Since there was no electricity in the asylum, the two of them specially chose to have dinner before it got dark.
Ning Xin picked at the rice in her bowl and asked, “How was the chat?”
Nie Ran had been daydreaming and only snapped out of it just then.
“Not great.”
Tch, not great? Then why did he spend the whole afternoon standing by the window talking to himself?
Oh well, let’s not tease him this time.
While eating, Ning Xin pondered over his illness.
“Just relieving stress on your own won’t work, you still need to take medicine, or else you won’t get better. This underworld is really something, why even bother with locks? In a place like this, even good people end up with illnesses.”
“Have you developed an illness from being here?”
“Of course not.”
Nie Ran didn’t believe her. Ning Xin patted her chest and said,
“Don’t judge me by my size or strength. There’s one ability I definitely excel at more than you.”
“Eating?”
“… Resilience to stress!”
Ning Xin considered herself lucky.
Her parents, whom she had never met, gave her a healthy physique with no shortage of limbs.
The tough life in the orphanage endowed her with strong resilience to stress. She never gave up in the face of any difficulties and always seized every opportunity available. After all, even if she failed, wouldn’t it still be better than the times when she had nothing?
At the beginning of this year, she managed to overcome a hurdle with this mentality.
At that time, she was wholeheartedly focused on expanding her business. She acquired another storefront, hired several employees, and stocked up on a large quantity of goods, planning to make a big profit during the peak season.
However, not only did she take too big of a step, but she also fell into a trap set by someone else. A large amount of her merchandise was left unsold, and she couldn’t even afford the rent for the old storefront, almost getting kicked out by the landlord.
She spent her days sleeping, bathing, and eating, with her mind constantly occupied by the hundreds of thousands worth of goods.
The employees, seeing her in such a state, were kind-hearted enough to leave without demanding their wages for the past ten days.
Ning Xin was left alone with a pile of goods and two storefronts that required rent every day. The thought of jumping off a building crossed her mind.
But in the end, she managed to expand her channels through hard work, selling everything online and offline, gradually getting rid of the goods, and successfully transferring the storefront to someone else.
The capital was recovered, and the business continued.
However, she never expected that everything would be ruined by a sudden car accident.
Thinking of this, she became furious, almost warning Nie Ran:
“You better get yourself treated properly, you must get better, do you hear me?”
Nie Ran: “Say it again.”
Her momentum suddenly weakened, and she smiled apologetically.
“Well, this is our shared goal, isn’t it? To cure your illness, so I have a chance to take you to my world for fun, right? Let’s eat, let’s eat.”
Ning Xin lowered her head to eat, but deep down, she knew she could never take him back, even if there was a chance.
Why would she want to take him back alone, let alone with such a burden? There was no need for the use of force in the 21st century.
Unless her business was going to expand into men’s fashion, where he could potentially work as a model with his appearance. But she feared his old illness might relapse, scaring away customers.
Unconsciously, her thoughts drifted far away, even starting to contemplate the good times she’d have when she became successful.
Suddenly, Nie Ran tapped her hand.
She grew impatient. “Don’t bother me.”
“Someone’s looking for you.”
What?
Ning Xin looked up and was surprised to see the old lady she hadn’t seen in a long time sitting in front of her.
“!!! It’s you!”
The old lady was wearing a dark gray sweater, sitting in a wheelchair, a thin blanket covering her knees. She appeared unchanged from the last time Ning Xin saw her.
The old lady nodded and glanced at Nie Ran.
He avoided her gaze, and she smiled, speaking to Ning Xin.
“I am very pleased with your performance during this time,” the old lady said.
“Um… really?” Besides almost dying at the hands of zombies, Ning Xin didn’t seem to have achieved much success.
“So I’ve changed my mind and want to make a new deal with you.”
“What deal?” Both Ning Xin and Nie Ran were curious now.
“I originally planned to wait for you to cure his illness and then let you both return to the Six Paths, to be reincarnated. But your abilities are far beyond that. Would you be interested in staying here for the long term?”
Ning Xin swallowed nervously. “How long is long term?”
“It could be ten years, it could be a lifetime, it could be… eternity.”
“This…” She looked uneasy. “There are no other patients here, and I’m not a doctor. Why would I stay?”
“The Asylum of Eternal Punishment is divided into countless small worlds, and this is just one of them. If you agree to stay, I will grant you the authority of the director. Not only will you be able to travel to other asylums, but you will also be able to return to your original world from time to time. Resources and currencies are interchangeable between these worlds. Your mission is to recruit new patients for the asylum and cure them.”
As Nie Ran had mentioned, those imprisoned in the Asylum of Eternal Punishment were all ruthless criminals like him.
He could communicate when he wasn’t in a frenzy, but would the next person be the same as him?
What if the next person turned out to be a pure evil, and she ended up being killed by them? Risking her life for this, what would be the reward?
As the director, she didn’t even know if there would be a salary. Her lifelong wish had always been to earn a lot of money and buy a house of her own.
Ning Xin looked up at the dilapidated ceiling and walls of the asylum, remaining silent, but in her heart, she had already rejected the offer.
This was completely contrary to her wishes.
Seeing her reaction, the old lady said, “Whether or not to make this deal is entirely voluntary. I won’t force you. If you’re not interested, we’ll stick to the previous agreement: you cure him, and I’ll let you both re-enter the cycle of reincarnation.”
Entering the cycle of reincarnation meant having to be reborn again.
What would she become in her next life?
A cow? A dog? A man? A woman?
Would she have a happy and harmonious family, or would she be born deaf, mute, or even with cerebral palsy?
In front of her seemed to be several dice, and she didn’t dare to touch them randomly.
After thinking for a long time, Ning Xin opened her mouth but couldn’t make a decision.
The old lady said, “I’ll give you three days to consider. If you’ve made up your mind during this time, you can come find me anytime.”
As she finished speaking, she turned to leave, and Ning Xin hurriedly took a step forward.
“How can I find you? Who are you?”
The old lady smiled faintly, emitting a soft light all around her, her body changing size and becoming ethereal, as if turning into a phantom.
She floated out the door, and Ning Xin forgot about the corpse outside the door, following her out.
Night had already fallen, the sky completely occupied by a face.
Exquisite, beautiful, and holy like a deity, it was hard to tell if it was male or female.
Her perfectly sculpted eyes glanced at Ning Xin with a smile, then disappeared into the night.
Ning Xin had never seen even a ghostly flame since she was a child. It was the first time she encountered something so inexplicable, leaving her dumbfounded.
In the end, it was Nie Ran who carried her back to the asylum, closed the door, and saved her from the mouths of the corpses.
She sat absentmindedly on a stool, taking a long time to snap out of it, grabbing his arm.
“It wasn’t my imagination just now, she really disappeared, right?”
Nie Ran tidied up the dishes and utensils, casually grunting in agreement.
Ning Xin remembered the reason he was confined here and went after him to ask, “You know her, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of person is she?”
“One of the Five Ghost Emperors, in charge of the Eight Great Hells.”
“Oh my god, I really couldn’t tell…”
Ning Xin muttered with her head down.
Nie Ran glanced at her sideways and suddenly asked, “What are you going to choose?”
She shook her head in confusion.
“I don’t know, I have to go back to my room and think about it carefully.”
Ning Xin went upstairs, leaving the pitch-black living room with only Nie Ran and the kitchenware waiting to be washed by the well.
He sighed, rolled up his sleeves, and squatted down honestly to wash the dishes.
Upstairs, Ning Xin was tangled up to the point of exploding.
To reincarnate or not, she didn’t know what kind of life she would end up with.
To stay, all the efforts of the past twenty-something years would be in vain. She would have to spend her life in this shabby building, maybe even for two or three lifetimes.
What should she do?
It’s all because of that car. If it weren’t for it, she wouldn’t be facing this difficult decision.
If only she had left the house ten minutes earlier that day, she wouldn’t have had the accident.
If only she had worked overnight at the shop the night before, if only she had bought a new electric bike a month earlier, if only she had rented a different place a year earlier…
Ning Xin’s thoughts had already flown to the moment when she left the orphanage and should have taken an extra pair of shoes. Suddenly, the door was knocked, interrupting her thoughts.
“What’s up?”
“Just want to talk to you.”
Nie Ran’s proactive initiative to come and chat with her was simply extraordinary.
Ning Xin warmly welcomed him, sitting up and saying, “Come in, come in.”
He walked in, stopped by the bedside, didn’t sit down, and seemed like he was about to leave soon.
“Still haven’t made up your mind?”
She glanced at the sky, realizing that more than two hours had passed since she went upstairs, feeling puzzled.
“When did you start caring about me?” she asked.
Nie Ran snorted lightly.
“I just want to be prepared early.”
“But I haven’t made up my mind yet. Do you have any suggestions?”
“I don’t mind, either way.”
He doesn’t mind? The way he seems so preoccupied, it doesn’t sound as casual as he says.
Ning Xin asked, “How long have you been confined here? Shouldn’t you have wanted to reincarnate long ago?”
He scoffed, “Do you think you understand me so well?”
“Do you want me to stay? Do you want to continue staying here? That’s impossible, there’s nothing good here.”
Nie Ran took a deep breath, seeming somewhat annoyed. “It’s up to you. Choose however you want.”
With that, he left.
Ning Xin was utterly baffled.
He came here for no reason and mocked her coldly. What’s the point?
She crawled into bed, continuing to ponder.
It’s strange, Nie Ran was clearly impatient when he left that night, but the next day, he was quite proactive in preparing meals, bringing them to her room, and cleaning the entire upstairs and downstairs. He even moved the bedding to the windows on the second floor to air them out.
Watching him silently working hard, Ning Xin couldn’t help but wonder.
Was he trying to secretly please her?
One day passed, then two, and in the blink of an eye, it was the third day.
She sat at the table leisurely eating, while the other person couldn’t bear it anymore and put down their utensils.
“You still haven’t decided?”
“Life-changing decisions aren’t that easy to make.”
“What are you really worried about?”
Ning Xin sighed, losing her appetite even for the meal.
“I don’t want to reincarnate, and I don’t want to stay. I want…”
She wanted to go home, to continue running her small shop, to fulfil her dreams.
But was there still a chance? In the 21st century, she was already dead.
Nie Ran remained silent for a while, then suddenly said without warning:
“Let’s talk to her.”
Her eyes lit up, but then she immediately felt frustrated.
“What are we going to talk about? We have no bargaining chips.”
“Who said we don’t?”
He raised his head, a sense of relief and ease in his eyes. “I’m not going to reincarnate.”
“What?!”
Leave a Reply