100: Chapter 100 [Return to Me]

Professor Sun and his students stared fixedly at Jiang Feng.

Their expressions were as if they had heard a madman claiming the Earth was square.

"Re...return to nothingness?" Professor Sun's voice was dry. He adjusted his reading glasses, his movements somewhat stiff.

The male student behind him spoke up first, his tone filled with disbelief and refutation.

"Your statement is too... too irresponsible. Return to nothingness? This is a plot that only appears in myths."

Jiang Feng didn't even look at him; his gaze remained fixed on Professor Sun.

Jiang Feng shrugged, finally shifting his gaze away from Professor Sun to glance at the two indignant students.

"Irresponsible? I think it's quite reasonable."

He put his hands into his pockets, his posture relaxed.

"An object that can make everyone who studies it have confused memories, and can make all records of it mysteriously corrupt. If this isn't eating, then what is it?"

He pointed to his own head, then gestured toward the two students.

"Your memories, your documents—they are its snacks. One course after another, it eats quite happily."

These words were too unorthodox. The male student behind Professor Sun could finally hold back no longer, and he mustered the courage to refute.

"This is purely idealistic speculation on your part! There is no scientific basis whatsoever! This... this could be some kind of unknown magnetic field interference!"

"Yes, that's right, a magnetic field! Many ancient minerals carry special magnetic fields. It is entirely possible for them to affect electronic equipment and human neural activity!"

"Yes, yes, yes!" The female student chimed in, eager to use the knowledge she had learned to explain the confusion before them.

"Teacher has said that many so-called supernatural phenomena can ultimately be explained by science! It could also be that the material itself has weak radioactivity, and prolonged contact causes the effects. There are precedents for this in archaeology!"

Jiang Feng looked at these two young people trying hard to defend their worldview with science, and he chuckled.

He pulled his hands out of his pockets and slowly clapped twice.

"Well said, very spirited."

The applause stopped, and his expression became playful.

"Magnetic fields? Radioactivity?"

He looked at the male student.

"Have you measured it? Do you have data?"

The male student opened his mouth but couldn't say a word.

Jiang Feng looked at the female student again.

"Where are the relevant test reports? Take them out and let me see."

The two students were instantly speechless, their faces flushed red, and they looked to their teacher for help.

They were only making theoretical speculations; how could they have any actual data?

Professor Sun waved his hand, stopping the students' futile arguments.

He took a step forward, and for the first time, something other than inquiry appeared in his cloudy eyes.

It was fear.

It was also an irrepressible curiosity.

He looked at Jiang Feng, his voice dropping very low, almost a whisper.

"Master, please... enlighten me."

He paused, seemingly feeling that this form of address was not enough to express his sincerity, and added another sentence.

"I am all ears."

"What exactly is this thing?"

Jiang Feng's gaze crossed over Professor Sun's shoulder and looked at the golden mask again.

The two hollows where the eyes of the mask should be were like two deep wells, capable of sucking in a person's soul.

"Professor, some truths, once known, might overturn your lifelong understanding."

He withdrew his gaze and looked at Professor Sun.

"You have spent your whole life studying the materialist view of history, and now you want to hear a superstitious story. Aren't you afraid of ruining your reputation in your old age?"

Professor Sun did not hesitate in the slightest and nodded heavily.

"I am sure."

"If there can really be an answer to the problem that has troubled our team for months, even if this answer is bizarre, I still want to know."

Jiang Feng withdrew his gaze and then slowly spoke.

"This thing is not a ritual artifact for communicating with gods."

He paused, giving everyone enough time to digest it.

Professor Sun and the students behind him held their breath, waiting for what would come next.

"It is a container."

"A container?" Professor Sun repeated subconsciously, his brows furrowed tightly. "A container for what?"

"Or rather, a cage," Jiang Feng added.

Professor Sun's breathing suddenly became rapid.

"A cage? Imprisoning what?"

Jiang Feng continued, his voice as flat as if he were recounting some insignificant piece of unofficial history.

"A long time ago, a certain shaman in ancient times messed up during a spirit-channeling ritual."

"That is to say, he wanted to invite a god to possess him, but ended up inviting something he couldn't afford to provoke."

"His soul was backlashed by some unspeakable existence."

"Before being completely devoured, he used his last bit of strength to forge this mask, sealing his own polluted, insane soul, along with a part of that existence, inside it."

The entire exhibition hall was so quiet that one could hear heartbeats.

Professor Sun and his students were completely stunned.

Their brains were struggling to process this information, but it was clearly beyond their processing capacity.

An insane soul, an unspeakable existence, a part...

These words, when combined, constructed a world they had never encountered before.

Jiang Feng did not stop.

"It devours history and memory because that sealed soul instinctively wants to erase the traces of its own existence, in order to attain eternal peace."

He looked at Professor Sun.

"This is a form of self-protection."

He looked at the two pale-faced students again.

"It is also a curse."

The moment his voice fell.

【Ding! Truth of the third exhibit uncovered, effective count: 3 / 3】

【Ding! Three Divinations task completed!】

It's done!

The stone in Jiang Feng's heart was just about to settle.

A sudden change occurred.

Crack... crackle...

An extremely faint sound of ice crystals forming came from that independent display case.

"What sound is that?"

"Did you hear that?"

The male student behind Professor Sun reacted first; he pointed at the display case, his voice trembling.

A thin layer of frost appeared without warning on the thick bulletproof glass of the display case.

The frost spread at a speed visible to the naked eye; in just two or three seconds, it completely covered the inner wall of the entire display case.

The originally clearly visible golden mask became blurred.

A bone-chilling, cold aura seeped out from the gaps in the display case, and the temperature of the entire exhibition hall suddenly dropped by several degrees.

Everyone felt this chill.

"What's going on? Is the air conditioning broken?" a tourist asked, confused, while rubbing their arms.

"No, look there!"

"My God! Everyone, look at that mask!"

A terrified voice broke the silence.

Jiang Feng's gaze, through that thin layer of frost, stared fixedly at the golden mask in the display case.

The two hollows where the eyes of the mask should be seemed to have truly come alive at this moment.

They were no longer hollows, but two bottomless black abysses, becoming profound in an instant.

A cold gaze, like an arrow piercing through time and space, crossed over many obstacles and locked directly onto Jiang Feng.

It was not an illusion.

Jiang Feng could feel it.

Every hair on his body stood on end at this moment.

Professor Sun and the surrounding tourists were already completely terrified by this supernatural scene.

"Ah——"

A piercing scream exploded in the exhibition hall.

The crowd instantly descended into chaos; some fell down, others backed away, trying to get away from this eerie display case.

The whistles and shouts of the security guards mixed together, and the scene became a mess.

But Jiang Feng's body seemed to be nailed to the spot.

He was freezing cold, his scalp tingling.

There was no sound in his mind.

But a thought was branded directly into the deepest part of his consciousness.

It was not a sentence.

It was an ancient conceptual mark.

【Belongs to Me】.

Jiang Feng knew.

This time, what he had provoked was no longer a person, nor was it some information pollution.

He had been marked by an artifact.