Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Pei Yu vanished completely.

So completely it was as if he had never existed at all.

But I still remembered him. I remembered his clean white shirt and white trousers, the way he looked holding that vermilion brush. I remembered the cool yet reassuring feeling of leaning against him.

But when I asked every neighbor in the old apartment block, they all said they had never seen such a person.

Maybe he really had been a hallucination.

Just a hallucination brought on by too much stress at work.

That was what I told myself, but my heart still felt hollow, as if I had lost something terribly important.

I kept feeling like he was still there, only I couldn’t see him anymore.

After spending half a month like a walking corpse, I finally faced the pain, made up my mind, and went to see a psychologist.

For some reason, she looked very young.

“Are you really a doctor?”

Faced with my doubt, the girl didn’t get angry. She only kept smiling. “I’m a new intern. You can call me Yuzi.

“If you’re really worried, I can waive the fee for your first consultation.”

At that, I was so moved I grabbed her hand and shook it again and again.

“No, you are the best doctor there is!”

After listening to my symptoms, Yuzi stroked her chin. “Most psychological disorders that appear in adulthood are related to childhood experiences… Perhaps we can try hypnotherapy.”

I had no objections. I immediately went along with her suggestion and lay down on the treatment bed, letting her swing a silver pendulum in front of me.

The process wasn’t uncomfortable.

I just felt a little sleepy…

When I opened my eyes again, everything before me was a flood of blood-red.

I tried shaking my head, and the red swayed with my vision. Only then did I realize belatedly that a layer of red gauze was covering my face.

I seemed to have been hidden somewhere.

Beyond the red gauze was an empty temple. Around the perimeter stood a ring of pillars several meters high, while the shrine they encircled was empty. Whatever had once occupied it seemed to have left, leaving only a faint layer of dust behind.

I looked around and froze in shock.

It was here!

That childhood memory had happened here!

Looking at the offering table in front of me, I saw that several shriveled fruits were still lying there.

As if I had practiced it thousands of times, I immediately grabbed the fruit in my hands. Only then did I belatedly realize-

My hands had grown smaller.

This body seemed to belong to a child.

When I walked out of the temple gate, I saw the full scope of this world.

Under the pale daylight lay a desolate river stretching across an abyss. The instant I saw its surging waves, the name of this river surfaced in my mind-

“Ruoshui River.”

What rolled and rushed through it was a river of acid.

The land scoured by the river reeked of sour bitterness. Broken, half-dissolved limbs floated along the banks, while blood mist spread in every direction. Even the air itself was tinged a faint pink.

Outside the temple, however, a familiar and terrifying shadow had stopped. A crowd of people knelt at its feet, shouting loudly.

“Qiaojiao Niangniang!”

It was a long, hunched creature.

It had the texture of piled-up flesh and blood. Beneath its body grew a pair of long, curled, deformed feet, while behind it hovered a sacred halo, shimmering with rippling light. It moved without wind, draped behind it like a fairy’s trailing sash.

Those people seemed unable to see me. Swarming around Qiaojiao Niangniang, they headed off in another direction.

So I quietly followed behind them.

Farther ahead stood a huge circular stone platform. Strange patterns were carved across its surface, and every few meters stood a fire rack several zhang tall, corroded by the river water into a ruined shape.

Above the platform, the stars were arranged in a frenzied order.

Below the platform was a bizarre scene that no brush or ink could ever capture.

It was… the Doom of the Gods.

The painting had become real.