Visiting a Grave

"It's all over, it's all over!"

"I'm doomed, I'm doomed!"

"It's hopeless, hopeless!"

Feng Xue had just snapped out of her daze from the black screen when she heard a series of mournful cries. Looking closely, she saw several players slumped there like widows who had lost their children, looking even more like Xianglin's wife than Xianglin's wife herself.

"Heh, another one. No problem, bring on more, let's all die together!"

Upon seeing Feng Xue appear, a player sitting on the ground wore an expression as if he'd been thoroughly humiliated. Feng Xue ignored his outburst, waved her hand to open a drop-down menu, and a string of text appeared before him—

Game Title: Visiting the Grave

Game type: Survival

Mandatory Quest: Survive for three days

Optional Quest: Successfully visit the grave

Game Information: Spring comes and autumn goes, and it's that time of year again to visit ancestral graves and pay respects to ancestors. As a college graduate who hasn't been able to find a proper job for several years, you, who are penniless and down on your luck, receive a well-paid commission—to visit graves in the cemetery.

"Tsk, what a simple and straightforward questline." Feng Xue looked at the quest description. Although it was more detailed than the description on the platform square, it was still better than nothing.

"I thought I was visiting a person's grave, but now it seems I'm visiting a grave in a cemetery?"

"Stop looking, this quest has already tripped up more than a dozen players at the Fierce Ghost Level."

The player next to her was making discouraging remarks, and Feng Xue immediately frowned and said:

"Don't you think your deliberate exaggeration of the difficulty level is too obvious? I'm starting to suspect you're a ghost in disguise!"

Actually, Feng Xue was just saying that casually, but the moment he finished speaking, the dejected player suddenly paused, then abruptly stood up—

"Damn it, we were found out!"

After saying that, the player suddenly turned into a wisp of black smoke and disappeared before Feng Xue's eyes. Not to mention Feng Xue, even the other players were completely dumbfounded.

"Wow, I'd only ever heard that bosses in long-running games get smarter and smarter, I never imagined they could actually impersonate players?!"

This chilling yet somewhat comical scene finally eased the atmosphere of fear somewhat, and the players who had been wailing incessantly regained a little rationality. One of them even slapped his forehead and said:

"Damn, that guy was such a gloomy guy before!"

"So, we're actually affected by the curse of the 'Depressing Ghost,' and this isn't actually one of those long-running games?"

Another player asked hopefully, but the player who called out the gloomy ghost's name shook his head:

"Unfortunately, this is indeed an old game; I've seen this name on Player Platform before."

After saying that, he took off a necklace from his neck and wrapped it around his hand. His previous dejected demeanor immediately vanished, replaced by an aura of a cold-blooded killer who could take a person's head with ease.

"Oh, then I still have to die." The player, who had been cheering up, became dejected again upon hearing this, slumped to the ground, and showed no intention of saying anything more.

Looking at the players in front of her, Feng Xue immediately abandoned her plan to act with them and began to observe her surroundings on her own.

Although the game content is about visiting graves in a cemetery, the scene in front of you is a barren mountain, with withered trees growing crookedly and messily, just like in the cartoons you watched as a child. Those dry branches look like thin, bony hands.

"But since it's about visiting graves, it should be a Chinese supernatural story, so there's a high chance that tree spirits won't appear... well, unless this game introduces a monster system."

Feng Xue muttered to herself, but looked down. Although it was the middle of nowhere, there was still a path under her feet. It wasn't a trail made by wild animals, but a proper road paved with stones. Although it was overgrown with weeds, you could tell that a lot of effort had been put into it. She believed that the person who built this road must have put in a lot of work.

"Will the cemetery be accessible by following the road? But since we're here to pay respects at the graves, why didn't we bring incense and candles? Do we need to buy them down the mountain, or is it like a puzzle game where we have to find them ourselves?"

Feng Xue thought for a moment, then took out her phone, only to find that, like the Player Platform, it had no signal.

"It seems like they're intentionally trying to prevent players from realizing that the game and reality are in the same world, but what about the living people in the haunted areas? Are they isolated by Air Wall and left to die, or are they replaced by a group of NPCs? Or are there simply no NPCs, and everyone is a ghost?"

With this in mind, Feng Xue gave up on going directly up the mountain and instead walked down the path towards the foot of the mountain.

Seeing Feng Xue's actions, two players immediately followed. Feng Xue frowned upon seeing this and said:

"You all saw what just happened. You either need to prove you're not ghosts, or you'd better stay away from me."

Upon hearing Feng Xue's words, the player who was about to speak immediately turned pale, abandoned his attempt to ingratiate himself, and said with a sneer:

"I thought you had discovered some clues, but it seems you're just a newbie who doesn't even know that passively playing the game will result in a scripted death. Are you some kind of idiot who came from Player Platform?"

"Hehe." Feng Xue let out a high-level taunt and walked straight down the mountain. Seeing how decisively he left, the player who had spoken sarcastically suddenly dropped his expression, while the player next to him frowned and said:

"They left so decisively, did they really discover something?"

"Who can say for sure? More importantly, have you released your brat yet?" The player who had started the sarcasm was surprisingly calm at this point. His partner, upon hearing this, immediately retorted:

"They've already been sent out, but the survival rate of these kids on these missions is questionable; they're mainly meant to serve as a warning."

"It's already pretty good that it can give an early warning. Isn't it said that it's not easy to randomly get old games when teaming up?"

"It seems no one can be underestimated." Feng Xue received the information transmitted by the Gu Poison Body, a slight smile playing on her lips, and continued walking down the mountain. Although the other party said that passive play would result in a scripted death, what exactly constitutes passive play?

While muttering to himself, Feng Xue's steps were not slow at all. In just a few minutes, he was already standing at the foot of the mountain. What he could see was a village that had been abandoned for a long time. There was a wooden sign at the entrance to the mountain, but the words on it had long been illegible due to wind and rain.

Just as Feng Xue passed the wooden sign, a cold wind suddenly blew past her side, bringing with it a heartfelt cry. Feng Xue looked in the direction of the cry, but all she saw was a corner formed by several dilapidated wooden houses, and she couldn't see what was inside at all.

After a moment's thought, Feng Xue ultimately decided against using a drone to give the ghosts a small modern technological shock. Instead, she walked up to them with the nonchalant air of a background character who would die first in a horror movie...

National Studies Small Class: Don't have an exaggerated understanding of the "Great Desolation Flow. The "severing of the three corpses" is not some kind of good or evil self or anything like that.

Of course, you can understand it from Subordinate God perspective, but from a mythological perspective, it's not called "slaying the three corpses," it's called "concealing the three corpses" (or "deceiving the three corpses"). Simply put, from a mythological perspective, three gods live inside a person, recording the bad things you do, deducting your merits, and reducing your lifespan. When you die, they can return to heaven, so they are very active in their work. If you want to become an immortal, you have to deceive them so that they won't speak ill of you.

However, in the realm of spiritual practice, the Three Corpses, or Three Corpse Worm, refer to three kinds of human desires: spiritual needs (Upper Corpse Peng Ju Hao Hua Shi), physical needs (Middle Corpse Peng Zhi Likes Flavor), and excessive desires (Lower Corpse Peng Xu Likes Excessive Desire). The process of abandoning these three desires and entering a state of "stillness" is what is known as "slaying the Three Corpses." In other words, this thing, starting from Entering Stillness, is something that can be practiced, mainly focusing on reducing desires and calming the mind.

The saying goes, "To cut off Peng Xu reveals my true nature; to cut off Peng Zhi reveals my true mind; to cut off Peng Ju reveals my true intention."

In other words, the practice of "slaying the three corpses" is actually a process of cultivating the mind. Of course, it does not mean truly eliminating desires, because the method of "slaying the three corpses" clearly states that human desires will continue to grow and need to be constantly eliminated in order to maintain "purity".

Finally, as I said before, there are many different schools and branches of Daoism, each with its own interpretation. My opinion here is just one perspective, and other traditions may have different explanations. If you want to argue about this, then you are right.