Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 130: The Return of the Past

Disaster Resolvers didn’t have a strictly regulated rest period. To coordinate with the teams selected by Fang Xiu, his group rested for a full three days before officially beginning the next ritual.

Face with this cruel realty, no one was more frustrated by this than Dian’er.

Normally, it would be responsible for providing detailed information about the “Immortal Encounter E,” but that E had only appeared in rituals a handful of times. No matter how much you squeezed it, it couldn’t cough up anything useful.

Which made it seem pretty useless.

In order to protect Fang Xiu’s team, an especially high-quality case, it even humbled itself to beg fellow paper figures colleagues for rumors about the E.

To its dismay, it discovered that the last time this thing had been used in a ritual was five hundred years ago. Everyone involved had been wiped out, including the assigned soul envoy. After that, the previous Tower ghost immortal guardian had thrown this cursed thing into the “Sealed E’s” shelf, never to be used again.

The scariest kind of rumor was the absence of rumors.

Though it had no parents, Dian’er came to understand the term “losing one’s parents”. Just as it gloomily reported all this to Fang Xiu, Fang Xiu caught on to a crucial point—

“That’s weird. If you already know no one can clear it, shouldn’t the Underworld use it more often?”

Dian’er: “?”

Fang Xiu: “If I’m right, your eighth ritual is always made extremely difficult. That way, fewer people succeed and less wishes will be granted, so the Underworld earns more.”

“So when faced with an extremely dangerous E, your first instinct was to seal it away. Why? Is there some unique evil in it you don’t want to ascend?”

Dian’er shook its head like a rattle. “No, no, even if a spirit like that did ascend, we’d be glad! Once ascended, it’s bound by the Heavens, making it easier to handle.”

“Just like you said, the most difficult ones are saved for the finale. The previous ghost immortal is gone. We don’t know what happened back then.”

“There’s no records at all?” Fang Xiu raised an eyebrow.

“Only resolved E’s are documented,” the paper figure replied listlessly.

Fang Xiu bit into a fried dough stick, lost in thought.

Beside him, Bai Shuangying perked up his ears and listened attentively. Even Fang Xiu didn’t know about the “Immortal Encounter E”, and neither did he, the so-called Great God of Calamity.

Yet it was clearly influenced by the karma Bai Shuangying had polluted. That meant it had a deep connection to him as the “Great God of Calamity”. To be honest, even Bai Shuangying was confused. He was starting to feel like he was being slandered.

…But no matter what it was, his job was to protect Fang Xiu. Even if he hadn’t fully recovered, he couldn’t possibly lose to some dead object.

They had already survived brutal realities, a cult’s holy land, illusionary photos and dreams. No matter how he thought about it, Bai Shuangying couldn’t figure out what new tricks the Immortal Encounter E might pull.

It would be better to think about how to keep his identity hidden.

Actually, it wasn’t just him—Cheng Songyun and Guan He were both calm, looking like people used to facing storms.

At last, it was time to depart. The two silently walked in front, and as usual, Fang Xiu brought up the rear. As he stepped onto the second floor with Bai Shuangying, he was still deep in thought.

“Huh?” Guan He was the first to speak as his foot touched the second floor.

Fang Xiu looked up instinctively, startled for once.

Through the darkness, the second-floor corridor looked like a rural dirt path, ending at a rotting wooden door. Outside, rain poured down heavily, and the damp air was thick with the earthy smell of wet soil.

…Weishan Village?

Everything looked too familiar… This scene was identical to their first ritual. It was unsettling.

Fang Xiu thought, the Underworld wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake. But coincidence? He didn’t believe that at all.

Coincidence or not, the three stepped through that all-too-familiar door into the ritual site. The door vanished behind them, leaving only a dirt wall.

Even though winter was nearly over, the weather had the warmth of late summer. The rain fell without end, soaking their clothes until they clung to skin like something alive.

They stood once again on the abandoned grain-drying field. Weishan Village was silent beside them, and everything farther off was blocked by thick mist. Only the rough outline of Weishan could be seen in the distance.

There were already many people gathered at the site.

Both Guishan Sect teams selected by Fang Xiu had arrived, with a rare total of eight participants.

While figures like Zhuang Pengdao and Cen Ling led elite squads centered around “core strength”, these teams favored cooperation. They had no internal trust issues, working far more smoothly than most.

All members had cleared at least four rituals. One team still had five members, which spoke volumes about their cooperation skills.

The two team leaders were already chatting warmly. Fortunately, as per Fang Xiu’s request, they didn’t know they had been “specially invited”. They just thought this was another normal ritual.

Looking at the frighteningly familiar scene, goosebumps rose on Guan He’s arms. “Brother Ge, is this…”

Reality? A dream? An illusion?

“Not sure yet. Stay alert,” Fang Xiu said quietly, habitually glancing toward Bai Shuangying.

“These aren’t illusions, and there’s no sign of karmic pollution.” Bai Shuangying frowned slightly. “But the season here is wrong.”

Fang Xiu scanned the surroundings with extra caution. “Do you sense anything else? Anything at all.”

Bai Shuangying, unusually quiet, answered, “There’s something off, but I can’t pinpoint it yet. That ‘Immortal Encounter E’ is extremely powerful. Do not act alone.”

He had broken over thirty thousand chains but still couldn’t see through the “Immortal Encounter E”. That meant its power was comparable to a partially unsealed Lord Bai.

An absurd and terrible realization.

While Fang Xiu’s group was analyzing the environment, the other two teams were already sizing them up, from top to bottom.

They especially scrutinized Guan He and Cheng Songyun, but eventually their focus settled on Fang Xiu’s red T-shirt.

The five-member team’s leader, a kindly looking old man, walked over with a warm tone. “No sense standing around getting soaked. Let’s find shelter from the rain.”

As he spoke, the believers around him smiled warmly too. They looked like a group of cheerful tourists on a countryside retreat.

Hearing such a familiar line, Guan He froze. Fang Xiu simply clenched the jade Buddha in his pocket and replied calmly, “You’re right.”

Half an hour later.

Fang Xiu followed the old man’s lead as their group reached an empty house on the edge of the village.

Inside were just a few bundles of firewood. It was basically an empty storage room. It matched Fang Xiu’s memory exactly—down to the placement of the firewood.

The only difference was that last time, there had been nine people crammed in. Now there were eleven, which made it even more cramped.

Bai Shuangying stayed close to Fang Xiu, keeping up his disguise. One arm wrapped around Fang Xiu’s waist as his sharp eyes scanned the room.

Seeing this creepily familiar building, even Cheng Songyun was losing composure. She swallowed nervously and slowly toyed with her prayer beads to calm her nerves.

“Let’s treat this as our base of operations,” the old leader suggested cheerfully, showing his toothless grin.

His kind face, white goatee, and neatly kept traditional jacket gave him a certain spiritual aura. Around his neck hung a red string with what looked like a jade pendant.

“You all look so young. Just call me Grandpa Dao,” the old man said with a wrinkly smile. “What are your names, young friends?”

Fang Xiu grinned even wider. “I’m Jia Xu. You can call me Xiao Jia. I’m the team leader for our group. Nice to meet you.”

Cheng Songyun and Guan He: “…”

Please don’t use the name of a dead person in such a creepy situation. You just made things even worse.

But it wasn’t the time to comment. They kept their mouths shut and pretended nothing was wrong.

For now, everyone had just arrived. On the surface, things had to remain friendly. Even Guishan fanatics wouldn’t start randomly killing before understanding the situation.

Sure enough, Grandpa Dao was just as friendly as Cen Ling had been early on.

The eight Guishan disciples got to work quickly, cleaning the dirty old house and laying out firewood for makeshift beds.

“It’s almost dark. Let’s leave it at this for today.”

Grandpa Dao lit a fire in the doorway and looked out at the endless rain. “This is only the first day. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Another eerily familiar line. Fang Xiu nodded obediently.

This guy was saying the same things Lao Mian and Mai Zi once had… Would he drop dead like them too?

Everything was so strange Fang Xiu didn’t dare act rashly. He leaned at the doorway, staring through the curtain of rain toward the silhouette of Weishan.

“Do you think the Weishan Shrine is still there?” he whispered to Bai Shuangying.

“We’ll check it together in daylight,” Bai Shuangying replied, never straying from Fang Xiu’s side. “But logically, this village shouldn’t even exist.”

The God of Weishan had officially ascended, and Fang Xiu had destroyed the Weishan E. The real village had long been buried by mudslides. Not even ghosts could say what this place really was.

Fang Xiu reached out to catch some rain. He stared at the warm, glistening drops in his palm, then sniffed, and cautiously gave it a taste.

He immediately shuddered and barely suppressed a gag, spitting all the water out.

“Forget whether the shrine still exists. The Weishan E’s taboos are still active here.”

Wiping his lips, Fang Xiu muttered, “No wonder Dian’er least recommended this one. It’s intense.”

The good news was, they’d already experienced the beta version and knew the three taboos of the Weishan E.

The bad news was, this wasn’t the “Weishan E” at all.

……

At the village entrance of Weishan.

A’Shou stood in the rain, solemnly staring into the stormy Weishan Village. From the deserted settlement to the sunless skies above.

As night fell deeper, she turned her gaze toward the shrine.

The lights were still on over there, bustling with activity. Shadows that looked human passed by her silently. She couldn’t see their faces—they were neither human nor evil spirits.

She followed one carefully, watching it for a long time, and barely made out its form.

These humanoid creatures were covered head to toe in black words, like dolls stitched with black thread. Each line was a thread, each word a stitch.

A’Shou squinted to read the blurry embroidery and made out a line:

[A’Shou stood in the rain, solemnly staring into the stormy Weishan Village.]

…What?

She shook her head and looked again.

If her heart could beat, it would’ve skipped. The text had changed. And now it felt even more ominous:

[If her heart could beat, it would’ve skipped.]

[The text had changed.]

[Something was deeply wrong. The Immortal Encounter E was more dangerous than she had imagined, A’Shou thought.]

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