Chapter 72

As soon as the words were spoken, both Brother Wei and Xiao Cheng were taken aback.
Xiao Cheng immediately corrected herself, "I just think that person was really lucky. If we find her, we might get some clues."
Brother Wei cast a suspicious glance at Xiao Cheng, feeling that she didn’t seem as fragile as she appeared, instead, she came across as decisive and efficient.
He even had the illusion that Xiao Cheng was the experienced player, while he was the novice.
Brother Wei said, “Looking for that lucky survivor is like searching for a needle in a haystack. We’re unfamiliar with this world, how could we possibly find someone easily? The mountain temple is definitely suspicious; this round of the game must be related to it. That villager is likely a plot character we’re meant to interact with. Don’t overthink it. Let’s head back.”
Brother Wei believed that the incident where an entire class of students died, with only one survivor, was meant to hint at the dangers of the mountain temple and warn them to be cautious, not to mindlessly search for some so-called lucky survivor.
The villager had already said that the survivor only lived because they hadn’t participated at all.
But according to the rules of the divine game, they had to go up the mountain to trigger the next part of the plot. So, they absolutely had to ascend.
Xiao Cheng glanced toward the mountain, as if she still had something to say.
Brother Wei started walking uphill and called back, “Let’s go.”
In the end, Xiao Cheng didn’t voice her thoughts. She followed Brother Wei, and the two of them began climbing the mountain once again.
The next day.
Gu Yi’an, carrying a backpack, arrived alone in front of the temple where the chubby uncle had set up his stall.
Lu Zize, in his human form, didn’t dare to follow her this time.
He had appeared twice the day before, once at the exam hall and once at the library.
In the library, he had taken a seat opposite Gu Yi’an, pretending to read a book, but his gaze was fixed on her.
At first, he had tried to maintain the pretense, but later he dropped all subtlety, even putting aside the book he had used as a cover.
Gu Yi’an had initially tried to ignore him.
But soon, the curious and gossipy stares from other people studying around them became unavoidable.
Everyone was intensely curious about who would dare to provoke Gu Yi’an so brazenly.
As the number of stares grew, Gu Yi’an could no longer overlook them.
Annoyed by the onlookers, she shot a glare at Lu Zize, the source of the trouble, took out her notebook, and wrote a message.
She didn’t want to see Lu Zize in his human form for the time being.
Gu Yi’an felt that Lu Zize always managed to bring trouble her way.
Before, people hadn’t stared at her so openly, but the moment Lu Zize showed up, countless curious eyes turned in her direction.
The notebook and the humanoid Lu Zize were originally two different identities of the same deity.
After Gu Yi'an wrote that sentence, Lu Zize glanced at her with what seemed like a hint of grievance in his eyes.
He would never question Gu Yi'an's words.
So, in the next moment, he vanished into thin air right in front of everyone.
Fortunately, he had concealed himself, and no one noticed that a boy had disappeared out of nowhere by the study desk.
The curious onlookers withdrew their gazes in confusion, unsure why they had been staring at Gu Yi'an in the first place.
Once their attention shifted elsewhere, Gu Yi'an turned her gaze to the notebook.
On its inner page, a cracked heart had appeared.
Beside the cracked heart was an annotation:
"My heart is broken."
Could Lu Zize be any more dramatic?
Gu Yi'an sighed helplessly, closed the notebook, and set it aside.
Perhaps because of the words Gu Yi'an had written in the notebook,
Lu Zize temporarily dared only to appear in his notebook form.
When Gu Yi'an left home today, the notebook had slipped into her backpack on its own.
Pretending not to notice, Gu Yi'an zipped up her backpack.
When she arrived at the spot where the chubby uncle had set up his stall, she found not only him but also the young man she had seen last time.
The young man seemed somewhat fearful upon seeing Gu Yi'an.
He didn't even dare to look up at her.
The chubby uncle, annoyed by the boy's presence, told him to scram inside.
The young man had been waiting for those words and immediately stood up, darting into the temple.
Gu Yi'an turned to the chubby uncle and asked, "Master, what exactly is this ghost-exorcism matter you mentioned on the phone?"
Yesterday, after the chubby uncle had gotten her number from her brother Gu Tianjing, he immediately contacted her, saying he wanted to collaborate on a ghost-exorcism case and that any captured ghosts could be handed over to Gu Yi'an for disposal.
Initially, Gu Yi'an hadn't given the call much thought, but the little girl and the hanged ghost beside her had stared at her with hopeful eyes.
Thinking that the little girl and the hanged ghost might need to devour ghosts as sustenance, Gu Yi'an agreed to the exorcism over the phone.
The chubby uncle moved aside the small stool the young man had been sitting on and said, " Cultivator, please have a seat. Let me explain it to you slowly."
Gu Yi'an glanced at the low stool, still warm from someone else's use, and replied, "It's fine, I'll stand and listen."
The chubby uncle couldn't let her stand, so he stood up as well and said, "It's about someone who's been keeping a little ghost. They came to me for help. You know my level, Cultivator, at best, I can protect myself. If the little ghost grows too powerful, I won't be able to handle it."
Hearing this, Gu Yi'an recalled the time the chubby uncle had offered to help her exorcise ghosts.
Back then, he claimed he could rid her of the seven ghosts around her, yet now he couldn't even deal with one.
Noticing Gu Yi'an's gaze, the chubby uncle chuckled awkwardly, "Well, I didn't know my true capabilities back then. After last time, I realized I'm not cut out for dealing with ghosts. We need professionals like you, Cultivator."
Gu Yi'an remained silent, allowing him to save face.
The chubby uncle continued, "I've looked into it. The client is keeping the ghost of her child who died unexpectedly. But recently, something went wrong, it seems to have backfired. Her family members and she herself have been having frequent accidents, nearly fatal ones."
Gu Yi'an glanced at her phone.
The small coffin on the phone swayed, seemingly reflecting some ghost's impatience.
The burly uncle also saw this and said, "Rest assured, cultivator, I won’t touch the evil spirits you’ve captured. As for the payment, how about you take 30% and I take 70%?"
Gu Yi'an thought for a moment; she wasn’t sure what the appropriate price should be.
When it came to exorcising the spirits, it would be the hanged ghost and the little girl doing the work, she herself was merely an observer.
Seeing that Gu Yi'an didn’t immediately agree, the burly uncle glanced at her expression, which was as aloof as ever.
Could it be that the cultivator was dissatisfied with the price?
Unable to gauge Gu Yi'an’s thoughts, the burly uncle hesitated for a moment. Thinking that he wanted to build goodwill with the female cultivator this time, he changed his offer: "How about a fifty-fifty split?"
Gu Yi'an gave him a surprised look, not understanding why he had changed his mind.
She said, "Thirty-seventy is fine."
Hearing this, the burly uncle immediately replied, "No, no, let’s do fifty-fifty."
He then thought of something and shamelessly added, "I just hope you can agree to one condition."
"What condition?" Gu Yi'an asked, a little curious.
While Gu Yi'an and the burly uncle were talking, in another part of this world...
In front of a mountain temple, five players sat exhausted on the open ground.
One of the male players, looking at the disheveled group, said, "It’s all ghosts. Nothing but ghosts. Does this round of the game want us dead?"
He glanced around at the others and added, "Out of the four new players in this round, only Xiao Cheng is still alive."
Upon hearing this, the veteran players all turned their eyes to Xiao Cheng, the only surviving new female player.
Xiao Cheng kept her head down, seemingly still shaken from the ghost encounter the previous night.
The one who had just spoken remarked, "Xiao Cheng really doesn’t seem like a new player."
His comment made Xiao Cheng feel a bit embarrassed.
She lowered her head and said, "Yesterday, Brother Wei and I heard from the villagers at the foot of the mountain that there was something strange about the mountain temple, so I stayed alert at night."
When Brother Wei heard Xiao Cheng mention him, he nodded and said, "This mountain temple is indeed strange. And the villager who brought us up here is also suspicious."
Xiao Cheng added, "When that villager heard we had no money and still offered to make food for us for free, I thought it was really odd."
The other players, hearing this, grumbled angrily, "We were completely fooled by his kindness yesterday. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. That villager must have planned to use us as sacrifices to the mountain god."
"Sacrifice?"
Xiao Cheng curled her lip, but immediately realized her mistake and quickly feigned a look of confusion.
She asked, "Esteemed senior, could you explain why it's a sacrifice? I remember we were mistaken for mountain tourists by that villager. He led us up the mountain, took us into the temple for a visit, gave us food when he found we had none, and offered us a place to stay in the temple when he saw we had no accommodation. How does that behavior relate to being a sacrifice? At what point did we become sacrifices?"
The person who had just spoken was taken aback by her question and carefully recalled the villager's actions. "It doesn't seem like a sacrifice. Isn't this a mountain temple? Shouldn't offerings be made to the mountain god?"
He couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation.
The group fell silent for a long while.
Xiao Cheng glanced at the other players and grew impatient. She then said, "I think we might have been set up as scapegoats."
As soon as she voiced this idea, the other players turned to look at her.
Xiao Cheng continued, "We were initially blocked from going up the mountain, but under that villager's guidance, we eventually made it to the top. At first, nothing strange happened, but after we ate the food he gave us, we gradually started noticing eerie occurrences. That's why we encountered ghosts last night."
"It was at night that we saw ghosts," one player interjected.
Xiao Cheng retorted, "Then what did we just see inside the mountain temple? Weren't those ghosts too? And it's daytime."
Her presence suddenly became commanding.
The other players were a bit stunned.
Finally, Brother Wei sighed and asked, "What are you thinking?"
Xiao Cheng replied, "Let's go directly and ask those ghosts what their intentions are. They probably want to kill the villagers, not us. There's no mountain god here, only those ghosts. We can help them kill the villagers. Isn't the hint for this round 'wish'? I think that's their wish."
Recalling something, she added, "Those ghosts must be the students who died last year. I remember there was one survivor who escaped. Maybe we can bring that survivor here and reunite the whole class."
Her words left the other players exchanging uneasy glances. Compared to the ghosts in the mountain temple, they found Xiao Cheng even more frightening.