Chapter 763: The Monster in Room Four

The clouds shattered by the beast's roar had yet to close in the night sky. The dense forest rustled as gale-force winds blew, carrying faint, shrill wails and the sounds of animals fleeing in all directions.

'Just what kind of monster did the Black Jade Pixiu provoke?'

The beast's roar had echoed from the north, startling the entire land. Such a terrifying existence was not something I could fight right now.

'The spot where the Black Jade Pixiu fell is very close to Longchang. If that monster can sense the aura hidden within the black jade, it might smash its way right into the Longchang Ancient Buildings. I need to plan ahead. This place is getting more and more chaotic.' Longchang's terrain was unique, standing independent within the Animal Realm. If that monster charged in blindly, it likely wouldn't gain much of an advantage. I guessed with a touch of malice, hoping the monster and the lords of Longchang would destroy each other.

'Even ordinary monsters like the Phantom Pig possess wisdom. That ferocious beast has an extraordinary aura, so it must have developed its sentience long ago. Plotting against it will be extremely difficult.'

Take it one step at a time. That was all I could do right now.

I had delayed for quite some time in the dense forest outside Longchang, and I didn't know if the obsession's memory had awakened. Anxious and terrified of running into the lords of Longchang, I quickened my pace and headed back along the path the Phantom Pig had recklessly plowed open.

Just as I stepped out of the dense forest, a slender figure ran toward me. I looked closely and saw it was the girl.

"Didn't I tell you to hide in the building? If anyone sees us, all our efforts will be wasted," I said. I could see her worry and that deeply hidden reliance, but I was not Junsheng. I was just a strange soul who had crossed over from afar, so when the girl approached, I chose to dodge.

I gently waved my hand, not giving her a chance to speak. I grabbed her wrist, made sure we left no footprints on the ground, and circled back to Longchang. "Now isn't the time to talk. The trap is set. Whether we can escape tonight depends entirely on this gamble."

The girl didn't argue, nor did she ask me anything. She chose to trust me unconditionally.

Only after returning to Longchang did I realize things weren't as simple as I had imagined. That beast's roar had awakened the sleeping Longchang. Upright-walking meat pigs could be seen everywhere in the courtyard. Wearing various expressions, they all unanimously approached Longchang's back gate.

The number of monsters inside the building shocked me. According to the Old Granny's story, Longchang would have had a few thousand living people at most during this time period. Yet on this side of reincarnation, dense crowds of monsters filled every window and the corridors outside the rooms. With a rough sweep of my eyes, the number had to be over ten thousand. This was far more than the Old Granny had said.

The peaceful night was completely shattered. I dragged the girl by her wrist and hid inside a nearby shanty, pulling a dust-covered straw mat over our bodies, exposing only our eyes.

With things developing to this point, the girl was even calmer than me. Her memory hadn't awakened; she treated those meat pigs as her own kind. Perhaps in her eyes, what I was doing right now was nothing more than a child's naive game.

Reality was a heavy mountain that crushed people until they couldn't breathe. She had already grown numb and given up struggling long ago. Cooperating with my escape right now was nothing more than an act of love for Junsheng; she simply didn't have the heart to refuse him.

Even if it were the most absurd thing, I believed the girl would agree to it, because in her eyes, this might be the very last thing she and Junsheng ever did together.

Children of war understood life and death much earlier than ordinary people. In this man-eating hell of Longchang, the girl's mind was clear; she had figured everything out long ago.

There was no escaping. She was only struggling because she didn't want to disappoint the person she loved.

Hiding under the straw mat, I watched Longchang's back gate through a gap. Pigs in varying clothes came running over in a hurry. They stood in the Longchang courtyard, conversing with one another, but not a single one dared to step half a foot outside.

'What are these people afraid of?'

Having lost my Judging Eye and Breath Listening, I was curious but lacked the ability to eavesdrop. Rushing closer would only needlessly throw my life away.

More and more "lords" gathered on the periphery, leaving the girl and me afraid to move a muscle.

A few minutes later, two pigs happened to stop right outside the shanty. They were separated from our hiding spot by just a single wall.

"Did you hear the noise outside?"

"Is it artillery fire? Looks like the war is almost over! We can finally leave this hellhole!"

"It doesn't sound like it to me. Why don't you go out and check?"

"Why don't you go out? Outside Longchang is a war zone; running out there is suicide. I haven't lived long enough yet!"

...

The two pigs slowly walked away as they spoke. Only when I was sure they were gone did I poke my head out. "Not only are they unaware that a monster is coming, but their memories and thinking are still stuck decades in the past!"

I could hear from their conversation that these monsters were still thinking about leaving the Pig Cage Apartments once the war ended. They hadn't realized they were already dead—that they had turned into beasts that were neither human nor ghost, retaining their habits of speech and behavior from when they were alive.

I wasn't sure if this was a punishment of reincarnation. Just now in the dense forest, I had seen Phantom Pigs and some ancient trees of the Animal Realm. Those tree trunks had human faces growing on them, and when knocked down, they bled and let out agonizing groans. They looked very much like they had been transformed from living people.

If normal people cast into the Animal Realm all turned into trees, animals, and even insects and birds here, then what was going on with the residents of Longchang?

Passing through reincarnation meant one's memories would be sealed or even outright shattered. So how did the pig-faced monsters in the Longchang Ancient Buildings retain their memories?

I was incredibly curious, and at the same time, I thought of Junsheng's special situation.

'It seems he isn't an isolated case. This place, Longchang, is just too unique.' It was highly likely that a supreme treasure or a massive formation was hidden here, capable of isolating a small patch of space within reincarnation to operate by its own rules.

From what I could guess, the memories of all the residents in the Longchang Ancient Buildings could only be maintained for a single night. Once the second day arrived, everything would start over from the beginning. This was an unsolvable cycle of reincarnation.

'If I stay here, when tomorrow comes, will my memories be erased so I can start over too?' Repeating the same thing every day—and the terrifying part was being inside it without even knowing, always thinking it was the first time doing it. At this thought, even my formidable willpower couldn't help but tremble. For some reason, a deep sense of terror bubbled up from the bottom of my heart. It felt as though this guess was extremely important to me!

'This should be my first time entering the Animal Realm. I'm certain this is my first time entering reincarnation, so why am I terrified by my own thoughts? What is this familiar sense of déjà vu?' Thinking to the end, even I began to waver. There were actually many questions in this world that couldn't be pondered too deeply. Once you strayed onto the wrong path, you would sink deep into a mental whirlpool, unable to escape, entirely lost within.

"Junsheng..." An icy cold hand pressed against my forehead and gently stroked my cheek, wiping away my cold sweat. The girl looked at me with worry. "It's okay, everything will get better."

I didn't dare think about it any further. I turned my head to look at the girl and suddenly realized something was wrong. "Why have your hands gotten so cold?"

I grabbed her hand and held it in my palm. It felt just like gripping a stone—there was no warmth to it at all.

"Crap!" I lost my composure a little, worried that the girl's body in the Yang Realm had been destroyed.

"What's wrong?" the girl asked, quietly pulling her hand back.

I thought for a moment and decided not to tell her the truth. "Nothing. Weren't your hands just warm a moment ago?"

"I wouldn't have noticed if you didn't say anything." She looked down, cupping her hands over her chest. "My hands are cold, but my heart is still warm. I probably just caught a chill. It doesn't matter."

"Your heart is warm?" I quietly muttered an apology, then brushed the back of my hand against the girl's forehead and chin. Both places gave off traces of warmth, just like a normal person's. But when I placed my hand on her calf, it was icy cold to the touch!

'From her calves upward, her body is steadily turning cold. Is there some meaning behind this?' I didn't understand these things very well, and sending my consciousness into the Animal Realm meant I hadn't brought my Live Show Phone with me. Right now, I didn't even have anyone to ask. 'A person's death is like a lamp going out. A drop in body temperature is understandable, but what does it mean to constantly turn cold from the bottom up? Could it be that when the crown of the girl's head goes cold, her body in the Yang Realm will completely die?'

The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. 'If we keep waiting, the situation will probably only get worse, and the monsters aren't going to leave anytime soon. We might as well take this chance to quickly escape back to the main building.'

The girl and I weren't big targets, and the lords of Longchang had all been drawn by the beast's roar. Under the cover of night, the two of us had a very good chance of escaping to the top floor of the main building.

"Look, what's that?" On the outskirts of Longchang, someone had discovered the path plowed open by the Phantom Pig, and a few sharp-eyed ones had even spotted the strip of cloth I had deliberately hung on a tree branch.

"Someone left Longchang without permission?!"

A tenant fleeing seemed to be a very serious matter in the eyes of the monsters. I could already deduce that much from their exaggerated tones.

"Truly not afraid of death. Doesn't it know that running out there means certain death?"

"One person can feed a whole room for a week, and it just ran off like that? Damn it! What a waste!"

"Which room is it from? They can't even manage the people in their own room. I say we drag the room chief out and carve them up!"

"Never mind that for now. The escapee couldn't have gone far. Should we catch it and drag it back? Whoever finds it first gets an extra thigh."

"You dare to go out?"

"Found it! There are clothes hanging on the branch! Who's going to retrieve that scrap?"

"Make way! The guys from Room Four are coming!"

A shrill voice in the courtyard caught the attention of all the "pigs." The noisy scene suddenly fell dead silent, as if every monster had been grabbed by the throat. They took the initiative to step aside, parting the way as three highly deformed pigmen walked down the muddy main road of Longchang.

'These are the tenants of Room Four?' I couldn't see clearly in the darkness. I just vaguely felt that the smile on the leading pig's face was somewhat familiar. Cruel and brimming with malice, it was very similar to the smile of the Doctor in the Red Building.