Chapter 235: 231 Mother and Daughter

"How could it be her?" He Jia'an frowned slightly.

He would not have found it strange to find Ju Xiuyi's body parts here, but for Takayama Keika herself, it was truly too bizarre and horrifying.

He had originally thought that Takayama Keika herself was not dead, or at least that she should not have died in the school, and certainly not in this way.

But ever since Takayama Keika resigned from her teaching job, there had been no news of her; He Jia'an had assumed that after Takayama Keika took revenge on Ju Xiuyi and that school janitor, she would have found a place where no one knew her to start a new life. But looking at it now, there was no "starting over" for her; it was clearly a case of her head being severed, a tragic death, and no one even knew she had died.

Just as He Jia'an was pondering this, he saw Takayama Keika's bloated, swollen head move suddenly. Looking closely, he saw Takayama Keika suddenly open her eyes, her pupils dilated, staring at him expressionlessly.

The next moment, He Jia'an saw a black, oil-like substance surge into Takayama Keika's eyes; suddenly, her pupils turned pitch black, and her face gradually became ferocious.

"You really are the source of Hanako's Curse." He Jia'an quickly retreated a step. He saw several jars on the storage rack shake violently, gradually detaching from the shelf, then falling and shattering on the ground. The body parts soaked in medicinal liquid slowly converged with Takayama Keika's ferocious head, and the body parts continuously produced a black, viscous substance, causing different parts to stick together, eventually piecing together a shape roughly resembling a human.

A young girl's crying and wailing echoed in the classroom, as if Hanako were pouring out her grievances to this stitched-together creature that was slowly learning to crawl.

As Takayama Keika raised her head and let out a strange shriek, coughing up foul-smelling black saliva from her pitch-black mouth, Hanako, who had been hiding around the classroom, suddenly poured into Takayama Keika's mouth in the form of black smoke.

Under He Jia'an's disbelieving gaze, Takayama Keika's originally twisted and eerie body became even more deformed and volatile. He saw black bubbles constantly emerging from her, sharp black thorns blooming and sprouting from her body, and any part of her body twisting and reversing at will; her chest twisted to her back, her back twisted to the position of her chest, and her hands and head intertwined to form a strange flesh hat.

Takayama Keika twisted her deformed, super pigeon-toed legs and charged toward He Jia'an.

He Jia'an retreated rapidly; even with his extensive experience, he was terrified by this bizarre sight.

Bang!

He Jia'an turned to dodge, but Takayama Keika charged faster and faster, finally leaping instead of running. Her jumping power was astonishing, and as she charged recklessly, her body crashed directly into the wall.

In this enclosed, cramped classroom, He Jia'an felt like an unarmed warrior in an arena. Facing Takayama Keika, who was like a wild beast, he had absolutely no confidence in confronting her head-on, nor could he find an opportunity to stick the New Year Red Envelope onto her in a safe way.

Takayama Keika, having turned into a monster, was undoubtedly no different from a runaway high-speed truck. Her charge would make it very difficult for He Jia'an to react in time, and if he were unlucky enough to be hit once, he would surely die.

Bang!

He Jia'an didn't even see the movement of her pulling her body out of the wall before she disappeared from the spot, and in the next second, she almost brushed past his body, flew out, and crashed directly into the blackboard.

He Jia'an's heart pounded, and he couldn't help but curse, "What the hell is this thing?"

The power of the Blessing had combined with some unknown monster, turning into this violent and terrifying creature.

However, before he could utter a second curse, he held his breath and threw himself to the ground. He felt another gust of wind sweep rapidly over his back; the monster with Takayama Keika's face lunged again, this time crashing directly into the storage rack, triggering a domino effect as rows of bookshelves collapsed one after another.

"Ah!"

The prone He Jia'an lifted his head slightly, following the terrifying shriek, only to see Takayama Keika crushed under the weight of several storage racks. The body parts and biological specimens originally stored on the racks had unfortunately shattered and fallen to the ground, and the soaking liquid flowed everywhere, emitting a strong, pungent odor, while Takayama Keika struggled to find the strength to break free.

He Jia'an's eyes lit up. Without hesitation, he sprinted out, took out the New Year Red Envelope, stepped on the storage rack to run toward Takayama Keika, and then stuck the New Year Red Envelope tightly onto her forehead.

The New Year Red Envelope once again emitted a dazzling red light. The blooming red light instantly illuminated the entire dim classroom. The red light was like a fierce fire, burning this classroom, which was filled with a gloomy atmosphere, until it was charred. Everywhere made sizzling sounds, and a wild wind howled.

Takayama Keika was permeated by the red light, her deformed body showing signs of withering. The deep red light appeared as cracks on her body, slowly covering her entire frame and seeping into her body.

Then, with a loud boom, Takayama Keika's body turned into drifting sand, soon blown away by the wind, and disappeared.

When Takayama Keika died, this "no-exit" ghost story classroom seemed to lose its eerie power. The environment of the entire classroom was crumbling bit by bit, like grass paper being devoured by flames; the terrifying environment was decomposing into countless particles.

A moment later, He Jia'an found that everything he had seen before had disappeared. He stood in an empty classroom; there were no storage racks, no biological specimen models, only an empty room.

"What is this?" He Jia'an felt a foreign object under his feet, and looking down, he saw a suicide note.

The suicide note read:

I opened Pandora's box, only to find that I could never close it again. I turned my daughter into such a monster, yet I am powerless to do anything.

I discovered that there was another force in the school. I once tried to use it to stop my crazy daughter, but I gradually discovered a fact... humans cannot control any of these super-spec forces.

So, I thought about it, and I decided to perform the Blessing ritual one more time, only this time the sacrifice is not student Ju Xiuyi, but myself.

If anyone is lucky enough to see this suicide note, I hope you stay safe.

"Safe my ass! You crazy woman!" He Jia'an couldn't help but curse, crumpling the suicide note into a ball and throwing it on the ground.

You just gave up because you couldn't solve the problem, right?

You couldn't be a human with your daughter, so you decided to be a monster with her, right?

This teacher Takayama Keika really understands motherly love! A deformed kind of love.

He Jia'an took a deep breath and turned his palm over. The red envelope in his hand was already half-black, which meant that half of the New Year Red Envelope's power had been used up; he had at most half of its power left to wield.

"After eliminating Hanako's Curse, there is still Mimiko's Curse." He Jia'an put the red envelope back into his chest, clenched his fists, and trembled all over.

If the power of the New Year Red Envelope were exhausted, He Jia'an knew clearly what kind of eternal damnation he would face.

That would inevitably be an endless darkness, a despair from which he could never recover. He could only sink into chaos, trapped forever in an unknown realm, with no one able to save him.

After Hanako's Curse was lifted, the Biology Classroom returned to its original appearance, and the classroom door "grew" back, allowing He Jia'an to leave the room.

Walking out of the Biology Classroom, He Jia'an returned to the corridor of the Inner World school.

At this time, the weather outside the school had become increasingly severe. A gale blew, making the windows in the Kisaragi High School corridor flap like flags, and several panes of glass had already shattered into pieces under the force of the wind, scattering all over the corridor floor.

He Jia'an was silent for a moment, walked down the stairs, and then walked step by step toward the school gate.

Before leaving the Kisaragi High School gate, He Jia'an couldn't help but look back at the high school.

He discovered that the facade of the high school was covered with those green, wriggling substances, and the school building was shrouded in a layer of gradually hazy gray fog. It actually looked like a tombstone, with the Blessing winding around it in black smoke, sinister and mysterious.

Perhaps the rumor that Kisaragi High School was built on a mass grave was not just a legend...

This was also the first time He Jia'an had stepped onto the streets of an Inner World city. The scenery outside the school was far more grotesque and insane than inside. The parts where the road surface intertwined with unknown flesh were twitching on the ground, trembling like the exposed heart of some giant creature. The mannequins and statues arranged in the city's streets and alleys were all watching his movements with eerie gazes at all times.

The creatures of the Inner World were like a hungry pack of wolves. They saw a hunter with a gun struggling to survive in a forest of flesh. Perhaps they were afraid of getting hurt, or perhaps they were not yet hungry enough to be insane and disregard everything, so they patiently waited for the hunter to slowly get lost in the forest and eventually collapse, unable to resist.

Of course, perhaps they were also waiting for the end of their hunger, at which point instinct would devour their reason, and they would rush up regardless of everything to tear the prey to pieces.

Listening to the prey's screams and feeling the prey's fear, they would get even more delicious seasoning, and combined with the release of their taste buds brought on by the state of extreme hunger, they would have the most perfect dining experience.

He Jia'an carefully bypassed the flesh and the mud pits that appeared from time to time on the street. He knew clearly that those things were all connected to the giant disaster creature that had almost swallowed the entire Inner World. Once he touched them, it might not provoke the anger of that Alien God, but just like humans swatting a mosquito, even if humans aren't angry, they will subconsciously and instinctively take action to kill the mosquito on their hand.

In the Inner World's Taomu City, besides those bizarre things that could be seen everywhere, the city's scenery also showed signs of space-time confusion. Some places were ancient thatched cottages, while others were buildings with distinct late Heisei era characteristics. They coexisted, blooming in this chaotic city.

And besides the buildings of the past and present, He Jia'an could occasionally see buildings that seemed to come from the future.

Regarding this, while He Jia'an felt amazed, he also felt a sense of relief.

After all, if those strangely styled buildings were from the future, did this mean that they, as humans, still had a future?

At the very least, humanity will not go extinct in this disturbance on Sakura Island.

Regarding this, He Jia'an still had some fantasies about his own victory.

Perhaps, could he retreat unscathed?

Thinking this way along the road, He Jia'an had unknowingly arrived in front of a household; looking at the house before him and the doorplate hanging outside, he said, "Misaki's home hasn't been built here yet at this time, has it?"

He wiped the dust off the doorplate, which had a different surname written on it.

Continuing to walk along the empty and deathly silent street, He Jia'an remained quiet, only talking to himself in his mind.

The New Year Red Envelope protected him from being harassed by evil spirits, but those hidden aggressive gazes and this deathly silent environment made it easy for anyone staying here for a long time to collapse and go mad; he had to find some way to alleviate his tense emotions.

Especially in a world where one would be eaten by monsters once their mind collapsed, He Jia'an had to hold fast to his original intent and remain calm.

"Finally here." He Jia'an felt as if he had walked a very long distance, as if he had walked for nearly half a century; he stood in front of a familiar house, suppressed the unease in his heart regarding the house that radiated an ominous aura, and walked into the house marked "Kawakami Family."

The old residence he failed to visit in the Real World, he had finally stepped into in the Inner World; he was glad that the house of Kawakami Rumi's family had been preserved in the Inner World.

Pushing open the rotten gate, He Jia'an's shoes stepped into the house, which was covered in dust and gray floating flocs, and he continued to drain his phone's battery, turning on the flashlight to illuminate the gloomy house.

When he walked to the living room, He Jia'an fell silent; he saw a hanging female corpse, the corpse riddled with holes, with countless things similar to maggots shuttling and poking their heads out between the holes of the corpse, as if they had treated the corpse as their insect nest.

This should be the Mrs. Kawakami who hanged herself at home, as mentioned in the news reports.

He Jia'an did not explore the rooms on the first floor too carefully, but instead turned to go upstairs, heading toward the bedroom on the second floor.

The first floor was the master bedroom, so the second floor should be where Kawakami Rumi lived.

Kawakami Rumi's room was very easy to find, because a hanging doorplate was nailed to the door, clearly stating it was "Rumi's" room.

He Jia'an gently pushed Kawakami Rumi's room door open, subconsciously held his breath, and walked in on tiptoe.

The room was very dark, the curtains were drawn, and not a single ray of light could penetrate into the room; relying on the limited illumination range of the flashlight, He Jia'an surveyed everything in the room and saw that it was filled with Abnormal flesh fungi, probably the "specialty fungi" of the Inner World; they grew wantonly everywhere in the room, and each flesh fungus's cap was distributed with dense whiskers, moving without wind, like fuzzy coral in the water, and they seemed to be sensing this room.

When the flashlight's beam shifted to the bed in the bedroom, He Jia'an's breathing could not help but become a bit heavier.

A black paste came into view, flowing on the wrinkled bedding like fresh blood; when the circle of light illuminated the depression where the paste had accumulated in large quantities, He Jia'an shuddered all over.

He did not see Kawakami Rumi's corpse.

However, what made He Jia'an suddenly tremble was not that the corpse had vanished without a trace, but that he felt a cold breath coming from behind his neck.