Lin Yi instinctively wanted to dodge, but restrained himself.
After Lao Mo's repeated kneading, the two scales had become something soft and pliant, cool like jelly when applied to his face.
Lao Mo kept working, as though applying a facial mask to Lin Yi.
"Lao Mmph, whuh ish this? (Lao Mo, what is this?)" Lao Mo was kneading Lin Yi's mouth so much that he couldn't speak properly.
"Stop squawking... almost done." Lao Mo's hands moved faster and faster, and gradually, the mask-like substance covered his entire head.
"Done." Lao Mo withdrew his hands and looked Lin Yi up and down, nodding in satisfaction. "What were you saying?"
Lin Yi took a breath. "I said... what is this?"
He touched his head. With this "hood" applied to his face, he didn't feel the slightest suffocation. On the contrary, it was quite breathable, even giving him occasional waves of coolness, as though he had pulled on a layer of mint-scented... white stockings.
Thinking of it that way instantly made it seem a little perverted.
Lao Mo said, "I altered your appearance. That way, once you reach the Art Building, as long as you anchor an identity for yourself, those bizarre things won't be able to lock onto your identity."
"'No identity'?" Lin Yi touched his face, only to discover in shock that although his hand had clearly reached the bridge of his nose, he couldn't feel a nose at all. He couldn't feel his facial features or his nose, and even his hair was gone.
He kept feeling his face, as though rubbing a smooth ball of flesh, looking absurd and ridiculous...
"Lao Mo, I, I-I-I... am I now?!" Lin Yi grew terrified.
"Do I now... look like what I once saw in the mirror?"
That appearance was the "Faceless" version