Chapter 548: Memories Can Be Rebooted

After the word "nightmare" was spoken, the scene before my eyes suddenly changed.

Black qi surged into the sky, and the sounds of slaughter never ceased to reach my ears.

"Run!"

"A Jiu, take A Cheng and run quickly! You must protect A Cheng!"

The scene of the fire phoenix finally protecting us as we left reappeared.

The scene shifted, and we were already in the cave beneath the small hill; I desperately shoved A Cheng into a corner.

"A Cheng, hide here and wait for your older sister; no matter what happens outside, no matter what sounds you hear, do not come out; trust your sister, she will definitely come back to get you."

The scene shifted again.

This is a prison cell; I saw myself, about ten or eleven years old, chained to a wooden frame, my body covered in wounds, blood flowing, everything a bloody red.

"Feng Wu Jiu, do you think that if you don't speak, I have no way of knowing where you hid that child? You refuse a toast, only to drink a forfeit!"

The next moment, my chin was pinched, and a woman shoved a black pill into my mouth.

The pill was bitter, it dissolved as soon as it entered my mouth, and the next moment my thoughts became chaotic.

I felt a hand press against my forehead.

My memories began to roll uncontrollably, as if that hand pressing on my forehead had plunged into my brain and was stirring it.

The memories I had deliberately hidden also gradually surfaced in the stirring.

Then they were extracted, used…… I don't know how long passed before I was awakened from the chaos by a basin of cold water splashed on me.

My eyelids fluttered open with difficulty; suddenly a head was thrust before my face, my pupils constricted sharply, and I instantly became fully awake.

The next moment, I struggled violently, hoarsely shouting from my throat: "A Cheng! A Cheng!"

Two streams of blood-tears flowed from my eye sockets as I stared at the head cradled in the woman's hand; my teeth nearly shattered from clenching.

I could not see the woman's face clearly.

She wore a large cloak that enveloped her entire body.

She moved like a ghost, drifting before my eyes; I could not even see whether she had legs beneath the cloak.

"Give him back! Return my A Cheng to me!"

"I will kill you! Kill you!"

""

I screamed and wept hysterically; in that moment despair drowned the little me.

But the more I collapsed, the more the woman gloated.

She reveled in my despair, as if each moment of my emotional collapse were an endless offering to her.

When I had shouted myself hoarse and could no longer yell, the woman again drew near, cradling A Cheng's head.

She pressed tightly against me, her whole body exuding a chilling aura.

She whispered softly in my ear: "Feng Wu Jiu, why are you crying? Why are you shouting? It was you who told me he hid in that cave, you who guided me, helped me chop off his head—you… are also an accomplice."

"But it's fine; soon all this will be past. Sleep, sleep well……"

That hand pressed again against my forehead, like hypnosis, and I quickly sank into endless darkness.

I don't know how long passed.

When light and color reappeared in my world, I found myself standing in the vast Song Mountain Canyon.

I saw myself holding Dahui Chan Master's face, gently blowing a breath into him.

Dahui Chan Master slowly opened his eyes; the eighth po behind him was instantly pulled back into his body.

I heard myself utter a faint apology: "Sorry."

Dahui Chan Master gazed deeply at me and asked: "A Wu, really don't want it?"

I firmly shook my head.

Dahui Chan Master sighed, palms together before his chest, "Amitabha: A Wu, go back to Cangwu Mountain to have a look."

Slap!

With a loud slap, the scene was jerked from Song Mountain straight into a palace.

I saw myself kneeling on the ground, trembling all over, consciousness chaotic, my two hands as if trying to dig into the earth, joints whitening from excessive force.

"Useless thing! You actually didn't take the Buddha's Bone Relic that was within reach—what are you trying to do? Did you treat my words as wind in the ears?!"

"I raised you with great hardship, and this is how you repay me?"

"Since you're so strong-willed, I suppose you can also withstand the mandala's phantom poison on your own, A Jiu—I'll be watching!"

After the woman hidden beneath the black cloak flew into a rage, she strode away.

The palace's grand doors slowly closed.

Darkness fell; I saw myself like a dog drained of its essence, lying prone on the ground, my body beginning to tremble uncontrollably as time passed.

I saw myself convulsing, saw myself clench my fists and strike my own head, saw myself, from self-harm, bloodied everywhere…… then that hand, seeming to carry magic, pressed once more against my forehead.

Hypnosis, tampering with memories, issuing orders……

Over and over the cycle repeated; I was tamed in memories that were sometimes blank, sometimes chaotic, and again and again I relied on my own willpower to reboot my sanity.

From my early teens, to blossoming into a graceful maiden, then to standing on my own, until my Nirvana Tribulation was finally about to arrive—I flung my eyes open and met the face of the woman formed from condensed black qi before me.

It's her!

Exactly her!

I remembered!

Back then, after Dìshì grew his first golden true feather and received the first "Buddha's Light Shines Everywhere," he personally slew my parents.

It was exactly then that this black qi appeared on Dìshì's body.

Immediately after, Dìshì opened a great slaughter, and this black qi grew ever more substantial.

Crackle!

A bolt of heavenly thunder suddenly fell.

I instinctively looked toward the side of the execution platform, where A Cheng had been standing, and just happened to see Liu Junyan rushing over, dragging A Cheng away.

When the heavenly tribulation fell, A Cheng could not stay at the edge of the execution platform, for his soul would be sucked into Dìshì's body; Liu Junyan had experienced this before and promptly took A Cheng away.

Lightning leapt into Dìshì's body, coursing through the cracks in his shattered true form, making him grit his teeth in agony, worse than death.

I locked eyes with the woman whose face was condensed from black qi; if Dìshì was the executioner who slaughtered the entire Feng Clan, then this woman is the mastermind who enabled him to commit such heinous crimes!

Who is she?

Is she Dìshì's mother, the great demon that crawled up from the Wangshui River?

But what grudge does she have with my Feng Clan?

"Have you remembered everything, A Jiu?" the woman said, staring at me with a look as if I were about to kill someone, then she said: "Slaughtering your entire family, abusing you, controlling your memories, cutting off A Cheng's head, awakening the ancient witchcraft through A Cheng's head, altering your memories through the ancient witchcraft, manipulating you with the illusory poison of the mandrake to approach the Dahui Chan Master, forcing you to take his Buddha's Bone Relic… all of this is under my control."

You've gone mad, self-harmed, and healed over and over; you tried to seal away this most cruel memory, to reincarnate and reverse all this, but alas, you forgot—memory... can be reawakened... A Jiu, come and go mad with me again...