Faced with Yinsu Helin’s questioning, Ashley was momentarily at a loss for words.
It wasn’t that she was stumped, but rather that she found it utterly baffling.
It was like a veterinarian preparing to neuter a little female kitten, only for the cat to suddenly start wailing about the injustices of the world and demand that the vet hand over the electric scooter parked at the door.
I don’t get it!
She had only come to perform a quick incision surgery—why did she have to throw in her own electric scooter?
Ashley had thought the Little Doctor was about to break down, followed by hysterical crying and screaming, but in the next second, she stopped her tears. Her eyes were vacant and calm as she spoke in an emotionless tone:
“The Great Raven is just a substitute object from the childish psychological stage. Daddy doesn’t want YinYin anymore, YinYin has no sense of security, so just replace Daddy. It’s all fake anyway. Human sadness, despair, fear, anger—they’re all meaningless neural signal pulses. YinYin won’t be fooled by pointless emotions. Beep—! Voltage-gated potassium ion channels open! Neural membrane resting potential repolarizes and resets! Now, YinYin is an emotionless organic machine. YinYin has no emotions, so it’s fine without the Great Raven. It’s fine even if she loses the Fig. Waaah…”
Eh? She’s gone radio wave?
Ashley had black lines all over her face. She scratched her head and asked in confusion:
“If it’s not a big deal, then why are you still crying?”
“Tears: 99% water, 1% impurities. Meaningless, meaningless…” The little loli kept repeating those last four words.
This child…
Ashley sighed inwardly. Her heart, which had been as hard as stone, stirred ever so slightly.
Before long, the maids filed in one after another. They deftly set up hanging curtains around them, then tossed large chunks of rosin and various spices into the fire basin, melting and stirring them into a malt candy-like substance.
It seemed to be some kind of ritual. Ashley watched silently.
The Little Doctor was stripped by the maids’ seven or eight hands until she looked like a soft, tender, slippery glutinous rice dumpling. They gently lifted her up and fitted her with a golden bird-beak ceremonial mask.
The mask was a fully enclosed helmet without any openings, made from five kilograms of pure gold—quite heavy. The surface was engraved with eye and feather patterns, filled in with black lacquer. The black and gold gave it a look of extravagant elegance.
But the Little Doctor was suffering. It was heavy and stiflingly hot, with no light or air. In the dark, cramped space, she struggled to breathe, her soft, tender little face turning red and moist.
At that moment, one of the maids stirred up a glob of scalding rosin with a flat bamboo strip and swiftly smeared it onto the Little Doctor’s body.
Woo!
Ashley clearly heard a muffled cry of pain from inside the mask. The snow-white, soft little body stiffened instantly, then slowly and forcefully writhed in the lingering agony.
Rip!
The maid pinched the edge of the cooling, hardening rosin layer with her slender fingers and yanked it off!
A wail like something collapsing echoed from the mask. The little body trembled like a small animal soaked by rain.
Ashley’s eyes widened. This… this was depilation? But she doesn’t have any hair! Not even peach fuzz?
So weird!
But when she glanced again!
Unknowingly, the ritual had reached its latter half.
The Little Doctor lay limply slumped in the chair, her skin slick with sweat, smooth and soft, red and swollen like elastic jelly.
Now, the maids began sticking black crow feathers onto her body one by one, gradually covering her snowy skin with glossy black.
Each feather vane was a foot long, and the quills extended over a meter. They were neatly arranged along her lower back and arms, resembling wings and tail feathers. An area around her navel was left bare for the surgery.
The Little Doctor’s ordeal finally ended. She looked on the verge of collapse, barely moving.
The maids unfastened the iron locks and escorted her into the grand hall.
In the space between the dining tables of the two great families, a nest over two meters in diameter was built on a base of white plaster, woven from oak branches, adorned with acorns, fallen leaves, truffles, and gold leaf. The maids placed Yinsu Helin—head in the ceremonial mask, body draped in black feathers—inside.
She curled up into a ball, her chest rising and falling faintly. She didn’t move, as if she had accepted her fate.
Ashley stood among the maids, curiously eyeing the different dishes on the two tables.
One side was for the sheep: glistening red fruits that oozed juice when pinched, blood-red transparent bamboo shoots, huge grains of red rice like candies, and blackish-red sticky corn.
The other side was for the crows: tender loin cut into strips, fatty intestines coiled like pasta, garnished with lifeless eyeballs, and opened skulls for the beak to peck at, with live maggots crawling in the brain matter for added fun.
It was all like a hellish feast, a demonic banquet.
Wasn’t there any food for humans? Ashley grumbled inwardly. Seeing the menu, her regret at not being allowed to join the party faded considerably.
Besides, she wasn’t interested in banquets at all. A bunch of people gathering just to eat? Pointless. Why not do something productive?
Twilight had fallen, and the dishes were all prepared, but something still felt missing.
Ashley’s gaze turned to the empty doorway—no guests had arrived yet.
Just as she wondered about it, a grand church bell tolled overhead, its echoes layering in the deep indigo dusk.
At that moment, the doors creaked open. Looking toward the pulpit in the chapel, a trapdoor lifted from the floor. Along the stairs, a line of Crow People ascended, wearing expressionless white masks. Their robes were sewn from scarlet gold-trimmed silk ribbons, exuding an evil solemnity.
On the other side, a servant raised a sheep horn and blew. Ripples spread through the air, and from the warped spatial vortex emerged a line of Sheep-Head People wrapped in white robes.
As guests in full regalia took their seats one by one, the ceremonial atmosphere of the banquet built to a suffocating peak with the grand entrance of the two great figures!
Ashley looked to the left. His massive frame had vertebrae extending from his neck backward, as thick as a bowl, writhing slowly like a bone dragon. His body was covered in beast hide, vaguely humanoid, so he wore no human clothes—just a scarlet silk band embroidered with gold thread.
Five or six twisted, gnarled horns protruded from his head like a demon’s, while his pristine white fur made him look like a divine beast from another angle. Sharp blood crystals with irregular facets were embedded in his skin, radiating shattered, piercing light.
Clan Leader—Egori Emperor Blood Diamond Macintosh.
She turned to the right, where she spotted Mr. Crow, whom she had met before at Danzhu Estate.
Mr. Crow’s form had changed again. His body had grown enormous, over three meters tall, shrouded in deep, profound darkness that rippled in layers, impossible to look at directly.
Dense, thick feathers were studded with bird-shaped skulls carved like black crystals. His mouth had elongated into a beak but retained human incisors and molars, as if a human skull had mutated.
Clan Leader—Lasoto Ancestor Cassock Scripps.
The two clan leaders took their seats at the head tables, flanked by their families’ elites in two rows.
Ashley subtly rotated her bullet nest, aligning the sights on the bullet formed by “Mundane Reminder.”
The ability activated, and the world before her eyes shifted. She saw supernatural fluctuations in the hall surging like ocean waves, forming countless dark surges and vortices—like a demon’s lair. If Captain Roy were here, he’d be scared pale, trembling like chaff.
The difference between this ability and the Polpo Lens was that it clearly showed the hierarchy of strength.
From weak to strong: light blue – deep blue – blue-black; glow – mist – liquid – solid.
Ashley’s gaze swept over the two clan leaders. The blood diamonds and ancestor skulls on their bodies manifested as blue-black solid supernatural power—terrifying.
She mused to herself that those blood diamonds were probably crystallized Primordial Blood, like the Philosopher’s Stone, highly condensed. The ancestor skulls, perhaps, recorded a generation’s knowledge and power, accumulated and iterated like a massive database.
