Black Raven Prison (25) Resurrection

It was already eleven o'clock at night.

Mu Xinning was resting on her bed when Jin spoke up at an inopportune moment, "There is movement in the morgue. That foul-smelling creature is feeding again."

Her fingertips paused, and she gazed out at the thick, heavy darkness beyond the window. Calculating the time, Zhou Kui and his companions had been down in the basement level for a while now.

"Has someone died?" she asked.

"I can sense that the two men who shared your cell have returned alive."

In that case... it meant Zhou Kui's underling had perished.

"Let's go take a look." Mu Xinning picked up her mummy doll, turned, and left the ward, heading toward the elevator.

The iron gate at the entrance to the morgue was tightly shut, and the scent of blood mixed with rot seeped through the gaps. Mu Xinning reached out to pull the door, only to find it wouldn't budge.

"It's actually locked?" She could only guess that the three men hadn't been acting recklessly, but had been schemed against by someone from the outside.

"Destroy it for me." No sooner had she spoken than a tentacle extended from her lower back and shattered the door entirely.

There was no light inside the morgue, and Mu Xinning couldn't help but frown. "It's so dark in here."

Jin extended two tentacles, emitting a powerful light source from their tips. "Isn't this better? Let's go."

A Jin-brand portable "flashlight"? It actually felt quite nice, and Mu Xinning was satisfied.

Upon entering, the scene in the stone chamber caused her pupils to constrict slightly. The monster, a mass of pale limbs fused together, was curled up in a corner. A black hole at its neck pulsated continuously, with torn fibers from a prison uniform still clinging to its edges. At its feet lay several bones stained with viscous fluid; one finger bone still wore half of a shiny ring—the very thing Zheng Kai had always worn on his hand.

Mu Xinning said nothing, only slowly approaching the monster. She had imagined what this creature might look like, but she hadn't expected it to be this hideous! Ugly and foul-smelling—no wonder even Jin didn't want to eat it. That was certainly understandable.

Then, dark purple tentacles surged from her lower back, their tips glinting with cold light, cutting sharp arcs into the damp air. The monster seemed to sense danger; a shrill whimper emanated from the black hole, and countless slime-covered limbs lashed out at her!

"Don't get my clothes dirty," she whispered a reminder.

The tentacles instantly wove into an impenetrable barrier. The slime sizzled as it landed on them, but it couldn't harm her in the slightest. Immediately after, the outermost tentacles split into countless fine branches, shooting toward the monster's core like a rain of needles.

"Aoo—!" The monster let out a piercing shriek, its limbs twitching frantically. Those pale appendages thrashed wildly, only to be corroded into pus the moment they touched the tentacles.

Jin's power had an overwhelming advantage against low-level anomalies. In just a moment, the writhing mass of flesh went limp on the ground. Its black-hole mouth slowly closed, eventually dissolving into a puddle of foul-smelling liquid.

[Ding! Detected that the player has killed a supernatural Boss! Rewards will be calculated after clearing the level...]

The stone chamber finally fell silent. Mu Xinning walked over to the pile of bones, squatted down, and picked up the finger bone with the ring.

For the first time in her life, Mu Xinning felt this way. In her past life, she hadn't met many good people, but she had encountered plenty of wicked ones. The door had been locked when she arrived; if the three of them had indeed been set up, then Zheng Kai must have sacrificed himself to buy time for the other two to escape. Such a person should not have died. Because... he was a hero. And who said a hero must die a glorious death? Couldn't he just live a good life?

The moment her fingertips touched the bone, a bizarre scene occurred—a faint golden light began to emanate from the scattered bones, like flowing fireflies. A blurred image flashed through her mind. In the vision, she seemed to see the back of a girl dressed in a sacred white dress.

The silver-haired girl was sitting at a table, seemingly writing something continuously in a book. What shocked her even more was that, within the golden light, she clearly saw a mysterious outline: a virtual book of light appeared before her, with a title written in English.

[Codex of Death]

"What... is this?" she murmured to herself.

Codex of Death? The name sounded like something that recorded life and death.

Jin also sensed the anomaly. "What do you see?" Jin's perspective didn't include the book; he could only see the golden light, yet the little guy reacted as if he had seen something.

Before she could think it through, the book opened on its own, and a character panel unfolded before her.

[Name: Zheng Kai]
[Life Status: Deceased]
[Others: To be unlocked...]

"I seem to be able to see this person's life status..." Mu Xinning said silently, looking at the text on the book. There were things waiting to be unlocked later; did that mean she didn't yet possess the strength to view those unknown details?

Jin, however, was on an entirely different wavelength. "Huh?" He had no idea what was happening.

Then, Mu Xinning's hand moved involuntarily, as if responding to her expectations; she grasped a pen of light in the void. It felt like guidance, yet she felt as if she had known how to do it all along. She mimicked the movements of the girl in the blurred vision, and her hand began to move on its own. She rewrote the "Life Status" line in the book, changing "Deceased" to "Alive."

At the same moment the rewriting was complete, a golden radiance bloomed from her palm. A strange power surged down her arm and poured into the finger bone. The bone began to float slowly into mid-air.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Jin's voice was filled with astonishment. He could truly see it now—the waves of power emanating from the little girl. This was definitely not a power a human could possess!

Mu Xinning did not answer, merely watching silently as the golden light suddenly surged, enveloping the scattered bones. Under the shroud of light, the broken bones began to knit together automatically, and flesh grew back at a speed visible to the naked eye!

The pale finger bone was covered in soft flesh; the severed limbs reconnected, and the boy's silhouette became increasingly clear. Finally, his complete body drifted slowly from mid-air to the ground, where he began to cough violently.

Zheng Kai suddenly opened his eyes, looking blankly at his unscathed hands, then touched his chest—the place where the monster had devoured him was now covered in perfect skin. As he looked up, he happened to see Mu Xinning, though she wasn't looking at him.

"I... wasn't I dead?" his voice trembled.

The golden light in Mu Xinning's palm had faded. She looked at her own hands, her heart churning with massive waves. The codex that had appeared moments ago had vanished without a trace, along with the light pen.

Reversing life? How could she possibly have such an ability? It was incredible.

Jin's tentacles retracted in time, but without them, there was no illumination, and the room plunged into darkness. However, as Jin retreated, he used his power to create a chandelier on the ceiling of the stone chamber, so it wasn't pitch black, though the visibility wasn't as good as before.

"You have a charmed life," she said using ventriloquism, her voice projected through the mummy doll. "I have an item that can resurrect people; I just happened to pass by and save you." She couldn't think of any other explanation, so she could only fob him off for now.

Zheng Kai finally realized that the girl before him had saved his life. He struggled to climb up, about to kowtow in thanks, but Mu Xinning suddenly turned her back. "You aren't wearing anything right now, you know?" She had no interest in peeking at someone else's body.

Zheng Kai realized he was stark naked. "Uh—??? How did this happen?!" He hurriedly pulled a white cloth from nearby to cover himself, his face flushing deep red.

Jin suddenly became furious. "I can't bear to look at this!" How could he tolerate a naked man晃晃 (shaking/loitering) in front of the little one? She was still young; she shouldn't be seeing these things!

Thus, a set of prison clothes suddenly appeared in Mu Xinning's hands. She instantly understood that Jin had manifested them, and she threw the clothes to Zheng Kai.

"Put them on quickly. Your boss must be in a very bad mood right now; you had better go back and find him early."

After Zheng Kai changed back into his prison uniform, he prostrated himself. "No matter what, thank you! You saved my life. I feel that no amount of thanks can express my gratitude."

Mu Xinning waved a hand at him. "Alright, alright, don't mention it."

Zheng Kai found his intact access card in the corner, and the two took the elevator back to the fourth floor. Mu Xinning watched the numbers flickering on the display. That warm power seemed to linger in her palm. She didn't know what this ability would bring, but at least at this moment, she clearly felt that she was no longer the weak human she had been in her past life.

In this life, she possessed an unknown power that would surely make her upcoming journey even more spectacular!

...

Zhou Kui and his companion were still immersed in resentment and grief until they heard a knock on the door. When they opened it, they saw a living, breathing Zheng Kai standing before them.

Hadn't he died in the monster's mouth?! Both of them had witnessed his demise with their own eyes.

"Zheng Kai?!" Upon seeing the unharmed youth, Zhou Kui’s sorrowful expression turned to one of shock and wild joy. He rushed forward, exclaiming endlessly, "You're not dead?!"

Zhang Dafu also stood frozen, rubbing his eyes as if seeing a hallucination.

Zheng Kai looked at Zhou Kui's red-rimmed eyes and suddenly lunged forward to hug him. "Brother Zhou! I'm not dead! It was this... this girl who saved me!"

Then, Zheng Kai recounted what had just happened.

Zhou Kui finally noticed Mu Xinning, looking at her with a complex expression. This girl who always kept to herself not only walked in and out of the supernatural Boss's territory unscathed but actually possessed an item that could resurrect the dead?! She was indeed a big shot! He concluded in his heart.

Mu Xinning ignored their shock and turned back to her ward. In her mind, Jin's voice sounded perplexed: "This ability of yours... even I cannot see through it."

There was yet another mystery surrounding her. Mu Xinning... what other secrets did she possess that he didn't know about?

She stroked the doll's bandages. "Perhaps... time will give us the answer?"

After today's events, combined with those words from Mo Yichen earlier, she was even more certain that she might truly have another identity. But what exactly it was, she did not yet know.

The ward door slowly closed, shutting out the exclamations and thanks of Zhou Kui and his group.

The cheers and conversation of the group were heard clearly by Su Yun, who was still in the ward. Her fingernails dug deep into the wall, her expression vicious.

Those three men didn't die?! And the one surnamed Zheng came back to life?! This was impossible! Absolutely impossible!!