Chapter 204: They Handed You Over to Me (18th Makeup Update)

Wu Chang rubbed his brow; the information load from the scenes in the grievance was a bit heavy, he needed to give himself a moment to settle.

The first point he focused on was that the woman He Yun really wasn't being honest — her account of the temple deeper underground was far too perfunctory.

According to He Yun's account, Shelter 88 first discovered that the deeper underground held vast amounts of energy, followed the energy and found the Stone Temple, then the shelter organized an expedition to investigate the Stone Temple, resulting in the annihilation of the entire team and plunging the underground shelter into a time loop.

If he hadn't seen the grievance, He Yun's account would sound perfectly fine, and every word would be true — even a lie detector couldn't pick out a single falsehood.

But the problem was that this seemingly connected chain of actions was actually several disconnected points!

He Yun had omitted the most crucial points in between!

Maybe because of the energy deeper underground, they smoothly found the Stone Temple, but between finding the Stone Temple and investigating it, He Yun had probably omitted more than ten thousand words.

Judging from the scenes in the grievance, both the complete set of facilities deeper underground and the massive metal gate that completely sealed off the Stone Temple indicated that long before the final expedition, the underground shelter had already conducted extremely thorough research and application on the Stone Temple and the energy it emitted.

Besides that, the motive for the final expedition was also highly suspicious.

It wasn't as He Yun wanted to mislead him into thinking — that the shelter investigated the Stone Temple to further control the energy.

When he had just possessed Zhuo Jie through the grievance, he clearly heard the alarm blaring throughout the entire underground shelter.

Combined with the conversation between Zhuo Jie and Mercury, it wasn't hard to infer that the underground shelter must have been trying to perform some reckless operation based on the energy in the Stone Temple, and when it backfired, the shelter fell into crisis, and the only way to resolve it was to investigate the Stone Temple further.

What He Yun had told him earlier seemed like all the streamlined key points, but in reality they were all the painless, irrelevant parts — the real key points hadn't been mentioned at all.

If you asked Wu Chang whether he was familiar with this kind of selective-truth lying, he'd definitely say yes.

Because he'd always played it that way himself.

He just hadn't expected that the one who hunted geese all day would finally get pecked in the eye — that one day someone would use his own signature trick against him.

He Yun, you're truly despicable.

If He Yun's concealment was still within Wu Chang's expectations, it was only that the degree of concealment far exceeded his estimates.

Then Mercury's appearance completely exceeded his expectations.

His appearance could truly be called the more you think about it, the more terrifying — a chill running down the spine.

Because it raised a question: were the Pillar of the Present World possessed by the four great organizations naturally occurring, or man-made?

Even when Wu Chang suspected the four great organizations of staging their own attacks on their faction spaces, he had never considered this kind of conspiracy theory — yet Mercury had actually done it for real.

From the attitude Zhuo Jie and others showed when talking to Mercury, it was clear Mercury had been in Shelter 88 for a long time, had fully integrated himself there, and was treated as one of their own.

Yet from the very beginning, he had come with a certain purpose.

Everything he did was to steer Shelter 88 toward the script predetermined by his faction — namely, that final expedition to the Stone Temple.

And in the end, what he said to Zhuo Jie — "The fate of Shelter 88 was sealed from the very beginning; its ultimate destiny was never under your control" — confirmed his actions beyond any doubt.

Back then, when he heard the intelligence about the Pillar of the Present World from Christine, he learned that the Pillar was formed when a plane's ascension was about to complete, then suddenly failed, causing the sub-plane to get stuck between the first and second layers of the Abyss.

Under normal circumstances, once a plane's ascension or a sub-plane's loss of control began, it should be impossible to stop.

To fail at the moment of imminent success was an extremely low-probability coincidence — happening once, twice, even three or five times could be explained, but the four great organizations possessed a full thirty-six Pillars of the Present World.

At the time, he had suspected — wasn't that number of coincidences a bit too high?

Now it seemed the four great organizations probably possessed some special method to artificially catalyze promising planes into Pillars of the Present World.

Apart from the problems exposed by the grievance, another difficult problem urgently needed his resolution — how to fulfill Zhuo Jie's Blood-Colored Last Words.

Zhuo Jie's Blood-Colored Last Words were divided into two parts, neither of which was easy to resolve.

First, helping He Yun break free from her shadow, and not letting her continue to blame herself for the deaths of her team members.

If he told He Yun the whole truth, even setting aside whether she'd believe him, would she be able to take it in stride and stop blaming herself?

Once a person gets stuck in a dead end, even eight horses can't drag them back — let alone a few light words from him.

Besides, how would he make He Yun believe his account?

He had no way to record the scenes from the grievance into a video and share them with He Yun.

If the first half was merely difficult, the second half was not simple in the slightest.

Punching Mercury once wasn't hard — the hard part was finding the guy, and judging from Mercury's tone and the abilities he displayed, by the time the scenes in the grievance were recorded, Mercury was already a player on the second layer of the Abyss.

By now, he had no idea what level he'd reached, but being assigned to a heavyweight mission like this meant the forces behind him must have been extremely confident in Mercury's abilities.

Even if he hadn't ascended to the third layer of the Abyss, he was certainly a big shot on the second layer — to land a punch on him, Wu Chang would probably have to wait until he himself reached the second layer of the Abyss.

Wu Chang shook his head, forcibly zeroing out the chaotic thoughts in his mind.

Things had to be done one at a time — mixing them all together would only make things more troublesome.

The immediate priority was to help He Yun break free from her shadow and lead her out of this space condensed from the Calamity Fog.

He looked at the stone tablet before him and decided to leave it untouched for now, saving it for He Yun.

Following the sounds of fighting, Wu Chang quickly found He Yun. The mecha-zombies besieging her had now increased to seven, but thanks to the powerful stats of her custom mecha, He Yun appeared completely at ease — able to kite the mecha-zombie horde while searching for the nodes of the Calamity Fog.

Seeing Wu Chang arrive, He Yun sighed and asked, "Did you get lost and wander back to me, or were you chased by these zombies and bring me another big gift?"

Wu Chang ducked behind the energy shield He Yun had deployed, waved his hand, and said, "Neither — I found the node of the Calamity Fog."

"Great, then why didn't you destroy it?" He Yun asked, puzzled.

Wu Chang didn't answer directly, but said, "You know I know a bit of divination, right? Although my analytical ability is a bit lacking, my readings are still fairly accurate."

He Yun furrowed her brow, thinking to herself that Wu Chang always had to bring up the most awkward topics — why was he suddenly bringing up his unlucky divination? But to play along with Wu Chang, she could only say:

"I admit, your divination is a bit more accurate than those robots'."

Wu Chang went along with it: "I know divination, so it makes sense that I'd know a bit of necromancy, right?"

He Yun: "Makes sense. And then?"

Wu Chang swallowed, and said somewhat nervously, "From the node of the Calamity Fog, I saw the ghosts of your former team members. They told me some things — you…"

Bang!

He Yun, who had previously only been wounding rather than killing, now punched a mecha-zombie that had been trying to be cautious into oblivion.

"Promise me — don't make jokes about them. Even if you're my friend, even if I need your help right now, it's not allowed."

The young He Yun thought Wu Chang was about to bring up that old pot, but she didn't know he was about to bring up a pot of ice water.

Facing He Yun's furious expression, Wu Chang did not back down in the slightest. "I can take you to see that Calamity Fog node."

He Yun said expressionlessly: "Lead the way."

Under Wu Chang's lead, the two quickly arrived before the stele bearing a lingering grudge. Seeing the stele at the node, He Yun was momentarily dazed, and upon seeing the line of text on the stele, fell into a long silence.

Written on the stele in fresh blood:

"Boss, stop being a sissy and wallowing in the past. Stride forward and throw your Iron Fist at that broken temple!"

A long time passed, until the mecha-zombies behind them were about to shatter the energy shield, before He Yun finally spoke up and asked:

"Who was the ghost you saw?"

Wu Chang said: "He said his name was Zhuo Jie."

"Zhuo Jie." He Yun softly repeated the name, as if recalling something, then she said softly: "This line of text sounds like something he would say. What else did he tell you?"

Wu Chang said: "He also told me that the reason the original exploration of the temple failed, and why most of them died, was not because of something inside the temple, but because of betrayal from within. The one who ambushed him was named Mo Qiuli."

He Yun gritted her teeth, repeated the name Mo Qiuli several times, then raised her head, took down the large-caliber rocket launcher from the mecha on her back, and fired a shot at the distant mecha-zombie horde that was continuously strafing.

Accompanied by a violent shockwave, the world fell completely silent.

He Yun turned around, scraped at the bloodstains on the stele with her finger, looked at the falling blood scabs and said:

"Although I don't know where you got your intel, this line of text — you wrote it, didn't you?"

Wu Chang said: "I invited a god to possess me and let him control my body to write it." He Yun smiled noncommittally and said: "Besides this, did he tell you anything else?"

Wu Chang had wanted to say there was nothing more, but felt that just these two points alone would be hard to convince He Yun to walk out of the past, so he steeled himself and said:

"There's one more thing!"

"What?"

Wu Chang said firmly: "He said that on behalf of the other members of the team, he's entrusting you to me."

He Yun's expression flickered slightly. She turned to look at Wu Chang and asked: "Can I trust you?"

Wu Chang broke into a brilliant smile and replied: "Absolutely. Whatever you need to do, I will walk with you to the very end."

He Yun closed her eyes, seemingly making some kind of decision.

Her preparation took quite a while — so long that a new batch of mecha-zombies had already taken position. Because of the overwhelming firepower she had displayed last time, the number of mecha-zombies deployed this time reached twenty-four.

That number happened to be the headcount of He Yun's team, excluding her and her brother He Yi.

Crack.

!

The twenty-four mecha-zombies raised their guns in perfect unison, barrels pointed straight at He Yun.

Wu Chang had just been about to remind He Yun that if she didn't make up her mind soon, they'd have to run for it, when he saw He Yun open her eyes.

He Yun looked at Wu Chang and said: "If you lie to me, I'll drag you down to hell with me."

Wu Chang immediately shook his head: "That won't do. After I die, I'm going to heaven."

What a joke — Aileen was at least a Power Angel, a prominent figure among angels. How could they possibly let him end up in hell?

He Yun had no idea what Wu Chang was thinking and took it as a roundabout promise. So she raised her fist and slammed an Iron Fist down onto the stele.

As the stele representing the Calamity Fog node shattered, the twenty-four mecha-zombies raised their barrels further upward and pulled the trigger toward the sky.

The intense gunfire sounded like firecrackers, as if celebrating that their boss had finally shaken off the past and was about to move forward.

Amid the gunfire, the Calamity Fog receded, and the two returned to the banquet hall. But the moment they appeared, they saw the area around the banquet hall packed with armed believers of the Bliss Cult.

Wu Chang put his hand behind his back and beckoned to He Yun, signaling her to grab his hand.

But the two failed to coordinate. Wu Chang only felt his hand grow heavy. When he brought it to the front, he found a flashbang in his palm — a flashbang about to explode.

He hurriedly threw the flashbang out. The next instant, a tremendous flash filled the banquet hall.

Taking advantage of this opening, Wu Chang turned back, grabbed He Yun in one motion, and activated the long-range teleportation array, sending the two of them back to the room where they had stayed yesterday.

Ever since gaining the ability of Psionic Control, Wu Chang had made it a point to set up a teleportation array at every safe location he passed through.

The energy cost wasn't much, and it didn't require any occult materials — it'd be a waste not to use it. He treated it as always keeping a save point handy.

Having shaken off the frenzied Bliss Cult believers, the two were temporarily safe. Wu Chang looked at He Yun and said solemnly:

"I think we need to talk."

He Yun showed no resistance to this and asked: "What do you want to talk about?"

Wu Chang said: "I want to know everything about that final expedition — what caused it, and what exactly happened to you all inside that stone temple."

Faced with Wu Chang's question, a complicated look appeared on He Yun's face. It wasn't the resistance of someone unwilling to answer, nor the calculation of someone thinking how to deceive him — it was a helplessness tinged with bewilderment.

He Yun met Wu Chang's eyes and said, finding it hard to speak: "If I told you I don't remember, would you believe me?"

"You don't remember?" Wu Chang frowned and pressed: "Is it that you lost this memory during the time-retrograde process?"

He Yun shook her head: "It should be that after surviving that expedition, I forgot everything related to it. To be honest with you, the information you told me earlier — including those two names you mentioned, Zhuo Jie and Mo Qiuli — I don't remember any of it at all. Only when you bring them up does a vague scene faintly surface in my heart."

He Yun, afraid Wu Chang wouldn't believe her, assured him once more:

"Although it sounds terribly perfunctory, I really have lost the relevant memories. About that expedition back then, all I remember is that we had to build the most powerful set of mecha, then wait for the right moment and go back to seal that temple."

Wu Chang sucked in a cold breath upon hearing this, an expression of disbelief in his eyes.

It wasn't that he didn't believe He Yun had truly lost her memory — after all, such an excuse was too clumsy. If He Yun wanted to lie, she could have used far more sophisticated methods, like when she tricked him before…

Wait.

He looked at He Yun and confirmed: "Then do you still remember that you once made extensive use of the temple's power to build a small city in the deeper space underground?"

Hearing this, He Yun once again showed bewilderment and said, puzzled: "We once built a city in the deeper underground? Are you sure?"

Wu Chang slapped his own forehead with a smack. It seemed he was overthinking it. Previously, He Yun hadn't been deliberately deceiving him — she had simply forgotten nearly everything related to the deeper underground space and the stone temple.

No way, miss — can something like this just be forgotten on a whim?

Fortunately, he could inspect lingering grudges. Otherwise, following He Yun down to the deeper underground, he probably wouldn't have gotten any useful intel and would instead have been misled by her fragmented memories.

What made it even harder for him to keep a straight face was that earlier, thinking He Yun was a high-level player, he figured sincerity was the ultimate trump card and told her everything he had seen — only to cast flirtatious glances at a blind man.

He sighed and asked, "Then what else do you remember?"

He Yun took a pendant out from his clothes. The pendant was egg-shaped and could be opened and closed. Usually in movies, when this kind of pendant is opened, inside there would be a photo with a family member, or a close-up of a sweetheart.

The result was that when He Yun opened the pendant, inside was revealed a thumb-sized, brightly colored pink diamond.

Hiss.

Wu Chang took a sharp breath of cold air. He had never expected that He Yun was actually showing off his wealth to him—was this a preparation to bribe him?

If this thing were to go up for auction, it wouldn't come down without four or five hundred million.

He Yun's next words dispelled Wu Chang's thoughts.

"I only remember that by holding it and entering the Stone Temple, I can find the method to re-seal the temple."

"May I take a look?" Wu Chang asked.

He Yun took the pendant off and handed it to Wu Chang.

Wu Chang observed the pink diamond. This pink diamond was actually warm.

No, that's off topic.

"Item Name: Desire Origin Stone"

"Item Type: Special"

"Item Description: Carrying the Desire Origin Stone allows one to carve one's own desire on the Desire Stele, or modify the content one previously carved on the Desire Stele."

"Note: Received a solemn warning from the Desire Mother Goddess. Wishing to seal someone is the most annoying thing, and is an absolutely prohibited act. Naughty bad children caught by Mommy will receive severe punishment."

Wu Chang clicked his tongue. The Desire Mother Goddess's warning was absolutely a pure counter-effect. Just this one note alone could arouse many perverts to deliberately seal her.

He returned the pendant to He Yun and said, "I can feel that this pendant indeed harbors a power capable of sealing deities. You must keep it safe."

Speaking of which, Wu Chang's phone suddenly rang. He glanced at the screen—the caller was actually Fang Hui.

He said to He Yun, "I'll step out for a moment. In a bit, let's make some brief preparations and then head deeper underground to further investigate the situation."

He went to the balcony, answered the call, and Fang Hui's voice immediately came through the receiver.

"Mr. Peace, you finally answered the phone. Save me! They're going to harm me!"

Wu Chang furrowed his brows. After He Yun's death, the entire plane underwent a time rewind. So how was it that yesterday Fang Hui was still drinking iced cola and playing on the computer, yet today he was crying for help?

"Don't panic first. Tell me how they want to harm you. Stall them as best you can, drag it out until I get there!"

Fang Hui's trembling voice came from the other side. He said, "They, they actually sent thirteen girls, insisting on having something happen with me!"

Wu Chang:?

The second update is a little delayed. Abyss Game has a bit of a time difference, that's reasonable, right? As long as I haven't woken up, it counts as the previous day.

(End of this chapter)