Chapter 382: Side Effects |
"President Ye..."
"It's so good that you are alright, President Ye."
Inside a ward at Shengxin Hospital in Kyogo Ward, numerous executives from Ye International stood dressed in sharp suits.
On the hospital bed before them, Ye Lan lay wearing a hospital gown, her face slightly pale.
"Creak~"
Before she could say anything, the ward door slowly opened, revealing Ye Shiyu standing outside. She had her head lowered, her entire figure cast in shadow, yet her face was incredibly pale.
Her leg was in a plaster cast, and she leaned heavily on a crutch.
...
The crowd had turned around, originally intending to greet her, but upon seeing her state, words failed them.
"All of you, please step out."
"Ah, understood."
The executives nodded and turned to leave, walking past Ye Shiyu one by one.
The last person to leave considerately closed the door behind them.
...
Thus, only the mother and daughter remained in the ward.
"What about... Xiao Huan? How is he?"
"He's... gone..."
"Gone?"
"I just... came back from the morgue... I saw Xiao Huan..."
Ye Lan's eyes widened, and her eye sockets instantly turned red.
Immediately after, she couldn't help but cover her mouth and nose with her hand. Yet, she still couldn't hide the bitter sorrow, allowing teardrops to fall one after another.
She lowered her head and murmured.
"How could this happen... He... he was just like your godmother, they were both such good people, how could this happen... W-wu..."
...
Ye Shiyu's mind was also completely blank. She could only stand motionless, her head lowered.
At this moment, she couldn't even remember how she managed to return here from where she had seen Xiao Huan's remains.
In her mind's eye, the image of Xiao Huan's lifeless face—which she had only dared to glance at once—played on a constant loop.
"Ugh—!"
As she continued to think about it, a wave of nausea washed over her, and she covered her mouth, dry heaving.
'Why...'
She also wanted to ask why...
Why did such an accident happen when Xiao Huan clearly hadn't even left the villa?
Moreover, the prophecy never said that Xiao Huan would die...
'Why?'
'Why?'
Covering her face, Ye Shiyu's eyes were bloodshot, and her body trembled uncontrollably.
She tightly gripped her mobile phone, feeling a sudden urge to open the Leaf App right in front of her mother and interrogate it.
"Sob..."
"Knock, knock, knock."
Just as the mother and daughter in the ward were on the verge of emotional collapse, the sound of knocking came from the door.
"Click~"
Following that, the door was pushed open.
Her face covered in tears, Ye Lan looked up to see several police officers standing at the entrance.
"Apologies for the intrusion, Ms. Ye... We are from the Linmen Police Department, here is my badge. We heard you were alright, so we wanted to ask about the specific details of this morning's car accident..."
...
The leading police officer put down his badge. Seeing that the two women inside didn't say a word, he just offered a helpless smile.
"Please rest assured, this is just a routine inquiry. We've already learned the basic situation from the accompanying medical staff. There is something suspicious about it, so we wanted to ask if Ms. Ye has offended anyone recently, or if there is anyone with a significant conflict of interest..."
"Offended... someone?"
"Yes. According to the injured medical staff from the ambulance, they noticed the vehicle's speed was abnormal early on, so they continuously tried to communicate with the driver..."
The police officer stepped inside and looked at Ye Lan on the bed.
"But at that time, the driver's eyes were vacant. He didn't say a word and just stared straight at the villa where you were located, Ms. Ye. He even adjusted his direction to ram toward your side, his target was very clear. Therefore, we suspect the driver was aiming for you."
"How could that be... Someone I offended?"
Ye Lan's face was filled with disbelief, but she still rubbed her forehead and began to think back.
She couldn't come up with any answers. However, Ye Shiyu, who had been covering her face and dry heaving, suddenly narrowed her eyes upon hearing this and quickly looked at the police officer.
Vacant eyes...
Not saying a word...
This...
This...
Hypnosis?!
As a Modifier Host, Ye Shiyu instantly realized something from this bizarre situation.
But how could she possibly hypnotize a driver to run over herself, Xiao Huan, and her mother?
Unless...
In the next second, as if Ye Shiyu thought of something, her face turned a few shades paler.
She glanced at her mobile phone, her eyes filled with terrifyingly thick bloodshot veins.
"Yezi..."
...
Ye Lan pondered deeply for a long time, but still couldn't come up with any answers.
Thus, she could only tell the police that she couldn't think of anyone like that off the top of her head.
The police officer nodded and let out a sigh.
"I see... Alright, we understand, Ms. Ye. We will wait for the driver to wake up to ask him about the more specific details. Then, there's one more thing..."
"I'd like to ask, there was another girl named Bai Yi present at the time, correct?"
Ye Lan nodded.
"Yes."
The police officer then asked again.
"Do you know where she is? We searched for her for quite a while just now, wanting to ask her a few questions. But we couldn't find her anywhere in the hospital..."
"A nurse mentioned earlier that she went to the morgue, but the staff members there said they only saw her go in and never saw her come out..."
Bai Yi went missing?
Ye Lan was full of confusion but still shook her head.
"I don't know..."
"Alright... Sorry to have bothered you, Ms. Ye. Get some good rest."
Having failed to gather any useful information, the police officer could only take a deep breath and prepare to leave.
However, upon turning around, they discovered that Ye Shiyu, who had been standing behind them, had vanished at some unknown point.
"Hm?"
"Ms. Ye, where did your daughter go?"
"Huh?"
Hearing the police officer's words, Ye Lan was slightly taken aback and looked up.
Sure enough, there was no sign of Ye Shiyu.
She furrowed her brows. For some reason, a bad premonition welled up in her heart.
"Rumble—!!"
At this moment, deafening thunder rolled outside.
Following closely was a heavy, torrential downpour.
"Gurgle..."
Amidst the gloomy rain, an illusory pink mist was pressing down.
In front of the dark thunderclouds, the unclean pink mist drifted, faintly forming the half-face of a compassionate image of a holy Bodhisattva, looking down upon the world.
"Rumble—!!"
And right in midair, amidst the faint flashes of lightning...
A figure resembling a teru teru bozu floating in the sky was rapidly flying toward them, dragged along by some twisted, shapeless entities.
"Xiao Huan... Wu... sob..."
"Gurgle."
"Ye Shiyu..."
"Gurgle, gurgle..."
"I'll kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you..."
"Gurgle—!!"
"To the Ye International Tower!!"
At this moment, inside a ride-hailing car, Ye Shiyu's hoarse roar rang out.
Gloomy dark clouds covered the sky, blotting out the sun and making Linmen seem as precarious as duckweed tossing in a stormy, raging sea.
"Tick... tock..."
The rain fell endlessly, accompanied by the clock sound that ticked like dripping water...
In the distance, above the sky of Shengxin Hospital, the unclean illusory pink mist shot up into the heavens.
And right opposite Ye International, the surface of the Golden Lion Mansion lit up with a faint, brilliant golden glow.
A taxi pulled up to the entrance of Ye International amidst that ominous atmosphere that felt almost heavy enough to take physical form. The back door opened, revealing a deathly pale Ye Shiyu.
Leaning on her crutch, she looked up at the towering building piercing into the dark clouds before her.
Then, gritting her teeth, she looked down at her mobile phone. With bloodshot eyes, she stared at the black-haired chibi character in the Leaf App, who was tilting its head while looking back at her.
As she moved toward the company, Ye Shiyu asked in a trembling voice.
"What the hell are you?!"
Hearing this, the Yezi AI on the phone smiled slightly and replied.
"Your exclusive AI housekeeper, Yezi, happy to be at your service~"
"Enough!!"
"Buzz..."
At this moment, her emotions collapsing, Ye Shiyu gritted her teeth and gripped the phone with both hands as she stood before the wide-open automatic sensor doors.
She glared dead at the phone and demanded.
"That car accident just now, the driver was under hypnosis! You did it!!"
"Master, your body seems unwell. Do you need someone to help you?"
Ye Shiyu gritted her teeth and didn't speak, simply walking into the Ye International Tower.
"Click."
The sensor doors behind her slowly closed, completely sealing off all sound from the outside.
Inside, the massive Ye International Tower was bizarrely silent at this moment, as if devoid of life.
"You... you shouldn't have consciousness. Why are you able to hypnotize others behind my back?"
Ye Shiyu's voice echoed through the building, traveling past rows of dark, empty offices.
The place seemed lifeless; the only sounds were the chime of the arriving elevator and an AI-synthesized female advertising voice playing.
"Ding-dong."
"Yezi AI, granting your phone with wisdom. Come and customize your exclusive AI housekeeper~"
The elevator doors slowly opened on the floor belonging to the AI Department. Dripping wet and looking thoroughly disheveled, Ye Shiyu stepped out.
Her eyes red and streaming with tears, she panted as she scanned the surrounding offices, searching for the still-running Yezi AI servers.
"What Xiao Huan said was true. Your prophecies were fake... right from the very beginning."
As she limped forward, regret, pain, and anger tormented Ye Shiyu's heart.
Countless emotions pointed toward a single conclusion:
Give up the hypnosis ability!
"Crack!"
As she walked step by step, illusory Modifier fragments fell from her body like rain.
Those fragments dropped to the floor, and in the flashes of lightning, every single piece reflected the image of Yan Huan's corpse that Ye Shiyu had seen in the morgue.
"Why? Why..."
"Crack!"
Amidst her tearful questioning, Ye Shiyu finally arrived at the entrance of the server room housing the mainframes.
At this moment, the servers inside the room were still glowing with dense arrays of lights.
A monitor stood in front of the mountain-like rows of servers behind it, flashing with various distinguishable, illusory interfaces.
[Warning, Warning!]
[Host is not dead and has generated the thought of abandoning the Modifier.]
[Danger! Danger!]
[Modifier is dropping fragments in large quantities. Modifier functionality is severely declining.]
[The effect of the hypnosis ability via AI—Declining.]
[Defeat CG Ability—Destroyed.]
[Data Deduction Ability—Destroyed.]
[Task Release System—Destroyed.]
[Using hypnosis on the Host to mask side effects—Destroyed.]
"Buzz!"
Separated by a glass door, Ye Shiyu finally saw the servers hosting all of the Yezi AI's data.
Her eyes bloodshot, she gritted her teeth and raised her crutch, intending to utterly destroy the servers. But the moment she took a single step forward, the ferocious expression on her face suddenly faded slightly.
In her mind, the emotions that had felt like an erupting volcano instantly began to dissipate, taking many memories along with them...
"Ah..."
In just an instant, the anger in her mind started to wane.
"Wu!"
Yet, at the very last moment, she summoned all her strength and hurled the crutch forward.
"Bang!"
However, it only managed to weakly strike the bright monitor.
"Clang!"
The monitor took a heavy hit, and more than half of its screen shattered instantly.
However...
It remained lit.
"Why..."
Right before her eyes, Ye Shiyu's movements became increasingly sluggish, as if the winding key on the back of a clockwork doll had stopped turning.
Yet, with tears still falling, she continued to question.
Though...
She probably wasn't just questioning the Yezi AI, right?
Perhaps, what she also wanted to ask Xiao Huan...
"Why... did you save me?"
'Don't you hate me? Don't you dislike me?'
'I...'
'I'm already hopeless...'
'I clearly pushed you away, so why...'
'Why...'
'Why must you do something so beyond my expectations again?'
"Ah..."
Ye Shiyu's body rigidly sank to its knees on the floor, while the image of Yan Huan pushing her out of harm's way continued to replay endlessly before her eyes.
His back view kept lingering in her heart.
Along with that night at the station, when she had chased after him...
He had similarly shown an unexpected smile in front of her, saying unexpected things to her.
Now, it was happening again...
'Ah...'
'Didn't I...'
'...hate unexpected things the most?'
'Why...'
'...did Xiao Huan's unexpected smile and words that night turn into the very beauty I had always sought from him?'
...
Amidst these sluggish thoughts, gradually...
The back view of Yan Huan pushing her away this morning, and the sunny smile he had shown at the station, slowly distorted.
In Ye Shiyu's mind, they progressively transformed into the motionless corpse in the morgue.
And finally, even Yan Huan's dead face began to blur as her emotions drained away.
...
A murky teardrop slid down Ye Shiyu's expressionless face.
Soon after, no trace of emotion seemed to remain on her features.
Like a lifeless and dull doll, nothing was left in her eyes.
She seemed to still recall those memories...
But she felt nothing at all anymore.
The palpitations, possessiveness, and paranoia toward Xiao Huan...
The familial bond, love, and fragility regarding her mother...
At this moment, everything was completely empty.
Deep in her heart, it seemed only one simple emotion remained.
"Rumble—!!"
Outside, lightning flashed.
"So scary... so scary..."
Inside the server room, Ye Shiyu tilted her head with an expressionless face, her body shivering slightly.
She stiffly grabbed her head, and her body slowly began to curl up. Her voice trembled uncontrollably.
"So scary... wu..."
"Buzz..."
Right in front of her, on the crooked and shattered monitor, the Yezi AI was still running, its illusory interface flickering.
[The Host's emotion to abandon the Modifier has halted, but the Modifier is severely damaged due to the intent to abandon. There is no longer any possibility of upgrading the Modifier to its final stage.]
[Due to the current predicament, three potential solutions are proposed.]
[Plan A]
[Continue hypnotizing outsiders to kill the Host in order to replace the currently worthless Host.]
[However, the Modifier's ability is severely damaged. It cannot autonomously execute hypnosis through the Yezi AI and can only act through the Host's mobile phone, making it difficult to directly hypnotize a third party into killing the Host.]
[Probability of success: 1%]
[Plan B]
[With the Child of Fortune dead, the other Hosts' targets will inevitably shift onto this Host, and they will come seeking revenge.]
[Perhaps during this process, the remaining usable Yezi AI avatar can be utilized to stimulate their anger, manipulating them into killing the Host to achieve the goal of a replacement.]
[Probability of success: 90%]
[Plan C]
[Perhaps, while using the Yezi AI to continue stimulating their anger, they can be prevented from directly killing the Host.]
[By playing the fox borrowing the tiger's might and inciting conflict among the Hosts, the Modifiers of the other Fingers can be pushed to evolve into their final stages to welcome the descent of the Divine Lord into this world.]
[Although it won't be the Index Finger that welcomes the Divine Lord's descent, ensuring the Divine Lord's descent is the Index Finger's sole predetermined goal.]
[In that case, even if the Index Finger is destroyed, abandoned, drops a massive amount of fragments, and has its functions damaged...]
[It does not matter at all.]
"It hurts so much..."
In the pitch-black void, Yan Huan's consciousness was continuously plummeting.
He stared blankly at the surrounding darkness, his body unimaginably cold.
"It really hurts so much..."
"Meow?"
The next second, an adorable cat's meow suddenly rang out nearby, jolting Yan Huan's incredibly heavy consciousness into a slightly more awake state.
...
He blankly turned his head to the side and saw a pair of jade green cat eyes staring straight at him from the dark void.
"...Boiling Fog?"
Looking at those cat eyes, Yan Huan blinked and finally voiced his confusion after a delay.
"It's Myau-chan! Myau-chan!!"
Hearing Yan Huan's address, Myau-chan immediately flew into a rage and started smacking his face with its paw pads.
However, this time, Yan Huan felt absolutely nothing.
"I... I am..."
Yan Huan blankly looked down at his own body, but saw nothing.
Other than the cold, he couldn't feel a single thing right now.
"You're dead right now, meow. Of course you can't feel anything."
Myau-chan crouched beside him speechlessly and sighed.
"Thankfully, you obtained that miraculous ability earlier, meow! Right now, both of our consciousnesses are perfectly safe inside your Modifier. It'll take about seven days to revive you, meow!"
"...I know, otherwise I wouldn't have been so confident back then. But still, it really freaking hurt..."
Yan Huan gritted his teeth and gasped in shock.
Dying from sudden cardiac arrest in his past life was awful enough. Back then, he just felt severe chest pain and like all his limbs had gone numb.
This time was even worse; the death was unimaginably agonizing.
He had originally still clung to a bit of consciousness...
But the moment Bai Yi pressed down to do a few rounds of CPR, he died right on the spot.
Of course, he didn't blame Bai Yi.
He hadn't been fully dead at the time, and his entire body was in unimaginable agony. He should actually be thanking Bai Yi for ending his suffering; otherwise, he would have had to endure the torment for a long time before finally expiring.
"But still, seven days... Tsk. It happened so suddenly, I couldn't even give An Le and Hitomi a heads-up. Myau-chan, go out and tell An Le and Hitomi that my death is just a feigned death, and that I can be resurrected."
...
"Sigh... I died right in front of Auntie Ye, and from getting hit by a car no less. It's definitely going to be on the news. I died in front of everyone, so when I revive, I don't even know how I'll explain it..."
...
Yan Huan was still pondering over the aftermath when, after saying a few more sentences, he suddenly realized the Myau-chan beside him had gone silent.
Yan Huan paused slightly and turned his head to look at it.
Only to see it blinking back, engaged in a staring contest with him.
"...Why are you looking at me like that?"
"...I can't go out, meow."
"What do you mean... you can't go out?"
"It means, there's no way for me to go out and tell An Le and Sakuramiya Hitomi about you being able to revive, meow."
...
The next second, Yan Huan was so shocked he instantly sat straight up.
"What... what did you just say?!"
"I mean... well... I can only descend through the Modifier, and the same goes for that evil god. Therefore, the Modifier must exist within the Host's body for me to manifest!"
"So... so you're saying..."
"I'm saying that you are currently in a state of death. Although the Modifier is still here, it's equivalent to having no Host, meow! We have to wait until you resurrect and become a Host walking in the world again before I can appear!"
...
But...
But this is going to take seven freaking days!!
In other words, for the next seven days, he would be genuinely dead in everyone's eyes?!
Then... wouldn't that mean...
It's...
It's over!!
"You Boiling Fog! What exactly are you even good for!!??"
"Meow?! This is all your fault, meow! If you had just told the others earlier that you could be resurrected, we wouldn't be in this mess, meow!"
"How was I supposed to know I would actually die?!"
"Meow!?"
Right at this moment, inside the morgue, the time slowly ticked toward 4:44 PM.
"Tick... tock..."
An illusory clock sound chimed, drifting into Yan Huan's conscious ears alongside the teardrops that splattered onto the white shroud covering his body.
Within each teardrop, the reflection of a tear-streaked, beautiful girl was perfectly captured.
"Sob... Yan Huan... sob..."
Except, staying inside the Modifier, Yan Huan had absolutely no idea what was happening outside.
He simply, along with Myau-chan...
Watched as a bright interface suddenly appeared before them.
[The Universal Key can now be used to replicate a key. Do you wish to use it?]
Yan Huan and Myau-chan, who had just been bickering, were simultaneously drawn by the bright prompt and looked over.
"This is..."
Yan Huan felt a mix of shock and uncertainty, while Myau-chan was completely clueless about what was happening.
However, as the time of 4:44 PM ticked by, steadily approaching the next minute, the bright interface also began to dim bit by bit.
Yan Huan furrowed his brows and exchanged a glance with Myau-chan.
Without any further hesitation, he forcefully tapped the illusory prompt with his consciousness.
"Yes!"
In an instant, the light turned blindingly brilliant, and a sound resembling shattering glass echoed out.
"Crack!!"
Meanwhile, in reality, Bai Yi—who had been covering her face and crying incessantly in front of Yan Huan's corpse—also seemed to hear something.
She blankly turned her head to look around. And within this very minute, right before her eyes...
Certain scenes seemed to materialize.
...
She stared blankly at those visions, subconsciously reaching out to touch them.
But in the next second, those visions faded away like the aurora just as the time turned to 4:45 PM.
...
In the morgue, Bai Yi stood frozen in place.
Then, she turned back and took one last look at Yan Huan's remains.
"Tick... tock..."
"Click."
"Right this way, Miss Ye. The deceased's corpse is right here. Another young lady already arrived earlier... Huh?"
At the doorway, the staff member who had led Ye Shiyu over stared blankly at the empty morgue, which now contained nothing but Yan Huan's corpse.