"Crack, crack, crack..."
Blown away by the shockwave, Yan Huan crawled on the ground and coughed a few tis.
The massive impact didn't cause much pain anywhere else on his body; instead, it was his face that felt as if it were about to fall off entirely.
'Not good.'
'The absolute resistance of the Mask of Perfect Poise is failing!'
But in this situation, how could he possibly dare to deactivate the Mask of Perfect Poise?!
Yan Huan felt as though his facial features were lting off. He reached up to support them, only to discover that they had genuinely beco soft and were sliding downward.
Left with no other choice, he could only use his left hand to hold his face together, barely preventing it from lting away completely.
"It's you..."
At the sa ti, Yan Huan looked up at the evil god staring down at him from countless monitors, his expression grim.
The two-dinsional evil god on the screens glanced down at Yan Huan condescendingly and asked in a bizarre synthesized electronic voice,
"Where is that Boiling Fog native god of yours? Why haven't I seen it co out to hiss at ?"
"..."
Hearing the evil god mock Myau-chan as "Boiling Fog," Yan Huan felt a loss of face, yet he had no idea how to retort.
He did not say a word, his gaze rely darting around as he tried his best to calmly analyze the situation.
At this mont, the glass enclosure outside the server room was completely shattered, and the entire room was filled with floating monitors.
Looking out the window, he could see Linn connected by millions of descending threads...
Linn had a population of around six million, and it seed every single thread was linked to a person.
The evil god was truly about to descend.
But...
It hadn't fully descended yet!
Just like last ti in Tokyo, when the tentacles in space had yet to enter the atmosphere!
Yan Huan retracted his gaze and looked toward Ye Shiyu, who was suspended beneath the monitors like a lifeless doll.
'If I can just feed the Crab dicine to Ye Shiyu, there might still be a chance to turn things around...'
His next movent was to lower his eyes and glance at the Crab dicine tightly gripped in his hand.
However, just as he was about to do so, an illusory shadow split off from his hand.
The shadow gripped the Crab dicine and lifted it slightly...
It was precisely the exact action he was about to take.
It was as if an image of the future had been shown to Yan Huan a split second in advance!
"!!"
Seeing this, Yan Huan paused and imdiately changed his movent, looking up at the deity before him with its stitched-together yet bizarrely harmonious face.
And the mont he altered his action, the image before his eyes collapsed and morphed into a different vision.
Yan Huan's pupils contracted slightly, and he hurriedly lowered the Crab dicine to his side.
"Hum..."
The next second, the phantom of the future moved first, and Yan Huan's body subconsciously followed its trajectory.
Yet the god simply smiled, rubbing its index finger and whispering softly,
"Considering all the amusent you've brought , I can tell you the truth.
"The Index Finger and Ye Shiyu have yet to fully rge and beco a foundation, and I haven't completely descended. You still have a chance...
"But can you really do it?
"Yan Huan."
Saying that, it snapped its fingers.
"Snap!"
An invisible ripple burst outward instantly, triggering the "future" on Yan Huan's body that was originally only ant to appear a few seconds ahead of ti.
"Hum..."
The phantom instantly elongated, bursting forth from Yan Huan's body.
Then, clutching the Crab dicine, it charged fiercely toward the evil god, attempting to feed the dicine to Ye Shiyu.
"Boom!"
But halfway there, it was ruthlessly smashed into the ground by another arm composed of stacked monitors, instantly crushed into a bloody pulp.
"!!"
Witnessing this, Yan Huan's initial impulse to rush straight toward Ye Shiyu ground to a sudden halt.
As Yan Huan changed his course of action, the phantom imdiately shifted as well.
Before Yan Huan even moved, the future phantom abruptly raised its finger, firing off a Launch Fireworks directly at the deity.
"Boom!"
But it was effortlessly blocked by countless monitors rising up as a shield.
"!!"
This ti, Yan Huan didn't cancel his action. Instead, exactly as demonstrated by his future shadow, he unleashed a Launch Fireworks.
"Boom!"
Before him, the massive phantom of the god acted just like in the future vision, effortlessly raising the monitors to block the blast.
"..."
Yan Huan furrowed his brows, gripped the Crab dicine tightly, and stubbornly bolted toward Ye Shiyu.
"Hum!!"
In a flash, the shadow of the future materialized once more.
Refusing to even look at it, Yan Huan simply clutched the Crab dicine and pressed forward.
"Ye Shiyu!!"
The mont he shouted, his entire body was engulfed by countless monitors and smashed violently against the wall.
At the edge of the wall, Yan Huan's future shadow arrived first...
A long mont later, Yan Huan's restrained physical body slamd heavily into the wall, perfectly overlapping with the phantom.
"Boom!!"
The entire building shuddered slightly. Yan Huan clenched his teeth, his entire body wracked with agonizing pain.
"Hum..."
"Do you have any more amusing tricks left, Yan Huan? If not, then this world is truly mine for the taking..."
Squinting, Yan Huan glared at the evil god. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Ye Shiyu dangling beneath the monitors, her eyes completely hollow.
At this mont, the ground beneath her feet gradually began to mutate...
The floor rapidly warped, transforming into nurous mobile phones with their screens facing up.
Then, the phones began to spiral downward in a collapsing motion, forming a tunnel-like wormhole.
"Hum!!"
Like a tunnel boring machine, the phones burrowed downward, punching through floor after floor of the Ye's International Tower.
Yan Huan had no idea where this circular tunnel of spiraling phones was heading...
To the ground level?
To the core of the earth?
Or perhaps...
To the Otherworld.
"Hum!!"
As the dense mass of phones spiraled and drilled downward, the entirety of Ye's International Tower began to tremble slightly.
Yet, out in the dense downpour, while everyone below had their heads bowed staring at their screens, absolutely no one noticed the anomaly—except for the few Hosts inside and outside the tower.
"..."
Yan Huan panted, staring at the "phone wormhole" beneath Ye Shiyu before looking back up at the deity.
Before he could speak, the future phantom voiced his thoughts first,
"The reason Ye Shiyu ca back wasn't just because of hypnosis, but because of Aunt Ye, right?"
A few seconds later, the real Yan Huan synchronized with the phantom, looking at Ye Lan collapsed nearby as he voiced the exact sa question.
"Correct... Because the Index Finger devoured a fragnt of that native god Boiling Fog, combined with its previous evolution, it gained the ability to manifest intelligence within its dium.
"But even so, it cannot directly control the host's thoughts...
"Therefore, it hypnotized Ye Shiyu's mother, then transmitted the imagery to Ye Shiyu, forcing her to return here...
"Here at the focal point of the Index Finger's dium, and only here, can they rge to form the foundation."
Countless monitors maintained their tight grip on Yan Huan. Ahead of him, the evil god's features hovering over Ye Shiyu were still shifting.
Different online figures contributed various body parts, combining like a mosaic across the screens to assemble the evil god's thousands of faces into one eerily coordinated visage.
"In other words, the dium the Index Finger is currently using to release its abilities is still the Yezi AI..."
"..."
The evil god simply watched him, then seed to realize sothing, curling its lips into a faint smile.
"What are you trying to say?"
Before him, Yan Huan's future phantom raised its head before he did, looking at the evil god with a matching grin.
"I'm saying that a dog takes after its master. The Index Finger is just like you—fucking scheming to the core!"
Hearing this, the evil god's expression remained unchanged, rely watching as the real Yan Huan raised his head exactly like the future phantom.
But this ti, there was a difference from the future phantom...
His face, as if lting, dripped liquid drop by drop onto the monitors in front of him.
On the screens before him, quite a few of his facial features had already fallen off...
His mouth, his nose, and an eye.
Yan Huan hadn't realized these features had dropped, and the future phantom hadn't seed to realize it either, failing to display them.
It wasn't until this very mont, when Yan Huan saw them, that he looked up and spoke those words.
The future phantom instantly recognized the discrepancy, morphing its perfectly intact facial features into a face with only a single, slanted eye left.
"Hum!!"
This so-called future phantom was just reading his thoughts and deducing the outco!!
"Heh heh..."
Watching Yan Huan finally realize the trick, the evil god wasn't angered; instead, it was delighted, its smile deepening.
However, apart from his falling facial features...
There was one more thing Yan Huan hadn't paid any attention to earlier...
Because originally, it had rely been an excuse to send Sakuramiya Hitomi away.
"Beep."
At this mont, the ti displayed on the monitors quietly ticked forward.
If one paid close attention, they would notice...
Exactly fifteen minutes had passed since Yan Huan entered the building!
"Rumble!!"
"What's happening?!"
Downstairs outside Ye's International Tower, after searching the empty employee dormitory without result, Tong Yingying rushed back out to regroup with An Le.
But she suddenly noticed that the enormous Ye's International Tower was subtly swaying...
Looking closer, the endless tunnel wormhole ford by mobile phones was punching through floor after floor, driving straight toward the ground.
"Yan Huan... and Sakuramiya Hitomi are still inside!"
"..."
Seeing this, An Le's pupils contracted. She abruptly set Arya down, got out of the car, and prepared to sprint into the building.
But just as she stepped out, on the first floor of the tower, the USB drive Sakuramiya Hitomi was guarding suddenly began to flash.
"Hum!"
"Crack!!"
In the next second, reflected in Sakuramiya Hitomi's widened eyes, it unleashed a massive shockwave that propagated instantly along the Wi-Fi signals.
"Ugh!"
Everything in its path was instantly knocked offline, plunging the first-floor lobby into complete darkness.
"Sakuramiya Hitomi!!"
Under the heavily overcast sky, within the tinted-glass confines of Ye's International Tower, the invisible blackout shockwave manifested as a tangible surge of darkness.
Wherever it spread, the area was imdiately swallowed by an impenetrable blackness that the naked eye could not pierce.
Spectacularly, the wave of darkness surged relentlessly upward from the first floor, moving in the exact opposite direction of the descending phone wormhole.
Floor by floor, the facade of Ye's International Tower was consud by the gloom.
"Hum!!"
The endless dark spread like a tidal wave, swiftly reaching the floor where Yan Huan was trapped.
The evil god glanced down and saw the monitors beneath it winking out one by one.
Yet, it rely smiled faintly and turned back to Yan Huan.
"Just this won't be enough to stop my descent, Yan Huan..."
"I know..."
Yan Huan remained pinned to the wall. With the single eye left on his face, he watched the countless monitors binding him power down sequentially...
At the very last second, the final eye on his face lted along with the rest of his visage and slipped away.
His field of vision was completely plunged into pitch-black.
"But this will temporarily nullify the Index Finger's ability... won't it?"
And in that final mont before the darkness took over completely...
Beneath the sea of dead screens, Ye Shiyu's suspended body suddenly gave a faint tremor.
"Hum..."
Amidst the boundless dark, Ye Shiyu stood firmly in place.
She stood there blankly, as if just waking from a deep dream, still hovering on the edge of conscious awareness.
"Shiyu, how is it? Do you like it?"
"Haha..."
"Yes, I love it! Thank you, Mama, thank you, Papa!"
Through the void, faint, warm voices drifted over, capturing Ye Shiyu's attention.
She raised her eyes and saw a dim brightness appearing in the distance, shining faintly from what seed to be the Other Shore.
That was...
Staring in a daze, Ye Shiyu saw a happy family of three standing in that distant glow.
There, a husband and wife, wearing doting smiles, stood on either side. Each extended a hand, holding the left and right hands of the little girl standing between them.
The little girl had black hair and a bright, beautiful smile. Wearing what looked like a brand-new princess dress, she skipped along without a single care in the world.
Because her parents were holding her hands, she could jump as high as she wanted, swinging freely without any fear of falling.
"..."
Looking at the light from the Other Shore through the overwhelming pitch-black, Ye Shiyu subconsciously reached out her hand, wanting to chase after it.
She sprinted forward with all her might, her arm outstretched, desperately pursuing the light.
"Crack."
However, after running for a long ti, just as she was drawing closer to that warm harbor...
The ethereal, synthesized female voice of the Yezi AI suddenly echoed from behind her.
"Stop. Ahead lies a bottomless abyss."
"!!"
Hearing this, Ye Shiyu faltered, her raised leg freezing mid-air.
She blankly looked down, but in the darkness, she saw absolutely nothing.
Yet, when she gently lowered her foot...
She felt that there was no more ground beneath her.
"..."
Her eyes widened as she looked up toward the warm, glowing Other Shore ahead.
The family of three was still standing in the sa spot...
Seemingly right within reach.
But Ye Shiyu gritted her teeth, stubbornly refusing to give up.
Her gaze locked onto the Other Shore, she tried to detour around the chasm blocking her path.
She ran toward another direction in the darkness...
'If I just study hard... If I'm just sensible and obedient... If I just make my parents proud...'
'I can definitely... reach that place...'
'I can definitely... achieve that future.'
"Hum..."
"Dead end..." "Hum..."
"There's another abyss ahead here too..."
"Hum..."
"This path is blocked..."
"Hum..."
"Haha... Ha..."
In the gloom, Ye Shiyu ran until she was utterly exhausted, finally coming to a standstill.
With wide eyes, she continued to stare blankly at the Other Shore that still seed agonizingly within reach.
Until, like a high-speed train that had waited too long at the station, the distant shore slowly drifted away from her sight...
Everything sank back into oblivion once more.
And at this mont, standing frozen in place...
Ye Shiyu had seemingly forgotten how to run.
It was as if she were terrified of the abysses lurking in the surrounding shadows.
After all, she had run for so long, in so many directions...
And so, she lowered her eyes, permanently rooted to the spot.
"..."
A very, very long ti passed, until another train slowly arrived at the Other Shore.
"Sister Shiyu..."
Ye Shiyu slowly raised her head and looked forward.
Dimly, through the darkness, she spotted a bus stop.
Within the shelter, a young man with a school bag slung over his shoulder was waiting for the final bus to the South Ward.
He seed to notice her standing in the dark and offered her a gentle smile.
"Be careful on your way back, Sister Shiyu. Send
a ssage when you get ho."
"Thump... thump... thump..."
Once again, in this pitch-black world, Ye Shiyu had encountered a second light.
That light slowly pulled into the station on the Other Shore, smiling at her from across the void.
"..."
It reignited her desire to give chase.
She instinctively lifted her leg, wanting to run...
But this ti, she couldn't even rember whether to step with her left foot or her right.
"Hum..."
"The future is like walking on thin ice..."
Right at that mont, a mobile phone flew to her side.
Flickering with purple light, it angled downward and outlined a path directly across the abyss before her.
"Let
help you... Rely on , and you can cross straight over to that unreachable Other Shore..."
"..."
Ye Shiyu stared blankly at the eerie purple bridge of light appearing over the chasm. Trembling, she took her first step.
"Step."
Back at the bus stop, when Yan Huan had spoken those words, Ye Shiyu originally should have said sothing in response...
But she didn't. Instead, she had rely raised her phone, attempting to shortcut her way directly to the light.
"Step."
In the classroom, when Yan Huan accidentally saw the adult websites on her computer, Ye Shiyu originally could have explained...
But she didn't. She had simply raised her phone and erased his mory.
"Step."
At the Ye Residence, when Yan Huan stayed over again, she originally could have invited Xiao Huan on a date to chat and connect...
But she didn't. She rely raised her phone and ambushed him in the night.
"Step."
With every step she took over the bottomless pit, she moved one pace closer to the Other Shore.
Yet, the glow of that shore seed to retreat further and further away.
"..."
Ye Shiyu furrowed her brows, pursed her lips, and glanced down at her phone.
She...
Perhaps, she had chosen the wrong path once again.
Perhaps she should turn back, find another route, and cross this chasm properly.
So, pursing her lips, she silently turned around, planning to rely no longer on the phone's illumination but to grope through the dark just like she used to.
"Where are you going?! Ye Shiyu?!"
"..."
She didn't answer. She just continued turning back.
"Step."
In the sewing room, the evening sunlight reflected the scene of her and Xiao Huan weaving brocade together.
"Step."
In the shopping mall, Bai Yi stood before the mirror, puffing out her cheeks as she watched Ye Shiyu learning to apply light makeup.
"Step."
In the bookstore, Yan Huan stared with slightly widened eyes at Ye Shiyu hiding her face behind a doujinshi.
"Step."
At the Culture Festival, her face full of worry, Ye Shiyu held tightly onto Yan Huan's body.
"Step."
In the upscale restaurant, Ye Shiyu and Yan Huan stood side-by-side by the glass, watching the jellyfish drift up and down in the water.
"Step."
Within Sakuramiya Hitomi's barrier, her eyes rimd red as the world slowly collapsed around them, Ye Shiyu raised her phone.
She declared, "I will save Xiao Huan!!"
Pacing step by step, it seed another path leading to the Other Shore had already manifested before her eyes.
"Step."
As Ye Shiyu planted one foot into the darkness and prepared to lift the other, the phone behind her called out once again.
"Ye Shiyu... You're going the wrong way..."
"..."
"Why don't you look back?"
Dazed, Ye Shiyu slowly turned her head.
She saw that on the Other Shore, inside the warmly lit station, Sakuramiya Hitomi, wearing a dance dress, was tightly embracing Yan Huan.
Amidst the shimring fireworks filling the sky, the light illuminated the couple standing together...
anwhile, in the darkness, the foot Ye Shiyu was just about to plant down...
Stepped over the abyss once more.
"Hum!"
She hastily pulled her foot back, turned around, and stood rooted in a daze.
"I understand your fear. I understand your hesitation... So, let
illuminate the path ahead for you."
The phone drifted over slowly, uttering those words.
Above the bottomless void, a faint purple luminescence paved a solid trail...
"You are already so close to him. Just a few more steps, just a few more..."
The bridge of purple light extended straight from Ye Shiyu's feet, anchoring itself to the Other Shore.
Lowering her eyes, Ye Shiyu stepped onto the luminous bridge once more.
"Step."
This ti, with every step, she truly drew closer to the glowing sanctuary.
"Step."
Yet, as she advanced further, the image of Yan Huan's furrowed brow surfaced before her eyes.
"Step."
Another step, and he was glaring at her with a face full of disgust.
"I, Yan Huan, even if I were to die, would never fall in love with you, Ye Shiyu!!"
"..."
Echoing in her mind was his revulsion. Recalling the pale, lifeless look on Xiao Huan's face when he died...
Ye Shiyu finally followed the bridge of light all the way to the threshold of the Other Shore.
But the scenery before her had reverted back to the bus stop from that night, tranquil and peaceful.
Beneath the shelter, the young man was smiling, looking right at her.
"Sister Shiyu..."
"Hum..."
The phone glided over slowly, settling beside her.
It offered her a pen.
"One more step and you're there. You can do anything you desire!
"You will have each other, stay together forever, and build a family that serves as a safe haven!!
"You can completely make up for the things your parents failed to do!"
Ye Shiyu gently gripped the pen. Before her, the smiling young man under the shelter had also grasped a pen.
Looking at Ye Shiyu, he slowly raised his pen toward her face.
In a trance, Ye Shiyu also raised her pen toward the young man's face and began to write sothing.
"Scratch... scratch..."
The boy gently reached out and used a water-based pen to trace his own na across Ye Shiyu's face.
"..."
Feeling the characters being left upon her skin, Ye Shiyu's eyes quivered in shock.
She woodenly raised a hand to touch her own cheek.
Tracing the glow, she seed to see the symbols etched onto her face.
"Yan Huan."
"..."
Lowering her eyes, she whispered,
"It's already... enough."
Before her, beneath the shelter, the young man tilted his head in confusion, gazing at her.
Yet he watched as Ye Shiyu lifted her head and t his gaze.
"I always thought... I was the one trapped in this darkness...
"That as long as I worked hard to reach the Other Shore, to board this train of light, I could leave this place...
"That I'd no longer have to be afraid, and could grasp a happy future...
"But now I realize... that's not it at all."
She used to believe that if she just tried hard enough, she could nd her parents' relationship and keep them together forever.
But...
If her parents were forced to stay together solely because of her, would they truly experience the happiness she imagined?
She used to believe that if she just relied on hypnosis, she could stay with Xiao Huan.
But...
Would Xiao Huan truly be happy being with her?
"It turns out, I was the darkness itself all along..."
Ye Shiyu spoke with total relief, causing the young man before her to pause.
Under the station shelter of that particular night, the young man touched his own face...
Illuminated by the glow, the words written by Ye Shiyu on his face shined ever brighter.
They did not spell out Ye Shiyu's na.
Instead, they ford a completely different phrase.
"Be Happy For ."
Feeling the characters etched onto his skin, the young man at the station widened his eyes.
Looking up at the girl before him, he saw the corners of her lips turning up slightly, forming the faintest of smiles.
And in an instant, as the words slowly blossod with radiant light, rging seamlessly with the blissful sanctuary of the Other Shore...
The purple light bridge beneath Ye Shiyu's feet and the mobile phone by her side abruptly fractured into fine, jagged shards.
Seeing this, the voice of the Yezi AI inside the phone gradually beca distorted and twisted.
Until the next second, an Index Finger violently burst out from within it, agonizingly shedding fragnt after fragnt...
"Ye Shiyu!!!"
Back in reality, amidst the overwhelming darkness, countless threads snapped instantaneously deep within the eyes of the suspended Ye Shiyu.
In midair, the innurable monitors composing the shell of the evil god plumted downward one by one...
And with them, Yan Huan was also sent crashing to the ground.
As Ye Shiyu's resolve to give up reached its zenith, the Index Finger inside her body was instantly detached, poised to plunge into the wormhole and be banished from this world.
However...
Because they had mostly rged to form a foundation, they were fundantally inseparable.
Because of this, the twisted Index Finger clinging to Ye Shiyu's back dragged her down with it, plumting straight toward the wormhole leading to the Otherworld.
"Hum!!"
At that precise mont, as the Modifier was violently peeled away, the haze in Ye Shiyu's eyes finally cleared considerably.
She stared blankly at her surroundings, which were gradually regaining their light. In the split second before she fell, she caught sight of her mother and Yan Huan collapsed on the ground.
"Drip."
She opened her mouth, yet did not say a word.
A single clear tear slid down from the corner of her eye.
It tracked down her cheek, washing over the characters "Yan Huan" written there...
Right up until the final mont, when it fell from her chin.
Accompanied by her and the Index Finger, it dropped into the surrounding wormhole woven from countless mobile phones.
As she plumted straight down, the screens of the phones lining the wormhole lit up, staring at her like thousands of watchful eyes...
Yet for so reason, they seed so unbearably dim.
The only exception was high above in the firmant, back in reality where the darkness had faded, still preserving one final sliver of light.
"Ah... the Other Shore..."
Gazing upwards with an expressionless face, Ye Shiyu gently reached out her hand.
"Ye Shiyu!!"
Until the next second, a roar suddenly erupted from that "Other Shore."
"!!"
Ye Shiyu faltered. Right before her eyes, she watched the light plunge straight down through the entrance of the wormhole.
Until, beneath her gaze of sheer disbelief...
That Other Shore gradually materialized, taking the shape of a young man she couldn't be more familiar with. Holding a Crab dicine with eyes nearly splitting with fury...
He dove into the abyssal darkness alongside her.
Reviews
All reviews (0)