CH 50

Chapter 50: The status of Mother of the World has been obtained

This Granny Wen looked like the key NPC in the entire instance at first glance, and it was the kind that released core tasks.

After Granny Wen’s voice fell, the mobile phones in the pockets of all the anchors vibrated.

Chen Mo and Wang Hanyu, who were level-C anchors, immediately understood that this was the notification of a new task release.

They couldn’t help but feel refreshed.

This showed that they were on the right track this time.

“Who stole the soul-locking altars?” Chen Mo stood up and continued to ask: “Where should we go to get them back?”

“People who stole the soul-locking altars are the residents of this building.”

Granny Wen staggered forward on her walking stick, and slowly lit the incense on the incense altar in front of the Bodhisattva statue.

She lowered her eyes, and the corners of her wrinkled mouth trembled slightly: “They actively introduced evil things into their homes, not only harming themselves but also harming their family members.”

That means those residents who were murdered were the ones who stole the soul-locking altars.

“Could it be 1304 and 1306?”

Wang Hanyu was stunned for a moment and subconsciously asked back.

“……”

Granny Wen sighed, lowered her eyes, and chanted the words: “Bodhisattva is merciful.”

Su Cheng thought for a while, and asked, “How many soul-locking altars have been lost?”

“Three altars.”

Granny Wen said slowly.

The three anchors were all taken aback.

In that case, there should have been another massacre in this building, but they haven’t found the place yet.

“In other words, as long as we find the soul-locking altars and put them back in place, all this will be over?”

Wang Hanyu confirmed.

Granny Wen raised her cloudy eyes, and nodded slowly: “Naturally.”

If that’s the case, their next task was very clear — retrieve the three stolen soul-locking altars, bring them back here, and let the Bodhisattva suppress the evil spirits again.

Wang Hanyu and Chen Mo looked at each other and nodded.

Su Cheng turned his head subconsciously, looking for Wen Jianyan’s figure.

The young man stood alone at the junction of light and darkness, leaning against the door frame in a relaxed posture. His eyes were slightly raised, staring at the brass-colored Bodhisattva statue in front of him.

The dim light of the candlelight in front of the Bodhisattva fell under his amber eyes, making them look like a burning fire.

He broke the silence with his words:

“Since the soul-locking altars are so dangerous, why did those residents steal them?”

Granny Wen stroked the bead string on her wrist, lowered her cloudy eyes, and said slowly, “In order to regain freedom, evil spirits will tempt people who are not strong-willed.”

She shook her head, her voice hoarse and old: “They took the initiative to stay away from the blessings of the Bodhisattva, and deviated from the good thoughts.”

Wang Hanyu promised: “Granny Wen, trust us, we will bring back the soul-locking altars and let this all end.”

Granny Wen raised her eyes and said slowly:

“In that case, I have something here that should come in handy.”

She walked to the chest of drawers next to the statue of the Bodhisattva and took out a small mahogany box from the cabinet. The lid of the box was pulled open, making a harsh rubbing sound.

Granny Wen took out a handful of incense ashes from the incense burner, muttered something in her mouth, and then slowly sprinkled the incense ashes into the box.

After finishing all this, she took out a palm-sized bagua mirror from the box.

“This is……?”

Wen Jianyan was taken aback.

Granny Wen: “You should have noticed that after nightfall, the whole building has changed.”

That was true.

There was only one floor left in the thirteen-story building, and the remaining twelve floors were extending in all four directions with the thirteenth floor as the main axis, changing from a three-dimensional structure to a flat structure.

“Actually, this is the power of evil spirits that is changing our world.”

Granny Wen caressed the mirror surface with her palm covered with incense ash, making the already dusty mirror surface even darker and unable to reflect people’s shadows at all: “Now, their power has reached the point where I can’t suppress them. The boundary between this world and the underworld has become blurred, and in a few more hours, we will be pulled into that world forever.”

“But… it hasn’t reached that point yet.”

Granny Wen looked at the anchors in front of her and said slowly: “The soul-locking altars are no longer on our side, but are hidden deep in the opposite world.”

“If you want to retrieve the soul-locking altars, you need to go through this mirror, cross the boundary between Yin and Yang, and go to that world to find them.

“This trip is dangerous, are you really willing?”

“Of course.” The anchors nodded.

Wen Jianyan: “……”

Not at all.

But do I have a choice!

Granny Wen scanned the entire room with her cloudy eyes, then handed the mirror to Wang Hanyu:

“Your spirituality is the strongest, and this item will be entrusted to you for safekeeping.”

“Okay.”

Wang Hanyu took a step forward, reaching out to take the mirror from Granny Wen’s hand. But the moment his fingers touched the mirror, he paused for a moment, involuntarily.

Wen Jianyan keenly caught the brief pause of the other party.

……Hmm.

It seemed this mirror was a hidden item in this instance.

However, although its rarity was not easy to say, it should be either common or difficult; the possibility of being legendary was not great.

After explaining how to use the mirror, the group left Granny Wen’s house.

After a brief discussion, they finally decided to go back along the same route; first going to 1304, where they had been before, to find the soul-locking altar.

Outside the door, that monster had disappeared, leaving only a cold and dead corridor. The rice on the ground had completely turned black; the three sticks of incense on it had been burned out, and the fruits placed around were also shriveled and rotten.

There was an unsettling and eerie atmosphere in the air.

After leaving the apartment, Chen Mo tried to contact the anchors who had been separated from them earlier.

But he didn’t get any response.

This was not a good sign.

The group of people moved forward with extra caution for fear of encountering any terrifying creatures that came out to make trouble again. They were quite lucky and did not encounter any danger until they returned to the main corridor.

The thirteenth floor was here.

Compared with when they left before, this floor had changed even more. The walls on both sides of it had begun to widen, the distance between the corridors had increased by nearly three times, and the opposite doors that were close at hand were now extremely far away.

The lights above their heads flickered dimly, carrying a faint red glow.

But at least the order of the house numbers had not changed.

Soon, they came to the door of apartment 1304.

Chen Mo took a deep breath, collected himself, and slowly stretched out his hand to push the door open.

The door swung open silently.

A strong, rancid smell in the air rushed toward them, but the four terrifying paper figurines had disappeared, leaving only an empty, dark house.

Four people walked into it.

“Are you ready?” Wang Hanyu looked around and said, “I’m starting.”

He pressed his palms on the cold and cloudy mirror surface and began to slowly recite a few mantras taught to him by Granny Wen.

It didn’t seem to be Chinese or Sanskrit.

The syllables were weird, and could only be memorized by rote, like some kind of spell, repeated over and over again in a deliberately lowered voice, echoing in the dark and narrow room, making people feel a little chill down the spine for no reason.

Accompanied by the chanting, the temperature in the air dropped sharply, cutting people’s lives like a knife.

A distant, fine, and fuzzy sound sounded in the ears as if the room was filled with countless ghosts, whispering in everyone’s ears.

In the next second, the world spun.

A strong attraction from the depths of the mirror pulled everyone inside!

Su Cheng felt dizzy, and his stomach rolled as if his whole body had been stuffed into a washing machine and turned around several times. He staggered two steps and nearly fell down.

Consciousness came back little by little.

He opened his eyes.

The scene around him seemed to be the same as before; he was still standing in 1304, but something seemed to have changed drastically.

After being stunned for two seconds, Su Cheng realized where the strangeness came from.

All the things around him were reversed, as if they were in a mirror world.

Everything was shrouded in a faint red, and there was a disgusting, strange smell in the air.

Bloody, rancid, and cold.

“Only with the help of mirrors can we return to the real world.”

Wang Hanyu carefully put the bagua mirror back into his pocket, turned his head to look at the other members of the group, and said: “Next, we must act together and never separate. You must follow me closely. Once we separate, we may be trapped here forever.”

Su Cheng felt a chill go down his back.

He quickly nodded vigorously.

“……”

Wang Hanyu was taken aback. He frowned, looked around the room again, and then said, feeling very puzzled: “Speaking of… where is that NPC?”

Su Cheng was stunned for a moment, then quickly turned his head to look.

There were only three people left in the room: him, Wang Hanyu, and Chen Mo.

When Wang Hanyu was chanting the mantra, Wen Jianyan, who had been standing beside him, disappeared without leaving a trace.

Su Cheng: “……”

? ? ?

Where had the dog liar gone?

***

The sky was spinning, and his head was dizzy.

This feeling was so familiar—almost exactly the same as every time he entered the hidden line.

However, there was one thing that was quite different.

Amidst the dizziness, Wen Jianyan could clearly feel that on his wrist, the piece of skin wrapped in a bandage was surprisingly hot, like molten lava surging violently under the skin, burning him from the inside out.

… so hot.

Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth and subconsciously reached out his other hand to grab his wrist, hoping to relieve the terrifying heat released from the inside.

Soon, the dizziness disappeared.

“Bang!”

Wen Jianyan fell heavily to the ground.

The expected hardness and pain did not come, on the contrary…the ground under the body seemed a little weird.

Soft, sticky, and moist.

He blinked.

His blurred vision gradually became clearer.

When he saw where he was, Wen Jianyan’s face turned pale for a moment, and his stomach rolled.

As far as eye could see, there was scarlet.

The space was not big, about the size of an apartment.

He had no idea when the ground and the walls became bloody, soft, wet, and sticky, wriggling like living things. The bottom of the walls throbbed like a heart, like some kind of living being, giving people a strong sense of nausea.

In the distance, near the other end of the wall, there were seven pitch-black, palm-sized, black pottery jars neatly placed. However, there was an obvious vacant space near the right side, just enough to put three more black pottery jars.

A strong smell of blood came from that direction.

In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:

[?]

[?????]

[What’s going on? Weren’t they still in 1304 just now?]

[And those jars are so familiar… they seem to be in this instance before? But why can’t I remember it?]

[Fuck, those jars are the soul-locking altars that have not been stolen! That means… this is actually the inner world of 1316?!]

[Oh God, so far, there are not many anchors who have entered 1316 in the real world, let alone the inner world.]

[There are chains and spells outside 1316. It looks fierce at first glance. How could there be an anchor willing to enter?]

The lids on the tops of all seven jars began to rattle up and down at the same time as if something was trying to push the lids off.

“Cluck.”

The familiar, scalp-tingling sound of bones rubbing against each other came from it.

Pale palms stretched out from the mouths of the jars, and below them were long, bony arms.

“!!!”

Wen Jianyan gasped and slowly backed away uncontrollably.

This… wasn’t this the monster that had been chasing them after getting out of the mirror when they were in the corridor just now!

At that time, only one of them almost killed them, but now there were seven of them in front of him!!

…Fuck!

There were walls of wriggling, scarlet flesh everywhere. There were no doors, windows, or places to hide, and all skills were cooling down. Even if he had a doctor’s certificate that could save his life once, Wen Jianyan couldn’t guarantee that he would be able to find a way to escape in the next second.

Wen Jianyan fixed his eyes on the ghostly hands protruding from the jars not far away and subconsciously relaxed his breathing.

He still had the item “Holy Child”, maybe it could help him in this situation.

Suddenly, without warning, Wen Jianyan felt something soft grab his ankle.

In the next second, more soft and sticky things wound up from behind, pulling him back violently!

Wen Jianyan’s pupils shrank.

Numerous scarlet tentacles protruded from the wriggling wall, firmly fixing him on the wall, slowly contracting and becoming agitated, swallowing him bit by bit. The liquid secreted by the wall seemed to be corrosive, and accompanied by a sizzling sound, the clothes on Wen Jianyan’s upper body began to melt.

The ghost hands stretched out more and more—

“Cluck.”

“Cluck.”

The ear-piercing sound of bones rubbing against each other echoed in the narrow space.

Damn, if he didn’t use it now, he wouldn’t have another chance!

Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth suddenly.

【Holy Child Remains: Awakened】

A small, snow-white baby floated in midair. It opened its eyes and looked at Wen Jianyan with pupils of the same color, with admiration and nostalgia in its eyes.

“Mother.”

The baby stuck out its plump arms and smiled cheerfully at him.

In the next second, the wall that had been trying to swallow Wen Jianyan suddenly froze. It stopped wriggling as if touching a flame and let go of the young man, whose aura had changed.

【The identity of the mother of the world has been obtained, duration: 30s】

Wen Jianyan jumped up. There were only rags that remained on his white and thin upper body; his skin was corroded to a light red color, but he ignored the pain and rushed toward the wall in a certain direction.

From the moment the prop was activated, the young man’s eyeballs had turned dark, like a bottomless abyss, releasing a ghostly aura outward.

Wen Jianyan could now “see” the door.

However, time was running out.

He raised his hand and pressed it against the wall, gritted his teeth, and said, “Get out of the way.”

The fleshy wall squirmed unwillingly, and separated to the two sides under his command, struggling to expose the cold and heavy black iron gate little by little.

In the ear, the countdown was silently passing.

【15, 14, 13…】

Ten seconds left.

No, there was not enough time.

Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth viciously.

He raised his other hand and firmly pressed it against the wriggling wall.

The bandage wrapped around his wrist had been completely corroded, and between the slender and thin wrist, the pitch-black incantation pattern was like a frightful living creature, winding under the white skin.

Under the influence of “Mother of the World” status, the wall that was struggling to resist suddenly stopped moving.

“Who…are…you?”

A strange and stiff voice echoed throughout the space, seemingly not very proficient, but it said every word.

“God the Father,”

Wen Jianyan was startled: “…?”

What?

“With you……”

“What relationship……”

The countdown in his ears was still going on.

【8, 7, 6…】

Five seconds.

Not enough to escape.

…have to find another way.

At this moment, Wen Jianyan’s mind spun.

In the last instance, even though the buff of the mother of the world disappeared, the man still said—“The taste has changed.”

In other words, even if he lost his strength after the countdown ended, the aura on his body should last for a while.

That being the case…

There was an opportunity.

Wen Jianyan made a quick decision.

He withdrew his hand and took a slow, deep breath.

The young man’s slender upper body was naked, with reddish scars and jet-black incantation spreading across his fair skin, looking weird and harmonious, carrying a sadistic beauty.

“I am the mother of the world, and he is God the father.”

Wen Jianyan stood where he was and raised his eyes lightly. Under his long eyelashes, the eyes were as black as ink, and there was a cold ghostly aura that seemed completely out of the scope of human beings.

He raised the corners of his lips slightly, raised a careless arc, and asked back with a smile:

“What kind of relationship do you think we have?”

The author has something to say: 

Wen Jianyan: We are actually in that kind of relationship (implying

Gong, who had just been stabbed in the heart in the last instance: ?

What did you say?