All things are evolving—bugs are evolving, and now even clay figures are evolving.
Su Er still remembered the first little clay figure he had molded, which was obsessed with cosmetic surgery. The latest one had actually learned how to “pluck wool” from its own body.
“A tool?”
Zhu Yu asked, then immediately shook her head and denied the answer herself. A tool couldn’t possibly possess sentience.
But at least one question could now be answered… how Su Er managed to speed up the tower clock.
He couldn’t do it himself, but the clay figure was perfectly suited for the task.
As he was thinking this, the meditation cushion bounced back some unidentified thing that had tried to climb up.
The little clay figure fell to the ground, scattering bits of clay.
This scene, however, gave Su Er a shred of hope. The meditation cushion hadn’t chosen to obliterate it directly, but merely drove it away—proof that even it couldn’t be sure of its judgment.
“Peach Blossom Spring…” Su Er looked outside and suddenly understood the mood Ji Heng had been in when he carved those characters into the tree. The world now was no different from a Peach Blossom Spring for humankind: seemingly beautiful, but from the perspective of later generations, full of crises, even a terrifying place.
The clay figure had none of these thoughts. The more setbacks it met, the braver it became, and it kept trying to climb back up.
Su Er didn’t care whether the meditation cushion could understand him, and said aloud: “It’s a genuine little ghost. The yin energy in its body doesn’t originate from this world.”
The rule required that whoever sat on the cushion had to be a real visitor from afar. Players met the definition of “visitor,” but they weren’t “real.” Su Er didn’t even know what his original name was. The clay figure, however, perfectly sidestepped this.
In order to seize all the yin energy, the clay figure gave it everything it had. After hitting the ground, it bounced up, somersaulted forward, then kicked off and went into a cartwheel, twisting its body midair in a precise 720° spin before landing squarely on the cushion.
“......”a
For a moment, Zhu Yu even forgot to think about its origins, and seriously asked: “How do you skip the part about marriage and pregnancy and go straight to having such a little ghost?”
Su Er didn’t answer, his attention fixed on the cushion. “How much longer?”
Zhu Yu froze, about to open his tablet to check the timer, but Ji Heng had already responded: “One minute and forty seconds.”
The meditation cushion temporarily ceased attacking. The little clay figure sat cross-legged on it, body twitching, far less calm than it appeared on the surface.
“Please keep an eye on it.” With that, Su Er walked into the courtyard, searching the big tree. “Not this one.”
Ji Heng came out as well. “Looking for a tree?”
Su Er nodded. “The Ghost King said you once carved words on a tree. You also mentioned a tree in your self-reflection inside the illusion.”
He still remembered that line: ‘Now the peach tree in the courtyard is about to wither.’
Ji Heng said, “Since it’s about the peach tree withering and not peach blossoms falling, that tree is probably already dead.”
Hearing this, Su Er stood still for a few seconds, thinking about possible places it could have been planted.
Ji Heng pondered and analyzed: “The courtyard faces south. A peach tree wouldn’t be planted in front of the house. Check the back instead.”
Su Er raised a brow. “There’s such a saying?”
Ji Heng nodded. As they circled to the back, he explained, “Peach (tao) sounds like ‘escape’ (tao). People find it inauspicious.”
Linking this to Ji Heng’s past, Su Er sighed. “Unfortunately, even though it wasn’t planted in the south, you still couldn’t escape calamity.”
Ji Heng chuckled in agreement. “That’s true.”
They had been here for some time, but this was their first time going to the back of the house. Weeds grew wild, the brick wall was riddled with cracks, weather-beaten and on the verge of collapse. Not far away stood a wooden stump. Su Er strode quickly toward it.
Before he could start digging, Ji Heng pulled him back and teased, calling him a literary genius: “A gentleman does not stand beneath a crumbling wall. You should know that.”
Su Er looked up at the unstable wall, then bent back down to his task. “If anything happens, call me.”
If nothing else, his sprinting speed was excellent.
“Why are you so concerned about a tree?”
“Gou Baopu gave me a peach blossom branch. Everything in this instance revolves around peach blossoms. Best not to overlook anything related.”
Watching him dig around the stump, Ji Heng couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t have a habit of burying things.”
Su Er paused, then wagged his finger. “Actually, you’re quite sentimental.”
Ji Heng froze.
“When a person reaches the peak in a certain field, they’re prone to emptiness. You don’t have a lover to share your joy with, so what else could you do but bury flowers in the courtyard and write diaries?”
“......”a
Helpless, Ji Heng half-squatted down and said seriously: “Emptiness is not the same as boredom.”
The voice in Su Er’s ear kept on, but he ignored it and kept digging. His efforts were rewarded—about forty centimeters deep, his fingers finally touched a smooth edge. He hurriedly dug faster and soon pulled out a long-buried wine jar. It was light—clearly not filled with liquid. After unsealing it, Su Er rolled up his sleeve and pulled out some withered, rotten flower petals and a small notebook.
He turned his head. “What were you saying just now?”
Ji Heng’s expression at that moment was nothing short of marvelous—so marvelous that Su Er regretted not recording it on the spot.
Glancing distastefully at the notebook, he happened to be caught by the wind. The flower petals were blown into fine powder and plastered all over his face.
Su Er kindly handed over a tissue. Ji Heng took it, wiped his face, and took the initiative to flip through the notebook. Inside, it recorded that the human brain transplant surgery hadn’t succeeded on the first try. The first two attempts had clear signs of rejection; it wasn’t until the third that it barely succeeded. But the aftereffects were severe—though the brain could think normally after surgery, the hands often trembled slightly, accompanied by nausea and inability to eat.
Physical exams all showed normal, and the doctor’s advice was to transfer to the psychiatric department.
“The doctor was right,” Su Er said.
Ji Heng had mild mysophobia. His own brain inside someone else’s body—this arrangement was an insult to him.
The diary also mentioned that he intended to make the truth of three hundred years ago public, so that humanity would face reality and be forced to accept the Core Project at the brink of life and death.
As Su Er was concentrating on the text, Ji Heng suddenly began tearing the diary.
Though puzzled, Su Er didn’t stop him. Gradually, he realized Ji Heng was only tearing out a few specific pages.
“These ones are slightly thicker,” Ji Heng explained, rubbing the frayed edge of the torn page with his fingertip. Sure enough, the sheets had hidden layers. He carefully peeled one open and poured out a dried flower petal with the number “2” written on it.
Next, he found four such petals in sequence. Arranged according to page order, they formed 3240.
Su Er: “Looks like a date.”
Ji Heng smiled. “Could also be a password.”
“Hey, you guys…” Xu Yangyang ran over to call them, but when he saw they were holding something, he swallowed the rest of his words. “Any discoveries?”
“A string of numbers.”
Su Er stood up a bit too quickly, his vision flashing with stars. “Was the meditation cushion game cleared?”
At that, Xu Yangyang’s expression grew complicated. He brought out a bundle wrapped in cloth. The clay figure had split into four or five pieces, with only the head intact.
“Stun gun… all… mine…”
Even at this point, it was still fixated on yin energy.
Su Er reached out to close its eyes, but the clay figure stubbornly refused to shut them.
“I get it.”
Unfortunately, in its eyes, a scumbag’s credibility was zero. Any promised benefits had to be delivered immediately.
Su Er glanced at Ji Heng. The latter nodded, stepped toward the house, and before leaving, raised his brows at Xu Yangyang. Though he had wanted to stay, Xu Yangyang understood the signal and regretfully followed him inside.
Once they were gone, Su Er began remolding the body and channeling yin energy into it.
The distance between the front and back rooms was only a few zhang. On the way, Xu Yangyang’s voice carried intermittently as he explained things to Ji Heng.
“All set. The cushion only launched a final little killing move in the last ten seconds, and its body broke apart on the spot…” Xu Yangyang sighed. “A ghost’s vitality is still stronger than a human’s. Even like this, it didn’t die.”
After the two entered the house, the rest of the words became inaudible. Su Er worked quickly with the c;ay. At the final step, the little clay figure suddenly opened its eyes wide.
Su Er was both exasperated and amused. “It’s all yours.”
While channeling yin energy with the stun gun, he couldn’t help wondering how others saw him. Whatever else might be said, he was someone who always kept his promises.
“I’m the one who truly stays out of the clay and remains untainted…”
Amid his self-praise, he packed up the little clay man and went back inside.
There was now an extra person—Li Shuo.
Su Er’s eyes flickered. He quietly found a place to stand, and only after a moment spoke: “Things outside are chaotic right now. You must be busy.”
Li Shuo: “We found the old Taoist who’s to hasten Lu Lanxin’s childbirth. As we agreed before, you’ll have to contribute.”
“Alright.” Su Er agreed readily, then hesitated, glancing at the monk. “The master and I have some private matters to discuss.”
Li Shuo tactfully stepped out, waiting in the car.
“The city museum,” after Li Shuo left, the monk calmly stood up and put away the cushion. “What you’re looking for is there.”
The clue rekindled hope for the players. Unless something went wrong, destroying the alien probe at the museum would let them escape this cursed instance.
“The sooner the better,” Xu Yangyang said excitedly. “Before the parasites multiply beyond control, we have to hurry.”
Everyone was of the same mind. Just as they were about to step out, Su Er turned back—only to see the monk weeding.
Noticing his gaze, the monk yanked a clump out by the roots. “These weeds sprouted here even before me. I pull them because they’re unsightly. But weeds in this world can never truly be eradicated.”
Knowing this was an allegory for the relationship between humans and the bugs, Su Er had no position to say more. In the end, he left in silence.
The players filed out one after another. Li Shuo rolled down his window. “Get in.”
Su Er: “There are too many of us, not enough seats. We’ll ride bicycles.”
Before anyone could argue, he cut it off firmly: “We also need to take care of a few other things along the way.”
Li Shuo frowned but didn’t insist. Looking toward the person closing the door behind them, he asked in a low voice: “Where did that monk come from?”
Su Er answered vaguely: “From the same circle.”
After a pause, he added, “So where’s that old Taoist now?”
“At the city museum.”
Su Er’s expression changed—it turned out to be the exact same location the Ghost King had given.
Seeing that he had no intention of getting in the car, Li Shuo drove off first. “Call me when you arrive.”
After the car had gone quite a distance, Xu Yangyang walked up, chuckled, and said, “The odds of this being a coincidence are way too low.”
Then he turned to Su Er: “You’ve dealt with him before. He’s not working in some proper government department?”
Su Er: “As long as he’s not parasitized, he really is a good person.”
That day, insect eggs were rampant throughout the entire city. No one could guarantee that Li Shuo hadn’t been parasitized.
“No matter what, we still need to go to the museum.” Zhu Yu had already set up the voice navigation and mounted her bike.
Su Er agreed with her and, out of the corner of his eye, noticed Ji Heng being stopped by the Princess Tea Flower. After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed his bike over. Xu Yangyang also wanted to join the fun, but then the host’s airy voice drifted over: “The more you know, the faster you die.”
Xu Yangyang forced a laugh and quickly pedaled away.
Only then did the Princess Tea Flower speak: “After passing a certain dead-end instance, there are two options.”
Su Er narrowed his eyes warily. To suddenly bring this up—he definitely had bad intentions.
Princess Tea Flower smiled and held up one finger: “First, return to your original place as a native inhabitant. Second, keep clearing instances, save up enough points, and let the game seal your memories. From then on, you’ll live in a fabricated but beautiful world.”
Ji Heng’s gaze turned ice cold. “Seal memories?”
Princess Tea Flower: “That includes all memories connected to the game—your current experiences, the companions you’ve come to know… all will be forgotten.” As he spoke, he turned to Su Er: “Of course, that includes him.”
Painful reality or blissful illusion—you had to choose one.
Just like the Peach Blossom Spring, once you leave, you can never find the entrance again.
“At the same time, everything about you will also be erased from everyone else’s mind.”
When her words fell, both Su Er and Ji Heng remained silent. For a time, only the sound of the wind scattering fallen leaves could be heard.
Princess Tea Flower savored this sudden silence, as if he could sense the players’ pain through it. “It’s not like no one has ever cleared a certain dead-end instance. But most, in the process of grinding instances to save points afterward, grew increasingly depressed—until they died.”
Is false happiness really worth longing for?
Su Er’s first thought was of himself. In his memory, his parents treated him well. But no matter how blissful the game’s data constructed it to be, it would only make him feel emptier inside.
The host choosing this moment to reveal the truth was truly a blow straight to the heart.
As if seeing through his thoughts, Princess Tea Flower asked with a smile: “So… do you still look forward to clearing a dead-end instance?”
Stay behind and live with all your memories intact—or else become a puppet on the game’s strings, stripped of memories, living in what they call the ‘real world.’
A person’s character is forged through countless experiences. Without those memories, it would be like past and present lives—they couldn’t simply be called the same person.
Su Er glanced at Ji Heng, who was still silent. He was certain—he didn’t want to forget this man, and he didn’t want him to forget him either.
Confronted with cruel reality, his lips were pale, his fingers clenched tight. At last, he made up his mind, looked at Princess Tea Flower, and said: “Excuse me—what are the requirements to apply to be a host?”
Becoming a host meant he could experience the real instance world with relative safety, and likely wouldn’t have his memories sealed. All in all, it was barely acceptable.
“......”a
The arrogance between her brows instantly vanished. Princess Tea Flower’s face went dark; gone was his schadenfreude. After a long while, he nearly lost her voice: “What did you say?”
Su Er patiently repeated it.
Princess Tea Flower: “What did you say?”
Su Er repeated it a second time.
Princess Tea Flower: “What did you say?”
Su Er’s gaze grew dark.
Expressionless, Princess Tea Flower said: “The wind’s too strong.”
He couldn’t hear him.
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