Chapter 497: Eat, Beast of Inheritance!

“Human Emperor? What’s that supposed to mean?” Lu Yibei stared at the PL girl, dumbfounded. “Is Wang Meili the queen of survival, or a <WAR3> pro player?”

The PL girl glanced at Lu Yibei with an expression that said, “Kid, your old man is disappointed in you.”

“Uh… sorry, don’t mind my trash talk, go on, go on.”

The PL girl withdrew her gaze from Lu Yibei, shook her head helplessly, and after a brief pause, said, “Strictly speaking, any of the legendary Five Emperors could be called the Human Emperor. After all, it’s just a symbol…”

“It’s like the ‘Top Ten Outstanding People Who Moved Country Z’ kind of title. There are ten outstanding people every year, you can’t expect there to be only one, right?”

At this, Lu Yibei sensed something was off. “That’s not right! In ancient times, the original meaning of ‘Emperor’ referred to a deity, and the Human Emperor was also called Tai Emperor. The earliest records should be in pre-Qin classics.”

“You haven’t even talked about the earliest Human Emperor, and you’re jumping straight to the Five Emperors? Don’t try to fool me!”

As a student of Chinese Language and Literature, every winter and summer break, the teachers would give out a reading list for students to choose from during the holidays.

Considering her current situation and the inevitable encounters with various hauntings in the future, Lu Yibei had deliberately picked books about mythology, legends, and folk tales from the list.

Although she treated those books as popular science, skimming through without digging deep, it wouldn’t be easy to fool her.

PL girl, “……”

So you do know?

Why bring up games?

Can’t help but throw in some trash talk to feel happy?

The PL girl grumbled inwardly, shot Lu Yibei a glare, and said, “Because it’s messy!”

“Since you know the origin of the term Human Emperor, you should also know that there’s no definitive answer to who the Three Emperors are, right?”

Lu Yibei frowned slightly and nodded. The records about the Three Emperors in ancient texts were indeed a mess.

“The Records of the Grand Historian lists them as the Heavenly Emperor, the Earthly Emperor, and the Human Emperor.

The ancient pre-Qin text, The Book of Lineages, claims they are Fuxi, Shennong, and the Yellow Emperor.

Meanwhile, Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals identifies them as Fuxi, Nuwa, and Shennong.”

Some ancient texts even count Zhu Rong or Gong Gong as one of the Three Emperors.

“Actually, in my opinion, this is mostly related to those mythical type hauntings from ancient times, their struggles for power, and how, as time passed, people’s recognition and retelling of them changed,” the PL girl explained.

“The former is too ancient to verify, but the latter is easier to understand. Take Shennong for example: he had a human body and a bull’s head, stood two meters tall–how were ancient people supposed to record that?”

“Should they write ‘your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather was a Bull-headed man’?”

“No one would believe it! Plus, with so little material, it’s hard to write a biography, and making things up wouldn’t sit right with themselves, so they just didn’t record it in detail. With so few detailed records, over time, confusion naturally arose.”

“……”

So, does the rise of so many Bull-headed warriors online count as an atavistic phenomenon?

Lu Yibei mused secretly, but didn’t dare say it out loud.

Seeing Lu Yibei silent, the PL girl continued, “But, the power or symbol of the Human Emperor became more definite by the time of the Five Emperors.”

“The Three Emperors were still both deities and humans, but by the Five Emperors, they were basically considered human. Their power fell from being spiritual leaders and symbols of ethnic unity like deities, down to the level of earthly kingship.”

“Judging by the incompleteness of Ms. Wang Meili’s power, this is probably the result of power being passed down and diluted over time.”

Lu Yibei nodded thoughtfully. “So the symbolic meaning of ‘Human Emperor’ is a leader who made outstanding contributions to humanity? But that’s not quite right–some Human Emperors did plenty of shady things, didn’t they?”

“Mm…” The PL girl pondered for a moment. “Didn’t I just tell you? At first, the Human Emperor might have referred to a specific haunting, but as time went on, it became a kind of power. Since it’s a power, it can be inherited through bloodline, or directly granted.”

“Who knows what the successors will do during the inheritance? So, the leader could do anything: nurture the people, stir up wars, cause disasters, or even… destroy the world.”

Hearing this, Lu Yibei raised her little hand like a primary school student asking a question in class. “Question!”

“Speak!”

“According to what you said, I should have inherited the power from Ms. Wang Meili in my body, right?” Lu Yibei frowned.

The PL girl nodded, signaling Lu Yibei to continue.

“The core entity of a witch type haunting should come from The Witch’s Egg. That only leaves the possibility of a mythical type haunting core entity, but…”

“Why is my mythical type haunting core entity Nu Ba?”

“This… actually… haha!” The PL girl’s expression became subtle, hesitating several times before whispering, “When you were in contact with Fuyang’s offspring, you must have heard from him that when he inherited both his parents’ powers at the same time, the power changed, right?”

Lu Yibei nodded. She had been truly shocked when Mao Sanyou told her about his background.

“In simple terms, this kind of situation means that, worldwide, many hauntings are intricately connected. When certain conditions are met, the powers will reorganize and transform into similar or corresponding high-tier or low-tier haunting powers.”

“The advancement of a psychic’s Spirit Pattern, as well as the Eclipse Society’s experiments in creating high-tier hauntings, also use this principle.”

Lu Yibei tilted her head, puzzled. “So what does this have to do with me?”

“This actually… originally… never mind, I’ll just say it!” The PL girl took a deep breath. “Ms. Wang Meili’s power was already very incomplete. By the time it was passed to you, it was highly diluted, only enough to give you extremely high psychic potential, but not even enough to manifest any specific power.”

“If you want the power to manifest, you have to become a psychic or a haunting, and use the powers of other hauntings to fuse and reorganize them into similar powers.”

“And your latent power not only doesn’t reach the level of the Human Emperor, it’s not even complete compared to the Human Emperor’s offspring. It wasn’t until you devoured The Witch’s Egg and then underwent reorganization… you get what I mean, right?”

Seeing the PL girl’s strange expression and winking, Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized and shouted in her heart, “What the hell?!”

There were an absurd number of legendary Human Emperor offspring. At first, what kind of power would appear in her body was completely uncertain.

It wasn’t until she devoured The Witch’s Egg containing Lilith’s power, and the two powers influenced each other, that the current situation was created.

Among the many Human Emperor offspring, those who were female, existed as both human and god, and fell from a demigod-like existence to a demoness were extremely rare–almost certainly pointing to Nu Ba.

Thinking of this, Lu Yibei suddenly looked at the PL girl, her gaze unfriendly and her tone gloomy. “So… I didn’t have to become a girl in the first place, right?”

“Uh, you could think of it that way,” the PL girl said, her tone noticeably weaker, as if feeling a little guilty.

“I remember, at the very beginning, it was you who guided me to devour The Witch’s Egg, right?” Lu Yibei asked again.

“Well… at that time, if you didn’t devour The Witch’s Egg, you would have died! How can you blame me? I was just being kind!” the PL girl retorted.

Moreover, even if you could avoid being made a sacrifice by Ms. Rabbit, you would still end up somewhere else, devouring that Witch’s Egg in an even more painful and tragic way. That was something that couldn’t be changed… the PL girl added silently in her heart.

“Damn it…” Lu Yibei opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but after thinking it over, she felt the PL girl did have a point, and she didn’t really have the grounds to get mad at her.

After all, she had been on the verge of death then. For an ordinary person with only psychic potential and no combat ability, escaping from the Resort Hotel’s basement was impossible.

But…

Why didn’t the PL girl show up for such a long time before I was attacked by Ms. Rabbit?

If she had appeared earlier, she should have been able to help me find another haunting core entity to devour or draw a Spirit Pattern, and then awaken a different power, right?

Or is it that devouring The Witch’s Egg is some kind of trigger condition, and only after obtaining these two powers can I establish some kind of connection with the PL girl? Lu Yibei wondered.

She had always found the PL girl’s existence mysterious, maybe even her own doppelganger or something like that. But before figuring out the PL girl’s true origin and purpose, she didn’t dare expose her.

After all, persecuting oneself for the sake of profit isn’t impossible!

Besides, can a doppelganger really be considered oneself?

Seeing Lu Yibei lost in deep thought and not speaking, the PL girl patted her on the shoulder and said, “But you don’t need to worry. Haven’t you already inherited Ms. Wang Meili’s power? Soon, your power will start to change.”

“Oh?” Lu Yibei glanced sideways at the PL girl. “You mean I can turn back?”

“No!” the PL girl replied confidently. “But Ms. Wang Meili’s power can let your power, which has fallen into a monstrous mythical type, regain a trace of divinity.”

“What does that mean? You’re giving me a debuff, aren’t you?” Lu Yibei asked in a daze.

“I mean, your mythical type power can advance half a rank from Nu Ba to Blue-robed Celestial Maiden. Isn’t that something to be happy about?”

“I… Happy my ass! How is this any different from before?” Lu Yibei glared at her, as if she’d suddenly mastered Jiang Li’s ‘killer stare.’

“Of course it’s different!” The PL girl gestured as she spoke. “Nu Ba is a monster, Blue-robed Celestial Maiden is a proper deity. How can that be the same?”

“If you compare the core entity of a haunting to a processor, this is like upgrading directly from a 1660s to a 3060. The performance is way better, okay?”

“Wait, why only a 3060? Not even a Ti…,” Lu Yibei frowned, a bit dissatisfied. “I thought I could jump straight to a 3090!”

“Dream on! Why don’t you just become invincible?” The PL girl rolled her eyes at Lu Yibei. “If you want 3090-level performance, you’d at least need to be catastrophe-class. Ms. Wang Meili herself isn’t even catastrophe-class yet!”

“Once you reach Class A, even advancing half a rank is tough. Unless you go out right now and cause massive destruction, making people associate your actions and existence with some kind of disaster, then maybe you could advance quickly. But if you do that, you’ll be stuck causing destruction forever.”

“If you ever do something good, people will suspect you’re just setting up for more destruction. Is that what you want?”

Just like me… the PL girl thought.

“……” Lu Yibei was speechless for a moment.

“Anyway, congratulations! You’ve had a huge advancement this time!” The PL girl smiled.

And you’ve taken a different advancement path than I did, which is great–it means my efforts weren’t wasted… the PL girl added in her heart, feeling gratified.

“……” After a long silence, Lu Yibei sighed quietly and looked at the PL girl. “One last question: I inherited the Human Emperor’s power from Ms. Wang Meili. I won’t have to take the blame for things, right?”

“Like how a lot of kings have to take the blame for the messes their subordinates make.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” the PL girl said, curling her lip. “That kind of thing might happen to Ms. Wang Meili, but for you, at most you’ll just get a bit of that kingly aura.”

“Besides, you’ll have to allocate some of your power to sustain this special space, and your number of familiars will definitely be limited, so it’s even less likely.”

Lu Yibei frowned slightly, suddenly wanting to lock eyes with Meow Meow-chan to see whose ‘killer stare’ was stronger–hers or her own ‘kingly aura.’

Last time she tried to use her charm ability, she failed. This time, she couldn’t lose! Lu Yibei thought.

Just as she was pondering, the PL girl patted her on the shoulder and said seriously, “Little bro, I’ve told you everything I needed to. The rest is up to you–fixing your body is something you’ll have to do yourself.”

Hearing this, Lu Yibei snapped back to reality and slapped her forehead. “Right, that’s the most important thing. Without a body, I can’t just wander around like a ghost, can I?”

“Speaking of which, if I become a GC-style ghost, does that count as completing the human–“

“Stop! Stop!” Before Lu Yibei could finish, the PL girl hurriedly interrupted. “Damn it, little bro, can you stop saying things that’ll get you reported?”

“Sorry…” Lu Yibei said quietly.

“It’s fine, just watch what you say next time!” The PL girl waved her hand. “Now, let’s talk about how to fix your body, okay?”

“What method?”

The PL girl curled her lips into a smile that made Lu Yibei uneasy.

“Eat the Beast of Inheritance!”

“Huh?” Lu Yibei’s heart skipped a beat.

Are you sure that thing is edible?

At that moment, Lu Yibei suddenly felt that the PL girl might be trying to harm her.