Even If She's a Bad Kid

Li Mo did not dawdle. He walked up the stairs to the fourth floor, and what he saw was not the Soul-Ferrying Passage. Perhaps it was because the haunted house had not completely transformed, or perhaps it was because he had taken the place of the knocking ghost, and his perspective was different from that of a living person.

In Li Mo's eyes, the fourth floor of the haunted house was not much different from the fourth floor of the outer world. A series of silent pictures hung quietly on the wall. In the paintings, there were haunted houses from different cycles and the endings of the living people inside...

Li Mo finally understood why he had felt so many blurry human figures in the pictures on the fourth floor before. Now, the flickering silhouettes had materialized. Through the windows of the haunted house in the pictures, he could even see the appearance of the ghosts inside.

Li Mo looked back and compared them with the pictures. They were the same group of people. The pictures continued to evolve, and in the end, only dead silence and desolation remained.

Yes. In the cycles corresponding to the pictures, no survivors survived. Before the final curtain call, the lights on the first, second, third, and even fourth floors were on. But without exception, no one could complete the ritual. This also meant that in countless cycles, no matter who it was, and no matter what method was used, the spread of the Bizarre could not be stopped.

Li Mo walked past the pictures and came to the bookshelf, where two storybooks were sealed in dust. One was written with the name Kanagawa Yume, and the other with the name Seele Vollerei. But the blood-stained newspaper in the middle was gone.

"The bloody newspaper is in the outer world."

Li Mo opened the storybook, and the contents had not changed at all. Li Mo put the storybook back in its original place, sighed, and walked straight to the stairs. He wanted to go up to the fifth floor and meet Seele.

"Thump... thump..."

The sound of crisp footsteps rang out. Unlike the ghosts floating in the air, Li Mo stepped on the old wooden planks, making a "creaking" sound. Although the floor was full of the vicissitudes of time, it could still bear Li Mo's weight and did not break with one step.

Soon, Li Mo came to the fifth floor. Everything was very familiar, just like in his memory.

Li Mo came to his bedroom familiarly. The door was tightly closed, and the candle outside the wall flickered non-stop after he arrived, even though he was now in a state of first death.

"..."

"Heh, it reminds me of that night after Seele left, the ghost shadow that appeared out of nowhere."

"I laughed at it for not being able to kill me. Looking at it now..."

Li Mo lowered his head and looked at the shadow at his feet, which was also thin. It was very similar to the ghost shadow he had met after leaving the house, or rather, exactly the same.

"The silhouette of that ghost shadow is very similar to my own."

"I once guessed that it was the real shadow of the knocking ghost after it had lost the ghosts it had swallowed in its stomach."

"But ghosts don't have shadows, only living people do."

"The knocking ghost is a ghost, and also a living person."

"I am a ghost, and also a living person."

Combining the two, Li Mo came to a conclusion. The ghost shadow that stood behind the door and stared at him was probably him now.

Li Mo pushed open the door and found a unlit candle placed on the wall.

"No one."

Li Mo glanced at it. Seele was not in the room.

"No, I must have missed something, for example..."

"Light this candle."

Li Mo took out his Bizarre handgun. The bullet he fired was wrapped in a faint blue ghost fire, which grazed the wick but ignited an orange flame. Under the candlelight, the room gradually became clear, although on the surface, it was still empty.

Li Mo walked to the bed, sighed again, and looked at the ghost bed with a complicated expression. Then he squatted down and stretched out his right hand.

"Come out, I know you're in there."

"Seele, I'm here."

Li Mo's gentle words were met with only a silent echo.

The space under the bed suddenly trembled, and a faint whimper came out. Seele, who was covering her face with her hands, slowly released them, and wanted to hold the outstretched hand but dared not.

Seeing that Seele did not come out for a long time, Li Mo was puzzled for two seconds, then turned to look at the ferocious ghost crowd behind him. They seemed to have found their enemy in the room. Their strange eyeballs kept rolling, scanning every corner of the bedroom.

Finally, all the ghosts' gazes focused on the space under the bed, and they passed Li Mo and came to the side of the bed. Their stiff limbs kept swinging back and forth, but they could never bend down. But it was only a matter of time before they found a way to bend down.

"Thud!"

A ghost fell to the ground, its face hitting the floor.

"Creak... creak..."

Its neck twisted, its bones dislocated, and suddenly, a piercing roar came from its mouth. The ghost's eyes stared at Seele under the bed, its limbs like a spider, supporting its body in a strange posture and crawling towards the space under the bed.

Li Mo took out his Bizarre handgun and pressed the muzzle against the head of the ghost that had fallen to the ground.

"Who allowed you to act on your own?!"

"Bang!"

Along with a gunshot, a faint blue ghost fire instantly swallowed the ghost. After the ghost fire burned out, there was only a charred corpse with a painful expression on the ground. The ghost was directly burned into silence and could no longer get up.

At the same time, the sound of falling to the ground came from behind one after another. It seemed that all the ghosts knew that doing so could see the person under the bed. Li Mo immediately turned back, his brows furrowed.

There were too many ghosts, and the Bizarre handgun only had a twenty-round magazine, which was not enough to suppress the ghosts. As long as one ghost crawled under the bed, only death awaited Seele.

No, she wouldn't die. The ghosts couldn't kill her, but what was the difference between that and the first run in the second fairy tale book? Regretting in endless pain.

"..."

The black mist spread, filling the entire mansion. The ghosts crowded the first three floors.

Just as Li Mo was in a dilemma, a familiar female voice came from under the bed.

"Brother... kill me."

"Kill me, and everything will end..."

Li Mo took out his Bizarre handgun and pulled the trigger again and again, suppressing the ghosts that were about to enter the space under the bed. However, this was just a drop in the bucket.

Li Mo rejected Seele's proposal. He didn't want to do as Bizarre Mo thought. Indeed, killing Seele could stop the spread of this Bizarre.

In this cycle, the dissipation of Seele's consciousness meant that the source of the Bizarre was cut off from its origin. Even if there was a fact of existence later, it would only be forever in silence. Just like Bizarre Hua could erase a memory to erase the corresponding reality, if you erased the memory of a ghost becoming a ghost, you could make the ghost fall into silence.

If there were no other sources of pollution, it would not revive.

But to kill the child he had watched grow up... he couldn't do it.

"Brother, is that you?" Seele suddenly asked a very strange question, as if there were two Li Mos in the world.

Li Mo just replied faintly, "Yes, I will take you home, back to the other world, the home where everyone is still alive."

"No... if you don't kill me here, more people will die... everyone will die..."

"I'm sorry... Brother, I lied to you."

"Seele has actually read the two fairy tales many times, and I also know the words inside. The princess will become a witch, and Seele will become... a ghost."

"Every night, my body is out of control and kills many people. When Seele wakes up, I can only run, keep running... hiding in Brother's room to avoid being found."

"The people Seele killed have already come for me. Seele can't escape... I can't escape anymore..."

"They are already dead. The dead should stay in hell, no matter who they are, including myself," Li Mo said coldly, pulling the trigger and suppressing a few more ghosts.

The bullets of the Bizarre handgun were almost gone.

Li Mo stared at the Bizarre handgun and suddenly asked, "The me in this world, was he very bad to you?"

Seele hesitated for a few seconds and weakly "hmm-ed."

After getting a positive answer, Li Mo finally knew why he felt that his personality was incomplete, and why he had recovered completely after coming to this world.

Reason and emotion were separated, rules and feelings were at odds. The sense of incongruity came from this.

There was no doubt that Bizarre Mo had seen the ghost's memories and thus found the most efficient path. He had created a tragic life for Seele, making Seele, like the princess in the second run, split into another personality.

But whether it was Kanagawa Yume or Seele Vollerei, the essence of the Bizarre would not change. Even if they were separated, even if they were so vivid, this fact could not be changed. The other personality would inherit the properties of the Bizarre, but it would not be revealed.

Since then, one person was tortured by ghosts in the cycle of the inner world, with the guilt of killing the other party remaining in her heart, endlessly. Just like the princess in the first run, who handcuffed herself to a cross in the church and let the fire burn her body, dying, being reborn, dying again, being reborn again...

The other personality lived to be eighteen and was then killed. Because of the characteristics of a living person, she would die; but because of the characteristics of the Bizarre, she would only fall into silence and not die.

Ghosts have no concept of death. Death for a ghost is just a period of silence.

Human death is eternal. In the case of a ghost, it is eternal silence.

This was the ending that Bizarre Mo was keen to see. —To use so-called sacrifice to achieve a certain and absolute victory.

Even now, Li Mo thought this approach was perfect, making reasonable use of every rule, every relationship, every layer of logic. Society, the person involved, the differences and similarities between ghosts and people, and even himself were all calculated.

His kindness to Seele in the outer world would only become guilt in Seele's heart. It would become the reason why the first-run princess willingly walked into the church. Bizarre Mo's suppression and dislike of Seele in the inner world deepened Seele's dependence on him. This was the reason for both love and hate. Love and hate were both for one person.

The substitute death was probably the same. Kanagawa Yume died once for her, and Seele died once for her, symbolizing the demise of two personalities.

An impeccable perfect plan... what Li Mo had to do was to kill the Seele in the inner world, that was all.

"Reason tells me that if I kill you now, all the tragedy will easily come to an end, and no one else in this world will die," Li Mo said in a low voice.

"Yes, Brother, please end Seele's..."

"But you are my family, the child I watched grow up..."

Li Mo pulled the trigger and fired all the remaining bullets, suppressing a small number of ghosts.

More and more ghosts came out from the black mist, crawling towards the space under the bed. Ghosts are unkillable, just like the energy in the universe. They won't disappear, they will only exist in another way. Even if they die, they will come back. They are clearly dead, but they are endlessly reborn...

Li Mo was silent. He thought of the knocking ghost, so he reached out and pulled out a ghost whose head had already drilled into the space under the bed.

Did you see this choice?

After a while, the sound of chewing flesh came from the room. A rotten smell filled the air, as well as Li Mo's raw and jarring sound. This sound echoed repeatedly, and gradually, Li Mo's figure became bloated, but the shadow at his feet remained thin.

"Seele, how about we play a game? You hide until eight o'clock tomorrow morning. If you're not found, you win, how about that?"

"Seele doesn't want to play this game... it's very dark... very empty..."

"Brother, don't go, okay? Kill Seele, and everything will be over," Seele pleaded pitifully.

Hiding under the bed, Li Mo couldn't see her expression. His silence was the answer.

"There's nothing here. Seele will definitely be caught..."

Li Mo turned his back, walked to the door, and the ghosts in the corridor and the hall swarmed in, each with a painful and ferocious expression.

"Just hide under the bed. Leave the rest to Brother."

Looking at the endless ghosts, they were killed for no reason. Being killed by a ghost doesn't make you a ghost so easily, but they were killed countless times, the pollution accumulated, and their minds were distorted. In the end, they degenerated into nondescript ghosts, trying to torture and kill the culprit who caused all the tragedy.

Li Mo stood there for a while. His current identity was the knocking ghost, and he could devour other ghosts like the knocking ghost. But he couldn't get the rules and abilities of the ghosts he devoured, he could only expand his size.

The "being alone" rule in the outer world targeted people. Triggering the rule would lead to falling into the inner world. The "being alone" rule in the inner world also targeted people, but in his memory, there were some special places.

Perhaps, it would be difficult to come back alive after this, and even if he did, it would not be in the form of a living person. But he couldn't escape, because behind him was his family in the outer world.

If he let the inner world be destroyed, the outer world would also collapse in the moment of destruction. At that time, Kira, Sin, and the children who had just gone to college, and many, many more... they shouldn't have such an ending.

Thinking of this, Li Mo's heart became heavy. After calming down, he said to Seele earnestly,

"This is a terrible hell full of endless pain. No matter how hard you try, you are just desperately fighting for a false happiness. No matter what, everything will return to the starting point, just like the very beginning. No matter whether I succeed or fail, the process is futile, the ending is futile, salvation is futile... everything is futile. I can't save you."

"But this is not an excuse to escape. Make a choice, and then bear the consequences. This is a topic that even adults need to constantly explore, and it is also the last lesson I will teach you."

"We may be able to escape something at a certain moment, but sooner or later, we will be forced to have nowhere to escape and can only move forward."

"I will bear the pain you should bear in your place."

"Even if she's a bad kid, Brother won't ignore her."

"After all, you're my little sister, aren't you?"

With that, Li Mo quickly left.

In the room, Seele's curled-up body stretched out, her trembling delicate body stopped moving, her teeth bit her lips, and her gaze involuntarily lowered.

Outside the corridor, Li Mo took out his notebook. After more than a decade, he had finally picked up his fate.

"Old friend, it's time for you to play your part."

"There's another kind of 'being alone' in the inner world, which targets ghosts, right? Because after a person in this world is alone, they don't fall into the outer world, but ghosts have never been alone. The judgment of a ghost is different from that of a person. Now I have taken the place of the knocking ghost. If... I eat all the ghosts, will this world only have Seele as a ghost, and then trigger the 'being alone' rule that targets ghosts, and return to the outer world, back to... everyone's side."

The notebook naturally opened to the first page.

[My name is Li Mo. By the time you read this, I will already be dead.]

[In order to bring Seele back to another beautiful world, I tried to eat all the ghosts.]

[The one hundred and second, my body became very bloated, as if it would explode at any time.]

[The three hundred and twenty-seventh, my body was torn apart. I died.]

"Eating ghosts directly won't work. I need to use another, more efficient way, such as swallowing the source of the ghosts: the black mist."

[My name is Li Mo. By the time you read this, I will already be dead.]

[I changed my mind and devoured the source of the ghosts: the black mist.]

[I succeeded, but my essence has changed. The black mist erased all my emotions and humanity. I became a ghost, just like the knocking ghost in my memory.]

"Still not working? In that case, I want to hear your opinion."

"It doesn't matter if you dig a pit or set a trap. Anyway, if I die, I'll take you with me."

The first page quickly showed twisted and crooked content.

[My name is Li Mo. By the time you read this, I will have survived completely.]

"Hmm?"

Li Mo was a little surprised. This time, the notebook didn't seem to be playing word games on it. Not only was it not vague, but it also used a qualifier to reassure Li Mo. Could it be the emotion of a long-lost reunion after more than a decade?

Obviously not. The Bizarre didn't have this habit. This couldn't help but make Li Mo think, when was the last time he had used the notebook?

[The way to kill a ghost is not just to devour it. You can also turn them into living people, just like the relationship between Kanagawa Yume and Seele Vollerei.]

[The fourth floor of the haunted house in the inner world is not a Soul-Ferrying Passage, but I think I can use the special nature of the fourth floor to create a Soul-Ferrying and Rebirth Passage.]

[This is the connection between the inner and outer worlds, the intersection of life and death.]

[I controlled the black mist and gathered all the ghosts in the mist.]

[With the power of the two storybooks, I separated the ghosts, letting the ghosts wander in the endless Soul-Ferrying Passage according to the rules; and letting people live in another beautiful world.]

[Everyone is a ghost, but they won't realize this. The rules are forcibly stripped away. After death, they will re-enter the Soul-Ferrying Passage and enter one of the countless cycles of the past.]

[I brought Seele Vollerei into the Soul-Ferrying Passage, and just as we were about to reach the end,]

[I called out her name.]

[My name is Li Mo. I survived.]