Chapter 35#

Temple of the Burning Lamp 6#

It was now noon. Sunlight shone straight down through the “well mouth” above, illuminating the surroundings of the temple so brightly that every shadow shrank to its smallest.

But correspondingly, the shadows cast by the colossal screen over the rest of this world grew even denser and darker. Looking down from the mountaintop, it seemed as if the world were a pitch‑black circle, with only the place where they stood shining like a single bright point.

Yu Feichen looked up at the sky. He didn’t know if it was an illusion, but the colossal screen seemed higher than it had been in the morning. And the circular “well mouth” that allowed light to enter looked as though it had grown smaller.

What could this mean?

He told his companions what he had observed, and the atmosphere grew even heavier.

But a more urgent problem stood before them—how were they supposed to obtain salt before nightfall?

Back at the temple, they split up to question the monks and nuns.

The monks and nuns here were wrapped in black robes steeped in religious solemnity, with long black iron chains hanging from their necks to their waists. The nuns were distinguished only by a semi‑transparent veil.

“Hello,” Yu Feichen said, tapping a nun on the shoulder.

She slowly turned around. Beneath her black robe, her face was pale, and her dark eyes seemed unable to reflect any light.

“Hello.” A cold, mechanical reply left her lips.

Yu Feichen was not surprised. In the morning, the monks and nuns had all been just as indifferent and sluggish, as if they were lifeless puppets. As King Shadi had said, “NPCs don’t converse with people.”

“Excuse me, do you know where I can find salt?” he asked directly.

“Salt?” The robed nun repeated the word slowly, then once again: “Salt?”

“You don’t know what that is?”

She nodded, then walked away.

Yu Feichen frowned slightly and turned to another nun not far off.

For reasons he could never fully explain, in any world where genders existed, most women—especially frail, beautiful, or older ones—were more willing to answer him. Men, on the other hand, often harbored instinctive hostility toward him. Yu Feichen could only attribute it to some inexplicable male competitiveness.

This time, he did not ask “Do you know what salt is?” Since the previous nun had shown it didn’t exist here.

“The salad tastes too bland,” he said instead. “Do you know anything that can make it taste salty?”

Even if “salt” wasn’t recognized, surely “salty” should exist. At least his taste buds were normal.

The nun looked slightly confused, as though thinking it over, then answered, “You may add some white pepper.”

So there was white pepper. There were seasonings.

But they truly did not know what salt was.

Meaning the temple kitchens indeed had no salt.

In other words, this world might genuinely not possess salt at all.

Yu Feichen continued, “Then do you know of something that is—”

The nun lifted a pale finger to the veil before her face in a gesture of silence. Her tone was flat. “A nun speaking too much with outsiders tarnishes the sanctity of the divine.”

With that, she turned away and drifted off like a ghost.

Yu Feichen approached the next one.

“Do you know of a white, semi‑transparent substance, like small grains of sand? Something that dissolves when it touches hot water?”

“White…” The nun looked up toward the bright sky. The sun’s glare struck her eyes, and her pupils shrank to pinpoints, her gaze turning eerily blank.

She tilted her head slightly, thoughtful. “Semi‑transparent… grains… dissolve…”

She seemed to truly know something.

Yu Feichen watched her intently, waiting for her answer.

She opened her mouth.

“Dong—”

A solemn bell tolled from the center of the temple.

The nun suddenly turned her head toward it. “I must go,” she said in a tone like a recitation. “The God of Light grants answers to those who question.”

Then her black‑robed figure ascended the steps toward the temple’s center.

The bell continued to toll. From all corners of the temple, countless silhouettes of monks and nuns emerged, gathering toward the center—like swarms of ants before a storm.

Gaining nothing more, Yu Feichen went to the empty courtyard on the right, their agreed meeting place.

He thought he had returned quickly enough, but someone was already sitting on the crystal bench.

The Pope.

In the sunlight, the silver tips of his hair gleamed faintly, giving him a rare hint of vitality.

Yu Feichen approached the bench.

“Any findings?” Ludwig’s voice remained soft and calm. But if one listened carefully, though the tone was cool, it carried a faint trace of nasal warmth—just enough to avoid seeming distant.

“The nuns don’t know salt. They use pepper as seasoning,” Yu Feichen said.

Then he asked, “What about you?”

“The temple seems not to welcome me,” the Pope replied. “No monk or nun answered my questions.”

It seemed Ludwig had encountered even more closed doors than he had.

But Yu Feichen quickly understood the deeper meaning.

“You mean the Pope does not command the temple?”

Ludwig nodded slightly.

“The temple worships a god called the ‘God of Light,’” he said.

The Pope looked thoughtful. “Did you discover anything else?”

Yu Feichen looked down at Ludwig’s profile, at the Pope’s lowered lashes in the sunlight.

The daylight was pleasant but his mood was not.

That feeling returned again.

The feeling of being questioned. Of being treated as a tool.

If this were ordinary teammates exchanging information, he would have had no objection. But with Ludwig, he inexplicably felt a competitive urge.

He didn’t just want to stay ahead—he wanted information to be exchanged on equal terms. If Ludwig wanted him to do something or provide something, then Ludwig had to pay accordingly.

Maybe it was simply because… the Pope’s calm, always‑in‑control attitude rubbed him the wrong way.

Driven by this unfamiliar impulse, he did not answer Ludwig’s question. Instead, he asked, “If this world has no salt at all, or if something like a ‘Heart of the Weeping Lizard’ doesn’t exist… what then?”

From the moment he entered this world, he had carried a doubt. According to the Gatekeeper, fragment worlds contained many chaotic rules that must not be violated, and they sustained themselves by devouring outsiders.

Would a fragment world, to maximize its harvest, give them an unsolvable task from the very beginning?

Ludwig raised his head to meet his gaze. He seemed to fully understand what Yu Feichen meant.

“The path may be narrow, or winding. But in theory, there is no world without an exit.”

“Why?”

“Since you have come here, you already know the truth of these worlds.”

“They’re fragments.”

“They kill intruders by their own rules. But these rules must be self‑consistent. Otherwise, the world would grow even more chaotic. Therefore, where there is a way in, there must be a way out.”

Ludwig’s explanation stopped there, but Yu Feichen understood completely—far more clearly than from the Gatekeeper’s long speeches.

A fragment world was unstable, on the verge of collapse. It needed to hunt outsiders to stabilize itself.

But it was still a world—not a freely roaming monster, so it could only enforce lethal rules.

Yet the rules of a world must remain coherent. If they broke completely, the world would only collapse faster—like the Black Badge Army from the previous world, whose indiscriminate brutality only hastened its destruction.

Thus the path to survival, however faint, must exist—in theory.

Whether it could be found in reality depended solely on the outsiders’ abilities.

He continued looking at Ludwig.

“You’ve experienced… many of these worlds?”

“More than you.”

A non‑answer.

He looked at the tear‑mole beneath Ludwig’s right eye and asked lightly, “If two unconnected people are separated in one world, will they meet again in another?”

Ludwig replied just as lightly, “Perhaps by coincidence.”

Perhaps it was coincidence.

But you sound exactly like Captain Anfield.

They were both sharp men—usually intelligent enough to grasp things almost immediately. Yet despite the tear‑mole clearly marking him as Anfield, Ludwig continued to act unfamiliar. He didn’t even acknowledge his past identity.

Like a suspect caught and imprisoned, still insisting innocence despite overwhelming evidence.

Except the key evidence—the tear‑mole—was already right there.

Suddenly, a bold thought flashed through Yu Feichen’s mind.

—Does he even know he has a tear‑mole?

The instant that thought appeared, his heart skipped a beat.

He stared at Ludwig.

Sensing his gaze, Ludwig looked back.

The two held each other’s eyes until a faint confusion flickered in Ludwig’s normally clear dark‑green irises, as if silently asking—

Why are you staring at me?

Yu Feichen gave him a faint, wolf‑like smile—the sort a predator gives when its fangs close over prey.

—Not telling you.

He looked away.

Bai Song approached from a distance.

“I searched the kitchen. They only use plants as seasonings,” Bai Song said between breaths, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “Uh… did I come at a bad time?”

Yu Feichen examined his and Ludwig’s positions, wondering what strange idea had crossed Bai Song’s mind this time.

The Pope sat elegantly on the crystal bench—nothing unusual there. Yu Feichen stood beside him like a proper knight commander. Because of their earlier conversation, his left elbow rested lightly on the Pope’s right shoulder.

Everything was normal. Perfectly normal

“Continue,” he said to Bai Song.

Bai Song reported: no salt in the kitchen; only plants. Tooth brushing used fruit from the salad. Laundry didn’t use salt. The toilets didn’t have salt either…

Yu Feichen said, “…That’s enough.”

The scholar arrived next and shook his head.

Djuna came last. She also shook her head, then said, “Without salt, do we need to use scientific methods to extract some kind of salt compound? I majored in pharmaceuticals. But there’s nothing here. And even if we could extract some, the amount would be tiny—definitely not enough to make a lizard that big cry.”

Everyone had gathered now and exchanged their findings. Yu Feichen repeated his own.

“There’s no salt, but one nun knew of a white, semi‑transparent grain that changes when it touches water.”

Meaning something like “salt” might exist in this temple—but perhaps used for an entirely different purpose, explaining why the nuns were clueless.

“A white, semi‑transparent crystal? Dissolves in water?” Djuna’s voice grew slightly excited. “Even if it’s not salt, it might be something similar. As long as it creates metabolic stress, the lizard will shed tears!”

The scholar agreed. “That is correct.”

Yu Feichen knew this was basic knowledge.

Which meant their task now was to find this substance somewhere in the temple.

Where to search? What could that substance be used for? Through what activity would a nun encounter it?

Nuns. Their daily routines—

Suddenly he said, “The monks and nuns were gathering in the temple courtyard.”

Bai Song said, “I saw them too.”

The others nodded.

In that moment, Yu Feichen made a bold decision.

“We’ll go there.”