Exchanging Shadows

Ke Meng considered two factors for performing the Shadow Catcher skill on people he knew.

One was that Chen Momo had encountered something strange. She had stepped into the strange circle.

Secondly, he wanted her to be mentally prepared. Ke Meng's house was the coordination point for sacrifices. If there was a sacrifice that would create great commotion being sent in the future, Chen Momo, who was downstairs, would not be shocked as she would be mentally prepared.

At that moment, Chen Momo was digesting the new information that she had just heard. She was rearranging her worldview.

She could not believe that unusual things existed in this world. As expected, what she had heard last night had been not a hallucination. The shadow, too, was not an illusion but a threat that really existed.

"So you're saying something is wrong with my mom now? Something is wrong with her shadow?" Chen Momo focused on the shadow issue.

"That's very possible."

Ke Meng did not guarantee that as he had little understanding of shadows. Not only that, he had only obtained the Shadow Catcher skill today.

"So what do I do?" Momo looked at Ke Meng.

"Just maintain what you've been doing. Attend your online classes when you need, and play on your phone as usual. Keep your calm, don't panic. Your mom should still be alive. Shout my name if something happens. I'll go downstairs to capture the shadow. We can't alert the enemy for the time being," Ke Meng said.

Since Chen Momo found out something was wrong with her mother's shadow, she was eager to remove that unusual thing from her mother. She asked, "Can't we capture the shadow right now?"

"I haven't done experiments on any living things. I'm not sure what will happen to people without a shadow," Ke Meng said.

"So when do you plan to experiment?"

"I'll capture some bugs later for the experiment. I'll be done soon."

Ke Meng initially thought he would go to a livestock market to buy live chickens or some rabbits home. However, he thought about it and figured it would be best to bring Glutinous Ball to capture living bugs nearby.

Chen Momo nodded. She went downstairs, looking rather distracted.

Ke Meng looked at the golden-haired Glutinous Ball and said, "I'll bring you to the wilderness to capture some bugs. I'm sure you can do that. Catch them with your hair, don't kill them."

In reality, the dog wanted to eat glutinous balls. However, it was understanding hearing the urgency in its master's tone. It did not mention wanting to eat glutinous balls.

It followed Ke Meng downstairs, while its master then carried it to the greenbelt by the road. It was rolling for two meters on the greenbelt.

"Did you capture any bugs?"

"Woof!" 

Ke Meng carried Glutinous Ball home after hearing its super soft barking.

Some pedestrians on the street were staring, and they wanted to capture the human's odd behavior with their phones. Unfortunately, Ke Meng had left.

"What's wrong with that guy? He's strolling the greenbelt with a giant plush toy?"

"What a strange man."

The pedestrians stopped watching Ke Meng, noticing that he had disappeared after entering the backdoor.

Ke Meng placed Glutinous Ball aside when he got upstairs and said, "Shake the bugs off your body to the table. I'll bring you glutinous balls."

The golden Glutinous Ball was excited to hear that. It shook the fluffy hair on its body directly. Ten little bugs were shaken onto the table.

"Catch them, don't let them go." Ke Meng turned around and went into the kitchen to get the glutinous balls. He looked at the glutinous balls in the pot and thought it was too much trouble to put them in a bowl. Thus, he brought the entire pot to the living room to save time. 

He placed the glutinous ball pot aside, letting Glutinous Ball eat them itself. Meanwhile, he began performing experiments on the tiny bugs.

He stretched his arm and waved above a big ant. Ke Meng grabbed the ant's shadow directly.

The big ant was still moving in the previous second, and it lay on the ground still in the next.

However, the ant's shadow in Ke Meng's hand began moving. It seemed to be panicking and running chaotically on Ke Meng's palm. It was running fast, crawling toward his shoulder. At the same time, it was spinning on his skin.

Ke Meng waved his other hand as he watched it getting to his armpit. The running ant's shadow was quickly grabbed onto the other hand.

"You sure run fast, don't you?" Ke Meng stretched two fingers with his right hand and pinched the air softly.

The Shadow Catcher was magical, and he did not have to touch the shadow directly. As soon as his palm reached a certain distance to the targeted shadow and possessed a strong will to capture it, the shadow would be absorbed into his hand directly.

The shadow of a big ant's flat shape appeared between Ke Meng's two fingers in the next second.

The shadow was attempting to move, but it could not as the fingers were holding onto it this time.

The shadow was not three-dimensional—it looked like a two-dimensional species. It stuck on Ke Meng's fingertip's skin and did not have the weight an ant should have.

Ke Meng looked at the unconscious ant on the table. He used a finger to poke it, but it remained still.

'Is this thing dead or not?'

To verify his speculation, Ke Meng flicked both fingers softly. He stared at the big, unconscious ant without blinking. A faint gray shadow appeared beneath the big ant instantly. That was its shadow.

The ant could move again after having its shadow back. It was running fast and looked panicky.

Ke Meng watched it run for a couple of meters. He stretched his hand and grabbed through the air, but he failed to grab it.

He got closer; the distance between his palm and the shadow was something within half a meter to a meter. Finally, the ant lost its shadow.

When he turned his hand around, the ant's shadow was running around on his palm again.

"Living animals will stop moving as soon as they lose their shadow," Ke Meng mumbled.

Chen Momo had told him that her mother had fainted in the bathroom.

'Did Mrs. Chen have a shadow when she was unconscious back then? Maybe Mrs. Chen fainted because her shadow got out of the bathroom?'

Ke Meng connected the dots following that logic, which he figured out just now.

Chen Momo had seen a shadow flashing by, and her mother had woken up after that. It would prove that Mrs. Chen's shadow, which had left, had returned to her body, and thus regaining consciousness.

Ke Meng looked at the unconscious ant and the other nine tiny bugs on the table. Nine long dog strands of hair were holding them, so they could not escape.

'What will happen if I put the ant's shadow onto some other bug? What will happen?'

Ke Meng placed the sleeping ant onto the table and got the dog to let another bug go.

A red seven-spot ladybird landed and crawled quickly on the table. It even opened its tiny wings, ready to take off.

He stretched his arm and grabbed the air. An extremely tiny, round shadow appeared in his palm instantly. It was the seven-spot ladybird's shadow.

After the seven-spot ladybird's shadow was captured, its body was still. It looked like it had fallen into a coma. It had failed to recall its wings, so they were stuck mid-air. The wings dropped naturally due to gravity.

Ke Meng waved both hands softly, exchanging both shadows.

In the next second, the big ant's shadow looked like the seven-spot ladybird now.

Meanwhile, the shadow beneath the seven-spot ladybird looked like an ant. The both of them had completed the shadow exchange.

Ke Meng stood aside to observe carefully. He wanted to know what would happen when both bugs exchanged their shadows.