Su Er had long suspected that his understanding of the game differed from everyone else's. His conversation with Wei Jun in the ruined temple only confirmed it once more.
Whether or not to follow a path to the bitter end had once been a troubling question.
But now—
Su Er tilted his face slightly and looked at his companions, saying, “Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth, and truth is in the hands of the few. All of my practical results have been positive. I represent the few—therefore, I am the truth.”
Wei Jun's throat moved. He glanced at Ji Heng and said, “Aren’t you going to stop him?”
“How?” Ji Heng replied calmly. “Get him another fortune-teller?”
The discussion came to an abrupt end.
Setting that aside, Su Er sat up properly and looked at the old man, saying slowly, “That phrase is too vague—any random person on the street could say that.”
The old man's expression turned grim, but he couldn’t refute it—after all, excess information was beyond the scope of his divinations.
He resisted the urge to bark out ‘get lost’ and redirected his frustration elsewhere. With a sharp clack, he slammed the cup on the stone table, leaving a crack at the base.
“Next,” the old man said, expression sour.
There were many things people wanted to ask, but judging from the old man's demeanor and the killing intent in his eyes, Su Er wisely stepped back.
Wei Jun regretted not stopping Su Er from stepping forward earlier. Now he sat opposite the old man, facing a face full of resentment.
“You’ll drown in a day,” the old man said coldly. “If you want to survive, you have to deceive Heaven itself.”
Wei Jun cooperatively asked how.
The old man’s expression finally softened a bit. “Simple…”
With a flick of his sleeve, the cup on the table fell to the ground and shattered, splattering what remained of its contents. Instinctively, Wei Jun conjured a talisman. Seeing the old man didn’t make a move, he stayed on high alert, but didn’t attack.
It soon became clear his instincts were right. The old man remained seated, unmoving, while the spilled corpse fluid on the ground attracted several patterned snakes.
Earlier, they’d only thought of escaping the looping corridors, but now, up close, they realized these snakes were unlike any ordinary ones. Their faces—there was something disturbingly human about them. Their heads were far larger than normal, and unlike typical snakes, their round, vicious eyes glowed with an eerie intelligence.
The old man approached and gently stroked one of the snakes, smiling faintly. “Many ancient texts describe powerful deities as having human faces and snake bodies.”
Wei Jun was no stranger to that idea. Among the best known were figures like Nüwa and Zhu Jiuyin.
The old man continued, “Fate is predetermined, but that doesn’t mean there’s no escape.” As he spoke, his gaze toward the snakes grew gentler. “These are the results of my research.”
After licking up the corpse fluid, the patterned snake curled up nearby and let out a few hisses. The old man placed a book in front of it, and the snake used its tongue to flip the pages, reading intently.
Everyone watching felt their scalp go numb. Wei Jun frowned. “These… are they human or snake?”
“They’ll become beings that transcend reincarnation,” the old man said calmly. “They will grow bit by bit, ultimately evolving into human-faced, snake-bodied beings.”
Many of the players—especially the women—felt an overwhelming sense of nausea. They’d grown numb to gore after so long in the game, but these living, unclassifiable things were the worst.
The old man, completely unaware of how disturbing his behavior was, beamed as he asked, “What do you think?”
“You’re absolutely right,” Su Er said firmly.
The old man looked at him.
Su Er continued, “Human lifespans shouldn’t be limited to a mere hundred years. I’ve done research in this area too—I'm skilled in alchemy and can offer you a few pills, free of charge.”
He thought to himself, I’ll mix in mercury and sulfur—let’s see if it poisons you.
Logically, this should’ve been exactly what the old man wanted to hear, but he just couldn’t develop any fondness for Su Er. In fact, he kind of wanted him dead.
Wei Jun cut in to stop their conversation. “So if I want to survive, I have to become some half-human, half-ghost creature?”
The old man clearly disliked the word ‘creature.’ He pressed his dry lips together. “No need for that. Just choose one of the snakes and keep it with you. Feed it a little of your flesh and blood each day.”
He didn’t bother hiding the truth. “Some of these children have bigger appetites than others. Which one you pick depends on your luck.” He paused, then looked smilingly at the others. “You’re all the same. There are plenty more in the house—go ahead and choose one each.”
A deadly choice—only a question of how many lives it would cost.
Wei Jun narrowed his eyes. “We have to choose now?”
“You’re all fated for this,” the old man waved his hand. “Feel free to stay here for a day, get acquainted.”
With that, he left, taking the thickest snake with him.
His departure didn’t lighten the mood—in fact, the air grew even heavier.
Li Li tactfully suggested, “Let’s find a quieter place to talk.”
No one could be sure whether the snakes could understand human speech—and report back to the old man.
They moved to a more open area.
Su Mei was unusually quiet, curled up and not daring to act out. She had a deep-rooted fear of snakes.
Song Jiayue knocked the white fox unconscious before speaking to make things easier. “The killing rules have now emerged.”
The monsters in the dungeon couldn’t just kill players at will. They always set up specific conditions—conditions that could offer a sliver of hope or become a death trap, forcing players to step right in.
Like Su Mei, Li Li was naturally afraid of slimy creatures and nervously asked, “What if we pick the wrong one?”
Wei Jun suddenly looked at Su Er and Ji Heng, both of whom had stayed silent for a while, and chuckled. “What are you two thinking about so deeply?”
Su Er: “The host.”
That mysterious fortune-teller had been the most elusive game host he’d encountered.
“…” Wei Jun gave Ji Heng a complicated look. “You’re not thinking about the fortune-teller too, are you?”
Ji Heng shook his head but answered Li Li’s question instead. “If you pick the wrong one, just pick again.”
Li Li was surprised. “But the old man said we each only get one pick.”
Ji Heng spoke completely calmly: “Out with the old, in with the new. Since he’s providing the snakes, he should be responsible for after-sales service, too.”
Li Li made a throat-slitting gesture. “You mean to…”
Ji Heng gave a slight nod. “A single snake is much easier to handle than a ghost.”
Su Er raised an eyebrow at that. Ji Heng had always come across as low-key and composed. He had even been curious how Ji Heng got the nickname ‘Ghosts’ Bane.’
Now it seemed—there’s always a reason behind a name.
Wei Jun thought it was a viable plan. “I’m just worried it’ll anger the old man.”
“If the snake dies, it has nothing to do with us.”
Under Wei Jun’s skeptical gaze, Ji Heng glanced at Su Er. “That old man sees the snakes as people. We’ll take a page out of his book and say we thought the snake looked too lonely—so we decided to find it a companion.”
Su Er immediately understood. “So if the snake ends up dead, we just say it was cursed by bad luck and died because of me?”
Ji Heng nodded. “Just remember to stage the scene to look like an accident.”
The white fox had only just regained consciousness. Song Jiayue had hit it pretty hard—its neck was still numb. It had barely come to when it overheard this insane conversation, and it almost wished it could go back to being unconscious.
She had always thought she was the one having the worst time, but now she found herself… sympathizing with the snake. It was being manipulated without even realizing it.
With the plan set, Ji Heng turned to Wei Jun. “You and Song Jiayue choose first. The rest of us will decide tomorrow.”
Wei Jun nodded. That was safer. For one, their predicted death time was closest. For another, they didn’t know the snakes’ true attack capabilities yet. Better to observe a couple first.
They resumed moving about the estate and, unlike before, didn’t encounter another looping corridor or ‘ghost trap.’
It was an overcast day, and many snakes were out. Some hung upside down from the eaves, others coiled around thick tree trunks. Fortunately, none of the flower snakes showed any signs of aggression.
After circling most of the grounds, Wei Jun summarized: “The most obvious difference is in the size of their heads.”
Some of these snakes’ heads were almost fully human-faced.
Song Jiayue and Wei Jun ended up choosing two very different ones—one with an almost fully formed human face, and the other that looked very weak and frail.
They went to find the old man. When he heard they’d made their choices, he beamed. “Feed your blood to the chosen snake, and it will follow you from then on.”
No one left the haunted house that night. Song Jiayue was quite brave, but even she was chilled to the bone being tailed by a snake around the clock.
The players gathered in the main hall and started logging the feeding times and amounts.
Whenever a flower snake got hungry, it would stick out its tongue and make direct eye contact, adopting an aggressive posture. Wei Jun tested it out on himself—he had the white fox scratch some flesh off his fingertip. The moment he added flesh to the blood, the snake’s hunger decreased significantly.
Song Jiayue had a sudden idea. “What if we fed it someone else’s blood?”
They tried swapping once—and the snake immediately became aggressive. Its vertical pupils gleamed with fury. They stopped the experiment right away.
By midnight, the large snake was still relatively calm, but the smaller one kept demanding more blood. Wei Jun fed it half a bowl, and it still wasn’t satisfied.
Ji Heng gave a meaningful look—this snake had to go. On the side, he gently stroked the white fox’s fur, and Su Mei instantly understood—she was being sent out to spar with the snake.
“Wei Jun will go with you. If we survive, you live too.”
A ghostlike whisper brushed past her ear.
Once the decision was made, Song Jiayue took the large snake out to walk around the courtyard. Su Mei sensibly pretended to get ready to draw blood from Wei Jun with her claws. At the same time, the flower snake was slithering in circles, hissing, as if urging them to hurry.
Wei Jun inhaled lightly, eyes sharpening. His hand moved so fast it left afterimages—he gripped the snake right at its weak point with perfect precision. The white fox struck with its claws, and the human-faced flower snake was swiftly dealt with.
Ji Heng said, “Drain the blood and tie off the wound. Make it look like an accident.”
Wei Jun complied.
Ji Heng continued, “There’s a well in the courtyard, full of bones. That corpse fluid the old man drinks? Most likely comes from there.”
“Perfect!” Wei Jun grinned. “Even the dumping site is prepped.”
The well was disgusting—floating bones everywhere. The snake corpse landed on one, half-sunken.
The cursed night slowly passed. At dawn, the old man came out with a small teapot, ready to fetch some corpse fluid, when he suddenly heard a wail. Thinking someone had died, he happily strolled over.
But as he neared the well and realized the source of the sound, his smile faded.
Su Er was crouched at the well’s edge, shedding two crocodile tears. Hearing footsteps, he turned around and wailed, “The snake—it drowned!”
Wei Jun couldn’t act that dramatically, so he stayed silent and pretended to be overwhelmed with grief.
The old man rushed to the well, the teapot lid clanging loudly as he moved. When he saw the snake’s body, his face froze. He whipped around. “What happened?”
His eyes were now cold and ruthless, like a snake’s. The players felt a chill run down their spines.
No one answered.
Seeing that the old man was truly angry, Ji Heng gently stroked the white fox and spoke softly, “All things have spirits. My friend was told he would drown. Perhaps this snake, grateful for the drops of blood he gave it, chose to take his place and avert the fate… Ah, how touching!”
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