Read Novel Full Chapter 601
Chapter 601
The green down jacket stood stiffly, staring blankly at the calm water surface.
The cold was too intense, and a thick mist hovered over the spring, making visibility very low.
The young man had jumped into the water without hesitation and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
He stood in the cold wind, feeling somewhat bewildered.
There had to be something in the ice spring.
He was a veteran player who had been in the horror game for many years, but he had only managed to climb up to over eight hundred floors through many struggles.
It wasn’t because he had great talent that he had survived to over eight hundred floors, but because he had once stumbled upon a prop in a copy—a prop to foresee the future.
This prop wasn’t an S-grade prop, but only an A-grade.
It could predict the future, but not extensively.
He could only barely see his own future.
He could see the dangers he would face and the opportunities he might encounter.
Thanks to this prop, he had tread carefully, avoiding many near-death moments.
This time was no different.
Upon entering the copy, he had predicted his own future.
The prediction prop had limited abilities, only able to foresee events within the next twenty-four hours.
While others thought he was confident, in reality, he hadn’t stopped predicting since he stepped onto the snowfield.
He predicted that he would die if he was alone, so he slowed down.
He predicted that if the players faced the cold wave disorganized, he would freeze to death, so he took the initiative and assumed the role of leader in order to survive.
He predicted that there would be an opportunity in the Deep Ice Spring, so he came here.
Upon arriving, he used the prediction prop again.
He predicted that the opportunity lay within the ice spring.
But if he entered the ice spring, he would die.
He predicted this many times, and each time, he saw the same outcome—his green down jacket floating on the water surface, motionless.
So when Pink Hair tried to persuade him, he reluctantly chose to give up despite knowing there was an opportunity below.
But the young man had jumped in.
Wearing only a thin shirt, he had jumped in without hesitation.
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t shocked.
The green down jacket subconsciously used the prediction prop.
In his mind, a transparent mirror appeared.
Ripples formed on the transparent mirror, vaguely showing a spring surface. A few seconds later, ripples began to appear on the calm lake surface, and small bubbles gurgled out from under the water. After the bubbles rose to the surface, they exploded one after another with a plop, like boiling water.
Then, a shadow slowly rose up.
With a muffled ‘plop’, a person floated to the surface.
The man was motionless, with his back facing upwards, his white shirt blending into the surrounding snow.
The transparent mirror suddenly rippled.
The next second, the image on the mirror vanished.
The green down jacket sighed softly and put away the prediction prop.
Although courageous, it was reckless.
What a pity.
Such a free-spirited young man could have survived if he hadn’t entered the water.
“It’s getting late, let’s go back,” the green down jacket said in a solemn voice.
Pink Hair’s voice remained cheerful, “Okay, let’s go, Brothers.”
“Stop!”
As the green down jacket took a step forward, an angry shout came from behind, “You can’t leave!”
“My brother hasn’t come up yet, how can you just leave?”
The green down jacket looked at the orange-yellow down jacket still standing by the ice spring, clutching the young man’s discarded down jacket stubbornly.
The man shook his head helplessly, “Let’s go, your brother isn’t coming back.”
His prediction mirror never failed; if it showed the young man dead, then he was definitely dead.
“Impossible!” Even though he couldn’t see the orange-yellow down jacket’s face, the green down jacket could hear the anger in his voice, “My brother went down to find supplies for the team. No one else dared to go, but he did. Now you want to abandon him? This is too much. What about teamwork and the spirit of the contract? Do they mean nothing?”
“We didn’t ask him to go down, he chose to,” Black-framed Glasses said indifferently, “If you want to wait, then wait. We’re not stopping you. Kid, this is a life-or-death horror game, not a kindergarten play. We’re not obligated to stay here with you to wait for your brother.”
The green down jacket immediately retorted, “We can’t leave him here alone. A lone player is more likely to be attacked by unknown creatures. We have to take him with us.”
Xia Chi didn’t want to pay attention to Black-framed Glasses. He looked at the green down jacket helplessly, “There are over five hours until sunset. It only takes four and a half hours to get back. Let’s wait one more hour. Only the ice spring might have supplies. If you stay, there might be an opportunity. But if you leave now, this trip will be a complete waste.”
“Even a fool would know the right choice for this question, let alone smart people like you.”
The green down jacket remained silent for a few seconds.
The orange-yellow down jacket made a valid point.
But it really wasn’t necessary.
However…
“Fine, I’ll stay here for one more hour.”
Black-framed Glasses: “Hey, why did you change your mind so easily? Didn’t we agree to go back?”
Pink Hair: “Brother, let it go. It’s still early, so let’s wait a bit longer~”
Black-framed Glasses kicked the thick snow beneath his feet irritably. “Since Brother said so, then fine!”
The team, which had been ready to turn back, stopped and waited around the ice spring.
Time passed minute by minute, and the sun above gradually shifted its position…
…
The moment Bai Lixin jumped into the spring, it felt as if he was sealed within an iceberg.
The bone-chilling cold pierced through his skin, stabbing into every cell of his body. All his muscles and organs were spasming, silently protesting against the environment.
S419M: [Ah, why does my scalp feel a bit numb? I thought as an AI, I don’t have sensory nerves?]
Escape System: [Brother M, I am using electrical currents to simulate the cold.]
S419M: [??? Did they do something wrong, System Sister?]
Escape System: [I’m just a bit curious about what cold feels like. So how do you feel, Brother M?]
S419M: [I feel stiff and numb, a bit like a crash. But… if you want to experience the cold, why not try it yourself?]
Escape System: [No way, just seeing their human expressions, I can tell it’s very uncomfortable.]
S419M: “…”
What else could he do? All he could do was indulge her!
The area beneath the spring was empty.
Because Bai Lixin had experienced a mermaid form in two previous copies, he was like a fish in water. Even in human form, he swam swiftly.
After diving into the spring, he quickly headed deeper.
The deeper he swam, the warmer the water became, unlike the icy surface.
Just as he was about to reach his swimming limit, a white circle of light appeared at the bottom of the spring.
It was like the aurora over Antarctica, ethereal and mysterious, with a cyberpunk romance.
Bai Lixin quickened his pace, swimming towards the light.
He soon reached the white circle of light.
The circle appeared at the bottom of the spring, glowing with white light.
At first glance, it seemed like a teleportation array.
Bai Lixin reached out his hand towards the center of the circle.
In an instant, a powerful suction pulled him in.
Bai Lixin’s body was uncontrollably sucked into the circle.
A whirlpool appeared before his eyes, and he was caught within it, rotating and rising with the water.
After a long time, just as his lungs were about to run out of air, the raging whirlpool gradually dispersed, and the once bone-chilling water became very warm, even hot.
With the alternating cold and heat, Bai Lixin shivered involuntarily.
He looked around and found that the surroundings were completely different from the bottom of the ice spring.
The bottom of the ice spring had been all white, with frost-formed white sand.
Now, the surroundings were smooth rock walls, and lush aquatic plants grew at the bottom.
The water temperature was like that of a hot spring, and was really comfortable.
Bai Lixin looked up and saw a distinct light above.
Without further delay, he swam towards the light.
“Bang!”
Accompanied by the sound of a heavy object breaking the water surface, Bai Lixin finally emerged.
It was a cave.
The cave was pitch dark, making it difficult to see the surroundings.
He could only hear the sound of water dripping from the stone walls.
Bai Lixin took a flashlight out of his backpack.
The moment the cave was filled with light, Bai Lixin’s expression became subtle.
He pursed his lips, got out of the water, and carefully examined the cave.
S419M’s voice rang out in his mind: [Lord Host, this place is…]
Escape System: [It’s the cave from the trial copy.]
Bai Lixin: “…”
Yes, they were both right.
This cave, which seemed so familiar at first glance, was from his first copy three years ago.
The trial copy [Bride Of The River God].
S419M spoke with uncertainty: [Could it be that the cave just looks similar? Sister System, does Goose Feather Mountain have such a space?]
The Escape System was also puzzled: [I don’t know either, sorry.]
Bai Lixin glanced at the hot spring beneath his feet and spoke in a low voice: [Whether it’s the River God Village or just looks like it, we’ll know once we get out.]
He walked out of the cave.
It wasn’t a very long cave, but Bai Lixin walked slowly.
He inspected the walls on both sides as he walked, and the sense of familiarity became even stronger.
It was still night outside. Bai Lixin reached the cave entrance and looked up at the sky.
The eerie and familiar red moon hung high in the sky, and every blade of grass, flower, and tree around seemed familiar.
Following his memory, Bai Lixin traversed the forest. Every fork and slope matched his recollection of River God Village.
After about half an hour, he stood on a steep slope and saw the familiar River God Village…
River God Village, he had actually arrived here through the ice spring.
How strange.
But what time period was this River God Village from?
Where were the red spiders that roamed freely at night?
Was this really the trial copy of River God Village he had entered?
Or was it just a parallel world of the River God Village?
Looking down from the hillside, almost every house in the River God Village was brightly lit, and it looked very lively.
Bai Lixin thought for a moment and continued down the mountain road.
Whether this was the River God Village from his trial copy would become clear once he got down there.
The time displayed in the upper right corner had stopped at [12:34:43].
It seemed that he had been transported to another space through the light circle at the bottom of the ice spring, so the time in Goose Feather Mountain had paused.
Escape System: [Master Bai Lixin, please wait a moment.]
Bai Lixin paused. [What is it?]
Escape System: [Assuming this is indeed the River God Village from your trial copy, we don’t know the current time point. If you appear in the village with your current appearance, it might cause a logical error, leading to a time-space distortion.]
S419M: [I understand what Sister System means. She means that, you look too good Lord Host, so good that you’re unforgettable. If this is the River God Village before anything happened, and you appear now, people will remember you. If time moves forward to the point when “you” just entered the trial copy, the villagers will recall that “you” had been here before, causing confusion, which will ultimately lead to a logical error and affect cause and effect.]
Bai Lixin took out a large cloak from his backpack and put it on. [I understand, this should do.]
Having disguised himself, Bai Lixin continued down the mountain road towards the River God Village.
As Bai Lixin approached the village, he saw two people washing clothes by the river as he reached the village entrance.
At this late hour, the river was pitch black and barely visible, yet the two were washing clothes.
The two men looked to be in their forties, their faces pale and bloodless. They wore ragged clothes, and the clothes they were washing were also tattered.
Their movements were stiff and awkward, like two marionettes.
It was both strange and familiarly endearing.
So many years have passed, why are you two uncles still the ones doing the laundry?
The two hadn’t noticed Bai Lixin and were having a conversation in low voices.
“Did you hear? Widow Li from the east side of the village died of illness yesterday.”
“I heard. I also heard her daughter died today, also of illness.”
“Yeah, women are dying one after another from illness. It’s really pitiful.”
“If we hadn’t married off Sang Bao’er back then, none of this would’ve happened. I wouldn’t need to be washing clothes now; I’d still be at home with my wife and kids.”
“Yeah, it would’ve been better if Sang Bao’er hadn’t gotten married.”
“But if Sang Bao’er hadn’t gotten married, the whole River God Village would’ve starved back then, and we wouldn’t be living like today now.”
“True, Sang Bao’er was a good woman.”
“Pah, she wasn’t a good woman. She was promiscuous, thinking about her former lover even after marriage. She had an affair and got Master Huang killed.”
“Yeah, she was promiscuous, not a good woman.”
“But what did she do wrong? Women born in this era never had control over their lives. She exchanged her marriage for the food supply of the entire village. Even though she had a lover, she followed Master Huang in death. She was actually a good woman.”
“Yeah, she was a good woman.”
“She was so good, yet the whole village treated her so badly. That’s why she took revenge on us, we deserve it.”
“Yeah, we deserve it.”
The two were engrossed in their conversation, their voices rough and strained, like two grindstones grinding wheat.
What should have been an emotional conversation was stiff and mechanical, as if they were reciting a text word by word.
They didn’t even look at Bai Lixin, who was oddly dressed, and continued their lines, like two poorly programmed machines.
Bai Lixin walked up and greeted them, “Hello, Brothers.”
The two didn’t even glance at Bai Lixin.
After standing for a few seconds without getting a response, Bai Lixin stopped bothering them and started walking into the village.
After a few steps, he ran into a few more people.
There were several people “enjoying the cool air” under a big tree at the entrance of the village. Each of them was holding a palm-leaf fan in their hand. They all stood stiffly under the tree, shaking the fans at the same frequency.
Bai Lixin walked up to them. Their faces were as white as corpses, and besides their stiff fanning, they seemed incapable of other movements.
Even though Bai Lixin was only a step away from them, they continued fanning themselves.
Bai Lixin observed them for a while, then continued walking into the village.
As he neared the center of the village, he met someone very familiar.
A little old lady stood at the entrance of the charity cemetery with a hunched back and a pale lantern in her hand.
“Collecting bodies, collecting bodies, whoever has a body, give it to me.”
“Bao’er, my Bao’er, where are you? Why can’t Ah-Ma find you with the lantern? My Bao’er, come back to Ah-Ma.”
Her tone was strange, like a low-quality robot without emotions.
Bai Lixin spent over an hour walking around the village.
The conclusion was that there wasn’t a single living person in the village.
Everyone was dead, everyone was a puppet, everyone was an NPC in a play.
But now the villagers’ actions and words were so fake and stiff, very different from the villagers they found when they entered the trial copy.
The red moon in the sky began to set, and the sun peeked over the mountain.
At this moment, the villagers, who had been performing stiffy, all turned simultaneously and walked rigidly into their houses.
Bai Lixin followed one villager into a courtyard.
Through the transparent window, he saw the pale-faced villager stiffly extinguish an oil lamp, then awkwardly climb onto the bed, lying straight down with shoes on and closing his eyes.
If they weren’t pretending to be dead, they were pretending to sleep.
Active at night, sleeping during the day.
How interesting.
As the sun rose, the entire River God Village fell into a deep sleep, enveloped in silence.
From observing these activities, it could be seen that the obsession controlling the villagers of River God Village was still in its early stages.
It was active at night and feared sunlight, so these puppet villagers also became active at night and rested during the day.
Escape System: [Master Bai Lixin, I can confirm that this is the River God Village copy, the trial copy you experienced back then.]
S419M: [Then I don’t understand. How can the ice spring in Goose Feather Mountain connect to the River God Village copy? Is there something in River God Village that Goose Feather Mountain needs?]
Bai Lixin walked from the center of the village to the village entrance.
As he crossed the river at the village entrance, the early morning sun happened to shine down, casting glittering reflections on the river’s surface.
Bai Lixin subconsciously looked at the river’s surface.
In an instant, a mysterious dark figure wearing a pitch-black cloak was reflected in the clear river water.
When Bai Lixin saw his reflection, his body suddenly stiffened, and countless images flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern.
Finally, the revolving lantern froze on one image.
In the image, a mysterious man wearing a pitch-black cloak and a hood stood before the Tree of Resentment, handing a dagger to the Tree of Resentment.
The man said, “I can make a deal with you.”
“In the near future, I will bring living people here, but you will have to pay a price.”
“When someone discovers Sang Bao’er and Huang Youcheng’s bodies, you need to hand this dagger to them. This dagger can kill you.”
S419M: [OMG!]
Escape System: [Oh My God!]
Bai Lixin: “…”
‘I’m also shocked.’
*This was in Bride of the first Arc: River God, (ATFBETIBM Chapter 13.3).
What a twist! I never expected that the mysterious figure was actually Bai Lixin! ＼(°o°)／I suspected the main brain, Dijia, Samael…I even thought it was Lin Xiao after awhile.
The sound of rustling leaves and wind came from deep within the forest.
The wind howled, sounding both like the wind and like crying.
Bai Lixin snapped out of his shock, glanced at the dark green mountain, and after a moment of thought, headed into the mountain.
Following his memory, he went towards where the Tree of Resentment grew.
He wondered if it was just an illusion, but as he walked through the forest, he could feel the presence of the red spiders.
But these red spiders didn’t rush out to attack him like they did back then; instead, they hid far away.
Last night, when he emerged from the cave, he had sensed many gazes moving away, but those gazes disappeared so quickly that he thought they were just forest insects.
It seemed that those faint gazes also came from the red spiders.
Bai Lixin chuckled softly.
These kinds of primitive monsters that tend to be driven by instinct are indeed the most sensitive. When he was just a level one newbie, these red spiders had swarmed to attack him.
Now that he had returned here as a fully leveled-up character, these red spiders were already intimidated by his presence and hid far away.
The suppression of the food chain was vividly demonstrated.
This is probably why the red spiders were so afraid of Water Body Dija back then.
Bai Lixin realized he was nearing the cave he had emerged from yesterday.
His heart stirred, and he turned and walked into the cave.
Upon reaching the hot spring inside the cave, he bent down and dipped his hand into the spring water, which was still warm and shrouded in mist.
It was warm. Was Water Body Dijia in there now?
The slender fingers stirred the water, creating beautiful ripples.
Even though the hands were just caressing the water surface, for some reason, their movements carried a kind of allure, as if they were teasing something.
The young man played with the ripples for a while, but the water just swayed left and right with his movements, and nothing special happened.
After a few minutes, the young man was somewhat unwilling, and he called out tentatively: “Dijia!”
“Dijia!”
“Dijia!”
His voice was transmitted into the water continuously, and the sound waves fell onto the water’s surface, causing faint ripples.
The water surface still had no reaction.
Bai Lixin patiently played with the water for half an hour and only after confirming that Dijia was not in the water did he stop his teasing actions, got up, and left the cave.
After the young man left, the rippling water gradually returned to calm.
Another half hour passed. In a place where the young man couldn’t see, the originally calm water surface suddenly trembled.
Splash.
Splash.
Splash.
It was the sound of flowing water.
Starting from the point of tremor, one circle after another of ripples began to spread outward.
First, a small circle.
Then the waves grew more intense.
Finally, the entire water surface surged violently, as if it were boiling.
‘Who?’
‘Who is calling me?’
‘Dijia?’
‘Is this my name?’
‘It sounds pretty good.’
‘From today, this will be my name.’
‘So sleepy.’
‘I want to sleep…’
The boiling water suddenly subsided, and the water surface returned to its former tranquility.