"": 200,
"": "",
"": "Shangguan Xingyue had no idea how much time had passed, but she sensed that she had lost consciousness.
Had she died?
Of course, even at the moment of death, she still hadn't wanted to die.
Now, after regaining consciousness and opening her eyes,
she found herself lying where she had been before. There were no spiderwebs on her body, no wound in her chest, and no injuries on her head.
It wasn't just the fatal wounds that had vanished.
All the fine cuts covering her body were gone as well.
It was as though none of it had ever happened.
"How... is this possible?" Shangguan Xingyue was utterly bewildered.
She struggled to stand.
Then Shangguan Xingyue suddenly realized she wasn't struggling at all...
She had only thought it would be a struggle because she expected to be utterly exhausted.
Yet now, she felt no exhaustion whatsoever. Her body was perfectly fine, aside from being soaked through by the heavy rain.
A full moon hung high in the cool night sky.
Her shadow stretched out long behind her.
"An illusion?"
Shangguan Xingyue spread her hands and looked down at her palms.
Then she reached up and touched her cheek again.
"It was an illusion..."
She recalled the suffocating dread and terror of that brush with death.
Even now, Shangguan Xingyue's heart trembled.
But knowing it had all been an illusion allowed her to relax.
"Is this mountain's special property... Heart Demons Become Nightmares? Does the terror come from within?"
"If you die in that terror, do you go mad, or become a walking corpse?"
Shangguan Xingyue murmured her analysis.
Her head still felt faintly heavy. It was a distress deep in her mind, as though her consciousness itself had been injured.
Then Shangguan Xingyue understood why