"No, I am , and I am right now."
"Hehe, so people wear their skin on the outside, while others wear it inside their hearts."
Li Zhiyuan knew that the other party was mocking him, but he did not care. All his efforts were to preserve this skin, for himself and for Alii.
"Even if you don’t want to peel off the skin, don’t talk to with a child’s tone."
"I am a child. Fine, I’ll try my best."
"Do you know where we are?"
"A kind of... temple tomb."
"Yes, a temple tomb. Then do you know who suppressed here?"
"It’s yourself."
It seed as if the wind had paused for a mont.
But soon, it began to howl again, forming words:
"You’re guessing?"
"I don’t even know who you specifically are, nor the era you lived in. Since you’re asking this question, the answer should be within my range of choices, leaving only yourself."
"You really resemble soone. When he was a child, he was also unbelievably smart like you."
"Can you say his na?" Li Zhiyuan ventured, "That way, when I plant trees later, I can check on him."
"You won’t find his na."
"Oh."
"He’s a beast."
"Was it he who deceived you?"
"It was I who trusted him too much. Although he and I were almost the sa age, I always regarded him as a role model. To him, I was like those two people to you."
Li Zhiyuan knew that the two people it referred to should be Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin since those were its few limited options.
"Being deceived by soone you trust indeed incites anger."
"He didn’t just deceive ; he deceived all of us, all of us who followed him."
"He’s truly despicable."
"He’s like you, very good at disguising."
Li Zhiyuan tried to calm his emotions. The greatest harm to a ntally ill person is to constantly remind them of their illness.
The current conversation with the entity in the stone coffin seed to bring him back to the scene of talking on the phone with Li Lan that night.
"Disguise is your instinct. It seems you were born with it."
"Do you have any last wishes?"
Li Zhiyuan took the initiative to interrupt the topic. Continuing this discussion, he feared, might evoke his cold emotions.
"Fill in the fish pond and plant it with peach trees."
"Don’t worry, we will do it."
"Actually, I should have left a long ti ago."
"Where to?"
"You can guess, yet you still ask. Truly, as fake as he was, deceit is your instinct."
"Can you not describe him so specifically, or at least not tie and him together in your description? I ca here following your will because I fear death."
"Then what?"
"But there are so things I would rather die than give up."
"He also once said..."
The wind paused again.
After a long while, the wind resud.
"Fine."
"Thank you."
"No need to thank . I was originally planning to call you here to be entombed with ."
"Thank you for the original plan."
Seeing the other party falling silent again, yet the wind still howling, Li Zhiyuan, considering the "original plan," took the initiative to pass the word:
"How did he deceive you?"
"He taught a thod to control the Corpses."
Li Zhiyuan was shocked inside, the books he read docunted many thods to deal with Corpses, but none ever ntioned that Corpses could be controlled.
"I was very happy and excited; I admired and believed in him so much, so I learned it."
"Did you master it?"
The wind continued to blow, and at that mont, movents ca from inside the stone coffin.
A man sat up from within the coffin.
Since the coffin was suspended above its base, the man now faced Li Zhiyuan.
He had long hair, a cold face, and an ethereal deanor.
However, he had his eyes closed, and the subsequent voice continued to carry through the wind rather than coming directly from him.
"I mastered it; I can also control the Corpses now."
"Then where did he deceive you?"
"Where did he deceive ?"
The man turned his head, the wind lifting his hair at the temples to reveal a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth— a human face.
The man’s turn beca more exaggerated, revealing his back. The wind swept through his hair, and the back of his head revealed another woman’s face.
A disturbing sight— such a handso man, yet so many faces grew on him.
No, Li Zhiyuan realized he was in the Underworld, so what he saw might not necessarily be real; now these materialized faces might signify the man’s inner self.
"Hoo hoo hoo..."
The wind grew stronger, lifting the man’s robe, revealing any place where skin showed, arms, chest, all covered with dense faces.
Li Zhiyuan instinctively stepped back two steps, the sight making him itch all over.
Unconsciously, he glanced at his own arms, fearing that strange faces might suddenly appear.
"He didn’t tell that while I could control them, they could also control ."
Li Zhiyuan diverted his gaze, waiting for the wind to subside sowhat before returning his gaze.
The man returned to his original position, his clothes and hair settling down.
"He said, to eradicate evil spirits from this world, to give peace to Jianghu.
I believed him and followed him, but in the end, the more Corpses I dealt with, the more I beca like one of the Corpses.
When I realized this, it was too late to turn back.
So, I built this tower and sealed myself within.
I intended to use ti to grind them down while also grinding myself to death.
Just now, all of them that you saw were with closed eyes, but actually, they should all be open, crying, screaming, howling, and wailing every day..."
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