Chapter 45#
Temple of the Burning Lamp 16#
No cattle or sheep, no other living creatures; only humans could provide the fat.
“They wouldn’t be refined from human corpse oil, would they? How many corpses would that take?” Bai Song’s reaction was particularly visceral; he looked like he wanted to vomit.
“Look on the bright side,” Quna said to him eerily. “There might be lizard oil in there too.”
Indeed, there was another kind of animal in the back mountain: lizards.
“How much oil can a lizard yield? Besides, weren’t those lizards raised on blood?” Bai Song said.
“Stop it,” Quna said. “I’m going to be sick if you keep going.”
Bai Song: “…”
Yu Feichen asked the Empress who those people were.
“No idea. Their clothes were stripped and they were piled together. There were even semi-finished products, so I just set them on fire. They were either monks and nuns, or people caught from the foot of the mountain,” the Empress said, brushing her hair back, completely indifferent.
The greasy scent unique to burning candles wafted over again. The horror brought by the Human-Eye Butterfly hadn’t even faded, and the thought of the candles’ possible source made them feel even more nauseous. Yet, the candles couldn’t be extinguished; their lives depended on them.
The Empress said, “What about your findings?”
Yu Feichen said, “They held another ritual. We went.”
After speaking, he nudged Ludwig with his elbow.
The brilliant Pope seemed out of sorts today, as if he hadn’t recovered from whatever “wrong medicine” he’d taken. Before being nudged, he seemed to be intently admiring the meaningless wood grain on the table.
Even the sickly Captain Anfield of the Oak Hill Asylum hadn’t been this completely “offline,” Yu Feichen thought.
However, after the nudge, the Pope naturally came back online. His expression was indifferent and his tone calm as usual as he uttered two words: “Throat slitting.”
“Throat slitting?”
“The ritual involved the nuns present slitting the throats of the monks to pray for blessings. They then collected the blood and finally dragged the bodies away,” he said. “Meanwhile, the nuns have been replaced by monsters in the shadows; they are no longer living people.”
Bai Song shuddered. He shrunk closer to Yu Feichen.
This time, Yu Feichen didn’t move away, instead reaching out to pat his shoulder.
Although Bai Song was still inexperienced, he was someone who had survived the cruel and bloody Oak Hill Asylum and the war; his psychological resilience wasn’t poor. However, the cruelty of this world was of a completely different nature than that of Oak Hill.
Oak Hill was about humans killing each other, but this world was backward, ignorant, and bizarre, filled with an indescribable malice. That power was non-human, even transcending humanity.
Bizarre medical methods of exchanging lives, rituals of piercing hearts and slitting throats, blood-salt hearts, human-fat candles, human-eye butterflies… it was as if human life was just a raw material to be plucked and molded at will.
So what was the thing plucking, molding, and utilizing it? The temple priests? Or the god of this world?
As he was thinking, the sky outside darkened a few more shades, making the temple’s bright lights stand out even more. The sound of stumbling footsteps rang out as usual; the Cloaked Old Man had arrived.
His face remained buried under the hood, his features invisible.
The Empress presented the butterfly. Just as it was about to be handed to the Cloaked Old Man, the Human-Eye Butterfly fluttered resentfully in her hands. More red capillaries appeared in its eyes, and the black pupils first rolled unwillingly before staring venomously at the people around the long table.
The Cloaked Old Man took the butterfly, leaned in to sniff it, and said in a trance-like voice, “I feel it… the power of death.”
“I thank you, honored guests. You truly are the wisest, most learned, and most noble people of Casablanca. Now, enjoy the banquet.”
He turned to leave.
Watching his back, Yu Feichen suddenly spoke up: “Has tomorrow’s recipe been decoded yet?”
Bai Song whispered, “Brother Yu, didn’t you say NPCs won’t talk to people?”
Yu Feichen signaled him to be patient. An NPC might not engage in normal conversation, but he felt that this Cloaked Old Man had at least some degree of autonomous intelligence; otherwise, how could he judge whether the items they found were right or wrong? Even the monks and nuns from before would answer certain questions; there was no reason such an important character wouldn’t.
The old man’s tone betrayed a hint of mechanical stiffness: “The sacrifices and the monks guarantee that one line can be decoded each day.”
“But the time to search during the day is getting shorter, while the night is getting longer,” Yu Feichen said. “According to normal time, the third line could be decoded by midnight tonight.”
He continued, “Once it is successfully decoded, I hope you can inform us as early as possible to avoid wasting daylight and affecting the Saint’s resurrection.”
The old man said nothing and left with his stumbling gait.
The vegetable and fruit salads on the table were as unpalatable as ever, but at least vegetables and fruit were better than human blood and flesh. After Yu Feichen ordered Bai Song to eat more to maintain his strength, he finished his own meal expressionlessly and began to observe Ludwig eating, as if checking if his pet’s condition was lively.
He saw the Pope use a knife to cut a piece of tasteless fruit into chunks, stab one with a fork, and swallow it elegantly. After a few pieces, he set down his utensils.
He ate very little, but that was fine; after all, “automatic follow” didn’t require much physical strength.
Walking back to the room and closing the door, Bai Song let out a heavy breath. “Too disgusting, Brother Yu, too disgusting. I never want to see a candle again for the rest of my life.”
“There’s no need to fully believe her words,” Yu Feichen said flatly.
“What do you mean?”
“That fat king—” Yu Feichen couldn’t quite remember the king’s name, only that he was very round. “He’s dead, but the Empress never mentioned him once.”
This suggested the fat king might not have been killed by the dungeon.
Thinking further, the fat king had quite a bit of body fat, which seemed to make things even more shrouded in mystery.
But none of that mattered anymore. The Empress hadn’t breathed a word about whether she had entered the Saint’s hall. Since the “grasshoppers on the same rope” had no intention of cooperating, they would each rely on their own skills.
Compared to the Empress, he was more interested in Ludwig.
This afternoon, he had learned for certain that other Main Gods or leaders existed in this world, and these leaders had followers. So where did Ludwig come from? Was he also a follower of some Main God?
He didn’t seem like one. Ludwig’s desire to survive in this dungeon was very weak; he seemed more like a bystander than a player. If this was doing work for someone else, his attitude was far too perfunctory.
Bai Song waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Brother Yu, what are you thinking about?”
Jasmine also stood cautiously to the side and asked him, “Sir Knight-Commander, would you like some water?” Yu Feichen shook his head. Jasmine then said, “I’ll make the bed for you.”
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with hope, and asked, “Are you planning to sleep in this room tonight?”
Yu Feichen nodded.
Bai Song, however, was unhappy about it. “Aren’t you going to stay with the Pope?”
Yu Feichen reflexively tapped him on the head with the hilt of his sword. This kid had spent one night alone with a beautiful girl and had apparently gotten addicted. He felt dissatisfied, as if a weed in his own yard wanted to crawl elsewhere.
Just then, the secret door moved.
Speak of the devil. The Pope, who had changed into his pajamas, appeared in the secret passage holding his pillow and walked toward them.
“Oh,” Bai Song realized. “You mean the two of you are sleeping here tonight, and Jasmine and I are going over there, right?”
Yu Feichen looked at him coldly and said, “Collect as many candles from that room as you can.”
Then he added, “After you collect them, blow on the surface of the candles.”
Although he didn’t know why he had to blow on them, Bai Song finally understood what his Brother Yu meant.
The nights were getting longer, and tonight would be even longer than last night. This meant one thing: their candles might not be enough—even if they had saved many yesterday. To maximize the conservation of candles, the Pope would have to suffer through sleeping on this small bed, since this room was small and required fewer candles.
He took Jasmine to the other room to pick up candles. As he picked them, he said, “Tell me, how did Brother Yu know the Pope would come? I didn’t see them talk. Sigh, when will I ever have such a tacit understanding with Brother Yu?”
Jasmine bit her lip, her eyes seeming to brim with tears.
“Will we make it through?” she asked.
“We will. Trust him,” Bai Song said. “As long as we don’t go looking for trouble, Brother Yu will definitely lead us to survival, really. I know his expressions well. I guarantee you, he isn’t panicked at all. What does that mean? It means everything is still within his control.”
Jasmine looked at the Knight-Commander’s silhouette through the secret door and nodded.
On the other side, Yu Feichen had encountered something that was truly outside his control.
“You’re going to sleep again?”
Ludwig leaned against the headboard and nodded.
“Stay awake for me,” he stood by the bed looking down at him, commanding coldly.
The Pope reluctantly lifted his eyelids.
“The Saint was skewered like a sugar-coated hawthorn by a candelabra and left a clue, but it might have been taken by the Empress. Before he lost consciousness, he specifically named Pope Ludwig to solve the problem.”
Ludwig spoke slowly: “The Pope represents secular divine power and was the supreme ruler before the Black Curtain descended. After the Black Curtain appeared, the temple was established, and the Saint was called the incarnation of the deity.”
Yu Feichen pondered.
So, while the Pope and the temple weren’t exactly hostile, they were at least not on friendly terms.
People believed in God and established a religion with the Pope as its ruler, but the Saint, who could actually prevent the Black Curtain from rising, was found by a temple that did not belong to the Pope. This was equivalent to the God they believed in manifesting elsewhere.
Given this, the Saint being heavily injured yet asking for help from Ludwig, who was from a different camp, meant he didn’t trust the temple at all.
Therefore, choosing to believe the Saint meant the temple was the enemy.
However, behind all the intricate matters, there was one key factor that had never shown its face.
God.
In this dungeon, did God actually exist? Was it looking down and controlling all of this?
Yu Feichen: “Then where is God?”
The eyelids that Ludwig had slightly lifted under the forced command were now gradually closing again. His voice also became very soft, to the point that Yu Feichen couldn’t tell if he was answering the question or saying something else entirely.
“Do not… believe in God,” Ludwig said.
“What should I believe in?”
Ludwig raised his hand.
His fingers were slender and cold-white, with only the tips showing a hint of pink.
His finger pad rested lightly on the left side of Yu Feichen’s chest.
Yu Feichen looked at it and suddenly felt the faint thumping of his own heart.
Ludwig didn’t speak, but Yu Feichen understood the meaning of the gesture.
Don’t believe in God; believe in yourself—believe in your own choices, your own judgment, and your own heart.
He hadn’t expected that among a group of followers who each served their own masters in a shattered world, he would meet someone whose creed was so similar to his own.
He patted Ludwig’s head and said, “You can sleep now.”
Ludwig’s eyes closed lightly, and then—he fell directly into his arms.
He really had been that sleepy.
Yu Feichen caught the man just in time, suddenly wondering if he had been too cruel in ordering Ludwig to stay awake.
He sighed softly and laid Ludwig flat. He found that the number of times he had sighed recently was rising sharply.
At that moment, Bai Song and Jasmine returned carrying the candles.
Yu Feichen: “Did you encounter any danger today?”
Bai Song said he had been keeping watch outside and didn’t know anything, except that the music became more and more eerie and evil, even more terrifying than yesterday. Then, those people seemed about to come out, so he grabbed the Pope’s clothes and hid in a concealed spot, watching as the nuns dragged the monks’ bodies out in bizarre postures. He watched for a long time without seeing any sign of the Pope and was getting as anxious as a dog chasing its own tail, when suddenly he felt a pat on his back. He turned in terror to see the Pope standing behind him unharmed, with no idea how he had escaped safely.
After finishing, Bai Song added, “That scene was really cool, Brother Yu.”
Yu Feichen looked thoughtfully at Ludwig on the bed. Since Bai Song had walked to the other side of the bed, Ludwig had instinctively moved closer to this side, now resting quietly in the pillow, his face turned toward him. The man had no defenses whatsoever; at this moment, anyone could slit his fragile throat with a knife.
The unstoppable sleep was like a strange curse. Perhaps Ludwig was following him in this dungeon just to seek protection.
Humans are born with two desires: to surpass the strong and to protect the weak. But when the two situations intertwined, things became complicated.
Yu Feichen chose to sleep on the lounge chair nearby.
Out of sight, out of mind.
At midnight, he opened his eyes precisely like a clock.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor; the Cloaked Old Man had arrived.
The others also started to move one after another. Only Ludwig remained asleep, and of course, Yu Feichen didn’t expect him to wake up. He had Jasmine watch over Ludwig and gathered in the hall with the others.
“Honored guests, the third and final ingredient of the recipe has been decoded. This item is right here in the temple; there is no need to search further. Guests, tomorrow at noon, when the bell tolls, please be sure to arrive at the temple courtyard alive to participate in the sacred—Ceremony of Resurrection.”