
Yang Liuqing nodded, “You’re right.”
Shen Si suddenly understood. “Those eight corpses have no mud on their shoes. The two women’s shoes are muddy. The woman who saved us has clean shoes.”
Liang Dan said, “We now agree that new players enter this dungeon every day, right?”
Yang Liuqing and Shen Si nodded. “Right.”
Liang Dan said, “Everyone we’ve seen today might have arrived here before us.”
Yang Liuqing nodded. “I used to think players only came in during the seven-day sacrificial ritual. But we arrived on the first day, and those who turned into ducks and geese arrived the day before.”
Shen Si raised her hand. “I have a question.”
“What?”
“Who said the ritual only lasts seven days? Why do we all assume it’s just seven days?”
“And was the day we arrived really the first day of their ritual?”
Liang Dan slapped her thigh. “The seven-day ritual was what Zhang Wei said. His title is ‘Peerless Villain’!”
“And he said the order of sacrifices was reversed. He said the second day was the old man turning into a pig, and the third day was the woman turning into a sheep!”