Clearly, the Head Ghost acting independently of a body was far beyond their comprehension. Such a feat seemed possible only for demons.
Changle tentatively approached the Head Ghost. As she took a step, the jade pendant at her waist vibrated violently, as if warning her of danger.
After settling everyone in, Li Mo walked alone to the doorway.
He only needed to tell them what to do and what not to do. The reasons were unnecessary, and he didn't have time.
"Are you going out? It's too late."
"My gut tells me that if I don't seize this opportunity to find 'them' tonight, I'll never find them."
Li Mo equipped himself with his combat knife and thermometer. The notebook had given him two predictions:
One, he would die in three days. Two, he would die at 10:30 pm tonight.
If one of these was destined to come true, then he had a high chance of survival until then, even if he encountered Bizzare Entities, at least enough time to use his restart if necessary.
He needed to see…
Where the source of that food was.
He had actually forgotten about the little deer that was killed during the day.
If he hadn't seen the bloodstains on the ground and heard the martial artists' casual conversation during dinner, he wouldn't have remembered it at all.
Ten minutes there and back. If he ran, it wouldn't be a problem. Even if it took a minute or two longer, the Bizzare Entities wouldn't revive so quickly.
"Absolutely don't touch that head. And none of you are to leave this room. Leaning against the walls… that's fine. Just don't get injured."
"The passwords I gave each of you are different."
"Remember, if I come back and can't correctly answer at least four of your passwords, don't let me in. No matter what method you use, even if you have to try to kill me."
"Because that person will definitely not be me."
Li Mo's expression was resolute, serious, with no hint of jest.
He even handed his Bizzare Handgun to Changle.
He was prepared to risk his life to uncover the truth behind the gruesome feast.
It was better to leave the Bizzare Handgun with Changle and the others to guard the room. That way, if any unknown Bizzare Entity entered after he left, it wouldn't disrupt the balance between the Head Ghost and the ghost stomach.
Bizzare items needed to be distributed strategically, not monopolized for his own survival.
Changle nodded seriously. She knew Mingyue's habits.
Ruthless to others, like shooting her without hesitation when he mistook her for a Bizzare Entity. Even more ruthless to himself, gouging out his own eyes, and now even instructing them to kill him if he couldn't answer their passwords correctly.
Yet, when Li Mo handed her his only weapon, Changle couldn't help but look surprised.
In this bizarre, dangerous environment, what did a weapon represent? It represented the power to survive.
Li Mo was willing to entrust his only means of defense to her.
Even though they had just had a heated argument.
"No matter the cost, don't let anyone who suddenly appears enter this room, not even the Seven Swords of Taixu."
"If they try to force their way in, stop them by any means necessary, until I return."
Five people, five different passwords. Changle's was the number 17.
Li Mo's approach was very safe. Even if a Bizzare Entity invaded their memories, it couldn't simultaneously invade five conscious people.
At least, an incomplete Bizzare Entity couldn't. Even if all five met the conditions of its rule, it would have to target them one by one.
Not every Bizzare Entity was as complete as the Herrscher of Corruption or the Herrscher of Sentience.
Since Li Mo might forget Changle, he set the threshold at four, not five. If he could answer all five, that would mean he still remembered Changle.
After giving his instructions, Li Mo quickly left the room.
Moving through the silent night, Li Mo noticed the rooms of the Seven Swords of Taixu. They were the outermost buildings near the temple.
Faint firelight flickered in seven rooms. If they were still in their rooms at this hour, why weren't they asleep?
"Bizzare Entities don't get tired. Except for a few rare exceptions, most don't sleep."
The fire in the brazier was the ghost stomach's eye. So how could the Seven Swords of Taixu survive inside the ghost stomach?
Li Mo held his breath, tiptoeing towards the rooms of the Seven Swords of Taixu, making no sound.
Peeking through the window screens, the rooms were empty. No one was at the tables. It seemed the Seven Swords of Taixu had gone to bed early.
The braziers were brightly lit. Li Mo shifted his position slightly. Although peeping into someone's room wasn't exactly proper, Bizzare Entities didn't have human rights.
Soon, Li Mo saw the beds. The quilts were laid flat, with no sign of anyone underneath.
Where were the ghosts?
Before observing, Li Mo had assumed the Seven Swords of Taixu retained their habits from when they were alive, so even if they couldn't sleep, they would stay in their rooms.
But now it seemed they weren't in their rooms at all.
A coincidence?
Li Mo didn't believe in coincidences. He checked another room, and the result was the same.
He checked all seven rooms, and none of the Seven Swords of Taixu were inside.
"Where could they have gone if they're not sleeping in their rooms at this hour?"
Li Mo pondered for a moment, deciding to follow the blood trail of the dismembered deer.
This was extremely dangerous, as the Seven Swords of Taixu, not being in their rooms, could easily run into him.
If that happened, no amount of excuses would clear his name. Being seen wandering outside after Xu Shi by the Seven Swords of Taixu meant being completely exposed.
"Are they waiting for me at the place where they keep the meat…?"
Li Mo turned back, staring at the blood trail stretching into the deepening darkness.
The valley was silent. The path through the forest was winding and quiet.
Thick mist, formed from the heavy humidity, seemed to muffle all sounds.
A cold wind rustled the leaves, whispering, as if something was muttering in the darkness.
The rustling of insects? The wind blowing through the trees?
No, this familiar scraping sound was more like thin human skin being flayed by the biting wind.
Li Mo kept his gaze lowered. He had to make sure he didn't look up.
Granny Cat-Face's killing rule during the ascent involved eye contact.
Making eye contact after the third meow meant being unable to look away. If he met her gaze before the third meow, he might not even be able to kill himself.
If he was assimilated and couldn't restart, then only an eternity of death awaited him.
The reason he and Changle and the others saw different versions of Taixu Mountain was whether they made eye contact with the Seven Swords of Taixu.
Li Mo, having not made eye contact, could see the true Taixu Mountain, the human feast in the hall, the eerie forest, and the blood-soaked streams…
Eye contact was a "special rule" on Taixu Mountain, seemingly possessed by every Bizzare Entity with eyes.
Li Mo glanced at his trembling left hand, asking himself, "Am I afraid?"
"Afraid of what?"
"Unknown Bizzare Entities?"
His face was swallowed by the darkness, only a faint outline visible.
His steps were heavy, an invisible pressure weighing down on his shoulders.
Walking alone in the darkness, Li Mo seemed to be floating in a lonely, oppressive illusion.
Towering trees lined the path, their branches intertwining to form a canopy of shadows, their limbs reaching towards the sky, adorned with countless rotting human body parts, their mouths stretched into silent screams, forming the bark of the trees.
Clusters of leaves connected shattered eyeballs, staring at anyone who wandered through the darkness. The quiet path was desolate.
The dim moonlight cast mottled shadows on the leaves. In the large patches of shadow, puddles of corpse fluid wriggled with unknown things.
The occasional gust of wind carried a damp, bitter scent, mingled with the stench of blood from the deer slaughtered during the day.
The humid, oppressive air weighed heavily on his mind, almost suffocating.
In the blood-soaked path, only Li Mo's lonely footsteps echoed, each silent step bringing only more despair and terror.
He was prepared to risk his life for clues. This wasn't the first time.
Lingering would only blur the clues. A normal person's sanity couldn't last long in this environment.
It wasn't a matter of personal willpower; it was unavoidable contamination of the mind.
Even the strongest-willed person, exposed to this contamination for long enough, would eventually be corrupted. It had nothing to do with strength.
The longer the exposure, the more twisted the corruption.
His left hand was still trembling, warning him of impending danger.
So far, Li Mo had followed the blood trail for a long time without encountering any Bizzare incidents.
Taixu Mountain was still the same hellscape, littered with corpses and rivers of blood.
Li Mo took a deep breath, pulling out his phone. After adjusting it, the time matched the time in this world.
It was 8:55 pm.
He still hadn't reached the place where the meat was kept. Logic told him he should turn back. Continuing forward would inevitably lead to danger.
But… was it any less dangerous to go back?
Simply avoiding danger only delayed it.
Deluding himself with a false sense of security was meaningless.
From the moment he stepped onto this path, there was no turning back.
He had to keep moving forward, before death, and after.
8:56 pm, 8:57 pm, 8:58 pm…
Li Mo walked quickly along the dark path. The temperature dropped sharply, the cold wind carrying a bone-chilling aura.
8:59 pm.
Li Mo saw a fence, seemingly enclosing something.
The thermometer plummeted below zero, but it wasn't even 9:00 pm yet, not the time of the Bizzare surge.
"Is my perception distorted? Or is there simply an active Bizzare Entity here?"
Li Mo gripped the thermometer, striding forward without any defensive preparations.
The combat knife at his waist was useless against Bizzare Entities, so he kept it for himself.
Not for self-defense, but to kill himself at the right time. With the specially made knife, piercing a normal person's heart was incredibly easy.
As Li Mo approached, a towering tree suddenly appeared before him, its top beyond his sight.
Perhaps the darkness obscured his vision, preventing him from seeing the details clearly.
But one thing was certain: this tree was special.
All the other trees on Taixu Mountain were made of human corpses, but this one had a normal, intact trunk, the trunk of a scholar tree. [Huai tree (槐树). See previous notes.]
The patterns and veins on the trunk were normal, nothing unusual.
There was no smell of blood, and the thermometer didn't register a drop in temperature near it. In fact, the temperature seemed to rise slightly.
This made Li Mo even more curious.
"..."
Both experience and intuition told Li Mo that this tree might be a crucial clue.
Just like Yae Kasumi's existence.
In the Herrscher of Corruption world, the world was full of ghosts acting according to their "quirks." Then a perfectly normal little Kasumi appeared.
Anyone would be wary.
It turned out that little Kasumi was the source of the Bizzare spread. Dealing with her meant dealing with the source.
Was this tree the same?
There was no evidence or clue to prove that this scholar tree was the Bizzare source.
It was more likely a trap…
"Prepare to die."
Li Mo turned on the flashlight function on his phone.
The moment the light came on, Li Mo felt countless gazes converging on him.
Turning on a light in the darkness was like being illuminated by a lighthouse in the vast ocean.
In a dark, chaotic world, only light could be perceived, attracting not only the gazes of his own kind, but also the ominous attention of something else.
But Li Mo couldn't worry about that. Even if he died, he had to see what was on that scholar tree.
The bright light shone on the top of the tree.
There was a branch extending several meters, vibrant and beautiful, draped in a red veil.
However, when Li Mo saw what was hanging from the branch, a chill ran down his spine.
It was himself.
Or rather, a human skin effigy of himself, hanging grotesquely from the branch, swaying in the night breeze.
Its face was grim, its expression desolate.
It looked like it had died a gruesome death.
Li Mo quickly calmed down, thinking carefully.
After all, this wasn't the first time he had seen his own corpse.
His headless corpse in the Herrscher of Sentience's world, his adult self killed in the Herrscher of Corruption's world, even having his chest cut open for clues.
"I feel like I've seen this somewhere before. Is it just an illusion from seeing too many human skin trees…?"
Li Mo turned off his flashlight and quickly left the eerie scholar tree.
The notebook had predicted his death at 10:30 pm, but if he kept courting death like this, it would certainly arrive earlier.
After all, the notebook's predictions weren't absolute; they just described possibilities.
Li Mo bypassed the scholar tree and continued forward. The time was now 9:01 pm.
As soon as he left the tree, he heard faint footsteps behind him, stopping where he had just been.
A few seconds later, countless footsteps surrounded the scholar tree, incessant.
Judging by the sound, they were circling the tree, trying to find Li Mo, who had just been bathed in light.
If Li Mo had been any slower, he would have had a "close encounter" with the owners of those footsteps.
"There are a lot of them," Li Mo murmured softly. Just a minute after he had left, Bizzare Entities had found his previous location, seeming to have moved to the scholar tree the moment they revived.
Li Mo gripped the thermometer, moving quickly, his other hand holding the combat knife, ready to deliver a fatal blow to himself at any moment.