人人操人人爱人人

Chapter 560: Sheng\'s Sudden Appearance

Zhu frowned. "What clams, Mister? We just entered the sea of mists!"

Zhang Lie calmed down, closed his eyes, and found his memory returning. He touched his face gingerly and felt a sensation of pain.

The monarch of stars that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere certainly wasn\'t real; it simply came out of his memories.

Zhang Lie was certain that that disaster-grade lifeform possessed the ability to read through his memories. The five-colored mist that it had produced seemed to have the ability to reverse time, but only within the vicinity of the mist.

Zhang Lie\'s dragon\'s eye soulshard was able to confirm that Zhu was truly there, but Zhu didn\'t retain her memories of what had happened. Could that be a matter of strength, or of the disaster gene fragments that he possessed? If the clam could edit his memories too, that would be far too frightening.

Having restarted his journey through the sea of mists twice over, Zhang Lie was certain that the disaster-grade clam wasn\'t infallible. As long as he didn\'t come into contact with the five-colored mist, he wouldn\'t be forced back to the beginning.

In some sense, it was like going toward a bad ending in a visual novel.

"What sort of trash game would come up with such a nasty boss?" Zhang Lie muttered to himself as he thought about how to deal with the clam when a voice rang out by his side.

"What did you say?"

Zhang Lie jumped up in fright as he turned to see a third person on the warship, someone who wasn\'t him or Zhu. It was a merman with a solid, sturdy stature, his eyes sharp and piercing, who looked a little like Zhu.

"Father!" Zhu leapt forward to hug the man before her.

Zhang Lie raised a hand.

Zhu turned back and glanced at his cold eyes, emotionless and blank. Zhang Lie only looked like that when he was planning to kill someone.

Zhu hurriedly stood in front of her father, pulling him behind her. "What do you want, Mister?!"

Zhu\'s father smiled as he pushed Zhu aside. "Haha, Zhu, this is normal behavior. Wouldn\'t you be surprised if a stranger were suddenly to appear on your ship?" Zhu\'s father explained.

To Zhang Lie, he bowed politely. "Let me introduce myself. I\'m Sheng, and I\'m a ghost."

Zhang Lie had kept his dragon\'s eye soulshard activated all this time, and the man in front of him didn\'t have a soul.

"You must think my appearance very strange. I felt the same way when I first came to the sea of mists, and only when I saw Zhu could I confirm that I was actually dead."

Zhu said, "When I found my father on a boat, he told me that he had been trapped within the sea of mists for a few years, unable to leave."

Sheng slowly continued, "I had hypothesized this possibility given my experience in the sea. I saw an adventurer from over a century ago, who had passed away in the recent decades. I had traveled to his grave before seeing him within the sea of mists..."

Seeing the desire in Zhu\'s eyes, seeing the silent plea writ through all the lines of her body, Zhang Lie sighed and didn\'t strike at Sheng.

"Zhu has already mentioned all of this." Zhang Lie was a little exasperated. He had smashed apart everything the clam threw his way with force, but here was a problem he couldn\'t resolve with brute force alone.

Sheng continued, "When I returned to the sea of mists once more, I finally understood something. All those who perished within the sea of mists can never leave, but not only that—anyone who has entered the sea of mists will return to it in death to become one of the ghosts within."

Zhu cried out in shock, "In that case, if I or the mister were to die, we\'d become ghosts ourselves?!"

"Definitely. The moment you step foot within the sea of mists, you\'ll be affected by the mysterious power within." His face suddenly turned bleak as he sighed. "I didn\'t think you would enter the sea of mists, but here you are."

Zhu smiled. "If I hadn\'t come, I would never have been able to speak with you again."

Sheng suddenly grabbed Zhu\'s ear. "Now, who\'s this man by your side and what\'re you doing with him? Where\'s your mother?"

Zhu yelped as she ducked. "Ow, ow! Dad, what are you doing? We\'ve been separated for so long, and you\'re going to interrogate me right away?"

"Of course I have to! I can\'t let you walk away with a strange man, can I? Where\'s your mother?"

Zhu pouted and pushed Sheng aside. "After you left without any word for a few years, Mom was so distraught that she died of heartbreak! She\'s been gone for years now."

Sheng took a step back, stumbling as though he had just been struck by lightning. "I-Is that so?" Sheng clutched his head. "It\'s all my fault, it\'s all my fault!"

Only after a long moment of silence did Sheng finally look up. "How did your mother die?"

"After learning of your death, she slowly wasted away."

"Didn\'t the village take care of you?"

Zhu frowned. "Take care of me? Well, if this mister hadn\'t shown up when he did, I would have be in our sea god\'s belly by now!"

Sheng gritted his teeth. "These fellows—they told me that they\'d take proper care of you when they sent me out searching for a new place to live! I swear, I—"

Zhu waved her hand, motioning for her father to stop. "Dad, there\'s nothing we can do about this now. Can you tell us more about the sea of mists?"

Sheng nodded. "I was never able to explore the sea of mists properly as a living adventurer, and it\'s all I\'ve been doing since my death. First, the gray mists of the sea of mists are produced by a gigantic clam at its very center. I\'m not sure of the origins behind the spatial distortion, but there are all sorts of strange and unusual phenomena that take place within."

Zhang Lie frowned. "In other words, it\'s not just the clam that\'s responsible for the mists?"

"From my perspective, the clam is only part of an ecosystem. All it shows us are illusions, but what manifests these illusions into reality? This is a special property of the sea of mists."

Zhang Lie wondered to himself, "In that case, if there are other races that can come up with illusions, wouldn\'t they be undefeatable within the sea of mists?"

"In theory, certainly, but any food produced within this sea will turn into mist. Only certain lifeforms and technological devices remain unaffected by this restriction, for reasons unknown."

Indeed, Zhang Lie had hardly seen anything else in the sea of mists except lifeforms, boats, and ships.

Sheng continued, "The clam at the center of the sea of mists makes use of this unusual phenomenon to hunt for prey, but that\'s not all that\'s special about the sea of mists. In addition..."