Chapter 255: Correct Understanding, Evil Understanding!
In order to gather information, the other Chosen Ones had begun searching for a well near the temple during this period.
They were even trying to curry favor with every NPC, seeking any useful leads.
In the world of strange tales, Chosen Ones must be very proactive to obtain the information they need.
Even Gregori and Hild had set aside their pride, carefully washing the delicious food they found and offering it to the NPCs of other teams. After all, gifts make it hard to speak ill. Through continuous chatting, they extracted useful information from lengthy dialogues.
Useful information, in this context, meant clues that could help deduce the rules.
But there was one exception, someone utterly unexpected.
While other Chosen Ones were actively seeking information, Zhang Yangqing simply acquired it lying down.
This fact baffled not only the other Chosen Ones and the audience but even Zhang Yangqing himself was somewhat taken aback.
What was Zhang Yangqing doing at this moment?
Naturally, he was resting against a pillar in the main hall of the temple. The task of searching for the [Well] near the temple had been delegated to the one-eyed young man.
One had to admit, the nurses were truly adept at caring for people; it just depended on whether they wanted to care for you.
When it came to Zhang Yangqing, they naturally offered their very best service.
In front of Zhang Yangqing lay fruit peeled by the three nurses; he only needed to crook a finger to taste it.
There was even a nurse massaging his shoulders and giving him a rubdown.
Outside the main hall, wisps of smoky aroma from roasting meat drifted through the air, making mouths water involuntarily.
The tender color of the meat glistened temptingly under the glow of the flames.
Meat slices sizzled on the grill, and as the flames danced, the meaty fragrance grew richer and richer.
The lone wolf veteran skillfully flipped the meat slices. Fat rendered from the meat dripped onto the charcoal fire, creating a crackling sound. This sound, rising together with the aroma of roasting meat, greatly stimulated one’s appetite.
When the meat slices were roasted to a golden yellow, it meant they had fully absorbed the fragrance of the charcoal fire.
This spectacle had the audience drooling with envy, exclaiming that Heavenly Master Zhang was practically on vacation!
Aside from Zhang Yangqing, practically no other Chosen One pursued delicious food; they were content as long as it was edible.
To curry favor with Zhang Yangqing, to beg him to take them into the city, everyone was going all out.
The lone wolf veteran was also very envious at first.
Was he envious that Zhang Yangqing enjoyed such treatment?
Of course not. He was envious that the three female nurses had the opportunity to please Zhang Yangqing, while he himself did not.
He regretted only that he had not been born a woman.
If a rough man like him tried to give Zhang Yangqing a massage, he would surely be kicked flying, right?
Therefore, he could only play to his strengths—decades of barbecue experience from living in the jungle—earning Zhang Yangqing’s lavish praise and successfully becoming a familiar face to him.
For some reason, the lone wolf veteran had a strong intuition that this big shot could lead him to ‘clear the level’.
It felt like everything was under the big shot’s control; no matter what happened, he wouldn’t panic.
The lone wolf veteran’s intuition was actually correct.
To be precise, Zhang Yangqing wasn’t omniscient, but he was extrapolating the information he gathered to its absolute limit, predicting what would happen next as much as possible.
Only by predicting could one avoid panic when events unfolded.
Furthermore, he understood the people around him as thoroughly as possible—their goals, their personalities—simulating everything in his mind.
He held a chessboard in his mind. As long as these pieces moved according to the pre-predicted patterns, there would be no major trouble.
As for creatures he hadn’t encountered before, he naturally couldn’t judge them accurately, only making rough conjectures.
In this way, he could position himself in a relatively safe place.
His chances of survival were much greater than those Chosen Ones who only started thinking of countermeasures when trouble arose.
And it was while Zhang Yangqing was enjoying the care of the three nurses that he gleaned a very important piece of information from their conversation.
“That couple is quite pitiful. They have a son who has trouble moving, and they’re always taking care of him.”
“I don’t know why, but last time I heard noises in their room and kindly wanted to check. I saw their son moving very strangely, stumbling even when walking. The couple came back and immediately chased me out.”
“I heard the boy encountered danger while traveling and accidentally hit his head. Maybe he injured his cerebellum, causing that condition.”
“And their daughter is quite strange too. She doesn’t talk much. Sometimes I feel like she’s staring at me coldly. It’s really odd.”
“Oh, you feel that way too? Last time I asked her if something was wrong, she just turned and walked away without a word.”
Suddenly, Zhang Yangqing connected these dialogues to something.
If he wasn’t mistaken, the couple’s son and daughter might have already been parasitized by strange insects.
Maybe one of them, maybe both.
Because anyone who passed the Bridge checkpoint would have noticed some peculiar insects.
These strange insects were already mimicking human behavior and movements, but they still couldn’t speak.
Some of the stranger, smaller insects would even eat the brains of larger insects and parasitize them.
That being the case, the probability of the couple’s son being an insect-human was very high.
It felt like he had just undergone possession and didn’t yet know how to control the body.
After all, everyone else seemed relatively normal.
The Chosen Ones had also seen the couple’s daughter; she always wore a crow mask and hadn’t drawn much attention before.
Their son seemed to rarely leave his room; the Chosen Ones indeed hadn’t seen him.
This was information that other Chosen Ones obtained by ingratiating themselves with the three nurses and integrating into their idle chatter.
Zhang Yangqing acquired it simply lying down.
As for how to determine if these two children were insect-humans, the rules stated that they just needed to be infected with three types of viruses.
And it would be best to do so without their knowledge.
On the first day at the temple, the team with the red mark—that family of four—was responsible for guarding the camp’s safety.
During this phase, he certainly couldn’t investigate; being discovered might lead to conflict.
He would have to wait until tomorrow, when the team with the purple mark was responsible for camp security and the red-marked team left the camp to scout the city perimeter. That would be the time to verify things.
After all, they couldn’t bring a child who could barely walk on such a dangerous task, could they?
And with members of other groups absent, the Chosen Ones could quietly approach.
Realizing this, Hild, the Transcendent from Hans Country, felt a sudden sense of ‘enlightenment’.
“So every ‘plot point’ in the strange tale world provides certain clues afterward. It seems you can deduce a lot of things. No wonder the Dragon Country’s Heavenly Master always starts causing chaos only after the plot unfolds. So that’s how it’s played!”
Hild suddenly felt very clever for being able to link information with the rules, thereby beginning to predict the upcoming plot.
Unlike at the start, when he was completely in the dark without information and rules.
This represented progress within the strange tale world, slowly adapting to its rhythm.
He just regretted not obtaining the black mucus, and having little disinfectant left. Otherwise, he’d want to attempt the hidden mission too. What a pity.
If other Transcendents knew his thoughts, they would surely say: “Are you stating the obvious here? Who can’t analyze in hindsight?”
Many Transcendents here could actually think of this, but missing one step meant drifting further away from the hidden mission.
Perfect clearance and simple clearance were two entirely different things.
Hild didn’t know what use identifying the insect-humans would be, but he decided to try and complete the task with a trial-and-error mindset.
After all, he had nothing else to do tomorrow; accumulating experience was good.
Today, Hild had an important task to complete: finding the [Well] and the [Potion] mentioned in the rules.
Outside the temple, in a small bamboo grove, Hild searched for a long time before finally finding the well mentioned in the rules.
He paced over near the well and observed it carefully for a while.
“I found the well, but it’s dry! Forget the moon, I can’t even see the sun down there!”
He observed the area closely for a while but found nothing strange.
He tried hard to recall the rule.
[Rule 4: Please carefully observe the well here. When the moon appears in the well, move away as quickly as possible!]
Actually, when he first arrived, Hild was quite worried about encountering danger.
But now, what danger was there? There wasn’t even any water.
Should he come back at night when the moonlight was out?
Or had he found the wrong well?
Hild even had a peculiar speculation: Did they expect him to carry water up from the small river at the mountain’s base and fill this well completely?
He had indeed seen several streams while searching for food.
But the distance wasn’t short, and it wasn’t a task that could be completed in a day or two. Surely the strange tale world wouldn’t torment the Chosen Ones this much!
This caused Hild’s newly enlightened little brain to crash once more.
He urgently needed information to decipher what was going on with these [Wells].
Just as Hild was racking his brains, Zhang Yangqing and the other Chosen Ones gradually received the information or found their way to this location.
The reason Hild discovered it so early was because he hadn’t gone to pick the black mandarin oranges.
Following Zhang Yangqing’s instructions, the one-eyed young man had been searching the temple vicinity for some time.
He found two wells, located in different spots.
To be precise, one well was in the bamboo grove behind the statue with open eyes.
The other well was in the bamboo grove behind the statue with closed eyes.
Just like what the other Chosen Ones reported, the one-eyed young man said the wells were dry. Not a moon in sight, not even a drop of water.
“Take me to see them first,” Zhang Yangqing said, rising to address the one-eyed young man.
For a complex matter like this, relying solely on secondhand information wasn’t enough; he needed to see it personally.
Perhaps there was some special hint the young man had missed.
Unlike other Chosen Ones who moved alone here, afraid of being discovered by others, acting as guilty as thieves.
Zhang Yangqing was very open about it. When the three nurses and the lone wolf veteran wanted to follow along, he didn’t stop them.
Because he judged these few individuals to be unproblematic. Since they were trustworthy and existed within the area mentioned by the rules, weren’t they reliable tools?
The mention of the word [Well] would naturally make any reasonably clever Chosen One think of [Water].
Zhang Yangqing seemed contemplative but didn’t voice his thoughts yet.
First, he followed the one-eyed young man to inspect the first well.
This well was in the bamboo grove behind the open-eyed statue.
When everyone peered down, they indeed saw nothing—just pitch blackness.
Shining a flashlight down revealed flagstones.
Below should be a fairly large cistern.
To be cautious, Zhang Yangqing first tossed a stone down.
After a short moment, the crisp sound of stone hitting stone echoed up. Apart from the noise of impact, nothing else happened.
“I’ll go down first to take a look. You all wait outside for me,” Zhang Yangqing decided to investigate thoroughly. If this was the well mentioned in the rules, there must be a mystery within.
Perhaps figuring out how to make water appear in this well was the puzzle of this stage.
Given that there might be danger, it was pointless for the others to argue with Zhang Yangqing about going first.
If even he couldn’t handle it, their going down would be futile.
Still, many hands make light work. Without needing Zhang Yangqing to lift a finger, the others chopped down a bamboo stalk and lowered it into the well.
The length of the bamboo was just enough to reach the bottom. Zhang Yangqing leaped down, sliding along the bamboo stalk to the well’s floor.
The moment his feet touched the stone slabs, a cold, damp draft hit him. The darkness of the well bottom was like a giant maw, swallowing all sound and light.
Zhang Yangqing switched on his flashlight and scanned the surroundings. The place felt somewhat damp.
It didn’t seem to have been dry for very long, perhaps only recently.
His hand touched the cold stone wall. The well bottom felt less spacious than expected, roughly as he had anticipated—merely a dim stone chamber.
The air was thick with a cloying, damp smell, a mixture of moist earth, stale decay, and some indescribable strange odor.
His fingers glided over the stone wall, feeling the rough surface marked by bumps and grooves.
Beyond that, with the faint light from above, Zhang Yangqing vaguely saw some patterns carved into the stone wall at the well’s bottom.
The pattern seemed partially obscured by vines. After clearing the vines away, a bizarre image appeared before him.
Under an endless, scorching sun and intense heat, the land seemed to have lost all vitality.
The ground was crisscrossed with deep cracks, like faces twisted in agony, displaying the earth’s thirst and struggle.
In this parched land, life seemed baked dry, bones littered the ground everywhere, leaving only tenacious humans kneeling, gazing up at the blazing sun with eyes full of desperate supplication, seemingly begging it to rain.
Seeing this, Zhang Yangqing felt a conjecture forming in his mind.
Then he jumped back up out of the well.
As soon as he emerged, a female nurse asked anxiously, “Are you hurt? Did you find anything?”
Zhang Yangqing replied, “I’m fine. I just found a mural.”
Another female nurse chimed in, “Oh? What kind of mural?”
Zhang Yangqing smiled but didn’t answer, merely saying he would explain after checking the next well.
The others, puzzled by his secretive behavior, nonetheless followed him to the next well opening.
Having already guessed something, Zhang Yangqing couldn’t be bothered to go down himself this time and sent the one-eyed young man instead.
Faced with this reasonable ‘collaboration request’, the one-eyed young man naturally didn’t refuse.
People from the same rehabilitation center naturally had some skills.
He too chopped down a bamboo stalk and climbed down.
Moments later, Zhang Yangqing heard the sound of him tearing away vines.
Before long, the one-eyed young man climbed back up.
“I found a mural down there too,” the one-eyed young man said thoughtfully.
He didn’t elaborate immediately, worried that Zhang Yangqing might not want the others to know.
Being clever, he phrased it this way, waiting to see what Zhang Yangqing intended.
However, Zhang Yangqing’s next words surprised him.
“The mural you saw—was it a scene of torrential rain? The sky looked torn open, rain pouring down from the clouds. Below, I imagine there was raging floodwater, and two people with their eyes closed, seemingly praying for the rain to stop?”
Zhang Yangqing finished speaking, and the one-eyed young man’s single eye widened.
“Y-you… how did you know? Have you been down there before?”
Hearing this, a slight smile curved Zhang Yangqing’s lips.
“It’s not that I’ve been down there; it’s that the mural on my side was basically the same, just the opposite.”
With that, Zhang Yangqing described the mural he had seen.
The two murals were exact opposites. As the others looked on in confusion, Zhang Yangqing revealed the correct interpretation.
Actually, this stage wasn’t difficult. It was simply about finding a way to pray for rain, using the rainwater to fill these two wells.
If they had to carry water up from the small river at the mountain’s base to fill the wells, how long would that take? Until the cows come home?
By the time the Chosen Ones finished carrying water, either their illness would have flared up, or the entire world would be in chaos.
Because if too much time passed, the doctors might all be killed.
There was a crucial detail here that the vast majority of people overlooked.
The city where the Chosen Ones started—its hospital had been attacked by ‘unknown creatures’ and severely damaged. It was a primary target.
Therefore, in this final stage, the strange tale world gave the Chosen Ones a bit of a buffer period. If the Chosen Ones weren’t quick enough, once the doctors were all dead, there would be no way out at all.
If others could also reach the well bottom and discover these murals, they would likely deduce something similar.
Namely, the murals were teaching the Chosen Ones how to pray for rain, much like the situation in the strange rental house.
Once the conditions depicted in the murals were met, the corresponding events would unfold.
Didn’t this temple have two statues?
One with open eyes, one with closed eyes.
That’s why the weather here was currently quite pleasant.
If they could somehow make both statues’ eyes open, or both closed, the corresponding weather should appear.
The rainwater would fill the wells. Once full, the other situations mentioned in the rules would manifest.
Then, the Chosen Ones could observe the well water to gain further information and deduce their next course of action.
This was a strategy that Chosen Ones with a bit of experience could figure out.
Zhang Yangqing only explained up to this point. He had an even more sinister plan he didn’t voice.
Actually, there was an evil interpretation of those two murals as well.
In the scorching sun mural, the two people kneeling on the ground actually wanted the sun to burn even fiercer, to annihilate all other living beings.
In the torrential rain mural, the two people kneeling with closed eyes actually wanted the rain to pour down even more violently, to destroy the buildings here.
Zhang Yangqing mused: If he played it that way, he could use this special weather to kill many people in this stage.
Even a sturdy fortress could be destroyed by a flood.
It was just a question of whether it was necessary.
Chosen Ones who reached this stage were often pushed to extremes.
The mindset became: You won’t let me live? Fine! Then none of us will live!
As the saying went, there was never just one way to clear a strange tale world.
It only depended on whether the Chosen Ones could think of alternative methods.
If things truly reached a dead end, a desperate fight to the finish, many Chosen Ones who figured it out would likely do the same.
After Zhang Yangqing finished his explanation, his teammates finally understood.
This temple was most likely a place for praying for rain and blessings, so having such a setting was quite normal.
“Big shot, what should we do? Should we close the statue’s eyes now?” The lone wolf veteran was eager to try.
Zhang Yangqing shook his head. “Let’s wait until tonight. The Green Team should be returning around this time. Only the few of us need to know about this. Absolutely do not tell anyone else.”
Hearing Zhang Yangqing’s words, everyone nodded, promising they wouldn’t breathe a word even under duress.
Zhang Yangqing actually wasn’t afraid of them leaking the information. After all, now that he understood the clearance rules, he was merely going through the motions.
If anyone refused to cooperate, he could directly remove the obstacles by force.
Obey if you want to live; I don’t mind if you choose death.
In any case, achieving more unlocks was about getting a higher score. Zhang Yangqing would do his best but wouldn’t overly inconvenience himself for it.
Just then, a deep, resonant voice sounded from behind the group.
“What are you all doing here?”
