Simultaneous traversal: All Abyss difficulty.

Chapter 695 This is truly unbelievable (Bonus chapter for Alliance Leader ink)

The night was as dark as ink, and the chill was even more intense than during the day, seeping silently into the cracks of the stone house.

Fang Yu used a half-finished twig he had picked up to borrow fire from the kitchen stove and laboriously lit the tung oil lamp on the table, which was covered in grease.

The flickering, dim flames struggled to dispel a small circle of darkness, but only added to the desolation and eeriness of the cold stone chamber.

He sat cross-legged on the cold earthen bed, the old, nameless book that the withered Taoist priest had given him lying open on his lap.

The paper was yellowed and brittle, with curled and worn edges, exuding a musty and cold aura. The cover was empty, as if even its name had been swallowed up by some force.

Fang Yu casually flipped the page, his rough fingertips tracing the cold, stiff pages.

The writing on it is an extremely ancient, distorted pictographic script. Let alone someone with a "second-grade spiritual root," even a knowledgeable cultivator would probably find it difficult to decipher at a glance.

After flipping through a few pages, the sense of vigilance stemming from his modern soul grew stronger—this thing, no matter how you look at it, exudes an eerie aura!
"What legitimate martial art would be handed to someone without a name?"

He muttered under his breath, his brows furrowed, "Su Su's reaction was like she'd seen a ghost, trembling like she was seeing one! And that old geezer, so thin and withered, his aura was more unsettling than a mass grave! He doesn't look like a good guy at all! He might be some kind of soul-extracting, spirit-refining, Gu-raising, curse-casting monstrosity!"

As a modern time traveler who has read countless online novels, he is all too familiar with the deadly traps hidden beneath this kind of "adventure" trope.

He tossed the book casually onto the corner of the table, too lazy to read it anymore.

The eerie golden light during the day and the gaunt Taoist's forceful acceptance of him as a disciple filled his mind with a multitude of questions.

"A master secretly helped? Unlike that old tyrant Jin Guang, who would have been more than just protecting me. Why go so far as to beat an inner disciple half to death?"

He rubbed his lower back, which still ached slightly from the kick he'd received earlier that day. "Could it be... the system has awakened?" He held his breath, silently calling out in his mind, "System? Cheat? Hey bro? Sign-in? Lottery? Attribute panel?" Only the crackling of the candlelight and the howling wind outside answered him in the stone chamber.

Got nothing.

Disappointment and deeper exhaustion washed over him, and he collapsed onto the hard earthen bed.

I don't know how much time passed before my consciousness sank into darkness.

Nightmares creep in like maggots clinging to bones.

A wave of cold, slippery, and suffocating sensations washed over me.

He dreamt that he was lying on a cold altar, being entwined and strangled by a huge, strange snake with eyes like two burning embers!
The cold, icy tongue of the snake licked his face, bringing with it the stench of death.

Then came excruciating pain! The snake opened its enormous mouth, big enough to swallow a 72-inch television, and swallowed him whole!

In the boundless darkness and the corrosive, burning pain of his stomach acid, his remaining consciousness "saw" an incredibly bizarre scene.

The giant snake that had swallowed him began to writhe violently, tearing its own scales in agony. And it struggled to its feet from its bloody, sticky, freshly shed skin.
It was none other than his own image, "Fang Yu"!

Fang Yu had a sinister, inhuman grin on his lips!

"Ugh—!"

Fang Yu jolted awake and abruptly opened his eyes! His heart pounded like a drum, as if it were about to leap out of his throat!

Cold sweat soaked through my thin clothes, sticky and icy cold.

It was still pitch black before my eyes.

That lamp had long since burned out.

Just as he was still in shock and panting heavily, he suddenly caught a glimpse of something unusual out of the corner of his eye!
A faint ray of light shone from the gap under the table, near the corner of the wall!
The light was extremely faint, so faint that it was almost imperceptible, yet in this pitch-black space it was as dazzling as a blade of light!
What sent chills down Fang Yu's spine was that this light was not a symbol of gentleness or brightness; it exuded an indescribable sharpness! Like a needle tip coated with deadly poison, it pierced his senses with icy coldness!

A chill even more intense than the Snake's Mouth instantly froze Fang Yu's bones! Someone was watching!
This thought was like a bucket of ice water poured over my head.

It's that withered old man! Only him! At the other end of the crack in the stone house next door.
A strong will to survive overwhelmed all fear and nausea. Fang Yu didn't have time to think; his body moved faster than his brain. He closed his eyes and let out a realistic, muffled "hmm" sound, almost like a dream.

He then tried to regulate his breathing, forcing his lungs, which were being torn apart by the nightmare and the fear of the moment, to rise and fall slowly, even forcing out a muffled, sticky snoring sound from deep in his throat.

"Snoring."

"Snoring."

His stiff body pressed against the cold earthen bed, while his heart pounded wildly against his ribs in his chest.

Pretend to sleep!

You have to make it look convincing!
Do not move! Do not open your eyes!

In the darkness, the piercing light seemed tangible, falling coldly upon him, making every inch of his skin taut like a bowstring.

Every second of this feigned sleep felt like an eternity, like being slowly sliced ​​to death.

After snoring for an unknown amount of time, amidst the torment of the terrifying feeling of being watched that neither intensified nor disappeared, another kind of fatigue brought on by the high level of mental tension finally took over.

Fang Yu's consciousness blurred again. This time, he was truly forced to pretend to be asleep until he passed out.

When he opened his sore eyes again, the blinding sunlight was already streaming in through the small window.

Three poles in the sun!

Fang Yu suddenly jumped up from the kang (a heated brick bed) and scrambled to the table.

He hurriedly squatted down, his face almost touching the cold, rough ground.

Found it! Sure enough, there was a tiny, hair-thin crack in the hard rocky ground near the corner of the table!

Unlike a natural crack in a stone, the break is too straight and fine, clearly indicating that the hole was deliberately cut and polished later!

Fang Yu lay on the ground, staring wide-eyed as he tried to peer inside, but the gap was too small, and all he could see on the other side was a blurry darkness.

But this did nothing to lessen the chilling associations the gap evoked in him!
Last night, that withered old man was lying on the other side of this hole, coldly and silently watching me, like observing a caged beast or scrutinizing fish on a chopping board!

"Gulp." Fang Yu swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty as he suppressed the fear rising in his throat.

Can't wait any longer!
What price? What pain? I don't care! I have to learn what's in that lousy book right now! Otherwise, let alone survive until I can fight back, I'll probably be killed by this sneaky old monster tonight!
He roughly rubbed his stiff, short hair, pushed open the creaking wooden door, and went out.

In the courtyard, the cool air was mixed with a faint aroma of rice porridge.

Su Su, wearing a faded blue cloth robe, was standing with her back to him, silently stirring the porridge in the small pot on the stone stove.

The morning light outlined her slender shoulders, still exuding an aloofness that kept people at arm's length.

Seeing Fang Yu come out, Su Su showed no expression and didn't even look back. She expressionlessly ladled herself a bowl of porridge with hardly any grains of rice, then placed another empty ceramic bowl next to the pot, and turned to carry the porridge back to her room.

(End of this chapter)