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Chapter 1599 Final Chapter: Crossing the Sea [59] "The Struggle of the Nameless (2)"

“…Xiao Bai.” Su Ming’an pulled away.

The next moment he sensed something was wrong. Was Xiaobai so brazenly closing the distance because the cat boss was already familiar with her?
Xiao Bai, seemingly oblivious, pulled out a notebook: "I wrote a new IF line, take a look."

"IF line...?" Su Ming'an took the notebook and looked at the text on it:
……

Ever since her mother brought home a younger sister, Huiming'an's life has become increasingly difficult.

He played a beautiful piano piece, looking expectantly at his mother, but she spoke softly to his younger sister and asked him to go pick beans.

The beans were buried in the coal ash, making them especially difficult to pick. After picking the beans, Huiming'an still had to sweep the floor, cook, and wipe the ash...

[Until one day, Mom was invited to a piano dinner, leaving Huiming'an alone at home to clean.]

Suddenly, he heard a melodious voice—it was the legendary Fairy of the North, Xian Du Shui La! Seeing Hui Ming An suffering so much, Xian Du Shui La bestowed upon him magnificent robes and a pumpkin carriage, and sent him to a piano banquet.

However, Hui Ming'an, driving his pumpkin carriage, did not go to the banquet. Instead, he sped through the night, laughing heartily, heading towards distant freedom, gradually disappearing on the horizon...

He escaped that bleak family and met countless people: a white rabbit with a pocket watch, the little prince Su Liujin draped in gold leaf, Snow White Yueyue poisoned by her stepmother, Su Lin who traded his vocal cords for power from a mermaid, Alice Road who fell into a hole in the ground as a child, Little Red Riding Hood Siber who hunted the big bad wolf in the forest, Liang Shanbo Lu Shu who turned into a butterfly, and the white snake Yi Song who was suppressed under the tower...

……

Su Ming'an was dumbfounded.

What is Xiaobai writing?
"How is it?" Those ethereal eyes remained fixed on him.

“Uh.” Su Ming’an was speechless.

"Hmm." Xiaobai thought it was well-written and nodded. She paced back and forth, admiring it.

Su Ming'an looked down and flipped through Boss Cat's notes, and understood the situation.

—The Radiant Mother Goddess intends to cover up the only true timeline with an erroneous IF line.

The "Book of the World" records everything, and the "Soul Ferry" records everyone. As long as one possesses both, the power to construct the world is in one person's hands. With just a thought, everyone's life can be changed at will. Even if someone was an emperor in the past, they might be copied and become a beggar... If the Radiant Mother Goddess grasps the "writing power" of the entire world, she can give anyone any identity. For example, she can write Su Ming'an as Boss Rabbit and Xiao Bai as Hui Shuhang.

Thinking about it this way, "creative rights" are truly a terrifying thing. Everyone's personality, appearance, past, and even their entire life... can be altered. For example, someone might have a happy family, but someone could alter it to give them a younger sister.

"So, the [White Sand Paradise], [Mingxi Campus], [Floating City in the Sun]... in the Disciple Game are all IF scenarios?" Su Ming'an speculated.

“Of course, the Floating City in the Daytime is Elisa’s story, but Siyi and the bride never appeared. Mingxi Campus is Wang Xingkong and Shen Xue’s story, but the strange tales of rules never appeared.” Xiaobai said, “They are of course IF scenarios, possibilities that are completely different from the original world.”

So these disciple instances... are all attempts by Cat Boss and his companions to create an IF storyline.

As for the Nightingale Clan of the Vault... it's likely that the Radiant Mother Goddess is also trying to create an IF storyline.

It seems that Cat Boss and others hope to write the most perfect IF storyline to fight against the Radiant Mother Goddess and the awakened ones behind her.

"Finally, I've found the most crucial clue..." Su Ming calmed down, feeling as if he had grasped the thread.

He looked down and felt a sudden toothache; the IF lines written by this novice were really not good.

Xiao Bai seemed to sense his attitude and immediately reached out and snatched the notebook away: "I know my writing isn't good enough, not as good as yours."

Su Ming'an remained silent. It wasn't that the writing was bad, but it had a strong sense of inhumanity, like a story written by a pseudo-human…

Xiao Bai turned and left, intending to carefully revise her "exquisite story." Su Ming'an stepped forward and observed the Lin Clan members inside the glass jar.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.

"Dong dong."

The person who entered was a blond, blue-eyed young man with a smile on his face.

“…Hui Bi.” Su Ming’an wasn’t surprised to see him; Hui Bi was a game staff member.

"Boss Cat, something terrible has happened. The ghost stories have gone mad." Hui Bi said urgently as soon as she entered the door, "It must be that the story we created can no longer contain them."

"Going crazy?" Su Ming'an was taken aback.

He realized that the ghost stories here all had their own backstories. For example, the bloodied man was a teacher who was pushed off a building by a security guard and died. In the story of Mingxi Campus, the man's own story could be perfectly accommodated, so the man existed.

However, some of the backstories of ghost stories don't fit well with [Mingxi Campus]. When they realize that the story logic is different, they can no longer exist smoothly.

Su Ming'an pulled out Cat Boss's notes, which contained Cat Boss's test records for all the IF lines over the years, with various restrictions on the story's framework, logic, and character settings.

"Which direction went wrong?" Su Ming'an asked calmly.

“Because of that influx of players… a person named 'Phoenix' used words to influence the ghost stories, leading them to doubt the story and discover that it was just an IF storyline, not their real lives… They wanted to return to the real story, hence their madness.” Hui Bi spread her hands and said calmly, “A bunch of insatiable fools! What’s wrong with this place? An eternal campus, an eternal story, a utopia without prejudice or discrimination!”

Su Ming'an quickly flipped through Boss Cat's notebook and read aloud: "When the characters in a story begin to doubt the authenticity of the story, and then want to rebel or even break away... the best solution is to make them believe that they have already broken away."

He closed the book:
“Huibi, we’re going to stage a scene where you successfully escape from school.”

For a moment, he felt dazed.

In the White Sand Paradise instance, he had previously attempted the "escape route," only to discover that escape was nothing but a mirage, ultimately ending only with the burning of the school. Now, however, they are about to give those ghost stories a dreamlike escape.

“Understood, I’ll go write it right away,” Hui Bi said.

……

Lu Shu gripped the blade tightly, gazing at the frenzied dancing red butterflies before him.

【WARNING-009·Red Butterfly】 was originally a white-haired boy who died of illness in the forest. He had no money for medical treatment and died covered in sores. After his death, his body was eaten by insects and ants, and he transformed into a beautiful red butterfly. To defeat this ghost story, you need to write the words "good person" on your body.

“What is this…” Lu Shu gritted his teeth and wrote two words on his skin, feeling as if he was trapped in one story after another.

However, even after writing down those two words, the crazed red butterfly showed no sign of letting them go. Amidst the screams of the contestants, the red butterfly fluttered closer.

"Here!" Suddenly, a spirited female voice came from outside the woods. A blonde woman with orange eyes waved her arm, signaling them to come over.

Grasping at this straw, the group rushed over and burst into a laboratory.

With a loud thud, the blonde woman hurriedly closed the door, blocking the red butterfly.

People were still in shock, pressing themselves against the wall and panting heavily, when Geng Lan suddenly screamed and pointed ahead.

Following the direction she pointed, they saw a skeleton with flowing golden hair sitting in the laboratory. It was small and thin, with empty eyes.

"This is also a ghost story! It's [WARNING-005: The Blonde Skeleton in the Laboratory]!" Geng Lan screamed in terror, then quickly clung to Lu Shu in a sweet voice, "Brother Lu Shu, we're being attacked from both sides!"

The blonde, spirited woman coldly said, "Shut up! 005 is harmless. As long as you don't hurt it, it won't harm anyone. That's why I brought you here for temporary refuge!"

This spirited young woman, with her stunning beauty, bore a striking resemblance to the fairy Norl. Her familiarity with the school's layout suggested she wasn't a newcomer to the competition.

Gra-Gra-Gra-

The golden-haired skeleton stared at the crowd with its empty eyes, and even its bones were covered with surgical marks.

"Ew! What a scary ghost story! I wonder what sins they committed in their previous life." Geng Lan waved her hand dismissively.

Before she could whimper a few more times, "Bang!" she was kicked against the wall by Lü Shu and coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"Get out!" Lu Shu pointed his knife at Geng Lan, who immediately turned pale and, spitting blood, scrambled into the shadows.

Everyone fell silent, fearing they might get caught in the crossfire, and no one dared to question the strange tale before them.

Lu Shu guessed who the prototype of this strange tale was, but in any case, it was not up to an outsider who was dragging his feet to judge whether it was good or bad.

Suddenly, the blonde woman's expression hardened, and she grabbed Lu Shu's sleeve: "...Oh no, I sense some strange tales crossing the line. We can't stay here any longer; we need to keep moving."

She raised a kerosene lamp, its light seemingly dispelling the gloom. The contestants, like frightened chicks, were protected behind their mother hen.

Lu Shu had some guesses about the blonde woman's identity; perhaps she was a "player protector" or something similar? He never expected that such a kind person could exist in the bloody and cruel Disciple Game.

As dawn broke and the morning light became faintly visible, the iron-box-like teaching building was bathed in a soft, shimmering gold leaf. A group of people carefully circled around from the back of the building and entered the long corridor.

“The school building is relatively safe now… I know all the strange tales about this place,” the blonde woman said cautiously.

They climbed up the corridor and saw a middle-aged woman floating towards them from the shadows at the end, head down, playing a game. She had no legs and no head.

“That’s [WARNING-006: Middle-aged woman playing video games],” the blonde woman warned. “Answer its game questions and you’ll be safe.”

"Is she a gaming fanatic? It's rare to see someone her age who's a gaming fanatic," Zhou Sheng whispered.

"No." The blonde woman's answer puzzled Zhou Sheng.

The middle-aged woman kept her head down, but a voice escaped her lips:

"...Do you know...which level of diamonds is the most common in games...?"

“Floors 10-12,” the blonde woman replied.

Just when he thought he had gotten away with it, the middle-aged woman asked another question: "Do you know...where my child...went..."

She slowly raised her head, revealing a blood-stained face:

“He was playing video games, I scolded him, and he threw down the game console and never came back… I continued playing the game he hadn’t finished, and as long as I finished it one day… he would come back… my child… Su Liujin…”

She was bleeding profusely, yet she smiled and reached out her hand.

"Run!" Realizing she couldn't fight back, the blonde woman shouted, and everyone scattered and fled.

Lu Shu moved with lightning speed, running upstairs alone. He carried his black knife and walked alone. After waiting for a while, he realized that the strange tale had not caught up with him.

Realizing that the main group had already dispersed, he could now search around on his own. He pushed open door after door, searching each classroom.

Suddenly, as he walked to a music room, he heard piano music coming from the side. Without thinking much about it, he pushed open the door and went in, as if drawn by the music.

The morning sunlight streamed into the music room, gilding the black and white keys. Sparks of light danced in the air as a somber figure played the piano.

"Ding-dong-ding-dong-"

The sound is like a spring, as described in Debussy's "Clair de Lune".

While other ghost stories are going mad, this one is unusually serene, its music bringing peace.

Lu Shu watched the somber figure playing, as if he were seeing that figure playing day after day, night after night, as if it would never end...

I vaguely heard a hallucination in my ears.

"Mom, did I play it well?"

"Mom, can you give me a compliment?"

"Mom, don't hit me..."

By the time Lu Shu realized what was happening, he had already grabbed Shadow's wrist, and the music stopped abruptly.

He didn't know why there were so many familiar figures here, as if they were the "what if" scenarios of their own ghost stories. He wanted to say something, yet he knew that the ghost stories before him were merely similar, and the people were not acquaintances.

Suddenly, the shadow of the piano laughed:
"Don't worry about who we are."

"Santa Claus is calling us, we should leave..."

It released Lu Shu's hand and seemed to see a pumpkin carriage. The carriage turned its wheels, and the shadows in the room seemed to fade away.

Lu Shu pushed open the door and went out, only to find that the ghost stories were no longer around. Their weary footsteps were heading out of the campus and disappearing from his sight.

……

[...Lu Shu pushed open the door and went out, only to find that the strange tales were no longer around; their weary footsteps were heading out of the campus and disappearing from his sight.]

Hui Bi puts down her pen, writing the development of this story and guiding the maddened ghosts away.

Suddenly, his wrist beeped, and Huicheng's anxious voice came through the communicator: "Huibi! WARNING-004 refuses to leave. She's been too influenced by Phoenix and firmly believes it's all a dream. She wants to return to real life! I can't control her!"

WARNING-004……Zhao Mingming?

"This is bad," Hui Bi muttered to herself. "I can't guide a supernatural tale that's too out of control."

Su Ming'an immediately said, "I'll go take a look."

He left the underground area and rushed to the restroom in the teaching building, where he indeed saw Zhao Mingming, the girl in the red dress. Her black hair moved without wind, and her eyes were gloomy.

"Su... Su Ming'an." Zhao Mingming saw him, and as if recognizing his presence, her eyes lit up. She stammered, "Dad... how is he... why isn't he with you...?"

To reassure the other party, Su Ming'an immediately said, "He's fine, he just wasn't selected for the game."

At the same time, he was very confused. How did Uncle Zhao's daughter become a ghost story? She clearly died before the start of the World Game...

Zhao Mingming was silent for a moment, then suddenly grabbed her black hair and screamed hysterically:

"You lied to me!"

"You lied to me!! You lied to me!!"

"Dad is dead!! He gave up treatment so that you could have a better life, so that you could have a piano and detective novels in the future, so that you could develop your own interests instead of working every day!"

"He sold his healthy parts, he sold his corneas, and left all the money to you—otherwise he could have lived much longer!!"

"You practically survived by devouring his flesh and blood! What makes you think you can be a hero, a savior! You scoundrel! You bad kid! Your existence robbed him of his life! You wicked captain!"

"Anyone who gets close to you will be cursed; no one will ever be your family again! You've brought death to both of your fathers!"

Su Ming'an's expression went blank for a moment.

For a moment, he thought of the figure rushing towards the truck, and then of the figure silently walking towards the hospital.

Their silhouettes overlapped for a fleeting moment, planting an indelible seed in his heart.

Zhao Mingming went mad; her long hair stretched out as if to strangle him.

But then a figure as white as snow walked over, made a hand seal, and a talisman suddenly appeared, sealing Zhao Mingming.

"Shh-!"

Her long hair was wrapped up, and Zhao Mingming stood still, dripping blood all over her body.

Li Mingyue emerged from the shadows, dressed in a white robe, like a snow lotus from the Tianshan Mountains. He held a talisman between two fingers, with complex characters and golden light flowing from his fingertips.

"He's not a bad kid." Li Mingyue shielded Su Ming'an and said calmly:
"He is my child now."

Zhao Mingming let out a bitter laugh, as if she had countless sorrows and bitterness. Su Ming'an looked at the snow-white figure in front of him, but suddenly felt a chill all around him.

From behind, a sinister voice came:
“You’ve finally come… Su Ming’an… I’ve been waiting for you… for so long…”

Shen Xue, with her black hair disheveled, emerged from the shadows like a crawling mud, her head tilted and her body covered in thread-like wounds, reaching out to grab Su Ming'an's legs.