"Thank you." Her pale pink lips shone in the gentle sunlight, and a light brown woolen coat wrapped around the girl's body, its meticulously tailored design making her look full of charm. Under her plaid short skirt, black pantyhose carried a faint silk texture, inexplicably attracting the attention of the surrounding men.
Yet at this moment, the girl felt somewhat nervous, instinctively tucking her long bangs behind her ears. She tidied her messy hair just a little, a slight stroke adding a touch of cute charm.
Born in the most foul and turbid mud at the bottom of the pond, submerged by the murky and gloomy water, until now, the pure and flawless lotus finally blossomed.
"Thank you," she murmured, saying it once more, even though no one was on the opposite side of her.
Only in the void, a soft chuckle coming from who-knows-where fell upon the puppet.
The smartphone with its cracked glass vibrated slightly, and the girl tapped the lock screen interface.
A few new push notifications immediately caught her eye.
"Please do not consume non-fresh seafood. Eating spoiled white shrimp resulted in a family of four suffering 2 deaths and 2 hospitalizations!"
"Be extremely careful when handling sea shrimp. Be sure to disinfect promptly after being pierced by sharp spines. Today, a 50-year-old..."
"Excessive seafood is harmful to health. A 14-year-old boy lost his life at a tender age due to consuming large amounts of white shrimp."
These were push notifications from local news. Not only did the girl not worry upon seeing this news, but she even revealed a faint smile.
"Is this what they call a gentle approach? Kind Sheep Spirit."
Light passed through the gap, falling on the girl's fair neck, where the black-and-white mark emitted a faint glow.
Jingle--!
Having just finished reading the news and feeling in a pleasant mood, the girl took a sip of milk tea, and a new text message was received by her phone.
The remark read [Editor].
"Xiao Lei, the savings in your account were suddenly all withdrawn. Did you transfer them yourself?"
"Mm, something happened at home the past couple of days."
"Oh, I see. Is the money enough? If it's not enough, big sister has a little here."
Her fingertips trembled slightly, and an unspeakable sense of happiness filled her hollow inner self.
For so many years, only a stranger she had never met was willing to care about her. A lump formed in the girl's throat, but today's sunlight was very good, very fresh, so she smiled and typed back: "With the royalties I've saved up for so long, it's already enough."
It was a pity that this city no longer had anything worth lingering over. After gaining a new life, she would also face a brand new existence.
"By the way, Xiao Lei, I found a new company with pretty good benefits. Do you want to come along?"
"What company?"
"It seems to be a company that makes two-dimensional industry culture, and the name appears to be--"
"Qianjue."
The girl paused slightly, the smile on her face growing even more radiant.
"I'm going."
"Oh right, I'm going to change my pen name."
"Xiao Lei?"
"No, someone thought of a nice name for me."
Griseo.
Chapter Thirteen: Su Jue's Scheme
Consciousness was pulled and souls were torn apart, the indescribable stinging pain shredding Su Jue's entire consciousness almost completely.
His long-parched lips were full of cracks, and creaking sounds erupted from his tightly clenched teeth. Until a certain moment arrived, the unbearable, excruciating pain finally vanished, and sweat seeped from every pore of his body, dripping down onto the ground.
He certainly wasn't constipated.
This was actually the process by which the new puppet within the Authority of Domination fed power back into himself, curing his insoluble illness.
"Though it hurt a bit, my lifespan was extended by another three months. Not a bad trade."
Sweating profusely, Su Jue let out a long sigh of relief, feeling as though his body had become much lighter. He beckoned, and the black cat Tread Snow sprang onto his body in a single bound, enjoying the cat-petting service.
However, Tread Snow was personally controlled by Su Jue himself, meaning he was actually experiencing the dual pleasure of both petting a cat and being petted at the same time. This was undoubtedly the most effective way to cure the symptoms of soul-tearing, and theoretically, he could also split off a female-bodied clone to experience both simultaneously...
It was a pity Su Jue didn't have much interest in lewdness; becoming the Herrscher of a Thousand, his ultimate goal was merely to stay alive.
Thinking of this, Su Jue couldn't help recalling Kiana, who had rushed out of the bathroom two days ago and beat him up fiercely. For some reason, he felt his heart skip a beat for a fraction of a second.
Judging from the fact that he was able to lie completely intact on the couch the next day, Kiana's consciousness had actually recovered at that time.
If it were Sirin, he probably would have already become Benares's feces.
He also didn't know where she had gone by now. The only 100 yuan she had on her had been scammed away by him, so her days must be quite tough.
In this world, heroes weren't so easy to play.
Su Jue knew very well that during his time in Sky City, Kiana had constantly been rescuing those attacked by Honkai Beasts. Yet no matter how good Kiana's physical fitness was, she would still get hungry and tired, not to mention that the Herrscher of Void consciousness inside her was continuously draining her power.
Coupled with her upright personality, she certainly wouldn't be willing to steal or rob. Who knows, maybe when he stepped out one day, he might just pick up a completely defenseless Herrscher of Void?
At this thought, even the usually steady Su Jue couldn't help revealing a slightly wretched smile.
Yet he immediately wiped away that smile; even if the Herrscher of Void really collapsed from exhaustion, the three major factions of Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and World Serpent—which had probably long since set their sights on her—would swarm over, leaving only himself, who possessed merely level 5 cat power, unable to even catch a single hair.
Su Jue had actually secretly established a force of his own, which he named [Qianjue], essentially a combination of the Herrscher of a Thousand and his own name.
For now, though, it was just an ordinary two-dimensional cultural studio, usually relying on churning out some two-dimensional products to maintain living expenses.
Relocating the power of the Herrscher of Domination, as long as there were ready-made products, he could achieve zero-cost replication and production.
Although the Authority wasn't fully unlocked yet to manufacture more complex and precise equipment, it was already completely sufficient to keep a small ACG culture company running.
He harbored a rosy vision that once he had more puppets in the future, he would run over to Schicksal and Anti-Entropy to steal their design blueprints and mass-produce high-tech products.
The premise was not to get caught by the roots like the original Herrscher of Domination.
And this time, after acquiring the girl puppet who could draw, [Qianjue] could fully branch out into businesses like animation production. This was the advantage of hive-mind consciousness: as long as a single clone possessed a certain talent, he could master that talent. And even if the innate aptitude was poor, it didn't matter, for once there were more puppets, they could mutually amplify each other.
As for Xiao Lei this time around, she was undoubtedly the first step for his faction to start gathering wealth.
With this in mind, Su Jue lifted his hand slightly, and a girl-shaped wooden puppet appeared beneath his fingertips.
This was the fifth puppet in addition to the middle-aged man, woman, kitten, and young boy—the puppet produced after the girl chose the Aries sign.
Although the effect wasn't as potent as a puppet directly transformed from a human, its advantage lay in the fact that Xiao Lei didn't need to die and could live as a normal human. Meanwhile, through controlling this clone, Su Jue could achieve the effect of two individuals existing simultaneously.
In detective novels, this amounted to having a perfect alibi.
[Griseo]
This was the name Su Jue gave to this girl puppet, and this name wasn't chosen at random; he had come prepared.
When playing the game back then, Su Jue, as a player, had been grinding the newly released Elysian Realm.
At that time, he watched Elysia slump in the hall of the Elysian Realm, weeping uncontrollably. That image was something he would never forget.
At that moment, he thought to himself: if I could become a hero, he must win every single thing.
Now, although a slight hiccup occurred and he became a Herrscher, he still had to consider whether this might be the only chance of his lifetime.
To reforge the glory of the Previous Civilization's Thirteen Flame-Chasers, our generation is duty-bound!
Yet if he really pulled off something like this.
When Kevin eventually returned from the Sea of Quantum and saw his deceased friend standing before him, he would probably wish he could scatter Su Jue's ashes to the winds.
Of course, these were just passing thoughts; only someone out of their mind would use these identities directly to cause trouble. More likely, he would stab people in the back from the shadows, and perhaps even pin the blame on World Serpent—how delightful.
In the empty living room, Su Jue's laughter echoed.
Cough cough.
Laughing too loudly made him forget that his body was still in terrible shape.
Out of breath, Su Jue accidentally choked on a mouthful of blood, unable to hold it back as he sprayed it right onto the newly summoned girl puppet.
The blood trickled down the body of the newly formed girl puppet, only to be completely absorbed before it could fall to the ground.
Click.
To his surprise, this puppet actually moved on its own. While Su Jue's blood could indeed amplify his control over the puppet, this situation was clearly somewhat abnormal.
He could feel that he was still able to dominate this body, yet somewhere in the dark, a few extra things seemed to have appeared.
She seemed... alive?
Chapter Fourteen: Puppet Griseo
Gleaming specks of light flickered like stars, carrying a faint brush of light blue that reflected in Su Jue's pupils.
She was glowing.
Amidst the shimmer, the clone that had previously been just an ordinary wooden puppet gradually took on special colors.
Light blue hair cascaded along Su Jue's fingertips, and snow-white floral ornaments blossomed at the tips of the girl's hair. Her features grew exquisite; no amount of master artisans could ever sculpt a fair, delicate face with the glossy delicacy of porcelain. Her long eyelashes fluttered slightly, resembling a young child just awakening from a dream.
She opened her eyes, two light-purple translucent gems embedded within those adorable eyelids, carrying a mesmerizing, dreamy quality.
A simple, soft dress materialized out of the shimmering light, covering the girl's pure and flawless body, except that it seemed to slip at her smooth shoulders, the straps hanging loosely down her shoulders to vaguely reveal her petite collarbones.
Standing barefoot on the cold floor of Su Jue's home, every little toe on her cute little feet seemed to twist anxiously.
Without a doubt, this was precisely Griseo from Su Jue's memories.
Yet clearly, in this world, the stories of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers had not yet been sung, and the hymns of the Elysian Realm had not yet drifted through the air.
Even before Su Jue conceived the notion of naming her, the name Griseo had never existed.
Yet at this moment, this girl puppet appeared right before Su Jue in such a flawless posture.
She had come alive, adopting the posture from Su Jue's memories and the most beautiful aspect of a young girl.
If he didn't clearly know that this was merely a puppet, Su Jue might have even thought he had inadvertently summoned the Starry Sky Girl from the Elysian Realm.
No, it was different.
After a meticulous, top-to-bottom inspection, Su Jue finally dismissed this thought because this Griseo was, in many aspects, created according to his personal preferences. Even amidst the light blue long hair, some vibrant red strands were dyed in like highlights, much like the blood he had just spat out, adding a touch of weirdness to a girl who ought to have been as pure and flawless as a blank canvas.
Her purple pupils blinked, and Griseo (for convenience, I will call her Griseo directly, but do not mistake her for the original Griseo) raised her head to look at her creator.
As expected, she was still a puppet.
Through the ability of the Authority of Domination, Su Jue could clearly sense that even though this girl puppet had transformed into Griseo's appearance, she remained entirely under his control without much independent consciousness.
She hadn't transformed into a standalone individual. Su Jue let out a sigh of relief; what if she really developed self-awareness and turned into a traitor later on?
However, the biggest difference between Griseo and the other puppets was that she possessed a certain liveliness. In previous performances, the mother persona Su Jue designed was a deaf-mute who could neither hear nor speak, which was done to prevent his control from seeming too rigid and getting discovered by Kiana.
Yet Griseo now possessed piercing brilliance in her eyes; Su Jue only needed to give her a simple command, and she would act in the manner Su Jue desired, eliminating any worries about her being exposed as a puppet.
The only drawback was that she could only act in this persona, and Su Jue could no longer reshape her face or turn her into someone else's appearance.
Yet why had such a change occurred?
Was it truly just because his blood had splashed onto the puppet?
Or was this the self-evolving form of the hive-mind collective consciousness?
He frowned deeply, deep in thought.
Suddenly, he felt a soft, fluffy sensation land in his palm, yielding and smooth.
"Tread Snow?" he called out instantly, but immediately realized that Tread Snow wasn't controlled by him, and naturally wouldn't move like that.
Lowering his gaze, he saw Griseo rubbing her little head against Su Jue's palm, just like a real kitten trying to make its master pet it.
"..."
After a moment of silence, Su Jue tentatively stroked the girl's soft hair, and the Authority of Domination's ability immediately fed back a feeling of delight to him.
Great, the figurine had really turned into a spirit.
Unlike the peaceful suburbs, ever since the awakening of the Herrscher of Void two months ago, the Honkai Energy across the entire world had grown drastically active, frequently yielding reports of Honkai Beasts and undead appearing. As a city serving as a refuge, Sky City naturally suffered multiple attacks from Honkai Beasts. However, because the targeted areas were quite small, aside from those regions directly struck, everyone else in the city continued to lead their normal lives.
The tranquil life of the W-024 district was shattered under such circumstances by a piercing siren.
Roar!
Before you continue