"Bang bang bang!"
The automatic projection of the corridor of memories exploded under the scarlet moonlight.
Like firecrackers set off on New Year's Day, they bid farewell to the old year amidst deafening bangs and welcomed new life.
No longer screaming, Tang Sui, kneeling on the wooden platform with her head bowed, listlessly turned her eyes.
The cracked bones in her feet, and the places where she had fallen and hurt before, no longer felt pain.
Just like when she opened her eyes in the dark room before, her injuries had healed.
The beige long dress she wore was enveloped in a soft, faint light, as if it had turned moon-white, blooming like a pure white flower in the darkness.
Her shoes had been lost long ago during the constant collisions as she fell.
Tang Sui slowly stood up, her snow-white feet treading on puddles of blooming crimson on the ground.
Twisted and turbid light and shadows drifted past Tang Sui like clouds.
As if parting the clouds to see the sun, a desolate wind blew, and a familiar, long corridor appeared before Tang Sui.
Orange-yellow lanterns were placed on both ends of the walls every ten meters, illuminating the unclear path ahead for Tang Sui.
Her footsteps began to echo slowly in the empty corridor.
Walking in the now completely silent corridor, Tang Sui looked back at the starting point of the familiar dark room, and walked step by step towards the depths of the corridor.
No assassins, no slaughter, no mechanisms.
She walked to the end of the corridor, where a sliding wooden door stood quietly, awaiting the return of its last master.
Tang Sui pulled open the door.
What greeted her eyes was a sea of blood red.
And within the bloody expanse, for the first time in the familiar dark room, she saw someone else.
A girl in a black dress knelt in the center of the dark room with her back to Tang Sui.
Beside the girl, countless fragments of jade-white masks were piled up layer upon layer.
As if sensing her arrival, these broken mask fragments began to hum and vibrate, like dominoes, one collapsing, and the others would follow suit.
They floated up, rearranged themselves, and reformed into the familiar jade-white masks, their mouths ceaselessly emitting complaints—
"Liar!"
"You liar!"
"Executioner!"
"Liar!"
Over and over, just those few sentences.
Having grown accustomed to the masks' friendly side, Tang Sui still felt a pang in her heart.
"You've come."
The clear, cold voice of the girl in the black dress, who was facing away from her, rang out, and the voices of the fox masks, filled with resentment and accusation, abruptly stopped.
As if an invisible hand had forcefully choked their throats, they were unable to utter a sound, only able to maintain their last stubbornness, their bodies trembling violently.
Heat, incongruous with her icy skin temperature, swirled in her eyes.
Winding tears of blood flowed down her pale cheeks.
"Should I call you System... or... Hei Mian?"
Tang Sui's voice, tinged with a slight tremor, escaped her lips.
The black-haired girl, exuding a cold aura and kneeling with her back to Tang Sui, slowly stood up and turned around. On her exquisitely carved face, identical to Tang Sui's, her dark eyes fixed on her.
"Aren't you used to calling me Xiao Hei? It's fine to call me that."
A similarly cold sensation passed across her cheek.
Hei Mian gently wiped away the tears of blood from Tang Sui's face, gazed at her for several seconds, and then said, "It seems you've truly woken up this time."
Tang Sui closed her eyes, and a torrent of immense memories once again appeared before her.
Yes.
This time, she had truly woken up.
And she had remembered everything.
The truth of this transmigration.
She was a Menlingqi.
Before becoming a Menlingqi, she was human.
Her father, who was always engrossed in collecting rare pieces from various famous artists, was very indifferent to her.
In the vast mansion, few people were willing to talk to her.
Until one day, her father bought a mask from another collector.
The mask seemed to possess a strange allure, and even she, who had always been indifferent to those collections, became curious.
If a lonely child found someone to confide in, it didn't matter if that person was inanimate.
As long as she considered it a friend, that was enough.
Thus, from that day on, she lived dependently with her mask friend all day long.
Afterward, the greedy and lonely child devoured her friend, and under the erosion of demonic power, two infant masks, one black and one white, were born.
They were born from the same soul.
The girl in white was the integrated human child herself, but she retained mostly beautiful memories.
The girl in black carried all the gloom and fear from the human child's soul, for she was the demon created by the human child after her transformation into a demon, with purer soul power.
With differing emotions, divergent views, and enhanced demonic power, they roamed the human world, leaving a trail of tragedy and slaughter wherever they went.
That was her sin.
She was like an exiled sinner, with no fixed abode, and more often than not, she would transform into a black and white mask and be taken back by different collectors, thus triggering new tragedies and creating more masks.
When the last mask, Senmaru, symbolizing tragedy, was born, they met him, the renowned great Onmyoji of Heian-kyō—Abe no Seimei.
From then on, they had a home and a bond.
However, human lifespan is no more than a hundred years. Even Abe no Seimei, hailed as the strongest Onmyoji, who had formed connections with countless gods, was ultimately just a mortal being.
Among gods, there were good and bad. Lord Seimei carried too many worldly fetters. Despite being worshipped by countless people, he could not become a part of the eighty million gods.
He could not reside in the underworld, because many years prior, Lord Seimei had already divided the "evil" part of himself, becoming another Seimei who remained in the underworld.
And the gentle and powerful Lord Seimei, with whom they, the Shikigami, had countless memories, ultimately dissipated into the world.
They, the Shikigami, who had made contracts with him, some chose to retire, some chose to stay, continuing to reside in the Abe family, signing contracts with the descendants of the Abe family to become their Shikigami, deceiving themselves, staying in that place filled with memories.
Of course, there were also Shikigami who refused to believe that Lord Seimei had left.
For example, her.
She spent countless efforts to find a trace of Lord Seimei's divine will left by his Onmyōjutsu, took him to reincarnation, and intended to repeat her previous feat in the city of slaughter, accumulating faith to help Lord Seimei ascend to godhood.
However, countless reincarnations were like the new self that was born every time she fell into darkness.
She lost herself in reincarnation.
She forgot her original identity, forgot her original purpose, and became the "Tang Sui" with no memories.
Generation after generation, from birth to death, the masks gradually became separated from her.
But they still followed the spiritual connection, constantly searching for her.
They created slaughter for her.
They were forgotten, and resentment was generated.
Except for Xiao Hei, all the fox masks generated resentment.
The disgust and hatred she felt earlier in the center of the dark room were the emotions of the masks.
But, even though they harbored resentment, the fox masks were like friends in a cold war. Even if they were still angry, they would stand by her side when she was in danger and needed help.
Tang Sui's icy fingertips brushed over the masks that rotated around her.
There were exactly seven of them, neatly arranged.
— Author's Notes —
Good heavens, so many comments earlier. Some guessed that the system was the male lead, but not a single one guessed that the system was Xiao Hei.