Die, Replay, Repeat

Chapter 87: The Village's Fault

Fang Xiu finally understood why the Specter chose Wang Erni as its host.

Wang Erni was born in Blackwater, an orphan due to the early death of her parents. She also bore a large birthmark on her face, which made her unattractive. Because of this, she faced discrimination from a young age and struggled to make friends with other kids.

This continued until a beautiful woman arrived in the village.

This woman was the corpse found at the bottom of a river, named Lin Mengxi. Her family name alone indicated that she wasn't from Blackwater. Indeed, Lin Mengxi had been abducted and brought to Blackwater to marry the village chief's grandson, Wang Fugui.

Life in Blackwater was harsh for her. She attempted to escape multiple times, but being unfamiliar with the terrain, she was always caught, only to face more abuse.

Yet, she never gave up, and her resilience made her an outcast.

By a twist of fate, two isolated souls found common grounds in each other's life. Thus, Lin Mengxi and Wang Erni became close friends.

Lin Mengxi didn't judge Wang Erni for her looks, believing her to have a beautiful soul, far superior to the other villagers. Wang Erni treasured this friendship, her first and only friend, valuing it more than her own life.

Over the year, Lin Mengxi became pregnant several times but terminated the pregnancies, notably in a village without clinics or contraceptives. Then one day, Lin Mengxi revealed to Wang Erni that she had figured out an escape route and asked her to set a fire as a distraction.

Wang Erni questioned why Lin Mengxi was so desperate to leave. Lin Mengxi explained she had family and friends outside the mountains.

This made Wang Erni doubt their friendship, suspecting Lin Mengxi was using her just like the others in the village, only befriending her to plan her escape and use her as a cover.

Despite her doubts, Wang Erni agreed to help. Lin Mengxi smiled genuinely for the first time since Wang Erni had known her.

On the night of the escape, Lin Mengxi unusually gave Wang Fugui all he wanted, until he fell asleep in exhaustion. That was when Lin Mengxi made her escape.

With many households owning dogs and night patrols in place to keep wild animals at bay, a large fire was necessary for her plan.

Instead of setting the fire as planned, Wang Erni secretly went to the village chief and betrayed Lin Mengxi's escape plan.

Wang Erni's reasoning was simple: she couldn't bear to lose her only friend, Lin Mengxi, and wanted to keep her by her side forever. Wang Erni instructed the chief to keep her betrayal a secret and promised to act as a spy in the future.

The village chief agreed, and he, along with the villagers and hunting dogs, began searching for Lin Mengxi.

Realizing her escape had been exposed when she saw the numerous torches in the village, Lin Mengxi understood she'd soon be captured and face more abuse.

She also realized that Wang Erni, her best friened, must have betrayed her. Overwhelmed by this betrayal and her circumstances, Lin Mengxi chose to end her life by jumping into the Blackwater River.

Upon learning of Lin Mengxi's death, Wang Erni was devastated. She didn't believe she was at fault, as she only wanted to keep Lin Mengxi close.

In her mind, it was the villagers of Blackwater who had driven Lin Mengxi to her death. With these twisted thoughts, Wang Erni attracted the attention of the hair Specter and became its host. Under the Specter's influence, she naturally became a psychic.

Becoming a psychic required two conditions: being in a state of near-death or experiencing immense mental trauma, or coming into contact with a Specter. Wang Erni fulfilled both.

The hair Specter, a parasitic type, continuously corrupted Wang Erni's already distorted mind, rapidly increasing her Spiritual Energy. Eventually, she transformed into a monstrous being, neither fully human nor fully Specter, as evidenced by the silver hair revealed when her neck was cut.

As a monster, her Spiritual Energy seemed to grow without limit, unlike regular psychics who needed constant life-and-death experiences.

With the hair Specter's assistance, she went up to a second-tier psychic.

After massacring her entire village, she felt lonely and turned the villagers into Specter Slaves.

This was the life of Wang Erni.

Fang Xiu, after learning about her story, grew more intrigued by the psychic community, a group distorted by the use of Specter powers. As their strength grew, so did their entanglement with the Specter world. Fang Xiu wondered what would happen when a psychic's Spiritual Energy reached 100%.

_'Will they become a Specter?'_ he wondered. _'Perhaps the ultimate end of a psychic is to transform into a Specter.'_

Wang Erni's rapid increase in Spiritual Energy highlighted a crucial point: the more a human psychic resembles a Specter, the faster their Spiritual Energy grows. This suggested a grim reality for psychics: their transformation into something non-human seems inevitable, a truth that could be quite despairing for humanity.

However, Fang Xiu was free from these concerns. He was indifferent to the nature of Specters or who became one. His only belief was that in the struggle between himself and the Specters, only one can survive, and he was determined not to be the one who perished.

After an undefined period, Shen Lingxue returned, oddly wearing a dirty, half-burnt hat that seemed like it was found abandoned. Despite its tattered state, she clung to it.

Eventually, the rescue team from the Investigation Bureau arrived. With their assistance, the group successfully left Blackwater.

Back at the headquarters of the Investigation Bureau, in the director's office, the news of the team's severe injuries had shocked Director Wang Dehai. He was particularly concerned about Fang Xiu and, upon learning that Fang Xiu was relatively unharmed, felt somewhat relieved.

Wang then questioned the circumstances of the mission. He found it hard to believe that, with Shen Lingxue, an experienced psychic, leading the team on a D mission, the entire team still ended up severely injured."