Ancient Temple

An Abandoned Tunnel

Zhang Yuanqing looked around in a panic. Anyone would have been flustered after suddenly being brought to an unfamiliar place.

"A tunnel? Is this the Sheling Tunnel from the ghost stories?"

As a native of Songhai City, he knew all about the Sheling Tunnel, one of the Ten Great Ghost Stories. When he was little and stayed up late misbehaving, his grandmother used to scare him with ghost stories.

But ghost stories were just vague tales, for starters. And as for the Sheling Tunnel, Zhang Yuanqing had passed by it just a few days ago when he returned to his hometown to pay his respects to his father.

The real Sheling Tunnel wasn't anything like this. It wasn't this old.

"Right. This is the Spirit Realm, not the real Sheling Tunnel."

The cramped surroundings made him uneasy. Zhang Yuanqing cautiously walked forward, accompanied by nothing but the lonely sound of his own footsteps.

As he walked, he tried to make sense of his situation and the information provided by the voice in his head.

There was no doubt about it: he'd encountered a supernatural phenomenon, been brought into a ghost story, and was now expected to complete a task assigned by some mysterious force.

"That voice gave me two tasks: survive for three hours and explore the Spirit Realm. S-rank difficulty, solo, death-type... This death-type thing is freaking me out."

Surviving for three hours meant he'd face immense danger.

Exploring the Spirit Realm probably meant exploring this tunnel. So the tunnel was dangerous?

He tensed up, his nerves on alert. At the same time, a question flashed through his mind: Would there be a reward for completing the task?

There had to be a reward, right? It was a task, after all.

"Hmm. According to the attribute panel from earlier, my profession is Night Wanderer, but my level is zero, not one. Becoming a Night Wanderer must be one of the rewards. What is a Night Wanderer?"

"Brother Bing was right. This Black Card really can change my life, but I ignored the second half of what he said. This thing's hard to control. Did he mean it's dangerous?"

Zhang Yuanqing quietly pieced together the information he had.

Just then, the old-fashioned xenon lamp beside him flickered a few times, as if its circuit were unstable. In the alternating light and dark, Zhang Yuanqing thought he saw a figure beneath the lamp, wearing a miner's helmet.

"Fuck!" He jumped in fright. His train of thought was instantly shattered, and he darted forward like a startled fawn.

He looked back. The xenon lamp shone steadily, no longer flickering.

The shadow wearing the miner's helmet seemed to have been a trick of his imagination.

After that scare, Zhang Yuanqing didn't dare stay in this creepy place. He hurried toward the tunnel exit.

Tap, tap, tap. His footsteps echoed through the quiet tunnel. He didn't dare stop for even a moment, and after walking briskly for five or six minutes, the old-fashioned xenon lamps in the arched ceiling flickered again. This time, no figure wearing a miner's helmet appeared.

"Didn't it follow me?"

He felt a little relieved, but didn't dare linger. Head down, he hurried along. Then, as he watched the ground, he noticed something that made his heart stop.

The orange xenon lamp stretched his shadow far across the ground. Beside it, more than a dozen shadows followed him.

They've been following me this whole time?!

A chill shot from his feet to his head, raising goose bumps all over his body. Zhang Yuanqing's face went pale, and he broke into a frantic run.

At last, the tunnel mouth appeared ahead. Beyond it, the moonlight was cold and clear as frost.

Zhang Yuanqing dashed out of the tunnel in one breath, braced his hands on his knees, and bent over, panting.

Once he had caught his breath, he looked around. The full moon hung solitary in the night sky, its light dimming the stars.

The lush woods bathed in moonlight cast great swathes of deep shadow.

He was in the middle of a desolate wilderness.

The xenon lamps in the tunnel flickered a few times, then all went dark. The enormous tunnel mouth was pitch-black and silent, like the maw of a beast ready to devour him.

"I need to get out of here!"

Zhang Yuanqing's scalp prickled. He followed the rugged mountain path uphill.

After walking a dozen or so steps, he looked back again. A row of figures stood at the tunnel mouth, wearing miner's helmets and tattered clothes, their heads bowed.

They stood in the shadows beyond the moonlight, silent, as if seeing him off.

Zhang Yuanqing stumbled back in fright, then spun around and ran uphill.

Branches and leaves flourished on either side of the mountain path, letting scraps of moonlight through—enough for Zhang Yuanqing to see where he was going.

But the silence in the mountains was terrifying. There were no chirping insects or birds in the woods, making his footsteps seem especially loud.

"It's too quiet. There's no way there wouldn't be a single insect chirping in the mountains this time of year."

He glanced around. The full moon hung overhead, and tree shadows swayed in the breeze. He couldn't shake the feeling that something in the darkness was watching him.

He didn't know how long he walked. By the time a thin sheen of sweat had formed on his body, Zhang Yuanqing had finally left the dense woods, and the view suddenly opened up.

The moonlight flowed like water, and everything around him was dead silent. At the end of the rugged mountain path stood an abandoned ancient temple.

It stood motionless in the darkness.

No one knew how many years the ancient temple had been abandoned. The paint on its front doors was peeling and blackened, riddled with holes. A lantern that had hung from the eaves lay on the ground, leaving only its bamboo frame.

The plaque was still there, covered in cobwebs and hanging crookedly beneath the eaves. But the light was too dim to make out the inscription.

The steps in front of the temple were cracked, weeds growing in the gaps.

This was the middle of nowhere, with no village in sight in either direction. Why was there a temple here?

Wait... A temple?!

Zhang Yuanqing suddenly realized something. The voice from the Spirit Realm's briefing seemed to ring in his ears:

"Don't enter the temple. Don't enter the temple."

"According to that strange voice's warning, I shouldn't go into the temple. No, wait. I've already made it out of the tunnel, which means the real place I'm supposed to explore is this run-down ancient temple."

After hesitating at the entrance for a long while, Zhang Yuanqing cautiously set off toward the ancient temple standing in the darkness and stepped over the broken threshold.

Before him lay a wide courtyard. Waist-high weeds grew across it, and a rotting incense burner, half a person's height, had toppled into the grass. It had clearly weathered years of wind and rain.

A path paved with bluestone slabs ran beneath his feet. Clumps of weeds had sprouted between the stones as well.

Following the undulating weeds with his gaze, he looked toward the end of the stone path. There stood a dilapidated main hall, raised high on its foundation, with six steps leading up to it. A dim yellow light shone through its lattice doors.

"There's a light?"

The surroundings were silent, desolate, and ruined. The bright moonlight fell over everything, but in such a place, that little glow did nothing to warm Zhang Yuanqing.

If anything, it made the place feel even more frightening.

Rustle.

He stepped over clumps of withered weeds, alert as he headed toward the main hall. His footsteps rang especially clearly in the open space.

Rustle, rustle. Suddenly, Zhang Yuanqing's ear twitched. He heard another set of footsteps behind him. Something was following him.

He whirled around.

The night was as calm as water, and weeds grew thickly. There was nothing behind him.

"Was I imagining it?"

Zhang Yuanqing stood frozen in terror for a moment, then started walking again.

"Rustle, rustle, rustle."

The footsteps came again. This time, he heard them clearly. Something really was following him.

It couldn't be this creepy, could it? He'd just entered the temple and already run into something evil? He didn't dare look back and quickened his pace.

The footsteps behind him quickened too.

Zhang Yuanqing couldn't hold it together anymore. Goose bumps rose across his skin as he sprinted toward the main hall.

The footsteps behind him clung to him like a shadow, hot on his heels.

During the chase, Zhang Yuanqing quickly burst out of the weeds and neared the main hall. He took the six steps in two bounds and finally burst through the two lattice doors with a thunderous crash.

The footsteps behind him abruptly stopped.

"Huff, huff..."

Panting heavily, he finally dared to look back. Moonlight spilled over the courtyard, the weeds, and the stone path. The stillness was terrifying, but there was nothing there.

"Good thing it didn't follow me."

After catching his breath, Zhang Yuanqing gently shut the main hall doors, as if shutting the fear outside.

Then he surveyed the hall. On a high stone platform stood an offering statue of a goddess. She wore a luxurious fur cloak and splendid robes. Her face was round, her eyes long and narrow, and her expression kindly.

The goddess held a horsetail whisk in one hand. Her other hand was shaped as if to grasp something, though it was empty now.

On either side stood a sword-bearing boy and a maid holding a book.

In front of the platform sat an offering table covered in dust. A candlestick stood on it, with a candle twenty centimeters long and as thick as a baby's forearm burning quietly.

The candlelight chased away the darkness, and seemed to chase away Zhang Yuanqing's fear as well. He felt much calmer.

Two faded, cracked wooden boards hung on the left wall, covered in lines of regular script.

Zhang Yuanqing strolled over to the wall and studied them by the dim candlelight. The writing was in classical Chinese.

His Chinese was fairly good. By piecing together what he could read and guess, he got a clear picture of his surroundings.

The mountain was called Three Paths Mountain, and the Mountain God worshipped in the temple was the Lady of Three Paths Mountain.

The Mountain Goddess had lived in Song Prefecture during the early Ming dynasty and practiced on Three Paths Mountain in Song Prefecture. She was proficient in talisman magic and alchemy, could summon rain and drive out ghosts, and blessed the region with favorable weather. The common people therefore revered her as a deity.

After she ascended, the local authorities built this temple on Three Paths Mountain and named it the Temple of the Lady of Three Paths Mountain. One of the Lady's successors managed the incense offerings and served as the Temple Keeper.

"A temple from the early Ming dynasty. It's been here for five or six hundred years," Zhang Yuanqing muttered.

At that moment, he casually glanced beneath the offering table, and his heart gave a sudden jolt.

A dark figure lay in the shadow beneath the table.

He'd been too frightened to pay attention earlier, and the candlelight was dim. He hadn't noticed it at first.

Zhang Yuanqing steeled himself and moved closer. On closer inspection, it was a corpse reduced to a skeleton.

He felt a wave of relief amid his terror. Compared to this eerie temple of the Mountain God, the skeleton was less frightening.

He stepped closer and, by the faint candlelight, made out the clothes on the skeleton: dusty work clothes.

A worker?

"Was this part of the construction crew back then? So I really did enter the world from the ghost story."

As soon as Zhang Yuanqing made the guess, an even more horrifying possibility occurred to him. Maybe the construction crew had blundered into this place, just like him.

That was how the urban legend had come about.

If the first possibility was true, then this so-called Spirit Realm had generated a setting based on the ghost story.

But if the second was true, it meant the ancient temple had always been here, and the construction crew had been victims just like him.

Based on the history of the Mountain God Temple, Zhang Yuanqing leaned toward the second possibility.

"An entire construction crew died in the temple, with only one person surviving. People really can die here. And now I've entered this temple too. I could face unknown dangers at any moment."

He drew a sharp breath, his nerves tightening again, and instinctively glanced around.

Then he suddenly realized a detail that sent a chill through him.

This ancient temple dated back to the Ming dynasty. It had been around for centuries. How could the candle still be burning? Who was replacing the candle in the main hall?

The more he thought about it, the more horrifying it seemed. Even the kind-faced statue appeared eerie and sinister in the candlelight.

The three clay statues were covered in dust, but lifelike, every detail carved with exquisite realism—especially their eyes.

Standing atop the platform, they stared down at Zhang Yuanqing from above in the dim candlelight.