Chapter 88

Chapter 88

Mingzhi had obtained Zhaodi’s power, which meant she also possessed Zhaodi’s hate-filled memories.

Before her death, Zhaodi had still hated Ning Banxian. His face had to be in her memories.

So when Mingzhi saw him, she had already recognized him.

That was why, in her eyes, Ning Shuo’s so-called attempt to find Zhaodi was nothing but nonsense-fake kindness, fake righteousness, and fake feelings.

This had happened not long ago. Ning Shuo watched the images around him go dark and thought the Spirit Tracing had ended here.

From the moment he had made his move, his spirit had been attacked by the Spirit Tracing. It was like a sharp knife stabbing into him inch by inch, then brutally carving pieces out of him.

It only stopped after the memory of that ghost marriage passed.

Ning Shuo waited where he was for a long while, but the Spirit Tracing still did not lift.

The endless darkness lasted for a very long time. Ning Shuo took two steps forward, only for someone to suddenly take his hand.

Ning Shuo was startled. He had always been vigilant, even inside a Spirit Tracing. For someone to appear behind him without a sound and escape his notice-this was the first time.

Oh, no. Not the first time. The first time had been Ning Wang.

He had just been about to shake the hand off when he realized he could not mobilize the strength in his body.

It was not that he had no strength. He simply could not call upon it.

The darkness was abruptly replaced by a wedding chamber draped in red silk. Ning Shuo found himself sitting on the edge of the bed, a bridal veil covering his head.

He thought this was a memory from the first night he had entered the Script, but the next second, he realized that was wrong-

The Spirit Tracing was tracing Mingzhi’s memories. The first-person perspective should have belonged to Mingzhi.

Even if the Spirit Tracing had miraculously gone back to that night when Rao Lin and Ning Shuo had put on an act together, it still should not have been from Ning Shuo’s own perspective.

Beneath the veil, he saw the person before him wearing a pair of black leather boots. He could just make out the hem of a red wedding robe. A hand with long, distinct knuckles held his, the pads of its fingers lightly calloused.

Not only could he feel the other person’s hand; Ning Shuo could clearly sense those fingertips gently stroking the pads of his own fingers. The motion was tender, like a lover’s caress.

Ning Shuo had not touched a sword in two years. His calluses had long since vanished.

Yet now, he distinctly sensed calluses on the pads of his fingers, and someone was stroking them.

Before Ning Shuo could figure out what was going on, the person in front of him lifted his veil. A face identical to his own crashed into Ning Shuo’s eyes. “Where did this little bride come from? Your looks really suit this young master’s taste.”

Ning Wang’s tone was teasing. Then Ning Shuo heard himself joke back, “This gentleman’s looks also suit my taste. Truly handsome. Might I ask whose fine gentleman you are?”

Ning Shuo froze.

Ning Wang had said he had once dreamed of them testing and evaluating NPC characters inside Scripts for the System.

The Script in Aotianli was actually one they had tested before.

Spirit Tracing. Contamination by yin energy. Memories from a yin soul.

Since it was a yin soul, that meant the person had to be dead.

…Who had died?

The answer was obvious. The current first-person perspective was Ning Shuo’s.

Then how had he entered the Living Zone as a Player?

There were some things he might as well ask clearly now. Ning Shuo hurriedly grabbed Ning Wang’s hand. He did not know how long this memory would last, so he could only ask the most important question among all those memories. “What exactly happened during the System’s Internal Upheaval?”

Ning Wang paused. He frowned and said, “…You’re Xie Ning?”

Ning Shuo quickly said, “Yes, I’m Xie Ning. Based on the timeline, I should be from two years in the future. I’m inside a Script right now, and neither I nor the you from two years later have the memories from now.”

He stared into Ning Wang’s eyes. “Do you believe me?”

After barely two seconds, Ning Wang put away his playful smile and said lazily, “If it’s Ningning’s words, of course I believe them.”

Ning Shuo suddenly felt that address was very familiar, as if he had heard it in some dream before. “What did you call me?”

“Ningning,” Ning Wang said. “You lost your memory, so you don’t know, but I’ve always called you that.”
Ning Shuo finally remembered a spring dream he had once had.

It had been during the Rose Castle Script. Before falling asleep, he had kept thinking about whether it was “hard or not.”

He had originally thought it was just an ordinary dream. Now, it seemed that it had actually happened before.

They had been in love before, long ago.

Ning Wang had just been about to tell him about the System’s previous Internal Upheaval when he noticed Ning Shuo’s face turn white as snow.

He had been pale earlier, too, but not nearly as obviously as now.

He looked like paper.

Ning Wang frowned, finally figuring out how the version of him from two years later had come to the present. “This is Spirit Tracing?”

Ning Shuo said, “Yeah.”

Ning Wang said, “That doesn’t make sense. I don’t know what your original experience was like, but we’ve only exchanged a couple of sentences. There’s no reason the backlash from just these two sentences would be this severe.”

“You came in through some other wandering soul, and you already endured a wave of backlash from Spirit Tracing earlier?”

Even Ning Shuo’s smile was weak. “Are you kidding… Have you ever seen anyone perform Spirit Tracing from a first-person perspective that wasn’t inside a wandering soul?”

But Ning Wang pressed his lips into a thin line, clearly unwilling to say any more.

Ning Shuo patted him. “Brother Ning, whether you tell me or not, the Spirit Tracing experience has already changed. The backlash has already happened. You might as well let me know more.”

Supporting him, Ning Wang sighed. “The more you know, the greater the backlash. I really don’t want the future me to see you get turned into a vegetable by it.”

The sharp pain in his brain was still continuing, as if a blade had stirred deep into his soul. Ning Wang took a sword out of his Backpack. “You need to get out, Xie Ning.”

“After you leave, find a fragment. You’ll find the answer.”

With that, Ning Wang slashed backward-

Half the room collapsed into ruins. The black night shattered into specks and vanished. Ning Shuo saw that nearly half of this Script had been destroyed, forcing the Script into emergency repair.

It was basically cheating, but this was the skill Xie Ning had often used when that Additional Rule wasn’t in place.

Ning Shuo’s vision grew blurrier and blurrier. All that remained clear was Ning Wang’s face, and the lazy smile on it. “Though after this, I don’t know if it’ll affect you two when you recover your memories in the future.”

“It probably won’t. After all, this is only Spirit Tracing. This place is just a memory.”

“Destroying it is only meant to temporarily damage the memory so the Spirit Tracing can’t continue.”

…

Ning Shuo could sense that he had been unconscious for a long time, but his awareness felt as though it was being dragged into an abyss by countless hands, heavy and chaotic.

When he finally showed signs of waking, he heard birdsong again.

Not just birdsong… It was also a little cold. The wind was howling.

Ning Shuo: ?

He struggled to open his eyes, his eyeballs shifting around.

When he saw the forest that almost blotted out the sky, Ning Shuo fell silent.

Exactly how long had he been unconscious for an NPC to mistake him for a corpse and dump him in the wilderness?

There was a source of warmth beside him. Ning Shuo turned his head and saw a pile of firewood burning in a neat little fire.

From the looks of it, he wasn’t alone after all.

Ning Shuo searched around for a while before finally spotting someone sitting in the tallest tree.

With great difficulty, he propped up half his body on one elbow and called, “Ningning.”

His voice was so hoarse that even Ning Shuo himself doubted whether Ning Wang could hear him.

However, before he could call out a second time, the person in the tree jumped down. “You’re finally awake. I’ve been guarding you for a long time.”

Ning Shuo looked at the forearm-thick wooden staff in Ning Wang’s arms. “…What happened? Also, this stick is so smooth and round. How long did you spend sanding it?”

Ning Wang hid the wooden staff behind his back and coughed lightly twice. “…It is pretty shabby.”