In a high-level martial arts game, a wife is given to you at the start.

Chapter 991 The Real You?

The surrounding air seemed to freeze in that instant.

After the "person" nailed to the rock wall finished speaking, the entire narrow rock platform fell into a deathly silence. Grayish-white mist flowed silently among the crowd, and fluorescent blue harmonic light cast distorted shadows on the rock wall, making the expressions on everyone's faces appear uncertain.

Ajiu was the first to react.

Her hand had already gripped the dagger again. She took a step back, her gaze rapidly shifting between the "person" on the rock wall and Mr. Xun behind her. Her pupils reflected the completely different silhouettes of the two—one nailed to the rock wall, broken and barely alive; the other standing at the back of the group, holding a short cane, his aura steady. But the person nailed to the rock wall, the tattered robe he wore, the faded insignia of the Supervisory Council on his chest, and the face eroded beyond recognition by fluorescent blue patterns—the arch of his brow bone, the height of his cheekbones, the contour of his jaw—

If you peeled away those fluorescent blue cracks, if you restored your normal skin color, if that face hadn't twisted into that eerie smile—

That was Mr. Xun's face.

"That's impossible." A-Jiu's voice was dry, as if she had sand stuck in her throat. "Mr. Xun is right behind us—"

She stopped mid-sentence, realizing that no one else was responding.

Mo Yuan didn't respond. Lin Qiye didn't respond. Even Mr. Xun himself didn't respond.

This silence is more chilling than any response.

Lin Qiye's gaze fell on the "Mr. Xun" on the rock wall, then slowly turned to Mr. Xun behind him. His movements were not fast, even slow, but it was precisely this slowness that brought the tension in the air to its peak.

He was comparing the two people with his eyes.

Mr. Xun—let's call him that for now—was pinned to the rock face by four black bone spurs piercing his limbs. The flesh around the wounds was rolled back, an unnatural grayish-white, with no blood flowing, not even any to flow. His body was shriveled like a dried-up corpse, but the skin covering his bones was constantly writhing, as if countless tiny insects were crawling beneath it. Most unsettling were his eyes—those fluorescent blue eyes, though eerily colored, their pupils were focused clearly and precisely, firmly locked onto the real Mr. Xun.

The real Mr. Xun stood about three steps behind and to the side of Lin Qiye. His face changed the moment the "person" on the rock wall uttered those words, turning ashen and stiff. His knuckles gripped the short staff so tightly they turned white, the blue crystal at the top of the staff flickering erratically, casting shifting light on his face. His lips were pressed into a thin line, his gaze fixed on the monster on the rock wall that looked exactly like him, his pupils churning with extremely complex emotions—shock, anger, fear, and an indescribable bewilderment, like some deeply buried memory being suddenly unearthed.

He wasn't afraid of the monster.

He was afraid of why the monster was himself.

"Interesting." Mr. Xun, pinned to the rock wall, spoke again, his voice still hoarse, yet carrying an unsettling sense of pleasure, as if admiring a fine work of art. "Your expression—is truly amusing. You're wondering what I am, aren't you?"

The real Mr. Xun did not answer.

"Let me tell you." The monster tilted its head, at an angle far exceeding the normal range of motion of a human cervical spine, as if mimicking the movements of a living person but forgetting the skeletal structure of a living person. "I am not your copy, not your illusion, nor some kind of monster disguise. I am you. To be precise, you were sent by the Overwatch Council twenty-six years ago to carry out an exploration mission deep in the Canggu Mountains."

This sentence is like a pebble thrown into calm water, but instead of creating ripples, it creates a cold crack.

Twenty-six years ago.

Lin Qiye noticed that when the real Mr. Xun heard this time, his pupils contracted sharply—a reaction that only occurs when a very secret memory is touched, one that cannot be faked or concealed.

"Twenty-six years ago, you and five other deacons traveled along the path we're on now—no, back then there was no Rock Bone Pass, you took the Blackwater Canyon route—and entered the depths of the Azure Bone Mountains." The monster continued, its voice becoming smoother, as if telling a story it knew by heart. "Your goal was the same as ours—to investigate the source of the Bone Tower's anomaly. However, the scale of the Bone Tower's anomaly that year was much smaller than it is now, with the harmonic diffusion range only one-tenth of what it is now. The Oversight Council only routinely dispatched an exploration team, without even assigning high-ranking deacons, sending six mid-level deacons and one apprentice array master."

His grin widened, revealing two rows of fluorescent blue teeth: "That apprentice array master, that's you."

The real Master Xun's hand, gripping the short cane, began to tremble slightly. It wasn't a tremor of fear, but rather an uncontrollable tremor of memories buried deep within, bursting forth from the earth.

"What your team encountered deep in Blackwater Canyon—you can't remember, right? Because you've sealed that memory away. But you definitely remember that feeling: every morning when you woke up, you felt like someone was missing, but you couldn't remember who. Your captain told you everything was normal, the other team members told you everything was normal, and you convinced yourself that everything was normal. Until one morning, you woke up and found yourself the only one left in the entire camp. The other five were gone, no bodies, no bloodstains, no signs of a struggle, as if they had never existed."

The monster's voice became very soft, as soft as a breeze blowing up from the bottom of the abyss: "And you can't even remember their names. You still can't, right?"

Silence fell once again on the rocky platform.

Mr. Xun did not answer. But his silence itself was the answer.

Ajiu's face was deathly pale. She had seen all sorts of strange beasts, all sorts of dead people, and even withered bodies corrupted by the Bone Tower's harmonics, but she had never seen anything like this—a monster nailed to a rock wall, claiming to be one of her teammates, recounting events from many years ago in an extremely calm tone, events that were clearly true.

Mr. Xun's reaction has already explained everything.

"That year, you escaped from Blackwater Canyon," the monster continued, a barely perceptible hint of sarcasm in its voice. "You escaped alone. Back at the arena, you reported to the Oversight Council that the entire exploration team had perished, with only you surviving. The Oversight Council didn't hold you responsible because the danger of that area had been underestimated; it was already a miracle that a novice array master like you could return alive. Later, you continued your training, broke through your bottleneck, and rose to become the Oversight Council's chief array master, specializing in detection and defensive arrays. You became an expert in this field; everyone respected you, trusted you, and relied on you."

His voice suddenly became extremely low and hoarse, like sand grinding in his throat: "But have you ever considered—was it really you who escaped from Blackwater Canyon?"