Chapter 1 What's Going On?

"How much further?" Han Juanjuan tried her best to look up at the mountain peaks above, his eyes filled with unconcealed urgency. The other team was risking their lives to buy them time, and Lu Yu, left alone in the cave, worried him.

Shang Zuo stopped, adjusted his loosened hat brim. The long climb was taking its toll, and he answered, panting, "Almost... almost there. Turn past this mountain pass, there's a small path behind it. We came down that path last time. Not far now."

They hadn't rested along the way. Zi Gui had everyone discard anything useless, traveling light. They had only kept one tent, currently carried on Fatty's back.

Fatty hadn't said much on the way. He remembered Jiang Cheng's words: keep a close eye on Shang Zuo. Shang Zuo had to stay alive until they reached the Saintess's tomb.

"Don't talk," Zi Gui reminded. "Keep moving. We're pressed for time."

They weren't far from the summit, at a high altitude with thin air. Each step required an effort that people accustomed to plains couldn't imagine.

Fortunately, the stamina of several of them was good, especially Wang Fugui. Zi Gui had been paying close attention to this man the entire way.

As a teacher, Zi Gui felt responsible for her students and the rest of the team, so she was still wary of Fatty, an outsider.

No one knew what someone with a simple appearance was really thinking.

The unpredictability of the human heart was fully on display during missions. Even if Fatty had shown kindness before, it could just be a disguise.

During their first mission, they had been backstabbed by a simple-looking woman, leading to one student being noticed by a ghost. It grabbed his hand and a leg, tearing him in half. Blood mixed with organs flowed everywhere.

Zi Gui still remembered the bloody scene.

"Teacher Zi Gui." Fatty adjusted his backpack with one hand. "Being wary of me is useless. Your job is to find the path. We don't have time to waste." He paused, then continued, "I might not care about your friends' lives, but my brothers are with your friends, and I can't ignore them. So, rest assured."

His voice, mixed with the unique coldness of the snow mountain, made the latter frown slightly. Zi Gui didn't like the lecturing tone, but she understood the reasoning.

Zi Gui nodded without further explanation, and the group continued their journey.

Finally, the tranquility along the way was broken after turning past a slanted ice slope.

Stopping, Han Juanjuan stared at the scene before her, rubbing her eyes in surprise. "What... what's going on here?"

Dozens of snowmen were piled haphazardly in front of them, a few dozen meters away.

The snowmen's bodies faced their direction, as if anticipating someone would come this way.

It wasn't clear who or what had made these snowmen, but their presence here definitely meant trouble. And the longer they looked, the more eerie they seemed.

"Did you see these snowmen last time you came?" Fatty asked in a low voice.

Shang Zuo seemed to snap out of it, quickly shaking his head. "No, absolutely not. I can guarantee it!"

"Besides this road, is there another way?" Han Juanjuan withdrew his gaze and looked at Shang Zuo, who was leading the way, since he was the only one who had been here before.

Zi Gui carefully observed that the location of the snowmen was awkward, right in the middle of two ice slopes. To pass this way, they had to go through here.

"Maybe... maybe there is," Shang Zuo said hesitantly.

"Either there is, or there isn't. What do you mean, maybe?" Han Juanjuan said angrily.

Fatty could hear that besides anxiety, there was also fear deep in his heart, which was only natural.

"There should be, but I don't know. I only know this one road. We can look around nearby, maybe..."

Before he could finish, a clear, cold female voice interrupted him. Zi Gui stared at the snowmen and said quickly, "There's no time. We're going straight through."

"If these snowmen were left by locals as a warning, then we'll be fine. If they were made by a hungry ghost..." Zi Gui took a deep breath, and the next moment, her tone was firm as she said, "Then it's useless for us to find another route. It has already targeted us. Any road we take will be the same."

Hearing this, everyone's faces turned ugly. If these snowmen were really created by a hungry ghost, did that mean it had seen through their plan?

More pessimistically, had the team acting as bait already met with misfortune?

"They'll be fine!" Someone suddenly spoke, interrupting everyone's thoughts. Fatty said loudly, "My two friends are very strong. Their level is much higher than you think. There's no need to worry about them. Everyone, don't be distracted. Our two teams will each do our duty." Fatty waved his hand, and angles actually appeared on his chubby face. "Follow me!"

The encouragement at the last moment had an unexpected effect. As Fatty was the first to walk towards the snowmen, like an icebreaker, the sense of oppression that enveloped everyone's hearts was pushed back by Fatty alone.

Immediately afterward, Zi Gui started walking, closely following Fatty. Shang Zuo gritted his teeth and followed as well, and finally Han Juanjuan. Before leaving, Teacher Gongsun had instructed him to keep a close eye on Shang Zuo, which he dared not forget.

Looking at Fatty's broad back, Zi Gui suddenly had a very reliable feeling, as if from this moment on, this man had become everyone's support.

But what surprised her was that the other party... was clearly just a stranger.

There was no time for her to think carefully. Once they got closer to the snowmen, they realized that there were far more of them than they had imagined, blocking the road in a haphazard manner, and they needed to constantly detour.

Moreover, the snowmen came in various shapes, but without exception, they were all filled with a strange sense of disharmony, which they couldn't describe.

Due to her abilities, Zi Gui was very sensitive. She vaguely sensed a malicious gaze staring at her. She kept tilting her head to look at the surrounding snowmen, trying to find the source of the gaze.

"It seems... something's not right." Shang Zuo wrapped his clothes tighter and asked in a trembling voice, "I didn't see so many snowmen before. How come there are so many now?"

Just as everyone was feeling strange, Han Juanjuan, who was walking at the end, was in a state of high tension. Suddenly, his peripheral vision caught something. The next moment, he immediately turned around, looking at a spot to his side and behind him. "Who?!"

He vaguely saw a black shadow, sneaking behind a snowman.

Moreover, the black shadow gave him a strange sense of familiarity, as if he had seen it before.