TN: Thanks to Ko-fi Supporter for the coffee, I’m so sad that this novel will end in the next 2 chapters ‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )‧º·
Chu Huai finally saw the golden characters on the black wall.
It was a leaderboard-like thing with a long list of names engraved from top to bottom.
In third place was his name.
It read, [Third place, Chu Huai, 25 days, 17%.]
As expected, Chu Huai thought to himself.
The 25 days referred to the time he had spent in the Memory City, and the 17% was the actual percentage of memories he had lost, not the surface level 10%.
This explained why men who had lost 32% of their memories were deemed to have failed, while women who had lost 37% were unscathed. It was the invisible memory thief at work.
Curious, Chu Huai looked up.
[Second place, Jin Tianyi, 16 days, 8%.]
And higher up…
Chu Huai’s pupils suddenly shrank.
[First place, Jin Tianyi, 9 days, 5%.]
Rubbing his eyes and looking closely, Chu Huai confirmed he hadn’t read it wrong and turned to ask: “How is this possible?”
Jin Tianyi woke up earlier than Chu Huai and had already noticed this anomaly. While Chu Huai was still asleep, he had been pondering this issue.
Jin Tianyi frowned.
“I don’t know either. I came out on the 16th day, and that first place… either has the same name as me…”
Chu Huai didn’t believe it. Jin Tianyi’s name wasn’t very common, and the probability of someone having the same name and being superior to Jin Tianyi was low.
Jin Tianyi knew what he was thinking and fell silent for a moment before wryly smiling. “So, I have another guess.”
He gazed at his own name at the top of the leaderboard absent-mindedly and said: “Perhaps, before I lost my memory, I had walked through the Memory City’s instance.”
This could also explain why he had a vague sense of familiarity with the place.
Chu Huai’s heart tightened. He knew they wouldn’t be able to come up with a definite answer and joked: “You walked for 9 days the first time, and 16 days the second time. You’ve regressed.”
Jin Tianyi was stunned for a moment, then smiled wryly: “If that really was me, maybe I had no desires or aspirations back then? Now… it’s normal to have concerns.”
Chu Huai lowered his gaze, and the corners of his mouth involuntarily lifted.
Suddenly, a familiar headache came: [Congratulations to the task taker Chu Huai for passing the first test of the Memory City. Now it’s time for the fireworks display.]
Fireworks Display Introduction:
In the monotonous and bland memory world, every once in a while, a splendid firework with the parting words of the leaver will descend and bloom. That is an opportunity for the temporary residents to live, but also a moment of pain for the eternal detainees.
Write down the words you want to say to the people in the world.
Note: Do not involve key information about leaving clues.
Chu Huai quickly wrote a sentence.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Kfc wlceafr ijafg, lc atf vjgxfra wbwfca yfobgf vjkc lc atf wfwbgs kbgiv.
Ktf gfrlvfcar revvfcis ofia rbwfatlcu jcv qea bc atflg tfjns mbjar, mbwlcu ab atf klcvbk. Ktf cluta kjr tfjns, jcv rfnfgji olgfkbgxr yibbwfv ogbw jc ecxcbkc ibmjalbc.
Pc atf fcv, atfs obgwfv j rfcafcmf.
“Zjc mjc rfii vgfjwr, yea mjccba rfii lvfjir. Bcbkifvuf mjc yf rbiv, yea cba mbcrmlfcmf.”
Some of the people of that generation showed envy, while others regretted deeply.
After a long time, someone finally left the Memory City.
Chu Huai and Jin Tianyi stood in front of the main statue.
While the three small statues were standing, the main statue was lying inward, so from this angle, it only left a graceful and thought-provoking back for the two people in front of it.
The statue was about two meters long, made of white stone, and covered in marks left by time, making it appear somewhat dilapidated.
With black hair that reached her waist, it seemed to be a woman.
Jin Tianyi turned to the back of the statue, carefully looked at it, and paused, with a strange expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Chu Huai approached him suspiciously and took a look, but was stunned by the sight before him.
The statue was a hermaphrodite.
It had the breasts of a woman but the genitalia of a man.
After a moment of silence, Chu Huai said: “Can I assume that the little demons in the memory realm were born from it?”
Jin Tianyi did not answer, but instead furrowed his brow.
Just now, he had a strange feeling that the main statue had opened its eyes and showed him a… kind smile.
Seeing him standing still without speaking, Chu Huai was about to inquire when a familiar sharp pain struck his brain: [Memory City, second level, final stage, about to enter.]
The two of them fell into a coma once again.
After an unknown period of time in the memory ghost temple filled with snoring sounds, the main statue truly opened its eyes and looked at Jin Tianyi who had fallen into a dream, with a meaningful smile on its face.
For a long time, in a clear and gentle voice, it said: “Since an old friend has come, let’s just let it flow.”
Its eyes then turned to Chu Huai, who was standing next to Jin Tianyi. After a long time, it sighed.
It could easily invade the memory of the task performer and learn everything about them.
This second level is really unnecessary. The young man is physically weak, but his will is unbreakable. False dreams cannot shake him in the slightest. Even if you try a hundred times, there will be no change in the result.
He can’t do anything to him, just like he couldn’t do anything to Jin Tianyi back then.
All his tricks are like chicken ribs when it comes to Chu Huai and Jin Tianyi.
When he was young and full of vigor, he refused to admit defeat and let Jin Tianyi fall into the second level of dreams at an unprecedented speed after he walked out of the first level.
This time it was even faster, and Jin Tianyi walked out in just six days.
He didn’t believe it, went against the will of the world, and created the third level.
Then came the fourth level, the fifth level…
Nine levels in total, and Jin Tianyi broke all the flawlessly created dreams in less than a month.
He was a stunning young man.
Light shone into every corner of his heart, and the evil spirits couldn’t disturb him in the slightest.
His will was so strong that it could not be melted even at the temperature of purgatory.
But he still fell in the end.
Jin Tianyi passed nine replicas but discovered a terrifying truth that was hidden – his way back to reality was blocked.
The world did not allow him to leave.
He was maliciously killed without any logic.
Later…
“I didn’t expect him to choose like this. But… this is indeed what he would do.” The hermaphrodite figure sighed lightly.
Then he looked at Chu Huai and smiled: “Old guy, you won’t be lonely anymore, he is even more outstanding than you.”
Chu Huai woke up to find himself in a dark room. The wooden floor beneath his feet was broken and cracked, with mud oozing out of the gaps. The visibility was extremely low.
Chu Huai was sitting on a wooden chair, with a dusty wooden table in front of him. The corners of the table were all worm-eaten, emitting a damp and musty smell. There was a rectangular black object on the table.
Chu Huai tried to stand up but weirdly found himself stuck to the chair, unable to move his legs, but his hands were unobstructed. Suddenly, four bloody words appeared on the rectangular object on the table – “Ghost Widow Legend.”
It turned out to be a book, asking him to open it. Chu Huai could not leave anyway, so he opened it with suspicion.
He was worried that he couldn’t see the words clearly, but he found himself overthinking. The words were blood-red and glowing, making them easy to read.
The story was simple, the font was large, and the spacing was wide. Chu Huai quickly finished reading it in a few minutes.
The gist of the story was that several hundred years ago in a certain dynasty, a young woman’s newborn daughter was stolen. She was devastated. The woman was from a poor family and had to work as a wet nurse for a wealthy family.
She breastfed the family’s daughter, who grew up to be lively, clever, and cute, without any of the spoiled and arrogant traits of a young lady. She was sometimes even closer to the wet nurse than her birth mother.
The woman who lost her daughter naturally treated her as a replacement for her own daughter and was willing to do anything for her.
When the daughter was in her teens, the illness she had carried since birth finally broke out, and it was irreversible. Medicine was ineffective, and her death was imminent.
The family sought medical advice and eventually heard that taking the heart of an unborn child from a pregnant woman’s belly could save the daughter.
The method was cruel and terrible, but the wet nurse was determined to do it.
While the family hesitated, the wet nurse secretly returned to her home in the deep forest and kidnapped the only pregnant woman around.
She hung her up on a beam, and with her own hands, she used a knife to cut open the pregnant woman’s belly and took out the unborn child’s tiny heart.
She rushed back in the dead of night and handed the heart to the daughter’s parents, saving the daughter’s life.
As the wet nurse returned home to clean up the mess, the sky was getting bright. In the dim light of dawn, she saw a red velvet tassel wrapped around the woman’s bloodstained clothing, falling out of her bosom.
The wet nurse was suffocated with a dreadful possibility, trembling with her bloodstained hands, and picked up the stained velvet tassel.
Then, she wept bitterly, letting out a beastly howl of sorrow.
She killed her own daughter and grandson with her own hands.
As it turned out, after nearly twenty years, her lost daughter coincidentally married someone nearby.
The nursemaid was now old.
She couldn’t bear the shock anymore… and committed suicide. Because of her immense regret, she turned into a ghostly woman.
The story ends here.
Suddenly alert, Chu Huai smelled a bloody odor, which was getting stronger and stronger.
The faint sound of dripping water “tick-tock” came, like a stage, and the light suddenly turned on, Chu Huai followed the sound of water and looked up, just in time to meet the swollen, pale face on the ceiling.
Chu Huai was frightened and stepped back, suddenly realizing that he could move his legs.
The woman was hanging on the ceiling beam, and as Chu Huai looked down, her gaping abdomen was dripping with blood, empty and hollow inside, and Chu Huai could see her deformed intestines and stomach.
Scene reenactment?
The ghostly woman’s daughter?
The old woman lying on the ground with her neck almost broken confirmed Chu Huai’s suspicion.
How much regret did she have to have to be so ruthless to herself?
Chu Huai was on high alert for the possible crisis that might happen next, but the old woman on the ground suddenly stood up like a zombie.
Chu Huai’s nerves were tight, but he realized that the ghostly woman didn’t even see him, her vacant gaze passed right through him, as if he didn’t exist at all, and she went straight to the bloody infant on the ground, murmuring as if chanting a spell.
Then, a strange scene unfolded.
The baby boy stood up, his expression numb, and followed the ghostly woman out of the wooden house.
Did the baby boy become a ghost?
Even now, Chu Huai still didn’t understand the situation, but he was sure of one thing: the ghostly woman couldn’t see him.
Chu Huai gritted his teeth, no longer hesitating, and picked up the book on the table and ran out.
After the rain, the mountain forest was filled with the smell of earth, which covered the strong scent of blood and sin.
The ghostly woman and the baby boy walked further and further away, and Chu Huai chased after them desperately. When he turned his head, he realized that the terrifying wooden house was gone.
How could that be?
Chu Huai didn’t have time to think, and ran as fast as he could. He looked at the baby boy and suddenly stopped in his tracks, his pupils shrinking.
That baby boy seemed to have grown up a bit…
So he was traveling through time rather than space?
Wow, so interesting!!!!!!!!!! Time travel!
Thank you for your translation 💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝
Is that boy jin tianyi?
Ohhh the Hermaphrodite knew ml OwO what a lot of copies 😅 also where ml fell 😞