Chapter 280: Back to Her Side?
That winter in Shancheng, it rarely snowed.
Snowflakes fell from the sky, passing through the thick fog so dense it almost felt tangible, stained gray, fluttering down softly.
On the dilapidated, deserted streets, the wind rolled over the seismic slogans left earlier, the pale paper soaked by melting snow, rendering the writing gradually illegible.
Crouching in a vent shaft, peering through the opening, Ji Yunpei felt that the falling snowflakes were the ashes of a city that was fading away.
An earthquake? Ridiculous! Ji Yunpei twitched her lips.
She wanted to laugh, but her lips felt as though pulled by some force, unable to curve even the slightest bit.
If it weren’t for those distorted flesh and bl**d that ordinary people could not see, growing out of buildings, surging toward the sky, as if a massive hand blotted out the sun, seizing the grayish-brown fog and tightly smashing it to the ground…
If she hadn’t seen with her own eyes the lives buried beneath the ruins, influenced by that progeny of catastrophe, growing twisted and monstrous tumors that spewed smoke…
That evil deity’s offspring forcibly transformed them into its followers.
If it weren’t for the fact that in a disaster labeled an earthquake, the casualty rate for spiritual ability users and urban legends was several times higher than that of ordinary people…
She might also believe this was just an earthquake, right?
That day was her first day at the Sunlight Biotechnology Company, which was supposed to be her father’s last time walking into the building, but in the end, he never made it out again.
Although several days had passed, she could still vividly recall the moment when her father faced the countless twisted flesh and bl**d, enduring the pain of his body being torn apart gradually, lifting her up with both hands to deliver her from the ruins.
That sentence, “Peipei, don’t be afraid, just keep living!” echoed in her mind, refusing to fade away.
They, along with all the employees of that building, were all sacrifices…
Sacrifices for the birth of the evil deity’s offspring!
And she, the fortunate escaped sacrifice, was inevitably bound for a fate of being hunted.
Now, with heavy fog sealing the city, roads blocked, and mutated beings causing chaos around the city, corroded by the darkness.
The main force of the Siye Society had not yet arrived, and the few operatives who had entered the city were nearly all restrained by that progeny of disaster and the omnipresent Night Corrosion.
It was said that the Siye Society originally had an ultra-spec spirit energy item capable of dealing with that evil deity’s offspring, but the Dachunyang Palace, which stored that ultra-spec item, seemed to have encountered severe unrest recently and was unable to take care of itself, let alone divert attention to activate that spirit energy item to support Shancheng.
In the center of the disaster, Ji Yunpei wanted to do something, even if not to save lives, at least for her father.
But she was really scared.
She trembled from the pervasive, filthy, evil spirit energy in the city, unable to hold onto a weapon, her mind short-circuiting and forgetting the spell formula, and even seeing the lower-level mutated urban legends roaring towards her made her shut her eyes in fear.
Only now did she realize that her father had truly protected her too well all her life, never allowing her to truly encounter danger.
As night fell, the temperature dropped lower and lower, swiftly robbing Ji Yunpei of warmth and consciousness; for a moment, she felt as though her body had become lighter, floating.
A few seconds later, she reacted, realizing she was being grabbed by the collar, as if lifted like a small chicken and brought before someone.
Then, she saw a familiar yet strange face enter her view.
Familiar because Ji Yunpei recognized at a glance that the face belonged to the Huacheng Witch.
No, perhaps now she should be referred to as Calamity?
And strange because the once hideous face of the Huacheng Witch looked beautiful at this moment, even making Ji Yunpei, a girl, feel a flutter in her heart.
Perhaps it was because the one from the Peach Source had ultimately fallen beneath the blade of Calamity, so the injuries left on Calamity by that figure had also dissipated as a result.
She clearly remembered the horrific state of Calamity when she had appeared in her home, having been injured by the one from the Peach Source.
The spell formula passed down in her family derived from the metaphysics of the “Five Arts” known as “Medicine,” excelling at transforming most spirit energy and the core essence of urban legends into materials to help patients repair their bodies.
When forced to heal Calamity, she had scrutinized Calamity’s injuries meticulously.
The “seed” left in Calamity’s body by the one from the Peach Source had sprouted after a period of catalysis, devouring Calamity’s flesh, with bizarre and active plant roots writhing beneath almost every inch of skin.
In addition, there were numerous hidden injuries left behind by the precise spell formulas of the Siye Society.
She didn’t know how Calamity was still alive.
To put it mystically, it was entirely thanks to sheer willpower.
That kind of injury, if it had been any ordinary spirit ability user or urban legend, they would have likely been dead long ago.
As for how Calamity had slaughtered the one from the Peach Source, she had gleaned some understanding through a feature report on an urban legend bounty website.
That feature report even included a photo of Calamity grinning maniacally as she drove a rusty kitchen kn*fe into the chest of that benevolent deity, who was willing to sacrifice everything for her people, alongside another photo of Calamity holding the clear essence of the urban legend, licking the bl**d off and staining her lips crimson.
With Calamity’s scarred face, it looked exceptionally grim.
She had no idea how the urban legend bounty website had gotten those pictures.
Ji Yunpei’s assessment of it all was, despicable!
That figure from the Peach Source could be said to be the most benevolent and wise mythological species urban legend in her cognition, yet she was swallowed whole by Calamity.
Manipulating others’ followers and dependents, forcing them to abandon resistance, what kind of heroism was that?
If you have the ability, do it barehanded!
It was said that she had even poisoned her enemies, using the bl**d of some corrupted divine being obtained from who-knows-where; it was simply despicable and shameless!
Seeing Ji Yunpei glare at her fiercely, Calamity revealed a meaningful smile, “Haha, look what I found? A twin-tailed girl! She seems about to freeze to d*ath; why don’t we…”
Ji Yunpei’s body trembled, and she shouted, “Don’t, don’t eat me!”
As she struggled in fear, Calamity continued, “Why don’t we adopt her? Give her a new home.”
“I mean, you should be thinking about what to do now, right? I happen to want to do something too; wanna do it together?”
Ji Yunpei, “…”
She did not refuse immediately, and thus lost the opportunity to refuse forever.
So, she was “adopted” by Calamity, like adopting a nearly frozen stray cat.
Calamity took her wandering through the fog-covered city ruins, gorging on food in deserted supermarkets, selecting outfits in vacant malls as if rummaging through her own wardrobe, picking clothes with shocking price tags.
Calamity always chose neutral clothing for herself, denim trousers and a black windbreaker, topped with exaggerated sunglasses, resembling some strange assassin out of nowhere.
For Ji Yunpei, Calamity liked to pick various exposed and glamorous dresses, dressing her up like a doll, making her appear as if she were a beautiful lady accompanying an assassin.
A bizarre kind of bad taste.
Too bad, apart from her face being somewhat appealing, her figure was indeed a bit too slender; she wasn’t a competent lady.
Calamity would sometimes charge into the broken streets, ruthlessly wreaking havoc on everything in sight, laughing wildly amid the flames, dancing on the ashes like a deranged madwoman, mentally twisted as if destruction was her sole purpose.
Other times, she would quiet down, watching like a movie, gazing at the hordes of urban legends born from the corruption of the evil deity’s offspring, watching lone refugees be torn apart into pieces, then igniting a fire to turn the shattered bodies to ashes.
Snowflakes infused with malicious spirit energy sizzled upon contact with fire.
At first, Ji Yunpei just watched, feeling like a hostage forced to follow her captor’s actions, believing everything her captor did was an indoctrination, imposing a distortion upon her.
But soon, she found herself following Calamity, joining in the destruction.
She was “infected” by Calamity’s madness.
When the deafening roars echoed, she experienced an unprecedented, subtle pleasure.
Calamity made her remember that pleasure, telling her that such pleasure would become her weapon against fear.
Once they were tired of their insanity, they would together smash open the doors of luxury mansions, lying together on king-sized beds, imagining the past, present, and future of the mansion’s owner.
Sometimes, Calamity would leave before dawn and only return after sunset.
When she returned, Calamity would present captured urban legends or mutated humans to Ji Yunpei, teaching her step-by-step how to k*ll, helping her overcome her fears, like a beast returning from a hunt with half-dead prey to train its cubs’ hunting skills.
From beginning to barely being able to hold a weapon, gradually mustering the courage to fight urban legends, until she could expressionlessly wield a slaughter kn*fe…
Ji Yunpei gradually discovered that humans or urban legends were mostly quite fragile; she could easily k*ll them, and there was nothing to fear.
She also found that while healing was possible, creating slaughter was far simpler.
On an evening a dozen days later, Calamity didn’t bring back any urban legends, but said to Ji Yunpei, “It’s time.”
“Time for what?” Ji Yunpei asked.
“To understand everything!” Calamity looked out the window, “Haven’t you always wanted to end this disaster, to liberate those who have been corroded and turned into urban legends?”
“Let’s go! The time has come; we… shall exorcise them!”
That night, the number of urban legends that fell at Ji Yunpei’s hands exceeded one thousand.
And Calamity turned the remaining half of the city into ruins, submerged in raging flames…
———
Ha! Saying that the remaining half of the city had already been tainted and could not be saved, and the only way to completely sever the evil deity’s power of pollution was to destroy everything…
What a grand excuse! How could she possibly be that kind-hearted?
Though the forced demise of the one from the Peach Source was just an end result of half-pushed actions, which later became sensationalized with elements of distortion, it was undeniable that Calamity was indeed ruthless, the system thought.
Listening to the “local residents” suddenly appearing in the God Realm Yumen, recounting the tales of those two original priestesses from legend, the system unconsciously became lost in thought.
As if drawn by some force, the memories of yesterday slowly surfaced from the depths of its consciousness.
“Bang—!”
The wood in the bonfire suddenly cracked loudly, pulling the system’s focus back to the present; it shook its head, narrowing its eyes.
One thousand years ago, saving Yumen Pass, sparing the heavy-laden populace from being eroded and corrupted by the Shaman Queen, was truly a miraculous feat!
Though it didn’t know how that was achieved, from their descriptions, one of the original miracle priestesses should indeed be Calamity, right?
If that’s the case, it explains the origin of that portrait and why that eccentric had reacted so emotionally upon seeing it.
However, Calamity had surely done that to steal the power of the Miracle Flower, hadn’t she? She’s always been like that! the system thought.
Initially, it had believed Calamity would, as she stated, provide it a home; its relationship with Calamity and the other eight calamities was indeed like a family. It also believed that Calamity would help it seek revenge and jointly prevent disasters and tragedies.
Yet the reality proved that Calamity merely sought to steal those powers strong enough to trigger large-scale disasters, time and again, without change…
Everyone and every urban legend was merely a tool for Calamity to achieve her own ends.
Gu Qiqi’s attention was entirely focused on the tales of the local inhabitants of Yumen Pass, spellbound, completely unaware that the system’s presence quietly faded, as if it were about to vanish.
And the system, like her, was entangled in the past, oblivious to its own abnormalities…
———
“Wait, I think I understand, what you mean is, you joined an evil spirit energy organization, and they sent you to your city to rally the remnants from the previous disaster, hence you were being hunted?”
“So you’re saying you agreed to let the twin-tailed girl follow you not out of kindness or sympathy, but because she was originally one of your mission targets, right? And you let her, right after leaving that city, follow you to be hunted by the Siye Society, thus creating a sense of resistance towards the justice organization?”
Upon hearing the Proxy Player Sister’s reason for returning to the city, Luxianbei organized the information in his mind and came to this conclusion.
“……” The Proxy Player Sister did not refute Luxianbei’s words.
Because the twin-tailed girl was indeed one of her mission targets; otherwise, how could she have coincidentally appeared there?
Letting the twin-tailed girl, along with the members of the Solar Eclipse Society she brought out from Shancheng, be pursued by the Siye Society was indeed part of the plan.
She needed a suitable opportunity to cultivate a group of devoted followers.
As for the somewhat absurd things she did with the twin-tailed girl before destroying the entire city, it was merely training to help her conquer her weakness and fear.
It was often hard for someone to make a substantial leap from being timid and weak to becoming ruthless or indifferent, but if she could start with small acts of theft, causing destruction, or breaking into homes and gradually guide her, helping her release the darkness lurking in her soul, it would be much easier.
“With that, you even talked to her about dreams, revenge, and the future? Isn’t that pure fraud?” Luxianbei said.
“How could that be considered fraud?” the Proxy Player Sister retorted.
She could accept Luxianbei’s analysis up to that point, but she instinctively chose to defend herself on this particular matter.
“Tasks are tasks, but what I said to her isn’t entirely false; I genuinely intend to recruit her to do some things… Otherwise, why would I deceive her alone while helping others out?”
Having found other Solar Eclipse Society members, she directly sent them to the outskirts, yet she had spent quite some time alone with the twin-tailed girl, specifically training her precisely because the twin-tailed girl’s experiences reminded her of her own father, who had risked everything to send her out of the crash site.
She didn’t tell Luxianbei about this.
Not intentionally hiding it, but rather it suddenly came to her mind due to Luxianbei’s earlier comments about her deceiving the twin-tailed girl.
Luxianbei, “…”
Why did it feel like, “Why only pick on you and not others? Leaving aside the facts, don’t you have any fault yourself?”?
Only you would be able to put fraud in such a pompous manner, right?
Debating whether the Proxy Player Sister had cheated the twin-tailed girl was pointless. Collecting her thoughts quickly, Luxianbei shifted his perspective.
Although the Proxy Player Sister didn’t want to say it plainly, from her description, the calamity progeny that destroyed most of the city should be the offspring of the Haze God, meaning “that city” should indeed be Shancheng.
The evil organization should refer to the Solar Eclipse Society, right? Why would she…
With this thought, Luxianbei asked his lingering doubts, “Why did you join an evil organization? I was told it was because you are also a villain and had no other refuge.”
Why the Proxy Player Sister joined the Solar Eclipse Society, even rising to the level of possessing a counterfeit Black Sun Totem, intrigued her somewhat.
“It’s not entirely accurate to say I had no place to go.” The Proxy Player Sister shrugged, “I willingly joined primarily because I felt their leader is a decent person.”
“How should I put it? Setting aside other things, he is at least a good teacher.”
“Ah?” Luxianbei’s eyes widened.
She didn’t understand!
What’s so good about that man? Are you sure you’re talking about the same person?
A teacher, no less! What kind of a teacher is like a ghost, inexplicably appearing and disappearing around their students? Luxianbei thought.
Just as she was musing this, the Proxy Player Sister added, “Of course, there’s another reason; that is to help someone out a little.”
“An operative from my hometown’s justice organization,” the Proxy Player Sister explained, “Helping her gather a bit of intelligence, reducing casualties for the justice organization when necessary; she’d help me avoid some dangerous confrontations, uh… So it seems to be more of a transaction?”
But later, she went missing, only to reappear long after… the Proxy Player Sister thought to herself.
Luxianbei, “…” An operative from the Huacheng Siye Society? Is it a leader or Water Brother? It definitely can’t be Li Xuan, right?
Before Luxianbei could figure out the answer, the Proxy Player Sister continued recounting her story with the twin-tailed girl.
“After leaving that city, my followers, the twin-tailed girl, and I traveled to many places: Z Country, America, Europe, the North and South Poles… under the guise of helping the evil organization complete tasks, we eradicated those urban legends capable of causing destruction.”
She suddenly accelerated her storytelling, omitting a lot of details.
As she continuously shared about the twin-tailed girl, she realized her memories of the girl were gradually becoming clearer, which made her feel an unsettling premonition.
If she continued to recall, when she fully remembered all the events involving the twin-tailed girl, the twin-tailed girl she had personally banished from the world might…
Return to her side?
If it were exactly as Luxianbei glimpsed, that she had worked so hard, traveled so far, only to suddenly return to the very beginning, she would certainly be in great despair, the Proxy Player Sister thought.
