Chapter 46 The Death of Chaos Even as bait, the Dao did not let it slip away…
Chapter Forty-Six
"Li Yueyuan, it's been a long time. Is this how you treat an old friend?"
The air distorted, and a vortex appeared out of nowhere. The laughter that Du Yu had heard not long ago came from it, and You Shi, who had changed into the appearance of a young girl, jumped out of the vortex.
"I don't befriend degenerates."
Li Yueyuan turned around indifferently, casually took off her dirty gloves stained with green solution, and threw them into the trash can.
You Shi wasn't embarrassed at all, and said with a grin, "If you can be friends with Chen Xingzhi, why can't I?"
What are you doing here?
The hundreds of tiny beads in Li Yueyuan's right eye socket devoured each other and merged back into a glass-like eyeball. With one hand in her pocket and the other hand unscrewing the stirring cap, she poured the black viscous liquid inside into a glass tube.
"Sister Li, can't I come if there's nothing else?"
Yu Shi, eager to please her, squeezed past her without any politeness and tried to take her arm affectionately, but she pressed her head down with one hand and coldly pushed him away.
"If you don't talk, get out."
"Sister Li, you're so fierce!"
Yu Shi scrambled onto the lab bench, knocking over several beakers while enduring Li Yueyuan's death stare. "Honestly, do I have to remind you? You signed off on the Daily Project, so you have an obligation to assist me."
“I know you don’t like me. Give me some ‘bait’ and I’ll leave right away.”
"and yours?"
"It was stolen by stray dogs."
Li Yueyuan frowned at the other person's nonsense, casually rummaged through the dusty junk box next to her, picked out something that looked like a metal fragment, threw it at her feet, and picked up a piece of green fleshy growth as if no one else was there, and continued to dissect it.
You Shi was still smiling, his eyes as cold as ice. He slowly walked over, bent down to pick up the piece of "trash," and suddenly brought his face close, poking a small hole in Li Yueyuan's face with the tip of his nose.
"I know you don't like me, and it doesn't matter whether you like me or not, but—you don't still hate that being above the mist, do you? Hmm? The former leader of the rebels?"
Hot, damp breath brushed against his face, like a chronic, persistent eczema. The nightmarish voice lingered, one eye fixed on the scalpel before him, the other darting to the right, its iris almost brushing against You Shi's skin. His voice was steady:
"I dare not hate."
"ha."
You Shi chuckled, not commenting on Li Yueyuan's answer. Instead, he seemed to be in the mood for conversation, tossing and catching the fragments in his hand while circling around the laboratory.
"Tsk tsk tsk, a scholar who has won the Silver Moon Medal is only able to do things like extracting corpse oil in the lower city. What a waste of talent! Sister Li, do you want to know how the last bait was thrown away?"
"My ears hurt so much, I'm starting to suddenly lose my hearing."
Li Yueyuan's voice was completely flat, as if he were reading the instruction manual for some equipment, devoid of emotion and skill.
Unaffected, You Shi bent over and stacked the measuring cups one by one like building blocks. "In the spirit world, only the authority of the gods is higher than mine. There's no mistake. Mysterious and fresh, that aura is definitely the aura of the new god."
"Uh-huh."
"How fresh, how delicious, how amazing! Bait meant for rotten fish and shrimp has actually caught a plump baby whale. Whale falls are such a rare and spectacular event that even an ant can witness three times in its lifetime. Listen, my very soul is trembling with excitement."
"oh."
"No, it's not a whale fall."
Yu Shi suddenly covered his face, laughing so hard his shoulders were shaking. The measuring cup, which was already wobbling, lost its support and crashed to the ground with a "thud," shattering into pieces.
Yu Shi stood up, stomped his foot and crushed the fragments into powder, a smile playing on his lips, his eyes filled with disgust. "Foolish rotten wood, man-made imitations, how can these two things be compared to that perfect being?"
Wow.
As Li Yueyuan offered perfunctory flattery, You Shi became more and more excited as he spoke. When he got carried away, he acted like a spoiled child passing by, casually knocking down, crushing, and throwing everything in sight around him.
Li Yueyuan remained indifferent, letting her rage on. Only before her hand touched the storage box did he lift it from above and give her a cold glance.
"Don't even mention a true god, even a false god could crush you with a flick of their wrist. Even if another true god were to be born from the mist, what could you do? Use 'bait' to lure in a true god?"
"How can we mortals interfere in the struggle for power among the gods?"
Yu Shi cupped his face and laughed, his face full of ecstasy: "I know I can't hurt her, so—I've decided to offer her the sacrifice I want to accelerate her growth."
Li Yueyuan's mechanically stiff face finally showed expression. She raised her eyebrows in confusion, her pupils contracted for a moment and then returned to normal. She recited the two questions as smoothly as an AI reading:
"Oh, why? Have you finally gone mad?"
"I've been reading ancient scripts lately and came across a very interesting little story. I'd like to share it with you."
"Before the Great Cataclysm, there lived a very powerful, godlike being in the world—Chaos. He helped two people who thought that everyone has seven orifices for seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing, but Chaos alone had none. So they decided to help Chaos open his seven orifices."
"Hehe, Sister Li, guess what happened next?"
Li Yueyuan placed the junk box at her feet and began reading the ancient text from before the Great Cataclysm. Even with their abilities, it was extremely difficult, and You Shi disdained to lie, so every word she spoke was worth its weight in gold.
But the woman kept her eyes down and continued dissecting the ghoul's heart methodically, even though she had done this hundreds of times in this underground laboratory.
The listener was oblivious, and the speaker was completely unintentional.
You Shi didn't care about Li Yueyuan's reaction. He gave a nervous laugh, his throat bobbing, his jaw twitching as if it were dislocated, his face flushed, as if he were fighting something, and he struggled to utter an obscure ancient phrase:
"Everyone has seven orifices for seeing, hearing, eating and breathing, but this one alone has none. So I tried to carve them out—and so I carved one orifice each day. After seven days, Chaos died."
Du Yu, who was secretly eavesdropping, was startled. The sentence You Shi just said was in classical Chinese, which was Chinese that Du Yu was familiar with!
She had heard this story before; it was about the death of Chaos mentioned in Zhuangzi. But why would You Shi connect this story with himself?
Li Yueyuan paused slightly, clearly indicating that her knowledge of ancient language was also quite high. She was cutting the thick lips that were constantly growing on the surface of the ghoul's heart due to the influence of ancient language when her hand trembled and she cut the back of her own hand.
The pale flesh split open, the cut was dry and shriveled, and not a drop of tissue fluid flowed out, let alone fresh blood.
Li Yueyuan glanced at You Shi, who had placed the metal fragments in front of him, then knelt behind him, his eyes vacant as if deep in thought. Her brows finally furrowed.
What exactly do you want?
Yu Shi snapped out of his daze and replied with a smile, "It's like offering a sacrifice to that great being who was born—although I've never read his teachings, kneeling is always a prayer posture that can't be faulted."
"are you serious?"
Li Yueyuan casually covered her wound, and after hearing You Shi recite a long prayer, her brows furrowed even more: "Do you know what you're doing? If you want to die, don't drag me down with you!"
"Hehe, of course I know. I am praying to another god as a chosen one."
"Why?"
Li Yueyuan seemed confused. When she saw You Shi kneeling there unharmed, and a cluster of purple flames suddenly appeared on the metal fragments in front of her, burning around them before taking away what was inside, her confusion and shock deepened.
"Why……"
"Why have I been unpunished for being fickle, betraying the old gods, and blaspheming the new Lord?"
Hahahaha!
When You Shi saw the purple flames rise and carry away the metal fragments, while he was still kneeling there unharmed, he couldn't help but burst into laughter, laughing so hard he was doubled over and tears streamed down his face.
"Because He doesn't care! He doesn't care either!"
"As for why I did this? Because you dare not hate; and I dare not hate either!"
"...You're really crazy."
Li Yueyuan took a few deep breaths, suppressing the emotions revealed in her eyes. Like a doctor looking at a terminally ill patient who refused treatment, she looked at You Shi for a long time and shook her head. "You've lost two 'bait' in a row. Now you should think about how to explain this to the person behind you."
You Shi seemed tired and didn't get up. He arched his body forward, stretched out his arms, and lay sprawled on the messy ground. Hearing Li Yueyuan's words, the maniacal laughter that he had barely managed to stop resumed.
"Sister Li, if I could be a dog for the gods, you would only be able to eke out a living in the lower city. Your awareness is still too low."
“As I just said, He doesn’t care. With the new baby whale, He no longer cares about the previous rotten fish and shrimp. They’re just two portions of ‘bait.’ Not only will they not affect the Sun Chasing Plan at all, but even if they do, that being doesn’t care.”
"As for the newly born young god, he doesn't show up early or late, but he appears at this very moment and takes the 'bait' from me in a show of defiance. Doesn't he know what this means? He certainly does, but he doesn't care."
Du Yu, who was eavesdropping nearby, thought to himself: ...
What do I know? How could I not know? If you have the guts to complain, then explain it more clearly!
Du Yu, who was unjustly blamed, was very confused. What puzzled her even more was the system notification she had just received:
[Ding-dong~ Congratulations to the player for obtaining 19 fragments of the [Six-Star Holy Grail] offered by the believer [You Shi] (Faith Status: Extremely Undevout). The current [Six-Star Holy Grail] collection status is (31/99). Please keep up the good work!]
This is utterly ridiculous. She had 166 set up an automatic program to collect sacrifices at the altar to make it easier for believers to offer sacrifices, but she never expected that it would make it easier for the enemy as well!
[Ding-ding—Please trust the system. Items that have undergone sacrifice at the altar will absolutely not cause any negative effects on players.]
The system surprisingly offered an explanation, but is that the point? Is this your excuse for accepting sacrifices from "extremely impious" believers, just like a garbage dump?
At this moment, Du Yu and Li Yueyuan were in unison regarding You Shi: He's crazy!
But since she'd already accepted it, she wouldn't return anything else, especially something as valuable as the Holy Grail fragments to Yushi.
Despite the fact that the information she overheard and the contradictory attitude of [MiMiYin] towards the Holy Grail already showed that there was definitely something wrong with the Holy Grail.
But Yu Shi just said something right: when food is available, whether it's bait or something else, people who come out of the wasteland don't have the bad habit of wasting food.
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Author's Note: The passage about the death of chaos is a quote from "Zhuangzi: Ying Di Wang," with some minor textual changes made to fit the plot. =w=
I'm finally starting to write the main storyline of this volume!
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