# 65
**Chapter 65: Awakening**
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this Captain Chen Muye?"
"Speaking."
"We’ve run into a problem while cleaning up the battlefield at No. 2 Middle School."
"What kind of problem?"
"When we were retrieving the Nanda Serpent Demon’s corpse, we found that its head… is missing."
In the passenger seat of the van, Chen Muye’s brow furrowed slightly.
"Missing?"
"Yes. We searched the entire scene, but couldn’t find its head anywhere."
"Could a student have hidden it?"
"That’s unlikely. We’ve already searched all of them and found nothing… We suspect someone may have escaped the auditorium with the head before we arrived."
"The [Domain of No Boundaries] should still be covering the school. He can’t get out," Chen Muye said calmly. "Play [Dream Whisper] across the entire campus. Wipe his memory first. Once he loses his memories, he’ll walk right into our trap."
"Understood."
After hanging up, Hongying asked curiously,
"Captain, what happened?"
"The Nanda Serpent Demon’s head is gone. Someone probably stole it," Chen Muye replied. "But it’s not a big issue. We should be able to recover it."
Lin Qiye was momentarily stunned. His brows furrowed slightly as he looked out the window.
Could it be him…?
…
**Thud—!**
An Qingyu, attempting to climb over the wall, was violently thrown back by an invisible barrier. He gritted his teeth and stood up, adjusting the backpack on his shoulders as he stared at the empty air before him.
"The barrier is still up. They’ve probably realized the serpent’s head is missing…" he muttered to himself.
A glint flashed in his eyes. After a moment of thought, he turned and ran straight toward the school field.
Since he couldn’t escape, he’d just have to hide. He didn’t believe the barrier could stay up forever. Once they left, he’d make his getaway!
An Qingyu sprinted to a remote corner of the field, brushed aside some weeds, and pulled open a manhole cover.
A wave of putrid stench immediately wafted up from the sewer!
Suppressing the urge to vomit, An Qingyu forced himself to calm down, jumped down with his backpack, and pulled the cover back into place.
In the dark, damp sewer, the stench assaulted his nostrils from every direction, nearly suffocating him. He clenched his teeth, hugging his backpack tightly, enduring in silence.
In the darkness, his eyes remained as bright as stars.
Suddenly, a melodious tune drifted in from outside. An Qingyu’s pupils contracted sharply.
In a daze, he heard a voice whispering in his ear. His body grew heavy with sleepiness, and he began to drift off…
Just then, a strange power surged from his heart, like a clear spring flowing into his mind, washing away all dreams and whispers!
An Qingyu’s eyes snapped open. The haziness was gone, replaced by absolute clarity!
A faint layer of gray flickered across the depths of his eyes.
He had never felt so awake in his life!
He stared blankly ahead, then looked down at his hands.
In his eyes, his body had become an incredibly precise machine. He could see every part in motion, clearly understanding how each one worked.
He knew exactly how every blink, every breath functioned. He was like a master watchmaker, observing every gear of a clock under a magnifying glass…
He had never understood his own body so thoroughly.
Suddenly, he thought of something. He quickly unzipped his backpack and pulled out a head.
The head of the Nanda Serpent Demon.
Under his gaze, this mythical creature—completely outside the realm of modern science—seemed to break down into gears, mechanisms, screws…
But he still couldn’t fully understand it.
So, An Qingyu pulled a sharp fruit knife from a hidden pocket in his backpack.
Like a surgeon with a scalpel, he stared intently at the head… and plunged the knife into it!
With difficulty, he began to cut open the skull…
He was dissecting it. He wanted to see… what was inside.
His cutting grew faster, his eyes more excited. His entire body trembled with exhilaration!
In the dark, stinking sewer, a frail boy smiled as he slowly sliced into the grotesque head… His voice echoed in the gloom.
"So that’s how it works…
So that’s how it is!
I get it now!
This is how it functions…
Interesting…
So incredibly interesting!!"
…
"Where… am I?"
In a dim dungeon, Li Yifei slowly opened his eyes.
He looked around in confusion. Just as he tried to stand, fragmented memories flooded his mind like a tide.
He cried out in pain and stumbled back to the ground.
An Qingyu had fired a gun, he’d been knocked out by Lin Qiye, the Nanda Serpent Demon inside him had emerged, there was a fierce battle, and then Lin Qiye had cut off its head…
He stared at his hands in disbelief, his voice trembling.
"I… I really am the Nanda Serpent Demon… How could this be… I killed them!"
The image of the students slaughtered by the serpent’s spawn flashed before his eyes. The blood-soaked ground was seared into his mind, becoming a nightmare…
"No, no…"
He knelt on the ground, face twisted in agony, groaning in despair.
Then, his eyes suddenly turned into eerie vertical slits. As if he had become someone else, he stood up expressionlessly.
"Pathetic waste."
One of the serpent’s arms sprouted scales as it grabbed the bars of the cell, trying to twist them apart.
Suddenly, obscure runes flared to life on the walls of the cell. A terrifying repulsive force blasted the Nanda Serpent Demon away, slamming it into the opposite wall.
It stared at the bars, tongue flicking, eyes ice-cold.
The moment it touched the bars, fragmented information about this cell had poured into its mind.
It didn’t know where this place was, but it knew… its life and death were in the hands of one person.
That person was the master here.
As the serpent demon pondered, steady footsteps echoed from the corridor. Its vertical pupils narrowed as it scrambled to the bars and looked toward the sound.
In the dim hallway, a figure gradually came into view.
It was a young man in a white coat, hands in his pockets. The moment the serpent demon saw his face, its body shook!
"It’s you?!"
Lin Qiye walked up to it expressionlessly and raised an eyebrow.
"Surprised? Didn’t see that coming?"