Spirit Realm Walker

Zhang Yuanqing hadn’t wanted to use it short of a dead end. Drinking poison to slake a thirst solved nothing, but he was out of options, and drinking the poison would at least buy him a little more time to live at this point.

Feeling the weakness and exhaustion seeping into his bones, Zhang Yuanqing staked it all on one final throw. He gathered his last thread of strength and worked his trembling fingers trembling into his trouser pocket, meaning to switch on the Cat King Speaker’s suona. He’d use it to give his body a final flare of life and restore some strength, so that after pulling out the Demon-subduing Awl, he’d have enough energy left to strike at the paper figure.

His fingers slid into his pocket and brushed against the button to activate the suona, but just then, a question flashed through his mind. How had Demon Lord prevailed against it?

The paper figure clearly didn’t belong to the Transcendent tier. However strong Demon Lord was, he had been a freelance Walker, and his all-round strength in his Transcendent-tier days wasn’t necessarily above his own. If even he had no hope at all, then how did he clear this stage…? 

In a flash, the shards of information from the dungeon raced through Zhang Yuanqing’s mind, and he sifted out two important pieces.

One, the night Mr. Xu bought the rouge box, the paper figure had killed only Mr. Xu, nobody else. The villagers next door had come to no harm. Two, the vengeful spirit craved fresh blood fiercely, and only sacrificing enough blood essence would soothe it.

I get it. The spirit from the rouge box will only kill one person a night. In other words, one person’s blood essence is enough to satisfy it. Once it drains its target dry, it stops killing. This is why Mr. Xu was the only one to die that night. 

However this was a solo dungeon. For a Walker, the fact that it only killed one person was as good as certain death. Zhang Yuanqing lifted his fingers off the button on the speaker and reached out for empty air instead.

He pulled out a glass test tube filled with translucent golden liquid. The mouth of the tube was stoppered with cork, with the vigorous breath of life sealed tight within. Life Essence!

An ethereal figure drifted out of Zhang Yuanqing’s flesh-and-blood body, still holding onto the glass tube, and drifted toward Corpse No. 1.

That illusory figure was Zhang Yuanqing’s spirit body. He’d used Astral Projection to slip free of his mortal shell.

Zhang Yuanqing meant to take a gamble. He would let his flesh be drained of its blood essence, and see whether the paper figure, once it was finished, would leave satisfied, or if it would go on to attack Corpse No. 1.

If it was the former, he’d win the bet. If it was the latter, his spirit body would use the Life Essence to resuscitate himself, then summon the Demon-subduing Awl and go down together with this vengeful spirit.

He dared to make this bet partly because he had the Life Essence in hand and partly because after Astral Projection, his body would enter a state of false death. So long as his spirit body returned within twenty minutes, his mortal shell could still be saved. Therefore, he wasn’t afraid of letting his blood essence be drained.

Zhang Yuanqing had little fear that the paper figure would attack his spirit body first, because the Blood Rouge’s item information mentioned the paper figure craved only fresh blood. Corpse No. 1 was a yin corpse, but it at least carried a breath of ”life.” There was no way his spirit body would be in danger.

Even assuming the worst, that the paper figure really did go after him in spirit body form, Zhang Yuanqing still had one move left. He could return to his body at once, activate the second form of the Red Dancing Shoes, and make a run for it. When it came to fleeing and dodging, he was second to none.

By this time, the flesh of his body had shriveled up, his skin wrinkled all over from the loss of water. His mortal body was turning bit by bit into a dessicated corpse.

Zhang Yuanqing couldn’t help but mentally hold his breath. He didn’t know whether Demon Lord had used a similar strategy, but this was the one way out of the cul de sac he’d worked out from the information given by the dungeon.

His spirit body watched on tersely. The Red Dancing Shoes was the only one that wouldn’t accept it, keeping up their attacks on the paper figure. If anything, with their master gradually dying, they got angrier, kicking and stamping even more quickly and with seemingly greater force.

At last, his body was completely drained, turning into a dried husk. The mighty Yuanshi Tianzun met his end at a vengeful spirit’s hand.

The paper figure, sated on blood essence, seemed more alive, and the rouge on its lips and cheeks were redder.

Plip~ 

It let go of the victim in its crude, simple hand, letting the shriveled corpse drop to the floor, then twisted its stiff neck around and looked at Corpse No. 1. 

After a dozen seconds of silence, the paper figure set off in that stiff parade march, going out the door with a soft rustle. It had stopped killing.

The Red Dancing Shoes clung to it like a shadow, hunting down the paper figure without hesitation.

I won the bet. Zhang Yuanqing called off the shoes’ endless pursuit.

He remained in his spirit body form, still tightly strung up, not letting his guard down even for a moment as he  watched the feet in the embroidered shoes step over the threshold, and walk away into the dark one step at a time. Some five minutes later, everything lay still and soundless.

No—there was still movement. The Red Dancing Shoes wandered back into the room, stopping beside his physical body, then going over to his spirit body, while a message appeared above them.

【Will you dance with me…?】

The shoes seemed confused as to whether to demand the price from the dead flesh or seek payment from the spirit body that couldn’t dance. It was the first time they’d hit a quandary like this.

It should be gone, Zhang Yuanqing decided as he finally drifted back into his body, unable to wait any longer. 

He popped the cork off the glass test tube and pried open his dead body’s stiff jaw before shoving the tube deep down its throat. After all, his dead body couldn’t swallow anymore. Only once all the Life Essence in the tube had gone down into the flesh’s stomach did Zhang Yuanqing pull his hand out.

A moment later the shriveled corpse slowly began to revert as blood began to flow within the muscles, pushing out the slack skin. With every passing second, the husk filled out a little more.

The process went on for a dozen seconds or so. His skin didn’t just fully recover its previous appearance, but came back even more supple and smooth than before, like a body made new.

However, there was no breath, no heartbeat. When a Nocturnal Specter’s spirit body left its shell, this was what happened to his body. This was the false death state.

His astral spirit dove back into his body. Only then did he truly feel the weight lift of his chest. The next second, he opened his eyes. His pupils were momentarily slack as he stared blankly at the roof, then they suddenly contracted. He gulped in breath after breath, like a drowning man whose heart had just started up again.

By this time, Corpse No. 1 had fully shaken off the yin energy inside it, and its joints grew nimble again.

”Hah! Hah! Hah… This is too hard, this can’t possibly be an A-rank dungeon. I don’t want to do anything, I need to rest. Nobody bother me!” Zhang Yuanqing groaned as he sucked greedily at the fresh air.

Then he heard a light tapping beside his ear.

Zhang Yuanqing’s face went stiff, and he quietly hauled himself up. You’re the exception…

Having danced one dance with the red dancing shoes, Zhang Yuanqing sat down on the edge of the bed. It wasn’t to rest; he could just think better sitting down.

Though he’d scraped through the paper figure’s challenge by sheer luck, Zhang Yuanqing did not feel the least amount of joy. He’d already realized something was wrong.

How can this be an A-rank dungeon? This is more savage than an S-rank dungeon. The paper figure from the second watch nearly wrung out every card I’ve got. What about the boss that would appear at the start of the third watch? What about the princess?

Mute Village’s difficulty was clearly well outside the A-rank difficulty bracket. Even among S-rank dungeons, it would likely be in the nastiest tier. Something didn’t add up.

Zhang Yuanqing frowned deeply. There’s something off about this dungeon. Something must have gone wrong somewhere. I’ve got to find it before the third watch, or I’m dead for sure.

He drew a deep breath to compose himself, then went back over every detail since he first entered the dungeon: the talk with Wang Xiao’er, the talk with the old man, the exchanges with the Cat King Speaker, and the details of everything he’d seen and heard.

Time slipped slowly by. He went over everything repeatedly, and with pass after pass, he felt something tug faintly at him, but it was not clear enough.

Zhang Yuanqing didn’t rush. Now that he’d caught that faint, dim thread, he fished a few small blue pills out of his trouser pocket, held them in his palm, and then recalled his father’s face.

His brain slowly came to a boil as his heart beat faster, past its limits. He very quickly entered his brain overload state. Jumbled shards of memory flashed past his mind’s eye while nothing but meaningless noise filled his ears. His nose grew hot, and vivid red blood gushed out.

Zhang Yuanqing swallowed the pills at once to cancel out the negative effects.

Then, every scene since he’d entered the dungeon played back frame by frame in his mind. The textures of the stone houses, the direction in which the dead roadside grass had fallen… Every last detail drilled their way through his mind once more.

”A while back, I ran into a wandering daoist. He said the mountain behind the village had excellent fengshui, and that there was bound to be a big tomb up there…”

”Wang Xiao’er stole the burial goods, meaning to take them to the provincial capital and sell them to some wealthy household. Who’d have guessed that that very night, she came out from the grave to pursue him…”

”During the fourth watch, everyone in the village died…”

”Ancient tomb location, southwest of the back mountain, twenty-three li.”

”Run, run now~”

Zhang Yuanqing snapped awake with a start, dropping out of the ”playback” state. His eyes went wide as understanding dawned on him all at once.

”I understand how this dungeon is really meant to be played now…”