Chapter 727 Side Story: Feng Mu's Storyline - The Beginning of Fate 3
A series of questions, like an out-of-control train, rushed into my brain, crushing the fragile "calm" that had just been established.
The questions I had forcibly suppressed about the world's anomalies resurfaced in my mind like boiling swamp, bringing with them more specific and terrifying details.
"Ugh..."
An unprecedented, intense pain shot through my skull, as if countless red-hot iron rods were simultaneously churning my brain, trying to pry open a sealed area.
My vision blurred, and the blood-red courtyard twisted and spun in my field of vision, almost making me kneel down.
It seemed as if a completely unfamiliar, crazy, and hoarse voice was awakening in the deepest part of my mind. It broke through the dam and began to roar and scream recklessly.
It was urging me on, tempting me, repeating the same terrifying, irresistible command in a language I couldn't understand yet felt strangely familiar with.
Look up! Look up at the sun! Now! Immediately!
My body began to tremble uncontrollably.
My neck became unusually stiff, as if it had been instantly filled with cold cement, and every joint was groaning in protest.
Then I was replaced by a chilling softness. I felt like I had completely lost control of my body, like a puppet being manipulated by invisible threads, and the manipulator's will was far stronger than mine.
My head, defying the resistance of my remaining will and defying the "programming" of this body, began to slowly tilt backward at a mechanical pace.
"Crack..."
The cervical vertebrae made a clear, audible sound, like dry branches being forcibly snapped, bending backwards one vertebra at a time with great difficulty.
My muscles and ligaments were stretched to their limits, sending a tearing, burning pain through me, reminding me how illogical this movement was.
No! You can't look! Stop! Stop now! This is taboo! It will lead to destruction!
I screamed internally, desperately trying to regain control in vain.
But my body arched upwards with even greater force, like an evil sunflower chasing the darkness.
Until my face was completely facing upwards, at a 90-degree angle to the ground, my gaze was unobstructed, directly into the forbidden sky.
The blood-red sun instantly filled my entire field of vision!
It is no longer a distant sphere of light.
It was so close, so huge, its red, viscous substance like real blood, as if it were about to drip from the sky and completely engulf and melt me.
A chilling sensation, as if one's soul were being stared at by a massive and malevolent being, ran through the entire body.
A burning pain shot through my retina, as if it were being corroded by concentrated acid. I felt my eyeballs were like wax figures exposed to high temperatures, beginning to melt and slip. My vision quickly became blurred and distorted, and all the colors were mixed into a dirty palette.
Next came the rapidly increasing pressure inside the eyeball, which was unbearable, as if something was about to hatch and emerge from its shell.
"Pfft! Pfft!"
Two dull thuds, like ripe fruit bursting open, echoed in my skull, announcing the complete destruction of my visual organs.
In an instant, all visual signals from the outside world completely disappeared.
The world was plunged into a purely physical, endless, and despairing darkness.
However, this darkness lasted only a moment, or rather, the loss of sight opened another door to "perception".
Deep in my consciousness, the sun did not disappear because of the destruction of my eyeballs; instead, it became clearer, bigger, and more... insanely real!
It is no longer that distant sphere that radiates a blood-red light and symbolizes "the Lord".
It turned into... a line.
Dense, endless, crisscrossing lines!
In the very center of the sky, they frantically wove, intertwined, tangled, and wriggled, forming a gigantic, ever-changing, living, terrifying tangled circle of threads.
It's like a bloated, malicious nest, or a vortex that devours everything!
—This is the sun?! This is…the Lord?!
Countless finer, almost transparent lines, like a malice-laden waterfall or countless greedy and precise tentacles, cascaded down from the enormous, pulsating ball of threads, sprinkling across the entire earth.
They blend into the seemingly ordinary "light," disguising themselves as the shape of sunlight, but in reality, they are a giant, invisible net that covers the sky and the earth.
And every end of this giant net is precisely and inescapably connected to a living creature on the ground.
Those people walking, the twisted flowers in the courtyard, even myself.
I can "see" a cold line penetrating deep into my Baihui acupoint on the top of my head, like the mouthparts of a parasite, connecting my spine, my brain, and every nerve in my body.
The entire ball of yarn, or rather, the "sun," is like a gaping maw that is constantly snapping shut, slowly but surely pulling the whole world and all life into its mouth through these threads.
An ultimate, inescapable, and overwhelming devouring!
Fear, despair, a sense of insignificance... all sorts of emotions overwhelmed me like a tsunami.
When fear reaches its peak, it breeds an extreme, reckless madness.
There's nowhere to escape! There's nowhere to hide! Since we'll be swallowed up no matter what, then...
An absurd and daring idea suddenly emerged, like a will-o'-the-wisp burning in the darkness—what if I took the initiative and climbed up first?
what happens?
I don't know! It's completely unpredictable! Is the future one of utter destruction, or... a glimmer of hope for escape?
But what does it matter?
Rather than passively waiting to be silently digested by the "master," I'd rather take the initiative and launch a full-scale attack.
Even if it's like a moth drawn to a flame, you must see the true nature of the flame before it burns.
So, I used all the remaining strength in my body, gathered all the will that had not yet been eroded, and grabbed the "thread" that belonged to me above my head.
The line felt more solid than I expected, with a smooth yet resilient texture.
I started climbing.
This is not a physical climb, but more like an ascent of will, a soul going against the current along the line of destiny.
Like a pitifully small insect, I relentlessly and willingly crawled along the spiderweb laid by the predator toward the gaping maw that awaited it.
All senses contract inward, all thoughts converge into one:
Go up! Climb up! Climb to the end! See what's there!
Upward, upward, ever upward...
The surrounding "light" (those hanging lines) became denser and the temperature rose higher and higher.
It was a heat that scorched my soul, not as violent as a flame, but as if I were being slowly and continuously tormented by hot oil.
The sense of time is completely confused; it may be just a blink of an eye, or it may have been millions of years.
The sense of space was completely distorted; up, down, left, and right lost their meaning, leaving only the ever-approaching, writhing, enormous core of the tuft of thread in front of you.
I had only one thought, like the last lighthouse guiding this crazy journey: climb up!
I don't know how much time passed; perhaps it was a moment, perhaps it was eternity.
When I was almost completely exhausted and my consciousness was fading, I vaguely felt myself touching something.
It wasn't a tangible barrier, nor a material boundary; it was more like an interface of consciousness, a vortex of information, the entrance to a "system" that was... unimaginably vast.
It was as if I had penetrated an invisible membrane and arrived at the periphery of some core area.
In that instant, a cold, mechanical voice, devoid of any emotion, like a pre-recorded program prompt, resounded directly from the depths of my shattered consciousness.
It echoed again and again, carrying an undeniable sense of final confirmation:
"Character initialization complete, naming successful—Feng Mu!"
The sound made my remaining consciousness buzz, as if the sound itself was redefining my existence.
Feng Mu...
Yes, I remember now, Feng Mu... is my name.
Yes, I am Feng Mu. So who is speaking in my mind now? Is it the Lord?
What should we call the Lord?
Forgive me, I don’t know why, but at this moment, such a blasphemous thought has arisen in my mind—the Lord should be called the Lord, how can the Lord have any other name?
In that instant, I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to know the name of the Lord.
Perhaps the Lord should also have a real name?
The Lord's real name?!
I struggled, using my last shred of consciousness, to lift my head and "look" at the center of the ball of yarn, even though I had already lost my eyes.
In a daze, I seemed to pass through countless intertwined lines and see...see...
……………
March 14, 230.
I sat by the window, the chill of the old alloy window frame seeping into my skin through the thin fabric of my clothes. My gaze kept involuntarily drifting past the dusty glass to the unfamiliar sky above.
It was not the familiar sky I knew, composed of the atmosphere and distant stars.
That's the base of "Upper City".
A dark, oppressive composite structure of metal and unknown materials covered the entire field of vision, blotting out the sun like a dark cloud hanging overhead.
The base of the upper city is not a desolate darkness.
It is inlaid with countless light bulbs of various shapes, some round like the eyes of an animal, some narrow like the eyes of a venomous snake, and some irregular polygons.
They emit a blinding white light day and night, lacking warmth and change, simply and relentlessly illuminating every corner of the lower town.
Therefore, we affectionately call those eyes—the sun.
Yes, the plural sun.
Therefore, we respectfully call the suspended city above our heads the "City Above the Light," symbolizing the eternal and indestructible other shore where light resides forever.
But every time I look up at the sun, I don't feel gratitude or warmth, but rather a sense of fear and suffocation that seeps into my spine.
It felt like being stared at by countless pale, pupil-less eyes, with nowhere to hide.
Perhaps it's my latent trypophobia acting up, or perhaps it's something else, something deeper, more instinctive, giving me a warning.
I don't know, and... I'm too lazy to investigate further.
In this world, knowing too much and thinking too much is often not a good thing.
Uptown, and everything it represents, is too far removed from me, as distant as a legend from another world.
On the contrary, the piece of paper lying quietly on the desk at this moment, its bright red color as glaring as freshly congealed blood, was incredibly close to me, so close that I could smell the scent of despair.
Comprehensive Test Report on Root Potential
The name field displays the name I currently use.
And in the most conspicuous overall rating section, a scarlet number burned my eyes:
49 points!
A number that inspires utter despair.
A number that also filled the original owner of this body with utter despair.
But upon closer reflection, the original owner was probably more desperate.
After all, he resolved this despair completely in his own way.
He died.
He died silently in a corner of a warehouse behind the school, filled with discarded training equipment.
And I had no choice but to use his still-warm body to "come back to life" and continue his desperate life.
Sometimes, I would drift into thought, wondering who was the more courageous one, me or the original owner of this body.
I think it's him.
Because he had the courage to end it all himself and defy the fate that the world had imposed on him.
But I didn't.
I cherish this second chance at breathing, even though it is so heavy and so suffocating.
But he might think it's me, because I had the courage to live on for him, while he didn't.
After experiencing the test of life and death, a person's soul tends to become more sensitive and thoughtful, giving rise to many insights about existence and meaning.
However, these budding philosophical thoughts were soon abruptly interrupted by a sharp and monotonous school bell.
The bell acted like a switch, instantly activating the still air in the classroom.
The students, like wind-up toys, quickly packed their belongings and left in twos and threes, their faces showing either relief or exhaustion.
The sounds of conversation, footsteps, and the clatter of desks and chairs blended into a noisy current, quickly emptying the classroom.
I deliberately dawdled until the very end, waiting until I was the only one left in the classroom before slowly picking up the test sheet and putting it into my backpack.
I actually had the impulse to crumple it up and throw it in the trash can. My fingertips were already squeezing it so hard that the paper was crumpled.
But in the end, I loosened my grip and carefully smoothed it out.
Because next to the bright red number "49", there were a few spots of blood that had turned dark brown.
That was the original owner's blood.
In a sense, this piece of paper is his last possession that he left me...
It was also the first and most impactful "greeting gift" I received after arriving in this strange and cold world.
It still has a damn commemorative significance!
I have never been a nostalgic person.
In an era of information overload where everything can be quickly copied and discarded, nostalgia seems like a luxurious and useless emotion.
But when an insurmountable chasm called "crossing" separated me from that world, something quietly changed in my heart.
I have become unusually sensitive to, unusually nostalgic about, and unusually sentimental about the past.
Nostalgia became the first change I experienced after coming into this world.
Put away your report card, zip up your backpack and sling it over your shoulder.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
