Chapter 3653: Ghosts Everywhere (25)

Her body was a mess of pain and weakness, leaving her with no strength at all.

While she rested, Ning Shu examined the entire burial chamber. The tomb looked simple, but the funerary objects were incredibly numerous. There were various bamboo slips, gold and silver treasures, and all sorts of magnificent burial items.

Ning Shu moved toward them slowly. She picked up a bundle of bamboo slips and looked at them. The script was very abstract, yet it looked somewhat familiar.

She felt like she could recognize some of it. The general meaning of the text was an introduction to the person in the coffin. She was a woman, a beloved consort of an emperor, and she had been buried here after her death.

Ning Shu was puzzled.

Why wasn’t an imperial consort buried in the imperial tombs?

She guessed this woman might have been someone the emperor loved but could never truly possess. Ning Shu coughed and continued reading. Some of the characters were completely incomprehensible to her, but the reason she felt a sense of familiarity was likely because the entrustor had studied this before.

The text explained that one day this peerless beauty died. The emperor was so heartbroken that he buried his beloved along with a mountain of gold, silver, and jewelry. When she was interred, she was even dressed in a gold-threaded garment.

To prevent grave robbers from disturbing the beauty’s rest and to ensure her stunning face would never be seen by thieves, a mirage stone was included as a burial object.

The mirage stone was a miraculous object. Anyone who approached it would either die or go insane. Even those who survived would be left as lunatics.

No one knew exactly why they went mad.

Ning Shu’s eyebrows shot up and her heart skipped a beat. Could it be because of this stone that she had experienced those endless dreams? The stone was meant to break a person over and over until they either died or lost their mind.

Ning Shu felt she had encountered something quite formidable.

She swallowed hard. A mirage stone… Like the mirage of a sea in the desert, a realistic illusion.

So everything she had experienced previously was because of this stone?

Was her entire ordeal happening inside the mirage stone?

But it had felt so real. That meant the mirage stone could likely replicate a person’s memories.

So, was she in reality now? Had she escaped the stone’s control?

Ning Shu cautiously approached the coffin. Although the bamboo slips said there were no mechanical traps here, a single mirage stone was enough to deal with anyone.

She climbed the steps, walking toward the coffin one pace at a time. She saw that the area around the sarcophagus was covered in skeletal remains, layer upon layer. This indicated that many people had visited this tomb in the past.

Ning Shu stepped on a bone, and it shattered with a loud crack. The sound was jarringly sharp in the silent chamber.

She carefully peered inside the coffin. The lid had been pushed open slightly, allowing her to see a glimpse of the interior.

Upon catching sight of golden clothing, Ning Shu pushed the lid further back. She saw a skeleton dressed in a gold-threaded suit. Its hands were folded over its abdomen. The finger bones were adorned with gemstone rings.

A long string of beads hung around its neck. With so many treasures present, these items would have been stolen by grave robbers long ago if not for the mirage stone. The remains would have been tossed aside like trash.

Ning Shu’s eyes fixed on the stone next to the skeleton’s skull. The stone was shaped like a pebble, rounded as if polished by a river. It didn’t look particularly special, though its surface had a pearly luster that shimmered with faint colors.

At first glance, it looked ordinary. At a second glance, it looked even more mundane. It was a very plain-looking stone.

Yet, this thing had tortured her until she wanted to die.

Ning Shu reached out to take the mirage stone, but she was afraid of being pulled back into an illusion. There were still several people lying on the ground, including that fashion disaster Song Mo.

She didn’t know the exact relationship between Song Mo and the entrustor, so she couldn’t act recklessly.

Furthermore, Ning Shu realized this thing could devour a person’s memories. The entrustor’s memories were almost entirely gone.

The mirage stone had used those stolen memories to manifest various illusory worlds over and over again.

Ning Shu pulled her hand back. If she touched it and got herself trapped, the people currently in comas would be completely finished.

Ordinary people couldn’t survive such horrific experiences, especially when forced to repeat them. Their minds would have snapped long ago.

“This is good stuff. Hurry up and collect it. It’s a world stone,” the voice of 2333 rang out in her mind. “It can form worlds.”

“Wait…” So it really was a treasure.

“You can use it as a carrier to construct a world,” 2333 told her.

Ning Shu was delighted. She bowed toward the coffin as a sign of respect and then used a small shovel to pry the mirage stone out. She was worried it might be poisonous or that it would pull her back into an illusion.

She didn’t want to go through that experience ever again.

The mirage stone seemed harmless, like an ordinary pebble, but Ning Shu didn’t dare lower her guard.

She pulled a pair of gloves from her bag and put them on. After a moment of thought, she added a second pair.

She was truly terrified of this thing. She almost wanted to kneel down and worship it before she finally reached out and grabbed it.

It really did feel like a regular stone. It likely worked by affecting the local magnetic field, causing anyone who came to rob the tomb to enter an illusion.

Ning Shu guessed she had escaped the illusion because her exorcism ‘black hole’ had broken the balance of the dreamscape. This meant the stone was currently manifesting countless illusions—perhaps even countless worlds.

Had Song Mo appeared in her illusions because they were in the same dream, or was it because the entrustor’s subconscious made him appear so frequently?

The way Song Mo turned evil toward the end was likely a deliberate move by the illusion.

Ning Shu looked at the stone with a blank expression. The myths said single grain of sand could hold a world, so it was entirely possible for a stone to form one.

2333 collected the stone. However, the others were still lost in their illusions. Even without the stone, these people might still die.

When someone was having a nightmare, the most effective way to wake them is a sharp slap to the face. External stimulation would surely wake them up.

But if she woke them so abruptly, would they go insane?

The mirage stone was no joke. It seemed that anyone who died in the illusions had their souls absorbed by it.

That meant the ghosts Ning Shu had seen were actually real!

To think she had spent all that time telling herself they were fake, and that the whole world was a lie.

Ning Shu walked over to Song Mo. His face was covered in dust, and he looked to be in pain.

She didn’t know his relationship with the entrustor, but the entrustor clearly thought about him a lot. Since he appeared so often, he was at least the only person she could vent to during those hard times.

Ning Shu manifested a fine needle. She took the tip and slowly began to poke Song Mo’s finger. She poked right under the fingernail. The nerves there were connected to the heart, so it was incredibly painful.

Ning Shu twisted the needle, slowly driving it under the nail. Song Mo’s finger twitched and his face trembled. He looked like he was about to wake up. However, she didn’t dare use too much force. He was still inside an illusion, and if she were too aggressive, he might lose his mind.