Famine 38: No Return

No Return (Double Update Combined)

Swish!

Directly above Zhong Yanqing was Nie Du, who managed to stabilize himself in the nick of time, but Zhong Yanqing and the two team members below her had all lost their grip!

On the mountain, a fierce wind howled—something few could even imagine. In an instant, several people were swept up and away by the gale. Some drew their weapons, some contorted their bodies, but none could find a way to steady themselves.

They dangled together like a string of leaves in the storm, tossed about by the blizzard.

Nie Du’s cloak billowed around him as he braced both feet against the cliff face, his legs taut and straining to anchor himself. With a swift motion, he swept his scythe downward—a flash of cold light—striking at the serpent!

The ice serpent, marked with a cross on its head, twisted its body in an eerily agile motion, dodging the blade and instead winding itself up along Nie Du’s scythe, jaws suddenly gaping open at him.

Zzz!

A jet of icy, murky venom shot from beneath its tongue, spraying straight at his face!

Nie Du was about to dodge, but in the corner of his eye, he saw another team member barely clinging on above and behind him. In that split second, Nie Du’s back tensed—he didn’t evade, but charged into the venom head-on, sweeping with his right hand into the biting wind!

Splash! The venom drenched Nie Du’s face, just as his fingers clamped tightly around the serpent’s neck!

Without hesitation, he reversed his grip—killing intent cold as steel—strangling mercilessly!

Hiss—!

The snake burst out with a shrill screech, its slender vertebrae shattering segment by segment, then fell limply, lifeless.

From his seat indoors, Si Zhiyan let out a low hiss.
Snapping sinew and bone, such a ruthless method.

Nie Du tossed the dead serpent into his pocket and freed his hand to wipe his cheek.
Was it just an illusion? Si Zhiyan noticed the faintest tremor in Nie Du’s fingertips as they brushed his face.

Yet after waiting a moment, the expected agony and blindness did not materialize. There was only a burning pain—something Nie Du had long since grown accustomed to through the years.

[Milk Ice Cream—Lemon Sea Salt Flavor]
Crisp, refreshing lemon and sea salt; upon eating, gain resistance to ice- and water-related curses for 8 hours.

The very dessert he’d eaten at his meal! Nie Du suddenly realized, glancing up with gratitude.

At the front of the team, Shi He’s holy grail—a contract artifact—shone in the snowlight at his waist.
That deity—truly a savior!

A hard jolt ran through the rope—Nie Du quickly reached for a handhold and steadied himself.

—The snake was dead, but the crisis remained dire.

The two teammates below Zhong Yanqing were both Chosen—physically robust, both managed, after swinging twice in the wind, to recover and seize hold of the rock face.

Only Zhong Yanqing still dangled, battered by the wind, suspended by the rope at his waist, slamming again and again into the cliff, leaving a splash of blood each time.

Directly below him was Wang Jianguo of the Northeast Team, groaning in pain, clinging desperately to his hold, unsure how much longer he could last, struggling so hard his fingers whitened and nearly lost their grip several times.

Nie Du’s voice trembled. “Xiao Zhong?! Zhong Yanqing!”

“Zhong Yanqing!!”

There was no reply from Zhong Yanqing.
At the front, Shi He couldn’t see what was happening below and grew anxious. Leaning down for a glance, his heart skipped a beat—

He saw Zhong Yanqing’s face bloodied, his whole arm swollen and twisted unnaturally, utterly unconscious.

No matter how Nie Du called, there was no response at all.

Thud!… Thud!…
He was still being slammed into the cliff, again and again.

For a time, the whole team was frozen against the mountain. High in the sky, the wind howled, and each person’s strength drained rapidly.

They had no choice but to keep calling his name, waiting for Zhong Yanqing to wake.

After more than ten minutes, Wang Jianguo’s voice turned ragged: “I can’t hold on… I really can’t! This rock is covered in ice—Xiao Zhong is dragging me down, I just can’t hang on!”

“What if… what if we have to… let go…”

His frail voice was lost in the screech of the wind.

By the fireside, Si Zhiyan’s hands clasped together, understanding well—the Xu Bei team simply didn’t have the strength to keep climbing with an unconscious member in tow.
Not even Nie Du or Shi He could do it.

The Sacred Tomb was the core of a fantasy world; to have reached this depth before suffering a single casualty was already hard-won.

This was the cruelty of this world. No matter how hard you’d fought or how much you’d tried, there would always be someone who died before your eyes.

—

Just as that thought arose, it was as if some hidden string was plucked.

For some reason, an image flashed through Si Zhiyan’s mind, completely without warning.

In the ruins, a young man with golden hair, covered in blood, knelt among scattered corpses, his head bowed low, gasping for breath, bleak and spent.

Beside him, someone watched silently, lips parting to speak—

“To save others is a road stained with blood and pain from which there is no return.
You must tread upon hills of white bone, tear through thickets that blot out the sun, trek alone across a thousand miles of wasteland, only then might you glimpse the sky behind the clouds.”

“Even so,

The voice was achingly familiar.

Who was it…

Si Zhiyan’s pupils contracted sharply, and the porcelain cup in his hand fell, shattering against the wooden floor.

A wrenching emotion surged within, and Si Zhiyan clutched at the fabric over his chest.

—even so, will you go on?”

“Are you kidding me?!” In the blizzard, Nie Du barked furiously.

He had rested enough. With a mighty heave, he wound the rope linking Zhong Yanqing around his arm and hauled up with all his strength!

Thud! Zhong Yanqing’s limp body was drawn upward, inch by inch, until, with the rope shortened, he finally jammed into a crevice sheltered from the wind.

Nie Du pushed past all limits, his scarred face turning gray-blue. The force nearly pulled his feet from the wall; ice broke away beneath him, and he swayed like a reed in the storm before regaining his balance, supporting two people at once.

“Untie your rope from Xiao Zhong,”
Nie Du panted, gritting his teeth, and squeezed out the words.

“I’ll save her!”

Because you can’t do it, so untie the rope—I don’t blame you.
Because I chose this path, I will save her!

Wang Jianguo was visibly moved, nearly beside himself with shame. But before he could speak, Nie Du interjected flatly, “Untie it. I don’t want to carry two people.”

Wang Jianguo could only comply, climbing up under Nie Du’s direction and reconnecting his rope to the lead group with Shi He.

Nie Du, bit by bit, drew Zhong Yanqing to himself, then secured him to his back with a belt.
Then, he untied the rope linking himself to Shi He’s group.

Now the teams were completely divided.

Shi He cleared the way, leading the main group’s climb.
And alone, with the unconscious Zhong Yanqing on his back—Nie Du.

Si Zhiyan, buried on the sofa, watched the scene for a long while, heart roiling in silence.

—Nie Du was well aware he had no certainty of success.

Shi He breathed heavily, closing his eyes for a moment.
His vision was sharp—he could see it all clearly.

But the young man in the black suit said nothing, only pursed his lips and kept climbing.

With the always boisterous Zhong Yanqing gone silent, the rest of the climb was somber.

The snake was like a signal. As they climbed higher, new aberrations attacked them at every turn—hawks, vines, geckos—all seemingly animal, yet wholly unnatural.

Each had in a different spot a mark resembling a cross.

—The emblem of the fantasy world’s Church.

The Xu Bei team struggled, hyper-alert at every step. Especially Shi He, who said little but trod with painstaking caution, probing constantly, strangling each attacking beast with his own hands.

But caution could only take them so far.

The greater peril was that the higher they went, the harder the wall became to scale.

The wind grew harsher, the ice thicker so rock could barely be gripped; every step required picking out a new foothold with the ice axe.

The pitons no longer held deep—meaning no real protection.
A single slip, and they would plunge into the abyss.

Some stretches, the wall leaned back over them—requiring them to hang upside down, arms straining, to pull themselves up. All this relentlessly slowed their ascent.

One hour. Two hours. Five hours. Six hours…

The light grew dim; night was falling.

Those scant few hundred meters might as well have been an unbridgeable chasm.

Nie Du’s hands were worn raw, ice chips packed in every groove; each motion was agony. He barely clung to the wall.
His breathing echoed in the earpiece, heavy and harsh as bellows.

For the umpteenth time, Shi He asked, “Commander Nie, do you have any strength left?”
For the umpteenth time Nie Du’s voice, thick with blood, came the same answer: “I’m fine.”

—The hell you are!
Shi He didn’t believe a word. He was about to press the point, when suddenly darkness fell around them.

Turning, he saw a mass of inky-black clouds sweeping toward them.

A new attack—a swarm!

Crap! Shi He’s face changed.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle it, but with an attack scattered in all directions, he couldn’t cover everyone from above!

He shouted a warning. “Commander Nie! Prepare for battle!”

Nie Du looked up to see the oncoming swarm.

He tried to shift his hand back for balance, but his arm suddenly dropped—damn. Nie Du’s heart plummeted in that instant. In a split second, he realized: he simply couldn’t hold the weight of two people with one arm!

Meaning, as long as Zhong Yanqing was on his back, he had no strength left to wield the scythe.

The fleeting window vanished. The swarm descended, engulfing everyone—including Nie Du.

Wang Jianguo, nearly in tears as he fought off insects, pleaded, “Let Xiao Zhong go, Commander Nie! We don’t blame you! You’re just doing your job, Commander Nie!”

Nie Du was deaf to it all.

He need only let go, and the swarm would be no threat to him.
Yet he did not loosen the knot. Instead, he looked down at the rope at his waist and smiled.

Buzz—!

The swarm swarmed over Nie Du’s face. He shut his eyes, but with eerie intelligence, the insects ignored his head and attacked his hands instead.

The hands that bore the weight of two people.

A thousand serrated jaws tore into Nie Du’s flesh, gnawing through human sinew and skin. Soon, his hands were nothing but bloodied, shattered bone.

Finally, the ice axe slipped and fell.

—

The setting sun drooped behind the mountains; the cold wind screamed.

To the very end, Nie Du, refusing to release Zhong Yanqing, plunged downward.

This was not a wuxia tale. On the frozen heights of the snow mountain, there were no branches appearing in the nick of time to save lives.

Thousands of meters in the sky, the wind howled past his ears; below, only the lethal icy abyss awaited.

In his final moments, Nie Du’s expression was entirely calm—perhaps even faintly relieved.

His warped, melted lips moved, uttering a soundless phrase.

With a god’s-eye view, Si Zhiyan saw it clearly—just four words.

——[I did it.]

Si Zhiyan’s heart was shaken.

At that instant, an odd yet familiar feeling suffused his whole body, filling him to the brim.

In his lonely, tedious life, it seemed a golden figure had once pleaded with him—

“Please look at us.
Please see how we struggle, listen to our desperate cries. Do whatever you want to us—only, please, see us.”

“We will show you…”

Show you what? Si Zhiyan’s head throbbed. He couldn’t remember.

But whatever the case, he had to do something! Si Zhiyan thought. He had to.

Nie Du must live to help kill Gu Haoping and complete the mission, but it was more than that. Something else was boiling in his chest.

…But what else could he do?

The next instant—a gunshot ripped the air. The dark insect cloud was torn open with a blast.

Nie Du’s pupils contracted as he looked up in astonishment.

He saw Shi He, clutching a sniper rifle and rope, plunging headlong through the snowstorm, bathed in the rays of sunset!

Behind him, the entire team was linked together, tumbling down in a long line.
Xu Bei’s dozen-odd members—all falling.

Nie Du could hardly believe his eyes and shouted, “Are you insane?!”

Bang!

Shi He’s face was like carved stone, his tailored suit snapping in the wind. Reversing his grip, he fired an explosive round above, using the recoil to dive downward, grabbing Nie Du by the collar!

Before Nie Du could react, Shi He tossed aside his gun, swiftly plunged his hand into Nie Du’s pocket, and grabbed—

—the very first snake Nie Du had killed.

Mid-fall, Shi He’s voice was crisp and urgent:
“I offer this D-ranked serpent’s corpse as a sacrifice to bind a contract with you!”

“Honored Contract-bearer, I beg you—save us!!”

Save us!

Boom!

At Shi He’s waist, a brilliant white light flared from the holy grail. Half a second later, a surge of mist burst out of the goblet, twisting and unfurling through the howling wind!

The fog, thick and cottony, enveloped them all.

After six hours of climbing, sunset had come to the snow mountain. And that meant…

Outside, dawn was coming.

[I left you a little gift. At sunrise each day, offer a sacrifice to it and state your wish.
If the contract is reasonable, I will appear before you.]

The mist swept through the swarm, wrapping every team member snugly inside.

Si Zhiyan gripped the sofa arm, fingertips digging deep, concentrating all he had on reinforcing the avatar’s strength. Every humanoid form transformed into fog, binding layer upon layer together, trying to wrap as many as possible within.

Damn brats!!

[Phantom Avatar]
Your shadow, your senses, your duplicate, your extension in body and soul.
It shares your vision, your thoughts, and moves as you wish.
[Current avatar count: 1]
[Respawn time after destruction: 100h]

So this is what it feels like to fall from a cliff!

The gut-wrenching weightlessness nearly drove Si Zhiyan’s heart into his throat.

He had mere seconds of freefall to push the avatar’s fortitude to its limits—higher, higher to the utmost he could manage!

Si Zhiyan gritted his teeth with every ounce of effort, but his face stayed frozen, his eyes wide and unblinking and strangely motionless.

Only his pupils changed.
Unnoticed, his eyes had turned blood-red.

BOOM!!!

With the roar of an avalanche, the vast cloud of mist crashed into the deep snowpack.

The mist exploded, vanishing into the snow.

All of them landed, scattered across the powder.

“Pf—!”
The violent impact nearly shattered Si Zhiyan’s insides; he clutched his nose as blood spurted between his fingers!

—When body and soul are both shattered, how can you remain unscathed?

[Phantom Avatar heavily damaged]
[Remaining energy: 7%]

[Avatar respawn time: 100h. Please use with caution.]

The system’s reporting voice was gone.

The frost-horned rabbit seemed to sense something, snuffling about anxiously at Si Zhiyan’s feet.

Leaning against the sofa, Si Zhiyan bent over, his whole body doubled up like a prawn, hands bracing his knees, blood trickling down his pale hands.

Soaking the vines.

The farm’s vines suddenly sprang up, trembling with heartbreak, stretching toward that little blood, unable to believe it.

After a moment, seeming to reach a decision, they shivered violently.

All at once, countless vines shot out, wrapping Si Zhiyan up completely,
like a cocoon.

Gulp.

His breath grew rapid; his chest rose and fell as he tried to push the vines away. “Wait—”

But the farm did not stop. The vines bound him tight, one thick cord prying his hand away, forcing his clenched mouth open and plunging deep down his throat!

“Mmfp—!”

Every inch of his throat was stuffed full, and Si Zhiyan’s body arched in reflex, struggling instinctively.

Gulp!

The next second, a gush of sap poured into his throat.

He almost choked, but at that moment, his body fell still.

—Sweet and cool, rich with the fragrance of plants and just the right touch of sweetness, like a seven-part sugared fruit tea.

It flowed into his organs, cool and fresh, scattering the pain.

“….”

Slowly, Si Zhiyan reached out, grasping the vines, uncertain, then more firmly.

Gulp. Gulp.

The vines moved more sluggishly, their movements much slower than usual. But still greedy, twisting their branches, hugging him tighter—
almost a fatal embrace.

Si Zhiyan closed his eyes, gradually adapting to the rhythm of swallowing.

By the time he had finished the last mouthful, the pain in his abdomen and chest was almost entirely gone.
Aside from a faint ache lingering in his left side.

The vines remained, greedy and persistent, squeezing tighter than ever, though now much weaker—they could no longer choke the breath from him.

This time, Si Zhiyan’s feelings were complicated. After a while, he managed a ragged breath, stretched out, and pushed some of the vines away—forcing himself out of the cocoon.

Truth be told, it hadn’t taken much strength at all.

“That’s enough.” Si Zhiyan’s voice was hoarse.
“Let go—it’s enough.”

“……”

“And… thank you.”

He couldn’t tell if the farm understood, but as always, it carelessly twisted about, snaking under his shirt, rolling about his neck, until finally,
it came to rest on his Adam’s apple, nuzzling affectionately.

Frost-horned rabbit, waiting anxiously, leapt into his lap the moment the cocoon unraveled.
It butted him with its warm, soft head, pressing itself close, sniffing him over.

“I’m fine. I’m alright,” Si Zhiyan soothed, stroking the rabbit’s fur.

Still cradling it, he lifted his eyes to look once more at the black portal’s live feed.

The fall had been very high.

Even with the avatar of cloud and snow as a buffer, Xu Bei’s team lay scattered across the snow—their fate uncertain.

It was a long time before, from the center of the group, Zhong Yanqing twitched and slowly lifted her head.

Under that massive impact, she was the first to wake. Perhaps Nie Du had protected her so well, the hard fall hadn’t worsened her injuries.

Zhong Yanqing, Shi He… One by one, they got to their feet, then another and another—helping each other, calling out team members’ names.

—They were all alive.

No one had died.

All of them, alive, had fallen together into the icy depths.

When the headcount was done, Shi He sprawled in the snow with relief, smiling as he gripped the holy grail.

Thank you, Contract-bearer.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

“Thank you…” Zhong Yanqing supported Nie Du, who still could not rise, and her voice nearly broke as she spoke.
“Thank you, Commander Nie, thank you… I’m sorry, I dragged everyone down… I’m sorry…”

Nie Du’s black cloak trembled with his breath; he managed a strained smile, patting Zhong Yanqing’s hand.

It’s alright.
Don’t cry.

Suddenly, someone let out a startled cry. “Wait!”

“Wait! Look—what’s that?!”

Shi He, half-sitting up and shaking snow from his clothes, turned.

At the bottom of the icy abyss, amidst layers of snow aglow with blue phosphorescence,

In the deepest snow and darkness at the end of the gorge, stood two enormous metal doors from floor to sky. Inscribed with the intricate emblem of the Church, their surfaces glimmered under the flashlight’s beam.

Beside the gates, a massive ice sculpture stood. It depicted a young man—a vague, gentle, compassionate face, long hair and flowing robes trailing to the ground, softly gazing down on the bloodied kneeling saints at his feet.

The High Priest.

Such grandeur left Shi He staring up, realizing he was smaller than a single vine of the carved relief.

—The entrance to the eighteenth level of the Sacred Land was not at the snow mountain’s peak.

It was here.