Chapter 875: The Faceless One
"Other people?" Jiang Ruoxue frowned slightly and asked, "Who?"
Bai Yang looked up at the sky, then sighed. "Come over here, both of you. If you have any solutions... help me think this through."
Hearing this, I could only follow Bai Yang's request and step forward, standing together with Ruoxue.
We both waited quietly for Bai Yang to speak, but he lowered his head as if lost in thought. I clearly saw a flicker of fear flash through his eyes.
"Is it hard to talk about...?" I asked.
"No..." Bai Yang calmed himself down, then continued, "It's not that it's hard to talk about... it's just too bizarre... I'm afraid that if I tell you, you'll think I'm crazy and lose any desire to communicate with me."
"We won't." Jiang Ruoxue and I answered almost simultaneously.
"Alright, since that's the case..."
He raised his head, stared at the two of us, and with a strange expression uttered a sentence that sent chills down my spine:
"The person in my heart... she has no face."
Jiang Ruoxue and I remained silent for a long time, both seemingly trying to process the meaning of these words, but it was truly hard to comprehend.
"N-no face means...?" Jiang Ruoxue asked, somewhat confused.
Bai Yang slowly extended his hand, spreading his five fingers into an open palm, then gradually covered his own face.
"No face means no features... her face is smooth and flat..." Bai Yang's voice began to tremble slightly. "When she's about to show an expression... the smooth skin on her face starts to writhe... those muscles twisting like worms would form into shapes that seem like expressions... I can almost tell if she's laughing or crying... but she truly has no face."
After hearing Bai Yang's description, a chill ran down my spine.
It had been two whole years since he obtained that small mirror...
If he really had to rely on self-suggestion to fabricate a romantic attachment... had he been living in his own mind with a faceless woman for two years...?
Was his mental state still okay?
"It's fortunate that you two showed up today..." Bai Yang began to support his forehead with his hand. "The situation seems to be getting out of control... I almost couldn't perceive that she had no face at all... If not for that 'knock knock knock' at the door waking me up... I might have gone mad one day."
"Wait... hold on..." Jiang Ruoxue raised her hand to interrupt Bai Yang. "Let me sort things out first..."
"Sort things out?"
"You said she 'has no face'..." Jiang Ruoxue thought for a moment. "You mean you have no idea what she actually looks like, right?"
"Yes."
"You're harboring feelings for a girl whose appearance you don't even know?" Jiang Ruoxue asked, eyes wide.
"Yes."
"She..." Jiang Ruoxue paused for a moment before asking again, "If she has no mouth, can she speak?"
"Even though she has no mouth and can't produce sound, I can hear every word she says," Bai Yang replied.
"You..." Jiang Ruoxue sighed after hearing this, then spoke with a tone of disappointment, "I knew there would be problems... Who creates love using 'theories' and 'knowledge'?"
"So, can you help me?" Bai Yang looked at us with desperate eyes.
At that moment, whether it was an illusion or not, I sensed an unprecedented helplessness emanating from him.
Perhaps throughout the entire "Land of the End," he couldn't find anyone else to talk to about this. We were his only option.
"I have a question..." I spoke up.
"Go ahead."
"Why is it just the face?" I asked, puzzled. "If this person doesn't really exist... theoretically her figure, appearance, and personality should all be vague... why is it only the 'face'?"
"This..." Bai Yang slowly furrowed his brow, as if there was something difficult to say.
"Has her figure and personality already been established...?" I asked tentatively.
Bai Yang was silent for a moment before answering, "Yes."
"In other words..." I gestured with my hand to help myself follow Bai Yang's line of thought, "Everything about her is complete... except for her face...?"
"That's correct," Bai Yang replied again.
"How is that possible?" Jiang Ruoxue asked from the side.
"This... it's actually not that hard to explain. I replicated a person who exists in the real world," Bai Yang said in a low voice. "It's not realistic to build a skyscraper from nothing. I needed a 'blueprint.' I used the blueprint for the foundation and steel structure, but not for the other parts."
"Since this 'blueprint' exists in the real world... why not replicate the 'blueprint's' face?" I asked again. "Wouldn't that create stronger immersion and make it easier to succeed?"
"Because I asked myself, and I didn't like the final presentation of that 'blueprint,'" Bai Yang said. "If I completely replicated the 'blueprint,' my plan would have been fundamentally invalid from the start."
"This..."
Jiang Ruoxue and I looked at each other, truly at a loss for what to do.
This Bai Yang in front of us had been able to stay with a faceless person for two years... Neither of us could probably do that.
"Then use Yan Zhichun's face!" Jiang Ruoxue blurted out, startling me.
Before Bai Yang or I could react, Jiang Ruoxue reached out and pinched my cheek, pushing my face forward.
"Our Zhichun is a genuine beauty, isn't she?" she said with some pride. "Try projecting onto her. Anyway, Zhichun won't lose anything by it."
This was the first time I learned that Jiang Ruoxue considered me a beauty, since in my heart, she was the better-looking one.
"Ruoxue, you..." I said with my cheek pinched, my words garbled, "Stop messing around..."
To be honest, I really didn't like Bai Yang much. I was even a bit afraid of him. If I had to be with someone like him, I'd have to carefully weigh every word I spoke. Otherwise, to him, I'd seem like nothing more than a foolish dog wagging its tail, and I wouldn't have any happiness or freedom at all.
After hearing this, Bai Yang sighed and shook his head helplessly. "This has nothing to do with appearance. Yan Zhichun won't work."
Jiang Ruoxue let go of my face after hearing that, took a deep breath as if she had made some kind of decision, and was just about to speak when Bai Yang interrupted her preemptively.
"You won't work either."
"What do you mean by that?" Jiang Ruoxue's words got stuck in her throat, and she started shouting. "I hadn't even said anything yet!"
"I don't mean anything else," Bai Yang shook his head. "I told you, this has nothing to do with appearance... It's not about beauty or ugliness. It's that I simply can't project onto someone who exists in reality, or else I won't be able to distinguish which one is real."
"Can't distinguish what's real...?" Jiang Ruoxue and I asked, confused.
"Don't worry about that..." Bai Yang said. "The only place I need help is this... Can you help me 'create' a face?"