WTNL Chapter 454

Yuying University
Chapter 454: You are finally alone, my dear

Wen Jianyan stood frozen in place, silently staring at the all-too-familiar scene before him.

For those few fleeting seconds, his mind went completely blank.

The surrounding darkness was thick and viscous like porridge. Beneath his feet stretched endless soft, ocher soil, sprawling endlessly into the distance. A bone-chilling coldness crept upward from the soles of his feet, as though he were plunging into an abyss.

His feet felt rooted in the ground, nailed down so firmly that he could not move.

Countless images surged forth from memory, all jostling to flood into his mind.

The icy-red bridal sedan chair, the paper effigies carrying it, offerings laid out before a grave, the lifeless stillness of an abandoned courtyard.

Ceaseless rain, empty streets, grave mounds stretching to the horizon.

These seemingly unrelated instances—yet all of them led to the same place—

This graveyard.

It was as if some invisible force had, in an incomprehensible way, threaded everything together, weaving an immense and seamless web that blotted out the sky.

The realization gave Wen Jianyan a suffocating illusion.

“Hey.”

Suddenly, a voice came from beside him. “What are you dazing out for?”

“…!”

The abruptness of it startled Wen Jianyan, making him jolt.

He snapped his head toward the source of the voice.

Standing before him was a faceless person, arms crossed, tilting her head in mild impatience.

Even though her features remained blank, her voice stripped of all distinguishing qualities, Wen Jianyan recognized her instantly.

It was Orange Candy.

Since disembarking the bus, Wen Jianyan had lingered in place for too long, and she was beginning to grow irritable.

“…Nothing.”

Wen Jianyan shook his head, as though pulling himself free from the tangle of thoughts just now.

Orange Candy gave him a skeptical glance. Although she wasn’t as perceptive as he was when it came to body language, even she could sense his distracted state of mind.

“What, did you change your mind?” she asked, frowning.

Wen Jianyan had by now fully regained his composure. “No.”

He looked at Orange Candy and said, “Be careful during this run. Whatever happens, don’t stray too far from the bus, and absolutely don’t go deep into this land. Stay away from the raised mounds. What’s buried beneath them isn’t something you can handle easily.”

This, he had already learned all too well back in the Xingwang Hotel instance.

If this really was the same graveyard, then beneath every mound lay a real “ghost.”

Unlike NPCs, they had no emotions, no thoughts—only mindless, indiscriminate slaughter.

Letting even one out would be courting certain death.

The gravity in Wen Jianyan’s words made Orange Candy instinctively tense.

“What do you mean, you know this place?”

To have reached a conclusion so quickly, pinpointing the taboos—there was almost no other explanation.

“Wait a sec, what do you mean by ‘your action this time’?” She suddenly seemed to realize something, cocking her head with a frown. “You’re not coming with us?”

Wen Jianyan: “…Right.”

“What?” Orange Candy’s voice shot up several pitches. “Why not?”

Wen Jianyan didn’t answer immediately.

Truth was, before getting off the bus, he hadn’t intended to act alone.

But now…

He lifted his eyes toward the desolate graveyard ahead.

In the darkness, the ocher mounds lay silent and still. To the naked eye, there was no visible danger. But only Wen Jianyan knew this apparent calm was a lie—unspeakable horrors lurked beneath the soil.

This graveyard was like the hidden base layer beneath film stock, invisible at a glance, yet revealed if one examined frame by frame.

It was everywhere.

The thought made Wen Jianyan shiver.

Somehow, he felt a premonition.

This graveyard might be far more significant than he’d imagined.

Not just for one particular instance—perhaps for the entire Nightmare.

Or maybe…

For the entire world?

“Anyway, remember what I said.” Wen Jianyan pulled his gaze back, turning toward Orange Candy. “Don’t leave the bus. And once the designated boarding time arrives, return immediately—no matter what. Understand?”

“…”

Orange Candy studied him for a long moment. She seemed to grasp that his decision was final.

With a shrug, she said nonchalantly, “Fine, suit yourself. Be careful.”

Wen Jianyan gave her a brief nod, then turned and strode away into the distance.

The ground beneath was soft and heavy, each step giving the sensation of sinking, cold seeping upward, making one instinctively want to pull away. But the next step would still land on the same soil—there was no escape.

Even though the initial jolt from stepping off the bus had passed, a chill still ran down Wen Jianyan’s spine.

This was, after all, a place meant only for the dead to tread.

Back in the Changsheng Building, he had never truly left that path leading out from the courtyard. In the Xingwang Hotel, he had relied on a mask just to set foot here briefly, and even then the mask had been ceaselessly eroded by unseen forces. Once it was consumed, his only protection would vanish.

At that point…

He would be trapped in this graveyard forever.

This time, however, the situation was somewhat different.

For some reason, they had been allowed into this land of the dead without needing any items.

This couldn’t simply be because the instance had changed and so had the rules. The horror lurking here was not so simple, and Wen Jianyan wasn’t naïve enough to think otherwise.

That was why he had warned Orange Candy so sternly:

Don’t wander from the bus. When the time comes, get back immediately.

The closer one stayed to the instance’s product, the more controllable the risks.

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, the icy air filling his lungs, sharpening his thoughts.

He lowered his head, checking his backpack.

All items were intact.

Next, he did something unusual—he actively opened his livestream.

Ever since he no longer needed viewer donations to earn survival points, Wen Jianyan rarely took the initiative to interact with his audience. Pragmatic as he was, he knew that in later, high-level instances, bending over backward to please viewers simply wasn’t worth the effort.

Of course… if they ever became useful again, he would go back to smiling and obliging.

His warmth was as practiced as his coldness.

He lowered his gaze, eyes curving with a smile as he scanned the barrage of comments—welcomes, complaints, insults. His expression didn’t shift in the slightest.

“Good morning.”

The livestream visuals weren’t affected by the instance debuffs. On screen, the young man squinted his light-colored eyes, lips curved upward in a smile warm enough to be genuine and likable.

“It’s been a while. I really missed you all.”

His tone was natural, the tail end of his words lifting slightly with just the right amount of cheer, like the casual brush of a fluffy tail tip.

Three seconds later, gifts on the barrage surged even more wildly.

“Is the stream quality okay for everyone?” Wen Jianyan asked with concern. “I heard Nightmare’s data transmission has been unstable lately, really ruining the viewing experience.”

As the viewers clamored with complaints, he dropped his eyes pitifully and apologized:

“I’m really sorry.”

Within moments, gifts spiked to new heights.

[It’s not your fault!]

[Blame Nightmare! Total scam! They pocket all the profits but can’t even maintain decent quality!]

“So how is it now? Still smooth?” Wen Jianyan asked warmly.

The responses and gifts came even faster, voices overlapping.

[Not great!]

[You might not see it, but our screens are full of static, with delays too. Nightmare’s been glitching constantly lately, it’s driving us crazy!]

[Exactly! It never used to be this bad. These bugs are draining all my patience…]

In barely over a minute, [Integrity First]’s donation count soared into the site’s top three—an impressive haul.

“I see.”

Wen Jianyan smiled.

The next moment, he dropped the smile, exited the stream—

And left behind a barrage of question marks.

In the “Integrity First” livestream chat:

[?]
[??]
[Huh? He left?]
[Already?!!]

The audience stared blankly, bewildered, a strange sense gnawing at them—

Why did it feel like they’d just been used and discarded?

After leaving the livestream, Wen Jianyan’s smile faded completely.

The signal hadn’t been great.

Each question he asked had taken several seconds before answers came back, and the audience had clearly expressed dissatisfaction.

From past experience, Nightmare wasn’t omnipotent. The higher the instance’s difficulty, the more obvious its limits became—even some areas where its authority could not reach.

But this graveyard clearly wasn’t one of them.

Though his prior experiences here had been far from pleasant, aside from that one time he was dragged into the paper sedan, the signal had never cut out, and his items had mostly functioned normally.

This place was more like a buffer zone—between the areas Nightmare fully controlled and those it could not touch at all.

Wen Jianyan looked around once more.

Though still a boundless graveyard under shrouding darkness, this time the mounds were far fewer, scattered sparsely about. In his previous visits, they had been countless, densely packed, terrifying to behold.

Clearly, the danger of the graveyard was tied to its depth. And right now, they stood at its “edge.”

…Or at least closer to reality’s side.

Perhaps that was why they could remain safe, for now.

But if they were at the edge, Nightmare’s control here should have been stronger.

—So why was the signal weaker?

Wen Jianyan didn’t yet know.

He lowered his eyes, fingers absently rubbing together, deep in thought.

After thinking carefully, Wen Jianyan decided not to continue venturing deeper.

Even though this was not the first time he had come to this place, he still did not dare to act recklessly.

He knew very well that if he lost his way here, there would never again be a chance of leaving. Once he wandered into some unknown region, perhaps even the nightmare itself would be powerless against it.

Wen Jianyan drew in a deep breath, pulled back his steps, and turned toward one of the groups of anchors.

Although he still wanted very much to uncover the secrets hidden deep within this graveyard, for now, understanding the mechanics of this instance was far more urgent.

Fortunately, the identity of “club member” gave him this excellent opportunity.

He could simply avoid participating, and observe quietly.

---

Darkness stretched bottomless, boundless coldness pressing in from all directions.

One of the anchors bent down, working hard to scoop the grave soil into a white cloth bag.

His expression forced calm, but his face had turned involuntarily pale.

His name was Arno.

In truth, as an anchor, his rank was not low. Outside, he was even the vice-president of a small guild, renowned within intermediate-level instances, surrounded by crowds of admirers. But even so, if this instance had originally been rated as SS-level, he absolutely would never have entered.

But…

“Yuying University” had originally been a B-level instance. Even though it was upgraded after distortion, its difficulty still fell short of an original SS-level instance.

And since the instance’s rating was far above the anchor’s, the rewards were also better than an ordinary SS-level instance.

For people like them—who were only one step away from entering the ranks of high-level anchors—it was an irresistible temptation.

What’s more, this instance was an “open-type” instance. Its hallmark was long duration, high freedom, and difficulty depending on the path the anchor chose. In other words, most dangers could, in theory, be avoided.

So, driven by this wishful thinking, Arno hardened his heart, clenched his teeth, and chose to enter “Yuying University” for profit.

And the experiences of the first day had basically confirmed his speculation.

Indeed, although many dangerous situations had appeared, they had ultimately all been overcome. After surviving yesterday, Arno had relaxed slightly.

Sure enough, with a B-level foundation propping it up, no matter how hard, it couldn’t be that hard.

But today, the moment he got off the bus, Arno sensed something wrong.

His talent was spirit-medium related, giving him a perception of danger far superior to others. The instant he set foot on this land, an overwhelming unease struck him.

This place…

was far too yin.

He had thought that leaving campus meant leaving the center of danger. But he hadn’t expected that the threat he felt from this graveyard was even more terrifying than any area he had entered within Yuying University itself.

A chilling dampness spread up from his feet. With every step forward, Arno felt as if his very soul was being eroded.

He sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself calm.

He consoled himself inwardly.

No matter what, they only needed to stay here for at most two hours. As long as the white bag was filled, he could board the bus back.

And with earth everywhere on this mountain, and the bag not even large, surely it couldn’t be too difficult.

Arno lowered his head, plunged his fingers into the soft, cold, yellow-brown earth, and shoveled handful after handful into the bag. Each time his fingers touched the soil, they stiffened a little more, a corpse-like bluish pallor spreading from his fingertips, as though the yin energy was slowly rotting them away.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to use some tool other than his hands to dig.

But for some reason, no matter what tool he used, the seemingly ordinary heavy earth would simply slide off the blade, not a grain could be taken up.

Not even specialized items worked.

Through his labor, in less than a few minutes, the bag was full.

Arno let out a long sigh, wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, and pushed himself up with stiffened knees.

But as soon as he straightened, the bag suddenly split open at the bottom, and all the yellow-brown soil poured back out.

“No… no, how could this happen?!”

Arno’s face turned ashen. He bent down, trying to stop the spillage, but his effort was useless.

Very soon, the bag was empty again.

He peered inside.

The bottom of the white bag was completely intact, not a tear to be seen, yet no soil remained inside.

“…?”

Arno froze.

But after a brief daze, he quickly came to his senses.

The balloon of luck he had been clutching burst.

Sure enough—in an SS-level instance, tasks that looked simple on the surface were never what they seemed.

Wiping his sweat with his arm, Arno gritted his teeth, took the bag, and turned toward the bus.

The bus looked the same as when it had dropped them off—dilapidated, quietly standing in the barren land, its filthy windows black within, eerie and strange.

But the instant he stepped on the boarding step, his HP dropped by a chunk.

“?!”

Arno paled with fright, stumbling back.

Before he could steady himself, a voice rang out from above his head:

“You cannot return before completing the task.”

Arno felt a chill down his spine and turned.

A teacher was standing inside the bus, looking down on him. That pale face was hidden in shadow, eerie and ghastly.

Arno gathered his courage and asked, trembling:

“Teacher, s-sorry, my bag seems to have a problem, all the soil just—”

The teacher’s features hidden in darkness, Arno could not see his expression.

“It means the soil you gathered was not of sufficient quality.”

“…”

Arno stiffened.

The soil… not qualified?

Before he could react further, the teacher melted back into the darkness and vanished.

Arno stood rooted in place, not daring to step forward again.

Suddenly, something dawned on him. He froze, then whipped around to look behind him—

Stretching into the distance, scattered among the yellow earth, were solitary graves.

If ordinary soil was “unqualified”… then what kind of soil would be?

The answer was obvious.

Grave soil.

Cold prickled all over Arno’s skin.

The instant he realized it, fear welled up from the depths of his soul.

But he knew… if he didn’t want to die, he had to finish the task.

No matter how terrified he was, he had to find a solitary grave, scoop its soil, and fill the bag.

Arno drew a deep breath, clenched his teeth, gripped the bag, and walked toward a nearby grave.

Very soon, he reached it.

From a distance, it hadn’t seemed much. But the closer he came, the more terrified he felt. The mound of yellow-brown earth rose silent and dead, without a sign of life. Yet an indescribable chill emanated from it. Just standing in front of it, an intense discomfort spread through his body, making him tremble uncontrollably.

Calm down. Calm down.

Arno reminded himself.

No matter what, this had to be done.

He crouched, carefully dug his fingers into the grave soil, and scooped a handful into the bag.

As the soil slid from his fingers, his hand immediately turned gray-blue—the corpse-rot spreading far faster than before.

Arno’s heart thudded.

He pulled his hand back and looked down at the bag dangling from his grasp.

Soft and empty, the bag hung slack—but at the bottom, there was now a small mound of soil.

This time, no opening appeared.

“….”

Arno exhaled shakily.

It seemed the soil’s quality was finally acceptable.

His guess was right. Ordinary dirt was useless. Only the grave soil counted.

He crouched again, carefully filling the bag with more.

But under an invisible mechanism, he failed to notice that each time his hand plunged into the grave, his SAN value ticked down a little.

Time passed. The bag filled bit by bit.

Oblivious to his dwindling sanity, Arno pressed on.

Almost there. Almost there.

Seeing the bag nearly full, his spirits lifted. He stretched out his hand again toward the grave mound, now slightly collapsed, determined to finish in one go.

His fingers entered the earth—when suddenly, something icy clamped tight around his wrist.

“?!”

Arno jerked violently, trying to retreat. But the soil beneath him gave way. He slipped, falling flat on his back, the bag slipping open.

He tried to activate an item, but before he could use it, a pale hand shot out from inside the bag, gripping his wrist.

Soil poured out.

The earth carried some power that nullified everything—his activated item instantly lost effect.

“No… no, no no no no!”

Arno’s eyes bulged in horror, despair flooding them, as the living soil surged in from all sides, plugging his ears, his eyes, his nose, his mouth.

In less than a minute, silence returned to the grave.

The place was empty, as if nothing had happened.

Darkness pressed in, absolute.

Only the slightly collapsed mound remained.

Not far away, Wen Jianyan stood, watching.

His expression was complicated.

Through a thin membrane, a faceless man crawled out from under the grave. He patted off the dirt, muttering curses under his breath.

It seemed that while wearing the badge, the soil couldn’t harm him. But once it was removed—even escaping quickly—he had still been injured.

Very soon, he noticed Wen Jianyan.

“….”

The faceless man looked startled, but quickly regained composure.

He “glanced” at Wen Jianyan coldly. Knowing this person posed no threat to him, he crouched and rummaged through the soil—searching for the anchor’s badge.

When a anchor was killed by a club member, a badge appeared on their corpse, waiting to be collected by someone within the membrane.

But soon, the faceless man sprang up, shaking dirt off his hands, swearing:

“Damn it… should’ve buried him shallower next time.”

The dirt fell away, revealing pale palms.

He spat, cursing viciously:

“Bad luck.”

Then he turned and left.

Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes, staring at the grave mound.

He had witnessed everything.

He crouched in front of it.

The mound, now partially collapsed, gaped black beneath, exuding an aura of deadly danger.

But Wen Jianyan knew—the truly dangerous “ghost” buried here had not awakened.

Otherwise, the terror it unleashed would be unstoppable for anyone present.

That death had not come from the graveyard’s hidden horror, but from a club member’s hunt.

Once donning a badge, a club member became that monster Wen Jianyan had seen before. They hid in the soil, waiting until the anchor’s SAN was too eroded to resist, then struck, burying them alive. This time, however, the club member had made a small mistake, burying his prey too deep, preventing him from retrieving the badge without risking damage himself.

And now, more anchors had realized the soil’s role, more were heading this way.

In such a situation, putting the badge back on risked not being able to remove it in time.

So, weighing the pros and cons, the club member abandoned this prize.

Wen Jianyan exhaled, brushed dust off his knees, and prepared to stand.

But suddenly, a strange sensation prickled behind him—

The chilling dread of being watched.

“?!”

He froze, whipping around.

In the nearby darkness stood a man of medium build.

His face was ghastly pale, as if plastered over with thick lime. His dull black eyes stared fixedly at Wen Jianyan. Though the membrane still separated them, Wen Jianyan felt with absolute certainty—

The man was watching him.

“——!”

Wen Jianyan sucked in a sharp breath, stumbling back.

Impossible!

He remembered—in that fleeting moment before boarding the bus earlier, the man’s gaze had seemed to brush over him, then quickly withdraw—

That had not been illusion.

It had been disguise.

The Mason’s mouth curved slowly into a cold smile. His sticky gaze slid over Wen Jianyan, licking him from head to toe.

“You really made me wait too long.”

“This time, you’re finally alone, my dear.”

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