san value instantly returned to zero.

A chill rose from his tailbone, shooting straight to the top of his head. Zhang Yuanqing, like a cat whose fur had stood on end, jumped high on the spot, a curse word erupting from his mouth:

"Fucking hell!"

This was the instinctive utterance of a person subjected to intense stimulus or fright.

He finally understood why his shoulders were so sore, and why the corpse by the window carried a bronze mirror.

It was to see if a vengeful spirit was perched on his shoulder.

When did it latch onto me? When I entered the courtyard, or when I entered this room?

Who gave me the courage to go out and explore? Liang Jingru?

His mind was in a frenzy, all sorts of thoughts popping up in an instant, fear washing over him like a tidal wave.

Although he knew that there were strange and terrifying things in this temple, and he had prepared himself mentally, he still felt an unspeakable panic when he truly faced a ghost.

That's right, I have a talisman... Zhang Yuanqing's trembling hands pulled out the yellow paper talisman from the left pocket of his windbreaker, trying anything to save himself.

*Pa!*

He slapped the corpse-suppressing talisman on his shoulder, then raised the bronze mirror, carefully checking his reflection. The man with the deathly pale face, black lips, and lifeless white eyes was still perched on his shoulder.

It's useless. This thing isn't a corpse-like Yin creature... His last hope was gone. Zhang Yuanqing felt his shoulders getting more and more sore, his hands and feet growing cold.

These weren't illusions, but the real loss of his Yang energy.

At this moment, Zhang Yuanqing thought of the corpse under the table in the main hall, and the senior who had died tragically by the window. Next, he would likely die in this place like them.

A bone-chilling coldness welled up in his heart.

"Da da!"

Suddenly, at this critical moment, faint footsteps came from the corridor outside.

The footsteps were very light, but very clear in the silent night.

...Zhang Yuanqing's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly crouched down next to the corpse under the window.

The footsteps sounded familiar, much like the sound he heard when he entered the temple.

"Da da da..."

The footsteps grew closer and closer, heading this way. Zhang Yuanqing didn't dare to breathe loudly, his whole body tense, vaguely hearing his own frantic heartbeat.

When the footsteps passed by the window, Zhang Yuanqing couldn't help but take a look at the ground of the room. Moonlight shone in, forming a lattice of window shadows on the floor.

The window wasn't high, only reaching the waist. At a normal person's height, passing by the window would definitely cast a shadow on the ground, but he saw nothing.

This meant that whatever passed by the window had no body.

Fortunately, the footsteps passed by the window without stopping or entering the room, and gradually faded away.

*Huff...* Zhang Yuanqing silently breathed a sigh of relief, focusing on the receding footsteps, hearing it enter the courtyard, making a "rustling" sound as it stepped on the weeds.

Then it stopped. After a few seconds, the footsteps sounded again.

This time, the footsteps weren't simple walking, but marching with a certain rhythm.

What is it doing in the courtyard?

Zhang Yuanqing supported his cold body, standing up with some difficulty, and peered out through the tattered window paper.

In the moonlight, among the weeds, a pair of brand-new, Western-style red dancing shoes were tap-dancing in the night.

Moonlit night, deserted temple, red dancing shoes, solo dance.

This scene looked both absurdly eerie and filled with an unspeakable... loneliness?

How could there be a pair of Western-style dancing shoes in a Ming Dynasty mountain god temple?

This broken temple is getting weirder and weirder... He quietly squatted back down, waiting patiently.

Time passed second by second. The vengeful spirit perched on his shoulder continued to extract his Yang energy, the stiffness in his body growing heavier, and the soreness in his shoulders turning into a stabbing pain.

He felt that if this continued, he would either die from exhaustion of Yang energy, or die from a broken shoulder bone.

In the torment of pain, the dancing in the courtyard disappeared.

Zhang Yuanqing still didn't dare to show his head, and waited for a while before carefully peeking out, looking into the courtyard through the window.

The courtyard was filled with moonlight, the weeds standing silently. The pair of strange dancing shoes was gone.

"Huff..."

He breathed a sigh of relief, wanting to stand up, but his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.

After the tense nerves relaxed and the adrenaline wore off, he realized that his condition was worse than he had imagined.

His shoulders were burning with stinging pain, his bones felt like they were about to crack, his knee joints were stiff, and his blood felt like it was congealing.

Tremblingly, he grabbed the bronze mirror. In the dusty mirror, Zhang Yuanqing saw that he was pale, listless, and his pupils were dim. This was no normal person, but a dying old man.

On his shoulder, the vengeful spirit with black lips stared at him silently and strangely.

He would definitely die if this continued, but what could he do? He couldn't touch the vengeful spirit on his shoulder.

The intense pain in his shoulder forced him to lean against the wall for support.

He turned his head and looked at the corpse of the worker. The posture of the man and the corpse was exactly the same.

"So that's how it is..." Zhang Yuanqing smiled bitterly.

He seemed to see his own ending, and hear the sigh of the Grim Reaper.

But Zhang Yuanqing didn't give up his desire to survive. His brain was still active, like an overloaded CPU, searching for hope in the desperate situation.

In a flash of inspiration, the corpse under the table in the main hall flashed through the chaotic stream of information.

"The degree of shoulder bone fracture of the two corpses is different. The shoulder injury of the corpse in the main hall is not fatal. Did the shoulder-perched vengeful spirit let him go? No, it is impossible for the vengeful spirit to show mercy..."

"Why did he hide under the table..."

"The red dancing shoes secretly followed me when I entered the temple, but when I entered the main hall, it left..."

Thinking of this, a glimmer of hope appeared in Zhang Yuanqing's dim and turbid pupils.

Return to the main hall, return to the main hall immediately!

He immediately got up and staggered out of the house, each step difficult, as if carrying a mountain on his back.

*Plop!*

He fell in the courtyard, falling into the weeds, unable to stand up again.

Zhang Yuanqing's jaws trembled, colliding up and down, making a "clattering" sound, feeling as if he was in the harsh winter.

"Extreme cold" took away the heat and eroded his will.

Zhang Yuanqing crawled towards the main hall little by little, using all his strength, raising his head so that his eyes always reflected the outline of the building in front of him.

This way, the hope in his eyes would not be extinguished.

It only took about a minute to walk from the main hall, but at this time it felt as far away as the ends of the earth.

Finally, at the moment when he crawled into the eaves of the main hall, he heard a phantom scream in his ears, his shoulders lightened, and the negative effects such as cold, dizziness, and stiffness disappeared instantly.

Zhang Yuanqing rolled and scrambled onto the base, staggered to the front of the main hall, pushed open the lattice door, and threw himself over the threshold.

The candlelight, like a bean, dispelled the haze and brought a spring-like warmth.

He lay on the ground in a large shape, his chest heaving, panting heavily. He lay there for two or three minutes before feeling that he had finally come back to life.

"Too scary, too scary... My guess is right, the main hall is a safe haven."

Based on the different shoulder injuries of the two skeletons, he judged that something must have prevented the vengeful spirit from pursuing the person in the hall.

The worker under the table died curled up, which was in line with a person's hiding psychology in extreme fear.

In the mind of this senior worker, the main hall was safe.

The fact that the red dancing shoes gave up chasing him sideways verified this guess.

In the following time, Zhang Yuanqing stayed in the main hall until the pain in his shoulder subsided and his body temperature recovered.

Sure enough, he never encountered any danger again.

"If the main hall is a safe house, then my hope of survival will undoubtedly greatly increase. Even if the shoulder-perched vengeful spirit sucks my essence again, I can escape back to the main hall. But if I encounter both the vengeful spirit and am chased by the red dancing shoes, I estimate I won't be able to escape back to the main hall.

"And the most bizarre and terrifying source of this temple is definitely not just the vengeful spirit..."

He was not complacent because he had resolved a life-and-death crisis. This ancient temple was not that simple.

You must know that before him, an entire construction team died here.

After resting for a long time, he gradually let go of his fear, and was hesitating whether to continue exploring outside.

The voice in his mind sounded again:

[Main Quest 1: Survive for three hours (Completed)]

[Main Quest 2: Explore Spirit Realm No. 0079, Progress: 20%]

[Yuanshi Tianzun, congratulations on completing a main quest, calculating the reward for you...]

[Obtained Item/Prop: Corpse Suppressing Talisman (Can be viewed in the inventory).]

[Gained Experience Points: 15%]

[Inventory has been unlocked.]

[You will get 36 hours of rest. Spirit Realm No. 0079 will open next time: 35:59:40.]

The scenery in the main hall twisted, like water wrinkled by the wind.

When the picture became clear again, Zhang Yuanqing saw the bright energy-saving lamps, the spacious bed, the desk, the ps5 game console, and the open window, with the wind blowing in and the curtains swaying slightly.

He was back in the human world.

"Returned?"

He looked around in astonishment, confirming that he had really returned to the room, before his knees buckled and he fell onto the soft bed.

Taking a deep breath, he even felt that the air was sweet.

It's good to be alive, it's good to be in the human world.

After a few minutes of rest, Zhang Yuanqing sat up, pulled down the zipper of his windbreaker, and found that the corpse-suppressing talisman was indeed gone.

Zhang Yuanqing naturally had the thought of "taking out the item". The next moment, a fluorescent blue grid appeared in front of his eyes.

There were five grids in total, and lying in the first grid was the yellow paper talisman.

It was a wonderful experience. After the inventory was unlocked, this function seemed to become his instinct. He didn't need to learn it, and he naturally knew how to open the inventory.

"In addition to the corpse-suppressing talisman, I also gained 15% experience points, but the level is still zero, which means that I have not yet become a Night Wanderer and am still an ordinary person."

"Surviving for three hours almost killed me in there. How am I supposed to do the second task? Is this S-level difficulty..."

The more Zhang Yuanqing thought about it, the more desperate he felt, feeling that he had been tricked by Brother Bing.

This broken card can indeed change your life, but it is indeed difficult to control.

He was well aware of his own limitations. He was just a college student who had never even killed a chicken. It would be difficult for him to survive the subsequent second task on his own.

As a good young man of socialism with deep roots, he must rely on the country and the government at this time.

So he reached for his phone, intending to dial his cousin's number, but his finger paused when it touched the phone screen.

Because Zhang Yuanqing thought that he might have a better choice.

He immediately turned over and got out of bed, finding the business card left by the man with the slicked-back hair in the desk drawer.

The business card had his name and contact information on it.

Tonight's encounter reminded him of Brother Bing's bizarre disappearance. If he hadn't made it out alive, he would have disappeared mysteriously as well.

It was certain that Brother Bing had already come into contact with the so-called Spirit Realm, so his disappearance might have been entering a certain Spirit Realm?

According to this idea, the investigators from the Public Security Bureau were trustworthy.

He chose to contact the man with the slicked-back hair for another reason, which was that the other party said that he might also disappear. This was implying that he would enter the Spirit Realm.

Combined with the fact that his cousin was unaware of this, Zhang Yuanqing had reason to deduce that the three people were special personnel who specialized in handling similar incidents.

After thinking it through, Zhang Yuanqing dialed the other party's phone according to the number on the business card.

The beeping sound rang for a few seconds, and the other side answered the phone, a mature male voice asking in a low voice:

"Who is this?"