Chapter 754: Entering the Mirror

Junsheng's little hands clenched and relaxed several times. He touched the mirror, glanced at the unconscious Old Granny on the floor, and turned to run out the door.

"Hey!" I didn't know if Junsheng understood me, but with things having reached this point, I had no choice but to follow him.

The Red Building teetered on the verge of collapse in the torrential rain. The world had changed color. Clouds as thick and black as ink coiled in the night sky, resembling inverted black mountains that could crash down at any moment.

"Reincarnation is the foundation of heaven and earth. To touch reincarnation is to stand against heaven itself. This storm is likely a manifestation of heaven's fury." I pulled my collar tight as I hurried through the dilapidated stairwell. Junsheng ran incredibly fast; if I wasn't careful, he would vanish from my sight.

We crossed the deserted wasteland. The little guy led me through the Longchang Ancient Buildings. Just as I expected, he finally stopped at the entrance of the main building.

The young man who lived on the top floor leaned against the cold, wet stairs, guarded by three ghost entities. Bai Ya'er sat opposite him with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring blankly, lost in thought.

Hearing my footsteps, the young man struggled to wave his arm. "Did you find the old lady on the second floor? She's the only survivor of the Pig Cage Apartments from decades ago. She connects the past and the present. She's the key to all this."

"That person told you that too, didn't he?" Junsheng was already sprinting upstairs, leaving me little time, so I stuck to the most critical questions. "What did he look like? Where did you meet? What else did he tell you?"

"I've never met him. I just got a call from an unknown number a few months ago. The caller said my sister, who went missing years ago, was imprisoned in the Pig Cage Apartments. It was under his guidance that I moved in here." The young man's eyes were swollen and seeping blood, making him look absolutely miserable, but his expression was incredibly relaxed. It felt completely unnatural.

"Your missing sister?"

"I'll tell you everything once it's light out." The young man lay back on the ground. "He said as long as I stalled until you arrived, everything would end. My task is done."

The young man refused to speak further, and I wasn't in a position to force him. I shifted my gaze to Bai Ya'er. "Zhu Li might be hiding nearby. This woman has a deep connection to him. Be careful."

With that, I chased after Junsheng, sprinting all the way up to the top floor in one breath.

Li Ming's corpse still hung against the wall. A hemp rope was tied around his neck, leaving his body swaying in the corridor.

'Why would the Red Building Tenants place Li Ming's corpse here? Did they know there was a passage hidden here too?' I shook my head. If they had known in advance, they absolutely would have destroyed this crack.

'The Old Granny once saw a mirror on the top floor. The Red Building Tenants frequently go in and out of the Longchang Ancient Buildings, so they must have seen it too. They probably knew there was another crack hidden somewhere in the Longchang Neighborhood, but couldn't pinpoint the exact location.'

Junsheng stopped beside Li Ming's corpse, slapping his little hands against the wall. His movements were wide and frantic, making him look incredibly anxious.

"What is it?" Junsheng's strange behavior gave me a bad feeling. The little guy hadn't taken me straight to the crack in the ancient building; instead, he was obsessing over the peeling plaster on the wall.

I quickly stepped forward to lower Li Ming's corpse, then took a step back to watch what Junsheng was doing.

He repeatedly slapped a specific part of the wall, but I couldn't see anything different about the surface there.

'Is the other crack right here? Is there a mirror hidden inside this wall?' I wasn't making assumptions without basis. Having entered and exited the Deep Dream Layer, I knew perfectly well that mirrors served as conduits for spirits and filth in many places. If something was going to connect two worlds, a mirror was very likely the key to crossing over. That was probably why a second mirror couldn't be found anywhere inside the Red Building.

"Is it here?" I stood next to Junsheng and carefully pried off the peeling plaster, but there was nothing inside.

I smacked it hard, shaking loose the dust and plaster flakes, but I still didn't see anything resembling a mirror.

"What's going on?" Junsheng pointed at the spot I had dug out, looking as though he were trying to tell me something. Seeing that I couldn't understand, he grew angry and anxious, eventually raising his hand to point above my head.

I followed his finger and realized something seemed to be resting on the door frame. So much time had passed that the old object had seamlessly merged with the wall's plaster. Without a careful look, it was completely unnoticeable.

Stepping onto a pile of debris by the wall, I was just about to reach up and grab the object on the frame when Junsheng ran over to stop me. He couldn't physically touch me, so he just kept waving his hands.

"I shouldn't touch it?" I didn't dare act recklessly. Turning my phone's screen brightness to the maximum, I used my Judging Eye and finally got a clear look. Hidden on the door frame was a fractured Copper Mirror.

Hanging a mirror over a door frame was a common habit among the locals. It was said to ward off evil and block malicious energies.

At a glance, the Copper Mirror had to be at least several decades old. Its surface was uneven and covered in a thick layer of grime as it rotted into the door frame. It could barely reflect a person's silhouette, so it was no wonder the Red Building Tenants hadn't discovered it before.

"It barely counts as a mirror, but the surface is so blurred it can't even hold an image. What use is it?" Junsheng definitely had his reasons for stopping me from touching it. I was just about to step down from the debris when I suddenly noticed the little guy frantically waving his arms again, as if desperately trying to explain something to me.

He pointed one hand at the massive hole in the leaking roof and the other at the Copper Mirror, trying his hardest to convey his message.

'The main building has been standing for decades. It's completely normal for the top floor to crack and develop holes...' It was a rainy night, and water was pouring in through the large hole in the roof. My gaze drifted between the two spots as my eyes slowly narrowed, struck by a possibility. 'Junsheng always stays with the Old Granny for the entire night and only leaves right before dawn. The Old Granny also said that when she was tracking him, she saw a mirror, but only for a fleeting second.'

The Old Granny might be blind, but her heart was sharp. She couldn't see this world, yet she could perceive many things that ordinary people couldn't.

'Right before dawn... isn't that just as the sun rises and the sky begins to lighten?' My brows relaxed as a crucial detail finally clicked into place.

Raising my phone, I stood back on top of the pile of debris, cranked the screen brightness up, and held it near the massive hole in the roof. "When dawn breaks, the light shines in from this exact angle..."

Slowly rotating the phone, I tilted the screen to a thirty-degree angle. A faint, cold light cast down, perfectly illuminating the ancient mirror.

At that very moment, something incredible happened. Across that seemingly filthy, grime-covered surface, our reflections—mine and Junsheng's—suddenly appeared!

"It seems this really is the other crack." I had no idea what kind of world lay on the other side of the mirror—perhaps the legendary cycle of reincarnation itself. To be safe, I held my breath, steadied myself, and tried to channel my consciousness into the glass.

My consciousness was far stronger than my peers', and after being tempered by Xue Zhuo's monstrous killing intent, it carried extreme offensive power. But even with such a formidable consciousness, the moment I made contact with the Copper Mirror, an unprecedented wave of sheer terror erupted in my heart!

Every nerve in my body trembled, feeling as though if I lingered for even one second longer, I would vanish from existence forever.

I withdrew my consciousness without a moment of hesitation. It was only then that I finally understood Master Tianxin's words: a living person can never enter reincarnation.

I had only attempted it for an instant, yet it felt like my entire being was being ripped apart. It was an experience far more horrifying than death—indescribable. Just a fraction of a second was enough to leave me shivering uncontrollably.

'No wonder the obsession abandons the protection of the flesh. Reincarnation is terrifyingly hard to enter.' At this thought, my resolve to save the Old Granny began to waver. She had been dragged into reincarnation before her Yang Lifespan had run out; the chances of her coming back alive were far too slim.

My hand trembled, shifting the screen and altering the angle of the light. All the reflections on the Copper Mirror instantly vanished.

Junsheng, who had just managed to spark a glimmer of hope, stared at me in confusion. He waved his arms wildly; he likely wanted to grab me and demand an explanation.

Stepping down from the debris, I watched as Junsheng's hands phased right through my arms over and over. My expression grew complicated. He desperately wanted to save the Old Granny, repeating the same motion endlessly. I could see just how agonized and anxious he felt.

From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to save her too, but the price of entering reincarnation was simply too high—so high that I didn't dare make the attempt lightly.

The main objective of this broadcast was to find the other live show streamer, to uncover the secrets surrounding the Live Show and its First Anchor. Everything else, including the broadcast itself, was strictly secondary.

"Should I save her?" I lowered my head to meet the gaze of the small, stubborn silhouette standing before me. A few seconds later, the little guy did something I never would have expected. He raised the black spherical object he never let out of his hands, offering it forward.