Chapter 153: One Dead, One Escaped

"Was it Teacher Wen, who seduced your father and sent you to Xinhu High School? Or Shen Mengting, whose deep love turned into bitter hatred? Or maybe your incompetent father?" I listed a few possibilities, but Guo Junjie shook his head at each one.

Finally, he spoke up himself. "It was my mother. My biological mother."

I hadn't anticipated this answer. Even though his mother was cold and detached, to my knowledge, she had never actively harmed Guo Junjie. "Can you tell me why?"

He paused for a long while. Raising a hand, he summoned a gust of yin wind that swept the Double-Faced Buddha Pendant Zichou had crushed right to his feet.

"This Two-Faced Buddha turned my life into a complete mess. He made me a target for everyone's bullying, yet my hatred for him isn't actually that deep—because in the end, he was also the one who taught me how to break free."

"You're certainly taking that in stride." Hearing this, my curiosity deepened. It was unbelievable that Guo Junjie's hatred for his mother could surpass what he felt for the mastermind, the Two-Faced Buddha.

Guo Junjie gave me a glance before continuing. "The Two-Faced Buddha used my Fate Pattern to refine this Paulownia Mulberry Talisman, and because of that, I gained the ability to enter dreams. Not just the Shallow Dream Layer—if I want to, I can even enter a person's Deep Dream Layer and unearth the deepest secrets hidden in their heart."

"And it's precisely because of this ability that I learned a very cruel truth." Guo Junjie's tone shifted. His voice was already hoarse, but now it sounded even more agonizing. "I originally thought the same as you. I believed this was all the Two-Faced Buddha's conspiracy. I thought he used dark arts to make my father obsessed with studying sexual culture, that he drove my brother and sister to commit incestuous acts, and that he instructed Zhang Wen to incite the students to humiliate and torture me. None of that was wrong. I saw the truth of all those things in their dreams. But the woman who gave birth to me was the sole exception."

"I searched through all her memories, but there was no trace of the Two-Faced Buddha anywhere. Everything she did wasn't because she was bewitched by him—she did it entirely of her own free will!"

"I couldn't find a single excuse to absolve her. Everyone else's sins could be pinned on the Two-Faced Buddha, but not hers!" Guo Junjie's emotions slipped out of control, and the faces of yin souls flashed across his body like a revolving lantern.

"The first person to abandon me was none other than her." It took a long time for Guo Junjie to calm down, and when he did, his voice carried a touch of sorrow.

I looked at the suddenly silent Guo Junjie, not knowing what to say. He was an absolute madman. He had killed his father, mother, brother, and sister, cursed the entire school, and left countless souls unable to rest.

But did that mean he was just a bad person?

Back in the laboratory, when I intervened to pin Xue Fei down and let him make a choice, he had used a knife to finish Xue Fei off quickly and cleanly. Judging from that alone, he still retained a shred of humanity. It was just that this remaining sliver of humanity had never been cherished by the people around him; instead, they had trampled all over it as if it were worthless dirt.

In this school, very few people actually called him by his name. The nicknames they used for him were usually "midget," "trash," or "bastard."

This only accelerated the sprouting of that twisted seed deep within his heart, nurturing the terrifying monster growing inside him.

If I looked at it as an outsider and judged it by my own sense of fairness, I honestly felt that some of the people in this school deserved to die.

The law struggled to punish those glamorous pieces of filth, making it easy to understand why Guo Junjie would resort to such madness.

"Guo Junjie, I've seen everything you went through in the dream. I have no right to judge who's right or wrong, but it's already been five years. The humiliation they subjected you to should have been paid back in full by now, right? Why sink deeper into the mire of memory and imprison these souls? It'd be better to set them free, and in doing so, free yourself." I tried to persuade him. I was now certain that he was the one who had issued the request from the Underworld. The problem was that this open-ended request had stumped me; I had no idea how to bring it to a satisfactory resolution.

"Free? How can seventeen years of agony just be let go so simply?" Guo Junjie pointed a finger at me. "You still don't understand what I mean. I pulled you into the Dream Realm and made you witness all my suffering, but it wasn't so you could counsel me."

Yin energy coalesced around him, and the ghosts of those who had died unjust deaths swirled around his fingertips. "I wanted you to help me. The sinners from back then haven't all been wiped out. Some of them got away—that pig-like principal, the man my mother married in her second marriage, and the 'benefactor' who turned me into this—the Two-Faced Buddha!"

After gritting his teeth to spit out those names, Guo Junjie let out a sinister laugh. He pointed his finger at Zichou and Zimao. Aside from resentment, his attack carried a strange power that bypassed their talisman array completely, striking directly at their physical bodies.

"The art of usurping fate! This guy isn't a malicious ghost, he's one of the Eight Characters Divine Fiends!" Zichou screamed in terror. Their Talisman Paper couldn't block the black mist Guo Junjie had unleashed, and their bodies began to rapidly age in the blink of an eye!

"Quick, use that item! Don't hesitate! Once you're out, tell Lu Xing he must kill this person!" Zichou shoved Zimao away, stepping up alone to block the black smoke.

"Brother!" The younger brother, Zimao, pulled out a Black Octagonal Token. It was impossible to tell what material it was made of. The front bore the ancient characters for "usurping fate," while the back was inscribed with their names.

"Go!"

Zichou's body was rapidly aging. It was my first time seeing such a terrifying ability. "The art of usurping fate? And what does that have to do with the Eight Characters Divine Fiends?"

Zimao raised the token in his hand. Zichou turned around to hold back the black mist, tearing off his Daoist robe to reveal that the inside was entirely covered in talismans.

"Trying to stop me? Like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, you overestimate yourselves!"

More black mist poured out of Guo Junjie's body. Unable to hold on any longer, Zichou snapped his head back and roared at his younger brother, "Run!"

During their fierce clash, I noticed something very strange. Guo Junjie's body was made up almost entirely of that mist and vengeful souls. "This shouldn't be his true body, right?"

I turned my head. The atmosphere in the hallway was shifting wildly. I didn't see what kind of hand seals Zimao used, but the Black Octagonal Token swept through the air, forcefully tearing a rift into the nightmare.

His eyes red, Zimao tried to drag Zichou in at the last moment, but Zichou shoved him away. "Tell Lu Xing he has to kill that person! He might be the prophesied destiny!"

The rift torn in the nightmare quickly healed. With a crisp clatter, the token fell to the ground, a jagged crack now marring its surface.

Zichou snatched up the token and began chanting a spell at Guo Junjie. But his injuries were far too severe; he couldn't hold on, collapsing to the ground before he even finished half the incantation.

The black smoke completely enveloped him. When it dissipated, all that was left was an old man with one foot in the grave. His skin was deeply wrinkled, and his eyes had lost all their light.

"Anyone connected to the Two-Faced Buddha must die!"

Zimao had escaped, and Zichou had died of old age in the Dream Realm. Now, there was no one left in the hallway to interrupt my conversation with Guo Junjie.

I cast a glance at Zichou's tragic corpse, my fingers instinctively tightening their grip on the thunder talisman. "Guo Junjie, if it's just teaming up to deal with the Two-Faced Buddha, I can help you. They're my enemies too."

"Words mean nothing; I need a guarantee. Otherwise, if I let you leave and you never use the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman to enter the dream again, where am I supposed to find you?"

Guo Junjie's words gave me a bad feeling. "What kind of guarantee do you want?"

"It's simple. I need a memory." Guo Junjie walked toward me. The black mist around him grew even denser, obscuring his face and the shifting ghost faces across his body.

"A memory?" I was just feeling surprised when my eyes darted to the livestream chat. A username had suddenly popped up.

Master Hypnotist Fantasy: "Streamer, be careful, he's lying to you! According to our research, the way a nightmare manipulates people is tied directly to their memories. Your will is too strong for him to find a weak point, which is why he's trying to trick you into opening up your mind voluntarily!"

"Once he gets ahold of your memories, it's highly likely he'll drag you into the Deep Dream Layer and take over your physical body in the real world!"

"Theoretically speaking, this is entirely possible, so you absolutely must be careful!"

Reading Master Fantasy's comments, my hand, hidden inside my pocket, secretly began to form hand seals.

The Primal Destiny Divine Fiends drew closer to me, the thick black mist shrouding the space around him for several meters. "I need your memories. Let me take a look—just one look, and I'll let you all leave!"