Chapter 407: Chen Ling’s Bewilderment

"A-Yan..."

Chen Ling spoke quickly, "Are you real? Are you really alive?!"

Chen Yan, on the other side of the reflection, fell silent.

A moment later, he replied:

"As long as Brother thinks I am alive, then I am alive."

"Where are you??"

"I am with Brother."

As the words fell, the mirror shards churning on the river surface began to sink toward the bottom of the river. Dense ripples, like puddles in the rain, began to stir the water surface between the two.

In Chen Ling’s vision, Chen Yan’s figure blurred instantly. He exclaimed and reached out, wanting to probe into the water...

The next moment, the ripples on the water surface suddenly calmed.

The water surface didn't flow at all; it just stood still, like a smooth mirror, reflecting Chen Ling’s shadow.

However, the "Chen Ling" in the reflection wasn't wearing that bright red opera robe, but heavy cotton-padded clothes. The two looked at each other through the mirror surface.

"It’s you..." Chen Ling’s gaze was somewhat complex.

"It’s me." The cotton-clad Chen Ling said calmly, "I shouldn't have appeared here... That mirror separated us."

"What do you mean?"

"I am you, and you are me. From the moment you descended, we have been one."

Chen Ling was silent for a moment.

"I thought you would blame me for taking what should have been yours."

"If it weren't for you, I would be dead, and so would A-Yan... You extended his life and carried my memories, so why would I blame you?"

"Since we are one, why are you here?"

"Because you are lost," said the Chen Ling in the cotton-padded jacket. "Your confusion is too powerful, so much so that even that mirror couldn't fully resolve it. That's why our memories had to be split, to ask and answer questions here."

"...Ask and answer questions?"

"Yes, I said it: I am you, and you are me... It's just that we represent different memories. The conversation between us is simply you asking and answering yourself."

Chen Ling looked at his reflection, then recalled the scene in front of the mirror where he had split into three.

"I think I understand the relationship between us now..."

Chen Ling was never just Chen Ling. He was Chen Yan, he was the Chen Ling of District 3, and he was the transmigrator Chen Ling... One body, two sets of memories, creating the [Heart of Hearts 6] now filled with contradictions and confusion.

"But I don't understand," Chen Ling frowned. "They all say there is confusion in my heart. Where does this confusion come from?"

Since he had learned the relationship between the three through the [Mirror of True Self], the confusion should have vanished along with it. So why did he end up shattering that mirror to pieces?

In the reflection, the Chen Ling in the cotton-padded jacket slowly shook his head.

"Your confusion is not us... it is yourself."

"Myself??"

Chen Ling couldn't understand what he meant. Although they were one, under the influence of the [Mirror of True Self], their memories had been completely stripped into independent entities. In other words, Chen Ling was now conversing with another version of himself in his subconscious...

He was waiting for himself to provide an answer.

"Transmigrator Chen Ling," the Chen Ling in the cotton-padded jacket narrowed his eyes slightly. His pupils, flickering with purple light, seemed as if they wanted to see right through Chen Ling.

"Are you really a transmigrator? Do you truly believe in the existence of transmigration? Who... exactly are you?"

The moment the last five words rang out, Chen Ling felt as if a thunderbolt had exploded beside his ear. The scene before him shattered inch by inch, and the Chen Ling in the reflection vanished into the rippling water!

Chen Ling felt like a corpse falling into a hollow abyss, plummeting through endless darkness. His pupils contracted until they were the size of pinpricks!

Transmigration... Transmigrator...

Chen Ling finally realized where the endless confusion in the depths of his subconscious came from.

Before this, Chen Ling had often questioned himself. He had thought this questioning stemmed from whether he was "Chen Ling" or "Chen Yan," but now it seemed this questioning actually came from the "self" in his subconscious.

After being crushed to death by a chandelier, his consciousness had suddenly traveled through hundreds of years of time to inhabit a youth with the same name?

And this youth happened to have a younger brother with top-tier talent in the Way of Opera, who died at the same time as his older brother, giving him the chance to become "Chen Ling," resulting in a "three-in-one" situation with a probability of less than one in a billion?

With just a little thought, one could detect something wrong. This didn't look like a "coincidence" at all; it looked more like a "setup" meticulously designed by someone.

In other words, the "transmigration" he took for granted might not be what he thought it was at all...

It was as if an invisible hand was restraining his thoughts, making him subconsciously ignore this question and never doubt the authenticity of his "transmigration." But when the Chen Ling in the cotton-padded jacket said those words, he felt like a dreamer suddenly jolted awake, cold sweat breaking out all over his back!

If even the transmigration was fake... then what else around him was real??

Falling through the abyss, Chen Ling seemed to sense something and looked down toward the bottom... In the endless pitch-black, a giant object as massive as a star was lurking there. In the face of its size, Chen Ling was like a grain of sand drifting by—tiny and fragile.

Chen Ling knew that this was a corner of the "confusion" in his own subconscious, the "delusion" that even the [Mirror of True Self] could not break.

What kind of secret was hidden within such massive "confusion"?

Chen Ling's figure continued to fall toward the giant shadow, and it seemed he would soon be completely swallowed by it. Just then, a fragment of the mirror fell from his body...

In the reflection of the shard, the Chen Ling in the cotton-padded jacket was falling with him, one hand seemingly trying to reach through the mirror toward Chen Ling.

"No matter who you were, we are both Chen Ling now..."

"A-Yan is our younger brother. Protect him well."

Chen Ling, dressed in his bright red opera robe, danced in the abyss. He paused for a moment, then reached out his own hand to touch the "Chen Ling" in the mirror's reflection...

When the two hands touched through the shard, the figure of the Chen Ling in the cotton-padded jacket turned into a ball of light and merged into Chen Ling's body!

The next moment, the abyss around Chen Ling turned into endless purple light, drowning him like a surging tsunami!

……

On the soft, white bed, Chen Ling, covered in blood scabs, suddenly opened his eyes!

He sat up instantly, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. His face was pale, as if he had just experienced a nightmare.

"Was it a dream... or..."

The scene of the Chen Ling in the cotton-padded jacket touching him flashed through his mind, and he fell into deep thought.

A gentle breeze blew through the open window, and the sheer curtains danced dreamily.

Chen Ling sat on the bed, motionless as a statue, as if struggling to recall something... After an unknown amount of time, he scratched his head and muttered to himself,

"Strange..."

"What was... my confusion again?"

[Audience Expectation +3]

In the void behind Chen Ling, pairs of scarlet eyes gradually emerged with smiles...