"In a relatively independent domain, go through every process you can think of, all the way."
This suggestion still hangs in the prompt to this day. It’s never changed.
Wen Yan felt that heeding advice led to a full stomach, so it was best to seriously consider what ’every process you can think of’ truly meant.
After thinking for a bit, he began speaking as if talking to himself.
"When I was in my teens, I had to go to school and also earn my own tuition and living expenses. Back then, miscellaneous school fees weren’t much, but I wanted to attend the best local school, and that required paying a special enrollment fee. If I could consistently rank among the top few in my grade, that special enrollment fee would naturally be waived. Unfortunately, I had to earn my own living. At that time, the only work I could find that didn’t interfere with daytime classes, paid decently, and was open to a teenager like me, was making money from the dead.
"Once, while helping with a burial at midnight, I even encountered local villagers catching tomb robbers. There were three tomb robbers, armed, and two were caught in their tunnel and killed on the spot. The last one, who initially wasn’t discovered, was from a neighboring village and usually seemed very honest. During the capture, he took the initiative, leading others to trap his two accomplices in the robber’s tunnel, ensuring they died. Later, when the police traced some clues, they found out he was the mastermind."
"What are you trying to say?" Qin Kun asked from the side.
"I’m saying it for his benefit," Wen Yan said. "Some things have to be spelled out to be effective. What I mean is, I realized that each of his identities was remarkably complete—complete enough to make Uncle stop. Then it suddenly dawned on me.
"He’s the type of selfish, unscrupulous person—a complete villain—who knows how to hide his true self. Such a person will never change; I’ve truly met people like him before. To protect himself, he can use any method without the slightest pressure. And when he does, it’s always smooth, seemingly flawless.
"For example, when he realized he’d been implicated by Brother Ming and his ’heart wall’ had been breached, he discovered that the perfect identities he once used hadn’t disappeared. He also realized that Uncle was actually the Big Executor he had single-handedly created, and that Aunt Gan was also backing me up from afar. Seeing all this, he decisively started to look for an escape route.
"Unfortunately for him, he probably didn’t anticipate that among all his identities, Brother Ming—the only ordinary and most cowardly one—would turn out to be the most extreme after his defenses were breached. Brother Ming would rather pay the price of eternal disappearance to fulfill Liu Yuxin’s final wish. His death was merely so Liu Yuxin could hear the truth with her own ears, to confirm it herself.
"How could that cold-blooded, ruthless man, who stops at nothing, understand such a thing? Even sharing one body, he probably can’t empathize or comprehend it at all. This must be beyond his expectations, right?"
Qin Kun was silent by now. He probably realized that Fake Mo Zhicheng had split his life into many parts. Because his ability was so strong, each part had become an independent individual, a completely different person. These distinct personalities were now all crammed into one body, and the psychopath they originally wanted to kill hadn’t reappeared. This must have been done intentionally.
"He’s trying to escape?" Qin Kun asked.
"If he didn’t want to escape, why would he keep moving closer to that large hole?" Wen Yan replied.
"Aren’t you going to stop him?" Qin Kun pressed.
"He’s waiting for me to stop him," Wen Yan said. "He hates me so much he wishes he could skin me alive and eat me whole."
As Wen Yan’s words exposed these hidden matters, Fake Mo Zhicheng suddenly stopped his frenzy. He stood on the edge of the large hole, turning back to look at Wen Yan with a cold gaze.
"You certainly are capable, even able to control the Big Executor," Fake Mo Zhicheng said. "You’ve gone to great lengths to keep the Big Executor around. Unfortunately, it’s useless. With your current methods, you can’t kill me. We have a long future ahead of us. Let’s take our time with this game."
As Fake Mo Zhicheng’s frenzy ceased and he stopped constantly changing identities, Uncle, who had been standing motionless, instantly transformed into an afterimage and rushed toward him. When Uncle got close, Fake Mo Zhicheng sneered and continued to hide behind that pile of identities, letting them keep fighting for control of the body. Uncle rushed toward Fake Mo Zhicheng and suddenly halted.
Wen Yan reached out, beckoning to the thick tentacles flailing in mid-air.
Qin Kun’s eyelids twitched, and he swiftly jumped back twice, retreating to a spot more than ten meters away.
Wen Yan reached out and touched the Soul Devouring Beast’s tentacles. "It’s been so long, and you haven’t really eaten anything good. Want to try something you’ve never experienced before? To nourish yourself a bit?"
"I’ve been pondering something: if you stopped eating human souls, then what would a person’s soul be to you? For this fellow here," Wen Yan seemed to indicate Fake Mo Zhicheng, "what is *his* soul?"
"I thought about it for a long time but couldn’t quite grasp it. Only now do I understand."
"For you, given your definition of a soul, it must be the indispensable finishing touch—like dotting the eye of a painted dragon."
"Without the soul, what could have been a delicacy savored for millennia would instantly degenerate into the most ordinary, coarse fare. It might not even count as food to fill the belly, merely a poison to be discarded."
As Wen Yan murmured these words, still touching the Soul Devouring Beast’s tentacles, the appendages writhing in mid-air suddenly shot out, swiftly coiling around Fake Mo Zhicheng.
Fake Mo Zhicheng’s Yang Energy erupted, and he braced his arms, forcibly resisting the Soul Devouring Beast’s tentacles.