Ch69 - Fear of the Full Moon

After a simple conversation, Nan Zhou crossed out one of the alternative actions he had listed in his mind.

He thought that if they were dealing with logically normal NPCs with the physical strength of humans and if they could be convinced to stay put then he only needed to occupy a slightly higher altitude before the end of the game to win. However, this obviously made no sense when looking at the zombie who was so thin and withered that he looked like he had crawled out of a snow nest. 

Nan Zhou took a few steps forward and wanted to ask for more details. The soft, freshly fallen snow made a clear and weird sound under his feet. It was like he was stepping directly on the body of the earth.

Before Nan Zhou could get weird to this strange climber, Jiang Fang grabbed him by the back of the neck and carried him back. “Don’t get too close. Just stand here and speak.”

Nan Zhou looked at him in a disgruntled manner. ‘You actually managed me.’

Jiang Fang whispered in his ear, “If you want to pretend to join them and stay here to hold them back, I won’t allow it. Right now, you aren’t in the physical condition to achieve the result you want.” 

Nan Zhou, “……”

Then he said, “Yes, I see.”

Despite some reluctance, Nan Zhou quietly crossed out the option Jiang Fang had mentioned.

Lu Bifang didn’t know the life-threatening thoughts that were spinning around in Nan Zhou’s head. Nan Zhou’s question had convinced Lu Bifang that he could communicate with the other person. He looked around at the group of tents that were like tombs in the deep mountains and raised the courage to ask, “Comrade, how many people are in your team?”

The man wondered, “What does it have to do with you?”

The man, “……”

Then his expression became gloomy. “Do you want to go up the mountain?”

The man’s voice was blown away by the cold wind. Only a few scattered, ethereal and terrible trails could be heard. 

Lu Bifang felt the sudden compression and tightening of the air around him. He didn’t expect his small question to cause such a big reaction and instinctively protected the group of people behind him. This retreat didn’t matter.

Two more people emerged from the tents. One of them, Nan Zhou carefully examined for a long time before he dared to confirm it was a woman. She looked the same as the hammer man. She was amazingly thin with half-blue fleshy skin attached to the skull.

She saw them but she didn’t speak. She used just the sharp, black ice pickaxe in front of her to support her upper body that protruded out of her sleeping bag. She knelt on the ground and looked up at them.

Her movements were like some type of animal. Her eyes were so big that it was very uncomfortable when she stared at people warily. In addition, the ice pickaxe in her hand was stained with a dark red, semi-solidified object that made people not dare to think about the composition of the substance. 

A man came out of the other tent. This man’s body was like a sturdy black bear. His shoulder width alone was enough to be one and a half times wider than Nan Zhou’s shoulders. He was around two meters tall and had flat, high cheekbones. He looked like he should be of Mongolian descent. However, his right calf seemed injured. His center of gravity was obviously skewed to the left when he stood. In addition…

Nan Zhou noticed that the right foot in the hiking boot was slightly bigger. Compared to the left where the boot was actually bulging out a bit, the yellow mountaineering pants tucked into his right boot looked a bit strange and one part of the hem was slipping outside. To be precise, his right leg seemed to be thinner than his left leg like the muscles were underdeveloped. The tip of his hiking boots were stained with a dark colored liquid.

Nan Zhou carefully observed their attire, turning a blind eye to their stares.

Meanwhile, the others were stunned by the strange gazes of the three people and didn’t know whether to go or to stay. The look in these people’s eyes was straightforward, like a fish hook. No malice or killing intent could be seen in them but they still gave people goosebumps. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Lu Bifang tried his best to make sure his voice wasn’t timid in the howling cold wind. Yet no matter how steady and cool his voice came out, it was blown away by the vigorous wind mixed with ice particles. He had to raise his voice. “We don’t plan to go up the mountain! We just saw someone here and wanted to ask about the situation!”

The new man and woman both maintained gazes like a searchlight. However, the man carrying the hammer gave a dry response, “Oh, if you aren’t going up the mountain then it is fine.” 

The man’s lips were so dry that they could see the blood channels on them. The wind blew again, blowing a broken message into their ears.

“We, will soon, go up the mountain, go… patrol the mountain. We can’t let, people, go up the mountain.”

Nan Zhou thought he roughly understood the rules. In this instance, their goal was to ensure that their climbing height was higher than this team of weird climbers.

Just now when Lu Bifang put his hands behind his back, Nan Zhou might’ve needed to squint but he could see that Lu Bifang was holding an anti-freeze GPS in his hand. This was probably an item obtained when they searched for supplies. This GPS clearly displayed the real-time altitude of the location of this strange group of climbers. 

4,514 meters.

Nan Zhou looked back and compared it. Then he became more convinced of his judgment. The small concrete building they had been transported to was almost visually parallel to this camp. In other words, the starting points of the two teams were placed at a similar position by the system.

These so-called believers of the ‘moon god’ said they would never allow anyone to climb the mountain. In addition, once the opponent started to patrol the mountain, they would inevitably take the lead. There were probably few people in Nan Zhou’s group who had experience climbing a snowy mountain. This group of climbers also didn’t look very human. Who knew how good they were at climbing?

Nan Zhou took a look at the three humanoid creatures of various shapes in front of him. It was hard to judge their strength just based on their weak and skinny appearance. 

Li Yinhang’s understanding was more general. In this so-called racing instance, from the perspective of the climbers, it was basically: I chase you. If I catch you, I will hammer you to death. These mountain climbers didn’t look like good people. They all had the look of an evil cult follower. According to their gloomy style, they wouldn’t lightly forgive those who dared to offend the ‘moon god’…

Li Yinhang was muttering in her heart when she heard Nan Zhou ask a question behind him, “What is the god of the moon? Chang’e? A rabbit?” (Chang’e=lady in the moon in Chinese mythology)

The mentally tense Lu Bifang and Li Yinhang, “……”

“…God is god.” 

The eyes of the three finally filled with some light when talking about ‘God.’ It was neurotic and fanatical. The bear-like man finally opened his mouth. He spoke with a dull energy but combined with the expression on his face, a different type of terror was interwoven.

“At the top of the mountain, the moon god is waiting.”

“The first to come near it will be a sacrifice and will be eaten, eaten.”

“So you can’t go up the mountain. No one can go up the mountain—” 

Nan Zhou thought about it and gave them some logic. “You don’t want other people to go up the mountain and become the sacrifice of the moon god, so you don’t allow anyone up the mountain. Otherwise…”

The other side clenched their hands tightly with a religious, fanatical expression, each holding the ice pickaxe and hammer.

The hammer man murmured, “It is terrible to be a sacrifice of the god. We have to help those who make mistakes and want to get close to the moon god. They should be happy. They can’t become the god’s sacrifice—”

Jiang Fang was amused when he heard this. He thought of the news he had seen. “The police in XX state shot and killed a young man to prevent him from committing suicide.” 

Just then, Nan Zhou calmly turned back to him. Nan Zhou touched the tip of his red nose and accurately summarized it. “They have a bit of a problem with their brains. Don’t be afraid.”

Jiang Fang smiled and couldn’t help raising a hand to pinch this person’s nose.

Nan Zhou, “……”

He felt a bit frustrated. He had been comforting Jiang Fang very seriously, not wanting this person to be afraid. As a result, he felt like he was coaxed by his own small animal. 

Nan Zhou had never easily indulged in personal emotions. Yet correspondingly, it was very easy for him to get caught up in his own circle of thoughts. He asked with interest, “Is the moon god a man or a woman? Have you seen it?”

“Is it a rabbit?”

“Is the moon god only responsible for this mountain?”

“Shall we go climbing other mountains?” 

The trio didn’t answer. They just stared at Nan Zhou and the others without saying a word. It wasn’t known if they didn’t want to answer, were confused or the NPCs could only provide them with so much information.

After determining he couldn’t ask anything else, Nan Zhou secretly entered a tent while they were unprepared. He saw their tattered climbing items. They were all grimy and dirty old things like these people had climbed up and down the snowy mountain thousands of times. If it hadn’t been for Jiang Fang catching the little wildcat back in time, the bear-like man would’ve gone berserk.

They had to go back to the building. Fortunately, the wind was much smaller when they went back. It was just that they didn’t feel at ease after getting a general understanding of the difficulty of the task.

The severely disproportionate moon hung coldly in the sky. The oppression made people feel dizzy and weak, their heartbeats accelerating. In particular, when they were walking, they almost seemed to be walking with a terrifying planet at their backs. This made them feel psychologically heavy and suffocated. 

It was too large so the arc of rotation was clearly visible compared to when it was far away in the sky. It was like a giant eye that spun around.

Under such invisible pressure, even Li Yinhang had to rest for a while despite having no altitude sickness. In order to disperse her fear of the huge moon that could fall at any time and smash them into powder, Li Yinhang started to talk.

“Should we believe their words?”

“If there is a monster like the moon god on the mountain, won’t we be looking for death if we climb the mountain?” 

“If we don’t climb the mountain and stay where we are, we will still lose…”

Unfortunately, at present, everyone had doubts in their hearts and no one could answer her doubts.

Lu Bifang was a very practical child. He carefully noted down the places he couldn’t figure out and planned to go back to report to the team captain and vice-captain to brainstorm ideas. After roughly recording it, he turned his attention to Jiang Fang, who stood behind Nan Zhou and escorted him every step of the way. He called out, “Mr Jiang?”

Jiang Fang replied politely, “Yes, I’m here.” 

Lu Bifang wondered, “What work did you do before?”

Jiang Fang smiled. “Me? I was unemployed.”

“Where did you live before?”

“Kiev, Ukraine.” 

“What about after returning to China?”

“I just walked around and took a look.”

Lu Bifang had wanted to figure out where this person came from so he could figure out exactly where he had seen Jiang Fang. He asked and Jiang Fang answered. This person was fully cooperative and there were no mistakes in his attitude.

Lu Bifang had a sense of powerlessness like he was punching cotton. In the end, he was a trainee police officer with no work experience. His words came out in an unconcealed, straightforward manner. 

Nan Zhou endured his physical discomfort and walked obediently with the oxygen tank. He thought about many things. He wondered if the moon god was really a rabbit. He thought that there was no time to switch and climb another mountain in just 12 hours.

They weren’t familiar with the mountain road, not to mention the wind and snow. Unless they were led by someone who knew the team well and had the physical strength to lead the group, it was impossible to change mountains. There was the risk of getting lost in this wind and snow.

He wondered how they should start the race. He thought about whether he benefited from the visit to the camp or if he had inadvertently alerted the enemy. He thought about the strange woman and the bear-like man who had a subtle and strange sense of disobedience.

Once they got closer to the small building where they were sheltering, Lu Bifang started to test the real-time altitude data again. Sure enough, it was 4,513 meters. The starting line was the same on both sides. 

As everyone’s attention was focused on the GPS, Nan Zhou glanced over and inadvertently saw a dark mass hidden in the shadows along the concrete exterior wall of the second floor. At first, Nan Zhou thought he was seeing things wrong. Then after a few steps, he finally saw the specific outline of the thing.

Nan Zhou didn’t speak. He stood still and pointed at it. Everyone had already divided some of their energy to pay special attention to the unwell Nan Zhou. As soon as he made a movement, everyone followed the direction of his finger to one place. The moment Li Yinhang saw the shadow, her heart suddenly stopped beating. She resisted the small feeling in her throat that caused her throat to itch and her chest to feel suffocated.

A skeletal-like person was standing there in a dark yellow mountaineering suit. Only wisps of dark yellow were visible and his thin body was close to the wall. His body, face and hair were a uniform, grayish-blue color that almost blended with the color of the concrete wall thanks to the shelter of the shadow.

If it hadn’t been for Nan Zhou’s sharp eyes, no one would’ve noticed this cement-colored voyeur. His thin style was the same as the trio in the camp. He held a slightly worn hiking rope in his hand and stood on the waterproof edge that was around two fingers wide by the second floor window. 

The window he was peeping into was full of warm light, reflecting Liang Shu’s graceful figure as she collected materials. The warm light couldn’t reach the shadow where the voyeur was. The man was also quick to notice the four people standing in front of the building.

However, he didn’t seem nervous at all about being caught. He looked down at the four people, a strange smile appearing on his dead-like face. The moment Lu Bifang reacted and ran toward him, he shook the rope in his hand and his body tumbled over the second floor like a tiger. He disappeared over the top of the building.

Nan Zhou stared at the place where he disappeared thoughtfully. This group had known about their existence from the beginning. As their side went to check out the situation, the other side was observing, watching and guarding against them.

They also climbed really fast. He was envious.