Chapter 81

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Chapter 81:

After Mi Hongbao left, Li Chunzhou patted Li Zhexuan’s head and whispered, "Go, follow him… If A’bao dies, then ‘eat’ him."

Li Zhexuan nodded silently and followed Mi Hongbao’s direction without expression.

Li Chunzhou carried Li Li back to the courtyard, the eggs in the bowl were a bit burnt, Li Chunzhou picked out the parts that were edible and ate them tastelessly.

"Do we really have to make Li Zhexuan eat his brain? Isn’t that too cruel…?" Qi Leyuan thought about the scenes of players having their brains taken out before, feeling uncomfortable. More importantly, he felt there might be some feelings between Li Chunzhou and Mi Hongbao, so he didn’t understand why Li Chunzhou would do this to Mi Hongbao, just to help Li Zhexuan recover faster…?

Li Chunzhou glanced at Li Li, feeling his slightly higher body temperature than hers, shook her head and said, "Not eat his brain, but ‘eat’ the whole person, or in other words, borrow A’bao’s body for a while, if we must have a reason… let it be to kill Jian Hou smoothly."

Qi Leyuan didn’t understand what Li Chunzhou meant and stared at her with wide eyes.

Li Chunzhou continued, "A’xuan’s current body is composed of consciousness, just mimicking the appearance of a human, at the same time, He can consume any consciousness without a host and control all bodies without consciousness."

"Consciousness without a host…?"

"When people die, their souls gradually leave their bodies."

"What happens to those consciousnesses after they are consumed?"

"They become a part of A’xuan’s body, like how we need to eat different foods to grow our bodies, only the consciousnesses consumed by A’xuan can still be separated from him. His body was completely replaced by various consciousnesses a long time ago."

Because Qi Leyuan has explored various strange Dungeons, he has some understanding of how consciousness exists. He asked hesitantly, "Will his mind have various voices and thoughts of different people? Like a split personality?"

Li Chunzhou didn’t understand what split personality meant, but she grasped Qi Leyuan’s previous words. She shook her head, denied his speculation, then raised her hand and said, "My hand doesn’t speak, right? It also has no thoughts, so the consciousnesses consumed by A’xuan won’t speak to him, let alone communicate with him. Only the merged consciousness retains all memories and emotions, as well as a sense of ‘self’."

Qi Leyuan couldn’t help but ask, "So after merging, is it like having a split personality?"

"Split personality…" Li Chunzhou tilted her head, "Li Li, what does this word really mean?"

"Let me think… It’s probably when there are two or more different identities or personality states within one person’s body."

Li Chunzhou’s expression gradually turned calm, as if avoiding something she didn’t want to face. After a moment of silence, she said, "No, He merges human consciousnesses, just like pouring a cup of water into the ocean. It will completely blend together, no matter what color or shape that cup of water was before it was poured in, it will eventually become a part of the ocean."

Long ago, in this sea, there was only the water from that child’s cup. No matter how many more cups of water were poured in afterwards, the sea would still be the sea. But whether that cup of water still counted as the same as the one before, Li Chunzhou couldn’t say for sure.

On a quiet moonlit night, a gentle breeze blew. A bright moon hung high in the sky, casting everything in a soft silver glow. A person and a chicken sat quietly by a stone table, illuminated only by the faint moonlight, echoing the stars in the night sky. The air was filled with the fresh scent of grass and earth, time seemed to stand still in this moment, everything so peaceful and harmonious, if one ignored the impending storm outside of Spring Flowers Tower.

Qi Leyuan found it very unbelievable, staring at her with his round eyes, "But Lady Chun, how do you know so much? Did you learn it from reincarnation?"

Li Chunzhou hesitated for a moment and said, "No, it was before all the cycles began, I saw all of his memories in his mind because of an ‘accident’."

It felt like being thrown into an endless room filled with papers covered in symbols. Most of them were things Li Chunzhou couldn’t understand, some belonged to a post-technology era, some belonged to even higher dimensions.

The "Time Beast" species reproduces by splitting off a small strand of its consciousness.

In Li Zhexuan’s mind lay memories and knowledge accumulated over countless ages of his race, but He was born at a desperate time. By the time He woke up, His entire race in this timeline had already died out completely, so no one taught Him, and Li Zhexuan couldn’t decipher these words and memories.

Li Chunzhou lived in a time without even steam engines, so understanding what those words represented was incredibly difficult for her.

Only the memories of that child were something she could understand. As for the other oceans, she could only gaze out longingly.

Qi Leyuan was very envious, "In just a moment, you know so much!?"

Li Chunzhou gently rubbed her belly, "No, actually every time during my period, I can see Axuan’s memories. I slowly figured out these things, just haven’t tried it yet."

Li Chunzhou also thought about why she could see these things during her period.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the period is mainly related to the kidneys, and the main responsibility of the kidneys is to store essence. The key to a person’s vitality is the "spirit". If the kidneys are not good, the spirit is weak. This spirit can be replaced by "soul" or "consciousness". In Taoist theory, a person has three souls and seven spirits, the spirit is stored in the kidneys, and the character for "period" is related to "ghost". People with weak spirits are more likely to encounter mysterious or fantastical things, souls may leave the body, consciousness may detach.

Therefore, Li Chunzhou speculated that during her period, it might be a time when women can communicate with the spirits of heaven, earth, and ancestors. So, she can only read Li Zhexuan’s memories in his mind when she is on her period. Another important reason is that his "heart" is parasitic in Li Chunzhou’s uterus.

Qi Leyuan looked shocked and hesitantly asked, "Since merging is so convenient, why didn’t you let Li Zhexuan merge the consciousness of Chihong and Gu Lingfan?"

Li Chunzhou, with her dark eyes, looked calmly at Qi Leyuan, sighed, "The prerequisite for Axuan to merge the consciousness of others is that I have consumed that person’s flesh and blood. I don’t know how to describe that feeling to you… it’s like when I bit Mi Hongbao, he would stand out in my mind like a small fluorescent mark in the dark. Even if I haven’t seen him, I can imagine what he looks like from childhood to old age, if his body has any defects, what vegetable flavors he prefers…"

"Wait, I have an idea," Qi Leyuan’s eyes gradually lit up, "Could it be that by consuming flesh and blood, you extracted his genetic information? After all, the arrangement and combination of genes is also a form of information…"

"No, that’s not it, it’s probably not that simple," Qi Leyuan quickly dismissed his own guess, getting caught in a brainstorm, "A person’s appearance is shaped by genes and the environment. Even if you have the genetic sequence, could you predict all the things that will happen in their life, their life experiences…? How could that be possible…? Unless it’s a higher-dimensional being…"

Li Chunzhou didn’t understand what he was saying, so she continued from where she had left off, "I bit Chihong in one cycle, but that feeling disappeared when the next cycle started… Besides Chihong, I also tried on other different creatures, like fish, birds…"

"So," Li Chunzhou found a stick and drew a tree with many branches on the flat muddy ground nearby. Then she drew a circle where the trunk meets the first branch, "Actually, we weren’t at this spot on the first day."

Then she drew a straight line next to the big tree, marked a small section in the middle, and circled it, "We were here, this distance is one month, we kept walking back here, and time was turned back, returning to the starting point."

"I understand what you mean," Qi Leyuan said, "You’re saying that the timeline we’re in isn’t parallel worlds, but always on a fixed timeline. It’s just that the Main God System keeps resetting the timeline from a higher dimension, like a song playing in a loop… Right?"

Li Chunzhou nodded, "As long as the next cycle starts, the withered flowers and grass in this month will bloom again, the fallen leaves will grow back to the branches as time flows backward… People who die in the cycle will also come back to life in the next cycle."

Qi Leyuan asked again, "But how can you be sure this isn’t parallel worlds? If it’s parallel worlds, it makes sense for people who die to come alive… because the events that cause their death haven’t happened in the other world yet."

Li Chunzhou lowered her head, picked up five stones and arranged them in a circle on the table, and said calmly, "There used to be 248 fish in the pond between Spring Flowers Tower and the courtyard, now there are only 247 left because one fish was merged with A’xuan… After being merged, it didn’t appear in the next cycle."

If it were parallel worlds, even if this fish in this world died, another fish in another world would still appear as usual.

But in this Dungeon World, there is only one timeline, so this fish cannot appear again because matter is conserved, the consciousness and essence that were taken over and merged by Li Zhexuan cannot return to their original positions.

"Just like these five little stones, no matter how I mix them up, I can always arrange them back to their original positions. But once I take one away… it completely disappears from this table, and A’xuan’s existence is like me taking away that stone."

Qi Leyuan completely understood what she meant, so he couldn’t say a word, only Li Chunzhou’s voice was clear in the silent night, like cold beads shattering on ice, "The person who killed A’bao might be a Turk, but the one who completely erased him from this world… is me."

Li Chunzhou herself is weak and Li Zhexuan isn’t skilled in fighting. Even if they can make the Turks ignore them and sneak into the palace, with Li Chunzhou and Li Zhexuan’s current physical condition, they absolutely cannot kill Jian Hou with everyone blocking them.

But Mi Hongbao has been practicing martial arts since he was young. If Li Zhexuan merges his consciousness and enters the palace with Mi Hongbao’s body, it greatly increases the chance of successfully assassinating Jian Hou.

After saying these words, Li Chunzhou stared blankly, absent-mindedly. She lowered her head to touch the wound on her hand, only returning to her senses slightly when she felt the pain.

Qi Leyuan said in an unusually calm manner, "It’s not surprising that Li Zhexuan can do these things, as he likely doesn’t belong to this dimension. But to merge with other beings, Lady Chun, you need to consume the flesh and blood of others. So, Jian Hou has been looking for Li Zhexuan’s heart… right here with you?"

Li Chunzhou didn’t deny it, just lowered her eyes. Qi Leyuan could tell that this fact wasn’t surprising, especially since she had revealed so much information. And also, he wasn’t really naive; it was just his "chicken" appearance that added a harmless facade to him.

"Li Li, if I can’t kill Jian Hou, you just tell him you were kidnapped by me, okay?" Li Chunzhou suddenly said with a smile.

The tense atmosphere between the two was suddenly broken by her. Qi Leyuan struggled to speak, and finally asked with complex emotions, "Why?"

"Because I want you, Li Li, to keep on living," Li Chunzhou said calmly, "If I fail and you also die here, then in the whole world, wouldn’t there be no one left who knows that A’xuan and I once existed?"

Whether Qi Leyuan’s loyalty to Li Chunzhou is genuine or not is not important, but having Li Li by her side in this cycle makes Li Chunzhou quite happy.

Qi Leyuan opened his mouth, but in the end, he couldn’t say a single word.

Li Chunzhou lifted her head, reached out to catch the raindrops falling from the sky, and softly said, "It’s raining, let’s go back inside."

***

Li Zhexuan followed Mi Hongbao’s scent to find him, but Mi Hongbao had left on horseback, and Li Zhexuan had to walk. Even though the soldiers and Turks in front of the palace gate did not stop him, Li Zhexuan still wasted a lot of time on the way.

The relationship between Mi Hongbao and Li Zhexuan is not good; the conflict between them lies in Mi Hongbao’s one-sided dislike of Li Zhexuan.

Both Liang Changfeng and Xu Yanqu, when interfered by Li Zhexuan, subconsciously ignore his presence. Only Mi Hongbao has the strongest possessiveness towards Li Chunzhou; time and again, he notices Li Zhexuan sticking close to her, feeling resentful, and takes any chance to drive Li Zhexuan away.

To the point that when Mi Hongbao came to see Li Chunzhou, Li Zhexuan couldn’t even enter the room.

Li Zhexuan rarely protested, maybe because he didn’t understand Mi Hongbao’s actions and motives. He was friendly towards Mi Hongbao, but followed Li Chunzhou like a shadow from a distance.

Every time Mi Hongbao pushed others away from Li Chunzhou and took their spot next to her, he felt so happy. He quickly occupied the free space next to her, then made her only accompany him to chat and laugh.

…

When Li Zhexuan found the barely alive Mi Hongbao, it was almost dawn. The light rain fell like scattered beads, mixing with the bloodstains on the ground.

Bodies lay scattered in front of the Taihe Hall, some were from Daliang, some were Tujue, some were nobles, and some were common soldiers. Death was like a fair executioner, placing everyone’s lives equally in line.

Mi Hongbao was barely clinging onto life, not knowing from where the blood was flowing from his belly. His consciousness was fading, but Li Zhexuan quietly crouched beside him, waiting for Mi Hongbao’s last breath.

Mi Hongbao struggled to open his eyes and saw the young man beside him. He didn’t even have the strength to be surprised and through gritted teeth, he said, "I knew you were not a normal person…"

Li Zhexuan took a moment to understand what he said and then nodded friendly, slowly replied, "Hmm…I am not… human."

The two stood silently facing each other for a moment. Mi Hongbao felt his consciousness slipping away bit by bit, knowing his end was near. Just before he died, he grabbed Li Zhexuan’s collar with all his remaining strength, forcing him to look directly into his eyes, and said, word by word, "I entrust Lady Chun to you… take care of her well…"

The rain washed away the blood and dirt on Mi Hongbao’s face, revealing his handsome, youthful face.

Tears welled up in his eyes, his voice choked with a hint of emotion, but softened as he looked at Li Zhexuan, no longer filled with anger and suspicion, but with a sense of compromise and reconciliation. "Don’t betray her… don’t betray her like I did…"

He was a person burdened with layers of responsibility as the Crown Prince of the Northern Marquis, so he did not consider whether it was worth it or not. He threw all his love, life, and future into the fire in a surreal way, without hesitation.

After losing everything to fate, Mi Hongbao was like a handful of burnt ashes, no longer able to withstand the rain. He didn’t want to become immortal, nor did he desire the endless incense of the afterlife. He just wanted to go back to that winter day six months ago when his mother scolded him, but he just laughed and ran away to Li Chunzhou’s yard behind the Spring Flowers Tower… He just wanted to bask in the warm sun with her again.

Amidst the clash of swords, the summer rain beat down on the banana trees anew, as Mi Hongbao slowly took his last breath in his memories.

Li Zhexuan quietly observed for a while. Mi Hongbao’s face looked peaceful as if he were asleep, yet there was no breath coming from his nostrils.

He had already devoted himself and his life to this country. All burdens had been lifted, leaving only his light soul forever intertwined with Li Chunzhou.

The fingers placed on Mi Hongbao’s forehead emanated thick black energy, seeping into his brain through his seven orifices. In the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, Li Zhexuan’s body slowly dissipated from his fingertips, consuming Mi Hongbao’s body like a mist.

Meanwhile, Mi Hongbao on the ground slowly opened his eyes, with deep, dark pupils—a pair of eyes that belonged to Him.