Chapter 602
The Mysterious Widow
As the first rays of dawn pierced through the clouds, they showered down upon the large bronze bell at the highest point of the temple.
The thick fog that had filled the entire temple also quietly dissipated.
Thump—thump—
The melodious sound of the large bronze bell echoed throughout the temple.
As the sound rang out, a group of monks emerged from their quarters, dressed in their finest attire, each with a peaceful smile on their face.
They were preparing to go to the Mahavira Hall of Cibei Temple for their morning prayers.
After hearing these footsteps, the players' dorm rooms slowly opened, and each of them poked their heads out, their eyes slightly weary.
Ruoshui forced a wry smile and asked, "Everyone... how was last night?"
Although the quarters of the Five Dull Envoys will not be as aggressive as those of the Five Sharp Envoys.
But it's like cutting meat with a dull knife or boiling a frog in lukewarm water.
It was filled with a strange sense of torment.
She barely managed to break the "slow" rule in the room last night, but she didn't dare to fall asleep all night for fear that new rules would emerge.
Apart from Ruoshui, almost everyone else was like that.
They looked at each other, then revealed helpless expressions.
Fortunately, becoming a player greatly improves physical fitness, especially for high-level players.
Staying up all night won't affect their actions today for the time being.
Just then, the fortress's gaze swept around and he said solemnly, "Three people haven't come out yet."
He pointed to the doors of the huts and said, "Red spider lilies, widows, and... passion fruit!"
Everyone immediately came out of the room and went to the nearest one, the [Greedy Abode], which was also the room of the Spider Lily.
Boom boom boom!
Jinxin raised her hand and pounded on the door, shouting, "Sister Hua! Open the door! Sister Hua!"
The sound of the knocking was enough to easily wake up not only players, but even ordinary people who were not very perceptive would have to wake up and react.
No matter how much he knocked on the door, there was no response from inside.
This also made the players' expressions turn serious.
Did something go wrong on the very first night?
Instead of lingering at the entrance of the "Greedy Dormitory," they immediately ran towards the "Evil View Dormitory" on the Five Benefits side, calling out for the widow.
After all, judging from his performance yesterday, he was clearly a big shot. Fortress and Emberheart knew that he was an expert sent by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs to handle this instance.
However, strangely enough, the [Jakan Dormitory] was eerily quiet.
This made everyone a little uneasy.
Wow, Master Wei... he messed up on the very first day?
With heavy hearts, they arrived at the door of [Ken-tsu-ken-ryo], which is the room of passion fruit.
I'm praying that the other person will respond.
Before Jinxin could knock, she discovered that the wooden door to the room was not closed properly; it was just ajar and could be opened easily.
The group exchanged glances and then opened the door to look inside.
Finding Passion Fruit fast asleep on the wooden couch, drooling, brought them a sigh of relief.
This guy doesn't seem to be in any danger.
Ruoshui walked over to Passion Fruit, grabbed her ear, and shouted, "Passion Fruit! Get up!"
Passion Fruit was so frightened that she rolled off the wooden tatami mat, waving her hands wildly and muttering, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't eat me!"
When she opened her eyes and saw the strange expressions on everyone's faces, she breathed a sigh of relief, as if a weight had been lifted from her heart.
"Phew... I was so scared. It was you guys."
Ruoshui rolled her eyes and said, "I really don't know whether to say you're carefree or brainless. This is a dungeon! How can you sleep so soundly? Be careful you don't die in your dream."
After she finished speaking, she was actually a little confused.
I've known passion fruit for a long time, and we've even gone through many dungeons together.
Aside from being a little weak-willed, this guy shouldn't be so heartless, right?
What exactly happened last night?
The group quickly recounted the unexpected events involving the spider lily and the widow.
Unexpectedly, Passion Fruit raised an eyebrow and said, "They're not in their room, they must have already gone to their morning class, right?"
"After all, they were the ones who helped open my door, otherwise I would have really died here last night."
Other players: "?"
Seeing this, Passion Fruit recounted what she had experienced.
Last night in this room, she encountered countless versions of herself constantly crawling out of the shadows. Each version of herself would offer an extremely poor opinion on a certain event she had experienced, and she firmly believed that such a poor opinion was correct.
Passion fruit tries to convince these parts of itself that have crawled out of the shadows.
At first, things were fine; those inferior opinions were quickly found to be flawed and refuted by her, and the person expressing those opinions would also disappear.
However, as time went on, the remaining self-perceptions became increasingly sophisticated, even to the point of ideological debate with Buddhism.
Passion Fruit began to feel powerless, unable to refute their opinions with her own words.
From that moment on, every time she failed, that part of her would rush toward her shadow, take a bite, and devour it.
Although no physical harm was caused, passion fruit could clearly feel her shadow being bitten and eaten, and deep down she began to gradually accept those seemingly absurd ideas.
Passion Fruit had no doubt that if her shadow were eaten up by these self-monsters, she would no longer be herself.
Instead, it is a self-monster disguised as passion fruit.
Just when she was completely baffled, and her shadow had been eaten by almost half of it.
The room door was opened from the outside.
The person who opened the door was Wu Xiaoyou, who looked like a six-winged angel.
"The other shore flower said that the widow sent her to open the door, because she believed that I could not pass the test of 'seeking sight'."
A hint of embarrassment flashed across Passion Fruit's face as she said this.
Because what the other party said was indeed correct.
This bizarre "Seeing and Taking" is truly impossible to defend against. There's no way to use defensive items to avoid having your shadow eaten, nor can you directly attack those self-monsters.
She tried it from the beginning.
If the monster is damaged, the same amount of damage will be reflected back to her.
There's no way to fight back, and no way to defend against it.
The only thing I could do was chat with them.
However, without a certain level of profound understanding of Buddhist teachings and philosophy, it is impossible to convince all the monsters within oneself.
This is probably a dead end for the vast majority of players of the Calamity faction.
Mug immediately frowned and asked, "How can you be sure that the spider lily and the widow who came in are real people? What if this is also part of the dangerous rule of 'Seeing and Taking'?"
In response, Passion Fruit said in a serious tone, "Yes, that's what I thought when I first saw them, because they were covered in blood, and the overwhelming smell of blood almost made me throw up."
"But after the spider lily opened the door, the widow came in and helped me break the curse of 'seeing and taking'. If they weren't real people, why would they help me like that?"
Hearing this, Ruoshui asked curiously, "He broke the [Seeing and Taking]? How did he do it?"
A strange expression flashed across Passion Fruit's face as she scratched her cheek and said, "I...I don't understand."
She kept recalling what happened last night, and even now it still felt like a dream.
"Boss Wei has been deliberately not defending himself, letting those self-monsters frantically devour his shadow."
Everyone exclaimed in shock: "What!?"
However, what passion fruit said next was even more astonishing.
She said with a helpless expression, "But his shadow can never be finished. No matter how much is eaten, it will always regenerate the moment it is exhausted, and then... then he feeds those self-monsters until they are stuffed."
“After the ego monster had eaten until it could eat no more, it began to express its opinions and demanded that the ego monster refute it.”
“He’ll chop anyone who can’t refute him.”
"Even if it means being hit by a counter-attack, he'll still manage to hack away at the monster of his own ego that can't refute him until it's completely immobilized." The other players' expressions were no longer just surprised or astonished.
Instead, it was an expression of care and concern.
What does it mean to overfeed your own monster? What does it mean to reverse the celestial order and make the monster contradict you?
They suspected that passion fruit might have gotten brain damage from eating too much of it.
After all, judging from her deep sleep just now, being eaten by her shadow last night must have taken a heavy toll on her energy.
Otherwise, a player in a dungeon would never be so lazy, unless she is truly so exhausted that she can no longer remain alert.
"Anyway, after I resolved the [Ken-kō-kō], he told me not to close the door to prevent [Ken-kō-kō] from happening again."
"After all, he was the one who cracked it, and he doesn't live in this room."
"After that, I heard strange thumping sounds coming from the temple. The two of them left and told me to wait until dawn when the fog cleared and then I would tell you that they would be going to their morning prayers. They said if you were interested, we could come along too. After hearing this, I was so tired that I fell asleep."
Passion Fruit's "nonsense" made everyone a little nervous, but the information conveyed in his words still made them think carefully.
This is because it indicates that the red spider lily and the widow are mostly safe and sound.
Last night, they even left their dormitory in the fog and did something.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have appeared at the door of the passion fruit plant covered in blood.
Were they injured?
This possibility left everyone feeling somewhat helpless, since the main quest of the dungeon only required surviving for seven days.
Why go out of your way to create unnecessary trouble?
Could it be that the siblings really want to complete other side quests?
Fortress narrowed his eyes and said, "That strange thumping sound you were making should be the sound of a clapperboard."
"This is how the temple wakes up the monks in the morning. Around three o'clock in the morning, three clappers are struck to notify the kitchen staff to get up and prepare breakfast. Fifteen or half an hour later, four clappers are struck slowly around the temple to wake up the other monks to wash up. After the clapper-beater returns to his room, five clappers are struck quickly, and the bell is rung, symbolizing the breaking of the long night's drowsiness of all beings."
“The monks would go to the Mahavira Hall for morning prayers when the bell rang.”
The others nodded silently in agreement.
Indeed, they hadn't slept all night and had heard strange banging sounds several times during the night; it turned out to be the so-called "clapperboard" noise.
However, according to this time calculation, the bell would only ring around four or five o'clock at most.
The bells are still ringing out, and I don't know how many times they've rung.
But it was already dawn when the first shot was fired, which doesn't match up at all.
But after yesterday's sudden nightfall, it's clear that the time in this temple was already problematic.
No one said anything more.
Only the fortress continued, "But since you fell into a deep sleep, the door has remained ajar. The monsters in the mist haven't broken in?"
These words surprised the others as well.
Yes! After they entered the door last night, they clearly heard the footsteps of something wandering outside, and there were quite a few of them.
With the door so blatantly ajar, won't those things in the mist get in?
Passion Fruit said helplessly, "I slept until you came to find me. I don't know what happened in between, but since I was able to wake up, there shouldn't have been anything strange in the house."
"Perhaps we can ask the widows about these issues; they should be in their morning classes by now."
Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment, then got up and walked outside.
That's true, we won't get the answer to the question by just sitting here.
Only by asking the widow face-to-face can we find out what really happened last night.
Hopefully, his and the spider lily's injuries aren't serious.
It's only been one day...
The players quickly finished washing up to ensure they wouldn't accidentally break any temple rules while looking disheveled.
Following behind the group of monks, they quickly approached the main hall for the morning prayers.
It was an extremely magnificent hall.
Thirty-six sturdy stone pillars support the lofty palace, and the caisson ceiling decorations on it appear and disappear in the light and shadow.
In the huge niche at the front of the hall, a Buddha statue at least five meters tall sits in the lotus position, its compassionate gaze lowered as if silently observing everyone in the hall.
There are two slightly smaller Buddha statues standing beside him.
In front of these Buddha statues are monks dressed in brown robes, kneeling solemnly on prayer cushions with their sleeves folded down.
Each person had a handwritten sutra in front of them.
The paper of the sutra is yellowed, but the handwriting is neat, and it seems to be the Heart Sutra.
The figures of the widow and the red spider lily also appeared at the end of these monks' processions.
The siblings were both dressed in brown robes, and there was no trace of the blood that had been gushing from Passion Fruit's mouth, or any injuries on their bodies.
Upon seeing this, everyone immediately walked over and knelt on the prayer mats around them.
Ruoshui asked in as low a voice as possible, "Boss Wei, did you help Passion Fruit out of its predicament last night?"
Wu Wang, holding the Heart Sutra and examining it, replied without looking up, "Hmm, the Five Envoys came with great force and she couldn't hold out for one night and would die there. It's a bit too pitiful, so I'm helping her out."
"But as for the Five Blunt Envoys over there, it's best to try to decipher them yourselves. I'm not your babysitter, so don't expect me to take care of you meticulously."
Although he had promised the border guard squad leader that he would bring the two soldiers out alive.
But that doesn't mean Wu Wang has to solve everything for them.
After all, becoming a player of the Calamity means you will definitely face difficulties and death.
Moreover, judging from the level of the fortress, he is also a beta tester, and he certainly cannot accept being treated like a hothouse flower.
The other players not only didn't find his words offensive, but Passion Fruit was even filled with gratitude.
It's rare to encounter such kind people in dungeons these days!
"Is the solution really as Passion Fruit said... uh, the reverse of the Heavenly Gang?" Ruoshui asked cautiously.
Wu Xiaoyou, who was standing next to him, chimed in, "Well, in my brother's words, it's like this: let them get full and have too much free time to demonstrate their fault tolerance, use more profound insights to question the demonstration mechanism, and then just start cutting down the demonstration values."
other people:"……"
I can understand each word individually, but why does it sound so unfamiliar when put together?
Is this really human language?
"So... you spent the whole night in the mist? What did you do there?" Ruoshui continued to ask.
Wu Wang responded calmly, "I'm off to work."
"Work? What kind of work do you two have in this temple?" His question surprised the others.
"Kill the Blood Corpse." Wu Wang's answer remained brief.
Mug couldn't help but say, "But we haven't seen any blood corpses either? Are there really such things in the mist?"
Everyone was curious.
After all, once the fog cleared, there were no signs of a battle or any remnants of the so-called blood corpses on the ground outside.
These words made Wu Wang put down the Heart Sutra in his hand and look up.
He smiled slightly at everyone and said modestly:
"Otherwise, why didn't you see it?"
"You're welcome."
After saying that, he reached into his pocket.
He took out a standee and placed it in the middle of the crowd; the QR code on it looked somewhat familiar.
Wu Wang said solemnly:
"But if you really want to express your gratitude, that's fine, but I suggest something more practical."
"We support Alipay, WeChat, cash, and gold transactions here."
"After all, gold prices have risen quite sharply recently."
These words silenced everyone.
There was a sense of helplessness in everyone's eyes.
They seem to be saying—
Dude, can't you act like a boss for once?
Such down-to-earth language makes you seem more like a roadside vendor... (End of Chapter)