Infinite Flow: Becoming a God in a Nightmare Game

Chapter 253 He Yuping, We Had No Malice

After a long while, Jiang Qi pulled his coat tighter and finally finished reading the last complete letter, which was Wang Muzheng's reply to He Yuping.

The eldest son's reply:

The Promise of Mountains and Rivers

Yu Ping, my beloved:

As I opened the letter, shrapnel grazed the trench, staining half the paper with gunpowder smoke, much like the undried tear stains in your letter.

Right now, crouching in a bunker on the outskirts of Xuzhou, your pocket watch is stopped at 3:17 a.m.—the time you usually wake up with a start.

The sulfonamide you brought saved nineteen Sichuan soldiers. One of the young soldiers, with a mole between his eyebrows, said that the red beans in the medicine box resembled the pattern on his sister's embroidered shoes.

Last night, when he rolled into the tank formation with a bomb in his hand, all the stars in the sky fell into the Yangtze River.

That copy of Jiaxuan's poems is now tucked in my breast pocket. The scent of dried wood between the pages is even more invigorating than the smell of alcohol in the field hospital.

I remember the nun who taught me French once said that the Seine and the Huangpu River will eventually be reconciled before God.

Now my Mauser stock is covered in tally marks, and every scratch remembers you saying "the bravest man".

The day before yesterday, after destroying the Japanese observation post, I found a gilded pocket watch on the major's body. The cherry blossoms inlaid on the watch cover reminded me of the magnolias in the backyard of the He family mansion—once the war is over, I will definitely melt this iron to make a new hairpin for you.

Lately, I keep thinking about that snowy night in 1933, when you insisted on learning "Man Jiang Hong," and your frozen red nose was more vibrant than the red candle on the table.

Now I stand guard over the land that Yue Fei once conquered, and when a bullet pierces my shoulder blade, I feel a strange sense of satisfaction, as if it were a fitting tribute to the unfinished bloodshed of eight hundred years ago.

If I were to turn into a handful of yellow earth outside Xuzhou City, I hope you would bury me on a south-facing hillside, so that my soul could cross the river and return home every night.

Take care. On the day of liberation, I will cross a hundred million broken cherry blossoms to find you.

Mu Zheng, Winter of 1934, at the Front Lines in Xuzhou

The letter was accompanied by a photograph taken by a war correspondent, in which bullet holes formed a crescent moon shape in the background.

Time was of the essence. After reading the letter, the two immediately took the "Shuyu Ci" and the scattered envelopes and rushed to the Prince's Cemetery.

Along the way, Jiang Qi conjured a black iron shovel and two glowing kerosene lamps out of thin air in his hand.

This made it easier for them to dig graves.

Half-person-high wormwood sprouted from the cracks in the bluestone steps leading to the Prince's Palace Cemetery.

Lu Zhi walked ahead, clearing the way for Jiang Qi.

"Brother, be careful."

"We'll just find Wang Muzheng's grave later."

"it is good."

As the moonlight was shattered by thick clouds, two kerosene lamps tore open the spiderweb that had clung to the cemetery for a hundred years.

Jiang Qi stared at Lu Zhi's gray wool coat, which was being blown about by the wind, and his Adam's apple bobbed.

The once magnificent royal cemetery, which was magnificent a century ago, now has crumbling tombstones that look like the fangs of a giant beast, and the eyes of the dragons that once adorned the white marble pillars have long been eroded by acid rain.

"This is it."

Lu Zhi's boot tip rolled over half a faded yellow talisman paper, and the kerosene lamp illuminated the crack between the grave mound and the tombstone.

Jiang Qi picked up a shovel and pretended to dig, but Lu Zhi stopped him with lightning speed.

"Brother, let me do this rough work by myself."

Jiang Qi couldn't help but sneeze, and stopped trying to be brave.

Lu Zhi possesses inexhaustible strength; he can dig out a coffin all by himself.

His presence would actually be more of a hindrance than a help.

Lu Zhi took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and started digging.

Jiang Qi caught a whiff of cedar scent emanating from him, mixed with the fishy smell emanating from the shovel as it was driven into the frozen soil. "When did you start wearing perfume?"

"This is my brother's scent."

Jiang Qi walked around the grave mound before belatedly realizing what Lu Zhi meant.

The withered branches suddenly cracked beneath his feet, and the intertwined shadows of the two were cast onto the lichen-covered mound of graves.

As the dull thud of the shovel tip hitting a hard object shook off the snow on top of the monument, Jiang Qi suddenly pressed down on Lu Zhi's hand, whose veins were bulging: "Wait, listen."

The sound of bells mingled with the sobbing wind.

The sound of the bell seemed to seep from the ground, lingering around the newly dug blue brick tomb.

"Yes, I heard that too. It seems we dug the right spot."

In the distance came the mournful hoofbeats of an owl. Lu Zhi's shovel struck the crack in the brickwork heavily, and moss fell in a rustling sound.

Dang clang——

A putrid, eerie wind rushed out from the pried-open tomb door. Lu Zhi threw away the shovel and reached out to pick up Jiang Qi.

"Let's go in and take a look."

A metallic hum echoed deep within the tomb passage, like someone plucking taut strings.

The sound was strangely familiar—it sounded like the Soul-Binding Bell.

The walls of the tomb passage are densely covered with soul-suppressing talismans.

The patterns on the symbols have been eroded by time and are now mottled, but the traces of cinnabar seeping into the cracks in the bricks are still clearly visible.

Blood was seeping from the sandalwood coffin in the center of the tomb.

Blood droplets trickled down the ink lines wrapped around the coffin, and the cotton threads, soaked in black dog blood, now had an eerie bluish-purple hue.

The kerosene lamp in Lu Zhi's hand suddenly burst open with a "pop," and the flame shot up three feet high, casting the distorted shadows of the two people onto the wall covered with talismans.

The tomb was not deep, and the two quickly reached the center of the tomb, where they stopped.

Jiang Qi covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve. The soul-suppressing nails at the four corners of the coffin were covered with cracks, and the Taotie carved on the nail heads had a ferocious appearance.

His eyes swept around the room, and he couldn't help but mutter to himself.

"It is indeed the Soul-Binding Bell, and it is a Soul-Locking Array made up of a total of forty-nine of them."

"The nails on the coffin are made of thousand-year-old peach wood..."

Suddenly, he noticed a corner of red stuck in the gap of the coffin lid, like... the hem of a wedding dress.

A cold wind suddenly rose from the ground, and all forty-nine copper bells shattered simultaneously.

A chilling, bone-deep coldness crept up my spine and up my neck.

Lu Zhi steadied himself and held Jiang Qi tightly in his arms.

Crimson mist rose from the shattered coffin, and frost-like yin energy spread among the weeds, instantly covering the eyelashes of the two people with ice crystals.

The sound of the red silk tearing pierced through my eardrums.

The coffin lid was suddenly flung off, and amidst the falling rain of paper money, a pair of embroidered shoes adorned with pearls gently touched the ground.

The cold air instantly condensed into frost and formed blades.

The once magnificent wedding dress worn by the ghost bride was now tattered, the twin lotus flowers embroidered with gold thread torn into bloody threads by some kind of sharp claws.

As the tattered wedding robe was whipped up by the eerie wind, Jiang Qi smelled a strange scent that was a mixture of aged blood and sandalwood.

The moment the ghost bride raised her head, the chirping of insects throughout the cemetery abruptly ceased.

Her veil had long since decayed, revealing her bluish-gray face. Her willow-leaf eyebrows were drawn with exquisite detail using snail-shell ink, and she held a broken jade ruyi between her lips.

"umbrella--"

Jiang Qi suddenly grabbed Lu Zhi's shoulder.

Following his gaze, one could see a pale, paper-white hand gripping the red-lacquered, mottled handle of an umbrella whose ribs were pieced together from stark white bones.

The umbrella surface, however, was a vibrant, glistening red, as if it had just been soaked in a pool of blood.

As the umbrella spun, Lu Zhi saw that the painting inside was not of ordinary flowers and birds, but of a hundred ghosts parading at night.

"you……"

A hoarse female voice, tinged with ice, drifted forward half a step, her rotten embroidered shoes never touching the ground.

“He Yuping, we meant no harm.”

Jiang Qi's weak voice suddenly rang out.

Before he could finish speaking, the red umbrella suddenly closed, and when the tip of the umbrella pierced Lu Zhi's shoulder blade, not a single drop of blood splattered.

Lu Zhi touched his shoulder; he didn't feel any pain.

The ghost bride, He Yuping, tilted her head and sized up the frail young man, then chuckled to herself.

The soft laughter emanating from beneath the veil was ethereal and fleeting, yet it startled the eternal flames burning in the four corners of the tomb chamber, causing them to flicker and go out.

"Thank you for releasing me."

The viewers in the live stream were stunned and somewhat puzzled.

"No, this is not what I expected."

"The ghost bride is so full of resentment, shouldn't she be going on a killing spree? Why does she look so amiable? She didn't even hurt Lu Zhi."

"Don't be fooled. This is a vengeful ghost that has absorbed a hundred years of resentment. Killing a helpless human is just a matter of a thought."

"Ahhhh, will this dungeon wipe us out? My beloved Cang Sheng, Xiao Xue and Wan Chu are dead, please don't let Qi Shen die, waaaaaah."

"Otherwise, how could this dungeon be closed? It's because the completion rate is zero."

"Actually, it's already a miracle that Jiang Qi, with his poor health, was able to find the Prince's Cemetery after reading only a few letters."

"Oh dear, I really hope Jiang Qi can save them after clearing the dungeon."

"It's such a pity. If Qi Shen hadn't been targeted, Lin Wanchu and Lu Xue wouldn't have had to die."

"If Lu Xue doesn't die, who can deal with He Yuelin? Besides, Lin Wanchu was already at her limit, so committing suicide for love was the best choice she could make."