My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 480: Taking Over the Department Store (Seeking 4,000 Monthly Votes)

Chapter 480: Chapter 480: Taking Over the Department Store (Seeking 4,000 Monthly Votes)

Within the jewel-like eyeball hid an unbalanced scale that swung back and forth as if weighing the soul.

Guided by the man, Han Fei took the eyeball to West City District. He entered the basement before the collapse of the Memory World.

The basement with no light changed the fate of the Master of Shrine; it was there he chose to succumb to the Shrine.

Descending the stairs, Han Fei opened the iron door and saw the familiar mirrored surface.

He took out the Rebirth Saber, used the brightness of humanity to dispel the darkness, and slowly walked up to the mirror.

The mirror, smeared with bloodstains, was somewhat dirty, and Han Fei wiped it clean bit by bit with his sleeve.

As the mirror became clean, the person in the mirror also gradually became clear.

A familiar face appeared in the mirror. His left eye had not been gouged out, his ear wasn’t injured, and his stomach looked normal, but he seemed to be trapped inside the mirror, unable to come out.

"I didn’t think you’d actually succeed," the man in the mirror could feel the Memory World collapsing. He gently placed his hand on the mirror surface, "That well trapped everything of mine, and I thought I’d never be able to get out."

"I’ve seen you before, and I seem to remember your name too..." Holding the eyeball, Han Fei’s missing memories were slowly returning. When his hand touched the mirror’s surface, a name slipped out, "Mirror God?"

"If you’re willing to call me that, continue to do so, but there are no gods in this world, only indescribable ghosts," said the Mirror God, looking at Han Fei with disbelief in his eyes. After his physical form left the well, he learned to smile even sooner than Han Fei had.

"If there are no gods, then how could the Deep World have Shrines?"

"A Shrine is just a gathering of certain emotions of people, similar to the well where my physical form was trapped. Originally, that well was just the most ordinary one, but from some point, it turned into the Wish Well. People’s greed kept accumulating in the well water, and they built Shrines around it, eventually turning it into an extremely ominous object," Mirror God’s hand touched the cold mirror surface. "I was abandoned by him, trapped in this mirror, although he became the Unspeakable, he sealed himself forever in that well of greed. We were both unable to escape our bonds, losing all freedom."

As the Memory World was shattering, the Mirror God revealed his past he was reluctant to speak of: "The former Building Chief of the Happiness Residential Community, Fu Sheng, killed my physical form, making me the new master of the Shrine and the manager of the Department Store. I stayed in the Department Store, providing shelter for homeless lonely ghosts, until I met Nine-fingers."

"I kindly took them in, but what I got in return was a complete betrayal. From that moment, I lost all hope in goodness and understood why my physical form gave up on me back then," Mirror God looked at Han Fei. "I also began to kill, slowly descending into the Abyss. No longer content with staying in the mirror, I sought every means to get out, to take back this Shrine."

"When I was engulfed by madness, a fragment of Fu Sheng’s memory escaped back to the depths of the city. He had lost completely, his memories shattered," said Mirror God.

"He brought me back to the Happiness Residential Community, assuring me that someone would help me retake the Shrine. After that, I ran into you."

"To be honest, when we first met, I wanted to kill you because I saw in you the shadow of my former self. I hated my former self, my heart brimming with hatred, and at the time, I thought hate was a kind of power, but now, I have a new idea," said Mirror God as he shared his past with Han Fei, who had not expected the earliest resident of the Happiness Residential Community to be the Unspeakable human nature.

"This Memory World is about to collapse, I’ll take you out," said Han Fei as he placed the right eye of the Master of Shrine in front of the mirror. Long ago, the Master of Shrine had opened his right eye to the mirror, his left eye gouged out, sworn to vengeance, no matter if he became the most evil ghost.

Times changed, and now the right eye of the Master of Shrine once again looked toward the mirror.

In order to let Han Fei enter the Shrine, the Mirror God did not hesitate to sacrifice himself. In the end, he and Han Fei entered the Shrine Memory World together. Han Fei began to experience the past of the Master of Shrine, while the Mirror God continued being himself, silently bearing the cost of forgetting for Han Fei, preventing him from getting lost in the Memory World.

Holding the eyeball, Han Fei made his first wish; he wanted to bring the Mirror God out from the world of memories.

The figure trapped in the mirror reflected upon his right eye.

"Crack!"

The dirt-stained mirrors in the basement shattered all at once, and the right eye in Han Fei’s hand vanished. As he looked up, he found an ordinary man standing in front of him.

He looked just like the Master of Shrine, except his right eye was like a piece of crystal-clear gemstone, with a scale in the pupil.

"So there is a problem with one of your eyes as well, no wonder you always had Yinglong carry you while you were still in the mirror," Han Fei recalled carefully; whether it was going to the Death Building or to the Department Store, it was the One-eyed Yinglong who carried the Mirror God.

All these trivial details had been overlooked by Han Fei before.

After rescuing the Mirror God, Han Fei began to head back to the Department Store.

Within the collapsing Memory World, only the Department Store and the hospital buildings remained.

Boss Gu, who had lost everything, was covered in wounds and pushed into the well by the Wronged Dead.

The Master of Shrine stayed in the hospital room, accompanying his mother through her last moments.

The torrential rain had long stopped, and the sun had risen fully, dissolving this mutated city and the twisted memory in the brightness.

One by one, the figures disappeared, and Boss Gu turned to ash in the well, with the last scene of the Memory World freezing on the Master of Shrine.

He held his mother’s hand, laying beside the hospital bed, his eyes devoid of any regrets.

Seeing all this, Han Fei was deeply moved; it was as if he had broken free from a shell that had bound him, and the system’s voice sounded in his mind.

"Player number 0000, please note, under the influence of the Master of Shrine’s incomplete personality, your Master-level Acting has successfully upgraded to level two."

It is extremely difficult to advance any skill to Master-level and even harder to enhance it further; it requires completing specific tasks or having special epiphanies.

The experiences Han Fei had in the Memory World, although they belonged to someone else’s past, deeply affected him.

In less than thirty days, he became stronger internally and developed a special aura that was indescribable.

As he opened his eyes, the light seemed like a figment of imagination, and his surroundings returned to the boundless night.

The cold chill penetrated his bones, but oddly, Han Fei didn’t feel uncomfortable; instead, it was like a fish returning to water, able to breathe freely.

Almost instinctively, Han Fei immediately opened his Attribute Panel, and when he saw the exit button lit up, he nearly cried.

"I’ve survived, I’ve really survived!"

In the distance, shelves toppled, and a giant shadow emerged. His body was covered in tattoos of heads, nine of which were stained with fresh blood.

Han Fei’s joy was indescribable; he even wanted to give the enemy in front of him a big hug, to share the simple happiness.

Fog emanated from deep within the soul, and the black shrine behind Han Fei trembled with his breath. The whole department store seemed to have some indescribable connection with him, as if anyone who harbored murderous intent toward Han Fei within the store would be plagued by misfortune and cursed unceasingly.

And yet, that wasn’t the key issue. With the ability to exit the game at any time, Han Fei dared to provoke even the Unspeakable; what were other ghosts and monsters to him?

As long as he had an ever-lit exit key, he would dare declare war on the entire Deep World.

"There are nine blood-colored human head tattoos on your body; it seems you’re Nine-finger, who hasn’t entered the Shrine World."

Taking out the Rebirth Saber and activating the ghost pattern on his body, Han Fei, with his physical strength having reached thirty-two points, let out the dark energy. He stared at Nine-finger’s towering body and chose not to retreat.

Ever since Han Fei had appeared, Nine-finger had been observing him, his gaze occasionally shifting to the shrine. Every time the thought of attacking Han Fei crossed his mind, an ominous premonition emerged in his heart.

Once Nine-finger confirmed Han Fei posed no threat, he pushed over a nearby shelf and took out a strange blade made entirely of human bones from behind it.

The human face tattoo on his arm let out a piercing scream, and as the curse infused his body, Nine-finger lifted the bone saber pieced together and smashed it toward Han Fei.

It wasn’t a slash, but a rotary smash!

His speed was alarmingly fast, completely mismatched with his hefty body. By the time Han Fei made a move to dodge, the bone saber had already smashed into the ground next to him.

The malicious curse seemed like countless black bugs crawling on the ground, and the originally intact floor now had a huge crater smashed into it.

With a slight twitch of his eyelids, Han Fei sheathed his blade and turned to run.

"I’ve troubled you, my apologies for the intrusion."

Even elevated to level nineteen, the gap between him and a large-scaled grudge was still significant; currently, he could only deal with medium-type resentments at most.

That a living person could kill a medium-type resentment was, in fact, already quite a remarkable feat.

A few steps into his escape, Han Fei suddenly realized his pursuer wasn’t following.

Turning his head, he saw that Nine-finger seemed unable to lift the bone saber from the ground.

"What’s going on?"

Dark energy slowly began to gather in the open space in front of the shrine, and in the shattered mirror fragments lying before the shrine, the figure of a person appeared.

His fingers gripped the blade of the bone saber as he slowly walked out from the broken mirrors scattered on the ground.

"Mirror God!"

The curses on the bone saber couldn’t harm him at all; only the murderous intent from deep within Nine-finger’s heart could scratch his skin, but he was unfazed.

The scales in his right eye swung gently, and it seemed the Mirror God was preparing to weigh Nine-finger’s soul on them.

Nine-finger was gripped by murderous intent as a never-before-seen terror flashed in his eyes. He abandoned the arm that held the saber and desperately fled backward.

Seeing this scene, Han Fei was stunned. He hadn’t expected the Mirror God, after leaving the mirror’s surface, to be so terrifying. After all, the opponent was merely the unspeakable side of humanity.

Han Fei threw Nine-finger’s abandoned arm and Bone Saber toward the shrine. As they approached the shrine, all the dark energy, murderous intent, and curses attached to them were absorbed by the shrine.

"Mirror God? Have you always been this strong?" Now, even Han Fei felt a bit afraid to approach the Mirror God.

"I inherited the memories and eyes of my true form, gaining his special abilities. However, these powers need the shrine’s help to be exercised," said the Mirror God. He didn’t find a replacement, but he had found himself, and finally managed to step out of the mirror, "With the abilities of my true form, I should possess strength in this department store equal to that of hatred."

"Equal to hatred?" Han Fei suddenly felt like he had latched onto a strong supporter. "Now we don’t have to be afraid of Ten-fingers!"

"Don’t trust me too much," the Mirror God said with a bitter smile. "All my power comes from my right eye, so my weakness is also very apparent—the right eye. Additionally, I haven’t completely adapted to this power. Rushing to confront Ten-fingers, I might not win."

"No problem, I still have another wish unused." Han Fei had already decided which to choose when he saw the mission reward. He intended to heal the soul wounds of the building-jumping ghost Zhuang Wen.

Zhuang Wen herself possessed strength almost equal to hatred. She failed to transform into hatred, but just happened to fulfill the conditions below hatred. If her soul wounds could be healed, perhaps she could break through again and become true hatred.

Once Han Fei had two beings of hatred on his side, the entire inescapable situation would become active.

"All the Ten-fingers inside the Shrine Memory World were stabbed by me with the Rebirth Saber. They should be in their weakest state now. We can’t miss this opportunity."

Originally, the Department Store’s strongest were the Ten-fingers. But in the Memory World, in the struggle for the shrine, not only did they devour their own kind, but they also completely broke the seal on themselves.

Despite their all-out effort, they couldn’t gain the recognition of the shrine through brute force. In the end, after making a path for Han Fei, they were stabbed through the chest by him.

Ten-fingers were forced to leave the Memory World, and of course, Han Fei kept his promise, killed Boss Gu, and took revenge for Ten-fingers.

"Ten-fingers is very cunning. From what I know about him, I estimate he would have left the Department Store immediately after the shrine went out of control," the Mirror God signaled Han Fei to place his hand on the shrine to formally establish a connection with it, "Your urgent task now is to complete the final ritual and become the sole master of this shrine."

With Mirror God’s help, Han Fei touched the shrine at the very depths of the storeroom. His fingers were attracted by a force to the shrine, the connection between him and the shrine deepening as they were bound together by an invisible rope.

The shrine’s Divine Door slowly opened and inside was a peculiar god statue: a person trapped within a well.

The statue saw Han Fei when the Divine Door opened. A flame filled with infinite greed surged from within the God Statue, burning both the well and itself away.

The appearance of the God Statue changed within the fire of desire, eyes revealing madness and a face with a hysterical smile—it ultimately took on the likeness of Han Fei laughing madly.

"Player code 0000, please take note! You have successfully obtained a level three damaged shrine and can now normally use the abilities granted by the shrine."

"Player code 0000, please take note! The shrine cannot be upgraded until it has been repaired!"

After the ritual was completed, Han Fei discovered that he could sense all the ghosts that entered the Department Store. Those haunted by resentments would form a faint bond with him the moment they stepped into the store, and if they dared to take merchandise off the shelves, that bond would continuously deepen.

"All the goods in this store have no marked prices, but they all come with a hidden price. This is basically a black-hearted store! Luckily, it now belongs to me..."