A mysterious realm descends, and I defy fate in comics.

Chapter 12 Eye Color Changes

Listening to the children's cacophony of stories, Jiang Xingni finally pieced together the true "truth" about the village from a pile of lies.

She suddenly felt grateful that she had chosen the "Eye of Truth" ability.

If, in the first place, one had chosen a more offensive type of ability because of a desire for combat power, it wouldn't have been easy to pry the real answer out of these little liars.

"Actually, we were forced into it..." the girl—not Zhou Shengnan, who had been kicked unconscious by Jiang Xingni—sobted, her eyes blurry with tears.

Then Jiang Xingni rolled her eyes. The golden light spot wouldn't directly reveal the truth or falsehood of her words, but Jiang Xingni could sense it. The moment her words left her mouth, Jiang Xingni could feel her intuition frantically alarming her, telling her, "No, she's lying!"

When Jiang Xingni first listened to the children's stories, he could feel his intuition alerting him.

However, the girl who had just gained the ability couldn't figure out the reason.

Is it an alarm from the wordless book? Are the main characters doubting themselves? Or has some danger appeared outside the ancestral hall?

Jiang Xingni was unsure of the answer, and until now, she silently kept this familiar alarm in her heart.

That's right, this is a warning sign of lying and deception.

In short, the village chief obtained the wordless book—which may be related to the formation of this strange realm. However, Jiang Xingni, being an unorthodox individual without an academic background, had no idea what the wordless book was for or what its proper name was—this wordless book successfully bewitched the village chief and Xie Yangping.

Adults who see shadow puppetry will be captured by the puppets, beheaded, and made into human shadow puppets, just like the poor anchor and all the innocent old people and adults in the village.

As for the children... After Jiang Xingni asked them their ages one by one, he was basically able to determine that the dividing line for this age was twelve years old.

Children over the age of twelve are no longer considered "children" in shadow puppetry, but rather as raw materials for human skin puppets.

Jiang Xing thought to herself, "Luckily I didn't watch it back then, otherwise I would be one of the materials for a human skin puppet now."

There must be some connection between the human skin puppet and the wordless book. The fact that the puppet that chased them back then was not harmed may be because of the wordless book.

Jiang Xingni speculated that the human skin puppets made from the victims were probably the prototypes of those puppets.

—The wordless book is a screen that projects human skin shadow puppets; what is chasing them may just be a simple shadow.

A shadow can only be fully revealed in the presence of light. In complete darkness, a shadow is completely obscured and therefore cannot attack.

"We've already said everything!" Xie Yangping's scream interrupted Jiang Xingni's thoughts.

She squinted and looked in the direction the sound came from. As the first child to be "contaminated," Jiang Xingni gave Xie Yangping special attention—specifically, she placed Xie Yangping in the position closest to the machete.

If Jie Yangping makes the slightest movement, the cleaver he has painstakingly balanced will fall directly, and its destination will be the wordless book that these children cherish.

"Yes, you said it, and then what?" Jiang Xing looked back with a smile and asked in return.

"Of course you should release us!" Xie Yangping said matter-of-factly. "Isn't what you wanted the truth? Now that you have it, you should release us!"

Jiang Xingni didn't know how to react. To be honest, she was almost laughing in exasperation at Xie Yangping's logic.

"Let you go?" She scoffed, not uttering anything more offensive, but that scoff was clearly more effective than any mockery—it enraged this group of ignorant brats. "Do you need me to give you a tally, Jie Yangping, including but not limited to this village, how many people have you actually killed?"

Of course, part of the reason was influenced by the wordless book, but Jiang Xingni was not a judge, nor was he responsible for judging the right and wrong of Xie Yangping and Zhou Shengnan.

There must be an official team in charge of this kind of thing. What Jiang Xingni needs to do is prevent them from escaping and continuing to cause trouble for the main characters and himself.

[Ding-dong!] A system notification sounded in Jiang Xingni's ear. [The comic has been updated!]

Jiang Xingni took out his phone and sat down on the ground. He remembered that he hadn't had time to read the latest comic, so now he could read the two new chapters at the same time.

Noticing that Jiang Xingni had actually sat down to look at his phone at this moment, the children paused for a moment, and then struggled even more violently.

"Why are you looking at your phone!" Xie Yangping screamed. "Why don't you watch a shadow puppet show!"

"Exactly, exactly." Several children nodded in unison, their high-pitched voices quite noisy. "Shadow puppetry is so much better! What's so great about watching something on a cell phone!"

Jiang Xingni's ears hurt from the noise. She gave the noisy group of children a cold look and seriously considered whether to just physically shut them up.

However, the chopping motion was indeed a bit dangerous, and Jiang Xingni was afraid that he might go too far and kill the person... It would be troublesome to explain to the authorities then.

Most importantly, if it were drawn in a comic book, it might be a controversial plot point, right?

Jiang Xingni regretfully abandoned the idea.

The children suddenly fell silent. Their keen intuition told them that the girl in front of them, who wasn't much older than them—even if she looked about the same age as their previous prey—was clearly not their prey. She wasn't someone they could lower their guard by pretending to be well-behaved and then let them slaughter her.

It wasn't the older sister who realized something was wrong, tried to help them escape, and ended up having her head chopped off.

I don't know why they suddenly quieted down, but it's a good thing that they were quiet.

Jiang Xingni smiled slightly: "If we keep arguing, I'm not sure what will happen to that book."

It was a threat, but a very effective one. At least the children stopped making a fuss because of her intimidating gaze and their interest in the wordless book.

—Although the exchange of terrified glances continued.

However, Jiang Xingni didn't care what underhanded things they might do behind the scenes. It was arrogance, but she certainly had the ability to be arrogant.

Jiang Xingni opened the first updated comic and quickly scanned it, basically confirming that her assumptions about the problems in this village were correct.

The only thing that surprised her was that she really didn't expect the comic to show the change between her black and gold eyes.

...Could it be that in the future, her eye color will still be able to change?