After being poisoned by mushrooms, all the strange creatures became fascinated by me.

The world on the ground.

In the shadow cast by the copy, one after another huge shipping container stood menacingly, like rows of giant cans, or like coffins.

Not far away, new containers are still being delivered continuously.

These containers were made of a sturdy, transparent material, filled with dark blue water in which clumps of slowly wriggling purplish-black meat were submerged.

That's the strangeness that has accumulated in the original world over the years.

Once separated from the human body, they cannot be destroyed or utilized; they can only be contained.

More and more patients are recovering and leaving the hospital with their heads held high, leaving behind the eerie atmosphere they were once forced to live with. But they don't know that every night they sleep soundly, the eerie atmosphere that was forcibly stripped from them is relentlessly knocking on the transparent container.

Click, click, click.

They showed no interest in the raw meat offered to them and scoffed at the sight of live mice.

They only yearn to find a host they have escaped from, and day and night they wriggle incessantly.

Even though they are thousands of miles apart, these strange creatures can still sense the location of their host. The purplish-black flesh is tightly clustered on the container wall on the side closest to the host. If they were to evolve the ability to break through the container, no one knows what the future holds.

So the recovered patients cheered, and people's lives finally returned to hope and order. Only the doctors and researchers kept the doors of the isolation wards locked day and night, guarding this secret as if they were guarding a live volcano that could erupt at any time.

This is the final hurdle for people in this world to overcome the strange and difficult challenges, and it is precisely because of this that people cannot proudly call this battle between humanity and the strange a victory.

—To this day.

The most bizarre and confined place is the Anping People's Rehabilitation Hospital right in front of us.

All the accumulated strangeness has converged here.

Gu Xiaomei stood on this land she once knew so well, yet hated so much. Her gaze was fixed on the statue of "Gu" in front of the hospital. It was dressed in a white robe, its gender and age indistinguishable, one hand gazing out at the world, the other holding a scale for weighing medicine.

That was her father, and that was also herself.

Wow, Gu Xiaoying, she thought to herself, you really have to take a look at this.

All our efforts, both yours and mine, have not been in vain; it has been better than we could have imagined.

The last container was also safely placed on the ground by a robot, and the driverless transport vehicle slowly drove away.

"Tang Li! Weird—it's all ready!"

Gu Xiaomei called out to her comrades who were still in the sky.

Not far behind her, Qing Fengnian, who refused to evacuate with her and volunteered to stay on the front line to coordinate, stared intently at the girl's thin back.

Was the "Gu" they had been searching for, the mysterious person who could stir up a storm online with a wave of her hand, the girl in front of them? The middle-aged man was still in a daze of disbelief.

But the "Gu" ID flashing on the computer screen, the decisive commands, and the complete understanding of the strange things—all of this repeatedly proved this fact to him.

“There were two people in ‘Ancient’,” the girl said without turning her head, still gazing up at the gradually fading replica in the sky. “First was my father, and then came me.”

As Qing Fengnian suddenly realized what was happening, an ominous premonition welled up inside him: "Then, your father...?"

Is it already...?

Gu Xiaomei smiled and finally turned to look at him for the first time, her eyes filled with pride. "My father, he's coming back soon."

"Right now, he is in heaven."

—The “Ancient” are still alive; they have returned. Completely intact.

When they left, they left behind hope for the "separation of humans and monsters"; when they came, they brought with them the possibility of completely destroying the supernatural.

Qing Fengnian had no more doubts. His heart was surging with excitement, and he grinned and nodded heavily.

heaven.

The yellow paper was completely burned.

The last wisp of ash drifted away from Tang Li's palm.

The bright flames then went out.

Her hands, which had been unbearably scorched by the sacrificial fire, now felt no pain whatsoever. The last wisp of smoke, like a blue fish, gently kissed her palm.

The smoke, though born from fire, brought a damp, cool sensation. In a daze, Tang Li felt the cool, bluish water flowing gently through her hands.

Something earth-shattering had already happened, and she sensed it in her heart. She spread her hands, and at that moment, both she and the comments section held their breath.

It was a bluish-gold mark, branded on the spot where she had been burned by the flames, and it was a series of concentric circles.

"???" "Oh my God! Oh my God!" "Aaaaaaah! I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" "No wonder the live stream suddenly stopped and showed that we didn't have viewing privileges..." "The streamer really saw the adult?!"

Tang Li smiled, about to say a few mystical words to deepen the audience's impression.

A sharp pain followed a beat later, suddenly drilling into her eyes.

Tang Li could barely make a sound. She was in so much pain that she bent forward and suddenly covered her eyes!

With her eyes moist and in excruciating pain, Tang Li tightly closed them, thinking she was crying from the pain. But the audience could see clearly that what fell to the ground and splattered like flowers were drops of bright red blood.

"Superpowers!" "Superpowers severely depleted, streamer, drink some supplements!" "Wait, why is the little figure still there? Take it back!" "New streamer, you have no sense of propriety!" "Take the little figure back! Streamer, take the little figure back!" "Do you want to go blind?"

Tang Li gritted her teeth. She wasn't a battle-hardened warrior like Jiang Hui; her experience in enduring pain was practically zero. Tang Li's fingers were trembling, but thankfully she had already bought power-enhancing supplements and painkillers from the livestream shop beforehand.

She rummaged through her pocket and pulled out a bottle haphazardly, not caring what kind it was, closed her eyes, bit it open, spat out the cork, and tilted her head back to drink it.

The pain in her eyes eased a bit; it was from the painkiller. Tang Li leaned weakly against the wall and drank another bottle.

Meanwhile, viewers in the live stream were still asking questions.

"??? Streamer, are you out of your mind?" "Damn it, even now, why don't you take back your superpower?!" "Do you like pain?" "This is the first time I've ever felt this way in a streamer's livestream!"

Hundreds of tiny Tang pears, not one missing, crowded together at Tang Pear's feet.

"Tang Li? Tang Li?" A hurried call rang in my ears, as if it had been going on for a long time.

"What's wrong with you? Answer me!"

It's Gu Xiaoying.

"...I'm fine."

Tang Li endured the most agonizing wave of pain, her voice hoarse, and whispered, "Southern Xinjiang."

A child's innocent voice immediately rang out: "I'm here."

"Come find me," Tang Li said. "Come and get your termination notices."

Even at this moment, she still smiled proudly. The girl still covered her eyes with one hand, and with the other hand, she almost proudly pulled the carefully folded yellow paper from her pocket.

She lit it as an offering to the gods, and then redeemed it from under the gods' tails back to the human world.

The paper was filled with the names of people who shouldn't have died.

Above the densely packed names, a bright red checkmark was drawn with Tang Li's blood.