Chapter 756: Speaking Human Language

The item lay tucked inside Junsheng's shirt. Reaching out to touch it, I could feel a faint chill seeping into my fingers.

I looked down, my expression shifting. The third item my will had dragged in was the White Bone Jade Box.

After the Death Train Live Broadcast ended, I had foreseen my own death. Targeted by the heavens, I was left with no choice but to usurp fate.

Any mortal who usurped fate was doomed to face both natural and man-made calamities. I had weathered the natural disasters thanks to Blind Liu's Ancestral Shoulder Pole, but surviving the man-made ones relied entirely on this White Bone Jade Box.

The box wasn't large and looked perfectly ordinary, but holding it felt like balancing a small mountain in my palm.

I wasn't being overly cautious; the item inside was simply that extraordinary.

It could reverse the flow of the Yellow Springs and throw open the ghost gate. The jade box held the Yellow Springs Token—the very same one I had used to crush the Three Yin Sect!

It could only be used once a year, and doing so entangled the user in endless karma. The last time I used it without authorization, my merit had instantly depleted by tens of thousands, and my luck plummeted into the negatives. If I hadn't worn the Good and Evil Asura Mask to disrupt heaven's secrets, I likely would have been crushed by falling debris just walking down the street.

"How did this get dragged in too?" I muttered. I still didn't entirely understand how my will had pulled these three items inside with me. I had been unconscious at the time and hadn't actively called out to anything.

Thinking it over, there were only two reasons they could have followed me to this side of reincarnation. First, they might originally belong to this realm; sensing a familiar aura, they followed me in on their own. Second, they might be hidden pieces someone had planted on me in advance, placed specifically for this moment.

Both theories were plausible, yet both had holes. Caught in the middle of it all, I had no way to know for sure.

"The Mirror Fragment and the Black Jade Pixiu were items I brought out of the Live Show ruins in the Deep Dream Layer, and I bought the Yellow Springs Token from the Live Show's shop using points. They're all connected to the Live Show. My coming to the Pig Cage Apartments was also a Live Show broadcast task. It's too much of a coincidence. Putting it all together..." I leaned back against the wall, my gaze turning dark. "The Pig Cage Apartments broadcast. The Live Show predicted I would enter the side of reincarnation. Having these three items on me was arranged long ago."

The Reincarnation Mirror Fragment and the Yellow Springs Token were both tied to reincarnation and the Six Paths. The Black Jade Pixiu seemed entirely unrelated at first glance, but thinking about it carefully, this place was highly likely the Animal Realm. The pixiu was an auspicious beast by nature; even if it couldn't suppress the entire area, it would have no problem protecting my mind.

Digging even deeper, the Black Jade Pixiu was tied to the fierce entity suppressed beneath the Bridge No. 3 Crematorium. Bringing it into reincarnation this time might carry another layer of intent from the Live Show.

"Junsheng's remnant soul acted as a boat, ferrying me to the other shore of reincarnation. Now that my will occupies his body, it seems the task of rescuing the Old Granny falls to me." My height, weight, and five senses had all completely changed, and it took me a few minutes to adapt. "I'm really not used to being without my Judging Eye and Breath Listening."

I touched the wall. The surface was freezing cold. There didn't seem to be a single source of warmth here, not even myself.

The Copper Mirror hung from the doorframe like an ordinary, lifeless object. It lacked any trace of spirituality, and no matter how I tried to activate it, it didn't react at all.

"Can this mirror only be activated from the outside? I came in through here, but how am I supposed to leave?" I muttered. I knew exactly how hard it had been to get in; the ancient mirror only activated when light struck it at a specific angle.

"Forget it. It's not completely hopeless." According to Junsheng, the exact moment dawn broke in the Yang Realm, a single ray of light would pierce through the large hole in the roof and strike the mirror. That would be my one and only chance to leave.

Stripped of my Ghost Ring and ghost arts, even my connection to the Fate Ghost had been severed. Right now, aside from those three items and a will as sharp as a knife, I was exactly the same as Junsheng had been back then.

The building's layout was identical, but this world was completely alien to me. I had no idea what I was going to encounter, let alone any confidence that I could actually save anyone.

"The Red Building Tenants went to incredible lengths to return here. The young man living on the top floor claimed they did it so they could be reincarnated, and he mentioned that the Old Granny is the key. Are these things connected?" I didn't know if time flowed at the same speed on both sides of reincarnation, nor did I know how long it would be until dawn. Sighing heavily, I supported myself against the wall and stepped into the darkness.

The walls were smooth, but the wooden doors were rough and unpainted. Every now and then, I could spot traditional characters scrawled on the stairway walls, marking places like the Zhang Residence or the Li Residence.

"When I was devouring obsessions, I ran all over the Longchang Old Site. I'm fairly familiar with the layout here. The main buildings shouldn't have changed much." Following the route in my memory, I reached the corner of the top floor. Originally, there had been a window here that looked outside, but as I got closer, I saw it had been sealed up with bricks and plastered over with mud.

Gazing down the gloomy corridor and the stairs that plunged into the depths, I safely tucked away the Mirror Fragment and the Black Jade Pixiu. Keeping my back pressed tight against the wall, I started down the steps.

Reaching the third floor, I hadn't gone far when the sound of living people talking drifted into my ears.

Without the aid of my Breath Listening, I could only vaguely make out the voices; I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying.

"This is the Animal Realm. Why are there living people talking here? Are they the Red Building Tenants?" I muttered. I'd never considered myself a lucky person, so I certainly didn't expect to stumble across the Old Granny right after arriving.

I crept toward the voices. The room closest to the stairs on this floor was unlocked. Its rough wooden door stood ajar, as though someone had just walked in and was busy discussing something inside.

Tiptoeing up to the door, I peered inside. There were no lights, and the interior was pitch black. With the door blocking my line of sight, I couldn't see the people inside.

"Curse this godforsaken world! We're almost out of people to eat. When is this going to end?"

"Cut the crap. Have we decided who it's going to be this time?"

"There are only two kids left, and you still want to eat them? Go on, keep eating! Keep eating until there's no one left, and then it'll be your turn!"

"Shut your mouth! I watched that boy grow up right in front of me, I..."

"So what do you want to do about it?"

"We need rations for over a dozen people. It's not up to me. You know how it is—they're half-mad from hunger. They'd bite into raw meat right now. Aren't you afraid they'll eat you alive?"

"Then let them eat me! It's a hell of a lot better than being an uneducated, heartless, inhuman piece of shit like you! All you do is act like a fucking coward!"

"What's the point of screaming at me? If we don't draw those two kids, who are we going to pick? You think anyone else is going to volunteer? One body keeps us fed for a week. You have to agree, and if you don't, there's no room for discussion—unless you want to throw your own name in the hat!"

...

Their argument was laced with a thick regional dialect, but I could still make out most of what they were saying.

But understanding them only left me bewildered. The situation felt incredibly familiar. The Old Granny had once told me this exact story—how, driven to absolute desperation, they had started drawing lots to eat people.

"These two are conspiring to draw the kids first. It seems their so-called random lottery was rigged from the start," I whispered.

Comparing their argument to the Old Granny's story, I kept eavesdropping. Even though the two never mentioned any names, their descriptions made one thing clear: the children they were preparing to draw were Gu Junsheng and the Old Granny.

The two of them argued for a long time, their voices gradually dropping. Wanting to hear more clearly, I pressed my hands against the wall and leaned closer to the wooden door.

A few seconds later, the voices stopped entirely. The room fell dead silent. Staring at the half-open door, my heart gave a jolt. A sudden sense of wrongness washed over me. I tried to back away, but it was already too late.

Someone had crept up right behind the door in the darkness and suddenly yanked it open.

A thick stench rushed into my nostrils. A massive, shadowy figure crowded the doorway, completely enveloping me in its gloom.

Since I was currently occupying Junsheng's remnant soul, I was nothing more than a seven- or eight-year-old child. I had to crane my neck all the way back just to get a clear look.

The thing that had suddenly yanked the door open and blocked the exit wasn't a person at all. It was an ugly, filthy pig reeking of putrid rot!

The overwhelming stench almost made me pass out on the spot. It was an indescribable mix of rotting corpses and rancid body odor.

I instinctively clamped a hand over my nose and mouth, my pupils trembling. The pig standing right in front of me was practically identical to the ones in Zhu Li's paintings!

It was dressed in human clothes and wore an expression only a human could make. Its snout opened and closed, speaking human language.

"Did you hear all that?"

I didn't answer right away. After surviving the initial shock, I immediately calmed down and my mind raced: 'This is the Animal Realm. But why can it speak human language? And why does it retain human habits? Is it because of its obsession?'

When I didn't speak, the figure grew visibly irritated. Its tone hardened, and it reached out to grab me.

"Did you hear all of it?!"