Chapter 256: Major Event Three: Night of the Witches (16)

"Take me to Xia Zili—" Ke Mingqing was silent for a long while before he finally spoke.

The world collapsed. The crimson setting sun, the black clouds, the white lake water, and even the withering giant tree that towered into the sky—everything was fading. Leaves fell endlessly from the giant tree like a snowfall. Dead leaves swept down from the sky in an overwhelming tide, finally drowning the entire world like torrential rain.

Ke Mingqing's vision went black, and his consciousness grew heavy and dim in a bone-chilling cold, as if plunged into the deep ocean off Siberia.

He had no idea how much time had passed before he opened his eyes, slowly raised his head, and found himself standing on a set of train tracks. Overhead stretched an autumn sky, clear, crisp, and cloudless for miles, with ginkgo leaves drifting on the wind. To the left of the tracks lay a dilapidated medieval town; to the right lay a dark, dead-silent sea, where snow-white waves rolled in to lap gently against a beach shrouded in darkness.

"What the hell is this place now—the future me said he'd send me to see my sister. Did he send me into Xia Zili's mental world?"

Ke Mingqing stood dazed for a moment, then raised an eyebrow, looking around as he thought things through.

Behind him lay boundless darkness, like an invisible wall in a game. Without lingering, Ke Mingqing walked forward and came to a stop where the train tracks forked.

Looking up, he saw a door standing in midair at the end of each branching track, one to the left and one to the right.

The wooden door on the left led to the dilapidated medieval town. Its frame was drenched in blood and painted with a blood-smeared stick-figure drawing of two girls holding hands. At the bottom of the door were some indistinct words that looked like "die Schwester"—German for "sisters."

The door on the right was pitch-black. Looking closer, he realized it was the bedroom door from the third floor of the Xia family's old building. Stuck to the door was a familiar little note with a line scribbled in crooked handwriting: "No entry for Ke Mingqing and dogs."

Ke Mingqing paused, thinking, 'Two doors. Does the left door represent Little Grey's mental world, and the right door my sister's mental world?'

He mulled it over for a moment, then tried calling up his Skill Panel, Personal Panel, and the Player Forum. Yet after several commands, there was no response at all, as if the system had been kicked dead.

That made him all the more certain this was a mental space rather than reality—if it were reality, aside from the alien mother, he couldn't think of anyone capable of blocking the system's power.

Once his thoughts reached that conclusion, Ke Mingqing stopped trying.

His gaze returned to the two doors at the ends of the tracks. Staring at the note that read "No entry for Ke Mingqing and dogs," he hesitated for a moment before finally walking forward along the left track.

Before long, he stopped in front of the blood-soaked doorframe. Reaching out, Ke Mingqing slowly pushed the door open, staining his palm with thick blood.

Beyond the door, Ke Mingqing stepped into a long corridor that resembled an art gallery. Along the left wall was a row of recessed niches holding torches. Their firelight illuminated the "artworks" hanging along the right wall.

The mahogany frames were exquisitely crafted, yet every painting sealed within them looked like the messy scribbles of a child. Without looking closely, it was impossible to tell what was drawn; the strokes were sloppy in the extreme.

Notably, densely packed text sat beneath every piece, introducing the crude, laughable stick-figure scenes.

The contrast was jarring, like walking into a royal restaurant where the tables were draped in immaculate linens and candles set the most romantic mood, only for impeccably dressed waiters to bring out a plate of spicy gluten strips and a bowl of malatang, presenting the highlights of both dishes in the richest, most polished announcer's voice.

Just then, a creak sounded behind Ke Mingqing, followed by a loud bang as the wooden door slammed shut.

He didn't even bother looking back. He knew that, just like in a horror game, either the door would never open again, or there wasn't even a door behind him anymore—only an icy wall telling him it was a dead end and there was no turning back.

So Ke Mingqing simply walked ahead, stopped in front of the first painting on the wall, and looked up.

The painting showed a pair of identical twin girls running through a golden wheat field, playing hide-and-seek around scarecrows and haystacks beneath the setting sun.

He shifted his gaze to the caption below the frame: [The twin sisters lived in an ordinary farming family, and they had an older brother; their family was poor, yet they once had an innocent and happy childhood.]

"What does that mean, twins—Little Grey has an older twin sister?" Ke Mingqing froze, the flickering torchlight casting shifting shadows across his face.

He suddenly remembered the wooden door at the entrance to this mental space. Not only had it been covered in blood, it had also borne a stick-figure drawing of two girls holding hands—and both girls had looked exactly the same as Little Grey.

"Could this be what makes a 'dual crown name witch'—every witch has her own witch persona, which gradually grows after devouring the host's memories and then seizes control of the body. But my sister has two whole witch personas inside her, and that's why she's a dual crown name witch?"

Staring at the sisters in the painting, Ke Mingqing thought to himself, 'Is it possible that of these twin sisters, one became the Witch of Finale and the other became the Witch of Ashes, and combined they're the Witch of Finale and Ashes?'

He quickly shook his head. 'That's a bit ridiculous. Then what about the future me turning into the Witch of World Destruction, Reincarnation, and Tyranny? That's three titles—could that also be three different personas combined—wait no, do I look like someone with multiple personalities?'

With that thought, he let the tension in his mind go and continued walking forward, soon stopping before the second painting.

Ke Mingqing took a deep breath and looked up.

The mood of this stick-figure drawing took a sharp turn for the worse, with heavy black lines sketching out an oppressive background. Inside the home, the older brother knelt on the floor holding the younger sister's hand. The father stood with his arms crossed and a fierce scowl; the mother had one hand on her hip and the other pointed at them, her mouth open as if scolding them. Meanwhile, the older sister gently held the younger sister's shoulders, looking up at their parents with pleading eyes.

"...What even is all this?" Ke Mingqing tilted his head, murmuring in confusion.

Giving up on trying to figure it out himself, he lowered his eyes to the caption—[The younger of the twin sisters fell in love with their older brother when the girl was only twelve and the brother was fourteen; their parents fiercely opposed their love; only the older sister was willing to support them and speak up on their behalf.]

Ke Mingqing stood blankly for a moment, scratched his cheek for some reason, and walked on.

The art gallery corridor was dim and silent. His footsteps echoed with a steady clatter, and the deep firelight flickered and swayed, casting shifting shadows across Ke Mingqing's face.

Before long, he saw the third stick-figure drawing. It showed the brother and younger sister walking down the street hand in hand with bright smiles. Merchants with white cloth wrapped around their heads watched them and whispered among themselves, while a church priest holding a Bible fixed them with a stern gaze.

[Despite their parents' disapproval, the brother and sister persisted in their feelings, and word of their relationship gradually spread through the neighborhood gossip.]

After reading the caption, Ke Mingqing clicked his tongue. Seeming to guess what would happen next, he didn't linger and walked straight to the fourth painting.

What met his eyes was an oil painting splashed with crimson blood, where every human figure had begun to twist and distort.

"The art skills have improved—" Ke Mingqing murmured. "Or maybe Little Grey didn't paint this, and the other witch persona—her older sister—did?"

The setting of the oil painting was still the twin sisters' home. Believers in church robes had broken into the cramped house carrying weapons.

Flames spilled out from the hearth. The older brother had an arrow through his chest, his head chopped off. The father and mother knelt on the floor begging for mercy. The younger sister clung to her older sister's thigh in terror, while the older sister had picked up a longsword from the floor, standing resolutely in front of her sister with her long hair flying.

Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow. Though he had foreseen this scene, the painting still struck him hard.

The childlike drawings before it couldn't compare to either its detail or its emotional intensity. A bone-deep despair and panic rushed out from the canvas, making his breath catch for an instant.

Silent for a moment, he lowered his eyes to the painting's caption. Every word was written in blood-red.

[In the eyes of Christianity, incestuous love between brother and sister was an absolute taboo, so extremist believers decided to punish the couple who had tasted the forbidden fruit with death by burning. The first to be killed was the older brother, who was shot dead by a volley of arrows and beheaded. After that, they decided to burn the younger sister at the stake in the town's most bustling square.]

Walking a little further down the empty corridor, Ke Mingqing looked up at the fifth painting and froze. "Isn't this the scene my sister said she dreamed about?"

What met his eyes was another child's stick-figure drawing. A young girl was bound to a Cross, wailing amid blazing fire. Soldiers stood guard beside the Cross, and the street was packed with onlookers. At the corner of the street, another girl half-knelt on the ground clutching the wall, watching the scene on the Cross with tears in her eyes.

[Because they were twins, the believers could not tell the sisters apart, so the older sister took the younger sister's place at the stake; the older sister was burned to death by the flames, and the believers in the street threw their arms up in cheers, saying the witch was finally dead. Witnessing this with her own eyes, the younger sister hid at the street corner weeping bitterly, while the rage of vengeance ignited in her heart.]

Ke Mingqing stood dazed for a while, silently watching the younger sister in the drawing as she covered her mouth and wailed in distorted agony.

By this point, messy swirls of lines were already visible on the younger sister's face—looking exactly the same as Little Grey usually did when she appeared.

He paused for a moment, then walked to the end of the gallery corridor. There stood an old wooden door leading into what looked like a cabin built of stacked logs. Drenched by rain, the wood had taken on a faint greenish tinge and gave off a damp, rotting stench.

Beside it, the final painting hung quietly on the wall.

Ke Mingqing slowly came to a halt, braced himself, and raised his eyes to look at the ending.

It was another stick-figure drawing. The setting was the same wooden house, but the room was in shambles, bearing the marks of a bitter fight. In a fury, the father was pinning the younger sister by the neck, strangling her to death on the floor, while the mother had used a chair to hang herself from the ceiling with a rope, her neck crooked and her eyes closed.

Beyond that, desperate, oppressive swirls of lines were everywhere, filling every blank space in the picture.

Just then, Ke Mingqing suddenly heard faint, broken sobbing coming from behind the wooden door. Yet he didn't rush over, instead lowering his gaze to the caption beneath the stick-figure drawing.

[After the younger sister returned home, she fell victim to her parents' vicious hands. Screaming that she was a witch, and that her seduction of her brother was what had gotten both her brother and older sister killed, they strangled the younger sister to death at home—and not long after, her mother hanged herself as well.]

Ke Mingqing fell silent for a moment. "So the persona controlling the 'Witch of Finale and Ashes' is neither Xia Zili nor Little Grey, but Little Grey's older twin sister—no wonder there was no response no matter how much I shouted back then."

He sighed. "With such a tragic past life, no wonder this older sister has self-destructive tendencies and went straight for blowing herself up along with all of Leijing right from the start."

Looking away from the painting, Ke Mingqing turned toward the old wooden door, hesitated briefly, and gently pushed it open. Standing just behind the door was a stick-figure girl, while warm firewood crackled in the hearth.

The stick-figure girl looked at him without a sound. It took Ke Mingqing a moment to recognize her as Little Grey—only it was a grown-up Little Grey.

"Little Grey, I came to find you," Ke Mingqing said softly, patting her head.

The stick-figure girl pointed to another door behind her. Ke Mingqing walked over and looked out through the window.

Outside lay a town square. A young girl in plain linen clothes was bound high on a Cross with iron chains, her face exhausted and her eyelids drooping. Ghostly blue flames burned across her body, and shackles were clamped around her bare ankles.

Down in the square stood huge crowds of bizarre paper-cut figures, raising their arms high and shouting something. Ke Mingqing couldn't make out their words; he simply watched the girl on the Cross in silence, seeing nothing but deep exhaustion on her face.

That was the other witch persona dominating Xia Zili's body. If she could be talked down, perhaps the "Witch of Finale and Ashes" in the outside world would abandon her self-destruction, putting an end to everything.

Ke Mingqing thought quietly.

"I can go talk to my sister—" the stick-figure girl said suddenly.

"Really?" Ke Mingqing blinked in surprise. "You can talk your sister out of it?"

"Mm, my sister treats me best of all." The stick-figure girl nodded. "I want to go home with my sister—we've been looking for each other for so, so long, and we're both so tired already. That's why my sister wanted to just disappear like this."

Ke Mingqing thought it over and said, "Witch personas are born into this world because they still have unfulfilled wishes right before they die. So they enter the bodies of magical girls whose mental states resemble their own, devour those magical girls' memories, and gradually take over their bodies."

He paused for a moment, then slowly asked, "Have your wish and your sister's wish both come true?"

"Mm. My sister's wish was to see me again and talk to me, which is why she also came into Little Li's body—" The stick-figure girl smiled softly. "We just met a little while ago, only my sister said she searched for me for so, so many years that she's tired now. So she locked herself back onto the Cross and said she wanted to end it."

Ke Mingqing was quiet for a moment. "What about you, Little Grey? What's your wish?"

"To see my brother and sister," the stick-figure girl said in a low voice, clasping her hands behind her back. "You're my reincarnated brother, but my sister and I can no longer reincarnate because we both became witches—so this was the only way I could find you, brother."

'So in my past life, I was that unlucky bastard of an older brother who got pincushioned by arrows?'

Ke Mingqing froze for a moment, then shrugged, not bothering to figure out whether what she said was true or false. "Then after you take your sister and leave, what will happen?"

"We'll disappear—Little Li will return to normal, though she'll still have the witch's power. Maybe she can bring it out and use it again if she ever needs to."

Stopping there, the stick-figure girl lowered her eyes, then looked back up and whispered, "I'm sorry—brother. I know you've already forgotten me, yet I was so selfish, clinging to you all this time, making scenes over nothing, and doing so many foolish things."

With that, she threw her arms wide and hugged Ke Mingqing tightly, tilting her head to bury her cheek against his chest.

Ke Mingqing fell silent.

After a while, he lowered his head to look at the freckled face of the girl in his arms. By now, the messy lines shrouding her face had vanished.

"Goodbye, brother."

Having said that, the stick-figure girl let go of Ke Mingqing and pushed open the back door of the cabin.

In that instant, light spilled across the girl's back. With footsteps as light as flight, she wove through the clamoring crowd, ran up onto the execution platform, spread her arms wide, and embraced the girl in the linen dress upon the Cross amid the roaring blazing fire.

Ke Mingqing stood behind the door, watching the scene in silence.

Ever since seeing that painting in the corridor, he had been wondering whether Little Grey had carried this regret all along... regretting that on the day her older sister took her place at the execution, she hadn't had the courage to run up onto the platform and embrace her sister as the flames scorched her upon the Cross.

A moment later, as the two girls on the Cross were burned into a scatter of embers by the flames, everything before his eyes shattered into pieces, and darkness swallowed Ke Mingqing's vision once more.

When he came back to his senses, he found himself looking at the fork in the train tracks again—except the wooden door at the end of the left track had burned down, leaving the weeds on the ground charred black.

The door at the end of the right track, however, remained intact.

And stuck to it was still that little note reading: "No entry for Ke Mingqing and dogs."