“Well, yes.” Yu Ning looked at Ji Mingxia and said,

Ji Mingxia looked at him in confusion.

Yu Ning said, “The Faceless Man is the embodiment of my inner fear.”

“Ah?” Ji Mingxia looked at Yu Ning in surprise and hurriedly covered his mouth with his hand, “Did I ……did I think out loud?”

Did he unknowingly say his thoughts out loud?

This involved Yu Ning’s inner heart. He just had a fleeting thought, and did not mean to pry.

“No.” Yu Ning looked at Ji Mingxia and said, “You guessed Zhao Zhouye’s, guessed your own, and left mine unsaid.”

Ji Mingxia, having been guessed, said somewhat sarcastically, “I just feel …… that yours seems different from ours.”

Whether it was him or Zhao Zhouye, the ghosts from fear were based on reality and derived from the paranormal wind.

Yu Ning’s Faceless Man looked more like a horrific image formed by the negative consciousness in his heart.

Yu Ning said, “I grew up in an orphanage, and because my eyes were different from others, everyone was always afraid of me and no one played with me. In order to get people’s attention, I deliberately told a lot of supernatural stories to scare those children. They were so scared and curious that they couldn’t help but circle around me. In this way, I made friends.”

Ji Mingxia raised his head and looked at Yu Ning with some curiosity.

Yu Ning slowly said, “Little kids didn’t know any better and didn’t realise what the stories meant until those words reached the ears of the teachers. From then, not only did the kids not dare to join me, but even the adults were scared of me. At that time, someone suggested that I should be kicked out of the orphanage and left to fend for myself outside.”

Yu Ning looked at Ji Mingxia as he talked, “It just so happened that a circus came to perform in Funan County, they were going to perform at the stadium for seven consecutive days, and the place where they rested and landed on a daily basis was right next door to the orphanage.”

“A circus?” Ji Mingxia froze.

It was Yu Ning’s first time to mention the past and he was a little distressed while listening.  On hearing the mention of a circus, he couldn’t help but recall it.

He had also grown up in Funan County, and he had a few impressions of the circus that had performed.

Ji Mingxia said: “Was it something that happened when we were in kindergarten? I remember a car running all over the street and advertising with a loudspeaker that there was an animal show …… I even pestered my parents to take me to see it, but as far as I remember, there were no animals at all, and it was even quite boring.”

“Hmm.” Yu Ning said, “There were no animals. The whole circus was full of people, and the people played the animals.”

Ji Mingxia looked at Yu Ning with some confusion.

This had happened when he was very young, and although Ji Mingxia had seen the show himself, it didn’t leave any impression so he was a little unsure of what Yu Ning meant by this statement.

Yu Ning whispered, “Singing dogs, beautiful snake women, vase girls ……”

Knowing that the circus was coming to perform and living right next door, the whole orphanage was abuzz with excitement.

The children couldn’t afford to buy tickets to see the show, but they could peek through the fence and see the daily training of the circus.

The fence was high and full of greenery in the middle so the orphanage children burrowed between the vines and then poked their heads through the gaps in the rusty fence, looking on with curiosity.

From a distance, it looked as if the faces of young children were growing among the flourishing plants.

The group of children soon attracted the attention of the circus manager, who, upon learning that they were all unwanted orphans, not only did not drive them away, but led the performers and invited them over with great enthusiasm.

The gap in the fence was not large, but it was easy for the children to get through.

The invited children happily entered the circus camp as guests, except for Yu Ning, who looked on indifferently.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go, but he was so used to being rejected that he actively chose to hide away and not get involved in anything.

A few days later, at the warm invitation of the children, the head of the circus came to the orphanage as a guest and met the director of the orphanage.

He offered to adopt some of the children to work in the circus.

The circus was short of people, especially children who were willing to perform.

The children are not yet fully developed. They were small, soft and malleable, and as long as they were willing to suffer, they could be fed and clothed if they joined the circus.

Once the child is handed over to the circus manager, it not only relieves the burden on the orphanage, but also helps the circus as the child is a skill of its own.

In this way, it was killing three birds with one stone.

In those days, and in a small county, the administrative procedures were not so strict, and although all the children in the orphanage were registered, it was not difficult to send a few out.

The director of the orphanage was immediately persuaded by the circus director.

The first child that came to her mind was Yu Ning, the most unpopular child in the orphanage.

Rumours about Yu Ning had spread all over the county, and not only had it affected Yu Ning’s personal reputation, the entire orphanage had come close to being dragged down.

At such a time, handing Yu Ning over was undoubtedly the most appropriate solution.

Ji Mingxia didn’t quite understand what “singing dogs” and “beautiful snake women” were, and he couldn’t help taking out his mobile phone to search.

He had just clicked on the webpage and typed when he heard that the director of the orphanage actually intended to hand Yu Ning over. His heart tightened and he didn’t care to look at his phone. He quickly looked at Yu Ning in shock: “They wouldn’t really hand you over to the circus people, right?!”

“The director had this idea, but she didn’t implement it immediately. She first called me over to ask for my opinion.” Yu Ning said. He saw that Ji Mingxia’s cup was empty and he refilled it for him. He also put some snacks in front of Ji Mingxia so he could just raise his hand in case he wanted to eat.

“Asking for your opinion?” Ji Mingxia did not notice Yu Ning’s actions. His attention was all on Yu Ning’s words, he could not help but frown, “You were only four or five years old at that time and you wouldn’t know what that meant. How could you make such a decision!”

Yu Ning said, “Yeah, they also thought that I would be convinced, but they forgot that I could see things that normal people couldn’t see.”

When the head of the circus saw Yu Ning, his eyes lit up and he was extremely satisfied with him.

For a place like the circus, what is most feared is mediocrity.

Yu Ning’s eyes, which ordinary people found horrifying, were a bright feature for the circus people.

At the time, Yu Ning was no more than four or five years old, and the circus director could have taken him away from the orphanage as long as he agreed.

It was not difficult for most adults to persuade a young child.

The circus head brought many toys and snacks and handed them to Yu Ning, persuading him to join the circus.

Everyone thought that Yu Ning would be impressed by the colourful toys and snacks.

However, only Yu Ning knew that all the toys were stained with blood, and that behind the seemingly amiable circus head were countless resentful spirits of children that would not dissipate for a long time.

The dead children still looked as miserable as they did before they died.

Some had their eyes gouged out, some had their skulls opened, some had their limbs chopped off, and a few children had even been sewn together.

Like a black fog, they sprawled behind the circus head and converged into a huge faceless man stretching out his hands towards Yu Ning to grab him.

Yu Ning was frightened away.

Although he saw through the circus’s plot and escaped in time, he hid outside for three whole days to avoid being “harvested” and “cut”.

A four/ five year old child, without an adult to look after him, wandered around for several days until the circus left Funan County and he returned to the orphanage.

He was already very unpopular in the orphanage, and after this incident, Yu Ning became completely invisible in the orphanage.

It was not until he was admitted to the best primary school in the county, and with the highest score, that everyone looked at him again.

He was a strange, withdrawn, gloomy student with an excellent academic performer.

The label had been with Yu Ning for most of his life and had not gone away until now.

At the same time, the search page on Ji Mingxia’s phone finally popped up.

When Ji Mingxia first heard about “singing dogs” and “beautiful snake women”, he thought it was a circus show program.

It was only when the news and pictures on the internet popped out that Ji Mingxia realised that this was actually a genocidal “harvesting and cutting”. 

The word “harvest” meant to take, to collect; “cut” meant cutting the raw material. These were usually young children who had developed normally. 

In simple terms, it meant to take a living, normal human being and turn them into a strangely shaped and disabled freak by cutting with a knife, hacking with an axe, or other means.

The artificial creation of cripples or “freaks” was used as a pretext to gain the sympathy of the world or, as in the case of circuses, to attract the attention of the public and to obtain large sums of money from passers-by.

Because the adult body is already full-grown and difficult to cut or sculpt, the cruel and perverse practice of harvesting and cutting mostly occurred with young children.

The so-called “singing dogs” and “beautiful snake women” are young children whose limbs had been cut off and made into artificially transformed into “human-headed, dog-bodied” or “human-headed, snake-bodied” freaks, so as to achieve the purpose of attracting eyes and getting money.

At this point, Ji Mingxia remembered why he didn’t remember this circus yet he had obviously seen it.

He had been deceived by false advertising. Instead of seeing what he wanted to see, he saw all sorts of weird and bizarre performances.

At that time, he was too young to understand what the singing dogs represented behind the scenes, but he instinctively felt uncomfortable.

It wasn’t until after leaving the circus that he returned to normal. He was a young child after all, and he soon put the incident behind him, so much so that only now could he barely recall it.

Ji Mingxia looked at the photos of the victims who were harvested and cut, then at Yu Ning in front of him, and he was simply terrified.

The impact of such a thing was even greater than the frightening ghosts.

He and Yu Ning, who obviously lived in the same place, were of a similar age, yet their childhoods were very different.

Ji Mingxia lost both parents before he reached adulthood, and in the eyes of many people, was a pitiful child.

He was indeed sad and depressed for a long time, but when compared to Yu Ning, at least he had a happy childhood, and even if his parents were gone, he still had his loving grandmother.

What made Ji Mingxia most sad was that Yu Ning had such an experience, and was in a way, also “artificial”. The story of his past was summarized as “growing up in an orphanage “

The novel started at Yu Ning’s university life and focused more on the adventures of Yu Ning and Pei Yuan, with little detail on the past.

The easiest way for authors not to waste ink on portraying family members was to make the protagonist all alone. The most common setting was to have both parents dead and the protagonist growing up in an orphanage.

Ji Mingxia had even seen many protagonists who came straight out of mental hospitals.

When you’re used to seeing that kind of persona, you don’t even think about how the protagonist survived the first ten years or so when you read the novel.It was only after hearing Yu Ning’s story that Ji Mingxia came to a realization. The Yu Ning in front of him was not a paper man, but a living, breathing person who had grown up from a child and struggled to survive.

Of course, the author could not be blamed for this kind of thing. Who would have thought that the world of fiction would come true?

For the first time, Ji Mingxia felt the burden that came with being the protagonist.

Even though there was a halo that kept him alive, everything he had to endure in the process of growing up was far more than anyone could imagine.

Ji Mingxia had used his mobile phone to search for news and pictures related to harvesting and cutting, so Yu Ning did not look at his phone screen out of courtesy.

When he recounted the past, he didn’t go into much detail about harvesting and cutting, and only mentioned “singing dogs”, so he didn’t know what was going on in Ji Mingxia’s mind after reading the news and pictures.

Seeing that Ji Mingxia was quietly looking at him, Yu Ning finished explaining about the Faceless Man and then smoothly returned the topic to the hotel.

Yu Ning was indeed a little surprised when he saw the faceless man at the spa, and it took some effort to overcome his inner fear.

When the Faceless Man failed to cause him any harm, it instead became a breakthrough for Yu Ning.

So based on the known information, Yu Ning had basically seen through the other party’s abilities and routines by that point. His series of operations that followed were purely a performance to confuse the other party.

The topic came back to the hotel, and Ji Mingxia calmed down his emotions.  His attention quickly shifted along with Yu Ning and he concluded, “In other words, you had already anticipated what would happen next before we acted tonight? You were just waiting for the other party to take the bait?”

“Pretty much.” Yu Ning said.

Ji Mingxia no longer knew what to say. He felt like an idiot in comparison to Yu Ning.

While he still thought that it was all related to Li Youzi, and that it was the second blood-red ring that he was going to deal with tonight, Yu Ning, had already made preparations to deal with the other mysterious item.

No, he couldn’t be blamed for that.

He had a normal thinking process and if he had Yu Ning reverse thinking, he wouldn’t be as simple as a plain supporting character.

Thinking of this, Ji Mingxia felt more balanced, but he couldn’t help but ask, “Then why was there a red light emitting from my body when you found me?”

“It’s the ring.” Yu Ning said, picking up the ring on the coffee table and holding it up in front of Ji Mingxia.

Immediately Yu Ning picked up the blood-red ring, it transformed into a red stream of light that wrapped around Yu Ning’s finger as it rotated back and forth like a living thing.

This was Ji Mingxia’s first time seeing the ring change form, and he was dumbfounded.

“It …it can also become like this?”

As soon as Ji Mingxia’s words fell, the red light transformed into two, one flying to Ji Mingxia’s hand and one stayed on Yu Ning’s finger.

After recognizing Yu Ning as its master, the blood red ring had unlocked various abilities, one of which was differentiation.

Although the differentiation would weaken some of the ring’s abilities, it would be able to protect Ji Mingxia at critical moments.

The bronze mirror’s ability was to use illusions to inspire fear within a person, thus breaking the person’s spirit.

This was also why Yu Ning did not reveal all the information to Ji Mingxia when they set out.

The more one knew, the more distractions there would be in one’s heart.

To Ji Mingxia, a second blood-red ring vs a brand new mysterious item, it was clear that the former was a little better to deal with.

As long as Ji Mingxia was not defeated by fear, he was safe.

Of course Yu Ning had left half of the ring on Ji Mingxia’s body, just in case.

If Ji Mingxia was accidentally defeated by his inner fear, this would be the final barrier to keep Ji Mingxia safe.

“So that’s how it is…” Ji Mingxia said, “When did you put it on me? I didn’t feel it at all.”

“When we entered the restaurant in the lake.” Yu Ning said.

Ji Mingxia thought carefully for a moment and then recalled when his clothes had gotten caught when they entered the restaurant. At that time, Yu Ning had helped him tidy up his clothes.

Ji Mingxia only thought that Yu Ning was thoughtful, and did not think that Yu Ning was setting everything up at that time.

“So ……you relied on half a ring to take Tong Jing down. Didn’t she suspect anything?” Ji Mingxia said in shock.

Yu Ning patiently said, “The principle of Tong Jing’s killing is to use illusions to deceive the mind, the best way to do that is to conquer fear and put fear in her heart.”

“To treat someone the way they treat others.” Ji Mingxia muttered.

He understood defeating ghosts no longer relied only on physical strength, using the brain was the key.

Look at Yu Ning, although he did not have the same physical skills as Pei Yuan, he had brains.

It could be said that all the participants in this incident were like puppets on strings.

At the beginning, it was Tong Jing who was controlling the whole situation, but somehow, Yu Ning, the person in the situation, became the manipulator by virtue of his intelligence.

At first glance, Yu Ning was disadvantaged in every way, and Tong Jing had lost unjustly. But on second thought, it would be strange for Tong Jing to win under such oppressive intelligence.

Ji Mingxia couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy for Tong Jing.

Not only did she recognize Yu Ning as her master, she even gave away her possessions.

Suddenly, a flash came to Ji Mingxia’s mind, catching something that he had almost overlooked just now.

“I remember now! I wondered why this bronze mirror looked familiar!” Ji Mingxia said.

Yu Ning looked at Ji Mingxia in confusion, “You’ve seen it before?”

“Uh, not really.” Ji Mingxia shook his head.

He had transmigrated into this world not long ago, how could he have seen this bronze mirror before?

However, Ji Mingxia had seen similar descriptions in the novels.

Pei Yuan had a mysterious item in his possession later in the movel, a very rare evolutionary mysterious item called the bronze mirror.

The bronze mirror in the novel was a special item that the special department went through great pains to take in, and it could only be used at critical moments. Even Pei Yuan needed special approval before using it.

In theory, this was a rather special point in the plot, and Ji Mingxia should have remembered it right away.

But the problem was, it was just a novel to Ji Mingxia at the time.

When he saw the main characters “attacking” and “suffering”, he was upset in his heart, so how could he go on reading the content carefully.

He wouldn’t look carefully, let alone remember it and convert the written descriptions into physical objects.

So when he saw the bronze mirror, Ji Mingxia only felt that it looked familiar, but he couldn’t remember exactly why.

It was only now that he realized that the bronze mirror might be the same as the one Pei Yuan possessed in the novel.

According to what the driver said, there were only incidents of ghosts hitting the wall a few years ago.

Currently, the bronze mirror has been using illusions to induce a person’s inner fear to deal with Ji Mingxia and the others.

This attack technique was a rapid improvement, which is fully in line with the “growth” property of mysterious items.

Previously, Ji Mingxia thought that Tong Jing was a ghost, just like Lin Siyun.

But what if Tong Jing was not a ghost, but an intelligence derived from the bronze mirror?

Thinking of this, Ji Mingxia was instantly energised and excitedly told Yu Ning about his guesses.

“If this bronze mirror is an evolved mystical item, then its value is unimaginable.” Ji Mingxia looked at Yu Ning and said, “If Tong Jing is the intelligence derived from the bronze mirror, it means that it is growing very fast. It already has the special ability to use illusions and change people’s memories, give it a few more years, and based on speculation, it would even have the ability to control time… “

Of course Ji Mingxia said this as a guess, but it was written like this in the novel.

Thinking of this, Ji Mingxia couldn’t help but get excited.

Although the plot had shifted quite a bit, the mysterious item that originally belonged to Pei Yuan a few years later had now become something that belonged to Yu Ning.

But anyway, the gong and the shou were one, so giving it to Pei Yuan and giving it to Yu Ning were both the same.

Moreover, Yu Ning had gotten the mysterious item by relying on his wisdom to turn the danger into success, which was naturally what he deserved.

Ji Mingxia could not help but exclaim, “Yu Ning, evolutionary mysterious items are very rare, whether it is the Blood Red Ring or this Quanzhuang hotel, they are nowhere near as valuable as it is. Getting it to recognize you as its master based on your strength is so impressive, worthy of being the academic tyrant of our school. There is simply nothing that can defeat you ……”

Ji Mingxia said this as he lowered his head to carefully observe the bronze mirror.

However, after looking at it for a few seconds, Ji Mingxia quickly noticed that something was wrong again and asked curiously, “Huh, evolutionary mysterious items have transparent edges, why does this bronze mirror look like the blood red ring on the surface? It looks like an ordinary level mysterious item ah.”

An unnatural look flashed across Yu Ning’s face as he whispered, “Maybe it’s just an ordinary mysterious item.”

“That’s not right…there can’t be two bronze mirrors in this world, right?” Ji Mingxia said strangely, unable to resist turning it over and over, studying it carefully.

However, Yu Ning had already killed Tong Jing, the bronze mirror’s derived intelligence. No matter how much Ji Mingxia studied it, it could never return to its previous appearance.

For a moment, Yu Ning did not know how to explain to Ji Mingxia that he was so enraged by Tong Jing’s behaviour that he simply did not care if it was worth a lot of money or not, and simply wiped her out.

Seeing that Ji Mingxia was puzzled, Yu Ning thought for a moment and said, “Actually, there is one thing that I have been thinking about for a long time, and I have never figured it out.”

“Ah?” Ji Mingxia raised his head in surprise to look at Yu Ning.

‘Could there be something that Yu Ning couldn’t figure out in this world?’

Ji Mingxia was really piqued and he looked at him curiously, “What could be difficult for our Yu Ning?”

Yu Ning said, “At the spa, I heard you and that technician talking for a long time.”

“Mmm.…” Ji Mingxia sipped his tea and thought about it. It seemed like there was indeed such a thing.

That technician brother was rather talkative. He chattered for a long time and said some inexplicable things.

Ji Mingxia’s attention was completely drawn to the technician brother, causing him not to even notice the extraordinarily silence on Yu Ning’s side. It was only after the massage that he realized Yu Ning was struggling to deal with the faceless man.

Even though it was something that had already passed, Ji Mingxia was still a little embarrassed when he looked back.

Yu Ning always considered his safety in advance, but when Yu Ning was in danger, he had no idea.

Ji Mingxia looked at Yu Ning and said, “Is there something wrong with that technician?”

Yu Ning turned his head slightly and looked intently at Ji Mingxia as he said, “He said a lot of things that I couldn’t figure out after thinking for a long time, what is “gong” and what is “shou”?”

“Cough--“ Ji Mingxia was startled and almost choked on the tea in his mouth.

Leave alone the bronze mirror, Ji Mingxia was prepared for that technician brother to be a ghost as well. How could he imagine that this was what Yu Ning couldn’t figure out!