After that day (8)

"I applaud your acting. It seems it was a mistake on my part to even think of considering myself a good actor when you're here." This was the demonic tree's way of saying: You're full of shit, liar.

"Wait, you're not denying that you're the killer," Cheng Lan said aloud.

Cheng Lan had gotten quite close to Ji Yan, who treated him as an equal, called him brother, and made him realize how he had forgotten his way due to bad circumstances and constant betrayals.

"Correct, I am not going to deny that. All I care about is eliminating the two liars and finding the other honest person."

"There is no point in arguing," Ji Yan said to Cheng Lan.

Then Ji Yan Plucking his right eye out, said to the demonic tree, "I am all innocent, and you can check whatever you wish through this."

The demonic tree took Ji Yan's right eye as he threw it over to him. The demonic tree subsequently took a step back, pointed his fingers to the shadowy sky in the closed room, and opened his tribe's ritual by dropping Ji Yan's eye into his body to absorb the memory.

…

He entered the mind halo of Ji Yan located inside the spiritual sea and the first glimpse he saw when he opened his senses was the gate.

And there were empty residuals of killing intent and sins floating near it. He slowly approached the residual and did not dare touch it.

He had already ascertained that Ji Yan was the killer and liar, while Cheng Lan was hiding his true age and was only a liar. He did not have proof and he had befriended everyone, so he held the majority and minority.

Whatever trick Demonic Tree thought, failed in his foresight when he understood how socially sly and Rich Ji Yan was. He could purchase anything, so all participants were his slaves and they lived because he allowed it. Even when he cut off his sources he still won.

Nevertheless, the Demonic tree was a demon himself as the name implies. He did not care about this.

He closed his senses and jumped forth here and there, then stopped. He opened his senses gently and saw castles floating around him. The castles were giant. The giant floating castles were linked to each other by webs.

The demonic tree looked toward the nearest castle to understand how far he was from the relevant memory he needed.

'Just how big is his memory space? Is he cultivating Mind Dao?' the demonic tree silently pondered.

Suddenly, as if his body asked him to touch the castle and dig out its secrets, he walked to the castle and dug out the secrets.

Smoke filled the surrounding area. The marble and gold floor disappeared, turning into a flooring of mutilated corpses.

The demonic tree quickly judged this and said aloud, "What are you?"

The demonic tree tried taking a step back but found himself trapped in the smoke. He went further and further, hoping to find another gateway to escape while also fulfilling his objective of finding how old this memory was.

Days passed, and the journey seemed to have no end. He first walked past the never-ending corpses of infants and elderly to pregnant women. He saw peculiar species he had never encountered and realized that the human body here was like a planetary civilization itself. More years passed, and he was losing his energy. He stumbled upon a pot, the only thing that shone in the dread.

The demonic tree smiled and touched it to see what secrets it hid, and a large light filled his mind.

...

 EPOCH 332 —— My LIFE

I found him sitting before the factory today, to my surprise. Looking back at my life. I have been called dumb, a loser, useless and my first wife left me. Perhaps this is how reality is so I can be wrong. But I can still bet that there is something wrong with the guy. He gives me the wrong feeling.

He is blond and fair-skinned. He wears some glasses. He started appearing just 26 or perhaps 27 days before. No, It was a year ago. Well time ain't matter ye. He seemed rich but humble. Every day he used to come and give my children some chocolates and food. He had befriended everyone despite the fact he was an outsider. All women had quickly become his friends. He told them interesting stories of all the countries he had visited and finally mustering some courage I asked him one day "Where ye belong?" He answered to me "As long as humans exist, I live. As long as humans continue to commit sins (hate, butchers, gang rapes, greed, destroys….), I will start to belong there." The dumb ladies and drunkards cheered upon hearing his answer.

They took it positively because he told us that he was a police officer. 

...…He stopped coming to the factory later on but every time I came out of my doorless mud house, he was there to greet me, and every time he came to greet me, randomly the children aged 17 and below vanished into thin air. But No one suspected him. No one talked about him.

I tried telling my current wife and everyone else's wife about it. I tried telling some elderly, but they all died in an accident or natural causes. Today, I saw him, and there was no one left to share the tale.

NEVER TALK ABOUT HIM NEVER THINK ABOUT HIM NEVER QUESTION HIM.

*Splash*

The demonic tree's mental willpower had been drained. 

He laid down and spread his roots in hopes of escaping the smoke. 

"Journal account?" Demonic tree said, not taking the warning in heed for his satisfaction.

He wasn't tense about this situation because Demonic Tree's goal always has been to expose sinful people because these types of circumstances gave him the thrill. The raw and naked excitement is like how a cannibal and nonvegetarian feels after succeeding in his hunt of a frail helpless but delicious meal.

Moreover, he had succeeded in killing many in a similar situation, though not directly as it was never his objective.

The demonic tree just never cared about how his actions and curiosity would harm others. By using trial and error methods, he had come out on top, and others just happened to be collateral damage—or victims, to be precise.

From Ji Yan's perspective, these are the types of obsessed, two-faced losers who would become a pain in the ass and are better off killed. Such minds refuse to understand the idea of minding their own business. 

Above all, they are obsessive over one thing and can't just give up. 

Ji Yan knows it is not a question of putting ego upfront but of living life. Whatever repercussions would come from destroying them quickly, let them come, since whatever will come will be less than letting them live.

Nevertheless, why would a Demonic tree even care about Ji Yan's perspective as long it could link the cues and prove that Ji Yan was lying or maybe even a murderer, so at least the Demonic Tree could stop and not meet the multitude of failures he saw in his foresight and achieve that ending which he always failed to achieve in this reality.

The demonic tree again resumed his journey.