Chapter 233 Cause and Effect
“I am Fenwu… No, I am Yan Yukuan, but I am Fenwu, I am not Yan Yukuan, I am…”

The female prison guard muttered nervously, her two red eyes fixed on her face in the mirror, her nails scratching her face continuously, all ten fingers were covered in blood, she had gone crazy.

Ning Zhe felt that he roughly knew why she went crazy.

After waiting for a few minutes, Ning Zhe turned around and walked into the door. He came to the sink and said to the female prison guard who kept mumbling, “You are not Fen Wu at all.”

“What did you say?!” The female prison guard turned her head suddenly, her facial features scratched by her nails distorted in a hideous manner.

“I said, you are not Fen Wu.” Ning Zhe said lightly: “You are just a brainwashed prison guard. The original memories in your brain have been emptied and replaced with the memories of another person, just like a formatted hard drive overwritten with new data. You just think you are Fen Wu.”

“Your real identity is Yan Yukuan, the prison guard on your work badge.” Ning Zhe added.

“No, no, that’s not right…” The female prison guard shook her head and slowly stepped back: “I am Fenwu, I am not Yan Yule, but I am Yan Yule, I am Fenwu…”

“Okay, let’s assume for the moment that you are really Fenwu.”

Ning Zhe shook his head and continued, “If you are Fen Wu himself, then you should know that the two words Fen Wu are not actually your name, but the name of a ghost. This is the code name that the ascended ones show to the outside world. So… apart from this code name, what is your real name, Fen Wu’s real name?”

“Real name… My real name, Fenwu’s real name…” The female prison guard’s eyes were dazed, as if her soul was wandering outside her body.

“Sure enough.” Ning Zhe nodded when he saw this: “This is the evidence. If you were him, then there is no way you wouldn’t know Fen Wu’s real name as a human being.”

“No… No…” The female prison guard shook her head repeatedly and wanted to say something.

Ning Zhe continued without pausing, “The reason why you don’t know Fen Wu’s real name is because when Fen Wu brainwashed you, he didn’t implant all of his memories into your brain. He selectively blocked sensitive information that would pose a risk to Fen Wu, such as his real name.”

“I…I…I am angry, strict is better than lenient…I…” Confused memories flooded her mind, and the female prison guard began to babbled incoherently: “I am…I am…strict…angry…I…”

Looking at the abnormality of the female prison guard, Ning Zhe already understood why she went crazy.

“——Conflict of rules.” Ning Zhe silently took two steps back, looking at the female prison guard who was slumped on the ground and talking nonsense, an inexplicable fear surged in his heart.

The prison guard’s memory was modified by some strange thing involving “memory” and “cognition”, just like Tian Chengyun whose cause of death was unknown, and Bai Zhi whose entire childhood was shattered.

Only a small part of Tian Chengyun’s or Yu Ziqian’s memory was partially modified. Bai Zhi’s memory was deleted more, but since her teenage years, she rarely had any interruptions. However, the memory of the prison guard named Yan Yukuan… was completely deleted.

“Fenwu used the strange rules he knew to delete Yan Yukuan’s memory, and then filled it with his own memory, creating a person who thought he was Fenwu’s tool.”

“This tool man possesses some of Fenwu’s memories, inherits some of Fenwu’s way of thinking, and controls some of the strange abilities provided by Fenwu. To some extent, he has lost everything that once belonged to Yan Yukuan. He has become Fenwu…”

“But the Lamp-Blowing Ghost doesn’t think so.”

After pulling apart the pieces and piecing them together, Ning Zhe quickly figured out the general context of the matter:
“The ghost who blows out the lanterns calls out people based on their true identities. Even if Yan Yukuan believes in his heart that he is Fen Wu, the ghost who blows out the lanterns calls out Yan Yukuan’s name when he calls him.”

“Maybe the ghost chasing him and shouting made him curious, or maybe the ghost imitating the voice of his relatives evoked some of the memory fragments of Yan Yukuan left in the depths of his brain, or maybe it was some other reason… In short, Yan Yukuan began to doubt his identity.”

“Especially when he saw his face in the mirror and the ID photo on his work badge, for a moment he might have had this thought in his mind: Am I really too strict to be lenient?”

The moment this thought came to him, the moment he thought this idea might be true, ‘God’ looked over here.

The rules by which Fenwu modified his memory made him believe from the bottom of his heart that he was Fenwu.

The rule of the God who cannot be looked at directly solidified his belief that he might be stricter than lenient. The two rules collided with each other in his brain, and he went crazy.

So why did the ghost who blew out the candles chase after Yan Yukuan and called his name?
“Because he had bad luck, the ghost had just been released and he reversed Yan Yukuan’s gender into a woman.” Ning Zhe sighed and looked behind him. The corridor outside the door had disappeared, and instead, there was another identical toilet.

The world has shrunk to the size of a room.

“It seems that Tu Yu is not exhausted, but knows that ‘this’ Fen Wu has gone crazy, so he stopped wasting time and took the initiative to shrink the world and prepare to withdraw.”

Ning Zhe came to Yan Yukuan, intending to take him away before the strange world completely disappeared. Although this man was crazy, the memories of Fenwu in his brain should still be very useful, even though those memories had been screened by Fenwu himself.

“Ok?”

Ning Zhe patted Yan Yukuan’s shoulder and found that his body was motionless.

When I felt his pulse and breath, he was already dead.

“Fen Wu is far more cautious than I thought.” Ning Zhe shook his head. He did not try to use the money to resurrect Yan Yukuan. Fen Wu had thought of this and it was impossible for him to be unprepared for Wu Tong.

The invisible cage that blocked the ‘world’ continued to shrink until it disappeared.

Ning Zhe opened his eyes, took out his cell phone which had restored signal, and called a contact named “Duan Geng”.

Fenwu and Tuyu have both left, but the Diandao Ghost and the Chuilang Ghost are still here. Out-of-control weird events always need someone to deal with them.

Lan Shiwen is from Yunzhou, and no matter how long his arms are, he cannot control Qinzhou. Therefore, it is better to contact the local forces in Qinzhou for such matters. Taoist Master Duan Geng, who came from Mount Lushan, is a good choice.

Soon, the call was connected.

“Ah, it’s Mr. Ye Yao. Why did you suddenly call me today? What can I do for you?” Duan Geng’s voice came from the loudspeaker.

Ning Zhe did not keep the secret and said straightforwardly: “I have two strange incidents here. I have completely figured out the rules of one of the ghosts, and I have partially figured out the rules of the other one, but I don’t want to control either of them, so I called you.”

“I want to ask you, is there any way to keep ghosts in peace without controlling them? Is it better to imprison them?”

“It must be.” Duan Geng patted his chest to assure. The sound of a DJ playing music could be heard faintly from the other end of the phone. “But as the old saying goes, a thief never leaves empty-handed. I have spent a lot of energy to help you, so I can’t make a wasted trip, right?”

“Who would call themselves a thief… Never mind, I know the rules.” Ning Zhe said calmly, “Give me the method to imprison the ghost, and I will give you one of the ghosts.”

“So generous!” Duan Geng shouted, “Where are you now, benefactor? I will fly over to find you right now!”

It’s different for those who give money, the address changes directly from “you” to donor.

Ning Zhe told Duan Geng his location and added his shared location on WeChat just to be on the safe side.

Although he agreed to give away a ghost, Ning Zhe did not feel that he was at a loss, because the ghost he planned to give to Duan Geng was the upside-down ghost – the ghost that once belonged to Fen Wu.

“Don’t Taoists believe in the Way of Heaven and Morality?”

Ning Zhe hung up the phone and smiled: “If you take his things… you will have to bear his consequences.”

(End of this chapter)