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His sanity hit zero on the spot.

A chill surged up from his tailbone and shot straight to the crown of his head. Zhang Yuanqing sprang up like a cat with its fur standing on end, letting out a curse before he could stop himself:

"Fuck your mother!"

It was an instinctive outburst, the kind people made when they were hit with a powerful shock or fright.

At last, he understood why his shoulder had been so sore. He also understood why the corpse by the window had carried a bronze mirror with him.

It had been for checking whether a wraith was perched on his shoulder.

When did it climb onto my shoulder? When I entered the Siheyuan, or when I came into this room?

Who gave me the courage to venture out and explore? Liang Jingru?!

His mind was in chaos. All sorts of thoughts flashed through it at once, and terror swept over him like a raging tide.

He knew that something strange and terrifying lurked in this temple, and he'd been prepared for it. But now that he was facing a ghost for real, he was still gripped by an indescribable panic.

That's right, I've got a talisman. With trembling hands, Zhang Yuanqing pulled the Yellow Paper Talisman from the left pocket of his jacket and slapped it onto his shoulder, hoping it might do something.

Smack!

The Zombie Suppressing Talisman struck his shoulder. He raised the Brass Mirror and peered into it, only to see the pale-faced man with black lips and lifeless white eyes still perched on his shoulder.

It didn't work. This thing wasn't a corpse-type Yin creature. His last shred of hope vanished, and Zhang Yuanqing felt his shoulder growing more and more painful as his hands and feet turned cold.

These weren't imagined symptoms. His yang energy was genuinely draining away.

At that moment, Zhang Yuanqing thought of the skeleton beneath the table in the main hall and the man who had died by the window. He might very well end up dying here just like them.

A bone-deep chill welled up inside him.

"Tap, tap!"

Just then, at this critical moment, faint footsteps came from the hallway outside.

They were light, but in the dead of night, they sounded incredibly clear.

Zhang Yuanqing's heart clenched. He quickly crouched beside the corpse beneath the window.

The footsteps sounded familiar, much like the ones he'd heard when he entered the temple.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

The footsteps drew closer, heading this way. Zhang Yuanqing held his breath, his whole body taut. He could almost hear his heart pounding wildly.

As the footsteps passed the window, Zhang Yuanqing couldn't help glancing at the floor. Moonlight streamed in, casting the window's grid-shaped shadow across it.

The window was low, only waist-high. Anyone of normal height passing by outside would have been visible in the moonlight. But he saw nothing.

That meant whatever had passed by the window had no body.

Fortunately, the footsteps didn't stop by the window or enter the room. They gradually faded into the distance.

Whew. Zhang Yuanqing quietly let out a breath and focused on listening to the receding steps. He heard them enter the courtyard, where they rustled through the wild grass.

Then they stopped. A few seconds later, the footsteps started again.

This time, they weren't simple walking steps. They followed a steady rhythm, like someone marching in place.

What's it doing in the courtyard?

Bracing himself with his freezing body, Zhang Yuanqing struggled to his feet and peered through the tattered window paper.

Under the moonlight, in the wild grass, a pair of brand-new, Western-style red dancing shoes tapped out a dance in the night.

Moonlit night, ruined temple, red dancing shoes, dancing alone.

The sight was absurd and eerie, yet it carried an ineffable... loneliness?

How could there be a pair of Western-style dancing shoes in a Mountain God Temple from the Ming dynasty?

This ruined temple was getting stranger by the minute. He quietly crouched back down and waited patiently.

Time passed second by second. The wraith on his shoulder kept draining his yang energy, and his body grew increasingly stiff. The ache in his shoulder sharpened into a stabbing pain.

If this went on, he'd either die from losing all his yang energy or die from his shoulder bones breaking.

In the midst of his torment, the dancing in the courtyard stopped.

Zhang Yuanqing still didn't dare show himself. He waited a little longer before cautiously peeking out and looking through the window into the courtyard.

Moonlight filled the courtyard. The wild grass stood motionless, and the strange dancing shoes were gone.

"Whew."

He let out a long breath of relief and started to stand, but his knees buckled and he slumped to the ground.

Once his taut nerves relaxed and the adrenaline wore off, he realized how much worse off he was than he'd thought.

His shoulder burned with stabbing pain, as if the bone were about to split. His knees were stiff, and his blood seemed to have congealed.

He shakily picked up the bronze mirror. In its dusty surface, he saw his own deathly pale face, listless expression, and dull eyes. He looked nothing like a healthy person—more like someone on the verge of death.

The black-lipped wraith perched on his shoulder stared at him in eerie silence.

If this continued, he was as good as dead. But what could he do? He couldn't even touch the wraith on his shoulder.

The intense pain in his shoulder forced him to lean against the wall for support.

He glanced at the worker's remains. His posture was exactly the same as the corpse's.

"So that's how it is..." Zhang Yuanqing smiled bitterly.

He could almost see his own end and hear the sigh of the Death God.

But Zhang Yuanqing refused to give up on surviving. His mind was still active, like an overworked CPU, searching for a way out even in this desperate situation.

In a flash, he remembered the corpse beneath the table in the main hall, amid a jumble of scattered information.

"The two corpses have different degrees of shoulder-bone fractures. The shoulder injury of the skeleton in the main hall wasn't fatal. Did the Shoulder-Perching Wraith let him go? No, a wraith wouldn't show mercy."

"Why did he hide under the table?"

"The red dancing shoes had been following me secretly ever since I entered the temple. But when I went into the main hall, they left."

At that thought, a glimmer of hope lit Zhang Yuanqing's dull, clouded eyes.

Back to the main hall. I have to get back there now!

He immediately got up and stumbled out of the room. Every step was an ordeal, as if he were carrying a mountain on his back.

"Thud!"

He fell in the courtyard, landing in the wild grass. He couldn't get back up.

Zhang Yuanqing's teeth chattered, clicking together with a "tak-tak" sound. He felt as if he were trapped in the bitter cold of winter.

The "cold" stole his warmth and gnawed at his will.

Zhang Yuanqing crawled toward the main hall inch by inch, putting all his strength into it. He kept his head raised, making sure the outline of the building ahead stayed in his line of sight.

That way, the hope in his eyes wouldn't go out.

It had taken only about a minute to walk from the main hall to here. Now it seemed as distant as the ends of the earth.

At last, the instant he crawled beneath the eaves of the main hall, a ghostly scream rang in his ears. The weight on his shoulder lifted, and the cold, dizziness, stiffness, and other negative effects disappeared at once.

Zhang Yuanqing scrambled onto the platform, staggered around to the front of the main hall, pushed open the lattice door, and collapsed over the threshold.

The candlelight was a tiny flame, but it dispelled the gloom and brought warmth that felt like a spring breeze.

He lay spread-eagled on the floor, his chest heaving as he panted. Only after lying there for two or three minutes did he finally feel alive again.

"That was terrifying. So terrifying... My theory was right. The main hall is a safe haven."

The difference in the shoulder injuries of the two skeletons convinced him that something had stopped the wraith from pursuing the person inside the hall.

The worker had died curled up beneath the table, just as someone might hide when gripped by extreme fear.

In that worker's mind, the main hall was safe.

And the fact that the red dancing shoes had stopped chasing him further confirmed the theory.

Zhang Yuanqing stayed in the main hall until the pain in his shoulder subsided and his body temperature returned to normal.

Sure enough, he didn't encounter any more danger.

"If the main hall is a safe house, then my chances of surviving have obviously gone way up. Even if the Shoulder-Perching Wraith drains my essence again, I can escape back here. But if I run into the wraith while the red dancing shoes are chasing me too, I probably won't make it back to the main hall.

"And the strangest, most terrifying source of this temple's horrors is definitely more than just the wraith..."

He didn't feel smug just because he'd survived one brush with death. This ancient temple was no simple place.

After all, an entire construction crew had died here before him.

After resting for a long while, he gradually overcame his fear. He was debating whether to go back out and explore when the voice in his mind spoke again:

[Main Quest 1: Survive for three hours (Completed)]

[Main Quest 2: Explore Spirit Realm No. 0079, Progress: 20%]

[Yuanshi Tianzun, congratulations on completing a main quest. Calculating your reward...]

[Item obtained: Zombie Suppressing Talisman (view in Inventory).]

[Experience gained: 15%]

[Inventory unlocked.]

[You will receive 36 hours of rest. Spirit Realm No. 0079 will next open in: 35:59:40.]

The scene inside the main hall warped, like a pool of water rippling in the wind.

When the image came back into focus, Zhang Yuanqing saw the bright LED lights, the spacious bed, the desk, the PS5, and the open window. A breeze came in, stirring the curtains.

He was back in the human world.

"I'm back?"

He looked around in astonishment, and only after confirming that he really was back in his room did his knees give way. He collapsed onto the soft bed.

He took a deep breath. Even the air smelled sweet.

It was good to be alive. It was good to be back in the human world.

After taking a few minutes to recover, Zhang Yuanqing sat up and unzipped his jacket. As expected, the Zombie Suppressing Talisman was gone.

The thought "retrieve item" came naturally to Zhang Yuanqing. The next moment, a glowing blue grid appeared before his eyes.

It had five slots. The first held the yellow paper talisman.

It was a strange experience. Once the Inventory was unlocked, using it felt like second nature. He didn't need to learn how; he simply knew how to open it.

"Apart from the Zombie Suppressing Talisman, I also got 15% experience, but my level is still zero. That means I haven't become a Night Wanderer yet. I'm still an ordinary person."

"Just surviving for three hours almost got me killed in there. How am I supposed to complete the second quest? Is this what an S-rank difficulty is like?"

The more Zhang Yuanqing thought about it, the more hopeless he felt. He suspected Brother Bing had set him up.

This damn card really could change his life, but it was also incredibly hard to handle.

He knew his own limits. He was just a college student who'd never even killed a chicken. There was little chance he'd survive the second quest on his own.

As a good, upstanding young man raised under socialism, he obviously needed to rely on the country and the government.

So he picked up his phone, intending to call his cousin. But as his finger touched the screen, he suddenly stopped.

Zhang Yuanqing realized he might have a better option.

He got out of bed, went straight to the desk, and found the business card the slick-haired man had left in the drawer.

The card had a name and contact information.

Tonight's experience reminded him of Brother Bing's mysterious disappearance. If Zhang Yuanqing hadn't made it out alive, he would have disappeared just as mysteriously.

Brother Bing had definitely encountered the so-called Spirit Realm long ago. Maybe he'd disappeared because he'd entered one.

Based on that, the Public Security Bureau investigators could be trusted.

He had another reason for contacting the slick-haired man: the man had said that Zhang Yuanqing might disappear too. That had to be a hint that he would enter a Spirit Realm.

And since his cousin knew nothing about it, Zhang Yuanqing had reason to believe the three men were specialists who dealt with these kinds of incidents.

Once he'd figured that out, Zhang Yuanqing dialed the number on the business card.

After a few seconds of ringing, someone picked up. A mature man's low voice asked:

"Who is this?"