Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 170: Prelude

Not long ago, outside the village, the masters from Huajisi formed a formation on their own. Faced with the corruption of the Evil Spirit embryo, they didn’t advance.

Fu Tianyi felt extremely uncomfortable.

His discomfort didn’t stem from the Evil Spirit embryo, but from his colleagues in Huajisi. Perhaps due to the nature of the memory world, he could only make out their rough figures. The faces around him were blurry, with an uncanny valley effect even stronger than that of evil beings.

The problem was that the blurry filters on these people weren’t the same type, and the degree of blurriness varied. Fu Tianyi struggled to maintain a composed expression, but he was already breaking out in a cold sweat.

A short distance away, Lu Xiaohe remained uncharacteristically silent.

First, she looked at the delicate embroidery on her sleeve, then at the masters around her with the blurry filters with a grave expression.

“You’re the rear command, right, sister? Think of a solution!” Fu Tianyi moved closer to Lu Xiaohe. “We can’t just stand here.”

“It’s a bit strange,” Lu Xiaohe said.

“Of course, I know it’s strange!” Fu Tianyi wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“We’re in the memory world, and this village and the impression of these people fundamentally come from the memories of Yin Ren and the Evil Spirit. So that’s why the impression of these guerrilla masters from nearby isn’t deep.”

Fu Tianyi was filled with question marks. The memory world was constructed based on the memories of the Evil Spirit and Yin Ren—wasn’t that the most basic information?

Lu Xiaohe furrowed her brow. “Why are Huajisi and the two of us so clear?”

Fu Tianyi: “…Ah?”

“The Evil Spirit couldn’t even reach Huajisi that’s stationed in the capital. Yin Ren from a thousand years ago had a unique constitution, and his corruption was out of control. He could at most have some contact with this village but couldn’t truly enter the world. Where did the detailed memories of the clear Huajisi, as well as the appearances of Fu Shangliu and Li Heyan, come from?”

Fu Tianyi stood stunned in place. He had never thought about this question before.

A chill penetrated his veins, flowing directly to his heart from the soles of his feet.

Unfortunately, Lu Xiaohe didn’t have much time to ponder. In less than five seconds, a voice came through the communication earpiece, mixed with heavy static. The clear voice of Ge Tingting, however, stood out with its piercing clarity.

[Order everyone to form the Sixty-Four Inverse Yin Array*! It’s what Fu Xingchuan said.]

*Think of it as an array based off of the I Ching (Book of Changes) used for divinations.

Fu Tianyi and Lu Xiaohe exchanged a glance.

Immediately, Fu Tianyi drew symbols and amplified his voice, while Lu Xiaohe put on the earpiece and listened attentively.

In the center of the village, the surface of the Evil Spirit embryo gradually turned pitch black, like rotten fruit.

The surrounding Evil Force was on the verge of getting out of control. They twisted around like whips, stirring up ripples of dust. Burned-down houses couldn’t withstand the wind, and straw-like objects fell down with the wind.

On the spacious open ground, only a few living beings remained—

Huang Jin supported his tottering body and continued to project his holographic illusion. Fu Xingchuan stared intently at the performing Great Celestial Master, wishing he had six more eyes.

Since “Zhong Chengshuo flesh puppet” could only spill blood and provide material for the spells, conveying messages and drawing symbols on the spot were both tasks handled by Ge Tingting.

Although Ge Tingting was young, her gaze already carried a hint of world-weariness.

[Continue with the Sixty-Four Inverse Yin Array. Four people will use the Five Elements¹ and Eight Trigrams² to seal it³, pushing the seal two hundred steps toward the center of the village.]

¹The five elements are wood, fire, water, metal, and earth. Each element suppresses and promotes another. 
²Symbols representing various natural phenomena in Chinese Taoism.
³This is a sealing technique that uses the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams to form a powerful seal.

She hoarsely conveyed Fu Xingchuan’s immediate analysis while her hands worked on refining the rough runes scratched by the dog’s paws. Those patterns were all too familiar; they were clearly remnants of the sealing technique from the previous gap.

Once again, it blocked the rampaging Evil Force for them.

[Use the Yang-ward spell. Start the spell from the southwest, and don’t stop the first two…] Ge Tingting suddenly longed for the time when she couldn’t speak human language. Her head was about to explode from having her attention divided.

But she understood that she was only doing repeating work—

Beside her feet, Fu Xingchuan remained motionless, his eyes almost popping out. As soon as the Great Celestial Master’s complicated arrays were performed, he was able to analyze what kind of spell it was. After conveying the instructions, he immediately used his claws to scratch rough runes on the ground for Ge Tingting to carefully refine.

Gradually, the external sealing spells of the masters merged with the numerous seals imposed by Yin Ren a thousand years ago. The spell that sealed the Evil Spirit was also quickly disassembled and deciphered by Fu Xingchuan.

Their “Great Celestial Master” only needed to do one thing, which was to drip blood on the array and provide power.

People became like mirrored images, and the brilliance of the spells gradually converged.

Two figures in red robes stood side by side, with Zhong Chengshuo turning his head to look at his lover from a thousand years ago.

Countless spells fluttered in the air as if they were free, and Yin Ren’s complexion gradually turned ash gray. His beautiful long hair was covered in dust and bloodstains, devoid of any luster. His crimson eyes also lacked joy and happiness, resembling a pair of lifeless objects.

Zhong Chengshuo didn’t see madness in that familiar face; he only sensed deep exhaustion and sorrow. The person’s features were still the same as he remembered, but the gaze resembled that of an elderly person nearing death.

He had always known the lively and boisterous Yin Ren. But for the first time, Zhong Chengshuo saw Yin Ren in this state—weak and cold, like burnt ashes.

During the late Gong Dynasty, it was the period when the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi met his demise and also the beginning of sealing the Evil Spirit Yin Ren.

What happened to you?

At this moment, in the hands of the Yin Ren from a thousand years ago, the dagger was soaked in fresh blood, shimmering with a beautiful and dangerous light. The deep red patterns transformed gradually into a form that Zhong Chengshuo was extremely familiar with.

A top-tier cursed spirit weapon, the Evil Fruit.

Between his slender and pale fingers, the dagger was vividly striking. It emitted a crimson glow in the darkness, causing the army of evil creatures behind Yin Ren to become restless, with murmurs and screams echoing through the night.

It was as if he was commanding them.

It was strange. The Evil Fruit shouldn’t possess such abilities. Unfortunately, the Yin Ren in the illusion wouldn’t answer any of his questions.

The crimson tip of the blade pointed directly at the Evil Spirit, accompanied by numerous sealing techniques. The complex and peculiar seal unfolded like a blooming flower, flickering with faint light, enclosing the dark Evil Spirit embryo within. However, the latter clearly had no intention of submitting to the seal. It struggled frantically within the shackles of the seal, unleashing waves of Evil Force.

In the midst of swirling sand and stones, Zhong Chengshuo’s ears twitched.

Fwish… Not far away, someone’s soles lightly scraped against the sandy soil.

Zhong Chengshuo suddenly turned around—surprisingly, the surviving cultivator of the Gouluo Army was still alive. He was severely mutilated, as if submerged by invisible water ripples. However, it didn’t affect his steady breath. Most of his body was “embedded” in the remains of a wall, and his eyes stared directly at the Evil Fruit in Yin Ren’s hand.

He belonged to the Charon group and possessed abilities similar to Bai Yongji’s self-preservation method. It was estimated that he also had the ability to “transfer part of his body to the Other Side” for refuge.

Just now, this guy wasn’t here. He probably saw the intense struggle and wanted to see if he could take advantage of the situation.

And Yin Ren couldn’t possibly be unaware of his presence.

Zhong Chengshuo shifted his gaze away, once again looking at the Yin Ren from a thousand years ago.

Yin Ren kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, as if he hadn’t noticed the person. Amidst the brilliance of the magic techniques, he tightly gripped the dagger, occasionally waving it. The army of evil creatures adjusted their formation in response to his movements, assisting in the sealing process.

For a moment, ruins and corpses mingled together, and the mist and darkness churned. Within a radius of a hundred steps, plants turned to dust, and bloodstains on the ground transformed into red frost. The rumbling destruction was accompanied by the screams of evil creatures, and the wailing wind carried unknown murmurs.

Perhaps this sealing process was more unique. Rather than a collision of Evil Force, it felt more like a long and painful nightmare.

……

The sky gradually turned bright as the Evil Spirit embryo was enveloped in numerous seals, forming a gigantic red sphere. Under the thick isolation, it ceased struggling, and the surrounding Evil Force gradually dissipated as its source vanished.

Minister Fu completely abandoned his dignity and stuck out his tongue, panting with relief. Huang Jin collapsed on the spot, and Yellow Millet slumped on the ground, resembling a soft-boiled egg. Ge Tingting sat on the ground, hugging her knees. Her complexion was pale, and her eyes were vacant, seemingly contemplating whether or not to pass out.

They managed to seal the Evil Spirit that Sunken Society was controlling with a high-intensity seal overnight. Although it was a weakened version based on its memories, everyone looked as if they were on the verge of death.

The seal created by the Great Celestial Master was smooth and round, like a perfect pearl. However, even with historical illusions as teaching materials, the seal from Shian came from a little girl reciting scribbles of a dog’s paw, so their seal looked more like a pitted walnut.

At least it was sealed.

[I want to faint.]

Huang Jin weakly clung to a bone, scratching the ground.

[The enemy is sealed, and the memory isn’t distorted much. It’s all right. I’m ready to pass out.]

[No.] Fu Xingchuan exhaled forcefully. [The memory isn’t over yet. Hold on a little longer.]

Zhong Chengshuo remained silent, quietly watching Yin Ren throughout the night.

Only when the giant red sphere sank into the depths of the earth did Yin Ren finally notice the remaining observer from the Gouluo Army, but he treated him as if he didn’t exist.

Yin Ren slowly wrapped the Evil Fruit in his arms, returning himself to a weakened cocoon. After returning to his “original state”, he added several layers of seals to himself, as if he had remembered something.

With a single gesture, the evil spirits behind him dispersed.

He then walked towards the relatively intact ancestral hall.

When he came out, he was followed by over thirty teenagers and children. Each of them had red cloth seals covering their eyes, supported by spells, as they walked unsteadily.

“Great Master.” The oldest child, only fourteen or fifteen years old, spoke tremblingly. “Where… Where are we going? Our parents and the Divine Dog…”

“I will protect you and lead you out of the village. Someone will take you to a safe place. I will deal with the nearby Gouluo Army,” Yin Ren softly said, ignoring the latter two questions.

The youth didn’t ask any further. Although his eyes were covered by the red cloth seal, tears still streamed down his cheeks.

He knelt down and kowtowed to Yin Ren three times.

Beneath the red cloth, Yin Ren let out a long sigh. He waved his hand, summoning two evil creatures with appearances closer to humans, instructing them to accompany the group. But still worried, Yin Ren wrapped himself in several layers of red cloth used for sealing.

The children left their homeland unsteadily, and the dawn once again broke the darkness. Under the warm sunlight, Yin Village was left in ruins, lifeless and desolate. The place where the Evil Spirit had been sealed remained as a round red puddle, like an everlasting pool of blood.

Yin Ren followed behind the group from a distance.

When it was time to leave, his footsteps paused for a moment. The sound of bells echoed as the cocoon-like figure clumsily turned around, facing the devastated village.

The heavy seal wrapped the person into an unrecognizable form, yet Zhong Chengshuo could still sense their trembling.

As dawn broke, silence filled the surroundings, but there was no crowing of the rooster.

“Come back next year to report the peace.” A soft humming came from beneath the red cloth. “Come back next year to report the peace…”

Perhaps it was Zhong Chengshuo’s illusion, but he felt that Yin Ren’s gaze quickly swept over the hiding place of the Gouluo Army cultivator. Just as Zhong Chengshuo was about to further confirm, the illusion burst like a soap bubble, revealing the distorted and failed world submerged as if they were sinking.

The “reality mirage” disappeared, but with the efforts of a few individuals, the ruins closely resembled the illusions from their memories.

Meanwhile, within the ruins, Huang Jin lay on the ground like a layer of collapsed egg cake, completely unconscious.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

For those who are confused, basically what’s happening is, Sunken Society infiltrated the memories of the Evil Spirit dog of Shian hoping to change its memories, so it’ll go berserk in modern day. Meanwhile, Shian infiltrated Yin Ren’s memories in order to find out more about the Evil Spirit and Divine Descent.

The team was separated at first but eventually met in the Yin Village, where Yin Ren was born and comes to visit every year. In the past, the village was massacred by the Gouluo Army and became the seal of where Shian’s Evil Spirit currently lies.

Sunken Society infiltrated and became the Divine Dog (the guardian of the village). Instead of following the past memory, it actually incited it and caused the destruction of the village to speed up. The Gouluo Army brought in a source of corruption of Evil Force, which the Divine Dog consumed and started to transform into an Evil Spirit.

Meanwhile, Shian managed to enter Yin Ren’s memories, and each person possessed a “shell” of someone back then. Unfortunately, Zhong Chengshuo possessed Yin Ren’s shell and is unable to perform magic. The team eventually met at Yin Village, where the Evil Spirit was about to go out of control.

To prevent the Shian’s Evil Spirit from actually going berserk in reality, they had to seal the Evil Spirit in the memories and stop Sunken Society. To do this, Yellow Millet/Huang Jin used his cognitive confusion to project Yin Ren’s memory of the past (the most painful memory Yin Ren has)…

While inside the memory, a false memory was playing out (because Sunken Society has disturbed its natural flow). The projection Yellow Millet shows is the actual true memory (an illusion within an illusion). Following the true memory illusion, Fu Xingchuan was able to learn and copy Zhong Yi’s seal from back then, and with him and the other masters of Huajisi created their own seal in the fake memory. Eventually, both the fake and true memories show the sealing of the Evil Dog Spirit.

You can think of this as two memories (one real and one fake) being played out at the same time and overlapping. While the actions are different (instead of Yin Ren sealing the Evil Dog Spirit, Zhong Chengshuo is just acting out following the past Yin Ren’s action while the sealing is being done by Fu Xingchuan and the other masters of Huajisi), but the end result is pretty much the same.

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 169: Hatred

In front of everyone, two worlds coexisted simultaneously.

The environment was covered, yet the people remained. The flesh puppet wearing Yin Ren’s shell stood in place, and Fu Xingchuan furrowed his dog face with seriousness. The controlled Evil Spirit was awkwardly floating in mid-air.

In his mind, Huang Jin repeated the tranquility mantra frantically, shifting his gaze to the developing illusion… No, it should be called the “truth” of the past.

In the memories provided by Yin Ren, the black dog hadn’t been suppressed by the large tranquility incantation. Under the influence of corruption, its body rapidly disintegrated and deformed, emitting fractured barks. The previous scene was replayed as fragments of Evil Force scattered from the surrounding mountains and merged into the expanding body of the black dog.

A semi-transparent black membrane quickly grew on its surface, gradually thickening with countless filaments extending towards the sky. Above the mountain village, a massive black-gray vortex gradually appeared in the sky.

The filaments resembled blood vessels, and the vortex resembled a placenta. The immature Evil Spirit enveloped in the membrane was reminiscent of an unborn embryo.

Fu Xingchuan’s face wrinkled more severely. He raised his nose, and most of his sharp teeth were exposed. This sight was extremely familiar, reminding him of the campus within the Archive several months ago.

The scene ahead was similar to the eerie embryo back then.

Soon, the Evil Spirit writhed more intensely, and the layer of black membrane grew increasingly thin. Thread-like vessels connected to the vortex in the sky while the suspiciously viscous mucus dripped towards the ground.

The dripping mucus fell to the ground like raindrops. The Evil Spirit hadn’t fully emerged, yet corruption was already emanating from the membrane.

Accompanied by the splattering of mucus, the nearby members of the Gouluo Army fell in groups. Their flesh rapidly dissolved, accompanied by a hissing sound of corrosion, turning the robust soldiers into hole-ridden skeletons.

From deep within the membrane, the painful howls of a dog could be heard.

Fu Tianyi’s face turned deathly pale. In order to build up layers of protection, Comrade Xiao Fu went all out. It was uncertain whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, but the influence of the “Evil Embryo” was limited.

It trembled violently, desperately trying to shrink its body, fearing to affect the nearby ancestral hall. It seemed to want to regain control, but it couldn’t find a way to do so.

The reality of the past intertwined with the distortion from Sunken Society. The Evil Dog Spirit in memory controlled by the Sunken Society mirrored the reality as two black dogs floated in mid-air, coincidentally pausing at the same stage of birth.

Only, the former was desperately resisting birth, while the latter was desperately trying to be born.

They hung in the night like a pair of decaying eyeballs.

The Evil Spirit was about to be born, so Huang Jin dared not look closely. He suppressed the intense dizziness and fixed his gaze on the piles of corpses on the ground. The fate of the Gouluo Army was a hundred times more miserable than that of the little girl. If the girl turned into mud, they resembled deflated water balloons, leaving only deformed flesh fragments behind.

Huang Jin’s head was splitting with pain, but he couldn’t relax.

At this moment, truth and lies coexisted within the memory.

He was unsure of the consequences if he were to faint right now. The only thing he knew was that, currently, only this illusion could temporarily halt the birth of the Evil Spirit controlled by the enemy.

But what were the conditions for winning this game?

They were trapped in Schrödinger’s box*, and the box would eventually be opened. There was either truth or lies, life or death—ultimately, only one ending.

*Clarity: Famous for his thought experiment, Schrödinger’s cat illustrates a paradox of quantum superposition whereby a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead while it is unobserved inside a closed box and as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. || In this context, it means that all the events happening now are like the cat. The cat represents both the real and fake memories, and are still sealed and unnoticed, but eventually, once the box is opened, the result will be displayed.

Shian’s combat power was severely lacking, and Yin Ren only provided this memory, but he wasn’t present… Wait, he wasn’t present?

A faint ringing sound came from the fog.

Huang Jin, acting as a projector, couldn’t turn around, but he did his best to let out a joyful cry, “Puffffffff!!!”

Two worlds intersected. If there was an Evil Spirit in the “truth,” then there must be the corresponding Great Celestial Master—

The true Great Celestial Master from a thousand years ago.

Amidst the surging mountain fog, another figure, three meters tall, appeared. Compared to the shell controlled by the flesh puppet, this Great Celestial Master walked with weakness and heaviness. He was enveloped in a nearly uncontrollable Evil Force, instantly chilling the cool night.

Evil beings followed silently behind him.

The mountain village prepared to welcome the arrival of the Great Celestial Master, hanging lanterns and arranging offering plates. However, at this moment, every household had tightly closed doors and windows. Under the influence of the Evil Force, the corpses and offerings quickly decayed, and the sparks burning on the ruins extinguished in the mist, leaving only charred remains.

The remnants of the Gouluo Army, farther away from the Evil Spirit embryo, were attempting to escape. However, as soon as they stepped within ten paces of the red figure, they fell to the ground like limp sacks and quickly perished.

Those snow-white bare feet stepped on the corpses, and the flesh and blood of the bodies turned into brownish soil upon contact with those feet.

The Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi walked step by step. Whenever he passed by a somewhat intact house, he would pause for a moment. The “cocoon”, wrapped in red cloth, leaned forward slightly and thumped against the door.

He was knocking.

Each time he did so, the evil spirits obediently stopped in their tracks and stared at the clumsy figure with their distorted eyes.

Every knock on the door stirred fragments of related memories. They were like water droplets rippling in the illusion, splashing and vanishing in an instant.

There was a puppy engraved on this door.

A hundred years ago.

[Daddy, I want to see the Great Master!] A tender voice asked from behind the door.

[You can’t, you can’t. The door is protected by the Great Master. It won’t work even if we open it. Meeting the Great Master might harm us.] A mature male voice hurriedly replied. [Great Master, our chickens were killed by a Yellow Skin. Could you help us? We’ll offer you a chicken egg cake as a reward. It’s made by her mother and flavored with honey!]

Several decades ago.

[Mother, there are many strange shadows outside. The Great Master is really scary—] A different voice came from the same door.

[Your grandfather told me that the Great Master is from our village. Everyone knows that he would never harm the people from our village,] a gentle female voice said. [Great Master, a few of our fruit trees have tumors growing on their roots, and they’re withering. Could you help us remove them? We have fresh honeyed treats as an offering. They’re very sweet.]

A few years ago.

[Grandma, Grandma, I have a stomachache. I want the Great Master to help!] A clear child’s voice shouted.

[Is that so? Well, you have to offer something to the Great Master first. When you ask for someone’s help, you need to show gratitude.] A gentle voice of an old woman replied from the other side of the door.

The child pondered and asked, [What does the Great Master want?]

[Hmm, how about you sing a song for me?] the Great Celestial Master answered with a smile.

His voice was weak and weary, as if enduring something.

[Okay! I’ll go out and sing for you!]

[No, you can’t.] The old woman hurriedly dissuaded. [There is a protection on the door by the Great Master. It won’t work if you open it!]

……

Now, the puppy on the wooden door was splattered with blood, and behind the door, there was only cold silence.

One door, another door. Some with graffiti, others adorned with beautifully written couplets, and some with unique wood patterns…

Silence, silence, still silence.

The blood-red figure’s steps grew heavier.

In the “truth”, the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi eventually stopped before the embryo of the Evil Spirit.

That position was right beside Zhong Chengshuo.

Two identical Great Celestial Masters stood side by side—one with unsteady steps, the other covered in bloodstains.

Amidst the night and the surrounding ruins, two Evil Spirit embryos floated in the sky while two red figures stood on the ground. The two groups of evil beings stood silently in their respective positions, as if the world itself were mirrored.

The Great Celestial Master in the memory raised his hand, and a black light flashed, hitting the fleeing Gouluo soldiers on the other side. However, even with such a small spell, the surrounding plants withered instantly, and the brownish-yellow soil turned dead black, narrowly avoiding the ancestral hall in its range.

As if sensing his arrival, the unborn Evil Spirit emitted a vague whimper.

“Cough… Cough.”

The Great Celestial Master coughed several times, his voice filled with weakness.

“They say that evil beings have no conscience… Are you trying to protect them, or are you simply unwilling to let go of this place?”

His face was hidden beneath the red cloth, but Huang Jin could sense the profound sorrow within.

The past Yin Ren, no different from the Evil Spirit, was a source of corruption on the move. He remembered this catastrophe so clearly, yet he was powerless… What would it feel like?

The Evil Spirit embryo only emitted intermittent moans, its voice gradually becoming chaotic and fluctuating like murmured dreams. Huang Jin couldn’t understand what it was trying to convey, but he could see that the creature’s sanity was reaching its limits. The semi-transparent black membrane pulsated again, growing turbid.

The Great Celestial Master stood still for a long time amidst the swirling mountain mist—the stench of blood and decay suffocated the air. Several tattered paper lanterns rolled across the muddy ground, tainted with filth and bloodstains.

One brushed against the Great Celestial Master’s bare ankle, instantly corrupted and reduced to dust by the uncontrollable Evil Force.

Tick.

With little rationality left, the Evil Spirit embryo began to develop once more, and its highly toxic mucus dripped once again.

A sigh escaped the Great Celestial Master, and the red cloth wrapped around him burst open at the same time, blossoming like a red flower.

The red cocoon transformed into red garments, and the dense power of Evil Force spread suddenly. The seals that had been jingling and clattering all flew up, surrounding the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi… No, surrounding Yin Ren with their numbers greatly increasing.

The Yin Ren from a thousand years ago extended his hand, gripping the nearby dagger.

His black hair scattered, his face ghastly pale, and his eyes bloodshot. The once sharp and beautiful features now exuded an eerie aura.

“It seems we share the same desire,” Yin Ren muttered, moving his lips.

“This hatred, I will remember it along with you. We made an agreement… but you’re beyond saving now. I cannot let you witness it.”

Only broken and feeble moans remained from the Evil Spirit embryo.

“Let us establish a blood oath,” Yin Ren pointed his dagger directly at the Evil Dog Spirit. “And let you rest in peace.”

At the same time, Zhong Chengshuo struggled to free himself from the red cloth, squeezing his arm through the gap and tightly gripping the dagger, pointing it straight ahead. From his posture, he was clumsily imitating Yin Ren.

Huang Jin, who was trying hard to stay awake, muttered, “Ah… so that’s it. The true intelligence of the flesh puppet is finally exposed, huh?”

Unexpectedly, at this moment, Fu Xingchuan leaped forward and grabbed Ge Tingting’s trousers. The latter lowered her head and happened to see the large blood-written words.

[Learn.]

Fu Xingchuan’s eyes gleamed.

[Outside, we have Lu Xiaohe, Fu Tianyi, and those from Huajisi. I have experience with Yin Ren’s sealing techniques, and you have the ability to perform spells. The body of the flesh puppet can provide power.]

Ge Tingting’s spirits lifted. “We can become makeshift Great Celestial Masters!”

As long as they followed the illusion and imitated the technique, they could seal the Evil Spirit that Sunken Society was controlling. Without room to maneuver, the enemy would naturally be unable to hinder them.

Upon hearing this understanding, Fu Xingchuan’s claws momentarily stiffened.

[The Great Celestial Master is in poor condition, and the opponent is not a true Evil Spirit. The spell intensity won’t be too strong.] He didn’t question Ge Tingting’s interpretation. [I’ll write, you read, and keep in touch with Lu Xiaohe!]

Meanwhile, the Yin Ren from a thousand years ago raised his dagger. Without hesitation, he slashed his palm, and blood instantly soaked the blade. The flowing blood didn’t drip; instead, it animatedly entwined around the dagger, seeping into its blade.

The Evil Spirit embryo wriggled laboriously for a moment, and the black dog summoned its final moment of clarity, biting its own distorted body.

A thread of black blood pierced through the membrane and wrapped around the short knife.

Countless talismans swiftly flashed on the blade, and the color of the knife gradually changed from bluish-gray to crimson. Moonlight mingled with the glow of fire, and countless dazzling streams of light flowed across the blade.

Yin Ren lowered his head and tightly gripped the knife handle.

“The blood oath is complete,” he said silently.

“Have a good dream.”

The last trace of transparency disappeared from the membrane on the surface of the Evil Spirit’s body.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

For those who forgot… This is why Qi Xin calls the Evil Spirit a “stillborn”. Ah… I love how Nian Zhong can connect those details so seamlessly.

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 168: The Truth

Not long ago, Yin Ren’s head was buzzing with a sense of numbness.

He felt as if he were stuck in a “bug” in reality, surrounded by a pervasive feeling of emptiness akin to free-falling. If it weren’t for the mutterings of Dog Thing by his side, he would almost have difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality. It was worse than the pitch-black solitary confinement cell in prison—at least the prisoners in solitary confinement could still experience different levels of tactile sensations.

In comparison, the millennia-long seal felt like a vacation.

Yin Ren wandered aimlessly in the void, occasionally prodding Dog Thing with his thoughts to gain some fresh feedback. Apart from the undulating ripples in the distance, he still obtained nothing.

This couldn’t go on.

However, this kind of environment was ideal for contemplation. Since he couldn’t regain the perception of this “body”, it was better to try an alternative approach.

Yin Ren shifted his “gaze” towards the crazed and restless Dog Thing.

According to its explanation, the reason they were placed into bodies might be because of their similar “nature” and their connection to the Primordial Elementals. His own power far surpassed that of the Dog Thing, which caused it to be treated as a mere appendage.

The memory spell didn’t identify it as an individual.

Yin Ren exerted effort to decipher Shian’s memory spell. At this point, he was trapped in the spell, unable to escape. However, if he forcibly drew a clear boundary with Dog Thing, the spell currently in operation would surely detect this loophole.

Next, it would follow the existing rules to search for another body for Dog Thing.

…If he could forcibly place Dog Thing into a specific body and use it to convey a message, perhaps he could find Zhong Chengshuo. Fortunately, he had carefully studied this spell before and knew how to decrypt and modify it.

If he couldn’t go to the mountains, then when the mountains came, he could return to simplicity*.

*It’s an expression that means even if one can’t achieve one’s desired goal or go to a certain place, they can find contentment and fulfillment in embracing the circumstances that come their way. Basically, adapt to the situation.

Unexpectedly, when Yin Ren entertained this thought, Dog Thing vehemently expressed its opposition.

[Can’t find a body to accommodate you?]

After reading the thoughts of Dog Thing, Yin Ren asked with confusion.

[But cell phones can do it perfectly fine.] Could it be that the chip in a cell phone was some kind of metaphysical object he couldn’t comprehend?

[It’s not the same.] If it had a head, then Dog Thing would definitely be shaking it at high speed. [Ordinary creatures can’t handle me. Their brains would break down. It’s just a matter of how long it takes.]

Yin Ren recalled for a moment the bird whose head exploded, and let out a sigh. However, in the next instant, Lord Ghost King remembered something.

[Right now, we are in a memory. The creatures and evil things outside are not ‘living beings’. Regardless of what body you possess, what truly carries you is my brain and the brain of that Evil Spirit.]

The Evil Spirit wasn’t an ordinary evil, and Yin Ren wasn’t an ordinary Evil Spirit.

Dog Thing fell into contemplation, and after about half an hour, it finally reluctantly agreed.

[I’ll give it a try, but I can’t guarantee success.] Dog Thing reluctantly stated.

Yin Ren scratched his head in his thoughts. Everything was ready—he was just waiting for the right opportunity.

He knew which vessel to send Dog Thing into. However, the ripples were sweeping in all directions, making it nearly impossible for him to pinpoint the exact location amidst the chaos. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. There were so many disturbances that it made him want to collapse.

His memories and those of the Evil Spirit intersected. When the black dog Evil Spirit was born, there was a very distinct “ripple”. However, he couldn’t determine whether his target was exactly near it.

Yin Ren refined the spell to “throw” Dog Thing in his consciousness, calculating the required runes to guide it to a specific target.

He only needed a clue—even the slightest and most inconspicuous hint…

The turning point came in an instant.

Amidst the growing ripples of the Evil Force, another familiar ripple surged. It felt similar to an Evil Spirit, and Yin Ren was certain that it was himself.

“The Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi” was performing his spell.

As the memory of the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi resurfaced, Yin Ren was absolutely certain that his target was also present! With such commotion, Zhong Chengshuo wouldn’t miss it either.

[It has begun! …I’ve finally found them!]

In Yin Ren’s consciousness, an extremely intricate spell formed instantly. The runes wrapped around the cowering figure of Dog Thing, and in less than half a second, its consciousness soared upward like a projectile. Carrying Yin Ren’s entrusted memories, it flew far away.

Yin Ren let out a sigh of relief.

Dog Thing vanished, and he found himself surrounded by true emptiness.

…It didn’t matter; he had sent what needed to be sent.

He had allowed Dog Thing to receive his current memories. They contained his pleas for help, his concerns—

And his protection. Yin Ren had also packed the memories from a thousand years ago, serving as a patch in case of unexpected deviations in the memory environment.

In the boundless void, Yin Ren relaxed his mind.

[Zhong Ge, I’ve sent the information to you. Please reply as soon as possible.]

…..

Blood slowly dripped onto the soil, and Zhong Chengshuo remained motionless.

The purification array was still in effect, but the Evil Force continued to grow. It expanded slowly and irresistibly. Fu Xingchuan, Huang Jin, and Ge Tingting didn’t dare look at it anymore. Only Zhong Chengshuo remained, looking at it calmly.

It was starting to resemble more like the underground Evil Spirit of Shian… That dangerous Evil Spirit resembled a coral reef and emitted poisonous mist.

Now, on the surface of the Evil Spirit’s body, an undeveloped dog’s mouth had appeared. The entire Evil Spirit was enclosed within a semi-transparent black membrane, with mucus flowing along its uneven surface. The flesh of the black dog had long since ruptured, revealing the brownish-red blood and bones underneath.

Lu Xiaohe was reporting nonstop through her communication headset. The reinforcements from Huajisi had arrived, and the ancient cultivators cautiously advanced their encirclement. However, with the Evil Force active to this extent, they didn’t continue forward.

“What should we do?” Ge Tingting’s hand trembled as she held the short knife.

She didn’t know if the Evil Force in the memory would leave any aftereffects, or what would happen if the physical body in the memory was destroyed… And she had no idea what would become of them if the Evil Spirit truly went mad due to the confusion in its memories.

Just the effort of not retreating had exhausted all of her courage.

Beside her, the flesh puppet stood tall. His posture was calm and relaxed, as if he were waiting to meet someone. Fu Xingchuan also stood motionless in his place, using his small body to protect the others.

The nearby Gouluo army had been corrupted by the Evil Force, resulting in numerous casualties. In the night, only mountain mist and a light breeze remained, creating a terrifying silence.

Suddenly, the area where they were located was illuminated by a dark red radiance. The surrounding scenery appeared as if data had glitched, displaying distorted noise.

Next to Yellow Millet, who was half-paralyzed on the ground, a faint black-gray vortex suddenly appeared.

“Puff?!”

Ge Tingting couldn’t understand Yellow Millet’s language, but she could guess that it was probably an obscenity.

In fact, it was indeed a curse word.

The situation was so dire that Huang Jin had already mentally given up. During his time working in Shian, he had long since learned the mantra: “Haha, whatever”—as a spirit smith without any hands, he was now equivalent to a heavy ornament for the group.

Huang Jin had never imagined that things could get any worse for him.

As the anomaly suddenly occurred and the vortex spun, his head began to ache as if someone had stuffed a bowling ball into his brain. Some colossal entity seemed to have invaded his thoughts, and it felt as terrified as he did.

That thing also emitted a stream of thoughts similar to a curse word.

Fortunately, communication between thoughts was swift. Huang Jin was impacted by this unexpected guest and became somewhat confused, but he managed to discern the meaning of “Yin Ren’s rescue”.

In his mind, Huang Jin frantically repeated the tranquility mantra and clenched his nonexistent teeth.

[Fine.] He forced himself to convey his thoughts. [I’ll leave it to you. I’ll try my best to hold on.]

Phenomenon A-A682, Yellow Millet.

One of the extremely dangerous and rare corporeal evils. Yellow Millet was highly skilled in cognitive attacks; in other words, it excelled at creating realistic illusions.

Under the concerned gaze of Ge Tingting and Fu Xingchuan, the previously collapsed Yellow Millet gradually became full. Its originally colorful surface turned pure black, abruptly resembling a spatial wormhole.

In an instant, centered around Yellow Millet, the surrounding environment seemed to be covered and rapidly transformed.

Under the same night sky, the blood-soaked land became clean, and the burnt remains reverted to houses engulfed in flames. The corpses of people vanished, replaced by fleeing mountain villagers. The tranquil night was torn apart by hoarse and distorted barks of dogs, mixed with the shouts of “Enemy attack!” from the people.

In the realm of illusions, the illusions were just illusions within reality.

However, in the memory environment that was both illusory and real, illusions were capable of rivaling “reality”.

Contradictory memories intermingled with each other, and the world of memories descended into chaos. The Evil Spirit controlled by the enemy was affected by the environment and froze firmly in place.

Amidst the clamor of barking dogs, Fu Xingchuan also excitedly barked twice. Under the red cloth, Zhong Chengshuo closed his eyes.

“Yin Ren,” he softly called.

It was Yin Ren.

The enemy was fervently manipulating the memories of the Evil Spirit, and whatever Shian did would only intensify this chaos. The facts from a thousand years ago had long been obliterated, and the memories destroyed and overwritten, theoretically making it impossible to be restored. After all, despite Shian’s strength, they had only just sent people to investigate the details.

Sunken Society felt so confident because they believed this was merely “the Evil Spirit’s memory”.

However, what Sunken Society didn’t know was that there was still a living witness to the events from back then.

That person could still reveal the truth of what happened that year.

The Great Celestial Master who stood on the hillside all those years ago witnessed the village he was close to gradually descending into destruction. The memories of those events were so deeply ingrained that even now, the scenes projected by Yellow Millet were vivid and terrifying.

The elderly and middle-aged villagers picked up their farming tools and rushed toward the village entrance. The women guided the children to the ancestral hall, each of them holding sturdy kitchen knives in their hands.

“Hurry! Find a safe place. Hide in the deepest part of the ancestral hall. the Great Celestial Master has left protective spells!” The women repeatedly urged hoarsely. “No matter what you hear later, do not come out!”

The slightly older children took on the role of leaders and ran towards the ancestral hall, guiding the younger children.

The Divine Dog shook off the silk draped over its body and stood at the doorway, barking frantically with more urgency than the mountain villagers.

“Will the Great Master… Will the Great Master not come to save us?” a child refused to leave their mother, tightly clinging to her leg.

“Be good. Hide first.”

The child’s mother crouched down.

“The Great Master is too powerful. If he were to intervene, we would only die faster. He has already left us many protections. Be good. I will come to see you later.”

“But the ancestral hall can’t hold so many people,” the child said with a sob.

“…Mommy knows.”

She lifted her head and looked toward the distant mountains covered by fog.

“Mommy knows.”

The mountain villagers were fiercely courageous. Even in the face of death, they displayed a chilling determination. By the time they reached the ancestral hall, this group of Gouluo Army had already lost one-third of their forces, and many others were injured.

Among the soldiers, there was only one cultivator left.

The Divine Dog… or rather, the Evil Dog Spirit, was covered in wounds; its body was covered with scorch marks from spells. It bared its teeth, filled with human flesh and blood, at the remaining Gouluo cultivator.

Dragging a broken leg, it proudly stood at the entrance of the ancestral hall, with the tightly closed doors behind it.

“Go in and kill them all! Wipe out these despicable people and eradicate their lineage!”

The leader of the Gouluo soldiers roared with anger.

The black dog barked madly, surrounded by black light. The black light formed a shield, tightly guarding the doors and walls of the ancestral hall. The Gouluo soldiers switched to using long arrows made of exorcism wood, and the arrows rained down on the black dog.

“Don’t hurt the dog!”

A clear voice rang out.

It was the little girl who had clung to her mother and refused to let go earlier. She wasn’t willing to enter the ancestral hall and hadn’t waited for her own mother. The girl’s face was tear-streaked, and her eyes were swollen like peaches.

She stumbled out and embraced the black dog, whose fur was stained with blood.

Several arrows pierced through her shoulders and arms in an instant, but the child held onto the black dog tightly as if she didn’t feel any pain.

“Doggie you go… you go find the Great Master and drive away the bad people with him…”

She whispered into the dog’s ear, her voice filled with a sob.

“Don’t handle them by yourself. You’ll get hurt…”

The black dog let out a sharper bark, and another layer of shield unfolded in front of the girl. The arrows clinked against the shield and fell to the ground. The black dog itself was panting heavily, and its eyes were emitting a terrifying bloodlust in the darkness.

The remaining cultivator in the Gouluo Army had a cold expression and made a gesture, causing the arrow rain to abruptly stop.

The cultivator extended both hands and muttered incantations under his breath.

The red fabric scattered, and a metal box exuding a strong aura of Evil Force floated in the air and flew straight towards the black dog. It flew fast and steady, and upon contact, the black dog’s shield burst like a soap bubble. The girl clung tightly to the dog’s neck, looking puzzled at the intricately decorated metal box.

In the next moment, the girl began to melt.

Her features enlarged and shrank, swimming on her skin. Her limbs collapsed rapidly, and her entire body melted like wax exposed to fire, quickly turning into a horrifying pile. Bones pierced through the thin skin, haphazardly propped up by the flesh mass.

The girl seemed to feel no pain. Her deformed and displaced eyes slowly turned towards the black dog.

“Dog… dog—doggie.”

She murmured.

“Run away quickly…”

The box, filled with corruption, continued its rapid trajectory, floating towards the black dog. As long as the black dog dodged, the next thing to shatter would be the gate of the ancestral hall.

However, it didn’t dodge.

There were no screams or cries of anguish. The black dog lowered its head, sniffed the melted body of the girl, and then struggled to turn its body and made a desperate leap. It bit the metal box fiercely and clenched it in its mouth.

Crack.

Black blood overflowed from between its canine teeth, and the layers of metal shattered instantly. The source of corruption, tainted by Evil Force, fell to the ground and was devoured by the black dog.

In the next moment, it resolutely charged towards the remaining members of the Gouluo Army.

---

The author has something to say:

Yin Ren sent the truth.rar compressed package (×

---

Kinky Thoughts:

Oh no, I’m crying again. Divine Dog is a good boy!!! You deserve all the treats!

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 167: Signal

“What’s going on? What’s in that box again?” Fu Tianyi used a levitation spell to pull a person and a dog, swiftly rushing towards the edge of the village.

A surge of evil qi surged behind him, and the oppressive feeling unique to Evil Force pierced his back like thorns. Fu Tianyi had clearly passed through the gates of hell in the abandoned hospital, yet he dared not even look back now.

Fu Xingchuan shook his still bleeding paw and formed crooked words with the strands of blood. Lu Xiaohe cleared her throat and quickly read them out loud.

“The box contains a source of Evil Force corruption, which the Gouluo Army will use as a weapon. After a massacre, it can quickly generate a large number of evil beings in a short period, causing maximum chaos.”

Fu Xingchuan struggled to shake off the dog blood from his paw, and the droplets of blood formed a new line of sentences.

“That person wants to distort the memory of the underground Evil Spirit through their own actions… Ah, so that’s it!”

Midway through reading, Lu Xiaohe took a breath. Seeing someone understand, Fu Xingchuan licked his paw bitterly.

“In the true historical records, starting this morning, all the dogs should have been barking incessantly, attracting a group of people to go up the mountain. With such a phenomenon, the preparations in the village are likely to be temporarily suspended.”

Lu Xiaohe quickly deduced.

“The villagers have weapons and would be vigilant. The Great Celestial Master comes here every year, and the village itself has sufficient defense measures. The mountain village wouldn’t collapse so quickly in the face of the Gouluo Army. The time for the Divine Dog to become an Evil Spirit should have been later.”

By the time the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi arrived, the Evil Spirit had just been born, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it still had a bit of rationality.

But the enemy was rewriting its memory.

Coincidentally, their enemy entered the body of the Divine Dog. That scoundrel not only failed to raise the alarm but also took the opportunity to devour a large amount of the source of Evil Force corruption, attempting to become an Evil Spirit ahead of time.

It was hard to say, now that the memories were twisted, what would happen when the Great Celestial Master arrived.

Would the Divine Dog stand by and watch without rescuing the villagers with whom it lived together day and night? Would it go crazy and start the slaughter itself?

What if it severely injured the Great Celestial Master during its frenzy and was sealed away with hatred?

The personalities and experiences of intelligent beings… or rather, “memory constraints”, accounted for a significant portion. If the memory of this Evil Spirit was rewritten and it suddenly went mad in reality…

What would happen to the Shian Campus? What would everyone do?

Thinking of this, Lu Xiaohe broke into a sweat. She wiped the sweat near her eyelids, which was clearly just a memory, but the salty sweat stung her eyes.

Fu Tianyi, inexperienced as he was, finally grasped the deep meaning behind it all. His face quickly turned bitter.

Things were gradually turning for the worse right in front of them, yet they couldn’t do anything about it.

“Are we just going to stand by and watch?” Lu Xiaohe asked hoarsely, “What if the enemy can control that mad dog?”

“An Evil Spirit is a living calamity!” Fu Tianyi instinctively retorted. “We don’t have anything right now…”

But as he caught a glimpse of Lu Xiaohe’s gaze, he froze.

Lu Xiaohe was looking at his attire—the clothes of the highest commander of Huajisi, embroidered with runes that emitted a faint glow.

“You, you don’t mean…” Fu Tianyi’s tongue was tied.

[Very good.] Fu Xingchuan waved his paw.

Fu Tianyi looked at Fu Xingchuan in a daze again.

“In the late Gong Dynasty, the court was incompetent and wary of Huajisi. Fu Shangliu and Li Heyan had no interest in vying for power, so they dispersed talented individuals and strangers to various places, preparing to deal with the enemy cultivators. Even in the depths of the mountains, as long as the magical signal is conspicuous enough, it can attract people.”

Lu Xiaohe’s ten fingers twitched slightly, as if she wanted to type on a keyboard.

“The enemy is rewriting the Evil Spirit’s memories, so we might as well join them. Your Fu family has those ancestral distress signals, right? Anyway, this is just a memory, and no one will really die. If the enemy dares to cause trouble, we have to prevent this memory environment from collapsing.”

Fu Tianyi swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Although assessing the situation and allocating resources were the responsibilities of the rear command, he couldn’t help but feel that this woman was even scarier than Dr. Cat—she was half a step of an Evil Spirit!

Regardless of his thoughts, he immediately raised his hand.

He didn’t care what this memory would turn into!

Blood-red fireworks exploded, bursting in the mountain mist in an instant. The blazing spheres of light transformed into flying red birds, soaring in all directions.

The curtain of mountain mist dispersed, revealing a group of silent figures stumbling forward amidst the crimson radiance. From this distance, Fu Tianyi could just make out their blurry shadows.

No way. Was Huajisi of the Gong Dynasty this powerful? His distress signal hadn’t even completely dissipated yet.

The answer came in the form of a surging evil qi—ghosts, demons, and evil spirits—the evil qi flowed like water in the depths of a hundred-foot cold pond, seemingly freezing the surrounding air. Faint children’s laughter echoed from the mist, causing one’s hair to stand on end.

In the dark night, countless contorted figures emerged and retracted from the mist, their intertwined shadows fluctuating in intensity. Unidentifiable, eerie friction sounds emanated from the dirt road, and the number of footsteps was alarming.

A night tour of evils!

With the timing of a leaky roof during a night of continuous rain*, Fu Tianyi felt like crying. This was truly deserving of the “Evil Force” of the Ghost King—before it even fully manifested, the surrounding evil spirits came on a pilgrimage?

*Idiom refers to when one is already in a difficult or challenging situation, additional problems or misfortunes tend to arise, making the situation even worse (AKA when it rains it pours).

He was about to turn around and run when he heard Fu Xingchuan let out a warning bark.

Fu Xingchuan, in his six-legged dog form, kicked his legs furiously, using his weak abilities within the dog’s body to forcibly break the levitation spell, resulting in a crash landing. Seeing the strongest… No, the most reliable combat power falling down, Fu Tianyi’s scalp exploded, and he quickly followed suit.

They landed right in front of the approaching army of evil spirits.

In front of them, a blood-red figure of about three meters in height walked calmly. It was covered in jingling seals and its pale feet were the same color as the mountain mist. Walking behind it was a wobbly-headed doll on the left and a clumsily rolling yellow ball on the right.

“Cultivators, don’t look at me.”

A familiar voice spoke.

“Cultivators, use your best defensive spells and don’t look at me.”

Lu Xiaohe was the first to become excited. She left behind the two non-science posts who were trying to protect themselves. “Yin Ren, it’s me, Lu Xiaohe! The Evil Spirit is about to be born. Think of a solution quickly—”

“Xiaohe Jie! I’m Ge Tingting, and that Yellow Millet is Huang Jin.”

Behind the Great Celestial Master, the crisp voice of a little girl came from under the hood of the doll.

“This Yin Ren… this Yin Ren is his flesh puppet, Zhong Chengshuo. We couldn’t find Yin Ren!”

Fu Xingchuan’s breathing paused.

A flesh puppet? Flesh puppets couldn’t be brought in, but if that ancient Yin Ren created an evil being… Letting an evil thing have intimate contact with Zhong Chengshuo’s parents wasn’t something this person would likely do.

Recalling Yin Ren’s sudden abandonment of “self-sealing”, Fu Xingchuan suddenly came up with an absurd and particularly terrifying conjecture.

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. Fu Xingchuan prostrated himself on the ground, covering his eyes with his two front paws.

[Can you use magic?] He spelled out the blood words wearily.

Ge Tingting looked at the communication device beneath the dog’s ear in shock, but her response wasn’t slow, and she knew who the other was referring to. “No, he can’t do anything.”

Trembling, Fu Xingchuan raised his newly grown paws and covered his limp ears.

[At least we’ve gathered. Let’s do our best.] His mind raced quickly. [First of all…]

Before Fu Xingchuan could finish his “first of all,” he heard the cocoon-like blood-red figure continue walking towards the village. The bells on the person’s feet jingled, as if they hadn’t seen him.

“The flesh puppet has an idea,” Ge Tingting urgently said, grabbing Fu Tianyi. “Minister Fu, come with us!”

Fu Tianyi: “…”

He helplessly looked at the dog.

That dog—Fu Xingchuan—wished he could stuff his paws into his ear canals. “The flesh puppet has an idea.” What kind of talk is this?

After half a second of evading reality, Fu Xingchuan still stood up and called out twice.

[Tianyi and Xiao Lu, gather reinforcements. Use your best defensive techniques in the outside world and slowly press inward. We will go to the center to investigate with these people. Act opportunistically.]

He wanted to see what kind of idea a “flesh puppet” could come up with.

……

Shen Mo was quite happy.

Although the black dog’s body suffocated with pain when it witnessed the villagers being slaughtered, and its evil qi showed signs of turmoil, it was merely a subconscious response. Consciousness still belonged to Shen Mo.

This was even better. The more suppressed he felt now, the more thorough his frenzy would be later.

Without hesitation, he swallowed the corruption from the Evil Force. He knew that was what the former Divine Dog had done. Poor Shian, those stupid pigs, were still oblivious to the situation on the other side, giving him the advantage.

His entire body underwent constant transformation. Shen Mo calmly underwent a detachment of perception, leisurely experiencing the deformation and trembling of his body.

Once the Evil Spirit took shape, he would kill the remaining children in the ancestral hall. The protective measures left by the Great Celestial Master were quite formidable. Even as the Evil Spirit took shape nearby, a dozen or so children hidden deep in the ancestral hall were still alive.

Once he killed everyone present, he could deal with the insects of Shian and also test that so-called Great Celestial Master…

Based on the memories obtained from the “Other Side,” that Great Celestial Master didn’t have much wariness towards this dog. He could completely feign weakness, take advantage of his opponent’s unpreparedness, and deliver a fatal blow.

In his memory, the people who mattered were all killed by his own hand. It would certainly eliminate the last trace of rationality in the Evil Spirit of Shian.

Suddenly, an extremely powerful aura came from a certain direction.

The Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi arrived faster than expected… perhaps due to some kind of butterfly effect.

But it didn’t matter.

Shen Mo let out a string of sobs as he commanded the forming Evil Force to sway and deliberately tremble even more intensely. In his distorted vision, the red figure gently stood still.

The Great Celestial Master stood silently in front of him, saying nothing. Shen Mo drew closer, and his sobs grew louder.

That “Zhong Yi” still didn’t say anything and didn’t use any magic. He simply slowly raised his hand and pointed in Shen Mo’s direction.

The little girl accompanying him hesitated for a moment, then raised a short knife and directly stabbed it into the arm of the “Zhong Yi” wrapped in numerous seals. Blood instantly gushed out along the blade, dripping onto the ground.

The blood, carrying a mighty power, seeped into the soil. The next moment, the ground rumbled—

Centered around Shen Mo, a soft radiance instantly dispelled the mountain mist. The pearl-like radiance spread over the ruins, brushing past blood-soaked corpses. The remaining lanterns flickered to life, swaying slightly in the mountain breeze.

Within the cracks in the earth, small but densely packed skeletons wriggled. The blood remnants of the mountain villagers gathered towards those skeletons, forming black-red runes on the surface.

In the darkness, the radiance of those runes grew brighter.

Meanwhile, the Evil Force surrounding Shen Mo began to stagnate. The flowing power turned into cement, becoming extremely difficult to manipulate. Shen Mo looked in astonishment at those runes—

These people quietly arranged the formation with their bodies buried in the soil, but the formation they drew was just a modified giant purification array. Why?

Shen Mo attempted to move his body, but now his body completely refused to obey him. The sense of sorrow and pain in his subconscious eased, causing his transformation to slow down.

Blood continued to drip from the Great Celestial Master’s wound, supplying the array drop by drop. The purification array continued to operate, forcibly fixing Shen Mo in place.

…But what did it matter?

This Great Celestial Master could only use his own blood as material. It seemed he couldn’t perform any spells.

Could it be that some unlucky science post happened to turn into the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi? Shen Mo looked down at the red figure, and if he had a mouth, he would have shown a cold sneer.

Shian and the others did their utmost but could only trap themselves here. The birth of the Evil Spirit was only slowed down, not stopped.

He didn’t mind dragging it out with these people.

His only fear, the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi, was already finished. The destruction of Shian would only be delayed a little compared to the original estimation.

Unfortunately, he didn’t see that under the layers of red fabric, the “Great Celestial Master” revealed a smile.

The distress signal from the Fu family was conspicuous enough, but this massive spell fueled by the blood of the Great Celestial Master had an even stronger presence.

Since Yin Ren didn’t give him a signal, he would become the sender.

“I’m here.”

Zhong Chengshuo silently mouthed the words.

……

Somewhere in the distance.

Yin Ren ceased his exploration—there was a large “ripple” in a certain direction. It was growing stronger, accompanied by countless intense ripples around it. That area of disturbance was completely different from the tiny ripples of other things, shining brightly like flames in the dark night.

Something had happened.

Yin Ren took a deep breath mentally and kicked Dog Thing with his consciousness.

[It has begun!]

Yin Ren’s thoughts were even filled with excitement.

[…I finally found them!]

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The author has something to say:

It’s just a tool for King Yama to set off fireworks (x

Xiao Yin: !!!

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 166: Birth

Zhong Chengshuo stared intently at the fire and black smoke below the cliff.

This was his first time witnessing a war.

As for his feelings towards it, Zhong Chengshuo didn’t have anything particularly special to say—his foster parents always told him that life was valuable.

But that only applied to innocent people and “life” in the true sense. What he saw before him was only a faint echo of the past. Zhong Chengshuo didn’t pay much attention to it, but his body felt suffocated, and waves of pain stabbed at him again and again.

Yin Ren’s memories were so vivid that even though Zhong Chengshuo occupied the man’s body, this pain still lingered like a shadow.

Zhong Chengshuo pursed his lips. This was a pain he had never experienced before, different from the pain he felt when he and Yin Ren separated but equally heart-wrenching. Back then, Yin Ren probably witnessed this scene.

But all the villagers were fleeing outside, and getting closer to Yin Ren’s body would only mean death for these mortals who were faced with the overflowing Evil Force.

Casting a spell at such a long distance… Even if it was Yin Ren, he couldn’t perform precise spells from such a distance. Zhong Chengshuo tightly grasped the only short knife on Yin Ren’s body and was submerged in the pain from a thousand years ago.

The wails, smoke, and burning village made Huang Jin too scared to collapse, and Ge Tingting was too breathless to speak. Subconsciously, she moved closer to Zhong Chengshuo. The children had long since hidden themselves—as orphans found during chaotic times, most of them had seen this kind of scene before.

“We have to go save them,” Ge Tingting said hesitantly. “If this continues, the village… No, the memory will be affected.”

Even this newcomer knew that it was impossible for Yin Ren to do nothing.

“You guys go help the villagers,” Zhong Chengshuo turned to the evil creatures and ordered. Honestly, considering the average intelligence of these monsters, he didn’t hold much hope.

Sure enough, the monsters looked at him blankly. The hairless monkey evil smiled wryly and said, “Master, you need to guide us with your magic.”

As expected, it wouldn’t work.

Under the red cloth, Zhong Chengshuo slowly curled his fingers.

[We can’t go in right now. Our power is too weak] Seeing that Zhong Chengshuo’s order didn’t work, Huang Jin tried to encourage him. [Let’s explore the surrounding area first and look for our companions.]

Zhong Chengshuo turned his head and thoughtfully looked at Huang Jin. Huang Jin was taken aback by the gaze of this “weird flesh puppet” and his eyes shook. [What’s wrong?]

Zhong Chengshuo didn’t say anything. He just leaned forward slightly, observing the terrain around him. The pain from the erosion of the Evil Force shattered his limbs, and the pain of witnessing the destruction of the village tore at his heart. They reminded him of the pain that the original owner of this body had endured.

Ge Tingting said it well. They needed to do something. Yin Ren must have done something back then to make that dog the weakest and most sober Evil Spirit.

Zhong Chengshuo reached out and lightly pressed on his chest, where the pain was most intense.

He took the first step forward.

“Before we take action, I have a suggestion,” Zhong Chengshuo said, trying to make his voice sound calm.

……

Inside the mountain village.

People were still rushing into the ancestral hall. There were residential houses around the courtyard, and some people climbed in from the surrounding low walls. Among them, there were parents pushing their children over the walls, as if this simple temple was a refuge that couldn’t be missed.

Fu Tianyi couldn’t describe what he was feeling inside.

The elderly, who were unable to move, almost all collapsed outside, while the young adults took on the task of defending the rear. In the temple, except for a few young adults, most of the people were teenagers and children.

The mountain people knew that he and Lu Xiaohe, these two “immortals”, might still be here, but they didn’t try to find them. People just cried out “Great Celestial Master” and looked eagerly towards the mountain mist and black smoke.

The clean stone bricks on the ground were covered in bloodstains and shredded cloth, and the mountain people’s faces were all covered in dust. The joyful atmosphere of the afternoon seemed like a dream, and everyone’s eyes were filled with nothing but fear.

The door of the ancestral hall was the strongest. It vibrated endlessly under the violent impact, and layers of plaster were shaken off the door and walls. Deep in the dust, carefully pasted animal skin charms were revealed.

“Great Celestial…”

A child tightly clutched his older brother’s clothes and called out with a sobbing voice.

…These are illusions. These people are long gone.

Fu Tianyi did psychological exercises for a long time before he managed to control himself. He forced himself to look away and continued to look at the “Divine Dog” above the temple.

The black dog remained motionless. Its concealment spell operated with meticulous precision. It seemed to sense Fu Tianyi’s gaze and looked down at him with an almost teasing expression.

Could they have made a mistake in their judgment? Wasn’t the original form of this Evil Spirit the “Divine Dog”?

Before Fu Tianyi could finish thinking, Fu Xingchuan leaned down and struggled to perform the levitation spell in a circle, charging straight towards the black divine dog. The black dog easily dodged and opened its large mouth, letting out a mocking chuckle from its throat.

“I wondered what went wrong with my spell. It turns out Shian sent a few rookies to investigate. Being able to enter the memory of an Evil Spirit. Not bad, not bad.”

It licked its long mouth and stretched lazily in response to the cries of the mountain people.

“Although I’m not too comfortable in this form, it is an Evil Spirit that has been fed by humans for a hundred years, so it can still be used—who is that white dog? It can’t really be a real dog, right?”

The white dog struggled to jump over the roof tiles and landed with difficulty. Fu Xingchuan crouched down and made a threatening growl.

This was just a ruse.

Lu Xiaohe reacted first and took a few steps forward. “Sunken Society?”

“You science posts are always the most annoying.” The black dog spoke human language and confirmed Lu Xiaohe’s guess. “It’s appropriate that you die here.”

It was squatting leisurely in place, as if waiting for something.

Lu Xiaohe made a gesture, indicating that Fu Tianyi should recover some strength. She continued to stand at the forefront. “If we’re going to die, I also want to die with understanding—you’re specifically here to destroy the memory of the Evil Spirit, aren’t you?”

She deliberately emphasized the words “memory of the Evil Spirit”.

The black dog just lazily flicked its tail and didn’t respond. It stood there coldly, watching the temple door tremble even more violently.

Bang, bang! The sound of the door being pounded became louder and louder, and the smell of burning herbs and blood drifted in from outside. The invading army obviously had accompanying cultivators with considerable ability.

Fu Xingchuan hid in the shadows like a real dog, and Fu Tianyi frantically recited spells, trying to revive his exhausted body and spirit.

Lu Xiaohe didn’t give up either. She took two steps forward and took a deep breath. “According to the record in the Book of Exorcism, this Evil Spirit was sealed by the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi not long after it was born. Even if you forcibly maintain this form, you can’t escape Zhong Yi…”

She stared at the black dog with her eyes fixed.

The black dog was focused on the door and seemed annoyed by Lu Xiaohe’s chattering. Suddenly, there was a flash of black light, and a spell hit Lu Xiaohe directly. Her clothes were torn into a huge gash, but there was only a scratch on her fair arm with no bleeding.

The shell of this scholar’s body was stronger than she had imagined.

Bang, bang! Black and red smoke diffused from the crack in the door. The ancient animal skin charms touched by the smoke began to curl up and turn black at the edges.

The black dog cautiously stood up after failing to hit Lu Xiaohe and took two steps back.

“The memory of the Evil Spirit will not weaken Zhong Yi’s strength. It’s not that simple to try to deal with us while avoiding him.”

Lu Xiaohe continued to launch an attack of bullshit as a science post, desperately attracting the black dog’s attention.

“We can work with him in advance to seal you. It’ll be hard to say whether you can leave normally. Why don’t you turn yourself in now and let us help you change your shell—”

“Shut up!”

The black dog was becoming increasingly annoyed by the noise. It lowered its head and bared its sharp teeth at Lu Xiaohe.

“Who do you think is trying to escape, foolish woman?”

Lu Xiaohe was startled.

It wasn’t because the black dog was rude, but because its body was trembling violently, as if enduring great pain. Just like… Like that body, which still reacted to the sight of the current situation.

Bang!

The temple door was pushed open, and the Goulou Army rushed in with their swords. The black dog’s attention instantly turned away.

Their soft armor was stained with blood and almost black in the light. The murderous intent of these living people was stronger than that of modern evil creatures. No one wasted time talking, and each one raised their swords and struck at the weak and thin teenagers and children.

The cultivators accompanying the Goulou Army were carrying a wooden box with an extremely strong Evil Force. There must be multiple sources of corruption of Evil Force there that even Lu Xiaohe, who was a science post, could feel an abnormal chill.

The bodies of the children who approached the wooden box quickly twisted and collapsed, their bodies becoming like molten sugar and quickly becoming unrecognizable.

The crying in the courtyard suddenly became louder.

The black dog became even more focused, staring directly at the person-sized box.

This was their chance!

Fu Xingchuan let out a sharp bark and pounced towards the black dog almost at the same time as Fu Tianyi took action. He used every sealing technique he had ever learned to attack the black dog with countless talismans.

They had to remove the enemy from within the black dog before things got worse!

Fu Xingchuan bit the black dog’s throat, and Fu Tianyi’s sealing techniques destroyed all the hidden charms around the black dog, capturing it.

Strangely, it seemed like the black dog wasn’t resisting.

Fu Xingchuan stopped moving suddenly, but it was too late.

With the concealment technique no longer in effect, the remaining people quickly discovered their divine dog. They all eagerly reached out their hands, trying to touch it. Fu Xingchuan was quickly swept away by the surge of people, and Fu Tianyi’s view was completely blocked.

“Help us call on the Master…”

“It doesn’t matter if we all die. These people have to die…”

“Divine Dog…”

The people begged; their voices were tinged with a desperation that was almost like confusion.

The bodies of the children lay on the ground, their sticky blood covering the stone slabs. The mountain people had no protection, and they all believed in “immortals”. Under the influence of the power of the Evil Force, they quickly lost their human form.

Their features disappeared from where they should have been and grew from where they shouldn’t have. Joints and bones became visibly larger, and fat and flesh grew rapidly. Their organs inflated and deflated, making them look like balloons or corpses.

Fu Tianyi couldn’t help but lose focus for a moment, and even Lu Xiaohe retched twice.

Unfortunately, their plights and pleas weren’t communicated.

The Divine Dog of the mountain people didn’t respond at all. Taking advantage of the surging crowd, the black dog used all its strength to break free from Fu Tianyi’s binding spell.

Its fur was still stuck to the spell, and its entire body was covered in blood, as if it had shed a layer of skin. But the black dog completely ignored the people around it and bit the box belonging to the Goulou army with all its might.

In an instant, Fu Xingchuan’s fur stood on end.

The evil worshiped by the villagers for hundreds of years had some degree of intelligence. They should have shown reverence towards such a high concentration of evil qi, but the cultivators of the Goulou Army didn’t expect this to happen, and the box was bitten by the evil black dog.

The evil dog bared its teeth and bit through the metal shell of the box, causing a large number of translucent black fragments to fall out of the box, which the evil black dog swallowed in one bite.

After swallowing all the corruption, the black dog turned its head, which had been turned inside out, and grinned at the people of Shian, showing a smile that could almost be considered friendly.

The smile sent shivers down the spine.

“You fool,” it said. “Shian’s research on Evil Force is still too primitive.”

In the light of the fire, its eyes were like two black holes.

“Your Evil Spirit isn’t crazy enough yet. Let me help it along.”

Before Fu Xingchuan even got close, his dog’s body sprouted two extra legs, causing him to lose his balance.

[Retreat!]

Fu Xingchuan didn’t hesitate to bite off his own paw, and a large drop of blood hovered in the air, shining brightly in the darkness.

By consuming the source of corruption, an evil at most would become stronger or explode and couldn’t turn into an Evil Spirit. Such a basic possibility had already been tested by Sunken Society and Shian.

But this was a thousand years ago, in a mountain village that had produced the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi. The environment was completely different from the present day.

For some reason, the Evil Force in the nearby mountains suddenly had a target, and they rushed toward the black dog. They pierced through the night, passing through the thick scent of blood, and rained down on the black dog like drops of rain.

In the panicked crowd, the black dog struggled in pain. Its body grew larger and larger, constantly changing shape, as if it was being kneaded by invisible hands.

As soon as the levitation spell activated, Fu Xingchuan was pulled away by Fu Tianyi, but he couldn’t help but venture to look back.

In front of him, an Evil Spirit was about to be born.

---

The author has something to say:

Fu Xingchuan, legs +2

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 165: A Strange Person

Zhong Chengshuo sat in the middle of a group of evil creatures, looking like a big red date surrounded by steamed cakes.

He sat lightly, not wanting to put too much weight on the shell of Yin Ren. Countless evil creatures ran around him, occasionally carrying small things that he didn’t know what they were but they would certainly cause bleeding.

Not far away, Yellow Millet’s version of Huang Jin was lying on the ground like a sack of potatoes, too lazy to move. Ge Tingting found a shady spot under a tree and took a nap in the cool mountain breeze.

Waiting in place was indeed the most basic response. But something about it didn’t feel right to Zhong Chengshuo.

Although investigating the data of the Evil Spirit from a thousand years ago was important, the ultimate goal of this trip was to figure out what Yin Ren was. Their center of observation was bound to be Yin Ren, the “Great Celestial Master”.

But now the protagonist, the Great Celestial Master, was sitting still, not doing what he was supposed to do, and the memory environment was inevitably going to deviate. A small deviation was still manageable, but if there was a big mistake, who knew what would happen?

After all, the original plan was for Yin Ren to personally guide them and for everyone to peacefully observe together.

After a moment of contemplation, Zhong Chengshuo’s eyes scanned the evil creatures, picking out the types that roughly spoke human language. Seeing the Great Celestial Master consciously approach, a hairless, monkey-like evil rubbed affectionately on his calf.

“I have a headache and can’t remember things,” Zhong Chengshuo said, turning his head like he was trying to remember. “How far away are we from that place?”

“Just down the mountain, sir.” The evil creature bent over, and it responded in a hoarse and unpleasant voice. “But it’s only the seventh today, sir, and your village needs to prepare. We’ll have to wait two more days. If you’re hungry, we can go into the mountains and get some wild fruits—they’re sweet in the autumn and very filling.”

After speaking, the evil creature looked at Zhong Chengshuo with puppy-dog eyes, like the expression of a child begging for candy.

It was probably asking for a reward.

Unfortunately, though Science Post Zhong Chengshuo had the intention, he lacked the ability. He forced himself to nod calmly and walked towards the mountain as if nothing had happened. The bald, monkey-like evil didn’t get what it wanted and let out a whimper in its throat.

There were no trees to block the view at the edge of the cliff, and in the rolling mountain mist, Zhong Chengshuo could vaguely see a small village.

Behind the red veil, Zhong Chengshuo’s pupils shrank.

He recognized the layout of the buildings; he had seen this village just a few months ago in Yin Ren’s memory in the Archive. Both the dirt road outside the village and the sparse houses at the village entrance were identical to what Yin Ren remembered.

It was definitely the same village.

On September 9^th, the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi would return to that village. According to what the evil creature said, today was September 7^th…

September 7^th.

Zhong Chengshuo closed his eyes. Countless records about Divine Descent and Evil Spirit flashed through his mind, finally settling on a short record.

In the last year of the Gong Dynasty, on the 9^th day of the 9^th month, an Evil Spirit was born in Yin Village—the birthplace of the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi in legends. Fortunately, Zhong Yi returned home at that time and sealed the Evil Spirit directly in the village, making it a sealing operation with the fewest casualties in human history.

However, legends often didn’t mention that Yin Village had already been massacred by the Guluo Army before Zhong Yi faced the Evil Spirit.

All the dust, death, and evil were buried deep in history in just a few short lines.

Under layers of red cloth, Zhong Chengshuo opened his eyes.

He caught a strand of long black hair. Despite the erosion and pain from the Evil Force on Yin Ren’s body, no wing cluster had grown. Yet, Zhong Chengshuo still subconsciously grasped it as if his lover were still by his side.

This was a logical destination.

Lu Xiaohe and Fu Xingchuan were both clever people who knew about these metaphysical secrets and would come sooner or later. Yin Ren… He probably knew the importance of this place too. If he wanted to meet with Zhong Chengshuo, he would also choose this place.

Even if it was likely the worst memory for Yin Ren at this time.

…However, to face the Evil Spirit… Zhong Chengshuo felt apologetic as he searched Yin Ren’s body.

He pulled out a short knife that was very similar in shape to the “Evil Fruit”, but the blade was plain iron-gray. Judging by the usage marks on the metal, this was probably Yin Ren’s knife that he used to eat meat with.

At present, he had no weapons or equipment and didn’t know magic. The pain also restricted his body movements, making it difficult to move.

Zhong Chengshuo took a deep breath and still headed in the direction where Unit 9 was.

“I found a village,” he reported truthfully without saying more.

If this were in the past, he would definitely not take such risks. But now…

For some reason, Zhong Chengshuo felt an unscientific confidence. He knew Yin Ren must also be looking for him, so there would be a way to handle the situation.

At least there was still Fu Xingchuan. Even if nothing else, he had a lead this time!

……

“Dogs barking? Our dog hasn’t barked. Speaking of which, my second aunt lost her big yellow dog. Have you seen it?”

Fu Tianyi used an illusion spell to disguise himself as a Taoist boy and went out to ask the villagers. Fu Xingchuan was transformed into white using magic, giving him a faint, immortal-like aura.

“Haven’t seen it,” Fu Tianyi said nervously, glancing at Fu Xingchuan. “Auntie, think again. My master has heard that sometimes Yin Village will have a hundred dogs barking at once, which made him curious.”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you want to talk about the king of dogs, there’s one in our village.”

The auntie immediately stopped beating her clothes when she had some gossip to share.

“See that ancestral hall? There’s a divine dog inside. It was brought by the guardian of our village a hundred years ago, and it was just a puppy then! It has guarded our ancestral hall for a hundred years and has saved many drowning children. If someone’s family is lost in the mountains, they will also ask it to find them, and it always does!”

Fu Tianyi: “It truly is a divine dog.”

To be precise, it was probably an evil cub that the Great Celestial Master caught somewhere and, seeing that it was docile, gave it to the village.

“That’s right. The last time we had torrential rain, there was a mudslide, but luckily it barked in advance and warned us. Otherwise, the family at the east end of the village would have been buried in the mud… Oh, you’re not talking about this. When it barks, all the dogs really bark along.”

The aunt suddenly came back to her senses.

The white dog stepped on Fu Tianyi’s shoe, and his expression twisted. “Thank you, Auntie. I will go find my master for instructions.”

After contacting Lu Xiaohe, the three of them rushed to the ancestral hall.

When it was in its Evil Spirit state, its mind was like a pile of loose sand, and Shian could only extract an environment that was relatively comfortable for it. Now, with Yin Ren’s memory as a “solid framework”, the memory of the Evil Spirit itself was like a grapevine, winding and filling in the gaps.

At first, Shian could only determine that the prototype of the Evil Spirit was a “dog.” Now, it seemed that the underground Evil Spirit was most likely the evil dog that the villagers had worshiped for hundreds of years.

Although Lu Xiaohe was wearing old-fashioned shoes and socks, she still walked as fast as she could and didn’t forget to take out a charcoal pen and paper from her pocket.

Fu Xingchuan ran the fastest. He quickly became familiar with the use of his four legs and ran like an arrow, leaving the bow. No matter what situation the so-called divine dog was in, the earlier they controlled it, the more advantageous it would be for them.

However, when they arrived at the temple, they only found a broken piece of silk and a bowl of untouched pig’s head meat.

The divine dog was gone.

The ancestral hall itself was very simple, with local specialties from the mountain village on the altar plus a few bowls of rough, cold food. The setting sun went down, and the red light passed over the low wall as if everything had been sent into a furnace.

“Damn it.” Fu Tianyi gritted his teeth. “Someone beat us to it… I’ll go ask around!”

As soon as he stepped out of the temple, he saw men carrying farm tools back to their homes, and the quicker ones were already using bark to seal their windows.

The women carried buckets of water and carefully poured them into the water tank in their homes. The elderly hung red and green paper lanterns from poles on their doors. The children looked like they were preparing for New Year’s Day, playing and laughing in the yard with snot dragging behind them.

“When the red light is on and the green light is burning, every household closes their door. At midnight, when the fruit ripens, be careful what you say with your back to the door.”

They sang out of tune, grinning with their mouths open.

“Pray for tranquility, wish for good fortune, and shut your eyes so you can’t see. The rooster crows, with footsteps far away, that comes back next year to report the peace.”

The originally quiet village became lively with people coming and going, their faces filled with smiles.

“What are you doing, folks?” Fu Tianyi’s heart was burning with fire, but he could only force a relaxed smile as he stared with the shell of “Fu Shangliu” of Huajisi.

“We’re preparing sacrifices to welcome god.”

The man closest to them offered two wild rabbits and eagerly responded.

“Our village’s guardian comes to help every year. The god is good at everything but can’t be looked at directly with your eyes. This isn’t just to prevent the elderly and children from wandering around. We seal our homes and prepare offerings a day in advance, which is also a holiday.”

At this point, the man’s expression became serious.

“Even if you are immortals, don’t stay here and look around. Our god is very powerful. If you look around casually, you might get hurt… Alright, I’m going back!”

Watching the man’s figure disappear into the distance, Fu Tianyi felt like a lead weight had been added to his stomach.

No wonder the entire Yin Village was thoroughly massacred in the past.

The villagers all waited happily indoors, anticipating the arrival of their guardian god. But what awaited them wasn’t their god, but only the iron hooves of invaders.

Unfortunately, the tragedy was imminent, and they couldn’t even shout out to warn these people.

This was an irreversible past, and interfering would only make things worse. These villagers who hummed songs, nailed doors and windows, and prepared offerings, and these children who ran around laughing and playing, were already long dead skeletons buried in the smoke of war a thousand years ago.

The lively scene in front of him suddenly changed its tone, the originally bright red turning blood red in an instant.

It wasn’t until a secret tug on his pants leg that Fu Tianyi snapped back to reality.

Fu Xingchuan raised his head and shook it slowly.

Fu Tianyi looked at Lu Xiaohe, who also had a bitter expression on her face, and took a deep breath. Finding that divine dog as soon as possible was what they needed to do now.

And this search took several hours.

The sun set, and the starry sky lit up. Each house was sealed tightly, and the small mountain village became even quieter. The three of them searched the village in circles, with Fu Tianyi using all the exploration methods at his disposal, but still to no avail.

It was at that moment that they returned to the ancestral hall again…

At the edge of the village, the warm candlelight in the windows turned into flames that engulfed the sky, and the gentle voices turned into continuous screams. The sound of hooves mixed with shouts, bringing chaos and blood all the way to the center of the village.

Amidst the black smoke and wailing, the doors of the houses were kicked open, and the offerings in front of them were trampled on. Half of the red and green lights rolled to the ground and were trampled into dirty, mud-covered scraps of paper.

Lu Xiaohe couldn’t bear to look any longer. She retreated further into the ancestral hall, looked up, and saw their target for this trip—

That big black dog floated with hidden charms all over its body. In the midst of the chaos, it crouched on top of the shrine, its black and mysterious eyes reflecting the light of the flames.

There was a strange mockery in its expression.

And not far away, the desperate villagers had nowhere to escape. People carried their injured relatives and instinctively ran towards the ancestral hall.

“Great Master, help us!”

The villagers’ bloody footprints stained the stone steps of the temple, and their desperate cries pierced through the night.

“Great Master, please save us—”

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The author has something to say:

Yin Ren’s past, loading (?

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Kinky Thoughts:

Oh, no wonder why this was Yin Ren’s worst memory…

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 164: Enemy Attack

Without eyes, without limbs, without senses. The things of the outside world to him were just one ripple after another, big and small.

Yin Ren had experienced this state before.

When he fought with the sniper—no, perhaps he should call him “Mr. Qiu”—and turned into pure essence, his perception of the outside world was the same as it was now. It was more accurate to say that his current perception was even purer.

Like a lifeless sea.

The outside world was like a drizzle, stirring up one ripple after another. Besides that, everything in the world was nothingness. There was no color, temperature, weight, and Yin Ren couldn’t even feel his “own” body.

In the vast solitude, his thoughts were like sugar cubes thrown into water, gradually dissolving and becoming loose and blurry. Even when he was asleep under a seal, Yin Ren had never felt such a terrifying emptiness.

Like a never-ending free fall.

Did Shian’s memory spell fail?

No, that’s not it.

That memory spell had been confirmed by Li Nian and Fu Xingchuan. There were no problems with either the design of the spell or the underground Evil Spirit used as an auxiliary. Even if there were major issues, it shouldn’t have caused such a fierce Evil Spirit like himself to enter an unknown environment.

He must have obtained some kind of “role identity” from this era.

But now, Yin Ren couldn’t even guess what kind of creature he had become in this state.

Yin Ren tried his best to stay conscious and attempted to move. But with no sensory perception, he didn’t know how to exert force, nor did he know where to exert it. After flailing for several hours, Lord Ghost King collapsed mentally and began to despair.

What kind of role was this? Was he turned into moss in some cave?

Despite his despondence, Yin Ren set himself a countdown timer. After five minutes of listlessness, he regained his composure and continued to struggle and explore.

Zhong Chengshuo was still technically a “flesh puppet”. Even if the man could adapt to his situation, there were still very few things he could do.

He had to get back to the team as soon as possible.

While he was thinking of a plan, a particularly tumultuous ripple caught Yin Ren’s attention. That ripple was different from the others, and it was very close to him.

[I really want to go home…]

An external thought surged into Yin Ren’s mind.

This feeling was very strange. That train of thought didn’t contain any language, but he could understand it. What the other party conveyed was the most basic and simplest “idea”.

[I really want to go home…]

That unknown thought ruminated pitifully.

[Who are you?] Yin Ren repeated this question in his mind, trying to direct it towards the direction of the transmitted thought. To be honest, he didn’t know if this method would work.

[…] The thought of that thing was blank for a few seconds.

[Siren.] It responded.

It was Dog Thing.

Yin Ren was taken aback. He did put his phone under his pillow, but his intention was to keep Dog Thing with him, to avoid any unnecessary complications. He never thought that this insignificant little thing could be affected by the spell.

[Who are you? Where is this place, and what are you doing here?] Without any language barriers, Dog Thing’s thoughts were clear and easy to understand.

It was a strange feeling, as if it had become a part of him.

[I am Yin Ren. There was a small problem with the spell, and we are trapped in a memory illusion.] Suddenly, having someone to talk to in this emptiness lifted Yin Ren’s spirits.

He roughly explained his guesses about the magic to Dog Thing. As he had anticipated, he didn’t need to organize them into words. Dog Thing smoothly understood his thoughts.

[You are too powerful. I might have been judged as a part of you.] Dog Thing tried hard to think. [Just like when copying a phone app and it contains junk data.]

[I see. That’s good. At least it won’t be too boring…]

Halfway through his thought, Yin Ren suddenly realized something.

[Let me see your memories!] He launched a barrage of thoughts at Dog Thing.

The biggest obstacle to their communication was the inability to express thoughts. Now that he was unlucky enough… No, that he finally had the opportunity to directly experience “thoughts”, he couldn’t let this go.

[No!] Dog Thing was resolute. [If you do that, you won’t need me anymore. You will eat me!]

Strangely, during their exchange, the outline of a vague image gradually emerged in Yin Ren’s mind—

It was a small, black, four-legged, cylindrical creature. Its appearance was blurry, as if behind frosted glass. In the blurry image, the thing was skinny and looked like a bat’s shriveled corpse. It curled up and trembled all over.

[You don’t look tasty, so I won’t eat you,] Yin Ren said sincerely. [Besides, this is not my body, and I have no way to find a mouth to eat you. When we leave here, you will definitely return to the phone, and I won’t eat such things.]

[Really?]

[I can also thank you by giving you some Evil Force. If you’re still not at ease, I can let you see my thoughts.]

[…] Dog Thing weighed for a long time. [Okay.]

[But I want a promise. You have to promise to send me home.] It finally said.

[No. I don’t even know where your home is.]

[You will go back.] The thin figure was very determined in its thoughts. [Strong people always go back.]

Upon further reflection, Yin Ren realized that his pursuit hadn’t changed much. After he solved the mystery of the Primordial Elementals and the mysteries around the Evil Force, he would immediately seek a special job position from Shian—after all, his identity had already been exposed, so he might as well earn some more money.

Since Zhong Chengshuo wasn’t human, they would have more time to study the truth, stroll along the road, and share the same snacks. Whether their future lives were smooth or rough, they were all the joys and sorrows of the human world.

Yin Ren had little interest in the so-called path of the strong.

But it was still doable to just send Dog Thing back home. After pondering for a moment, Yin Ren packaged his thought process and threw it to Dog Thing as a show of sincerity.

And Dog Thing delivered on its promise—

The heavy memories instantly engulfed Yin Ren.

……

The moment he touched those memories, Yin Ren understood the difficulty of communicating with Dog Thing.

The sensation it had when it was still at “home” was really difficult to describe in words.

Suppose humans didn’t have eyes, then the noun for colors wouldn’t exist. Dog Thing was like a person who only had hearing in their life, trying to communicate with someone who only had sight. The meaning of language and the definition of nouns were all mismatched, and even the most basic conversation became incredibly difficult.

It seemed that it wasn’t that this thing’s brain wasn’t functioning properly; in their previous conversation, it should have tried its best.

Yin Ren “saw” another world.

If it had to be described in human terms, countless vibrations and fluctuations swept in. He clearly didn’t see any colors, but he could feel the world’s vibrancy. The external information was like the thought exchange just now, delivering the most essential meaning into his body.

Countless information rushed in, and Yin Ren’s thoughts were in chaos, almost shutting down.

But in this pure ocean of information, Yin Ren swam freely from Dog Thing’s perspective.

Until a certain day twenty-eight years ago.

The information in the ocean suddenly turned violent, and the vibrations and fluctuations almost crushed Dog Thing’s body. Dog Thing quickly followed the rest of its kind in a mass escape, and several clusters of information were thrown back and forth in its group.

They said that the “Disgust” was moving.

Just as it received this information, a corresponding memory quickly grew in Dog Thing’s mind—”Disgust” was a predator that had only grown up in the past one or two thousand years and was the least worried about food supply in this area.

It was a massive creature covered in information, with human hands on its surface.

In Dog Thing’s memory, perhaps it had been daydreaming for too long, so its escape speed was a bit slow. Soon, the creature moved in front of it—

That thing stuck out a human-sized hand from its surface and frantically pounded in a certain direction. At the same time, there was a vague tearing sound coming from far away.

Yin Ren concentrated his mind, intending to carefully savor this memory. Who would have thought that this “inside-out” event would take twenty-two years to play out? Dog Thing didn’t dare to move. It stayed motionless at close range, not moving for twenty years.

Yin Ren had nothing to say.

Fortunately, this was a memory, and he only needed to receive everything in an instant.

Six years ago, with external cooperation, “Disgust” finally tore open a gap that didn’t belong to this world. It first stuck out an “arm”, but its body was still left in the ocean of information.

It was just Dog Thing had worked so hard to avoid it.

As space tore apart, external information poured in, mixed with a very tempting fluctuation, like a self-service buffet for a starving ghost.

Dog Thing was already weakened from hiding for more than 20 years and now completely lost its sanity. It didn’t care where the crack led, and it rushed straight towards it.

As a former Great Celestial Master, Yin Ren could recognize that crack, which was known in the human world as a “gap”.

As a former human, he could also taste the information represented by that fluctuation—it was an emotion called “anxiety”, and it was unusually intense.

The weakened Dog Thing rushed towards the source of that emotion, completely unaware that it had passed through the crack and arrived in another world.

Dog Thing collided with a flying bird first. Unfortunately, that bird seemed unable to bear such a strange “creature”. The bird fell from the sky, its dying eyes glimpsing for a moment, and the next second, its small head exploded, and its body scattered into several pieces of flesh.

The glance from the bird possessed by Dog Thing almost made Yin Ren’s thoughts stop.

At that moment, within the still-existing gap, a huge “human hand” emerged. Snow-white bone structure, black-gray metal, all kinds of wriggling texts filling the seams, and an overall dark, dead flesh-like hue.

He had fought against it before.

It was the sniper, or rather, a part of Mr. Qiu’s body.

The outline of the giant hand dissipated in the air, pointing directly towards the direction of the city with dense buildings—the direction of the Haigu Municipal Hospital. Dog Thing realized it was in trouble and wanted to turn back home, but the crack had already closed, leaving it with nowhere to go.

It struggled desperately along with the bird’s corpse, like a dehydrated fish. However, Dog Thing didn’t find another suitable “carrier” and fell to the ground with the bird’s corpse.

Yin Ren could clearly sense that Dog Thing was dissipating along with the bird. The bird’s cells were dying, and its whole nervous system was stopping. Dog Thing was struggling to hold on.

Until someone walked by.

The young man was holding a brand-new phone, humming a song while playing games. He didn’t even glance at the bird’s corpse next to him, but something “saw” it.

Dog Thing struggled and pounced towards that person.

In its view, the person’s brain emitted a deadly seductive force. At that moment, its thoughts were completely blank. This behavior wasn’t the result of thinking, but more like the most basic response under survival instinct.

Unfortunately, Dog Thing, which was already on the brink of death, missed its target.

From the perspective of the memory, the person suddenly paused. Dog Thing pounced too quickly and hit the screen of the brightly lit phone.

In the next moment, it seemed to be able to breathe again, but it was quite difficult. If Dog Thing was compared to a fish, “the other side” was like nutrient-rich, pristine seawater. Once it entered the phone, it was like being thrown into a distillation tank, which wasn’t even the size of a palm.

It could barely survive, but it was very uncomfortable.

Frail connection, weak fluctuations, and extremely low-density information. Other than the environmental pattern being somewhat similar, everything else was completely different.

Dog Thing didn’t dare move around anymore. The explosion of the bird caused psychological trauma. It didn’t know if it could attack other living beings and make it back safely. After all, it wasn’t clear how it managed to survive entering the phone.

Maintaining this state, it gradually learned those unfamiliar information bit by bit. Dog Thing still remembered the tempting power that day. If it could eat and drink enough there and become stronger, it could definitely go back home!

At the very least, if it could find other beings like itself and consume them, it could ease its situation.

Unfortunately, it tried to head in the wrong direction, acted recklessly in front of humans, and was sent to the Shian storage warehouse as a “spirit weapon”.

It was close to its target prey, the “Evil Spirit”, but it was still out of reach.

Roughly speaking, this was just the story of a silly little animal’s suffering. If this were earlier, then surely, Yin Ren would have hummed a tune of <The Little Mouse Climbing Up the Lamp Post>* for it.

*Chinese nursery rhyme and children’s song. It tells the story of a little mouse that climbs up to the top of a lighthouse to see the world. The song is often used to teach young children about the importance of being curious and exploring the world around them.

However, Yin Ren didn’t have the leisure to do so now.

In a flash, the past fragmented clues were like pearls that connected into a string—

[They can affect people’s emotions, causing them to shout and laugh…]

These things seemed to be particularly sensitive to emotions. On the other side of the rift, they didn’t refer to the sniper as “Mr. Qiu” or anything like that. They called him “Disgust”.

[An old man said before that if you go to an inexistent place, you will see them. If you dream too deeply, you will see them.]

They lived on the “Other Side” beyond the gap. Does the interstitial space in the gap count as an inexistent place? And does the “Archive” environment, which is used on the brains of the insane as its stage, count as a “deep dream”?

[Carelessly contacting them will destroy one’s soul… The elders in our region call them the ‘Primordial Elementals’.]

If their previous speculations were correct, then “Divine Descent” was the scattering of the flesh of a large-scale Primordial Elemental in the mortal world…

The Evil Force, which was converted from the “flesh”, could provide people with the ability to interfere with the Other Side, such as “Charon”, and the power to control emotions, such as “Resonance”. Then it wouldn’t be strange if these Primordial Elementals themselves had stronger abilities.

Yin Ren savored Dog Thing’s memory and poked at the small, cowering shadow with his mind.

If he had a mouth, Yin Ren would wryly smile.

So it seemed that humans weren’t directly on the menu of these beings. Then why did these Primordial Elementals, who lived on the distant Other Side and fed on emotions, set their sights on the mortal world?

In order to squeeze an arm through, Mr. Qiu dug for twenty-two years, which shows that the other side wasn’t a sieve. How did the bloody “Divine Descent” come about? And how were the Evil Spirits and other evil creatures produced?

Yin Ren attempted to ask about the distinction between “strong” and “weak” and the hierarchy of the “food chain” on the Other Side. But once it involves judgments that were close to instinct, Dog Thing couldn’t transmit clear thoughts.

It seemed that the intelligence of Dog Thing had reached its limit.

Yin Ren still didn’t understand the essence of the Other Side and Primordial Elementals. He realized that such deep research should be left to his innocent accomplice to explore.

Yin Ren decisively stopped thinking.

If he gave these pieces of intelligence to Zhong Chengshuo, that guy would be quite happy. He could already imagine how the expression of “surprise” would appear on his serious face, and Yin Ren was looking forward to it.

He rolled up his sleeves in his mind and gave Dog Thing a light kick.

Dog Thing: [?]

[Let’s find a way out together,] Yin Ren said. [I’m different from you. I’m not just ‘wanting to go home’. I ‘will definitely go home’.]

……

Fu Xingchuan sat on a wooden chair, watching Lu Xiaohe

 and Fu Tianyi.

This time he wasn’t just putting on airs and sitting back to relax. It was really because the things that a dog’s paw could do were quite limited. He couldn’t interfere with the two younger ones, who were busy. Fu Xingchuan used his paw to play with the dry tobacco on the table and occasionally took a bite.

Following the excellent tradition of Shian, the two of them quickly transformed this room into a temporary base.

After everything was done, Fu Tianyi sat on a stool with a gloomy expression. “How wretched. I finally became the boss of Huajisi, but I can’t even direct a subordinate.”

In order to maintain the “logical coherence” of the memory environment, Fu Tianyi told Huajisi that he was conducting dangerous research with the scholar Li Heyan and didn’t let anyone follow.

This directly resulted in their only available forces being one man, one woman, and a dog.

“Pack up and ask the villagers for some information this afternoon. It’s best to leave before nightfall. It’s the end of the Gong Dynasty now—it’s troublesome to encounter bandits and wild beasts at night, even if we don’t run into any evil creatures.”

Lu Xiaohe had already prepared paper, pen, and charcoal and was working hard to wrap the charcoal into a usable makeshift pen.

“If necessary, we can call some people to help. Just don’t cause any trouble—this village’s environment is so vivid that it’s definitely not a memory of Yin Ren’s. The Evil Spirit that remembers this place so clearly is probably nearby. The sooner we leave, the safer we’ll be.”

They came to investigate the chaos; not to swim naked in the center of it.

During the end of the Gong Dynasty, war and monsters were rampant. Historians could study human wars, but as a biologist, Lu Xiaohe didn’t want to become a witness. Moreover, the current highest fighting force was a dog, and she didn’t want to experience the close-range feeling of an Evil Spirit strolling around.

“It’s been okay for the past two days.” Fu Tianyi tried to avoid eye contact with the dog. “I just saw someone outside making things like fresh fruit and sugar melons, saying that they were going to worship on September 9^th, so they had to prepare a few days in advance—there’s so much leeway, so the war is probably still far away from here.”

Fu Xingchuan suddenly jumped off the chair and shouted twice.

The dog suddenly bit off half of the dry tobacco stick and held it in its mouth. It used a spell to light the tobacco, and smoke quickly circled around its mouth as it asked a question.

[What day of the lunar calendar is it today?]

“Uh…the seventh. Why do you ask?” Fu Tianyi stared at the smoking dog, a bit tongue-tied.

[What’s the name of this village?]

“Yin Village.”

Upon saying this, Fu Tianyi realized something, and his complexion suddenly turned pale.

“It should be a coincidence. In the late Gong Dynasty, Yin was a common surname…”

[Do you believe your own bullshit? This is the memory of an Evil Spirit!] Fu Xingchuan wished he could spit out the cigarette and bite a mouthful of Fu Tianyi’s calf.

Lu Xiaohe stopped making her homemade pen, and her face gradually turned ugly.

Fu Tianyi became as white as a snowman. “In the evening of September 7^th, the Goulou Army raided the heartland of the Gong Dynasty. They first occupied the mountainous areas that were easy to defend and difficult to attack, hoping to establish a large camp… Yin Village, Hezhuang, and Chenjiakou were the first to be massacred.”

“At dawn on the eighth day, an Evil Spirit was born. No one on the scene, whether it was the Gouluo Army or the local residents, survived.”

[On the ninth day, the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi returned to his hometown and sealed the Evil Spirit in his homeland.] Fu Xingchuan helped him complete the ending of the story.

“No, that’s not right,” Lu Xiaohe said.

She put on a serious face that belonged to Li Heyan, and a layer of sweat appeared on her forehead.

“I looked at the data before I came here. Many villagers went into the mountains before the army attacked. According to their account, all kinds of dogs in Yin Village started barking frantically early in the morning on September 7^th. These people felt uneasy and decided to leave.”

“But we’ve been here for so long and we haven’t heard a single bark,” Lu Xiaohe added with a dry voice.

Everyone fell silent.

Lu Xiaohe and Fu Tianyi had been acting discreetly, trying not to affect the ability to maintain the established memories. Besides, they didn’t arrive in the village until later in the day. Fu Xingchuan had also turned into a normal, common dog without the ability to manipulate the larger environment.

[If the time and place are correct, then it must be the ‘people’ who are wrong.]

The dog spoke up and blew a line of smoke rings.

[Let’s not leave yet. We’ll stay here.]

“Why? Wouldn’t it be more dangerous to stay here?” Fu Tianyi exclaimed.

But Lu Xiahe remained silent, rubbing her chin and furrowing her brows.

[First of all, the disrupted memory is that of the Evil Spirit. In its memory, the Great Celestial Master will still come on September 9^th. This Great Celestial Master is our primary observation target, and Yin Ren himself must remember this. We happen to meet here.]

[Second, the spell I designed won’t have this kind of loophole. The character confusion already has me stumped. Now, I can be certain…]

Fu Xingchuan drooped his tail and puffed more rapidly.

[This is an enemy attack.]

At the same time, inside the ancestral hall of the Yin Village.

A slender black dog stood up and sniffled. Its neck was tied with a finely embroidered silk ribbon, and its fur and paws were clean, indicating it was well taken care of.

It looked disdainfully at the pig’s head in the bowl, and a hint of human resentment flashed in its eyes.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 163: SOS

Time reversed a little.

When Zhong Chengshuo woke up, his whole body was in pain.

It was a very intense and piercing pain. It wasn’t like the pain he felt when he was running in the underground corpse vault—despite being damaged countless times, at that time Zhong Chengshuo was like a corpse. All his senses were numb from the coldness of his body, and in the end, everything felt a bit itchy.

But this pain was different. It was persistent, as if his whole body was suffering from a toothache. Zhong Chengshuo lay flat on the grass, longing for a modern painkiller to magically appear.

He wasn’t sure what kind of shell he would be stuffed into.

He had previously discussed with Yin Ren and had come up with a plan to conceal his identity—the first rule being that no matter what kind of identity Zhong Chengshuo turned into, he must take off his communication earphones as soon as possible and disguise himself as an ordinary character.

This way, he could act together with Yin Ren without having to constantly conceal his identity. After all, Shian would only know that a flesh puppet had been brought in but had no idea where it went. Yin Ren could come up with a random excuse to get past it.

But now, Zhong Chengshuo’s palms were in so much pain that he couldn’t even lift them up.

It was too strange.

Was he stuffed into the body of someone who was crushed by a giant creature?

Zhong Chengshuo opened his eyes with difficulty and saw red all around him. Long black hair hung behind his head, and a beautiful, pale hand was open in front of his eyes. Zhong Chengshuo recognized that hand. He had kissed it intimately when he was practicing pure theoretical mating skills. He remembered every detail of it.

It was Yin Ren’s hand.

Zhong Chengshuo sniffed suspiciously and smelled Yin Ren’s unique scent.

He immediately forgot about the pain and carefully observed the body under the red cloth. The palm, arm, body shape… He had seen every detail before, and they were familiar yet unfamiliar.

Finally, Zhong Chengshuo looked at the pair of feet covered in grass and dust, which he assumed were his “own.” He could roughly figure out the situation, but he didn’t know why he was controlling this body.

This was Yin Ren…Zhong Yi’s body from a thousand years ago.

Did the former Yin Ren live in such pain? And where did the real Yin Ren go if he was in Zhong Yi’s shell?

Zhong Chengshuo endured the pain and looked outside through the red cloth. He saw a group of evil creatures resting in the forest, as well as several human children running around and playing.

But still no Yin Ren.

Their second plan was that after Yin Ren regained consciousness, he would immediately send out a visible magical signal into the sky. The requirements for that spell were extremely low—as long as Yin Ren wasn’t turned into a plant, he could definitely send the signal out.

In this way, Zhong Chengshuo could find Yin Ren as soon as possible and carry out his plan to pretend to be dead.

But now things were complicated.

If Zhong Chengshuo had become another character, he could have acted alone and looked for Yin Ren. Unfortunately, he was stuffed into the authentic “main character” body, and every move he made would be watched by everyone.

Zhong Chengshuo could see that Yellow Millet was communicating with a little girl not far away, and both of them had obvious communication devices on them.

After thinking quietly for a moment, Zhong Chengshuo walked towards the two of them.

……

“…I’m Zhong Chengshuo,” Zhong Chengshuo said confusedly.

As expected, the little girl’s movements suddenly stiffened, and Yellow Millet also trembled and shivered for a while.

The reaction was too awkward, not like Fu Xingchuan or Fu Tianyi.

If it were Lu Xiaohe, her reaction would be more curious. These two people could only be Ge Tingting and Huang Jin—the little girl adapted well to her “role” and her performance was still natural. So, the person in Yellow Millet’s shell was probably Huang Jin.

Zhong Chengshuo quickly judged the identities of the two.

“Yin Ren… You are Yin Ren, right?” The little girl stood on tiptoe, and a worried expression gradually appeared on her face.

Ge Tingting’s thinking was actually very direct—

Yin Ren was the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi, the hero who sealed the Six Evil Spirits, and was also an evil that Shian couldn’t contend with. Because of Zhong Chengshuo’s death, Yin Ren was so sad that he made a flesh puppet of him in order to numb the pain. Shian would certainly be willing to cooperate in preparing a bed for the flesh puppet to create the illusion that Zhong Chengshuo was still there.

The cost was low, and it made the Great Celestia Master happy, so why not? In her opinion, this trick was similar to a waiter at Haidilao* putting a doll in front of a single customer.

*Hot Pot restaurant chain.

Zhong Chengshuo died—killed in front of everyone. As a science post, he wouldn’t return as a ghost.

The person opposite could only be Yin Ren.

Perhaps Yin Ren was just temporarily impacted, and his head wasn’t very clear. Ge Tingting gathered the courage to throw off her headgear and stagger forward. “Yin Ren, wake up! We are in an array right now!”

Zhong Chengshuo introduced himself sincerely, “I am Zhong Chengshuo.”

Ge Tingting turned to Yellow Millet. “You—can you think of a way too?”

Huang Jin in Yellow Millet’s shell: “…Puff.”

Ge Tingting stomped her foot anxiously.

Huang Jin lay despondently for a while, then tried to suck up a clean patch of ground with his round body and began to scratch on the dirt.

Soon, a row of words that were worse than dog scratches appeared on the ground: [I am Huang Jin.]

Ge Tingting: “…Pfft.”

It was clear that she was trying hard to hold back her laughter, forgetting about being anxious for a moment.

Huang Jin ignored her and became more and more dispirited in his scratching: [What’s your last memory, Yin Ren?]

Here it comes.

Zhong Chengshuo breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. He was waiting for this question.

“I remember that Yin Ren set up a spell for me and even gave me some of his flesh and blood,” Zhong Chengshuo answered smoothly. “He said he didn’t want to be separated from me just because of this mission. He also said that my name is Zhong Chengshuo, and he told me to remember that.”

Huang Jin made a couple of sounds and wrinkled his skin: [You can’t bring in spirit weapons, and without a master, a flesh puppet has no ability to speak autonomously.]

Zhong Chengshuo summoned the universal answer. “I don’t know.”

[Do you remember anything else?]

“Just this.”

[Do you know who we are?]

“You’re Huang Jin. You wrote it just now.”

Huang Jin became still, holding the branch in his mouth, lost in thought.

“That’s the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi.” Ge Tingting pondered for a moment, clapping her dirty hands together. “He created many techniques, and he may have made improvements to the flesh puppet. Ordinary spirit weapons cannot enter, but evil things can!”

Yellow Millet: [I don’t get it.]

Could it be that he was able to see the thoughts of the “flesh puppet” before because Yin Ren created a special evil… In this age where AI could answer phone calls, perhaps the Great Celestial Master gained new inspiration.

The “Zhong Chengshuo Evil AI” and “Zhong Chengshuo Resurrection” were both so unbelievable that he couldn’t distinguish which was more absurd.

Oh well, things were what they were, so why worry about it? The young spirit smith quickly let go.

Huang Jin: [Forget it] He didn’t even want to write out the word “forget*”.

*Clarity: Instead of writing [suan le] (算了) Huang Jin wrote (suan了) in his response.

Ge Tingting quickly fell into a daze. “Then what do we do?”

Huang Jin’s body swayed. [Wait here for the others.]

This hurdle was finally passed. Zhong Chengshuo stood up and walked towards the group of evil things not far away. As expected, the two newcomers from Unit 9 didn’t intend to stay with the “flesh puppet” all the time.

He had to find out the current situation as quickly as possible.

And then find Yin Ren.

……

Fu Xingchuan lowered his head. His wet nose sniffed above the soil, making a rustling sound.

How many chances did a person have to experience life from a dog’s perspective? Fu Xingchuan became calmer as he ran. The sturdy yellow dog hugged the wall and wandered around the house, even avoiding several villagers who clearly had bad intentions—he didn’t know if being made into a dog meat hot pot in this world would have any effect on his true body.

Of course, as an experienced ace cultivator, Fu Xingchuan wouldn’t just sit and wait for death. He moved even faster as a dog than as a human.

After running in a big circle, Fu Xingchuan found that his judgment was correct. This was an extremely isolated small mountain village surrounded by mountains on all sides, and the villagers relied on self-sufficiency for their daily lives.

Being closed off for so long, the villagers were mostly related by blood or marriage. They had built an ancestral hall in the village. The village wasn’t very big, and the ancestral hall was next to ordinary houses. And he was just a stray dog from one of the nearby houses.

Fu Xingchuan circled around the ancestral hall several times, but the door was tightly closed, and the surrounding walls were very high. It was difficult to sneak in broad daylight.

After confirming that there was no entrance nearby, the great former minister dug at the wall like a pro. After cleaning up the ground, he awkwardly huddled up in the weeds.

The yellow-green grass just covered the dog’s body and provided the perfect camouflage.

The spot that Fu Xingchuan chose was very close to the open space where the villagers smoked and chatted.

“Did you guys see the two immortals who fell in the east of the village just now?”

“What immortals? What immortals?”

“The immortals who flew down from the sky—a man and a woman—both dressed very nicely. They are staying here for now and said they came to pick those who are enlightened.”

“Is there such a good thing?”

“Of course…”

In the grass, the soft ears of the yellow dog moved. Fu Xingchuan quickly stood up, turned his head, and ran in the direction with the strongest human scent.

The location of the immortals was at the village entrance. The two “immortals” came in a hurry, and all the villagers ran to see the excitement. Men, women, old and young, were all crowded together, and of course they didn’t pay attention to a runaway dog.

Fu Xingchuan squeezed through the legs of the people with difficulty and made his way to the front line.

As he had expected. The two “immortals” who were surrounded by the villagers were dressed in the special clothing of Huajisi and had communication earphones hanging from their ears.

Very good. Fu Xingchuan was greatly relieved. The situation hadn’t completely deteriorated yet, and it wasn’t the worst-case scenario.

He took a breath and barked nine times at the two people.

Three short, three long, three short.

Receiving the “SOS” signal, the gazes of the two immortals immediately turned towards him.

Immediately, the male immortal stumbled in place, almost falling on his butt ungracefully.

Realizing that the stray dog was frantically barking Morse code, Fu Tianyi’s heart sank. He confirmed it again tremblingly, and behind the dog’s bouncing ears, there really was a communication device.

And the bloodline divination result coldly told him that a Fu family member was within five steps of them.

It seemed that this mistake was far more than just the separation of personnel!

Fu Tianyi awkwardly smoothed his beard and tried to show his majestic appearance as much as possible. “That dog is quite attune. If you give it to me, I can give you a family protection charm in return.”

Beside him, Lu Xiaohe looked at the dog, then at Fu Tianyi. When she looked at the dog again, her facial expression twisted a little.

Half an hour later, Fu Tianyi moved into the most spacious residence in the village with the big yellow dog. Sitting across the wooden table, the yellow dog solemnly stared at him for a while, then rested its chin on the table.

“If you’re Second Uncle… bark once. If you’re not, bark twice.”

The yellow dog glanced at him indifferently and plunged its paw into Fu Tianyi’s teacup, leaving a trail of watermarks on the table.

Fu Xingchuan: [You dare treat me like a real dog?]

Fu Tianyi quickly shrank his neck.

Watching the yellow dog move its paw on the table, Lu Xiaohe tried to avoid looking. “We’ve lost contact with the outside world, see…”

[Take the initiative, find Yin Ren, and remember this place.]

The yellow dog quickly moved its paw.

[I wouldn’t have been thrown here for no reason. The scenery here is clearly significant, and it must be a key memory point. But the top priority is still to find reliable combat power.]

The yellow dog’s talent was limited, and even if it was controlled by the #1 Ghost General, it could only use the most basic magic at best, making self-defense difficult. Although Fu Tianyi was talented, he was still a rookie, while Ge Tingting and Huang Jin were too far away.

Fu Xingchuan and the Great Celestial Master—of the top two powerhouses of Shian, one had now been abolished.

Fu Xingchuan sighed quietly, looking at his black nose.

Whatever happened, hopefully Yin Ren was still fine.

……

In the deepest depths of the dark abyss.

Yin Ren regained consciousness and tried to open his eyes with an indescribable feeling of wonder.

Then he noticed that he seemed to have no eyes.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

I recently had Haidilao and have to say it is quite good… although it’s pretty expensive.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 162: Accident

At the underground observation window where Shian’s Evil Spirit was located, a huge elevator was hovering.

It was composed of several small elevators temporarily combined, and seven beds were arranged in the center. All emergency equipment and spirit weapons were in place, and the underground researchers were on standby beside them. Except for emergency signals and research data, these researchers couldn’t communicate with the underground, so there was no possibility of leakage.

The five members of the Shian Unit 9 Special Investigation Team, plus the two successors of the Fu family, Fu Tianyi and Fu Xingchuan, were already lying flat on the beds.

In order to prevent them from moving and looking around, their eyes were covered with black cloth, and they were tied with straps embroidered with spells. Countless wires drilled out of the gaps in their clothes, and the end patches constantly transmitted physiological data.

In addition, the bottom and bed of each person were carved with black and red runes, and under the illumination, they seemed to be flowing. Although they had been specially treated, there was still a faint Evil Force leaking out.

For the purpose of stabilizing their emotions, each person held the most important thing to themselves.

Zhong Chengshuo tightly held the hamster pendant, while Yin Ren put Zhong Chengshuo’s nightcap on his head and stuffed Dog Thing under the pillow.

Lu Xiaohe pressed her family photo in her palm, while Ge Tingting held the headphones that were given to her by Unit 9 in both hands. As for Huang Jin—Comrade Xiao Huang held a tranquility talisman with both hands, which was heartbreaking to see. One of the staff couldn’t help but ask if Mr. Huang needed some blood pressure medication.

The two experienced members of the Fu family each held a heart-protecting spirit weapon specially used by the Fu family.

On the other side of the thick glass, a huge Evil Spirit floated like a dark cloud. In the replica of the ancient scenery, the salivation rain never stopped. On one side of the barrier was the eerie and dark ancient environment, and on the other side was the cold equipment that flickered with countless lights. The scene was like a nightmare.

“Are the communication devices all ready?” Li Nian confirmed personally.

“No problem,” Yin Ren said.

“Very well, the ‘Temporary Archive’ spell is also ready. When the spell starts, you will be transported back to the memories of a thousand years ago and transformed into an image similar to your own situation.”

“This technique is more powerful than the ‘Archive’ spell. You will not only change your clothes like in the Archive, but you will transform your entire person into a real ‘character’ from a thousand years ago and observe the whole process.”

Professor Li explained patiently.

“You need to quickly find your scattered companions and gather together to collect various details in the memories. This spell is being used for the first time, so don’t take it lightly. First, when you first enter, your ‘character’ will stay together, so don’t run around; second, after you get your ‘character’, don’t do too many things that are inconsistent with your identity, so as not to disturb the memory environment.”

“If you encounter difficulties, communicate anytime through the communication device. The communication device will remain the same, and you can use it to identify your companions.”

If possible, Li Nian hoped that more professional people would go to explore.

Unfortunately, doing so would alert the internal spy of Shian. As a last resort, there were too many secrets involved in the matter of Yin Ren, and Unit 9 could only be considered as his confidants, so he had to make do with them.

“Everything’s okay? Then three, two, one…”

At the same time, at the same depth, the surviving Sunken Society stronghold.

In the thick darkness, Shen Mo stood barefoot in front of the brain door, naked.

“It’s just teasing a mad dog.” He waved to the silent members of Sunken Society behind him. “I’ll be back soon.”

Behind him, the cultivators of Sunken Society were sweating profusely, quickly performing their spells.

The leader of the cultivators shouted in a hoarse voice, “The door is about to open! Please prepare yourself, three, two, one…”

“The spell is activated!”

“The spell is activated!”

The same sentence echoed in both underground strongholds.

The seven figures on the beds disappeared instantly, leaving only a thin layer of clothing. Their most precious possessions remained in place, indicating the identity of the bed’s owner.

The brain door of Sunken Society slowly opened, and Shen Mo shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the darkness behind the door without hesitation.

……

Fu Tianyi felt dizzy and nauseous. When he regained consciousness, he found himself lying in a large, ancient-style room.

Strange. The reaction of this spell was so severe, so why didn’t Li Nian warn him in advance? Fu Tianyi retched a few times and struggled to get up, almost tripping over his robe.

He took a few minutes to recover before he had the strength to survey the surrounding environment.

The architecture was undoubtedly from the later period of the Gong Dynasty. The people around him were rushing back and forth, dressed uniformly, with either information or spirit weapons in their arms. The air was filled with the scent of ink and herbs, and various ancient spiritual tools, such as talismans, tortoise shells, and compasses, floated near the ceiling.

He had seen similar ancient paintings—this was the interior scene of Huajisi.

But unlike the ancient paintings, the most prominent position in the room was occupied by an exceptionally tall, blood-red statue.

That statue was different from all the statues he had seen before. It was sitting sideways with a relaxed and casual posture and could even be called “indecent”.

The statue itself had its face covered in a dark red fabric, and only a vague humanoid shape could be seen. Countless black jade and yellow talismans hung from the bone chains on the dark red fabric. They emitted strong waves of evil qi, showing that they used high-quality materials and the talismans were genuine.

In front of the statue, there were fruits, candies, cooked meat, and cheese. The thick incense burned slowly, with the smoke rising straight up, filling the air with a fragrance that left white ash in the incense burner.

The statue was exquisitely crafted, and through the swaying red cloth and the wafting incense, no matter where he was, Fu Tianyi could feel the statue’s “gaze”.

As he looked on in astonishment, he reached out and leaned against the wall, but the touch was icy cold and sent shivers down his spine.

Corpses.

Next to Fu Tianyi, hanging in neat rows along the wall were numerous corpses, each dressed in the same clothes, with their eyes tightly closed and hanging from hooks on the wall. Their hair and eyebrows were neatly trimmed, and their foreheads were carefully inscribed with numbers using cinnabar. The entire wall was covered with them.

…These were the corpses used by Huajisi’s specialized “corpse servants”. Fu Tianyi had read about them in the Fu family’s records.

As expected of Shian. Had they all been dumped into Huajisi?

Fu Tianyi breathed a sigh of relief and looked around happily, trying to find the communication devices in the ears of the other people. He quickly found his target—a middle-aged woman with simple clothes and a serious face, sitting at a table reading a letter with a communication device in her ear.

Fu Tianyi happily walked towards the woman, pointing to the communication earpiece in his own ear.

The woman gave him a worried glance.

“I’m Lu Xiaohe,” she said. “Looking at these letters, my name here seems to be ‘Li Heyan’.”

Fu Tianyi was overjoyed. “Li Heyan is the number one scholar of Huajisi. It’ll be so much easier to move around with you!”

Li Heyan and Fu Shangliu were the last two leaders of Huajisi in the Gong Dynasty and were equivalent in status to the current Ministers of the Emergency Management Department.

With Li Heyan’s status, she could go wherever she pleased.

“Aren’t you the same?” For some reason, Lu Xiaohe’s mood wasn’t high. “From your clothes, you are the current leader of the Huajisi, Fu Liu’s sixth grandson, ‘Fu Shangliu’. According to seniority, you are the ancestor of your family grandparents.”

Fu Tianyi’s expression froze.

To be honest, Fu Tianyi didn’t immediately confirm his identity. After being hit by reality, he subconsciously saw himself as a pawn—after all, in terms of strength and experience, the one who best fit that identity would be Fu Xingchuan.

Fu Tianyi looked at Lu Xiaohe, who had been in a low mood for a while, then slowly turned his head, trying to find other companions around him. Unfortunately, the two of them were still frozen in place after ten minutes, and no third person had appeared.

“Something’s not right.” Fu Tianyi swallowed hard, with cold sweat on his forehead.

“Yes,” Lu Xiaohe sighed. “I just tried to contact everyone, and besides you, everyone else is out of range—they’re too far away from us in this world.”

“How could this be…” Li Nian clearly instructed that everyone would be sent to the same place.

Lu Xiaohe sighed heavily. “I don’t know what’s going on either. I also tried to send a message to the outside world, but the communication was interfered with, and the request for help wasn’t sent out.”

Fu Tianyi: “……”

Fu Tianyi: “Is it just the same as last time and this time, or has it always been like this?”

Lu Xiaohe threw him a tired look.

“Anyway, we have to find the others first.” She painfully adjusted the hairpin on her head.

Fu Tianyi took a deep breath. “I can use the Fu family’s magic to divine Second Uncle’s location. Let’s meet up with him first.”

No matter what, with Fu Xingchuan there, things would turn around.

……

Fu Xingchuan stared deeply at his own paw.

Yes, paw.

It was a dusty, sturdy yellow dog’s paw.

Having lived for so long and experienced countless ups and downs, this was the first time Fu Xingchuan had attempted to stand on all fours. His viewpoint was a bit low, his vision was dim and blurry, and only his sense of smell and hearing were so sensitive that it was almost unbearable.

The smell of mud and chicken manure rushed into his nose, and a conversation with a heavy dialect floated into his ears; the unfamiliar sensory information causing him a headache.

Fu Xingchuan shook his head vigorously.

He was standing in the courtyard of a low-rise rural house. There were a few skinny chickens running around him, and he could see the vague mountain shadows through the decaying walls.

Something’s wrong.

Fu Xingchuan cleared his throat cautiously, trying to make a sound—

“Woof!” His voice was loud and clear.

Sure enough, something had gone wrong with the spell! Fu Xingchuan was so angry that he stamped his paws. This kind of deviation from Shian’s precise calculations could only be the result of exceptionally powerful interference during casting.

Fu Xingchuan nervously scanned the surroundings, making sure the chickens didn’t have any communication devices on their heads, before he breathed a sigh of relief.

If he was the only one who was unlucky, it was okay. As long as Fu Tianyi was still in human form, he could locate him through the Fu family’s magic.

Before that… Before that, since he had this “convenient” form, investigation wasn’t impossible.

Fu Xingchuan thought for a moment, then turned his head and began to gnaw at the hemp rope that was tying him up.

‘Hopefully, I’m the only unlucky one,’ Fu Xingchuan thought sadly.

As the hemp rope snapped, a large black dog in the temple next door twitched its ears.

……

In the dense forest, Huang Jin was silently contemplating life.

There must have been some mistake in his life. Perhaps he had done too much wrong in his previous life, destroying one or two countries, which was why he had to encounter this hellish job in this life.

Normally, humans need feet to walk.

Huang Jin, as a human, had no idea how to move without feet.

Just how big of a problem did the Shian leadership have with him that they felt this thing was similar to his “situation”?

How wonderful Ge Tingting was currently. At the moment, she was trying to adapt to her new body—this magic was indeed stronger than the Archive; not only giving Ge Tingting a suitable role but also temporarily restoring her language ability.

“I am, ahem, ahem, Ge Ting…Ting.”

The little girl was dressed plainly but cleanly, with the words “Lu Tinghe” embroidered crookedly on her chest. She tied her messy braids and held a big doll head in her arms with a young face covered in sweat.

Her black communication earpiece was particularly conspicuous.

“Who are you?”

Ge Tingting tried to adapt to her smaller body, reaching out and pulling the communication device stuck to Huang Jin’s body.

Huang Jin: “……”

Huang Jin: “Puff—!”

He cursed in pain.

Ge Tingting gasped and stood on tiptoe, looking around. Before she could find her companions, a red figure approached them and stopped beside them.

Ge Tingting immediately stood in front of the Huang Jin version of Yellow Millet.

The uninvited guest was about three meters tall, with pale feet planted on the grass. Its body was wrapped in blood-red bandages, and the yellow talisman was splattered with old bloodstains. The bone chains soaked in blood and oil tightly entangled it, shaped like a cocoon.

In the midst of the heavy seals, a similarly pale hand stretched out with the communication device in its palm.

It’s a companion!

Ge Tingting, who was just over one meter tall, breathed a sigh of relief and moved away.

Huang Jin struggled to lift his eyes—now he only had one eye on his entire body, and his movement had never been so awkward—but unfortunately, he only saw a simple image.

Just like how Ge Tingting lost her ability to “hear ravings”, his “mind reading” was also blocked by magic.

But judging from the appearance, Huang Jin could probably guess who it was. Dressed in red clothes, treading on Yellow Millet—there was only one person who deserved such a record.

That was the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi, or rather, Yin Ren himself.

‘Well, at least they have a big tree to shade them,’ Huang Jin thought cheerfully. If it was Yin Ren, he could at least understand Yellow Millet’s language.

Ge Tingting apparently came to the same conclusion after doing her homework. The little girl wiped the sweat off her face and smiled. “Yin Ren!”

“Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff!”

[I am Huang Jin. Help me!] Huang Jin also desperately sought help.

But the person just stood still, motionless, as quiet as an inanimate object.

“Yin Ren…?” Ge Tingting’s smile froze on her face, and she walked back to Huang Jin calmly. The little girl clenched the headset tightly with both hands, as if she was ready to throw it out at any moment.

The tall red cocoon remained silent for a long time before finally speaking.

“I…”

Behind the thick fabric, Yin Ren’s familiar voice could be heard.

“I can’t find Yin Ren.”

The voice was mixed with depression and confusion.

“…I am Zhong Chengshuo.”

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The author has something to say:

The flags for Yin Ren have been fulfilled at superluminal speed!

Low-risk copy, high-risk identity ←

It’s hard to say who is more miserable in the end…

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Kinky Thoughts:

Just a note: The [Huang] (黄) in [Huang Jin] (黄今) means yellow which is the same [huang] as Yellow Millet [Huang Liang] (黄粱). This might be why Huang Jin became Yellow Millet in the Archive.

Also, I should have noted this earlier, but Yellow Millet (黄粱) is a Chinese mythological plant known as the “Dreaming Immortal Herb”. According to myth, consuming the yellow millet grown from the plant would induce dreams of a perfect world and immortality, so it’s also used metaphorically to refer to a situation of state of mind that is like a dream, illusory, or unreal… Which is very fitting of Yellow Millet’s ability (can cause cognitive confusion—the things it did in the Gengsheng Town arc).

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 161: The Secret Plan

In the early hours of the morning, Li Nian was still awake.

He wasn’t in his office anymore, as there was still Xiang Jiang there, and it wouldn’t be easy to carry out his plan. After pretending to leave work, Li Nian headed straight for Jiao Lian’s room.

He provided Minister Jiao Lian with a mobile phone with power, which allowed her to speak up at any time. Li Nian politely sat in the far corner, tapping away on his computer.

In the dimly lit bedroom, numerous computer screens on Jiao Lian’s body emitted a dim light, and countless indescribable images slowly flashed on them. Li Nian sat in the guest corner of the suite, his face pale under the cold light.

Half of his screen displayed numerous case files, while the other half showed his WeChat conversation with Fu Xingchuan.

Fu Xingchuan had just sent over a steaming hot picture of grilled meat covered in garlic butter, with the caption: [This may be the brain state of Unit 9 after Yin Ren told them.]

Li Nian couldn’t be bothered to respond to him and continued to look at the case files.

These were the investigation materials on the “enemies” that Fu Xingchuan had dug up with some guidance from Yin Ren. Along with it were facial feature analysis and preliminary investigation results on “Qi Xin” in Gengsheng Town. Fu Xingchuan’s investigation was done without the knowledge of the authorities in Shian. Though he may have lost his post, he was still as sharp as ever, as the information he gathered was quite detailed.

Most of the enemies’ families lived very ordinary lives in Haigu. At most, they would burn incense and look at Feng Shui. Only two people were suspicious—

The first was Qiu Fang, the “Young Mr. Qiu” of the Qiu family who was a brainless playboy that only knew how to drink and go clubbing all night long. He recently suffered a heart attack a while ago and had kept a low profile after being discharged.

He had been so low-key that even surveillance records were hard to come by.

Interestingly, his movements during the time of the attack on the Fu family estate and the night of the incident at the Municipal Hospital were peculiar—he deliberately went to the old alleys with sparse surveillance and didn’t even have a companion by his side.

After the small-scale Divine Descent, he disappeared altogether.

Of course, this evidence wasn’t enough to prove that “Qiu Fang” was the perpetrator, but strange things did happen around him—with the son missing, not only did his parents not report to the police, but they didn’t even call to check up on him, so it was hard to say if they even knew their son was missing. And when his other drinking buddies were asked about him, their initial reactions were all confusion, as if they were being asked about a kindergarten playmate they had long forgotten.

It reminded Li Nian of the “Mayor” in Gengsheng Town.

Fortunately, “Qiu Fang” hadn’t disappeared completely, and Li Nian could still understand his information. It just added some reading obstacles for Professor Li and required a lot of effort to understand.

The second suspicious person was Qiu Fang’s grandfather, “Elder Qiu”.

Six years ago, Elder Qiu woke up from a vegetative state and had been hospitalized ever since. During this time, all his physiological indicators were still normal. However, he hardly communicated with his family and rarely talked to other people in the hospital—before becoming a vegetable, Elder Qiu was quite humorous and talkative, but after waking up, he became low-key as if he were a completely different person.

It wasn’t easy for a vegetative person to wake up, and brain damage could have various unknown consequences. The old man had no spouse, and no one cared about his personality issues.

The old man’s hospital room had an excellent view and could see most of Haigu, including the abandoned building.

The period when Elder Qiu suffered from heart failure coincided with the hospitalization of his grandson, who had a heart attack. The old man’s heart failure was suspiciously timed. He had just passed away, and his grandson, who was “half-brain dead,” woke up.

It was hard to say if these were coincidences.

Li Nian stared at the text on the screen and slowly rotated his insulated cup to pour himself a cup of strong tea.

According to the hospital’s imaging records, only one woman in her forties came to visit him. The woman wasn’t related to or friends with the family, and she wore a bright and cheap T-shirt, and the bouquet was also the cheapest style. When thrown into a crowd, such a person couldn’t be found.

After finishing his tea, Li Nian dragged the report box to reveal an image—

When the woman left the old man’s room, there was a moment of distortion in the corner of the surveillance video. Li Nian handed that “malfunctioning screen” to Jiao Lian for analysis, and now he was facing the analysis results.

The screen showed two people melded together. Half of it was the forty-year-old woman leaving, and the other half was wearing black clothes, not clearly visible.

It was like cutting two people into extremely fine mosaics and splicing them together. It looks like a freak that an ignorant child built with Lego blocks. Li Nian spent a lot of effort to separate the black-clothed figure and complete it with AI.

That “melded” black-clothed woman was precisely the missing “Qi Xin”.

Qi Xin visited Mr. Qiu.

Attacks that were beyond Sunken Society’s abilities, the large number of corruption sources possessed by Sunken Society in recent years, Zhong Chengshuo’s corpse appearing in the underground corpse vault of Sunken Society—these weird puzzles all now had an explanation.

Qiu Fang and Qi Xin. They were unknown forces with great mysteries.

It was already a hassle to deal with Sunken Society, but now there was another enemy lurking in the dark along with the ticking time bomb that was Xiang Jiang. Li Nian couldn’t help but sigh. Even the newly added intelligence about the Divine Descent couldn’t make him happy.

As if having telepathic abilities, a few more messages popped up in the WeChat chat box on the left.

[Seek Blessings For Yourself*: Don’t think too much about things that will or won’t happen. With the Great Celestia Master here, even if the sky falls, there’s someone tall to hold it up.]

*(自求多符) Phrase referring to one should work hard and strive for success and happiness on their own, rather than relying on luck or the help of others.

[Seek Blessings For Yourself: You finished reading Yin Ren’s proposal, right?]

Of course he finished reading it, but the problem was that Li Nian didn’t quite agree with the proposal.

[Li Nian: I’ll think about it again.]

[Li Nian: It’s fine if you don’t go.]

[Seek Blessings For Yourself: I have to look after the younger generation. Don’t worry.]

He looked up towards the bedroom. Jiao Lian, who had already lost her human form, was leaning against the bed, and her “blood vessels” extended to the surrounding walls, slowly pulsing. The blinking of the screens all over her body was like breathing.

They had worked together for many years, but he was starting to forget what Jiao Lian looked like.

At this point, the last thing Shian needed was another “accident”. Fu Xingchuan had mentioned something about lifespan, but for now, Jiao Lian, who was still alive, could be considered an exception.

……

Late at night, Ping’an Manor.

Zhong Chengshuo opened the fridge, running his fingertips over the bright red apple. He looked at the fresh fruit in the dish and the dwindling supply of apples in the fridge and ultimately decided to restock before changing it out.

The chill from the fridge wafted over as Zhong Chengshuo poured himself a glass of cold milk. He had just turned his head when he saw Yin Ren standing behind him.

Zhong Chengshuo instinctively adjusted his nightcap. “?”

“I rarely see you unable to sleep.” Yin Ren stared at Zhong Chengshuo’s neck. “Are you not feeling well?”

“I’m just a little afraid.”

Zhong Chengshuo readily admitted, pouring another glass of milk and handing it to Yin Ren.

Since the Divine Descent incident, Zhong Chengshuo had become obsessed with the word “fear”. He was like a child who had just received a new game, eager to explore all the mission scenarios.

Yin Ren held the cup to his lips. “Worried about tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Zhong Chengshuo replied after finishing his drink. “Although there are no problems with the plan, but…”

But he found that he couldn’t accept an ending like “death” or “separation”, and various anxious thoughts would always arise. These negative speculations made his stomach sour.

The principle behind the Divine Descent, whether they or Shian, could deduce it to some extent.

It was like a “whale fall*” caused by a biological organism like the sniper.

*Occurs when the carcass of a whale has fallen onto the ocean floor. On the seafloor, its carcass creates a complex localized ecosystem that supplies sustenance to deep-sea organisms for decades. You can watch a little about it here.

When the sniper died, its body was scattered. The “large pieces” that had not yet decomposed became a source of Evil Force, and the Evil Force further “rotted”, becoming the present-day evil qi that pervaded the human world.

In other words, whether it was a thousand years ago or twenty-eight years ago, there were such organisms—the “Primordial Elementals”, that fell from the Other Side to this side. They caused great impacts on the human world and scattered invisible flesh and blood.

The Divine Descent from twenty-eight years ago was thoroughly investigated by Shian. The large-scale Divine Descent that caused the “Prosperity of Evil” a thousand years ago was very tempting to Shian. If Yin Ren’s plan were to be proposed, Shian would almost certainly not refuse.

Tomorrow, he would need to announce the mission to the members of Unit 9, which Zhong Chengshuo was already familiar with…

[I was once interested in the Other Side for personal reasons. Yin Ren integrated some of my research materials and gave them to Shian. Combined with the information collected from the recent small-scale Divine Descent, we have a preliminary plan…]

At the same time, Li Nian was scrolling with his mouse…

[…Currently, Shian can extract the most ‘stable’ memories from the consciousness of the Evil Spirit to appease it. Yin Ren wants to apply the same extraction technique to himself and search for clues about the Divine Descent a thousand years ago in his deep memories.]

[The principle of this technique comes from the Archive, which essentially creates a memory world.]

[However, the ‘capacity’ of the Archive is limited and can only explore the human brain, which cannot be used for Yin Ren. We can use the underground Evil Spirit as an energy source to create a larger ‘temporary Archive’.]

[Shian’s Evil Spirit and the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi were once in the same era. With this technique, its memories will resonate with Zhong Yi’s memories and have a complementary effect on that era.]

[Thus, we can conduct a secret investigation into the situation a thousand years ago. With Yin Ren and Fu Xingchuan present, nothing will go wrong.]

Li Nian sneered at the words “nothing will go wrong”, but if it was just exploring pure memories…

This time, the memory owner was Yin Ren, who wasn’t a lunatic like Guo Laifu, and was indeed less dangerous.

Professor Li’s gaze shifted to the “clues about the Divine Descent a thousand years ago”.

He opened his thermos again and poured himself a cup of tea.

……

The next day, the office of Special Investigation Team Unit 9.

“…In summary, we plan to take everyone into Yin Ren’s memories and dig up those details that Yin Ren cannot remember. As the Great Celestial Master who sealed the Six Evil Spirits, every evil and ghost that Yin Ren has encountered has extremely important reference value for our research.”

“As the saying goes, know yourself and know your enemy, and you’ll never be defeated in a hundred battles*.” Yin Ren smiled and continued, “If we can thoroughly study the power of the evils, let alone Divine Descents, we might even touch upon that mysterious Other Side.”

*Quote from “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu which refers to understanding both oneself and the enemy to succeed in any battle or competition.

“And this memory is mine. You all can just tour it when you enter.”

Ge Tingting raised her hand. “Since it’s your memory, can’t you just recall it yourself?”

“If you live too long, you will forget many details.” Yin Ren smiled.

Lu Xiaohe was obviously excited. She pinched Ge Tingting’s shoulder and said, “Just think of it as a large-scale hypnosis, making people carefully recall the details of the incident.”

Ge Tingting nodded absentmindedly.

Huang Jin looked at Zhong Chengshuo with a serious face, then at Yin Ren, and couldn’t help feeling a bit emotional. “I don’t have a problem helping to look at the memories. But having one person, um, play two roles is really not necessary…”

It was quite creepy, actually.

“It’s because when people get older, they like to deceive themselves,” Yin Ren answered in a low voice as he put his hand naturally on Zhong Chengshuo’s waist. “Xiao Huang, any objections?”

“…No.”

Zhong Chengshuo turned his head and looked at Yin Ren, who leaned in close and spoke in an almost inaudible voice.

“After this investigation, I’ll probably be able to see how I was born as a ‘child’. When the time comes, I’ll find an excuse to send everyone out first, and then use a spell to see your memories from 28 years ago. We’ll stay underground the whole time, so there definitely won’t be any accidents this time.”

Zhong Chengshuo’s black eyes looked at Yin Ren for a long time without responding.

“Perhaps.”

He didn’t give a definite answer.

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