Chapter 16: Rewards and Bishop D's Dream Anomaly, Monster Rampage, Observation...

The moment Shen Xijing uttered the last prayer, a burst of purple light erupted, and a shrill, resentful shriek suddenly exploded, only to be ejected from the mental space by the purple figure in the next second.

"Praise be to the Lord who listens! Let me formally introduce myself. I am a missionary of the Lord, and you may call me Bishop D."

“You are still in the probationary period and are temporarily under my jurisdiction. If you need anything, you can recite the Lord’s prayer and then add ‘I’m looking for Bishop D’ at the end. The Lord won’t mind.”

Bye-bye~

The frenzied purple figure disappeared only after bidding her farewell. Shen Xijing blankly replied with a "goodbye," feeling her already insufficient brain cells becoming even more strained.

How could there be an evil god that demands sacrifices of worthless money from believers? And how could there be a bishop so disrespectful to God, bluntly stating that "the Lord doesn't care"? How did she end up encountering all these things?!

Shen Xijing's mind was spinning. Several seconds after the chaotic purple light disappeared, she barely regained control of her body and struggled to open her eyes, her vision clearing from blurry to sharp.

"Little Cat Sister..."

The girl, with a serious expression, pressed down on Shen Xijing, who was struggling to get up. She nodded at Wenren Qiu before speaking: "You just lost consciousness for almost thirty seconds; what happened? Don't describe it, just summarize what happened to you."

She knew this was a necessary procedure, but Shen Xijing was momentarily at a loss for words. Wouldn't telling the truth make her seem like a madwoman?

She scratched her head and decided to pass the question on to her teammates, "When that sample was talking, I might have been hallucinating..."

"Oh."

Before Lao Cai could even assess her absurd experience after Shen Xijing finished speaking, a cold laugh came from not far away.

After the sample named "Tianxin" sat up and finished speaking, its head drooped down and pressed tightly against its chest. Even when Chen Xingzhi roughly turned it back to its original position, it did not move. The strange sense of peace on its face disappeared completely, as if the "zombie resurrection" had consumed all the energy of this body.

After a cold laugh, Chen Xingzhi turned around and placed the dark gray mass of flesh he had pulled out on the operating table next to the corpse.

She indifferently wiped the exposed bone wound on her palm, then peeled away most of the gray flesh with her bare hands, cutting out a piece of flesh about the size of a thumb.

The meat was a dirty red color, with loose texture and distinct light yellow fat particles. The dense bumps resembled a large cluster of insect eggs about to hatch.

After a cold laugh, Chen Xingzhi seemed completely immersed in her own world. Her fingers were the most precise instruments; even though most of her flesh and blood had been corroded, her fingertips remained stable, without even the slightest fluctuation.

She was performing a delicate surgery, carefully picking out the yellow granules from the meat chunks one by one and placing them on a plate beside her; at first glance, there were over a hundred of them.

"Captain, should we do something?"

Generally speaking, although they are full of eeriness, deep dreams have their own operating logic, and those who enter rashly may have negative consequences.

But therein lies the danger: if the person who enters does nothing, they may be corrupted by the eeriness of the dream until they are swallowed up by it and become part of the dream.

If they weren't high-level superhumans, the group in the basement would have been devastating enough to cause a mental shock.

Even so, Lao Cai could feel that something had changed deep within his heart, something had stirred up the darkest part of his soul.

Just as Shen Xijing suddenly lost consciousness, the thought that "she only listens to that woman, and without her, I would be more likely to gain control of the team" flashed through Cai Chunyu's mind. Even if it was only for a moment, it was enough to make Cai Chunyu, who prided herself on her strong will, break out in a cold sweat.

Not only her, but everyone else, except for Catwhisker who was already under a severe curse, underwent some negative changes. Wenren Qiu was too obsessive about what he believed in, and the taciturn Aliya was gloomy and somewhat indifferent. It seemed that only the usually dull intern escaped unscathed thanks to his excellent intelligence.

We must leave this place before the erosion is still under control!

Old Cai stared intently at Cat Whiskers. This dream might not be the most dangerous she had ever encountered, but it was definitely the most bizarre, with too many contradictions.

Cat Whiskers, under Cai Chunyu's gaze, frowned deeply and unconsciously rubbed his thumb, index finger, and middle finger together.

Although the dream space within the rift in the mist is complete, most of the scenes are disjointed and fragmented. There is often only one core scene, and the core of the dream that can be left behind is also located here.

But in this scenario... Tianxin, as a sample, is clearly abnormal and has a deep connection with the dream space; and since the laboratory is the core scenario, Chen Xingzhi, as the person in charge of the laboratory, doesn't seem like a normal person either.

What's even more suffocating is that the two seem to be in a hostile state. After mocking Chen Xing, Tian Xin lost consciousness; Chen Xing is now picking up a piece of meat that has been cut into pieces and preparing to feed it to Tian Xin. It looks more like poisoning than feeding.

Should we stop her? Who is truly at the heart of the dream? What triggered Jingjing's recent ordeal?

"Chen Xingzhi, why did you feed her this piece of meat?"

While the girl was pondering, she for a moment forgot to look, and a figure suddenly darted out and stood at the other end of the operating table, observing Chen Xingzhi's movements.

Cat Whiskers was so frightened he almost unleashed his ability on Chen Xingzhi. What was wrong with this intern? How dare he face such a bizarre creature...? No, could such a reckless intern really pass the entry test...?

Chen Xingzhi paused in his actions, turned his head to glance at "Xiao Ran," his eyes revealing no emotion, and actually offered an explanation:

"If the hunt fails, you have to bear the consequences yourself."

Hunting? Was it the one that just set its sights on Shen Xijing?

The corpse on the operating table was deformed and twisted. Its skin, which was originally indistinguishable from that of a living person, was like a dried orange. Under the laboratory lights, it quickly became shriveled, and that eerie aura seemed to have completely left the corpse.

leave?

Du Yu seemed to remember something, activated his spiritual vision, and looked at Wenren Qiu.

A heart-sized, dirty red mass was surrounded by a pale blue ball of light. It did not expand like Shen Xijing had before; in fact, it shrank somewhat, and its light seemed to dim a little.

Du Yu withdrew his gaze and "casually" swept it over Chen Xingzhi, but the corresponding position on the other's body was empty, not even the gray that permeated the dream.

Besides the clues from his past life, this is one of the reasons why Du Yu is so concerned about Chen Xingzhi. Although there are no product instructions for the Spirit Vision, Du Yu has figured out a few rules for using it on his own.

The colors she saw were most likely "colors" of the extraordinary element. Each color evokes a different feeling, some warm, some cold, probably due to different ability tendencies. Shen Xijing has healing abilities, so her color is brighter than that of Aliya, who is responsible for attacking.

Some colors have similarities. Du Yu guessed that either these two adjacent colors are actually the same color, just with different concentrations; or these two adjacent colors overlap in some aspects, and the elements contained in both traits belong to a higher-level element.

Taking Tian Yinuo as an example, her special ability [A Promise Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold] and another trait that the original owner had seen, [A Crow's Mouth], although they are manifested differently in practice, both traits contain the element of [Word Power].

Du Yu guessed that Shen Xijing was in the same situation. Among so many people, only she faced that strange being directly. Her characteristics must overlap with the abilities that the other party possessed, which is why she attracted the other party's covetousness.

But what's going on with Wenren Qiu? Clearly, those two colors not only have no similarities, but the light blue also subtly seems to reject the dirty red.

Even more inexplicable is Chen Xingzhi. If a color represents a supernatural quality, why doesn't Chen Xingzhi, who is clearly not an ordinary person, have a color?

Is there a flaw in her reasoning, or is Chen Xingzhi special?

"Beep—beep—!"

The piercing alarm blared more and more urgently, the laboratory lights turned red and flashed wildly like the indicator lights of a bomb about to explode, and with a few loud rumbles at the door, a heavy alloy iron door slammed down, firmly blocking the only exit.

"What happened?"

Cat Whiskers and his group quickly went on high alert. Shen Xijing cautiously surveyed her surroundings, her brown pupils flashing red light as an ominous premonition surged through her body like an electric shock.

"It's nothing. The experiment failed and this place is just self-destructing."

Chen Xingzhi's hands didn't stop moving. He pried open the corpse's mouth, stuffed the chunk of meat inside, and then pinched its neck with his palm. With a push and a pull, the corpse actually swallowed the meat with a "gulp".

"Ho, ho, ho, ho..."

The corpse swallowed chunks of flesh, its lifeless limbs began to twitch, its throat opened and closed, rotting flesh pressing against its throat bones, and the breathy sounds were intermittent, a few fragmented syllables that could be vaguely pieced together to form a sentence:

"Chen... Xingzhi... I... am waiting for you... in... hell... behind me... always watching you...!"

The voice was intermittent, and Du Yu could only make out a few words after careful listening. After uttering the last few syllables, the corpse's convulsions suddenly stopped, a spark flashed from the gaping hole in its chest, and a cluster of bright red flames ignited, instantly engulfing the entire corpse!

Xiao Ran's hair curled under the high temperature, and Du Yu had no choice but to manipulate her to take a step back. All the lights in the laboratory stopped flickering and exploded like fireworks, with debris rushing into the fire like moths drawn to a flame.

Chen Xingzhi probably didn't feel the heat; she stood motionless, one hand in her pocket, the other pulling out a cigarette. She held the cigarette in her mouth, bent slightly, lit it by the flame, and took a deep drag.

"Bang bang bang—"

The burning flames seemed particularly conspicuous in the darkness. Within seconds, more than a dozen bulges, each over a meter long, appeared on the at least three-centimeter-thick alloy iron door, their shapes resembling the tentacles of some deep-sea monster.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you."

Chen Xingzhi held a cigarette between two fingers, flicked off the ash, and gestured with his chin toward the depths of the flames. "This is the core you've been looking for. There will be an exit in ten minutes—if you can survive the rampaging sample."

As they spoke, several more marks appeared on the alloy door, like a balloon about to be filled with water, ready to explode at any moment in the horrified eyes of the onlookers.

Old Cai cursed a few times about dirty work, but who would have thought that the nightmare would collapse on its own without them doing anything? Where can we reason with this?

The dim-witted intern could be ignored. Old Cai suppressed the fear welling up inside him, and the group hurriedly found cover in the laboratory, preparing their weapons cautiously.

"And what about you? You just do nothing and reap the benefits?"

Chen Xingzhi clearly had no intention of making a move. He narrowed his eyes, a surge of anger rising within him.

The other person acted like a riddle teller, as if they knew everything but wouldn't tell you, yet the trouble she caused was left for Du Yu to handle. Du Yu immediately felt annoyed, like he was doing all the work for free.

"I can only observe, not interfere."

Chen Xingzhi was taken aback. He thought for a few seconds about the interpersonal interactions he hadn't used in a long time. He raised the hand holding the cigarette and pointed the cigarette butt at You Shi, who was sneaking around at the door.

"She has what you want, consider it payment."

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Author's Note: Dudu: I'm willing to work, but you have to pay me first.

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I hope I can finish writing about this dream tomorrow, it's so long!