The King of Curses

Chapter 23 An Zhizhen's "Truth"

Dusk sieges the city.

A few lonely stars dot the night sky, and a crescent moon hangs high in the sky.

The sound of a car horn was heard from the side of the road not far away, and then it quickly moved away and disappeared into the silent summer night.

The rich night filled the patio, and dim lights came on, like lighthouses on the dark sea.

At this time, every household was resting. In the silent corridor, only a few people were left standing in the standoff.

There were complex and inexplicable emotions in Cen Dongsheng's inquiring eyes, but he did not speak. Instead, he waited for the other party to speak first.

"You go first."

An Zhizhen said.

"Yes."

Kong Yinlian nodded respectfully, turned and left.

Cen Dongsheng noticed her expression, which was completely different from her previous cold behavior. To say that she was Sister Zhizhen's subordinate was a bit inaccurate. It would be better to say that she was in a relationship of servant and master.

If the two of them didn't know each other before and were playing themselves from the beginning - then the only possibility left would be "that".

To be honest, in a way, Cen Dongsheng would rather believe that Sister Zhizhen has been deceiving him all along.

The former might make him sad and angry, but the latter... to be frank, he should feel terrified.

Now Cen Dongsheng just stood in front of Sister Zhizhen. Even though nothing had happened and the other party still had a smile on her face as usual, he still felt nervous and all the muscles in his body were tense.

——"Tiankui Quanshou".

He was still unclear about the specific working principle of this special destiny, he only knew that An Zhizhen could use it to manipulate others, and by combining the power of all those being manipulated, he could single-handedly implement a super-large-scale curse that was far beyond the ordinary scale.

But he knew that those who were controlled by Tiankui Quanshou would have their thoughts and ideas controlled by An Zhizhen, and would lose all their freedom. Until his rebirth, he had never heard of an example of anyone breaking free from their shackles or betraying An Zhizhen.

Cen Dongsheng didn't understand how those people viewed him, but he would never be willing to be manipulated by others for his entire life.

He didn't want to give up his life, nor did he want to lose his freedom. If he lived his life again, only to become a puppet of others, it would be better not to be reborn.

Even if that person is Sister Zhizhen...it won’t work.

But he did not turn around and run away. He wanted to listen to Sister Zhizhen's words because he felt that if he really chose to escape in a panic, only worse things would happen.

Although Cen Dongsheng was worried, he was not completely powerless to resist.

As mentioned before, there are strict level differences between spells. The effects of lower-level spells on the holders of higher-level spells will be greatly weakened, while there will be an "offsetting" phenomenon between spells of the same level.

The effect of "Tiankui Quanshou" is indeed terrifying, but if An Zhizhen could easily manipulate other "ancestors" and special-class spell-ban masters, she would have unified the world long ago in her previous life.

The Director of the Governing Bureau, known as the "Philosopher King" by the world, can be considered one of the few people closest to the throne of the King of the World - but she still cannot rule out other competitors.

In other words, someone who holds the highest level of curse may be able to resist the control effect of "Tiankui Quanshou".

But the problem with Cen Dongsheng was that the special-grade spell he possessed was incomplete. To be honest, he had no confidence at all as to whether he could fight against the awakened special-grade life-suppression.

If it were his past self, knowing that An Zhizhen had awakened the life barrier long ago, he would never have taken the initiative to contact her.

He was afraid of death, but he was even more afraid of losing his freedom.

But the current situation is different after all.

Cen Dongsheng had the courage to face the strongest person; at the same time, he wanted to confirm the relationship and feelings between him and Sister Zhizhen.

The past two months have brought about a huge change in him.

……

An Zhizhen, who was standing by, saw that the young man had a complicated expression and his eyes were always on Kong Yinlian's back, so she spoke.

"I'm sorry, I didn't have time to explain to you in advance. Kong Yinlian is now my subordinate... Of course, if you want revenge, you can do whatever you want to her, even if it means killing her."

Kong Yinlian, who had already reached the stairs, staggered and almost fell down.

"I don't care."

Cen Dongsheng came back to his senses, shook his head and said.

"Eh, you don't care?"

An Zhizhen widened her eyes in surprise.

"Then why are you staring at her...ah, do you like that type? But, the age gap between you two is too big, isn't it? Although Miss Kong is not bad looking, she is in her thirties after all. If Dongsheng likes older women, I think someone six or seven years older would be more suitable..."

After she interrupted him, the originally stressful and heavy atmosphere disappeared, and he replied unhappily:
"No, it doesn't matter what happens to other people."

"makes sense."

Sister Zhizhen clapped her hands and repeated his words with a smile as beautiful as a flower.

"For both of us, it doesn't matter what happens to 'others'."

"..."

Cen Dongsheng finally turned his gaze and looked at An Zhizhen. He asked seriously:
"The body that Kong Yinlian dragged out of the house just now, is it the missing spell-forbidden master Yu Wentao?"

"Yeah, that's right."

Sister Zhizhen nodded, with no intention of hiding anything.

"… This room was rented by Sister Zhizhen, right?"

"Yes, it is used to store some previous experimental materials and instruments." She answered frankly, "I stored Yu Wentao's body there."

"……I see."

He had an impression of room "310". The day before the "haunted house phenomenon" occurred in Xiaokang Building, he met Sister Zhizhen in front of this door who was pulling her suitcase and preparing to go out.

An Zhizhen didn't want him to see what was going on in the room, and he also smelled the scent of formaldehyde... In other words, Sister Zhizhen was planning to deal with the body at that time, but he just happened to run into her, just like today.

What a coincidence.

"In this room, I performed an autopsy experiment on Wen Tao."

"Oh."

Cen Dongsheng nodded slightly, his attitude was very calm.

"Don't you want to ask why?"

"Yu Wentao is the grandson of Granny Lin, right? He came to Xiaokang Building a week ago and met you. I'm afraid he had bad intentions towards you, Sister Zhizhen, at that time."

"Yes."

An Zhizhen winked at him playfully, as if to say, "See, I'm very attractive, right?"

"...Oh, I understand. It's all because Sister Zhizhen is too beautiful." Cen Dongsheng expressed his emotion very tactfully.

"You really know a lot." Sister Zhizhen smiled and seemed very satisfied with his performance.

"He is the same as Deng Rong. How can I allow such scum who will corrupt society to continue living in this world?"

Having said that, in modern society, even performing surgery on criminals who have committed serious crimes and using them as experimental subjects is clearly inhumane and can only be done in private and confidentially.

But it was obviously meaningless to talk about this with a curse master, a "ancestor". Cen Dongsheng's moral values ​​were not high enough. Anyone who dared to covet Sister Zhizhen deserved death. If someone appeared in front of him, he would definitely find a way to kill him, just like Deng Rong did at that time.

“Isn’t it scary?”

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Cen Dongsheng replied. "I fully support you."

"I'm not talking about that. I mean, as a woman...doing human experiments in my own house, such a Frankenstein-like behavior, make people feel unapproachable?"

...Isn't this nonsense? Cen Dongsheng responded with a strange look of "what are you talking about".

Whether doing something is right or not is different from whether the person doing it will be looked at differently. An Zhizhen's behavior is obviously not related to "feminine charm".

Sister Zhizhen puffed up her cheeks, this time to express her dissatisfaction. However, she still did not delve into the topic and continued.

"...However, even the lives of criminals are equal in value. Therefore, I first let Yu Wentao bear the consequences of over-developing the curse. Next, I also want to confirm the operating mechanism of the curse at the physiological level. He happens to be the kind of curse master whose physical body will not mutate..."

"Although we can only draw preliminary conclusions due to the limitations of the environment and equipment, I can confirm that the results of his internal organs tests are similar to those of ordinary people. In other words, the implementation of the curse is not achieved through a specific organ."

Not only did she not hide the fact that she killed Yu Wentao and conducted human experiments, Sister Zhizhen also had no intention of hiding the conclusions of the experiments from him.

Seeing her talking nonstop, Cen Dongsheng couldn't help but feel emotional.

Some of the conclusions she mentioned can be said to be "common sense" known to everyone in the future society that bans teachers:

But the so-called common sense, people's habitual understanding of the world, was built up bit by bit by researchers like An Zhizhen who pursue the truth.

An Zhizhen has always had this kind of color in her. She is not just a ruler and politician, but also a researcher. She is both the director of the Governing Bureau and the highest advisor to the technical department.

Among the various ideas that theorists have for the future form of human society, there is a kind of expert rule (Technocracy), also known as "technocratic bureaucracy" - scientists are both explorers of truth and rulers of human society. In a sense, this idea is a continuation of the "philosopher king" in the minds of ancient Greek philosophers. The political system in southern China operates in a similar way...

...that's too far.

Cen Dongsheng pulled his thoughts back together, and based on what Sister Zhizhen had said, some of the problems that had been puzzling him were finally solved.

"--Then, Yu Wentao, who was killed by you, turned into a ghost. It turned out to be due to excessive use of the curse... The reason why he appeared to be a charred corpse was because he was burned to death by his own curse."

The so-called "over-development" is one of the taboos for the curse master. It will cause irreversible changes in a person's body and mind, and eventually death or dehumanization.

"Correct."

"So, the reason why Xiaokang Building became a haunted house is because of you, Sister Zhizhen..."

"That's right. The blood contract medium became the center to attract Yin Qi, and Yu Wentao turned into a ghost. This is also an experiment, and the process of 'haunting the house' went more smoothly than I thought."

The truth came out.

Everything that happened in the past ten days was done by An Zhizhen herself. She is the culprit of all the mishaps.

Why is the evil ghost of the charred corpse so obsessed with An Zhizhen?

Also, his past intelligence may have had major omissions, but in some aspects, it also did not -

The haunting of Xiaokang Building did not exist in the original history.

If it weren't for him, the trio of Yu Wentao, Deng Rong and Kong Yinlian would probably have been manipulated the moment An Zhizhen noticed him.

Cen Dongsheng knew nothing about all this.

So, inevitably... there is deception and concealment.

The atmosphere between the two fell into silence for a moment.

"Why do this?"

Cen Dongsheng looked straight into Sister Zhizhen's eyes.

"You've already guessed it, Dongsheng."

An Zhizhen did not avoid his gaze and met his.

"…Because of what I said?"

"Yes."

she replied.

"You said to me, 'I am willing to support you, Sister Zhizhen. No matter what you do, I want to be your partner.' You may not understand how happy I was when I heard this..."

"Then, I answered like this: 'I am very optimistic about you. If I were to find a suitable partner, that person would have to be you. However, my requirements are very high, so be prepared.'——"

Before the house became a haunted place, he and An Zhizhen sat in the flower bed downstairs and chatted. Sister Zhizhen mentioned her ideal, and Cen Dongsheng wanted to take this opportunity to achieve his goal.

The words of that day and her figure that day gradually overlapped in my ears and in front of my eyes.

"This is a trial, Dongsheng," she said.

……

Yes, of course he guessed it.

Cen Dongsheng carried out the plan based on the time that later generations had guessed at when An Zhizhen was active and the time when his abilities awakened.

He did not readily accept this information at first, and even tried it more than once;
But until today, Sister Zhizhen's every word and action perfectly portrayed that of an ordinary person who knew nothing about the world of forbidden masters...

Too perfect to be true.

That's why he gradually began to truly believe it.

If An Zhizhen was unwilling to expose his abilities when they first got along, it could be considered cautious; but if he continued to act like an ordinary person after the haunted house, it could only be intentional.

All along, she has been observing herself.

Cen Dongsheng didn't know how he should feel about what she called a "trial".

If it were a certain era in memory, most people would be ecstatic and flock to An Zhizhen after passing a test, as the saying goes, "It is the greatest honor to be the philosopher king's dog"...

As for being concealed and deceived in the process, that is really unimportant.

However, his current relationship with An Zhizhen was not like this. They had feelings for each other, and their relationship was not that of a boss and a subordinate, but of partners of equal status. This was a promise she had made personally.

So, he had to respond.

"Sister Zhizhen, I'm hurt." Cen Dongsheng said to her seriously, "Emotionally... I'm hurt."

"Yeah, I know. It's all my fault."

An Zhizhen looked at him with eyes sparkling in the night, reflecting the colorful stars in the sky.

"I'm sorry I lied to you."

(End of this chapter)