I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 279

The students gradually left the classroom, leaving only Mo Ling and Bai Zhou sitting in silence.

After a long time, Bai Zhou finally spoke.

“I did okay with the lecture, right?”

“It was very interesting. I feel like I learned a lot,” said Mo Ling in praise.

Hearing Mo Ling’s compliment, Bai Zhou smiled again.

“But, why are you teaching them how to become immortals? Didn’t you say before that they had already become immortals?”

Mo Ling looked at the children leaving in the distance, asking in confusion.

Bai Zhou’s smile instantly vanished.

He stared straight ahead, eyes wide, muttering, “Of course they’ve already become immortals. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here.”

“They’ve already become immortals…”

But Bai Zhou’s answer remained unchanged.

He grabbed Mo Ling’s hand and hurriedly pulled him outside.

While running, Bai Zhou mumbled,

“My immortal… Where is my immortal?”

He let go of Mo Ling’s hand, then stumbled toward the giant boulder, circling it several times before collapsing to the ground in despair.

“They’ve all become immortals. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.”

Bai Zhou’s eyes were wide, as if he had seen something unbelievable.

Mo Ling looked at the boulder, but saw nothing, just an ordinary stone.

After going outside, Bai Zhou didn’t stop, dragging Mo Ling along the way they’d come, stumbling the whole way, but he seemed extremely anxious, desperate to prove something to Mo Ling.

“What’s so special about this?” Mo Ling asked cautiously.

Bai Zhou suddenly stood up again, walking over to Mo Ling.

“They’ve already become immortals…”

“They’ve all become immortals… I’ll show you…”

Bai Zhou was still in a daze, so Mo Ling repeated his question.

“Where’s the immortal?”

Bai Zhou grabbed Mo Ling’s hand, pointing at the boulder and shouting, “Look!”

“Don’t you see the character for ‘immortal’ on it?”

Bai Zhou anxiously explained, glancing at the boulder as he spoke.

“My immortal is gone…”

But before long, he stood up again, looking around for something.

Bai Zhou found a sharp stone on the ground and, like a madman, began smashing it against the boulder.

As he pounded, he shouted hoarsely,

“Immortal…”

“Immortal…”

“Immortal…”

It was as if Bai Zhou wanted to forcefully carve the character “immortal (仙)” into the boulder with the sharp stone.

But not even a trace of white appeared on the boulder.

Bai Zhou’s palm was cut by the sharp stone, bright red blood flowing down his arm and soaking into his simple clothes.

He managed to chip a small notch into the boulder, but then something strange happened.

The notch Bai Zhou had just made instantly healed, as if the boulder had a regenerative ability.

All his effort was instantly undone.

But he didn’t give up, still madly striking the boulder.

Even when his face was splattered with blood.

“Immortal…”

He kept muttering, that non-existent immortal.

Mo Ling watched him with a heavy heart. He wanted to step forward and stop Bai Zhou, but then realized that at some point another figure had appeared beside him.

It was a member of the Chali Tribe.

The tree roots on their chest were twisted into a distinctive braid, this was Bai Zhou’s disciple.

“Let him keep smashing.”

A voice came, and this Chali Tribe member actually spoke human language.

Not only that, but Mo Ling was shocked to find that his voice was exactly the same as Bai Zhou’s.

He looked at the Chali Tribe member in surprise.

“I can only imitate my teacher’s voice,” the Chali Tribe member explained in Bai Zhou’s voice, as if seeing Mo Ling’s confusion.

Mo Ling suddenly looked at the root-carved figurine in the Chali Tribe member’s hand.

“So that wasn’t Bai Zhou before, it was you?”

“Mm.” The disciple nodded.

“Sorry for deceiving you. I was afraid you’d be suspicious, so I didn’t tell you at first,” the disciple said apologetically.

The sound of Bai Zhou striking the boulder continued rhythmically, and Mo Ling no longer dared to look over.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He wants to carve an immortal. If that immortal is still there, it proves his people have all become immortals, that they haven’t died.”

Hearing the disciple’s explanation, Mo Ling was a little confused.

“Carve an immortal?”

“Yes. You must have realized by now that this isn’t the real world.”

Mo Ling nodded.

“Where is this?”

“This is the Immortal Realm…”

The disciple’s voice trembled as he slowly began to tell Mo Ling the origins of this place.

…

Two thousand two hundred years ago, the fish swarm used their last remaining components to create the Moon Altar, leaving behind immortal bodies and a legacy, then fell into slumber.

After Bai Zhou found the Moon Altar and saw those bodies that had lost their souls, he immediately understood the fish swarm’s plan.

But because he was separated from the fish swarm, Bai Zhou couldn’t fall into slumber and became the only person on the island who hadn’t achieved immortality.

He tried to go back and find Mo Ling, but could never find him.

The obsession for revenge tormented him constantly. He wanted to stop the fish swarm’s plan, but didn’t dare to make his soul immortal like the Chali Tribe.

Because then, he might never be able to return to a normal state.

As an ordinary human, he couldn’t endure repeated cycles of two hundred years, and at that time Bai Zhou didn’t know when the fish swarm would awaken again.

So, he had to find a way to survive forever without losing his consciousness.

At that moment, he shared the same goal as the emperor he once served, immortality.

After spending some time alone on the island, Bai Zhou finally found a way.

Every so often, he would find a decay-eater and let it pass through his body, restoring his body to its previous state.

It seemed these decay-eater still remembered their former teacher, so each time they took away only a small amount of time, and Bai Zhou’s aging didn’t change much.

However, this time reversal not only turned back Bai Zhou’s age, but also his memories, so each time he would write many notes to tell his reverted self what had happened during that period.

In this way, Bai Zhou survived on the island in the cycle of “growth” and “reversal.”

However, decay-eaters were still essentially the souls of the Chali Tribe. Letting external souls enter his body again and again caused Bai Zhou’s own soul to be affected.

Bai Zhou gained the decay-eater’s ability to communicate with souls.

A world appeared in his mind, a world where he could communicate with souls. Every time a decay-eater entered his body, he could use this world to communicate with those souls.

He could even tell the decay-eater entering his body not to reverse time, or adjust the length of the reversal.

This excited him greatly, and he began to seek out decay-eater more and more.

After being lonely for so long, he longed for company.

The decay-eater that entered Bai Zhou’s body also found that they regained their self-awareness.

They seemed to share Bai Zhou’s body, treating it as a “shared vessel” for souls.

At the same time, Bai Zhou began to study this strange world.

At first, this world was a void, but under Bai Zhou’s construction, it became a picturesque little island.

However, the Chali Tribe members who came here discovered that everything in this world came from Bai Zhou’s memories.

At first, they didn’t pay much attention.

Until humans appeared in this world.