Free Web NovelThe heavy impact with the ground caused Lu Yibei's vision to black out and see stars.
Immediately after, before she could recover and see the changes in front of her, the two arms the Mad Old Man had grown climbed onto her body.
Her shoulders were locked, making it hard to breathe from tension. Lu Yibei felt a chill coming from her shoulders, and a huge force felt like it was about to crush her shoulder blades.
Amidst the chilling sounds of tearing skin and dislocated bones, a strong stench assailed her.
Lu Yibei looked up and saw the Mad Old Man's completely twisted and abnormal face. A dozen or so murky eyes were scattered across his face, carrying a hint of malice. His pale eyeballs twitched in their sockets, a grinding sound constantly came from his mouth, and he bared his teeth, squeezing out a strange, cold laugh from his bleeding gums.
"Hehe—!"
His chest and abdominal cavities were completely open, split in two as if dissected, and various organs were displayed before Lu Yibei without reservation.
In the gaps between those organs, large amounts of dark red flesh wriggled, constantly changing shapes, as if they were not part of the Mad Old Man's body, but some kind of parasitic life. They even bit and tore at each other.
Foul-smelling fluids splattered everywhere, on the ground, on the weeds, and the fluids that splashed onto Lu Yibei seemed to undergo some unknown chemical reaction, immediately making crackling sounds.
She had never felt so close to death.
Everyone reacts differently when they feel death approaching. Some fall silent, some scream hysterically, and some chatter incessantly.
In her desperation, Lu Yibei's mouth seemed to lose control, and she began to chatter.
"I, I understand, you want to be friends with me, right? The kind of friends who are completely open, loyal, and hold nothing back, right... Ah—!"
Before her words were finished, the arms the Mad Old Man had grown suddenly exerted force. With a crisp 'crack', her face instantly turned pale, and beads of sweat visibly appeared on her forehead.
Her right shoulder, whether dislocated or shattered, sent intense pain through her, making Lu Yibei almost faint on the spot.
Under the immense pressure of death, she made a final attempt. As if possessed, she looked at the Mad Old Man and shouted, "Look into my eyes!"
In this situation, believing she possessed the abilities from her dream memories, she was clearly grasping at straws.
However...
Perhaps it was Lu Yibei's shout that caught the Mad Old Man's attention, for the eyeballs on his face actually turned in unison to look into Lu Yibei's eyes.
Thus, a crimson glow flashed within those eyes.
The figure of the youth before him suddenly blurred, and in a trance, it overlapped with the figure of a silver-haired girl.
Staring at the girl's eyes, which were like delicate roses blooming in the deep night, filled with endless temptation, the Mad Old Man's body instantly seemed to turn to stone, freezing in place.
Noticing that the force of the Mad Old Man's arms on her shoulders had significantly lessened, Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment, then gritted her teeth, endured the intense pain in her shoulder, and struggled to break free.
The moment she got up, she saw the iron rod and toilet plunger that had flown and landed nearby. She hesitated for about a second, tilted her head, walked over, picked them both up, and gripped them tightly in her left hand.
She didn't know why she hesitated. Who said you couldn't dual-wield with one hand?
When you don't know which weapon is more effective, wouldn't it be better to just take both?
Lu Yibei scoffed at herself inwardly, raised the toilet plunger and iron rod in her hands, a fierce look appearing in her eyes, and then brought both down together with force towards the Mad Old Man's head.
"Bang—Bang—Bang—!"
With three consecutive heavy blows, accompanied by dull thuds, the Mad Old Man's head tilted, and he fell to the ground along with his abnormally twisted body.
But...
The dark red flesh inside his body, however, was still wriggling, struggling to surge out of his body.
Seeing this, Lu Yibei's gaze sharpened slightly. Gripping the iron rod and toilet plunger, she stepped forward and swung them down expressionlessly.
What surprised her was that when she swung the iron rod and toilet plunger, their trajectories carried a graceful flow, like the exquisite sword techniques in stories.
"Screech—!"
The dark red flesh had no vocal organs, yet they let out a scream the moment the toilet plunger and iron rod struck.
Thus, a screeching sound, as if thousands of bats were attacking simultaneously, echoed above the Half-Mountain Apartment.
The next moment, the dark red flesh, along with the Mad Old Man's body, suddenly exploded, turning into a pool of foul-smelling pus and blood...
Half an hour later.
In an old model sedan driving towards the center of Hua City.
Su Mi held the steering wheel and tilted his head towards Lu Yibei, "So, the abnormal thing you encountered was a crazy, senile homeless man?"
"Yeah, I even fought with him," Lu Yibei said expressionlessly.
"Holy crap! You didn't injure him, did you?"
Injured him? He exploded into a pool of blood, couldn't even find a piece of flesh... Lu Yibei rolled her eyes at Su Mi, "At a time like this, shouldn't you be concerned about whether he injured me first?"
"Well..." Su Mi opened his mouth and chuckled, "Isn't it that I'm worried you injured him and he'll extort you?"
"So, are you injured?"
"Probably... not," Lu Yibei replied calmly, subtly glancing at her own shoulder out of the corner of her eye.
She was certain that her shoulder had been seriously injured when she was attacked by the Mad Old Man. However, when she received Su Mi's anxious call and rushed from the apartment complex halfway up the mountain to the foot of the mountain, less than ten minutes had passed, and her injury had already healed.
It was as if she had suddenly gained some kind of rapid regeneration superpower.
"Probably?" Su Mi frowned and looked at Lu Yibei, "Don't you know if you're injured or not? Should I take you to the hospital for a check-up?"
Lu Yibei shrugged, "Probably means there are no visible injuries on the surface."
"But what if that Old man was a hidden master and left me with an internal injury that would kill me in three days?"
Su Mi, "...". She can still talk trash like this, looks like she's not seriously injured.
"Oh right, there's one more thing."
"What?" Su Mi pursed his lips.
"Xiao Mi, look into my eyes," Lu Yibei said seriously.
Su Mi slowed down the car and turned his head to look at Lu Yibei.
Their gazes met...
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Nothing happened, except the atmosphere gradually became strange.
"I looked, and then?" Su Mi asked, puzzled.
"Nothing..." Lu Yibei said calmly.
----
Su Mi drove Lu Yibei to the center of Hua City, originally planning to have dinner with Lu Yibei.
But Lu Yibei was eager to go home and study the notebook found at the Half-Mountain Apartment, so she declined Su Mi's invitation.
And conveniently avoided paying the bill.
Helplessly, Su Mi repeatedly and earnestly instructed Lu Yibei not to court death anymore, then drove her back home. free𝑤ebnovel.com
Back home.
Lu Yibei didn't bother checking the injury on her shoulder or studying why it recovered so quickly. Impatiently, she took out the notebook from her backpack.
Holding the notebook, she quickly rushed into the bedroom, as if she was going to enjoy some "study material" alone. She locked the door behind her, then pounced on the desk and opened the notebook.
Soon, she made a discovery.
【Some people are real, some are fake...】
This passage was written around page twenty-five of the notebook.
What does that mean? How can people be real or fake? Lu Yibei frowned and continued flipping through, feeling she would find the answer she wanted later on.
【Too many people have been taken recently. ■■ is right, we should ■■■】
Around page fifty of the notebook, Lu Yibei saw this passage. Key information was written and then blacked out, as if the writer was afraid of being discovered.
What could it mean?
"We should"?
Were they planning to do something?
Lu Yibei frowned and patiently flipped through dozens, even hundreds, of pages further, but no similar text appeared again.
"Rustle—Rustle—!"
Nothing more?
Looking at it this ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) way, could the blacked-out words mean something like "hide," "suspend activities," or "go underground"?
Lu Yibei pondered, quickly flipping through the notebook, trying to find other information. Finally, after nearly a hundred pages, she discovered new information. Looking at these words, her body couldn't help but tremble.
【The method to leave has been found. As long as the attempt is successful, everyone can leave!】
The handwriting of this passage was a bit messy, and the strokes were heavy. Just looking at the words, one could feel how excited the person who wrote this passage was at the time.
Even Lu Yibei felt as if she was affected by the power contained within those words, subtly feeling a sense of surging excitement.
Although she didn't find members of the Xunzhen Mutual Aid Society, nor did she coincidentally find Gu Qianqian's home, what this notebook subtly revealed was exactly what she was looking for. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
She took two deep breaths, suppressed her excitement, and continued flipping through. Soon, she reached the end of the notebook.
At the end, notes were scribbled, writing, 【We, failed.】
After that, there was no more text.
Just five short words, yet they conveyed a deep sense of despair.
Instantly, a strong sense of oppression settled upon Lu Yibei, a discomfort so profound it was hard to describe, making one subconsciously unwilling to look directly at it or approach it.
After seeing the abnormal sights in the Half-Mountain Apartment, she could vaguely guess something.
Those who lived in the Half-Mountain Apartment must have once made some attempt for the freedom they sought. Unfortunately, they failed, bringing about some kind of disaster, and thus could only flee in a hurry, not even bothering to take their pets.
Perhaps the accident more than ten years ago was triggered by their attempt.
But what exactly did they do? Were they trying to send someone, or some people, to that so-called "real world"?
Lu Yibei thought, her mood heavy, and closed the notebook, looking out the window.
It was already evening, and a sudden autumn rain began to fall outside the window, the raindrops hitting the glass with crackling sounds.
Lu Yibei gazed out at the world being washed by the rain, lost in thought for a long time, imagining a group of people, just like herself now, who had also dreamt of another Hua City, gained a segment of memory that wasn't originally there, and met a few important people, thus beginning to doubt the reality of this world.
For the sake of the extra memories and those important people, they had once united and worked hard, but in the end, they paid a heavy price.
Time passed in imagination, and the sky unknowingly darkened.
The moment the sky completely darkened, the intense pain originating from within her body, which had appeared last evening, descended once again.
An indescribable pain appeared without warning, causing Lu Yibei's body to convulse and fall from the chair onto the floor.
The blood in her body was boiling, surging within her with astonishing heat.
Lu Yibei felt that at this moment, she was no longer human, but had transformed into a steam engine, constantly emitting large amounts of white mist.
The hot current surged through her body in a cycle, quickly rushing into her heart and colliding with the cold aura brewing within her chest.
Lu Yibei felt her body had once again turned into that arena without any rules, where the two forces of cold and heat fought each other within her body, stopping at nothing.
As if they didn't care about the life or death of the Master of this body at all.
However, as the pain gradually intensified, an extremely rebellious thought suddenly popped into Lu Yibei's mind—what would happen if I didn't murmur those two strange descriptions like yesterday?
In my dream memories, I seem to do this often? Lu Yibei thought.
In the afternoon, using the abilities from her dream memories, she successfully counter-killed the Mad Old Man, making her believe in everything from her dream memories a little more.
Since, in the dream memories, not stopping this painful process wouldn't be life-threatening, why not give it a try?
Lu Yibei thought, gritted her teeth tightly, and didn't let out any sound from her mouth.
Thus, under the increasingly intense pain, a segment of memory forcefully surged into her mind, as if tearing her head apart, causing her head to ache intensely, and her vision went black as she lost consciousness.
