CH 41

“Ah, that’s terrible.”

Just when they were focused on the dead bodies, a lazy voice came from behind Gu Xizhou, and everyone looked at the owner of the voice. 

With long black hair, slightly curved eyes, smiling eyes, fair skin, an exquisite face and a short skirt, Fu Yiran showed an innocent expression and said pitifully: “What are you looking at me for?”

Everyone: “…”

Gu Xizhou: “…” Do you not have a fucking clue?

Suddenly, there was a scent of food in the air. The woman with a big belly popped in and looked around the room, shouting with a smile: “Breakfast is ready!”

Hearing her call, Liu Kai broke the suddenly frozen atmosphere and changed the topic: “Go, let’s go and eat. After we eat, we can go and get the plaque.”

With that said, the people in the team went to the dining room at the same time. Gu Xizhou kept up with everyone else, but was pulled back.

“You?” Gu Xizhou turned around and saw Fu Yiran looking at him with a wronged expression. 

“It really is terrible, why did they have to stare at me like that?” Fu Yiran pointed to the female corpse on the ground. “I clearly reminded her yesterday that curiosity killed the cat. She died, and it’s not my fault.”

“…” Gu Xizhou said: “You reminded her that curiosity killed the cat, then why did you persuade me to tear the newspaper on the window last night? You know that tearing the newspaper means you’ll be stared at by something outside…”

There was a hint of coldness in Gu Xizhou’s voice, and it held a lot of doubt. Before he finished, Fu Yiran interrupted him.

“You’re different from her.”

“Ah?” Gu Xizhou froze when he heard Fu Yiran’s words, and wanted to ask what he meant…

“After all, not everyone has a thick thigh to hold.” Fu Yiran blinked at him, looking at the back of the person walking in front of them in a meaningful way.

Gu Xizhou: “…”

Of course, he knew who the big thigh that Fu Yiran spoke about was. He ignored Fu Yiran’s nonsense and followed the others to the dining room.

As they ate, Gu Xizhou sat next to Si Yu and asked in a low voice: “You told those two figures last night that our room doesn’t have what they want… that thing, could it be…”

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After about forty minutes or so, Liu Kai and Wen Wen were panting after carrying the plaque. Gu Xizhou estimated that they still had about halfway left to go, and proposed that Si Yu and he should carry it for the last half of the distance. 

“Okay, I really can’t lift it anymore. Carrying it for so long makes my hands so sore,” Liu Kai said breathlessly. 

Gu Xizhou reached out and firmly took Liu Kai’s place. 

On the other side, right as Si Yu reached out, someone stole the position of Wen Wen in carrying the plaque. 

Fu Yiran looked at Si Yu with a smile in his eyes and said very diligently: “Big Boss, you take a rest, I’ll carry it with Gu Ran.”

“…” Si Yu looked at him coldly. “Move aside.”

“Aiya, what are you being so polite for, I’m actually very strong!”

“Your help isn’t needed.”

Fu Yiran smiled: “You don’t have to be polite, it’s such a short distance anyway. Even though I wear women’s clothing, I still have strength.”

Seeing Fu Yiran act so eager, Gu Xizhou pursed his lips and said to Si Yu: “Let him help if he wants to help.”

Si Yu thought about it for a while, then nodded. 

“Let’s go first.” Si Yu looked up at the blurry outline of the distant ancestral hall and turned his head to speak to the crowd behind him. 

“That guy…” Liu Kai frowned at Si Yu and whispered: “You let your companion carry the plaque with him, will anything happen…?”

Si Yu glanced at the backs of Fu Yiran and Gu Xizhou in the front and waved his hand: “It’s fine.:

After arriving at the door, Gu Xizhou and Fu Yiran put the plaque down. Fu Yiran gasped for a long time. A faint red colored his pale face and ears. Lifting the plaque was clearly heavy physical work for him. 

Gu Xizhou held the new plaque in one hand and looked up at the old decayed plaque above. He walked up the stone steps, and the two teammates next to him immediately supported the ladder under the arch. 

“Take down the old plaque first,” Liu Kai said lightly. He climbed up the ladder, with Gu Xizhou and Wen Wen helping him stabilize the bamboo ladder. Liu Kai climbed up and slowly took the old plaque from the wooden structure between the two roofs. Then, he sat on the ladder and spoke to the people below. 

“Hand me the new plaque,” Liu Kai said.

“Are you holding it steadily?” Fu Yiran asked softly. “Be careful not to hit yourself.”

Liu Kai glared at Fu Yiran angrily. “Can you stop being a crow’s mouth?!”

Fu Yiran pouted: “This plaque was originally carried by two people. If it’s carried by you alone, I’m afraid you’re not strong enough to hold it and you’ll hurt yourself.”

“En.” Si Yu weighed the new plaque with his hand. The back of the old plaque was almost hollowed out by termites and weighed less than one-third of the new plaque. It was indeed difficult for people to put the new plaque up.

As they spoke, someone suddenly made a shushing gesture and said: “Listen quietly. Is there someone crying inside?”

Everyone calmed down and listened carefully. Sure enough, the sound of a woman crying echoed from the ancestral hall again. Liu Kai, who sat on top of it, instantly felt goosebumps rise over his skin. This sound made people feel chilled. 

They were listening quietly, looking around at the entrance of the ancestral hall.

“The sky seems dark.” Fu Yiran extended a finger and pointed to the sky above them. 

The moment others looked up, Gu Xizhou looked up as well.

“What’s that? There seems to be something silver falling…” A man said in a confused voice as he pointed suspiciously at something falling through the air. 

Gu Xizhou was about to take a closer look at what it was when a hand suddenly blocked his eyes. He heard Si Yu’s voice in his ear, and it sounded slightly anxious: “Don’t look, go into the ancestral hall!”

“Ah… my eyes, my eyes!” At the same time, Gu Xizhou heard the tragic cry from Liu Kai who was sitting above them… and the plaque fell with a bang on the ground. 

Gu Xizhou thought this was strange. After entering the ancestral hall, he subconsciously looked back. Looking here wasn’t the issue; rather the problem was that Gu Xizhou received a shock after looking at it. He unconsciously touched his eyes and felt a phantom pain in them. 

Liu Kai, who had come down from the ladder, had a few needles stuck in both eyes! Blood dripped outward from the eyes pierced by the needles. 

Wen Wen, who had travelled with Liu Kai, ignored him and rushed in when he heard Si Yu’s words. 

Unexpectedly, both Fu Yiran and Si Yu reached out to grab Liu Kai, and they pretty much carried him into the ancestral hall.

“My eyes… eyes, I can’t see anymore, I, I…” Liu Kai looked straight ahead, and his voice trembled. 

Si Yu let go of Liu Kai’s hand and lifted his own, revealing the seven or eight needles that were stuck in his left hand, and resisted the sting of pain as he pulled them out.

Gu Xizhou looked at his furrowed brows and said: “Thank you for just now.”

Si Yu: “For the incident with the mirror.”

“En…” Gu Xizhou knew what Si Yu meant. In the previous world, Gu Xizhou had helped him to press their mirrors together, temporarily trapping the monster in the mirror world, and saved Si Yu. This was a kind of courtesy between them. 

However, Liu Kai wasn’t so lucky. Everyone lowered their head when Si Yu told them to lower their heads, but Liu Kai was seated above, and he didn’t lower his head in time. The needles pierced directly into his eyeballs. 

“Old Wen, thank you…” Liu Kai patted the hand on his shoulder.

The expression on Fu Yiran’s face turned stiff as he held Liu Kai, and he said lightly: “I’m Fu Yiran, don’t mistake me for someone else.”

Having said that, Fu Yiran loosened his grip that had just tugged Liu Kai out of further danger, and approached Gu Xizhou and Si Yu.

Wen Wen, who had originally come with Liu Kai, awkwardly came forward to help Liu Kai, and asked after his situation in a low voice.

At the side, Gu Xizhou was looking outside,  and his heart was filled with one sentence–fuck, needles are falling from the heavens!

The falling needles looked like a curtain of rain outside, and only the two candles in the ancestral hall dimly illuminated their surroundings. In the ancestral hall, the sound of women crying grew louder, as if they were crying right next to their ears. 

The outer circle of the ancestral hall was made with red marble, while the inner circle was made with black marble. Some of the black marble was strangely inlaid with varying numbers of Buddha statues. 

They carefully looked at the ancestral hall. Due to the previous incident, Liu Kai and Wen Wen were unhappy with each other, and were quietly arguing about what they had encountered in previous worlds, then–

“Shh.”

Si Yu made a silencing gesture, and the people around him quietened instantly. Gi Xizhou noticed that the crying in the ancestral hall had grown slightly quieter. 

soya: I realise some of you are confused as to why GXZ/other newbies were in the first-ever mission world in the story with Si Yu if Si Yu said “his mission worlds never had newbies”. It’s because the mission world that they entered was Gu Xizhou’s, his ‘imminent death’ due to the falling glass! Si Yu touched him in an attempt to pull him back, and got accidentally sucked into GXZ’s first mission world :3c