Chapter 42#
Temple of the Burning Lamp 13#
Yesterday they killed all the nuns and used salt to bathe the Holy Child. What were they going to do today?
Should they follow—or not?
Bai Song looked at Yu Feichen. “Should we follow and see?”
Yu Feichen nodded. They didn’t necessarily have to take part in the ritual, but he wanted to see who would be entering it this time.
Yu Feichen noticed that when he turned down Ludwig’s collar, the black‑leather book had somehow ended up in Ludwig’s hands. Ludwig returned the book back in its original place but kept the golden thorn‑rose bookmark.
The group left the storeroom and chose a monk to trail from a distance. The place they were going was still yesterday’s central courtyard, and once again that building with the corridor split into two sections. However—
“My God,” Bai Song murmured. “Why?”
At both ends of the corridor, there still stood two rows of dark figures!
Judging by their silhouettes: one row of monks, one row of nuns.
But hadn’t the nuns already died from been stabbed through the heart yesterday? The eerie flashes and screams were still vivid in memory. Even now, the stench of blood in the courtyard had not yet been washed away and still hung faintly around them.
“Look…” the Scholar’s voice trembled. “Their shadows.”
The sunlight was strong, and soon it would be right overhead, casting oval patches of deep shadow beneath everyone’s feet. As the monks walked forward with the procession, their shadows naturally moved along with them. But every time the nuns took a step, black, purulent sludge seemed to stick to the ground beneath their feet. When their steps fell, those black, tentacle‑like masses would submerge again into the shadow, as if they were walking through a pitch‑black swamp.
The nuns’ postures were also extremely strange. Each of them drooped limply in an utterly unnatural way, their hooded necks lolling to one side, hands hanging straight down by their sides. One could make out neither the structure of their shoulders nor their center of gravity.
Yu Feichen moved a few steps in another direction. An ominous premonition rose in his heart. He wanted to see the nuns from the front. Bai Song moved with him and said, “They kind of look like… sludge monsters.”
The comparison wasn’t inaccurate, but Yu Feichen was reminded of the shadow creature they had encountered in the forest behind the shrine—the tentacles, the viscous ooze, the broken human organs floating on those tentacles, and the great masses of black shadow. Just looking at the nuns from behind, he could almost imagine what lay wrapped beneath those black robes—something very much like that shadow monster.
The Scholar had clearly thought of the same thing. He said, “Could it be that they’ve all turned into evil spirits? Didn’t the temple notice anything amiss?”
“Their corpses were just left in the courtyard. At night, when there are no lights, they would be eaten by monsters!” Bai Song exclaimed in sudden realization.
Yu Feichen said nothing. He slowly moved to the side of the procession. Beneath the brims of the nuns’ hoods were veils—simply put, everything was black. Nothing could be seen.
Last time, they had followed them inside. This time, it was clearly impossible. Bloodshed was very likely to occur during the ritual, and the nuns seemed to have already become… monsters.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I’m going to find the Holy Son.”
Bai Song and the Scholar nodded in agreement. Ludwig, who had been following them the whole time, did not follow this time.
“I’ll go in and take a look,” he said.
“You’re going?” Yu Feichen frowned slightly.
Ludwig was still injured. Besides, hadn’t he said he would follow them?
Ludwig glanced at Bai Song. Bai Song immediately understood what he meant—and executed it even faster than when carrying out orders from his Brother Yu. From the pack he was carrying, he took out a set of black robes and a black nun’s veil.
“Last time, the target of the ritual was the nuns,” Ludwig said calmly. “So this time, it’s the monks.”
He was about to change clothes, holding the golden thorn‑rose bookmark in his hand as though he had nowhere to put it. Casually, he pinned it to Yu Feichen’s collar instead.
Yu Feichen looked at him deeply. “Don’t get discovered.”
Lowering his hand, Ludwig met his gaze calmly and said, “I won’t die.”
With a face still pale from injury, an uncontrollable inability to stay awake, and a body unaccustomed to physical exertion due to his noble status—for the pope to claimI won’t die, should have been unconvincing by any measure. Yet when Ludwig said them, they carried a strange certainty.
As if it were exactly as he claimed: no matter what happened, even if everyone else died, he would not.
Yu Feichen said, “All right.”
Without further words, Ludwig changed into the clothes and put on the veil. Once again, as on that previous day, he attached himself to the very end of the group of nuns. The wind picked up slightly; the black robe fluttered loosely around him, like a genderless ghost.
Searching for the Holy Son didn’t require too many people. Yu Feichen asked Bai Song to stay behind with the pope’s original clothes, waiting to provide support at any time. He had the Scholar continue searching through the storeroom for books, while he himself followed the markings on the map toward the hall where the Holy Son lived.
The Empress had said that the Holy Son’s residence was tightly guarded by many monks and nuns, making it impossible to approach—hence her inability to give them any useful intelligence. If Yu Feichen hadn’t witnessed that ritual, he might have believed it. But at noon, all the monks and nuns came to participate in the ceremony. Even if not all of the guards left their posts, the defenses around the area would inevitably loosen somewhat.
He didn’t believe that infiltrating a single place was impossible for them. Even if there was no deliberate misdirection, there was at least some concealment.
As for the reason for that concealment, he already had a rough idea.
When he came to the Fragmented World—or rather, the Fragmented Instance—the goal was not only to escape, but also to carry out the Deconstruction Task of the Gate of Eternal Night: to explore the structure of this world as thoroughly as possible and unravel its mysteries. And the Gatekeeper had once said something deeply meaningful.
He had said:The one you follow is the principal god with the broadest dominion and the greatest power in this cosmic era.
This sentence did more than emphasize the principal god’s strength; it also revealed another fact—that beyond the Gate of Eternal Night, there were other existences similar to principal gods, and thus, naturally, other believers as well. If everyone’s objective was deconstruction, then it was not enough to complete one’s own work—one must also prevent others from obtaining clues, lest the puzzle be solved by someone else first.
The place where the Holy Son lived was at the highest point of the temple. It was a white, square hall topped with a tall spire. In many civilizations, spires shared the same symbolism: the worship of the sun. Even the obelisk‑like shape of the Tower of Creation followed this imagery.
Outside the hall, there was nothing—no shadow of any monk or nun.
Yu Feichen climbed the limestone steps. Only when he drew close did he see, beneath the towering archway, a brown‑haired nun in white robes, holding a snow‑white candle, gazing ahead with a sorrowful expression.
White robes, black robes—what did different robes signify in this temple?
As Yu Feichen approached her, the nun also noticed him.
“Knight Commander Yu Fei,” she said, “you’ve finally come. We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”
This scene seemed… familiar.
Two nights ago, when he and Bai Song climbed to the end of the steps, what had the cloaked old man said?
—“Knight Commander Yu Fei, Knight Bai En, you have finally arrived. Everyone has been waiting a long time.”
Two similar scenes overlapped, exuding an indescribable eeriness.
But the nun’s next sentence pulled the conversation back to reality.
“Why didn’t Pope Ludwig come with you?”
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