Chapter 116: “You don’t know how important you are.”
“This doesn’t sound very reliable to me,” Shen Ti leaned in, squeezing between An Wujiu and Zhou Yijue. “I never come across such good things.”
Zhou Yijue retracted his palm. “Maybe it’s an Easter egg in the game. Many games have hidden Easter egg programs for players to find at certain levels. It’s nothing special.”
Noah’s shoulders slumped, and she looked up with a helpless expression at An Wujiu. “I’ve already tried to persuade him.”
An Wujiu found the strange part not to be the sudden appearance of the Snow Fairy or the Easter egg, but rather the benefits brought by this fire seed—the miracle of rebirth.
How could it so conveniently match Zhou Yijue’s greatest wish at the moment?
“Then let him keep it,” Shen Ti shrugged. “After all, if something goes wrong, it’s not our problem.”
So everyone returned to the temple together. During the journey, An Wujiu asked for more information about the woman they encountered earlier. Noah recalled some details and mentioned something she found odd.
“That sister was covered in wounds. After thanking us, she asked, ‘Is it really okay to let her go like this?’ as if she were deliberately emphasizing that point.”
An Wujiu frowned slightly. “And then?”
Noah told him, “Then I said, since it’s already been unlocked, you can go.”
Zhou Yijue, on the side, repeated what the woman had said. “It felt like she had escaped from somewhere. She said if she hadn’t met us, she would definitely be dead like those other people by tomorrow.”
Shen Ti raised an eyebrow. “Tomorrow? Isn’t tomorrow…” He turned to look at An Wujiu.
“Yes, the festival the townspeople emphasized.” An Wujiu walked in the snow, speaking to everyone, “This should be part of the game’s storyline. Besides the faction conflicts, I guess we also need to solve the mystery of the Water City.”
“Speaking of which…” Nan Shan began, “Wu You and I talked with the local townspeople while fetching food. They said the leaders and nobles of Water City often go out, but only to nearby places. Also, religion is very prevalent here. Every household believes in the gods, and the level of religious infiltration is very high. There are grand festival ceremonies every month.”
“What exactly do they do during the ceremonies?” Noah frowned, the horrible memories resurfacing again. “Is it like what we did last evening?”
Wu You shook his head. “They didn’t say, only that all townspeople must participate during the festival. Normally, alcohol is prohibited here, but during the festival, the ban is lifted, and people drink, feast, and celebrate. It sounds like just a festive event.”
From what they said, it indeed seemed harmless, but considering the woman who appeared and disappeared in the snow, it probably wasn’t that simple.
The townspeople of Water City, although dressed simply, had shelters and enough resources to survive the storm, unlike the woman.
Her appearance indicated that, besides the townspeople of Water City, there was another group here.
In just two days, three players had already died, and another awaited the dusk sacrifice, leaving only eight people in the temple.
Entering the room, An Wujiu took off his cloak and walked towards the stone screen, finally stopping in front of the giant statue.
Shen Ti stood beside him, looking up at the massive stone sculpture. “This god looks really ugly.”
An Wujiu glanced at him, smiling. “You’re a priest here; isn’t it disrespectful to say that?”
“It really is ugly.” Shen Ti didn’t care at all. Instead, he shifted his attention to something else, leaning in slightly and whispering to An Wujiu, “Do I look this ugly too?”
An Wujiu couldn’t help but laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” Shen Ti felt something was off. “Forget it, as long as I’m not ugly now.”
Not just not ugly.
An Wujiu suppressed his smile. “I think you look exactly like my ideal type.”
These words, said in any other context by any other person, would sound like flattery or flirting. But between Shen Ti and An Wujiu, it made sense.
“Maybe that’s the case.” Shen Ti laughed, putting his arm around An Wujiu’s shoulder. “Not bad taste.” He pointed to the statue and examined it. “If they had this kind of taste, I would really look like a freak.”
An Wujiu didn’t like him saying that, nudging him with his elbow.
Shen Ti immediately realized his mistake and quickly corrected himself. “No, I mean an ugly monster.”
An Wujiu laughed helplessly and was about to speak when Nan Shan’s voice came from behind.
“So, you’re here too.” Nan Shan smiled, his current attire fitting his needs well, with wide sleeves covering his hands.
Seeing someone else, Shen Ti turned and suddenly asked, “Nan Shan, do you think I’m good-looking?”
Nan Shan was stunned, glancing at An Wujiu as if seeking help.
“Why are you looking at him? Look at me!” Shen Ti pointed to his face.
“Good-looking, yes…” Nan Shan stammered, “But…”
Shen Ti almost rolled his eyes. “How can there be a ‘but’? Your taste must be off.” After the complaint, he turned and saw An Wujiu’s eyes curved in laughter.
It had been a long time since he laughed like this.
“That’s not what I meant.” Nan Shan explained awkwardly, “But personally, I might not like this type; it’s too tall…”
Shen Ti also laughed, “Who asked you to like it?!” He leaned on An Wujiu’s shoulder, laughing. After enough laughter, he asked Nan Shan again, “Then what height do you like?”
“Well…” Nan Shan thought for a moment, and surprisingly, a person came to mind, startling him.
“Well what?” Shen Ti glanced at An Wujiu. “My personal advice is to rule out the height around 1.8 meters. It doesn’t suit you.”
Then he seriously asked, “What type do you like?”
“I like…” Nan Shan suddenly stammered, unable to describe anything specific, before a familiar voice suddenly came from behind.
“Taoist?” Wu You walked over, noticing Shen Ti and An Wujiu and feeling a bit puzzled. “Why are you all crowding here?”
Shen Ti felt that Wu You interrupted their aesthetic discussion. “Hey, you little kid, don’t meddle in adult matters. Be good and play by yourself.”
Wu You disdainfully pulled him away from An Wujiu. “You should play by yourself. You’re always clinging to Wujiu-ge. Aren’t you annoying?”
An Wujiu had long been used to their bickering. He smiled and looked away, just in time to see Nan Shan staring at Wu You in a daze.
“Nan Shan?”
Hearing An Wujiu’s voice, Nan Shan snapped back to reality and met his gaze.
An Wujiu sensed something but didn’t say anything, discreetly changing the topic. “You came here to look at this statue too, right?”
Nan Shan nodded. “Yes, I found it strange.” He walked closer to An Wujiu and pointed at the statue. “Generally speaking, early human worship of gods often stemmed from nature, so the images of gods were usually derived from animals and plants within their living environment or from humans themselves. But this stone sculpture…”
An Wujiu said, “Isn’t it too bizarre?”
Nan Shan nodded. “Actually, speaking of bizarre, some religious texts I’ve seen before also had strange depictions. But this one in front of us, it feels uncomfortable just staring at it. Generally, people have preferences for the images of gods; some lean towards majestic and solemn, others towards beauty or primitiveness. But there’s rarely this type that doesn’t look like a positive depiction of a god.”
This reminded An Wujiu of the god he summoned in his childhood, which was the true form of Shen Ti.
Compared to this disgusting statue, which combined various animal limbs and numerous serpent eyes, that form was more ephemeral and unpredictable, never quite the same, as if each time he saw only a part of the god.
“You mean the god people here believe in is somewhat off?” An Wujiu said.
Nan Shan nodded. “Look at where they placed it. Temples and shrines are meant to worship deities, but no shrine hides a god on an entire wall. This approach itself is offensive.”
This was indeed the case.
“And look at the totems in their murals,” Nan Shan pointed at the ceiling, analyzing. “Every religion’s murals reflect what the religion itself advocates and abhors.”
From the moment An Wujiu entered, he observed the paintings, which were mostly of warriors wielding weapons.
“They are warlike.”
Nan Shan nodded. “I think so too. These totems depict their battle scenes. They wear brightly colored clothes and feathers on their heads, probably to intimidate their enemies on the battlefield.”
Shen Ti listened to half of it and stopped arguing with Wu You. “So, the leader here frequently goes out to fight?”
Wu You also suddenly understood. “This explains why the townspeople said their leader brings back lots of food and gifts. Those are spoils of war.”
A city built by fervent warriors likely worshiped a god related to battle.
An Wujiu pondered silently, suddenly seeing Megan come out of the rest area, looking pale.
She glanced at them defensively and then turned away.
“I think this game isn’t as simple as good people killing werewolves and werewolves killing good people,” Nan Shan said to them. “Like the girl Noah and the others met today, I think tomorrow’s festival will reveal more clues.”
An Wujiu thought of Yasia, who had warmly welcomed them, and her strange husband. He felt that the story of the Water City wouldn’t be so simple.
In this place, their hunger and fatigue were more pronounced and severe than usual. So they shared the food given by the townspeople and then went to rest.
Shen Ti claimed he wasn’t feeling well and said his room was too cold, insisting on squeezing into a small bed with An Wujiu, hugging him from behind.
An Wujiu lay in a secure embrace but couldn’t sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, it was as if he were lying flat on an operating table, having his arm shattered by machinery, his skin and muscles cut open, and cold forceps reaching in to pick out the bone fragments bit by bit.
To test his pain tolerance, they performed these so-called experiments without any anesthesia, only putting a muzzle on him, tying him up, and then locking him in a blank room with nothing, not even a bed, after they were done.
He could only lie limp on the floor, unable to get up, like an abused dog. An Wujiu suddenly realized why he was so sensitive to sounds and things yet to happen, even being able to distinguish the sound of Shen Ti’s earrings colliding.
Because when he was locked up, he feared sounds the most, especially the sound of doors opening. Hearing it, he would instinctively curl up and retreat because he didn’t know what would happen next. Would it be electrodes placed on his temples and head for excruciating electrical stimulation, or repeated mental pollution exercises to strengthen his psychic powers?
One of the many contents of the pollution was constantly showing images of people dying, various people, in various ways. For a long time, An Wujiu’s brain was numb. When he saw the living researchers, he also felt they were walking corpses.
When he calmly accepted any pollution without reaction, he would receive a small reward—a whole day of rest. However, during this rest time, he could still hear the repeatedly played sounds: about supreme moral standards, about helping, about sacrifice, about all of humanity.
But the frightening thing was that, besides these physical experiments, they would also train his abilities. Different people taught him different knowledge. Everything he had now was given to him by those people.
Shen Ti, with his eyes closed, hadn’t fallen asleep. He could feel An Wujiu trembling slightly in his arms, even trying to suppress his shaking.
Shen Ti held him tighter, resting his chin in the hollow of An Wujiu’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
An Wujiu opened his eyes, pulled out of his past nightmare by Shen Ti’s words.
“Why are you saying this?” He turned around to face Shen Ti, looking into his eyes.
Shen Ti couldn’t accept that he had been just a bystander in the past. For the first time, he felt regret over something.
Even though An Wujiu couldn’t hear Shen Ti’s thoughts—he didn’t have such a superpower—he could feel Shen Ti’s sadness because of love.
He hugged Shen Ti, resting his face against his warm collarbone.
“You have no idea how important you are.”
To An Wujiu in the past, those who looked human, wearing elite clothing and having grandiose reasons, committed extremely cruel acts against him, keeping him in a ten-square-meter room, like a man-made virus surviving in a petri dish.
And the only one who gave him solace and the courage to live was a god seen as terrifying and indescribable by worldly standards. That god was far more powerful than any mental pollution experiment, driving anyone who glimpsed him mad.
His normal kind turned An Wujiu into a monster who could only be saved by another monster.
“I love you, Shen Ti,” An Wujiu’s voice trembled, “Without you, I wouldn’t exist.”
Shen Ti hugged him back, but in reality, long ago, he wouldn’t have known how to hug.
Now, wasn’t he also someone created by An Wujiu?
An Wujiu felt pathetic yet happy. At least he could meet Shen Ti, and when he met him, those memories didn’t exist. He could love him without any worries.
He understood that his amnesia might have been deliberate, but at least without those memories, he could meet these precious people like a normal person.
If the An Wujiu, who had been trapped in experiments for ten years, were directly placed on the altar, it wouldn’t have been a good outcome.
No matter how unwilling they were, the twilight sacrifice came as scheduled. With the urging of the holy sound, the rested group gathered in the hall of the temple. A new stone coffin appeared, inside was Matsubara Mori.
An Wujiu looked down at Matsubara’s face, feeling a bit of sadness.
A person approached him, and looking up, he saw Zhou Yijue.
“I want to give you this.” Zhou Yijue opened his hand to him, revealing the fire seed he had obtained.
“Why?”
“I’m afraid I’ll be controlled again.” He looked at An Wujiu and said, “You don’t seem to be controlled, nor does Shen Ti.”
An Wujiu asked, “How do you know?”
“Although I can’t do anything when controlled, my mind is blank, but after it ends, I remember the sacrificial events. You successfully resisted but passed out, and Shen Ti wasn’t controlled at all.” Zhou Yijue explained to him and then, in a pleading gesture, offered the fire seed to him, “Please help me this time.”
An Wujiu nodded, took the fire seed from his hand, and silently joined the others in lifting the stone coffin, heading towards the sacrificial site.
The wind and snow outside were stronger, with the soon-to-set sun ahead and the blood moon emitting endless blood light and gradually rising behind. Their steps were heavy, each one sinking into deep snow, while eerie, ancient cries sounded in their ears, chilling them to the bone.
This time, An Wujiu could clearly feel he was in a much better state than before, no longer so drowsy.
However, when he set down the stone coffin, and the blue flames appeared out of nowhere, a powerful force instantly restrained his whole body, and an inexplicable resistance emerged.
An Wujiu saw three faintly transparent pillars appear behind the blue flames, like congealed ice.
Before going up the mountain, he had given the fire seed to Shen Ti. Only Shen Ti was completely uncontrollable. To ensure safety, this task had to be done by him.
The controlled crowd beat drums and played strange, primitive music, while among them appeared an uncontrolled believer, defying the god’s will, holding the fire seed as he left the sacrificial crowd.
An Wujiu’s body was hard to move, forcing him to grip the obsidian dagger. But his eyes remained on Shen Ti, watching him run towards the three divine pillars, seeing the blue flames suddenly pounce on Shen Ti!
“Shen Ti!” An Wujiu broke free from the force’s control in an instant, shouting out.
Shen Ti didn’t look back. The blue flames enveloped him, but he remained unharmed. He knelt on one knee and extended his hand to ignite the three divine pillars in front of him.
The three transparent pillars were instantly infused with the small fire seed, becoming dazzling blue.
Just as An Wujiu awaited a miracle, the three divine pillars suddenly shot upwards, soaring into the half-red, half-white sky.
They seemed to be disappearing into the sky, but the next second, a huge explosion sounded from the distant sky.
An Wujiu looked up, astonishingly discovering.
The sky was like a shattered mirror, breaking into countless huge cracks.
