If the curse of misfortune fell upon Bizarre Kiana, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, as it would greatly increase Shigure Kira's chances of survival.
When he opened the Bizarre treasure chest, even if what came out was a Shigure Kira dominated by Bizarre Kiana's consciousness, then for various "reasons," Bizarre Kiana would lose her right to be the dominant consciousness.
But...
Li Mo pondered for a moment, recalling every encounter with Bizarre Kiana. Her luck always seemed to be terrible.
Every time, she was just one step away from completely killing him.
When she fully descended, due to various factors such as time and medium, she couldn't stay for long.
Lacking a medium and coordinates, she couldn't fully descend by his side.
He had once written words of love in blood under the moonlight outside the auditorium. Bizarre Kiana's departure was probably also because the blood had dried.
Rather than saying good luck was on his side, it was more like good luck avoided Bizarre Kiana.
Li Mo closed the chest, thoughtfully looking around the bottom of the Mirror Lake.
He would come back here again, but he would have to wait until the dust settled on the Ghost Festival of the fifteenth of the seventh month.
Tomorrow was the fifteenth of the seventh month, the Zhongyuan Ghost Festival. All the flesh-and-blood ghosts in the town would embark on the path to heaven, and then rush to the human skin forest to complete their incomplete human skins.
If he couldn't stop them, it would mean that the Bizarre in this world was out of control, and he would be powerless. Even if the wedding ceremony was completed, these ghosts would not disappear, because they were not all born from the Bizarre Hua.
Li Mo quickly swam towards the surface of the lake. After getting ashore, he immediately jumped onto a tree and observed the movements of the flesh-and-blood ghosts in the town.
Sure enough, hundreds of thousands of flesh-and-blood ghosts were a dark mass, their rotten flesh turned inside out. Every ghost was extremely deformed. Some crawled on the ground like maggots, moving slowly by wriggling.
According to the notebook's prediction, they were still a little short of reaching the human skin forest today. He still had one day to obtain the key factor to turn the tide.
"First, back to the inn."
Without hesitation, Li Mo avoided the path of the flesh-and-blood ghosts, but his body felt a strange chill.
Li Mo immediately stopped and scanned his surroundings. With the faint moonlight, a normal person's eyes could barely see anything in the dark, but his eyes were close to being Bizarre, and darkness did not obstruct his vision.
"Nothing."
Li Mo took out the thermometer again and walked slowly through the forest, focusing on the back of every tree.
Currently, the places he couldn't see were only behind the trees and in the piles of weeds.
The thermometer showed no reaction, always maintaining between one and three degrees. This temperature was Li Mo's own, not the temperature of the nearby Bizarre.
"Is the pollution on me too heavy, causing me to be able to directly feel the unique chill of ghosts?"
"Or... even the thermometer can't detect it? There's a ghost next to me that doesn't exist in reality."
"I only felt this after coming out of the Mirror Lake. That ghost followed me out of the Mirror Lake."
"But the Mirror Lake only reverses identity once, it's ineffective against me. Even a drowned ghost couldn't find me so quickly, the timing is off."
Li Mo checked his body all over. There was no difference from before he sank into the Mirror Lake. His body had not changed significantly, so where did that ghost come from?
Before he could verify it, Li Mo could not proceed with the next step of his plan. Ghosts could not enter the inn at night.
And he had no more deaths to spare for trial and error.
Li Mo touched his face. The human skin seemed to have been expelled by the Bizarre Hua in the Taoist temple while he was asleep.
The Misfortune ghost was parasitic in his sea of consciousness, so the chill would not affect his body.
"Back to the Mirror Lake to check again."
Going back and forth seemed foolish, but it was a good way to check for abnormalities.
Li Mo returned to the shore of the Mirror Lake again, lowered his head, and his gaze focused on the strange reflection on the surface of the lake.
The person in the reflection was not him, but a complete stranger. The gender could not be determined. The body was covered in seaweed, and even the face was buried in dirt.
"A new ghost, will it follow a living person out of the Mirror Lake?"
"No, it should be that the first time one sinks into the Mirror Lake, a drowned ghost whose purpose is to reverse identity will appear. When one enters and exits again, the behavior pattern of that drowned ghost has undergone an unknowable change."
"..."
Li Mo stared seriously at the reflection of the ghost in the lake. The other party had no eyes, and even seemed to have no face, revealing a white skull and rotten, filthy flesh.
Just as Li Mo thought that a drowned ghost had come out of the Mirror Lake and latched onto him, dense human faces suddenly appeared in the lake. Every one of them had their eyes gouged out, their empty eye sockets staring grimly at Li Mo, their faces extremely pale.
The number was so large that it almost filled the entire Mirror Lake, as if... everyone in the town was here.
Now it was certain that it was not a drowned ghost.
"Everyone in the town has entered the Mirror Lake? No, that's unreasonable. It's impossible for everyone to be in the Mirror Lake."
The reflections were of different clothes, so it was easy to come to this conclusion.
Li Mo did not move his gaze away. The number was almost the same as the number of human skins in the human skin forest.
It was just that the human skins were just skins, while the reflections in the Mirror Lake were a pool of blurry, twisted flesh and blood.
"Since the former is impossible, then there is only the latter. It's not that everyone has entered the Mirror Lake, but that all the ordinary people who have entered the Mirror Lake have died, and their flesh and blood are buried at the bottom of the lake."
"But why target me?"
"Reflections don't have killing rules. Derivatives?"
A clear cold light flashed in Li Mo's eyes as he stared coldly at the reflection in the lake water.
"I don't have time to mess with a bunch of unknown things here."
Li Mo quickly stretched out his left hand, hesitated for a moment, and took out the notebook from his pocket.
"Everything is going according to your plan, are you very happy?" Li Mo asked, his lines like greeting an old friend of many years, although his tone was so cold that it was like interrogating a prisoner, without a trace of human emotion.
The notebook was opened. As expected, it could only be opened to the first page.
It was silent and did not answer Li Mo's question at this moment.
Because the notebook knew that Li Mo was asking with the answer in mind, so it naturally didn't need to explain too much.
"I'll change the question. If I usurp the Bizarre rule of the stove, what price do I have to pay?"
"Usurp" could take anything that existed in memory, whether concrete or abstract, but the premise was that one had to be able to bear the price.
This time, the notebook quickly gave a reply:
[My name is Li Mo. In order to solve the Bizarre that is about to spread in this world, I came up with a crazy idea.]
[But I know very well that once I take the first step, I will not be able to turn back. Therefore, I must treat this crazy choice with caution.]
[Before I made my decision, I tried to get a concrete answer from the notebook.]
[Its performance was very active, as if it was looking forward to me using it. This shows that I am very close to the ending it wants. I may die.]
"You don't have to hypocritically state my inner thoughts. You know what I'm thinking, and I know what you're thinking."
"A notebook with a mix of humanity and ghostliness. You have human wisdom and the rules of a ghost."
"Because we both know the present situation, you can so brazenly state a little of your nature. If you were truly objective, then the self-introduction part should have been stated completely the first time I got you."
Li Mo remained expressionless. The notebook's narration slowed down a bit, as if deliberately listening to Li Mo's words.
After he finished speaking, the notebook resumed its normal narration speed.
[At 9:04 PM, I put Shigure Kira, who was suspected of being possessed by Bizarre Kiana, into the Bizarre treasure chest to avoid the certain-death rule of falling into the Mirror Lake.]
[Opening the Bizarre treasure chest requires bearing a certain degree of misfortune curse. The magnitude of the curse is proportional to what one wants to get. But I know that this curse that acts on fate in the dark may be offset by the Misfortune ghost. Even if it can't be completely offset, I still have a final method...]
[The first misfortune curse fell on Shigure Kira's fate. Within ten minutes after she entered the Bizarre treasure chest, she was lost in a vast sea of ghosts. Twenty minutes later, Shigure Kira seemed to have "died."]
[Perhaps, when I have dealt with the human skin ghost and the flesh-and-blood ghost, and returned to the bottom of the Mirror Lake to open the Bizarre treasure chest, the Shigure Kira who is released will have a chance of survival. And I, because the thing I released is too terrifying, causing the magnitude of the misfortune curse to increase dramatically, I will bear the highest level of misfortune curse. Fortunately, the Misfortune ghost in my sea of consciousness offset most of the misfortune curse for me.]
[The misfortune curse acts on fate and cannot be cleared by the ability of the Herrscher of Reason.]
[If I ignore the incomplete misfortune curse, I will die within three months. No matter how much I struggle, I cannot escape this ending.]
[However, I seem to have found a way to transfer the misfortune curse. Even the incomplete misfortune curse can help me delay the time she eats me.]
[At 9:09 PM, I left the Mirror Lake and felt the unique chill of Bizarre lurking in the invisible darkness.]
[I must find them today and temporarily restrain them. I have not triggered the killing rule, so I only need to temporarily get rid of them to escape.]
[At 9:10 PM, I used "Usurp" from Bizarre Mei's left hand to usurp the stove's Bizarre ability for ten minutes—Line of Sight in the Firelight: with blood as a guide, the firelight shines, and can present people or Bizarre things illuminated by the flame in a way within cognition.]
[The price I need to pay is: to obtain one of the incomplete original rules of Bizarre: easily attracted by the light in the darkness. As the pollution on me worsens, this original rule will become more and more obvious.]
[At 9:11 PM, I saw them, a group of old reflections wandering around me. They were not strictly complete ghosts. Under the illumination of the ghost fire, they could be observed and touched by me.]
[At 9:12 PM, I got rid of them.]
Li Mo finished reading. This result did not exceed his expectations.
A very reasonable price.
As a human, if you want to seize the ability of Bizarre, you have to bear the rules of Bizarre.
This price was not unbearable, because after he returned to his own world to clear the accumulation of death, this rule would have a negligible effect on him.
It was just that after too many deaths, this rule would become uncontrollable, causing Li Mo to do some Bizarre behaviors.
"Then what if I want to usurp the complete and permanent stove Bizarre ability?" Li Mo asked tentatively.
If the price was the same, then he could completely seize the line of sight in the firelight. In the future, when he encountered unobservable Bizarre, he would be more confident in dealing with them.
Presenting ghosts in a way within cognition, the most concrete cognition was nothing more than flesh and blood. As long as he could give ghosts a physical body, he could use the upgraded Bizarre pistol to suppress them.
However, everything has a price.
The notebook gave an answer—
[At 9:10 PM, I used "Usurp" from Bizarre Mei's left hand to usurp the complete and permanent stove Bizarre ability—Line of Sight in the Firelight: with blood as a guide, the firelight shines, and can present people or Bizarre things illuminated by the flame in a way within cognition.]
[At 9:11 PM, who is Li Mo?]
[At 9:12 PM, who am I?]
[At 9:13 PM...]
[...]
[At 9:61 PM.]
"..."
Li Mo looked at the content that appeared on the notebook. It seemed that it did not give any specific answer, but the answer was already very clear.
If he wanted to usurp the complete and permanent stove Bizarre ability, then he would replace the stove and become the new stove Bizarre.
And it would be instant, immediate.
In the notebook's narration, his thinking had already begun to become chaotic. This was a precursor to becoming Bizarre.
From forgetting that Li Mo was himself at the beginning, to later forgetting that he was Li Mo.
Two minutes—that was the time it took for him to transform into the stove Bizarre.
After that, he lost his concept of time, so much so that the notebook repeated the time of 9 PM until 9:61 PM.
An hour only has sixty minutes. Reaching sixty-one minutes could only mean that he was already dead, and his human consciousness had completely perished.
"It's really quite fair."
Li Mo lowered his head and muttered to Bizarre Mei's left hand. He couldn't be too anxious. Dealing with Bizarre had to be done with extreme caution.
When it was time to take risks to obtain information, he absolutely could not be timid. When it was time to choose carefully, he absolutely could not be too hasty.
"Usurp."
Li Mo stretched out his left hand, recalling the stove that had been devoured by the human-head ghost in the room, and at the same time used "Usurp."
The next second, a ball of vermilion flame appeared on Li Mo's left hand. Unlike the blue-purple Netherfire created by the Bizarre pistol, although the vermilion flame looked extremely aggressive, it was actually quite gentle and festive, a kind of warm light.
Illuminated by the stove ghost fire, even Li Mo could clearly feel the warmth, something unimaginable in a supernatural event.
At the same time, Li Mo also felt that there seemed to be something extra on him...
Indelible, undiscardable, rooted in the soul.
This was one of the original rules of Bizarre.
Even if it was incomplete.
At the same time, Li Mo noticed that some bodies with tattered clothes, foul-smelling rotten flesh, and stripped of their entire human skin began to appear around him, circling him in a circle after a circle.
It was not an exaggeration to say that it was a mountain of ghosts and a sea of ghosts.
Li Mo tried to move, and they also moved. Li Mo stopped, and they also stopped.
"Only the blind instinct to follow is left, without any extra rules."
"After having a physical body, the speed of following is obviously not a conceptual absolute distance."
It was much easier without a killing rule. Li Mo charged up, suddenly bounced up, and jumped to the top of a tree hundreds of meters away, then looked back.
The corpses initially moved towards Li Mo's direction, but later Li Mo was too far away from them, and they lost their target, hesitating in place and not moving forward.
After getting rid of the ghosts entangled around him, Li Mo quickly walked towards the inn, bypassing the original path, avoiding the town and the Taixuan Tongtian Road, so as not to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of flesh-and-blood ghosts.
Arriving at the foot of the inn, Li Mo showed a slightly nostalgic expression.
Once upon a time, he had waited here with joy for Hua to arrive in a beautiful wedding dress. After the two met, they would go to the mansion under Qin Suyī's name, bow and get married, and fulfill the wish that had not been realized for fifty thousand years.
Therefore, he had also named this inn after the last character of their two nicknames: Jingwei's yuan (Jingwei in Chinese is Chiyuan), Mingyue's yue (Moon)—Jingyue.
If they had a child in the future, it would not be impossible to give him this name.
He was not an old-fashioned person. As long as the child's name had meaning and sounded good, it would be fine.
It was a pity that he had not been able to wait for Hua in the Jingyue Inn.
In the end, he had also not been able to wait for the bride in the mansion.
He had practiced the tedious process of the Shenzhou wedding countless times, using various methods to improve the process steps, trying his best to make every step look perfect.
Receiving gifts, asking for names, receiving auspicious signs, receiving betrothal gifts, asking for a date, welcoming the bride...
From the words to be said, to the furnishings in every place, and the auspicious day chosen, he had memorized which hour to do what.
He had tried countless times, but he had never waited for the day to use it.
"The wedding is just late, Hua," Li Mo said subconsciously.
Then he leaped up and jumped into the second-floor window closest to the inn's main entrance.
Hearing the commotion, Saori Tsuruyo quickly turned around. After seeing Li Mo, the worried expression on her face instantly disappeared.
In her hand, she held all the rules and information of the guests that Saori Tsuruyo had recorded these days.
After Saori Tsuruyo handed the information in her hand to Li Mo, she quickly walked to the window.
Since her brother could come back, then the captain must also have come back. As long as she stuck her head out, she would see the captain completely intact, happily greeting her.
Saori Tsuruyo's face was filled with a joyful smile. She stuck her head out and looked left and right. There was no one outside.
Suddenly, a bad premonition welled up in Saori Tsuruyo's heart.
"Brother, where... is the captain?"
Li Mo carefully looked at the information, not paying attention to this question. The answer to dealing with the human skin ghost was in the information.
So without thinking, he repeated the notebook's answer to Saori Tsuruyo: "She is lost in a vast sea of ghosts, perhaps 'dead'."
"...Brother, you're kidding, right? Is this the captain's bad idea? It must be... she must have already entered the inn, maybe hiding in some corner of the inn to scare me... I'll go find her right now!"
Saori Tsuruyo bit her lip, trying to suppress the extreme emotions in her head as she prepared to walk out of the room.