Chapter 94

Chapter 94

Ning Shuo snorted twice. “Aren’t we NPCs to begin with?”

Rao Lin said faintly, “I’m human.”

Ning Wang glanced at him. “Which is why you’re the most pathetic one here.”

Rao Lin: “…” Okay. Three NPCs got into a fight, then turned around to mock him, a regular person who didn’t know how to catch ghosts. He was going to complain to Teacher Song about their racial discrimination!

As they bickered inside, a hand tossed a fragment in through the window.

The room went instantly quiet. Ning Shuo caught the fragment, and in the very next instant, memories surged over him like a tide.

[Congratulations, Player Ning Banxian. You have obtained high-level item Water Moon Mirror Fragment x1.]

He forcibly suppressed all the chaotic images and began seriously counting the seconds in his head.

One second. Two seconds.

Someone knocked twice on the door. From the sound of it, the person outside was clearly lacking confidence.

Just in case, Rao Lin called out, “Come in.”

The door was pushed open a crack.

Another two seconds passed before a head poked in. Looking into the room guiltily with one eye, Mingzhi said, “I… don’t think anything’s wrong with me.”

As if he’d expected this, Ning Shuo beckoned to her. “Good. As long as you’re fine. Come on, let’s talk about what to do next.”

Rao Lin looked at his calm expression in confusion. He turned his head and found Ning Wang was the same.

Lacking crucial information, he nudged Ning Wang with his elbow. “You knew she could keep her consciousness?”

Ning Wang thought for a moment. “Ninety-nine percent sure.”

If his and Ning Shuo’s guess was right, then Mingzhi was definitely able to retain her self-awareness.

The fragment had merely helped her develop that self-awareness. Once it was born, that consciousness belonged to Mingzhi herself. It wouldn’t disappear just because the fragment left her hand.

This was a two-way verification process.

Ning Wang lowered his eyes, thinking that his and Ning Shuo’s speculation could be considered confirmed now.

There were fewer NPCs around at night, so they took advantage of the darkness and slipped away to sleep somewhere else.

That somewhere else was the Sun Family ancestral hall.

Ning Shuo moved over all the extra bedding from Rao Lin’s room, then waved Ning Wang over. “Knight, come serve this King in bed.”

Ning Wang went over and wrapped his arms around him. “You’re mixing East and West a little too freely. When you were working in that world, did you also ignore cultural boundaries like this?”

The person in his arms sounded exhausted. “Work hours and off hours are different, of course. You’re my off hours.”

On the other side of the ancestral hall, by the moonlight seeping through the gap in the door, Mingzhi poked at the quilt Ning Shuo had given her.

She was a ghost now. Something like a quilt wasn’t of much use to her.

But after thinking about it, Mingzhi still crawled inside.

In truth, there was one more question she wanted to ask: were they people of this world?

Their appearance had been far too strange. It was as if everyone in Aotianli had collectively accepted that they were those people with those identities, yet the way they behaved was completely different.

But it also seemed like that question already had an answer.

…

This time, Ning Wang didn’t have any concrete dream. There were only two voices.

Strictly speaking, there was only one.

Because the voices were exactly the same. Without listening to the context, one might even think it was a single person talking to himself.

“Mm… may I ask your honorable surname?”

“My surname is Ning.”

“…Not Wang as your given name, by any chance?”

“Yes. I am Ning Wang.”

“Uh… have you ever gone by another name? Xie Ning, perhaps?”

“That’s right.”

“Ha. What an absurd joke under heaven.”

“Not so absurd. Maybe we’re the same person.”

“You believe in that kind of spacetime paradox?”

“The world is vast and full of wonders. Look at us now, stuck in a strange place like this. Why shouldn’t I believe in a spacetime paradox?”

In the end, all the voices were pierced through by an almost voice-cracking cry of “Xie Ning!” Ning Wang woke with a start and immediately looked at the person in his arms.

By the faint light, he could see that Ning Shuo was sleeping quite soundly.

Ning Wang no longer felt sleepy. The heart-palpitating sense of loss and insecurity from the end of the dream still had all his senses in its grip, making him instinctively want to hold Ning Shuo tighter.

Only after a long while did he recover from that feeling, as if he were about to lose something. Ning Wang got up.

It was only around the third watch of the night.

Mingzhi wasn’t asleep, though as a ghost she couldn’t sleep in the first place. She poked her head out of the rolled-up quilt and asked softly, “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Ning Wang thought for a moment, then pointed at the moon outside. “Basking in the moonlight.”

“…” Mingzhi withdrew her head. “Oh.”

Ning Wang quietly opened the door. Counting on the fact that no NPC would dare come to the ancestral hall in the middle of the night, he sat down openly in the doorway, propped up his head, and stared blankly at the moon.
He and Ning Shuo were both highly guarded now, so without Song Zhu present, even if they got their hands on something, they would never say what they knew right under the System’s nose.

That was also why they hadn’t told Rao Lin.

Because of Mingzhi, their guess had been verified. That fragment–the Water Moon Mirror–might very well be Ning Shuo’s origin.

But then how did Ning Shuo have those memories? It couldn’t possibly have been a direct memory transplant.

If they really had been transplanted, then to Ning Shuo, those memories would only be things someone else had told him. The feelings could never be as deep as those of someone who had actually lived through them-

In other words, if Ning Shuo hadn’t experienced those things himself, back when they had first met and mutually couldn’t stand the sight of each other, Ning Shuo would never have been able to use their master to mock him so quickly, then wound himself in the process.

Transplanted memories wouldn’t have such a powerful sense of reality, so real that the moment he said he wanted to find something, he could immediately find it.

But judging from Mingzhi’s current situation, the Water Moon Mirror seemed to do nothing more than give birth to self-awareness.

What they could be sure of now was that Ning Shuo and Ning Wang were both NPCs. Though Ning Wang had none of an NPC’s special abilities, he was like the sort of background character often seen in novel worlds, yet not so often seen either. Common, because he lacked the protagonist’s extraordinary golden finger; uncommon, because he stood out far too much compared to an ordinary background character. For instance, his swordsmanship had no equal, and he was already the Number One Swordsman in the World in the truest sense.

As for Ning Shuo’s special ability, it had been laid out from the very beginning: the Word Spirit, like a curse.

According to Ning Shuo, he definitely hadn’t had such a thing during his twenty years in the Li Kingdom.

That made sense. If he had truly possessed it then, Ning Shuo wouldn’t have been so at a loss after arriving in the modern world.

Without question, the Word Spirit had only appeared when he entered the System. And that brought up another problem: why was there only a Player account for Ning Wang, and not Ning Shuo?

Moreover, judging by every sign, Ning Shuo had clearly been inside the System before. How could he not have a Player account?

Ning Wang thought again of the words Ning Shuo had written in his palm through the quilt before they went to sleep.

He had said: Ningning, tell me, I can’t actually be a mirror that cultivated into a spirit, can I?

The mirror reflected you, so I became you.

So, in Rose Castle, when Ning Shuo had unconsciously said “hometown”… had he meant the mirror?

Before leaving the System, had Ning Shuo known his own origins, only for his memories to be wiped later?

And then there was himself.

Ning Wang thought of the few fragments he had just dreamed of. While puzzled that this dream was actually lingering for quite a long time, he also found it strange.

From the sound of that conversation, why did it seem as if he himself hadn’t found Ning Shuo’s appearance strange or surprising at all? He had even seemed rather proactive in persuading Ning Shuo to accept it too.

…

Compared to the sleepless Ning Wang, who was sorting through every clue, Ning Shuo’s dream was a little… Chuntian.

Or rather, it wasn’t really a dream.

It was a memory transmitted to him by the mirror fragment.

He saw himself not wanting to drink medicine, trying to find an excuse to dodge it.

Ning Wang, who had taken off his outer robe and shielded him from all wind and frost, took a sip first, then pinched his chin and fed it to him mouth-to-mouth.

Ning Shuo was forced to accept that bitter kiss. He had just been about to curse when, as if thinking of something, he suddenly shut his mouth.

Seeing him like this, Ning Wang said, “There’s no use being disgusted by your own saliva. So, were you about to curse at me, but afraid I’d be harmed by the Water Moon Curse, and simply closed your mouth instead?”

Ning Shuo was dumbfounded. “How did you know…”

“I already told you. Even if we’re a one-to-one replica, we are still the same person. We understand each other better than anyone in this world, even our souls resonate at the same frequency. So, Ningning, don’t let your imagination run wild.”

But he was nothing more than a copy. How could he count as the same person?

Seeing Ning Shuo’s confusion, Ning Wang’s hand paused.

Then Ning Shuo saw one of the two lamps go out, while the other stood some distance from the bed curtains.

He saw red drapes and a warm canopy. He saw one long, elegant hand clasping another that looked exactly the same, yet was clearly much paler. Even their clothes tangled together before scattering across the floor.

He heard Ning Wang’s voice, low and hoarse. “Since you don’t feel that way, we can demonstrate it another way.”

“…What?”

“Being the same person.”

It was simply… utter nonsense…

Ning Shuo let out a muffled groan and wrapped his arms around Ning Wang’s neck.

It should have been nothing more than a dream, yet the tingling and pleasure felt unbearably real.

Including that unspeakable pain.