C63 – Devil’s Whisper
by UntamedS“This guy is so pretentious; didn’t he lose? How can he still be so arrogant after losing?” He Fei’s unconvinced voice destroyed the residual discomfort left by Shen Jiyue.
He also held up his g-un and waved it around in front of Mu Sichen, like the protagonist of a western film, dejectedly blowing the muzzle of the gun.
Mu Sichen looked at He Fei as he responded, “He was your princess.”
He Fei was shocked and said sheepishly, “How did you know that before I went to the palace to find you, I went to see my fiancée first?”
“I didn’t know before, but I know now.” Mu Sichen said.
Before entering this book, Mu Sichen had already helped He Fei purify four types of mental pollution, and he was certain that He Fei, who came with him to The Emperor’s New Clothes, was a person with an autonomous mind.
Although he had long guessed that He Fei had been contaminated by Shen Jiyue, Mu Sichen still couldn’t figure out exactly when he had been contaminated and when he was swapped.
Now, the answer was obvious.
“What happened after you secretly went to see the princess, do you remember?” Mu Sichen asked.
He Fei said with certainty, “Of course I remember! I paid off two tailors to get into the palace to look for you. I also helped you seduce the princess to get information, helped you analyze that the maid and the king were all in the form of the Simple Pupil Dependent, and helped you formulate a perfect plan.”
“Xiao Sichen, although this game hides the danger of death and insanity everywhere, I feel that I seem to fit into this world exceptionally well. Here, I’ve become extraordinarily smart, witty, sharp, and inspired!”
“You can follow me from now on; brother will take you flying!”
Mu Sichen resisted the urge to “spit” him and continued to ask, “Do you still remember when you lost consciousness?”
“How could I lose consciousness? Wait!” He Fei rubbed his temples vigorously and finally came to a realization: “I had just reminded you that the maid and the king are the two eyes of the Simple Pupil dependent, and the plot flipped the page, and I was flipped to the princess’s side. Then it flipped again; my neck was cold, and when I heard you tell me to shoot, I happened to have a gu-n in my hand, so I shot at that person in the sky.”
Mu Sichen had basically figured out He Fei’s timeline.
After He Fei entered the game, he heard that he had a fiancée, so he decided to take a look at the princess before meeting up with Mu Sichen.
On the contrary, the princess was the personification of Shen Jiyue’s dependent, and He Fei was once again contaminated.
Shen Jiyue’s contamination was hard to detect. He Fei didn’t feel that he had a problem; he only knew that he was particularly smart this time. His mind always came up with very useful ideas, not knowing that these inspirations were passed on to He Fei by Shen Jiyue, with the purpose of letting He Fei pass on this misinformation to Mu Sichen.
Of course, the information he conveyed was half true and half false, and many of its contents coincided with Mu Sichen’s speculation, making it easier to win his trust.
When Shen Jiyue felt that Mu Sichen had completely trusted this He Fei, he used the moment when the page turned to grab He Fei, relying on the power of the mirror shield to attach He Fei’s projection in the mirror to his body.
After that, he came back to Mu Sichen to ask for the blue belt and told Mu Sichen that his skill was “concentration.” He began pretending to be “He Fei.”.
It was really stealing the dragon and swapping it with a phoenix; he secretly moved him to fall into his trap in no time.
However, the most frightening thing to Mu Sichen was Shen Jiyue’s “concentration” skill.
Mu Sichen was sure that when He Fei showed him the initial tool, Shen Jiyue wasn’t present; then how did he know that He Fei’s initial tool was a gu-n?
Even if He Fei was contaminated by Shen Jiyue in “Snow White” and used a gu-n in that book, He Fei himself didn’t know what the skill was; why was Shen Jiyue bold enough to make up the skill “concentration”?
Wasn’t he afraid that he would make up the wrong skill and be exposed by Mu Sichen?
Why was the skill he fabricated related to “transfer”? Was it because Shen Jiyue accidentally met the player’s characteristics, or was he confident that this skill could deceive Mu Sichen?
“Have you ever used the gu-n in the books after Snow White until you met me?” Mu Sichen asked.
“No,” He Fei spread his hands. “Each book was very simple; there was no need to use a gu-n.”
All signs indicated that Shen Jiyue knew of the existence of the system. He was clear that Mu Sichen and the others came from the other world, and he knew about the real world.
The thought of such a terrifying and secretive force most likely coveting the real world made Mu Sichen shudder.
Shen Jiyue hadn’t been demonstrating by leaving those words behind, but rather trying to plant the seed of fear in Mu Sichen’s heart.
Once Mu Sichen thus generated fear, he would become suspicious, whether in reality or in the game; he would worry that Shen Jiyue was hiding beside him.
Such a mental state would easily allow Shen Jiyue to contaminate him again silently.
This time he was able to get away; what about the next time?
Being considered by an evil god wasn’t pleasant.
He Fei saw Mu Sichen’s preoccupied appearance and stopped talking, quietly accompanying his roommate.
He knew that Mu Sichen had suffered a huge change in high school and had become an adult who hid everything in his heart, refusing to express himself like a stuffy gourd.
He Fei wasn’t particularly good at interpersonal relationships and wasn’t very considerate of others’ feelings.
These years of living together in the dormitory had taught He Fei to quietly accompany Mu Sichen when he was silent and not let him feel lonely.
Mu Sichen felt that the air had quieted down. He turned his head and saw that someone had squatted at his feet at some point. He had actually run over to him and crouched down.
Seeing He Fei like this, Mu Sichen inexplicably relaxed a lot.
Although He Fei almost choked him to death in the middle of the night for the octopus doll, he chose a company infiltrated by an evil god for his internship, accidentally entered the game, and carried the pollution of four evil gods on his body. Then he insisted that his time in the game hadn’t lasted an hour and a half and was almost taken hostage twice by Shen Jiyue, but…
Mu Sichen stared at He Fei for a long time, unable to think of the advantages of his roommate. He was in a difficult situation for a moment and furrowed his brow tightly.
He Fei saw Mu Sichen frowning and staring at him; he jumped up and exclaimed, “You’re saying bad things about me in your head, right? Don’t lie to me; I can tell by the look on your face that your stomach is holding bad water!”
But he was still alive and well. Mu Sichen finally thought of He Fei’s good points.
He reached out to pat He Fei’s shoulder and said with emotion, “It’s good that you’re fine.”
If He Fei wasn’t okay, Mu Sichen’s heart would have been left with scars that would never heal, and he would have become too weak to resist spiritual pollution.
“Seeing as you care about me, I’ll grudgingly forgive you for badmouthing me in your heart.” He said.
His attitude made Mu Sichen’s heart a lot lighter; soldiers came and went, and future dangers would be encountered later; there was no need to be anxious about things that didn’t happen.
It was better to solve the matter at hand.
Mu Sichen had already seized this pillar, but the system hadn’t given a hint of mission completion yet; it should have something to do with the fact that he hadn’t finished the story yet.
Mu Sichen walked onto the square and said aloud, “The King and Princess were bewitched by evil forces and tried to use this parade to summon demons. I knew of their plans in advance and prevented the demons from descending. From now on, I will be in charge of this country.”
As he spoke, the power of the Self-Totem turned into stars and disappeared into the hearts of each character.
The crowd immediately applauded, and a child shouted, “Queen!”
The scene was frozen in this moment.
The book held in Mu Sichen’s hand flipped to the last page, which read: [In the end, the queen got rid of the king, who was unprofessional and listened to slander, and seized the throne. Under her governance, everyone lived a happy and joyful life.]
Meanwhile, Mu Sichen and He Fei were pushed out of The Emperor’s New Clothes by a huge force, and the two of them returned inside the library.
That was right—not He Fei’s copy of Resident H5248, but the library that Mu Sichen initially entered.
Mu Sichen snatched the pillar, and the cornerstone built by the dependent was destroyed, and that so-called central world naturally dissipated like a phantom.
The originally empty library was strewn with people, and a self-totem loomed on the ceiling.
As usual, Mu Sichen controlled the self-totem and mouthed, “Purify.”
The people in the library more or less had Shen Jiyue or the Big Eye’s contamination on them; some even had both, and these contaminations dissipated under the power of the self-totem.
When they woke up, the so-called transmigration worlds were nothing more than dreams in their minds.
Of course, it wasn’t a dream for someone.
“Huh? How did I come back? My big flat, my points, my motorcycle blimp! I even exchanged some immortality pills, and they’re all gone!” He Fei wailed after his failed attempt to summon the bookmark system.
Mu Sichen was about to comfort him when he saw He Fei summoning the game system, and his fingers flew in the void and tapped a few times before he said cheerfully, “The ‘Exit Game’ button is out again! We can return to the real world! Then… props and points won’t be there; they’re all fake anyway.”
Mu Sichen: “……”
He Fei didn’t need him to comfort him; his spirit was strong.
At the same time as the purification was completed, Mu Sichen heard a system prompt.
[Congratulations to the player for completing Novice Task 4, successfully recapturing the pillars occupied by the “One-Pupil Moon” and expelling the “One-Pupil Moon” from Hope Town.]
[Please complete Novice Task 5 as soon as possible and build the first complete Hope Town.]
All three pillars already belonged to Mu Sichen; he could feel the majestic power in his body, but he didn’t know how to use it.
A self-totem appeared on every township; as long as Mu Sichen concentrated on his heart, he could “see” what every township was doing through the self-totem; he even had a feeling that, as long as he wanted to, he could take away the strength from these townspeople at any time.
As long as the townspeople prayed to him, he could take their lives at any time.
This was the power of a god level, perhaps much weaker than the Big Eye, but he had already stepped into this threshold.
[What kind of Hope Town does the player want to build?]
The system asked in a timely manner.
“You seem to have some intention, as if you want to guide me to make a choice,” Mu Sichen concentrated his energy and thought, realizing that he could communicate with the system in this way.
[The system will not sway the player’s thoughts; it will only offer choices.]
Yes, the system, apart from getting them into this extremely menacing world and throwing them some props and skills, would leave them to their own devices. It would neither protect their lives nor try to control them.
“I probably know how to build the town; with the Big Eye’s power being divided away, I don’t have enough power of my own. But I could take some of the power from the townspeople through my self-totem, which would reduce their lifespan by 10 percent, but they wouldn’t know it; they’d just feel tired, weak, and like they were very sick. But if I do that, won’t I be just like the Big Eye and Shen Jiyue?” Mu Sichen said to the system in his mind, yet he was also asking himself.
[Polluting and being polluted, devouring life and being devoured—this is the destiny of god-level monsters and the underlying logic of this world after the calamity].
“I don’t agree with this logic.” Mu Sichen thought.
He walked towards a row of bookshelves, the shelves of the Resident Series, which were filled with all-black books, each book representing a life.
A number of people in the populace had died in order to find out the pillar.
They weren’t false characters in the books, but townspeople trapped in the books by the simple Pupil dependent, as well as the townspeople Shen Jiyue had gotten in.
Their lives were like a plate of loose sand that fell apart when the wind blew, unable to withstand any storm.
The square, the sanatorium, the processing plant, the library… This town had already lost too many people, both in the real world and in the game world.
Mu Sichen sincerely hoped that his Hope Town would be able to protect all the people who came here, not seeking to save them from the pains of old age, sickness, and death, but at least he could make sure that they wouldn’t die due to the fights between the evil gods.
[Upon receiving the player’s wish, the system will give the player two options; please choose carefully.]
[Option 1: Focus your power on one person, use the three pillars to build a powerful domain, and become the “god” of Hope Town.
If you choose option one, you will take 10% of the lives of all your followers. You may choose not to absorb the energy of Chi Lian, Cheng Xubo, He Fei, etc., but choose to make someone you admire give you some of their power.}
[Pillars require soul energy; the player is requested to set the appropriate rules for the three pillars and give the soul energy of the losers or violators to the pillars to keep them running.]
[Player will have the rank of Hidden Star, no longer fearing the “unknown,” and will have the strength to fight god-level monsters.]
[Maintaining a god-level rank requires a large amount of soul energy, and players will need to constantly consume soul energy. If you don’t want to devour souls, you can choose to fight the god-level monsters in other towns and absorb their power.]
[Option two: disperse the godhood into the three pillars and return the self to the townspeople.]
[By choosing option two, the player will lose the power of the godhead and become an ordinary level 25 player.]
[The player will not have the power to rival god-level monsters, but at the same time will not have to constantly absorb soul energy in order to maintain the godhead.]
[The player can use Hope Town as a location for subsequent players to log in, opening up the Infrastructure Game Mode for subsequent players to complete the Infrastructure Quest. As the player’s town is a safe zone, subsequent players are free to log out of the game within the three pillars.]
[The player’s town may still be invaded by other godly monsters, and in order to guard the town and subsequent players, the player must continue to complete the missions.]
[The player will be able to gain the respect of the town’s inhabitants and keep accumulating the power of trust. When the power of trust exceeds one million, the player can unleash a hidden star-level attack.
Please make a choice.]
Mu Sichen carefully read the description of the options, only to find that no matter which option he chose, there was no option to “stop the game” or “go back to the real world and live a peaceful life.”.
No matter which one he chose, he would have to continue to fight, repeating the process of fighting in Tongzhi Town until one day he destroyed all the god-level monsters or was destroyed by a certain god-level monster.
Mu Sichen knew that by choosing the first one, he would become like the Big Eye and Qin Zu.
Even if he was as strong as Qin Zu, suppressing all his emotions and sacrificing in place of the townspeople, he still couldn’t stop the contamination.
He understood the reasoning; he should choose the second; this was his original intention.
But it was only when he really had to choose that he realized what a difficult option it was.
It meant that he had to fight a god-level monster like Shen Jiyue with his flesh and bloo-d, just for a group of irrelevant people.
By choosing the first, he at least had the ability to defend himself. It was also possible to protect the people who were important to him; it wasn’t like he had to give up He Fei and the others, and when he got stronger, He Fei and the others would also get stronger.
If there was a choice, Mu Sichen really didn’t want to repeat such a treacherous process like Tongzhi Town.
These two options, as if they were the devil’s whispers, kept murmuring in Mu Sichen’s ears.
What’s wrong with wanting to live? What’s wrong with wanting to become stronger? What’s wrong with being selfish?
But ……
Mu Sichen remembered what Qin Zu ended up being like in After Growing Tentacles, I Can Finally Embrace Him.
Unable to control himself, he turned into a monster and personally destroyed the home he wanted to protect.
He had changed the ending of Qin Zu in that book; was it his turn to repeat the same mistake?
Compared to Qin Zu sitting in a cold palace, the little octopus who liked to drink cola, steal chocolate, and easily felt wronged was even cuter.
Mu Sichen gently pressed “option two.”.
After all, he was just “him,” not “him.”.
[Congratulations to the player for completing Novice Task 5, establishing the first complete Hope Town.]
[Congratulations to the player who has completed all the novice tasks, opened the Siege gameplay, and conquered towns of the same level. Currently, Hope Town is a hidden star-level town; players can bring any five players to any town of the same level and transfer that town’s supplies.] population, territory, beliefs, energy, godhood, and anything else.
[Thank you very much to the player for choosing option two; the system cannot guarantee your life, but from now on, the system will work with you.]
Huh, “…from now on, the system will work with you.“ Now that is an interesting comment to make.
Thank you for the chapter!
Things are getting more and more interesting 😆😆😆
My previous guess that the players were tasked to create their own safe zone was real although my head has gone through some mental gymnastics before it simplyfied things. I just want to know why it was MSC that was given the task to steal the pillars and was given the leadership role. Was the reason still because he peeked at Big Eye? I wonder if that would be revealed 🤔🤔
Also, I should stop guessing on mc and ml’s relationship dynamic. My guees might just keep changing.
ALSO, what really is behind the system?? Based on the last paragraph, it seem that it is on the human’s side. But I still have doubts. I guess I’ll know in the later chapters