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Chapter 354 Moving forward
Seven days passed in the blink of an eye.

To be honest, after learning that the Black Book had been resurrected, he was not so uneasy anymore.

When fighting becomes a habit, suddenly relaxing can feel unsettling.

"What was that phrase again? Stockholm syndrome? No, it's more like post-war trauma. But that doesn't seem right either."

Zhou You shook his head, then gathered up the drawn talismans.

He rushed around for seven days and finally managed to produce a batch of talismans. Although they were mostly basic items, they provided some assurance for future operations.

As soon as the curtain was lifted, several pairs of eyes looked over.

The black cat remained indifferent. Upon seeing Zhou You emerge, it merely flicked its tail before finding another spot to hide. The little ghost girl looked at him with worry, seemingly still grieving their parting. As for the silly roe deer…
Well, this guy is still as stupid as ever.

He forcefully turned the carefree head that had been leaning in to the side, looked around, and then laughed.

"What's with this atmosphere? I'm just on a business trip, not going to my death."

The little ghost girl still couldn't let go of the matter, but looking at Zhou You's face, she couldn't say anything either. She just silently tidied up the table and then pulled him to sit down.

As before, the meal before departure was extremely lavish, even giving Zhou You the illusion that it was his last meal before he was killed.

Tsk, why would you want to take something unlucky at a time like this?
Zhou You smiled and then picked up his chopsticks.

—As I said before, I will not die, I will never die.
-
Amidst the wafting incense smoke, we arrived at this temple once again.

It was the same familiar scene. Although there were no windows, countless candles illuminated the room, making it as bright as day.

The rest remained largely unchanged, except for the statue at the end of the road, which was a bit more complete. Zhou You had guessed several times that this thing might be him, but looking at the obviously different body skeleton, he could only give up on the guess.

After looking around and finding nothing interesting, Zhou You returned to the central altar.

This time, the page floating in mid-air has changed again.

However, it was different from every previous one.

Even when the book was tattered and old before, the pages were still made of normal paper. But this time...
Zhou You frowned.

What appeared before him was a mass of pitch-black ink, which looked like paper but had no paper-like texture. Countless characters jumped repeatedly and continuously on it, forming a constantly changing, unrecognizable, yet extremely disgusting pattern.

To use a simpler adjective...

—It's like dragging pure shit.

Zhou You didn't want to touch this thing at least 20% of the time, but under the constant urging of the mechanical female voice, he had no choice but to hold his nose and touch it.

The next moment, several lines of text appeared before them.

"Script: Wan Yuan"

Type: Unknown.

"Erosion level: High".

"Number of resurrections: 0"

Background: You are an ordinary martial arts apprentice, living an ordinary life. Unfortunately, fate is unpredictable. A plague swept through your city. Your master, who treated you like a father, survived for three days but eventually succumbed to his injuries and passed away. Before you could bury him, soldiers arrived in the blink of an eye. Amidst the raging fire in the city, you could only hastily bury your master and then pack up your last possessions to embark on a long journey of escape.

"However, what you didn't expect was that this journey was far more difficult than you imagined—in fact, it could be described as desperate."

"Mission objective one: Survive, and do everything in your power to survive."

"Task Objective Two: Everyone needs to have some goals. Choose your purpose carefully and don't go astray."

"Mission Objective Three: Help Li Xiangming fulfill his destiny."

"This reward is: 3000 Soul Stones, one special weapon, and one random purple talent."

"The second reward is three Misty Pills, which can extend one's life by three years and repair damaged bodies."

"May I enter?"

The narration was still extremely blurry, but Zhou You was used to it—however, just as he was about to click to enter, the female voice suddenly rang in his ears again.

"Please note, players, that this is a completely corrupted scenario. It is about a once-destined person trying to save a failed world. You can get very little help in this scenario, and there are only countless evil creatures trying to devour you."

"Unlike before, because the system has difficulty intervening, you are almost completely immersed in the identity of this character in the script. Some of your abilities and items are unusable, but you can choose to unlock them after completing certain key milestones. Would you like to proceed?"

Upon hearing this, Zhou You took a few steps back and looked at the page again.

Is this a world that failed to be saved?

He frowned, carefully recalling the scripts he had experienced.

Leaving aside the beginner scenario in Building 4, in other words, it's like the Night Watcher himself brings down the Auspicious and Tranquil Ghost Mother Bodhisattva, the Grand Duke of Jupiter has the Yellow Heaven True Saint Emperor complete the sacrifice, the Buddha in the Heart has Maitreya finish preaching and become a Buddha, and the Demon Extermination has the Ghost Infant escape from the Netherworld City, and then releases countless anthropomorphic beings into the mortal world.
Just thinking about it makes my hair stand on end.

"Hiss, I have a bad feeling about this. I can't use Duanxie, and I'm also restricted."

But after looking at it for a while, he still covered the pages with his hand.

After all, this black book in the trench was never a multiple-choice question, but a mandatory one.

What else can be said?
Let's call it a bachelor's day!

"I choose to enter."

Zhou You was awakened by the smell of burnt meat.

I vaguely heard someone saying something, but the voice was like flies buzzing around my ears, difficult to understand. Upon closer inspection, I could only barely make out a few words.

"This hostage today..."

"That old Taoist priest..."

"besides……"

A persistent, needle-like pain shot through his brain, as if someone were rubbing his nerves with a file. Zhou You gritted his teeth and finally opened his eyes.

All that could be seen was a scene of desolation and ruin. The main hall was overturned, and tall thatch grew. Only a few details could barely make out that it was a temple. The enshrined statues had long since collapsed, and even half of the pillars and the roof were gone. The cold moonlight shone down from the sky, providing some illumination to the place.

In the distance, there was a bright orange light, which looked like someone was warming themselves by a fire. The smell of burning and the sound of talking were coming from there, but unfortunately, due to the distance, it was indistinct and difficult to see clearly.

Is this a camp?
No, that's not right. Zhou You suddenly frowned.

With a slight exertion of his body, he immediately felt a binding sensation from his wrists and ankles, as rough objects rubbed against his skin, bringing wave after wave of stinging pain.

Even though his mind was still a little muddled, Zhou You immediately understood.

I've been kidnapped.

Okay, I've experienced this kind of opening crisis a few times myself, but the problem is...
The rope was rough and not tied very securely, indicating that the other party was not very professional in their work.

However, despite several attempts to break free, he was unable to do so.

With the blessing of Zhou You's magic, such a simple binding should have been easily broken, but this time, no matter how many times he tried, the hemp rope remained tightly bound and did not move an inch.

"Is this an injury? Or should we say that the original owner of this body was severely weakened?"

Zhou You let out a low sigh, but his face did not show any panic. Instead, he remained bound and tried to lift himself up to look inside.

The figure was still unclear, but the voice could at least be heard.

"As expected of the eldest brother, he's got something out of nothing. He easily snatched this job. Although they're just a bunch of refugees and you can't squeeze much out of them, this should be more than enough for the master's allowance."

"This is just one example; we don't know what to do next. You know what kind of people we are."

"Let's just wait it out for now. In this damned world, we're lucky if we can live a little longer."

After hearing what was said, Zhou You roughly understood what was going on.

These guys were a gang of thugs who lived in the area and made a living by robbing and plundering. The original owner of this body was very unlucky. The refugee group he was with just happened to run into these guys and ended up as their thief.

In ancient times, such tragic events were quite common, but
Although Zhou You had never eaten it himself, he had seen so many strange and unusual things, and that meat was clearly not right.

Very wrong.

Could it be that, like during the Tai Sui year, there's another drought?

Zhou You stared for a while, but eventually shrank back.

Although he didn't have the strength to break free of the rope right now, well...
"Click."

A barely perceptible crisp sound.

Zhou You easily pulled his hand away, then pried open his dislocated thumb, and with a thud, calmly put it back in place before disappearing into the shadows.

As for these issues
We can ask these guys later.

Wang Dazhu has been feeling very distressed lately.

It wasn't that they lost the territorial battle with those beasts in Beishan, nor was it because the master was demanding ever-increasing wages, nor was it due to the brothers' constant complaints. Rather, it was...
He felt he couldn't hold on any longer.

During this time, ghosts and monsters began to appear in Liuhepo again. Although it was quite far from his place and he could not be found, the problem was that as a result, far fewer merchants passed by. Often, not a single person would pass by for more than ten days.

He could hold out, but his men couldn't. When they could make money with him, they could call him their boss, but once the money stopped, there were seven or eight mouths to feed!

Today was a lucky day, as we robbed a group of refugees, but what about tomorrow, the day after? What should we do after that?
—The teacher was right back then; without some education, you simply can't survive in this world.

It's a pity I acted impulsively back then and killed him. Otherwise, if I had any knowledge, would it have been so difficult for me to even rob someone?
Wang Dazhu sighed heavily, then looked at the group of oddballs around him, and felt even more melancholy for a moment.

However, he did have one redeeming quality: if he couldn't figure something out, he simply stopped thinking about it. So he shifted his attention to the piece of meat by the campfire.

Since they couldn't afford any seasonings, they just sprinkled a bunch of coarse salt—which, despite being called salt, was far more bitter than salty—but it was the best thing they had eaten in a while.

As for whether I can overcome that mental hurdle, let's talk about survival first!

Wang Dazhu carefully scraped off a piece with a knife, tasted it slightly, and immediately his eyes and eyebrows furrowed.

This is absolutely awful!

There were girls and children among these refugees, but those were needed to exchange for money. As for the rest, they were mostly old men and rough men. How to put it...
It's dry and tough, and always has a disgusting sour taste.

Even so, his brothers were enjoying their meal immensely, even breaking the bones to suck out the marrow. Wang Dazhu found it disgusting, so he waved to his second-in-command—a skinny, wiry monkey—and said in a low voice.

"I said, after this batch of goods is delivered, how much will we have left?"

"Reporting to the boss, there are only two left. One old geezer was just used as a punching bag by you, and he's lying on the ground groaning now. The other younger one was tied up with a rope and thrown to the back."

Wang Dazhu hesitated for a moment, then spoke to his subordinates.

"Let's figure out a way to get rid of these two guys tomorrow, and then we're not staying here anymore. Let those bastards in Beishan take what they want, anyway."

However, before he could finish speaking, a chorus of dissent arose from below.

"Boss, this is territory we fought so hard for, and we even lost two brothers in the process. How can we just give it up like this?"

"Third Brother is right. Life is tough now, but at least we have something to eat. Who knows how we'd survive if we left this place?"

"Things are turbulent everywhere these days, so it's better to stick to this little patch of land."

Wang Dazhu's head was throbbing as he listened, and then he couldn't hold back any longer, slamming his fist on the stone and roaring.

"All of you, shut the hell up!"

Seeing that the bastards had finally quieted down, he stubbornly explained.

“I know none of you want to move, but the master is demanding more and more fees these days. If we keep going like this, even if we open every day, we'll eventually run out of money. We might as well take advantage of our quick feet and move to another place—after all, we have knives and guns, so what difference does it make where we go?”

Seeing that some people still wanted to object, Wang Dazhu waved his hand to stop them from speaking.

"It's settled then! Um, Er Gouzi, I think I heard some noise over there just now, go check what's going on."

Given Wang Dazhu's superior martial prowess, the others could only swallow their dissatisfaction no matter how much they wanted to.

The campfire crackled, and the noise subsided once again.

But after a while, someone suddenly scratched their head and said...

"I was wondering why Er Gouzi hadn't come back for so long. Did something happen to him?"

(End of this chapter)