Chapter 9: Xiao He!

“…”

The cold was bone-piercing, like countless knives mercilessly stabbing into her entire body.

Her thoughts nearly stopped moving. Qinghe’s whole body stiffened as she was held in Qiuli’s arms. Her eyeballs turned with effort; three seconds alone nearly exhausted all of her strength.

When she saw Qiuli’s warm smile, it was like a survivor glimpsing the last lifeline. Qinghe reached out, and her previously powerless body erupted with all its remaining strength.

“W-woo… ah!”

She clutched tightly at Qiuli’s clothes. A strange tearing sensation came from behind, a feeling like weightlessness, like falling off a cliff.

‘Am I… am I about to faint?’

‘No, absolutely not… if I faint now, everything will be wasted…!’

‘Tomorrow, I’ll still fall into that loop of knowing nothing…’

‘I might even drop to a level of awareness so low that I won’t have the slightest ability to think.’

Her vision darkened. Just as she collapsed into Qiuli’s arms and lost consciousness at the final moment, an inexplicable, familiar sense of being watched descended with a chill.

Qinghe instinctively glanced toward the window in fear. A black shadow flashed past.

‘It appeared again? What… what is that thing? No, I have to… I have to tell Qiuli!’

“N-no…” She had only just spoken, barely a few words out, when weakness swept through her body. Her vision went black, and drowsiness swallowed all her consciousness like a tsunami.

[Awareness: nine] (You have lost the ability to think)

Status: [Memory Curse] [Deep Sleep] [Injury] [Continuous Awareness Decrease]

…

“Xiao He?”

“Xiao He?”

Qiuli shook the girl’s shoulders.

“‘No’?” Qiuli repeated the girl’s final word in confusion, then looked toward the window.

Just now, Qinghe seemed to be looking over there.

But… there was nothing at all.

Could Xiao He’s body have finally given out, causing her to fall asleep? Qiuli’s expression softened as she looked at the girl’s sleeping face. In her heart, something quietly grew… happiness.

Qiuli’s expression gradually twisted. Before, she had wanted the girl to become a doll, but now she suddenly had other ideas. A doll was obedient and eternal, but perhaps it lacked a certain kind of fun.

The corner of her mouth twitched uncontrollably, and Qiuli revealed a crazed smile.

Qiuli sat on the edge of the bed, laid the girl’s tense body flat, and gently pulled the blanket over her.

Since the diary had already been rewritten, there was only one final step left. Go to Qinghe’s room and take all the food.

Yawning, Qiuli stood up.

A cold breeze drifted in through the window. Moonlight poured straight onto the dirt floor, and specks of dust swirled in midair.

Light, chaotic, drifting back and forth.

Qiuli sneezed.

It was still summer. Why was the wind so cold?

She frowned slightly and walked to the window, resting her pale arms on the sill as she silently gazed into the heavy night outside.

Quiet. Peaceful. Except for the distant howls of ogres.

Qiuli was already used to these sounds.

The village was very safe. Within a hundred miles, there was no second human settlement. The reason the village could survive was because, at its very center, there stood a worshiped statue of a god.

What exactly it was, Qiuli did not know. Perhaps the village chief did, but he had never mentioned it.

Because of the statue’s presence, even if monsters truly tried to enter the village, they would be blocked outside. It could be said that, within the village, as long as one kept their mind clear and was not noticed by higher existences, nothing would happen.

Qiuli glanced back at the girl curled up on the bed. A vague sense of unease stirred in her heart, yet she could not put her finger on it.

“Forget it… I’ll go get the food first…” Qiuli headed toward the door.

Passing through the moonlight by the window, dust drifted chaotically before her eyes as she moved. Suddenly, Qiuli stopped in her tracks.

‘No… something’s wrong. This scene feels familiar.’

‘Not the scenery.’

‘It’s this feeling…’

‘This feeling of moonlight being disturbed by something invisible, dust tracing paths that defy reason in the air.’

She recalled the word “no” Xiao He had said earlier, and the way she had looked out the window at the very end.

‘Didn’t Xiao He say today that there was a shadow outside the window, that it felt like someone was watching her?’

At that moment, cold seeped into her bones, and a sense of dread rose in her heart.

Something was wrong!

She hurried to the window and examined the outside again, more carefully.

She leaned her head out and looked down at the ground.

The moonlight flowed like liquid silver, illuminating everything with clarity.

On the flat dirt ground, right beneath the window… there were several extremely faint marks.

Something slick and heavy had briefly “leaned” there, leaving behind faint impressions. Along the edges of the marks, the soil was slightly overturned, carrying a barely noticeable sticky sheen.

Qiuli’s eyes widened in disbelief. She spun around abruptly. In the air, the dust was still drifting slowly.

Something invisible had entered this room!

“Heh…”

An extremely soft sound, as if squeezed out from between clenched teeth, escaped from deep in Qiuli’s throat.

Someone was trying to take her pet.

Qiuli turned back, staring at the apparently empty room. Yet she knew clearly that within this space, there was something unseen, untouchable.

It was approaching the well-behaved girl sleeping on the bed.

It had bypassed the protection of the village’s god statue. Why? Was it because Xiao He had not been resting well lately and was not fully conscious, thus attracting such an existence?

“Xiao He! Wake up, now!”

Invisible to the naked eye, indescribable… could it be… an outer god?

Damn it! Why had Xiao He been targeted by such an existence?

Humans had no way to fight these indescribable beings. There was only one way to make it leave.

Qinghe had to wake up herself.

“Xiao He!”

Qiuli rushed to the bedside in panic, reached out, and grabbed Qinghe’s thin shoulders, shaking her violently.

“Xiao He! Xiao He! Wake up!”

Wake up!

‘Absolutely not! Xiao He!’

This rough motion forcibly interrupted Qinghe’s descent into the dark abyss.

“Ugh…!”

A painful groan escaped her lips. Qinghe’s tightly shut lashes trembled violently, as if resisting a tremendous force.

Qiuli’s shaking and shouting were like a red-hot iron spike, forcibly prying open her consciousness.

“Ah!”

Qinghe opened her eyes. Within her vision, everything was dark green, as though the entire world was separated from her by a green membrane.

‘Where am I? I… did I just faint? Why did I faint? Did my awareness drop?’

She saw Qiuli gripping her shoulders, shaking her desperately.

She also saw—

“!!! That is!”

A… monster?

Beside Qiuli, there was a humanoid, semi-transparent monster.

It looked like a constantly writhing, stretching mass of slime. More specifically, it resembled a living glob of mucus.

Gray dust clung to its surface, outlining its nauseating form as it expanded and contracted. At the center of its “body,” several bottomless hollows opened and closed, as if they were its “mouths” or “sensory organs.”

Unclear murmurs emerged from its “mouth.”

And yet, Qinghe could understand its meaning.

“You’re awake.”

“According to our agreement, if you are about to lose your self-awareness, I will take one of your eyes and make you fully conscious.”

“Now, it’s time to fulfill the deal.”

Qinghe sat there, stunned.

‘A deal?’

‘When did I ever make a deal with it?’

‘Could it be…’

‘The past me?’

‘Before I woke up, just what kind of insane things did the previous me do?’

“For the next deal… the payment will be your other eye.”

“Goodbye…”

The next second—

Intense pain surged from her eye socket, as if her eyeball were being crushed from within.

“Bang!”

A horrifying scene unfolded before Qiuli’s eyes.

She froze.

Qiuli watched in horror as one of Qinghe’s beautiful black eyes—her left eye—burst apart in an instant.

Blood splattered across Qiuli’s cheek.

“…”

“Xiao He!!!”

……

New status added: [Maiming Curse one] (Left Eye).