Chapter 150

Chapter 150

001 fell silent for a moment. “You really were created by replication.”

He had originally wanted to talk to them together, but when he noticed both of them lightly tapping their fingers at their sides, he paused, then pointed at Ning Wang. “You, go keep watch over those Players for now.”

Ning Wang glanced at Ning Shuo, then at 001. In the end, he surprisingly said nothing and simply left.

Ning Shuo immediately felt that something was wrong, but before he could ask anything, 001 said, “You wanted me to send him away. What are you trying to do?”

…

When Ning Shuo returned, he didn’t see Ning Wang. Rao Lin said that as soon as Ning Wang saw him come back, he went to 001.

Thinking of 001’s last words to him just now-“Have your boyfriend come find me over here, and I’ll solve the problem of your two souls coexisting”-Ning Shuo guessed that he had probably gone to deal with the matter of soul replication.

Even so, Ning Shuo still felt that something was off. Did solving this really require keeping it from him?

With Ning Wang’s personality, he should have waited until Ning Shuo came back, then asked what he and 001 had talked about, and incidentally gotten jealous.

But there wasn’t much time now.

Ning Shuo placed the Water Moon Mirror on the ground and enlarged it using the method 001 had described. Then he set the World-Descent Rule in front of the Water Moon Mirror. The sphere, which had originally looked like a model, kept growing larger. At the same time, a vortex appeared on its surface, looking like a portal.

With a smile, Ning Shuo said, “The Players of Zone DEF can go home now.”

001’s earlier words still echoed in his ears:

“I know what you want to ask. As for those souls who had already died in the modern world from the very beginning and were pulled in after the World-Descent Rule picked up fluctuations in their signal waves, there’s nothing I can do. I can only interfere with causality that happens within the World-Descent Rule. If those souls had undergone a second death because of the World-Descent Rule, maybe there’d still be a last-ditch way to save them, but they’re still residing inside the World-Descent Rule.

“In other words, they’re just outsiders forcibly invited in by the World-Descent Rule. Their causality is still in reality, and I can’t interfere with it unless they also undergo a second death inside the World-Descent Rule and form causality with it. But now that all the various Scripts inside the World-Descent Rule have been destroyed, even if they wanted to die because of the World-Descent Rule, they can’t.”

Ning Shuo smiled faintly, as though he had already prepared a solution. “I know. So what I actually want to ask is this: if the Water Moon Mirror is involved as well, can they use it to regain physical bodies and leave?”

At the beginning, Ning Shuo himself had only been a soul with no causality tied to the World-Descent Rule at all: Ning Wang’s duplicate.

At the time, Ning Wang was still in that small world in the Li Kingdom, and that small world had only just formed a connection with the World-Descent Rule. Ning Wang himself, as an individual, had not formed any causality with it.

So although Ning Wang’s soul had been replicated in the Water Moon Mirror, the reason Ning Shuo had a body after being pulled out of the mirror was, in truth, also because of the Water Moon Mirror.

001 looked completely at ease. “But the reason you got a body was because you lived in that mirror for over twenty years in exchange. What, are you going to put all those souls into the mirror and make them endure more than twenty years in this endless white expanse?”

“Nah, that’d be too boring. I’m not that stupid,” Ning Shuo refused at once. “Can’t the timeline be fast-forwarded?”

Didn’t Apuleer fast-forward two days? And it hadn’t affected Ning Shuo’s body at all…

“Are you stupid? Apuleer only fast-forwarded two days. You’re talking about twenty years, and for this many people too. Once it exceeds the threshold the Water Moon Mirror can bear, even if you’re its master now, there’s still a very high chance you’ll disperse,” 001 said mercilessly.

Ning Shuo said with a smile, “Even if I disperse, I can still come back, can’t I?”

The Water Moon Mirror had shattered, yet after being pieced back together, even the cracks could disappear.

Just like the Ghost Bride Script, Ning Shuo’s spirit had clearly suffered an enormous shock, yet it could still repair itself.

Ning Shuo thought that he wouldn’t disappear. It would just hurt for a bit.

001 looked at him with a half-smile, as if amused by how thoroughly he had already thought it through. “Oh my. No wonder you wanted me to send your little boyfriend away.”

Ning Shuo sighed gloomily. “This King is also thinking about how to tell him.”

001 didn’t mention that Ning Wang also wanted to see him alone.

From what 001 knew, the two of them seemed to understand each other extremely well.

If Ning Shuo was planning to push himself to the brink to save everyone else, could Ning Wang really not guess?

…

One by one, the people from the Living Zone all left, leaving only the people from the Dead Zone staring at each other.

They had already had a bad feeling when Ning Shuo skipped over Zone ABC and directly called out Zone DEF, but they hadn’t dared ask.

Everyone held onto one hope: maybe it just wasn’t their turn yet?

Wasn’t that person from the World Management Bureau, the one calling himself 001, the one who said everyone could leave?

But the more they thought about 001’s words, the worse their expressions became.

Because from beginning to end, 001 had only ever talked about the living.
After the people from Zone DEF had all left, some of the Players in Zone A were already impatient to walk in.

Then Ning Shuo stopped them. “Don’t move.”

The people who had already guessed what was coming exploded on the spot. Some burst into tears, while others demanded, “Why won’t you let us out?!”

But even more of them stayed silent, filled with melancholy and regret.

They had long since imagined how this battle would end: the people from the Living Zone would be sent out.

Wishing to the Main God was useless. Even the World Management Bureau had no way to send them back.

Then, amid the sobbing and curses, Ning Shuo picked up the Water Moon Mirror that had been placed behind the World-Descent Rule and set it down in front of it with a sharp smack. Then he looked at them and asked, puzzled, “Who said you can’t leave? You have another way out.”

The crying stopped abruptly. In the sudden silence, Rong Xi stepped forward two paces. “The Dead Zone… can leave too?”

Ning Shuo smiled. “Of course.”

Even the usually steady Fei Jinnian couldn’t hold back anymore. “…Then what will we be like after we get out?”

Would they be missing arms or legs?

Ning Shuo gave them his assurance. “However you look right now, that’s how you’ll look when you get out.”

The World-Descent Rule had lent them a body, and the Water Moon Mirror would reconstruct them based on that body. The remade physical body would belong to them completely.

Luo Li, who had deliberately been kept behind, had been expressionless all this time, but now her face suddenly went slack. Tugging on Ning Shuo’s sleeve, she looked as lost as a real fourteen-year-old girl. “I… I can too?”

Ning Shuo crouched down to meet her eyes, gently patting her head with a warm smile. “Of course. Once you get out, you’ll be the real Luo Li.”

He had already asked 001 about Luo Li’s situation, and 001 had said there was an eighty percent chance it would work.

If their luck was truly bad enough to hit that remaining twenty percent, then Ning Shuo didn’t mind weaving Luo Li a beautiful dream right now.

He knew Luo Li hated looking in mirrors.

“After you get out, you can look in one. It won’t be Xiangfeng’s face anymore, and you can go find the real Xiangfeng and be friends with her too.”

Luo Li’s tears poured down at once. Even when she cried, the little girl did it soundlessly. Ning Shuo gave her a light push. “Go on.”

Once the first person went in-and especially since it was one of Ning Shuo’s own people-the others followed.

As the Water Moon Mirror began to operate and the timeline accelerated, Ning Shuo didn’t feel much pain. He only felt his body growing lighter and lighter.

Suddenly, someone grabbed his left hand. Ning Shuo smiled. “I was worried I might not get to see you.”

“No. I’ll hurry back.” Ning Wang’s voice was muffled, giving away none of his emotions.

Ning Shuo hoped that the final memory Ning Wang would keep of this temporary parting could at least be something light.

He’d been calling himself the King for so long, after all. What would he do if he made Ningning cry?

“What did you talk about?”

Ning Wang didn’t answer, but Ning Shuo could feel his grip growing tighter and tighter.

Only then did he realize something was wrong. He turned to look and saw that Ning Wang’s face had gone deathly pale. Even the color had drained from his lips.

As for Ning Shuo, aside from feeling his body becoming lighter and lighter, he felt nothing else.

He realized something at once, his eyes widening. “What did you talk to 001 about?!”

Unable to withstand the overwhelming pain, Ning Wang dropped to his knees, the corner of his lips lifting. “Just a transfer of pain.”

He was the King’s Knight.

And wasn’t a Knight’s duty to protect?

Since he couldn’t bear everything in Ning Shuo’s place, the least he could do was make sure the King didn’t have to hurt.

Ning Shuo’s body began to turn transparent, gradually breaking into fragments. Ning Wang tried to catch him, but his hand passed straight through the pieces.

He didn’t ask anything else. He only said, “Can you come back sooner? I’ll miss you so much.”

His lips were clearly curved upward, yet tears rolled from the corners of his eyes and hit the ground hard. “I really want to receive flowers you raised yourself, delivered by your own hand.”

Ning Shuo clearly wasn’t in pain, yet tears still streamed from his wide-open eyes.

“I…”

He didn’t even have time to leave behind a few words before he vanished.

The pain finally eased, but Ning Wang let his consciousness sink heavily into that overwhelming agony.

He had watched Ning Shuo scatter with his own eyes, and personally experienced pain close to death.

He had witnessed his own “death,” even though he was still alive.

—

001 tossed the unconscious Ning Wang into the World-Descent Rule’s portal. “I told him the pain could be transferred to Apuleer, but he insisted on taking it himself. Kept saying he had to ‘hurt where he hurts.’ I really don’t know whether to call him a love-brained idiot or praise him for being deeply devoted.”

“Mm. Where is Apuleer?”

The sudden voice gave 001 a fright. He turned and saw it was a colleague. “002? Why did you follow me here?”
A formally dressed man, a test tube in his left hand and a scalpel in his right, let out a sinister laugh. “Come be my test subject. I’ll make him learn the consequences of stealing my medicine.”

When he turned his head, he saw someone with an “X” marked on their collarbone staring at them eagerly. 002 frowned. He had been about to go around and look for Apuleer, but paused when he passed Shu Yan.

His gaze suddenly turned feverish, and he immediately asked Shu Yan, “You seem to have a second person with you. Would you mind if I made him a body?”

–

21st Century.

Time inside the System did not match time in the modern world. When Rao Lin entered the System, it was 2024, but now it was only 2027.

Only three years had passed in the modern world, yet Rao Lin had spent seven or eight years in the System.

In the past few years, there had been a growing number of missing persons cases. But on March 22, 2027, every single missing person suddenly returned. One mother had wanted to go into her missing daughter’s room one more time to look at her belongings. She had only just reached the door when it suddenly opened. The daughter saw her mother and immediately threw herself into her arms, bawling. Feeling the real warmth of her daughter in her embrace, the mother wrapped her arms around her in disbelief.

And it wasn’t just the mass return of the missing. There were also numerous paranormal incidents-many people whom the police had already confirmed dead suddenly appeared again in the modern world.

The inexplicable reappearance of those missing and dead people caused a massive public uproar. Even Officer Nian Chao, who had died in the line of duty years ago and had already been officially honored as a martyr, appeared at the local police station.

At the same time, a missing police academy student named Rao Lin contacted the government and gave a detailed account of the so-called “System.”

At first, the officials didn’t believe him and even thought it sounded like some kind of pyramid scheme. But after hearing the same word, “System,” repeated in unison by all those returned people, they finally believed it.

What was more, with the return of those people, an undercurrent suddenly began to stir beneath an age that had once revered science above all else. The clearest sign was the abrupt appearance of another massive organization-the Sinless Bureau-which forcefully took over many of the cases involving the returned population.

Some people had already begun to sense it: science and the supernatural might be about to coexist.

With the Sinless Bureau’s aggressive intervention, news about the returned population gradually died down. But all kinds of strange things began appearing in ordinary people’s lives again, such as people seeing ghosts.

Those incidents, however, were quickly suppressed as well. The public developed a tacit understanding not to speak of them, until a profession called Spirit Catchers, which specialized in handling paranormal events, suddenly appeared. Then everything people had silently understood exploded into the open once more.

An officially verified account also suddenly appeared on Weibo: Sinless Bureau.

The Sinless Bureau’s methods were hard-line and decisive: they forcibly sent the previously controlled returned individuals back to their families, and they resolutely executed criminals who had already been put to death once but had come back to life.

As for the returned people who survived, apart from ordinary civilians, the Sinless Bureau imposed restrictions only on those who were not ordinary: hospital physicals.

After accompanying Song Zhu to the hospital for a physical for the third time, Rao Lin said worriedly, “This new organization isn’t going to discriminate against our Teacher Song, is it…”

Song Zhu rapped him once on the head. “You’re overthinking it. Haven’t they been handling everything professionally? Besides, don’t you need a physical too? Also, how’s Ning Wang doing?”

“Isn’t he eating well and living well enough? Teacher Song, why are you so concerned about him? You care more about him than you care about me!”

“You’re right under my nose. What is there to ask about?”

Fair point. Rao Lin said, “He’s been staying at Ning Shuo’s place these past few days.”

After Rong Xi died, Ning Shuo never moved. Rong Xi was the one who brought Ning Wang there.

Ning Wang was using Ning Shuo’s phone and computer. Autumn was practically here, and Ning Wang’s hair had already grown long, yet there was still no word at all from Ning Shuo.

Even Rao Lin was anxious for them, but Ning Wang, contrary to all expectations, had completely changed. The Swordsman who used to act more than he spoke had turned into a bartender who wrote novels in his spare time.

His talent was the same as Ning Shuo’s. Rao Lin had tasted Ning Shuo’s cocktails before and had never forgotten them.

So when Rao Lin drank something mixed by Ning Wang, looking at Ning Wang’s face and that similar hairstyle, he subconsciously blurted out, “Back then I begged you to mix one for me and you wouldn’t-”

The words cut off abruptly. In the dead silence filling the room, Song Zhu viciously pinched his waist. Ning Wang, however, didn’t seem to mind. He adjusted his glasses, which had no prescription, and said, “I think I’m getting more and more like my brother’s style too.”

As Ning Wang let his hair grow long, became more and more like Ning Shuo in personality, and even stayed home year-round making a living from writing just like Ning Shuo, people who still remembered what had happened in the System but didn’t really understand them started spinning conspiracies: Was he trying to replace Ning Shuo?

However, only those who had actually been to Ning Wang’s home knew that his house was filled with mirrors.

Ning Wang always smiled at the mirrors, as if the person inside them were smiling back at him first.