Chapter 223 The Lost Soul
The "firefly" I placed near the Zhu family's place has a special preset command. Whenever Mr. Zhu or Zhu Shi calls my name, the "firefly" will send me a notification. It just so happens that they called my name, so I temporarily shifted my attention to it.
Mr. Zhu is currently living in another villa in Xianshui City. Although it is not as large as the original Zhu family mansion, it is still spacious enough. Recently, he and Zhu Shi have been mainly busy diagnosing Chang'an's condition.
Here I will explain the situation in Chang'an in detail.
Zhu Shi's process of bringing Chang'an back wasn't as simple as just physically carrying her back. Because he didn't know if he had burned Yin Yue's soul, no one could be sure if Yin Yue would reappear in Chang'an. If Yin Yue suddenly attacked during the transport, Zhu Shi would surely die.
Therefore, Zhu Shi had done a lot of preparation work. I also used "fireflies" as a medium to invade all the heat in Chang'an's body as a backup plan. Meanwhile, Old Master Zhu made a special trip to the old stronghold of the Humanity Department, thousands of miles away, and brought with him props and materials to perform "a spell specifically to deal with the Silver Moon".
According to Mr. Zhu, it was a defensive barrier spell developed by the Zhu family twenty years ago to fight against the powerful demon Yin Yue in her previous life. Strictly speaking, it was a spell developed solely by Zhu Shi's mother, Zhu Jiu, and its effect was "to withstand all attacks from Yin Yue."
When used at full power by a level-one Wuchang, this spell can even withstand the Silver Moon for a full second; even a nuclear explosion summoned by the Silver Moon cannot penetrate it. Aside from the Silver Moon's attacks, this spell cannot block anything; a child with no magical power could easily pierce it with a small knife. In the past, Zhu Jiu mysteriously named this spell "Anti-Silver Moon Barrier." From its effects to its name, one can feel the resentment accumulated by the person involved over the years.
In short, although "being able to hold off for one second" doesn't sound like much, for humans and monsters of my and Silver Moon's level, there's a lot we can do in one second. During that time, I could easily subdue Silver Moon instantly with the heat from invading Chang'an, or at least shift the battlefield to an area where it wouldn't threaten anyone else.
With this inexplicably absurd spell and my constant surveillance, Zhu Shi and Old Master Zhu were able to successfully bring Chang'an back to Xianshui City.
Actually, even without putting in that much effort, nothing should go wrong. Perhaps my sense of the soul has improved; ever since defeating Silver Moon, I've had a feeling that Silver Moon's soul no longer seems to be inside Chang'an's body.
The problem arose next day when the full diagnosis for Chang'an finally came in. When Mr. Zhu relayed this news to me in a bedroom somewhere in the villa, Zhu Shi was standing beside him, and Chang'an's body lay on a bed not far away. Both of them looked very grave. They told me good news and bad news.
The good news is that my intuition was correct; Silvermoon's soul really has disappeared.
The bad news is that Chang'an's soul is not in that body either.
"This result actually came out during the first diagnosis, but just in case, I diagnosed it many times in other different ways..." Mr. Zhu sighed.
After hearing this, my first reaction was: "...Could it be that I burned Chang'an's soul along with Yinyue?"
Now I transform the "firefly" into a small fireball, from which I construct vocal organs to converse with Mr. Zhu and Zhu Shi.
Zhu Shi then asked, "Zhuang Cheng, was the flame you used specifically aimed at the soul, or at both the soul and the body?"
"It's the latter," I replied.
“My brother’s body was almost completely intact, which shows that your mercy must have worked. It’s impossible that only his soul was burned away while his body remained unharmed,” Zhu Shi said.
That would put my mind at ease, but how do I explain the current situation?
Since the soul has disappeared from the body, it means the person is dead, right? But from what I've observed, Chang'an is practically asleep. He's breathing normally, and his heart is beating normally. He looks like a living, breathing body.
I've seen this phenomenon elsewhere: the body functions normally, but the soul vanishes without a trace.
"Is it amnesia?" I blurted out.
Zhu Shi and Mr. Zhu looked at each other in bewilderment.
The latter said, "We had the same suspicions, but... it's unlikely."
"Is it just too much of a coincidence?" I asked.
After Chang'an's body was possessed by Yin Yue's soul, he was immediately embroiled in an unrelated incident of soul loss—the probability of such an event is extremely low, and it is more reasonable to regard it as a follow-up to the "Yin Yue possession incident."
If this level of coincidence happened to Ma Zao or me, it would be understandable. But Chang'an has been separated from me for a long enough time, so he shouldn't be within the scope of the jinx's influence now... Or is my thinking wrong? As long as I still consider Chang'an a friend, he can still be the "factor that drags me into other strange events," and be dragged into other strange events before me?
This reason seems insufficient. Ma Zao, who is closely related to me, is himself a major participant in the Soul Loss incident. Now that things have come to this, what decisive change could be brought about by turning Chang'an into a Soul Loss patient?
"It's not just a coincidence; we've also confirmed it using divination methods." After thinking for a moment, Mr. Zhu said, "Zhuang Cheng, although you don't know divination magic, since you've been exposed to so much occult knowledge in the past, you should have some understanding of the principles of divination, right?"
"Just as a well-trained dog will track and find the target if it smells an object with the target's scent, a witcher can trace the target's body back to it by having a part of the target in his hand when casting divination spells for tracking purposes."
"The girl next to you also encountered a similar situation. The supernatural faction once tried to locate her location using divination magic by examining the hair and bodily fluids she left in the hospital, but they failed due to interference from other forces."
"The problem with patients suffering from amnesia is that their souls have vanished without a trace. But since we already have the patient's body as a powerful medium for divination, why can't we use it as a medium to find the patient's soul?"
That makes sense; I've never actually thought about this question before.
Although it's unclear why Mr. Zhu suddenly brought up this issue, assuming that the souls of all the patients with amnesia went to the apocalypse, then the answer is obvious.
"Because their souls are in a state of 'unrecoverable'?" I asked.
“That’s right…” Mr. Zhu said in a deep voice, “The souls of all those suffering from amnesia are dead.”
"What?" I exclaimed in surprise.
"This is the conclusion reached through divination. No matter what method is used for divination, Luo Shan can only arrive at one conclusion: the souls of those suffering from amnesia are in a state of death, annihilation, nothingness, and non-existence," said Mr. Zhu.
I still hadn't given up on my original hypothesis and asked, "Is it possible... that their souls went to other dimensions or other times? And that's why they were judged as 'not existing in this world'?"
"Why would you think that way?" Old Master Zhu asked, first with surprise, then said, "If they went to other dimensions, or even to the past and future, then divination would naturally give a corresponding conclusion. But the fact is, the souls of all those suffering from amnesia are dead. This is a very precise description, and there is no other explanation."
"But I've heard that patients with amnesia have all their bodily organs functioning normally, and even their brains show signs of conscious activity..."
“From a scientific point of view, they are indeed still alive; however, current science has not yet reached the realm of the soul,” Mr. Zhu said. “But as you said, since the soul has been destroyed, the body should also cease functioning and begin to decay. This discord is now the hope for me and for some families of patients with amnesia. Perhaps there is still hope for those suffering from amnesia…”
He seemed to be thinking of his daughter, Zhu Jiu, and his voice became sorrowful.
I could only wait for him to process it. Not long after, he pulled himself out of his emotional turmoil and continued, "...Sorry, let's get back to the topic. The reason I judged that Chang'an hadn't fallen into amnesia is because the divination results showed that his soul hadn't died yet."
"His soul was taken away by Silver Moon?" I quickly realized this possibility.
Despite my fiery onslaught, Silver Moon managed to hide in the explosion, abandoning Chang'an's body and taking her soul away from the battlefield, thus escaping unscathed.
Is that possible? No, it's not a question of possibility... In the end, even if she could escape, what good would it do her to "escape with Chang'an's soul"?
If her goal is to use Chang'an to possess another's body and return to life, then in her eyes, only Chang'an's physical body should be of value. Perhaps it's inappropriate for me, as her friend, to say this, but what use could the soul of someone like Chang'an possibly be?
"Perhaps," Mr. Zhu nodded.
"Can we use divination to trace where his soul was taken?" I asked.
“We are still trying. We can’t track it yet, and the divination results in this area are blank,” Mr. Zhu said. “In addition, it’s best not to expect divination magic to track the Silver Moon.”
"Silver Moon is the foremost illusion master in the supernatural world. Her understanding of illusion is even comparable to that of the historically renowned illusionist, Da Wuchang. Human diviners who try to divine information related to her will only be able to divine fabricated illusions."
"So...we have absolutely no leads right now?" I asked.
(End of this chapter)
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