Chapter 608 - 605: Finger

Chapter 608: Chapter 605: Finger

Li Luo held the two fingers, and after a moment of thought, she found herself thinking the exact same thing as Mo Ling.

She pinched the fingers and carefully placed them toward the gap in the floor.

The moment the fingers touched the ground, they seemed to spring to life, curling up on their own.

Immediately after, Li Luo felt a violent tremor.

The bloodstains under her feet suddenly shattered into countless fragments. The fingers then crawled across the floor, scuttling to another part of the room where they hooked onto another finger on the ground.

When the two right index fingers—which shouldn’t have been able to exist simultaneously—made contact, the entwined digits fused into a ball and rolled to the center of the room.

A faint shockwave suddenly pulsed out from the ball of fingers, spreading outward. Wherever the shockwave passed, the dried, blackened blood turned red again and began to surge.

The thick stains suddenly transformed into a viscous river of blood, churning and spreading outward. Li Luo was just about to retreat from the room when the shockwave abruptly exploded, reverberating throughout the space. All the bloodstains touched by the wave liquefied into fresh blood, instantly flooding the entire room.

Before Li Luo could even react, she was plunged into the Sea of Blood.

She instinctively reached for the Block, only to see it also being swallowed by the blood pouring down from the ceiling.

Even though there was a floor, Li Luo felt herself sinking, deeper and deeper, until her vision was filled with nothing but crimson...

Meanwhile, Mo Ling, who was inside the Block, was also plunged into a Sea of Blood the instant the shockwave hit.

Red.

Within his field of vision, there was only one color—red.

Profound and hypnotic.

It stretched beyond the room, to the farthest reaches of his sight, an endless expanse of red. Even Li Luo was nowhere to be found.

’What’s happening to me?’

The red stripped Mo Ling of all his senses. He could only feel it completely replacing his vision, plunging him into utter confusion.

Even his thoughts grew hazy, battered by the overwhelming red. He drifted aimlessly in the Sea of Blood, stupefied. It felt as if a long time had passed, yet it could have been just an instant.

Gradually, Mo Ling grew accustomed to the red’s presence and forgot everything.

’It was as if the world had always been this way—only red, and nothing else.’

Mo Ling seemed to have become an infant in the womb, ignorant and uncomprehending. The Sea of Blood had washed over his mind, scouring it down to a bare consciousness. He knew how to think, but not what to think about.

He stared at the boundless red, stupefied...

Finally, just as the red was about to completely consume him, he felt a warm touch. Something soft and springy, like jelly, pressed against his forehead.

The thing rubbed against his forehead for a while, pulling his wandering attention back into focus, away from the endless red’s allure.

Then, the jelly-like thing gently took Mo Ling’s hand and guided it forward to explore.

Mo Ling finally felt the thing’s outline. It was an elongated creature with a hard bone in its center and soft skin on the outside. It would sometimes bend and sometimes straighten.

Mo Ling felt as if he knew what this was, but with the red flooding his mind, he couldn’t recall what this creature before him was.

After guiding Mo Ling to touch it, the creature then took his hand and placed it on his own body.

To his surprise, when Mo Ling touched his own body, he discovered that he had the exact same shape as the elongated creature.

He was clearly using a "hand" to feel, yet he couldn’t feel his own "hand."

Or perhaps, his "hand" was just a fictional, formless force. In reality, he had been using his own elongated body to touch the outside world all along.

’Am I one of these creatures too?’ Mo Ling was perplexed. Subconsciously, he felt something was wrong, but his thoughts were now completely imprisoned by the red, with no way to escape.

’Who am I?’ Mo Ling had already forgotten.

He was guided by the elongated creature to a strange place.

Here, more of the elongated creatures came to stroke him. They constantly touched Mo Ling’s body, and he could feel them trembling, as if they were all very happy.

’Are they all like me? Are they my companions?’

The elongated creatures affectionately stroked Mo Ling, leading him around to meet new companions. Mo Ling discovered they came in different lengths and had different outlines.

Some were very hard, others very soft; some were rough, others delicate...

The patterns on their heads were also different, arranged in whorls, and each companion’s was unique. Moreover, there were many types of these patterns.

Some were whorls of concentric circles, like ripples on water.

Some patterns were open on one side, very irregular, like a dustpan.

Still others were formed by layers of curved arcs.

...

One could distinguish between companions based on these different patterns.

’It’s a shame I can’t see what they look like,’ a strange thought suddenly arose in Mo Ling’s mind, but this thought also brought confusion.

’See?’

’What does that mean?’

There was red everywhere. Besides touch, there were no other methods of perception. Mo Ling began to doubt his own strange thought, but in the next moment, he forgot what he had just been thinking.

His thoughts were gradually becoming simpler.

Soon, his companions were pulling Mo Ling along, helping him get familiar with their surroundings.

Hard, soft, smooth, regular, irregular...

Mo Ling was using touch to slowly learn about this world. His simple mind was filled with all sorts of tactile sensations. He learned what he should and shouldn’t touch, what would hurt, and what would feel very pleasant.

The red obscured the world, but touch allowed Mo Ling to perceive it in a completely new way.

His companions led him, passing on all their experience to him.

Only then did Mo Ling realize that his companions had been treating him like a newborn. That was why they led him around, having him touch all sorts of things. They were very pure, their thoughts incredibly simple. Besides touching things, their only other activity was to huddle together and play by stroking one another.

Gradually, Mo Ling memorized the details of each companion. Not just the patterns on their heads, but also the creases at their joints, and even the distinct feel of their touch.

Not only that, but Mo Ling also learned a method of communication from his companions.

It was a language of touch. One firm press meant "one," two firm presses meant "two." A brief touch to the side of the head meant "follow me," and a gentle touch on a joint meant "I want to play with you."

While playing, Mo Ling learned all sorts of touch-based expressions, and he gradually became able to hold simple conversations with his companions.

An unknown amount of time passed. One day, while Mo Ling was playing, a question suddenly arose in his mind. Before his consciousness could sink completely, he quickly touched a nearby companion and posed the question that was on his mind:

"What... are we?"