Chapter 39: Hurry Up and Say Thanks to Brother Li!
Li Li’s plan was actually quite simple.
She wanted to create a past for herself, a background, and Yue Shan was the perfect starting point.
Qing Yu Chen investigated Li, so naturally, he would have told Yue Shan what ‘Li’ looked like.
They thought she was here for revenge, so she transformed into what ‘Li’ would have looked like as a child twelve years ago, using words and actions to make Yue Shan believe he should know her.
Yue Shan had no connection to the Former Ability Guild’s events six years ago, so her reason for revenge could only be personal, tied to the experiments twelve years ago.
Li Li hadn’t expected that he and Qing Yu Chen had discussed her abilities.
Early on, she used a variety of mall-bought items of all types.
Plundered abilities would degrade in quality and rank, but mall items had no such issue, which led Yue Shan to misinterpret things entirely.
A perfect coincidence, she thought.
The illusion of a seven- or eight-year-old black-haired child tilted his head, a faint smile on his lips, though it seemed like an illusion.
"How could you not remember?"
The voice was soft, as if it were a ghost drifting from afar.
But in those obsidian-black eyes, there seemed to be a flicker of fire.
The frenzied researcher continued, "Black hair? Number 1126? Number 1932? No, there were too many test subjects like that."
"In the research twelve years ago, there were hundreds of black-haired test subjects alone. Which one are you?" He spread his arms toward the frail child. "Tell me, my child!"
"For my lofty ideals."
"Tell me what experiments were applied to you!"
He wanted to obtain the experimental data from back then, to replicate what he believed was a success.
He cared about nothing else!
A flush appeared on the blond researcher’s face, his blue-green eyes filled with fanaticism.
He didn’t see a human but his greatest research achievement, a treasure leading him to success.
But the frail child ahead flattened his lips, looking over expressionlessly.
"Get lost."
The figure merged into the dust, stretching and growing taller, until a black-haired youth of about twenty appeared. Black hair, red eyes, a silver-white half-mask.
It was Heige’s appearance.
The black-haired youth’s lips curled into a mocking smile, though it was unclear who he was mocking.
"What are you doing? It’s fine, I allow your rebellion, my child." Yue Shan’s enthusiasm didn’t waver; he paid no attention to the changed appearance.
He stepped forward, one hand clutching his chest, the other gesturing outward. "Forget the Prophet. Once I modify you, make you obedient, you’ll still be my most perfect child."
As soon as he spoke, a sharp clash of forces seemed to explode in an instant.
The room, covered in ash, began to tremble, dust falling with a rumbling sound.
Where there had been walls, walls rose again.
In the center of the nine small boxes, the floor rotated.
Amid the dust, the blond, blue- green eyed researcher stood in place.
Maintaining his fanatic expression, the next second, the framework rotated, and his figure was replaced by a wall.
But it didn’t end there.
As if the center of the Rubik’s Cube had turned, the floor beneath Li Li became a wall.
When she leaped down and landed on what was now the floor, the wall connecting this room to another descended, revealing a jagged, saw-toothed wall behind it.
In the next instant, the saw-teeth let out a loud roar, pressing toward her!
Li Li’s smile didn’t falter.
On her false face, her eyes were bold and unrestrained. S
he calmly raised her hand, her slender fingers tracing an arc through the air.
"Snap." She snapped her fingers.
Her figure blurred and vanished from the spot, while an illusion appeared behind the saw-toothed wall.
She used the illusion to create the false impression that she had instantly moved behind the saw-teeth.
Yue Shan’s voice came from all directions, the researcher sounding almost ecstatic: "Teleportation ability, the teleportation ability Qing Yu Chen mentioned!"
Once affirmed, the illusion instantly became reality!
The black trench coat materialized, and Li Li stood firm behind the saw-toothed wall, smiling as the hem of her coat was lifted by the fierce wind.
The walls behind her collided heavily, and the ashen gray of bone dust filled the entire space.
"Boom!"
She turned around, her crimson gaze looking upward, as if she could see the researcher observing her through the walls.
"Show me what other abilities you have, use them all!" Yue Shan shouted passionately. "My sweetheart!"
The next second, the room rotated again.
Li Li’s boots left the floor, and soon after, they landed on a wall with a dull thud.
After three clicking sounds, all four walls descended, revealing the entire floor’s space before Li Li’s eyes.
All directions were ashen gray, and with a rumbling sound, the bone dust was shaken off, exposing the metallic walls beneath.
The walls shifted, and from the western wall, gun barrels extended from the metal, their muzzles aimed at Li Li, who stood in the center of the room.
The density was inescapable!
"Bang bang bang!"
Firelight flared, and golden bullets gleamed with cross-shaped sparks under the white light, extending and fading as they reached Li Li’s face!
Her smile deepened.
She extended her hand forward, twirled it, and raised it, palm upward, snapping her fingers.
Instantly, an equal number of bullet illusions appeared behind her.
They paused for a moment—long enough for Yue Shan to see—before colliding with the incoming real bullets like meteors.
The air erupted with the roar of bullets clashing, like fireworks blooming before her eyes.
The firelight dyed her black trench coat with a golden glow, illuminating her unrestrained expression.
"Materialization? No, this scale, this precision—it’s replication, mirror replication!" Yue Shan muttered, slapping his cheeks, his fingers digging into his skin, pulling it down to reveal wide, almost rolled-back eyes. "Too marvelous, too marvelous…"
"Keep going, keep going!" His voice was hoarse from shouting.
The walls trembled, and the Rubik’s Cube began to rotate again.
Left ninety degrees, up one hundred eighty degrees.
After losing track of her position, the black-haired youth in the center of the room suddenly tilted her head back.
A-rank suppressed B-rank, and within the domain, she couldn’t locate his position through her ability’s range.
In a domain-type ability user’s domain, escape was nearly impossible, as it was their sovereign territory.
Without knowing his ability’s limits, she could only remain passive.
Yue Shan was far more troublesome than Yue Lan of the same rank.
But—
"I’m not really in the mood to continue," she chuckled lightly.
She wouldn’t back down.
The frenzied emotions were spreading, stacking.
She would toy with truth and falsehood before this man obsessed with abilities, letting her deception secure her victory!
Within the white box, that black figure seemed utterly insignificant.
The exposed fingers of her fingerless gloves snapped lightly.
Instantly, illusions spread outward, the black dot in the white expanding rapidly, growing larger.
Until that darkness surpassed the walls within her ability’s range, enveloping everything!
The overwhelming darkness overtook the ashen gray of the bone dust.
Images, sounds, even the trembling ground, and the scattered ashen powder—all vanished.
Her vision was pitch black, her ears utterly silent, as if her five senses were gone, as if everything had disappeared.
It was a loneliness and fear that could drown a person.
Yet in this darkness, Yue Shan’s voice remained fervent.
He laughed maniacally, his hoarse screams still echoing from all directions.
"I can still sense the Rubik’s Cube, my ability still exists—this isn’t a domain, it’s an illusion!" He was frenzied. "You’ve given me too many surprises, my child!"
As it was denied, the blackness receded, the illusion dissipating like a retreating tide.
The illusion was rejected, failing to become reality.
Had her ability failed?
No.
"I found you," Li Li chuckled softly.
She never intended to fool Yue Shan directly!
The illusion began to dissipate from one point, and in the entire Rubik’s Cube, only an A-rank like Yue Shan could cause that, directly exposing his location.
That was her true goal!
In the direction where the illusion faded, amid the white, an illusion suddenly appeared behind the blond, blue-green eyed researcher.
"Hide-and-seek is over," she said, the curve of her lips under the silver-white mask unchanged.
Hearing this, Yue Shan quickly turned around.
The tone, sounding like an end, made him instantly realize Li Li had found him.
"Teleportation!" He instinctively thought of the ability that had appeared earlier.
In that instant, the illusion became reality.
Without waiting for him to think, Li Li raised her hand, her crimson pupils seemingly reflecting the flames of nothingness and hell.
A dagger pierced through Yue Shan’s neck from behind.
It was real, a dagger Li Li carried with her.
In an instant, Li Li’s figure appeared before Yue Shan, gripping the hilt and pulling the dagger out, then stepping forward.
The researcher, who spent years in a lab and whose ability was unrelated to combat, widened his eyes, the fanaticism on his face still lingering.
Then he collapsed.
...
Yue Shan stared ahead with blurry vision, his lips trembling as if trying to say something.
But he didn’t see the person he most wanted to see.
In his final moments, Yue Shan seemed to recall the past: the experiments twelve years ago, the Prophet, the Former Ability Guild, and now Twinborn.
And a few days ago, when Yue Qing, rarely condescending to call, contacted him.
"Yue Lan is dead, killed at Qing Yu Chen’s place," Yue Qing had said. "The one who killed them was Heige. Did Qing Yu Chen ever mention Heige to you?"
Yue Shan, in his usual disheveled, uninterested state, replied, "Don’t know him."
The person Qing Yu Chen asked him to investigate was ‘Li,’ not some Heige.
After getting a negative response, Yue Qing hung up.
Yue Shan, listening to the busy tone, casually glanced at the sketch Qing Yu Chen had sent over on his desk.
It was a black-haired youth wearing a choker, with sharp brows and a soft face, exuding a contradictory sense of fragility.
"The enemies of the Former Ability Guild aren’t my enemies," he said, casually tearing the photo and tossing it into the trash.
Back then, he hadn’t expected that person would find him.
But he didn’t feel regret, only—
How splendid!
This was his creation, forever bearing his mark, belonging to him.
"My most perfect masterpiece!"
As his words fell, his blue-green pupils began to dilate.
The black-haired youth standing behind him sheathed the dagger and slowly turned around.
The smile on his lips vanished.
The illusory shadow flickered for a moment before condensing into the form of a child.
Black hair, black eyes, wearing a choker, with a baby-fat face devoid of expression.
It was the image of ‘Li’ as a child from Yue Shan’s memory, from the photo.
The young child and the grown youth simultaneously looked forward, their gazes fixed on the lifeless researcher, yet their eyes were vacant, as if merely performing the act of ‘looking.’
"He doesn’t remember you," the black-haired youth suddenly said.
The child remained silent, quiet, like an ice sculpture forcibly painted with color.
The youth fell silent for a moment, then raised his hand, as if to dispel the illusion.
At that moment.
A familiar voice came from ahead, and a brown-haired boy’s figure flashed past the open door.
Behind him trailed a group of blue-robed figures, chasing him down.
The youth instinctively lowered his head, catching the child’s dark eyes, now faintly lit with a spark.
"Still too weak," the youth said, unsure who he was referring to.
He hesitated for a moment, then extended his hand.
A snap of his fingers, and the child’s illusory figure vanished.
At the same time, the spot where the black-haired youth had stood now held a blond, blue-eyed man in a white lab coat.
It was the exact likeness of Yue Shan, lying on the ground.
He strode out, then looked at the brown-haired boy, now restrained by C-rank blue-robed figures, and flashed a refined yet villainous smile.
"Don’t run around. What if you delay the research?" ‘Yue Shan’ said.
...
Li Li thought her method was absolutely brilliant.
Though the boss, Yue Shan, was gone, she could take his place as the boss, ensuring the plot could continue.
And besides...
She looked at the unconscious Yiming and thought: Little brother, you need to grow. You need to fight a boss.
Hurry up and say thanks to Brother Li!