Chapter 98 Old Campus Her head slowly melted, turning into a large...
Pu Fengchun suddenly raised her hands. She hadn't noticed before, but now that she looked at them, they were longer, thinner, and whiter... they didn't even look like her hands anymore!
She didn't have a mirror, so she couldn't see her own face. She could only look down and repeatedly examine the parts she could see, rubbing them back and forth... She seemed to have grown taller!
She looked up in alarm and found Xue Chao staring at her blankly. Her mind went blank, and her vision began to turn white. Xue Chao quickly covered her eyes, and the world went from white to complete black. She swayed instinctively.
“The body isn’t that similar, but your face has changed the most.” From Xue Chao’s perspective, Pu Fengchun’s face has become more pointed, and his nose is more prominent. His eyes are the most obvious change; not only has the shape changed, but the irises are also gradually lightening, and you can already see the redness in them. “Has she touched your head?”
Pu Fengchun snapped out of her dizzying alternation of black and white. The darkness before her eyes actually cooled her mind... As her mind cooled, other things in her head became more prominent. She didn't know how to describe it, only that there was a constantly burning sensation in her head, as if something was stuffed inside: "She knocked me unconscious, and when I woke up I was in the teaching building, in a daze, sometimes unable to remember who I was. The next time I regained consciousness was in the maze, where you found me... I feel like there's something in my head, like it's prying open my cerebral cortex."
Images flashed before her eyes: a dilapidated temple in Cangshan, the Wild Grass Guild. As if her sore spot had been touched, she instantly pulled away from her unease and fear, pulled Xue Chao's hand away, and stared straight at him: "That thing is trying to pry open my memories. She wants to know that secret!"
"Her master wants to know." Xue Chao understood that one of the dog chains that restrained the divine weapon had been put into Pu Fengchun's mind by Sheng Hong. "Sheng Hong herself wanted to abandon the old body that was about to die and escape control, killing two birds with one stone."
So Sheng Hong not only covered Pu Fengchun's book with her own corpse's head, but also opened Pu Fengchun's book and put it in a "dog chain".
Xue Chao did not immediately cut open Sheng Hong's head, because if the head was removed, the swap would be invalidated, and they would slowly revert to their original state. He was afraid that Sheng Hong would notice first, and the timing would be too close.
Moreover, although it was a strange head shaped like a book, it was still her own head, not Jiang Ming's. He could manipulate it or rip it off without any psychological burden. It wasn't the corpse head that Sheng Hong herself used as a prop. Opening the skull was too private. Xue Chao felt uncomfortable unless it was absolutely necessary.
But before he let Pu Fengchun go downstairs to confuse Sheng Hong, he actually opened her book and took a look. He didn't see anything obvious, otherwise the dense pages would have bulged.
Therefore, the things they can exchange, if they really exist, are either not physical objects, or as thin as a piece of paper, pasted on an unknown page, or simply a symbol written on a page.
Pu Fengchun forcibly stopped reminiscing, cleared her mind, and realized that the identity swap was not yet complete. Her consciousness was clearly resisting something else, which gave her a headache.
But she also discovered that this thing wasn't entirely in her mind; it was more like a half-finished product smuggled in through an "identity swap," like a tug-of-war rope, where the losing side naturally kept the whole rope.
In other words, it only appeared in her mind after she used Sheng Hong's special ability and began to switch things again; it was something Sheng Hong wanted to switch back to.
The presence of something in her mind that didn't belong to her became a bridge, allowing her to keenly sense the presence of another person. When she looked up, she saw Sheng Hong sitting by the window in the back kitchen, her legs dangling in the air, holding a small cat cage in her hand, with Shan Die inside.
Noticing Pu Fengchun's gaze, Sheng Hong also raised her head and returned a flamboyant smile.
Pu Fengchun felt a chill run down his spine, because the face, which originally had a smooth and beautiful curve, now had some angular features that ruined its beauty, making it look rather bland.
In stark contrast to the flamboyant Sheng Hong, she was like a silent, blurry portrait, hanging there gloomily, which was simply disappointing... That was her facial feature!
She watched as Sheng Hong, who was becoming more and more like her, reached out her hand, her fingertips passing through the iron cage, and gently touched the wings of the morpho butterfly. Sheng Hong's figure then emitted specks of blue light, which were the "tails" left by the morpho butterfly as it flew.
Sheng Hong suddenly reverted to her true form, like the beautiful queen in Snow White who had taken a magic potion and instantly transformed into an ugly old woman. Her cloudy eyes stared at her, not out of fear, but instead of fear, she laughed, a somewhat manic laugh—because certain parts of the old woman's body were slowly becoming younger, such as her eyes, which had changed from cloudy brown to a clear and somewhat gloomy black… It was her eyes!
At the same time, the morpho butterfly flapped its wings more frequently, and its crimson figure began to blur.
"I won." Sheng Hong uttered these words softly with her lips that were slowly turning back to pale pink. There was a hint of relief in her ecstasy, as if from this moment on, she had forgiven all her past experiences and ushered in a new life.
"That's my body!!!" Pu Fengchun had never been so hysterical before.
“My body is perfectly fine. You can stay here forever, and your beauty will last forever.” Sheng Hong looked at Pu Fengchun’s face with a nostalgic and admiring gaze. “Not only beauty, but you’ve also felt my power. ‘Rose Light’ is much stronger than your superpowers, isn’t it? The moment the laser was fired, didn’t you feel that there was nothing in the world that you couldn’t penetrate?”
She laughed again: "But that's all you can shoot that far, and your aim is off. Once you're fully reloaded, you should be able to hit the door behind the trash can... You can't even do that, can you?"
"If it's so good, then take it back! You chose it as a dog, and now you're making someone else pay for it, stealing someone else's fate. What's the difference between you and your master!"
“…You’re right, there’s no difference.” Sheng Hong stopped laughing. She was getting younger and younger, more and more like the silent Pu Fengchun. “The weak have no choice. Even if they are not weak, if they are unlucky, they will still walk the path of the weak. Just like when I was a newcomer, I was deceived by him with a few words and became a weapon. Just like you who happened to appear.”
She raised her hand, like a wild beast that had fought its way through the jungle, recognizing only the primal laws of the jungle. There was no guilt, no sympathy, only calm. Everything before her was the law of nature, and should be taken for granted: "Take superpowers, for example. They are new 'organs' that humans have evolved. They are based on the user and nourished by the user. The stronger your body and soul are, the greater the potential of your superpower. They complement each other. Although the body and soul can be tempered, every second in the game is a matter of life and death. Where is there any chance? So the weak remain weak, and the strong become stronger and stronger. For example, with 'Roselight,' I can shoot it at the distance of a sniper rifle, but in your hands, it's just a bullet to pop a balloon. And take your superpower, for example. Although I don't know what it is, the way I use it will definitely be different from yours."
Her body was almost completely transparent, half of her body was Sheng Hong's aged appearance, and the other half was Pu Fengchun's youth. At the last moment, she activated her superpower: "Let me show you just how strong your superpower can actually be."
They also used Pu Fengchun's supernatural abilities to complete the final step of confirming their identities and completely swapped fates.
[Superpower "██" in use]
No response.
The people present were stunned. Xue Chao, who had been watching the show from the sidelines, thought that Sheng Hong was exaggerating and that she had no plants at hand and no target to use her superpowers on.
But the next second he realized he was wrong. She was really strong and had truly given Pu Fengchun's useless superpower a second life—because she was aging again.
The part belonging to Pu Fengchun stopped, but the part belonging to Sheng Hong, which had not yet had a chance to be exchanged, suddenly aged again.
The already frail skin clung directly to the bones, shrunken like old tree bark, becoming skin and bones. With each breath, the thin skin would lift and fall, as if a stronger breath would burst it open, exposing the rotting internal organs.
But actually, no, because Sheng Hong's energy suddenly weakened, as if she couldn't catch her breath and it dissipated halfway through. The part belonging to Pu Fengchun also started moving again, but it no longer became younger, but grew up and gradually aged.
…“Growth”.
Upon encountering the morpho butterfly, Sheng Hong first suddenly reverted to her true aged appearance, then slowly became younger through the exchange. As she grew accustomed to her vibrant body, she aged again, becoming even older than before, to the point where she could no longer move, like someone already planted in the earth of the underworld, about to scatter into sand and gravel with a gust of wind.
Just then, the kitchen door was suddenly opened a third of the way, and a dark figure rushed in. In a few steps, he was behind Sheng Hong, and a fruit knife was plunged into Sheng Hong's heart.
Sheng Hong's many changes suddenly stopped, as if the chaotic scene had been fixed in an instant, and her breathing also stopped.
The faint blue light vanished, and the shape that was about to dissipate into the air solidified, becoming an old and ugly corpse.
In life, beauty brought her sin; in death, ugliness became her punishment. It was as if her entire life was trapped in the shackles of beauty and ugliness, and even death could not free her from the cage and grant her liberation.
Her head slowly melted, turning into a large, withered red rose, its petals falling off and mixing with the blood and mud.
Deng Dayun lowered his head, his wet hair covering his face. Blood mixed with the sweet wine dripping from his hair tip flowed shakily down his pale face. He still hunched over, but the knife was tightly gripped in his hand.
He didn't even glance at Sheng Hong's corpse. Still trembling from the surge of adrenaline, he seemed to have fallen into his own world again, oblivious to his surroundings.
But the morpho butterfly became excited by the smell of blood, rampaging around in the cage and moving closer to Sheng Hong. The noise it made caused Deng Dayun to break free from her own world and slowly raise her head.
Pu Fengchun barely recovered from her shock and immediately checked her body. After all, Sheng Hong's appearance was so unrecognizable that she could only look at herself.
After confirming that she had completely returned to normal and that the strange thing that had been drilling into her brain had disappeared, she looked up and saw Deng Dayun's empty and insane expression, and her heart skipped a beat.
The boy's features were completely relaxed, no longer caring about any natural intrusion into his personal territory. His eyes were wide open, with a ring of white around his pupils, and he uttered a muttering sound from his slightly open mouth, as if a part of his soul had drifted away... It was the sound of giving up, abandoning the original sins learned from the real world such as shame, morality, and compassion, and the buzzing sound of the spirit that had been built up over decades about to collapse.
He reached for the cage that was trapping the morpho butterfly.
Xue Chao, swaying the bloodstained sunflower, leaned against a tree behind him, watching the players' performance with detachment. Suddenly, the sunflower was snatched away by Pu Fengchun. She successfully used her supernatural power, and the sunflower grew rapidly, its stems and leaves elongating, producing more new vines, and the flower head standing upright again, unfurling new petals.
Pu Fengchun shoved the rope into Xue Chao's hands and tied it tightly: "Stop him quickly, he's going crazy!!"
Xue Chao stumbled as he was pulled, glanced at Deng Dayun, then at Pu Fengchun, shrugged, flicked the plant roots, grabbed the window handle, and easily jumped through the window.
Startled by the sudden shadow, Deng Dayun looked up sharply and viciously thrust out a fruit knife, but was subdued by Xue Chao with a single blow. His neck tilted to the side, and he fell back into a baby-like sleep.
The morpho butterfly quieted down, seemingly observing whether Deng Dayun was dead or not.
Xue Chao caught a glimpse of Pu Fengchun waving, and lazily tossed the plant root back: "...They really do treat me like a bodyguard."
Pu Fengchun had experienced many trials and tribulations. He skillfully climbed over the "single-plank bridge," but after his feet touched the ground, he suddenly didn't know what to do and just stared blankly at Sheng Hong's corpse... Sheng Hong was really dead.
She crouched down and carefully touched the withered petals of the red rose. An indescribable mix of emotions churned within her, and she could no longer recognize what those emotions were; she simply felt nauseous.
Xue Chao glanced at Sheng Hong's corpse, then looked away, seemingly without thinking. With a calm expression, he began to search the trash can where the morpho butterfly had first settled.
The other flesh and blood tissues were all separate, but the headless old man's corpse was very intact, indicating that he was so old that he had no use for anything and was completely discarded.
The protagonist of the first episode where Xia Caizhe dies is indeed Xia Caizhe.
The God of Misfortune is truly something else. When it's time to live, he takes someone else's place to live; when it's time to die, he swaps people back to die, making them more of a "tool" than divine weapons.
He turned around, and Pu Fengchun was still squatting blankly in front of the red roses. He reminded her, "Why don't you use the butterflies?"
Pu Fengchun turned her head to the side, and a dreamy butterfly slowly fluttered its wings, approaching her as if to offer her comfort. However, when she reached into her fingertip, the butterfly ignored her and moved away, getting closer to the direction of Sheng Hong... Her mind went blank. That's right, this butterfly doesn't comfort people; it only excitedly chases after the scent of death.
She pulled her hand back as if she had been electrocuted, grabbed the cat cage and stood up without saying a word, but she had been squatting for too long and couldn't stand up. Xue Chao quickly caught her, but saw that Shan Die seemed not to have expected his sudden approach and subconsciously retreated in the opposite direction.
Xue Chao finally realized something was wrong and narrowed his eyes.
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