Thank you @Renea for the Kofi.
Origin
Chapter 667: Arrive!
“Ouch!” Halfway through her sentence, A-Yuan’s wrist was suddenly grabbed. She looked up in surprise, “Wh-what’s wrong?”
“…A-Ma told you to put it on early, just in case?” Wen Jianyan took a step forward and asked in a low voice.
“Yeah—Ah!”
The other’s fingers suddenly tightened.
A-Yuan grimaced in pain and frowned, “Hiss, it hurts, hurts…”
But the young man in front of her didn’t loosen his grip.
His entire face was immersed in darkness, hiding all his expressions, as he called out softly:
“A-Yuan.”
“Hmm?” A-Yuan was startled, not knowing why he suddenly called her name.
“Run.”
“…What?” A-Yuan almost doubted her own ears.
Wen Jianyan took another step forward. The candlelight illuminated his side profile, the flickering red flame reflecting deep in his pupils, carrying a compelling power. His tone was suppressed, enunciating every word clearly:
“I said, run.”
“But…”
“What ‘just in case’… A bunch of hypocrites, it’s clearly to make you enter the coffin early! To immediately fulfill your ‘duty’!” The young man’s eyes burned with a fierce, cold fire. He spoke very fast, as if afraid he wouldn’t make it in time.
“Listen to me. Take what you can carry right now, take advantage of the fact that the others haven’t returned, and leave this village immediately. Run as far as you can, and absolutely do not let anyone find you—”
A-Yuan listened blankly.
Finally, she spoke, her voice soft.
“But what about the others?”
Wen Jianyan froze.
A-Yuan looked up at him. Her immature face was brightly lit by the candlelight, hiding nothing.
She said seriously, “The next Wu won’t appear for another thirty-five years.”
“If I’m gone, what will happen to the town?”
A town without a “Wu” wouldn’t be able to hold on for long on the edge of darkness.
“You don’t understand—” Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth.
A-Yuan was too young; she didn’t understand.
The other Wu were put into the coffin only after they died naturally, to suppress the vengeful ghosts and protect the human world.
But A-Yuan was different.
Wen Jianyan recalled the countless scratch marks he had felt inside the coffin on the fifth floor of Changsheng Building—in such a dark, suffocating, and despair-inducing space, a person on the verge of death had gouged agonizing grooves into the coffin board with their bare hands.
A-Yuan… was a living sacrifice meant to be buried alive.
“You don’t understand. If you don’t run now, you will…”
“No,” A-Yuan broke free from Wen Jianyan’s hand, her eyes stubborn. “I understand perfectly well.”
“I am the only Wu in this town.” The not-yet-adult child enunciated each word, saying earnestly, “I was born to guard the light and dispel the darkness.”
“I’m afraid of dying too, but I can’t run. Otherwise, what will the others do?”
“What about our ancestors buried beneath this land?”
“What about all the children, old people, men, and women in this world who know nothing?”
The candlelight shrouded her face like a light veil, as if covering her in an invisible mist.
Her gaze pierced through that mist, as clear and pure as ever.
“…” Wen Jianyan looked at her speechlessly.
He knew what the face of someone who could never be persuaded looked like.
What kind of eyes they had.
“Oh, right, and these,” A-Yuan patted her head, as if suddenly remembering something. She stuffed a few red spirit money into the silenced young man’s hands. “I found these in A-Ma’s room. I guessed they must have been confiscated from you—after all, we have mostly white ones here; red ones are almost non-existent.”
“Hurry up and go,” A-Yuan urged, her tone still carrying the unique innocence and optimism of her age. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine!”
After walking far away, Wen Jianyan turned his head again.
A-Yuan stood in front of the courtyard, her figure almost swallowed by the darkness.
Faintly, she overlapped with that red-clothed figure.
Seeing Wen Jianyan turn around, A-Yuan waved at him from afar. Wen Jianyan couldn’t see her face clearly, but he could hear her cheerful and lively voice:
“Goodbye! Goodbye!”
“I wish you success!”
Night lowered its black curtain. Wen Jianyan shielded a half-burning candle, taking large strides forward in the darkness.
Today was the third day.
And also the time when the so-called “ritual” was being held.
That was why all the adults in the town had left, allowing A-Yuan the opportunity to let him out.
If the “ritual” succeeded, the betrayed god would be suppressed in the grave, dismembered, sold out, and become the furnace core and fuel driving the instances. And the Nightmare would completely enter this world, replacing candles with corpse oil refined from children, sending its agents to build “factories” one after another. A-Yuan would be sacrificed alive into the mansion as the final generation’s red-clothed female corpse—and when everyone of this generation who made the contract died—just as the agent in the Orphanage had mentioned—the Nightmare would officially be free from the contract’s constraints, open the live stream, establish instances, and gradually expand and mutate into the behemoth Wen Jianyan had seen.
This was the origin.
The beginning of all sins, all deaths, and all nightmares.
Wen Jianyan heard his heart pounding wildly, roaring thump, thump in the boundless, deadly silent night, almost bruising his ribs from the force, so much so that he had to take repeated deep breaths to suppress his emotions.
He didn’t know if he could change all this, nor did he know what kind of consequences doing so would bring.
One must know, the location where all this was happening was in that no-man’s land where all scientific laws lost their meaning—so, what if?
Wen Jianyan sprinted forward all the way through the shopping street shrouded in darkness.
Soon, the tailor shop appeared before him.
Wen Jianyan pushed open the main door and walked in once again.
It was far darker here than in his memory. A pitch-black darkness enveloped the entire shop, so dark you couldn’t see your own fingers. Pieces of human-skin clothes hung on the racks, their corners drooping silently, shadows overlapping, looking far more eerie and terrifying than he remembered.
Wen Jianyan took out the red spirit money.
To enter that no-man’s land, he needed one banknote to buy human-skin clothes and two to buy a mask.
However, merely going in wasn’t enough. After all, that old hag and the townsfolk were too tough to deal with. Wen Jianyan had no chance of winning one-on-one, let alone one-against-many. Just charging in directly like that would be no different from seeking death.
Unless…
An idea swirled around in Wen Jianyan’s head.
But before he could put his idea into practice, he suddenly heard a strange noise coming from deep within the clothing racks.
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s heart skipped a beat, and he abruptly turned his head to look.
In the corner of the racks hung a dusty, unremarkable long overcoat.
Wen Jianyan froze and couldn’t help but frown.
He didn’t remember seeing this coat when he came here last time.
His eyes flickered; seeming to have thought of something, he walked up and cautiously lifted half a corner of the coat off the rack.
The moment it left the rack, that small half of the collar inflated and expanded in a bizarre way. In the blink of an eye, it turned into a human head and half a shoulder. That sweating, heavily panting face looked incredibly familiar in the darkness.
“Uncle De?” Wen Jianyan smiled.
“Put me down quickly!!” Uncle De craned his half-head, his expression ruthless, shouting angrily.
“You know what?” Wen Jianyan smilingly shifted his angle, deliberately stopping behind Uncle De. “I really enjoy this.”
The other party desperately twisted his head trying to face him, but since the vast majority of his body was constrained, he could only twist himself into a strange posture—Uncle De quickly realized the other party was playing with him, and gritted his teeth hard, making a grinding sound.
He closed his eyes fiercely, took a deep breath, and suppressed his temper, saying, “Kid, put me down, and we can talk things out slowly.”
“Sure.” Unexpectedly, Wen Jianyan agreed immediately without the slightest hesitation. This time, it was Uncle De’s turn to be stunned.
However, he then heard the other party suddenly change the subject:
“But…”
Wen Jianyan stepped forward, stood in front of Uncle De’s eyes, and rubbed his fingertips together: “Where’s the reward?”
Uncle De: “…What?”
“I want money.” Wen Jianyan said patiently.
Uncle De: “………………”
“In your dreams!!!” He panted heavily, gritted his teeth viciously, and let out a roar of barely suppressed anger.
“Oh, alright then.” Wen Jianyan turned around, took a few pieces of clothing off the rack, and unhesitatingly turned to walk towards the counter. “If you’re not willing, forget it.”
“…Wait!!” A flustered and exasperated voice came from behind.
Wen Jianyan stopped, a nonchalant smile on his lips, and turned to look at him.
Uncle De gritted his teeth, his expression ferocious and twisted, staring dead at Wen Jianyan. He seemed to be having an internal struggle. Finally, one side visibly lost, surrendering deep within his eye sockets.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said with difficulty:
“In my… left pocket.”
“Now that’s more like it.” Wen Jianyan chuckled.
He walked up, groped around in Uncle De’s left pocket, and indeed pulled out a stack of spirit money.
“Not that much, huh.”
Briefly counting the number of banknotes, Wen Jianyan clicked his tongue in regret.
“Whatever, this will do. Having some is better than having none, right?”
After saying that, he turned his head and casually took a few more clothes off the rack. His entire sequence of movements was fluid and completely natural.
Watching Wen Jianyan’s smooth actions and his back as he walked quickly towards the counter, an ominous premonition suddenly arose in Uncle De’s heart: “Hey, hey, kid, you promised to put me down!!”
“Well… I’ve promised a lot of things,” Wen Jianyan lined up the banknotes in a row on the counter, tilted his head, and broke into a careless smile. “Do I have to actually follow through on every single one of them?”
Uncle De’s eyes nearly split open with rage: “You?!”
Amidst Uncle De’s curses, Wen Jianyan neatly wrapped the unpaid clothes inside the paid human-skin clothes, then tied them into a small bundle easy to carry. In just a few breaths, he had completed all his preparations.
After finishing, he tucked the bundle under his arm, pushed the door, and prepared to leave, completely ignoring Uncle De’s hoarse roars behind him.
However, Wen Jianyan ultimately showed some mercy and didn’t just leave directly.
He stood at the door and turned to look deep into the shop.
His gaze met Uncle De’s fury-filled eyes.
“Stop yelling, I won’t put you down no matter how much you shout.”
“Based on the things you people have done, me just leaving you hanging there is actually already very merciful,” the young man pushed the door with one hand, standing sideways. Half of his face was illuminated by the candlelight, and half was hidden in the darkness. His voice was light and airy, seemingly devoid of emotion, but carried a bit of cold disdain.
“A bunch of hypocritical, cowardly, foolish things.”
“Hypocritical? Cowardly? Foolish? What do you, an outsider, know?!” Uncle De glared at him, the anger deep in his eyes erupting. “Do you know what we have sacrificed? What our ancestors have sacrificed? If it weren’t for us, you—”
“Hah.”
Wen Jianyan let out a light laugh.
He turned his head, a pair of cold eyes lit by the candlelight.
“Is it that I don’t know, or that you don’t know?”
Under such a gaze, Uncle De abruptly froze.
“Think carefully about what you have sold out.” Wen Jianyan slowly withdrew his smile until there was no expression left on his face. “And who you sold it to.”
The door opened and closed.
As the faint candlelight gradually vanished from the door, the young man’s footsteps also faded away.
Only Uncle De was left quietly in the darkness, staring blankly at the place where he had disappeared.
Wen Jianyan touched the bruised, purplish-red marks on his neck and took a deep breath.
Although the Evil Bodhisattva’s influence had long corrupted the higher-ups, the people in the town were not completely of one mind and heart. He had known this early on; otherwise, that old hag wouldn’t have stopped her attack on him after the others appeared.
This was also why he had asked A-Yuan that question—”Where did Uncle De go?”
Since their conflict in the tailor shop that day, he hadn’t shown up again.
Whether it was when Wen Jianyan set fires in multiple places, or when he was caught and locked up in the dilapidated house, Uncle De never appeared once—and this was unreasonable. After all, the other party was the one who was initially the most radical and eager to squeeze information out of him.
The only reason he didn’t come was probably…
He couldn’t.
Combining the deeply lurking forces of the Evil Bodhisattva, the undercurrents surging within the town, A-Yuan’s long silence when he asked that question, Uncle De’s immediate cessation of his attack upon seeing the tattoo on his waist, and his stunned, bewildered, completely genuine demeanor…
Wen Jianyan guessed that Uncle De, who had attacked him the most viciously and impulsively, was probably the one who still barely retained some conscience.
Darkness descended, and there was no path forward, which was why he was so radical.
And when he realized the origin of the name on Wen Jianyan’s body, he definitely went to confront “A-Ma.” What happened after that went without saying.
It was precisely because of Uncle De’s disappearance that A-Yuan could finally no longer deceive herself and pretend she had never noticed the anomalies in the town.
The reason Uncle De was so easily deceived by him just now was largely due to this—he genuinely yearned to know who Wen Jianyan was and why he bore the god’s name on his body.
It was just a pity that time was too tight.
Compared to having a heart-to-heart talk with him, scamming his money and leaving was much more efficient.
The sky was like an opaque lid covering overhead.
The only small path wound into the distance, flanked by chaotic darkness and boundless desolate graves.
The shops on both sides gradually became sparse, and the further he walked, the more ghostly and eerie it became.
Wen Jianyan left the last of the shops behind.
He fastened the mask to his face. The white, hard face covered his features as he stepped into the darkness.
In the vast wasteland, only one grave was piled the highest and was the most conspicuous.
Directly facing the grave was a massive mirror.
It firmly covered the entire grave like a cage.
The sky was frighteningly black.
In front of that bottomless grave, several people stood in a bizarre formation. All of their faces were covered with white masks. One of them stood on top of the grave; although the mask hid her face, her hunched figure and wrinkled, chicken-claw-like withered hands revealed her identity.
The crowd stood in silence, like wooden stakes or corpses that had died standing up.
Non-existent time continued to pass.
Finally, the person standing on the grave moved.
From beneath the white mask came a very low muttering sound.
One person joined her.
Then a second, a third…
The muttering gradually converged into one, turning into some kind of high-pitched buzzing, like thousands of tormented souls screaming and groaning, boundless and immeasurable, harmonizing into a terrifying chant. As time went by, it gradually escalated—escalating—and escalating further—
“——”
The leading white mask raised her withered hands high. Her fingers trembled like dead winter leaves as she let out a sound resembling a dying sigh.
“Descend!”
Her voice was bizarre and terrifying, not sounding like it was produced by a human, but rather like some un-oiled machinery, rusty and dry gears grinding together, emitting a strained friction sound.
Countless mouths sang in unison, resounding together.
“Descend!!”
Countless voices hovered in the dark sky. Some eerie power seemed to vibrate and condense in the air, ultimately bursting into golden flames!
The grave was empty, but deep within the mirror, darkness seemed to condense.
In the metallic scent of fresh blood, the god was summoned here.
The moment He opened His eyes was the beginning of the betrayal.
Rumble!!
The earth trembled, the sky disintegrated, and gurgling fresh blood surged out from the soft soil beneath their feet, seemingly a precursor to some kind of fury.
Inside the mirror’s surface, boundless darkness condensed and dispersed, faintly revealing a pair of golden, alien pupils.
Bang!
Sparks shot out inside the mirror!
Bang bang!!
The sturdy mahogany frame began to disintegrate!
“Bury——!!!”
The old woman’s rough, sharp voice pierced the darkness, tearing the silence apart like a sharp sword.
“Bury——!!!!” From all directions, countless voices echoed.
The mirror tilted downward like a coffin lid, seemingly wanting to press the darkness deep into the grave soil.
However, right at this moment, a sudden mutation occurred.
Not far away, a voice twisted into a miserable shriek, ripped out from the buzzing chant like some bizarre musical rest.
The old woman’s face twitched.
“Ghosts——!!!” At the edge of the darkness, the vengeful ghosts lodged in the human skins were released. They hadn’t been paid for, nor were they tightly wrapped by paid clothes anymore. Under the effect of the rules, losing their confinement, they began to awaken and act driven by instinct.
“Suppress them!” someone screamed.
“No, there are more here!!”
“Ghosts, everywhere!!!”
The voices that had been twisted into a single rope just a moment ago snapped, like strings broken by a monstrous force. Everything began to fragment and fall into chaos.
“Ignore them for now!!!” the old woman screamed herself hoarse. “The ritual is almost over, first————”
Before she could finish her sentence, suddenly, from the corner of her eye, she caught a masked figure striding straight towards the edge of the grave. The crowd and the darkness parted around him like Moses parting the sea, arriving before her in the blink of an eye.
Seemingly predicting something, the pupils beneath the old woman’s mask shrank tightly.
“No——”
She raised her cane, and the brass tip knocked the other party’s mask off.
The person couldn’t dodge in time. The white mask fell, revealing a face radiating sharp brilliance.
“Stop him!!” the old woman shrieked miserably.
Wen Jianyan broke into a grin.
“Too late,” he said.
The others also reacted, swarming towards this direction, but it was already too late… The young man leaped into the air with a single bound. His taut back and waist were like a leopard full of power. In the blink of an eye, he had already jumped in front of the grave.
Then, he smashed a fist into the mirror’s surface!
Crack.
Fine lines spread from the point of impact.
As if unable to feel pain, Wen Jianyan didn’t stop at all, viciously bringing down a second punch, a third punch!
Bloody prints spread across the glass.
Every punch was ruthless! Holding nothing back!
“Crash!!!”
The mirror was forcibly shattered, and countless fragments coated in fresh blood splashed out.
Panting heavily, Wen Jianyan reached a trembling hand towards the darkness inside the mirror. Fresh blood dripped steadily from between his fingers.
The furious golden pupils, like those of a trapped beast, paused and looked at him in confusion.
Deep inside, they reflected the young man’s pale face, his bloody hand, and his unbridled smile.
“How about it?”
Wen Jianyan coughed out a laugh and asked loudly.
“Want to run away together?”
Let’s escape together.
I’ve come to take you out of this prison, away from this suffering.
