92: Chapter 84 The January Rest Period and the Dream of Lutai

This was the underlying logic code upon which the Maya Pantheon relied for survival. To control it was to hold the electronic collars of all low-level death gods and undead armies in Xibalba.

Pei Fei glanced at the crystal, too lazy to even extend his divine sense to check its authenticity. He snatched it directly, as if buying cabbage at a market, and casually tossed it into the qiankun bag at his waist.

One Death watched this scene, his mouth twitching violently.

Big Brother! This is the core of the Divine Kingdom! Can you show a little more respect? Even pretend to inspect the goods, go through the motions?

"You... aren't going to check it?" One Death tested cautiously.

Pei Fei stood up, smoothed the non-wrinkled hem of his hoodie, and a mocking curve appeared on his lips. He swept his playful gaze over the assembled gods.

"Give you three times the courage, would you dare to fool me with a fake?"

One sentence, a killing blow.

The twelve Death God Lords lowered their heads in unison, cold sweat sliding down their spines, not daring to even breathe loudly.

This was absolute power overwhelming them. Before the Underworld Son of Heaven, they, the native gods clinging to their small corners, didn't even have the right to scheme.

"Fine, I'm too lazy to stay in this broken place any longer. It smells musty."

Pei Fei stretched, waved his large sleeve.

The aurora that had enveloped the great hall was instantly torn apart, and a grand pillar of teleportation light crashed down, precisely enveloping Pei Duo, Xu Mo, and Lin Sa.

The light pillar hummed, and space warped.

In the final moment before being teleported away, Pei Duo looked deeply at the figure standing before the White Bone Throne through the light curtain.

Pei Fei stood with his back to the gods, one hand in his pocket, casually waving the other.

He didn't turn around, only slightly turned his face, and his voice clearly traveled through the light curtain to Pei Duo's ears.

"Go back and practice hard. Don't come crying to me later if you lose a fight when you go out."

"If you embarrass me again, I'll throw you into the Eighteenth Level of Hell to fry dough sticks."

Before the words faded, Pei Fei flicked his finger.

A gentle yet irresistible surge of energy pierced the space and precisely struck the center of Pei Duo's forehead.

"Thwack!"

Crisp and loud.

Carrying a trace of intimacy only understood between siblings, along with that unique, unreasonable roughness.

Pei Duo clutched her forehead, her eyes slightly red, but the corners of her mouth couldn't help but curve upward.

The next second, her vision blurred, and the world spun.

...

The days after returning finally ushered in the normal one-month rest period for participants.

Everyone assumed that the young lady who had experienced 'life and death' in the instance dungeon must be venting stress by watching shows and shopping online, as usual.

However, the Special Operations Bureau personnel assigned to protect Pei Duo were dumbfounded.

The third basement level of the Special Operations Bureau, the Mythology Archive that had been gathering dust from years of neglect, welcomed a special 'squatter'.

At six in the morning, the girl who once couldn't even be woken by an alarm clock was already sitting punctually at the long table in the furthest corner of the archive.

The table was piled high with ancient books and documents resembling small mountains, as if building a Tower of Babel leading to the Divine Realm.

"Chronicles of the Aztec Pantheon," "Deconstruction of the maya Book of the Dead," "Deduction of Ragnarok among the Norse Gods," "Summary of Global Anomaly Rules and Logic (Internal Edition)"...

Even the obscure and difficult "Investigative Edition of Investiture of the Gods" was dog-eared, covered densely with sticky notes of different colors and scribbled with various symbols only she could understand.

Her reading speed was not fast; it was even somewhat clumsy.

When encountering unfamiliar vocabulary in ancient divine languages, she would look up each word in the dictionary, memorizing them the hardest way possible.

She didn't possess Xu Mo's monstrous brain capable of analyzing intelligence logic at a glance, nor Lin Sa's combat intuition honed at the edge of life and death.

All she had was time, and a fierce determination not to be a burden anymore, not to be left behind again.

"Is... this really Pei Duo?"

At the entrance of the archive, Lin Sa, having heard rumors about Pei Duo, stopped in her tracks. Looking at the figure buried in study, her face was filled with disbelief.

Xu Mo leaned against the doorframe, holding a thermos cup filled with goji berries. The light reflecting off his glasses obscured his eyes.

"For the past few days, besides eating and sleeping, she's been immersed here."

Xu Mo's voice was light but carried an ineffable complex emotion. "She went through every single dungeon file in the Special Operations Bureau."

"What stimulated her?" Lin Sa was somewhat worried. "Could she have been scared silly in that trial room? Should we find a psychologist?"

"No."

Xu Mo shook his head, his gaze passing through layers of bookshelves to rest on that plain yet resolute profile.

He watched Pei Duo pick up a red pen and fiercely circle a note about 'Rule Kill.' The pressure of her pen nearly tore through the paper; her eyes were as focused as if she were dissecting a nuclear bomb about to explode.

He had seen that look on the battlefield.

It was the look of an old soldier cleaning his rifle, and the look of a wild beast baring its teeth.

"Lin Sa, we need to re-evaluate the configuration of this team."

Xu Mo turned to leave, but a faint smile touched the corner of his mouth—the joy of discovering a treasure. "Before, we were babysitting. But now... we might have a real teammate."

...

One month, for ordinary people, might just be a few movies, some dinners, or a few boring overtime shifts.

But for Pei Duo, it was thirty days of complete transformation.

Her mind was like a long-parched sponge, greedily sucking up all knowledge about this bizarre world. The texts that once seemed dry and dull were now every one a bargaining chip for survival.

"Hoo..."

Pei Duo closed the thick volume of "Studies on the Gods and Demons of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties" in her hand and let out a long breath.

She rubbed her slightly aching temples and glanced out the window.

The dusk in Jiangcheng was still beautiful. The setting sun coated the steel forest in a blood-tinged golden rim, strongly resembling the era she had read about countless times in books—that cruel epoch where gods rose together, humans and gods mingled, and decisions were made through slaughter.

Just then, that long-absent, cold mechanical voice exploded without warning deep within her mind.

What was due had finally arrived.

[Warning! Thriller Game loading...]

[New Instance Dungeon generating...]

[Instance Dungeon Level: A-Class]

[Instance Dungeon Name: Startling Dream of Lutai]

[Instance Dungeon Synopsis: Wine pools and meat forests bury withered bones; ghosts and gods weep atop the Star-Plucking Tower. Who says the Shang Dynasty's fate is sealed? Let the bewitching concubine dance in the rainbow attire.]

[Teleportation Countdown: 10, 9, 8...]

She calmly stood up, pulled out the black jade pendant from inside her collar, and gently kissed it.

"Brother, watch over me."

Pei Duo murmured softly, her eyes holding no fear, only a composure already honed to a sharp edge. The corner of her mouth even lifted in a curve of anticipation.

"This time, I won't hide."

A white light crashed down, instantly engulfing her figure.

This time, she did not close her eyes.