With one step forward, all the sheep by his side vanished, leaving only Yu Ziqing standing alone on the small path.
To the right, everything remained the same, but the dead tree on the left was not as dead anymore.
A woman peered out from a hollow in one of the dead trees, hesitation and a trace of mercy in her eyes, and after a moment's hesitation, she called out to Yu Ziqing.
"Come this way, it's dangerous over there," she said.
This time, however, her appearance was somewhat different: her cheeks were sunken, her face was withered, and she was skinny to the bone. Her hair was like dry straw, she was wearing a filthy, thin long shirt, and draped over her body were mats of grass and tree bark.
Before Yu Ziqing could respond, another woman, just as dirty and emaciated, came out from where he was standing and called out with a slight surprise,
"There really is someone else."
No sooner had she spoken than several men rushed out from beneath a nearby hill.
The men were hunched over, but they moved very quickly, their eyes red and their mouths unconsciously agape, revealing sharp teeth.
They ran toward the woman on the hill, laughing heartily.
The woman's expression changed slightly, and realizing she had been tricked, she immediately turned and ran from behind the dead tree, thus revealing a swaddling wrap in her arms.
Upon seeing this, the men burst into crazed laughter, drool flowing from their mouths.
"There's even a little baby, hahaha."
But the woman looked utterly desperate and terrified; she tightened her grip on the swaddling wrap she was holding, turned, and sprinted away. When she reached the end of the hill, it seemed she only then remembered that there was a concealed cliff there. Turning her head, a thick, unyielding sense of despair pierced Yu Ziqing's eyes.
He knew this was just an illusion, or perhaps a replay of a past illusion.
He stood there, spotting a White Feather Arrow that suddenly appeared out of nowhere and pierced her chest. Staggering, she fell to the ground, biting her lip with the most desperate expression, and with her last bit of strength, she threw the swaddling wrap into the bottomless Abyss behind her.
After that, she fell to the ground completely motionless.
The woman's form slowly shifted from solid to ethereal and gradually dissipated, and after a few moments, her figure reappeared on the hill, solid once again.
She poked her head out from behind the same dead tree, hesitant and somewhat unwilling, and called out again,
"Come this way, it's dangerous over there."
The woman, who also appeared as a decoy, emerged again, exclaiming with surprise,
"There really is someone else."
It was indeed a replay, but it kept replaying without progressing to the next scene.
Yu Ziqing knew that if he couldn't deal with this woman, whoever she was, a ghost or something else, he would never be able to leave.
Unfortunately, he had too little information at the moment. He looked at the Short Sword; it remained inert.
From what he had discovered so far, his ability only activated when he knew some essential information about the adversary. As long as it was triggered, it would definitely endow him with the power to defeat the foe.
To be precise, this only covered the enemies he had encountered so far; he was unsure about stronger ones.
If he knew nothing at all, he was just a man starving to death every day.
At this moment, he didn't even know the name of his opponent.
Yu Ziqing tried to recall the fragmented information he had previously overheard and pulled out a menu to look over the complex and scattered information he had recorded to prevent forgetting.
Unfortunately, there was nothing; those strong individuals had never mentioned this strange situation here.
The most likely reason was that these things were not here the last time those people came.
The right side was the strangest, with layers of leaves like quicksand, each looking like the gaping mouth of a hungry beast.
And now, he had a clearer understanding of this woman on the left.
Very likely, she was a ghost with a deep-rooted obsession, not actively harmful, but overwhelmed with bitterness and fixation, sinking into the abyss of despair, unable to extricate herself.
She was bound in this place by herself, only to relive her most despairing moment over and over again, quite typical indeed.
And that phrase "it's dangerous over there" was not intended to lure anyone.
It was purely out of compassion.
She probably regretted that phrase the most.
Seeing a lone, vulnerable woman about to step into the locust forest on the right, she was moved by compassion and gave a warning, not knowing it would doom her.
Now, Yu Ziqing was trapped in this place, and she hadn't done anything to harm him; for now, the dangers were just not dying of thirst, hunger, or cold.
During the third replay, Yu Ziqing couldn't stand it anymore.
"Miss, may I ask your last name? Would you mind telling me your name?"
"If I build a monument for you, I'll need a name to engrave on it, right?"
"Big sister, keeping me trapped here doesn't benefit you. We had no old grudges, no recent disputes, and since I came to this cold, desolate ghostly place, I've even given up my favorite mutton!"
The other party remained silent, completely ignoring Yu Ziqing, lost in the abyss of despair, repeating the same sequence over and over.
Yu Ziqing was also close to despair.
Honestly, he had never imagined that a ghost not manifesting aggression physically, completely ignoring him, would feel more despairing.
"Big sister, what's the use of tormenting me? You are stuck here, unable to extract yourself; what's the point? If your resentment is truly indelible, go and kill your enemies.
Even if you can't leave, if you let me out and I happen to encounter your foes, I could do a good deed and kill them for you. That's surely better than keeping me trapped here.
Even more so, if you're afraid I'll turn on you after being released, there's still a chance I might remember this, and a gamble might not hurt you.
What if I'm a good person, happen to meet your foes, and decide out of kindness to avenge you and bring their heads to you?"
As he spoke, Yu Ziqing paused slightly, almost doubting his own words...
Within just two hours, Yu Ziqing trembled all over from the cold, touched his chest, and found only a few strips of dried beef still hidden on him, a last-resort resource for survival.
"Hey, big sister, please let me go. Just take a chance on what I said being true; you've got nothing to lose.
If you delay any longer, you might never get your revenge, and that's definitely true."
Kind persuasion was useless; the other party still ignored him. After repeatedly being ignored, Yu Ziqing ran out of words and no longer thought about persuading them to let him leave.
He just felt like he was freezing to death, and this world was full of despair.
Despair leaves no room for even a shred of compassion.
Something wasn't right, and it shouldn't be this way.
It shouldn't be...
Yu Ziqing's mind stirred, and he forced himself to calm down, waiting for the replay to start again as he quietly felt and immersed himself in it.
Especially when the woman threw the swaddled baby off the cliff, the feeling of despair pressed in from all sides like the deep sea, suffocating him like the omnipresent sea water.
Feeling it again, thinking it over again, Yu Ziqing had an epiphany; it seemed he had been wrong from the start.
From the beginning, he thought the worst of the ghost, assuming this female ghost was out to trick him.
If this premise itself was wrong, then everything that followed might be wrong too.
Perhaps this female ghost didn't intend to trap him here or harm him; it was just a very normal psychological issue when viewed from a normal person's perspective.
Nobody would want to repeatedly expose their most despairing scars to others, especially not in a forced manner.
If she didn't intend to harm others and even ignored those who came, she couldn't possibly be one of those rare psychopaths with a twisted mind, could she? She didn't seem like it.
So, if she didn't mean to trick him and was instead warning him from the start that the forest on the right was dangerous and this way was safe,
Then...
Yu Ziqing, shivering, curled his hands and kept pacing just to keep from freezing to death, continuing to ponder.
If it wasn't the female ghost who wanted to harm him, it must be the problem with the ground right under his feet.
Glancing up at the cliff at the end of the slope, Yu Ziqing suddenly had a guess.
The ground under his feet was like an abyss—a Despair Abyss; anyone who stepped into it would fall, get trapped here, including that female ghost, who was caught in a Despair Abyss of her own unintentional making.
With this thought, when the replay started again, Yu Ziqing took out a small cloth bag from his chest, about the size of half a palm. Opening it, he took out a piece of dried beef as thick as his little finger with some sadness and, shivering, ran to the female ghost and stuffed it into her hand.
The woman paused for a moment, lowered her head to look at the dried beef in her hand, and was momentarily lost in thought.
"Here, take it and eat. You'll definitely make it."
And at the same time, the surrounding environment also changed, not centered around the female ghost but around Yu Ziqing.
Her eyes showed surprise and complexity, and the next moment, ripple-like patterns spread out from Yu Ziqing.
Yu Ziqing felt slightly weightless, blinked, and everything reset to normal; he stood on the slope, the female ghost nowhere to see, and the flock of sheep below reappeared.
The suffocating despair that weighed on his heart also vanished.
In front of Yu Ziqing, things were somewhat complex; he sighed inwardly, just as he had speculated, that constantly replaying Illusion Realm was a Despair Abyss, a ghost place that could not tolerate even a shred of assumed compassion.
He just moved slightly, showing a hint of what might not even have been sincere compassion before being overwhelmed by despair and, surprisingly, was spat out.
Yang stood next to Yu Ziqing, nudging him continuously with his head, bringing the distraught Yu Ziqing back to reality.
"Old man, I'm fine. Let's go," he said.
After taking a few steps, Yu Ziqing stopped, paused for a moment, then decisively turned back, took out his Short Sword, walked to a dead tree, and carved several crooked characters.
Cece's Tomb, erected by Ziqing.
Thinking more, Yu Ziqing added another line next to it.
Cece's child's tomb, erected by Ziqing.
"I still don't know your name; I hardly have the energy to speak, let alone dig stones for a monument. I'll give you a nickname, use the dead tree as a monument; the meaning is there, don't mind it."
"Look, there, what I said might happen just did."
"Also, stop blaming yourself. Your child definitely doesn't blame you, really."
Not doing something, Yu Ziqing always felt uneasy. This wretched place couldn't tolerate any sort of compassion, real or fake, yet it used Cece's compassionate heart to torment her. If she had truly turned evil, she might have escaped long ago.
What a wretched place this is.
It's not the ghosts harming people; it's the people themselves.
Yu Ziqing turned and left, and Yang stretched his neck to look at the writing, his expression strange, and finally, as if he couldn't bear to look directly, he shook his head and walked away with him.
Yu Ziqing was somewhat frantic.
"The talismanic script you taught me doesn't have this character at all; I used one that means about the same. What's wrong with that?
Besides, it's not my fault it's ugly; it's cold and I'm hungry, and my hands are shaking."
Yang shook his head, indicating that wasn't what he meant, then nudged Yu Ziqing's chest with his mouth again.
"You think I'm stingy? Giving the smallest strip? You don't understand; that's my lifeline. My life was saved by those few strips of beef... "
Seeing that Yu Ziqing seemed not to understand, Yang didn't gesture any further, just grinned, listening to Yu Ziqing desperately explain.
As Yu Ziqing and the remaining sheep gradually faded into the distance, disappearing on the small path,
the woman floated out from behind the tree hole, touching the newly carved characters gently with one hand, holding the small strip of beef Yu Ziqing had left with the other, and watched for a long, long time.
A moment later, when the Abyss descended again, the woman clutched the beef tightly and was dragged back into the abyss.
This time, things seemed a bit different.