The Eternal Holy Book

"Mirror-"

Xu Ye wanted to experiment some more, but after standing in front of the bathroom mirror and calling for ages, he still saw no sign of the Mirror Spirit.

"Where did it go?"

"I remember the Mirror Spirit has to stay inside a mirror. Alice, go help me find it!"

"Huh?" Alice glared at Xu Ye. "Xu Ye, don't push your luck. I'm your second personality. I'm supposed to take over your body and destroy your primary personality. You can't order me around like a servant."

"I'm telling you, this is illegal kitten labor. You're abusing this cat! Humans have always scooped poop for cats. Since when do cats serve humans?"

Thump!

Xu Ye landed a critical hit on Alice.

Clutching its head and shedding tears, Alice went off to find the Mirror Spirit. "Damn you, human! How dare you tell this cat what to do? I am a heaven-sent cat! You're defying heaven and earth!"

Half an hour later, Alice caught the Mirror Spirit in a makeup mirror on a table in one of the eighth-floor rooms.

Xu Ye wrapped his tentacles straight around it. The Mirror Spirit let out a deep, despairing whimper. Only when its cheeks had sunken until it resembled a skeleton, as though a female ghost had drained it for three hundred rounds, was it allowed to leave.

Alice stood to one side with both paws planted angrily on its hips, its feline eyes darting over now and then. In the end, it could no longer resist and leaned in with a curious meow.

"Your sequence talent really is amazing. This is the first time I've ever seen one that can affect supernatural entities."

"Normally, Awakened have to use their sequence talents day and night to develop them, constantly exploring their potential, refining them, and evolving. But you..."

Alice glanced at Xu Ye.

"I'm so tired."

Xu Ye lay on the floor, his tentacles wriggling. He looked as exhausted as someone who had just dealt with five hundred burly men leaping out of the bushes. "I never thought absorbing energy without moving a muscle could be this tiring. Next time, I'd better get a cushion to lie on first. Success really doesn't come easy to anyone."

Alice said, "I want to stab you."

Xu Ye shot it a look.

Alice smiled ingratiatingly. "Xu Ye, you must be tired. Why don't you head back and get some rest?"

Just then, Xu Ye noticed his heart beginning to writhe.

[I seem to have found a shortcut to success. This fills me with confidence in the future.]

[I began frantically absorbing the Mirror Spirit's energy. Three days later, I died.]

Xu Ye's expression darkened as he read this. It was a warning from his heart.

Absorbing without restraint would probably have serious side effects. No wonder he had felt so mentally drained just now.

[I was rather exasperated. After all the trouble of finding a method, it still had limits. But I decided to listen to my heart.]

[Five years later, I stood at the pinnacle of the world, a man above all others.]

Fuck!

It really knows how to flatter itself.

Still, more than any of that, he liked his heart's playful streak.

Just as his dad had told him, no matter what situation he found himself in, he had to approach life with a sense of fun.

For those trapped in darkness, even a little light was enough to help them find their way.

Xu Ye chuckled. Just then, his stomach began to rumble.

Looking at the rabbit in Xu Ye's cage, Alice suggested, "Xu Ye, let's eat the rabbit. It's not doing any good sitting there anyway. I've never had rabbit meat before. Let me take over your body later, and I'll be able to taste it."

"Alice, how could we do that? This is my pet." Xu Ye stroked the rabbit's fur.

"But keeping a rabbit means taking care of it every day, paying for feed, deworming it, bathing it..." Alice said.

An hour later, a plate of spicy rabbit meat appeared on the dining table. The meat was rich and succulent, enough to make anyone's mouth water. Xu Ye polished off three bowls of rice, and Alice satisfied its appetite too.

After eating and drinking his fill, Xu Ye burped, lay back on the sofa, and picked his teeth.

After all the chaos of the past two days, only now did he have time to sort through this mess.

"By the way, Alice, do you know anything else about the Missing Person Notice?"

That whole affair was far too strange.

This time, Alice answered honestly. "When I devoured 'Li Kang's' soul, I did see something else. But I sensed intense unease and terror in that soul, so I didn't mention it. I just didn't want you getting dragged into it."

Xu Ye looked at it, and Alice sighed.

"All right. You know 'Li Kang' was actually a woman. The real Li Kang sexually assaulted her. Before he did, I heard him demand to know where the Eternal Holy Book was."

"The Eternal Holy Book?"

Xu Ye felt a headache coming on. The name alone told him it was no ordinary object.

And why had Li Kang made that woman impersonate him and come to the Sixth Hospital?

Wouldn't that expose him outright?

Wait!

There's another possibility.

What if Li Kang did it on purpose?

If everyone thought Li Kang was dead, wouldn't he be able to slip out of sight and operate behind the scenes?

Xu Ye's heart jolted.

He got up and hurriedly turned on his computer, only to discover that his clearance did not allow him to find any information about the Eternal Holy Book.

Then he searched for events from a hundred years ago.

He discovered that history had been rewritten.

According to the records, infighting within the Federation had sparked a nuclear war, and everything outside the safe zones was contaminated with nuclear radiation.

There was not a trace of those hidden events.

"Meow. Curiosity killed this cat," Alice lamented.

Xu Ye shrugged. There was nothing he could do either.

You couldn't bait a lecher without risking your wife. The problem was, he didn't even have a wife.

While Xu Ye was still learning about this world...

In a secret underground chamber in the Sky City...

Rot, mildew, and a sinister chill filled the cramped, sealed space.

"Meng Chengfei, what exactly are you trying to do? I'm a Bronze Noble! If something happens to me for no reason, the Sky City will track it straight back to you!"

A slightly pudgy man wearing a bronze ornament over his eyes hung from an electric fan with a hemp rope around his neck. His toes barely reached the chair beneath him, keeping him from immediately suffocating.

The Bronze Noble stared fixedly at the man before him.

"Really?"

Meng Chengfei put on a pair of gloves covered in iron spikes. The corners of his mouth lifted as blood trickled, drop by drop, from the corners of his eyes.

"Right now, everyone knows I'm seriously injured and resting in a hospital bed. Who would imagine I'm here?"

"And how do you know I haven't left myself a backup plan?"

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Leather shoes scraped against the smooth floor. Blood seeped from every pore of Meng Chengfei's body as he advanced toward the noble, step by step.

"I warned you not to make a move. Yet you insisted on ambushing Xu Ye on the way."

"Y-you, you!" The fat noble's face turned purple, his breathing rapid, like a pig with its windpipe clamped shut.

"And what you people did ten years ago... I think you know perfectly well. Even if my memories were erased..."

"..." The fat noble choked. Suddenly, he began struggling violently and screamed, "No! You're not Meng Chengfei! You've been corrupted! You're an Aberrant! Someone, help!"

His terrified, furious cries echoed through the chamber.

As though he had heard nothing, Meng Chengfei switched on the electric fan.

The fat noble began to spin.

What awaited him was punch after punch.

Blood!

Nothing but blood!

It splattered everywhere, mixed with scraps of flesh and fragments of bone.

Like a master painter casually splashing ink, he left a horrifying work of art here in an instant.

"I've been corrupted?"

"You're the ones who should be purged..."

Several hours later, Meng Chengfei emerged.

He carried a painting tucked under his arm.

On it lay a brilliant expanse of red, like Van Gogh's starry sky.