Chapter 115: This is how Shen Ti was born.
Shen Ti stood there in a daze.
He had imagined many possibilities regarding his origins and what he really was, and he had even thought about things he didn’t want to think about and was too lazy to think about further.
But he never imagined that the reason he appeared in this world was An Wujiu himself, and even this name was given to him by An Wujiu.
His hands suddenly began to burn, and the skin on his hands once again showed abnormal changes.
Initially, Shen Ti couldn’t control his hands; the raised patterns on them would squirm like worms, bulge like veins, and even break through the skin. But before long, everything would return to normal, completely beyond his control. At that time, he had just arrived in the world and understood nothing. Even speaking was extremely difficult, and these hands scared many people away. No one was willing to associate with him.
A deformed freak.
That was how they described him.
Even in his dreams, Shen Ti would see a twisted mirror. At first, the reflection was his familiar self: black hair, blue-green eyes, and a red mark between his brows. But suddenly, an aurora-like brilliant, and bizarre mist appeared, enveloping the black room and the silver mirror. Moments later, the reflection changed into an indescribable monster.
The patterns on his hands that disgusted him turned into slimy, flexible tentacles, seemingly trying to crawl out of the mirror and strangle him.
These dreams occurred frequently, and Shen Ti didn’t understand why. He thought it was because he hated his hands so much, so he simply sealed them with gloves to avoid seeing them.
Over time, Shen Ti began to control the deformity, and the strange power gradually lay dormant within his body, no longer causing trouble.
He thought he was just a little odd, a bit more special than most people.
It turned out he wasn’t human at all.
Although he had this suspicion deep down, Shen Ti always avoided it, especially after meeting An Wujiu. He desperately hoped he and An Wujiu were the same, just as he hoped to have this person.
His memory was always like a dense white fog, seemingly there but completely unclear.
But the moment Yang Ce said An Wujiu’s real name, Shen Ti suddenly remembered a lot.
He finally understood why, when he saw An Wujiu, he felt as if he could see him as a child.
Because he had originally seen him.
Since the day An Wujiu’s father passed away, An Wujiu’s mental state has been in turmoil. In such a situation, he awakened Shen Ti.
Extreme human anger, pain, fear, and depression are the best nourishment for them. The purer and nobler the source of these emotions, the stronger the curse. Only in such moments do humans have the chance to approach their domain and summon the reflection of an evil god through incantations.
A little boy consumed by immense pain and a sealed, distant deity met on a cold night many years ago.
The seemingly indifferent god silently accompanied him as he grew up in pain, gradually nurturing him into a “successful” specimen.
Even Shen Ti himself didn’t know that his human form was shaped by an obsession—a sliver of almost destructive human desire split from the indifferent divine nature.
Wanting to become the same kind as this little boy, wanting to save him, possess him, and truly embrace his scarred body rather than looking down from on high.
That’s how Shen Ti was born.
Yang Ce couldn’t quite understand why, after he said An Wujiu’s real name, Shen Ti would show such an expression.
But An Wujiu quickly recovered, thanked him again, took Shen Ti’s hand, and prepared to leave. “Will you come out with us?”
“I’ll stay here for a while.” Yang Ce’s mind was a bit chaotic, with many memories from ten years ago flooding in. He took a drag on his cigarette, glancing at their clasped hands. “Shen Ti is your…”
“Boyfriend.” An Wujiu’s fingers interlocked on the back of Shen Ti’s hand. He gave Yang Ce a faint smile, nodded slightly, and turned to leave.
Descending the spiral staircase, many past events swirled in his mind. An Wujiu thought about how to tell Shen Ti about these things and wondered if Shen Ti could also remember something, such as whether he had anything to do with the book that appeared in his home and how he came to the holy altar.
Did he still remember him?
These questions piled up, and for a moment, An Wujiu didn’t know where to start.
Opening the tower door, snowflakes hit his face, sticking to his eyelashes. An Wujiu closed his eyes briefly and raised his hand to brush off the falling snow.
“You can ask me one by one; it’s okay.”
Shen Ti’s sudden words made An Wujiu turn his head sharply, his eyes widening in surprise.
Shen Ti didn’t look at him, still facing sideways. In the swirling snow, he smiled, the red earring swaying slightly, like a somewhat unreliable but handsome god.
“I can hear what you’re saying.”
An Wujiu grabbed his arm and pulled him to face him, “Really?”
How could there be such an absurd thing?
Shen Ti raised his eyebrow slightly and said, “It really is quite absurd.”
“I can really hear it!”
An Wujiu blinked twice and licked his dry lips. “When did it start…”
Could it be that Shen Ti could hear all the things he had thought before?
“Don’t worry, it’s not that exaggerated.” Shen Ti looked up at the sky and thought for a moment. “If we’re talking about hearing very clearly and accurately, it should be in this game, and it was when we were on…”
An Wujiu promptly covered his mouth.
“Are you kidding?” He asked Shen Ti again. “Can you hear everything?”
Shen Ti shook his head, raised his hand to grasp An Wujiu’s wrist, and took his hand down. “Occasionally, very randomly. For instance, I still don’t know your identity.” He held up three fingers. “I swear.”
An Wujiu didn’t really care if Shen Ti already knew his identity in the game. That wasn’t important. What mattered was why Shen Ti could hear his thoughts. Could he really be some kind of deity?
Did that mean Shen Ti knew the things he had just thought about?
About his past, the tragic loss of his family in his childhood, and the bond with the person who seemed to be Shen Ti…
“What about others?” An Wujiu asked him. “Can you hear their thoughts too?”
Shen Ti shook his head.
“Only mine?”
Shen Ti nodded and added, “And I can empathize with you.”
“Empathize?” An Wujiu frowned.
Empathy wasn’t something difficult. Many people could do it and do it well.
Shen Ti heard his thoughts and explained directly, “When I say empathy, I mean it possibly in a physical sense.”
An Wujiu looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
Shen Ti raised his hand and placed it over his own heart. “When you’re in pain, I feel heartache too. It’s a very real sensation.”
An Wujiu stopped asking questions.
All these signs pointed to one fact—there was a deeper, yet unclear, connection between him and Shen Ti.
“It’s cold outside,” he said, looking up at Shen Ti. “Let’s go back first.”
They walked silently through the snow. Suddenly, An Wujiu heard Shen Ti say, “Thank you.” He looked up and asked him why.
“Thank you for giving me a name.” Shen Ti’s voice was deep, like a drop of warm water falling into An Wujiu’s frozen heart.
The character “Ti” was his father’s admonition to him, which ultimately became a lingering obsession accompanying him.
Even though this obsession might be the least cautious entity in the world.
“So you know everything…”
Shen Ti hummed in agreement. “But there’s still not much I can remember now. I only know I appeared because of you.”
An Wujiu tightly held his hand. He couldn’t explain why, but upon learning that Shen Ti wasn’t truly human, a sense of panic arose.
Shen Ti shouldn’t have appeared in this world. An Wujiu feared that one day, he might truly disappear or return to his promised land.
Shen Ti thought of what Yang Ce had said earlier and told An Wujiu, “Yang Ce said the Human Revolution Project was meant to combat some unnatural force, and all the researchers who participated in the plan died one after another. Do you think it might be because of me?”
He didn’t say it directly, but An Wujiu understood.
“My father’s death should have nothing to do with you,” An Wujiu said. “I remember very clearly that when he died, his entire eyeball turned blue, like a glass bead. My mother also warned me not to look at blue things.”
He looked at Shen Ti. “Did you notice that every time we entered the holy altar, the surroundings were formed by blue light spots? It wasn’t very obvious at first, but it was most apparent yesterday.”
Shen Ti asked, “Are you referring to the blue flame of the twilight sacrifice?”
An Wujiu nodded. “That blue flame reminded me of someone, or rather, a voice.”
“It seems we’re thinking the same thing.” Shen Ti’s lips curved slightly. “That damn rabbit.”
“Exactly.” They walked step by step towards the temple. An Wujiu felt a chill in his heart. “What I fear most now is that the thing that caused my father’s mental collapse is hiding behind the altar, or rather…”
He looked up and around. “It’s everywhere. It could be a flower or tree in the altar, an NPC observing us, or even a player.”
An Wujiu told Shen Ti about what the rabbit had said in the containment center, “It said that before us, only one player had ever cracked that game.”
Shen Ti had heard that too. “You think that player might be the rabbit itself?”
“Just my speculation.” An Wujiu continued forward, his feet stiff from being buried in the snow. “That rabbit always has an omniscient perspective, and he once said that people like me, with my extreme emotions, are what he most wants to see. He once tried to drive me crazy, but he failed.”
“I think… the rabbit and that player who cleared the game might both be his avatars.”
This was the most terrifying. If their enemy were human, a faction, or even data, it wouldn’t be as uncontrollable and unknowable. But now, An Wujiu couldn’t even ascertain what exactly was the cause of his father’s death.
His existence and Shen Ti’s existence alike were terrifying unknowns.
“You once said you were punished by your kind, constantly repeating some kind of pain. But could you really feel pain back then?” An Wujiu found it unbelievable, or perhaps by that time, he had already been stripped away and turned into a human shell.
Could that god emitting blue light be of the same kind as Shen Ti? Under his strong mental interference, An Wujiu survived and remembered some fragments of words. It’s just that the summoning method or content was somewhat off, so by accident, Shen Ti was dragged into this world.
An Wujiu wanted to say something else when he suddenly heard Wu You’s voice.
“Wujiu-ge!”
He looked panicked and anxious as he ran towards them, leaving Nan Shan behind.
“What’s wrong?” An Wujiu grabbed his arm and asked, “What happened?”
“Noah is missing,” Wu You told him, panting, “We’ve searched the entire city but haven’t seen her.”
Nan Shan also came over and explained the situation to An Wujiu, “Half an hour ago, Noah was with us. At that time, she suggested going out of the city to have a look. I thought about it and decided to first get some food and water from the townspeople, just in case. But after we got the food and left the townspeople’s house, we found Noah was missing. We’ve been searching for a long time, going door to door, but there’s no news.”
“She shouldn’t disappear into thin air.” An Wujiu thought for a moment, “She said she wanted to go out of the city, did you check the city gates?”
“Yes, we checked, but we didn’t see her,” Wu You said.
An Wujiu felt something was off. He thought back to when he observed the layout of the Water City from the mountaintop. This city was backed by valleys and temples, built on a plain with walls and a moat enclosing a large square piece of land.
Shen Ti stretched lazily, “How about we look at the back?”
Wu You didn’t trust him, “The back?”
“Behind the temple,” An Wujiu said.
So the four of them bypassed the huge temple and steps, coming to the back, only to find that there were no steps behind the temple but a sheer cliff-like stone wall. Such a structure was very peculiar, leading An Wujiu to consider it a possibility.
Generally, constructing such a pyramid-shaped structure would have steps on both sides. However, this makes it easy to be attacked from both sides. If the back is a vertical stone wall, once an enemy attacks, the difficulty would greatly increase, and they could only attack the temple from one route.
He didn’t know why he suddenly thought of war scenes. Before long, he heard Nan Shan’s voice.
“Is that Noah?”
Wu You looked over and saw Noah standing next to someone. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Zhou Yijue. The two were staring off into the distance. He hurried over, pulling Noah’s hand and bringing her behind him, away from Zhou Yijue.
Zhou Yijue snapped out of his daze, turned his head to meet Wu You’s eyes, and smiled, “No need to be so wary of me. If it weren’t for me, your little sister would have been taken by a monster.”
Monster?
“I heard she wanted to go out of the city, which happened to be what I was going to do,” Zhou Yijue said, “So I followed her, and unexpectedly, we encountered a ghost.”
An Wujiu walked over to ask Noah what had happened.
Noah frowned, “There was a woman here just now, all white.”
Hair, eyelashes, skin, and pupils—everything was snow-white and translucent, like a snow fairy.
“She had shackles on her ankles and wrists,” Noah told them, “She wanted us to help her unlock them, and I agreed.”
Her eyes were full of sorrow, and her empty white pupils seemed to be holding icy crystals of tears.
Shen Ti crossed his arms and listened seriously, “Then what? Generally, in such fairy tales, isn’t there a plot where they repay the favor?”
Noah glanced at him and said, “I’m telling the truth; if you don’t believe me, look at him.” She pointed to Zhou Yijue and said, “The woman indeed wanted to repay us; she gave us a fire seed.”
An Wujiu looked at Zhou Yijue and saw him slowly open his clenched fist, revealing a small, flickering blue flame.
Another blue one.
“What’s the use of this?” Shen Ti walked over, stood in front of Zhou Yijue, bent down, and tried to blow out the fire seed in one breath.
But Zhou Yijue anticipated his mischief and withdrew his hand, thwarting Shen Ti’s plan.
Noah said, “She told us that during the sacrifice, use this fire seed to ignite the three sacred pillars, and you can achieve the miracle of rebirth.”
The miracle of rebirth?
An Wujiu looked at Zhou Yijue.
“I know what you want to say.”
Zhou Yijue spoke first, “Since I’m given the chance, I have to try.”
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