Chapter 120: Exploring the Temple on the Second Loop

His heart pounded wildly. Everything happening around him felt utterly surreal.

In the distance, the desolate silhouette of Longshu Temple remained rooted in place, resembling a massive black coffin waiting to devour anyone who approached.

Gao Tian forced himself to calm down as quickly as possible, assessing his current situation.

It was nearing dusk in the Inner World. Lan Zhu and the others hadn't died yet. Jiang Yang hadn't entered Longshu Temple alone to explore, either.

Time had reset.

His guess was right. The time system in this Buddhist temple was broken. Every single day looped endlessly. Whether it was the monks inside or the outsiders who came to visit, no one could ever reach the morning of the second day.

No wonder those monks inside the Buddha statues were starved to skin and bones. From their perspective, they firmly believed only a single day had passed and that their master would return soon.

It was just one day without food. Being a little hungry was normal. If they just held on a bit longer, it would pass—

But they had no idea they had already turned into Fierce Ghosts. Their persistence through that ordinary "one day" had stretched on for unknown decades, perhaps even centuries.

From the perspective of Jiang Yang and the others, they had just parted ways with the old man at McDonald's and arrived at Longshu Temple. Gao Tian had sent the Wind Attendant Buddha in to explore, and now they were all about to enter the temple to begin this Green Text Mission.

Without the interference of Gao Tian, who retained all his memories, the four residents of the Apartment wouldn't change their approach much on this second loop. They would trigger Longshu Temple's Killing Rules one by one and be completely wiped out.

Then the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day—looping infinitely. They were like King Sisyphus cursed by the Greek gods, pushing a boulder up the mountain every day only to watch it roll back down and start all over again.

Even if they got incredibly lucky during one of these loops, and both Lan Zhu and Wang Wenbo managed to avoid their fatal destinies—

It would be meaningless.

In the middle of the night at Longshu Temple, the roar of a bear would echo from outside the temple, sweeping across the Inner World. It was an absolutely fatal Killing Rule. Anyone spending their first night in Longshu Temple was doomed to die. No matter what they did, they couldn't escape a total wipeout. Strictly speaking, Longshu Temple wasn't a simple infinite time loop, either.

With each loop, their bodies would undergo slight changes. It could be aging, hunger, exhaustion, confusion, or an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

Their ultimate fate would be just like that of the starved ghost monks inside the Buddha statues.

Thinking they had only waited for a single day, they would suddenly wake up to find their bodies decayed and ruined, overwhelmed by a monstrous hunger that burned like boiling fire. They would lose all trace of how they looked when they first arrived, becoming nothing more than withered prisoners trapped by time for millennia.

However, there was still one problem.

Whether it was the starved ghost monks in the temple, or Jiang Yang, Lan Zhu, and the others, none of them had any memory of the previous day.

Gao Tian guessed this was because his method of death was different from theirs.

After the four-person team was completely wiped out in Longshu Temple, time had automatically reset, bringing them back to their starting point.

But Gao Tian possessed a resurrection item.

He had died, yet hadn't completely died. During the period he was dead, the flow of time reversed. While the others rewound from corpses back into living people, Gao Tian rewound from a living person back into a living person.

It was the equivalent of exploiting a massive bug.

He hadn't actually died in the first place, nor did his body need to be reset by the time reversal. Therefore, he retained all his memories.

Gao Tian's heart began to pound wildly again.

As Yusheng's seventh task, the Longshu Temple instance originally had a difficulty that broke through the heavens.

If ordinary Apartment residents had attempted it, their clearance rate would be virtually zero. In all likelihood, they would be trapped in an eternal torrent of time, transforming into Fierce Ghosts adrift in a sea of suffering, facing an end far worse than death.

But Gao Tian was different. After dying time and time again, he clearly knew the consequence of triggering every single Supernatural Item and every specific action within Longshu Temple.

It was equivalent to gaining an omniscient, god-like perspective.

He was the only breakthrough point in this guaranteed-death task.

"Listen to me. This might sound incredibly absurd—

"I've been reborn. I've already experienced everything inside Longshu Temple. You all died—"

Lan Zhu walked over. Hearing the word "reborn" triggered a keyword, and she automatically rattled off as if reciting a menu: "I've been reborn. In my past life, I was buried alive by my husband and best friend. They live-streamed their wedding at my funeral!

"In this life, I have been reborn and returned, and I will personally take back everything that belongs to me."

Jiang Yang pulled Lan Zhu aside. "Lan Zhu, please don't cause trouble."

He turned to Gao Tian. Though his eyes flickered with shock and uncertainty, he suppressed his doubts and asked, "Are you really... reborn?

"Do you mean that our entry into Longshu Temple has already happened, and you traveled back from a previous timeline?"

This sort of situation was indeed very hard for him to accept.

He had just laid eyes on Longshu Temple, only for his teammate to suddenly look at him with sharp, clear eyes, declaring that they were all actually dead and currently on their second loop.

No one could accept that immediately.

But Jiang Yang had survived many Green Text Missions and encountered all kinds of bizarre things. He knew Gao Tian was a reliable person who wouldn't spout nonsense for no reason.

If Lan Zhu had been the one to say it, he would have slapped her across the face long ago to help drive out whatever ghost was possessing her.

Gao Tian gestured for them to sit down. Speaking as quickly as he could, he went over everything that had happened in the temple on the first day.

Listening to this left Jiang Yang with a deeply furrowed brow.

Wang Wenbo fiddled with the Electronic Wristwatch in his hands. "If time flowed backward, then according to the theory of reverse entropy, we would need to introduce the concepts of negative spacetime and negative energy to offset the positive curvature of spacetime in known physics. The energy consumption required for that would surpass astronomical figures. Even if you gathered all the energy in the entire universe, it would be extremely difficult to reverse time in a space the size of a palm.

"Of course, this is the Inner World. Many places operate on idealism, so I can't rigidly apply macroscopic physics here."

Jiang Yang shot him a glance. "You sure know a lot."

This time, before Wang Wenbo could speak, Gao Tian answered for him: "Because he earned three master's degrees in university. His parents forced him to declare his first major. Computer science is his reality, but physics and geology are his life."

After saying that, ignoring Wang Wenbo's astonished gaze, Gao Tian spoke as rapidly as possible: "In our second loop, we have to avoid all sweeping risks. First, Wang Wenbo, you stay away from that damn coffin. Lan Zhu, you stay away from the holes in the giant Buddha.

"Don't try to squeeze into a hole the moment you see one. Your death in the last timeline was absolutely disgusting. Half of your body smashed onto the ground, and your intestines spilled everywhere."

Through Gao Tian's description, Jiang Yang generally understood what had happened in the first loop. "How did the two of us die in the end? We just heard that strange bear roar, and then we died?

"Gao Tian, are you sure the bear's roar is the Killing Rule? Could something else have killed us? Like those starved ghosts—when night fell and the time they agreed upon with their master arrived, they might have crawled out from the holes in the Buddha statues."

Gao Tian firmly denied this. "Absolutely impossible. I'm not an idiot.

"The spot you picked beneath that Bodhisattva statue was absolutely perfect. It offered a view of most of the interior and exterior of the main hall, with barely any blind spots.

"If the starved ghosts inside the statues had crawled out, we would have seen them immediately. We wouldn't have given them the chance to make a move.

"I am absolutely certain. After hearing the bear's roar, you bled from all seven orifices and turned into a dried corpse instantly. And without touching a single thing, I slowly died as well."

That was going to be a problem.

Jiang Yang said, "If this bear's roar echoes every single night, then even as a reborn person who 'knows the future,' you couldn't possibly dodge the guaranteed Killing Rule at that specific time."

Of course, they could always look for materials to stuff their ears.

But ordinary plants and wood could never block their ears 100% effectively and prevent every single trace of sound from seeping in.

That bear roar lasted for a very long time. Doing so would only delay their deaths; the final outcome likely wouldn't change.

The most extreme measure would be to completely puncture their own eardrums to deafen themselves and evade the roar.

But sound traveled through vibrations. Just because they couldn't hear the roar didn't mean it ceased to exist. He had a feeling that even deaf people would still die under this Killing Rule.

Wang Wenbo suddenly thought of something. "Boss Gao Tian.

"Don't you have a Mirror that can hide people? If the four of us hide inside the Mirror before the bear's roar starts, wouldn't we be able to survive until the second day?"

Gao Tian replied, "That's one way to do it.

"But Longshu Temple has a ton of taboos, and some Supernatural Items are restricted. Before the bear's roar happens, I need to go into the temple first and test it out."

This Longshu Temple was like a thinking, deeply malicious 'living creature.'

Since it could use the murmurs of Buddhist scriptures to interfere with his Ghost Luck, it was entirely possible it could use other methods to target his Mirror Ghost.

He looked toward the ancient temple, which appeared increasingly dilapidated and desolate under the twilight. "Jiang Yang, you don't need to enter the temple. There's no point.

"I'll go in first.

"Our top priority right now is to pull out that Transparent Coffin and put it somewhere Wang Wenbo can't reach.

"Otherwise, the moment Wang Wenbo gets even slightly close to the coffin, he will be forcibly sucked into it and turned into a sacrifice. This rule is absolute; it targets him alone, and it's impossible to guard against."

Then there were the starved ghosts in the giant Buddha.

There was no rush to deal with these Fierce Ghosts, because as long as their Killing Rule was known in advance, it was very easy to avoid. There was no need to deliberately prepare for them.

Just before Gao Tian was about to set off, Jiang Yang, who had been deep in thought this whole time, looked up again. "Gao Tian, you said earlier that those starved ghosts inside the Buddha swore up and down that their master would definitely return at night, right?"

Gao Tian answered, "They did say that.

"But looking at it now, I'm guessing it's highly likely that these starved ghosts were lying to us.

"They can't leave the giant Buddha to come out and kill us. So they had to figure out a way to make us stay in the temple overnight."

Jiang Yang said, "That might not be the case.

"If what these starved ghosts said is true, it might very well be our next major breakthrough point.

"I have an idea. You can hear me out."