Listening to that faintly flippant voice,looking at this"Mo You"wearing his own face who seemed to have turned back into the Formless Demon...
Mo Fan felt like his nerves had been worn numb by the relentless string of ridiculous events these past few days.
He rubbed his throbbing temples and rolled his eyes helplessly.
"Damn it...what the hell are you playing at now?"
Mo Fan sighed,looking like a man who had given up on life.
"How about I just quit,huh?"
"Go on,kill me if you want.I won't resist.I'll enjoy it.Happy now?"
Seeing his main body so thoroughly tormented,the curve at Mo You's mouth widened a little further.
"I'll stop scaring you."
He straightened up,dropping the flippant act,his gaze gradually turning clear and deep.
"I've already accepted what I am now."
"I may be a Formless Demon,but I'm no longer the Formless Demon that had nothing left but the instinct to devour."
Before this vast,empty palace of white bone...
As the two of them talked,Mo Fan gradually got a clear picture of Mo You's current state.
Mo You's circumstances were exceedingly peculiar.
He did indeed possess the vast majority of Mo Fan's memories from the past twenty-odd years...
And had also inherited the fragmentary racial legacy of the Formless Demon Embryo.
But he was absolutely not a marionette on Mo Fan's strings,nor could he read Mo Fan's present thoughts at will.
Their relationship now...
Was more like two branches forking off the same tree.
So long as both were willing,they could still read portions of each other's memories.
But on the whole...
The Mo You of now clearly possessed an independent consciousness of his own.
"So..."
Mo Fan rubbed his chin,sizing up this person identical to himself.
"What exactly counts as your existence now?"
Hearing that,Mo You tilted his head slightly.
He seemed to give the question extremely serious thought as well.
"You."
That was the first word he offered.
Then,after pausing for a moment,he shook his head.
"But also not you."
"At the very least,from the moment I truly woke up inside the[Necrotic Realm]..."
Mo You pointed at his own chest.
"The me from here on will never be entirely you."
"I have my own perceptions.My own judgment."
Mo Fan didn't dwell on that answer too much.
After all...
If it really were a purely brainless duplicate,that would be more of a dead weight,and no fun at all.
Afterward...
Their conversation naturally turned to the Formless Demon.
"You Formless Demons...are you all born looking like some brain-dead infant?"
Mo Fan recalled that blank-paper,uncomprehending face Mo You had worn when he first woke.
"You matured way too fast,though."
"Formless Demons aren't really a race with a complete social and reproductive system."
Drawing on the racial memories gradually reviving in his mind,Mo You explained calmly.
"We're closer to aberrant beings gestated by heaven and earth itself in certain extreme environments."
"At birth,we're practically a blank sheet of paper."
"No fixed form.No parents or teachers to instruct us.Nothing to understand the world with but that scrap of innate inherited memory."
At this point...
A trace of coldness flashed through Mo You's eyes.
"In fact..."
"If we encounter one of our own kind,the first reaction isn't recognition."
"It's mutual devouring."
To be born...
Meant the beginning of surviving alone.
"That's also why,even though my consciousness was only just born,I could look this mature within half an incense stick's time."
Mo You raised a hand and tapped his own head.
"Because I'm not painting on a truly blank sheet."
"I possess both your vast,complex human memories and the racial legacy left behind by the demon embryo."
"The fusion of those two spared me the initial process of learning the world."
"However..."
Mo You looked at Mo Fan.
"Whether it's your memories or the embryo's legacy..."
"Those are only the past."
"From now on,the new experiences that arise within this shell..."
"Those are what truly belong to me."
"Mo You."
Hearing that...
Mo Fan couldn't help revising his opinion.
This kid's logic and way of thinking were considerably more mature than he'd anticipated.
"Then what was the deal with you attaching yourself to the snake molt left behind by that Golden Core Blood-Red Python?"
Mo Fan took the opening to ask another question that had been on his mind.
At this...
Mo You actually let out a rare,bitter smile.
"Honestly,if you hadn't shown up..."
"That original Formless Demon Embryo probably wouldn't have held out much longer."
Mo You's words made Mo Fan freeze for a beat.
"It was too greedy."
"At the moment of its birth,it presumed to assimilate the shed remains left behind by a Peak Golden Core Blood-Red Python."
Mo You shook his head,recalling that fragment of surviving memory.
"It picked a target far too high above itself."
"Even though it was only a snake molt,what remained inside it was in no way something a newborn embryo could easily digest."
"So it lay dormant at the bottom of the cliff year after year,accumulating strength by absorbing the flesh and remnant souls of those mutated demon beasts."
"On the surface,it looked like it was constantly growing,getting stronger."
"But in reality..."
"It had been stuck there the whole time,utterly unable to complete a first true Assimilation."
Mo You looked at Mo Fan.
"If it had kept developing in that deformed way..."
"It would very likely have been swallowed whole by that chaos in the end and met with the annihilation of both form and spirit."
"So..."
"Running into you at the bottom of the cliff back then was,for it,actually a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
The curve at Mo You's mouth hooked back into that playful shape.
"So this whole business..."
"Did it finally find you?"
"Or did you blunder into saving its life?"
"Or,in the end,did you,the main body,get handed an enormous windfall for free...?"
Mo You smiled.
"Looking at it now,that ledger can't be balanced anymore."
Mo Fan listened and nodded in profound agreement.
Mo You's silver tongue,and that clear-eyed way of cutting to the heart of a thing...
Really did carry a fair bit of his own flavor.
Small talk done...
Mo Fan's expression gradually turned serious.
He suddenly remembered those few lines the Formless Demon had spoken atop Abandoned Sword Cliff after it had seized his body.
"Right."
"Since you inherited its memories,let me ask you something."
Mo Fan frowned,looking at Mo You.
"Did it mention something about a'Spirit Root'back then?And some kind of'contingency'?"
"My consciousness was nearly gone at that point.I only caught it in pieces."
"What did that actually mean?"
At this question...
The smile on Mo You's face gradually withdrew.
"Formless Demons are innately exceedingly sensitive to the potential inherent in living beings."
"We're especially able to sense the finest,most fundamental thing about a life form."
Mo You explained.
"Which is why Formless Demons instinctively seek out genuine prodigies as their assimilation targets."
"Back then,the reason that Formless Demon Embryo resolutely abandoned that Peak Golden Core snake molt,packed with immense power,and chose you instead..."
Mo You's gaze drifted slightly downward.
Landing on the position of Mo Fan's dantian.
"Was precisely because it sensed from you something exceedingly pure and exceedingly powerful..."
"A Heavenly Spirit Root."
"A Heavenly Spirit Root?!"
Mo Fan's entire body jolted.
Even though he'd been mentally prepared...
The shock still hit him hard in that moment.
"But..."
Mo You's tone suddenly shifted.
A flicker of confusion surfaced in his eyes.
"When it actually took over your body and tried to locate that power..."
"It discovered..."
"That inside you,there was still only a Waste Spirit Root."
"The aura of that Heavenly Spirit Root was as though something had completely sealed and concealed it."
Hearing this...
Mo Fan's confusion wasn't resolved in the slightest.
Instead,it snowballed,growing larger and larger.
Lin Dong's near-manic certainty from before.
The Formless Demon Embryo's instinctive sensing,willing to give up a Golden Core snake molt just to choose him.
And the Five-Element Waste Spirit Root that clearly did exist inside him.
These mutually contradictory clues,woven together...
All seemed to indicate...
That inside this seemingly ordinary body of Lu Xiaoqi's...
There really was some secret hidden.
But for now...
He couldn't investigate it himself.
And Mo You couldn't give him an answer either.
Looks like...I'll just have to wait for daybreak tomorrow and go ask Old Lü.
Mo Fan quietly calculated in his heart.
Lu Xiaoqi had grown up in the servant district since childhood.
Old Lü,as the elder who had watched him grow up...
Might genuinely know something about his origins.
Pressing the question aside for the moment...
Mo Fan pressed on.
"Then what did you mean earlier by'contingency'?"
Mo You shrugged.
"Formless Demons don't usually discard their'original embryo'entirely."
"Bodies assimilated from the outside world are,to us,merely a'form'to be swapped out again and again."
"Whereas the formless body we're born with,the original embryo,continuously records and absorbs the superior traits of those hosts."
"When some external body reaches the end of its lifespan or the limit of its potential..."
"We'll even voluntarily discard that flesh,return to the original embryo,and begin the next round of evolution."
At this point...
Mo You looked at Mo Fan.
"So theoretically speaking..."
"This formless original embryo of mine really could,based on what it once recorded,reshape a Heavenly Spirit Root inside my body."
"But as for how long that would take..."
Mo You spread his hands.
"Even I don't know."
"After all,strictly speaking,I'm just a newborn Formless Demon who's only barely completed his first true formation."
"I can't even walk steadily yet."
Mo Fan listened...
And fell silent for a full minute.
Then...
He extended a hand with the most righteous confidence imaginable.
Palm up.
Held out in front of Mo You.
"Then give it back."
Mo You froze.
For the first time,obvious astonishment surfaced on that face identical to Mo Fan's.
"What?"
"The Spirit Root."
Mo Fan pointed at himself.
"Mine."
"Since you'll be able to reshape one later anyway,why not just give the original one back to me?"
"You'll get another one eventually."
"..."
Mo You looked at this shamelessly confident main body of his.
Silent for a moment.
Seemingly at a loss for words.
"It's not that I don't want to."
"It's that I can't."
Mo You explained sourly.
"Your Spirit Root was never taken from you by me in the first place."
"That genuine Heavenly Spirit Root has been hidden inside your body from beginning to end."
"It's just been veiled by some kind of power,making it completely unable to manifest or operate normally."
"You come asking me for it."
"Where exactly am I supposed to conjure one up from?"
"And besides..."
Mo You lowered his head.
And looked at his own two hands.
"Even if I wanted to reshape a Heavenly Spirit Root of my own right now,it'd be flat out impossible."
"Because although I look human at the moment..."
"In reality,this body is still forcibly cobbled together out of a Golden Core snake molt,demon beast flesh,and whatever those chaotic remnant souls left behind."
"The foundation's far too impure."
Mo You raised his head again.
His expression turned a bit more serious.
"To truly stabilize into a human body,and then go on to shape a Spirit Root..."
"First I'd need enormous quantities of exceedingly pure heavenly treasures containing immense vitality and the origin essence of heaven and earth."
"To refine and wash out this muddled body,bit by bit."
"Only once the formless body has truly completed its first metamorphosis of its own..."
"Will I be qualified to talk about shaping a Spirit Root."
Mo Fan listened and raised a brow slightly.
"Pure essence of heaven and earth?"
He patted the Storage Pouch at his waist without thinking.
"Would Mid-grade Spirit Stones work?"
"I've got quite a stack of those on hand right now,and I've been fretting over where to spend them."
Mo You shook his head outright.
Rejecting the proposal.
But then,immediately after...
An exceedingly odd expression surfaced on Mo You's face,carrying a certain teasing quality.
And he just stared at Mo Fan like that.
Mo Fan found the look utterly baffling.
He instinctively took half a step back.
"What are you looking at me for?"
Mo You didn't answer.
Instead,he stepped forward.
Raised a hand with total naturalness.
And gave Mo Fan a light smack on the head,the way an older brother would discipline a good-for-nothing younger one.
"Idiot."
Mo You withdrew his hand.
The corner of his mouth curling slightly.
"That thing,obviously."
"The[Nether River Bone Lotus]."