chapter 90

Chapter 90

Lu Li watched as the Crow Evil God held Mirella’s hand and led her across the dance floor.

Then Mirella whispered a few words into the Evil God’s ear. The Evil God’s ears turned red, and he hurriedly shoved his hands into his pockets, feigning nonchalance as he quickly turned and walked into the blazing flames of the hall.

Lu Li and Luo Jia Bai pulled Mirella up to them.

Luo Jia Bai, still thinking the Evil God was just an NPC, exclaimed loudly at Mirella’s communication skills, “Amazing! Your communication skills are just like Lu Li’s-almost like cheating in the Necromancer Game!”

Lu Li noticed Mirella’s clenched fist and asked quietly, “What did he slip into your hand when he left?”

Mirella opened her palm and smiled. “Some useless, shiny Plastic Glitter. Looks like it’s his treasure.”

Mirella exchanged for a box and carefully stored the glitter inside.

Lu Li’s expression said, ‘Just as I thought.’ Crows always liked shiny things. He’d been right from the start.

The Evil God was a Crow, not a Black Cat.

Maybe he’d used some kind of illusion, so others saw something different from his true form.

The fire in the Noble District burned ever fiercer.

They followed Sean, who carried a hunting rifle, moving forward. Behind them came a thunderous “BOOM-“.

The magnificent and intricate Gilded Hall collapsed with a roar.

Everything turned to ashes.

When the hall vanished,

they found themselves in a vast, empty Forest.

A towering Giant Tree, just like the one depicted on Sean’s card, stood half on land and half in the sea.

Its trunk was so thick that dozens of people would be needed to encircle it. It breathed in and out like a human, making labored breathing sounds.

Its branches were so massive they drained nutrients from all the other trees nearby. The trunk was so robust it stretched for dozens of meters, directly piercing through the walls of the Rich District and Noble District halls, dropping branches into the Rich District.

The remaining trunk rudely stabbed into the bodies of all the other trees in the Forest.

Except for it, every tree was leafless, presenting a bleak, withered scene.

Yet at the tips of its branches, there were actually budding green shoots.

Beneath the tree lay a field of white bones.

Sean, rifle slung over his back, walked to the right side of the Giant Tree.

In the sky, two overlapping Full Moons slowly separated, and as they did, the Moonlight grew dimmer.

In the Moonlight, Sean’s figure gradually faded away.

Where he disappeared,

there was a grave.

To be precise, a grave piled with white bones, covered with earth and fallen leaves.

Intruders detected.

The leaves of the Giant Tree rustled, and four thick branches crashed down from the sky.

With a “BOOM!” they stabbed into the ground before the Players, kicking up dust.

On the trunk were four doors labeled [Game Night].

The Giant Tree spoke, “Are you here to offer tribute to the King? Don’t you know the King is already resting at this hour? Come back tomorrow!”

–

Lu Li lay on the ground of [Game Night], feeling cold.

Where was this wind coming from?

He wrapped himself tighter in his blanket.

A voice kept sounding very close to him.

“Didn’t you want to die? I can grant that wish.”

Lu Li turned over.

The voice followed him like a shadow.

“What’s left in this world worth clinging to? This filthy, painful world-hurry and embrace death!”

He’d heard voices like this during the desire-filled daytime in Instances, too.

But never this strongly.

He’d always been able to calmly ignore them.

He could do so now as well.

Lu Li had a nightmare.

In the dream, he was back in the Laboratory, with the snarling, drooling sounds of beasts echoing everywhere.

Lu Li thought, they’ve let the Mutant Beasts in again.

He was like a Mouse placed under the sun.

Running back and forth.

Then caught, dragged back.

All resistance was futile.

Huge fangs pierced his throat, tearing off a chunk of flesh, then another.

Lu Li gasped, “I… I want to…”

His Arm cramped with pain, but he couldn’t help reaching forward.

Suddenly, he was confused. In these experiments, weren’t his limbs and neck always chained up, to control the safe distance and prevent him from breaking the Laboratory glass?

Right, this was a dream.

How could he wake up?

He tried to pull his hand back, but touched something solid.

The other person first held his hand.

Then, realizing it was inappropriate, withdrew, and instead stuffed a piece of clothing as soft as a cloud into his hand.

Lu Li’s sweat-soaked eyes snapped open.

Bosi was actually sitting beside him.

Lu Li murmured, “Bosi?”

It had just been a nightmare.

He was in the Necromancer Game now.

The game wasn’t as terrifying as the old world.

“Talking in your sleep is noisy,” Bosi said. “I’ll allow you to hold my robe while you sleep. Robes are expensive; I’ll deduct the cost from your salary.”

Lu Li pulled the robe under his blanket, leaving only his head exposed, and whispered, “Thank you.”

Holding onto something while sleeping

really did make him feel much more secure.

The man’s broad shoulders, outlined in the flickering candlelight, gave a sense of reassurance.

Lu Li finally finished the sentence that, in his dream, had seemed caught in his throat.

“I don’t really want to die anymore.”

“I still owe you a bouquet of flowers, Bosi.”

Bosi said, “Close your eyes and sleep.”

“Tomorrow is the last day of the Instance, then it’s your vacation.”

“Vacation.” Lu Li buried his face in the Pillow and rubbed it. “Right, I still have a vacation. That’s really something to look forward to.”
Drowsiness crept over him, and he saw Bosi reaching out a hand toward him.

Was he going to… pat his head?

Lu Li didn’t see clearly, and soon fell into a peaceful sleep.

Bosi’s slender fingers threaded through Lu Li’s silver hair, plucking a green leaf from the hair behind his ear.

Bosi looked at that leaf, dead darkness swirling in his eyes.

In a tone so soft and gloomy it would not disturb the sleeper, he spoke, “How dare you enter my domain?”

An overconfident ant.

Underworld Fire ignited at his fingertips.

The leaf screamed, wailed, begged for mercy in the fire, and finally turned to ash.

After all this, Bosi tried to rise, only to realize his clothes were still being held by Lu Li.

Lu Li had made such a bold move because he had allowed it earlier.

Now, he wouldn’t be able to leave for a while.

No working tonight.

A waste of time.

Bosi propped his chin on his hand, looking at the already sleeping Lu Li.

It was just one night, insignificant in the span of his long life.

The wasted time could be deducted from Lu Li’s wages.

–

Back to Game Day, only three Players remained.

Feng Shan was gone.

Luo Jia Bai had shockingly dark circles under his eyes.

The moment he saw Lu Li, he couldn’t help but come over to complain, “Last night! I was torn up all night! I even discovered I sleepwalk! Several times I woke up standing right at the door.”

“Every time I crawled to the door, the middle of my forehead would start burning, so hot it felt like it was about to catch fire-it jolted me awake from the pain several times.”

There was one more thing he found difficult to say to Lu Li.

The last time he struggled in the nightmare, he woke up with his hand already on the Game Night doorknob.

Someone told him: Get stronger, want to be stronger, then you won’t be abandoned.

In his mind, Lu Li’s voice drowned out the voice that kept tempting and luring him outside.

Lu Li said, I won’t leave you behind.

So Luo Jia Bai withdrew his hand from the door.

His Evil Spirit in Game Night watched the show with a leisurely air, enjoying his painful struggle between life and death, exclaiming in surprise, “You survived? I thought you were about to open the door and leave. Looks like I still can’t get your fresh soul tonight.”

He had smiled provocatively at the Evil Spirit, “Go ahead and wait-you’ll never get it. I found an incredibly powerful teammate.”

His teammate’s encouragement let him cast aside fear and overcome desire.

He wouldn’t die.

He was still waiting to see the day Lu Li ascended to the top of the Heavenly Ranking.

–

Mirella looked up at the tree. “The final stage: find the King. The Sea Demon’s Heart might be in his hands.”

Where was the King?

Lu Li looked to the right of the Giant Tree. In the pile of bones where Sean had disappeared, there was a card lying there.

He picked up the card.

There was no illustration on the front.

Just a line of text none of them could understand.

On the back, it read:

[I finally pulled the trigger.]

[One shot for my Adoptive Father, one shot for this disgusting Tree Demon. The two of them are like rotten sludge, entangled and growing together; countless tree branches grew from my Adoptive Father’s head, and hundreds of hands sprouted from his body, each one grabbing gold, silver, jewels-clutching at the desires he refused to let go of.

He became this Tree Demon, rooted deep in the earth.]

[I stole the Sea Demon’s body. I don’t know what the Tree Demon did, but somehow he managed to separate his body and his Heart. They held the Sea Demon’s Heart, soaking it in the sea. When I looked into the sea, I could still see new Sea Demons swimming this way.]

[In the end, my Adoptive Father used those hundreds of hands to snatch away the Sea Demon’s Heart. He howled fiercely: The Heart is still in my hands! Run! Go on, run! In three days, the Sea Demon without his Heart will completely die. Do you want to save him or kill him!? What’s the use of clinging to his Corpse?]

[I ran for my life, with my Adoptive Father’s voice chasing after me: Sean, I’m waiting for you to come back!]

[Maybe I’ve won.]

[My Adoptive Father doesn’t know that I also have a Heart. If I give my Heart to the Sea Demon, won’t that be enough?]

[Let him live on for me.]

[That day, I also heard the Tree Demon’s voice: If you give your Heart to the Sea Demon, but don’t receive his Heart in return, not only will you die, but the Sea Demon will forget you forever!]

[To be forgotten is the lightest punishment for me.]

[I have committed such a grave sin; to pay it back with a single Heart is like a moth to a flame. If there’s a next life, let’s not fall in love.]

[My dear, luck is never on my side.]

[From missing dates with you, to missing our wedding-maybe our love itself is a mistake, a sin unrecognized by the Moon.]

[At first, I wanted to record every day after we fell in love, and after we married, hang these up in a Red Coral house under the sea so we could look at them every day.]

[Now, every single one of these cards is filled with pain. I can’t even pick out one or two happy memories-how could I show them to anyone else?]

[Let’s end it here. Let’s end here.]

Heavy breathing came from behind the tree roots.

They walked around to the side.

It wasn’t the tree that was breathing after all.

It was the King, deeply embedded in the tree roots, who was breathing.

The King was like a pool of sludge, melted into the ground, his body forming the base from which this tree grew.

Countless hands extended from his body.

The hands far from his head clutched gold and jewels; the hands near his head endlessly ate the piled offerings on the ground.

Only the two hands in the middle looked human.

They cradled a still-beating Heart.
The Heart was soaked in seawater, its beating gradually slowing.

Luo Jia Bai frowned and said, “Feng Shan.”

Feng Shan was also in this muddy puddle, his body half-exposed behind the King.

Half of his face was visible as well.

On Feng Shan’s face was an ecstatic smile of ultimate satisfaction.

Mud covered his ears and eyes, and branches grew out from his head.

He, too, had become nourishment for the Giant Tree.

Mirella said, “Last night, he pushed open the door of Game Night and walked out.”

Feng Shan had failed to resist the temptation of desire.

He brought about his own destruction.

“The Heart is right here.” Luo Jia Bai, suppressing his nausea, squatted beside the King and beckoned to Lu Li, “Come quickly and take it.”

Lu Li reached out toward the King, only to find his hand passed through both the King and the tree, touching nothing but air.

None of the three of them could touch the Heart.

Heavy footsteps sounded not far away.

Branches and leaves rustled with excitement.

“You have come.”

The densely growing branches all stretched in that direction, and the King, holding the Heart, was lifted up and sent that way.

It was the Sea Demon depicted on Sean’s card.

The only Boss of this Instance.

He carried a hunting rifle on his back, wore rubber boots, and with every step, water seeped from his body.

The Tree Demon’s branches twined around him, whispering secrets.

But in the Sea Demon’s eyes, there was only that grave.

Step by step, he walked toward Sean’s white bones, trembling as he reached out his hand, then knelt down.

His chest throbbed painfully. The Sea Demon, confused, wiped away tears from the corner of his eye. “Who are you?”

“Why do I feel such sorrow when I see you?”

The branches, like a woven net, wrapped around the Sea Demon, and the Tree Demon shouted loudly:

“Humans deceived you! They are all thieves! It was he who tricked you into believing in love, who stole your Heart. You saw the corpses of your kin in the ashes of the Noble District, didn’t you? It was all his doing! Now his death is well deserved!

Today is Full Moon Day. Sea Demon blessed by the Moon, you possess the power to turn back time. Crush your Heart, sacrifice yourself, return to the past, return to the time before he deceived you! Save your kin! You are the savior, you and your Heart are the only hope!”

“Are you listening to his nonsense?!” Luo Jia Bai was so angry he could hardly contain himself. He walked over, wanting to grab the Sea Demon’s collar and shake some sense into his waterlogged brain, but found his hand passed right through the Sea Demon’s body.

Luo Jia Bai paced anxiously. “Damn! Is this Tree Demon running a pyramid scheme or what?”

“What’s going on now? The way to clear the Instance is for the Player to crush the Heart, but the Sea Demon and the Heart seem to be on a different layer from us-only the Sea Demon can take his own Heart. The Tree Demon is tricking him into crushing it himself.”

“If the Sea Demon crushes it, we fail the Instance!”

The Sea Demon grasped the Heart that the branches had delivered to him.

“All my kin are dead,” he asked. “Is it all humanity’s fault?”

The Tree Demon said, “You see the two Moons in the sky, don’t you!? The power of your kind is born from the Moon and dies with the Moon-it is your god. Now, with this anomaly, the Moon is casting judgment! Humanity has committed heinous crimes! Do you still not believe the words of the Moon?”

The Sea Demon’s gaze grew vacant. He couldn’t help but squeeze his Heart tighter.

He couldn’t help but repeat the Tree Demon’s words: “Crush the Heart, and I can turn back time?”

He couldn’t remember.

What exactly was missing from this memory?

Did humans deceive him, seduce him with love, make him hand over his Heart, and then kill his kin?

Suddenly, a hand reached out from among the branches.

A hand holding a reef stone.

“Hello, someone asked me to help pass something on.”

Lu Li asked him, “Do you have any clean water here? Only clean water can wash away the filth on it.”

The Sea Demon put down his hunting rifle and took the reef stone.

The water seeping from his body wetted the stone, revealing a clean corner.

There were scratches.

Beneath the filth on the stone, there were some scratches.

The Sea Demon put down the Heart and held the reef stone with both hands.

But there was too little water.

The water on his body was not enough.

It was not enough to wash the filth from the reef stone.

The Sea Demon asked Lu Li, “What is this?”

Lu Li asked the Tree Demon, “Is there more water?”

Luo Jia Bai pointed at the distant sea and asked, “Does the sea work? I’ll go fetch some!”

Lu Li shook his head. He had just checked with the mirror-the sea was full of blood as well.

The Tree Demon grinned viciously. “Where did this human come from!? And where did this filthy stone come from! It’s useless, no matter what you bring out, it’s useless!”

A cold drop of water suddenly fell on his face.

Luo Jia Bai looked up in disbelief. He saw the two overlapping Moons in the sky.

“It’s raining?”

A torrential downpour fell from the sky.

The clear rainwater washed away the filth from the reef stone.

On the front of the reef stone were carvings made by the Sea Demon.

It recorded every time he waited for his lover by the sea, and his most anticipated wedding.

He wrote in Sea Demon Language:

Six days left

Five days

…

One day

Tomorrow, we will be married.

On the back of the reef stone were carvings made by Sean.

He had spent countless dark days and nights in the Hunter’s house, looking at the shell the Sea Demon had used to confess his love, and learned the Sea Demon Language.

He carved:

My dear, I think I have never told you this.

I love you.

–

Mirella looked up as well and saw that beneath the Moon, three drops of light appeared.
There was a symbol in the sky.

She sighed, “Two Full Moon Days are not the Moon’s punishment. Rather, the Moon is extending time, waiting for their wedding.”

“This is the Moon’s blessing.”

The Sea Demon gazed at the reef for a long time, and actually regained her memory, recalling the beauty by the sea, the villains at the wedding, and, before losing consciousness, the person who had been holding her tightly until the end.

“It wasn’t the humans who deceived me.”

It turned out that he was able to cross the Noble District today and arrive here during the day.

It was because the Heart beating in his chest belonged to his beloved.

“I was the one who fell in love with him first.”

“It was also me who caused the death of my kin.”

“No Sea Demon has ever tried to crush their own Heart to reverse time. This is a dangerous attempt. But we know how to atone to the Moon.”

The Sea Demon handed her Heart to Lu Li.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy! On Full Moon Day, when space and time overlap and become chaotic, of course you can go back!” The Tree Demon spun around anxiously, stretching out branches to touch the Sea Demon, but they were burned by the Moonlight. He cursed the damned Moon, “If you let a human crush your Heart, you’ll really die!”

Lu Li took the still-beating Heart.

He crushed the Sea Demon’s Heart.

The Moon in the sky kept descending, its dazzling Moonlight enveloping them.

In a flash of white light, Luo Jia Bai asked blankly, “Is it over? Did we clear the Instance?”

A cold, mechanical electronic voice suddenly sounded:

[Please choose: the location and time for reversal]

“Which point in time should we return to in order to change everything?”

“Should we go back to before the Sea Demon and Sean fell in love? Back to when love hadn’t happened yet?”

Lu Li, bathed in Moonlight, took out Sean’s cards and flipped through them one by one.

People who truly love each other, a thousand times, ten thousand times, no matter how they meet, will always fall in love.

If you go back to before falling in love, it would only begin another endless cycle.

Was loving each other the mistake?

“The mistake was the thief.”

The great King was just a thief who rose to power by plundering spoils from others.

Lu Li said, “We need to go back to when the thief stole for the first time.”

“We have to return to Poor Village, to the Hunter and Sean’s house, to the night when the Hunter discovered the Pearl.”

–

The Moonlight disappeared.

They stood in the Hunter’s garden.

Intense arguing could be heard from inside the room.

Lu Li walked to the door.

“Should we knock and go in to stop all this?” Luo Jia Bai watched as Lu Li took the shotgun from the door.

Lu Li said, “Let me first see how this gun works.”

With a bang, the door was flung open, and a young boy was pushed out, landing on the ground. In the Moonlight, his looks were astonishing, and his eyes were red from crying.

There were two lines of blood-red text above his head.

[Can Communicate]

[This NPC’s Death Time: 56 days]

Lu Li figured out how to unlock the safety and load the gun, then fired a shot into the ground.

The loud gunshot startled the boy, who turned his head in fright.

“Who are you?”

Lu Li walked over with the gun, lifted the boy up, and kicked open the Hunter’s house door.

“Sean, your Pearl was just stolen, right?”

Sean froze: “How do you know…”

Inside, the Hunter was fondly holding the Pearl, turning to angrily berate the unfamiliar intruders.

“What are you doing!? Who allowed you to take my gun! Give it back!”

Lu Li shoved the gun into Sean’s hands.

“Watch closely.”

Load, unlock, pull the trigger.

“Bang!”

The Hunter’s right leg was blasted with a bloody hole. He clutched his leg, screamed in pain as he fell, barely able to support himself on his left leg, hand trembling as he gripped the Pearl.

Lu Li asked, “Did you learn?”

Lu Li felt Sean, trembling as he held the gun.

The gun was so heavy.

How could he lift it?

Lu Li said calmly, “This time it’s the Pearl, next time it will be Coral, and in the end he’ll cut open the Sea Demon’s body and eat his Heart. If you can’t pull the trigger, you’ll just watch your beloved be consumed by desire.”

“I can only save you once. The only one who can save you forever is yourself.”

The gun, which had been falling, was raised again.

“Bang!”

With the second gunshot, Lu Li heard the frail boy say clearly:

“Give it back.”

“Give me back what belongs to me.”

The Hunter’s left leg was shot again, and he collapsed heavily to the ground, letting go of the Pearl in his hand.

The Pearl rolled to the ground.

Sean knelt down to pick it up, his shoulders still trembling from the shotgun’s tremendous recoil.

Lu Li turned and made way for him.

“Go to the seaside quickly, take your Pearl with you.”

Sean wiped away his tears and looked at him: “Thank you.”

Lu Li watched his figure running toward the sea, gradually merging into the Moon, and softly said:

“We didn’t miss it the first time, and we must never miss it again.”

The blood-red text above Sean’s head instantly turned into silver letters.

[This NPC’s Death Time: +∞ days]

Luo Jia Bai was shocked:

“Infinity.”

“He has obtained eternal life.”

The mechanical prompt sounded again:

[Boss in this Instance has no hatred value detected. Necromancer Game conditions not met. This Instance will now be closed forever.]

[You actually picked the right choice!? Farewell, last batch of Players. You truly are damned lucky.]