With his hands in his windbreaker pockets, Ash looked at the skyline disappearing into the steel jungle, and the branches without leaves were covered with snowflakes.

There was a bookstore in front, Ash glanced at it, his eyes lingering on the poster for a moment.

The poster shows a mysterious person wearing dark gothic clothes sitting on a high chair, with her head down and holding a chain in both hands. Her age and gender cannot be seen from her appearance. Behind her are hundreds of ghost giants sitting on spiky benches. The ghosts are festering and look terrified. Without exception, they are wearing shackles on their hands and feet. The chains of the shackles gather together and connect to the chain in the mysterious person's hand.

"Haunted Handbook: There is always evil without reason in this world, and there are always demons that go against the grain."

Ash looked away, thinking that this unexpectedly fits Vichy's true image quite well, after all, she really does have a soul-locking spirit.

Vichy is a bad guy, a devil in human skin, he muttered to himself.

After losing a quarter of his mind, Ash felt that he had lost a lot of memories, including all the memories about Vichy.

He simply forgot everything about Vichy, and all traces of her were deleted from his memory. Even though Ash had discovered the inexplicable gaps in his memory, he couldn't fill in the broken parts with Vichy... and he didn't know what role she had played in his past.

But he couldn't say this. If he exposed that he had sold a quarter of his soul in hell, Jian Ji and the others would never allow him to continue to take risks in the Sixth Hell. He actually knew that the girls didn't believe what he said, at least they definitely didn't believe that there was no risk in picking up trash in hell.

It was just that Ash insisted on being strong, and he seemed to be safe and sound, so they were willing to follow Ash's wishes.

Fortunately, he was the only one who could enter hell, and fortunately, it was the illusory mind that was betrayed, otherwise Ash would not be the only one troubled.

It's not that Ash doesn't want to rely on the girls. Apart from the soul trade, he tells them almost all the truth. But since they are destined to be unable to help with some things, what's the point of telling them except to increase their self-blame and troubles?

They have to go to the six levels of hell, and there is nothing they can do about the soul trade at the critical moment. What else can they do except hate themselves for being powerless in reality?

In the cage of stars, on that night of chasing that speeding train, Ash has chewed over the words "powerless" over and over again... If he could really rely on them, Ash would never sacrifice himself alone to move himself, he doesn't like those tragic dramas; but if he can't share this responsibility, then this trouble should belong to him alone, after all, he can't go to the six levels of hell to fight, and then return to reality to appease the emotions of Sword Lady and the others, right?

Ash felt like a terminally ill patient. Going to hell was to fight the disease with Death Maniac, and returning to reality would depend on Sword Lady and the others to heal his body and mind.

However, compared to the betrayal of a quarter of his soul, Vichy is the source of Ash's current troubles.

As he had no idea about Vichy, Ash could only ask other people about Vichy's situation indirectly. In addition to Sword Lady, he also secretly looked for Witch and Silver Lantern in the past two days, but the attitudes of the three of them were unexpectedly consistent.

Using the Ghost Prophet, yes.

Playing with the demon maid is also possible.

But trusting Vichy is absolutely not an option.

The witch used the Gospel Spirit to help Ash search for Vichy's past record. Even if it was just the tip of the iceberg extracted from the Ghost Manual, the crimes contained in it were shocking enough.

"Killing and refining souls" is Vichy's way of practice, and also her most insane sin. You must know that even the worst necromancer only kills people and takes corpses, while Vichy not only kills her enemies, but also refines their souls, using the desperate energy that erupts when they are in pain as the material for casting spells. Not only can the dead souls not return to hell, they cannot be freed even if they are tortured to the last moment.

To borrow a famous quote from The Ghost Manual, "Death is not the end of despair, but the beginning of a nightmare."

Yin Deng didn't say much to Ash. She just mentioned a small thing in between her intimate moments with Ash: the end of Senluo and her sacrifice. Although the main reason was the three gods of white dove, fire cat and blue bird, this did not prevent her from being full of disgust towards Vichy.

The three gods wanted to exterminate Senluo out of desperation, and she was blameless, but Vishi came to seize the gods purely out of personal desire. This demon not only pushed the doomsday to come, but also almost killed them both on the eighteenth floor of the Spiral of Silence!

If Ash could not completely control Vichy, and if Vichy's value was not indeed huge, and if she had not helped Ash a lot, Silver Lantern would not accept Vichy to continue living if any of these three conditions were missing.

"I don't mind serving you with her," Weisser said last night as she held Ash in her arms. Her voice was gentle and sweet, but her words were full of murderous intent. "But my hands will always be in a position where I can kill her in an instant."

Of course, Vichy wasn't all evil, otherwise she wouldn't have stayed with them. At least during the time when Ash controlled Vichy, Vichy did help Ash a lot, such as the Hell Poison, the plan to break through the Star Cage, the Demigod Ascension Ceremony... Vichy lived and died with him, no less than other operators.

That's why Ash was so depressed.

The way to manage Vichy is very simple, that is to treat her as a dangerous tool, use her when necessary, destroy her when useless, and any feelings towards her will become a loophole in her corrosive shackles... She is not a human, but a ruthless natural disaster, a demon of chaos, and a synonym for cruelty.

From the attitudes of others, it can be seen that Ash himself used to manage Vichy in this way, with fear in his vigilance, and although he was cautious, he was also determined to die together. There are some people in this world, the more you know them, the stronger the murderous intent in your heart becomes.

But Ash lost those memories.

Alertness, fear, and determination to die, all these complex emotions were packaged together with the memory and sold to the death maniac. In Ash's heart, there was only one simple emotion left that he was unwilling to admit, but could not help.

At the traffic light, Ash sighed lightly, exhaled a puff of white mist, and followed the flow of people across the road.

There was an outdoor cafe on the opposite sidewalk. Ash took a look and immediately raised his eyebrows. He walked over and greeted him, "Why are you here?"

Felix held the hot coffee in her hand and took small sips, but it still seemed too hot, so she couldn't help but stick out her tongue and blow. She looked up at Ash and said, "I'm lazy and don't want to leave."

"Have you passed by here too?"

"Well," Felix pulled out a map from his navy windbreaker, looked at it and said, "You see, my search area overlaps with yours here."

Ash nodded, and then he looked at the traffic outside in the snow, wondering what he was thinking. Felix ignored him, and moved her nose, smelling the baking aroma in the cafe. She looked around and raised her hand and said, "Give me a lava cake."

"Are there any sweet drinks here?" Ash suddenly asked, "Nothing bitter at all."

Felix glanced at him, "Only sweet milk meets your requirements...Are you a child? You can't even drink coffee?"

"One serving of sweet milk and one serving of lava cake." Ash didn't mind being called childish at all. He sat opposite Felix, tapping the wooden table with his fingers, supporting his cheek with his left hand, staring blankly at the falling snowflakes.

After a long silence, when the drinks and desserts were served, Felix suddenly said quietly, "If you don't want to talk, can you go to the next table? This is quite embarrassing for me..."

Ash hesitated for a while before making up his mind and said, "I want to ask you a question."

"I actually don't mind if you go to the next table..."

"If there is a person whose values ​​and behaviors you hate and you find them unacceptable from the bottom of your heart," Ash poked the lava cake with a spoon and said, "but you fall in love with that person for some reason, what would you do?"

Felix held the coffee cup in both hands, looked at him with blinking eyes, and was speechless for a moment.