Chapter 162: [Passing the Imperial Examination] How Could You
Mother Han suddenly broke into a desperate sprint, charging straight into the cluster of ghosts.
The ghosts parted to either side, clearing a path for her.
Though they bore gruesome deaths and terrifying visages, every single one of them watched Mother Han with deeply sorrowful eyes.
Mother Han threw herself down in front of Han Yingying, then jerked to a sudden halt.
She had initially wanted to pull her into a tight embrace, but then she remembered—in her dreams, every single time, she had fallen just a fraction short. Just a fraction short of catching her daughter.
And yet, she could never catch her.
She extended a hand with agonizing care, lightly touching Han Yingying.
She could touch her.
Mother Han finally broke down into loud, racking sobs, throwing her arms around Han Yingying.
Han Yingying trembled as well, weeping uncontrollably even as she suppressed the ghostly aura swirling around her body.
Li Shanshan quietly slid over to Bai Cha’s side.
“Um… what’s going on here?”
Wang Jiapeng walked over as well.
“Does this mean we don’t have to take the exam tomorrow?”
A hint of excitement flickered across his face. Given the situation, these parents would all come to a sudden realization, wouldn’t they?
Whether they would come to their senses was unknown, but a sharp, piercing shout erupted from inside the apartment.
“Speak! What on earth is this stuff?!”
The players crowded over, but the doorway was far too packed, forcing many to run around to the window instead.
Inside, the Master had regained consciousness.
He had suffered a head injury and bled quite a bit, though he was far from dead.
Gradually waking up amidst the din, a throbbing ache racked his head.
Looking at the mob of furious parents, he failed to react at first.
By the time he snapped back to reality, his eyes met the yellow talisman papers and red threads clutched tightly in their hands.
His mind buzzed all the louder.
“You… you… you ruined my livelihood!”
His speech was slurree and halting; the head injury was no minor matter, leaving his mind a tangled mess. All he knew in this moment was that he was completely finished.
His money—his money was all gone!
The middle-aged man scrambled frantically, attempting to crawl into that inner room, but a crowd of parents surged forward to block him.
From that single sentence he just uttered, the parents understood everything.
They had all been thoroughly duped by this man.
“Did you swap my son’s exam scores with someone else’s?! Speak!” Bloodshot veins spiderwebbed across Wang Jiapeng’s mother’s eyes.
Watching the commotion from outside the doorway, Bai Cha’s ears twitched subtly. She caught the faint, barely audible sound of flapping wings.
She immediately grabbed the people beside her and yanked them back.
“Move!”
Before the others could react, a swarm of butterflies surged into the room out of nowhere.
Bai Cha looked back and saw one of the blood-red butterflies bore straight into the back of Mother Han’s head.
“Holy shit, are those demon butterflies?!” A player recognized the insects.
“Damn it, be careful! These things bite like hell, and they lay eggs!”
“Where did so many come from?! Holy crap!”
Bai Cha had already drawn her knife. When her blade slashed through a butterfly, a metallic clang echoed in the air.
Her gaze swept over the players at rapid speed. When her eyes landed on a particular player, her gaze locked with his.
That player flashed her a smile dripping with pure malice.
An odd sensation welled up in Bai Cha’s heart.
Then, she proactively equipped her title.
Demon Hunter.
Consequently, the title hovering above that player’s head flared into her view as well.
Butterfly Chaser.
No wonder.
She had considered before that a title like hers couldn’t possibly belong to her alone; similar titles were bound to exist in abundance.
Ever since she chose to accept the Buddha statue, she had never encountered another Buddha statue inside the game. Instead, she repeatedly crossed paths with monsters identical to the receptionist.
The two sides were diametrically opposed.
Much like the rules of that past instance, they shared the same objective as players, yet competed against one another explicitly.
This time, the entity worshipped by the middle-aged man was likely a “demon” as well, but someone had beaten her to the punch.
At the end of the day, she was still too much of a newcomer with limited knowledge about the game’s inner workings.
She would know better going forward, though.
As for right now…
Those butterflies burrowed into the corpses of the deceased ghosts and slipped into the bodies of those parents, mutating them all toward a demonic state.
They couldn’t penetrate the players’ bodies, yet they could leave the players battered and bloodied.
Bai Cha rushed to the sides of Han Yingying and Mother Han at top speed.
“Han Yingying!”
Han Yingying raised her head in blank confusion.
Her body was undergoing a mutation as well.
Bai Cha activated the dodder vine within the girl’s body, causing a delicate, slender sprout to break through the skin at her fingertip.
“Have you told your mother yet?”
Bai Cha looked at her with utter seriousness.
Han Yingying froze. Looking at her mother—who was steeped in agony and sorrow, mutating even faster than she was—she snapped to her senses in an instant.
“Mom!”
She grabbed her mother’s shoulders, staring in utter horror at the transformation overtaking her body.
“Mom, hang in there!”
“Han Yingying!” Bai Cha urged sharply. “These butterflies turn people into demons by feeding on the obsessions in their hearts! What is your obsession? What is your mother’s obsession? Don’t you know?!”
Han Yingying’s body shuddered.
She opened her mouth, yet those words remained agonizingly difficult to utter.
“Han Yingying!” Bai Cha drove off another butterfly with a slash of her knife.
“Didn’t you want to tell your mother?! What are you waiting for?!”
“I’m sorry!”
Han Yingying finally screamed it out.
Her voice prompted Mother Han to raise her head. Half of Mother Han’s face had already shifted to a dark blood-red, her reactions somewhat sluggish as she looked at her daughter.
“Mom, I’m sorry, I love you…”
Having broken the ice, Han Yingying could finally pour out every thought bottled up in her heart.
“I wanted to say, Mom, I love you, and I’m so sorry. I chose to run away because I thought it would make things easier for you. I thought you only cared about my grades…”
“I’m sorry, I…”
Mother Han pulled Han Yingying into her arms once more.
Her voice had grown increasingly bizarre and distorted.
“No, my child, Mom will bring you back to life…”
A sharp glint flashed through Bai Cha’s eyes as she shot a cold look at Mother Han. So that’s how it is.
Mother Han had long been dead as well.
Perhaps the very moment her daughter died—when the sole pillar of hope supporting her struggle to live collapsed completely—she chose the exact same path as her daughter.
They were mother and daughter, two halves of the same shadow.
Bai Cha delayed no longer, drawing out the dodder vine embedded within Han Yingying’s body.
Only then did Han Yingying finally register the anomaly within herself.
She reached out, hooking a slender tendril with her finger.
Then, she looked at Bai Cha.
“Sister, I can give you all my power. Just help me one last time.”
Turning around, she wrapped her arms around her mother, blood-red tears streaming continuously down her cheeks.
By now, the stolen exam scores no longer mattered.
She had never harbored an obsession over those things to begin with, nor had she felt resentment because of them.
She simply wanted her mother to stop suffering.
She wanted to make her happy.
She wanted to give her a little relief.
She… wanted to stay together with her!
Mother Han’s body trembled. Sensing something, she instinctively grabbed her daughter’s shoulders.
“No! No! You cannot die! You are my child, you cannot die before me! You have to see me off in death, you have to fulfill your filial duties to me, you…”
“How could you abandon your mother?!”
Mother Han let out a blood-curdling roar as her form ballooned outward, as if tearing through her outer layer of skin. A towering red monster adorned with horns emerged from within.
Han Yingying extended a hand, gently touching her crimson horn.
“How could I? I just want to be with you, Mom…”
