Chapter 114: Lost in the Snow Mountain 17

Chapter 114: Lost in the Snow Mountain 17

Wen Ren Dawn thought Mi Yang was sick, and not just a little.

He gave Mi Yang an indescribably odd look, covered his forehead, and walked away quickly.

What kind of people were these!!

Mi Yang belatedly realized what had happened.

Had he been fooled by Xiao Qin again?

Qin Fei was sitting by the stove cooking soup, surrounded by a crowd of people. Mi Yang never found a chance to talk to him and could only swallow his doubts in frustration.

After lunch, the players left a few people on watch while the rest returned to their tents for a nap.

This nap lasted a long time and was very comfortable. For the past two nights, they had either been on the move or completing missions, and everyone's bodies and emotions had been highly tense. Now, they finally had a chance to rest.

The instance finally acted humanely, and the entire afternoon passed without incident.

Apart from the blizzard overhead getting heavier, no monsters came to disturb them.

When Qin Fei was woken up by Mi Yang, it was already five o'clock in the evening.

The sky outside the tent had turned dark, and it would soon be night.

According to the previous schedule, Qin Fei should have been woken up at half past four to go on duty.

But Wen Ren Dawn, who was supposed to wake him up, did not come. Instead, he and Wu Meng directly guarded the last half hour.

This made Mi Yang feel strange. Why was Wen Ren Dawn suddenly so nice to his baby?

He helped him silently without saying much, as if trying to please him.

Mi Yang couldn't figure out the relationship between Qin Fei and the Dawn Squad. It seemed like there were secrets between them.

Mi Yang was curious to the point of scratching his heart and liver.

"Get ready to set off." Qin Fei ignored Mi Yang's eager expression and lightly patted his shoulder.

He stood by the tent and looked far into the distance, at the silent forest hundreds of meters away.

Last night, they had avoided it at all costs.

Today, however, they were going to advance towards it voluntarily.

What awaited the players?

...

In the snow, the players silently packed up their sleeping bags and tents.

The howling wind and snow resembled the roar of a beast. The snowflakes that flew around and hit their faces brought a noticeable pain.

"The snow is getting heavier," Cen Sanya brushed his face with the back of his hand. His ears were hidden under his snow cap, but they still hurt from the cold. The skin beside his nostrils also had a tendency to crack. "And the warmth of our clothes is decreasing."

The players all knew that this was the instance forcing them to speed up.

"At this rate, latest by the night after tomorrow," Ding Li's data analysis and calculation skills were strong. With the boost of his innate skill, he rarely made mistakes in this area. "If we can't leave the instance, we might freeze to death directly."

There was no trace of blood color on his face.

The damage caused by the severe cold to bodily functions was continuous and comprehensive. In a certain sense, it was similar to being burned. It wasn't the kind of injury that could be cured by a life replenishment pill.

Because they were entering the dense forest, the players took out the climbing ropes again. They had already experienced the high pollution of the dense forest once and didn't dare to take it lightly.

Ding Li calculated their progress in the instance and felt hopeless no matter how he calculated it.

The first check-in mission last night had taken a whole night, and there were still four more check-in locations. How could they possibly complete them within the next two days?

Not to mention Zhou Li's secret, about which they still had no clue.

Ding Li's mind was in a mess, almost tying the rope knot in his hand into a dead knot.

"Relax."

A fair hand crossed in front of him, stopping his aimless movements.

Long and slender fingers tied a standard rope knot very quickly.

Ding Li raised his head in a daze and met Qin Fei's gaze.

"There's nothing to worry about. It's just a dense forest, not something we haven't been in before."

Qin Fei smiled, and a shallow dimple appeared at the corner of his lips, disappearing in an instant.

The young man stood in the raging snowstorm, the wind tearing apart his clear voice. But his demeanor was calm, and those clear eyes carried a strange energy that could soothe the heart.

It was as if a feather brushed over his heart, and the agitated blood in Ding Li's chest suddenly calmed down.

Thank goodness Xiao Qin was here, Ding Li thought.

Although Xiao Qin didn't seem as powerful as the Dawn Squad members, who looked like they could walk sideways in the instance, it was undeniable that from the start of the instance until now, Xiao Qin had played an irreplaceable role.

If it weren't for Xiao Qin,

he wouldn't have survived until now.

Any player could be missing, except for Xiao Qin.

But he couldn’t do without Qin Fei.

Ding Li took a deep breath and grabbed Qin Fei’s hand, nodding vigorously as if paying homage to his spiritual leader:

"I will definitely work hard!"

He couldn’t let Little Qin down!!

Qin Fei watched as the domestication progress bar above the other’s head shot up from a mere 12% to 70%.

Qin Fei: "?"

What was this? ? ? ?

Qin Fei blinked in surprise.

He could swear to the heavens that when he came over to comfort Ding Li, it wasn’t with such intentions. He had simply been passing by and felt a sudden surge of kindness, nothing more.

How could gaining fans through personal charm be considered domestication?

The Snow Mountain really wasn’t picky.

Qin Fei rubbed the tip of his nose and walked away in a daze.

The sky grew darker, approaching complete darkness.

The night on the Snow Mountain never had stars or moon, the heavy dark clouds looming overhead like an impending storm, pressing down on people’s chests.

Once again, Qin Fei held the lives of all the players in his hands. A line of people connected by ropes moved silently through the snow.

Under the dim light of the sky, the outline of the nearby forest became clearer.

The straight black trunks of the trees resembled loaded guns, ready to be pressed against the players’ foreheads at any moment.

Wen Ren Dawn walked closest to Qin Fei, lowering his voice to a whisper audible only to the two of them:

"Do you think the Jungle Temple might be the guiding place?"

The players hadn’t explored the depths of the jungle, so they didn’t know what the temple looked like exactly.

But they had seen the photos on Kong Siming’s phone.

The temple that the surveyor had taken pictures of was in the jungle, clearly their destination.

Qin Fei had previously speculated that the temple might be the guiding place, but now he had largely ruled out that possibility.

"It won’t be."

The players had found the correct map in the Snow Mountain cabin and set out along its directions after receiving their new mission.

Judging by direction, the jungle had to be the second stop.

It was impossible for anyone to take a detour to the later checkpoints before coming back.

Since the copy had designed these checkpoints, they certainly wouldn’t make them optional.

The guiding place could only appear after all map areas had been fully explored.

"Either it’s the fifth checkpoint, or the guiding place isn’t among the five checkpoints at all."

Qin Fei gave Wen Ren Dawn a disheartening answer with remarkable calmness.

"Well, not necessarily. The guiding place could also be hidden among the middle checkpoints, but we definitely can’t activate it now. We still have to clear the entire map before we can enter."

The logic was similar to playing an online game; one had to clear all the main storyline levels before entering the final level.

It was impossible for a player to randomly click around and suddenly pass the level with maximum luck. Game designers weren’t idle.

Wen Ren understood this principle, but he still harbored a sliver of unrealistic hope for the future.

Now that Qin Fei had shattered this hope, he immediately drooped, like a large dog with its head hanging low, dragging his feet and leaving a long trail of footprints in the snow.

Qin Fei had no time to care about Wen Ren Dawn’s mental health. They had already reached the edge of the jungle.

"How does it feel?" Qin Fei turned to ask the players.

"It’s okay." Mi Yang frowned slightly. He did indeed sense the aura of corruption emanating from the trees ahead, but it didn’t seem as strong as yesterday.

The corruption hadn’t disappeared, and their SAN values were still dropping, but the situation was much better than last night.

When the Dawn Squad first entered the jungle area yesterday, they had immediately lost consciousness. Today, however, the players’ conditions remained above the passing grade.

With the help of the mental replenishment potions, they barely managed to maintain their sanity.

"Perhaps it’s because we’re entering the jungle differently," mused Qin Fei.

The rules had reminded them that the players must follow the map.

Yesterday, they had violated the rule of not calling each other’s names in the Snow Mountain, and the jungle appeared as punishment.

Today, however, things were different.

Today, they had sought out the jungle themselves and strictly followed the map’s instructions, naturally causing the intensity of the jungle’s corruption to drop significantly.

Still, even so, the jungle was far from an easy checkpoint.

"How should we proceed to find the temple in the woods?" Duan Nan looked ahead,

Within the limits imposed by the climbing ropes, the players observed their surroundings individually.

Finding the Jungle Temple sounded easier than spending a night in Snow Village, at least there was no specified time limit for the task.

But when they thought about what Ding Li had said—that they had at most two days left—their moods couldn't help but become anxious.

No one knew how vast the jungle was or where the temple was hidden.

After entering the command, Qin Fei didn't immediately lead the players into the jungle.

They didn't have a map of the interior terrain of the jungle, and blindly venturing deep into it would be dangerous without any leads.

"We can start by walking around the perimeter of the jungle to observe the terrain," Jack the Ripper suddenly spoke up.

This was almost the first time he had actively participated in the plot since the instance began. For the past two whole days, he had been like a dummy, following silently behind everyone.

Mi Yang glanced at him but didn't say anything.

He found Jack the Ripper quite unpleasant, but he had to admit that this suggestion made some sense.

Wen Ren pondered for a moment before turning to ask Qin Fei, "What do you think?"

This seemed to be the safest choice at the moment. Walking along the edge wouldn't easily lead to trouble, and if an accident occurred, they could retreat back into the snow at any time.

Qin Fei expressed his opinion through action: "Let's go."

The players walked along the edge of the jungle for a short distance, not far, only a hundred or two meters, but then Qin Fei suddenly stopped.

"Don't move forward anymore." The young man's expression was cold.

The others hadn't realized what had happened yet. Mi Yang asked him blankly, "What's wrong?"

Qin Fei looked up, staring at the tree in front of him. "We're going in circles."

He paused, then negated this statement. "No, that's not right. We are indeed moving forward."

"But these trees are also moving forward with us."

The black tree in front of them looked no different from the countless other black trees around them.

But as Qin Fei walked, he had been observing his surroundings all the time. The shapes of each seemingly identical tree, which had subtle differences in detail, were deeply imprinted in his mind through his eyes.

There were no two completely identical leaves in the world.

Nor were there two identical trees.

This tree was moving. It kept appearing in front of, behind, and on either side of the players, in every direction.

It was tracking them.

Mi Yang's eyelids twitched.

He suddenly realized that the jungle could move.

Qin Fei said, "Walking along the edge won't work."

If the trees kept changing positions, they would never be able to estimate the entire area of the jungle by walking along the edge.

"What else can we do?" Mi Yang was a little discouraged and turned to ask Cen San Ya in a sullen manner, "Can you sense it?"

Cen San Ya wasn't a god. If he could sense everything, he would be invincible in the instance.

Cen San Ya chuckled twice. "I can sense it."

Mi Yang's eyes lit up. "Where is it?"

Cen San Ya replied, "In there."

Mi Yang: "…"

Mi Yang finally realized that the other party was teasing him and glared fiercely at Cen San Ya.

Cen San Ya sighed. "I'm telling the truth. I really can sense it. The temple is located right at the very center of the jungle."

It was the kind of "center" you got by intersecting two diameters.

Very, very standard.

But what good did it do to sense it? The jungle wasn't round, and they couldn't find the diameters.

Qin Fei listened quietly to the players' conversation and suddenly spoke up after the discussion died down. "In that case, let's just go straight in."

The last time Qin Fei came into the jungle, he saw some strange red lights in the jungle. He had been trying to find them earlier but found nothing.

All the methods he could think of couldn't be tried.

They could only go in head-on.

Everyone: "???"

Was he being so reckless?

Qin Fei raised his eyebrows provocatively. "What, scared?"

Since they couldn't get clues about the location of the temple from the outside, they could only search inside the jungle.

The instance wouldn't arrange a level that relied purely on luck, that would be too cruel.

To take it a step further, even if it was truly like that, it would be better to start trying as soon as possible.

Mi Yang was strangely convinced. "…It seems to make some sense?"

The other players: You think everything Xiao Qin says is reasonable!

But at this point, the players had no other choice.

Duan Nan followed the team forward with a worried expression, bending down beside a tree root protruding from the snow and fumbling for a handful of pebbles which he tossed behind him as he walked.

Ding Li forced a smile,

"Are you planning to imitate Hansel and Gretel?"

He referred to a famous story in Grimm's Fairy Tales, where a brother and sister were tricked by their wicked stepmother into being abandoned deep in the forest.

The brother had an idea, picking up many small stones and scattering them on the ground as markers. After being left by their stepmother, they followed the trail of stones back home.

However, this method only worked once. Later, Hansel and Gretel were still abandoned in the dense forest.

There, they met a witch disguised as a kind person who led them into a house made of candy, locking the two children inside, intending to eat them.

"I wonder if the temple we're searching for will also be like the candy house in the fairy tale, hiding a greedy witch."

Duan Nan was deeply troubled.

The pebbles he threw formed an indistinct line in the snow, but Duan Nan knew that this primitive and clumsy method was useless.

Once the trees changed position, the end of the stone path would no longer lead to the edge of the forest.

But he continued to throw them anyway. The mechanical action helped reduce stress and brought calm.

His supply of stones quickly ran out, so he bent down to gather more.

As they ventured deeper into the forest, the light grew dimmer, and everything became dark and unclear.

Duan Nan and his teammates were still tethered together by a rope, leaving him no time to carefully select stones. He bent down and grabbed one at random.

Something odd poked him, its shape peculiar.

Instinctively, he looked down.

"Holy shit!!"

Duan Nan's voice wasn't loud, but in the silent forest, it was enough to startle everyone.

"What happened? What happened?" Ding Li rushed quickly to his side.

Duan Nan examined what he had touched, his heart still pounding as he patted his chest. "Nothing."

He had just touched a tree root, one that looked exactly like a human hand. Without a closer look, he could have sworn there was a person lying there.

Ding Li looked in the direction Duan Nan was pointing and was also startled. "Whoa, it really is."

But his eyesight was better, and next to that root that looked like a hand, he saw something else.

"…What's that?" Ding Li moved closer to that direction.

Ding Li had heard Wu Meng and the others talk about how they found a compound-eyed moth at the edge of the jungle for the first time.

He still remembered Xiao Qin mentioning that the pattern on the moth was very similar to the patterns on the door in the photo of the Jungle Temple.

That was definitely not an ordinary moth. It was probably some important creature in the snow mountain, which the players hadn't seen since then.

But Ding Li had now spotted its trail again.

Right next to that black tree root ahead.

The moth lay there with its wings drooping, seemingly lifeless.

Ding Li mustered up his courage and approached, prodded it with a dagger, and after confirming that it didn't move, picked it up with a glove.

All the players gathered around to look.

Qin Fei, however, turned to examine the tree instead.

It was a tree that looked very ordinary, with a straight trunk and rough bark.

If it weren't for Ding Li accidentally finding that moth, the players would never have paid much attention to such a tree.

Qin Fei raised his hand and tapped on the trunk, and a hollow sound echoed from the other end of his knuckles.

Qin Fei tapped on another tree.

The sound was dull.

"Go cut down this tree."

He suddenly turned around and said very abruptly to Wu Meng.

The tree was hollow.

Wu Meng was puzzled.

But there were many things Wu Meng didn't understand, and what he was best at was executing orders. After Wen Ren Liming nodded, he didn't think twice and swung his sword forward.

"Bang!"

The sharp blade sliced through metal like mud, but when it embedded into the tree, it gave off a strange sensation. Wu Meng paused for a moment, but without reducing his strength, he drew a long gash on the trunk.

The black trees in the jungle were too tall, so Wu Meng didn't cut horizontally. He was worried that if the tree fell, it might hit the players or other trees, causing a series of disastrous chain reactions.

He intended to carve out a window in the tree.

However, he hadn't anticipated how it would feel when he cut into the tree...

"It's like cutting through flesh," Wu Meng muttered.

Viscous sap oozed down from the opening, and suddenly, the tree trembled. Then, the vibrations grew stronger.

Something was hidden inside.

Wu Meng's expression brightened as he raised his hand for another strike!

The peeled bark fell away like soft human skin, and more sap flowed out. Under the players' astonished gazes, suddenly, a shadow shot out of the trunk!

One.

Two.

Then an uncountable swarm.

The grayish-white moths flapped their wings and flew crazily in a certain direction.

The tree shook, then shook again.

As if all its vitality had been drained in an instant, the branches withered rapidly.

Afterward, without any other external force applied, it cracked into several pieces that shattered on the snow.

A few dead moths fell along with the trunk, casualties of Wu Meng's blade.

"Chase them." Qin Fei made a snap decision and ran in the direction the moths were flying.

The other players were still stunned, but they felt a strong pull. Wen Ren Liming felt like he was about to suffocate, not thinking at all, his body subconsciously following.

Thus, the group stumbled forward, each person pulling the next.

Countless trees flew past on either side of their vision. No one had the energy to pay attention to their route. The fluttering swarm of moths ahead was like the only lighthouse in the night, guiding their way.

The players didn't know how far they'd run in the secret order, how many turns they'd taken, or where they now found themselves.

The scenery in their field of vision gradually blurred, and all they could see clearly were the moths.

After an unknown amount of time, the swarm of moths flickered ahead and suddenly vanished into thin air.

Through the gaps in the trees, crimson light flickered, staining the night sky with a bloody hue.

Beyond the overlapping shadows of the trees, a towering structure appeared at the end of their line of sight.

"Found it?" Mi Yang was almost out of breath. The temple, obscured by the trees, seemed to double in his vision. The massive black doors looked indistinguishably wooden or stone, but the wing patterns on them were unmistakably clear.

Congratulations to the player for successfully completing the side quest: "In Search of the Jungle Temple!"

The system announcement blared out, and with it, a new mission prompt refreshed in every player's attribute panel:

"Please spend a night in the Temple of the Snowy Mountain!"

The task prompt was a dark red, with tightly packed fonts that seemed to exude a sense of danger. Qin Fei paused for a moment, his gaze dimmed.

At the same time, the black crystal ring on his finger suddenly became hot, but the warmth vanished in an instant.

Qin Fei's fingers stiffened slightly.

"Source of pollution?" he silently exclaimed in his heart.

He gently pinched the ring, twisted it, but received no further response.