"Ho? Does Gao Xing have a ho?" Han Fei had no intention of insulting Gao Xing; he was rely curious. A madman who turned his foster parents and wife into monsters—where would he consider his ho?
Gao Xing’s mother was still not accustod to the body of the smart housekeeper. It might also be that upon leaving the ga, Baihe caused trauma to her consciousness, making it difficult for her to communicate well with Han Fei.
"I rember when Gao Xing was young, he lived in the poorest part of the Old City District, which seems to be abandoned now."
For Gao Xing, his childhood living environnt was a lifelong shadow. He probably wouldn’t have returned there. But what surprised Han Fei was that the smart housekeeper nodded again.
"Is he a masochist? Does he have to live in the place that causes him the most pain?"
Not wanting to delay, Han Fei imdiately took action. He moved the smart housekeeper into Huang Ying’s car, called Li Xue, and then headed toward that old city from his mories.
Decades ago, Gao Xing’s living area was a slum. With the construction of the Smart New City, it was completely abandoned, becoming quite desolate.
After eting with plainclothes police, several cars drove into the deserted streets.
The surrounding buildings still maintained the style of the last century, but the walls were cracked, and the original colors were long gone.
"Clinic, school, grocery store..."
Faded billboards vaguely revealed what these shops once were, forming Gao Xing’s scarred past with these dilapidated buildings.
So scenes from the Shrine mory World seen by Han Fei overlapped with the street before him; the alley where young Gao Xing was bullied by classmates, the escape route of the thief who killed his blind parents, the street corner where the Doctor’s daughter went blind after being doused with chemicals...
This was Gao Xing’s cage, the birthplace of the devil.
Han Fei, Huang Ying, and the plainclothes police entered the dirty, chaotic alleys, finding Gao Xing’s forr ho deep in the stinking alley.
It was an apartnt building with a courtyard and three different room types inside. Gao Xing’s family lived in the smallest room, with the window facing the garbage dump of the residential area.
"Do not be careless; our opponent this ti is extrely terrifying." Han Fei declined the police’s kind offer and took the lead.
The Shrine in Deep World was destroyed, Gao Xing was likely to leave early and set up traps here.
"The apartnt courtyard has been refurbished; this soil is new, sothing might be buried underneath." Han Fei’s investigation experience was very rich, a glance could spot issues, and the plainclothes who followed took out tools from the car and found a severed hand with a random dig.
The arm bore the tattoo of the Murder Club, indicating so killer angered Gao Xing and was directly eliminated.
"After dealing with the situation, you can dig slowly. There should be a giant corpse pit under this apartnt." Since entering the courtyard, Han Fei felt extrely uneasy; it was broad daylight, but he was cold, with the sun offering him no warmth.
Approaching the entrance of the building where Gao Xing’s ho was, when the light was blocked, a thick, eerie aura wrapped around everyone, as if sothing unseen occupied the building, making it very "unclean."
Braving the pressure, Han Fei walked step by step upstairs.
Initially, everything was normal, just an ordinary stairwell, but the higher they went, the more oppressive everyone felt.
The dust-covered walls began to display indecipherable patterns, resembling childish graffiti, or perhaps the works of an abstract art master painted after deep contemplation.
Every pattern was strange; looking at them for too long would leave one standing still, as if their soul was drawn into the drawing.
Even stranger, looking directly at the patterns made them unrecognizable, yet after a while, an unfamiliar na would suddenly erge in one’s brain as if all patterns evolved from that na.
"Rember, no matter what you see in this building, do not overthink it, and never chant anyone’s na."
Han Fei was aware of how terrifying the enemy he was facing, with so ghosts surpassing hatred—they were unspeakable entities.
Utilizing the fragntary information obtained in the Shrine mory World, Han Fei arrived at the door of Gao Xing’s ho, everyone behind him prepared for battle.
Using the unlocking tool to open the door, a pungent sll of blood rushed out, even making the battle-hardened plainclothes police beside Han Fei frown.
Leaning against the door, Han Fei slowly entered the house.
In the small room, various handcrafted "toys" were piled up, appearing ordinary and warm, just like an ordinary residence.
"There’s no trace of blood in the living room, so where is the sll of blood coming from?"
The plainclothes following Han Fei remained cautious, as facts had repeatedly proven that Han Fei’s judgnt was never wrong, so there must be a major issue hidden here.
"The kitchen and bathroom doors are open, but the bedroom door is closed." Gao Xing’s ho was small, with only one bedroom. His blind foster parents gave the bedroom to Gao Xing because he was the only one with normal eyesight in the family, to see the unbearable things and care about his privacy, a matter of indifference to his blind parents.
"The blind parents lived, ate, and worked in the living room; the bedroom was Gao Xing’s own room, where he made all those heartless decisions."
Walking through various handmade "creations," Han Fei pushed open the bedroom door.
A large mirror stood in the narrow room, its surface almost entirely covered in red, a blood-soaked expanse. All the figures reflected in the mirror seed to be bleeding.
"Spread out! Don’t let the mirror catch you!" Han Fei shouted a warning, but it was still a bit late. A plainclothes officer and Huang Ying were caught by the mirror, their images appearing within it.
The plainclothes officer initially felt no discomfort, but following the trickle of blood on the mirror, he unexpectedly felt a chill on his forehead. When he reached up to touch it, it seed his entire face was covered in blood.
To others, he appeared normal, but he suddenly went mad.
Huang Ying’s situation was sowhat unique. After being tortured to death countless tis in nightmares by the Butterfly, he had long been able to face death calmly.
In the mirror, his clothes were stained with blood and the colorful patterns of butterfly wings, but he himself remained unhard.
"Han Fei, there seems to be an extra person in this mirror," Huang Ying whispered cautiously.
After the distraught plainclothes officer was pulled away, three figures still remained in the bloodstained mirror, but clearly only Han Fei and Huang Ying stood before it now.
"That extra one... must be the person we’re looking for," Han Fei instinctively wanted to draw the Rebirth Slaughter Saber, but his fingers grasped nothing. In reality, he lacked any external aid, but correspondingly, the Unspeakable would also be greatly restrained in the real world.
The additional figure in the mirror began to move, finally stopping before Han Fei, as if trying to see through him completely.
Raising his fist, Han Fei tried to infuse his arm with his will, eager to punch the figure in the mirror.
In fact, that’s exactly what he did.
Without warning, Han Fei suddenly attacked the bloodstained mirror, habitually trying to harness the power of Personality.
To his surprise, as searing pain shot through the back of his head, a malevolent consciousness, entwined with greed and hatred, clung to his fist.
"Bang!"
The mirror shattered under Han Fei’s punch. The will that escaped from the depths of his brain seed laced with the strength of Personality, and this intangible power could exert a certain influence on Ghosts and Monsters in reality.
Cracks spread rapidly across the mirror, and Han Fei, enduring the agony radiating from the back of his head, punched again and again.
The stranger in the blood mirror had drawn near, standing beside the Han Fei in the mirror, his face slowly bleeding. He leaned intimately toward Han Fei’s ear.
As his lips parted, Han Fei clearly heard a voice whispering in his ear.
"It’s useless; even if you see the future, you cannot change it."
"You can do nothing but watch the tragedy repeat itself and then die miserably."
"Zero, the experinter, couldn’t bear that despair, which is why you exist. Enduring despair is the purpose of your existence. He never told you the truth; he will only discard you along with his painful past mories once he escapes despair."
"Twin Flowers is the epito of my life. You and Zero are my most perfect creations. Your ending will be the sa as mine, a script written at the start of the dream."
"I know you don’t believe it, so why don’t we make a bet, a wager on whether you can change the future I desire?"
In the fractured mirror, the stranger and Han Fei were close, as if he were a longti friend of Han Fei.
"You talk too much. You can’t even protect your own eyeballs, yet you have the face to talk about the future you want? Maybe you should return to the Deep World, but your Shrine was taken over by Zero, and the offerings have been consud. Fortunately, you died miserably without leaving ashes, or your wife would have scattered them herself." Without delving into Gao Xing’s words, Han Fei launched a vicious personal attack without restraint.
With a heavy punch, the bloodstained mirror disintegrated entirely, along with the stranger’s face.
Standing amidst the shards of mirror on the ground, Han Fei saw the wall that had been concealed by the mirror, on which were several peculiar paintings by a child.
The first painting depicted a child dreaming after falling asleep, seeing a massive black insect cocoon erge from under their bed. Terrified, but there was a voice from within the cocoon claiming that if the child could help it escape, it would grant him three wishes.
The second painting showed the child making his first wish: to restore his parents’ eyesight and beco wealthy.
The cocoon agreed, yet the child’s life remained unchanged, still mired in poverty and suffering.
The child thought the cocoon was lying, but the cocoon insisted that the wish had been granted and guided the child to seek evidence.
In the third painting, the child held a bloody dagger, his face wildly scribbled over with a red pen. He made a second wish to the cocoon, hoping all those who bullied him would die, and again, the cocoon agreed.
The final fourth painting spanned a longer ti, and the style changed. The cocoon began to force the child to make a third wish, but the child was clever. He seed to realize that if he made a third wish, the cocoon would devour him, making him a child wrapped by the cocoon.
Beneath the fourth painting, a crooked line of words read—"They call a Devil because they also know I live in Purgatory?"
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