Chapter 87 The Little Taoist Priest (Part 2) "The cycle of six realms, the deep affection for the old sword..."
He couldn't believe it, it couldn't be... Zhong Ding had been rescued perfectly well, he was fine before... But who was the headless corpse on his back...? It wasn't Zhong Ding... It couldn't be Zhong Ding... No...
Jane Dieda began to feel a splitting headache, and he was in a daze. In a flash, a thought appeared in his mind, which could no longer hear or see anything.
Just now, he was hooking one hand on the tree trunk, and just before he was about to climb out of the boulder trap, they passed that tree. Strangely, the weight of the two of them, which was about to break the iron chain, suddenly felt much "lighter" after that. He thought about looking back, but was stopped by the hand that was pressing down on his shoulder.
……I see.
While on his back, Zhong Ding could have called for help and made noise to the outside world.
But in order to save his lover from falling to his death, he voluntarily allowed his entire head to be cut off.
Murder mystery game script... they were tricked again.
It only told mortals not to look back before escaping, or they would lose their loved ones, but it didn't tell them that Zhong Ding, who didn't like living in a script, would eventually die when the finale arrived.
Jian Burang, Zhong Ding, didn't you want to escape together until the next spring?
The punishment you received from the system for escaping was to die before winter turned to spring, listening to the people down the mountain living the life you envied most.
A scream, unlike any other before, that sounded like someone going mad, echoed throughout the vicinity of the ancient village, startling a flock of small black dots of birds.
Ironically, no one will ever know that they were separated by the divide between life and death at the very last step of their escape from the gates of hell...
The young Taoist priest, on his first trip down the mountain, finally realized everything, for he knew he had truly lost his beloved forever.
His bet with Death was ruined at the very last moment before he stepped out of the gates of hell.
Before he could react, Jian Dieda jumped down.
Soon, covered in sweat, he saw the head hanging halfway up the mountain. His first reaction was to quickly pick it up between his fingers and return it to its rightful owner. He looked at the man with a blank expression. He couldn't believe that someone could die with long, flowing hair, as beautiful as they were in life, and then disappear so casually and inexplicably.
So... Zhong Ding... Zhong Ding might not be dead. The dungeon can still be refreshed... As long as we find his head... and put it back... the data will be refreshed, right...
Perhaps due to the extreme shock, the young Taoist priest turned pale and removed the disfigured head.
He carried the now "complete" man's body back down the mountain, then took a pile of mangled limbs and corpses back to town.
But he seems to have gone mad.
Wherever he went, people around him screamed in terror. When Fifth Master found him again, he had become a puppet.
He no longer recognized Fifth Master, nor anyone else except Zhong Ding. He saved everyone else, but he couldn't save himself.
Jane Dieda was so terrified that she was driven insane. This was the first time she had ever been frightened by fate.
He couldn't accept reality, and he didn't know what the point of living was.
His so-called fearlessness, in the face of the remains of ancient bronze vessels, is pitiful and insignificant, like an ordinary ant.
Even if someone were to tell him now how to revive the bells and tripods, he would be willing to kneel and kowtow to them.
He has lost his memories and is lifeless. Now he just sits blankly on the vegetable leaves at the entrance of the bustling city, hugging the headless corpse and crying like a fool, hitting his arms and legs to death to retaliate against his powerlessness to bring the bell back to life, his mind filled with trembling self-talk.
Why, why... why didn't I remember sooner? Why... why didn't I stop everything sooner? Why couldn't I solve the case sooner? Why couldn't I fix the bug? Why can't I be with you forever?
He couldn't even hear the mission prompts anymore.
"Congratulations on completing the fourth world quest [Asura Path]. The instance is about to collapse. Please return."
"The instance will soon be integrated into the main world."
"Please do not wait for another NPC."
"Ding, congratulations to the player for escaping alive. Your future is bright. The one who died was just an NPC in the script."
The more this happened, the more severe Jane Dieda's psychological breakdown became.
Out of control, he didn't speak, only his heart was crying, repeating the same sentence over and over again.
"He deserves to die."
"It's not you who deserves to die, it's me who deserves to die."
"sorry."
"sorry."
"I deserve to die."
"I deserve to die, I'm so sorry, I deserve to die."
"I deserve to die, I deserve to die, I deserve to die—"
...
That night, a torrential downpour began.
A passionate love story unfolded between heaven and earth.
The young Taoist priest in blue robes and black hair knelt on the ground by the grave. His lips turned purple and bled from clenching his teeth in remorse. The peach wood sword on his back was constantly being washed by the rain, and large wet marks covered his face, as if a statue had been wiped clean. He was losing his soul as a living person.
Heaven and earth do not weep, leaving him all alone. What is he to do? Zhong Ding, weren't you the one who cared for him the most? Now that you've left like this, what is he to do?
Even the little system panicked a bit when it saw him so "immersive" for the first time. It offered to apply for rewards and special cards, and even suggested that they could erase memories and rewind time. In short, if the bitterness of love is unpleasant, then don't eat it. Why smash the bowl? Career-mindedness is the most popular male protagonist trope this year, Jian, open your eyes and take a look at the short drama...
The small system doesn't know that human emotions and "getting into character" are unrelated, and that human weaknesses are not data that the system can arbitrarily tamper with. But precisely because of this, no matter how computers develop or how AI replaces human labor, those human virtues, such as courage in the face of adversity, resilience in times of crisis, and promises that can never be forgotten, are all the more precious.
Tongzi, true to her nature, went back and told the narrator about it. The narrator asked, "How much do you earn this month to dare to get involved in this kind of fan-selling nonsense?"
The system sprouted two phantom limbs and said, "Please, please, we can't just watch them die again."
Narrator: "...I owe you three."
No one knows what the narrator went to report, but more than ten minutes of game time have passed, and more than ten years have passed in the human dimension.
During this time, Fifth Master, Bai Xiaosheng and the other two had all come back to look for Jian Dieda, but the little Taoist priest had been hiding in the mountain god temple from back then and avoided seeing his old friends.
His temples gradually turned white.
One winter day, a snow fell in Qingyang Town. After one night, the mountains were covered in a blanket of snow, completely clean.
The old Taoist priest at the mountain god temple trembled as he struggled to his feet, emerging from decades of nightmares. Without disturbing anyone, he let his long, flawless white hair fall loose and slowly lay down in the heavy snow, which felt like a cotton blanket, and closed his dry eyes.
A voice came from within the system, neither like a small system nor a narrator: "There are so many ways to die, why choose to freeze to death?"
Jane Dieda's consciousness was hazy, but she still answered the other person because he was like snow. I thought I had caught him, but he disappeared overnight.
Just to see his lover, who was as beautiful as a snowflake, the person who was most afraid of the cold in the world created a murder mystery ending for himself, which happened to be freezing to death in the heavy snow in the fourteenth year since they were separated.
...I really don't know whether to call this kind of person devoted or crazy.
The series "Strange Tales of the Republic of China: Ghost Stories of Qingyang Town" has now come to an end. The timeline for the fourth cycle has been re-archived, but because the database is still running, data from "Jian Dieda" will continue to be uploaded here.
The player, who was actually an old man, was wrapped in a straw mat and went barefoot when he froze to death. But his obsession would still drive him to come here to find the bell and tripod, and in the end, both of them would fail. This is the objective fact that the bad ending cannot be broken.
This is why Jian Dieda committed suicide this time. There was once someone in the world who said he would hold him in his arms for a lifetime, protecting him from the wind and rain. But God took that person away. He really couldn't win against this line. For the first time, he admitted defeat to the fate behind the system.
[For now, I only ask that you show leniency towards my beloved Zhongding.]
His dying words were once again automatically rejected by the system and remained as an invalid record.
But whether it was genuine or something else, something strange happened. An old woodcutter appeared beside Jian Dieda's grave. The old woodcutter wore a mask and a straw raincoat, looking like a man in his seventies or eighties. He bent down to clear the weeds growing around Jian Dieda's tombstone before continuing his journey, stopping here and there, until he reached the halfway point on the mountainside.
The masked man seemed to be waiting for someone.
A young Taoist priest arrived at the foot of the mountain not long after. He was handsome and upright. The old woodcutter didn't ask who he was, but immediately stopped him and asked where he was going.
The young Taoist priest said, "My sect has ordered me to go to Qingyang Town."
The old woodcutter said, "No rush, no rush, take your time. When you get there, you have to hear me tell you a story about the tomb on the mountaintop."
He began telling the story of Jane Dieda to himself.
The young Taoist priest didn't recognize the old woodcutter or know Jian Dieda, but after listening to the whole story, he learned from the old woodcutter that the tombstone on the mountain belonged to a madman, who was also a Taoist priest. He had lived in the Mountain God Temple in Qingyang Town for many years and had even built a new statue.
The statue of that man has long since weathered away. The madman, who has been starving for years, has also lived inside to protect him.
Unfortunately, since some strange things happened in the town, people have been taught science and culture. The private tutors all tell the children to stay away from the madman and say that ghosts, gods and bodhisattvas are just folk pseudoscience, so no one goes to worship the mountain god anymore.
"Then why is he still guarding that place?" the young Taoist priest asked.
The mysterious old woodcutter smiled and said from behind his mask, "He, for a dead man who can never be saved from hell, for a redemption with no turning back, has repeatedly committed suicide for love. If you have time, I can tell you in detail, and then you will understand a lot. By the way, aren't you curious why I'm waiting for you here, Jane?"
The young Taoist priest was stunned. Who was the masked man? Hadn't the main storyline not even started yet?
Just as I was wondering, the old woodcutter moved. He had gone through so much trouble to be resurrected in this world, seemingly just to personally stand before the only player in this game.
Under the gaze of the latest version of "Jane Dieda", he grabbed the little Taoist's right hand, which was adorned with an ice-blue bracelet, and placed it on the mask.
His movements were very light, his breathing gentle, as if afraid of disturbing a delicate white plum blossom. When Jian Dieda's fingertips touched the edge of his mask, he paused slightly. But in that instant, the young Taoist saw the corners of the beautiful lips of the stunningly beautiful woman curving up.
"You've suffered."
After he finished speaking, the man's mask slipped off completely.
The first thing that caught his eye was his eyes, eyes so captivating that they seemed to hold the moonlit lake, instantly shattering the frozen surface of the boy's eyes. He couldn't help but move closer. The man's skin radiated a warm, familiar temperature, and the corners of his lips were also familiar. The emotions on those lips were so alluring, possessing an innate ability to steal all the tears from the world.
But what truly took Jane Dieda's breath away was his title.
"Cat, don't go. Don't let fate find you again. Let's run away. This time, I'll lead you."
It's the face of a 'bell and tripod'.
It is "bell and tripod".
It truly is a "bell and tripod".
Something in the air was trembling slightly.
Perhaps it's a system warning, or perhaps it's another red exclamation mark indicating they've been infected by a virus, as the memory bank undergoes a deep cleansing process.
However, when the two of them were together, even if it was just for a moment when their eyes met, they could instantly feel the weight of each other's souls. Especially since the two people in front of them were not the data's original form, their eyes contained a focused and calm understanding of the rules. Most importantly, waiting for the other to turn around at the end was their fixed data. Jian Dieda looked down at the back of his hand again.
A drop of ghost blood splattered onto the ice-blue bone chain on his wrist. Each white bead was inlaid with the scales of the feathered serpent god, reflecting the luster of the blood of the Blood Goddess in the interplay of light and shadow.
A few stray hairs fell, brushing against his chest, and a slight smile appeared on his lips. Their hands were clasped, their sleeves fluttering in the wind, and the sunlight streaming down from the sky shone on the two horses on the mountain road ahead.
“Alright, I’ll go with you.” The two strode forward, taking control of their own lives, and gracefully slapped their hands as they rode away. Where they were going was no longer important, because whether in this world or the smaller world, this was almost the first time they had waited for each other and remained steadfastly in place, welcoming the perfect ending before them.
The mask of the "Mountain God" was thrown from the data body and landed completely in their hands. Laughter echoed through the mountains, sounding like children in an old mountain village reciting the inscriptions by Taoist priests at the mountain god temple.
"Unable to bear the suffering of living beings, I will use my remaining body to transform into the six realms of reincarnation."
"May I be like the void and the earth."
"Support the lives of all sentient beings, thank you for your protection, Mountain God."
Here, the spring that could never be fulfilled from the 21st century to the tenth year of the Republic of China finally came to an end with a scene of a pair of puppets in theatrical costumes holding hands and bowing to each other. With a "beep", their plot cards condensed into a blood-red jade pendant of mandarin ducks, named "Born in Spring".
The voice pack on the card also fully replicates their voices.
"The little Taoist priest said, 'I'm afraid of the cold.' The mountain god said, 'Then I like spring.'"
The young Taoist priest asked, "Where is spring?" The mountain god replied, "Spring is the day I met you."
"Perhaps my life is full of disappointments, but Jane doesn't let me down. Our fulfillment lies in the bright moon and the gentle breeze, and in the fact that I was able to meet you."
"So my answer is, no regrets."
"For the rest of my life, I will protect you. I will always protect you because you are mine...you are my wife, the one I have been looking for."
The recording of this beautiful voice ended there. Then, another voice changed the live image, and a line of ink-wash characters with tear stains and withered flowers appeared.
—The seasons turn, but your season is the only one that is slow to arrive, until the day when rain falls from the eaves and weary birds return to their nests.
The small system finally broadcast the correct message:
"Ding! Story progress 100%! The instance is about to collapse. Please join us in the next world."
"Next—"
"It is the fifth test for people to begin the cycle of reincarnation and seek the cause and effect of their past lives."
—Human beings' views on love and the future.
It's possible to have hallucinations.
"Through the cycle of reincarnation, the sword remains a symbol of deep affection. The bell and tripod were given to my beloved wife, but she refused. In 1924, they were left at the Mountain God Temple in Qingyang Town."
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