Chapter 317

Chapter 318: Between Life and Death

The knight with golden Rapunzel-like hair, armored and armed, stood quietly before Yu Sheng. Endless wild grass stretched to the horizon, and beside them lay the bonfire that had once sheltered the Cursed Children, now cold and dark.

But the knight’s gaze was not on Yu Sheng; she simply stood there like a statue that had been set here long ago. Her eyes looked toward the distance, yet seemed to focus on nothing.

After a moment of surprise, Yu Sheng walked closer, curious; she did not react, so he tried to greet her: “Hello?”

He waved a hand before her eyes, but there was still no response.

He frowned and studied her more closely. Her body looked real, yet her outline shimmered with a faint unreal light, as if she did not fully exist here.

He circled her twice and decided she was some kind of apparition.

Yet he also felt she was not just a shadow; although she ignored the world and stood there blankly, he kept feeling [this shadow is alive].

It was a subtle feeling.

He calmed his mind and tried to sense the starship.

The Holy Coffin was still running. The body of the Artificial Saintess still slept inside with no sign of waking. Yet her soul had come into the Sanctuary Wasteland.

He thought it through: the Artificial Saintess had touched his blood more than once. She tried to resist its power, but in the end she, like the Cursed Children of Fairy Tale, had gone through a full Blood Bestowal. Those who undergo Blood Bestowal gain mental shelter. If they suffer a lethal psychic attack or pollution, their mind transfers to this strange wasteland. The Artificial Saintess has a human soul, so once she broke her mental shackles, entering the Sanctuary Wasteland like a human made sense. In breaking the shackles, her mind took heavy damage. The clash of memory and identity could have triggered the shelter effect.

It all explained a lot. The only part he could not figure out was her trance-like, phantom state.

After thinking for a moment, he decided to call an expert.

He called out in his heart: “Irene!”

Within seconds, the little doll yelled back: “Yeah yeah, I hear you. Why shout when I am napping… hey, what are you doing in the wasteland?”

A ripple opened in the air and an Oil Painting Frame popped out of nothing. Inside the painting, the little doll glared, annoyed at being dragged out of sleep.

Yu Sheng grabbed the frame and turned it toward the knight: “Take a look at this.”

Irene started to complain: “Hey, be gentle with a lady, can you be more c-” but she cut off when she saw the armored blonde figure. After two beats she blurted: “Wait. Who is that? Did you bring home another souvenir?”

Yu Sheng felt exasperated: “Does a living person look like a souvenir to you?”

Irene tilted the frame back toward him: “Then is she someone you lured home for marri-”

He cut her off: “This is that C Buckle.”

Irene almost dropped the frame.

She leapt within the painting and pressed up to his face: “What? C Buckle? She looks like this?”

Yu Sheng pushed the frame aside and pointed at the blond girl: “I told you, she used to be a person. This was her old self. I fell asleep and soon found her standing here, unresponsive to anything. I called you to check her condition.”

Though Irene often acted scatterbrained, in her own domain she was quick. Halfway through his words she understood why C Buckle had appeared in the Sanctuary Wasteland, and drifted to the girl’s side: “Got it. Looks like her brain is offline. Let me check.”

She circled the girl twice, put on a serious thinking face inside the frame, then lifted both hands. A swarm of hair-like Black Threads spilled from the frame’s bottom, like churning mud, like living tentacles. Under Irene’s control they crawled out of the Cursed Oil Painting, tangled in the air, and reached for the blond girl’s body.

Even after seeing Irene’s powers many times, watching the threads pour from the Cursed Oil Painting made Yu Sheng’s mouth twitch. He frowned and muttered: “Could you tune the style of your skills? This looks a bit too creepy.”

Irene angled the frame toward him while handling the lines: “Do I complain when you spray people with blood?”

Yu Sheng said nothing.

Irene kept probing the phantom with the threads. After only a few minutes, the threads retreated back into the frame.

He stepped up to ask: “Got anything? What is her condition?”

Irene wiped her hands inside the painting as if she had dirt to wipe: “Her mind is incomplete and badly torn. Strictly speaking, the one standing here is only a fragment. Many parts are missing. I did not find them.”

Yu Sheng’s brow tightened. He wasn’t an expert, but from those few words he could tell how serious it was.

He still held some hope: “Can she be healed?”

Irene winced and gave him an awkward look: “Your car is missing a windshield. Take it to the shop, they can fix it. But if all you have left is a windshield and you bring that to the shop asking them to work hard, then I suggest seeing a psychiatrist. The car cannot be repaired, but your condition might be covered by insurance.”

Yu Sheng started to protest: “If you have no way, just say so. Why say it like-”

Before he could finish, a streak of gold flashed at the edge of his vision. The knight moved too fast to see, raised her sword, turned the blade flat, and slapped down. With a clang, the supposedly unreal blade banged hard on the frame. Irene yelped and got slapped into the ground.

Not only Irene, even Yu Sheng failed to react. He froze, then looked up to see the knight standing dazed again as if she had never moved. Only Irene, still embedded in the earth, proved it was not Illusion Arts.

A second later Irene popped free, shaking dirt off the frame as she hopped in the painting: “Who? Who swung the hammer? Who ambushed me?”

Yu Sheng snapped out of it and pointed at the blond girl: “Her.”

Irene went blank, looked at the girl, then at him: “You are kidding me.”

He stayed earnest: “It was her. She moved all of a sudden. I saw it. She even held back. She turned the blade flat and slapped.”

Irene gaped, rushed to the girl’s side, circled twice to check, and still looked like she could not believe it: “How is that possible? It cannot be. I already checked. Look, she is standing like a statue again.”

Yu Sheng was just as confused. Even after seeing it, he walked over and tried to talk to the girl, but got no response.

Irene muttered by his ear: “No. My check was right. Her mind is definitely torn. The one standing here is only a small part. But you say she moved, which means she can still think and act? That makes no sense. Wait, is it tied to the part left in the real world?”

Yu Sheng frowned: “What do you mean?”

Irene said: “Isn’t she still dying in reality? Strictly speaking she already died once. You even ran Conversation With The Dead with her. But her life form is special, and she touched your blood, so you granted life to her as if she were a doll. Could it be this? Not quite dead and not truly alive, the body is both alive and dead at the same time, so her soul and mind split in two. One half is here under Near Death Shelter. The not dead half is still in the Holy Coffin.”

Yu Sheng’s face shifted to thought and surprise as he stared at the little doll.

Irene said: “Why are you looking at me? I was just guessing.”

Yu Sheng admitted: “I just didn’t expect you to be suddenly smart.”

Irene paused, then exploded: “Yu Sheng, you jerk!”

He ignored her tantrum, grabbed the wandering frame, tucked it under his arm, and looked at the blond girl standing in the wild, sinking into long thought.

[So she is both alive and dead.]