Transformed into a heartthrob's simp, every day is a battleground.

Chapter 317 You can treat me as him

Xie Qingdu also noticed the actions of the others. His gaze lingered on them briefly, but when facing Yan Xun, he softened his tone, "I really don't know anything."

He looked at his own head in Yan Xun's hand, "...I only remember everything going black, and then I can't remember anything else."

"I don't even know why I'm here."

He looked at the crew-cut man, then at Yan Xun, and said, "Shouldn't I be dead?"

"Yan Xun," he whispered, "can you give me back my head?"

"I want to piece my body back together."

"Even if it's a paper doll, it doesn't matter?" Yan Xun asked.

Xie Qingdu lowered his head. "This is the only thing I could find."

“But I still want to help you find your real body,” Yan Xun said. “That night, after the crew-cut man killed you…” He turned to look at the crew-cut man, “you secretly hid his body?”

"Damn it! I'm innocent!" the crew-cut man shouted, still too afraid to approach Xie Qingdu. He stood some distance away and said to Yan Xun, "I was terrified, I didn't dare to move. Of course, I immediately called the master..."

Then, what happened next was repeated countless times by both him and Fang Shuo.

Fang Shuo and the master arrived at the villa together. The master then took charge and told them a way to prevent Xie Qingdu from becoming an evil ghost after death: to use that cruel suppression spell to ensure that he would never rise again underground.

They did as instructed.

and then?

The man with the buzz cut suddenly frowned.

He looked at Yan Xun, "...I remember we buried him together in different places."

"But I can't remember anything after that."

I only remember leaving the villa in a daze.

Yan Xun then looked at Fang Shuo, "I remember after leaving the villa, you went to the school to look for Cun Tou and the others?"

"Yes," Fang Shuo said. "I went to their dormitory because I was afraid they would let something slip."

"Did you see the master again after that?"

“No,” Fang Shuo said. “At the time, I was only thinking about my…” He glanced at Lin Wen, “…my plan to become famous, and I didn’t contact the master again.”

“I did what he said at the villa,” Duan Songen said, “and told Du Yun’s roommate about him going home to get medical treatment.”

She also found it a bit strange when she said this.

Based on the secrets they had previously discovered, the master clearly had his own purpose in doing all this, so why did he abandon his next plan after the villa incident?

Did the dungeon fail to provide them with the corresponding memories, or is there truly no further activity after the Master level?

Yan Xun held up the head in his hand and looked at it for a while. "I suddenly remembered some memories that day."

"What?" Xie Qingdu asked.

“It was a conversation between me and my grandmother.” He looked at Xie Qingdu.

She said you know everything.

“She said she knew she had done something wrong, but thankfully it was all almost over,” Yan Xun said.

“I know what she meant by her saying she was about to end.” Yan Xun touched his pocket, of course, there was no talisman that his grandmother had given him that day in his pocket, “She told me to burn that talisman and that my uncle must drink the talisman water.”

Once the spell of "Puppet" was broken, she, a living dead who relied on her youngest son to prolong her life, naturally returned to dust.

“There’s something I’ve never understood,” Yan Xun said, looking at Xie Qingdu. “I remember telling you about your distant relative’s plans…”

“But in our previous conversation, you trusted him so much.”

"It seems like I've completely forgotten what I told you, that he wants you to be his stand-in."

“I just found it strange, but I didn’t think much of it.” Yan Xun pointed to his head. “Because each of us lost a lot of memories before finding the corresponding clues.”

"I can't remember ever seeing each other at the tutoring center."

"It's normal that you don't remember the warning I gave you."

But in his memory, that day, after he and Xie Qingdu left the city park, they went home together... They stopped at a convenience store on the way, the same convenience store where Xie Qingdu worked at the entrance of the community, exactly the same as he remembered.

Both the merchandise shelves and the internal displays are exactly the same.

It was as if that convenience store had been moved from Xie Qingdu's memory.

Xie Qingdu clearly doesn't remember any of this, so why is there another convenience store at the entrance of the community that is exactly the same as the one they remember?

“I thought to myself, it’s normal for that convenience store to be at the entrance of the community,” Yan Xun said. “This is your world.”

"You can put things wherever you want."

"I've also thought that even if I lost some memories because of Ning Hengyuan, you didn't." Yan Xun was still looking at the head in his hand, not knowing whether he was talking to the NPC Xie Qingdu or to Xie Qingdu in his hand.

"But in my memory, you don't seem to have come looking for me."

"Of course, it could also be because I forgot, or I didn't find the corresponding clues, so this part of the memory couldn't come up."

Yan Xun then looked at Xie Qingdu, "Have you come looking for me?"

Xie Qingdu looked at Yan Xun for a moment, "Is this important?"

“Maybe I’m just curious,” Yan Xun said.

"I did look for it," Xie Qingdu said calmly. "But you forgot, you asked me who I am."

So you left?

"What reason do I have not to leave?" Xie Qingdu asked.

Upon hearing this, Yan Xun gestured to Lin Wen and the others to release Xie Qingdu's limbs, "Alright, I'll help you put your body back together."

He looked at the others and asked, "Could you please leave for a moment?"

"Can I stay?" Lou Yanchuan asked.

Yan Xun nodded at Lou Yanchuan.

Du Yun reached out her hand, indicating that she also wanted to stay, "I can help."

“No,” Yan Xun said.

He glanced at the white house behind him. "But you can stay in that white house for now."

The crew-cut guy couldn't wait to get away from them. As soon as he heard he could leave, he ran straight to the white house.

Lin Wen hesitated slightly because the old man in her head kept making a fuss. Fang Shuo saw that she was not moving and nudged her shoulder to remind her.

Shu Fan thought for a moment, "Can't we stay here?"

"You all did it in that villa," Yan Xun said, "to prevent him from going berserk after his body was pieced together..."

"I think you can stay in the back house for now."

He guessed that the white building must be some kind of system management office, a semi-secure area.

Shu Fan and his companion exchanged a glance and realized that what he said made some sense.

Soon, the other players entered the white house... The staff ignored their arrival.

"Strange," Du Yun said, looking at the staff. "Why aren't they surprised that we're here in the middle of the night?"

"Yan Xun dug up the lawn in front of their house, and they didn't react at all, did they?" Fang Shuo said.

They found a spot with a view of the lawn outside the door.

"So 'my secret' is that Xie Qingdu was murdered and buried underground. As long as we dig out his body parts and successfully reassemble them, we'll complete the hidden mission?" the crew-cut man asked.

“I don’t think that’s right,” Lin Wen said. “If that’s the case, his body buried underground shouldn’t be made of paper.”

Yan Xun was unaware of Lin Wen and the others' discussion. He held Xie Qingdu's head in one arm while slowly bending down to pick up the scattered body parts.

He kept the torso he dug out next to the pit.

"I've noticed you have a real connection with ditch pits."

“You were born in a graveyard, and the villagers found you and dug you out.” Yan Xun said to Xie Qingdu as he picked up his arm, completely unaware that he was telling a hellish joke. “Now we’re going to dig out your scattered body from these underground places and piece it back together.”

He pieced the limbs together onto the torso, and all he had to do was put down the head.

Yan Xun bent down, preparing to place his head on the severed neck—

“I remember you saying that when you were working at a funeral company, you saw a lot of paper effigies in the room.”

He turned to look at Xie Qingdu, "Right?"

"Yes."

"My grandma said something to me that day." Yan Xun didn't rush to put his head on it, but spoke casually about his conversation with his grandma.

“If he dies, none of you will survive either.” Yan Xun thought for a moment. “What do you think that means?”

"Who is he?"

Xie Qingdu looked at his own head in Yan Xun's hand and said calmly, "I don't know."

"But she said she had already explained the method."

Yan Xun tossed the paper doll's head around like a sandbag.

"What method?"

He put on a deep, thoughtful expression. "And who are you?"

"It can't be that once Ning Hengyuan dies, all of us ghost children who were born because of him will also be scattered to the winds, can it?"

"Xie San, do you think my guess was right?"

Yan Xun tossed the head in his hand, "You went to great lengths to create your divine kingdom and to refine Xie Qingdu into the most powerful Yin Sha."

"But you were tricked by the sorceress you thought was a low-dimensional being."

"Your secret is that on that night, when they cut off Xie Qingdu's limbs, the substitution spell took effect instantly. Even though you tried to replace the damage with a paper effigy, your soul was still trapped inside the paper effigy's body."

"You can only watch helplessly as your body is dismembered and buried in various places underground."

"But Xie Qingdu doesn't dare to really let you die. If you die, all the ghost dolls you created will disappear."

As Yan Xun finished speaking, he placed the head he was holding onto Xie Qingdu's paper effigy on the ground.

The moment the head and body reunited, the severed limbs of the other party were suddenly connected by an inexplicable force. Xie Qingdu on the ground blinked and transformed into the appearance of Ning Hengyuan in Yan Xun's memory.

The NPC Xie Qingdu behind him transformed into a skin that looked like it had been shed by the Painted Skin Ghost, and gently landed on the lawn.

Ning Hengyuan, or rather Xie San, touched his neck, as if he was very unaccustomed to it.

"If you knew all that, why did you still piece my body back together?"

Ning Hengyuan looked at Yan Xun, "Could it be that you want to ask me where Xie Qingdu himself is?"

He grinned and said to Yan Xun, "He was originally a Yin Sha, and he was only able to barely maintain his human form thanks to my previous magic. After we exchanged souls, where do you think he will be?"

"Yin Sha is simply a condensation of evil energy; it has no soul whatsoever."

Ning Hengyuan blew a breath, "Of course it's gone."

He looked at Yan Xun with a mocking gaze, "Speaking of which, he was naive to believe that your grandmother said that by exchanging souls with me to complete the substitution, he could suppress me."

"Without the body I helped him create, he can only become a cloud of yin energy, which will dissipate with a gust of wind."

“Your grandmother knew perfectly well that my body was fake too.” He looked at Yan Xun with pity. “I did die when I fell down the ravine that day, but your body won’t live much longer either.”

“Your grandmother clearly saw through this when she was speaking, but she still made Xie Qingdu believe that I was a living person.”

Yan Xun knew he was referring to the meeting that Shuangshuang had secretly watched.

"If I were still a living person, he probably could have held on for a while longer."

“But my body is like a leaky house; as soon as he went in, he started to drift away.”

Ning Hengyuan looked at Yan Xun and said, "As for me, although I am suppressed underground and cannot move, I will not die."

"If Xie Qingdu really has vanished into thin air... can you stay peacefully underground?" Yan Xun suddenly asked.

Xie Qingdu was originally a Yin Sha, and Ning Hengyuan specially set up a spell at the villa to trap and suppress him. Although he is now suffering the consequences and being suppressed underground, Xie Qingdu was also trapped by the formation after returning to a mass of Yin Sha.

"Xie Qingdu transformed into a primordial Yin energy, forming this community domain, aiming to ensure you could never rise again and remained trapped underground."

However, Ning Hengyuan was clearly unwilling to give up and readily agreed with the main system, which wanted to reap the benefits of power.

The main system sends players in, while Ning Hengyuan becomes the dungeon boss, trapping the players inside and turning them into similar paper effigies.

If a player is unable to leave the instance for 15 days, their soul will be bound to these paper effigies, just like Ning Hengyuan's, and forever trapped in this community.

After Xie Qingdu transformed into a mass of Yin energy and became a domain, he lost most of his consciousness and could only generate some rules to help players discover the secrets of this instance.

However, after the soul is replaced, Xie Qingdu becomes "Ning Hengyuan".

“You can’t lie in this field, right?” Yan Xun suddenly asked.

Ning Hengyuan looked at him and said, "Yes."

He is both Ning Hengyuan and the NPC "Xie Qingdu". When he is "Xie Qingdu", he cannot lie.

“But you can say you don’t know, or you can conceal some information,” Yan Xun said.

“I am him, and he is me,” Ning Hengyuan said. “I can see all his memories.”

"Until you unravel enough clues, I am Xie Qingdu."

He pointed to himself, "I don't know Ning Hengyuan, I only remember that he was an annoying roommate and relative."

"All I remember is that I was Xie Qingdu, an unpopular person in the dormitory."

“Of course…” he paused for a moment, “when I found out how I died, I became Ning Hengyuan.”

“So I didn’t hide any information, nor did I lie.” Ning Hengyuan leaned forward slightly. “At the party, at the weekend market, I did indeed only have the memories of Xie Qingdu.”

"If you're willing, you can totally help me become Xie Qingdu."