Chapter 1: Ancient Temple in the Deep Mountains

"Finally, a complete playthrough."

As the BOSS fell, Xu Yuan, with bloodshot eyes, slowly leaned back into his gaming chair, while the names of the production team started scrolling on the screen in front of him alongside the ending CG.

After more than a month of burning the midnight oil, Cangyuan Chronicles, the game known for having the most complex storyline among domestically produced games, had finally been conquered by him in every possible world line and ending.

As a 2.5D pixel art game, the storyline of Cangyuan Chronicles was somewhat overly rich.

Thousands of choices, twenty-five world lines, and dozens of vastly different endings allowed players to have a completely new story experience every time they played.

"With the current technology, I guess only this type of 2.5D pixel art game can support such a massive amount of storyline."

After carefully watching every single ending, Xu Yuan finally shut off the power with satisfaction, his drowsiness not preventing him from going to the bathroom to wash up, climbing into bed, and habitually recalling the game's storyline:

"It's finally over, but it's a pity about the Prime Minister. In the dozen or so final BOSS endings, he always gets killed off by some crappy plot twist devised by the writers."

"Also, once you play it a few times and get familiar with the game mechanics, the difficulty becomes much easier."

"Haah..."

"So sleepy... I'll stop thinking about it, I still have to help out at the old man's company tomorrow. I've been avoiding it for over a month, he's probably going to chew me out."

Muttering quietly, exhaustion took over, and Xu Yuan fell into a deep sleep...

...

...

...

"Boom—"

Amid the thunder and flashing lightning, a downpour began.

With the crackling sound of fire consuming the wood echoing, Xu Yuan opened his eyes somewhat painfully in the midst of chaos.

"Is it raining... Tch, my head hurts... I think there's some ibuprofen in the house."

The throbbing headache prompted Xu Yuan, in his stupor, to subconsciously try to get up and find a painkiller in the medicine box, but as his pupils fully focused, the dim environment in front of him made him halt in surprise.

Where is this?

Where's my home?

The once-familiar ceiling was gone, replaced by the sight of a strange, abandoned temple.

The old and damaged wooden beams and pillars.

A stone Buddha statue seated on a lotus stand with one arm broken off.

The campfire flickering with the cold wind.

And,

The quiet woman in black sitting beside the fire, with a thin veil over her face.

The patter of rain came from outside the temple.

Everything was eerily silent.

Two seconds of silence, close his eyes, and open them again.

Nothing changed.

"...."

Xu Yuan tried to make sense of what was happening to him.

But after pondering for a long time, he still had no clue.

The only thing he could be sure of was that he seemed to have transmigrated.

However, the headache didn't stem from any aftereffects of memory fusion; rather, it was caused by a physical swelling at the back of his head—a swollen lump.

Without any memories of his past life, Xu Yuan found everything around him extremely unfamiliar. His gaze swept across the dilapidated temple.

Rain poured down like buckets, cascading from the worn tiles on the eaves like a curtain of beads, creating ripples in the puddles outside the temple. Beyond the glow of the firelight, outside the temple doors, was an abyss of impenetrable darkness.

Just like most people, Xu Yuan had fantasized about crossing into another world, but it was only a fleeting daydream.

He had always had a clear understanding of himself: without any cheats, in certain literary works, he might not survive past the third chapter.

And the ominous environment before him seemed to be exactly the kind he wouldn't last three chapters in.

The rain in winter was chillingly cold, sending waves of coldness rushing to his heart.

Using the dim light from the campfire, Xu Yuan's gaze wandered repeatedly around the interior.

The temple was large. When the incense smoke was no longer prosperous, the once venerable and solemn Buddha, in the dimly lit hall, also turned eerie.

After scanning the room, Xu Yuan's gaze ultimately settled on the only other living being in the temple besides himself.

The woman in black was sitting quietly with her eyes closed next to the fire, a sword placed beside her.

The firelight cast a glow on her skin, fairer than snow. A black veil covered her face, and her long, waterfall-like straight black hair was casually strewn behind her. With the gusts of cold wind, her black robe faintly outlined her graceful curves.

A rainy night, a decrepit temple in deep mountains, a beautiful woman—these elements combined made it hard for Xu Yuan not to think of something strange.

In the midst of silence, Xu Yuan slowly stood up from the ground.

In the years helping with family business, the old man had led him to see many things and people, clean and unclean alike.

Although the surroundings were eerie, once he recognized reality, Xu Yuan was well aware that he had to do something now.

His body seemed injured, and he was scantily clad. At the very least, he needed to get closer to the campfire; the wintry night and rain were about to freeze him stiff.

Xu Yuan fixated on the woman in front of him and slowly stepped toward her.

The woman in black seemed not to hear his footsteps, still sitting quietly beside the fire with her eyes closed.

The sheer veil couldn't conceal her aura, serene and beautiful.

He had just approached her when suddenly, Xu Yuan's pupils shrank.

A gigantic arm lay on the ground beside the woman, shockingly entering his view.

His steps halted, heart racing in a frenzy, then abruptly relaxed.

The arm was lifelike but not human—it was made of stone.

He glanced back at the giant Buddha statue he had seen previously, which was missing an arm.

Presumably, it belonged to that statue.

Using the stone arm as a seat, Xu Yuan stared at the woman's flawless profile, partially concealed by her veil.

In the bleak cold wind, after two seconds of quiet,

the woman in black slowly opened her eyes, as clear and cold as ink, and looked toward Xu Yuan.

Suddenly,

"Boom—"

A flash of thunder and lightning tore through the pitch-black sky, illuminating everything inside and outside the dilapidated temple.

The light flashed and was gone, and in the brief moment of eye contact with the woman, Xu Yuan caught a glimpse of something outside the temple doors.

Bodies...

With the fleeting flash of lightning during the thunderclap, the courtyard outside the temple doors was filled with mangled bodies in puddles, their blood thick and spreading with the rain...

Xu Yuan's foggy mind was jolted to alertness, his heartbeat uncontrollably quickening, and his hands, hidden in his sleeves, began to tremble involuntarily.

His family didn't deal in the Golden Triangle for nothing, but a scene littered with bodies far exceeded his tolerance.

He bit his tongue hard, and Xu Yuan tried to suppress his increasingly frantic thoughts, attempting to analyze the situation with reason.

The pain in his tongue finally calmed him down somewhat, and he forced himself to breathe steadily while gazing at the woman in black in front of him.

The flash of lightning vanished, and the temple entrance was once again swallowed by darkness, enveloped in gloom.

But the scene from moments ago had already been etched into Xu Yuan's mind.

Each of the corpses outside the door, holding weapons, wore the same uniform, each dead in different postures, but their toes were almost all pointed toward the ancient temple at the moment of death.

In other words, they came from the same place and for some unknown reason wanted to break into this ancient temple.

The brief glimpse of the scene made Xu Yuan think of many things, and he turned stiffly to look at the woman beside him.

He realized he might have sat next to a formidable woman.

There were only the two of them in the temple, and with his visibly weak body, those corpses outside trying to break in must have been her doing.

The pitch-black sky outside thundered incessantly, while cold wind kept seeping through the broken temple door. The woman in black, dark as ink, sat by the fire with the extravagantly dressed young master, and outside was a massacre hidden in the shadows.

In the midst of silence,

"You... are in my way,"

The woman's voice was as light as ice, smooth, and indifferent.

"...."

Upon hearing this, Xu Yuan was startled.

He was in her way?

Then he realized that the woman in black's gaze wasn't on him, but behind him.

Behind him?

A hint of confusion rose in his heart.

He'd checked earlier; the main hall was spacious, but there was nothing behind him at this angle except the huge broken-armed Buddha statue.

The confusion made Xu Yuan glance back subconsciously,

And it was this glance that sent a shiver of cold from his spine straight to his forehead.

Xu Yuan saw a pair of legs.

Legs as tall as if he were standing up.

His gaze slowly traveled upward,

and the giant stone Buddha had somehow silently moved from atop the lotus base to behind him without him noticing.

The cracked and sinister face was hidden in the shadow of the roof, appearing to smile, looking down at him and the woman beside him from on high.

"..."

His brain froze for a moment,

The science he'd always believed in couldn't explain what was happening in front of him, and a fear of the unknown exploded in Xu Yuan's heart, uncontrollable.

Xu Yuan's breathing uncontrollably sped up; the bizarre and enormous Buddha statue was just a short distance away, his body stiff as if plunging into an ice cave.

After several seconds of stillness, Xu Yuan started to forcibly control his stiff body, shifting to one side.

He... he had to move aside quickly.

His heart was pounding as if it would burst out of his chest; this strange vision was beyond his cognition and acceptance.

At that moment, Xu Yuan's peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of the woman in black.

As the giant Buddha neared, the woman in black with a veil covering her face did not stand up. She remained quietly seated, not even picking up the sword beside her, her flawless face retaining its cool expression without a hint of change, just calmly looking at the Buddha statue.

The woman's calm composure gradually gave Xu Yuan a sense of reassurance.

While shrinking into a corner of the main hall to calm his fears, he cautiously watched the Buddha and the woman in the center.

Thank goodness... thank goodness this woman seemed powerful.

Xu Yuan thought of the corpses scattered outside the temple.

The very thing that had terrified him moments ago had now become Xu Yuan's source of comfort.

Xu Yuan couldn't imagine being alone in this remote temple facing that sinister "living Buddha."

Two seconds of silence between the woman and the Buddha, a creeping sense of eerie cold spread bit by bit, and Xu Yuan took this opportunity to quietly retreat to a corner of the broken temple.

Suddenly,

The sinister "living Buddha" moved.

Its huge form didn't hinder its speed; with a swiftness nearly imperceptible to Xu Yuan, its gigantic palm thundered down.

"Boom—"

The main hall and the ground shook at the same time; the palm hitting the ground extinguished the only light inside, the campfire.

Xu Yuan's vision plunged into darkness in an instant.

Without the light, sound became the only protagonist in the dark, with large tremors and booms blending together.

Listening to the noises coming from not far away, Xu Yuan's heart raced, his fists clenched so tight the fingertips dug into his palms without him realizing.

Suddenly,

"Hum—"

A resonant sword cry echoed inside and outside the temple,

A blue sword light flashed in the darkness and was gone,

Everything suddenly returned to calm.

"Rumble—"

A clap of thunder flashed across the sky, illuminating everything inside the main hall.

Xu Yuan then saw the scene unfold.

The woman's black dress was unblemished by any dust; she calmly sheathed her sword, while the head of the colossal "living Buddha" she had faced was now nowhere to be found.

While Xu Yuan was stunned,

"Thump—"

A dark shadow crashed down in front of him, kicking up dust that made Xu Yuan frown and take a step back.

It was the giant head of the 'living Buddha.'

And its kind eyes now looked at him with a faint luminescent glow.

Seeing this, Xu Yuan instinctively wanted to move closer to the woman in black's side; such a weird thing was too dangerous to face alone.

After the thunder, darkness reigned once more.

Xu Yuan carefully considered his words in his mind, while walking towards the direction where the woman had been, thinking about asking her some questions.

At that moment,

The weak murmur of a voice came from the darkness in front of him:

"Third Young Master..."

"Run."