Chapter 474: Why Would It Go to Its Death?

A few days ago, when a bunch of memories suddenly appeared in Lu Yibei’s mind, she didn’t think it was a big deal.

After all, it didn’t affect her life.

Yesterday, when she woke up to find herself turned into a beautiful girl, she still didn’t think it was a big deal.

After all, according to the memories in her dream, she could return to normal just by bathing in the morning sun.

But now, something even more outrageous had happened-strange thoughts were actually scrolling through her mind like bullet comments.

Lu Yibei felt that if her brain were a computer, the current situation would be like letting malicious plugins install themselves, and now the system was finally about to crash.

She sat astride the wall, groping around on her own head, trying to find an option to turn off or delete the plugin, then dejectedly knocked on her own skull.

“Damn it, how do I turn this thing off?”

She cursed under her breath, and at that moment, the strange, inexplicable thoughts that had been flashing through her mind suddenly stopped.

Wait, is this thing voice-controlled? Is it really that advanced?

“Bullet comments, on! Plugin, install!”

She tried shouting twice in a low voice, but those strange thoughts didn’t appear again.

Lu Yibei, “……” I must really be going crazy. This is a factory-original human brain, how could it possibly have something like that?

Mocking herself, she pulled her thoughts back and looked into the West City Lime Factory.

The information she found online about the West City Lime Factory was just a few old, low-res photos and a simple introduction. All she could gather was that there were three workshop buildings and a comprehensive building in the factory area, nothing intuitive.

It was only when she actually arrived that Lu Yibei realized the place was much bigger than she’d imagined.

The three workshop buildings were arranged in a triangle, and behind them stood a dilapidated four-story building, which must have served as the office and dormitory for the workers here.

Sitting on the courtyard wall, looking out over the abandoned factory, all she could see was darkness, lifeless and still like a tomb. The air carried a faint, pungent smell, probably from the chemicals used to produce quicklime.

A little farther from the wall, the second workshop seemed to have suffered a serious fire-every window was shattered, the roof had collapsed, the outer walls were blackened with soot, and some parts were cracked, as if they could collapse at any moment.

After surveying the lime factory, Lu Yibei couldn’t help but recall the rumors about the Truth-Seeking Fellowship she’d seen online. Her heart began to race, her palms sweating with a cold chill.

—

Of all those rumors, the one that left the deepest impression on her was a murder case she’d heard about from classmates chatting between classes in high school.

According to the rumor, the perpetrator was the owner of a small noodle shop outside the gate of Hua City No. 40 Middle School. His skills at frying toppings and cooking noodles were mediocre, and the noodles in his shop were soulless, machine-pressed. If not for the shop’s prime location, it probably wouldn’t have survived.

Yet this utterly unremarkable noodle shop owner, under the influence of the Truth-Seeking Fellowship, gradually became mentally twisted, sinking into a delusional state.

He modified his noodle-pressing machine into a terrifying killing device he called the “Real World Teleporter,” and in less than a week, used it to grind seventeen students into minced meat.

When the police caught him, his TV was playing videos about the Truth-Seeking Fellowship circulating online, and in the next room, separated by only a wall, a victim was tied to the killing machine made from the noodle press-her upper body already a bloody mess, lifeless.

When the police heard the roar of the machine and smashed open the bedroom door, they thought they’d walked into a horror movie-hair standing on end, scalp tingling.

The bedroom where more than a dozen victims had been killed reeked with a suffocating stench. The walls were stained dark red with splattered blood and flesh, and the floor was littered with entrails and severed limbs.

Even up to his trial, the killer still believed he’d done nothing wrong. He thought the victims should even thank him for his “great” invention, which sent them to the “real” world.

—

There were many similar urban legends about the Truth-Seeking Fellowship, most of which Lu Yibei had heard from classmates’ idle chatter or dorm room gossip.

Lu Yibei had never taken them seriously.

Sometimes, danger really is close at hand-you might accidentally drink some indescribable tea from a stranger.

But she felt that most of the time, danger was still far away. As long as you didn’t go home with strangers, even if they had lots of fun stuff and a big house where you could stay if it got too late.

Now, just as she was about to enter the lime factory, all those rumors about the Truth-Seeking Fellowship replayed in her mind like a movie.

She was a little scared.

Maybe the rumors were exaggerated, but most of the time, there’s no smoke without fire.

Perhaps the members of the Truth-Seeking Fellowship weren’t as cruel and terrifying as the rumors said, but they might not be as friendly as Gu Xinian seemed either.

Maybe I should just forget it?

Now that I’ve found what might be the Truth-Seeking Fellowship’s base, I could just call the police and let them handle it, right?

That way, not only could I find out what happened here, I might even get a “brave young heroine” banner! Lu Yibei thought.

Just as she was about to back out, another inexplicable thought quietly surfaced in her mind, making her body tense up.

Unlike the barrage of thoughts from before, this one flashed by in an instant and quickly disappeared.

It didn’t leave behind any weird emoticons, only a strong emotion, making her feel as if something in this dead, abandoned factory really was calling out to her.

That call was warm, joyful, kind, with not a trace of malice, and yet tinged with a hint of sorrow, as if saying goodbye. It made her think of the moment when the red bean cake left.

Red bean cake was a corgi Lu Yibei had raised as a child. Even now, she remembered how every day after school, when she opened the door, red bean cake would run to her at full speed, pouncing into her arms and nuzzling her affectionately.

As if she was its whole world.

Later, it grew old and died peacefully in the arms of its world.

Lu Yibei narrowed her eyes, scanning the pitch-black factory grounds.

Could the thing calling out to me in this factory be just like red bean cake, always waiting for me to “come home”? If I leave now…

“That’s right, I can’t go! How can a tough girl be afraid at a time like this? If I really run into danger, I can always think of a way to escape!”

“Besides, I’m super brave, okay?! As long as a whole group of people doesn’t rush out and launch a full-on attack, a few ordinary people shouldn’t be able to withstand my water heater explosion technique, right?”

After all, I’m not some leech who lives off others’ kindness-I should help when I can, right?

Muttering to herself, Lu Yibei took a few deep breaths to calm herself down a bit, then mustered her courage, leaped down from the wall, and jumped into the factory.

After steadying herself, she glanced around to make sure no one was secretly watching, then quickly used the shadows cast by the courtyard wall and the trees behind it to hide herself, silently pondering her next move.

She still didn’t know where the thing that called her was inside the factory. To find it, she’d probably have to search the entire place.

Since she had to explore the whole factory anyway, it didn’t really matter where she started. She might as well check out the chimney first, Lu Yibei thought.

When she looked up information about the West City Lime Factory online, the pictures and text clearly stated that there was a huge chimney behind Workshop No. 2. But when she got here, she didn’t see any chimney, and Workshop No. 2 bore severe traces of fire damage, which made her very curious.

After a brief moment of thought and making her decision, Lu Yibei quickly sprang into action, moving under the cover of night toward Workshop No. 2, prying loose every manhole cover she saw along the way.

“Damn it, why did the bullet comments have to disappear at a time like this?”

In the darkness, Lu Yibei’s voice could be faintly heard muttering.

Bullet comments are a strange thing. If you’re trying to watch a video seriously, they’re annoying, but if the video is a horror movie, it’s a different story.

As everyone knows, horror movies plus funny bullet comments equal a dark comedy.

—

A moment earlier, in a hidden underground storeroom.

The ceiling light flickered as if it had a loose connection, while a dark red mist filled the warehouse, giving off a stench of blood.

“Ding-ding-!”

On the operating table, the red-and-white jacket struggled constantly, making the chains clatter and ring out with a metallic sound that echoed endlessly.

Just half an hour ago, Gu Wei Bing had done something that completely baffled the jacket.

He stared at that mysterious crystal for a long time, as if he’d lost his mind, and actually swallowed the entire crystal.

The jacket, whose intelligence was only a bit better than a three-year-old child’s-at most like a six-year-old-couldn’t understand at all why Gu Wei Bing would do such a thing.

Although the crystal emitted a psychic energy fluctuation, and its “aroma” was similar to a haunting core entity, how could a human just swallow a haunting core entity at will?

If humans could swallow a haunting core entity without any harm, what would Spirit Pattern drawing be for?

Even a haunting as powerful as Lady Witch would never do such a thing!

Lady Witch would probably first cut an unknown haunting core entity into a hundred pieces, feed five to ten pieces to the eyeball one by one, and only if the eyeball didn’t die would she finish consuming the rest in at least ten more rounds.

Although it didn’t know why Lady Witch always did this, there must be a reason for it-Lady Witch must be right!

Now, the middle-aged man had made a mistake, and his fate was to immediately become a haunting.

In the corner of the storeroom, a ragged figure with disheveled hair squatted facing the wall, body convulsing and twitching, with intermittent, eerie cracking sounds that seemed like bones being crushed.

It might be gnawing on its own body.

This state lasted for who knows how long, until its body suddenly straightened and a hoarse, guttural sound came from its throat.

“Ugh… ugh…”

The sound was like a whimper of unbearable pain, yet also like a moan of extreme satisfaction.

In the next moment, its flesh began to writhe violently, the chilling sound of bones breaking filled the air, and a dark yellow, gelatinous substance seeped from beneath its skin, coating its body and corroding its flesh, making it look like its skin had turned to jelly-utterly repulsive.

Then, with a soft squelch, two long, jointed arms bent backward and dropped to the ground.

Supported by four arms and two legs, it crawled insect-like across the floor, suddenly twisting around to stare at the jacket fixed to the operating table. Its twisted, deformed face and multiple eyes trembled rapidly, radiating a greedy, ferocious light.

When a human swallows an untreated haunting core entity, the result is almost always a 100% transformation into a low-level aberrant type haunting, with a mind in chaos and a heart full of negative emotions.

And a newborn haunting is exactly when it needs to replenish psychic energy.

Driven by intense hunger, these mentally unstable low-level aberrant type hauntings usually hunt any haunting they can reach-or get hunted themselves in the process.

Having gone through a similar phase, the jacket instinctively sensed danger, felt that something was wrong, and struggled even harder.

At that moment, it suddenly sensed Lu Yibei’s presence entering its psychic sense range.

っﾟДﾟ)っ Lady Witch, save me, I’m going to die!

(╥╯^╰╥) Lady Witch, I miss you so much!

ヾ(o´∀‘o)ﾉ Yay, Lady Witch is here, I’m safe now!

……

The jacket sent a flurry of signals to Lu Yibei through the familiar mark.

Then, after waiting a long time…

It sensed that Lu Yibei’s presence wasn’t coming toward it, but was heading in the completely opposite direction.

“Plop-plop-!”

The soft sound of viscous liquid dripping could be heard.

The jacket’s attention shifted from Lu Yibei and only then did it notice that the haunting Gu Wei Bing had become was already beside it, opening its wide mouth-now lipless, exposing ghastly white teeth-while foul, sticky liquid dripped down beside it.

(.•́︿•̀.)

Lady Witch… have you abandoned me?

Goodbye, Lady Witch. The world isn’t worth it.

Yet, just as the jacket had resigned itself to being abandoned by Lu Yibei and devoured by the haunting that Gu Wei Bing had become, Gu Wei Bing suddenly stopped.

He turned to look at the exit of the storeroom, stood there in a daze for a while, then suddenly used all six limbs to dash forward, tearing through the metal door and rushing out of the storeroom.

For a moment, the jacket couldn’t figure out why Gu Wei Bing had suddenly left, and it took a long, long time to come back to its senses.

That seemed to be the direction where Lady Witch was!

Why would he go to his death?

[・ヘ・?]