Chapter 135
Chapter 135
“…What mirror? I don’t remember.”
Seeing that he truly didn’t remember the mirror, the Judge immediately changed his tune. “Take him away!”
“Man, we should’ve asked the one in the cell! This one isn’t the one from the Water Moon Mirror.”
Ning Shuo looked exactly as if he’d expected this all along. His head felt heavier and heavier, and halfway there, he passed out.
When he woke up again, he found someone sitting across from him.
The person was hidden in shadow, his features impossible to make out, but his build was unbelievably familiar.
…So familiar that for one brief instant, Ning Shuo felt like he was looking into a mirror.
It wasn’t until the man raised his head that Ning Shuo truly felt like he’d seen a ghost.
“You… what’s your name?”
—
It took Ning Shuo quite a bit of effort to accept that the person in front of him was Ning Wang.
Another him.
And one who clearly hadn’t lost his memory, yet had been pretending all along that he had.
If he had really lost his memory, or truly didn’t know him, then not throwing a punch would practically mean he’d been possessed.
Ning Shuo keenly realized that he might have lost his memory, and it was probably the work of that bunch of idiots who’d been demanding some mirror from him just now.
And not just memory loss.
He had only just braced himself against the cell door and stood up when his legs gave out before he could fully straighten. At the same time, the metallic tang of blood rose into his throat.
Ning Shuo instinctively covered his mouth. After forcing that rusty taste back down, he checked the inner force in his body.
For some reason, his body had been injured this badly.
But less than a tenth of his inner force remained now, probably because he’d used it to protect his heart meridian.
Ning Shuo suddenly thought of the mirror those people had been asking him for.
Had his body ended up like this because of that mirror?
Because of that mirror, had those people kept torturing him, and when they still couldn’t find it even after reducing his body to this state, had they finally decided to make him lose his memory so they could get the mirror?
His mind was racing, and he didn’t notice Ning Wang approach him and reach out to wipe the blood from his face. “No idea when this got on you.”
Noticing there was no one else around, Ning Shuo could only choose to trust the other him before his eyes. “Do you know they’re looking for a mirror…”
A forefinger pressed against his lips. “Shh. Whatever it is you’re talking about, haven’t you noticed there’s a gaze hidden in the dark, watching us?”
Ning Shuo: ?
When he focused and felt more carefully, there really was a disgusting sense of being watched.
Ning Shuo still wanted to ask something, but Ning Wang had him sit down instead, then gently yet firmly pulled him against himself. “You’re injured. You don’t need to worry about anything right now.”
He paused, then added, “Out of humanitarian concern, I’ll get to the bottom of all this.”
Ning Shuo didn’t know what “humanitarian” meant, but from the context, it was probably something positive.
Because he was injured, his body felt a little cold, which made Ning Wang’s embrace seem all the warmer.
Before he lost his memory, had he been very close with this Ning Wang?
Ning Shuo was very sleepy. As his consciousness drifted, he suddenly remembered something. “In that case, to tell the two of us apart for now, I’ll go by Ning Shuo first.”
The arms around him tightened, and the voice above his head sounded oddly muffled. “…It’s fine. You can be Ning Wang… you don’t need to change your name…”
Ning Shuo shifted into a more comfortable position and curled his lips into a faint smile. “I don’t believe two Ning Wangs would suddenly appear out of nowhere. If one of us has to be the suspicious one, then it should be me-the one who’s somehow gotten mixed up with a mirror for no reason. I’m the one who might be fake.”
They had definitely known each other before.
Ning Wang pretending to have amnesia meant he should originally have gone through a bout of memory loss, which matched exactly what those Judges had said in the data pod.
As for why he guessed that he himself was fake…
Ning Shuo thought back to when he had first woken up, when those Judges had said that the one in the prison should be the one from the Water Moon Mirror…
A wrong process could never lead to a right conclusion.
Since their plan to make both of them lose their memories had gone wrong, then the Ning Wang in the prison naturally wasn’t the one they meant by “the one from the Water Moon Mirror.”
The amnesiac Ning Wang-in other words, himself-was the one from the Water Moon Mirror.
And in Ning Wang’s original memories, there was no Water Moon Mirror at all.
Of course, all of his deductions were based on the premise that Ning Wang had never actually lost his memory, and that was something he would never say aloud.
So Ning Shuo used that mirror as a smokescreen.
As soon as he finished speaking, the person above him fell silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed. “‘I’ really am smart.”
After two seconds, he added, “No wonder there are two identical Ning Wangs.”
That added line was meant to fool the mastermind behind the scenes.
But understanding that you were fake didn’t mean you could easily accept it.
His head started hurting again, and every inch of bone in his body seemed to seep with cold.
Ning Shuo had only just shifted when the person holding him seemed to sense it and pulled him tighter. “Are you cold?”
He took off his outer robe and draped it over Ning Shuo. Through his blurred consciousness, Ning Shuo heard a hate-filled voice from above him say, “I will definitely… avenge you… and them…”
—
Ning Shuo didn’t know that more than half of the mirror had already fused with him, and the System still hadn’t found the Water Moon Mirror.
Because of Xie Ning’s connection to the World-Descent Rule, it didn’t make another move against them. Instead, it found a new way to make them serve the System: beat up NPCs.
In the System’s words, it was “testing the NPCs’ strength.”
Since Ning Shuo’s current condition made him unfit to run around, the Main God transferred 001 over. 001’s attitude was cool and indifferent. “You know his entire body is riddled with internal injuries. I can only repair external ones.”
The Main God looked puzzled. “Aren’t you a doctor?”
001 restrained himself before answering, “The only skill I inherited is wound repair, and even then, it only works on injuries I can actually see.”
Ning Shuo lounged lazily against Ning Wang, silently gathering information.
Seen that way, those self-aware Judges could acquire some of the skills contained within the World-Descent Rule through learning?
A portal suddenly opened nearby. Shu Xiao hadn’t even arrived yet, but his voice came first. “Pretty lively in here. What’s going on?”
Out of all of them, he carried himself the most casually. It was obvious the Main God couldn’t do much to him either.
After hearing the System out, Shu Xiao spread his hands. “What’s so difficult about that? If he can’t be treated, then don’t treat him. 001 isn’t omnipotent, and isn’t there still one perfectly healthy body left?”
“Let one handle the monster fighting and the other solve the puzzles. Doesn’t that settle it?”
He waved at the Main God. “Really, you called me over for something this simple? I was in the middle of tutoring Shu Yan.”