"Holy shit!" Wu Tianzhen yelped, jumping back. He stumbled and landed squarely in Fatty's arms.
Seizing the opportunity, Fatty twisted his hands into a passable imitation of a delicate orchid gesture, then whined in a high-pitched voice, "Oh, you naughty thing, it's broad daylight, I'm so embarrassed, hehehe~"
Wu Tianzhen: ...
He almost gagged. He scrambled out of Fatty's embrace as if his backside were on fire.
Fatty's theatrical display had, however, somewhat eased Wu Tianzhen's fear. When he looked again, he finally saw clearly that it was just a person who had met an unfortunate end while climbing the snow mountain.
"Damn, someone actually dared to climb this place alone?" Wu Tianzhen's fear turned to sympathy. Frankly, after encountering Mr. Li Wang, the nameless Mr. Bronze Tree, and a host of other oddities from the realm of the deceased, he had become quite accustomed to dead bodies.
At least he wasn't scared half to death anymore. (That last scare didn't count.)
The two randomly selected a few deities, without regard for whether they were the right fit for the job, and offered prayers in an attempt to appease the lingering resentment of the ill-fated soul.
Believing they had settled the old fellow's unrest, Wu Tianzhen and Fatty tidied themselves up and prepared to continue their ascent. Little Brother had been waiting for them for quite some time, and they couldn't dawdle any longer.
But as they looked up, they saw Zhang Qiling staring intently at the corpse in red, his brow furrowed, lost in thought.
"Little Brother, what's wrong?" Wu Tianzhen quickly scrambled a few steps closer to Zhang Qiling and looked in the same direction, but he couldn't see anything amiss with the corpse.
"...I didn't see it just now," Zhang Qiling said softly after a moment of silence, turning his face away.
"Oh, Little Brother~" Fatty had caught up by then, standing on a protruding rock behind them. With the advantage of height, he boldly reached out and patted Zhang Qiling's hood.
"You're so focused on the journey, it's normal to miss a ghost or a corpse!"
"As long as you deities don't miss me and Tianzhen, that's all that matters, right, Tianzhen?"
But Wu Tianzhen didn't respond to his remark. He froze after Zhang Qiling's words and, after a long pause, abruptly turned his head to look at the corpse.
Whether it was his imagination or not, Wu Tianzhen distinctly felt that the corpse had slightly turned its head compared to just moments ago.
Even though he had climbed a considerable distance, the corpse was now facing him directly, staring intently!
...Little Brother wouldn't miss something like this. His saying he hadn't seen it just now meant—
That corpse in red hadn't been on that mountain at all. It had suddenly appeared there!!!
"Something's not right, Fatty. That thing is abnormal," Wu Tianzhen whispered, afraid of disturbing the eerie corpse.
Fatty, realizing the gravity of the situation, stopped his wisecracks.
He cautiously eyed the corpse for a moment, then gasped, muttering in surprise, "This damn thing is a whole mountain away, what kind of mischief can it pull? Can it grow wings and fly over?"
Hearing this, Wu Tianzhen instinctively wanted to tell Fatty to shut his mouth, but then he remembered that Fatty wasn't as prone to jinxes as he was, where whatever he said came true. So, he swallowed his words.
Zhang Qiling quietly observed the corpse in red for a few seconds, then slowly shifted his gaze.
"Let's go."
"Oh, right!" Fatty immediately agreed. "Let's get out of here and leave it behind. See what else it can do!"
...It wasn't like that.
Wu Tianzhen looked at Zhang Qiling worriedly, noticing that the frown under his hood hadn't eased, and his lips were now pressed together slightly, clearly showing he wasn't reassured.
Unaware of Wu Tianzhen's gaze, Zhang Qiling slightly quickened his pace.
...That corpse in red wasn't alone. The moment it appeared on the side of that snow mountain, Zhang Qiling distinctly felt the invisible pressure from the mysterious power surrounding him suddenly loosen. What followed was a different, even stronger and more peculiar sense of being watched.
It was as if two forces were engaged in a struggle within the silent mountain range, taking turns to gain the upper hand.
And this current force—
The flow of the Qilin blood within him gradually accelerated, and the restlessness of the Qilin tattoo reached an extreme, causing even Zhang Qiling's usually calm demeanor to waver.
...This current force would likely only exacerbate the strangeness of Changbai Mountain.
He exhaled silently and stopped.
Wu Tianzhen and Fatty, following closely behind him, almost collided with him.
"What's wrong—" Wu Tianzhen poked his head out to ask, but quickly cut himself off.
In the white expanse to their side and front, a stark red appeared, entwining them like a vengeful spirit.
From their current position, they should only be seeing the corpse's back. But now, its stiff head had twisted a full 180 degrees, staring at them intently.
"Holy shit! It really fucking followed us!" Fatty yelped in surprise. "Why is it still staring like that? Is it cosplaying as the Mona Lisa?!"
The famous painting, the Mona Lisa, is said to gaze at the viewer, smiling, no matter from what angle they observe it.
"Don't insult a great work of art..." Wu Tianzhen retorted through gritted teeth, feeling a chill run down his spine, a vein throbbing on his forehead.
"What do we do, Little Brother? It looks like we can't shake it off," Wu Tianzhen looked at Zhang Qiling, finding a sense of security only in his presence.
But Zhang Qiling no longer looked at the corpse.
He quietly surveyed their surroundings, a hint of realization dawning on his face.
"No," Zhang Qiling said.
"It's not that it followed us. It's that we've returned."
Amidst the rustling snow, Wu Tianzhen momentarily doubted his hearing.
But soon, a shiver of dread ran through him.
He looked around. The snow-capped mountains stood silently, as if they had been waiting here for millennia, unchanged.
But Wu Tianzhen, with his sharp memory, clearly saw that something was wrong—
These surrounding snow mountains were identical to the ones near where they had just been!
It was true, the corpse hadn't grown wings and flown over; they had somehow been going in circles!
The corpse in red seemed to slowly rise, but Zhang Qiling didn't spare it a single glance.
A vast power now pervaded this land. Even using his skills in Feng Shui and his clairvoyant eyes, Zhang Qiling could only see a thick, heavy black mist before him.
The corpse was merely a bonus gift from the arrival of the eerie power, posing no threat. Even if it performed a set of calisthenics right there, it wouldn't affect them in the slightest.
...It seemed they could only wait for the outcome of the battle between these two forces.
Zhang Qiling pondered this. Just then, a faint sound echoed through the serene expanse of Changbai Mountain!