203: Chapter 203 Strange Phenomena Gradually Intensify

It was three in the afternoon, and the System was still in its cooldown period.

Li Xin sat in the courtyard on a rattan chair, with a pot of tea set on a small table beside him.

Ravi had just refilled the water and retreated to busy himself with other tasks.

The courtyard was quiet, with only the sound of the wind blowing through the coconut trees and the barking of dogs from some unknown courtyard nearby.

Liu Mo came out of the main building, stood beside him for a while, and spoke.

"The temple area is quite lively today. Ravi said the parking spots at the entrance are completely full. I've never seen so many people there, and it's not even a major festival."

"They're all here to watch the spectacle," Li Xin said, picking up his teacup and taking a sip. "Word about the commotion last night has gotten out."

"It's online too. I checked a few local forums, and people are saying all sorts of things. The most absurd claim is that the Snake God turned over underground, and the stone door down there is about to lose its hold."

"If the stone door can't hold, that's a good thing," Li Xin said, putting down his teacup. "It's only interesting if it can't hold."

Liu Mo didn't pick up on that remark. He stood to the side, looking at the sky outside the courtyard; it was very blue with few clouds, and nothing unusual could be seen.

"Boss, you stayed in the study all night last night. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, just didn't sleep well," Li Xin said, standing up to stretch his shoulders and rotate his neck. "I'll just take a nap during the day."

He walked two steps toward the main building, then stopped.

"Right, tell A-Qiang and the others to take turns resting; there's no need for everyone to keep watch. The people outside won't be able to figure anything out, and that black market crowd wouldn't dare move during the day."

"It's already been arranged," Liu Mo said. "Two shifts, four people per shift, rotating every four hours."

"Good."

Li Xin went upstairs into the bedroom, pulled the curtains, turned off the lights, and fell asleep within five minutes of lying down.

While he was asleep, the temple area was in chaos.

At four in the afternoon, a cleaning worker carrying a bucket and mop was doing his daily cleaning along the stone corridor outside Chamber B.

When he reached the vicinity of the sealed stone door, the handle of the mop in his hand inexplicably shook, as if there were a vibration coming up from the ground.

He looked down at the floor; there were no cracks, no gaps, nothing.

Continuing forward, he walked to the corner and heard a faint, rustling sound. It was very quiet, a 'shh-shh-shh' sound, as if something were crawling inside the stone cracks.

He stopped and listened intently for a few seconds. The sound was still there, intermittent, appearing and disappearing.

He bent down to take a closer look—at the seam between the bottom of the stone door and the floor, in the gray-black stone crevices, there was nothing. But the sound was still ringing out, coming from inside the door gap.

The cleaner froze. He stood upright, took a step back, then another, and then turned and walked out quickly. Once out of the corridor, sweat was already running down his face; he found the security guard on duty and whispered a sentence to him.

"Inside that door... there's movement."

The security guard followed him over to listen, and his expression also changed. He took out his walkie-talkie and reported the situation to his superiors. The call lasted over ten minutes, but in the end, they didn't say they had found anything, only that they should strengthen patrols in the near future and that everyone should be careful.

Around five in the afternoon, a young monk wearing yellow robes came out of the Chamber B corridor looking unwell. Some devotees went up to ask him what had happened inside, but he waved his hand, said nothing, and left.

At three-thirty, Li Xin woke up.

He didn't wake up naturally; he was startled awake by a System notification.

[Cooldown in progress. Detection function is operating normally. Abnormal energy fluctuations detected around the Divine Domain. The source is not a natural physical phenomenon; it is an attempt at self-repair by the Ancient God Restriction triggered after the energy deficit in Chamber B. After the repair failure, the energy dissipated and overflowed, forming large-scale halos and vibrations.]

He lay on the bed without moving, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He thought, "So it begins. It's only the first round, and the thing underneath is already restless. There are still eight rounds to go; the commotion will only get bigger and bigger."

He picked up his phone to check the time: 3:37 PM. He had slept for less than forty minutes, but his mind was much clearer, and he wasn't sleepy anymore.

He got up, washed his face, and went downstairs. Ravi was cutting fruit in the dining room; seeing him come down, he spoke up.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Li. A few cars came by earlier to maintain the temple's security. They circled the outer wall and then left."

"Did they say anything?"

"No, just a routine patrol."

Li Xin didn't reply. He sat down at the dining table, poured a glass of water, and took a few sips. The System was still running in his mind, with the detection function fully active, updating all movements within a fifty-kilometer radius in real-time.

[Current regional energy concentration: approximately 40% higher than the early hours of the previous day. Belief convergence density: approximately 300% higher than usual. Long-term, high-concentration belief energy is continuously pouring into the Divine Domain, forming a significant external reinforcement for the Divine Domain barrier.]

"Is this the negative effect after being hollowed out?" Li Xin asked in his consciousness. "The thing underneath has less mass, so the more violently belief fills it in, the harsher the suppression seems to become."

[The intensity of subsequent Extraction backlash will continue to rise in a stepped manner. It is estimated that the suppression intensity of the second round will be 15% to 20% higher than the first round.]

Li Xin finished the water and placed the cup on the table. "Understood."

At five-thirty, Liu Mo returned from outside. He was carrying a plastic bag containing several local snacks, greasy and wrapped in paper. He placed the bag on the living room table, sat down, and reported the situation to Li Xin.

"The temple added more guards this afternoon. There are two people standing at the entrance to the Chamber B corridor; there used to be only one, and they're both equipped with batons."

"What about the cars outside?"

"They left to patrol elsewhere. I stood at the alley entrance for a while and saw them circling several surrounding streets, focusing on the rented courtyards."

"Is there anything on our courtyard wall?"

"No, it's clean."

"Good."

At six o'clock, the sky began to darken. The distant temple lights turned on, and the orange-red tower top was particularly striking in the twilight.

Li Xin stood in the courtyard and watched for a while. He didn't have any particular thoughts, he was just watching. The System was running data in the background, and the energy of the Divine Domain appeared in his consciousness like a mass of slowly churning fog, thick and warm.

He could feel the surface of that fog moving and churning, attempting to fill the void at the bottom, but no matter how it filled it, the gap remained.

What was missing was missing; it couldn't be filled back in.

At seven in the evening, Ravi brought out dinner, which was local food again: fish curry, vegetables, and rice. Li Xin sat down, took a bite, and then put down his chopsticks.

"Ravi, do people here believe in the afterlife?"

Ravi was wiping the table and looked up when he heard the question.

"They do. From the moment they're born, they worship in the temple, and after they die, they still need the priest to chant scriptures so they can move on. Mr. Li has been in India for a while now; you should have noticed by now that the gods here are alive."

"Alive?"

"Yes, they're living," Ravi said after thinking for a moment to organize his words. "They aren't just placed in the temple to be worshipped; they move, and they have Life Qi. If you offend one today, it will punish you today."

Li Xin nodded and didn't continue asking. He picked up a piece of fish and continued eating.

At ten in the evening, Liu Mo came to knock on the door.

"Boss, there's a car parked in the alley outside, engine still running. There's someone sitting in the car with the window rolled down a crack, and you can see someone inside holding something up to film."

"What kind of car?"

"A white SUV, no license plate."

Li Xin thought for a moment. "They aren't people from the temple. People from the temple wouldn't be lurking outside this late, and they wouldn't use a civilian license plate."

"From the black market?"

"It's more likely that European crowd. They set up equipment to scan at night, but they don't dare move during the day, so they can only film from the car."

"Should we deal with them?"

Li Xin glanced out the window and sat back down. "No need, they aren't worth worrying about."

Liu Mo didn't say anything else and retreated.

At eleven-thirty in the evening, there was less than half an hour left on the cooldown countdown.

Li Xin sat in the study; the cup of tea on the table had already gone cold, but he didn't bother to replace it. The system panel was glowing in his consciousness, and everything within the detection range was very calm.

[Cooldown remaining time: 1:26:18.]

Wait a little longer, and he could act again.

He stood up to stretch his waist and walked to the window to look outside. The lights of the distant temple were still on, but they were dimmer than during the day. Moonlight shone through the clouds, casting a thin layer of silver-gray on the ground.

[Cooldown remaining time: 00:18:03.]

The courtyard was very quiet. Insects were chirping in the grass, and occasionally a dog or two would bark in the distance, only to quickly fall silent again.

[Cooldown remaining time: 00:09:57.]

Li Xin sat back in his chair and rested his hands on his knees.

[Cooldown remaining time: 00:04:22.]

[Cooldown ended.]

[Extraction function unlocked. Entire System is on standby. Gold Window assessment: currently a sub-optimal window, with suppression intensity slightly higher than at the start of the first round. Estimated Extraction efficiency: 23 tons/hour. Start the second round of Extraction immediately?]

Li Xin glanced out the window. The moonlight was bright, there were thin clouds in the sky, and the wind was not strong.

"Start."