Jixiang Jimiao Guimu Bodhisattva

"You have died."

"Your death was worth something."

"The path to escape has opened for you. Finish patrolling this final stretch, and after two days, you will achieve final victory."

"Because your death evaluation was above average, you will receive an additional Soul Stone reward."

"The number of Soul Stones you currently hold is: 110."

"Your remaining resurrections: 10."

"Merchant entity: Gui Po has died."

"The Gui Po main shop is closed; you can no longer purchase any items related to her."

Zhou You re-entered the game, and that intersection once again reflected in his pupils.

Although he already possessed the items to clear the level, he did not rush to choose a path. Instead, he took out the skin, the eyeball, and the incense, carefully cross-referencing them before making his selection.

However, he did not choose the path he was more familiar with, the "Faceless Ghost," but rather the one belonging to the Eyeball Ghost.

Because he was paying close attention, he felt something hair-raising crawl onto his back the moment he entered the path—it wasn't an eyeball, but a light, child-like form. The thing rested its mangled head on his shoulder; if he were to turn his head or spin around, he would immediately collide with it.

Zhou You decisively used the eyeball.

--The system's hint to him was to crush it.

The murky crystal shattered instantly in his palm, and a viscous, skin-crawling sensation spread across his hand. But the next moment, the strange, icy chill behind him dissipated. Zhou You glanced back cautiously and saw a translucent figure desperately trying to stuff something into its own empty eye socket.

At the same time, he saw that it was the very eyeball he had just crushed.

"So this is the effect of these three special items? Replacing the missing body parts of these ghosts with fake ones to delay them... but the question is, why is the third one incense?"

Zhou You only pondered for a moment before giving up on guessing. He took advantage of the entity's distraction to sprint forward as fast as he could—after all, he didn't know how long Gui Po's method would fool them—if they realized what happened before he walked out of the intersection...

That would be far beyond what the words "furious with shame" could describe.

Whether it was because Gui Po's goods were high quality or simply due to Zhou You's luck, he actually walked to the end of the path smoothly. However, something unexpected happened at the very end.

At the terminus, the road split into two forks.

One was undoubtedly the path to his final destination, Chang Song Slope, while the other was a small, dark, and gloomy path that had never been recorded on the patrol map, leading to who knows where.

Clearly, this was another "choose one of two" exploration.

If Zhou You only had a few lives left, or if he had only obtained one item from Gui Po, he would have decisively ignored this suspicious small path and headed straight for the end of the patrol. But, well...

Zhou You looked at his 10 coins, as well as the remaining skin and incense, and after hesitating for only a few seconds, he turned and walked toward the small path.

--Normally, in RPGs, these kinds of branching paths have hidden treasures.

--And the system probably wouldn't go out of its way to open up a new path for no reason.

--So, with his retreat guaranteed, why not gamble this once?

However, the scenery of the small path was fundamentally different from the surroundings.

Having walked for several days and nights, everything Zhou You had seen were scenes of a modern city. Even if they were old and dilapidated, they were still the concrete jungles formed after entering a technological society. But as he walked here, the surroundings abruptly turned into a stretch of wild grass. Occasionally, he could see sparse, stunted shrubs, but they were basically completely withered, leaving only a few broken branches and dead leaves.

The streetlights had completely vanished, and now only a crescent moon hung high in the sky.

But compared to the residential buildings filled with ghost faces, this kind of desolate wilderness, common in ghost stories, actually allowed Zhou You to relax.

After walking through the wilderness for who knows how long, Zhou You finally saw a building.

It was a temple.

The temple was not large, the kind you could take in at a single glance, but it seemed it hadn't been repaired in a long time. Half of the wall had collapsed, the exterior was covered in layers of green vines, and the vermilion gate was mottled by wind and rain. Only the plaque on top was relatively intact, though unfortunately, most of the characters had fallen off, making it impossible to see what was written.

However, Zhou You immediately associated it with the news he had seen earlier.

"A temple... could this place be that Sanhuamiao Temple? The one about to be demolished?"

Zhou You walked around the temple gate, making a casual assessment.

"It wouldn't be a miscarriage of justice if it were demolished in this state; it looks like it's about to become a condemned building. But would there be clues to the script here..."

He first glanced at the copper bell on his wrist—seeing that it didn't ring, he cautiously walked into the temple.

...There was nothing eerie jumping out to greet him.

The environment inside was just as dilapidated as the outside, with tall, overgrown weeds. In the very center of the temple, a Buddha statue was enshrined, but when Zhou You looked up, his eyes suddenly narrowed.

--The statue enshrined in the temple was not that evil Bodhisattva, but a guardian statue of the Guhyapada Vajra.

Thanks to a relative who was a devout Buddhist, Zhou You knew this was a guardian deity in Buddhism, famous for driving away evil spirits and protecting the Dharma. But now, this statue had clearly been desecrated—

No, it shouldn't be called desecrated.

The statue itself was not damaged, but its limbs were covered in countless bloodstains. From afar, it exuded an icy chill. Even though the temple had fallen into such ruin, the bloodstains had never dried from beginning to end; every inch looked as if it had been freshly applied.

If one looked even closer, one could see those bloodstains constantly shifting into one character after another, carving desperate curses deep into the clay sculpture.

Clearly, this Buddha statue had been defiled.

It was that same kind of exceptionally vicious and sinister defilement.

"Is this... the seal of that heretical cult?"

Zhou You tore off a piece of his sleeve, intending to wipe away the bloodstains, but the moment he made contact with the Buddha statue, the bell on his wrist suddenly rang out violently!

Without a moment's hesitation, he decisively threw the cloth aside and performed a breakfall, rolling several meters away!

When he looked up again, he happened to see the piece of fabric vanish into the body of the Buddha without a sound, as if it had been devoured.

"...You've got to be kidding me, another instant-death trap? It looks like this seal can't be broken either. Could there be other clues or mechanisms?"

Zhou You circled the area, but finding that this dilapidated temple didn't seem to hide any other clues, he was just beginning to scratch his head when a system notification suddenly arrived.

"Player has reached a hidden location: Weituo Zuntian Dharma Protector Temple of Sanhuamiao Temple.

"The trigger conditions for this hidden location are: complete the side quests 'Play a Game' and 'Drink Soup' by the third day, discover the clue regarding 'Jixiang Jimiao Guimu Bodhisattva' in the orphanage, and have a resurrection count ≥ 7."

"Scenario completion rate has been greatly increased."

"For every Sanhuamiao Temple you discover, your scenario completion rate will be greatly increased."

"Player has obtained 50 Soul Stones; current Soul Stone total is 160."

"So the name of that Bodhisattva was 'Jixiang Jimiao Guimu Bodhisattva'? How have I never heard of such a thing?"

Looking at the statue, Zhou You tapped his arm and began to mutter to himself.

"It seems the three intersections each correspond to a temple, and each temple grants a massive amount of scenario completion."

"But that brings up a problem..."

"--With such a massive seal of tainted blood sitting right in front of me, why does the system only prompt me to find the temple, yet say absolutely nothing about the filth on this Buddha, not even giving me a quest?"

After thinking for a while, Zhou You wore a thoughtful expression, but rather than delving deeper, he simply turned back toward the path he had come from.

"Forget it, I'd better go finish my patrol quest first—at the very least, I need to ensure my own safety. As for the rest... that can wait until later."