CH 426

The tenants from Happiness Neighbourhood had just left the territory of the plastic surgery hospital when the buildings behind them were enveloped by a layer of black curse. The curse was like lichen growing all over the buildings, consuming their lingering presence. After dealing with their traces, the strange curse continued to follow the gang, maintaining a fixed distance.

The gang walked through the maze of complicated alleyways. If not for the map provided by Han Fei, they wouldn’t know most of these paths. The tenants from both Happiness Neighbourhood and Ziggurat moved at top speed, the closer they were to the Ziggurat the safer they would be.

While some of them started to relax, the Mirror God frowned, he kept urging everyone to move faster. As they were about to return to the Ziggurat’s territory, the Mirror God suddenly ordered, “Stop!”

The shadows halted and then looked ahead. Placed at the entrance of the alley was an old man’s head. The grey hair stuck to the face, the old man’s eyes were open and they stared at Han Fei in Xu Qin’s embrace. When the tenants from Happiness Neighbourhood saw the head, their faces shifted. They were very familiar with this face because they had lived with its owner for about a decade already!

“Fu Sheng?” Xu Qin’s bloody lips opened to mutter a name. It was worth-noting that she no longer called him manager because in the eyes of every tenant at Happiness Neighbourhood, the only building manager was Han Fei. The old man could barely keep his eyes open, he was extremely weak.

“You know him?” When Laughing saw the old man’s head, he broke out in cold sweat. He knew that the Butterfly had torn the manager of Ziggurat into pieces and sealed them inside different figurines to prevent him from resurrecting. The old man’s head was constructed from the shattered figurines.

“Don’t get distracted! Behind us!” When the Mirror God saw the old man, it was like he had turned into a different person, he was nervous and sensitive. It was like he had a natural fear of Fu Sheng.

With the Mirror God’s warning, the group only realized the alley behind them had been covered by curse. All the light was consumed and a blurry figure stood in the abyssal darkness. He had no actual shape, he was like a song, as long as someone was willing to sing this song in the dark night, he would never disappear. The weak song echoed in everyone’s ears. The song came out from Han Fei’s shirt. Xu Qin peeled back Han Fei’s jacket. An old old music box fell to the ground. The message left on the box carved into everyone’s eyes.

“The music box from the black coffin? Why would the manager bring this with him?”

“The music box contains the Singer’s obsession, the song it plays contains the presence of an Unmentionable. To make his disguise more convincing, Han Fei must have carried this with him.” The Mirror God stared at the head not far away and it dawned on him, this was all part of Fu Sheng’s plan all along. He left behind a broken altar and the Singer’s music box. As long as Han Fei wanted to light the altar or even if he approached the altar, it would trigger a chain event.

To build an altar, Han Fei’s name had to be known by many. Fu Sheng thus knew that Han Fei would have to leave Ziggurat, even if Han Fei was unwilling, he would be forced to leave by certain things. The map Han Fei contained was left behind by Fu Sheng so Fu Sheng knew Han Fei would pass by this alley eventually.

They had just escaped from a Pure Hatred and now they encountered the Singer. Everyone was nervous, they had no idea how much the Singer had recovered.

“I am the manager for both the Happiness Neighbourhood and Ziggurat, I left behind all the altars in these two areas. Even though I’m dead, my memories live in your hearts.” The old man’s lips opened, his voice carried on the wind. The former Unmentionable only had an old, wrinkled head left.

“You once wanted to kill everyone.” The Mirror God stared at the old man and uttered.

The old man didn’t object, he lifted his eyes weakly to look at Han Fei. “Give him to me. You won’t be able to save him. His soul is corrupted, even if he’s repaired, he won’t be himself anymore.”

“You knew from the start his soul and consciousness would be injured when he used the power of the altar since he is a living person! You purposely had him inherit that altar!” The Mirror God glared coldly at the old man. Fu Sheng never trusted anyone. In a way, he was a kind person but the Mirror God never liked him.

“I didn’t force him to make any choice, he had chosen all the paths himself, including the one at the start…” The old man’s voice lowered, “I know you all want to protect him but only I can save him now, your only choice is to hand him over to me.” The head didn’t plan to fight the group, that was not part of his plan from the start. No matter what the old man said, the tenants from the Happiness neighbourhood refused to hand over Han Fei. The old man’s expression turned complicated.

“Some of you have known me for a decade and that is incomparable to the few months he has spent with you?” The Singer blocked their exit and the old man’s head blocked their way ahead, the atmosphere in the unknown alley froze.

“Fine, I know the answer now. Perhaps I have chosen the wrong path from the start.” The old man forced a smile. “You should already notice that he is a living human. His skin has warmth and his heart is beating powerfully. He is different from you, even the strongest bond cannot change that simple fact.” The old man paused before deciding to reveal the rest. “Both he and I came from the place where the sun would rise, we were lucky enough to have seen hope so it made us value the things here even more. I made the decision to kill everyone because I’ve seen that last bit of hope. His soul is not yet complete, perhaps he might make the same decision as I do in the future.”

“At least for now, he is not like you.” The Mirror God said frostily, “I don’t know how many pieces your memory has been split into but if you dare to destroy our last hope, then we will ruin the rest of your memory fragments!”

“Has he promised to find a body for you? I have given the same promise but why didn't you believe me and you chose to believe him?” The old man’s head represented one of Fu Sheng’s memory fragments, his personality, memory and attitude was different from the other fragments.

“You should have memories of Ying Yue who lives on the 8th floor. You have the power to help her but you refused using the excuse that you couldn’t use spirit farer to harm living humans.” The Mirror God glanced at Ying Yue. The girl who lost her sight stood before Xu Qin, the girl wouldn’t leave Han Fei.

“Using that skill to murder living humans, how is that different from the sinful ghosts in the cryptic world?” The old man had his own moral compass. He tried his best to change the cryptic world but in the end, he realized he was the one being changed.

“Then continue on your path and leave us be!” The Mirror God slammed on the mirror and it cracked. He was furious but he still couldn’t leave the mirror. The negotiation shattered but the old man appeared to have predicted that. He looked at Han Fei who was protected by the tenants. His eyes shone with worry and also a well-hidden envy.

“I will not attack and I can promise that I will not harm him.” The old man softened his tone. “I was the one who sent him to this world, I was the one who gave him the altar, he is also my last hope, why would I harm him?

“The injury on his soul is getting more serious. Did you not notice his body temperature dropping? If he doesn’t find help soon, he’ll become a ghost and stay here forever.” The old man’s murky eyes studied everyone, “You also don’t want your last hope to be ruined, right? Do you wish for Han Fei to sink into despair like you do?”

A living human couldn’t survive after using the power of the altar. The tenants didn’t know how to cure Han Fei, they only had one choice left, which was to trust in Fu Sheng’s memory fragment. Of course, this was all planned by Fu Sheng. Even one of his fragments was powerful enough to set up such a complicated trap, this showed how scary he was when he was in his prime. But even so, he had failed.

As Han Fei’s body temperature dropped and his soul started to wilt, the group had no choice but to trust Fu Sheng.

“I will not do anything to him, I will only have him make another choice.” The old man signaled for Xu Qin to carry Han Fei into the old building by the street. Then he had everyone leave the room. Only the old man’s head and the unconscious Han Fei remained in the building.

“Actually there are so many things that I cannot tell them. If there is another choice, who would want to be the madman aiming to destroy the world?” The old man’s head touched the back of Han Fei’s head. When the memory fragment touched Han Fei, the head started to turn blurry. He used his own consciousness to mend the wounds on Han Fei’s soul. “No matter your choice this time, I hope you’ll succeed. I can still help you now but when you venture further into the darkness, you’ll have to face it alone.”

As the old man’s head disappeared, the unconscious Han Fei opened his eyes but he was still in a suspended conscious state. It was just like how he was when he completed his first manager mission, He’d make this decision based on pure instinct.

“Okay, it’s time for you to make your second choice!”

A black box was hidden inside Han Fei’s body. Now the black box was exposed in the wound of the soul. After Fu Sheng summoned the box out, he looked at Han Fei expectantly. One side of the box represented destruction, while the other salvation. By opening the box, one would eventually see what was hidden inside it!

The black box represented all the secrets and truth. Even Fu Sheng had no idea what was really inside the box. Han Fei lifted his arms mechanically. He had experienced many life and death situations in the cryptic world. Compared to last time, he had gotten more used to the cryptic world and knew more about it.

His left hand held the edge of the black box and then his right hand did the same. Like before, he chose both salvation and destruction at the same time. The black box opened to reveal another black box. It had not changed. However, when the box was open, a sense of death and life entangled with each other before they surged into Han Fei’s soul. His wound was rapidly recovering. His consciousness and soul became stronger than before.

“Even after seeing so many crazy and cruel things, after experiencing torture and torment from the Butterfly, why do you still make this choice?” The old man sounded disappointed. He sighed. But before he faded away, he still wished Han Fei the best. “The path you chose is extremely hard but I hope you’ll walk further than I did.”

Fu Sheng’s second memory fragment collapsed, he used all of his power to heal Han Fei. When Han Fei regained his rationality, the old man’s head had disappeared. It was similar to what happened on the 9th floor of Happiness Neighbourhood. Sitting up in bed, Han Fei could feel his consciousness getting stronger. It had completely overshadowed the blood red orphanage in his mind.

“Notification for Player 0000! The Singer’s hatred towards you has decreased by 5, current Hatred Point is 95! When Hatred Point is lowered to 0, you’ll have the opportunity to increase his friendliness points!

“Notification for Player 0000! You have gained full control of your altar. You can exhaust your Life Point to force the Soul Mist to appear, 1 Life Point for 1 second of soul mist.”

“Notification for Player 0000! Congratulations for obtaining the blessing of an Unmentionable for the first time! Intelligence +1! You’ll gain a random negative status!”

The system notifications pinged in his ears. Han Fei’s eyes fluttered open. “Fu Sheng’s memory fragment has appeared?”

He pushed open the door. The Singer was gone, only the neighbours from Happiness Neighbourhood remained.