When he said that half his heart had been ripped out, Huo Wuling smiled like he didn’t blame Ji Ning at all.
Herinos paused when he heard the ghost’s words, scrutinising Huo Wuling. Ji Ning didn’t say a word and Huo Wuling’s expression remained nonchalant. His eyes wandered over to the phantoms surrounding them and he raised an eyebrow, “Oh, it’s started over there.”
The image the phantoms displayed had already shifted. It was a place that Ji Ning was extremely familiar with, but he’d never seen it inside the infinite flow world. It wasn’t until the planes merged together that he even knew this place existed.
It was the grocery store he’d visited inside Huo Wuling’s spiritual world.
The lights were dim, with gentle music playing in the background and a wide variety of goods packed across all the shelves. The store should have given off a peaceful and warm atmosphere, but the blood that was splattered across the walls and floor produced a scent too strong to be ignored.
There was a corpse splayed across the ground, a middle aged man, and another corpse lying on the sofa. His stomach had been dissected, face twisted by his final seconds of horror as his broken internal organs spilled out of his gaping chest.
Drip. Drip.
Blood dripped rhythmically from a cold kitchen knife as a dark haired boy stood in the pool of blood. His body was stained with crimson, and there was still a piece of intestines hanging from his clothes. He lowered his head, his face hidden by the shadows.
The stench of copper left Ji Ning a little dizzy. He remembered the story Huo Wuling had told him before. His adoptive father had taken him from an orphanage, and the two had lived together for some time before a shoplifter broke into the family shop and killed his adoptive father. After watching what happened, Huo Wuling had killed the shoplifter.
But Ji Ning hadn’t known that Huo Wuling was so young when he first bloodied his hands. The boy in front of him could only be seven or eight years old. Before he could watch any more, the phantom abruptly dissolved into another scene, moving them to the street outside the grocery store.
Compared to the street inside Huo Wuling’s spiritual world, which was locked in endless rainy nights, the phantom scene appeared far more normal. The setting sun cast long bars of light, pedestrians walked past in a hurry, and cars drove quickly past, releasing the scent of dust and exhaust fumes.
The dark haired boy walked down the pavement carrying a schoolbag on his back. His figure looked thin and lonely, out of place in the bustling city street. He was not accompanied by any elders, nor did he have any friends around him. He was alone.
A group of children wearing the same school uniform as Huo Wuling appeared, talking together and laughing, but when they caught sight of him they froze and lowered their heads as they walked past him in a large circle, avoiding him like the plague.
The boy’s expression didn’t change as he calmly continued walking forward.
When he passed the window of a bakery, he stood outside and peered in for a while. The baker couldn’t sit still and quickly put a loaf of bread into a bag and dropped it outside the door, motioning for Huo Wuling to leave quickly. He was so eager to get rid of the boy that he didn’t even try to take any money.
“…”
The dark haired boy’s expression still showed no response and he picked up the bag without saying a word, stuffing some money under the door.
He entered through the back door of the grocery store and turned on the gramophone. Accompanied by the female singer’s voice, he curled up on the sofa. He drank a little cold water, and ate half a loaf of bread, then remained motionless until late at night, completely immersed in the darkness.
The phantoms around them shifted again. Huo Wuling was older now, he was taller and wore a different school uniform. With beautiful, gentle eyes, and a permanent faint smile playing around his lips, he was so handsome that most people who passed him gave him a double look.
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.
A girl who wore the same uniform as the boy confessed to him. He took the love letter, glanced casually at the envelope and raised the corner of his lips, “You like me…”
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“Be careful these days. Both of you.”
A few days later, the girl fell down the stairs and fractured her ankle. Her friend was also hit by a basketball in gym class and suffered a slight concussion.
The friend cried to her boyfriend that they had been cursed by the teenager. Her boyfriend was so angry that he brought a group of people to teach the teenager a lesson, but unexpectedly he found that none of them were a match for Huo Wuling. When the whole group was lying on the floor, the teenager clapped his hands and looked condescendingly down at them.
“Shouldn’t you be thanking me?”
He said. “If I hadn’t torn up that letter, she would be dead. And you, don’t trouble me again or you’ll end up the same way.”
Two days later, the teenager sat inside the grocery store, his legs crossed over the sofa as he browsed the local news on his phone. He accidentally clicked on a news story which reported that the boyfriend from before had been seriously injured and fallen into a coma.
Huo Wuling sneered and swiped past, but the next moment, the screen turned black and a line of blood red text appeared on it.
‘Congratulations on becoming a new player of the game.’
A blood-stained hand suddenly stretched out from the screen, grabbing the teenager’s neck and pulling him inside. With a soft thud, the phone fell to the ground, a new line of text appearing.
‘New player: Huo Wuling.’
The subsequent scenes became more chaotic, as phantom images overlapped and even the figures and scenery became blurred and distorted.
In the many phantom images, the teenager travelled through one world after another and completed various death missions. The people around him changed constantly. Some wanted to befriend him, some were using him, some plotted against him, and some even betrayed him. However, no matter what intentions they had toward the boy, they all died in the end. Only the teenager survived.
Eventually, he won the favour of the game’s top management, and they nominated him to enter a more advanced level of the game.
In this game, the teenager killed many, and many tried to kill him, but his expression didn’t change from beginning to end. No matter what happened, he would always show a smile in front of others. It was only occasionally, when he was alone, that a faint despair would emerge in his eyes.
After some time, he adopted a black cat from a random game world. From then on, he developed a habit of looking after small animals. He cared for a lot of different animals and kept them inside his personal space, but they never lived for long and always died inexplicably. It was only the black cat that tenaciously persisted.
“Ah, it’s so boring…”
Huo Wuling kicked his legs up onto the table. The black cat circled round him as he gazed up at the ceiling for a while. He suddenly sat up and muttered to himself.
“It would be better to pick up a ghost to play with…”
He ended up going to the ten thousand ghost pit and chose Ji Ning out of the countless ghosts, bringing him back with him.
Although Ji Ning hadn’t been in the ghost pit for long, his soul had been damaged and he’d almost lost the ability to speak. He could only pronounce simple syllables, and couldn’t even say his own name.
The teenager teased the pale and slender ghost, sliding his fingertips across his chin and asking with a smile, “You can’t speak? Then I’ll call you little Yaba, okay?”
Ji Ning shook his head and wanted to tell the teenager his name by writing it, but the teenager didn’t seem to care what his name was and pretended as if Ji Ning had agreed. He smiled and clapped his hands, “Then it’s settled. I’ll call you little Yaba in the future. I like that name.”
After bringing back the ghost, the teenager had to take responsibility for feeding him. It was said that ghosts needed to eat human flesh and blood to retain their strength, so he killed a few people who tried to attack him and brought their bodies into his space. He threw the meat in front of Ji Ning and said, “Eat it.”
Ji Ning vigorously shook his head again. Of course there was no way he would ever eat people! However, the teenager assumed he just didn’t like eating dead flesh, so he caught a few living people for him, but Ji Ning still wouldn’t eat.
After being repeatedly rejected, the teenager’s smile finally faded. He stared blankly at the ghost for a long time. It wasn’t until the ghost looked a little scared that he finally laughed and reached out to stroke Ji Ning’s hair, his mood already better.
“Little Yaba, you’re such a picky eater.”
He sliced his own wrist, letting it spill blood before pressing it to Ji Ning’s lips. He coaxed him patiently, “Drink it. I’ll use my own blood to feed you. You shouldn’t have any complaints about that, right?”
This time, Ji Ning couldn’t refuse, so he slowly leaned in and drank from him. The teenager stroked his hair and neck in satisfaction, as if grooming a pet.
As time passed, the teenager brought back quite a few ghosts. None of them were as well behaved as Ji Ning. All of them were vicious and violent, so the boy would occasionally get impatient with them and destroy a few.
After several incidents, the ghosts finally learned how to be obedient and listen to him. At the same time, they also had to listen to Ji Ning. Although Ji Ning wasn’t the strongest among them, he was Huo Wuling’s favourite and he expected them all to listen to Ji Ning’s words.
However, perhaps because of the heavy yin energy caused by so many ghosts, the black cat who had been accompanying the teenager finally died. It’s death was ugly. Its whole body turned stiff, its limbs twisting into gnarled shapes as its tongue lolled out of its mouth.
“I guess you couldn’t stay for long either…”
The teenager picked up the black cat’s body and opened up a strange space. Inside of it was a gloomy cemetery that seemed to have no end. He entered it, still holding the cat. The other ghosts followed behind him and formed a circle to watch him bury the black cat’s body into the earth.
“Let’s play a game.”
The dark haired boy clapped his hands, and when he stood up again, his smile had returned to his face. His gaze swept across the surrounding ghosts, lingering on Ji Ning for a few seconds before he spoke.
“Hide and seek. I’ll be a ‘ghost’ while you try not to get caught by me. Now I’ll close my eyes and count down from a hundred, you can hide wherever you want.”
After saying this, he raised his hands to cover his eyes and started counting down. The surrounding ghosts stood still for a moment before dispersing. Some of the ghosts had wicked intentions and tried to sneak up on the teenager, but they vanished as soon as they got close enough to touch him.
Ji Ning had also left to hide and found a large tombstone to crouch behind.
“Three, two, one…”
Counting to the final number, the teenager opened his eyes and looked around. Under the grey sky, there were dense lines of tombstones, but not a ghost in sight.
He tilted his head, but didn’t start looking. Instead, he closed the space and left without hesitating.
For a long time, this space wasn’t opened again. More than two months had passed before the teenager opened up the space, dragging a few skeletons behind him. He had only taken a few steps in, when he stopped, startled.
A pale ghost hid behind a large tombstone. Slender fingers clutched at the edges of the gravestone, as he cautiously revealed half of his beautiful face.
When he met the teenager’s eyes, the ghost slowly walked out from the gravestone and asked in a hoarse voice, “Have I won now?”
“…” Huo Wuling looked at him without responding for a while, then suddenly said, “Why didn’t you leave?”
“I’m here,” said the ghost slowly, “Waiting for you to find me.”
“…I’m sorry it took me so long.” The teenager raised the corners of his lips, a gentle smile appearing in his dark eyes. He stepped forward and held the ghost’s icy hands, “You’ve won, my little Yaba.”
After saying this, he paused for a second, “You learned to speak a long time ago, I shouldn’t call you that again. I haven’t asked for your name yet, could you tell me what your name is?”
“Ji. Ning. My name is…Ji Ning.”
“Okay, Ningning.” Huo Wuling stroked his face and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, “From now on, I’ll call you Ningning.”
Ahh, I knew he would have a tragic backstory, I’m not prepared to read about Ji Ning’s betrayal (／_＼）
This wicked translator has wronged the virtuous and kindly Ningning. It has been so long since I started this novel that I’ve forgotten the early plot points!! Let the readers know that Ji Ning had to follow the plot exactly in early worlds which is why his story with Herinos (and Huo Wuling ╥﹏╥) is so dogblood. However I stand by saying that Zhou Rin has been treated unjustly, my poor socially incompetent protagonist!!
I have betrayed my Yin QianQiu and have migrated over to Team Huo Wuling! 🫡
We thank you for your service~
Hou Wuling is always being left alone because people either can’t survive by his side or betray him. And Ji Ning the person he cares about the most is about to do the same thing everyone else has done. This plot is so mean to him.
No wonder he’s so twisted, anyone who feels anything for him ends up dying, it’s just not fair…(and Ji Ning definitely did not help with that!)
Ohmy Hou wuling
I want ning ning to be punished severely
But I vaguely remember that it said the world with Zhou Rin was after Huo Wuling? 🤔 There was a line then went something like ‘after he left the horror world of HWL, he entered the ABO world where omega men could get pregnant’?