Chapter 52 Picking up flowers in the morning and evening 22

dark.

This was Geto's first feeling upon regaining consciousness. A thick, solidified darkness enveloped every inch of his skin like tar, making even breathing difficult. He tried to open his eyes, but found his eyelids heavy, as if they had been sewn shut.

Memory fragments began to flash back:

Gojo Satoru's hands, which had always been as steady as a rock, were now shaking uncontrollably.

The slender knuckles tightly gripped Geto Suguru's wrist bone, the fingertips turned white due to excessive force, and even the gray silk thread connecting the two of them was vibrating slightly.

Geto Suguru's vision blurred for a moment, and he vaguely saw liquid dripping onto his robes, but he couldn't tell whether it was rain or something else.

"At least......"

His best friend's voice seemed to come from far away, and each syllable carried a vibrance he had never heard before. Xia Yujie wanted to look up to see the other person's expression, but found that his neck was heavy as if filled with lead.

His gaze moved down uncontrollably—the hem of his robe was rapidly dyed dark red.

He felt a strange emptiness in his abdomen, and he slowly realized that there should have been warm internal organs there, but now there was only a horrible depression.

Blood gushed out like a punctured water bag, and a growing red spider lily bloomed on the snow-white cursed yukata.

How strange.

He thought vaguely.

It should be painful, but why do I only feel biting cold?

He could "feel" the stripping.

Not pain, but a deeper, more uncomfortable sense of "loss."

The end of the dark red mesentery was still adhered to broken fat and tiny blood vessels. Every weak, almost imperceptible twitch brought down a bit of adhered tissue debris.

It is like a root that has been forcibly pulled out, carrying reluctance and sticky plasma, slowly and irreversibly separating from the soil on which it depends for survival.

The warm blood no longer gushed out, but instead slid down this "umbilical cord", forming a sticky, slowly flowing blood line, dripping onto the ground beneath him, making a dull "tap...tap..." sound.

This feeling... like life itself was being ripped from his body... A sense of emptiness deeper than the pain gripped him. He 'watched' the bond that symbolized his life connection end in the most filthy and slowest way possible, through the fatal wound he had inflicted.

"Am I...going to die?"

The moment this thought came to mind, something cold suddenly wrapped around his wrist.

Geto Xia Yu's eyes snapped open, and what came into view was a white, enclosed space with no distinction between top and bottom. He was curled up in the center of this empty space, surrounded by nothing but the glaring white.

"Is this the inner space of the Prison Gate?" He murmured softly, looking down at his intact body.

There was neither blood nor tears on the robe, as if the previous fight was just an illusion.

What was even more strange was that he felt the flow of mana in his body was unusually active, even more turbulent than in its heyday.

He slowly stood up, feeling nothing beneath his feet, as if he were stepping on nothingness. He reached out to touch his surroundings, but the air felt like a solid wall, hard and cold.

"Heh...how ironic." Geto Xia Yu curled the corners of his mouth, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

"I have tried so hard, but instead of finding peace, I have become a bird in a cage that I have imprisoned myself."

He tried to mobilize his cursed power, and a ball of black mist-like energy condensed at his fingertips. However, when he wanted to release the spell further, the space around him suddenly distorted, and an invisible force forcibly suppressed his cursed power.

"Sure enough... it's not that simple." He withdrew his hand, his eyes cold.

Just then, a faint sound came from the distance, like something moving.

Geto Suguru looked up alertly, and at the end of his sight, the ground in the white space slowly bulged, forming a vague human outline.

The mass of white matter gradually took shape into clear limbs, a torso, and finally - a face that he was very familiar with.

"Enlightenment?" His pupils shrank slightly and his voice was low.

The "Gojo Satoru" opposite him tilted his head, with a strange arc at the corner of his mouth: "Jie, long time no see."

Geto Xiayou narrowed his eyes, and the cursed energy gathered in his palm: "You are not him."

Gojo Satoru chuckled and slowly approached. "Who knows? Perhaps I'm just a shadow in your memory, or perhaps it's the curse of the Prison Gate... Or perhaps, I'm really here with you?"

Geto Xia Yu did not answer, but just stared at the other person coldly.

"Don't be so nervous," the other person said frivolously, spreading his hands. "You can't get out anyway, so why not talk to me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Like... do you regret it?"

Geto Suguru's fingertips tightened slightly.

"What do you regret? Regret not being able to kill all the non-magicians? Or regret... not dying at Wu's hands in the end?"

Gojo Satoru's smile widened, but his eyes were cold: "You clearly had the opportunity to escape, why did you force him to do it?"

The air seemed to freeze for a moment.

Xia Yujie was silent for a moment, then suddenly chuckled, "Escape? I've already lost my way."

He raised his eyes, his gaze sharp, "But you, pretending to be him, what are you trying to test?"

The other party did not answer, but slowly raised his hand and gently touched Geto Suguru's chest with his fingertips.

"Is your heart... still beating?"

Geto Suguru stepped back suddenly, but the other party was faster. The moment his fingertips touched his chest, a cold touch pierced his heart.

He groaned, and the scene before his eyes suddenly distorted. The white space shattered like glass, and was replaced by a scarlet blood color.

Countless twisted faces emerged from the sea of blood, roaring, wailing, and reaching out to him. Those were all the people he had killed, but now they seemed to have broken free from their restraints, frantically tearing at his soul.

"Is this... an illusion?" He gritted his teeth to resist the severe pain and tried to regain control of his magic power, but the energy in his body seemed to be pulled by some force and was continuously lost.

"Jie." A familiar voice sounded in my ears.

He turned around suddenly, and in the blood-red depths, the real Gojo Satoru stood quietly, his pale blue eyes staring at him, with unfathomable complex emotions in his eyes.

"Satoru...?" He subconsciously stretched out his hand, but the moment he touched the other party, Gojo Satoru's figure disappeared like smoke.

"You can't escape." A low voice echoed in the space, and it was hard to tell whether it was an illusion or reality.

Geto Xia Yu knelt on one knee, gasping for breath and raising his head. The blood color around him gradually faded away, and the white space returned to its original state.

And the fake "Gojo Satoru" was still standing not far away, with a playful smile on his face.

"It seems... your inner demons are more interesting than I thought."

Xia Yujie slowly stood up, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and looked at him coldly: "What do you want to do?"

The other party did not answer directly, but turned and walked away, his voice vague: "The prison gate has never only imprisoned the body... but also the soul."

As soon as the words fell, the white space shook again, and countless cracks appeared on the ground, and a dark abyss spread out from it.

Geto Suguru steadied himself and looked down—beneath the abyss, countless pairs of eyes were staring at him.

"Welcome to...your hell."