“How does it feel? Any signs of your mind breaking down?” An Mu asked rapidly as he helped him lean against a twisted, withered tree.
“For now… I won’t die yet.” Bai Yu shook his head. He could feel that the tiny cracks deep within his soul had already been covered by a layer of gentle power. Though those massive main fissures still existed, hideous as ever, at least he was no longer a shattered porcelain vessel that might completely “disintegrate” at any moment.
Bai Yu raised his head and looked around. This mountain forest was even more sinister than he had imagined. Beneath his feet lay dead leaves and white bones that had piled up for who knew how many years, soft, damp, and slippery underfoot. The trees around them were twisted into the shapes of human figures struggling in agony, looming in and out of the churning blood mist like a crowd of silent, malicious spectators.
“Captain, we need to formulate a new plan immediately.” Bai Yu’s tone carried an unprecedented gravity and urgency. “Our previous deduction was half right, but the other half… was wrong to an absurd degree.”
An Mu, Mo Fei, and Lan Ce’s gazes all instantly focused on him. They could sense that Bai Yu, who had just awakened from unconsciousness, seemed different somehow.
His face was still pale and weak, but his eyes now held a clarity that seemed to have seen through every truth.
“While I was unconscious,” Bai Yu did not mention the dream, instead choosing an explanation his teammates could more easily understand and accept, “the immense resentment contained in that cup of wine did not completely vanish. It was like a key, forcibly opening the memories this village had sealed away for a hundred years. I ‘saw’ some things—things about the true cause of this tragedy.”
He paused, sorted through that vast torrent of information, then slowly recounted the story that had been buried for a century.
As Bai Yu began to speak, the expressions in Mo Fei, Lan Ce, and An Mu’s eyes instantly became incomparably focused. They knew this had to be crucial intelligence, enough to overturn the entire mission.
Bai Yu recounted everything he had experienced in the dream, exactly as it had happened.
After listening, even Mo Fei, a rough and straightforward man, fell into a long silence. An expression mingled with sympathy and sorrow surfaced on his face. He finally understood that the terrifying corpse groom in the ancestral hall had once been a pitiful man who had loved so deeply, yet had been wounded so completely.
Lan Ce pushed up his glasses, the light of reason flickering behind the lenses. “Based on Bai Yu’s intelligence, we can construct a new model. Lin Sheng’s resentment is the foundation and ‘shell’ of this rule-based space, but he has very likely already been corroded and used by that higher-ranking ‘Mountain God.’ He is both victim and perpetrator, and he is also one of the ‘cores’ of this space. Our true enemy is the ‘Mountain God’ hiding behind all of this.”
“Then what do we do now?” Mo Fei asked. “Since Lin Sheng is also a victim, we can’t… really destroy him completely, can we?”
“That is exactly what I want to say. Our mission objective from here on must change completely.” Bai Yu looked at them, his gaze incomparably firm. “We can no longer take ‘elimination’ as our goal. Although Lin Sheng’s hatred is the source of the curse, A-Wan told me that in the deepest part of that hatred, there must still remain his purest ‘love’ for her. That is the last part of him that still belongs to a ‘human.’ The Mountain God can use his hatred, but it cannot defile his love. What we must do is not kill him, but awaken him!”
“Awaken?” An Mu’s brows knitted tightly. “How, specifically?”
Bai Yu did not answer. Instead, he slowly took out the wooden ladle whose surface flowed with golden ripples of water from his pocket.
The instant it appeared, an aura filled with compassion and purifying power emanated from that small wooden ladle, actually forcing back the cursed blood-colored mist around them by several degrees and forming an untainted patch of pure ground around the four of them.
“What is that?” Mo Fei and Lan Ce stared in shock at this “holy relic” radiating a sacred aura, completely unable to connect it with this place filled with death and resentment.
Bai Yu stroked the warm, smooth surface of the wooden ladle and said softly, “This is the embodiment of A-Wan’s final obsession and power. It is also the only key we have to awaken Lin Sheng.”
Just as Bai Yu was explaining all of this, a cold and elegant voice finally sounded once more in the depths of his soul, which had been repaired to some extent.
“Oh? How surprising. My artwork, which was on the verge of shattering, has actually been patched up by the ‘tears’ of some sentimental failures? Heh… What a dull, tedious, and… nauseatingly pure power.”
It was Hei Yan.
He had awakened.
“However,” Hei Yan’s voice shifted, carrying a trace of excitement and curiosity, “this ‘Mountain God’ was able to lay out a scheme over a hundred years, treating an entire village’s love, hatred, passion, and grudges as its own canvas and wantonly splashing across it the pigment known as ‘despair’… Such technique, such taste, is far more elegant than that weeping saintess in your hand. I am beginning to look forward somewhat to a formal meeting with this ‘colleague.’”
Bai Yu ignored the demon’s whispers in his mind, but Hei Yan’s awakening was definitely good news for him.
“With this, our plan becomes feasible.” An Mu’s gaze moved away from the sacred wooden ladle, and he once again regained the calm decisiveness of a commander. He looked at the rugged mountain path before them, covered in dead leaves and white bones, and a brand-new operation plan rapidly took shape in his mind.
“We have two objectives.” An Mu’s voice rang clearly through the mental link. “Primary objective: find and enter the sacrificial cave, then use the ‘holy relic’ in Bai Yu’s hand and A-Wan’s obsession to attempt to awaken Lin Sheng’s consciousness and dismantle this cursed space from within. Secondary objective, and also the most dangerous one—if the awakening fails, or if we encounter the true mastermind behind the scenes, the ‘Mountain God,’ then our mission will shift to destroying this space’s energy core at all costs and bringing out as much intelligence on the ‘Mountain God’ as possible!”
“Understood!” Mo Fei and Lan Ce answered in unison, the flames of battle rekindling in their eyes. Though the truth was cruel, it had also allowed them to find the true enemy, and the meaning behind their fight.
“Deployment is as follows,” An Mu continued issuing orders. “We must reach the cave as quickly as possible and cannot be entangled by any resentment along the way. Bai Yu, you take the lead.”
He looked at Bai Yu, his gaze solemn. “The wooden ladle in your hand is our ‘holy light.’ It can purify and suppress the Mountain God’s cursed power. You walk at the very front and carve out a safe path for us. Mo Fei and I will stay behind you on the left and right flanks, responsible for eliminating any physical threats that try to approach you. Lan Ce, you bring up the rear and monitor the surrounding environment for any abnormal fluctuations. Warn us at any moment.”
“Yes!”
“Remember, the core of this operation is ‘infiltration’ and ‘awakening,’ not ‘assault.’ Unless absolutely necessary, avoid a direct confrontation with the monster currently undergoing fusion in the ancestral hall as much as possible. We don’t have much time.” An Mu’s gaze swept over every member of the team. “Is that clear?”
“Clear!”
Their uniform response was filled with the resolve to fight to the death.
Bai Yu took a deep breath and tightly gripped the sacred white wooden ladle in his hand. A warm yet sorrowful power slowly flowed into his body through his palm, soothing his still-aching soul and granting him unprecedented courage.
He was no longer that shattered vessel that could only passively endure. At this moment, he held in his hand a soul’s century-old love and hope, and he would become the first faint ray of light to pierce this endless darkness.
He was the first to step forward, walking toward the darkness shrouded in blood mist.
A strange scene occurred.
When the soft halo emitted by the white wooden ladle in Bai Yu’s hand touched the churning dense fog around them, the mist filled with curses and malice actually let out faint sizzling sounds and rapidly retreated to both sides.
A safe passage roughly three meters wide, untouched by the blood mist, slowly unfolded before them, winding toward the unknown depths of the mountain forest.
“…It worked!” Mo Fei cried out softly in surprise.
“Move!” An Mu did not hesitate in the slightest and immediately gave the order.
The four-person squad, with Bai Yu as the arrowhead, An Mu and Mo Fei as the two wings, and Lan Ce guarding the rear, formed a solid assault formation. Along this road of hope opened by the saintess’s tears, they advanced resolutely toward the final stage of the entire tragedy—the sacrificial cave.
Ahead of them lay malice enough to devour everything.
But this time, within their hearts, they carried the love of a departed soul.
In this final battle woven from despair and hope, resentment and love, they would stand for that deep affection which had been betrayed for a hundred years and seek the last measure of justice it was owed.