In a moment of confusion, Chu Huai saw the male infant who had been led by the ghost woman suddenly twist his neck mechanically and look in his direction.
There was no time to hide, and Chu Huai’s heart was pounding as he prepared to deal with any sudden situation, but the baby suddenly smiled at him.
He could see himself!
This realization made Chu Huai’s scalp tingle, but the baby’s black and white eyes were full of curiosity and kindness.
The ghost woman covered the baby’s body with a cloth, and his clothes were wet with a large patch over his heart. He suddenly raised his hand, touched his empty heart, lowered his head slightly, and muttered: “It’s so empty here, it’s so uncomfortable.”
Upon closer inspection, his features were somewhat handsome.
The ghost woman thought her grandson was talking to her and gently stroked the baby’s head, lovingly saying: “Tianyi, don’t be afraid, Grandma is sorry for you, Grandma will find you a heart.”
Chu Huai suddenly heard that name and his eyes were full of incredulity. He felt his blood flowing backward and was completely immobilized.
That boy was… Jin Tianyi when he was a child?
Chu Huai’s hand curled involuntarily, tightened, and his fingertips turned white and blue. His heart was pounding.
He was conscious and aware that he was dreaming. He seemed to understand now that he was just an onlooker.
Chu Huai really, really wanted to know if everything he saw was true or false.
The dream was too real, and he felt a little breathless.
Jin Tianyi was suffocated by his own grandmother before he was born and had his heart cut out…?
Losing his own mother…?
Becoming a walking corpse…?
Was this the missing part of Jin Tianyi’s memory…?
When Chu Huai looked up again, the ghost woman and the baby were far away from him. The mountains and forests ended, and a black hole-like illusory and real cave appeared in the distance, with time factors jumping on the surface.
The ghost woman led the baby through the cave and disappeared from Chu Huai’s sight.
Chu Huai no longer hesitated. Even if there was a 99.99% chance that everything in front of him was fake, he would still take a chance for that one-in-a-million possibility.
This is Jin Tianyi’s lost memory, it is his beginning, his place to settle down, and the reason why I… love him.
As the black hole gradually receded, Chu Huai desperately ran towards it, hating himself for not being diligent enough with his limbs. Fortunately, in the last moment when the black hole disappeared, he caught up to it, and his slender figure disappeared into it.
He felt dizzy and disoriented.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a picturesque place full of water plants and fish.
The ghost woman was standing outside a courtyard with her grandson. Inside the courtyard, a boy about the same age as Jin Tianyi was crouching on the ground, catching grasshoppers. The sound of people talking and the aroma of food wafted from the kitchen.
On the road, countless pedestrians passed directly through the bodies of the ghost woman and Jin Tianyi.
Jin Tianyi looked very anxious, wriggling his small body, but he couldn’t break free from the ghost woman’s rough, cracked hands.
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.
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Jin Tianyi’s palm-sized face was full of despair.
Chu Huai seemed to realize something, forgetting to breathe for a moment, feeling chills down his spine.
The ghost woman had a complicated expression, with three parts madness, four parts sorrow, and three parts remorse.
Without any hesitation, she pierced the boy’s chest with her hand, just like she had taken out Jin Tianyi’s heart years ago, and took out the boy’s still-beating, blood-drenched heart.
The boy’s joy and excitement froze on his face, then fell to the ground. What followed were the screams of shocked pedestrians on the street, scattering like birds and beasts, and the howls and cries of the boy’s family realizing what had happened.
No one could see the ghost woman and Jin Tianyi.
The ghost woman held the heart in her trembling hands, squatting down with a devout expression, her murky eyes filled with tears of the vicissitudes of life.
Chu Huai found it hard to imagine that such emotions as sadness could appear on the face of such a young child, but he saw it in Jin Tianyi’s eyes.
The ghost woman wanted her grandson to live.
As the sun sets and its rays shine upon the bodies of the ghost woman and Jin Tianyi, as well as the corpse of the boy lying in a pool of blood, the ghost woman’s body becomes somewhat ethereal, and her feet almost become transparent for a few moments.
She is clearly afraid of the light.
She is like the mermaid in a fairy tale who makes a deal with a witch. Fate is cruel, and in exchange for the ability to walk in the sunlight, she had to give up her conscience and offer Jin Tianyi a short, ghostly existence.
Before she fades away, she must find… the appropriate heart for Jin Tianyi.
Jin Tianyi is conscious, but unable to escape. He has no ability to struggle, and he is just an empty body without a heart.
Chu Huai’s heart begins to ache as he looks at the emptiness and sorrow in Jin Tianyi’s eyes. He realizes that Jin Tianyi has lost even the ability to refuse the heart.
Chu Huai puts himself in Jin Tianyi’s shoes and suddenly understands. It is a death wish.
Jin Tianyi clearly wants to die, so that his grandmother will no longer harm innocent children. But he knows it is futile. His grandmother has her obsession, burning her life away in a way she believes is right for him.
A dead person doesn’t even have the ability to commit suicide.
He can only watch as his grandmother offers up the heart. Her expression becomes more and more crazy and manic, her body more and more transparent, as if she will disappear with a gust of wind.
This is a hopeless situation.
Chu Huai follows the ghost woman and Jin Tianyi, moving through black holes, watching as the ghost woman kills child after child. Fresh, warm hearts enter and leave Jin Tianyi’s chest, with a rhythm full of life, but there is no longer any light or vitality in Jin Tianyi’s beautiful, deep eyes.
In the last moment before the ghost woman’s death, she finally finds the right heart for him. She looks at the heart, perfectly integrated with Jin Tianyi, and closes her eyes, satisfied. She goes to atone and be liberated.
But Jin Tianyi, who is still alive, cannot be freed.
In the dilapidated temple overgrown with weeds, gods and Buddha sit on the platform. Their golden bodies have been stripped by the poor, and they have been abandoned like worthless trash.
Sick and suffering beggars lean on the straw piles in the temple, whimpering in their mouths. Life is so lowly, and living is so unbearable.
Seven or eight-year-old Jin Tianyi hid in the corner, huddled up with his hands on his knees, gazing at the dirty faces of those emaciated and malnourished children, lost in thought.
Chu Huai unconsciously walked towards him, knowing it was just a dream, but his eyes still welled up with tears.
The night wind was piercingly cold, chilling to the bone.
The 25 year-old Chu Huai stood before the precociously handsome boy Jin Tianyi, gazing at him with infatuation.
The boy, who was hanging his head, suddenly lifted his gaze and saw the gentle and refined Chu Huai. He smiled hesitantly and then quickly repressed his smile. He whispered: “I don’t deserve it.”
He didn’t deserve to smile, nor to be happy.
Hearing those three words, Chu Huai felt as if his heart was being twisted by a knife, as if there was a lump in his throat.
But the boy yearned for hope and warmth. He seemed afraid that the immense sins behind him would be seen by the young man with the clear and handsome face in front of him.
He shrank back a bit and then cautiously moved forward. His gaze was submissive, and his voice was broken: “Brother, can you hug me?”
“I’m so cold.”
No one wanted him, no one loved him, and no one would forgive him.
But he had to live.
Otherwise, everything his grandmother had done would be meaningless.
Chu Huai’s hands trembled as he unhesitatingly lifted him up as if he were the most precious treasure in the world.
Little Jin Tianyi blinked as he gazed at the gentle face so close to him, feeling as if even the desolate temple had suddenly lit up.
“Brother, you’re so handsome.”
But Chu Huai was thinking that if this were all real, then Jin Tianyi at that time probably didn’t even have this bit of warmth, wandering alone in the darkness, trying to escape the sea of suffering and find the other shore of paradise.
It was a pity they had never met.
A dragonfly-like kiss, pure and without any hint of ambiguity, landed on the boy’s smooth forehead, and a look of surprise and dreaminess flickered in his dark and clear eyes.
When Chu Huai put him down, he still remained dazed and stunned.
Chu Huai squatted down and smiled at him, straightening his clothes. “I’ll wait for you in twenty years.”
The boy suddenly looked up with a hopeful expression, and awkwardly smiled back. He extended his pinky finger towards Chu Huai with a resolute tone. “Pinkie promise.”
It was his only remaining childlike innocence.
Jin Tianyi disappeared.
Chu Huai vaguely understood what had happened.
This was clearly not a test for him, or maybe it wasn’t even the second challenge.
He didn’t know what had occurred, but perhaps that hermaphrodite wanted to tell him a story.
He admitted that his only regret when leaving Memory City after the first challenge was not buying Jin Tianyi’s memory.
Chu Huai had become whole, and he also wanted a complete Jin Tianyi.
So, that statue seemed to be fulfilling his wish.
Chu Huai didn’t know why the mother entity of the Memory Temple did this.
Was it related to the data on the ranking list where Jin Tianyi was first?
Another dizzying spin, but Chu Huai had become accustomed to it. He knew that the dream was not over yet, and he was eager to find out what would happen next.
As the dizziness faded, Chu Huai found himself standing outside a Taoist temple.
Familiar with the setting, Chu Huai immediately searched for Jin Tianyi inside the temple.
Finally, he heard the familiar and pleasant voice coming from the west wing. Jin Tianyi seemed to be talking to someone. Chu Huai didn’t want to disturb them, so he quietly poked a hole in the thin window and looked inside.
There was a faint blue smoke in the room, and Chu Huai could see the old Taoist sitting across from Jin Tianyi. He could only see Jin Tianyi’s hand, with its prominent bones, and a small section of his forearm where the vivid heavenly mark was exposed.
Jin Tianyi had grown up and been chosen by the heavenly mark.
So that’s why Jin Tianyi said he used to be a resident, but not anymore.
That’s why he had passed through the Memory Temple, and left an unbeatable record on the ranking list.
“The heavenly mark?” Jin Tianyi’s voice sounded confused.
“Yes,” the old Taoist sighed and nodded. “You’re probably burdened with sin to have this mark.”
This conversation sounds familiar. In the beginning, Chu Huai invited Lao Yue and Lao Yue spent some effort explaining the origin of the Heavenly mark to him.
Jin Tianyi remained silent.
The old Taoist said: “I have never seen such a kind-hearted person like the donor, but unexpectedly… it is a calamity.”
Jin Tianyi stood up, seeming to smile: “I cannot help but seek it.”
He suffered torture in purgatory, seeking redemption through this.
He could not help but seek it.
He bore immense guilt and was chosen by the terrifying world, so it was not surprising that he was a natural ninth level.
I’m in shock!!! It’s so tragic 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Thank you for your translation 💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝
I KNEW IT! You may call me Sherlock Holmes II.😎😎😎
Sherlock Holmes ll
🫡🫡🫡
We’re going through ml’s pastttt~~
Damnnn he was also level 9 OwO