[Audience Expectation +20]
The remains of the snowman melted in the deathly silence. After the candle extinguished and its blue smoke dissipated, Chen Ling's face turned as pale as paper.
"I..."
Chen Ling stammered, "I was talking to my younger brother..."
"Where is your brother?" Wu Youdong looked at the empty seat beside him, "Aren't there only two of us in the house?"
Chen Ling looked at the opposite seat. Before he knew it, it was already empty... In a trance, the afterimage of a teenager's smile faded from his memory.
Bead-sized sweat drops fell from Chen Ling's forehead, his back soaking his clothes. His confused and empty eyes kept trembling, like someone just waking up from a nightmare.
"No, it's impossible..."
Chen Ling suddenly stood up, the legs of the table scraping the floor with an ear-piercing creak.
"How can there be only two of us?!" Chen Ling's voice suddenly rose, "My brother was just here... Before, he was making a snowman at the door. He even saw me off at the door this morning, and he mended my cotton-padded coat!"
He violently took off his cotton-padded coat and pointed to the perfectly mended spot, "Look! This was mended by Ayan! I don't know how to sew at all!"
"Also, all these wooden planks on the wall were fixed by him!"
"There's also a doctor from Aurora City living in our house. He's met Ayan too. If you don't believe me, you can ask him!"
"I... I see." Wu Youdong seemed frightened by Chen Ling. He said awkwardly, "I was just... asking... because I saw you talking to thin air just now... It was quite scary."
"I wasn't talking to thin air!!"
Chen Ling pointed to the void opposite, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Wu Youdong.
"My brother was sitting there just now. You should have seen him when you came in, right?!"
"I... I really didn't see anyone."
Wu Youdong felt wronged. Looking at the strange behavior of Chen Ling in front of him, after struggling for a long time, he tentatively asked, "Chen Ling... Have you encountered a disaster recently?"
Chen Ling froze in place.
[So, have you also merged with a disaster?]
[...I don't know. When I woke up, I was already standing there.]
[Have you also lost a period of memory?]
[Yes.]
[But the location where the Gray Realms intersect is in the back mountain, isn't it? You should have been in surgery at that time... Why were you also affected?]
[I don't know... I just remember the doctor giving me anesthesia. When I woke up, I was just...]
Familiar voices lingered in Chen Ling's ears. He vaguely seemed to have caught something, his pupils slightly contracting.
"No..." Chen Ling murmured, "No... It's all wrong..."
"Chen Ling, are you okay?"
"...The back mountain?!"
Chen Ling suddenly looked up in a certain direction and rushed out of the house like crazy. He didn't even take the cotton-padded coat he had just taken off. Wearing only a thin top, he plunged into the swirling snow.
As soon as his figure disappeared at the end of the street, Chu Muyun, wearing a woolen coat, walked to the door. He looked at the direction Chen Ling had left in surprise. Just as he was about to enter the house, he saw Wu Youdong standing alone in the living room and immediately frowned.
"Who are you?"
"Me, I'm Chen Ling's friend."
Behind the silver-rimmed glasses, those eyes immediately narrowed, revealing a dangerous aura...
"What did you just say to him?"
"I didn't say anything... I just, I just thought it was strange that he was talking to himself, so I asked who he was talking to... and then..."
Chu Muyun's face changed drastically!
He glanced again in the direction Chen Ling had fled.
"Do you know... what you've done?" Chu Muyun's voice seemed to come from the netherworld.
"I..."
The moment their eyes met, Wu Youdong's heart jolted. He had never seen such icy, crazy eyes.
Wu Youdong was terrified. He staggered half a step back, tripped over a chair, and fell to the ground with a thud.
Chu Muyun took a deep breath, stepped into the house, and gently closed the door.
The drafty door blocked the light and snow outside. The living room was shrouded in dimness as the figure in the woolen coat slowly approached Wu Youdong.
He pushed his glasses, and beneath his refined exterior, a ruthless aura spilled out unapologetically—like a ferocious beast trapped in a human shell, shedding its disguise to bare bloody, hideous fangs.
"Do you have any idea how rare a Fusioner who maintains a delicate balance between madness and sanity is as research material?"
"Do you know how much effort I've put into acting with him just to keep him from noticing his own abnormalities?"
"Do you know... what kind of monster you might have unleashed?"
Wu Youdong was paralyzed with fear. With his legs already broken, he couldn't escape—only dragging his body backward inch by inch...
"I didn't know, I really didn't know," he pleaded.
"I've guarded here for three days, keeping everyone away from Chen Ling and this house... And you just had to barge in yourself."
"...Why?!"
Chu Muyun suddenly grabbed a chair by the corner and swung it at Wu Youdong's head!
Bang——!!
A dull thud echoed through the room. Wu Youdong collapsed into a faint on the spot.
A deep gash split open his forehead, and scarlet blood gushed out, quickly pooling into a puddle.
Chu Muyun showed no sign of stopping. He stared fixedly at Wu Youdong's corpse-like form on the ground, wielding the chair to smash again and again into his body!
"Why?!"
"Why?!!"
"WHY?!!!!"
Scalding blood splattered across the woolen coat, and a streak of crimson stained the lenses of his silver-rimmed glasses.
Gone was Chu Muyun's former scholarly demeanor—now he was a butcher, a mob, venting his rage in the unnoticed darkness. With each blow of the chair against the limp body, Wu Youdong's breath gradually faded.
Bang——
With the final strike, the chair finally shattered.
Gasping for breath, Chu Muyun wiped his sweat. His blood-stained fingers pushed up his glasses as his deep blue eyes gazed at the bloody mess at his feet.
After an unknown length of time, the madness in his eyes faded, and a sharp scalpel fell into his palm...
Meanwhile,
A figure stumbled through the snow and reached the back mountain.
Chen Ling's thin shirt was already soaked in sweat, his body torn between fever and cold. He climbed over the deserted yellow police tape, past snow mounds topped with wooden markers, as if searching for something.
This was the starting point of everything... and the place where the truth lay buried.
The mass grave.