Chapter 766: I Used Half My Life to Atone for My Sins

I looked into the girl's eyes and pursed my lips, ultimately swallowing my words.

Whether in the Yang Realm or the Animal Realm, I was the only person who had heard her story.

Junsheng's memories had been sealed to ferry me through reincarnation. The Old Granny had been forcibly dragged here by the Red Building Tenants, losing all recollection of the past few decades.

At this moment, I was the only one who knew their past. I carried all their hopes.

"Everything you see is an illusion. The truth may be cruel, but I have a duty to restore it. That is my promise to that child."

I spoke with absolute solemnity. The girl nodded, seemingly only half-understanding, and whispered, "Mm, I believe you."

I left the door cracked open and unlocked, ready to bolt out at a moment's notice.

Minutes ticked by without the slightest change from the Copper Mirror on the opposite door. I could hear my own breathing grow ragged as anxiety and unease fermented in my chest.

Half an hour later, a disturbance echoed down the long hall. Heavy footsteps thudded from the far end of the corridor.

"Someone's coming." I widened my eyes, but after losing my Judging Eye, my vision had reverted to that of a normal person. I couldn't make out what was approaching at all.

Step after step, they drew closer in a steady, unyielding rhythm, without a single pause.

'Was it sent by the obsession to search? No, it isn't opening every door to check. It's just approaching this room. Did it discover the girl and me?'

Unsure if the entity was actually coming for the two of us, I glanced around the room and gently nudged the girl away. "Hide under the bed. No matter what happens, do not come out!"

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me!"

The room was small, with few places to hide. Forcing her under the bed was my only option.

The footsteps in the hallway grew louder. I lay prone by the door alone, straining my eyes but still failing to make anything out. 'Is he targeting this specific room?'

The windows were tightly shut. This was the sixth floor; jumping would mean certain death. By the time the footsteps closed within five meters, my palms were drenched in sweat.

My original plan was to have the girl hide under the bed, and if the approaching figure turned out to be the owner of this room, I would charge out as soon as he got close and lure him away.

But just as the person was about to reach the door, more footsteps echoed from the other end of the corridor. And not just from one person.

'Has the search started? The Red Building Obsessions moved so fast!' With both ends of the hallway blocked, charging out now would be suicide. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, abandoned my spot by the door, and slid under the bed as well.

"Quiet," I mouthed, giving the girl a silencing gesture. We lay side-by-side beneath the frame, our eyes locked on the door.

The footsteps shattered my last shred of wishful thinking. They stopped right outside our room.

I could hear a rough, calloused hand scraping against the lock. I held my breath, my heart jumping into my throat.

"Where did the little girl and the brat from our room run off to?"

"You're asking me? How the hell should I know?"

"Old man Xu, I told you to watch the door. Now you've let them escape. If we can't find them by tomorrow, watch out—the others in the room might just chew your old bones clean!"

"Longchang is only so big. Where could they have gone? There was a massive commotion outside earlier. Maybe they just ran out to watch the excitement."

"You sure are optimistic. Let me tell you the truth: I'm not the one looking for those two brats. It's the manager of Room Four. He promised to trade two adult women for those kids."

"You actually dare to take advantage of Room Four? Are you tired of living?"

"Save the useless talk! If we don't find them, I'm sending you over instead!"

The voices outside sounded familiar. Listening closely, I realized these were the exact same two voices I had heard when I first entered the Animal Realm.

One was Uncle Xu, and the other seemed to be the manager of the room where the girl and Junsheng stayed.

The two argued for a long time before finally stopping. The manager stormed off, cursing up a storm, while Uncle Xu roughly shoved the wooden door open. "What terrible luck!"

He slammed the door shut with a loud bang. Hiding under the bed, I watched a pair of deformed, mud-caked pig trotters stomp toward the mattress.

Uncle Xu was muttering in a local dialect I could barely understand, but the gist of it seemed to be curses directed at the manager and this filthy place—the Pig Cage Apartments.

Just from listening to him, I could sense Uncle Xu's deep hatred for the Pig Cage Apartments. He was likely a stubborn old man with his own firm convictions. Unfortunately, faced with the overwhelming power of Longchang, he had no choice but to submit to survive. Otherwise, he never would have lived this long.

The pig trotters stopped by the bed. Uncle Xu tossed his jacket onto a wooden chair and collapsed heavily onto the mattress.

'He didn't notice me and the girl.' Uncle Xu seemed completely unaware that two extra people were in his room. To his mind, no one in the Longchang Neighborhood would be crazy enough to hide under his bed in the middle of the night.

Once the old man lay down, he didn't make another sound. The room became terrifyingly quiet.

I couldn't use Breath Listening to determine if the old man was asleep, nor did I have my Judging Eye to clearly see the Copper Mirror in the corridor from a distance.

Dawn was fast approaching in the Yang Realm. That Copper Mirror could activate at any second. The more I thought about it, the more anxious I became.

It wasn't that I lacked composure; there were simply too many variables in this livestream. Ever since arriving in the Animal Realm, I hadn't been able to use any of my skills or the trump cards I had hoarded, inevitably breeding a deep sense of insecurity.

I counted silently in my head, keeping track of the time. A full thirty seconds passed without a single movement in the room.

'Is Uncle Xu asleep?' I couldn't hear any snoring, or even the sound of his breathing. It felt like cat claws were scratching at my heart; I desperately wanted to check the gap under the door. 'The Copper Mirror shouldn't be active yet.'

After waiting another ten minutes, my patience completely ran out. I slowly crawled forward, intending to get a glimpse of the Copper Mirror through the doorway.

The moment my body moved, the girl tightly grabbed my other hand. She shook her head at me.

'Is there danger outside?' This was the first time the girl had ever stopped me. 'The only threat in this room is Uncle Xu, but he hasn't moved in so long. He should be sound asleep.'

I couldn't hide here forever. If I missed daybreak in the Yang Realm, I wouldn't be able to return through the Copper Mirror.

Worse still, Longchang was shrouded by a massive formation created by a Reincarnation Mirror Fragment. Every day, memories were wiped clean, and everything reset. I was terrified of being affected. My memories were already fractured; if this force influenced me again, I feared I would completely lose myself in reincarnation.

'I absolutely cannot miss this window. The girl's body is growing colder by the minute. It's proof that the vitality in her physical body in the Yang Realm is continuously fading. If her soul leaves for too long, her body will truly die!'

I waved a hand gently at the girl and slowly crawled out from under the bed. My movements were slow and meticulous, not making a single sound.

'Just one look at the Copper Mirror, and I'll immediately come back...' I had it perfectly planned out in my head, yet something felt terribly wrong. Right as I was about to reach the door, I habitually turned my head to look back.

On the filthy bed, that hideous pig-headed man was staring unblinkingly right at me! A cryptic smile was plastered across his face!

My body felt as though it had plunged into an icy abyss. All the strength drained from my limbs, and for a moment, I could only lie sprawled on the floor, unable to stand. It took several seconds before I finally regained my composure.

"You weren't asleep? You knew I was hiding in your room?" I didn't expose the girl's presence in my words. I had already made up my mind: if he came after me, I would sprint out the door and lure him away.

Uncle Xu didn't speak. His eyes scanned me up and down, as if trying to decipher something from my appearance.

He was different from the other monsters in Longchang. Since I had arrived at the Pig Cage Apartments, he hadn't made a single move to harm the girl or me. On the contrary, he had actually been protecting us.

The Old Granny had mentioned him in her story as well. Rumor had it that he had even helped Junsheng decades ago.

For all those reasons, I didn't immediately flee, but rather chose to stay and try communicating with him.

While I was still organizing my thoughts, Uncle Xu finally moved. He sat up straight on the bed, the smile vanishing from his face. "You are not Gu Junsheng."

His opening sentence choked off every response I had prepared. I had never expected such words to come from the mouth of the old, hideous monster before me. "How could you tell?"

Denying it would be useless. After a brief pause, I admitted it openly.

"The people in Longchang never fall into a deep sleep. Yet, you didn't know that."

A voice came from under the bed, and the girl crawled out as well. "Uncle Xu, you're saying... he isn't Junsheng?"

The old man fell silent for a moment before shifting his gaze away from the girl. He climbed out of bed, looming over me like a small mountain and casting me in his shadow. "You came from the Yang Realm? You're trying to take this girl back to the Yang Realm?! Am I right?!"

I didn't answer. Uncle Xu's behavior was very strange; he was acting completely different from the other residents of Longchang.

Perhaps sensing my confusion, Uncle Xu slammed both hands down onto my shoulders and leaned in, shoving his repulsive pig face right before my eyes. "Take me with you! I'm innocent! I was forced!"

"Calm down. I'm not a god; I'm just a stowaway. I promised the original owner of this body that I would send this girl back to the Yang Realm..."

"No! You can do it, you absolutely can!" Uncle Xu cried out, his emotions flaring. "I was one of the original survivors of Longchang! Yes, I ate the meat! I sinned! But I spent the rest of my life doing everything in my power to atone for it! I never did a single thing to harm another soul! I planted fifty mu of green forest in the Gobi Desert! I gave away all my wealth to help others! Even after I died, I donated every usable organ in my body! I was one of the first people in the country willing to donate my corpse to a medical school! I tried every possible way to make up for my sins! So why did I turn into this monstrous ghost after death? Why am I forever imprisoned in this nightmare of a place?!"

Hearing Uncle Xu's words, I narrowed my eyes. A sudden thought surfaced in my mind: Longchang within the Animal Realm was shrouded by the great formation, restricting memories to just a single day. So how could Uncle Xu remember the past? How did he retain memories from before his death?

He was trapped by the same formation and cast into the same Animal Realm. Why was he so different from the other monsters in Longchang?

'Could it be that one of the two Reincarnation Mirror Fragments in the main building is actually on him?'