"Finally, I've cleared everything."
As the BOSS fell, Xu Yuan leaned slowly back in his gaming chair, his eyes bloodshot. The credits began rolling across the screen, accompanied by the game's ending CG.
After more than a month of late-night battles, Xu Yuan had finally cleared every route and every ending of Cangyuan, a game hailed as having the most complex story of any domestic title.
As a 2.5D pixel-art game, Cangyuan had an almost excessive amount of story.
Thousands of choices, twenty-five worldlines, and dozens of wildly different endings gave players a fresh story experience every time they played.
"With the technology we have now, I guess only a 2.5D pixel-art game could support a story this massive."
Only after watching every last scene did Xu Yuan finally turn off the computer, content at last. Fighting off his drowsiness, he washed up in the bathroom, climbed into bed, and—as usual—recalled the game's story:
"It's finally over. It's just a shame about the Prime Minister. In the dozen or so endings where he becomes the final BOSS, that damn writer kills him off every time."
"And once you've played a few times and learned the game mechanics, it gets easier."
"Yaaawn."
"I'm so tired. I can't think about it anymore. I still have to go help out at the old man's company tomorrow. I've been slacking for over a month, so he'll probably chew me out."
Muttering under his breath, Xu Yuan sank into a deep sleep.
"Rumble—"
Thunder cracked and lightning flashed as rain poured from the sky.
Amid the crackling of firewood in the flames, Xu Yuan opened his eyes in a daze, struggling through the haze.
"Is it raining...? Tsk, my head hurts. I think there's still some Fenbid at home."
The splitting pain in his head made Xu Yuan instinctively try to get up and find a painkiller in the medicine cabinet. But when his eyes finally focused, the dim surroundings before him left him stunned.
Where was this?
Where was his home?
The familiar ceiling was gone. An unfamiliar, abandoned Buddhist shrine lay before Xu Yuan.
Old, dilapidated roof beams and pillars.
A stone Buddha seated on a lotus pedestal, one arm broken off.
A bonfire swaying in the cold wind.
And—
A woman in black, her face veiled, sitting quietly beside the fire.
The patter of rain came from outside the shrine.
Everything was eerily silent.
After two seconds, he closed his eyes, then opened them again.
Nothing had changed.
"..."
Xu Yuan tried to make sense of what had happened to him.
But after thinking it over for a long while, he had no idea.
The only thing he could be sure of was that he seemed to have transmigrated.
The headache, however, hadn't come from the aftereffects of merging memories. It was caused by a large bump, physically swollen on the back of his head.
Having no memories of this place, Xu Yuan found everything around him utterly unfamiliar. His gaze swept across the ruined shrine.
Rain poured like a waterfall from the old tiles, cascading from the eaves like strings of pearls and splashing into the puddles outside. Beyond the light of the bonfire, the entrance to the shrine was swallowed by unfathomable darkness.
Like most people, Xu Yuan had fantasized about transmigrating. But that was just a case of loving the thrill without wanting the danger.
He had always had a clear understanding of himself: without a cheat, in certain works of fiction, he might not even survive three chapters.
And these gloomy surroundings looked exactly like the kind of story where he wouldn't survive three chapters.
The winter rain was bitterly cold, and wave after wave of chill crept into his heart.
By the faint light of the bonfire, Xu Yuan's gaze wandered repeatedly around the room.
The shrine was large. With its once-bustling incense offerings long gone, even the Buddha, once so imposing, looked eerie in the dim hall.
After scanning the room, Xu Yuan's gaze finally settled on the only other living thing in the shrine.
The woman in black sat quietly beside the bonfire, eyes closed, a sword lying at her side.
The firelight illuminated her skin, white as snow. A black veil hid her face, and her long, straight hair fell loosely down her back. As the cold wind blew, her black robe faintly outlined her graceful figure.
A rainy night, a ruined temple deep in the mountains, a beautiful woman—put all those things together, and it was hard for Xu Yuan not to imagine something strange.
In the silence, Xu Yuan slowly got to his feet.
Over the years, helping with the family business, the old man had taken him to meet all sorts of people and see all kinds of things, clean and dirty alike.
The surroundings were strange, but once he accepted reality, Xu Yuan knew he had to do something.
His body seemed to be injured, and he was dressed too lightly. At the very least, he needed to sit by the bonfire. The cold of the winter rain was already freezing him stiff.
Keeping his eyes on the woman, Xu Yuan slowly walked toward her, one step at a time.
The woman in black seemed not to hear his footsteps. She remained seated beside the bonfire, quietly resting with her eyes closed.
The thin veil covering her face couldn't hide her presence. She was beautiful in her stillness.
As soon as he reached her, Xu Yuan's pupils suddenly contracted.
A massive arm lay on the ground beside the woman.
He stopped, his heart suddenly racing, but then he relaxed just as quickly.
Though the arm looked lifelike, it wasn't human. It had the texture of stone.
He glanced back at the huge Buddha statue he had seen earlier, the one missing an arm.
It must have broken off from that.
Using the stone arm as a stool, Xu Yuan sat down and stared at the woman's flawless profile, hidden behind the thin veil.
In the desolate, cold wind, silence held for two seconds.
Suddenly, the woman in black slowly opened her cool, ink-dark eyes and looked toward Xu Yuan.
Just then—
"Rumble—"
A flash of lightning split the pitch-black night sky, illuminating everything inside and outside the ruined shrine.
The light flashed and vanished in an instant. As he met the woman's gaze, Xu Yuan caught something outside the shrine with the corner of his eye.
Corpses.
In the brief flash of lightning, the puddles in the open ground before the shrine's main entrance were full of broken bodies. Thick blood spread and flowed with the rain.
Xu Yuan's still-dazed mind snapped awake. His heart began racing uncontrollably, and the hand hidden in his sleeve trembled without pause.
His family wasn't doing business in the Golden Triangle. A scene of corpses strewn everywhere was a little beyond what he could handle.
He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, struggling to rein in his increasingly panicked thoughts and analyze the situation rationally.
The pain in his tongue finally helped Xu Yuan calm down a little. He forced his breathing to steady and fixed his gaze on the woman in black.
The lightning faded, and darkness swallowed the shrine entrance once again.
But the scene from a moment ago had been etched into Xu Yuan's mind.
Every corpse outside had been wearing the same clothes and carrying a weapon. They had died in different ways, but nearly all their feet pointed toward the ancient shrine.
In other words, they came from the same place, and for some unknown reason, they had tried to break into the shrine.
That brief glimpse had made Xu Yuan think of many things. He turned toward the woman beside him, his movements stiff.
He realized he might have sat down beside a woman he really shouldn't have messed with.
There were only two of them in the shrine. His body was visibly frail, so those corpses outside, the ones that had tried to break in, could only have been her doing.
Outside, thunder rolled across the dark sky. The cold wind blew through the shattered doorway. The woman in black sat around the fire with a young master dressed in fine silk, while beyond the door lay a blood-soaked mess hidden in the shadows.
In the silence—
"You're in my way."
The woman's voice was cool as ice, calm and indifferent.
"..."
Xu Yuan was taken aback.
He was in her way?
Only then did he notice that the woman in black wasn't looking at him, but at something behind him.
Behind him?
A hint of confusion rose in his heart.
He had already checked earlier. The hall was large, but from this angle, there was nothing behind him except the huge Buddha statue with the missing arm.
Baffled, Xu Yuan instinctively glanced over his shoulder.
That single glance sent a chill shooting from his tailbone straight to his brain.
Xu Yuan saw a pair of legs.
Shins as tall as he was standing.
His gaze climbed, inch by inch.
At some point, the huge stone Buddha had silently come down from its lotus pedestal and stood behind him.
Its cracked, uncanny face lurked in the shadows beneath the roof. It seemed to be smiling as it looked down at him and the woman beside him.
"..."
His mind blanked for a moment.
The science he had always believed in couldn't explain what he was seeing. Fear of the unknown exploded in Xu Yuan's heart, impossible to suppress any longer.
His breathing sped up beyond his control. The uncanny, seven- or eight-meter-tall Buddha was right before him, and his body stiffened as if plunged into an ice cellar.
After several seconds, Xu Yuan began forcing his stiff body to shuffle aside.
He... he had to get out of the way.
His heart pounded as if it might burst through his chest. This uncanny sight was beyond anything he could understand or accept.
Just then, Xu Yuan caught sight of the woman in black out of the corner of his eye.
With the giant Buddha so close, the veiled woman in black hadn't stood up. She remained quietly where she was, without even picking up the sword beside her. Her flawless face was calm, her expression unchanged as she simply watched the Buddha.
The woman's cool composure gradually gave Xu Yuan a sense of reassurance.
He edged into a corner of the shrine to quell his fear, carefully watching the Buddha and the woman in the middle of the hall.
Thank goodness. This woman looked strong.
Xu Yuan thought of the corpses outside the shrine.
The thing that had frightened him a moment ago had instead become a source of comfort.
He couldn't imagine being alone in this mountain shrine, facing that uncanny "living Buddha" by himself.
The woman and the Buddha remained still for two seconds. A murderous chill slowly spread, and Xu Yuan took the opportunity to retreat carefully into the corner of the ruined shrine.
Suddenly—
The uncanny "living Buddha" moved.
Its enormous size didn't slow it down at all. It moved so fast Xu Yuan could barely see it, and its giant palm came crashing down.
"Boom—"
The shrine and the ground trembled violently at once. The palm slammed into the floor, snuffing out the only light in the room: the bonfire.
Xu Yuan's vision plunged into darkness.
With the light gone, sound became the only thing in the darkness. A series of huge tremors and crashes blended together, rising and falling without pause.
Listening to the commotion nearby, Xu Yuan's heart raced as he huddled in the corner. His clenched fist dug into his palm, but he didn't even notice.
Suddenly—
"Vmmm—"
A clear sword chime rang through the shrine and out into the night.
A streak of blue sword light flashed through the darkness.
Everything fell silent in an instant.
"Rumble—"
Thunder cracked overhead, and a flash of lightning illuminated the entire shrine.
At last, Xu Yuan saw what had happened.
The woman's black dress was untouched by dust. Calmly, she returned her sword to its sheath. The giant "living Buddha" she had faced was now missing its head.
As Xu Yuan stood there in a daze—
"Thud—"
A black shadow crashed down in front of him, and the dust it kicked up made Xu Yuan frown and step back.
It was the enormous head of the "living Buddha."
Its kind-looking eyes glowed faintly as it stared at him.
Seeing it, Xu Yuan instinctively wanted to hide beside the woman in black. That uncanny thing was far too dangerous.
After the thunder, everything sank back into darkness.
Xu Yuan silently weighed his words. As he headed toward where the woman had been, he thought about asking her a few questions.
Just then—
A weak murmur came from the darkness in front of him:
"Third Young Master..."
"Run."
Before you continue