"I remember now."
That strange sense of dislocation of reality, that "bystander perspective" where he could do nothing, all had answers. The only one who could influence him to this point was "himself".
That was his memory, that was the reality that had happened.
But under the emergency seal, they became fragmented. Now he must pick up the broken pieces and piece them back to their heartbreaking original state.
Chaos, struggle, emptiness.
Perhaps his mind also wanted to save itself. The closer his memory got to that sad end, the more fragmented it seemed.
Yin Ren has always been very good at changing and sealing memories. However, even a powerful demon like him cannot change the established reality.
Yin Ren could have eliminated them, beautified them, but he kept them as they were, almost coldly. He chose to drink this bowl of poisonous soup slowly, mouthful by mouthful.
“I remember everything now.”
Yin Ren's voice became much clearer.
Yin Ren didn't answer.
Now that person will no longer age.
It was indeed a bit empty here, but in just a few months, he got used to having someone around.
"How much time has passed?" Yin Ren asked expressionlessly.
“… You’re awake.” The questioner let out a long sigh.
Because the weird questioner was right in front of him.
Yin Ren forced himself to open his eyes and forced himself to leave the world of memory.
"Five hours." Liu Shu - Fu Wuya answered, his voice a little heavy, "Every time you talked about the memory of chatting about 'Yuanwu', you would not take the initiative to continue."
Yin Ren sat numbly on the chair, with Zhong Cheng's blood-stained hardcover book on his knees. His consciousness was almost blank, and he was very hungry, but he didn't want to eat anything.
He was in a strange frozen state, with countless emotions surging up at the same time. Yin Ren didn't know which ones to deal with first, so he had to stay where he was.
The Class B and Class C investigation teams participating in the competition all stayed in this spacious stone building. Yin Ren could hear low voices and sobbing, and could also smell the strong smell of blood.
In front of him was no longer a pool of blood under the setting sun, nor the stairs that seemed to lead to hell. He was sitting on a chair, with a thin mist rolling on the stone floor and a starless night sky above his head.
He could sense that there were countless ancient defense barriers all around him, rumbling and operating, completely cutting off this small area from the outside world.
Unfortunately, the seal buffer can only prevent collapse, but cannot eliminate pain.
The blood in the memory lingered, and the tragic scene remained in front of his eyes like a brand. Yin Renxia consciously wanted to rewind the memory, to immerse himself in the initial peace, the memory accompanied by kisses and casual conversations -
At that time, he only had to worry about the somewhat disgusting dining environment and longed for the barbecue buffet that lasted for more than 20 years. He was in a clumsy love that had just begun, and his biggest worry was "I don't know how to stop Zhong Cheng from talking about getting old."
As he asked questions, the seal gradually disappeared, and all his memories of the past few hours came back. It was like waking up from a very long dream, and the blood on Yin Ren's face had already dried.
He was equally lazy to think about what it was.
But he didn't have the energy to think about these.
This is how memory seals work. To break the seal, "slow guidance from the outside world" and "being relatively calm" are both essential. As a fuse to prevent one's own collapse, this mechanism is very useful.
In front of Yin Ren was a strange willow tree, which gave off a similar scent to Fu Xingchuan. Its thick trunk had human facial features of varying sizes. It was an abnormal and somewhat funny scene, but Yin Ren had no idea.
He always had a strange subconscious thought that Zhong Chengshuo was still there, but was not by his side because he was asked by Shi An to do something.
That person is so powerful, yet there are so many mysteries surrounding him. He has elderly parents to support, and he has not yet completed his research on gods and evil spirits...
They haven't had time to figure out how to take their relationship to the next level.
Zhong Cheng asked how he could die
Even if he died, he should have died in a tragic battle, in a battle where he had fought with all his might, instead of disappearing suddenly like a bubble.
Zhong Cheng said he would definitely not leave like this.
Yin Ren stroked the bloodstained hard cover of the book. Zhong Cheng said he liked this little book very much. Now it was covered with dust, and he didn't know if that person would show a distressed look.
The flickering firelight in the ancestral hall illuminated the exquisite and majestic murals of Zhong Yi.
Seeing Yin Ren sitting there like a sculpture, Fu Wuya turned his huge eyes towards Yin Ren and said, "This is the Fu family ancestral hall. It is safe for now."
"I'm relatively 'safe' here?" Yin Ren raised his eyes woodenly.
The willow tree's eyes turned and scanned the people taking shelter. Its lips moved slightly, and a line of voice pressed into Yin Ren's ears: "I know you are an evil creature, but you would rather seal your memory than lose control in the crowd. It would be too much to exclude you again."
"… "
Yin Ren did not continue the conversation. He continued to look at the cover of the notebook, which had English words that he could not quite understand. Yin Ren knew that he would be able to see Zhong Chengshuo's handwriting when he opened it. It was a very neat and beautiful handwriting, as neat as printing.
It was a light but sturdy hardcover, but he didn't have the strength to open it.
"Where is Fu Xingchuan?" Yin Ren changed the question. "Speaking" had never made him so tired.
Fu Wuya: "I'm here to speak on behalf of the Fu family. What do you want to do?"
"I just want to know the approximate location of the headquarters of the Sunken Society." Yin Ren answered almost as a matter of course, "Those people want Zhong Cheng's body to be useless, and only his blood relatives are needed - then as long as I find his blood relatives, I can bring him back."
"We haven't found out who the intruder was. Including Zhong Cheng, he killed two people and seriously injured five people this time, but he didn't reveal any malicious intentions. It's extremely difficult to prevent."
"But one thing is certain, he committed the crime through a gap-like space. I happen to be familiar with this. This is now the safest place in the entire Sea Valley."
Fu Wuya did not directly deny Yin Ren's request.
"There's no rush for this matter, Yin Ren, we can talk it over first—" BANG!!!
A series of explosions sounded, and the faces of Zhong Yi in the murals in the ancestral hall were blown up. The smoke and dust dissipated, and the wall skin fell off. Those solemn faces were left with only hopeless blackness.
Outside the ancestral hall, countless large and small statues of bells and lanterns trembled at the same time. Something like blood and flesh oozed out of their faces, blurring them into a chaotic mass.
The people around him stopped talking and took defensive positions. They looked around suspiciously for the source of the attack, but Yin Ren remained sitting there, as if nothing had to do with him.
His back was slightly bent, and breathing was extremely difficult. His face was very young, but his aura seemed to have aged instantly.
"I'm in a hurry." Yin Ren said, "I'm tired and don't have time to continue playing with you, Fu Liu's children."
The eyes on the tree trunk suddenly widened.
"Did that kid write the ancestral teachings about eating mooncakes filled with maltose during the Mid-Autumn Festival? When I was teaching him magic, he always said this with a snotty nose - when he gets married and starts a family, he must write this in the ancestral teachings."
"Who are you… "
"Let me think about it. The little kids I led kept saying they wanted to fight demons together when they grew up. I never thought that the group would continue to exist until today. The name Huajisi was also chosen by Fu Liu."
Fu Wuya's dark eyes suddenly narrowed.
"Haven't you always wanted to know who I am?"
Yin Ren raised his eyes, his face was as pale as paper and his eyes were as red as blood.
"Now I have given you the proof - your ancestor was saved from the wild boar by me. So, are you disappointed?"
The willow branches trembled, making a rustling sound. The wind was blowing hard all around, and the master's shaking obviously affected the nearby protective spells. The space made a squeezed crackling sound.
Yin Ren's long hair was blown by the wind, and he maintained his wolfish posture. Compared with Fu Wuya who had transformed into an evil tree, he looked even smaller.
He had saved many lives and killed even more. Human lives fluctuated like weeds, but he couldn't even stop such an attack.
The so-called great heavenly master Zhong Yi was never vindictive, nor was he omnipotent.
Because he was hungry, he went to kill evil creatures to eat. Because he wanted to talk, he picked up a mortal child to travel with him for a short time. Because he liked the hustle and bustle, he chose to step into the lights of the human world on a rainy night a few months ago.
At that time, Zhong Cheng said he pushed a bicycle and led him into the world in the pouring rain.
Yin Ren's fingers trembled slightly.
The hardcover slipped from his fingers and fell to the stone floor with a thud.
The last page of the book was opened upwards, revealing lines of neat handwriting. Yin Ren leaned over to pick it up, and when he saw the words clearly, his movements completely froze.
[This is Zhong Chengshuo's personal notebook. If you see this line, I am probably dead.]
Zhong Chengshuo wrote this.
[I encountered an evil creature named Yin Ren. Since he asked me to meet him alone, there is a possibility that he will kill me.]
This sentence has been carefully crossed out, and only a little outline can be seen...
Yin Ren recalled with difficulty. It was probably the night when he made an appointment with Zhong Cheng to conduct an "accomplice negotiation" in the Bai Yongji case.
[I have recently successfully entered the consciousness. In addition to the normal suicide note, I need a more special suicide note. Those who see this suicide note, if I died of unnatural causes and was clearly killed as a target. No matter how the case looks, please thoroughly investigate my death without delay.]
[If you are a night walker. During the process of investigating me, if you can discover my secret, you will get the research data of a certain case that I have been doing over the years. Give it to Shi An, and you will get a generous reward. If you can't find it, please give this suicide note to Shi An, and the reward you get may be less.]
The "secret" in this paragraph... Maybe Zhong Cheng was referring to his secret base. That person only showed him once, and Yin Ren didn't observe the place carefully at that time. He naturally thought that there would be many more opportunities in the future.
Yin Ren read very slowly, as if this way he could continue the conversation with the disappeared person.
[If you are a safe person, just report to "The Other Shore" directly.]
[If you are the one who killed me, my luck is really bad, there is nothing to say. I hope you will not be discovered when investigating me, although I think it is unlikely. ]
Even though it was a suicide note, the tone of this person was very irritating. Yin Ren could imagine Zhong Cheng saying these words in a serious manner, and the corners of his mouth twitched subconsciously.
[Also, please don’t cremate my body, please donate it to Zhian as well. ]
Yin Ren stroked the last line of words. His movements were as light as a feather, as if the words would be awakened.
"I will," he said.
The Sunken Society's Sea Valley branch, underground morgue.
"Did you hear that the one who just came in was wrapped in a body bag and dropped into the morgue out of thin air?" One of the guards said mysteriously, "I saw it. There were five big characters written on it: 'Gengshengzhen Compensation'."
"Hmph, don't say that. When the boss came to check, his face must have been very ugly." The second guard was obviously a zombie, and it scratched its dry flesh. "Just throw the body over here. Who knows if it's a compensation or a provocation? The less you know about the higher-ups, the longer you live."
The human guard gave it an indescribable look.
"Yes, the body must have been locked in the deepest place. I don't know where the precious material came from, tsk tsk..." He changed the subject cautiously.
The two guards were in a dark freezer a dozen floors underground.
In the small space, the metal morgue was as thick as a safe. This place was really too deep, and the surveillance cameras were replaced with layers of surveillance magic. The whole space was like a sarcophagus buried deep underground, with no light inside.
In the deepest darkness, in the almost frozen silence.
"Crack."
There was a slight sound in the morgue.
(End of this chapter)