Infinite Puzzle City

Chapter 591 My karmic folly, I need your help in my cultivation.

"Wow!"

Ignoring the bewildered Qilin, Xiao Ran jumped out of the bath, put on her clothes, and headed straight for her dormitory.

Before even entering the dormitory, Xiao Ran felt drowsy, and the intense sleepiness made it difficult for him to maintain even with his mental energy of over 100.

A wave of drowsiness washed over Xiao Ran, making her head feel dizzy, as if she didn't want to open her eyes again the next second.

I remember the last time I felt this way was when I was in junior high school, after spending the whole night at an internet cafe.

Upon entering the dormitory, Qinghai Laomo was there and was somewhat surprised to see Xiao Ran return.

"I need to take a nap. If I haven't woken up in eight hours, I'll notify Jin Chanzi and ask him to find a way to wake me up."

Before the old demon of Qinghai could speak, Xiao Ran spoke first, while patting the Yin Soldier Gourd at his waist.

After releasing Butcher, Six Eyes, Three Points, and Wu Dang, and instructing them to protect themselves and not let strangers near them except for Golden Toad, Xiao Ran couldn't hold on any longer. She glanced at the clock on the wall and at 13:45 PM, she lay down on the bed and fell fast asleep.

As consciousness faded, Xiao Ran's thoughts began to become chaotic.

Even in a deep sleep, Xiao Ran's consciousness remained focused, silently reciting the "Great Freedom of the Mara Sutra" to shield himself from distracting thoughts.

Suddenly, a white light appeared in front of me.

A voice appeared around Xiao Ran.

"I've been waiting for you for a long time."

The voice sounded familiar yet unfamiliar; it seemed like a voice he had heard before, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it before.

However, that's how dreams are; sometimes they seem contradictory, but these are precisely the most normal things.

"Who are you!"

Xiao Ran asked tentatively, while tightly guarding her consciousness, not letting it sink into the dream.

In fact, most people have experienced this state.

For example, when you are dreaming, you suddenly realize that you are dreaming, but instead of struggling out of the dream, you try to control your dream.

Of course, most people wake up by the time they realize they are dreaming.

Because dreams are like bubbles, and your own consciousness is like a rock. When your consciousness is not awake, it feels light and weightless in this bubble. But when you wake up, the weight of your self-consciousness will make the bubble unable to support you, and it will break at the slightest touch.

However, if you maintain a good balance, you can roam in your dreams for a while longer; this is called lucid dreaming.

There are even methods online for training lucid dreaming, which supposedly allow people to completely control their dreams through practice.

At this moment, Xiao Ran's state is reversed.

He was fully conscious and even actively tried to break free from the dream.

But the bubble in front of her was even harder than Xiao Ran had imagined.

A flash of white light passed by in front of me.

The light in front of Xiao Ran gradually dimmed, and she found herself standing in a gray hospital corridor, still wearing a white coat.

With a sense of doubt, Xiao Ran tried to walk forward. Her gaze passed through the ward and she saw the patients sitting on the beds with blank expressions. As if they had noticed Xiao Ran's gaze, the patients slowly turned their heads.

But those faces were all people Xiao Ran knew.

For example, Uncle Li, whom she knew (the middleman who introduced Xiao Ran to the funeral home business).
There's also Old Zhou, who guards the morgue at the funeral home.

The two men looked haggard and blank, but when they saw Xiao Ran, a sly smile appeared on Uncle Li's stiff face: "Xiao Ran, I have a big deal here, take a look!"

As he spoke, Uncle Li stood up, tore open his clothes, revealing his chest. A hole had been cut in his chest, and Uncle Li reached inside, scooping out his blackened heart. He said to Xiao Ran, "Look, my heart is rotten, and my intestines are black too. You should buy me a new set of clothes, and I'll give you all my money..."

"Xiao Ran, how's your cat? Is it still fishing? Have you encountered any dead fish biting the fish again?"

Another old man stood up; it was Grandpa Wang, Xiao Ran's neighbor, whom Xiao Ran had fished out of the river for him.

"Xiao Ran, you haven't been here in a long time. Are you here to see us old folks off?"

Old Zhou stood up, straightened his clothes, and transformed his hospital gown into a set of funeral clothes: "After guarding the morgue for most of my life, I can finally lie down and rest today. If you have any free time, just bring me a bottle of wine during the Qingming Festival. This life has been too bitter. In the next life... I won't come back."

"boom!!"

As they spoke, a raging fire erupted from the ward, instantly transforming it into an incinerator. The fire burned bright red, and Old Zhou's corpse, roasted by the intense heat, emitted a low howl as his body slowly curled into a ball.

Xiao Ran turned her head. Although it was a dream, seeing these familiar faces turn to ashes in the sea of ​​fire still left her feeling terrible.

Passing by the second ward, Xiao Ran looked around and saw that there were even more people inside. All of them were people who had died at Xiao Ran's hands.

Xiao Ran can remember some people, but she can't remember others.

There were members of the Changchun Society among them, as well as passersby like Shen Kuaidao. They glared at Xiao Ran and uttered various curses.

Looking at the people who had died at her hands in the past, Xiao Ran was momentarily stunned, only then realizing that her hands were stained with blood, and that so many people had died at her hands.

"You claim you're not a serial killer, but how many people have you killed? You'll kill even more people in the future, so what's the difference between you and us?"

"Throughout history, even the greatest hatred has been nothing more than digging up graves. But you control corpses and keep them as slaves. Even in death, they cannot be reincarnated. What is so glorious about your methods?"

"Hypocritical and cunning people, you see evil in everything you disapprove of, but if it's something that benefits you, you're probably even more wicked than us!!"

The curses were laced with questions. Facing the curses of the souls who had died by his hand, Xiao Ran frowned and pondered for a moment before suddenly opening his eyes wide: "What you say is true, but killing you is something I can do without guilt."

At first, Xiao Ran was indeed a little shaken when faced with the questioning.

But after thinking it over carefully, he realized that none of the people who died at his hands were good people.

Xiao Ran raised a finger and pointed at the few people who were shouting and cursing the loudest. These young men were the ones from the dog farm that Xiao Ran had controlled the corpse dogs to kill.

"You used the guise of loving dogs to make a fortune, blocking dogs on the highway, which led to tragedy, causing families to be torn apart and people to die. Don't you deserve to die?"

Then his gaze shifted to the others: "You! You! You!"

"Leaving aside your character, you tried to kill me, and I killed you in return. What's wrong with that? You spineless dogs, defeated opponents, what face do you have to bark at me!"

“But those of you who have been killed, if you feel wronged, then get out of here and reincarnate soon. I will wait for you to come and seek revenge in your next life.”

Xiao Ran's eyes were like knives, and his murderous aura was overwhelming, making none of his enemies in the room dare to speak.

"boom!!"

Flames erupted from the room, turning these faces to ashes.

Xiao Ran continued walking forward.

He would stop and pause in every room.

He saw Li Jingqi, who chuckled mischievously at Xiao Ran: "The bracelet is on your wrist. Your grandfather probably doesn't know yet. They chased me for so long, but in the end, the one who inherited my mantle is his grandson. Hahahaha... Fate."

In another room, Xiao Ran saw Beast Master. The old man faced Xiao Ran in silence, as if he wanted to say something but didn't know how to start.

Only when Xiao Ran was about to leave did she ask, "Are they alright?"

Perhaps Beast knew he was wrong from the beginning, but knowing you're wrong and turning back are two different things.

Some mistakes, once started, can only be repeated until there are no more mistakes to be made...

The four old men—the bald-headed old man, Zhao Qingming, Grandpa Zhou Shang, and... his own grandfather—stood in the room.

The four people looked at Xiao Ran in different ways.

Zhao Qingming looked indifferent, while Grandpa Zhou Shang smiled, and the bald old man looked both disgusted and concerned.

As for his grandfather...

What Xiao Ran saw was guilt, a look she had never seen before, a look that perhaps only appeared when Xiao Ran left the room.

It contains too much for Xiao Ran to fully understand.

Until Xiao Ran reached the end of the path, there was the last room, with a door without glass windows.

When Xiao Ran pushed open the door, she saw only a dark hospital room.

However, the moment the door was pushed open...

Xiao Ran was stunned. His face turned extremely ugly. In the empty room, under a standing bronze lamp.

A young couple sat under the bronze lamp, smiling at Xiao Ran.

"Xiao Ran!" The woman opened her eyes wide, tears welling in her eyes, and reached out to call out to Xiao Ran.

The man trembled with excitement, his fists clenched, and he looked at Xiao Ran with loving eyes.

This scene seemed to be something Xiao Ran had imagined a thousand times, and now it had become a reality in her dream.

"You bitch!!"

However, Xiao Ran was not moved at all. Instead, she stared coldly at her surroundings, and the strong mental fluctuations around her shattered everything around her into chaos.

"Isn't this what you wished for? In this dream, you can do anything you want—eat, drink, or... be with beautiful women!"

As the words fell, a shadow appeared before them, gradually becoming clearer, and it looked exactly like Yuting.

However, the expression on her face was completely different from her usual demeanor.

"You deserve to die!"

Xiao Ran had never been so angry. The feeling of having his inner thoughts exposed was as uncomfortable as having all his clothes stripped off.

The figure leaped forward and punched the figure.

"boom!!"

With a muffled thud, the two fists collided. When Gao Yuting raised her head again, she had transformed into Xiao Ran and sneered at her, "Want to fight? Heh, I'm afraid you can't beat me."

Having said that, his technique suddenly changed, and a guillotine appeared out of thin air in his hand. The blade was as sharp as lightning, and it whipped up a rolling gust of cold wind as it slashed toward Xiao Ran.

Xiao Ran was caught off guard and almost got slashed away. Fortunately, it was still his own swordsmanship. Xiao Ran knew his swordsmanship very well. He dodged the blade and used the Black Dragon Eighteen Hands to push the door and throw it down, hitting the opponent's shoulder hard.

Seeing Xiao Ran engaging in close combat, the opponent simply discarded his broadsword and used his nameless fist technique to entangle with Xiao Ran.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The two Xiao Rans were entangled, their fist, leg, palm, and knife techniques constantly changing, each punch landing with a visceral impact, growing faster and faster with each strike. "Corpse Pool!"

Xiao Ran stomped his foot, and the corpse energy rolled out like ink. In the instant he raised his hand, the corpse aura surged and transformed into a giant hand that slapped down on the opponent.

Unexpectedly, the other party also summoned a coffin to block the way, and then bowed respectfully to Xiao Ran with both hands clasped: "King Yama knocks on the door!"

"boom!!"

Xiao Ran's head buzzed, as if he had been hit on the head with a club, but in the next moment Xiao Ran had already completed the hand seals, and a strong wind of corpses blew around him: "Corpse Pressure!"

"call!!"

In an instant, the cold wind shifted, and the black corpse flames instantly engulfed the other Xiao Ran.

"Half a Yin-Yang Sect!"

Within the sea of ​​fire, the surging corpse energy completely repelled the black corpse flames.

"No, we can't take him down at all."

Looking at the guy in front of her who used the exact same methods as her, Xiao Ran suddenly felt an unprecedented sense of unease.

Their methods were exactly the same, as if they had been taught by the same master, and neither could do anything to the other.

"He has all my abilities, unless he comes up with something different."

As Xiao Ran pondered this, she suddenly realized something: "Something's not right!"

"kill!!"

At this moment, the shadow that looked exactly like him had already raised its guillotine and was charging at him, its feet moving at lightning speed, and countless screams and ghostly whispers could be heard from the blade.

In that split second, Xiao Ran's gaze suddenly hardened and she took a step forward, neither dodging nor flinching, letting the broadsword strike her.

"puff!!"

The blade pierced through his body, but he did not experience the pain he had imagined. Instead, the blade shadow that had been slashing towards him vanished the moment it touched Xiao Ran's body.

Seeing this, Xiao Ran was not surprised, but couldn't help but chuckle to herself: "It's really... heh, endlessly enjoyable to outwit yourself."

As he spoke, he looked up and around: "You almost got me into a trap."

This is my dream, and what I think in my dream is what I see, because nothing is real. I am just struggling with my own distracting thoughts.

All you need to do is suppress your fighting spirit and eliminate any thoughts of killing; all your inner demons will naturally vanish.

"The arts of magic are full of tricks, but they all follow the same principle. In essence, they are nothing more than illusions."

Once Xiao Ran understood the mystery, she simply sat down cross-legged and looked around.

"Since you won't come out, don't blame me for not giving you a chance. Perfect, I'll use you to help me cultivate today!"

With that, Xiao Ran cleared her mind and began cultivating the Soul Cultivation Technique.

Whether it's a dream or something else.

This is ultimately my own body, and everything here is just my own distracting thoughts, so I might as well use this opportunity to cultivate.

The power of the Soul Cultivation Technique was soon demonstrated once again.

As Xiao Ran's consciousness gradually faded, the surroundings also began to darken. The world that penetrated into her subconscious was like a suffocating deep sea.

Xiao Ran, on the contrary, used the Soul Cultivation Technique to make her consciousness feel as if it had returned to the womb, like a bright light flickering in the night.

It continuously draws in the surrounding darkness.

Not long after, Xiao Ran felt a distorted shadow struggling and dodging within her consciousness.

Because it doesn't belong here, it's like a drowning person, submerged by a vast subconscious, unable to break free no matter how hard it struggles.

Xiao Ran ignored it and even felt a little grateful to it. If it hadn't pulled her in, she would only be able to lower her consciousness to a very shallow distance each time she tried to cultivate.

Now, being pulled into the depths of the subconscious, the subconscious is being absorbed and transformed into one's own energy at a speed several times faster than when one is cultivating.

However, Xiao Ran's subconscious seemed to sense that something was wrong, and a violent backlash began to strike, trying to expel Xiao Ran.

The shadowy figure lurking in Xiao Ran's consciousness seemed to have found an opportunity and was about to rush out.

"It's too late to leave now!"

Xiao Ran locked onto the shadowy figure, her consciousness suddenly focusing, like a shooting star crashing into it, catching the shadowy figure off guard and smashing it to pieces.

"what!!"

With a childish scream, the dark figure was smashed into pieces by Xiao Ran's immense mental power.

Xiao Ran then forcibly absorbed these fragments using his Soul Cultivation Technique.

As the fragments were absorbed into her body, Xiao Ran suddenly saw some images before her eyes, including a room at the end of a hospital corridor.

The room was empty but spotless. At the back of the room was a special hospital bed, and a figure covered in tubes lay on it.

"Could it be the curse you cast on me?"

With a sense of doubt, Xiao Ran looked over carefully, and as his gaze fell upon the figure on the hospital bed, it became clearer.

only……

Xiao Ran frowned. She had originally wanted to say something sarcastic, but now she couldn't bring herself to speak.

The person in the hospital bed was actually a girl who was about eight or nine years old.

The girl lay on the hospital bed, her emaciated body devoid of any flesh, just skin and bones, with various tubes of unknown purpose inserted into her body.

What truly prevented Xiao Ran from speaking was that the girl had all four limbs amputated and her eyes gouged out, lying motionless on the bed.

"This is what you're really like!"

Upon seeing the girl's true appearance, even though Xiao Ran was a ruthless person, she couldn't help but feel sorry for her, and her original anger was somewhat suppressed.

"I just wanted to ask you to come over."

The girl took a deep breath; every word seemed to be a struggle for her.

"You invited me? Your way of inviting me is quite unique," Xiao Ran said sarcastically.

Faced with Xiao Ran's mockery, the girl seemed agitated, her thin chest heaving as she mustered her strength to say, "They... are... wicked... people... you help them."

Faced with the girl's questioning, Xiao Ran was speechless for a moment. In order not to alert the enemy, Xiao Ran was indeed helping Changchun Association.

"I am not with them. The cooperation is just a pretense to avoid attracting more bad people."

Hearing Xiao Ran's explanation, the girl on the hospital bed gradually calmed down. Although she didn't understand what Xiao Ran was trying to do, she seemed quite satisfied with the answer.

"Hurry, she's about to wake up, don't trust her."

After a brief silence, the girl reminded Xiao Ran.

"Who is she? When did she wake up?"

Xiao Ran knew that the "she" the girl was talking about was the evil spirit that Zhang Qi had mentioned was about to resurrect, but Zhang Qi's knowledge was limited, and Xiao Ran hoped to get more information from the girl.

"I……"

The girl was about to say something when, at that moment, Jin Chanzi's voice suddenly rang in Xiao Ran's ears: "Amitabha! You wicked creature, if you don't wake up now, when will you?!"

The sound entered Xiao Ran's ears like a thunderclap, startling her into a daze. Then, a flash of golden light jolted Xiao Ran awake from her dream as if she had been electrocuted.

I opened my eyes and looked.

But Jin Chanzi was staring at Xiao Ran. Seeing him open his eyes, he waved his hand in front of Xiao Ran a few times: "How are you? Are you awake?"

Xiao Ran first glanced down at the bracelet on her wrist, touched it, and then looked up at the clock on the wall. She had fallen asleep at 13:45 PM, and it was now 21:50 PM.

"I'm awake. Thank you, this time was just in time."

Although Xiao Ran felt helpless because Jin Chanzi woke her up at the worst possible time, she didn't blame him. After all, she was the one who said that if he didn't wake up after eight hours, she should notify Jin Chanzi to find a way to wake him up.

Therefore, she really couldn't blame him; in fact, Xiao Ran should thank Jin Chanzi.

"It's good that you're awake. I thought something had happened to you."

Jin Chanzi pointed to Sanli, Butcher, Liumu, and Wudang, who were surrounding Xiao Ran. These four Vajra protectors meant that unless Pumpkin broke in, anyone else would basically die as soon as they entered.

"It's nothing. I just fell into a deep sleep after drinking the No. 3 potion. I was worried something might happen, so I had them notify you to wake me up."

Xiao Ran then glanced at her own attributes, and what she saw shocked her.

After drinking the third potion, all my attributes improved, which wasn't too excessive, considering that my attributes had changed significantly after changing my class, and I even suffered a slight loss.

Therefore, the No. 3 potion is more about improving one's own attributes.

But now his attribute increases far exceeded his expectations, especially in the spirit stat, which is ridiculously high.

Xiao Ran's four attributes are now ridiculously strong: Strength 65, Constitution 70, Agility 75, and Spirit 174.

"How could my mental strength have increased so much?"

The 174 points of spirit surprised Xiao Ran, and the immense spiritual power also gave her a peculiar feeling.

For example, his mental energy can directly cover the area within his sight, and within this range, he seems to be able to control everything within it.

Xiao Ran casually reached out her hand, and with a gentle flick, she snatched the bottled water from the table and slowly placed it in her hand.

This is probably not just because of the No. 3 potion and his own Soul Cultivation Technique this time. After thinking for a moment, Xiao Ran felt that it was probably because he had devoured a part of the little girl's consciousness that the effect of his Soul Cultivation Technique had advanced by leaps and bounds.

"call!!"

Xiao Ran let out a long sigh of relief, stood up, and put the butcher and the others into the [Gourd of Yin Soldiers], then walked out the door with a smile.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Jin Chanzi looked at Xiao Ran with a puzzled expression, wondering why this guy was still running away. Xiao Ran then laughed and said, "Of course I'm going to my shift. After all... you have to love what you do..."

(End of this chapter)