After tonight, the town would become a ghost town. No living person could stand on the moral high ground and condemn him.
Li Mo took the clothes with a clear conscience.
The clothes were plain and simple, without any aesthetic appeal.
Li Mo walked up to Shigure Kira. Just as he was about to hand her the clothes, the fourth page of the notebook fell to the ground with a thud and flipped open to the fourth page. Under their gaze, two direct, naked choices appeared—
[My name is Li Mo. At this moment, I am helping Shigure Kira cover her body.]
[At 8:47 AM on July 15th, I took the initiative to change clothes for the unwell Shigure Kira. Shigure Kira felt shy but very happy.]
[At 8:47 AM on July 15th, I handed the clothes to Shigure Kira and let her put them on herself. Due to the strenuous exercise and the pain of her torn bud, the yet-to-recover Shigure Kira fell to the ground while getting dressed.]
"..."
Here it came again, an answer with almost no reference value.
Wait?
Li Mo suddenly realized something. He threw the clothes to Shigure Kira and said casually, "Put them on yourself."
Then he looked down and refocused his gaze on the notebook, staring at it thoughtfully for a while.
The notebook had no precedent for lying, but it could choose whether to answer or not.
Li Mo's impression of the notebook had always been that it was cunning and Bizarre.
It tried to incite him to achieve its ulterior motives, so every answer seemed to provide him with a shortcut. But whether that shortcut led home or to a road of no return, it was undoubtedly the latter.
Its rule should have been like this, but the answer that appeared now didn't seem to be so. Li Mo didn't ask the notebook.
He just cast his gaze on the fourth page of the notebook, and the words naturally appeared.
And it was very different from the previous answers. Li Mo didn't think that the answer to this question could help it achieve its dark purpose.
The answer was too strange.
"Where is Hua?"
Li Mo repeated the last question. This behavior was meaningless to a Bizarre item that followed strict rules. The answer obtained the first time would inevitably be similar or even the same as the answer obtained the second time, and there would be no difference.
[My name is Li Mo. I vaguely sense the rule of the fourth page and am trying to prove that my guess is not wrong.]
[At 8:59 AM on July 15th, I sank to the bottom of the lake and dug up a well-preserved corpse.]
[I found Hua.]
[I married Hua's remains. With that, the wedding ceremony came to an end, and the twisted reality of this world returned to normal.]
---||---
[At 8:59 AM on July 15th, I sank to the bottom of the lake, cut open the mud at the bottom of the Mirror Lake, and buried myself here.]
[Fifteen years later, under the influence of the Mirror Lake, I turned into a boneless skeleton and slept with Hua's remains at the bottom of the Mirror Lake's mud.]
---||---
[At 8:59 AM on July 15th, for safety's sake, I escaped from this world.]
[At 8:59 AM on July 15th, I returned to the inn to sleep.]
The ending after escaping was beyond doubt. The Bizarre spread, and after a number of years, it descended upon his own world, and his death was confirmed.
"I understand, the rule of the fourth page."
Li Mo quickly closed the notebook. If he continued to look at it, it might say something strange about the future.
The notebook would not lie, and the fourth page also followed this point, but it would not consider reality, and could not even distinguish the host's personality, emotions, and behavioral logic in reality. It could only give all kinds of strange answers based on its limited thinking.
Its memory and consciousness were even more chaotic than a person's.
"The fourth page initially answered me with three futures."
"The first is that I opened the Bizarre treasure chest again at the risk of triggering the misfortune curse. This is impossible. I know very well that I cannot bear the second curse. In this case, it is absolutely impossible to trade with the Bizarre treasure chest for the ghost bride."
"The second is that I abandoned everything in my own world, companions, promises, mission... but I really can't figure out what love means to me. I can't feel ordinary emotions now, and I won't make such a strange choice."
"The third is the same as the second. I would never ignore the source of the Bizarre before it is dealt with."
"An answer with no reference value is the rule of the fourth page."
"It has no purpose, it just purely presents countless futures in front of me."
"As long as I cast my gaze and ask a question, it will definitely answer, even if the answer is irrelevant."
Li Mo quickly analyzed the rule of the fourth page. It would answer any question, but the answer had almost no reference value.
But almost none did not mean none. At least it let Li Mo know something he could never have known—
He didn't need to marry the complete Hua from fifty thousand years ago, that is, Jingwei in a living state.
The remains would also do.
Hua's remains were buried in the mud at the bottom of the Mirror Lake. No wonder he felt like someone was watching him from behind when he was being rubbed on the ground by Bizarre Kiana...
"I have Mo's memory. I am Li Mo, and I am also Mo. That's why I can sense Hua's remains buried in the mud at the bottom of the lake."
Li Mo stared at the Mirror Lake. Just as he was about to take a deep leap, a "bang" sound attracted his attention.
Shigure Kira tripped while putting on her pants. The pants only reached her knees, and her round, slender white thighs and everything above were completely exposed.
Her expression was dazed, and her posture was risqué.
"Ngh..."
"Ngh!"
The dazed Shigure Kira trembled and rubbed her bottom after falling. Noticing Li Mo's gaze, she immediately endured the tearing pain below her and turned around, leaning forward to hide everything below her waist.
Good, the fourth page of the notebook definitely didn't lie.
Li Mo was even more confident in his judgment, though he didn't know why Shigure Kira was always doing things that provided fan service.
"You wait here for a moment. I'm going to the bottom of the Mirror Lake to find something."
"Wait!" Li Mo walked to the edge of the lake. Before he could jump, his spell was interrupted by Shigure Kira again.
"What is it?" Li Mo asked calmly.
"Be careful..."
"You don't need to worry about my safety. If you have anything else to say, say it all at once."
"Uh... um, I put my communicator in my armor before. If possible, could you help me bring it back? That communicator is very important to me. If you really can't find it, then forget it."
"I understand."
The communicator was most likely dropped when his armor was shattered during his fight with Bizarre Kiana. As for whether it was still there, a single glance at the bottom of the lake would tell.
Li Mo sank to the bottom of the lake, quickly parting the water around him and swimming towards the lakebed.
He saw the Bizarre treasure chest wrapped in flowers and vines again, but this time Li Mo chose not to approach it. He watched it from a distance for a long time, finally went up to touch it, shook his head, and chose to leave.
The Bizarre treasure chest, in a sense, was a Bizarre item where the rewards were proportional to the risks.
He couldn't use it, because as long as he opened it, what came out would inevitably be Bizarre Kiana.
This time, he had used a bug with Shigure Kira, who was possessed by Bizarre Kiana, and failed to summon the complete Bizarre Kiana. It couldn't be replicated.
But just because he couldn't use it didn't mean Mei and Pardofelis couldn't.
If he could take it away for Mei to study, there might be unexpected gains.
However, this thought was dismissed not long after.
Not to mention whether he could take away the Bizarre treasure chest, even if he could, Li Mo couldn't do that, at least not until everything was settled.
The Bizarre treasure chest itself carried contamination, contaminating the people inside and the environment it was in.
Li Mo clearly remembered that during the time of the Yellow Emperor Ji Lin, this was just an ordinary lake, and there was no Bizarre rule of reversing the identities of humans and ghosts.
The ancient house of the Previous Era had collapsed in the Third Honkai Eruption before it could be contaminated. No, perhaps the ancient house had already been contaminated, tainted with some misfortune, which was why it had drawn the Third Honkai Eruption to Canghai City.
There were already enough Bizarre items at home. Adding another one was too risky.
If there was a way to completely eliminate the misfortune curse in the future, Li Mo would come back to take away the Bizarre treasure chest.
For now, he would just let the Bizarre treasure chest sink in the lake.
And he didn't have to worry about it being taken away by others.
Li Mo looked around and found a precise mechanical device by a patch of crimson and white mud.
It should be the communication device Shigure Kira mentioned. It even had the Schicksal emblem on it.
Li Mo put away the communication device and began the most important task: grave digging.
To dig out Hua's remains.
The dim environment at the bottom of the lake did not hinder Li Mo. On the contrary, Li Mo's murky eyes could see things in the dark very clearly, just like a living person's eyes in the daytime.
If it weren't for the sun in the sky, Li Mo wouldn't have been able to feel the difference between day and night at all.
Time passed by minute by minute. Li Mo tirelessly dug through the mud in the area where he felt the strongest connection.
That's right, it was the exact area where he had been held down by Bizarre Kiana, unable to move.
In the memories after he first woke up, Li Mo was missing the memories after 9 PM in the months before the wedding. For someone with an indelible memory, this would absolutely not be forgotten unless there was external interference.
It wasn't until Saori Tsuruyo told him the contents of the diary page that Li Mo found his memories of Hua.
His memories had been altered.
"Hua..." Li Mo murmured softly, and the memories from before the alteration involuntarily resurfaced in his mind—
"If I keep my promise, you will be able to retrieve this memory, and for the rest of our lives, we will grow old like an ordinary couple."
"If I break my promise, you will not remember, and thus, you can do what you want to do without guilt."
"We have missed too much time. I already owe you too much... Please forgive me for using this method. Compared to being immersed in the sorrow of death, Mo, I hope you can think a little more for yourself and live more freely. You are not my slave, nor should you change for me."
"For fifty thousand years, we have both been searching for the answers we desire."
"You are you."
"And I am your Hua, that's all."
"I am no longer the self-deprecating Hua who could only follow behind others. You gave me respect and confidence, letting me know that I can also have everything that others have. The world does not owe me anything, and neither do I."
"So, I hope you can live for yourself."
That night, he and Hua had quietly rehearsed all the wedding ceremonies, leaving a profound fact.
This was the reason why he couldn't control his body back then, because everything had already happened. He was just retrieving the erased memory.
Coming back to his senses, Li Mo stopped his hands and stared blankly at the white bones under the mud. His hands were clasped over the white bones on his chest, pressing down on a scroll of bamboo slips that was still well-preserved.
Li Mo was a little lost in thought. He reached out and pulled out the bamboo scroll that should have been eroded by the lake water over the years. A faint chill remained on it.
The bamboo scroll was unrolled.
Shenzhou characters, neither neat nor dignified, but exceptionally vivid and glaring.
There was only one sentence—
「You are buried under the spring, your bones dissolved in the mud; I am a guest in the mortal world, my head covered in snow.」
It was what he had written to Hua before the wedding, and it was also Hua's only burial item.
Hua had many commemorative collections. Li Mo had never thought that in the end, she would only hold this scroll and sink into the mud.
Li Mo narrowed his eyes slightly and carefully took out Hua's remains from the mud.
He had not been able to wait for her at the wedding. The reason was already obvious.
Li Mo brought Hua's remains back to the shore. Shigure Kira walked over with a look of astonishment.
"This is...?"
"The real ghost bride."
The real ghost bride? Shigure Kira was very confused. Wasn't the ghost bride the woman she saw that day?
Before Shigure Kira could react, Li Mo took out the communicator from his pocket.
"There shouldn't be a second modern communicator in this era."
Shigure Kira paused and pushed Li Mo's hand back.
"You keep it. You'll need it in the future. This was originally prepared for you..."
"This device will be scrapped within ten minutes of being turned on. It's a one-time electronic device. I'm not sure about the reason. The Overseer said so. No matter what space-time you are in, as long as you activate Schicksal, you can get your coordinates and listen to everything you say during this period. It's very precious."
There's such a good thing?
Li Mo fell into deep thought. The Otto of his own world had not given him and Mei this thing.
Or had something happened in the parallel world that made Otto's tech tree go askew?
"Can you get more?" Li Mo asked seriously.
"There are no more. The Overseer said that once this thing is used, it's gone. It's not a simple machine," Shigure Kira replied sincerely.
Li Mo didn't press further. Although this kind of thing was rare and could communicate across time and space, even if it was only for a short ten minutes, it was very precious to Li Mo.
Otto definitely had more. If there was a chance in the future, it wouldn't be impossible to go directly to Shigure Kira's world to make a deal.
"Let's go. Back to the inn and wait for the sun to set. We can end this supernatural event soon."
Li Mo walked ahead, holding a corpse steadily in his arms as if embracing a lover, but his face did not show the slightest emotion.
"You... are going to marry it?"
Shigure Kira's legs were clamped together, and she walked tremblingly behind Li Mo, pointing at Hua's remains and saying.
Li Mo nodded and replied nonchalantly, "Yes."