Ning Rongrong: Why Doesn't Anyone Believe Me

Creeak—

Ning Rongrong pushed open the doors to the main hall and hurried inside.

At this moment, Ning Fengzhi had only just finished seeing off the three representatives.

"Rongrong?"

Seeing Ning Rongrong looking somewhat normal before him, the heart that had been hanging in Ning Fengzhi's chest suddenly settled.

"Dad, Sword Grandpa, Bone Grandpa! Quick, someone is controlling me, help me drive him away!"

Panting, Ning Rongrong said to the three people before her.

Yet the three of them looked at her with an indescribable hesitation.

Ning Fengzhi looked at Chen Xin, then at Gu Rong.

Both of them nodded.

"During the physical examination just now, we confirmed that you have no issues whatsoever, and your mental state is perfectly normal."

Ning Fengzhi took a deep breath and delivered this answer.

"Eh?" Ning Rongrong froze, looking at her father and the two grandfathers in disbelief.

"But... you don't even think about it, how could I, an auxiliary-system soul master, possibly defeat so many people? And how could I suddenly break through? Things like gaining enlightenment during battle—you're just fooling yourselves."

Ning Rongrong stared into their eyes, trying to catch a glimmer of belief.

Unfortunately, she saw none.

Although Ning Fengzhi was somewhat moved, he ultimately did not show it. As for the Sword and Bone duo, they felt that Ning Rongrong's victory was a matter of course, stemming from their trust in the magical treasures she possessed.

"How could this be..." She felt a sense of loss, then thought of something. She took a medicinal pill and a scroll out from her golden ring and said urgently, "Dad, look, these are things from those people. It was these items that made me break through, look!"

"But..." Ning Fengzhi looked at his daughter hesitantly, his eyes filled with heartache, "But there is nothing in your hands."

"Eh?"

Ning Rongrong's pupils constricted, and she took half a step back.

Nothing?

She lowered her head; she could see the scroll and the pill clearly.

She had been afraid the pill was poisonous and dared not eat it.

She didn't recognize the characters inside the scroll, nor did she know how to use it.

And yet, the others couldn't see these things...

She took another half-step back, shaking her head incessantly.

"No... no! Why, why can't you see them?"

She tried to take the Little Red Bottle and the Little Blue Bottle she had obtained from opening treasure chests out of her spatial Soul Tool, but she found she couldn't bring them out.

This dealt another blow to Ning Rongrong.

"I beg you, check again. What if you just didn't detect it?"

Thinking of something, Ning Rongrong went to Ning Fengzhi's side and pleaded.

She truly did not want to be controlled again, even though she knew her strength had progressed rapidly while under control.

But how did that saying go? If she was being controlled, was that still her?

Ning Fengzhi shook his head helplessly.

"Alright, we will check again."

Healers were called over once more. They checked back and forth three times, and three different groups of people were brought in, yet all reached the same conclusion—

Ning Rongrong was perfectly fine. There were no issues with her body, her mental state was stable, and there were no signs of being controlled.

"Rongrong, you might just be too tired. You'll be fine after a good sleep."

Ning Fengzhi patted Ning Rongrong's back as he spoke.

"Rongrong must still be frightened by the scene in the cave."

The Sword and Bone duo echoed from behind.

"How can this be..." Ning Rongrong muttered in disbelief, her eyes gradually losing their luster as she slumped to the floor. "Could it really have been an illusion?"

"Yes, it was an illusion."

Ning Fengzhi said. After thinking about his daughter's condition, he added, "How about this: we will supervise you for three days. If you don't show any abnormalities during this time, can you believe that nothing is wrong, okay?"

Ning Rongrong nodded blankly and returned to her room, lost in a daze.

Under the dim streetlights, Ning Rongrong kept murmuring to herself:

"Fake, it's all fake..."

"Hey guys, continuing our playthrough of Douluo: World today!"

Reality, 6:00 PM.

It was time for Lu Ma's daily livestream.

He had closed Dark Douluo ten minutes early, sent over his suggestions from the first day of testing, and after a short rest, he began his primary job: streaming. Although his audience was small, his professional ethics demanded he not let a single person down.

[How many hours did the streamer sleep?]

[Why is the streamer playing this game again?]

[Has the streamer ever played anything other than Douluo IP games?]

"Slept for a little over an hour."

"Obviously because the client is paying."

"What are you saying? Of course I've played..."

Have I?

Lu Ma asked himself.

Although he had played plenty of games, from The Witcher 3 to Sekiro, from Devil May Cry to Zelda... he had never streamed any of them.

His very first stream was a sponsored Douluo IP job recommended by a friend, and ever since then, he had only ever streamed Douluo.

How strange... would more people watch if he played other games?

As he thought about it, Lu Ma shook his head. He had two contracts on his hands; he didn't have the time to play anything else right now.

[666, the streamer is officially on the payroll now.]

[What are you playing today, streamer? World Boss?]

[To the guy above, boss fights are the streamer's specialty! He's ranked first on the Black Monkey speedrun leaderboard!]

[For real?]

"For real."

Lu Ma nodded. Shortly before he started streaming, he had been bored and set a world record for a no-hit, no-glitch speedrun of all the Yaowang in Black Monkey. The video had nearly a million views on Bilibili... unfortunately, it wasn't on his own account.

"So, today we're going to take on the King of Slaughter."

He calmly announced his planned content.

[The King of Slaughter Tang Chen, who has those absurd stats, self-regenerating shields, and kills our characters in one hit?]

[Looking forward to it.]

Lu Ma streamed for four full hours.

He turned off the stream, washed up, and prepared to sleep.

He was exhausted today.

What he didn't know was that during the time he had been away, the flow of time within Dark Douluo had changed.

-

Three days after the Evil Soul Master incident, morning.

Ning Rongrong curled up on her bed, glancing at the pill and the scroll beside her from time to time.

Her hair was already a tangled mess, and she had dark circles under her eyes.

She was afraid.

She was afraid that if she fell asleep, her body would no longer belong to her.

Today was the final day of the agreement with her father.

According to their deal, if she wasn't controlled again by today, she would have to admit that the control was just a delusion. This wouldn't normally be a big deal, but the pill and the scroll were constant reminders—this was reality.

Unless she was going insane.

Being controlled or going insane—neither was a fate Ning Rongrong wanted to see.

Under intense mental pressure, she considered a truly terrible possibility.

What if the person controlling her knew about the three-day agreement and was intentionally not controlling her during these three days?

And this was a very real possibility.

She made up her mind; she couldn't just sit and wait for death today. She had to find something to provoke the person controlling her, or prove that she had been controlled—which meant proving the existence of the pill and the scroll.

So, with her hair in a wild tangle, she followed her memory to the sect's medical ward.

She remembered that the Evil Soul Master was being treated here and had woken up yesterday. As a key figure, she would definitely be able to see her!

Stepping into the medical ward, the room was empty. The medical staff were all busy further inside, so the person sitting alone before her was that young girl.

Back in the cave, the lighting had been dim, and she hadn't seen the girl's appearance clearly. Now, she saw her.

She had the face of a sixteen-year-old, with short, deep blue hair and purple pupils. She was currently wearing a blue and white hospital gown, with her previous tattered rags draped over the head of the bed.

Ning Rongrong quickened her pace, walked over to the young girl's side, and grabbed her hand.

The Dark Blue Silver Grass mark on the girl's hand had faded slightly, but Ning Rongrong was certain that it was a soul mark of the Dark Blue Silver Grass.

"I think I recognize you, you're the one who saved me that day..."

The girl's voice was crisp and cheerful.

"Shut up."

By comparison, Ning Rongrong's icy coldness made it seem as though she were the true evil soul master.

"Mmph."

The girl was left speechless.