Ling Xiao carried deep wariness within him, his hatred and darkness forming a hardened shell around his heart.
He wasn’t the type to easily open up about his past, so Ning Su chose to be honest first.
"Later, I went to college. During my graduate studies, my world was overrun by zombies, plunging into an apocalypse. When I woke up, I was lying on a cliff, tangled in lingxiao vines. That was when I saw a four-petaled lingxiao flower… and when I awakened a dark-type Devouring ability."
"I could consume anything tainted by darkness. The base leader feared my power, and one of my professors wanted to dissect me. They worked together to exile me from the base, forcing me to devour the zombie virus."
"Eventually, I became a zombie myself, wandering aimlessly north and south. Then one day, a thought suddenly struck me—I gathered every zombie and swallowed all the virus in the world… until it destroyed me."
"When I woke again, I was on a bus, entering the game—this infinite survival game you might know of."
"At first, I thought I was just like everyone else, dragged into the game at the moment of death. But later, I realized… I had actually entered the game from over twenty years ago. Here, I found my parents, who were only slightly older than me."
"Only then did I learn that my parents were top players in the infinite game. They must have used everything they had to send me out of the game shortly after I was born. But somehow, twenty years later, I ended up back here by chance. I have a feeling… it might be connected to you."
At this, Ling Xiao’s eyes finally flickered with emotion.
Ning Su mustered a bit of strength and pushed himself up.
Both of them—one weak, one injured—had little energy left. They leaned against the dark tree trunk, sitting side by side.
Suddenly, Ning Su remembered something. Shi Tianshu once mentioned that when she first arrived at the game’s base, the place was desolate. There had been a man sitting against a tree…
The man was Ling Xiao.
Who would have thought that one day, Ning Su and Ling Xiao would end up in the same desolate world, leaning against the same tree together?
Ning Su continued, "I also saw the lingxiao flower in the dungeons. At first, I assumed it was just like the ones in my original world—until I noticed, across two consecutive dungeons, that the flowers always appeared in the places with the heaviest resentment and ghostly energy. I also discovered that the lingxiao flower was born from death."
"The first time I truly met you was in a dungeon called <Flower Servant>. In that world, players were either flower slaves or attendants serving the Flower God. The so-called 'serving the god' meant going to a place called the Land of the Sleeping God, finding the sacred flower by the god’s side, and planting it in your heart. You had to nurture it with your blood, devoutly cultivating a deity."
"In the deepest part of the Land of the Sleeping God, I found the lingxiao flower—you—and planted you in my heart. In the end, I succeeded in nurturing a god at the dungeon’s conclusion. That was the first time I saw you in human form."
"After leaving that dungeon, I ran into you in the game base—you were searching for your heart. Later, we went through two more dungeons together."
"In a zombie dungeon, I realized the virus was identical to the one in my world. We guessed it might be caused by the system’s energy. So we theorized that the zombie apocalypse in my world, twenty-some years later, could be the system’s doing—an attempt to harvest energy on a global scale, even if it meant destroying my world."
A turbulent, dark emotion surged in Ling Xiao’s eyes.
Ning Su hadn’t just recounted his own experiences—he’d also revealed things Ling Xiao had wanted to know.
Meeting his gaze, Ning Su said, "Then we came to this memory-related dungeon together. Shortly after entering, we guessed this dungeon was targeting the other half of you."
"Because you said you’d almost grown used to losing your memories… and because the system once ordered you to kill me, but you never… could bring yourself to do it. So the system probably wanted to make you lose your memories again."
"When I confronted this memory-devouring black tree monster, I noticed that when injured, it couldn’t fully control the memories it absorbed—some would leak out. So I tried to destroy it completely, thinking maybe some of your memories could return. At the same time, I was devouring the memories inside it. I never expected to run into you."
Ning Su glanced at him cautiously. "I have a dark-type devouring ability, so the memories I absorb must be dark too, right?"
The implication was obvious.
Ling Xiao scoffed. "If you consider Ling Xiao as a whole, over 95% of his memories are darkness. What you touched wasn’t even 5%—just an empty shell of a body."
Ning Su: "…"
"So, are you the person formed from that missing, darker half of his memories?"
Ling Xiao’s pitch-black eyes stared into the distance. He said nothing.
For him, it should have been a silent admission.
Ning Su continued asking, "Is this world your memory world? Did you create it yourself, or is it the system’s prison for you?"
Ling Xiao: "Both."
Ning Su didn’t quite understand. He pressed further, "That black tree monster—is it the thing sealing you away? What exactly is it?"
Ling Xiao: "One of my nerves."
Ning Su: "…"
Ling Xiao looked at him with a faint smile. "How does it feel, occupying my heart and tearing out my nerve?"
Ning Su: "…"
Ning Su: "How could it be your nerve?"
Ling Xiao: "Originally, that black tree monster was a creature that fed on memories. When I was severely injured, my earliest memories were devoured by it. But later, it could no longer withstand my memories, nor resist the consciousness within them. So, during another episode of memory loss, the system extracted one of my nerves and fused it with the monster to strengthen it—creating the black tree monster you see now."
"Because it contains my nerve, even my subconscious memories wouldn’t reject or harm it."
"And because of my nerve, it became far more powerful, capable of sealing away even more of my memories."
"Also because of my nerve, I was able to carve out this hidden space, undetected by the system, and grow bit by bit."
Ning Su froze for a moment.
So, Ling Xiao had lost his memories multiple times.
When he said he had "grown up" here, it meant that more and more of his devoured memories had gathered in this space.
The person before him was formed from those memories. Hiding in this place, using his own nerve, he had painstakingly reclaimed his swallowed memories, growing from a fragment into what he was now.
"Every time you discovered something and tried to resist the system… it took your memories away?"
Ling Xiao smirked coldly. "And then it used its amnesiac puppet to sustain the endless game, creating endless dungeon worlds—right?"
Exactly.
Ling Xiao had facilitated the birth of a Ghost Master. He’d also once told Ning Su that his heart wandered through unstable dungeon worlds, maintaining their order.
From that perspective, he had been sustaining the endless game, crafting its infinite dungeons.
His energy, his nerves, his heart, his body, his memories.
The system used everything it could—it would have torn him apart if necessary, squeezing out every last drop of usefulness. "Waste not, want not."
But... but...
Ning Su stared blankly at Ling Xiao’s sharp, angular profile, unable to speak for a long time.
But this was the same Ling Xiao who had stayed by his side, raised him, his Flower God.
