Chapter 98
After settling into the guesthouse, Xi Jiangyuan’s team began making inquiries about the town.
“Strange happenings? No, nothing like that. Our town is fine, nothing unusual ever happens. Sure, we get a little petty theft now and then, but no major crimes. You can relax.”
“Weird customs? Nope, we’re honest folk. Apart from worshipping the God of Wealth and Guanyin, we’ve got no other beliefs.”
“Ha! Digging? No way. We just live off the mountains and rivers. We’ve never produced any famous figures here—what tombs would we even have?”
…
After a round of inquiries, the group found the town really was just as it appeared—peaceful to the point of excess.
“No murders, no strange customs, no suspicious tombs. If it’s this peaceful, how can it be a horror dungeon?” Lilus didn’t believe such good fortune was possible. Since the system labeled it a supernatural dungeon, there had to be paranormal activity—terrifying activity, at that.
“That means the patterns we relied on in past dungeons won’t apply here.” Messiah responded. “Maybe the events are happening quietly, out of sight, and we just don’t know about them yet.”
“Don’t let your guard down.” Xi Jiangyuan motioned for silence. “Nightfall is coming. Today’s just the first day, so it’s relatively safe. We can scout a bit, but everyone must return by ten o’clock. If you run into trouble and can’t make it back, contact Messiah immediately. He can pull you into his Safehouse. I’ll rush over too.”
“Captain, you should sleep soon. In your dreams you might learn something useful.” Vivian suggested.
“She’s right. Your ability is the best when we’ve got no leads.”
“Captain, maybe go to bed now?”
Xi Jiangyuan was half-amused, half-helpless. “My power isn’t omnipotent. Best not to overuse it. Dream-probing isn’t easy.”
But even as he said that, he knew his ability was most useful precisely at times like this—when there was no clear danger, but no clues either. Still, as captain, he couldn’t just curl up to nap at the first suggestion. Otherwise, who’d take him seriously later?
The rest of the team paired off.
Young Star Sasha, being the youngest and a girl, was assigned to team with Shen Li.
Lu Chuan, after some back-and-forth, was paired with Lilus—since his intelligence-based ability needed a fighter for backup.
Vice-captain Messiah partnered with Edith, making another balance of offense and defense.
“Alright, Lii, looks like you’re stuck with me.” Lu Chuan grinned at Lilus.
“Got it.” Lilus scowled. “I’d rather have stayed with the captain to protect him. But fine, since you’re weak, I’ll reluctantly protect you.”
“Much obliged.”
The team split into five groups, heading for the town’s secluded corners in search of clues.
This was standard practice—if daytime yielded nothing, nighttime often would.
Lu Chuan and Lilus ended up at the town’s only temple.
It was late and already locked, but they decided to check anyway. Temples often held clues in dungeons.
“Wow, this town may be modest, but this temple’s pretty wealthy. These statues are all gilded.” Lu Chuan touched one, even tapped it. “From my experience, this much gold leaf means it’s been reapplied dozens of times. Normally nobody would go to such lengths. Surprising the townsfolk are this devout.”
Lilus rolled his eyes so hard they almost stuck. “We’re here for clues. What are you doing studying gilding? If we find nothing, how will you explain it to the captain? Also—you touched the statues. Why not use your ability?”
“Oh, right. I forgot I had that.” Lu Chuan scratched his head, then tried his Memory Rewind.
Nothing appeared.
“No one’s been here in the last three minutes, so the statues are blank.” Lu Chuan shrugged. He touched every statue in the temple—still nothing.
“Your ability’s useless. What good is three minutes? Forget it—we’ll search ourselves.” Lilus sneered.
Lu Chuan had to admit, his ability felt clumsy and awkward to use.
They even broke into the temple records, leafing through the ledgers—nothing suspicious.
Clearly, tonight they’d find nothing.
Lu Chuan sighed heavily.
“Relax. It’s normal not to find clues on the first day. Let’s head back. If the captain dreams something useful, we’ll follow up… Lu Chuan, what are you doing?”
Lilus stopped mid-sentence, catching Lu Chuan scraping gold from a statue with a small knife, the sound loud in the still temple.
Rage flared—he suddenly wanted to beat Lu Chuan senseless. Strange. He never remembered Lu Chuan being this irritating before.
“At a time like this, you’re still greedy for gold?” Lilus growled into his ear. “Have we ever let you go without food or clothes?”
Lu Chuan awkwardly pulled back his hand. “I don’t know either. I just saw the gold and couldn’t help myself. Lil, do you think I might be possessed by an evil spirit?”
“…What kind of evil spirit would act like that? If so, it should just kill itself out of shame.” Lilus mocked without hesitation.
Lu Chuan also felt something was wrong.
He remembered himself differently—was he really not possessed?
—
Meanwhile.
Messiah and Edith were investigating near the town hospital.
Hospitals were always hotspots of life and death. Any supernatural dungeon would surely involve them.
They watched for a while. Nighttime ER wasn’t too busy—except pediatrics, which was bustling.
So they checked the morgue.
“Nothing unusual, all normal.” Edith inspected thoroughly, using a paranormal-detection item—still no anomalies.
Messiah looked through the morgue’s records at the front desk.
The latest entries were from today.
“According to this log, the number of bodies sent here each day this week has been about the same. But seven days ago, the number spiked—three or four times the norm. Something must have happened. Edith, note down that date. We’ll look for the local papers later to see what occurred.” Messiah quickly skimmed the records, memorizing the key details.
“Alright.” Edith agreed immediately.
Messiah pulled Edith along to check out the area near the hospital. They noticed that there were far fewer nurses compared to doctors.
The two of them pretended to be students looking for internships and picked a nurse who didn’t seem too busy to ask some questions.
“In a small town like ours, nurses don’t earn much, so of course there aren’t many of us.” The young nurse looked at Messiah, her face unconsciously flushing red. “Because we’re short on staff, we take night shifts more often. Now the hospital plans to make doctors from less busy departments take night shifts too. Otherwise, we just can’t keep up.”
“You really do have it tough.” Messiah responded with great understanding. “With so few nurses, it must have been really busy seven days ago, right?”
“Seven days ago?” The nurse looked confused. “It was normal, not that busy. Patients with serious illnesses usually go to county or city hospitals. We mostly treat everyday sicknesses here.”
“But on that day, weren’t there a lot of deaths…” Edith was about to blurt it out when Messiah quickly tugged her sleeve.
“The quieter the better. If the hospital’s conditions are decent, I’d actually like to intern here.” Messiah smiled.
“You’re more than welcome. We’re really short on people. The pay isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either. We even provide dorms—it saves money. Lots of rooms are empty now. If you come for an internship, you can have a single room. Conditions are much better than before.” The nurse quickly added.
Messiah exchanged contact info with her, then dragged Edith away.
“Vice Captain, why didn’t you let me keep asking?” Edith asked in confusion.
“Since there’s something off with the hospital, we should go back and discuss it with Lu Chuan before deciding what to do. Just the two of us digging deeper is too risky.” Messiah shook her head.
Edith nodded, but after a long moment suddenly realized, “Vice Captain, why did you say Lu Chuan? Shouldn’t we be reporting to the Captain?”
Messiah froze, surprised at himself too.
“Maybe it just slipped out. Let’s talk about it later.”
…
“Uncle Shen, you’re in my group, so why do you keep worrying about Lu Chuan?” Starry Shasha asked curiously, looking at Shen Li. “You’ve mentioned him so many times.”
“I don’t know why, I just can’t relax about him. But you, Shasha, even though you’re young, I have full confidence in you.” Shen Li smiled, ruffling her hair.
“True, Brother Lu really is the worrying type. Next time, we should bring him into our group.” Shasha thought about it and felt Shen Li was right.
Meanwhile, back at the guesthouse—
Xi Jiangyuan was still worried about whether his teammates had run into danger. He couldn’t fall asleep at all.
It was still early, and lying in bed did nothing.
This was an S-class paranormal dungeon—how could it not be difficult? Even if the first day seemed relatively safe, there should have been at least some danger. But with nothing happening, that only meant the danger was hidden, waiting to strike when they least expected it.
Xi Jiangyuan didn’t want to sleep too soon. He always felt that abusing his ability would attract monsters even he couldn’t handle.
But after waiting a long while, his teammates still hadn’t returned.
So he went down to the front desk, sat there chatting casually with the innkeeper, while also prying a bit about the town.
Unconsciously, Xi Jiangyuan slumped against the counter and fell asleep.
In his dream, he opened his eyes.
He saw “himself” still slumped at the guesthouse desk, while the innkeeper seemed hesitant about whether to wake him up.
Time was short.
Xi Jiangyuan quickly spread his consciousness. Soon, he found traces of his teammates in the temple, the hospital, and near the bus station.
They all seemed unharmed—what a relief.
He pushed his awareness farther.
In dreams, he was omnipotent. He could extend his awareness across the whole town, seeking out irregularities. Even if he encountered an overwhelming entity, he could retract instantly to avoid danger.
His power was practically designed for clearing dungeons.
His awareness expanded infinitely, touching nearly every corner of the town.
But strangely, he sensed some kind of power enveloping the place. It didn’t seem malevolent, yet he couldn’t pinpoint its source no matter how hard he tried.
So today, no answers.
He was about to withdraw—
When suddenly, he “saw” a hand appear in the sky. The pale fingers formed the shape of a whistle.
A whistle!
Xi Jiangyuan didn’t dare look, but his consciousness was pulled as if magnetized, and he couldn’t stop himself from “looking” toward the heavens.
“Why’s the Captain asleep here?”
“No idea.”
“Wake him up, let him sleep in his room.”
Back in the guesthouse, several teammates saw Xi Jiangyuan slumped at the desk, worried.
If the Captain was using his ability, he should be somewhere safe.
“Captain! Captain!”
Xi Jiangyuan heard their voices and fought to reel his consciousness back, to wake from the dream.
But in the sky, the hand slowly retracted.
He realized something, but all he could do was struggle to break free.
“Why’s the Captain sweating so much?”
“Not good—Captain, wake up!”
“Captain!”
The shaking grew more urgent.
Xi Jiangyuan felt he was almost awake.
But just before he broke free, a piercing whistle ripped across heaven and earth.
The shrill sound nearly tore apart his sanity.
At the last moment, Xi Jiangyuan’s eyes snapped open. He was back in reality.
“Thank goodness, Captain, you’re awake! Without you, the Ten Swordsmen would be down one member.”
