Chapter 31: Severing the Inner Demon

"Fool."

Chen Yuanyuan spoke with a familiar voice, but Qin Changsheng knew that the one speaking now was the Mountain of Corpses controlling this body. He had not expected that this loathsome monster, formed entirely from piled-up human remains, could actually speak.

A malicious grin spread across Chen Yuanyuan's face, making no attempt to hide her mockery of Qin Changsheng: "Humans are so easy to manipulate. All it takes is a face, a little guilt, and a bit of clumsy acting to make a fool act foolishly. They even lose their own lives without ever realizing it. Stupid, inferior, fragile. You humans don't deserve to live in this world at all!"

As those heart-piercing words fell, Qin Changsheng opened his mouth and vomited a large mouthful of blood.

"You're right," he said, his voice weak, struggling to catch his breath. "I was indeed stupid. I remained stuck in the mistakes of the past without ever thinking of learning anything from them. Chen Yuanyuan must have been in great pain when you killed her, right? If I hadn't experienced the pain she endured, I would only have sunk deeper into the mire of sin. Thank you for helping me walk out of that mire."

Chen Yuanyuan sneered—he was actually thanking her!

But in the next second, the malicious smile froze. The Mountain of Corpses controlling Chen Yuanyuan seemed to have discovered something that made it feel deeply unsettled.

The iron rod piercing Qin Changsheng's waist suddenly vibrated. Then, with a sharp snap, the rod broke in two inside his body and fell straight into the surging Qiantang River tide below.

What was happening?

The smile on Chen Yuanyuan's face vanished bit by bit, as she saw the wound in Qin Changsheng's waist beginning to disappear. The blood that had been gushing out slowed like a plugged spring, eventually stopping altogether.

Within seconds, Qin Changsheng's wound had healed completely. He raised his eyes, and when he looked at Chen Yuanyuan again, the pity in them was gone, replaced by a coldness that made one shudder. A white flame seemed to flicker deep within his eyes—a fire without heat.

"This is impossible!" Chen Yuanyuan shouted, losing her composure. This meant the internal defenses of the Mountain of Corpses were crumbling; this entity, which had despised humanity since its birth, was feeling the weight of a crushing gaze for the first time.

Qin Changsheng's Shanhai Beast, Momo, shouldn't possess healing abilities. Why was his wound able to heal in an instant?

"For humans, nothing is impossible," Qin Changsheng's voice was calm. This time, it was his turn to look down on this ugly creature. "Humans are weak, but by cooperating with one another, we have survived the biological extinctions of tens of thousands of years to reach this day. I am not the only one fighting you here; every life you have devoured stands with me!"

Qin Changsheng's voice was not loud, but every word carried the weight of a thousand tons, pressing the Mountain of Corpses down toward the Qiantang tide. It could not understand where it had lost.

But Qin Changsheng knew clearly.

Time reversed, back to the roof of that residential building—

"You said you'd help, but how? Your Shanhai Beast shouldn't be able to stray too far from its host, right? She won't be able to follow me."

"She doesn't need to follow you," Cao Mengmeng said. "She only needs to give you one thing."

Cao Mengmeng didn't continue. Qin Changsheng looked up, his gaze meeting Xiaobai's eyes. Though she had no pupils, for some reason, Qin Changsheng knew he was being watched.

He swallowed instinctively, and then he saw Xiaobai's face moving closer and closer. Just as their faces were almost touching, Qin Changsheng saw a shimmer of moisture at the corner of Xiaobai's eye. A tear flashed, and a milky-white liquid seeped out, hanging there.

"Hold that tear in your mouth," Cao Mengmeng instructed.

Qin Changsheng was dumbfounded: "What did you say!?"

"I said, hold that tear in your mouth. Is there something ambiguous about what I'm saying?" Cao Mengmeng seemed impatient.

"It's not that it's ambiguous, it's just..." Qin Changsheng stared blankly at the tear on Xiaobai's eyelid, feeling as if a vast grassland in his heart was being trampled by a stampede of alpacas. "Are you serious?"

"Do you think I'm joking?" Cao Mengmeng covered her face. "Trust me, keep it in your mouth. This tear can save your life."

"Hiss—" Qin Changsheng sighed for a long while before finally compromising. Since Cao Mengmeng had put it that way, she surely wouldn't harm him, even if it was psychologically difficult to accept.

Qin Changsheng opened his mouth to receive it, but the milky tear on Xiaobai's eyelid fell on its own, landing perfectly on his tongue. With a foreign object in his mouth, he instinctively closed his lips and moved to swallow.

"Don't swallow!" Cao Mengmeng's timely shout stopped him. "Not yet!"

"Mmph?" Qin Changsheng couldn't speak with the tear in his mouth, so he could only manage a look of confusion.

"Listen carefully," Cao Mengmeng said, seeing he had complied. "Xiaobai's ability is similar to Xiaohong's; both must be ingested directly to have an effect. Xiaobai's tears accelerate your body's metabolism—simply put, they have the power to heal any wound."

"In my eyes, you're going to your death. This tear will keep you from dying too quickly. Remember, keep it in your mouth, and only swallow it when you are on the verge of death. No matter how severe your injuries are, as long as you have a single breath left, this tear will save you."

Back to the present.

Though the tear had been swallowed, Qin Changsheng could still feel it within him. Gentle, warm currents rose from the pit of his stomach, flowing to every part of his body. The unbearable pain was smoothed away, and he felt as if he had been cleansed inside and out. Every wound had healed, and he could feel a surge of power constantly welling up.

He had survived!

Inside the net, Chen Yuanyuan's expression shifted from shock to fear, and finally to desperate pleading: "Qianqi, save me! I was being controlled! Help me! Help me get out of this hell, and we can both live!"

"Alright, I'll help you."

Unexpectedly, Qin Changsheng agreed quite readily.

However, the smile on Chen Yuanyuan's face didn't last long before it vanished. She saw Qin Changsheng release his grip on the net.

"Chen Yuanyuan is already dead. You killed her," Qin Changsheng said coldly to that face. "I will help you—help you go to hell!"

"You... you... you bastard!!!" In the moment before the weightlessness took hold, all the disguises of the Mountain of Corpses were stripped away, and it began to rage in impotent fury. "You lowly humans! I'll kill you! I'll rip out your intestines! Gouge out your eyes! Sever your limbs! I will make sure you die a miserable death for eternity, ahhhhh!!!"

Qin Changsheng listened calmly to the curses of the Mountain of Corpses. So ugly, vicious, and wretched—in his eyes, it was exactly what the Mountain of Corpses truly was.

Wrapped in the net woven by Momo, the creature plummeted, about to be swallowed by the Qiantang tide. Even as it fell, it did not give up. The instinct for survival drove it to tear at the net, desperate to cast even a small piece of itself away. As long as a fraction of it survived, it could instantly recover and kill the human it hated to the bone.

However, at the final moment of its existence, a voice shattered all the delusions of the Mountain of Corpses.

"Six Tea, White."

From nowhere came this ethereal voice, and then, the Mountain of Corpses saw a leaf, as pure and bright as jade, drifting down. It fell as fast as the creature was plummeting, perhaps even faster, landing on the fingertip the Mountain of Corpses was desperately reaching upward.

As the two touched, light as a ripple on water, a chill instantly permeated the entire massive body of the Mountain of Corpses. It was not a psychological sensation, but a physical one. A layer of frost was visible to the naked eye, seizing the fingertip from the leaf, climbing up the arm, and spreading over the entire body.

In an instant, the Mountain of Corpses became a statue of ice. All the slaughter and all the delusions sank into the Qiantang River along with that frozen form, which could never move again.

A second later, with the Mountain of Corpses as the center, a darkness that extinguished all light suddenly erupted from the bottom of the river, forming a pitch-black vortex that swallowed everything in its vicinity.

Even Qin Changsheng, who was closest, was sucked into the vortex before he could react. The darkness swallowed not only matter but also dragged Qin Changsheng's mind into its depths. His consciousness churned, struggled, and shattered within the infinite chaos.

A voice echoed in the fading remnants of his consciousness:

"Hidden quest completed: Defeat 'Mountain of Corpses'."

"Time remaining: 16 hours, 54 minutes, 31 seconds."

"Number of survivors: 97."

"Reward points calculated. MVP of this round: Qin Changsheng."

"Tian-rank Group, game over."