Chapter 138 A Branch in the Nest Forest (1)
"certainly."
The surprise in his voice was fleeting; after a pause, he regained his composure: "Because I want to tell you."
"You can't change anything."
Shi Yu looked at her with a half-smile. The familiar, soft contours of his eyebrows and his gray eyes seemed to melt into a blur in the shimmering light and shadow, without a trace of expression.
A small, blood-red mole was faintly visible on her forehead beneath her cascading platinum-blonde hair.
The light and shadow of the flames danced on his face.
His pale gray eyes turned into an unfathomable black.
His features...unconsciously overlapped perfectly with Wei Shengqianheng's face.
Shi Yu and Wei Shengqianheng have no resemblance in appearance. They are two completely unrelated people, and no one would want to connect them.
But Wei Shengqianheng truly descended upon Shi Yu's body right in front of her.
It's like a "divine intervention" in religious legends.
Wei Shengqianheng's lips curled up: "When did you find out?"
She turned her head, the surrounding flames rising high, making even her eyes seem blood-red: "From the moment I figured out that 'secret' about your supernatural practice."
After learning about the power of the string, this "secret" no longer seems to be a secret.
She didn't know whether Wei Shengqianheng did it intentionally or was genuinely careless and negligent.
When they first entered the combat simulation system, he put his hand on her shoulder and dried her clothes. Later, he cleaned the blood off her hands several times. This was obviously unrelated to his superpower "Forgiveness". She tried to test him, and he only answered her "secret".
For this reason, she suspected that Wei Shengqianheng had lied about his superpowers, and she also suspected that he was a special case who possessed two superpowers at the same time, but these suspicions were eventually confirmed by Weston to be impossible.
It wasn't until she tried to trace back a small area using the power of the strings that she finally understood what Wei Shengqianheng had used back then.
It's neither 'cleaning' nor 'purifying'.
It's backtracking.
At that time, the bloodstains on her hands had not been cleaned off at all; it was just that time had been reversed to the moment before they got dirty.
Only after realizing this did she understand the source of Arcia's fear of abusing the power of the strings to interfere with time.
"You must be very tired after watching me pretend for so long."
Wei Shengqianheng smiled slightly, and took the initiative to release his grip on the dagger. His movements were gentle, and his expression was as ethereal and gentle as before.
“It’s over.” He smiled and said, his long, slender fingers tracing her face. “Don’t waste time trying to stop the bleeding. The blood will stop flowing in three minutes, and your heart will stop beating in five minutes. Then we can start again.”
His gaze swept down at me: "If you don't want to die, you can use your power to turn back time."
The man's clear, detached gaze lingered on her, filled with sorrow and compassion, devoid of any malice, yet as if he were looking at a speck of dust in a fire.
Such an expression is nothing more than indifference or disdain.
Shu Ningmiao gripped the blade, a sinister look on her face. Blood gushed down her wrist, and her jet-black hair fell across her face, making her look like a desperate, trapped beast.
Given her physique, being stabbed wouldn't significantly affect her mobility even without bandaging. However, the dagger in his hand was a supernatural artifact with the effect of causing continuous bleeding that couldn't be healed. No wonder she only had one penetrating wound on her chest in the previous playthrough.
Not long ago, he forced her into a hallucination, making her confront the death of Shu Changyan in the previous timeline, in an attempt to induce her to have an emotional breakdown and regress.
Now they've stabbed her to the brink of death, forcing her to use the rewind time technique to start over.
If in the previous timeline he only wanted her superpowers and her life, this time he seems to be constantly forcing her to do the same things as him, assimilating her.
This guy is really... seriously insane.
She tilted her head back and pulled the dagger out another inch, letting the blood drip down her face. Her face was pale, but she remained calm: "No."
"Isn't immense power fascinating?" Shu Ningmiao's blood-red pupils reflected his image: "The feeling of manipulating time at will makes you feel like a god. You have no desires because everything in the world is as you wish, and you can always start over if you fail."
Wei Shengqianheng smiled at her, his dark pupils staring at her strangely, his expression unwavering: "That's not how it is."
"What do you still want now?" she asked, genuinely curious. "What exactly do you want to do?"
He was unmoved by these harsh and hurtful words, still smiling broadly: "If we don't go back now, it will be too late."
"I won't go back."
Shu Ningmiao stared at him, gripped the hilt of the dagger, and pulled it out cleanly and swiftly.
“This is my life.” Her cold laugh carried undisguised aggression: “It’s not a game.”
A strong smell of rust wafted over.
The dagger was stuck in her aorta, but when it was pulled out, no more blood gushed out.
A black halo, like a star ring, surrounded her chest, emitting a barely perceptible glow.
The 'Vector Shackles' can apply gravity to the target area and change the direction of the gravity acting on the target.
She used Lux's "Vector Shackles" on herself. By subtly altering the direction of gravity in her body's various tissues, she could ensure that when the dagger pierced her chest cavity, it would precisely avoid all the organs inside her body, without affecting any of her subsequent movements.
As the knife tip left the wound, the moist flesh healed rapidly, and the bloodstains on the chest, like crimson petals curling up, instantly receded into the collar piled with white lace.
He could trace back the stains that had already been stained, and of course he could also trace back the wound that pierced her chest. Since time could erase all traces, his tricks could also be used by her.
"Thank you for your 'secret'." She released the dagger and threw it away. "I've learned it."
The dagger fell to the floor, making a clanging sound in the fire.
The faint smile on Wei Shengqianheng's face disappeared, and a moment later, he chuckled softly again.
His expression at this moment resembled Shi Yu's somewhat.
"Are you Wei Sheng Qianheng... or Shi Yu?"
Shu Ningmiao gradually straightened her back, which had been slightly bent due to the penetration.
The chest wound has completely healed with minimal backflow, but blood is still dripping from my fingertips.
"You can't tell the difference?"
He bent down, his lips curving ever more, and suddenly burst into laughter, laughing so hard he almost staggered over, a sound that sent chills down one's spine—strange and unsettling.
He laughed until Shu Ningmiao slowly frowned, then straightened up and said in a raised voice, "Of course I am him."
Shu Ningmiao looked at him coldly.
"People are too easily able to deceive themselves because of their emotions."
Wei Shengqianheng raised an eyebrow.
The man tilted his head back, his black hair falling behind him, his dark pupils gradually turning gray, and a familiar, flawless, serene smile appeared on his face: "Are you trying to deceive yourself into thinking that the friend you've always trusted shouldn't be me?"
He made a confused sound and raised his hand, trying to gently stroke her eyes as before.
"Shut up."
Shu Ningmiao turned her head to avoid his movement, but in a flash she raised her blood-stained hands and quickly pressed her ten fingers against his temples.
"We are not friends."
She slowly ran her fingertips through his hair along his temples, forcing him to look down and meet her fierce gaze.
"Also, now it's my turn to ask questions."
The noise stopped instantly, and only a long buzzing sound remained between the two.
She specifically set aside 48 hours for his "jealousy" to cool down, all for this moment.
Jealousy is a state change.
—Stealing the superpower 'Neural Connection'
Ever since she used her supernatural abilities to connect with Lin Chuiyun's consciousness last time, she has made up her mind not to easily invade other people's brains again.
The shock of being connected to each other had huge aftereffects, and both Rennagi and Yuji, two locals from Pingyi, had intentionally or unintentionally reminded her of the dangers of connecting with the consciousness of others.
But she still wanted to gamble.
They were betting on her familiarity with Shi Yu, and on her ability to connect their consciousness.
I'm betting on her success.
Shu Ningmiao did not believe any words that came out of Wei Shengqianheng's mouth.
She wanted to see the world with her own eyes.
Blood is a much faster conductor than human skin.
Blood beads flowed from her fingertips and fell into Wei Shengqianheng's long, loose hair. The familiar stinging pain surged through her brain, transforming into countless fragmented and chaotic images that came rushing in.
The feeling was even more chaotic than when she invaded someone's brain last time, almost tearing her brain apart. A strong sense of resistance prevented her from invading her five senses, while another consciousness was actively accepting her.
Her memories were torn apart by conflicting consciousness, and even when she tried her best to concentrate, she could only catch glimpses of fleeting fragments.
No, this way you can't see anything meaningful at all; you can only be swept along by the other party's consciousness.
Shu Ningmiao tried her best to find a gap that she could completely penetrate, until her gaze locked onto a certain spot, and she finally completely entered the other person's consciousness.
She saw herself.
First, there was her smooth forehead, then her eyebrows, long and thick eyelashes, jet-black hair, pursed lips, and a slightly pointed chin. Her feigned strength had a touch of childishness, while her sullen face made her appear overly arrogant and aloof.
In her memory, she seemed to be thirteen years old. Shu Ningmiao looked at herself from another perspective and even she felt a little unfamiliar with her.
From this perspective, the owner's toes barely touched the ground as he lightly kicked the swing beneath him, causing it to sway gently. His gaze swept over her from head to toe, then paused before he softly asked, "Who am I?"
After asking him countless times, the girl sitting next to him got a little annoyed, turned around on the swing, and faced away from him.
A faint shadow was cast in front of the garden trellis, dancing on the ground, sometimes long, sometimes short.
Shu Ningmiao saw her gaze rise upwards, and a fallen, wet petal was stuck to the swing ropes.
Why is even such a scene so vividly depicted, as if recalling this moment countless times, afraid of missing any detail?
The two sat side by side on the swing set. The person in charge of the gaze reached out and tugged at her black hair that hung down behind her head. She turned around angrily, grabbed his wrist without any politeness, and kicked his shin hard.
She finally met his gaze, glanced at him, and said, "Shi Yu, you're so boring."
Shu Ningmiao looked at her past self.
As soon as the words fell, the flickering light and shadow, the murmured words, came to an abrupt halt, and the fragments of time were instantly shattered and submerged in a sea of information.
Her vision went black, and her body gradually felt a warm and gentle temperature in the darkness. She calmed down and could almost hear the trembling breaths of a woman.
In the darkness, someone knelt behind her, put his arm around her shoulder, and tears mixed with cold sweat fell onto her shoulder. Soft hands stroked his hair again and again.
She heard a hoarse, childish voice come from her mouth: "He's already dead, why are you still trembling?"
Shu Ningmiao lowered her head and looked at a pair of pale little hands that appeared in her field of vision. The fingers were spread apart, and through the gaps, she could see the peaceful face of a middle-aged man's corpse.
The woman behind him, whose platinum blonde hair was disheveled from the movement, spoke in a trembling voice: "This is wrong, Shi Yu, you have committed an unforgivable crime."
“You cried louder when you cried than when your father died.”
"Why are you crying while holding the corpse's hand?" he asked, puzzled. "Why should I think I'm wrong?"
Why are you staring at me like a monster?
Madame Grana looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. Her body went limp, as if all the life force had vanished in that instant, and her face turned ashen.
Shu Ningmiao looked at Madame Grana's haggard face and was momentarily dazed.
When I opened my eyes again, there was an intricate and elaborate ceiling painting of a church above me, my arm was throbbing slightly, and all around me were the sounds of devout prayers.
The incantation was like a spell, tightly binding his head. The sweet and pungent incense filled the room as he stared at the white smoke rising into the air.
Everything in front of her was blurry, more ethereal than a dream. Shu Ningmiao could only see the person in front of her who was completely covered by a white robe. Judging from this familiar image, she knew that she was in the Church of Praise.
The figure of the platinum-haired woman in the distance was also blurry, but Shu Ningmiao could feel that she was watching him the whole time.
The boy's arms were bound to the armrest with restraints, and he remained motionless. The needle in the white-robed man's hand slowly pierced his skin, and a black, viscous substance swirled in the syringe.
An intense pain swept through every joint, and a metallic taste of blood rose in his throat. His body convulsed violently, but he made no sound.
The needle fell to the ground, trailing a thin line of red blood mixed with a black, viscous substance.
Shu Ningmiao's entire attention was focused on the syringe. What exactly was that black stuff... the blood of a Manra patient? Pandora's waste?
She had seen this black liquid so many times that she couldn't immediately determine what it was.
But she could already sense that Shi Yuxian, like Su Ni, had probably had something that didn't belong to her body injected into her.
As soon as the tube of black, viscous substance was injected into Shi Yu's body, her vision immediately began to flicker as if a signal had been cut off.
A white figure swayed before his eyes, Lady Grana gazed at him tenderly, and above him was a magnificent and solemn ceiling painting.
It vanished instantly.
All that remained was a cold, white color.
Her eyeballs seemed to be gradually eroded by that viscous black substance, with black threads creeping up and corroding her vision.
She lay on the bed like a corpse, unable to move, staring blankly at the white ceiling above her. It took her a long time to recognize the color of the ceiling from the seams in the suspended ceiling.
Anxiety, cold, fear.
Even just recalling it, she could feel the intense emotions of the body's owner. Shu Ningmiao had never felt so powerless before. Every muscle in her body was unable to exert any strength, as if her entire body had been slowly tortured until only her brain remained, unable to control any joint movement.
The strong smell of disinfectant permeated the entire room, but it still couldn't mask the suffocating stench of decay.
Her gaze gradually focused, and she saw a head of golden hair that shone like gold. The woman stood by the bed, her head down, so her expression was not visible.
Shu Ningmiao felt a sharp pain in her mind for a moment—the woman's figure overlapped with the one in the portrait; it was Edwina!
On the other side of "her" body stood a baby-faced boy with white hair, slightly shorter than the woman, staring at her with a sorrowful expression.
Shu Ningmiao recognized his albinism-like appearance; this baby-faced boy must be Lan Xi.
The faces in the photographs and portraits appear vividly in my memory, separated by more than three hundred years, leaving only a strong sense of unreality.
Who is "she" lying in the hospital bed?
The boy lifted one of her hands, which was thin and withered, so ulcerated that only a few sparse purplish-black tissues remained on the joints, exposing a small bone, from which black viscous fluid dripped.
The blonde woman remained silent, her teeth clenched, and let out a soft sob.
Lanxi put down "her" hand, his expression somewhat bitter and complicated.
She heard a familiar voice coming from this body.
That day, Wei Shengqianheng sat in the classroom, casually uttering these words while resting his chin on his hand.
It coincided with that weak, almost inaudible groan of pain.
"...I don't want to die."
"—Shu Ningmiao!!!!"
A heart-wrenching scream of pain pierced her mind, and the scene before her vanished. When she opened her eyes, she was still surrounded by hellfire.
Several corpses lay scattered around.
Lin Chuxu knelt on the ground, bent over in a disheveled state, only a few steps away from Wei Shengqianheng. His legs were burned and bloody, revealing the white bones.
Centered on Wei Shengqianheng's body, an invisible yet vast halo of light emanated from him, silently covering every corner of the Shi family.
It's his special ability, "Forgiveness".
The neural connection was forcibly severed. She raised her hand and found that her powers were also unusable, as if they had been insulated by something.
"All the people we deployed have lost contact, and everyone's superpowers here have stopped working!"
"Shu Ningmiao." Lin Chuxu's voice was hoarse from exhaustion, his lips trembling as he spoke: "Be careful, his ability can nullify everyone's abilities."
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