A chill came from his fingertips, and then the cold feeling penetrated into his body, slowly freezing his consciousness.
He looked down, the dark opening of the jar loomed larger in front of him, the water surface rippled slowly, gradually revealing a pale human face.
The face was at the bottom of the jar, watching Han Fei expressionlessly, its facial features slowly altering.
"What do you want? What are you yearning for?"
A strange voice came from afar, and then resounded at the bottom of Han Fei’s heart.
He was reluctant to answer, but the desire deep inside him was stirred.
The face under the water became clearer, and its mouth kept expressing various forms of greed, including money, beauty, and fame.
These things did not stir any emotion in Han Fei’s heart, but when the face in the jar uttered the words "the truth," Han Fei felt his consciousness begin to sink.
He flailed his arms trying to grab onto something, but there was nothing but darkness around him.
"Is it the truth that you want?"
It felt as if his consciousness was being dragged into the jar, wrapped by a chilling sensation. Han Fei could not control himself; this was not a situation that could be resolved simply by willpower alone.
Falling like through a dark cave, Han Fei’s consciousness plunged into a cold, deep pool.
His lungs were running out of air, he struggled desperately, but his consciousness kept sinking deeper.
Looking up, Han Fei saw the face that had been submerged below the water’s surface, now floating above it.
It still stared at Han Fei, but its features had somehow changed to look exactly like his own.
The mouth moved slightly as if trying to tell Han Fei something, but it only uttered one word before a hideous crack appeared across the face.
In that instant, Han Fei’s consciousness cleared a bit; he looked down into the deep water.
In the gloomy depths, figures lay piled upon each other, like soulless puppets, their hair swaying with the current, their eyes void of any brightness, hollow, vacant.
The deeper he went, the harder it was to break free. Han Fei swam upwards desperately, but his strength was fading.
Suffocation, pain, exhaustion, his consciousness grew increasingly dim. If Han Fei simply closed his eyes and gave up resisting at this moment, perhaps he would never have to endure this torment again.
Seductive voices continuously tempted Han Fei in the depths of the pool, the ghastly white arms symbolizing different desires slowly rising, trying to grab the still-resisting Han Fei.
His lungs ached fiercely, his head felt dizzy and heavy, and his arms and legs had almost lost control. But even in this state, Han Fei still refused to succumb.
He wanted to live; he wanted to see tomorrow.
Using the last bit of his rationality, Han Fei tried to open the Attribute Panel, but he was in a special state of consciousness being stripped away, and except for the Soul-summoning and Soul-returning talents, all other abilities were grayed out.
Clutching at one last shred of hope, Han Fei prepared to try Soul-summoning within the jar, but before he could use his Manager talent, the face floating on the water suddenly showed an expression of agony.
The face in the jar had to satisfy others’ greed before it could imprison their souls.
And Han Fei’s greed was unique, a strong pursuit of the truth.
To satisfy Han Fei’s greed, the face in the jar seemed to mention some Unspeakable entity.
The cracks on his face were multiplying; it seemed like his face had abandoned its own rules. He was not planning to tell Han Fei the truth but instead drove the corpses at the bottom of the pond, intending to forcefully keep Han Fei there.
As the cracks on his face increased, Han Fei also became more lucid. As the memories that had been spied upon and taken from him gradually returned, he felt the bindings on him steadily weakening.
Clenching his teeth, Han Fei used all his strength to swim towards the surface!
Just as his fingertips touched the water’s surface, a strand of black thread wrapped around his arm and violently yanked him from the depths of the pond!
A slight crack appeared on the dark jar, and Han Fei, standing beside the table, instantly regained his normal expression.
His back was soaked with cold sweat; his upper body was tightly entwined by the pet that Xu Qin had raised, half of that little pet’s body still inside the jar.
"That was too close!"
Han Fei’s body trembled lightly; if his greed had not been for the truth but for something else, he would have had no chance to resist.
He faintly remembered that, just as his consciousness was completely blurring and he was about to succumb, a crack had suddenly appeared on the face.
It was precisely because the face had received some kind of damage that Han Fei had managed to regain his senses.
People who are greedy for the truth are extremely rare, particularly those whose truth involves the Unspeakable being—that’s even more seldom seen.
The face in the jar had inadvertently fallen into the trap, carelessly mentioning that Unspeakable thing.
Pulling the dark shadow Xu Qin raised from the jar, what surprised Han Fei was that the shadow also brought along a large pile of worn-out paper slips from inside the jar.
Those paper slips contained all sorts of wishes, including "make someone like me," "let me rank first in my exams," "let me not fail any subjects," "make someone unlucky today," and even "let someone die today," etc.
Among the pile of paper slips, Han Fei also saw a small piece of bone.
"Player number 0000, please note! You have successfully completed the Class-G Hidden Task—Jar, receiving a basic reward of one Skill Point and a special reward for the hidden task—the Wish Jar."
"Wish Jar (Class-G Curse Item): In a corner of the school garden, there is a jar buried, and legend has it that wishes made to this jar will come true. This legend was initially told by a female student who said she hated her younger brother. After making a wish at the jar, her brother actually disappeared."
"You have successfully challenged a school Kaidan, completing one-seventh of Class-F Hidden Task Jin Sheng’s Academy Kaidan."
Upon reviewing the task information, Han Fei roughly understood that the method used by the female student to fulfill her wish must have been to kill her brother and then hide part of his body in the jar.
It was not the jar that had fulfilled her wish; the so-called Wish Jar was merely an excuse to conceal malicious intent.
"A dead person was once placed inside this jar."
Han Fei frowned as he inspected it, while the black shadow beside him heartlessly devoured the dark energy and curses from the wish paper slips; this little fellow was not picky and ate everything.
"Teacher? Are you all right?" Zhang Guanxing poked Han Fei’s waist with a broom, uncertainly asking.
"I was just sucked into the jar, and I almost didn’t make it out."
"Then did you see my friend inside the jar?"
"Your friend has probably been assimilated by the curse in the jar." Han Fei picked up the lid and resealed the black jar, which, in some sense, could also be considered a decent weapon.