Chapter 851: Inside A Memory
A bright, sunny sky was above. It was the product of a supermassive Solar Star with a single ring orbiting it, clear as day. Its radiance was warm to the touch, filtered by the sky, enriched, and brought to the lives beneath the sky.
A city was beneath, lively and populated.
"Where is this?" A grim and ghastly voice sounded out.
Suddenly, above the city, a seven-colored humanoid figure manifested. It was extremely ghastly; its figure emitted endless translucent smoke. It lacked all essential facial features, except a pair of silver eyes that observed the world curiously. As the smoke was expelled, it fluttered about to form root-like appendages from below.
This ghost-like figure was Wei Wuyin! He floated in the sky, observing the city down below. The activity was brimming with life and diversity.
"I'm in Lin Xianxei's memory. Right," Wei Wuyin recalled without any delay. This was purely an avatar of his, surfing the waves of Lin Xianxei's Sea of Consciousness. He was delving into a variety of memories, but one caught his interest.
Wei Wuyin slowly floated to the ground. There were humans bypassing him as if he didn't exist. They were doing things such as paying to enter the gate, holding conversations, or carrying goods into or out of the city.
"The faceless imagination," Wei Wuyin said. These humans were all faceless, not even having eyes or ears. They had no distinctive features, and only consisted of nine different sets of individuals. The four sets of males and females: Child, Teenager, Adult, Elder. They had consistent shapes, but the ninth was the unknown—a figure without any distinctions.
These were the non-main characters within a person's memories. They were irrelevant, the thoughts of what should be happening outside of one's presence. This was why these figures looped about endlessly.
He had met these existences before during the last two times he'd searched through others' memories. He didn't like these beings because they only existed if the memory itself was particularly powerful to establish an imprint on the mind. These were typically tragedies.
This entire world was merely an illusion generated by the mind. He lifted his head to see the supermassive Solar Star of the Aeternal Sky Starfield. At least he knew where this was.
"It's so massive…" Wei Wuyin's eyes glinted with a bit of reluctance. This was the largest memory he'd ever entered. The size was like roots in one's mind. This memory was particularly thick and complex. He even felt the warmth of the solar star and the strange taste of the air. These details were typically recalled if the memory was etched deep, absolutely unforgettable.
"Weeeeee! Hahaha!" The sounds of innocent laughter, joyful and playful, resounded throughout the world. It echoed endlessly, causing the sky to tremble, the white, fluffy clouds to distort, and the ground to quake. Yet the laughter remained unaffected, pure, and untainted by any and every disturbance.
Wei Wuyin looked into the city; his silver eyes glowed with a seven-colored light.
"I should leave," Wei Wuyin considered. He had already found what he needed; this wasn't necessary. However, his curiosity was extremely strong. This was his first time experiencing a powerful memory without visible boundaries. How could it not allure the curious mind?
Wei Wuyin controlled his manifested form—the Seven Source Form, blitzed through the world and passed by the endless configuration of faceless imagination. They acted in an endlessly repetitive manner, set into a permanent loop. It didn't take long before he arrived at a mansion, luxurious yet homely.
A few beings were tending to the outside garden; their faces had faint features. They were individuals with faint identities. But they were blurred and unclear, so they were briefly seen by Lin Xianxei. That or forcefully erased…
If it was the latter, then these were the witnesses to her tragedy. Where was she?
Wei Wuyin's Seven Source Form slipped inside the mansion.
"What?" The inside of the mansion was spiraling, twisted, and flipped. Some tables and chairs were on the sides or on the ceiling, the ground was covered by strange doodles as if imagined by a child, and the paintings were fragmented like cracked glass.
"Twisted…" Wei Wuyin heaved a sigh. This was a sign of a memory forcefully distorted to make it particularly unclear. An unerasable memory twisted in this fashion was buried, unclear and unseen. The subconscious mind guarding the conscious mind.
Such a vast memory without limits, a twisted point of origin, and such clarity. Whatever happened in this memory was terrifying, to say the least!
"Let's see what it is!" Wei Wuyin spread out his arms, expelling gushing waves of seven-colored alchemic eden gas from his form. It impacted the walls with a harsh, explosive thud, flooding the floor, the ceiling, and swiftly engulfing the mansion.
After a few seconds, the gas returned back to Wei Wuyin's smokey form. The scenery had changed entirely. The world had become dark, dreary, and silent. There were no tables, chairs, or paintings, and all the doors were painted jet-black. The entire mansion's insides were different.
It was a little scary.
"Oh? A death?" Wei Wuyin rubbed his smokey chin contemplatively, floating further inside the mansion. He arrived in the hallway. It was spacious, and monotonous, with numerous doors lined on both sides extending into the far distance. There were no effective limits to their numbers.
Wei Wuyin floated towards a door. He eyed it with a bright glow in his eyes. "Equally spaced apart. Interesting," this wasn't the first time he saw something like this. It was truly a memory kept hidden by the subconscious mind, buried deep. It might extend to the soul.
"Why death?" This type of setting meant a change of perspective, the typical perception of death. Wei Wuyin had seen it in the memories of both Jing Jiu and Jiao Ning. They were often accompanied by times of death. Sometimes it was a relative, a friend, but it was always someone important.
Wei Wuyin decided to continue exploring. It didn't matter where he went, the end result was the same. He flashed through the hallway of endless doors until he settled onto a single one.
"Weeeeee! Hahaha!" The jubilant laughter of a young girl resounded again. It originated from a door, one completely white in color. While the mind could restrain itself, it often contradicted itself by making it easy to find if looked for.
He didn't hesitate to open the door.
BOOSH!
The door flung open. There was a bright, blinding radiance emitting from within. Unfortunately, his eyes were that of his Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity, and illusions and truth were instilled into them so this last layer of protection was ineffective. He entered the room.
When Wei Wuyin came in, he saw a young girl, likely three years old, with short blonde hair. She was playing with some porcelain dolls and toy ships. She seemed to be reenacting a grand voyage. Her Qi was actively controlling them.
"A person without worries; It's not fair for you to suffer a tragedy," looking at the young Lin Xianxei, Wei Wuyin felt a little saddened. But he didn't know why this was a meaningful memory. He didn't smell the scent of blood or decay, so a battle hadn't happened.
Who died?
Suddenly, Wei Wuyin looked at the window across the room. A black shadow flashed within the room, disguised entirely. The girl was playing without noticing the shadow, but it grew and grew until it overtook the entire room.
She noticed then. Looked around, her eyes bright and innocent. Those eyes filled with budding intelligence brightened, and those rosy cheeks were uplifted by a joyous smile, "Hello, mister! Wanna play with me again?"
"Not today…" The shadow spoke as a mouth formed in the wall. its teeth were white and monstrous, like a shark about to eat its prey. Its voice was indistinguishable.
A shadowy hand emerged from in front of the girl. She didn't seem bothered by it, just a little sad by the refusal. "Tomorrow?" Hope sparkled in her eyes.
"Yeah…tomorrow. We'll play as much as you want," the shadow said, revealing a large, ugly smile. The shadowy hand pressed against the young girl's head!
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" A gruesome scream shook the entire world, fragmenting it into several thousand pieces.
Wei Wuyin watched silently, inspecting the shadow intently.
"Huh, so she died."
The memory ended. Wei Wuyin found himself once again outside the city, floating above the sky. The memory had restarted, and when he heard the laughter again that shook the world, he couldn't help but think to himself. 'How did she die when she's alive? Unless she thinks she died here, but that's…'
Wei Wuyin couldn't quite figure it out.
He decided to inspect her earlier memories, finding her first fully-formed and meaningful memory. It was of her mother. She had them, so she didn't die. Moreover, the later memories were consistent. It seemed like nothing changed, that this particular memory never happened.
Imagination?
What three-year-old imagines their own death at the hands of a nefarious figure? Then, they sealed it off because it was too traumatic?
"What the fuck…"
In that case, there was only one possibility.
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Wei Wuyin left Lin Xianxei's mind, returning to the real world. His expression was extremely solemn.
"Wei Wuyin?" Wen Mingna called out. This jolted Wei Wuyin out of his own thoughts.
He removed his hand from Lin Xianxei's head, saying: "I know where it is. That aside, I don't know if I should help her out." Wei Wuyin stared at Lin Xianxei's sleeping countenance.
"She needs help?" Wen Mingna looked at Lin Xianxei curiously. Was she diseased or something?
"A lot of it. Whatever, it's not my problem," Wei Wuyin softly sighed. But when he recalled Lin Xianxei's status as a Blessed's companion, the Heavenly Daos must be setting up ways for Lin Ming to help her out. Well, unless it was deliberately done by the Heavenly Daos design.
"Let's go to the Paramount Jade Realm," Wei Wuyin said.