Chapter 143 The Sound of the Suona Sings Beyond the Mountains "Are you sure this is our deputy..."

It's foggy again.

The travel agency walked numbly in the fog, like zombies.

They still can't understand why the secret realm's boundaries didn't open when they were about to leave, or how the hidden boss battle was triggered. Their joy turned to despair; it was all just a fleeting dream.

Pu Fengchun must have been the first to be drawn into the danger of the illusion; her death was like a premonition, like a warning.

Their initial reaction was fear, followed by attribution to cowardice, and then utter despair.

There are summary posts on the forum about difficult dungeons and bosses. But these are not that important to lower-level players, because ordinary dungeons can stump them.

But as for the most powerful of the evil gods, they all knew that he was more like a symbol whose very appearance meant certain failure.

They left through the east gate, using transportation on the east side of Xibei Mountain, and are now returning.

The evil god awakened, and the fierce roar of the wind crashing through the mountains was terrifying. Another gust of wind caused the team leader, Wang Cheng, to stumble and fall into the snow.

His two teammates couldn't lift him; they had walked for too long and were exhausted. Perhaps it was just their imagination, but the journey back seemed exceptionally long.

They simply sat down, and the three of them silently huddled together, lighting the prop wedding candles to get a little warmth.

However, as soon as the fire was lit, the candles were taken away. The three were terrified by the sudden appearance of the short man and were about to scream when the short man coldly interrupted them: "If you dare to scream, I'll kill you."

"..." The three of them closed their open mouths tightly, their faces turning red.

Xu Feiying snorted, shooed the three of them up, and continued walking forward, the candle flickering weakly into the dimly lit road ahead: "Haven't we reached the village yet?"

On the other side, Zhuo Yi tightened his jaw, his fox-like eyes quietly shifting from one side to the other: "The village has disappeared."

He knew the way he was going; the distance they had traveled was enough to go beyond the village, let alone reach it.

He Yang felt this most deeply: "We should have reached the south side of the secret realm by now. We haven't seen any villages along the way... Since that person has awakened, there's no need for villages to exist anymore?"

Lu Lianshan's idea makes sense: the instance was erased by that person, and the secret realm became a killing field for the game to continue.

As for the heavy snow and fog, they were merely embellishments and that person's perverse sense of humor.

That being could suddenly appear in the snowstorm at any moment and reap the lives of these ants, leaving them only to wait aimlessly for death.

Zhuo Yi muttered, "He wouldn't just leave us exhausted and lifeless in this maze with no way out, without even showing up..."

Like getting lost in a desert or a blizzard, that's a really boring way to die.

"Let's go first." Lü Lianshan, who was the first to deduce the destruction of the village, didn't think too much about it and seemed to be more like a maneuver to deal with whatever comes his way.

He remembered that when the "copy was completed", the snow mountain outside the South Gate collapsed. Was this a coincidence?

The two men with stubborn illnesses also went south. Their companion died at the foot of the mountain where the totem was located... buried alive by the collapsed snow mountain.

But the totem is still functioning, and even more intensely, right there in the rubble.

When his teammate went to search, Huang Haitao stopped him, as Huang Haitao felt something was off.

His boss only told him to activate the totem, and didn't intend for him to participate in the rest. This suited him perfectly, making him a blind link in the plan, so he wouldn't be killed to cover his tracks.

But there will always be an outcome: is it a success or a failure?

Why aren't the totems closed? We failed the hidden boss fight and can't get out even with the totems! Where should they go?

Just then, a deep, pleasant male voice rang out, and all the players stopped in their tracks. It was the Keeper of the Secret, whom they thought would remain inactive forever!

Xue Chao said indifferently, "Everyone, go through the navigation."

The sound of mahjong tiles being rubbed filled the air, and the three members of the travel agency felt a strange sense of relief for a moment. The tour leader even exclaimed, "I... I passed the test!"

His two teammates and Xu Feiying immediately looked at him. The team leader stared with wide eyes and repeatedly pointed south: "There!"

It has a slight golden tint, but it's dark and barely noticeable unless you look closely.

After all the players had finished their checks, Xue Chao spoke again. Zhuo Yi keenly noticed a slight, subtle chuckle in his tone, like a distorted, frenzied world submerged in a glass of wine.

He said, "The third inning begins."

Then, the keeper of the secret disappeared again.

But this was like a signal; they had a feeling that something was quietly changing and waiting for them, something more than just an "evil god."

But the dungeons are all gone, so what else could it be?

Naga stopped, turned slightly, and gazed into the misty distance behind him: "...disappeared."

The man wrapped in cloth, recovering from his shock and wariness at the appearance of the keeper, nodded heavily: "That's right, I noticed it too. The village is gone, leader, we..."

He sensed Naga's gaze turn towards him and realized he had guessed wrong: "You're not talking about a village? The Keeper of Secrets?"

The man wrapped in cloth replied, "You mean Raven, right?"

Raven is considered an above-average player in the guild, better than the two lackeys, but this is indeed his first time accompanying Naga on a guild raid.

Perhaps it's because of their young age. Although they seem quiet, they also have the restlessness of teenagers. Their teamwork isn't very strong, and they seem to have wandered off somewhere.

He felt that Naga's silent gaze was even stranger, and he was worried that he had said something wrong, but Naga withdrew his gaze and turned to the distant place that he had already left behind.

They followed her gaze and saw a deep golden hue spreading through the misty fog, like red earth being swept into the dark sky, while the snow continued to fall.

Her silver-grey lips moved again, uttering two silent syllables, as if she herself could not understand, and was vaguely hesitant—boundary?

They're all wrong. What she actually feels is... that boundaries are disappearing.

After walking for a long time, the three entered a forest. Unlike the bare and strangely shaped white forest in the village, the fir trees were covered with fresh snow, like bruises on the pale skin of a corpse.

The man wrapped in cloth asked in confusion, "Where is this?" He tried to observe his surroundings within the small space he could see, but he had no recollection of this place.

There aren't any trees like this in the village. Do they grow on the border of Xibei Mountain? But don't those trees prefer to grow in caves...?

His toes brushed away the snow, revealing dark rocks... not red soil?

Naga raised his head slightly, reached out, and a bird fell from the fir tree. It had gray feathers and red eyes, and its body was already frozen stiff.

Is this... a nightingale?

Suddenly, the sound of birds flapping their wings came from among the trees. A snake crawled out of Naga's collar and climbed up the tree. The tree was full of dead nightingales, with lace ribbons wrapped around their necks several times and tied to the branches.

And they were stiffly flapping their wings, opening and closing, shaking off the fresh snow and bringing with them a foul-smelling wind.

The bird in her palm twitched its wings and stiffly took flight.

"It flies so slowly." On the other side of the dense forest, Zhuo Yi held a long lace ribbon, and the dead nightingale flew in the air like a kite.

Of course, this thing wasn't so kind. These resurrected birds wanted to attack them, but were blocked by He Yang's spatial ability and flew away unwillingly, leaving one behind to lead the way.

They walked up a long slope, the same slope as when climbing a mountain. But apart from the collapsed mountains, where else in Xibei Mountain is there such a "gentle" slope?

Until they emerged from the dense forest, there was a European-style town on the edge of a cliff. The sign hanging at the entrance was chipped to pieces, and the words were illegible, but it could be seen that it was in English.

English? The three exchanged a serious look.

In the story of Baitou Village, there is indeed a small town outside the village. The wealthy man who arranged the ghost marriage for his son lived in the town. Ayun died there. The gamblers at the beginning of the story also encountered a landslide on their way back from the town.

But that should just be background in the story, because the instance is set in Baitou Village, and under normal circumstances they cannot leave Baitou Village, so the town naturally has no need to exist.

Furthermore, Zhuo Yi subtly inquired about the Five Poisons players, asking them if there were any other noteworthy places when they possessed the paper dolls outside the village. They had clearly considered this as well, and although they were somewhat reserved about the process of the corpse-driving mission, they frankly stated that there was no small town.

Later, when the instance's boundary opened, they entered the secret realm on their own, but they didn't see any additional lights anywhere.

But what is this in front of me? Could there really be a small town that has been hidden away by an evil god all along?

The village was destroyed, so the neighboring town was released as a new instance location?

But it's too fragmented, one Chinese, one Western, one feudal and superstitious, one speaking English... a fusion of East and West?

This quirky little town was also very empty.

Perhaps because it was night, everything was quiet. The deathly silent European-style buildings were covered with a layer of snow, and in the pale snow fog, they looked gloomy and gray, more like a buried, abandoned city, with only a corner showing in the wind.

Upon entering the town, the system displayed another string of incomprehensible error symbols and then went silent again.

Even the three of them became increasingly cautious. Despite the fog, they did not linger on the main road, but instead stealthily made their way through the unfamiliar town.

They were right; it wasn't a ghost town. They sneaked into a two-story villa, where a trail of fresh, bloody footprints led haphazardly up to the second floor on a fir-green Persian-patterned carpet in the living room.

They quietly went upstairs. The bedroom door facing the stairs was open. A man in a suit was hanging from the rafters. Two long streaks of blood splattered on the simple European jacquard curtains, like wings growing behind him.

They didn't put the man down rashly; they searched the room first.

He Yang saw a corner of a newspaper peeking out from behind the cabinet. He pulled it out and found it to be a tattered newspaper, only a third of it remaining. It had been rubbed repeatedly, so the most creases were on the date "4" and the words "A lady published an ad in the newspaper hiring a psychic, saying that her house was haunted."

The two creases are different. The medium's crease is very thin, line by line, like a woman's long fingernails unconsciously tracing lines, while "Number 4" is clenched tightly, as if it were anger, anxiety, or disbelief?

He stood up with the newspaper in his hand, still pondering, when he saw Zhuo Yi standing by the window, lifting the curtain slightly, his expression extremely strange, as if he had seen something completely incomprehensible, his features disjointed. He Yang even felt that his expression was very "numb".

But he remained completely hidden, so He Yang approached silently and peered out through the gap. He saw a man lurking suspiciously in front of the garage downstairs, trying to steal a car.

The key point was his face. He felt it looked familiar; he was certain he had seen the person before. And this behavior… A flash of inspiration struck him, and then his entire neural network was gripped by a near-paralyzing tremor.

Those were members of Ruoshui.

I always followed their ace player, who seemed to be ranked around 20th on the player leaderboard.

...

Who are the members of Ruoshui?

The curtains slowly fell, and Zhuo Yi muttered almost to himself, "...How did I get into our instance? What kind of S-rank item is this?"

He Yang didn't even know how he made the sound; it was as if it had detached from his trembling cerebral cortex and fallen directly to his mouth: "Are you sure this is our copy?"