Free Web NovelChapter 348: Chapter 152: Conquering the Evil Fallen Master and Disciple
Yes, the actor Bai Wu did not show a look of terror. (Important hint: Please click to open this Chapter:)
He even felt like laughing, so the scene in the night suddenly lost its eerie atmosphere.
"Before you start your performance, I need you to understand something. These things around you are quite intimidating, but they cannot scare me. Moreover, they don’t possess much combat power. It seems that these people must have once broken into your room, trying to harm or rob you. However, in the end, they all became puppets."
Bai Wu said:
"I didn’t find you the first time I came here. Obviously, you have the ability to hide, and I lack information on you. Even with belief, I can’t trigger it, just as I believe there is a monster above my head, but the spooky tale that should make me look up never appears."
"But now it’s different. I know your full appearance. The rules of ’belief exists’ prevent you from hiding from me. You appeared later than the first two supernatural tales, and I did have some expectations for you, but it turns out even laughter can affect you."
The puppet in the darkness actually felt a trace of fear, the aura emanating from this human posed a danger to it.
"You... are... who...?"
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Its voice was very mechanical. Bai Wu thought to himself that this place, if not used for a prison staff rest area, would make a pretty good haunted house.
"My name is Bai Wu, a Supernatural Tale Remover. I have already dealt with two supernatural tales."
As he said this, Bai Wu took out the skin sewn onto the face of the Elevator Murderer supernatural tale and the hair and broken wrist stained with the Long-haired Trafficker women supernatural tale.
Seeing this scene, all the corpse puppets froze and stopped making terrifying moves.
Bai Wu continued:
"You can try to fight me, but you’d better weigh whether you are stronger than the previous two supernatural tales."
The puppet did not speak; it was indeed weighing its options.
"All I can tell you is that you have been in this apartment for seven hundred years, you’ve never seen the outside world, the waters are deep out there, and you can’t handle it."
He put away the two distinctive features of the supernatural tales and, in turn, took out an axe. Even in the darkness, this outfit made the supernatural tale puppet feel the fear of life and death.
The moment it saw the axe, the puppet stopped weighing.
The television screen no longer displayed a signal-less snowstorm but broadcasted a bizarre program.
A magical reality from seven hundred years ago began to unfold before Bai Wu’s eyes.
The first image was Bai Wu watching television.
Outside the television, Bai Wu was watching the television, and Bai Wu inside the television was also watching television. Thankfully, it did not repeat infinitely like two mirrors facing each other. Inside the television within the television, the content was of a woman watching television.
And on the television screen the woman was looking at, there was a man watching television.
The television told of a woman who thought of a man, so the man appeared on the television the woman watched.
This man thought of another woman, so on the man’s television screen, another woman appeared.
The other woman also thought of this man, so on the television screen she watched, this man appeared. She hoped the man would do some evil deeds.
So the man displayed an evil smile.
Clearly, the television could express people’s thoughts in an abstract way.
This ability wasn’t bad. Although it was irrelevant to combat, it was better for gathering intelligence than having an eye that only spoke half-truths.
However, Bai Wu wasn’t sure whether this ability would change once it was on him.
"Your mistress married a man, and as the manager of this apartment and the longest resident here, she was essentially in charge of this temporary end-of-the-world shelter."
"She liked this man in her heart, and the two lived together, but the man was unfaithful and liked another woman. Let’s call her the ’mistress’ for now. The mistress may have truly liked the man, or she might have coveted a place to live. In any case, she hoped the man would drive your mistress out."
The "television" responded to Bai Wu in an alternative way.
The man grabbed the woman by the head and smashed her into the television, shattering the screen completely.
And at this moment, something eerie happened.
The man tried to drag the woman out but found he couldn’t move her. The television seemed only so large, but suddenly it gave the man the impression of an abyssal depth...
Driven by some unfathomable force, he chose not to drag the woman out but instead pushed her in.
An adult’s corpse was thus concealed inside the television, and then he repaired the TV screen, making everything look... perfectly normal.
He was also astonishingly nonchalant... about not feeling any incongruity.
Of course, the man died not long after.
In the watcher’s eyes, it looked as though the man had put the woman into the television. So the watcher wondered... didn’t he find the smell overpowering?
However, different strategies for different targets, fulfilling different needs for different clients, speaking humanly to humans, and ghostly to ghosts was his standard practice as an honest man.
Can you see inside the world, and can you still see outside of it?
"You’ve possessed a body, but you’ve also become Evil Fallen... that’s illogical. So it appears you must be united with the mistress inside you... well, the two of you are one."
"I admit I am indeed asking for your help, but the future is limitless. Do you plan to stay in this place forever? Did you hear the laughter outside? Such laughter has the same effect on you. Rather than being consumed by it, you might as well come with me."
Bai Wu seemed very sincere, pulling out that old spiel again:
"I will help you resolve the other five supernatural tales. A lot of people died in this apartment at your hands, but they must’ve had some commonality, right?"
"There are no more tenants in the apartment, why not come with me to take a look outside? There are plenty of lousy men out there, and I, for one, despise them intensely."
For seven hundred years, several supernatural tales had been calculating and avoiding each other, but with no tenants, everything came to a halt. It was hard enough to get a tenant, and yet
Throughout the entire eighth floor, Bai Wu found no useful clues. When he reached the ninth floor, he saw a red door again.
The door was still ajar.
[While a thorough search may sometimes seem foolish, it must be admitted that when the scope is not large, it can indeed be very effective. There are many supernatural tales in this building, and the strange occurrences are countless. But even among the standout six supernatural tales, the events happening within the rooms are outrageous. You’ve guessed what it is, haven’t you?]
Bai Wu indeed guessed the answer to the riddle given in the note.
"It seems, then, that the Peeping Tom is merely a strange occurrence, not yet at the level of a supernatural tale?"
The room was filled with many old props, which gave Bai Wu a nostalgic feeling of his childhood. Especially that vintage CRT television gave off an era-specific vibe.
This room was the one of the haunted television tales, and because of the sole presence of the TV set, it stood out eerily. Bai Wu, looking at this television, actually felt as if he were staring at some sort of enormous embryo.
He had originally thought that the Peeping Tom and the Evil Fallen "I’m watching you" had a certain connection. It was only now that he discovered... the Peeping Tom was just a minor character.
In the pitch darkness, he fixed his gaze on the TV and said:
"The Peeping Tom on the seventh floor, you must have been eaten by it, right?"
"It’s somewhat ironic; he spied on everyone, yet he didn’t realize that someone in the television was always spying on him."
The darkness was suddenly torn open by a light, and the completely dark room saw the television abruptly turn on.
The remark given by the eyes was strange—
[There’s no need for any explanation from me this time, just enjoy the program.] freeweɓnøvel.com
As the apocalypse descended, many professions vanished, and the great catastrophe chewed away at human civilization.
Although the seeds of heritage managed to be preserved in the High Tower, the harsh living conditions, as well as the large number of people blocked outside the High Tower, meant many aspects of civilization people knew no longer existed.
Whether it was the essence passed down from ancient ancestors or their dregs, all of it had been wiped clean.
The High Tower indeed ushered in a new era; the comings and goings of people, under its own technology and the education they had received, allowed this new civilization to avoid many detours.
Even able-bodied individuals could hardly survive in such an environment, let alone a blind man?
No one knew exactly what had happened in the end; in this strange apartment building, many people disappeared mysteriously, many died without cause.
And yet, this blind man managed to live quite well, nobody knew how he managed to scrounge up so much food from outside.
The Peeping Tom once thought of stealing this food, but he didn’t act; instead, he leaked the information.
So that day, someone came to steal the food.
The blind man always left his door unlocked, as if he himself didn’t know he had hoarded so much food, which to others was already a fatal temptation.
Only, the Peeping Tom never knew what happened to those people afterward. Whenever someone entered the blind man’s room, they never came out again, and all these images were black.
...
...
Seven hundred years later, the room welcomed another intruder.
The puppet’s neck rotated two hundred seventy degrees, its body rigidly twisted, and from the darkness came cracking sounds like bones being set right.
The lifeless puppet slowly came to life.
And it was not just that; those "limbs" hidden in boxes, under the bed, in the bathroom, also began to move one by one.
They crawled like worms, those puppet limbs that were unremarkable at first glance during the initial peeping now came to life dripping with fresh blood...
The intruder finally realized that these limbs were human limbs! They had lain quietly in the room previously, looking like the remains of puppet limbs.
But at this moment, in the night, they revealed their true form and started to slowly assemble with the odor of decay.
The person who stitched them together had long forgotten their original forms, a muscular man’s head and body attached to the limbs of a child.
A middle-aged woman’s head placed upon the body of a young man...
They’d all become beings of half desire and half Evil Fallen, their greatest wish to be able to drive the other five Supernatural Tales away.
Seeing someone capable of defeating the Supernatural Tales downstairs, the Living Puppet of course did not dare to confront them directly. It even had a request, so it continued in a mechanically stiff tone:
"I... am... not...like...them..."
"Stop, you can’t speed up reality, your speech is too slow, since you can control corpses, you should be able to control their speech too."
These corpses were haphazardly put together, looking severely discordant, but Bai Wu wasn’t wrong—the Living Puppet’s entry was Puppeteer’s Connective Heart, a type of absolute control.
A child with a bun hairstyle but the body of a muscular man, resembling a corporeal Nezha, suddenly spoke:
"I’m different from the others. I have harmed no one."
"So many corpses, all patched up messily by you, and you’re telling me you’ve harmed no one?"
Bai Wu acted as if he was immediately going to punish the other party, which prompted the Living Puppet to urgently control another female corpse, which looked harmonious despite its feet being fitted where its hands should be, and its hands where its feet should be.
"To rob food was the same as murder seven hundred years ago, they wanted to kill me, so I turned them into puppets... It was reasonable. I was just protecting myself... while they... were driven by grudges."
Bai Wu didn’t dispute this statement much; even if he were to act as a judge, seven hundred years was well beyond the statute of limitations. Furthermore, the details of right and wrong from seven centuries past held no relevance now.
Having seen both good and bad Evil Fallen outside the tower, whether they were useful to him, or whether he could share mutual benefits in the future, were the significant criteria that decided whether Bai Wu would let someone live or die.
"What you’re saying does make some sense; compared to the two Supernatural Tales I dealt with, your actions are relatively mild. How about this, I won’t kill you, I know you want to drive them away, I can even help you achieve this."
The Living Puppet wasn’t foolish and knew Bai Wu must have some demands:
"What do I need to do?" freewebnøvel.coɱ
"I have a bit of OCD and like collecting things from my dead prey. Even though I won’t kill you, I still need to collect something representative from you, so it will count as if I’ve already killed you. This is special treatment you shouldn’t take for granted— after all, the other few Supernatural Tales didn’t receive such an offer."
You’re not like those five flamboyant cheap goods; you’re the most special one here in my eyes.
Bai Wu’s thought process might have been a bit tricky, but in the situation where the six Supernatural Tales operated independently, this move was very effective.
In the end, Bai Wu took away a head. The head of the Living Puppet. Just like a mummy, the Living Puppet Supernatural Tale possessed an entry akin to Weakness Transfer. Its limbs could be detached at will as long as its vulnerability remained hidden.
Half of the six Supernatural Tales were resolved, and darkness completely enveloped the sky.
Bai Wu began ascending to the higher floors, certain now that these six Supernatural Tales, due to special rules, had become Evil Fallen with unique constitutions, which upon meeting certain conditions, could become an inherent power attached to themselves.
An elevator assassin, a human trafficker witch, and the Living Puppet—Bai Wu was quite looking forward to whatever powers these three Supernatural Tales would bring. Surely they would also relate to their inherent abilities.
This world still held powers beyond sequences and entries.
Even now, Bai Wu remained convinced that the creator of High Tower encouraged people to venture beyond it. He still regarded the world outside the tower as a treasure trove.
By continuously venturing out of the tower to explore, one could find various powers to arm oneself.
The ninth floor of the apartment building.
