Chapter 187: Mirror Image Lin Yuyu
Zhan Sheng’s trip to the Taixue Sect had to be kept secret for the time being.
Even her talents were being concealed.
Hardly anyone knew Zhan Sheng at the moment, so even if she suddenly disappeared, it wouldn’t attract much attention from the other players.
After all, most players were leaving their Sects to go out and gain experience.
Now that the Sect Master had agreed, Zhan Sheng had to start preparing for her trip to the Taixue Sect.
Yet another player had received an opportunity to venture out, while the few players still inside the Secret Realm working on a hidden quest were completely oblivious.
First among them was Lin Yuyu in the Moon City Secret Realm.
She had been in a state of utter confusion ever since Li Qianqing left. She hadn’t changed maps, and querying the system only gave her useless answers.
Lin Yuyu understood that now, she could truly only rely on herself.
She and Li Qianqing had spent the past few days exploring the Moon City Secret Realm. They hadn’t run into anything dangerous and, consequently, hadn’t received any rewards.
Li Qianqing had told her this was normal.
Just as there were dangerous pocket dimensions, there were also safe ones.
According to the experiences of Li Qianqing’s fellow sect members, however, the Moon City Secret Realm should have at least triggered a mysterious battle quest. This time, though, they hadn’t encountered a thing.
Lin Yuyu decided to simply retrace the route she had been wandering over the past few days.
The Moon City Ruins were mysterious and desolate. From the ruins hidden beneath the endless yellow sand, one could faintly glimpse the past glory of a territory that once belonged to a generation of Demon Cultivators.
But then another player, Mu Qiu, had said he’d appeared in the legendary kingdom of the Demon Cultivators. So what did the Moon City Ruins represent?
’Was it the place where the Demon Emperor once lived?’
[Wait, Yuyu, turn around and walk back and forth in place a few times!]
Lin Yuyu was still streaming. Over the past few days, thanks to her streams from the Broken Sect, she had gotten a taste of what it was like to become a top-tier streamer overnight.
Even though her streams were subdued and game-focused—lacking Han Tian’s knack for controlling the flow and hyping up the crowd—the number of viewers was surprisingly on par with his, all because she was streaming a hidden quest.
The screen was so packed with scrolling comments that it made Lin Yuyu’s scalp tingle just looking at it.
But she had been bored since Li Qianqing left, so now she actually had time to read the comments. And as she did, a particular message caught her eye.
A viewer had clearly seen something. Afraid Lin Yuyu would miss their message, they had paid to send it as a special, brightly colored comment that was impossible to miss.
[Turn around and walk back and forth in place a few times!]
The other viewers were still spamming the chat out of boredom. The moment this colored comment appeared, everyone perked up.
’Did someone finally find something?’ Viewers had been watching this godforsaken place for three days without seeing anything.
Lin Yuyu was also puzzled. "Walk in place a few times?"
She subconsciously glanced back. Behind her was the same boundless expanse of yellow sand. The occasional gust of wind-whipped sand could get in your eyes.
In front of her stood a huge, toppled, and tilted half-pillar of stone, most of which was already buried beneath the yellow sand.
This stone pillar seemed to be the largest piece of architectural ruin; if there were any others, they were buried too deep in the sand to be seen.
This was the conclusion she and Li Qianqing had reached after exploring for several days.
She tentatively began to walk back and forth, asking the chat, "Did you find something? What did you guys see?"
Since the viewers were watching the stream from her first-person perspective, logically, they shouldn’t be able to see anything she couldn’t.
[See what? This place has been nothing but sand for days. I’m going nuts just watching.]
[This hidden quest is so boring...]
[Han Tian’s stream about trade is even more boring. He’s farming mobs in the Liuyun Sect right now.]
[A Secret Realm isn’t supposed to be like this, is it? It’s not at all the dangerous place I was imagining.]
[This is normal. Didn’t Li Qianqing say this Secret Realm has countless pocket dimensions, each with a different style? And when the streamer was talking to other players before, didn’t they say other players were on different quests...]
[I was expecting danger and intrigue all the way, ending with the best reward. But this streamer is a letdown. She just spent three whole days chitchatting with a female cultivator.]
[Isn’t it good that it’s boring? Isn’t this the total virtual immersion that players are looking for? Of course parts of it are boring, it’s not an edited video. Just think about your own life, isn’t it full of trivial matters?]
Thankfully, Lin Yuyu had managed to find opportunities to trick Li Qianqing so she could log off and take care of various physiological needs.
Lin Yuyu paced back and forth a few times, then suddenly narrowed her eyes.
She wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the eyes, but as she paced back and forth, she noticed the light a short distance ahead seemed to refract for a moment.
Just then, the brightly colored comment appeared again.
[Yes, that’s the spot! Move forward about seven meters and walk back and forth. Do you notice how the light in front of you seems a little off?]
’The light seems a little off?’
Lin Yuyu was surprised to see that comment.
She walked toward the spot she had noticed, shifting her direction slightly to the left and right as she went. A glint of light flashed across her vision.
In the transparent air ahead, she saw what looked like a momentary spatial distortion.
’There’s something there?’
And it wasn’t just her; the viewers in the stream saw it too.
[HOLY SHIT, THERE’S REALLY SOMETHING THERE!]
[AMAZING! What kind of eyes does that viewer have? Even the streamer and I didn’t notice.]
[Incredible! Is something finally happening in the Secret Realm?]
[Is it a reward? Or is it dangerous?]
...
The chat began to explode, and Lin Yuyu’s nerves tightened.
She couldn’t spare any attention for the comments.
She walked forward slowly and found that if she maintained a straight path, she couldn’t see any changes ahead.
But as she continued to weave left and right, trying to pick up her pace, she finally saw a distinct moment of distortion.
It was like a rendering bug, as if she were moving too fast for the world to load in time.
And in that instant, she thought she even saw something moving within the distortion.
Lin Yuyu raised an eyebrow and reached out, attempting to touch that formless, transparent space with her finger.
The scene before her eyes suddenly changed.
No, that wasn’t right—there was simply another person in front of her!
Lin Yuyu was shocked to discover that standing before her was someone who looked exactly like her—another Lin Yuyu.
She hadn’t thought much of it during character creation, but now, seeing her own face from a third-person perspective...
That face, as pitiably beautiful as Lin Daiyu’s, but paired with that sturdy physique...
As Lin Yuyu stared, she suddenly sighed with admiration. "Damn, my face is gorgeous."
[????]
[Why is there another Lin Yuyu? A Mirror Image?]
Just as Lin Yuyu was shamelessly admiring her own character creation skills, a sneer crept across the face of the Mirror Image Lin Yuyu before her.
It raised a hand and pointed. The yellow sand under Lin Yuyu’s feet instantly turned wet, becoming like slurry.
"Holy shit!" Lin Yuyu cursed, immediately trying to fly up using her Spiritual Energy.
At that moment, a Palm Thunder came crashing down from above. In the nick of time, Lin Yuyu wrenched herself backward, leaning back so far she was practically scrambling away on all fours.
The slurry she’d just escaped was struck squarely by the lightning. The bolt’s arc grazed past Lin Yuyu’s feet, and the proximity of the strike sent a numbing tingle through her.