Am I the only cultivator in this cultivation group?

"Huh? What?"

Li Hu paused for a moment, looked down at the spoon in his hand, then at the large pot of steaming soup in the pot, his face full of genuine bewilderment.

"I just picked it up and drank it."

Fearing that his master and the two seniors might not understand, he deliberately raised the spoon to show them. The soup in the spoon swayed slightly, its color pale yellow, with fine, scattered oil floating on the surface, and a fragrant aroma rising from it, making one's mouth water.

Then, Li Hu tilted his head back and took another sip in front of the others.

"See, that's it."

He smacked his lips, and even seriously savored the taste.

"It smells really good."

It's very simple.

Why are Master and the seniors' eyes all looking so strange all of a sudden?

Li Hu's throat bobbed, feeling inexplicably weak, and he asked cautiously:

"Master, is this soup really poisoned?"

"It's not poisonous, though."

Bai Xiaoyu stared at Li Hu with a very strange expression, as if she were seeing a living fox demon.

"And judging from the panel feedback, this thing is quite clean, and it can even speed up your cultivation during the beginner stage."

As she spoke, she fell silent for a moment, then suddenly slapped her thigh.

"Damn, is it a bug?"

"No wonder no one has been able to clear this stupid dungeon yet. It's not that it's too difficult; it's that there's a bug that no one has discovered!"

"It's just a minor bug; it's probably not a big problem."

Huang Yaoying remained relatively calm, though her gaze remained fixed on Li Hu and the pot of soup, and her tone was lower than usual.

"It might not be a bug, but rather a special interaction permission."

"Permissions?"

Li Hu was completely confused, and the more he listened, the more uneasy he felt.

"Master, senior, what are you talking about? Am I really alright?"

"Oh, it's alright, it's alright."

Bai Xiaoyu waved her hand, offering words of comfort, but her eyes kept scanning Li Hu, as if to confirm whether he had truly not been corrupted by any hidden mechanism.

"Look at you, you're all pale with fright. If there were really a problem, you would be lying on the ground convulsing by now, not here talking to me."

Upon hearing this, Li Hu became even more nervous.

"Convulsions, convulsions?"

"I was just using an analogy," Bai Xiaoyu quickly added, then coughed lightly and casually changed the subject. "Anyway, there's nothing else unusual about this place right now, let's go back first. Randeng might have already found some clues."

Huang Yaoying also looked around.

The kitchen wasn't large, but the stove, steamer, knife rack, pots and pans, and cutting board were all neatly arranged, as if they had just been carefully cleaned. But it was precisely because of this that something seemed off; it was too clean, too clean for a haunted ancient temple to be in.

Aside from the soup triggered by Li Hu, there really isn't much else to interact with.

"Stop looking, we didn't find anything there either."

A voice came from outside the door.

Guang Chengzi and Randeng Daoren have returned.

The voice chat in Taixu has distance limitations; if you're too far apart, you can't hear each other clearly. Plus, the Fojue Ancient Temple instance is incredibly strange. The group had tried sending messages before, but both the team and instance channels were cut off by something, making the messages intermittent and impossible to transmit.

So in the end, the most effective way to exchange information is still for people to come back and talk to each other face to face.

"This place is really something."

As Guang Chengzi walked in, he flicked his whisk and exclaimed in amazement.

"Blocking voice messages, cutting off communication, and even creating this kind of one-on-one interaction... This planner must be full of devils. It's a bit cunning, but they're quite resourceful in their cunning."

At this point, his gaze shifted and landed on the pot of soup.

"This is it? Your apprentice can drink it, but we can't touch it?"

"That's how it seems for now," Huang Yaoying nodded.

That's really interesting.

Guang Chengzi was amused and was about to make a few more teasing remarks.

suddenly.

"Hmm!"

Li Hu's expression suddenly changed.

The next instant, he felt as if a red-hot iron nail had been driven into his head. A sharp, piercing pain exploded from deep within his skull without warning, causing his legs to buckle and him to collapse to his knees with a thud.

"etc!"

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead almost instantly, veins bulged, and his entire fox-like face contorted in pain.

"My disciple!"

Bai Xiaoyu was startled and quickly stepped forward to help him, taking out a bottle of healing potion from her inventory.

"What's wrong with you?"

"I...I have a headache..."

Li Hu squatted on the ground, covering his head, his voice trembling.

"It's not just ordinary pain, it's like...like something is trying to drill into my brain..."

"Headache?"

Guang Chengzi was taken aback, then instinctively replied:

"Oh my god, call an ambulance right now!"

In the dormitory, everyone was sitting up straight, their hands already reaching for their phones.

"Where are your family members? Are they nearby?"

"Beside me..." Li Hu's vision blurred with pain, his breathing became erratic, and his voice was broken, "Beside me... you're all I have left..."

Guang Chengzi choked on his words, then suddenly realized what he meant, and his expression immediately turned strange.

"Wait a minute, when you say you have a headache, are you referring to a headache in the dungeon or a headache in real life?"

Even Bai Xiaoyu paused for a moment when the question was asked.

Li Hu raised his head, his eyes red and swollen from the pain, tears and cold sweat. He looked at the group in a daze, his voice hoarse:

"A copy... isn't it just reality?"

"Isn't reality... just a copy of a game?"

"It's over."

Guang Chengzi immediately put his hand to his forehead.

"This child is completely immersed in it."

"Shut up." Bai Xiaoyu glared at him, her tone noticeably more urgent. "Even at a time like this, you're still being sarcastic."

Huang Yaoying had already half-squatted down to carefully observe Li Hu's condition.

His breathing was erratic, but his pupils remained open; his spiritual energy did not surge, nor did his meridians collapse. Apart from a severe headache, his body did not seem to show any signs of being contaminated or possessed.

"It doesn't look like an injury."

She whispered.

The moment she finished speaking, the world before Li Hu's eyes suddenly blurred.

It was as if someone had taken a blood-soaked black cloth and ruthlessly wiped it across his eyes.

next moment.

The night has vanished.

The main hall is gone.

The kitchen in front of me suddenly turned into a dim, yellowish-white day.

The fire in the stove was burning brightly, steam billowing upwards, and the soup in the pot was bubbling away, its aroma thick and rich. Several people dressed in gray monks' robes emerged one after another, their hems stained with oil and soot, busily carrying wooden basins, soup bowls, ladles, and offering plates.

These are not cultivators, not bosses, and not those corpse worshippers outside.

They were just kitchen helpers.

Li Hu watched this scene and his heart clenched painfully, as if he had suddenly been dragged into another time and space.

A young novice monk stumbled in from outside, looking flustered, carrying a black earthenware bowl in his hand. The bowl contained a dark red liquid, viscous and shiny, with a faint, fishy smell emanating from its rim.

Without saying a word, he raised his hand and poured the contents into the pot.

The next moment, a sharp, angry shout suddenly came from deep within the kitchen:

"Wrong!"

"That's not purification, that's blood donation!"

Li Hu shuddered, his mouth involuntarily opening as he murmured:

"That's not pure blood... it's blood supply..."

"What kind of blood supply?"

Guang Chengzi was taken aback, his gaze growing increasingly strange.

"Seriously? They're already doing live dubbing? Isn't this immersive experience a bit too much?"

Although he was still joking, his tone had lost its previous relaxed, purely joking manner and instead carried a hint of wariness.

Because Li Hu's current state doesn't seem like he's faking it.

That kind of pain, that kind of disorientation, that kind of blank stare yet real look as if you're really looking at something—it's impossible to act it out.

"Don't make a sound."

Bai Xiaoyu lowered her voice, and for the first time, she really took on the posture of "protecting her apprentice in solving the mystery".

"Let him speak."

Li Hu didn't hear what they were saying at all.

His gaze remained fixed on that illusion.

The monks in the kitchen changed their expressions abruptly. Some rushed towards the large pot, some ran outside, and some shouted "Stop the bell!" But then, a deep and heavy bell rang out from afar.

"when--"

The sound of the bell seemed not to resonate within the temple, but rather to strike directly into Li Hu's mind.

"The Buddha has not yet arrived..."

His face was deathly pale, and he murmured as if repeating someone's words.

"The bell must not be rung until the Buddha has arrived..."

"Should the bell not be rung before the Buddha arrives?"

Huang Yaoying frowned and immediately wrote down those words.

"It looks like a triggered dialogue," Guang Chengzi muttered to himself. "It actually looks quite plausible."

Just then, Li Hu suddenly stood up unsteadily.

"My disciple!"

Bai Xiaoyu quickly reached out to help.

But Li Hu seemed not to hear at all, his gaze fixed, and he walked unsteadily towards the outside.

His steps were slow, even somewhat heavy, yet they carried a strange certainty, as if there was something ahead that only he could see, leading him step by step outwards.

"Where are you going?" Bai Xiaoyu quickly followed.

Li Hu did not turn around.

He simply followed that unseen pull, walking step by step outwards.

"Jade Cauldron Immortal".

Guang Chengzi quickly followed, lowering his voice and unusually refraining from his usual joking manner.

"Is your apprentice... really a little mentally unstable? Why don't you take him to the hospital to get him checked out after we finish the dungeon?"

"You're the one with a problem in your head."

Bai Xiaoyu didn't even turn her head before directly retorting.

"That pot of soup just now most likely triggered some kind of hidden scene that we can't see for him," Huang Yaoying said as she walked, her tone very steady. "Otherwise, there's no way to explain why he suddenly knew about 'purification' and 'blood supply,' information that we've never even encountered before."

"It's possible that this kid really made it all up," Guang Chengzi said stubbornly. "It was just a lucky coincidence that it sounded plausible."

"If it were just made up, he wouldn't have his breathing and mental fluctuations all messed up like this."

The Taoist Ran Deng finally spoke, his voice still cold.

He carried the ancient lamp, his gaze fixed on Li Hu's back, his eyes more somber than usual.

"There's something wrong with that soup."

Huang Yaoying immediately turned her head to look at him.

"Do you know what that is?"

"I don't know," said Daoist Ran Deng, "but the aura emanating from him is different from before."

After these words were spoken, no one else spoke.

He silently followed Li Hu back.

Soon, they returned to the main hall.

This time, the scene inside the main hall was completely different from before.

"when--"

The bells rang again.

Dull, heavy, and without warning.

Having laid the groundwork twice before, this time the crowd no longer simply felt uneasy; instead, they simultaneously felt an indescribable sense of unease.

This clock doesn't seem to be telling time.

It's more like... urging something to start.

Huang Yaoying looked up at the hall, her expression changing slightly.

"They're awake."

The monks who had been kneeling on the prayer mats had all stood up at some point.

He still had his hands clasped together, still radiated a faint Buddhist aura, and still remained silent.

But they all opened their eyes.

Those pairs of eyes showed no ferocity, no madness, not even any emotion; they simply looked calmly and orderly toward the doorway.

"Depend on."

Guang Chengzi subconsciously took a half step back.

"Can you stop looking at people like that? It's creepy."

After he made this sarcastic remark, neither Bai Xiaoyu nor Huang Yaoying responded.

Because they noticed it too.

The monks' gazes were not on the five people who had barged in, but were fixed on Li Hu alone.

When Li Hu moved to the left, their gazes shifted to the left as well.

As Li Hu moved forward, their gazes followed him little by little.

Like a group of eerily quiet dead people who suddenly discover someone who shouldn't be there.

"They're not looking at us."

Huang Yaoying slowly exhaled, her voice low.

"They are watching Li Hu."

"Because of that pot of soup?"

Bai Xiaoyu subconsciously replied.

"Very likely." Huang Yaoying nodded. "Perhaps it's not as simple as 'drinking the soup,' but rather that after drinking that pot of soup, he was identified as having a different identity in this instance."

"The same kind?" Guang Chengzi asked tentatively.

"or……"

Huang Yaoying stared at the monks, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"The people at the Dharma assembly."

The world that Li Hu was seeing at this moment was completely different from theirs.

In his view, the monks who stood up were not corpses or monsters, but a group of living people with panicked faces and anxious expressions, staring at him, not knowing what to do.

The Buddha's seat, which was originally empty, is not now completely empty.

There, a Buddha statue is enshrined properly.

The gold paint on the Buddha statue has not faded, and its appearance is solemn and dignified. Layers of Buddha light emanate from its body, illuminating the entire hall as bright as day.

Meanwhile, an old monk with white hair and beard, his face deathly pale, shouted angrily at the other monks:

"The bell must not be rung until the Buddha has arrived!"

Li Hu's mind went blank for a moment, as if something had suddenly smashed open his head, and he even opened his mouth to shout:

"The bell must not be rung until the Buddha has arrived!"

Upon hearing this sound, Guang Chengzi's eyelids twitched.

"No, he's actually starting to follow the plot?"

"Shut up." Bai Xiaoyu glared at him in a low voice. "Don't interrupt my disciple's immersive puzzle-solving."

"Immersive puzzle-solving?" Guang Chengzi chuckled. "What kind of new genre is this? Relying on immersion in the story?"

"It's better than you spouting nonsense."

While Bai Xiaoyu was arguing with him, she couldn't help but tighten her grip on the sword hilt.

The atmosphere inside the hall had indeed changed.

The monks, who had been calm, suddenly began to show signs of panic.

Some turned to look at the Buddha statue, some glanced instinctively at the side hall, and some bobbed their Adam's apples, as if they wanted to say something but dared not. The entire hall was silent, yet the silence was more unsettling than any shouting battle.

Immediately after, the Buddha statue in Li Hu's eyes.

It cracked.

First, a thin crack appeared, slowly splitting open from the center of the forehead.

Then came the area between the eyebrows, the bridge of the nose, the corners of the mouth, and the chest...

Click. Click-click.

A series of tiny, teeth-grinding cracking sounds echoed in his ears.

Li Hu froze completely.

He watched helplessly as the solemn Buddha statue cracked, crumbled, and collapsed little by little, its surface gold paint peeling off piece by piece, revealing a pitch-black void inside.

At the same time, someone in the main hall finally cried out:

"Disperse! Remove the lights! Take away the offerings!"

"It's too late!"

"This disciple dares not..."

"Shut up! Shut up! Don't cause trouble!"

The sounds rose one after another, creating a chaotic mess, as if the entire Dharma assembly had completely spiraled out of control at this moment.

"What happened to them?"

Bai Xiaoyu finally realized something was wrong.

Because right after Li Hu shouted, "The bell must not be rung before the Buddha arrives," the monks in front of him actually started to panic.

It's not as chaotic as a monster going berserk.

Instead, it's like... a group of people who were already on the verge of collapse, finally breaking down at a crucial moment.

Huang Yaoying's face also darkened.

"This is not a typical BOSS trigger scenario."

"It's more like a fixed process."

She had barely finished speaking.

Suddenly, a beam of dark Buddhist light seeped out from the void above the empty Buddha seat.

It was like a drop of ink falling into the golden Buddha light.

Subsequently, the Buddha's light began to be gradually permeated, eroded, and swallowed up by that darkness.

A figure slowly appeared on the originally empty Buddha seat.

Its body was covered in tattered gold, its Buddhist banners were in pieces, its feet were off the ground, and its whole body looked as if it had crawled out of a long-rotten Buddhist ceremony.

The strangest thing is its face.

It has no eyes, no nose, and no mouth.

There was only a smooth, blank face.

Like a Buddha whose "features" have been deliberately erased.

【BOSS】

Faceless Buddha

The air inside the hall seemed to freeze at that moment.

Guang Chengzi's smile froze for a moment, but his mouth moved faster than his brain, and he blurted out:

"Well done, Master Yuding, your disciple really managed to bring out the BOSS."

"This immersive experience is truly outstanding."

As soon as he finished speaking, the realm indicator above the faceless Buddha's head gradually appeared.

[Dao Dan Realm - Purple Gold Pill]

The smile on Guang Chengzi's face vanished completely.

"...Holy crap?"

He stared at the line of text for a full two seconds before struggling to utter the second half of the sentence.

"Is this planner insane?"