HPDBC Chapter 137 The Mask of the Nuo Man
Chapter 137 The Mask of the Nuo Man
Chapter 137 The Mask of the Nuo Mask Man (First Update)
Despite the excruciating pain from his broken leg, Guan Jikun hopped and skipped along the wall, looking around.
Just now, those eerie, silky mists would occasionally seep in through the cracks in the city gate, but now they've vanished without a trace.
He suspected that something had changed in the city, but he wasn't quite sure.
At the same time, the county yamen runners responsible for night watch in the city, as well as the guards in the stone houses next to the city gate, also noticed this change.
Because these city guards hadn't slept, they could keenly sense the changes around them, and they suddenly discovered that the chilling atmosphere that permeated the night had vanished.
I just saw two vengeful ghosts pass by on the street, but they vanished in the blink of an eye.
"It seems those ghosts have vanished!" someone exclaimed in surprise.
They couldn't resist opening the door of the stone house a crack, and then carefully observed and felt it for a moment. They found that not only had the chill disappeared, but even the normal warmth of the season was returning, making them feel very comfortable.
Before long, the guards left the stone house, took the still-burning candles and examined them carefully. Soon they discovered a figure standing in the city gate passage.
"No, there's a ghost too—"
The moment the guard at the front finished speaking, he was completely controlled by Guan Jikun.
"Come here and carry me on your back," Guan Jikun ordered.
At the same time, the other guards stood still, also under control, but without any orders being given.
Guan Jikun was very weak; this was the maximum level of control he could maintain at the moment, but it wouldn't last long before those who hadn't been given instructions would regain consciousness.
He wanted to take this opportunity to quickly have one of the guards carry him to find Li Jiuhe.
According to his guess, now that the city has returned to normal, he should be able to leave the space stone once he leaves Ye City.
The fact that Li Jiuhe has not arrived yet suggests that he may have died while being chased by his father, Guan Chuandao.
He needed to hurry to use the black box to cover the guy's body and open the black box.
The guard carried Guan Jikun back along the street with a blank expression. Although the night had returned to normal, there was still no one to be seen.
After walking for a long time, Guan Jikun finally saw his father's body. At this time, Guan Chuandao was like an old peddler, completely drained, sitting on the ground, motionless.
However, Li Jiuhe's body was not found nearby.
Guan Jikun was heartbroken and quickly ordered the guards to carry him around to search for him.
After searching the vicinity, I couldn't find anything.
"Could it be that Li Jiuhe didn't die, but has already—left the city?" Guan Jikun suddenly thought of this question, "Otherwise, why would the ghosts of Ye City suddenly disappear—"
He quickly controlled the guard to carry him out of the city. After leaving the west gate, they walked for more than two hundred meters and came to a straight official road.
Looking around, all was deathly still under the moonlight.
He didn't see Li Jiuhe, nor did he see Ning Chong, and nothing had happened to him.
"I've already left the city, why can't I leave?"
Guan Jikun's face was as pale as paper, his expression one of despair. He looked up at the night sky and then gave orders to the guards who had their backs to him.
"Let's go, let's keep going along the official road, I want to see where the boundaries of this world are—"
A milky-white stone was placed in the center of the square table in the hotel room.
This stone is the boundary stone.
Luo Shuo and Ma Li sat in the room, guarding the boundary stone.
Luo Shuo looked worried, while Ma Li remained calm, occasionally teasing the black ants crawling in his palm.
Beside the two lay a corpse on the carpet; it was Guan Xin, the tall woman who had obeyed Guan Chuandao's orders to guard the boundary stone.
Guan Xin was reduced to a skeleton, and many black ants could be seen crawling and gnawing on her remains.
Seeing that the corpse had nothing left to eat but bones, Ma Li recalled all the black ant larvae she had released.
She shrugged and said to Luo Shuo, "Don't blame me for being heartless, why does this girl have a Boundary Stone in her hand?"
Moreover, Brother Li has not appeared for four days and there has been no news of him. I am afraid that he has died in the Boundary Stone. I am avenging him.
""
"It's understandable to avenge him, but Brother Li forbade you to eat people before," Luo Shuo said.
His attitude towards Li Jiuhe was different from that towards Ma Li; he was clearly more worried about Li Jiuhe's safety.
Moreover, having not seen anyone for four consecutive days, Luo Shuo had a bad feeling. Had Li Jiuhe met with misfortune and died in the Boundary Stone along with the girl's accomplice?
After all, the last time he entered the Boundary Stone, he came out in less than a day, and he also completed the mission perfectly, which was very efficient.
This time, efficiency is out of the question; all we care about is getting people out alive.
"I asked her, but she's stubborn and won't say anything," Ma Li said.
Four days ago, Luo Shuo returned to his dormitory in the early morning and found the room empty.
He immediately began tracking and discovered that Li Jiuhe's information disappeared without a trace after entering the Boundary Stone. He then tracked the Boundary Stone and located Guan Xin, who had already left with it.
Luo Shuo knew that Li Jiuhe might be in a critical situation, so he immediately notified Ma Li, and then tracked down Guan Xin.
Although Luo Shuo's attack power was not strong, Ma Li could easily deal with Guan Xin, and quickly injured and captured her.
Originally, Luo Shuo planned to notify Shao Gang, the Minister of Equipment Department, as soon as he found the Boundary Stone, but Ma Li got carried away and had her black ants quickly devour Guan Xin.
This made Luo Shuo hesitate.
Guan Xin kept her mouth shut before she was eaten, revealing nothing, which seems to be a tradition of the Guan family.
Luo Shuo hadn't left the hotel for the past few days either. He knew that Minister Shao Gang was definitely trying to contact Li Jiuhe, but Li Jiuhe had already entered the Boundary Stone and it was impossible to contact him.
After Ma Li controlled the black ants to eat Guan Xin, because Guan Xin was a Sequencer, it was a great tonic for her, even better than eating the corpse-controlling flesh.
She was confident that even if Li Jiuhe came out, he wouldn't blame her, since she was helping him get revenge.
As for Luo Shuo's opinion on her eating people, Ma Li completely ignored it.
After waiting a while longer, Luo Shuo felt he couldn't wait any longer. He stood up and grabbed at the boundary stone.
He was going to take the Boundary Stone to Shao Gang to see if this master of dreams had any solutions.
Previously, after contacting Guan Xin, although she didn't say anything, Luo Shuo had already found the Guan family in Xiongfengling through her.
Just then, the boundary stone suddenly twitched slightly.
Li Jiuhe appeared out of thin air in the room, still wearing the same coarse linen clothes he had changed into in Yecheng. He was covered in dirt and looked quite disheveled.
"Ah! Brother Li, you're out!"
"Wow, handsome Li, your outfit—it's so ugly! It doesn't suit your style at all."
Both the man and the insect stared at him in surprise.
Ma Li quickly pointed to the skeletons on the ground and explained, "They had accomplices guarding the boundary stone, and Luo Shuo and I took her out. Plus, my kids were a bit hungry, so—"
Li Jiuhe withdrew his gaze from the corpse, remaining silent and vigilant.
He'd already killed several members of the Guan family inside; after all, they wanted to kill him, so reciprocating was only natural.
He looked around before asking, "What's the date today?"
Luo Shuo said, "This is the fourth day since you entered the Boundary Stone."
Li Jiuhe frowned.
Unlike the Morning Bell of the Second Seventh, the time inside the Boundary Stone was originally the same as the real world. However, upon closer inspection, he kept resetting his tasks inside, causing the time inside to keep regressing and repeating as his tasks were reset.
So although he only spent three days in Yecheng, it was already the fourth day in the real world.
"Luo Shuo, have you found out whereabouts or identities of these people?"
Luo Shuo nodded and pointed to the skeleton: "This is a member of the Guan family of Xiongfeng Ridge. The deceased has the contact aura of at least six people on him. These six people should have entered the Boundary Stone with you."
"Have you ever heard of the Guan family before?" Li Jiuhe asked.
In his mind, Luo Shuo had traveled all over the country and used to steal frequently, so he should have heard of the family's reputation to some extent.
After all, this family seemed to have a large number of Sequence Users, which was completely beyond his previous understanding, making Li Jiuhe feel that conventional concepts or some existing order had been broken.
To his surprise, Luo Shuo shook his head: "Never heard of it. It seems this family has quite a few Sequence Users. How is that possible? Aren't Sequence Users supposed to be self-awakened? Can they be mass-produced?"
Listening to their conversation, Ma Li stood there dumbfounded, unable to get a word in edgewise.
"You've never even heard of it?"
Li Jiuhe suddenly realized that there might be more secrets about the sequence behind this matter.
Did you tell Minister Shao Gang?
"Not yet," Luo Shuo said. "He's definitely been contacting you these past few days. I don't know exactly what happened to you, and I'm worried about ruining your plans, so I haven't dared to show myself."
"Let's go find him." Li Jiuhe grabbed the Boundary Stone in his hand.
He immediately sensed the Houning Dynasty world operating within the boundary stone, but at the same time, he clearly knew that this world would disappear in about two hours.
According to the operating rules of the Boundary Stone, after the old world disappears, it will quickly condense into a new world and then continue to operate.
As for whether the disappearance of the old world meant its complete annihilation or merely a temporary replacement, Li Jiuhe was no longer certain.
After entering Biancheng last time, he thought that Biancheng was just a fiction and could not possibly exist, so its disappearance meant complete annihilation.
But this time in Yecheng, the people there felt like real, living people, each with their own personality and behavior patterns. They even created a ghost array in Yecheng to fight for the throne.
This doesn't look like it was just created; it feels like the Later Ning Dynasty has been running autonomously for who knows how long.
He doesn't know much about Boundary Stones yet, but he guesses that he might gain a better understanding of this sequence item, which is no less rare than the Morning Bell of the Twenty-Seventh Day, after he comes into contact with more worlds within Boundary Stones.
Li Jiuhe took a shower at the hotel, and Ma Li immediately ran downstairs to buy him a new set of clothes, even disposable underwear.
When asked how she knew Li Jiuhe's clothing size, Ma Li frankly admitted that she had secretly observed and memorized the handsome man's size.
Li Jiuhe and Luo Shuo left the hotel and went to the dormitory first. They took his bag and put the Boundary Stone inside.
The two then went straight to Minister Shao Gang's office.
Ma Li stayed at the hotel to dispose of Guan Xin's body.
Shao Gang was in a meeting on the top floor when he heard that Li Jiuhe was waiting for him in his office, so he immediately left the meeting room and rushed over.
It's clear that he was very concerned about Li Jiuhe's sudden disappearance over the past few days.
Because of his connection with Tong Cheng, Li Jiuhe also believed that Shao Gang was the person he could trust the most at the moment.
"We arranged to meet last time, where have you been these past few days?" Shao Gang asked as soon as he entered the door.
He knew that Li Jiuhe wouldn't suddenly disappear without a special reason.
After saying that, he glanced at Luo Shuo again.
In Shao Gang's view, the two of them must be doing something important together.
Li Jiuhe didn't hide anything: "Minister Shao, I'm sorry, I was being chased the night before our meeting—"
"Pursuit! Who is it?" Shao Gang asked solemnly.
"The Guan family of Xiongfengling —"
The moment Li Jiuhe uttered those five words, Shao Gang's expression suddenly changed. He coughed, and the atmosphere in the entire office froze. The desk, sofa, filing cabinet, and even the bodies of the three people in the room were suddenly covered by a light gray layer, giving people an indescribable sense of illusion.
It's as if this isn't the real world anymore, but a dream!
Luo Shuo was startled by this scene, but Li Jiuhe was not afraid because his mission line was always running.
Immediately, Shao Gang closed the office door behind him and sat down on the sofa opposite the two of them.
Throughout this process, the entire office was filled with a faint sense of unreality, giving people a hazy, dreamlike feeling that everything was unreal.
Shao Gang said, "Don't be nervous. I've set up some abilities here. Now you can speak."
Li Jiuhe asked in surprise, "Is the Guan family of Xiongfeng Ridge very powerful?"
Shao Gang nodded: "They have a lot of influence; even the director of the General Administration has to give them some face."
Li Jiuhe was even more surprised: "I always thought our Investigation Bureau was the most powerful entity in the entire Tian Shu Kingdom."
"Me too," Luo Shuo added.
Shao Gang shook his head: "We are only the most powerful organization on the surface, and we are only authorized by the state to deal with those who fall under the Sequence. In reality, there are many Sequence members that we cannot control, or rather, we can only turn a blind eye to them."
"Just how powerful is this family?" Li Jiuhe asked.
"They are very powerful. Their clan elders have close ties with the highest levels of the government and even possess some of the most secret information in the sequence diagram."
"Sequence diagrams? Aren't our own research institutions still working on that?"
"The relationship between Tian Shu Kingdom and these families is very delicate. They seem to be cooperating, but in reality, they are also testing and checking each other," Shao Gang said. "We can only rely on ourselves. Those families will never provide us with the sequence diagram information. If we can control this sequence diagram ourselves, the country will not have to rely on these families in the future and will have complete autonomy."
"Then let's not ask any further," Luo Shuo said hastily.
He seemed to remember something, and his forehead was covered in large beads of sweat.
"Why did you provoke the Guan family?" Shao Gang asked, puzzled.
"It might be because of Si Mingyu." Li Jiuhe took out the black box and placed it in front of Shao Gang.
Shao Gang looked at the black box, frowned slightly, and slowly reached out to touch it.
"This is a box made of pure spiritual energy, containing a spiritual imprint. It can only be opened under certain conditions."
His words made Li Jiuhe suddenly realize that it was highly likely that the conditions for opening the black box would only be triggered after he died.
"Where did you get this?" Shao Gang asked.
"It's on the Guan family," Li Jiuhe replied.
"Put it away first, and don't let anyone else see it," Shao Gang reminded him.
Li Jiuhe carefully put away the black box and reminded him, "And Guan Guangwei from the Information Department, he's also—"
Shao Gang nodded before he could finish speaking: "I know."
"He's most likely dead too," Li Jiuhe added.
Shao Gang was slightly taken aback, then thought for a moment and said, "I'll handle this. Since this matter involves Si Mingyu, the Guan family won't dare to act openly, because everyone knows that Si Mingyu belongs to the evil sequence and committed heinous crimes in Wangchuan City. He was executed by you on behalf of the General Bureau some time ago."
Li Jiuhe has already reported to headquarters that he killed Si Mingyu in Xingtai City, but he has not yet personally reported to Shao Gang.
Shao Gang continued, "I've spoken to the head of the Operations Department and asked him to intentionally leak information that our headquarters has discovered certain families with connections to Si Mingyu's case, without specifying which families. This will deter them from taking any rash actions, at least for the time being."
Li Jiuhe asked, "How many other clans like the Guan family are there that maintain a secret lineage?"
Shao Gang made a "three" gesture: "This is only in our country. Tian Shu also has similar sequence families abroad, or rather, organizations that are more precise."
After saying that, he got up and walked to a filing cabinet. He pressed some button, and the filing cabinet moved away, revealing a dark room in the office. It was pitch black, and you couldn't see anything from that angle.
Shao Gang walked straight in without letting Li Jiuhe and the other person follow.
They sat on the sofa without moving. After a moment, Shao Gang walked out of the dark room, holding a Nuo opera mask that Li Jiuhe had never seen before.
The mask is predominantly red, extremely bright and exaggerated. The human face on the mask has a split mouth that almost reaches the base of the ears, with four fangs sticking out of the mouth. The teeth are sharp and long, and the eyes are vertical pupils with a bluish tinge.
Shao Gang, holding the Nuo opera mask, returned to the sofa and sat down. "Tong Cheng, that guy, doesn't like to talk much. He just buries himself in his work and rarely interacts with others. You might not know that his teacher is the Sequencer Nuo Mask Man," someone even I greatly admire.
Li Jiuhe and Luo Shuo immediately became interested.
Because Tong Cheng rarely talks about these things, they only vaguely heard a few words from him during the time they spent with him.
"The masked man's surname is Xu, and we all call him Teacher Xu," Shao Gang said. "When he was young, he was a legend among the Special Investigators of the General Bureau. Later, when he got older, he became the mentor of all the Special Investigators. His favorite student was Tong Cheng. Although no one knows the specific reason, I think it has something to do with the fact that he himself is a masked man and Tong Cheng is an opera singer. After all, they are sequencers on the same sequence line."
Li Jiuhe and Luo Shuo exchanged a glance.
The two of them had the same thought at that moment, and couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
In the same sequence they saw last time, Zhou Yiwen and Fang Yi were also master and disciple, but Fang Yi schemed against, plundered, and killed Zhou Yiwen in various ways.
In order to seize Zhou Yiwen's sequence ability, Fang Yi completely obeyed Si Mingyu's orders and used every means possible, even abandoning his own mother.
In the end, however, he suffered a gruesome fate, being decapitated.
But Tong Cheng and his teacher were the opposite. Even though the Nuo masked man had been gone for so long, Tong Cheng was still searching for him and never gave up.
The fate of a Sequencer has nothing to do with which Sequence Line they are on or what Sequence abilities they possess. Ultimately, Sequencers are still human beings, and they also have desires, greed, and the pursuit of higher status and stronger abilities.
If the direction is wrong, it will lead to two completely different results, such as Fang Yi, whose conscience is corrupted by desire, and Tong Cheng, who respects his teachers and does not forget his original intention.
Shao Gang glanced at the Nuo mask in his hand and said to Li Jiuhe, "Actually, before you came back, I had already tried to contact Tong Cheng in my dreams, but it didn't work. Just now I remembered that Teacher Xu has a Nuo mask with me. If he and his apprentice are both in the wooden house now, I should wear this Nuo mask to sleep and then enter the dream world to meet them. That should significantly increase the probability."
Upon hearing this, Li Jiuhe was immediately shaken.
He had rushed back to headquarters to ask Shao Gang to try communicating with Tong Cheng in a dream, but it turned out that Shao Gang had already thought of this and had already tried it, but it hadn't worked yet.
The idea of wearing the Nuo mask to sleep was something Shao had just come up with.
Without further ado, Shao Gang took out a small medicine bottle, poured out a pill, and swallowed it.
"Although I am a dream master, I usually have very poor sleep quality and need sleeping pills to fall asleep. I haven't been sleeping well these past few days, so please keep an eye on things for me while I take a nap."
"Okay." Li Jiuhe and Luo Shuo nodded at the same time.
Shao Gang casually put the Nuo mask on his head and then lay down on the sofa.
The moment the Nuo mask was put on, a strange aura emanated from him, quickly taking over the minds of Li Jiuhe and Luo Shuo.
At this moment, the two felt as if their minds were a piece of soil that was originally quiet, but suddenly a large number of green grasses broke through the soil and grew wildly, frantically spewing out words such as "absurd", "weird" and "unconventional" that they could not have imagined at all.