Chapter 56#
Temple of the Burning Lamp: End#
Clearly, having only spent three days in this world, it felt like having been away from the Paradise for a long time.
As the system voice fell, the grey space expanded around Yu Feichen again. This time, the grey mist constructed the blurry outline of the temple.
And unlike last time, there was an additional person beside him: Bai Song.
Bai Song: “What is this!”
Yu Feichen: “Answering time.”
“Answering?”
Yu Feichen pulled him in front of the temple image and said: “Tell me the whole story of what happened in the temple.”
“…Oh.” Bai Song agreed. This child’s advantage was that he did exactly as he was told and was very obedient. Yu Feichen felt that after the successive explanations by the Empress, himself, and the Holy Son, this world was already perfectly clear. As long as one’s brain was up to par, they could deconstruct it in a very organized way.
He wasn’t afraid of the Empress deconstructing at the same time as him. Firstly, the Empress’s IQ posed no threat. Secondly, which side could eventually obtain this fragment world depended not only on the deconstruction progress but also on whose backing main god’s power was stronger.
And wasn’t his main god of the Paradise claimed to be the most powerful deity in the entire cosmic era? So he felt at ease letting Bai Song practice.
Bai Song cleared his throat and began.
“The whole thing starts with the God of Light and the God of Shadow…”
“So, the God of Shadow, to protect itself, established the temple and searched for Holy Sons generation after generation…”
“This generation’s Holy Son is very special, very smart…”
“He has many good friends: the Pope, the King… and another friend is Molly, a nun who was originally in the temple.”
“He didn’t want to chant incantations anymore to protect his people and decided to let everything end with him. But if he refused to chant, he was afraid the temple would use unscrupulous means, using evil arts to turn him into an obedient fool. Ah, I think maybe the resurrection potion has this kind of effect; the magic in this world is too sinister. So he knew he had to die cleanly…”
“In this way, we people were caught and helped the Holy Son work, but we were stopped at the door by the temple priest—that old guy in the cloak. He was on the side of the Shadow God, or maybe he was a living person but was bewitched… Actually, there’s another possibility: he really was a living person who believed in light but just hadn’t figured out the relationship between light and shadow…”
“…”
“That’s it.”
He spoke quite well, with fairly clear logic and no missing details. Yu Feichen occasionally supplemented a few sentences, correcting his “possible,” “perhaps,” and “maybe” into a tone of either certainty or negation.
After this explanation, Yu Feichen added some knowledge about this world based on the content of the books in the storage room.
Bai Song said eagerly: “Is it okay now?”
Yu Feichen felt it wasn’t done yet and had to check once more before submitting. So he added a few more bits of information and finally said: “Done.”
The system said: “Deconstruction begins.”
Next, golden light expanded from several key nodes, spreading rapidly and soon covering every corner of the temple. The entire temple turned almost entirely golden. When the golden light stopped expanding, the system spoke. For some reason, there was an upward inflection in its mechanical tone.
“Deconstruction progress: 98.5%. Congratulations!”
98.5%, not bad. The remaining 0.015% was just some unimportant miscellaneous information, like ‘what exactly was the relationship between the Knight Commander and the Pope, superior and subordinate or lovers?’ This was something he truly didn’t know.
The next process was very familiar to him: the power of the Tower of Creation took over the temple.
“Deconstruction successful.”
Golden light flowed and merged into his and Bai Song’s bodies respectively. He felt his body and mind become much clearer. Then, a Blood Salt Heart with a missing corner appeared out of thin air, floating in front of him. The shape was very clear and familiar, clearly the one that had been knocked by Ludwig.
Another cheerful voice rang out, and subtitles appeared in front of them simultaneously: “Gatekeeper’s warm reminder: Your adventure lasted: 3 days in the target world, 11 minutes in the Paradise. Your deconstruction score is: 98.5%, surpassing 96.7% of your colleagues in the Paradise. Excellent! Please keep it up!”
“For this adventure, you have obtained reward 1: Basic strength enhancement, 15%.”
“Reward 2: Damaged Heart of Resurrection (Light). Purpose: Repair all damage to the current body and restore it to a perfect state. Method of use: Consumption. Valid times: 3. Valid range: Universal. Valid target: Universal. Note: Not a resurrection item, cannot repair fatal serious injuries, cannot resurrect deceased subjects, please be aware.”
“Gatekeeper’s warm exhortation: Rewards are hard-earned, use and cherish them!”
Bai Song gave a long “Wow—” and said, Brother Yu, it can actually be like this. This sounds like good stuff. Are they just giving it to us like this?
He also said, Is this parenthesis Light parenthesis praising us?
It seemed the Blood Salt Heart they obtained through a non-killing method was light, whereas if they had truly obtained it through the evil method of killing people to feed lizards, they would have gotten the dark version of the heart, and the medicinal effect would surely be different.
This part of the subtitles faded, and the relatively cold system voice rang out again: “Please choose whether to bring back followers.”
Next was a cheerful voice: “Gatekeeper’s loving reminder: There are thousands of world fragments, but only one Paradise. This world has an intensity of 4 and an amplitude of 7. Safety is unknown. To choose followers, you need to pay 110,000 blocks of Ice Crystal stones to the Tower of Creation and bring them into the 10th floor of the Tower of Creation for memory screening and cleaning. Price: 50,000 blocks of Ice Crystal stones.”
This value made Bai Song go numb.
“160,000 blocks…?” He counted on his fingers. “I only got 5 pieces before. Brother Yu, are ‘piece’ and ‘block’ the same unit?”
Of course not.
Ice Crystal stones had three units: “piece,” “chunk,” and “block.” A piece was a thin slice about the size of a banknote, a chunk was a rectangular block about the size of an ordinary book, and as for “block,” in the measurement system he was more familiar with, it referred to a cubic meter.
After understanding the huge gap between the two, Bai Song was in despair due to poverty.
Yu Feichen thought he looked quite funny like this, so he didn’t tell the truth: 160,000 blocks of Ice Crystal stones was indeed an exorbitant price, but it was nothing to him.
Following the gatekeeper’s “loving reminder,” everything around them also reappeared beside them, except everyone else was static, and only the two of them could move.
“Choose a person as our teammate?” Bai Song said: “It has to be His Holiness the Pope!”
Yu Feichen: “He’s not a newcomer; he has a camp. Aren’t you afraid he’s a bad person?”
Bai Song: “How could that be.”
After saying that, he pulled Yu Feichen in front of Ludwig and urged: “Give it a try, Brother Yu, I’ll owe you the money!”
Yu Feichen: “…”
Aren’t you afraid I really don’t have the money?
But he was still pulled by Bai Song and stood in front of Ludwig.
In the frozen image, Ludwig still maintained impeccable Pope-like poise, but his eyes were closed. The faint candlelight in the distance cast shadows under his eyelashes, and there seemed to be faint wet traces remaining where he had cried before, like an exquisitely carved weeping wax figure.
Although he vaguely knew the answer, Yu Feichen admitted that he indeed had some expectations at this moment.
If this person didn’t have the two shortcomings of not moving and liking to drift, he would be a perfect teammate. Perhaps he would never encounter someone so to his liking again. If possible—
But this little expectation made his face slightly cold, and he turned around: “Forget it.”
“Brother Yu! What are you doing!”
Nothing. He didn’t like being rejected and even more disliked the feeling of expectations falling through; there was no need to seek it out.
He didn’t intend to ask Ludwig, but a voice came from behind; Bai Song had actually gone himself.
“Your Holiness, Your Holiness!”
Yu Feichen turned around. Along with his shouts, Ludwig really did slowly open his eyes and looked at them.
“Your Holiness, would you like to go with us? Together from now on.”
Ludwig’s gaze was very gentle. He reached out and rubbed Bai Song’s hair but looked at Yu Feichen.
He seemed to be smiling, his eyelashes slightly curved, a very gentle expression.
But looking at Yu Feichen, he only said one sentence.
“Goodbye,” he said.
—An expected answer. Yu Feichen had no reaction, his tone flat, saying directly: “What were you crying about?”
“Just now?” Ludwig had been looking at him, his expression still gentle, but a smoky melancholy flowed in his dark green eyes. He said: “Thinking about things from the past.”
Yu Feichen was not good at comforting people. So he didn’t speak for a long time and finally only said three words: “Stop crying.”
Unexpectedly, a faint smile actually appeared in the Pope’s eyes: “I won’t.”
Not bad, his comforting achieved its first success.
Failing to recruit the Pope, Bai Song was very disappointed, but he soon thought of a new goal.
“I think Sister Qiu Na is also very good. I’ll go ask her.”
Yu Feichen didn’t say anything, letting Bai Song go. He and Ludwig still stood in place. Ludwig said: “Do you think she will agree?”
Yu Feichen: “No.”
Sure enough, after hearing Bai Song’s intention, Qiu Na asked about some other situations and finally shook her head.
“I won’t actively harm teammates, but that’s on the premise of ensuring I’m okay. But you guys aren’t pushovers either.” She said: “We aren’t the same kind of people. Instead of being unhappy later, it’s better for us to go our separate ways now.”
She sighed and also rubbed Bai Song’s head: “This dungeon taught me quite a few things. I’ll fight alone for a while first.”
After saying that, she looked at Yu Feichen and Ludwig again and smiled freely: “But let’s be friends. You’re the first group of people I’ve met. If we meet again in the future, we can reminisce about the past.”
Yu Feichen: “Okay.”
Bai Song hit a wall again, dejected: “Then… Sister Molly… wait, where’s the person?”
Only then did he find that Molly wasn’t at the door at all; she had actually stayed inside the door.
Yu Feichen directly told the system: “Not choosing.”
They suddenly landed back on solid ground and looked at Molly inside the door. Molly looked at them with red eyes.
“I… am not leaving. Is that okay?” she whispered. “It’s very good here. The world outside… is not a place where I can survive.”
“Are you silly!” Qiu Na said: “This world doesn’t even have a sun. How many more days can you live? Come out quickly.”
Molly bit her lip and still shook her head: “If I go out, won’t I die too? And I’ll die… very ugly. Like the Scholar. I’ll stay here and help the Holy Son, help him leave records for the next generation. The people later will know about Light and Shadow. That way, I’m still a… valuable person.”
The Holy Son smiled. “Thank you, girl,” he said.
Molly lowered her head. Although her eyes were red, she still showed a relieved smile.
Yu Feichen watched all this quietly.
Everyone has their own choices and thus their own fates. It’s all over.
“Gate of Eternal Night 49577 completed.
“Return channel opening: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, …”
“This adventure is over. Looking forward to seeing you again in the next adventure~!”
One last look, he looked at Ludwig, right into a pair of gentle dark green eyes.
Looking at his mouth shape, he seemed to say “goodbye” again.
Yu Feichen: “Goodbye.”
Hopefully, in the next world, this His Holiness, who has quite a few quirks, will still be able to meet a good person like him.
“…3, 2, 1, welcome back.”