The Ancient Temple

An abandoned tunnel. Zhang Yuanqing looked around in a panic. Anyone thrust abruptly into strange, unfamiliar surroundings would feel lost and overwhelmed. "A tunnel? Is this the Sheling Tunnel from the urban legends?" As a native of Songhai City, he naturally knew about Sheling Tunnel, one of the city's ten greatest urban legends. When he had been naughty and refused to sleep as a child, his grandmother had always used that tale to scare him. Yet even setting aside the fact that urban legends were mere spectral ghost stories, Zhang Yuanqing had actually driven past Sheling Tunnel only a few days ago on his way back to his hometown to pay respects at his father's grave. How could the real Sheling Tunnel look anything like this, so decrepit and ancient? "Right, this is the Spirit Realm, not the actual Sheling Tunnel." The cramped, oppressive atmosphere frayed his nerves. Zhang Yuanqing proceeded cautiously, his lonely footsteps the only sound in his ears. As he walked, he turned over his circumstances, mulling over the information the voice in his head had provided. Without a doubt, he had encountered a supernatural phenomenon, swept into the world of an urban legend to carry out missions assigned by an uncanny power. "That voice gave me two objectives: survive for three hours, and explore the Spirit Realm. Difficulty: S-rank. Mode: Solo Lethal... That 'lethal' part really puts me on edge." Surviving for three hours implied immense danger. Exploring the Spirit Realm presumably meant exploring this tunnel. Did that mean the tunnel was fraught with peril? He quietly tensed his nerves, and a question flashed through his mind: What would the reward be for completing the missions? Since they were quests, there had to be a reward. "Right. According to the character sheet just now, my class is Night Wanderer, but at level zero rather than one. Becoming a Night Wanderer should be one of the rewards, but what exactly is a Night Wanderer?" "Brother Bing wasn't lying. This black card really does change one's life. But I overlooked the second half of what he said—that it's very difficult to master. Was he referring to the level of danger?" Zhang Yuanqing pieced together the known facts, analyzing them in silence. Just then, the vintage xenon lamp on the wall beside him flickered several times as if troubled by an unstable circuit. In the shifting interplay of light and shadow, Zhang Yuanqing caught a fleeting glimpse of a silhouette standing beneath the lamp, wearing a miner's helmet. *Fuck!* He jumped in fright, his train of thought instantly shattered. Like a startled deer, he bolted forward across the distance. Looking back, the xenon lamp burned steadily once more, no longer flickering. The shadow in the miner's helmet seemed like a trick of his imagination. Thoroughly rattled, Zhang Yuanqing dared not linger in this godforsaken place, hastening his pace toward the exit of the tunnel. *Tap, tap, tap.* His footsteps echoed through the eerie quiet of the tunnel. Zhang Yuanqing didn't dare pause for a second. After walking briskly for five or six minutes, the vintage xenon lamps along the arched ceiling flickered again, but this time, no silhouette in a miner's helmet appeared. *Didn't follow me?* He felt a faint sense of relief. Still not daring to stop, he kept his head down and walked quickly. Suddenly, his eyes caught a detail on the ground that made his heart skip a beat. The amber light of the xenon lamps stretched his shadow out long. Beside his shadow trailed over a dozen others. *They've been following me all along?!* A chill shot straight from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, raising goosebumps all over his body. Zhang Yuanqing's face drained of color, and he broke into a frantic sprint. At long last, the opening of the tunnel came into view, revealing frost-cold moonlight beyond. Zhang Yuanqing burst out of the tunnel in a single breath, resting his hands on his knees as he bent over, panting. Once he caught his breath, he surveyed his surroundings. A moon as round as a plate hung lonely in the night sky, its brilliance drowning the stars in dull obscurity. A lush forest bathed in the moonlight, casting sprawling, dense shadows across the ground. He was stranded out in the wild, desolate mountains. The xenon lamps inside the tunnel flickered several times before extinguishing entirely. The gaping tunnel mouth stood pitch-black and desolate, resembling the maw of a beast waiting to devour its prey. "I need to get out of here..." His scalp tingling with numbness, Zhang Yuanqing began climbing along the rugged mountain path. After a dozen paces, he looked back once more. Standing at the tunnel entrance was a row of silhouettes wearing miner's helmets and ragged clothes, their heads bowed low. They stood in the shadows untouched by the moonlight, utterly silent, as if seeing him off. Zhang Yuanqing recoiled a few steps in horror, spun around, and ran up the mountain. The dense foliage bordering both sides of the trail scattered fragments of moonlight, offering just enough illumination for him to see the path. Yet the mountains were terrifyingly still. The forest held no chirping of insects or calls of birds, making his footsteps ring out with unnerving clarity. "It's far too quiet. There's no way the mountains wouldn't even have insect calls at this time of year." He glanced around. The round moon hung overhead, the tree shadows swayed, and he had the creeping sensation that something in the dark was watching him. He didn't know how long he walked, but by the time a fine layer of sweat broke across his skin, Zhang Yuanqing finally emerged from the dense woods, and his view opened up. Moonlight pooled like water over the dead silence. At the end of the rugged mountain path stood an abandoned ancient temple. It rested quietly in the dark. There was no telling how many years the ancient temple had stood deserted. The front gate bore peeling, blackened paint and was riddled with woodworm holes. The lanterns at the eaves had fallen to the ground, leaving behind only their bamboo skeletons. The temple plaque was still in place, draped in cobwebs and hanging crookedly under the eaves, but the light was too dim to read what was written upon it. The stone steps before the entrance were fractured, with weeds pushing up through the cracks. Out here in the remote wilderness, miles from any village or inn, why would there be a temple? *Wait... a temple?!* Zhang Yuanqing jolted to a realization. The voice from the Spirit Realm's introductory briefing seemed to echo in his ears: *"Do not enter the temple. Do not enter the temple..."* *According to that strange voice's warning, I shouldn't go inside. No, wait—I've already left the tunnel. That means what I truly need to explore is this dilapidated temple.* After hesitating at the threshold for a long while, Zhang Yuanqing took cautious steps forward toward the temple standing in the darkness, crossing over the broken doorstep. What met his eyes was a spacious front courtyard overgrown with waist-high weeds. A decayed, half-man-tall incense burner lay toppled amid the grass, having weathered untold years of wind and rain. Beneath his feet stretched a stone pathway paved with blue flagstones, between whose seams sprouted clumps of wild grass. Following the undulating withered grass with his eyes toward the end of the stone path, he saw a dilapidated main hall perched on a raised foundation six stone steps high. A dim amber glow spilled through the latticed doors of the hall. "There's light?" The surroundings were deathly still and ruined. Under the cold, radiant moonlight, that faint halo of light brought Zhang Yuanqing not a shred of warmth. If anything, it felt even more terrifying. *Rustle...* Treading over patches of withered grass, he stayed on high alert as he made his way toward the main hall. In the vast, open space, his footsteps sounded distinctly loud. *Rustle, rustle...* Suddenly, Zhang Yuanqing's ears twitched. He heard an extra set of footsteps behind him. Something was following him. He snapped his head around. The night was still as water, the wild grass dense and tall. There was nothing behind him. "An auditory hallucination?" Paralyzed with fear, Zhang Yuanqing paused for a moment before forcing his legs forward once more. *Rustle, rustle, rustle...* The footsteps returned. This time he heard them with crystal clarity—something truly was trailing him. *It can't be this cursed, can it? Running into an unclean thing right after stepping into the temple?* He didn't dare look back, quickening his pace instead. The footsteps behind him accelerated to match. Unable to bear the tension any longer, Zhang Yuanqing felt his skin prickle with goosebumps as he broke into a frantic sprint toward the main hall. The footsteps clung like a shadow, hot on his heels. In that desperate chase, Zhang Yuanqing quickly burst through the thick grass and reached the main hall. He cleared the six steps in two bounds, and with a resounding crash, he slammed open the hall's double latticed doors. The footsteps behind him abruptly ceased. *Pant, pant...* He drew ragged breaths, finally daring to look back. The moon spilled like water across the courtyard, illuminating the overgrown weeds and flagstone path. It was frighteningly still, but there was nothing there. "Thank goodness it didn't follow me in." Once his breathing leveled, Zhang Yuanqing gently pushed the hall doors shut, as if barring the terror outside. Next, he surveyed the interior of the main hall. Atop a tall stone dais rested the statue of a matronly goddess, draped in a fur-lined cloak and dressed in resplendent attire. Her face was round, her eyes and brows slender and graceful, exuding an air of benevolence. In one hand, she held a horsetail whisk, while the other hand was curved in a grip—originally she seemed to have held something, but her hand was now empty. To her left and right stood attendants: a boy holding a sword and a maidservant clutching a book. Before the dais stood an offering table coated in dust, upon which rested a candlestick. A candle twenty centimeters long and as thick as an infant's forearm burned in tranquil silence. The candlelight chased away the darkness, and along with it, the fear gripping Zhang Yuanqing's heart. He felt his composure steady considerably. On the wall to the left hung two faded, cracked wooden boards inscribed with regular script. Zhang Yuanqing walked over to the wall, squinting under the faint amber candlelight. The text was composed in classical Chinese. His grasp of Chinese literature was quite decent. By guessing half and reading the rest, he gained a clear picture of his surroundings. This mountain was called Mount Sandao, and the mountain deity worshipped in the temple was known as Lady Sandao. This patron goddess had been a native of Song Prefecture in the early Ming dynasty. She had cultivated atop Mount Sandao in Song Prefecture, mastering the art of talismans and the craft of alchemy. She was able to pray for rain, banish evil spirits, and protect the local land with favorable weather, and for this, the common people venerated her as a deity. After her ascension, the local authorities constructed this temple on Mount Sandao, naming it "Lady Sandao Temple." Her chosen disciples maintained the incense offerings, serving as temple caretakers. "A temple from the early Ming dynasty... that's been five or six hundred years, hasn't it?" Zhang Yuanqing murmured. Just then, his gaze inadvertently brushed past the space beneath the offering table, and his heart gave a sudden lurch. A dark shape lay sprawled in the shadows beneath the table. He had been too rattled earlier, and the candlelight was dim, so he hadn't noticed it at first. Steeling himself, Zhang Yuanqing stepped closer and looked intently. It was a skeleton. Amid his dread, Zhang Yuanqing also felt a strange sense of relief. Compared to the eerie mountain temple itself, a mere corpse wasn't quite as terrifying. Approaching a few steps further, he made out the garments on the skeleton by the faint candlelight—a dust-covered work uniform. *A worker?* *Was this from the construction team back then? So I really have entered the world of the urban legend.* No sooner had the thought formed than another, even more chilling possibility struck him: *Perhaps the construction team back then stumbled into this place by mistake, just like me.* *And that's why an urban legend was left behind.* If it were the former, this so-called Spirit Realm had generated a scenario based on the urban legend. If it were the latter, it meant this ancient temple had always existed, and the construction team had been victims, just as he was right now. Given the temple's historical background, Zhang Yuanqing leaned toward the latter. *An entire construction team perished in this temple, with only a single survivor. People really die here... and now that I've stepped inside, I could face unknown danger at any moment...* *Hiss—* He drew in a sharp breath, his nerves tightening once more as he reflexively looked around. Then, he suddenly realized a detail that terrified him to his very core. This ancient temple dated back to the Ming dynasty, centuries ago. How could a candle still be burning? Who had been replacing the candles in the main hall? The more he thought about it, the more horrifying it became. Even the benevolent statue seemed to take on a sinister, uncanny aura in the flickering candlelight. Though coated in dust, the three clay statues were uncannily lifelike, every feature sculpted with vivid precision—especially their eyes. Perched atop the dais under the dim candlelight, they stared down at Zhang Yuanqing.