Chapter 40

Even though Yuri knew what was going on, he still couldn’t sense Beliak at all.

He had been very special ever since he was a child, and Beliak was probably the only one who could understand him. As a result, Beliak’s sudden disappearance caused Yuri to start panicking. Those in his family began to think that he was showing signs of schizophrenia so they forced him to get treatment.

Human beings always ignored what was really important to them.

Yuri’s wish to lose Beliak was probably made with the mentality of a child playing a mischievous prank, but most people didn’t find such pranks very acceptable.

Yuri would cry every night, but even though Beliak stayed by his side, he couldn’t sense the older man’s presence at all.

Beliak started trying to come up with ways to make Yuri realize that he was there, but nothing seemed to work since Yuri’s brain would forcibly block any information related to him. It didn’t matter whether someone told him that Beliak was standing beside him or if Beliak wrote to him. It was all completely useless.

As long as someone talking to him brought up Beliak, his brain would reprocess these conversations into other information, which made his madness become worse and worse.

But Beliak was smart enough to realize that his whole existence was determined by Yuri’s brain.

In other words, as long as Yuri’s brain was fooled into thinking that he wasn’t Beliak, he could reappear in front of Yuri.

Of course, this kind of thing was very difficult to do. Not only had they been together since Yuri was a child, but the subconscious part of the mind was very powerful. Even if Beliak was wearing a mask, as long as he made the slightest movement that looked familiar, Yuri’s brain would immediately recognize that it was Beliak.

But at the same time, Yuri was also very clever. When he saw a masked man frequently appear in his life but suddenly disappear, he began to realize the trick behind the mystery.

The brain could prevent him from perceiving any information related to Beliak but it couldn’t tamper with his memory.

So, he could see the man if he was wearing a mask, but as soon as he realized that it was Beliak, the man would disappear.

Yuri did a simple experiment and then devised a rule.

He took out three boxes whose contents couldn’t be seen from the outside and then asked a few servants to write on some pieces of paper, put them in the boxes, and bring them to him.

Once that was done, he opened the boxes and memorized all the information written on the pieces of paper. As he memorized all the information, he didn’t know which one had been written by Beliak.

But since he could see the three notes, he could reply to all the things that had been written on them.

He didn’t try to figure out which one had been written by Beliak but instead treated them all equally and answered all of them.

During this whole process, if his willpower was weak, he would wonder which one was really Beliak’s message. At that time, there might be an extreme situation where he wouldn’t be able to see any of the three notes.

But if his willpower was strong enough, he could stop himself from thinking and guessing and could keep communicating with all three individuals.

This was because he really couldn’t tell which one belonged to Beliak, but what he did know was that all three notes were helping him to find Beliak.

This was the first time he was able to block the ancient god’s “bug”.⁽¹⁾ In other words, he blocked the bug of what he believed to be a virus. And to this day, he was still carrying out those three plans at the same time.

He wholeheartedly believed in the plans written in these notes and carried them out like a servant.

He would reply, get a new note, and reply again, repeating the process over and over again. This extremely convoluted manner was how Beliak and Yuri continued to communicate and interact with each other.

Even outsiders could tell that they got along well and could communicate with each other, except for the fact that they wouldn’t look at each other.

Well, they would look at each other but Beliak knew that Yuri was just guessing where he was.

He always ended up guessing correctly.

Beliak’s real plan was actually very simple. He wanted to defeat the ancient god with another ancient god so he needed to find one who could retrieve lost things.

In the Bon religion’s “Hundred Thousand Dragons Sutra”, Beliak found that such a god existed, but it didn’t have a corporeal body. Instead, it was a foul odor. Since both gods were related to loss, the scripture linked the two of them together.

But while all of this was going on, another thing happened—Yuri’s family began trying to separate them. After all, as long as Beliak wasn’t around, their beloved Yuri was a normal person.

But at that time, all three notes were actually being controlled by Beliak.

And Beliak began to have a crazy idea.

<Chapter 39><Table of Contents><Chapter 41>

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TN Notes:

(1) It sounds weird/kind of dumb but the author definitely had bug (like a computer bug/glitch). I tried to think of something better but I’m blanking right now.

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Alright young grasshoppers, looks like the author’s post today (aka Chapter 45) is the last chapter of our Heihua adventure so we’re almost there. Sounds like he still plans on procrastinating on “Queen of the West’s Ghost Banquet” so I’m sure we’ll get some more random extras here and there. Who knows, maybe he’ll take another mini break so I can finally finish Vol 1 (ha, in my dreams)