Infinite Puzzle City

Chapter 604 The Raccoon Immortal
The map in front of me is extremely detailed, going from the top layer of the land down.

Xiao Ran didn't realize at first that the map was related to her grandfather, but when she saw that the map was marked with various traps, and that it was filled with a large number of zombies and underground rivers, she became very interested.

This information looked familiar, and after thinking about it carefully, I realized that it might be the tomb of Gu Xuan that my grandfather and the others had visited back then.

So many years have passed since those events, why does Master Beast still want to keep this blueprint?
Xiao Ran flipped the map over and found some words at the end. He squinted and carefully scanned it from top to bottom.

"Hey……"

After a moment, Xiao Ran couldn't help but sigh, "If only I had known then what I know now."

The above three hundred-plus words are Beast's confession expressing his regret for what happened back then, and explaining why he was so blinded by greed and why he betrayed his brothers.

To put it bluntly, it's because Beast Master's mentality is flawed.

Upon learning of the existence of the Lost City, Beast realized that this might be his chance to change his fate.

The Sun family is different from the others. They are actually good at martial arts from the Jianghu (江湖, the martial arts world) and unorthodox styles, such as the Thirteen Styles of Tan Tui (谭腿, a style of legwork) and the Twenty-Eight Styles of Qin Na (擒拿, a style of grappling). Even their family's Iron Sand Palm (铁砂掌, a style of palm technique) is not fully developed.

His brothers were far more capable and from better families than him.

He did have evil thoughts at the time, and it would be a lie to say that he didn't regret it at all afterward. However, if Beast Master were to choose again, he would still choose to keep the treasure for himself without hesitation.

But why did Beast Master put this picture here? Could it be that he once considered going to find the Phoenix Hammer?
"Never mind, whether that old guy ever had any remorse or not, it's all just wishful thinking now. He's dead. This map is perfect for me. Once I'm done with this, I'll go back to my grandfather and give him the map. Maybe it can be of great help to them."

Xiao Ran put the map away.

They found some more treasures in the safe.

Fifty thousand ghost money, this was Master Beast's private stash of money, which Xiao Ran naturally accepted with a smile.

There are also some runes collected by the Beast Master. These runes are for relatively rare professions, and the Changchun Guild has not yet figured out the path to advancement, so they are all stored separately.

For example, a variant of the profession of shopkeeper is the porridge seller who sells porridge on credit.

Or perhaps a profession I've never heard of, like "mourner."

After putting away all the odds and ends in the safe, Xiao Ran walked to the door and heard the noise outside getting louder and louder.

The commotion wasn't just upstairs; it was also very loud downstairs. If you listened carefully, you could hear a series of sharp howls.

As for upstairs, Xiao Ran couldn't tell what the sound was for the time being. It wasn't the usual fighting sound; it sounded more like... singing.

Yes, it sounded like singing, but the singing only had one note, fluctuating in pitch, which made people feel uneasy.

Xiao Ran estimated that it should be about right. If she was not mistaken, Zhang Qi and the others should have already met up with the Ghost Doctor and his group by now.

Zhang Qi's purpose is currently unknown, but it is certainly at odds with the Ghost Doctor and others.

Thinking of this, Xiao Ran quietly opened the door and tiptoed towards the outside.

Once they reached the top of the stairs, they peeked out.

The once pristine corridor is now dilapidated, with stains on the walls obscuring their original colors and dark red lines forming a messy graffiti.

The handrails in the stairwell were covered with cracked rust.

In the short few minutes after Xiao Ran entered Master Beast's room, it was as if the place had undergone the changes of time, and even the air was filled with a musty smell.

"This should be what the mental hospital originally looked like. It seems that without the influence of the regeneration furnace, Ghost Doctor and the others have lost control of the hospital."

Xiao Ran made a judgment after a little thought.

The Reconstruction Furnace not only provides a continuous supply of materials for the Ghost Doctor and his team to recreate, but more importantly, it depletes the hospital's resources, allowing the hospital's resentment to be constantly burned away, becoming the Reconstruction Furnace's driving force.

Now that the regeneration furnace is destroyed, the hospital's resentment has regained its dominance, and naturally, it wants to revert to its original state.

Xiao Ran glanced downstairs and saw shadows flashing by at the bottom of the stairs from time to time. Seeing this, Xiao Ran tiptoed up the stairs like a cat, silently stepping onto the steps.

When they arrived on the fourth floor, they could see that the original isolation rooms on the fourth floor had disappeared.

Instead, there are individual hospital rooms.

Each ward has a sign hanging on it.

Xiao Ran reached out and wiped the dust off one of the signs, revealing three characters written in red paint: "Zhang Jingmin".

Is this the room owner's name?

Xiao Ran walked to the door and peeked inside on tiptoe.

A sliver of light shone through the iron bars of the window in the dim room. In the faint light, a woman sat on the floor holding a child, gently rocking the baby while singing a lullaby.

However, when Xiao Ran looked at the child in the woman's arms, he frowned sharply. The child in the woman's arms was already a bloody mess, like a pile of rotten flesh, with flies crawling around in the blood and flesh. The scene was nauseating.

Xiao Ran turned away, no longer looking, and walked to the next ward, glancing at the sign above it. "Zhang Jingmin!"

The sign still bears Zhang Jingmin's name.

Xiao Ran glanced sideways and saw that there was nothing else in the room except a pile of white bones.

"That's strange. How come every room has Zhang Jingmin? And who is Zhang Jingmin?"

Each room in the corridor has a different contents.

But the main characters seem to be that woman and child, like a multiverse where each room has a different ending.

Xiao Ran didn't want to stay on the fourth floor, but the corridor in front of her seemed to have no end. The stairs behind her had disappeared without a trace the moment she turned around.

He was walking along when he suddenly stopped.

Looking down, I saw a thick layer of sticky, bloody stains covering the ground.

The corridor grew darker and darker until, in the darkness, Xiao Ran saw a dilapidated shrine standing there.

The appearance of this shrine seemed somewhat familiar to Xiao Ran.

Upon closer reflection, this location seemed to be the place where the evil god Xingxie was worshipped before, but this shrine was different from the one he had seen before, and he had a feeling that he had seen this shrine before.

The shrine before me looked as if it had been soaked in a pool of blood, filled with filth.

Xiao Ran couldn't remember where she had seen it before. Just then, the shrine in front of her suddenly began to tremble, and the bloodstains on it began to evaporate, emitting a strong aura of resentment.

"Ok?"

Seeing this, Xiao Ran said coldly, "What are you, daring to cause trouble in front of me!"

If it were an evil god or a powerful evil spirit, Xiao Ran might be somewhat wary, but the thing in the small shrine in front of him was far from being a threat; at most, it was only slightly more powerful than an ordinary vengeful ghost.

"what!!!"

A muffled scream came from inside the shrine. A dark figure struggled desperately in the blood and filth, reaching out a bloody, mangled hand to grab Xiao Ran.

Seeing this, Xiao Ran frowned. He felt that this thing was not attacking him, but rather asking him for help.

The shadowy figure inside the shrine was still struggling, but the bloodstains on its body were getting thicker and thicker, like viscous oil coating its body, trying to pull it back into the shrine.

Xiao Ran watched coldly from the sidelines. He didn't know the origin of this thing and didn't want to make a move rashly.

If you accidentally rescue something you shouldn't have, it will cause trouble for you as well.

Just as Xiao Ran was about to leave, the thing in the shrine opened its mouth and spat out a dark, lumpy object that rolled on the ground.

Xiao Ran took a closer look. The thing looked rotten, but he could still tell what it was at a glance. However, to his surprise, it turned out to be a pomegranate.

"Pomegranate?"

Looking at the dark pomegranate on the ground, Xiao Ran suddenly had a flash of inspiration and exclaimed in surprise, "You're from the Zhao family!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the vague memories in his mind suddenly became clear.

The dilapidated shrine before me gradually contrasted with the scenes in my memory.

"There's no mistake, it's the shrine that the Zhao family worships. How could it be here?"

When Xiao Ran was in Mengchi, she went to Zhao Qingming's house and chatted with Zhao Qingming's grandmother. She had seen the shrine that the Zhao family worshipped at that time, but the memory was too distant and Xiao Ran couldn't recall it for the time being.

Now, seeing the pomegranate that this thing spat out, I immediately realized what had happened.

Without hesitation, Xiao Ran raised his hand to activate the [Suppressing Calamity Token - Transport Thief]. Then, with a thought, the Yin God Dharma Image appeared behind him, and his large hand reached out to grab the thing from the shrine, wanting to pull it out first.

But as soon as he made a move, the resentment around the shrine surged, and countless viscous black liquids gushed out, trying to engulf Xiao Ran's hand.

"Give me the town!"

Xiao Ran's immense spiritual power coalesced into a shockwave, which exploded in his palm, instantly shattering all the dark liquid. He then grabbed it and pulled it into the shrine, as if he had grabbed something, and pulled it out forcefully.

"Crack crack crack..." As something crawled out of Xiao Ran's palm from the liquid, gradually struggling to emerge from it, Xiao Ran could finally see clearly that the creature that night had resembled a weasel in shape, except that its fur was not tightly wrapped around its skin like a weasel's, but rather fluffy, somewhat like a fox. But... Xiao Ran had never seen such an ugly fox.

With Xiao Ran's help, the creature finally broke free from the dark, resentful aura. After being pulled out, it lay prostrate on the ground, panting heavily with its tongue lolling out, looking like it was about to die.

Xiao Ran squatted down and examined the creature closely, then couldn't help but exclaim, "Can weasels and foxes really crossbreed? How did they end up with such a big rat?"

As Xiao Ran finished speaking, the creature lying on the ground suddenly raised its head and spoke in human language, saying to Xiao Ran, "I am not a weasel, nor a fox, I am a raccoon! A raccoon of the same kind!!"

(End of this chapter)