Chapter 87 Two Segments of Memory: A Painful Abyss
It's rather strange to view one's own memories from a third-person perspective, especially since Zhou Fangdong has no recollection of these memories.
Perhaps because he had just acquired a paper craft shop, in this memory he saw himself squatting in an unfamiliar courtyard making paper figures.
In my memory, his attire was the same as in the solo photo on the pendant: a black burial shroud, his long hair tied high at the back of his head, and his ponytail hanging down in front of his chest as he bent over.
His method of making paper figures was extremely crude, completely abandoning the traditional bamboo strip craftsmanship. Instead, like building a snowman, he first soaked a stack of paper in water, then kneaded the softened paper into a ball to serve as the paper figure's head. He then repeated the process to make the limbs. Finally, he inserted bamboo skewers into these paper balls and stuck them into the bodies, which were also made of water-soaked paper.
After creating an extremely clumsy and rough anthropomorphic object, Zhou Fangdong carefully lifted it up and placed it against the tree.
After the paper figure was in place, he carried a bucket of paste and held a small brush in his hand, and brushed the anthropomorphic paper figure with paste as if he were brushing on barbecue sauce.
After the paste dried, Zhou Fangdong took out a photo of a man and traced the facial features onto the paper figure's face based on the photo.
I don't know if it's because the paper figure's head is too round, or because the brush in my hand isn't quite right, but the paper figure's features look somewhat abstract, completely different from the face in the photo.
But Zhou Fangdong stroked his chin and nodded, seemingly quite satisfied with his work.
After thinking for a moment, he probably felt that the paper figure was missing something, so he grabbed a clump of ribbon from somewhere, dipped it in glue, and stuck it on the paper figure's head.
The paper figure, with its smooth yet distorted features, now possessed rainbow-like, shimmering hair. Under the moonlight, its long hair sparkled, becoming the brightest star in the night sky.
Zhou Fangdong laughed, casually tossed the photo behind him, took out a dagger, cut his fingertip, and poked it into the 'paper doll's' eyes.
A bizarre scene unfolded: almost the instant his finger left the paper figure's eyes, the paper figure's thick chest rose and fell, as if it were breathing.
The eyes, marked with blood, gleamed with a moist sheen under the moonlight, as if they had come alive.
Zhou Fangdong snapped his fingers with satisfaction, and a cluster of eerie blue flames shot up from under the paper figure's feet, quickly engulfing it.
The flames burned in an eerie color, a mix of blue and green, and green and purple. When they reached the paper figure's hair, they burst into a dazzling, disco ball-like light.
Amidst the dazzling flames, the paper figure quickly turned into ashes.
The moment the flames completely disappeared, Zhou Fangdong's figure in the courtyard also vanished silently, as if disappearing into the flames like a paper doll.
The next moment, the scene shifted, and Zhou Fangdong's figure appeared in another place.
The sky in this place is blood red, the ground is scorched earth, there is no sun, moon, or stars, only eternal darkness and lingering blood light.
Zhou Fangdong stood on a winding dirt road, a white paper lantern appearing out of thin air in his hand. The lantern emitted a faint blue light that illuminated the road ahead. He walked along the path until he reached a memorial archway.
The archway was built of bluish-white stones, with four stone pillars supporting three archways, the middle one higher than the two sides, and the top covered with blue tiles. However, ghostly hands kept reaching out from the gaps in the blue tiles, frantically scratching at the air, blocking the plaque in the middle of the archway.
Only when a chilling, eerie wind howled from who-knows-where did the ghostly hands obediently lower, revealing the three large characters on the plaque—Gate of Hell.
As the eerie wind appeared, the Black Impermanence, dressed in a black robe, wearing a tall hat, and with a burly figure, appeared out of thin air below the archway.
Black Impermanence's face was extremely ugly. He was holding a chain in one hand and a paper figure that Zhou Fangdong had just made in the other.
The paper figure with shiny long hair looked much more lively than before. Although its neck was being choked by the Black Impermanence, its limbs and body were struggling and jumping with great energy, like a live fish that had just been bought from the market.
Zhou Fangdong greeted him with a smile.
The voice in my memory was very faint and blurry. I couldn't hear what he said to Black Impermanence. I could only see the face of that famous ghost messenger growing more and more ugly.
Hei Wuyong vigorously shook the paper figure in his hand, which was trying to leap and splash water like a carp, and shouted something at Zhou Fangdong.
After hearing his explanation, Zhou Fangdong's expression showed both grievance and confusion, as if he didn't understand why he reacted that way.
Finally, Black Impermanence could no longer bear it, so he put down the paper figure with its long, flowing, seven-colored hair and grabbed Zhou Fangdong by the collar.
This time he clearly heard what the Black Impermanence was saying...
Black Impermanence said, "Refund."
All the sounds in my memory are hazy and blurry, except for the one that said "refund!" which was crystal clear.
Zhou Fangdong snapped out of his reverie, his face pale, the deafening shout of "Refund!" still echoing in his ears.
He didn't know why he was making paper figures, nor did he know why he was doing business with Black Impermanence... and since his paper figures were so cool, why should Black Impermanence ask him for a refund?
Although the paper figure suited his aesthetic taste, Zhou Fangdong had absolutely no recollection of this memory.
He felt his brain getting increasingly painful.
Why make paper figures? I've never worked in the funeral industry before, and he clearly...
By the way, what kind of job did he do before he died? Why did he wear a suit as his work uniform?
Is he in sales? A real estate agent? Or an insurance seller?
Zhou Fangdong finally realized that something seemed wrong.
His memory was very strange; it was missing a lot of things. Something had deliberately blurred his consciousness, making him intentionally ignore the missing parts of his memory.
Despite his headache, Zhou Fangdong began to carefully recount his experiences from childhood to adulthood.
Just like some websites ask when setting up security questions, he started to recall his parents' names, who his elementary school homeroom teacher was, what his student ID number was, what his best friend's name was...
Zhou Fangdong was astonished to find that he couldn't answer any of them.
He couldn't even remember his own birth date or which university he graduated from.
Zhou Fangdong tried to concentrate, attempting to search his mind for those blurred memories of his past life, and he didn't stop even though his head was throbbing.
The longer the memory is recalled, the more pronounced the headache becomes.
At first, it was just a dull ache near his temples, but as he kept thinking, the pain became more and more intense.
It was as if an invisible hand suddenly reached into his skull, grabbed his brain, and then tore it apart mercilessly.
The sharp pain felt like it was tearing his brain off his skull. Zhou Fangdong felt a sudden darkness before his eyes and almost collapsed.
He covered his head tightly, and could clearly feel the throbbing of the veins in his temples.
Each throb of his blood vessels felt like a small hammer pounding inside his skull. The boundless pain seemed to have a physical form, pressing heavily on his eyeballs and the top of his head, and it also seemed to have a temperature, burning hot, making him feel as if his brain was boiling and evaporating.
Zhou Fangdong gritted his teeth, his stubborn spirit kicking in once more.
He seemed determined to fight the excruciating pain, refusing to give up recalling his past no matter how much it hurt.
He didn't know if it was because he had gotten used to the pain, but he could feel the intense tearing sensation slowly subsiding, and the fog over his memory seemed to be receding along with the pain.
A flash of red light suddenly appeared in my mind, and another memory fragment appeared in my mind.
In this memory fragment, Zhou Fangdong, dressed in a black suit, stands in front of a crack.
Calling it a crack isn't quite accurate; for humans, this gap is too large.
What lay before Zhou Fangdong was a terrifying, endless abyss.
A crimson light filled the abyss, and a blood-red river, as viscous as magma, surged through the crack... It was a river without source or end, flowing silently and violently through this void rift.
What's even more chilling is that this terrifying, blood-red river is teeming with countless indescribable, horrific monsters.
They struggled wildly in the river of blood, tearing and trampling at will, entangled and killing each other, yet together they stretched out countless twisted limbs and deformed claws toward the outside of the crack.
Those pairs of pitch-black ghostly hands clung to the edge of the crack, yearning to escape this painful blood river purgatory and surge into the outside world.
Zhou Fangdong stared blankly at everything before him. Without any hesitation, he leaped into the rift that tore the heavens and earth apart, plunging into the blood-red river where countless ghosts struggled.
The instant he fell into the river of blood, unimaginable pain surged up—it felt as if millions of red-hot iron needles were piercing through every inch of his flesh, and his body was slowly dissolving, as if being corroded little by little by strong acid.
But this pain is only the beginning.
The vengeful ghosts struggling in the river of blood swarmed in, like piranhas that had smelled blood. They pounced on Zhou Fangdong, tearing his flesh with their claws and gnawing at his bones with their sharp teeth. Once they had eaten his body, they frantically bit and devoured his soul.
His body and soul were torn to pieces in an instant, and his blood and flesh merged into the blood-red river, into the mouth of the vengeful ghost, and disappeared without a trace.
He seemed to have completely merged into this blood-red river of resentment and terror... Countless ghosts and monsters in the river became a part of him, and he became the river itself.
But even when the body and soul had vanished, the pain did not disappear. It was an indescribable, disintegrating pain, as if every fragment of thought was being meticulously ground apart.
Zhou Fangdong felt as if his consciousness, memories, and emotions had all been thrown into a giant shredder. His brain was in chaos, his perception was fragmented, and all that remained was boundless, pure, and extreme pain.
The endless pain of tearing and annihilation was like this long river that never stops flowing, and the unbearable pain continuously strangled his remaining consciousness.
The pain from his memory was completely recreated in reality. At this moment, let alone recalling it, Zhou Fangdong even had difficulty keeping his mind clear.
He collapsed to the ground, his body curling up uncontrollably from the pain.
Two streams of bloody tears flowed from his tightly closed eyes, and a faint phantom image of a shrine appeared above him, creating a terrifying sense of oppression in the basement.
The system emitted a sharp, popping sound:
[Ughhhh! Blood! It's killing me! My stamina bar is about to reach zero! My stamina bar is about to reach zero!!! Please replenish your stamina!!!]
However, Zhou Fangdong could no longer hear and made no response.
In the basement, Yingmei, who had been huddled in a corner, too scared to move, quickly sent a wisp of black mist to Zhou Fangdong.
[Received 1,000 ghost coins from the Shadow Demon; system automatically replenishes spirit bar]
The illusory image of the shrine, which was about to solidify, vanished instantly, along with the terrifying sense of oppression that had enveloped the basement.
The basement fell silent.
After a moment of silence, Zhou Fangdong slowly sat up from the ground.
It hurts so much... My whole body aches, it feels like I've been run over by a car wheel over and over again. Was he hit by a car again?
Zhou Fangdong looked around blankly, the two bloodstains starkly glaring at him.
So, what was he planning to do just now?
Zhou Fangdong looked at Yingmei.
Did Shadow Demon secretly beat him up?
The shadow demon shivered under his gaze, unable to maintain its human form, and turned into a small shadow, shrinking into the corner.
Seeing that Zhou Fangdong was staring at it, it stretched out a shadow, trembling, and pointed to the lamp oil worker who was still working next to it.
Zhou Fangdong looked enlightened.
Oh, right, he just went to the ghost market and bought uniforms and shackles, then made lamp oil workers.
I never imagined that being a synthetic worker would be so difficult; it's even more difficult than making incense offerings.
Zhou Fangdong sighed, staggered to his feet, and opened the System X panel.
The lamp oil will take some time to brew, and room 207 isn't finished being cleaned yet...
Let's continue cleaning room 207 and find all the ghostly artifacts in the room.
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