Chapter 459: What If It’s Internal Injuries?

The heavy, forceful collision with the ground made Lu Yibei’s vision go black, little stars flashing before his eyes.

Before he could recover or see what was happening, the two extra arms that had sprouted from the mad old man climbed onto his body.

His shoulders were locked tight, so tense he couldn’t breathe. Lu Yibei felt a chill from his shoulders, a tremendous force threatening to crush his shoulder blades.

Amid the skin-tearing, bone-dislocating, chilling sounds, a strong stench of blood and rot rushed at him.

Lu Yibei looked up and saw the mad old man’s completely twisted, abnormal face. A dozen cloudy eyes scattered across his face, carrying a hint of malice. Pale eyeballs twitched in their sockets, and the grinding of teeth echoed from his mouth. He grinned, forcing out a strange, cold laugh through his bleeding teeth.

“Hehehe-!”

His chest and abdomen were completely split open, as if someone had cut him in half, all his organs laid bare before Lu Yibei.

Between the gaps of those organs, masses of dark red flesh squirmed, constantly morphing into different shapes, as if they weren’t part of the mad old man’s body but some kind of parasitic life. They even bit at each other.

The foul-smelling fluids splattered everywhere-on the ground, on the wild grass-and those that landed on Lu Yibei’s body seemed to trigger some unknown chemical reaction, instantly crackling with explosive pops.

He had never felt so close to death.

Everyone reacts differently when death approaches: some fall silent, some scream hysterically, some babble on.

In his panic, Lu Yibei’s mouth seemed to move on its own, and he started rambling.

“I-I get it, you want to be friends with me, right? The kind of friends who are totally open, loyal, nothing held back, right… ah-!”

Before he could finish, the mad old man’s extra arms suddenly tightened with a crisp “crack,” and Lu Yibei’s face turned instantly pale, beads of sweat visibly forming on his forehead.

His right shoulder-he couldn’t tell if it was dislocated or shattered-throbbed with pain so intense he nearly fainted on the spot.

Under the crushing pressure of death, he made one last desperate attempt, inexplicably shouting at the mad old man, “Look into my eyes!”

In this situation, trusting in the abilities from his dream memories was pure desperation.

But…

Maybe Lu Yibei’s shout caught the mad old man’s attention, because all the eyeballs on his face really did turn toward Lu Yibei’s eyes.

A crimson glimmer flashed through those eyes.

The boy’s figure before him suddenly blurred, overlapping with the silhouette of a silver-haired girl.

Gazing into the girl’s eyes was like staring at a blooming rose in the dead of night, full of endless allure. The mad old man’s body instantly froze, petrified on the spot.

Sensing the grip on his shoulders loosen, Lu Yibei paused, then gritted his teeth, enduring the agony in his shoulder as he struggled free.

As he got up, he saw the iron rod and toilet plunger lying nearby. After hesitating for about a second, he tilted his head, walked over, picked them both up, and gripped them tightly in his left hand.

He wasn’t sure what he was hesitating about-who said you can’t dual-wield with one hand?

If you don’t know which weapon works better, why not just take them both?

Lu Yibei mocked himself inwardly, raised the toilet plunger and iron rod, a ruthless glint in his eyes, then swung both hard at the mad old man’s head.

“Bang-bang-bang-!”

Three heavy blows in a row, each with a dull thud. The mad old man’s head twisted, and his grotesquely contorted body collapsed to the ground.

But…

The dark red flesh inside him was still squirming, struggling to pour out of his body.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei’s gaze sharpened. He gripped the iron rod and toilet plunger, stepped forward, and smashed down expressionlessly.

To his surprise, as he swung the iron rod and toilet plunger, their movements carried a graceful rhythm, almost like the exquisite sword techniques from stories.

“Screee-!”

Those dark red masses of flesh had no vocal organs, yet as the toilet plunger and iron rod struck, they let out a shriek.

It was as if thousands of bats were screaming at once, their cries echoing over BanShan Apartment.

The next moment, the dark red flesh, along with the mad old man’s body, suddenly exploded, turning into a pool of foul-smelling pus and blood…

Half an hour later.

In an old sedan heading toward the center of Hua City.

Su Mi gripped the steering wheel, tilting her head toward Lu Yibei. “So, the weird thing you ran into was just a crazy homeless guy?”

“Yeah, and I even fought him,” Lu Yibei replied expressionlessly.

“Damn! You didn’t mess him up, did you?”

Messed up? He exploded into a pool of blood, not a scrap of flesh left… Lu Yibei shot Su Mi a look. “Shouldn’t you be worried if he messed me up instead?”

“Well…” Su Mi opened her mouth, forcing a smile. “I’m just worried you messed him up and he might try to scam you.”

“So, did you get hurt?”

“Probably… not,” Lu Yibei replied blandly, glancing inconspicuously at his shoulder.

He was sure that when the mad old man attacked, his shoulder was badly injured. But after Su Mi’s anxious call, he rushed from the apartment halfway up the mountain to the foot in less than ten minutes, and the injury had already healed.

It was as if he’d suddenly gained some kind of rapid regeneration superpower.

“Probably?” Su Mi frowned at Lu Yibei. “You don’t know if you’re hurt or not? Want me to take you to the hospital for a checkup?”

Lu Yibei shrugged. “I mean, on the surface, there’s nothing wrong.”

But what if that old man was some hidden master and left me with one of those internal injuries that kill you in three days?

Su Mi, “……” If he can still trash talk like this, he must be fine.

“By the way, there’s one more thing.”

“What?” Su Mi pursed her lips.

“Xiao Mi, look into my eyes,” Lu Yibei said seriously.

Su Mi slowed the car, turned to glance at Lu Yibei.

Their eyes met…

Aside from the atmosphere growing a little weird, nothing happened.

“Done looking. So?” Su Mi asked, puzzled.

“Nothing…” Lu Yibei replied blandly.

Su Mi drove Lu Yibei to the city center of Hua City, originally planning to have dinner together with him.

But Lu Yibei was eager to go home and study the notebook he found at BanShan Apartment, so he declined Su Mi’s invitation.

He also managed to dodge paying the bill.

Helpless, Su Mi earnestly reminded Lu Yibei several times not to keep courting death, then sent him home.

Back at home.

Lu Yibei didn’t bother to check the injury on his shoulder, nor to study why it had healed so quickly. He couldn’t wait to take out the notebook from his backpack.

Holding the notebook, he dashed into his bedroom as if he were about to enjoy some “study material” alone, locked the door behind him, then threw himself at the desk and opened the notebook.

Very soon, he made a discovery.

[Some people are real, some people are fake……]

Around page twenty-five of the notebook, there was such a passage.

What does it mean? How can people be real or fake? Lu Yibei frowned and kept flipping through, feeling that he could find the answers he wanted further ahead.

[Too many people have been taken away lately, ■■ is right, we should ■■■]

Around page fifty, Lu Yibei saw this passage, with the key information written and then scribbled out, as if worried about being discovered by others.

What could it mean?

“We should”?

Were they planning to do something?

Lu Yibei frowned, patiently flipping through dozens, even hundreds of pages, but found no more similar words.

“Swish-swish-!”

Nothing more?

It seemed that the scribbled-out words might have meant “hide,” “suspend activities,” or “go underground,” something like that.

Lu Yibei pondered as he quickly flipped through the notebook, trying to find more information. Finally, nearly a hundred pages later, he discovered something new. As he read the words, his body involuntarily trembled.

[The way to leave has been found. As long as the attempt succeeds, everyone can leave!]

The handwriting here was a bit messy and heavy, and just by looking at it, one could feel how excited the writer must have been at the time.

Even Lu Yibei seemed to be affected by the power contained in those words, feeling a faint surge of passion.

Although he hadn’t found any members of the Truth-Seeking Fellowship, nor had he coincidentally found Gu Qianqian’s home, the things hinted at in this notebook were exactly what he was looking for.

He took two deep breaths, suppressed his excitement, and kept flipping forward, soon reaching the end of the notebook.

At the end, in messy handwriting, it read, [We failed.]

After that, there were no more words.

Just this short sentence, yet it radiated a thick sense of despair.

For a moment, a strong sense of oppression overwhelmed Lu Yibei, so intense it was beyond words, making one instinctively unwilling to look directly at it or get close.

After seeing those abnormal scenes in BanShan Apartment, he could already vaguely guess something.

Those who lived in BanShan Apartment must have once tried something for the freedom they sought, but unfortunately, they failed and brought about some kind of disaster, so they had to flee in a hurry, not even able to take their pets.

Perhaps, the accident from over ten years ago was caused by their attempt.

But what exactly did they do? Did they try to send someone, or some people, to that so-called “real world”?

Lu Yibei thought, closing the notebook heavily, and looked out the window.

It was already evening, and a sudden autumn rain had started outside, raindrops hitting the glass with a crackling sound.

Lu Yibei gazed at the world being washed by the rain outside the window, lost in thought for a long time, imagining that there was once a group of people, just like him now, who also dreamed of another Hua City, gained an extra set of memories that shouldn’t exist, and a few important people, thus beginning to doubt the reality of this world.

For those extra memories and those important people, they once united and worked hard together, but in the end paid a heavy price.

Time slipped away in his imagination, and before he knew it, night had fallen.

At the very moment darkness fully descended, the same intense pain from within that had appeared yesterday evening struck again.

The indescribable agony appeared without warning, making Lu Yibei’s body convulse and fall from his chair to the floor.

The blood in his body was boiling, surging with astonishing heat.

At this moment, Lu Yibei felt he was no longer human, but had turned into a steam engine, constantly emitting thick white mist.

The hot current surged through his body, quickly rushing into his heart and colliding with the cold aura brewing in his chest.

Lu Yibei felt his body once again become an arena without any rules, the cold and the heat battling fiercely inside him, using every possible means.

As if they didn’t care at all about the fate of the owner of this body.

However, as the pain intensified, an extremely rebellious thought suddenly popped into Lu Yibei’s mind-what if I don’t chant those two strange descriptions like I did yesterday? What will happen?

In the dream memories, I seemed to do this often? Lu Yibei thought.

This afternoon, using the abilities from the dream memories, he had successfully counter-killed the mad old man, making him believe even more in everything from those memories.

Since, in the dream memories, not stopping this painful process didn’t result in any danger to life, why not give it a try?

Lu Yibei gritted his teeth, refusing to let any sound escape his mouth.

So, as the pain grew stronger and stronger, a memory forcibly surged into his mind, as if trying to tear his head apart, causing a splitting headache and making him black out.