The successful restoration of three sealing points in a row greatly boosted the morale of the spectators.
Only the last one remained.
At the core sealing point.
Chen Miemie was teleported over.
Surrounding him was a large circle of mystics he had never seen before, each looking at him with a smile.
After waiting for almost a minute.
The expected two chosen ones did not appear.
The voice of [Trial] sounded: "For the final sealing point, the selection begins. The candidates this time are special, so the selection process will no longer be made public."
A massive pillar of blood expanded outward with Chen Miemie at its center, until it was larger than the bloody curtain Father Jing had conjured earlier.
Chen Miemie stood in the enclosed eggshell-like space, watching the small pillars of blood surrounding him gradually move further away as the perimeter expanded.
Another minute passed.
"[Trial], where is everyone?"
[Trial] replied: "Both individuals are in position. Please approach the [Magic Mirror]."
Chen Miemie walked up to the [Magic Mirror].
In the mirror was his reflection.
"Hello, Chen Miemie."
This voice came from the person in the mirror.
The Chen Miemie outside the mirror didn't move, while the one inside waved in greeting.
Chen Miemie rolled his eyes. "You've got to be kidding me. What era is this, still playing the mirror image trope? Are we going to debate who is real, or do I have to defeat myself? It's a bit outdated, don't you think?
By the way, you in the mirror, to make it easier to tell us apart, I'll call you Mirror Miemie."
"Sure, then I'll be Mirror Miemie. I'm not you; I'm just a mirror anomaly." The person in the mirror was surprisingly easygoing.
"Oh? You've got some tricks. You're actually not following the cliché? What kind of anomaly are you?"
"I am a mirror anomaly, born from the vanity of people looking in mirrors all over the world. I only appear when someone is looking in a mirror.
Right now, you are looking in the mirror, so I've taken on your appearance. If someone else were looking, I would look like them."
"Where do you usually stay? Were you caught and brought here by [Trial]?"
"No, I can control all mirrors and travel through them, including the [Magic Mirror]. To some extent, it's me who is imprisoning [Trial]."
"You? You feel pretty weak. You can control [Trial]? You must be bragging."
"I can't control it, but the [Magic Mirror]'s effects work on it and can keep it locked up. Besides, [Trial] itself likes to sleep inside the [Magic Mirror] after a trial ends."
"Alright, Mirror Miemie. When the trial is over, come find me. You can roll with me from now on."
"No thanks. I like running all over the world and won't stay in one place. Plus, I can see into people's hearts, and no one likes having absolutely no secrets in front of someone else."
"Fine, let's get down to business," Chen Miemie didn't press the issue. "Mirror Miemie, why do you want to destroy the seal?"
"I don't want to destroy the seal. The Magic Mirror has always been helping to repair the seals, so why would I want to destroy them?"
"Come on, it's just the two of us here. I'm here to fix it. Even now, you still want to deceive me?"
"I'm not deceiving you. And are you really here to repair the seal?"
"I made that pretty obvious at the first three locations, didn't I?"
Mirror Miemie smiled eerily:
"Chen Miemie, who is really deceiving whom here? Or are you even fooling yourself?
For the first seal, you didn't choose your incredibly familiar close friend, but rather a classmate who loves to put on disguises.
For the second seal, you didn't choose the resilient doctor known for his good deeds, but instead a woman who leeches off her family and loves to show off.
For the third seal, you didn't choose the godfather of the Moon Church, but a lunatic from the Mist Cult.
Did you really want to choose people to repair the seals?
You clearly have the ability to completely wipe out the alien races in the city on certain nights, yet you deliberately leave the city to avoid them.
You have no lingering attachments to your past life, you lack compassion for humanity, and you are surrounded by anomalies.
You are leading your group of anomalies in search of a 'new home.' Do you really want Sixiang City to be as stable as Mount Tai, with no vulnerabilities to exploit?
Chen Miemie, do you think of yourself as a human, or an anomaly?"
Chen Miemie looked at his eerily smiling self in the mirror and sighed softly:
"I just said you had some tricks, and now you're back to clichés.
You're not actually some mirror anomaly, are you?
Whatever you are, you think pulling some mind-reading and giving a speech will make me doubt myself?
It's useless.
What I am doesn't need to be defined by others. I can be human, or I can be an anomaly; it depends on my mood and my needs.
The reason my actions and choices seem capricious is that I have the power to take responsibility for them.
So what if I choose wrong? Even if the seal breaks, as long as I don't allow it, no one can take Sixiang City.
However, you were right about one thing: my empathy is indeed not very strong. I might lend a hand if something happens right in front of me, but I won't fancy myself a hero and run around putting out fires."
Mirror Miemie seemed stunned by Chen Miemie's words.
After a good while, it finally spoke, "Since you are so resolute, it seems I can't persuade you. Walk into the mirror yourself."
Chen Miemie stood half a meter away from the mirror, clapping his hands with a smile.
"After acting for so long, you've finally revealed your true colors.
You orchestrated the drama of selecting people to enter the mirror three times before, all just to make me believe that entering the mirror would repair the seals.
You should know that I'm not afraid of death, nor will I die, so I wouldn't fear repairing the seal.
In reality, your true target has always been me.
You want to trick me into walking into the mirror myself."
Mirror Miemie chuckled.
"See? This is your inner choice. You don't want to repair the seal, so you make up some unfounded conspiracy theory. Suit yourself. If you don't want to go in, you can choose me."
Mirror Miemie returned to mimicking Chen Miemie's exact posture.
The two looked at each other in front of the mirror, separated by less than a meter.
Chen Miemie was smiling.
Mirror Miemie also wore a face full of an eerie smile.
The two of them were more anomalous than anomalies themselves.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
