Chapter 491: Seeping Out

Hu Li was a very smart girl. With Yu Sheng's reminder, she quickly caught on.

"You feel it too, don't you?" Yu Sheng said unhurriedly, watching Hu Li blink her eyes. "The Mourning Star, the Mourning Goddess, the Mourning Banner, that room at the end of the second floor that keeps spitting things out, and all sorts of other clues popping up for various reasons—these clues and pieces of intelligence give me a feeling like..."

He paused there, thought seriously for a moment, then cautiously continued: "Like they're conscious, you know? The 'information' related to the Mourning Goddess seems to be alive, actively moving toward us—or, to be more precise, toward Ai Lin. It's like it's drilling out from behind some barrier, and lately it's been drilling faster and faster."

He let out a soft breath and looked up at the little puppet grinding a stone ball in the square.

"To put it in more 'conventional' terms, the current situation is that the Mourning Goddess is 'awakening.' It might be awakening from inside Ai Lin, or other parts might be waking up from other places, and then one day it'll come knocking. Either way... being short on intel leaves us at a disadvantage."

"But 'investigating' could also accelerate the process," Hu Li suddenly said, tilting her head in deep thought. "That's how information pollution works. My teacher told me about it before."

"...Your compulsory education over there is a bit too outrageous. That's an elementary school curriculum!?"

"No, it's extracurricular," Hu Li's ears twitched. "It's not on the test."

Yu Sheng: "..."

He waved his hand, ignoring the urge to complain, and continued: "Investigating might indeed speed things up, but the current situation is that the 'Mourning Goddess' is already behind us. We're not chasing Her; She's been in hot pursuit all along. She'll catch up sooner or later anyway, and the less intel we have, the more passive we become. So we might as well take the initiative."

Hu Li thought it over, then moved a little closer to Yu Sheng, wagging her tail vigorously: "Sure."

No matter what her benefactor did, she was always supportive.

Then the two of them sat together on the rooftop, watching the sky, the distant mountains, the town, and the Snake Lady who had just returned to town after eating her fill. She had somehow emerged from a small alley, her two long legs supporting a snake's upper half as she wandered around town, looking like a π...

With a nudge from Hu Li, Yu Sheng corrected "π" to "h."

Then a tumbleweed-like mess of golden hair popped out from the roadside. Rapunzel loudly reminded the big snake monster wandering around: "Hey hey, Snake Lady, you've reversed your form again!"

Snake Lady fumbled around to transform again, becoming a normal snake-woman, and chatted familiarly with Rapunzel. They talked about all sorts of things, each going off on their own tangents. Finally, Snake Lady clapped her hands and suggested stealing the king's dried fish, and Rapunzel, ever eager for chaos, supported her: "Great idea, let's go—let's drag the Mermaid along too!"

So off they went, the two of them also roping in the Mermaid, who had been practicing diving in the pool. A little while later, clattering sounds and stirring BGM rang out from the two-hundred-square-meter cat tree...

Yu Sheng and Hu Li sat on the castle rooftop, eating their snacks and watching the show, observing how this idyllic little town was once again in a superposition of tranquility and bustle. But then Yu Sheng grew curious: "When did that snake demon get so chummy with Rapunzel?"

"I heard their friendship was forged during the process of being disciplined by Little Red Riding Hood," Hu Li said casually, craning her neck to watch the commotion near the cat tree. "Ah, Rapunzel got thrown off... Snake Lady got thrown off too. Thrown off in a ball."

Yu Sheng breathed a sigh of satisfaction. He lay down on the rooftop again, the corner of his eye catching a dozen mass-produced Ai Lins running over to the cat tree with stretchers, adding to the chaos. A smile appeared on his face as he murmured softly, "This is nice."

"Mm, this is nice."

...

Ai Lin, who had been holding the Mourning Star and polishing it vigorously by the square, heard the commotion from the cat tree. The little puppet looked up toward the source of the sound, and through the eyes of her mass-produced copies, she saw Snake Lady thrashing on the ground and Rapunzel rolling past her like a tumbleweed.

Then came the Mermaid, being escorted out by two Royal Champion Warriors. She was shouting things like, "I just came to sing," "They said they needed BGM here, so I came," "I'm a fish, I ate too much, why would I come steal dried fish from a cat?" but in the end, she was still thrown into the mud pit next to the cat tree.

"So childish..."

The little puppet withdrew the shared vision with her mass-produced selves, shook her head, and muttered. Then she picked up the Mourning Star and examined the results of her polishing efforts.

The pitted, rough "mini-planet" hadn't changed at all. The big rock on the ground had been worn into a deep groove, but the surface of the Mourning Star didn't seem to have lost a single speck.

"How is it this hard..." Ai Lin frowned, tapped the Mourning Star against the ground, and scrutinized the stone ball carefully.

The dusty gray stone ball slowly turned in her hands, its pitted surface reflecting in the puppet's crimson, translucent eyes.

In that reflection, a lone star hung suspended, floating in a blood-colored universe.

The gray-white planet hanging upside down in the puppet's eyes slowly cracked open. Jagged, sharp teeth emerged from the crack, like a terrifying grin.

Ai Lin blinked.

The surroundings had grown quiet without her noticing, as if the entire world had vanished into some distant, forgotten moment. The last starlight in the distance had long faded, leaving only endless dimness, and even the dark red glow that once illuminated the universe slowly melted into the final ripple of the world's dissolution.

She stood in this endless gloom and chaos, carefully holding the gray-white dying star in her hands.

Tiny sounds came from the surface of that planet—from the few remaining lights, from the last habitats, tiny, layered sounds, like insects buzzing, drilling into her head.

Ai Lin was puzzled. She was curious and wanted to make out those sounds, but she felt a greater noise roaring in her mind, as if some vast memory... or "information" was relentlessly drilling into her brain. One second, she seemed to understand what the roaring noise meant, but soon her mind grew groggy. Not only could she no longer understand those sounds, but even the questions of who she was and why she was here became a burden too heavy for her reason to handle.

Suddenly, she sensed something else and looked down.

She saw countless tiny specks of light crashing into her body—her originally small form had somehow become vast and unfamiliar, and those tiny specks of light, compared to her body, seemed like nothing more than glowing dust. They carried the same groggy noise, charging toward her as if roaring while they ran, and in the blink of an eye, they dissipated into faint sparks.

For some reason, Ai Lin suddenly felt panicked.

She didn't even know what those specks of light were, but she was panicked—this emotion seemed to come from another "self" deep inside her body, surging toward her like a tide through a heavy curtain.

They were going to die;

It was going to die;

She was going to die.

Something had to be done to stop the arrival of the "end," but there wasn't enough time—time had never been enough from the start.

Everything was already fated.

All struggles were futile. The descent of the Mourning had long been etched into the foundational laws of the world.

The tiny sounds mixed in with the vast noise suddenly became clear, layering upon each other, the weak insect-like buzzes stacking into a thunderous rumble.

Ai Lin heard countless people praying to her, beginning with chaotic pleas, then fearful confessions, interspersed with blessings she didn't understand—many voices were blessing her with something, but the next second, she quickly forgot those voices.

She felt herself becoming "powerful."

She didn't understand what this so-called "powerful" meant; it was a feeling hard to describe in words, but she did feel herself... "exceeding" some kind of "threshold."

Her perception expanded, her body expanded, and she felt she could even touch the edge of the world—or maybe the world was collapsing, and the universe was shrinking?

The newborn deity had no time to think before blazing pain swept through Her consciousness.

Beyond the world, it hurt. Couldn't touch it.

Something was there, something that would dissolve everything.

Flee... but there was nowhere to flee.

The world shell that once protected her had disappeared.

Only by fleeing inward, fleeing into her own interior...

Suddenly, Ai Lin jolted awake.

Warm and gentle breezes passed through the town. The sky was bright and clear. Children were singing in the nearby study room, the loudest one completely tone-deaf.

Ai Lin looked down at the Mourning Star in her hands. The vast information impressions lingering in her mind were rapidly dissipating like morning dew. Then her eyes snapped wide open as she looked up toward the castle.

"Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng!!"

The little puppet shouted, running quickly toward the castle.

Memories receded like a tide. The last "impression" in her mind quickly sank back into the dark depths.

"Yu Sheng!"

As if propelled by inertia, Ai Lin still ran swiftly toward the castle, but confusion had already appeared in her eyes. Then, after two more seconds, her running slowed, though she still walked forward subconsciously, clutching the cold, mother planet in her hands.

"Yu Sheng..."

Ai Lin lowered her head, looked at the gray-white stone ball in her hands, paused, then smiled happily.

She waved the stone ball, showing it off to the person on the rooftop—

"Yu Sheng! This ball really is super wear-resistant!"