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Chapter 1580 Final Chapter: Crossing the Sea [49] "Who Killed the Mockingbird (3)"

Tianyu's cool, clear eyes remained fixed on everything.

Her "Dual Cultivation System of Magic and Martial Arts" possesses the spell of remote surveillance, so after Su Ming'an and the pink-haired person teleported away, she kept observing Su Ming'an's actions.

From Tianyu's perspective, the experimental city was filled with the smell of blood and formaldehyde, but Su Ming'an's expression was relaxed as if he had smelled the beautiful wisteria flowers.

Neither of them knew the way, so they could only run forward with their heads down. The pink-haired man's light blue, slightly curly long hair fluttered in front of him, like a hundred flowers blooming one by one.

They remained silent the whole way, but the pink-haired man spoke first: "Su Ming'an, how can I truly kill you?"

Su Ming'an reacted calmly, as if he had misheard: "Answer a few questions for me."

"what is the problem?"

"If one day you become a very bad person, what would be the reason?"

The pink-haired man looked at the trembling white stone in his arms, gently raised his index finger, and shushed him: "I have become a very bad person."

Tianyu watched from the sidelines, assuming the pink-haired person would answer casually, but to her surprise, the pink-haired person said a lot:
"But compared to this world, I am nothing as a bad person."

“I have seen the children of the world deceived by two demons, becoming accomplices of false gods, and destroying half the world with a blazing sun.”

"I once saw a young man who dreamed of becoming a pilot, who eventually died from persecution in the light of day."

“I have seen the flames of the nest rise into the sky, while in the shadows my companions devour their own flesh and blood.”

"There is everything ugly, but there is also everything beautiful."

"I once saw a girl with orange eyes, contentedly closing her eyes in her brother's arms."

"I once saw a group of guys with ears, who picked up bloody blades and plunged them into their own chests while dancing absurdly."

"I once saw a boy lift us up high; he realized his glorious dream."

“I have seen liars die from the truth, the greedy are eroded by restraint, the arrogant perish by humility, the fickle are destroyed by stubbornness, the superficial are trapped by heaviness, the undisciplined die by perseverance, the closed-minded are submerged by change, the deconstructive perish from their origins, the cowardly lose courage, the presumptuous fall into their duties, and the usurpers drown in their true selves.”

"I have seen the devout awaken in paradox, the anaerobic extinguished by gentleness, the noisy deafened by heavenly music, the dreamless sleep in ideals, the prying blinded by openness, the blasphemous feared by piety, the hypocritical crumbled by truth, the passionate wounded by devotion, and the immortal silenced in a moment."

"I have also seen a cunning person who is clumsy in sincerity, a person who is disgusted by tolerance, a person who conforms to the crowd who loses their individuality, a person who flatters who is contemptible for pride, a person who is blasphemous who is lost in divinity, a person who escapes the world who is bound by worldly ties, and a person who is indifferent who is devoid of sincerity."

Tianyu listened in astonishment as the pink-haired person spoke so much. Judging from the pink-haired person's tone, this wasn't just a simple parallel structure; it was as if each phrase corresponded to a specific person.

For a moment, she felt that she was also part of this vocabulary.

Only someone who has observed the world so deeply could utter such lengthy words. She hadn't heard many of the things the pink-haired man mentioned.

"Which word refers to me?" Tianyu thought with a chilling dread: "The arrogant perish from humility? The indifferent are devoid of sincerity?"

Finally, the pink-haired man chuckled softly:
"I really don't know what's wrong with this world."

"I don't know who we can become."

Then, Su Ming'an pointed to the white stone in her arms:
"You've decided to sell it? It's not your property."

"Want to try to change it?" the pink-haired man said. "Eat it, or... let it go?"

“He is life, and you have no right to sell him. You can come to our little world, where you can have a rich life, eat your fill, and even sing on stage,” Su Ming’an said.

"Hehe..." The pink-haired woman laughed at this irrelevant answer. She weighed the scythe in her hand repeatedly, as if judging whether she could kill Su Ming'an completely if she acted now.

Suddenly, Su Ming'an opened a wooden box, inside which were—smooth, clean stones. He picked up the stones and put them into his mouth one by one.

"Crunch crunch..." Bai Tuan had excellent teeth and bit down effortlessly. As he swallowed one piece after another, Su Ming'an's expression became more and more relaxed, as if he had taken a large batch of special medicine.

The pink-haired man raised an eyebrow and muttered to himself, "...So that's how it is."

Tianyu frowned as he watched, feeling that the world was no longer normal, and that madmen were everywhere. This bizarre scene, these two people who seemed to be on completely different paths, was filled with a silent, chilling absurdity.

"How long has he been in this state?" Tianyu frowned. "He hypnotized himself? No, more than that, it must be some kind of extremely strong external stimulus that forced him to protect his sanity in this way... Why did he suddenly go crazy? He was perfectly fine before..."

“Because according to… the normal schedule,” Bei Wang suddenly spoke, as if waking from a dream: “We are now… finished.”

According to the normal progress, everything about saving the world is now over. Su Ming'an has become the world lord of the small world, or the organizer, and is able to recuperate in peace, travel around the world, recover his spirit, and is about to celebrate his twentieth birthday.

However, fate took a dramatic turn at the end. Su Ming'an, who should have reached the conclusion, was intercepted by the mischievous demon and learned a great deal about the awakened ones. At that moment, Su Ming'an decided not to end the world game, but instead to bravely challenge the narrowest and most difficult golden path, choosing to look back and embark on a brand new journey.

This is equivalent to extending the story by a considerable margin. He was unwilling to end the first half of the story "from front to back" and insisted on turning to the second half of the book "from back to front".

Having traversed eleven dungeons, his limit was in those final few days. If he could get through that, he would have a long time to heal his wounds. But he insisted on pushing his limits, dragging his battered soul back onward.

Like an inflated balloon, it floats to its limit into the sky, only to find that beyond the sky is still the sky. With a "pop," the balloon bursts as the air is released.

After breaking through the limit, what follows is a long and painful process of stumbling and falling.

Even now, Su Ming'an doesn't know if his decision to flip back in time was wrong. If he hadn't died and rewound, everyone should already be in the small world, enjoying a happy and free life.

He insisted on continuing the second half, determined to unravel those unknown mysteries.

He insisted on choosing the most difficult path, clinging to a perfect score.

He torments himself, and he torments others as well.

He met the pink-haired man, Ming, Phoenix... these unexpected people.

He wondered if he would make the journey worse, even worse than the initial ending.

He doubted that even if he persisted, he might not be able to reach a better outcome.

He suspected that he had given up on a happy ending and chosen a path that might lead to an endless abyss.

These feelings of confusion, doubt, pain, and disgust reached their peak the moment they saw Ming's betrayal.

There was a "pop" sound.

The balloon burst.

He went mad.

"Beiwang, what did you mean by what you just said?" Tianyu asked, puzzled.

However, Bei Wang fell asleep again, and his sleep time seemed to be getting longer and longer. He often said things he shouldn't have known.

Soon, the suit-clad robot stopped Su Ming'an and the pink-haired man. He cited the history of the nightingale to prove the cruelty of this world, trying to tempt the pink-haired man to swallow the stone. The pink-haired man stood with his arms crossed, completely ignoring them.

Only Su Ming'an was putting on a one-man show, trying to persuade "Shi Ying" to let Bai Shitou go.

This bizarre scene made the suit-wearing robot's teeth ache. He stared at the madman in fear for several moments before quickly looking away.

“Wait…” Su Ming’an pressed down on Shi Ying’s (pink-haired) hand.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a figure standing in the corner. A head of beautiful, vibrant pinkish-blue wavy hair, and an exquisitely carved mask.

—It's the pink-haired person (Shi Ying)!
The pink-haired woman (Shi Ying) had been standing in the corner for some time, as if she had been listening for a long time.

From Tianyu's perspective, Shiying stood in the corner for a long time, listening to the robot talk.

Then, Shi Ying swung her sword and pierced the robot.

Phoenix then appears, about to join forces with the pink-haired man to snatch the white stone from Shi Ying's hands.

“Nightingale, calm down, okay?” Phoenix looked at Nightingale: “Sell me the white stone, don’t swallow it.”

Shi Ying hugged the white stone tightly. Her head was down, and she seemed to be struggling violently.

"The only way to stop her from swallowing the white stone is to kill her," the pink-haired man said. "Phoenix, let's join forces."

She took out a sickle.

Phoenix thought for a moment, nodded, and raised his sword feathers towards Shi Ying.

Su Ming'an narrowed his eyes.

He suddenly laughed in a terrifying way:
"Ha, hahaha... hahahaha... so that's how it is... so that's how it is..."

At that moment, his keen senses as the top player made him realize where the incongruity lay.

So that's it, the senses are deceiving us.

Even if he's gone mad, he has to keep going. The most painful days were the periods of extreme mental exhaustion in White Sand Paradise and the Vault of Heaven, and he survived those times, so he can't succumb to madness now.

Looking at the pink-haired person so close at hand, and at Shi Ying in the corner, in the tense moment, Su Ming'an did something no one expected—

Detonate here.

At worst, we'd rather die together than have the white stone stolen by the sober pink-haired man.

"--boom!!!!"

The flames engulfed everything, including Tianyu's shocked eyes.

……

When Su Ming'an woke up under the rubble, he saw a pink-haired man with broken legs who was unconscious.

But he knew that this person was Shi Ying.

However, when his mental state was extremely poor, his senses of sight, hearing, touch, and smell all rushed up at once, overwhelming his senses and deceiving him.

His poor mental state may also be due to the lucidity of the conscious—he has entered the dreams of the lucid more than once, and Noel had warned him not to approach the lucid.

"Noel mentioned the lifespan of the soul. Does that mean the more one comes into contact with conscious individuals, the more the soul is worn down? Especially since I'm already at my limit, the damage to my soul is multiplied..." Su Ming'an pondered.

The damage from punching a healthy person is completely different from the damage from punching a dying person. Su Ming'an happens to be the latter.

If it were his original form, he could activate the "Dawn of Immortality" skill to forcibly maintain the best mental state, but unfortunately, he can only rely on willpower to endure it now.

He reached out and removed the mask from the pink-haired woman (Shi Ying)—

He had expected to see Xiaobai's face, Pudding's face, Iguler's face, or Shiying's own face...

However, what appeared before him was—

……

A face without features.

……

Su Ming'an: "..."

Seeing this in the dark was a bit frightening. He pinched the other person's cheek and realized that "there is no more beautiful mask under the mask," so he gave up.

“I see Shi Ying as the pink-haired person, and the pink-haired person as Shi Ying, so this is either the pink-haired person’s face or Shi Ying’s face. But what I see is a face without features, so is it possible that the pink-haired person never had features?” Su Ming’an was puzzled: “Who exactly is she?”

"Cough!" He suddenly coughed violently, coughing up some small particles, which were fragments of stone.

He had just eaten quite a few stones, but his mouth only tasted of rose blood. He had placed those stones in the wooden box beforehand, warning himself not to eat rose blood lightly, but he had ended up eating the stones cleanly as well.

He coughed a few more times, and suddenly there was a noise from below.

The pink-haired woman (Shi Ying) slowly opened her eyes, was stunned for a moment, and cried out in pain: "Ah, my leg... my leg is trapped! It hurts so much..."

"You must be Shi Ying," Su Ming'an said.

"Are you crazy? I'm the one who's after you," the pink-haired man said.

Su Ming'an simply closed his eyes and ears, only listening to the other party's thoughts under "spy mode".

(Yes, I am Shi Ying.) The voice came through my mind.

"It's alright, I can hear your thoughts." Although what he heard was wrong, his thoughts were right. He seemed to have found the right way to perceive the world.

...But this can't go on. Once we get back, we need to get some real mental recovery drugs to forcefully boost our mental state, even if it's stimulants or drugs. These are the last few days; we can't afford to collapse before dawn...

"You rest first, I'll move all the stones away," Su Ming'an said.

(Should I not sleep now?) Shi Ying looked at her legs, which had lost a lot of blood.

"Okay. Hold on a little longer. The white stone is no longer in our hands. We don't know where it was blown up."

(Shall I sing you a song? That's all I'm good for anyway.)
"Just don't fall asleep."

Su Ming'an didn't know if one's innermost thoughts could be expressed through song.

But soon, he heard a light, pure, and clean singing voice.

The songs of the Nightingale tribe are not soft or decadent, but rather filled with the pride and purity of singing from the branches, like a bugle call on the battlefield or a sacred song in a pre-battle ceremony.

Su Ming'an couldn't tell whether this was a product of sensory delusion or a genuine song coming from her throat. Even though she had lost the abilities of her ancestors, her singing voice remained unchanged.

(If I had known that I could win over a seven-star like you with my singing, I wouldn't have bothered exchanging for that 'sparkling eyes' and wasting my points.) As if sensing Su Ming'an's appreciation, Shi Ying couldn't help but think to herself.

"Sincerity is the most powerful weapon in winning someone over," Su Ming'an said calmly.

In the dark and cramped space, the pure singing voice rang out once again.

She hummed a free country tune, while he carved out the light of day piece by piece.

……

"Cough...cough cough cough!"

Phoenix crawled out of the rubble in a disheveled state, his once-splendid blond hair now covered in dust.

He smacked himself off, dusted himself off, pulled a cloth bag from his pocket, and quickly assembled the parts inside. Soon, a small camera appeared in his hand.

He snapped his fingers, and the camera flew into the sky, pointing at him and the ruins beneath his feet.

“Alright, Noel Agnes,” Phoenix muttered to himself, “I’ll take care of the secrecy for you in the second half.”

"Rest in peace in that bizarre and wonderful dream."

……

Siber opened her eyes and found herself in a lush forest.

She looked around but didn't see Su Ming'an.

"Where is Su Ming'an? Didn't we end up together?" She closed her eyes to sense the surroundings and found that there was no trace of Su Ming'an within a thousand miles, but she was still in Rovasa.

Suddenly, the forest caught fire, and she stepped into a patch of mud.

After a moment of stunned silence, she looked out into the distance and saw a tall, black wall standing at the edge of the forest.

……