Black Crow Prison (26): Fragments

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At seven the next morning, when the ward door was gently pushed open, Mu Xinning was sitting on the edge of the bed, fiddling with a mummy doll.

Sunlight streamed through the window, gilding the tips of her hair. Hearing the movement, she looked up and met Mo Yichen’s unfathomable violet eyes.

Mo Yichen entered carrying a lavish breakfast.

“Good morning.”

Mo Yichen did not answer. His gaze swept over the fresh bandages on her arm before finally settling on her face.

“You went to the morgue last night,” he said with certainty.

His pet had been killed.

It was a creature he had raised for many years, meant to be the sharpest fangs in this dungeon. Yet someone had destroyed it overnight—and not merely killed it, but dissolved it completely.

There was only one person capable of doing something like that: his true form.

“Oh?” Mu Xinning raised an eyebrow. “I never knew Doctor Mo liked keeping such unusual pets.” She paused deliberately. “What a pity it was so fragile.”

To tell the truth, Jin had only stabbed it a few times the previous night. Calling it an easy victory would have been an understatement; there had been no challenge at all.

But the eerie boss had actually been the dungeon boss’s pet…? Mu Xinning found the whole thing absurd.

Perhaps this really was a beginner’s dungeon. Jin’s clone was powerful, yet his pet was so weak that it had nothing in common with its master’s strength.

At last, Jin found something to complain about. His tentacles emerged as he said, “This clone of yours is truly unimpressive. And you couldn’t even choose a more fragrant eerie creature to raise?”

He thought this clone had terrible taste.

Mo Yichen coughed lightly. “The game assigned it to me. It wasn’t my choice.”

Naturally, the eerie boss of this dungeon was not worth mentioning.

However, after hearing Jin’s remark, Mo Yichen feared Mu Xinning might think he had poor taste, so he hurried to clarify.

Eerie creatures ranked somewhat below aberrant creatures, but both were divided into classes. Each side had its own boss, making two bosses in total within the dungeon.

Thus, Mo Yichen, who was currently the boss of the aberrant creatures, was naturally the great boss, while the one in the morgue, the eerie boss, was merely the lesser boss.

The eyeball monster was a common minor enemy. Although it was an aberrant creature, its combat power was far inferior to that of the eerie boss.

Mu Xinning began eating breakfast. As she did, she asked, “Can you tell me about Peipei?”

She had thought about many things the previous night. She had tried using her telekinesis to summon the codex again, but it had not responded.

As for the Codex of Death and the luminous pen, Jin had told her that all he had seen was her reaching out and gripping something invisible, followed by the motion of writing.

From another person’s perspective, neither of those two objects could be seen. Only she was capable of seeing them.

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The question was: what had triggered it? How could she summon the codex again?

Then she remembered the girl in the scene.

There was a good chance that girl was the Peipei Mo Yichen had mentioned.

The girl had the same silver hair as her, and judging from the memory of her proportions, she had also been petite.

At the mention of Peipei, a look of confusion flickered through Mo Yichen’s eyes.

“To be honest, my memories of her are very vague. I only possess a few scattered fragments, but the emotions attached to them are incredibly strong—even though I’m only a clone.”

In other words… when Jin had been complete, he must have loved this Peipei deeply. Otherwise, after his true form had split into so many pieces, none of his clones could possibly retain emotions so powerful.

Mu Xinning lowered her head and murmured, “I see… You know, I brought someone back to life last night.”

Mo Yichen’s violet eyes suddenly contracted. He walked over and seized Mu Xinning by the shoulders, a barely perceptible tremor in his voice.

“What did you say? Brought someone back to life?”

“…How did you do it?” he pressed.

Mu Xinning did not stop spooning up her porridge.

“I used a book. One that can rewrite life and death.”

“A book?” Mo Yichen’s pupils contracted sharply, and a blurred image flashed through his mind.

A silver-haired girl sat beneath the moonlight, a luminous pen clasped between her fingers as she wrote upon floating golden pages.

“The moonlight is beautiful tonight… What a pity that someone else is about to die…”

The girl gazed up at the moon and spoke slowly.

That was Peipei—the clearest and most precious fragment buried in the depths of his memory.

He clenched his fists and asked urgently, “Did the cover bear gilded English lettering? When translated, was the title the Codex of Death?”

Mu Xinning paused with the bowl at her lips. She lifted her eyes to meet his burning gaze.

“How do you know?”

She was certain that Mo Yichen knew something.

He staggered half a step backward and struck the wall.

Holding his forehead, he said, his violet eyes surging with pain and elation, “Peipei… Peipei had a book like that too…”

At last, he understood why Mu Xinning had seemed familiar from the moment he first saw her, why he had been unable to stop himself from approaching her and wanting to protect her.

With that power and that appearance, there could be no mistake…

She was Peipei. Mo Yichen was now completely certain.

But why did she remember nothing?

“Tell me—have you ever split apart as well?” Mo Yichen stared intently into her eyes.

How could a human being split apart? Mu Xinning thought Mo Yichen must have lost his mind.

“No. I was born human. I lived another life and was reborn. All my memories are from the time when I was human,” Mu Xinning replied.

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Could it be… that I really am connected to Peipei?

According to what Mo Yichen had said, Mu Xinning was beginning to feel more and more certain that this was the truth.

Jin spoke up then.

“Before she died in her previous life, I possessed her. She gained a second life, and time itself was turned back once.”

Time had been turned back?

Mu Xinning and Mo Yichen exchanged startled glances.

Jin then told them what he had witnessed.

Afterward, Mu Xinning told Mo Yichen about the events of her previous life.

Mo Yichen looked perplexed.

“That’s strange. So, in your previous life, you were merely an ordinary person, and the codex never appeared at all?”

“That’s right… None of these unusual things happened until after I was reborn.” Mu Xinning nodded.

It was indeed difficult to explain.

The splitting of Jin’s true form had forced him to seek someone who could become his vessel. Mu Xinning had died as a human, then entered into a pact with Jin and become a symbiotic being.

Everything seemed far too coincidental—as though fate itself had destined the two of them to meet.

There was also the question of why Mu Xinning had possessed no powers in her previous life, along with the lost memories shared by both of them. None of these mysteries had answers yet.

“What if I told you… that you might not be human?” As he spoke, Mo Yichen watched the corner of Mu Xinning’s eye, carefully observing her reaction.

I’m not human?

A tempest rose within Mu Xinning.

She had never once questioned the belief that she was human.

“That… doesn’t seem very likely, does it?” she said, though there was little conviction in her voice.

In the past, she would have immediately denied it. But she was also aware of how abnormal she had become.

The ability to resurrect the dead—human beings should not possess such an astonishing power, even after awakening some supernatural ability.

It was equivalent to disregarding the laws of existence, deciding at will whether someone lived or died, or granting life to the lifeless.

And she now truly possessed the power to judge life itself.

So was she really human?

She did not know.

Mo Yichen took her small hand.

“Come with me. I’ll take you somewhere.”