C99 — Water

Appetite.

Mu Sichen became acutely aware that he felt a strong appetite toward the bartender… no, more precisely, toward the roots growing from the bartender’s body.

His nose twitched slightly, as if he could smell the fresh scent of countless blades of grass sprouting from the soil in spring—fresh, grassy, and laced with the sweetness of fruit. It was a scent that stirred up one’s hunger.

The invisible roots emanating from the bartender released this sweet aroma, spreading across everyone and activating the most primitive desires in the human heart.

Strangely, this appetite was different from the impulse to bite the little octopus.

When facing the bartender, Mu Sichen only felt that he was like a puppet hollowed out from the inside out. The only thing that attracted Mu Sichen was the roots sprouting from his body.

But Mu Sichen hadn’t felt any appetite toward the little octopus. He simply felt a tingling in his gums and a desire to grind his teeth against those soft, bouncy tentacles.

Thinking of the little octopus inevitably led Mu Sichen to think of Qin Zu. He remembered Qin Zu’s long, dense eyelashes as seen in the book Embrace, and the stark contrast of those lashes with his cold, expressionless face.

That face—Mu Sichen wondered if biting into it would break his teeth..

But even if it did, he still wanted a bite of that icy face. He wondered if Qin Zu would show the same helpless expression as the little octopus did.

At this thought, Mu Sichen subconsciously licked his lips.

The bar’s air conditioning was turned up high, but the crowd was too dense. Combined with the alcohol, Mu Sichen felt hot and instinctively undid the top three buttons of his shirt.

No one knew that Mu Sichen was thinking about Qin Zu. They only saw him licking his lip while staring at the bartender, and then unbuttoning his shirt.

He Fei’s mouth formed a huge “O” shape as he clutched Lin Wei’s arm, occasionally giving it a shake—whether from excitement or concern for Mu Sichen, it wasn’t clear.

Lin Wei suspected it was mostly excitement.

“Handsome, you’ve had two drinks already, and both were mixed drinks. Are you sure you’re okay? Let me get you something sweeter, along with some snacks to pair with the alcohol. Otherwise, once it hits, you’ll feel awful,” the server said to Mu Sichen.

Efficiently, the server handed Mu Sichen a drink. Mu Sichen took it but didn’t drink; instead, he stared at the bartender with a chilling, unsettling gaze.

The bartender edged farther away and called over a few regulars, saying, “Let me mix you guys some drinks.”

Several men quickly surrounded the bartender, blocking Mu Sichen’s view and effectively acting as a shield.

“So useless. I thought he had some kind of power. Turns out he’s just a petri dish,” Mu Sichen said softly.

As he spoke, he consumed all the drinks and snacks the server had brought him.

After finishing, Mu Sichen smiled and said to the server, “Give me a glass of water.”

The server brought out a bottle of mineral water, but Mu Sichen shook his head. “Not mineral water. I want the water you use behind the bar for mixing drinks.”

There was a filtered tap behind the bar. Bartenders would draw water directly from it when mixing drinks.

“That water’s filtered and safe to drink, but it doesn’t taste as good as mineral water,” the server said, handing him a cup.

Mu Sichen took a small sip and smiled faintly again.

He told the server, “I just realized something.”

“What is it?” the server asked.

Mu Sichen replied, “Water flows.”

“Aren’t you just stating the obvious? Handsome, are you drunk? Do you want to take a nap?” the server asked.

Mu Sichen continued, “There are clouds in the sky, and inside the clouds is water. Beneath the earth lies groundwater—water is a mineral resource. The ocean also holds water; it’s a key component of the sea. If the sky, the earth, and the sea must have some point of connection, the most likely one is water.”

“Are you trying to have an academic discussion with me?” the server said, throwing up his hands. “I only went to junior high. I started working as soon as I graduated. This stuff’s wasted on me.”

Mu Sichen replied, “I’m not having an academic discussion. I’m wondering why you’re answering all my questions so thoroughly.”

After drinking two cocktails, Mu Sichen had entered a strange and subtle state.

His body, ignited by the power of “Origin of All Things,” surged with countless desires—to binge eat, to release his impulses, to throw himself into a fight, to feel blood and violence.

His brain, however, felt drowsy, deeply craving sleep, as though something wonderful was waiting for him in a dream.

And his spirit was wide awake—shielded by his own inner strength, as if standing in another dimension, calmly observing everything happening to him.

These three states happened to balance each other out perfectly, forming a stable equilibrium that allowed him to think clearly.

He realized this seemingly harmless server had been far too forthcoming with information.

The bar was packed, and everyone was busy, with many customers ordering drinks. Yet this server somehow always had time to seriously answer his questions, especially those related to the bartender. He was practically volunteering the bartender’s life story, down to his hometown.

Even if the server held a grudge, that kind of information should at least be shared with regulars, not some stranger.

Especially after he ordered the “Butterfly Lovers” cocktail—the server’s attitude improved even more. He proactively offered him drinks.

Too suspicious.

It was as if… the server knew he had the power to eliminate the bartender and was trying to use him to take out his enemy.

Mu Sichen asked the server, “I want to know—are you being nice to me because I arrived with the police and you think I can have the bartender arrested? Or do you believe I have the power to purify origin, and you both want me to get rid of the bartender and hope I get corrupted, so I can be used by the butterflies?”

The server looked guilty, as if he’d just been seen through. He lowered his voice and said, “I don’t really get all that stuff about water, butterflies, origin, purification, or corruption—sounds like drunk talk to me. But I do know you’re with the police, and yeah, I do want you to arrest the bartender.”

“Let me tell you something in secret—this bartender’s private life is a mess. He’s always getting involved with different women at work. He’s totally immoral. I’ve even heard that women who get close to him sometimes suddenly die. It’s happened more than once.

“So I suspect he’s not just a scumbag, but a real danger. Please arrest him already!”

Mu Sichen stared into the server’s eyes.

What he saw there was pure honesty. Everything the server had said was true—there was no deception.

He also didn’t carry anything butterfly-related: no objects, no tattoos. Even Mu Sichen’s “Eye of Truth” couldn’t detect any signs of contamination on him.

But Mu Sichen knew—the server was definitely polluted by the butterflies. He just wasn’t like President Liu, who was aware of the butterflies. The server didn’t know.

Because the butterfly existed in his dreams, deep in his subconscious, controlling his behavior from below his awareness.

If he wanted to find a butterfly tattoo on this man, he’d probably have to check his brain with a CT scan.

Mu Sichen had met Nie Yihai before. Nie Yihai had once whispered directly in his ear—and left contamination behind.

He must have left a mark on Mu Sichen—just like Shen Jiyue, Qin Zu, and Zhuo Huaichu had done before.

The bar was a collapse point in the real world. It was a place through which the Butterfly could seep in its power, issue divine oracles, and command the server to carry out certain actions.

The Butterfly likely wanted to use Mu Sichen to eliminate the power of Origin Town, while avoiding exposure. So it resorted to subconscious suggestion, hiding the server’s contamination deep within his psyche.

If Mu Sichen had overly relied on the Eye of Truth, he probably would’ve been fooled by the Butterfly.

As for the method of contamination—it truly began with that first cocktail: Butterfly Lovers (“Liang Zhu”).

There was a subtle logic at play. Mu Sichen had directly asked questions about the Butterfly and dreams, and the server had answered frankly, even mixing Butterfly Lovers without hesitation. This created a very deliberate illusion:

“It can’t be that simple.”

“If he’s offering Butterfly Lovers so calmly, it must be safe.”

“The Butterfly wouldn’t be that stupid.”

At first, Mu Sichen had felt deflated when he heard the name Butterfly Lovers. He assumed contamination wouldn’t come so obviously. And since the server showed no signs of visible corruption, he figured the cocktail must just be ordinary.

In truth, the Butterfly had crafted this reverse-psychology setup precisely because it understood Mu Sichen’s personality—it had tailored the trap just for him.

If Mu Sichen hadn’t boldly drunk Origin of All Things earlier, he might have truly fallen into the trap.

And in fact, from the moment the bartender appeared, Mu Sichen’s attention had been focused solely on him. He had barely suspected Butterfly Lovers at all. He had even taken a few subconscious sips, without noticing any contamination. After all, things that occurred in the subconscious were nearly impossible to detect at the conscious level.

Up to this point, everything was unfolding exactly as the Butterfly had planned.

Once Mu Sichen got the information he needed from the server, locked onto the bartender as a target, and eliminated him, it would mean that every step he’d taken had perfectly served the Butterfly’s agenda. The threads of manipulation would start tightening around his mind, gradually making him ignore the suspicious details about the server.

The fact that the bar was a collapse point in the real world—Mu Sichen was the only one who knew that.

If he told Lin Wei and the others that the bartender was the root of all the problems, and that eliminating him would restore order to the real world, they would stop paying attention to the bar entirely.

That would allow the Butterfly—an S-class monster—to turn the bar into its personal domain. Using the power of its dreams, it would quietly invade this world.

But the Butterfly hadn’t expected Mu Sichen’s occasional recklessness and tendency to flirt with danger.

Yes, he had fallen into the Butterfly’s trap and had resolved to deal with the bartender.

But he was bolder than the Butterfly had anticipated. He wasn’t afraid of Zhuo Huaichu’s contamination and had dared to drink that cocktail.

The contamination from Origin Town had awakened the power in Mu Sichen’s body. And it happened to directly oppose the contamination rooted in his subconscious.

That opposition allowed Mu Sichen’s spirit to break free—giving him the distance to observe everything from a third-person perspective. It was in that state that he finally noticed the problem with the server.

Mu Sichen said to the server, “After you saw me drink Origin of All Things, your subconscious panicked. You were afraid Zhuo Huaichu would seize control of my power. So you gave me another drink and some snacks, hoping to deepen my contamination.”

It was that second drink—the extra offering—that tipped Mu Sichen off.

He realized the problem wasn’t just with the Butterfly Lovers cocktail. Any drink the server mixed could carry contamination.

If he had been suspicious of Butterfly Lovers and instead ordered a different cocktail, then drank it without defenses, he would’ve been corrupted just the same.

The Butterfly had set up a double layer of insurance here.

“You told me the bartender added blood into Origin of All Things, trying to make me believe that the drink’s problem came from something he tampered with—that it was his blood that caused it, and nothing else. You wanted to pin all the contamination on a ‘person,’ so I’d overlook one thing.”

As he spoke, Mu Sichen picked up an empty glass, went to the bar’s faucet, filled it with water, and handed it to the server.

“We’ve been talking so long. Let me return the courtesy—have a glass of water.”

The server gave a forced laugh and pushed the glass away. “We don’t drink water while working.”

“Is it that you don’t drink water… or that you don’t dare drink my water?” Mu Sichen asked.

The server opened his mouth as if to reply, but his expression turned strangely fragmented—his gaze and his facial expression no longer matched.

It was as if his rational mind was telling him to keep talking calmly with Mu Sichen, but his face had already revealed hostility and wariness—as though something hidden had just been exposed.

Mu Sichen chuckled softly. With a flick of his hand, he splashed the glass of water across the server’s face.

Immediately, the server became disoriented. Clutching his head, he cried out in distress:

“Who am I? Why am I here? What is this place? I’m a server. I work here. I want to be a bartender. Who am I…?”

His self-awareness had collapsed. He was desperately trying to rediscover his true self.

Mu Sichen set down the empty glass and turned his eyes toward the bartender.

Just then, the bartender, who had been observing out of the corner of his eye, saw Mu Sichen staring at him. In a panic, he dropped the cocktail glass he was holding and tried to flee, accidentally spilling a drink all over a nearby customer.

Mu Sichen leapt lightly, like a silent cat, onto the bar counter. Without making a sound, he crossed the distance and appeared right in front of the bartender.

He grabbed the bartender by the back of the neck and forced his head under the bar faucet, turning the tap on and letting the water pour over his head.

“Holy shit! Does Little Mu have the potential to be an S-class too?” He Fei gasped as he watched the scene unfold.

By now, the area around the bar had descended into chaos.

The bartender’s loyal fans were rushing the bar, trying to rescue him from Mu Sichen’s grip.

But Mu Sichen was in a state as if blessed by divine strength. It was like he had regained his combat stats from the game—he tossed aside every attacker with just one hand. None of them could even get back on their feet.

More than ten full-grown men rushed him, and all were sent flying with single strikes.

As the fight broke out, the entire bar fell silent. Everyone turned their eyes to the scene at the bar—Mu Sichen was overpowering the bartender, beating down other customers with ease.

Terrified screams filled the space.

Some of the more sober guests grabbed their bags and fled. Mu Sichen didn’t stop them.

Anyone not already deeply contaminated by the alien forces here needed to get as far away from this bar as possible.

Because the biggest problem here wasn’t the two god-tier monsters’ followers—it was that the bar’s water supply had been infiltrated by powers from another world!

Whether it was the server or the bartender, their method of spreading contamination was always through drinks. But they didn’t add anything strange to the drinks—the water itself was the problem. The water in this bar had already been saturated with power from another realm.

The server used that water to mix drinks that carried dreamscape pollution.

The bartender used the same water to make drinks that contained Origin pollution.

And likewise—Mu Sichen, too, could draw on the power of Self using this water.

That was why, when he splashed the glass of water on the server’s face, the server broke down in confusion.

Because in that glass of water, two shapes like fan blades had appeared.

The Cross axe had revealed itself—taking form within the water.

 

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