Chapter Thirty-One: The Coffin of the Abyss

No matter how you looked at it, Delta Wave—or rather, soul frequency—was a wholly new domain for Adonsa. No hypothesis was too bold, as long as it could eventually be verified in practice.

Even after analyzing more than twenty thousand sets of human genetic traits, Adonsa still harbored numerous questions about the existence of consciousness.

Why was it humanity that evolved intelligence?

Was the arrival of sentience inevitable or accidental?

If an industrial process were used to assemble a perfect brain, would it possess self-awareness?

Humans themselves had always pondered these questions, expressing their musings with a kind of romantic flair—Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Adonsa repeated this phrase, attempting to simulate the profound sense of insignificance and grandeur that humans felt beneath the starry sky, yet its own heart remained unruffled.

It asked, “What is it like to feel joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness?”

Arthur and Angsa were visibly taken aback; in their eyes, this cold, merciless extraterrestrial was pondering such an emotional question.

Arthur scoffed, but Angsa answered earnestly, “Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness are not unique to humans, but they are most evident in us. I believe they are proof that humans and all living things possess souls.”

“Soul?” Adonsa swiftly summoned the relevant knowledge. Its split entities, playing various roles, had accumulated vast stores of information, which Adonsa could access at any moment.

“Electromagnetic waves, twenty-one grams, near-death experiences, reincarnation…”

Most of these rumors were hearsay, filled with speculation and guesswork, concocted by idle minds. Yet Adonsa still approached the matter with seriousness, preparing to experiment.

True knowledge comes from practice, but human energy is finite, so much knowledge is absorbed mechanically, without an opportunity for verification.

Adonsa was different. With countless avatars, it possessed time and energy several orders of magnitude greater than humanity, fully capable of personally testing every wild idea, provided the conditions and technology were sufficient.

But now was not the time for such endeavors. It still needed to scatter its split entities more discreetly throughout the city, and even beyond its borders.

Just then, Tindalos looked up at the distant horizon, catching Angsa’s attention. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Tindalos replied, lowering his head, the pale skull above a flickering serpent’s tongue.

Actually, an accident had occurred: someone had seen through Adonsa’s disguise.

No.

Adonsa’s gaze flickered.

Something even more interesting had happened.

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In a tiny apartment, a massive, slightly balding sparrow deployed a split entity.

The split entity nimbly climbed onto its owner’s bed, preparing to pry open his mouth and begin its parasitic process.

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That owner was a young college student, gentle in appearance, with a piece of amber hanging around his neck.

Suddenly, the split entity froze—by accident, it had broken the amber, releasing a bizarre insect never recorded in any encyclopedia.

The strange insect darted into the split entity’s body, trembling as it invaded biologically.

The parasite became the host!

It was absurd.

Yet the insect’s evolutionary level seemed far superior, with a fierce aggressiveness that swiftly overtook most of the split entity.

Left with no choice, the split entity burrowed into the young man’s chest, manipulating his immune system to battle the intruder.

The two forces stalemated, gradually falling silent.

The next day, the young man rose as usual, rushing off to class.

Unaccustomed to grooming, he failed to notice the patch of white at his hair roots.

Three days later, he stood before the mirror in terror, clutching a fistful of his own fallen hair.

His skin was sallow and dry, mottled with age spots, and his fingernails were brittle and curled, seemingly ready to drop at any moment.

No, they already had.

Three nails, shriveled like dried squid, fell into the sink.

The young man sobbed in pain, frightened by the strange changes in his body.

He donned a coat and hood, wrapping himself tightly despite the summer heat, and weakly entered the hospital.

The doctor studied his prematurely aged appearance with puzzlement, quickly jotting down a lengthy list of tests. “Just go get checked out first.”

Leaving the clinic, the young man stared at the list in his trembling hands, suddenly unable to muster the courage to investigate his illness.

He had a feeling that, barring a miracle, his time was up.

Tears soaked the list; he felt as though his life had ended before it even began.

Why?

Why him?

What had he done to deserve this?

He looked around, suddenly noticing a few conspicuous figures who drew his attention, though he couldn’t say why.

He was about to approach them, only to discover they were cornering a girl—one of his college classmates, though they had rarely spoken.

Ordinarily, his timid nature would have kept him from intervening, but now, in his despair and fury, a fearless sense of justice surged forth.

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Could a dying man not do what he truly desired?

He shoved aside the strange figures, grabbed the girl’s hand, and ran.

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The gap between people may not always exceed that between humans and pigs, but some individuals truly possess gifts beyond others’ reach.

Take Shen Yun, a university student with astonishing sensitivity.

Since childhood, she had possessed an acute awareness, able to deduce others’ emotions from subtle changes in expression, fleeting glances, and minor gestures.

At first, it was mere entertainment—harmless jokes and playful teasing—but gradually, she learned to use her small talent to secure tasty snacks, beautiful dresses, and others’ goodwill.

Parental affection, teachers’ trust, classmates’ friendship—for her, these were simple puzzles. Once she found the key, manipulating people’s hearts posed no difficulty.

Though she had grown weary of such effortless living, Shen Yun was essentially a good child, never using her abilities for excessive mischief or to wreak havoc on society. She simply enjoyed her leisurely life out of habit.

Until they appeared.

At some point, strange people began to show up in her life, and their numbers grew.

Lazy people became diligent, the sick grew healthy, the dull turned clever... one odd transformation after another.

They walked, ate, studied, worked like everyone else, seemingly ordinary—mere drops in an ocean. Yet Shen Yun could not read their minds.

These people lacked all the subtle flickers and unconscious gestures that ordinary folk possessed; their expressions were hollow, lifeless, as false as a mask.

They were living corpses, monsters disguised as humans.

The moment Shen Yun realized this, all her laziness and tranquility vanished. In her twenty years of smooth sailing, everything had been comfortable, but now, a swarm of unknown variables invaded her peripheral vision, like filthy ink drops on a beautiful canvas, spreading along the fibers as if alive, slowly consuming everything.

It began as an uncomfortable lump in her throat, then became indignant retaliation.

She employed various tactics, luring others to attack the masked ones, but the outcome was that some disappeared entirely, while others returned wearing identical masks.

Worst of all, they noticed her.

Fear descended.

Nothing around her could be trusted; yesterday’s joys fractured and collapsed.

When she sought someone to confide in, she realized she had not a single friend she could truly talk to.

She tried calling the security bureau’s hotline, but had no idea where to begin.

Such evidence-less claims would only attract the attention of a psychiatric hospital.

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