Volume 2. Game Update in Progress
"You're talking about birds? The kind you can touch, that can grow up, and jump around alive..."
Looking at Liu Wanqian, who had his eyes wide open and mouth agape in astonishment, to be honest, pure as I was, I truly didn't understand what was going on in his head for a moment.
Until...
"You—you—you—you! You're utterly hopeless!! I—I'm going to beat you to death today!!"
Seeing Liu Wanqian suddenly fly into a rage in front of me, I was completely dumbfounded.
"No, Dad, I just want a bird, what's wrong with that, fine! Even if you won't give me a bird, just give me an egg, I'll hatch it myself!!"
"Hatch... What did you say?? Hatch??"
Liu Wanqian, who had just fallen into fury, suddenly froze, and then asked instinctively.
"The one I want... is the kind that can fly, a bird?"
"Uh... what else? What did you think I meant?"
Looking at Liu Wanqian's dumbfounded face, I couldn't help but instinctively recall my earlier actions.
Gentle movements + slightly shy (a bit embarrassed) + asking for a bird?
Wait a minute... why does this feel more and more like the plot of some hentai?
Why do I suddenly look like that kind of flirt?
Crap!
This misunderstanding is huge!
But...
"Dad, don't tell me you were thinking..."
"Ahem ahem ahem... enough."
For a moment, the room fell into awkward silence.
"Mm, so, what kind do you want? Hmm... a parrot? Or maybe a raptor?"
I hesitated slightly.
A parrot?
They're smart, very nice, but this guy mimics speech and might accidentally reveal my situation.
Raptors are good too, but in this current situation, it's not exactly easy to bring one out.
Larks, thrushes, though small in size, are too noisy...
At first, I really hadn’t considered what kind of bird to use as a warning device, and I still wasn’t sure about one thing...
If I got involved in a supernatural event, would any living creature that came into contact with me also be pulled into the Interdimensional Space?
Also, so far, I only knew that wild sparrows could see the anomalies.
I really wasn’t certain about other birds...
"Dad, can you... get a few of each?"
"What are you trying to do? Open a zoo?"
Liu Wanqian first gave me a confused look, then shook his head helplessly.
"Alright, you go out for now. Let me think about it."
Looking at the awkward expression on Liu Wanqian's face, I figured... mm, better not talk about this anymore for now.
Let’s give him some time to cool off.
Tsk tsk... never expected he’d think in that direction.
Wait a sec... something’s off!
Technically, I’m supposed to be the seasoned one here!
How come he thought of that first?
Oh~ right, it’s because our positions have changed.
I’m now Liu Yunyan, a moderately attractive woman.
Sometimes, even when a pretty woman does normal things, there’s a slight air of flirtation from the perspective of ordinary men—that’s just common.
Sigh... come to think of it, I really have been affected by Liu Yunyan’s body.
Returning to my room, I turned on the light.
Looking at the empty space, I headed straight for the Luohan bed, sat down and began to ponder.
There was something that had always puzzled me, which was why Liu Yunyan’s body hadn’t been damaged.
How exactly did she die?
Logically, if she had been torn apart by some anomaly and died that way, and then had her soul devoured afterward, then her body shouldn’t have been intact.
In the bus incident, Liu Yunyan’s body hadn’t suffered any injuries from beginning to end.
It was only after being thrown out of the speeding bus that her leg and arm got broken.
But by then, my soul had already taken over her body.
Another strange thing was why controlling other people’s bodies felt so stiff and unnatural, while Liu Yunyan’s body felt so fluid and seamless?
No resistance at all?
I opened my phone.
From beginning to end, I had already gone through three incidents.
The bus incident, the hospital incident, and the academy incident.
Of the three incidents, the bus incident was the beginning, and it also ended in a dazed and confused state.
During the act of devouring, I had no rationality whatsoever.
No soul could remain rational in that state.
I had survived almost purely by the instinct of my soul, finding a path to live.
Devouring someone else's soul was not my intention.
Eating Liu Yunyan was not something I wanted either.
Being able to survive at all was purely due to luck.
Under such circumstances, I didn’t feel much guilt toward the other people whose souls I had devoured, because anyone in that position would have done the same.
The Evil Spirit Form was uncontrollable.
But regarding my possession of Liu Yunyan's body, I did carry a sense of gratitude.
This was different from guilt.
If not for Liu Yunyan’s body, I wouldn’t have been able to survive.
That counted as gratitude, not remorse.
With that mindset, I decided to live a good life in Liu Yunyan’s stead.
And the problem lay right here—why was I able to freely use Liu Yunyan’s body, but couldn’t seamlessly control the bodies of others?
Logically, the Evil Spirit Form shouldn’t have had a fixed existence, because the “home” that originally belonged to my soul had already died.
Thinking of this, I couldn’t help but recall the entire course of the bus incident.
No matter how I looked at it, my fusion with Liu Yunyan must have occurred at that point.
The female voice carried within the Evil Spirit Form, though sharp and shrill with a painful tone, still faintly resembled Liu Yunyan’s voice.
First of all, Liu Yunyan wasn’t killed by me.
Her soul had been pulled out by some other anomaly on the bus.
Because before her soul was dragged out, I hadn’t completely died yet, and my soul was still in control.
Then, when I died, the Evil Spirit Form floated out of the body.
By that point, the memory of the spirit had already begun to fall into chaos.
This indicated that the moment my soul left the body, it had already gone out of control.
And subconsciously, it turned to look at the soul of the girl who had caught its attention.
Her soul was in the hands of another anomaly at the time, but for some unknown reason, that anomaly let go of her soul and didn’t destroy her body.
At that moment, the foreshadowing of my survival had already been planted.
Looking back at the chaotic spirit body, I still couldn’t quite be called an Evil Spirit yet.
It was probably due to being infected by the eerie smiling face on the bus, which led to the abnormal state of the soul.
In the chaos, the spirit began to gradually develop into an Evil Spirit Form, and found its first prey—
That was... Liu Yunyan’s soul, floating in midair, at a complete loss.
At that moment, the soul affected by the anomaly took its first step toward becoming an Evil Spirit Form.
Its chaotic memory allowed for no thought.
In that state, the intelligence of the Evil Spirit Form was probably at the level of a paramecium.
That is... to eat.
Then, it grabbed Liu Yunyan’s soul.
That was where the bizarre events began.
At that point, my “soul” still remained within the realm of a normal soul and hadn’t yet evolved into the Evil Spirit Form.
And it was at the moment of devouring the pain-stricken, screaming Liu Yunyan’s soul—
I didn’t know what had happened in between, but it was as if two different substances had undergone some sort of chemical reaction.
The instant I devoured Liu Yunyan’s soul, my soul began to distort.