Hundred Ghosts Night Parade! The Living, Keep Out!

Zi Jin couldn't help but add a warning.

"The next words out of your mouth had better be something a human would say, not more nonsense. Time is really of the essence now."

Wu Wang's face was a picture of disappointment.

"Oh, then I have nothing to say."

The corners of everyone's mouths twitched.

This guy was actually planning to crack a joke at a time like this.

Was he really right in the head?

Then, Wu Wang's face immediately lit up with a grin.

"Just kidding. I'm the old King of Ideas."

"The opera, Lord Guan's Great Battle against Chi You at the Salt Pond... it seems absurd, right?"

"But as far as I know, this opera actually exists."

"I was so focused on dancing just now that I didn't remember it at first. Only after calming down did I recall that I've seen this opera before."

This wasn't just Wu Wang spouting nonsense.

While browsing through books on ancient culture and history, he had indeed come across this opera being used as an example in a section about cultural origins.

After all, with so much information stored in his brain, he needed a little time to recall things.

It wasn't just operas. There was also a certain crosstalk routine about Guan Gong fighting Qin Qiong.

It was another one of those stories that seemed bizarrely absurd at first glance.

In the long course of historical development, Lord Guan's cultural image had ceased to be confined to the Three Kingdoms period.

He was gradually deified, his legend changing based on local customs and beliefs.

"In folk beliefs, Lord Guan represents 'goodness' and 'justice.' That's right, he also became an Ally of Justice. The kind of episode that would make Emiya Shirou happiest."

"And the image Chi You represents is 'evil' and 'sin'."

"Besides, Lord Guan himself was a native of Xie Prefecture, by the salt lake. So this seemingly abstract opera is just the local people adding their own flavor to a familiar legend."

This spout of historical trivia left the other players standing there, stunned.

To be honest, they hadn't expected him to analyze the situation from a historical perspective.

They were even more surprised that Pending Death, who seemed to have a screw loose, possessed such a rich cultural foundation.

As if noticing the strange looks in their eyes, Wu Wang frowned.

"You all seem to be thinking something impolite. I feel like you're about to ask, ‘Can someone like him actually be literate?'"

The players, their thoughts exposed, wore awkward expressions.

But in the next second, they heard him say proudly, "Of course I have to read books and newspapers. Otherwise, where would I get all this knowledge to pull off my surrealist stunts?"

The players were speechless.

"..."

That was more like it. This guy's brain was definitely wired wrong.

They had seen people who read to improve themselves, but they had never seen someone who read just to mess around and lower their own standards.

Wu Wang put on a serious face again.

"Ahem, let me continue talking about Lord Guan. From this perspective, if we apply it to the situation in the Opera God's Righteous Garden..."

Before he could finish, the book boy, who had closed his Heavenly Eye, immediately picked up the thread.

"That is to say, something happened in this garden that these ghosts and monsters considered 'evil,' but it was later resolved by 'good'."

"But since Lord Guan in the opera is a celestial god and not a mortal, it could also be interpreted that after the 'good' in the garden resolved the 'evil,' it also ascended to immortality."

"Now, the ghosts and monsters want to use this Nuo Opera sacrifice to once again summon the arrival of 'good'."

"Could it be that in their eyes, the 'evil' is like Chi You? Although it was already dismembered at the salt pond, it has now made a comeback?"

Hearing the book boy's words, the way everyone looked at him also became a little strange.

Qiao Biluo's eyes, in particular, seemed to say, You can keep up with Pending Death's train of thought. Don't tell me you have a screw loose too?

In response, Wu Wang nodded in approval.

"Exactly. That's what I mean."

Zi Jin reacted at once.

"I understand. You want to use the ghosts' Nuo Opera to figure out the good and evil among the NPCs in the Opera God's Righteous Garden. That way, you can find a way to make them move aside."

Snap.

Wu Wang snapped his fingers.

He nodded, affirming her idea.

After all, he had learned things about the past from the memories in the Dilapidated Opera Building, and he had discovered contradictions between then and now.

Lou Yu had disappeared right here in this Nuo Opera Garden. Wu Wang refused to believe the garden's current state had nothing to do with her disappearance.

In other words, these ghosts and monsters knew some inside information about what had happened.

From their perspective, what they considered “good” and “evil” might explain some of the contradictions in the memories. Perhaps he could even find a way to make them willingly hand over the blue-haired executioner's corpse.

Qiao Biluo frowned.

"How do we communicate with them? By dancing? We haven't learned Nuo Opera."

But as she spoke, her gaze was clearly fixed on Wu Wang.

Just now, he had performed a Nuo Dance to threaten these ghosts. It was obvious she was nominating him to go dance and communicate.

She herself had no desire to do something so potentially dangerous.

To this, Wu Wang shook his head.

"The point of Nuo Opera isn't the dance itself, but conveying ideas."

He added, "You guys don't really think I can do the Nuo Dance, do you?"

This sentence made the others recall the dance he had performed just moments ago. They couldn't help but look bewildered.

If not? If you can't do the Nuo Dance, then what was that just now?

Seeing their expressions, the book boy sighed.

"What he was dancing just now seems to be a niche internet dance from the 2D world. It's called Gokuraku Jodo. I only thought it looked similar before, but now I'm certain it is."

Wu Wang raised an eyebrow in admiration.

"Yo, little bro, you really know your stuff!"

For some reason, everyone suddenly felt that habit was a terrifying thing.

If this were in the past, and they saw a player dancing Gokuraku Jodo in front of ghosts, they would have thought either he was crazy, or The World was.

But now, finding out the dancer was Pending Death, their first reaction was that it was perfectly logical.

Without them even realizing it, this guy had raised their threshold for the surreal.

"Don't just stand there. Let's dance together," the book boy said.

With that, he walked up to the group of ghosts.

With a solemn expression, he began to perform a wild, unrestrained dance.

At first glance, the players felt that if his long robe were swapped for an animal-skin skirt, he wouldn't look out of place at all.

Only Wu Wang's expression faltered.

Of course, Wu Wang's claim that he couldn't do the Nuo Dance had been a joke.

So now, he was one hundred percent certain. The book boy could really dance.

And it was remarkably standard. It wasn't an imitation of the ghosts' dance but an instinct honed over long years of practice.

This guy was hiding his talents deep.

Wu Wang now suspected that even without his earlier interpretation of Lord Guan's Great Battle against Chi You at the Salt Pond, the book boy could have deduced it on his own.

Perhaps when they encountered the 【Blessing】 earlier, the book boy could have used the Nuo Dance to convey his thoughts to the masked ghosts and protect himself.

This person's cultural knowledge of opera was in no way inferior to his own.

Or perhaps, his understanding of this instance far exceeded what the others imagined.

Wu Wang turned to Zi Jin and Xiaoxiao.

"Don't just stand there, ladies. You don't want to become 2D paper wives, do you?"

After speaking, he pointed a finger at the ghost masks on the ground.

As the players' bodies began to change and shift toward the Yin World, the masks on the ground were decreasing in number, replaced by more and more ghosts.

By now, they understood that if they stayed here much longer, they too would become one of those ghost masks, forever trapped in the Nuo Opera Garden as a part of the Yin World.

So, they stepped forward and began to dance.

They tried their best to use the movements to ask the ghosts who the “good” and “evil” in the Opera God's Righteous Garden represented.

Seeing that Qiao Biluo remained unmoved, Wu Wang spoke again.

"Hey, semi-truck, aren't you going to start your engine?"

Qiao Biluo's face turned ugly, and she gritted her teeth.

"Semi... semi-truck?"

Her figure was indeed a bit plump, but the term “semi-truck” was a bit too aggressive.

If they weren't in a crisis, she would have taken out an item and slapped this kid to death for spouting such nonsense.

But then she remembered his skills when he fought the Prince, and she held back.

And so, all the players began to perform their own distinct dances in front of the ghosts.

At first, the ghosts were hostile. But gradually, their gazes were drawn to the movements of Wu Wang and the book boy.

What Wu Wang was dancing this time was still not the Nuo Dance.

It was breakdancing, and the moves were extremely difficult.

Logically, this should have only been eye-catching on a technical level.

But the aura he exuded, comparable to Lord Guan descending to the mortal realm, allowed the ghosts to read the message he wanted to convey.

In fact, Wu Wang himself hadn't realized it.

Whether it was now or when he danced earlier, in the eyes of the ghosts, he was perfectly playing the role of the “Abyss God.”

That was why they could understand him so smoothly.

It was just as the book boy had said before.

"Sacrifice is a means of observation, of conveying human affairs to the gods."

The essence of a sacrifice is to tell a story for the ghosts and gods to hear.

And at this moment, Wu Wang was a god in the eyes of the ghosts. A divine oracle could not be ignored.

The book boy, on the other hand, was so skilled that the ghosts for a time thought one of their own was dancing.

With a wave of his hand, he tore the restrictive hem of his robe. Each step seemed to stomp heavily on the hearts of everyone watching.

The occasional roars from his mouth were filled with a wild and primitive aura.

At this moment, the book boy was the perfect “impersonator of the dead.”

His level of professionalism was baffling.

Even though he wore no mask, in the eyes of others, it was as if he had become a different person.

The other players gradually stopped their dancing.

Compared to the divine pressure erupting from Wu Wang and the perfect performance of the book boy's Nuo Dance, the three of them were like greenhorns dragged to Verdun the moment they came of age.

They didn't even qualify to serve as a backdrop.

The masked ghosts hadn't even glanced at them once.

Qiao Biluo couldn't help but say indignantly, "Why did that bastard tell us to dance? It's obvious the two of them are enough."

As someone whose figure and dance moves weren't outstanding, the few twists she had just performed were so shameful she wanted to dig a hole and bury herself in it.

Although Zi Jin was also confused, she didn't ask.

After hearing Qiao Biluo's complaint, Xiaoxiao was silent for a moment.

"He probably just wanted to tease you and make you dance to embarrass yourself."

Qiao Biluo was speechless.

"?"

For some reason, she couldn't find any reason to refute that. She knew that bastard was exactly the kind of scoundrel capable of doing something so absurd in the middle of a life-and-death crisis.

Dong dong dong!

"Hoo hah! Hoo!"

Just then, the sound of pounding drums echoed around them once more.

The masked ghosts began to step to the rhythm of the Nuo Dance. This time, the scale was clearly much grander than before.

Xiaoxiao and the others saw the masked ghosts spread out.

Some ran to the rooftops and danced under the moonlight. Some pulled out large wooden sabers from nowhere and began to brandish them. Some lay prone on the ground, smearing their masks with mud until they were filthy.

Most baffling of all, some ghosts even picked up branches and stuck them in their heads.

In an instant, the entire Nuo Opera Garden was filled with masked ghosts.

The Hundred Ghosts Night Parade unfolded before the players like a painted scroll.

Watching the bizarre actions and Nuo Dance of these masked ghosts, the three female players were extremely tense.

They all took out their items, ready to defend themselves at any moment, and constantly checked their bodies to see if the changes from the 【Blessing】 were reappearing.

However, as the masked ghosts' Nuo Dance grew more complex, they discovered that the figures of Wu Wang and the book boy were gradually disappearing into the performance.

The two of them seemed to have completely merged into the sacrifice.

Xiaoxiao squinted, her expression uncertain.

"No... that's not right. It seems like they really are just conveying some kind of information, not attacking us."

Clearly, the content this time was much more complex. No matter how hard they tried to follow along, they couldn't grasp the information contained within the dance.

It seemed they could only wait for Wu Wang and the book boy to reappear.

Just then, Zi Jin's gaze suddenly turned to the wall.

"Look over there," she said, puzzled. "Did a new path just appear?"

Xiaoxiao and Qiao Biluo looked over.

They were stunned to find that an arched doorway had appeared on the ink-black wall.

At its end was a small courtyard. There was nothing strange inside, only an ancient well in the middle of the garden.

Next to it were a wooden bucket and a rope for drawing water.

The well was sealed shut by a massive millstone, so large that two people linking arms couldn't encircle it.

Its weight made it clear that it couldn't be moved easily.

The three of them exchanged a look.

Zi Jin was the first to walk in.

The path had clearly appeared because of the masked ghosts' Nuo Dance. Since it was hidden so secretively, there had to be an important clue inside.

Wu Wang and the book boy were still negotiating with the ghosts and couldn't break away. They could not miss such a fleeting opportunity.

However, the moment she stepped into the small courtyard, Zi Jin let out a cry of surprise.

She immediately threw out a long, thin object from her sleeve.

It was the hairpin she had previously used to trade for information.

At this moment, the hairpin was emitting waves of cold air, making it impossible to hold.

Zi Jin speculated aloud.

"This place... is related to Lou Yu?"

BOOM!

Outside the courtyard, the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade was reaching its climax. The sound of the drums was like thunder.

On the dancing bodies of Wu Wang and the book boy, gray and white patterns began to appear, gradually spreading across their faces.

The patterns formed painted visages resembling ghost faces.

This was especially true for Wu Wang. The faint black and white Peking Opera mask on his left wrist was rapidly solidifying from illusion into reality.

It even began to twist ferociously, as if trying to crawl out of his body.

Yet he had no reaction at all.

He was completely immersed in the story being told by the masked ghosts.

The expressions on both their faces grew more and more fascinating as they murmured in unison.

"The person who disappeared back then..."

"Wasn't Lou Yu!"

"It was Yu Ji!"