"..."
The Raven was silent.
"It shouldn't be like this, right?"
Huai Shi murmured softly, "I know not everyone should like me, I might not fit in or be popular, but, maybe sometimes some people's actions deserve punishment, but none of them deserve to die.
They are all living people, just like me, they shouldn't die, just like those people in those clubs shouldn't die, even though they might have sinned, they are innocent."
"So, I don't like the things you've been saying."
Huai Shi looked into her eyes, emphasizing every word, "—I really really really don't like it."
"...Oh dear, why so fierce?"
The Raven turned her head away, seemingly crying in sorrow, "Big sister, I'm also doing this for your own good. Besides, now you fully own the bird, can't I do a little testing before we begin our cooperation?"
As she spoke, she fluttered her tearful eyes, "For the sake of my heartfelt sincerity towards you, can you give me a chance to mend what's lost? If Plan A doesn't work, we still have Plan B."
Unfortunately, a raven making such a face isn't cute at all.
"...What's Plan B?"
"It's very simple."
The Raven finally glanced at him one last time, "Since you're unwilling to kill others..."
She said, "Then the only option is to kill you."
That instant, darkness fell before Huai Shi's eyes.
.
.
Huai Shi had a long dream.
Amidst the drifting haze, he seemed to have just finished work and was preparing to go home. As he waited for the subway, he seemed to disdainfully remember an incompetent employee he had fired during the day. Then, a roaring sound came from the depths of the tunnel.
Before he could put away his phone, he heard a vengeful voice behind him: "Die!"
The next moment, a pair of hands pushed on his back.
He fell, he flew, and then he plummeted, towards the tracks. The subway's headlights grew brighter and closer, and then, Huai Shi was crushed, torn apart, and the last thing he heard was the clear snap of his skull shattering.
Indescribable pain washed over him, he didn't have time to scream, nor even to fear, as his consciousness quickly blurred.
Then, he seemed to become a business mogul who once ruled the global economy, now trapped with no way out, cornered in a park. His own assistant, having betrayed him, delivered a final ultimatum to surrender.
Huai Shi smiled coldly, then raised a handgun towards him.
Bang!
A soft noise came from a distant helicopter, and Huai Shi could no longer feel his body. In his last moment, he heard his assistant's bewildered cry: "Don't shoot, he's not…"
Shot in the head?
In the midst of confusion, Huai Shi had not yet reacted when, like a chain of nightmares, he suddenly became a middle-aged flamboyant uncle, wearing strange powered armor, carrying a gun, storming into the Louvre to fight with bizarre insectoid creatures, then dying quickly.
This time his last thought was: Damn, I want to reload...
Reload? Reload what? Go reload Rem!
He began to mock 'himself', yet he couldn't laugh anymore, because it seemed he was now hung up on the city gate, nails driven through his hands, yet he felt no pain. His whole being was drifting, as if drunk, and he stupidly smiled at the white-haired person in front of him.
However, why was this person glaring at him? What had he done wrong?
Soon, the moonlight flashed and his head was severed.
This time it was decapitation.
Then amid the frenzied cheers, he seemed to be tied to a stake, burned alive in flames, as people shouted excitedly: "Die, heretic!"
And then he died again.
Like that, he died over and over, different kinds of death - poisoned, drowned, hanged, burned, minced, rushed into the emergency room, accidentally pushed, killed by various people over various matters.
Over and over and over again.
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die.
He didn't know how many times he had died.
By the end, he was almost numb – completely losing consciousness.
Is this the end?
He sank into a deep sleep as if liberated.
In the last moment, he seemed to look back at the source of all the phantasms, and finally he glimpsed the essence of those deaths. Those deaths became flurries of pitch-black pages. Countless black movements overlapped, like snow. They converged into a sea of sorrow and despair, sketching out a silent world.
Perhaps that was what the Book of Fate truly looked like.
A cold world dying alone.
.
.
The room returned to silence, with just the delicate sounds of the Event Branch continuously inscribing on the Book of Fate.
The ethereal Raven gazed quietly at Huai Shi, looking through his shell as though she could see the vibrant Source Substance burning within him.
Despite being a lone consciousness, the sparks that flew from their colliding thoughts shone as bright as flames.
The Raven glanced at the Book of Fate and sighed involuntarily, "Indeed, had it not been constantly extracting Source Substance, you would have awakened years ago..."
Ever since she had woken from the book, she had been observing Huai Shi continuously.
That's how she could conclude from various signs: Huai Shi had probably already stepped one foot past the threshold of Sublimators. Otherwise, a mere mortal would hardly be acknowledged by the Book of Fate as its holder, and she would not have bet on him so readily.
Now, on the current opening page, beside the name Huai Shi, the words 'Stress Period' within the parentheses grew increasingly heavy, as if gathering strength, attempting to transform.
But every attempted transformation seemed to encounter an invisible resistance, returning to its original position.
Soon, an invisible force pulled the feather pen, moving it onto the blank space at the beginning of the pages, drawing a curved arc.
With the passage of time, the arc slowly extended, gradually evolving into a perfect circle, yet the final tiny gap simply wouldn't close.
"Still a bit short?"
Raven murmured in astonishment.
Generally speaking, the stress period is when a person's true nature emerges from the Sea of Silver, their Source Substance becomes independent, and gradually returns to the consciousness.
During this process, the unique soul of a Sublimator would be forged.
This period is usually very brief, distinct from the structure of the soul. The shortest record in history took only five minutes and twelve seconds, while the longer ones were no more than five or six months... It was the first time for Raven to see someone who hadn't passed the stress period after six or seven years.
Even if these years were spent mostly in the 'Empty Blue' state due to extractions from the Book of Fate, wasn't this a bit too exaggerated?
Originally, she thought that with the impact of those past death records in the book, it would only take a few minutes for Huai Shi to naturally break through the bottleneck, but unexpectedly, this guy was already at the threshold, yet just wouldn't step through!
The forging of the soul was just lacking that little bit.
Just a bit...
"What exactly is missing?"
Raven couldn't help but squint her eyes.
There was something crucially important that she had overlooked.
This feeling was extremely frustrating, but no matter how she pondered, she couldn't figure out why.
The existence of a soul is the sublimation of essence and consciousness, containing the quintessence of humanity. It's precisely because each person is unique that there are so many completely different souls in the world.
A halting in the construction process can only be due to one reason.
Huai Shi herself.
Even if she wanted to go through the Event Branch to check Huai Shi's records, she could only access the content after Huai Shi found the Book of Fate at the age of ten.
Past that point was nothing but blankness…
But through the descriptions in between the lines, she could clearly see that Huai Shi was trying to conceal something. What it was, however, she couldn't discern.
Unless Huai Shi spoke out, it would remain an eternal secret.
In the midst of Raven's contemplation, the incomplete circle underwent another transformation.
Pitch-black ink emerged from within, taking advantage of the curve's transformation, forming the outline of a 'waning moon.'
"...Could it really be the moon phase?"
In her moment of astonishment, Raven softly exclaimed, "How rare."
Although the construction of the soul was not yet complete, its attributes had already emerged—in the classification of the Book of Fate, the moon phase corresponds to the essence of a person, which is the soul itself.
The abilities of souls categorized under the moon phase mostly involve interference with the soul, such as mind control, consciousness modification, and spiritual healing. This branch is a symbol of the bizarre and the mysterious for the majority of Sublimators.
"Unfortunately, the scope is too small."
Raven shook her head slightly disapprovingly, "Too small..."
Though one may achieve momentary success through the strange and the fearful, reigning in the shadows, the center stage of this world will never be reserved for those who only hide in the darkness.
Time was hard to track, but Huai Shi's breathing grew labored, her eyelids fluttered as if she was about to awaken from a deep sleep.
She sighed, and the Event Branch slowly lifted, gently touching the center of the moon circle.
Leaving a mark of ink.
And Raven's color grew even paler.
"The opportunity is yours, Huai Shi," she whispered, "Whether you can build the bridge, from the ethereal to reality, that's up to you."
.
.
"All set."
The confidant burst into the office excitedly, holding a portable hard drive: "Master, all the surveillance footage from the moment that bastard Chen Quan snatched away the box until now is here."
"Were you careful?"
The man known as the Master seemed like he hadn't slept in a long while, his eyes red. When he lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes looked ferocious.
The confidant shivered subconsciously, managing a smile:
"Rest assured, I had someone else do it, didn't leave our names. Even if someone investigates, they'll only trace it back to him."
"Very well."
The Master took the hard drive and didn't ask for any further details. He paced back and forth in the office for a long time before finally making up his mind and stomping his foot.
"Go and tell those old men and women to come to the Mass on the weekend evening. Whoever doesn't come, need not ever come again."
The confidant was taken aback, "But didn't we just have one the day before yesterday? They're used to coming at the end of the month…"
"Then find some other excuse, can't you!" The Master burst out in anger, glaring at his face: "Do I have to think of excuses for you? Will it work if it's the birthday of the Heavenly Father?!"
"Sure sure sure, your word is final."
Not daring to provoke further, the confidant scurried away.
In the quiet office, the slightly prematurely aged middle-aged man was silent for a long time, closed the door, and after hesitating for quite a while, finally plugged in the hard drive and began to look through the fragmented information.
From the man suddenly pulling out a gun in the warehouse, killing someone, stealing the Sacred Relic, then getting injured in the counterattack, exploding, and fleeing... until he slipped into an alleyway.
As the timeline swiftly advanced, a young man carrying a violin case entered the box. Soon after, he emerged, and the footage froze once more.
It stopped on that slightly youthful face.
"It's you..."
The Master leaned closer to the screen, his crimson eyes glaring intently at the young man in the footage.