MEI stood up and continued forward.
Experience told her this was no ordinary paranormal event.
From the ghostly figures near the residential building at the beginning to bumping into her own paper ghost, these were all ghosts she had encountered before.
The ghostly figure, from its silhouette, looked very much like the ghost that would teleport behind you and snap your neck if you looked away.
But it had lost its killing rule.
As for the paper ghost, there was no need to say more. She had several of them locked up at home, just in case.
Drip… drop…
Drip… drop…
The sound of water woke the distracted MEI.
A strange feeling appeared on her body. MEI immediately reached out and found that her skin was melting into blood, just like the paper ghost had a moment ago.
However, this change was very slow; she wouldn't die from it in a short time.
But then again—
She was just a human body, so why was she more resistant to the Bizarre Rule than a Bizarre entity's body? This wasn't logical…
"No time to think."
If she didn't leave quickly, she would sooner or later end up the same as the paper ghost.
"I need to speed up."
MEI ran forward quickly. Every so often, she would see a ghost she had encountered before, which further confirmed her speculation.
This road had an end.
Because the number of ghosts she had encountered was limited, perhaps she could return to reality when she reached a point where she no longer encountered any.
The oppressive environment did not stop MEI from thinking and acting.
Suddenly, a dark shadow shot past her, and in a blink of an eye, it was behind her.
MEI's pupils contracted, a rare look of astonishment on her face. She opened her mouth and said in disbelief, "Pardofelis?"
The next second, MEI dismissed the thought and continued running forward.
"It's not her."
Pardofelis couldn't leave home, and even if she did, she had to stay by Elysia's side. Otherwise, she would soon be unable to suppress the resurgence of the Rule of Khorne and revert to a Bizarre entity, her murderous intent stirring, not sparing any creature that appeared before her.
And the Pardofelis she had just glimpsed wasn't looking at her at all.
"Just a glance," MEI stopped and looked back.
Can was perched on Pardofelis's head, sleepy-eyed, seemingly dormant.
Pardofelis stood behind her, gazing. Noticing her, she waved, and just as she opened her mouth to greet her, she melted into a pool of blood and flowed into the stream on the side of the street.
The paper ghost was one thing, its completeness was too poor after all, but Pardofelis couldn't even last a second…?
MEI examined her own condition. Besides her arms, her fingers were also starting to melt.
But the process was still slow, only one percent of the rate at which Pardofelis had melted.
"This is no time to hesitate. Continue."
MEI's steps did not falter. She took a deep breath and looked straight at the end of the seemingly endless street ahead. The dim and cold halos of the streetlights on both sides cast a gentle light.
The scenes on both sides of the street flashed by like movie frames: brand new houses, noisy schools, advanced laboratories, a farcical international conference room, the occasional cry of a night bird…
All were exceptionally clear in the quiet night.
Her body was melting more and more severely; she was almost about to turn into a pool of blood.
But she just didn't melt into a pool of blood in an instant like all the ghosts she had seen before.
MEI's body still maintained its pre-collapse appearance.
She didn't know why, nor did she have time to find out.
Elysia stood on the bank, waving at her. MEI, thinking support had arrived, walked over.
As long as Elysia used her "divine" radiance, she could break the Bizarre space.
But as MEI approached, Elysia also melted into a pool of blood and flowed into the stream.
Fake again…
No, I can't say it's fake…
MEI looked up. Everything and everyone on this road didn't seem fake. It was very likely that they were all real things from the past, and were closely related to her.
The further she went, the closer the connection.
From the ghosts she fought at the beginning, to the subordinates of the Fire Moth later on, and then to the comrades who walked side by side and depended on each other…
They all appeared in order of their importance in her heart.
So… what was at the end?
MEI didn't know. At least for now, she thought the most important were Elysia and Pardofelis. They had been reborn from despair together and had supported and looked out for each other in a strange new home.
What could surpass that relationship?
MEI's pace quickened, and her heartbeat accelerated with it.
The scenery on both sides of the street rapidly receded in her vision. Every building, every streetlight, every occasional falling leaf, became a fleeting passerby on her journey. Only one thought dominated her mind—at the end, what was waiting for her arrival?
This desire burned like a fire in her chest, making it impossible for her to stop, nor could she tear her eyes away from the path ahead.
Everyone needs a reason to live—a primary motivation to keep moving forward.
For a long time, MEI didn't see anything familiar.
She was about to reach the end of this road.
However, when MEI finally ran to the end of the street, panting, full of excitement and anticipation, ready to greet the figure waiting for her, the scene that appeared before her couldn't help but disappoint her a little. The person standing there was not a familiar face as she had imagined, but a strange young man she had never seen before.
He stood there, his figure slender, as if he were also waiting for something.
The only special thing was his pair of truly black eyes.
Under the moonlight, there was not a single impurity in his black pupils. They were so deep they seemed to be able to swallow all light, yet so pure they were like a transparent surface, reflecting everything that appeared before them.
Unlike the dark irises people usually see, which often show shades of dark brown, dark green, or dark blue due to the refraction of light, the eyes of the young man in front of her were a pure, unadorned black.
"..."
MEI felt it was strange. Logically, the person she met at the end should be the person or thing she valued most in her heart, right?
Was her judgment wrong?
And… she felt this figure was very familiar.
"You are…?" MEI asked the only living person in front of her.
The young man turned around, his gaze shifting behind her. He said calmly, "This place will turn everything into nothingness. Staying here will only lead to complete annihilation."
"Walk past here, and you can be reborn."
As his words fell, MEI walked up to the young man, cupped his face in her hands, and turned his dodging head toward her.
"Then why don't you go?"
"…I can't."
"Why can't you?"
"Your hands are too sticky. Let go of me first."
"I'll let go after you tell me."
Faced with MEI's persistence, the young man was silent for a moment before telling her the truth: "Because I am already dead. A dead person cannot return to reality. Now… hurry up and go. If you don't go now, you really won't be able to."
With that, the young man slapped MEI's hands away, walked alone to the edge of the stream, and stared at the reflection in the water with dead eyes.
"…Then I'm leaving?"
"Go."
Their conversation was quite brief.
Although it was a lifeless conversation, it made MEI feel very comfortable, as if… they had once lain on a草原, gazing at the starry sky, chatting about their dreams, the birth and death of stars, the heat death of the universe, and the passage of time.
No embellishments, no explanations needed.
"..."
"..."
MEI looked at the visible boundary in front of her. Just one more step and she would be back in the brightly lit reality.
Only her bones remained of her four limbs; the flesh had all melted. Her neck was also starting to melt.
As he said, if she stayed any longer, she would completely disappear from this world.
A long time passed, and there was no sound on the street.
[Please don't be bound by sorrow anymore]
[Please don't be trapped in the past anymore]
[Please touch my heart]
[Please abandon everything and move forward without stopping.]
[Please grow distant from me.]
Li Mo slowly closed his eyes, letting his body fall.
He was tired and didn't want to go on. All his efforts were in vain in the end. Everything was false.
No matter how many times he tried, the ending wouldn't change.
Those fated to die would still die. The heart-wrenching tragedy was still irreversible.
It had nothing to do with effort, nothing to do with willpower.
"Pain is false, sorrow is false, even death is false…"
His body, pulled by the threads of fate, gradually tilted toward the stream.
The moment the tip of his nose touched the water's surface, his body stopped falling and was forcefully dragged back to the bank.
"The world is false, but love is real."
"What has happened will not disappear. They are only temporarily buried, waiting for someone to dig them up with blood and tears one day."
A gentle and intellectual voice sounded softly behind Li Mo, instantly breaking the surrounding silence and stillness.
Li Mo had just been immersed in a sudden dream, a dream where worlds intertwined and emotions were complex.
The sudden call, like a thunderclap in the night sky, instantly dissipated all the dream fragments, leaving only a blank void.
Li Mo's eyes shot open, a trace of lingering panic and confusion in his pupils. He quickly flipped up from the ground.
Once he was steady, Li Mo quickly turned around, his gaze fixed on the source of the voice. His tone carried a hint of disbelief and urgency. "MEI? Why are you still here…" Halfway through his words, Li Mo suddenly realized he had said the wrong thing. His voice paused slightly, and a complex emotion flashed in his eyes.
"Oh? Since you know me, why don't you just say it?"
MEI stood with one hand on her hip, straight and elegant, a meaningful smile on her lips.
It had been a long time since she had made such a crazy decision.
How long had it been?
Since she became the leader of the Fire Moth, she had stopped letting personal emotions influence her decisions.
"Go, quickly! There's still time!" Li Mo shouted, grabbing MEI's melting bones and about to head for the end.
But MEI shook off his hand, just as he had slapped hers away earlier.
"I'm going to die. It probably won't even take a minute."
"That's why I'm telling you there's still time to go!"
"What are you in such a hurry for? I'm not."
MEI walked to the bank, reached out to touch the reflection in the water, and exposed the truth: "The ghost that's been following me, the reflection in the water, it's you, isn't it?"
"..."
Li Mo didn't answer. He lowered his head; he couldn't give an answer.
In fact, when he saw that MEI hadn't left, he had already thought of it—
MEI had guessed the truth, and she also understood that she had forgotten him.
He was Li Mo's memory. The reflection in the water was Li Mo's instinct.
As for where Li Mo's soul had gone, he didn't know either.
"Although I have no subjective memory of you, countless objective facts tell me."
"I am a very important person to you."
"You are the person I value most."
Li Mo turned his head and said in a low voice, "That's just your guess."
MEI smiled and did not deny it. "Indeed, this is just my guess. I have studied the habits of ghosts. Ghosts act strictly according to instinct and rules, and basically do not have a living person's consciousness. At most, the habits and consciousness from their past life after being contaminated will affect their own rules."
"Although it's ridiculous to say, with my terrible personality, it's hard to imagine that I… would walk into another person's heart. Even to the point where the other person becomes a ghost, exists as a ghost, and still tries hard to restrain the ghost's instincts and act according to a living person's free will."
"Triggering a fatal rule yet not being attacked, is this exception on me? No, it's on the ghost."
"I was thinking… I might have forgotten you. Triggering a fatal rule rashly was stupid, but… you are probably also someone worth dying for to me."
Li Mo: "You will die. It's not worth it for a guess. This isn't a gamble, because if you stay here, you will definitely die!"
MEI: "So what?"
"People are always looking at something important other than themselves. After I die, there will inevitably be traces of my existence left in reality. I'm very curious if you will care about these traces, and even more so, when these traces disappear from this world, if you will still remember at some moment… these insignificant yet precious traces that once existed but have already disappeared."
"After that, use no logic to create a logic that belongs only to you. Make everything look the way you like it best in your eyes."
"All the past is a dream, and reality is the continuation of the dream."
"If you truly hold someone in your heart, and you recognize their thoughts, respect their choices, and acknowledge their value."
"Then, you should go and realize their dreams. Practice their ideals, understand how beautiful and broken things are in their eyes."
"This is the path I am practicing."
"Ultimately, what this world recognizes is not empty words, but tangible struggle."
The blood spread from her fingertips to her wrist, then climbed up her arm until it covered her entire delicate body.
Li Mo hurriedly reached out, trying to grab something, but found that he could only touch the cold air and wisps of blood.
The smile remained on MEI's lips, her light purple eyes shimmering with the faint light of the past. "Death is by no means the end, Li Mo. Just endure it a little longer. I am the only one who can save you. I will never abandon you and leave you all alone."