Chapter 128: Professional Alignment
After You Shi, Liu Sheng circled a few times and finally found Song Ru's residence.
Knocking on the main door, she soon heard someone coming to open it.
The door cracked open, and Song Ru nervously poked her head out.
"Come in quickly."
Liu Sheng stepped over the threshold and saw Song Ru standing hesitantly, like a startled quail.
"I feel her personality has changed somewhat."
"It should be said that it has always been changing."
"But what remains unchanged is her fear."
"What exactly is wrong?" Liu Sheng's tone was gentle and calm, and Song Ru felt some of the turmoil in her heart settle upon hearing it.
"I…" Song Ru pursed her lips, looking down and fiddling with her pink, adorable, petal-like fingernails.
"Come with me, perhaps seeing it for yourself will be better."
Liu Sheng didn't know what Song Ru was hinting at, but she followed her as instructed.
Song Ru led Liu Sheng all the way to the backyard.
The closer she got, the more clearly Liu Sheng could smell a strong stench of decay.
"Friends who often kill people know this should be the smell of a corpse."
But Song Ru seemed oblivious, leading Liu Sheng through the small door between the backyard and the front yard.
The stench immediately assailed her, forcefully rushing into her nostrils, then to her lungs, churning Liu Sheng's stomach.
Yet Song Ru showed no reaction, seemingly accustomed to the smell.
Then, Song Ru led her to the well and looked at Liu Sheng anxiously, biting her lip.
"She's not going to ask me to lean in, is she?"
"And then push me down, saying, 'Hehe, you fell for it.'"
"Good thing we have other eyes."
Liu Sheng extended Little Tentacle, its tip a round, adorable eyeball, and looked down from the well's edge.
Song Ru was not surprised by this; She Chan had used such methods many times in the Weird Domain.
She simply waited nervously for Liu Sheng's reaction.
It was very dark at the bottom of the well, but Liu Sheng could still clearly see layers upon layers of corpses inside.
In the narrow well bottom, limbs were twisted, bodies folded, all crammed together.
Because the heads were not fixed in position, Liu Sheng could only see the faces that were tilted upwards.
Every single one of those faces looked exactly like Song Ru's.
"So you now occasionally find other versions of yourself appearing in the same space?"
"Mm… it should be that 'I' will inexplicably appear in a certain place, and then another 'I' will come looking for me."
"Once found, it's a fight to the death."
Song Ru shuddered, recalling each life-and-death struggle.
Because her strength was not much different from her own, fighting was quite an effort, so sometimes she had to use some combat strategies, such as hiding to ambush, backstabbing, and so on.
However, it was fortunate that she was always slightly stronger than the 'Song Ru' who was searching around, so she often narrowly won in the end.
"When did this start?" Liu Sheng was also a little puzzled.
"Mm… it started in the Weird Domain," Song Ru admitted frankly.
"When I first arrived at Cosmic Village and was living in the Starry Sky House, you all went out, and I… was alone in the house… then I suddenly changed positions. I found myself sitting in front of another person, whose clothes were very similar to mine, but it made me very afraid."
"So I killed her. Because she was facing away from me, it was easy to strike."
"When she fell, her face was revealed, and only then did I realize it was me, or rather, another me."
Song Ru sat by the well, trembling with her face in her hands.
"So you didn't say anything at the time?"
"If you encountered something like this, would you dare to speak up?" Song Ru looked up at Liu Sheng dejectedly, "Killing yourself, a self no different from a normal person."
"If it were killing weird objects, I wouldn't be afraid. But look at these mes," she pointed to the well, "I can't tell the difference between them and people. I've also checked, and they're not weird objects; there's no Guai Qi."
"Indeed, there's no Guai Qi at all."
Little Tentacle also nodded.
"In that case, wouldn't I be… committing murder?" Song Ru was extremely scared, her smooth nails bitten until they bled.
Liu Sheng frowned: "Then why tell me?"
Song Ru gave a bitter smile: "Because I don't know how to deal with these bodies."
"They're piling up, starting to stink. Given enough time, someone will eventually find them."
"Then I won't be able to participate in the imperial examinations, and I can't allow that." Song Ru shook her head, "I have no other path. My parents have invested so much in me, hoping I can pass the imperial examination and bring honor to them within our clan."
"I… don't have much experience dealing with corpses either." A cold sweat dripped from Liu Sheng's forehead.
"No, no, no." Song Ru quickly explained, "I was thinking, since you're so smart, could you help me figure out what's happening to me? Can you stop this painful torment of having to kill myself every day?"
"It's not difficult, it's a professional alignment."
"Human or weird, let's analyze it."
"World, step forth!"
With that embarrassing line, a purple light array appeared in Liu Sheng's hand and was directly thrown onto Song Ru's head.
Subsequently, a light screen, visible only to Liu Sheng, appeared before her eyes.
——
"Name: Song Ru (Iterated Version 19)"
"Analysis Completion: 100%"
"Effect Description: Challenge yourself, endlessly! A weak me is not worthy of living."
"Influence Rank: D"
"Analysis Evaluation: The benefit is stable growth in strength; the drawback is the need for a very, very large basement."
——
"What exactly is this?"
Liu Sheng asked the World; this was the first time she had seen such an existence.
"In the Weird Domain, her potential was stimulated by Guai Qi and rules, becoming a human with special abilities."
"She can both use a certain weird rule and cultivate, a very special existence."
Liu Sheng fell into thought.
"That's not right. The Supreme God and the weird should be opposing existences. Cultivation means being able to form some kind of sacred connection with the Supreme God. If a person completely degenerates into a weird object, this connection should disappear."
"Yes, so she is not a weird object, but she is no longer a pure cultivator either, nor is she a Yugui."
The World's cold voice responded.
"Does that mean the opposing relationship between the Supreme God and the weird is beginning to change?"
"It is an obvious fact that the Supreme God's power to resist the weird is weakening, which is why there have been more and more weird incidents recently."
Liu Sheng looked up at the sky. The setting sun's afterglow shone down through the Supreme God's porcelain-white face, dyeing the clouds in the sky crimson. This red spread downwards, enveloping the entire small courtyard here, and even the entire Qinghe beyond the courtyard.
Song Ru's face was also a hesitant, blood-red color as she looked up, praying to the Supreme God, murmuring something.
Liu Sheng felt something; the Supreme God's eyelids lifted, and its gaze fell upon this place.
Perhaps, it wasn't that the Supreme God's power was weakening.
Rather, the Supreme God and the weird had reached some kind of cooperation.