Night fell like an ink stick slowly saturating water, silently staining through the last trace of rosy glow at the horizon.

The mountain path became rugged and indistinct, and the friendly chirping of insects from the daytime now carried a somewhat mournful tone.

“Su Ming… how… how much further?” Zhao Rui’s voice was clearly breathless, the box of hibiscus cakes in his hand almost crushed out of shape by his grip.

His legs felt like they were filled with lead, each step lifting sending protests of soreness and numbness from his thighs.

Su Ming’s condition was slightly better, but the heavy cloth bundle also weighed down on his shoulders, making them ache.

He glanced back at Zhao Rui’s pale face and slowed his pace. “Almost there. Once we cross that mountain ahead, we should be about halfway. We’ll find a place to rest soon.”

“Disciple, letting your little friend suffer a bit more is beneficial.” Lin Yu’s voice sounded in Su Ming’s mind, carrying a hint of laziness. “Jade must be carved to become a vessel. The shocks this kid has received these past few days are more than he’s had in the past year. His temperament is being reshaped. Let him walk more at night, temper his character. He might even become a useful helper in the future.”

Su Ming acknowledged in his heart but said nothing aloud.

He knew his master was right. The experiences of these past few days were a vivid lesson for both Zhao Rui and himself.

Suddenly, Zhao Rui seemed to have discovered something. He stopped, pointing at a dark silhouette in the mountain hollow ahead, his voice brimming with barely suppressed excitement.

“Su Ming! Look! Over there! Is that a temple? And there’s firelight!”

Su Ming followed his pointing finger. Indeed, under the deep night sky, the outline of a dilapidated temple was faintly visible. More noticeable was a faint, warm, orange-yellow flicker of firelight escaping from a broken window of the temple, gently swaying in the night breeze.

“Great! It must be traveling merchants or pilgrims resting inside! Let’s hurry over. At least we can find shelter from the wind, maybe even beg for some hot water!” Zhao Rui’s fatigue vanished instantly, as if he had come back to life, grabbing Su Ming’s arm to pull him that way.

Just as Su Ming was about to step forward, alarm bells blared in his mind.

“Halt!”

Lin Yu’s voice, for the first time, was so serious, carrying an unquestionable chill.

“Master?” Su Ming’s foot froze mid-step, rooted to the spot.

“Disciple, what is the first principle of my ‘Way of Survival True Scripture’? Recite it.”

“Safety first, think thrice before acting, anything unusual must harbor evil.” Su Ming answered swiftly in his mind.

“Good!” Lin Yu’s voice softened slightly but remained grave. “Now, use this principle to analyze the current situation.”

Lin Yu’s inner thoughts were a raging storm.

“Oh my god! This is deadly! Desolate mountains, ancient temple, midnight, ghostly fire! Isn’t this the standard plot of ‘exit the newbie village, turn right, straight to the mass graves’? Is this Zhao kid afraid he’s lived too long? Beg for hot water? More like water from the Yellow Springs! My pension plan can’t have just paid the down payment and then get cut off!”

Su Ming took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and begin the analysis.

“This place is remote, not an official road. Ordinary merchants wouldn’t come here. The temple is dilapidated, clearly long abandoned, making the presence of pilgrims even less likely. So, that firelight…”

“That firelight is the biggest problem!” Lin Yu took over, his voice exuding the steadiness of an old hand. “Disciple, think. If they were decent folk, lighting a fire in this wilderness, would they make it big and bright, both for warmth and to scare off beasts? But look at that firelight. Small, weak, hidden inside the temple, flickering, as if afraid of being discovered. What does that mean?”

A chill ran down Su Ming’s spine. “It means the people inside don’t want to be discovered! They are not good people!”

“A teachable student!” Lin Yu praised. “Either debt-dodging gamblers, fugitives chased by the authorities, or at worst, highway robbers who kill for money! Two half-grown kids like us, carrying big and small bags, walking up there would be like two little fat sheep delivering themselves to the door!”

After this analysis, a cold sweat broke out on Su Ming’s back.

That point of orange-yellow firelight no longer seemed warm in his eyes. Instead, it looked like the single eye of a beast opening in the darkness, full of greed and malice.

“Zhao Rui, wait!” Su Ming grabbed Zhao Rui, who had already taken a few steps.

“What now? If we don’t hurry, they’ll be asleep!” Zhao Rui turned back impatiently.

“That place, we cannot go.” Su Ming’s tone was calm but carried a firm resolve.

“Why?!” Zhao Rui’s volume jumped an octave, his face full of disbelief. “Su Ming, have you gone stupid from walking at night? There’s a building and you don’t want to stay? You’d rather drink the wind outside? I’m exhausted!”

“Think carefully,” Su Ming began to guide him, mimicking Lin Yu’s logic. “The temple is so broken, clearly no one lives there. Why would someone light a fire inside for no reason? And that fire is so small, don’t you find it strange?”

Zhao Rui was stunned. He had only been happy earlier and hadn’t considered any of this.

Prompted by Su Ming, he too felt an indescribable eeriness emanating from that flickering light.

“What if… what if they are bad people?” Su Ming lowered his voice. “We just came back from town today, carrying things with us. If they target us…”

Zhao Rui’s face instantly turned pale as a sheet.

He thought of Clerk Qian’s vicious face at the County School office, of the possible traps his uncle-in-law Zhou Kang might have set. If the town was that dangerous, this remote wilderness was even more hopeless, where cries to heaven and earth would go unanswered.

A gust of night wind blew past, rolling up a few fallen leaves, making a rustling sound as if something was watching from the shadows.

Zhao Rui shivered, instinctively moving closer to Su Ming.

“Then… then what do we do?” His voice carried a tremor.

“Go around.” Su Ming said decisively. “We’ll keep our distance, cut through that grove over there. It’s a longer walk, but it’s safe.”

“O-okay!” Zhao Rui didn’t object this time, nodding like a chick pecking at rice.

“That’s more like it.” Lin Yu said approvingly in Su Ming’s mind. “Problems that can be solved with words, never use force. Crises that can be solved with feet, never get close. This is called ‘strategic risk avoidance,’ one of the core mysteries of the Way of Survival.”

Without further hesitation, Su Ming led Zhao Rui, turning away from the mountain path and plunging into the adjacent woods.

The path through the woods was even harder. Underfoot was a thick layer of rotting leaves, soft and spongy, making each step uncertain. Tree shadows loomed, the moonlight cut into fragments, casting countless shifting black patches on the ground.

Zhao Rui was too scared to breathe heavily, sticking close behind Su Ming, glancing back now and then, afraid something was following them.

They walked with their heads down for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, panting with exhaustion.

“Sh-should we have gone around by now?” Zhao Rui leaned against a tree, gasping for breath.

Su Ming also stopped to catch his breath, looking up to get his bearings.

But when he pushed aside a bush in front of him, his entire body froze.

Not far ahead, in the mountain hollow, the dark silhouette of that dilapidated temple still stood quietly.

That point of orange-yellow firelight, visible through the swaying branches, was aimed right at them, like a mocking eye.

“How… how is this possible?” Zhao Rui’s voice cracked. “Weren’t we walking forward? How are we back?!”

“Don’t panic. It’s too dark, maybe we circled in the woods.” Su Ming forced himself to sound calm, but his own heart sank.

“Disciple, the situation is wrong.” Lin Yu’s voice also lost its usual laziness. “I sense an extremely faint energy fluctuation, very similar to a certain kind of… mind-befuddling formation. To put it plainly, you might have encountered a ‘ghost wall.'”

“Ghost wall?” Su Ming’s heart skipped a beat.

“Don’t be afraid. These low-level maze formations usually just trap people, with little killing power. But its very existence means there is definitely something strange in that broken temple!” Lin Yu’s inner monologue was scrolling rapidly. “We’re done for! I knew it! Horror movie laws don’t lie! Great, we’ve switched from ‘active suicide’ mode to ‘passive containment’ mode! What the hell is being raised in that temple?”

“Let’s… let’s try again!” Su Ming gritted his teeth, pulling up the nearly paralyzed Zhao Rui, choosing a different direction, and setting off again with heads down.

This time, he deliberately used a stone to mark the trees they passed.

However, half an hour later, when they stopped, utterly exhausted, the trunk bearing his mark appeared right before their eyes.

And not far away, that dilapidated temple still clung to their line of sight like a persistent maggot, a lingering ghost.

“Ah—!”

Zhao Rui finally broke down. He plopped down on the ground, his face devoid of color, lips trembling as he pointed at the temple, unable to form complete sentences.

“G-ghost… there’s a ghost! Su Ming! We’re haunted! By the ghost in that temple!”

Fear, like icy vines, instantly wrapped around their hearts.

The surrounding woods seemed to come alive, every shadow like a monster baring its fangs, the wind turning into a mournful wail.

A chill also ran down Su Ming’s spine, but he knew he couldn’t panic.

If he panicked, it would truly be over.

“Master! What do we do?” He cried out urgently in his heart.

“Calm down! Disciple, the more critical the moment, the calmer you must be!” Lin Yu’s voice was like a stabilizing pillar. “Panic solves nothing. It only accelerates your physical exhaustion and plunges you into deeper despair. You are my disciple, Lin Yu’s disciple, the future inheritor of the Way of Survival. A mere ghost wall, why panic!”

Lin Yu’s inner thoughts: I’m panicking! I’m panicking! I’m just a wisp of a remnant soul, forget fighting, I can’t even see what a ghost looks like! Disciple, you must hold on, you are my only hope!

Scolded by his master, Su Ming shuddered violently, his mind clearing a bit.

He took deep breaths, forcing himself not to look at that heart-palpitating temple, and began carefully observing their surroundings.

“Master, is there a way to break this formation?”

“A way… theoretically, yes.” Lin Yu pondered. “All things have their formation core. Find the core, destroy it, and the formation dissolves. But the problem is, my soul power is weak now, my perception range limited. I simply can’t find where the core is.”

He paused, his tone becoming exceptionally heavy.

“Moreover, such maze formations usually have one characteristic.”

“What characteristic?”

“It continuously drains the stamina and mental energy of those trapped. When you are utterly exhausted and your mental defenses collapse, that’s when the master of the formation… comes out to ‘harvest.'” Lin Yu’s voice echoed eerily.

“So, disciple, we now face a choice.”

“Either, we keep circling in these woods until we die of exhaustion or fright.”

“Or…”

Lin Yu didn’t finish, but Su Ming already understood.

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the layers of tree shadows, landing once more on that dilapidated temple exuding an ominous aura in the night.

That sole flicker of firelight was like a fatal lure, yet also the only possible exit.

The wind grew colder.

Su Ming clenched his fists, nails digging deep into his palms.

He looked at Zhao Rui, slumped on the ground and starting to sob quietly, then looked at that temple that seemed impossible to escape.

There was no way back.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep