"So, your reason for bringing players into this 'Honghuai City' was to warn me?"
"That wasn't the only reason." Su Xuan looked away, as though his true intentions had been exposed, and tried to cover it up.
Su Xuan stood on the rooftop as the dark clouds gradually dispersed. The brightening sky cast its light over a face that resembled Su Bai's. Although the shell Su Xuan had made with his own hands seemed unable to convey subtle emotions the way the Ghost Shaman's creations could, there was still a hint of weariness in his eyes.
"When I created this 'Honghuai City,' I used a very special kind of wood to make a great many dolls. But aside from a few that were special to me, most of them could only repeat fixed lines and perform fixed actions." Su Xuan frowned, as though recalling the details of their creation. "But ever since my emotions started slipping out of control, those dolls, which had originally led mechanically repetitive lives, began to mutate. One by one, they turned into grotesque freaks, and the whole city became a foul mess."
His eyes held a trace of confusion, as though he were thinking aloud. "It might have something to do with the material I chose for the dolls. The trees in that forest are inexhaustible and the wood is excellent, but it seems very susceptible to being corrupted by power. Maybe that's why the Ghost Shaman never uses that wood to make dolls."
Only then did Su Xuan turn back to Su Bai, speaking with feigned certainty. "Anyway, this 'Honghuai City' needed a cleansing, so I turned it into a game arena."
Su Xuan made it sound simple, but Su Bai knew the process had been anything but.
The mysterious power that forced humans