Chapter 1143: Inner World
Xuanwu was stunned for a long moment before lifting his head to look at the people before him.
"What are you planning...?"
Luo Shiyi had also lost his words and quickly turned to look at Su Shan and Song Qi.
Both of them now wore equally troubled expressions.
Song Qi toyed with a stone in his hand, carefully contemplating the current situation.
It wasn't difficult for Qiu Shiliu to set herself on fire—after all, she had already controlled her emotions before entering Xuanwu's body.
The hardest part for her was stopping the fire.
But why did Xuanwu's body appear completely unharmed...?
Could there be something wrong with that space, causing Qiu Shiliu to die immediately upon entering?
Su Shan stared wide-eyed at Xuanwu as well. When Qiu Shiliu was about to enter Xuanwu's body, she had clearly unleashed "Crimson Flame." Yet after her figure disappeared, the words "Crimson Flame" were gone, leaving only "Undying" covering Xuanwu's body.
"Relying on guesses for such an unknown situation is too difficult..." Su Shan murmured.
Everyone stood frozen, unsure of what to do. Should they continue attacking now, or should they wait and see...?
"Ahhhh!"
Just as everyone fell silent, a scream rang out from afar.
They all turned to look, only to see Ma Shi'er running toward them, clutching a pitch-black arm and howling in pain.
"Goddamn it, ahhh!"
He panted heavily as he reached the group, threw the arm to the ground in terror, and gasped for air.
"What...?" Luo Shiyi asked with a frown.
"Eleven, bro!" Ma Shi'er seemed badly shaken. "Just now... this arm... goddamn it..."
"Get to the point."
Ma Shi'er quickly steadied his breath, pointed at the black arm on the ground, and said with a trembling voice: "Just now, Shiliu's face floated across this arm!!"
"Huh...?"
Everyone was momentarily stunned. Though the matter was hard to comprehend, it wasn't entirely impossible.
"You mean her face 'floated across'...?"
"It's—how do I put it!" Ma Shi'er scratched his head, trying to find the right words. "Just now, Shiliu's face was like a moving tattoo on this arm... except it zipped from one end to the other."
He seemed to be doing his best to organize his thoughts, hoping everyone would believe he hadn't lost his mind.
After speaking, he looked around and quickly noticed something was off. "Wait... where's Shiliu?"
"She went to be a tattoo."
"Huh?"
Luo Shiyi rubbed his head and then asked, "When you saw Shiliu... was she alive or dead?"
"Huh?!"
Ma Shi'er couldn't understand the question at all.
"Eleven, bro, what do you mean... You're saying that tattoo is really Shiliu herself?!" Ma Shi'er said excitedly. "She's swimming inside Xuanwu's arm?!"
"Something like that," Luo Shiyi replied. "But the current plan seems to have a flaw. So, is she dead or not?"
Ma Shi'er thought carefully about the face he had just seen.
"If that's the case... Shiliu probably isn't dead," he answered. "But her eyes were wide open, like she'd seen something extremely shocking..."
"Shocking...?"
"Yeah!" Ma Shi'er nodded. "If her eyes weren't that wide, I wouldn't have been scared out of my wits just now..."
"Since she's not dead, why hasn't 'Crimson Flame' activated...?" Luo Shiyi voiced his doubt, then turned to look at Song Qi.
Standing on the low rooftop, Song Qi had heard everything clearly and quickly formed a conclusion.
If Qiu Shiliu was fine but hadn't triggered "Crimson Flame," it could only mean her "rage" had diminished.
A "Resonance" triggered by "extreme rage" hadn't taken effect, meaning Qiu Shiliu had seen something incredibly strange in that space—something even capable of altering her emotions.
While everyone was deep in thought, they noticed a figure drifting across Xuanwu's pitch-black body. The figure moved from left to right, quickly passing beyond their line of sight.
That figure was Qiu Shiliu.
"What the..." Ma Shi'er pointed at Xuanwu and exclaimed, "That's exactly what it looked like!!"
Xuanwu, who had been looking down, also saw this and immediately thrust his left hand into his own body to grab Qiu Shiliu, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't reach her.
Only then did everyone realize what this floating figure phenomenon resembled...
It was like a screen playing a video.
Xuanwu's entire body seemed like a dark, three-dimensional display, constantly projecting the standby image of a starry sky. But now, a person was drifting across that starry sky.
This wasn't quite like a tattoo, because Qiu Shiliu appeared inside Xuanwu's body, not on its surface.
"What... should we do now...?" Ma Shi'er asked softly.
"Give Shiliu some time. Don't attack rashly," Song Qi said from the rooftop. "We have enough mutual understanding for that."
"Makes sense." Luo Shiyi nodded. "Since Shiliu didn't activate Crimson Flame right away, it can only mean she thinks now isn't the right time."
...
It took Qiu Shiliu a long time to barely stabilize herself in this strange space.
When she first entered, her immediate reaction was "can't breathe."
This bizarre space didn't seem to have reserved any air for intruders like her. She had thought she was about to die.
But when she looked up, an overwhelming sense of awe crashed into her mind.
The thought of breathing was instantly forgotten.
What met her eyes was an endless black backdrop, filled with countless doors floating in mid-air.
Some doors were half-open, letting through faint light from the other side. These infinite, heaven-and-earth-spanning, softly glowing doors looked from afar like a vast, brilliant starry sea.
Where did they lead?
And why were they inside Xuanwu's body?
No, rather than wonder about that, she should first figure out what kind of place she was actually in.
After about a minute, Qiu Shiliu snapped back to reality and realized she had been breathing the entire time.
She was calmly inhaling and exhaling in an airless space.
But the moment she became aware of this abstract problem, she suddenly found it hard to breathe again.
Having been a member of "Cat" for a while, Qiu Shiliu quickly understood that "breathing" here was controlled by her subconscious.
If she believed she couldn't breathe here, she would suffocate to death. Only when she wasn't thinking about it could she ignore the breathing problem.
Easier said than done, though. Convincing herself that she could freely breathe in this space was incredibly difficult.
After all, this place seemed to have no sky above, no ground below—just an endless, pitch-black, bizarre void. Could a human really breathe here?
Qiu Shiliu tried many times but still couldn't change her subconscious. So she slowly turned her head, looking for something to distract herself.
That turn was a mistake.
Ma Shi'er's big face suddenly appeared right in front of her, startling her so much that her eyes shot wide open in shock.