Chapter 477: The Evil God’s Armory

Early morning, Tang City, Chunfeng Residence.

A graceful woman lounged lazily on a chaise longue, fiddling with the Switch in her hand, completely absorbed.

Suddenly, her body stiffened for a moment, then she frowned and looked out at the bright morning sun.

“Again? I really want to see what this prayer is about this time!” she grumbled, sensing the target of the prayer, and her expression darkened.

The prayer was directed… at a person who didn’t even exist.

“…,” Gou Meng pondered for a moment, then her eyes lit up, “Oh~ I get it! Damn, it’s some shut-in praying for his own paper doll wife to have a child, isn’t it?”

“Tsk tsk, I totally understand how you feel, but honestly, I’ve never tried something like this…”

Maybe I should give it a shot?

If it actually works, Taoyuan could even develop a new revenue stream!

Gou Meng thought to herself, a sly glint flashing in her jade-like eyes.

——–

After reciting the power description from her dream memory, Lu Yibei muttered, “Alright, that should be enough to send the soul scattering, right?” and continued walking deeper into the factory.

She wasn’t sure if the power description would actually work, but “exorcising” was an important finishing touch.

Even without a body, cases of corpses reanimating weren’t exactly rare, were they?

Walking through the silent, abandoned factory.

Lu Yibei now had a few bricks strapped to her back, but her steps were noticeably lighter.

Still, she didn’t let her guard down, carefully observing her surroundings as she moved forward, prying loose the manhole covers along the way.

Although she’d just been tricked by a loose manhole cover, hadn’t the others served well as early warning devices before that?

She had no idea how that monster had come into being; if it was created by the Truth-Seeking Fellowship, there was probably more than one.

Better safe than sorry!

After finding whatever was calling her, she’d leave immediately. That was Lu Yibei’s plan.

——–

The lime kiln in West City had three workshop buildings: Workshops 1 and 2 stood side by side, while Workshop 3 rose alone at the back. The Complex Building, used for offices and staff dorms, was deeper in, nestled against the mountain.

Lu Yibei skirted around Workshop 2, and when she passed Workshop 3, she found a brand-new heavy lock on its iron door, with all four windows tightly shut–no way to climb in and check like the first two workshops.

She circled in front of Workshop 3, and through a crack in a slightly old window, she caught a glimpse inside.

Through the window slit, illuminated by the pale light of her phone, she could vaguely see that the machinery had long been cleared out, replaced by rows of chairs–nearly a thousand seats.

In the dim, empty workshop, the murky air drifted about, and under the cold white glow, the chairs cast bizarre, twisted shadows. At a glance, it looked as if the place was packed with people.

At the far end, on the wall behind the podium, hung a massive oil painting.

“……”

A chaotic city, rain and stones flying upward into the sky, a banyan tree growing in reverse… The painting was identical to those that had appeared in BanShan Apartment.

This was probably an auditorium.

There were likely frequent gatherings of Truth-Seeking Fellowship members here, Lu Yibei thought.

After a brief look, she felt a chill; lingering any longer, she might just “see” two figures in the empty workshop. Without further delay, she quickly headed toward the Complex Building behind Workshop 3.

——–

The iron gate in front of the Complex Building was tightly shut, but not locked.

Lu Yibei tried pushing the gate; with a soft creak, it opened a crack. She took a deep breath, slipped through, and entered the small courtyard before the Complex Building.

Standing in the overgrown yard, she looked up at the building ahead.

A four-story building, eight rooms per floor, most of the doors already removed, leaving pitch-black doorways that, under the cover of night, looked like nests for some strange creatures.

After surveying the place, Lu Yibei found that only the basement and two rooms on the third floor still had doors. She thought for a moment, then headed upstairs.

Normally, the upper floors should be residential–relatively safe, and likely to yield useful things.

The basement, on the other hand, was probably for storage or had some other special use, and was more dangerous. She could check it later, or abandon the search if things looked bad… Lu Yibei thought.

——–

She didn’t know whether it was because killing that monster earlier had intimidated the other monsters hiding in the abandoned factory, or if that monster was the only one in the entire factory.

As Lu Yibei went from the first floor up to the third, she didn’t encounter so much as a single bug; only her footsteps echoed through the empty, deserted corridor.

The door near the stairwell on the third floor was a security door–impossible to open without making a huge racket, so she had to give up on it.

But the door at the end of the third floor was just an old wooden door, with a small padlock hanging from it.

Lu Yibei took a brick out of her backpack and smashed it twice with force. With a clang, the padlock fell to the ground.

She pushed the door open and entered. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could see the furnishings in the room, Lu Yibei paused in surprise.

The scene before her was all too familiar–the structure and layout of the room were almost identical to those rooms she’d seen in BanShan Apartment.

“Looks like the owner here must have lived in BanShan Apartment before. If that’s the case…”

Lu Yibei muttered to herself, raising her phone to shine its light toward the study. Her gaze sharpened, and she quickly walked over.

Creak–

As the door to the study swung open with a soft sound, Lu Yibei was met with three bloodless, expressionless faces staring blankly at her.

No lights were on in the study. In the pitch-black room, a perpetual lamp flickered with a dim yellow glow. The air was thick with the scent of incense candles, and a few sheets of bright yellow spirit money were lifted by the breeze from the open door, drifting to Lu Yibei’s feet.

There were no bookshelves or desks in the study–only a memorial altar.

“Sorry to disturb you…”

Stared at by three pairs of eyes, Lu Yibei spoke expressionlessly, trembling as she backed out of the study. Just as she was about to close the door, she suddenly noticed that one of the three black-and-white photos on the altar looked familiar.

Round face, chestnut long hair… Was that Gu Qianqian’s childhood photo?

No…

A sharp pain stabbed between her brows, and a memory from her dreams flashed through Lu Yibei’s mind–she’d once caught a glimpse of Gu Xiliu during an internal meeting of The Midnight Watchers Society in Hua City.

It wasn’t Gu Qianqian, it was Gu Xiliu!

The two looked about seventy or eighty percent alike, but their temperaments were vastly different. Gu Qianqian always had a silly, stubborn look, while Gu Xiliu was gentle and quiet, exuding a sickly, Lin Daiyu-like frailty. If seen separately, it would be hard to connect the two.

Only someone like Lu Yibei, who’d interacted with Gu Qianqian multiple times and had suspected that Gu Qianqian and Gu Xiliu might be the same person, could notice their similarities so quickly.

“What the hell, are they really two different people… No, that can’t be! What on earth is going on? I’m so confused.” Lu Yibei muttered, her thoughts a tangled mess.

If Gu Qianqian and Gu Xiliu were two different people, then some of her previous theories would be overturned in an instant.

She had thought that if this world was an illusion, then everything she’d seen and experienced must also be hallucinations.

However, both Gu Qianqian and Gu Xiliu existed in her dream memories, and there was a high chance that one of them had traveled from this false Hua City to the real Hua City.

But if they were hallucinations, shouldn’t they have vanished after reaching the real Hua City? Lu Yibei wondered.

Just as she was racking her brains, a strange noise suddenly came from the courtyard of the Complex Building.

Lu Yibei frowned slightly, quickly left the room, and went out into the corridor to listen closely.

The sound was coming from the direction of the basement. It sounded like something heavy being dragged, mixed with the clinking of chains–like something imprisoned was struggling.

That persistent urge calling to her grew even stronger at that moment.

Lady Witch, you’re here~!

|´・ω・)ノ

Lu Yibei, “…Is it starting again? Can’t I have a moment of peace to think? Damn it, if only I could send it a barrage message too.”

As she thought this, her vision suddenly went black, her mind short-circuited, and she fell into a blank void.

Immediately after, she felt as if her soul had left her body, stretching out into the void and linking with some unknown existence, establishing a strong connection with its consciousness.

Is this… unmuted, and I can send barrage messages now?

Sensing this indescribable state, Lu Yibei hesitated for a moment, then tentatively sent a thought to that unknown existence.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

Mhm mhm, Lady Witch, hugs~~

ღ(๑╯◡╰๑ღ)

Sensing the other’s response, Lu Yibei froze for a moment, then a twisted smile slowly crept across her face.

“Hug my ass! Well, well, I can finally send you barrage messages, huh? Do you know what I’ve been through these past two hours?”

(´’;)?

“Did you know? Postpartum Care for Sows actually starts before birth. Four or five days before delivery, you have to gradually reduce the sow’s feed intake to lessen abdominal pressure. If she eats less before birth, she can eat more after. If she eats too much before, it’ll prolong labor and cause indigestion afterward.”

“You don’t know, you don’t care, you only care about yourself!”

“……”

The jacket’s not-so-bright mind worked very, very hard to understand what its dear Lady Witch was saying, and then its brain crashed.

“And also, do you know…”

“@!#@&1……”

So, after Lu Yibei’s brain went into overdrive, outputting content at full power, with C language and elegance flying together for nearly ten minutes, the other side sent back a string of garbled code, then fell silent.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei nodded in satisfaction and turned to head downstairs.

A moment later, Lu Yibei arrived at the first floor of the Complex Building, pried open the basement door lock, and plunged into the darkness.

As soon as she entered the basement and darkness enveloped her vision, she felt an extremely ominous sensation.

Is it starting again? Lu Yibei frowned.

That feeling was just like when she was being secretly watched in the Hua City Library, as if some terrifying monster had its eyes on her.

What made her even more uneasy was that the moment she stepped into the Complex Building, she caught a whiff of an unbearable stench, similar to the smell that came from that monster earlier.

Lu Yibei switched her grip on the toilet plunger from one hand to both hands, tensing all her muscles.

She had already made up her mind: if anything suddenly lunged out from the darkness, she would immediately stab it to pieces with the toilet plunger, then finish it off with the Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon.

Thinking this, Lu Yibei swung the toilet plunger fiercely through the air.

She walked down the stairs, and as soon as her feet touched solid ground, she hurriedly used her phone for light. The moment the darkness was driven away by the light, she immediately noticed something strange.

The bottom of the basement was a narrow corridor about five meters long, with a rusty, slightly low iron door at the end.

Pale light swept across the white-painted walls of the corridor, revealing dark red stains all over the walls, looking like watermarks.

Lu Yibei leaned in for a closer look, and her pupils shrank instantly, scalp tingling, as she abruptly stepped back.

That was no stain at all!

Although those large patches of dark red clung to the walls and ceiling, looking like watermarks seeping from inside the structure, upon closer inspection, they were clusters of dense, vein-like or mycelium-like things.

Tracing their source, Lu Yibei quickly discovered that within the tiny cracks in the wall, there was even darker, foul-smelling, viscous flesh squirming in the gaps, as if parasitizing the building itself.

“Squeak squeak squeak—-!”

As she was observing the dark red flesh, a piercing sound like that of a rodent suddenly came from inside the wall before her, followed by a faint, sneaky rustling like a reptile.

It all happened in less than a second.

Before Lu Yibei could react to the strange noises from inside the wall, the dark red flesh burst forth from the cracks like a scarlet flower blooming.

A thick stench rushed at her, making Lu Yibei’s heart jolt as she leapt backward, putting distance between herself and it.

Once she steadied herself, she saw that the crack she had just been inspecting was now covered by a football-sized mass of stinking, fibrous flesh.

It was covered in twitching little eyes, and at the ends, countless tiny hands, like those of infants, wriggled and waved.

It looked as if some terrifying thing was parasitizing the wall itself.

“Damn! Damn! What the hell is this?!”

Goosebumps rose all over Lu Yibei as she cursed aloud, just about to reward this bizarre little thing with a Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon, when a noise suddenly came from behind the iron door at the end of the corridor.

“Bang bang—- bang bang—-!”

Muffled thuds echoed down the corridor, sounding like fish struggling on a chopping board, but much more intense, like a giant beast.

“Gulp—-!”

Lu Yibei swallowed nervously, hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward. From a distance, she reached out with the wooden handle of the toilet plunger and poked open the iron door at the end of the corridor.

And then…

She froze in place.

An intensely evil aura surged out from behind the door like a tidal wave.

Lu Yibei’s breath caught, as if she had stepped into a blood-red fog, everything before her tinged with a thin layer of crimson, shimmering faintly.

Clusters of semi-real, semi-illusory dark red flesh clung to the walls and furniture, writhing and crawling, emitting low rodent-like cries, constantly evolving into all sorts of bizarre organs and tissues.

Looking around, Lu Yibei felt as if she had entered a factory made of flesh, with the center being an operating console covered in blood and meat.

A tattered, scarlet garment floated above the console, bound by several rusty iron chains, drifting back and forth in the air, making a chilling sound.

Lu Yibei, “……”

What the hell is this! Is this the Evil God’s equipment vault? Am I seriously being baited into a sting operation?