Broken Mirror Three: Deal

The last‍​​⁠​‍⁠‌‌‍‌​‍⁠​‌​‍‌​‍​‍⁠ invisible mirror held A-Ji’s mirror coffin.

When An Yu touched it, his hand was repelled, and a mirror fragment fell from the air, rolling to his feet.

It was the expected third shattered mirror fragment.

The third shattered mirror fragment had a stronger impact on mental power. Slade tried to enter, but the moment he touched the white mirror, his mental power dropped twenty points, forcing him to immediately withdraw.

An Yu rubbed the words “Protect” on the white mirror. “It seems its goal is very clear.”

According to previous deductions, the third shattered mirror fragment would once again “slice” the entrant, this time sealing 30% of their survival limit.

And among the Protectors, only two could withstand the impact of the white mirror on mental power.

An Yu looked at Qin Zhilu, who was observing Jiang Xiao. He seemed to be in thought, rubbing the candle he had taken from Chen Nian’s hand.

“Commander,” An Yu called him. “Together?”

Qin Zhilu’s gaze shifted to him, but he shook his head. “If I go in with you, it’s very likely to still be a 29% and 1% split, which is meaningless.”

Pat explained frankly, “There will also be burst damage the moment you come out of the mirror. Two people going in is indeed not cost-effective.”

An Yu ignored him and just looked at Qin Zhilu.

Qin Zhilu continued, “Theoretically, I could also go in alone. But the Mirror has clearly locked onto you. If you don’t fail here, you will fail somewhere else. There’s no need to suffer extra team losses.”

An Yu remained silent and his gaze shifted from Qin Zhilu to Jiang Xiao for a moment, then to Feng Jian.

The atmosphere was eerily quiet.

Slade cleared his throat.

“Corner, we haven’t seen Bai Jing yet, and we don’t know how strong the Mirror’s combat power is. For Law to maintain maximum health is indeed more…”

“I know,” An Yu interrupted him.

“Sorry, please be quiet for a moment.”

He indeed planned to enter the mirror alone. He was calculating the Mirror’s mechanism and the remaining healing capacity of the two healers. Every time he emerged from the mirror, the entrant would lose a portion of their maximum survival value, and also endure a terrifying burst of damage.

In his current 1% state, he couldn’t even get to the step of calculating his survival limit; he simply couldn’t come out of the mirror alive.

His red pupils narrowed slightly. A moment later, An Yu looked at Feng Jian. “Can ordinary healing still be used?”

Feng Jian was startled. “It can… but… sorry, the healing speed will probably be even slower than before.”

An Yu nodded and walked towards him. “If you please, help me get back up from 1% first.”

In the distance, Jiang Xiao’s fingers curled, as if he had something to say, but in the end, he said nothing.

A few thin, pale purple dandelions flew into An Yu’s trench coat and slowly began to heal him.

Based on previous experience, he didn’t need the healer to truly restore his health to full, just a slight recovery, enough to allow his body to self-heal, and then layering on time acceleration.

But Feng Jian was too weak at this point. The tiny dandelions worked hard for a long time before the number on his terminal finally jumped from 1% to 2%.

An Yu simply sat down on the ground. During the breaks in healing, he kept watching the Commander.

Qin Zhilu had put away the candle. He held the half-broken poppy stem that An Yu had snapped by manipulating space and idly twisted it. Noticing that he was being watched, he looked up and calmly met An Yu’s gaze.

Fengjian’s earpiece suddenly automatically switched channels.

Slade pulled him and Pat into an encrypted channel and whispered, “It seems like there’s an undercurrent between the Corner and Law. It’s quite a tense situation.”

Fengjian was still healing An Yu, so he dared not speak.

Pat silently took a few steps back, biting his lip to warn them where An Yu and Qin Zhilu couldn’t see him.

“Don’t try these little tricks. Are you tired of living?” He paused, then lowered his voice even further.

“But I used to think that a little junior, would never dare to challenge the Commander.”

“Me too,” Slade said, barely moving his lips. “I just want to know, who do you think has the upper hand right now?”

Pat was a very cautious person. He gave Slade a meaningful look, then silently exited the channel.

Fengjian also silently exited the channel, stealing a glance at An Yu, then quickly shifting his gaze away.

In his observation, the Corner was usually very submissive in front of Law, and even quite polite to other Protectors in most cases.

But once his health dropped rapidly and his ability exploded, this relationship would subtly change.

He silently watched the two bigshots, who were still locked in a staring contest, and found it hard to distinguish who was stronger. Perhaps it could only be said that they were evenly matched.

An Yu suddenly retracted his gaze. “That’s enough.”

He waved away the two thin dandelions and closed his eyes in contemplation.

Immediately, the health value on his terminal instantly jumped to 70%, paused for a moment, then jumped to 71%.

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He stood up and walked directly past Qin Zhilu, stopping in front of Jiang Xiao.

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“The first shattered mirror fragment, entering at full health, exiting at 50%, a 50% health drop. The second, entering at 90%, exiting at 30%, a 60% health drop. This is the third one, which should theoretically result in a 70% health drop.” An Yu glanced at his terminal. “And my current maximum is only 71%. That means, most likely, I’ll exit at 1%.”

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“Yes…” Jiang Xiao’s gaze dimmed a little at this. “Currently, my usefulness to you is indeed not…”

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Jiang Xiao almost froze at his words and his eyes filled with shock and disbelief. He helplessly spread his palm, looking at the eager poppy seeds. “But I…”

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Fengjian Tianyu silently reopened the three-person chat room and whispered, “Do you think the Corner is playing him?”

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An Yu opened his eyes. The surroundings were pitch black, like the bottom of an abyss, where he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

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This time, he hadn’t even had time to kill A-Ji. The appearance of this shattered mirror fragment had been brought forward.

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It seemed this time, he had entered this memory in his own body.

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The boy was Bai Jing, but he was different from the Bai Jing An Yu had seen in previous memories. His expression held an almost eerie coldness. Although his facial features hadn’t changed, he had completely become another person.

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An Yu moved to the same side as him and looked at the mirror in front of Bai Jing.

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A moment later, the Bai Jing in the mirror spoke. “If your guardianship fails, I will surely wake up.”

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Layers of glass partitions suddenly appeared before him, with bottles of various sizes placed on them.

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This was the day Bai Jing went to get medicine for A-Ji.

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Bai Jing left with the medicine that helped A-Ji fall into a deep sleep, but the Bai Jing in front of An Yu did not disappear with him.

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Soon, he was completely absorbed into the mirror.

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“If the guardianship fails, why would you wake up anyway?”

“By that day, the orphanage will no longer need to exist.”

An Yu walked to the mirror. The mirror had returned to normal, only reflecting his own silhouette.

But in a trance, the illusion of meeting someone’s gaze reappeared, just like in front of the restroom mirror in the first-floor cafeteria.

An Yu suddenly understood. On that day, Bai Jing had also undergone an aberrant transformation; it was a fusion transformation with the mirror.

The mirror sliced him into two parts: one part fell into slumber, and the other merged with the mirror to become a Super-Aberrant, jointly fulfilling the mission of protecting the three orphans.

And the method of protection was to contain the entire orphanage within the mirror, thereby monitoring everything. When you gazed into every mirror in the orphanage, you were gazing into it. And for every slaughter that occurred in the orphanage, the true executor behind it was always the Mirror.

An Yu was deep in thought.

The mirror suddenly rapidly shrank towards the center. His pupils constricted. Before the mirror vanished, he stepped into that space—

The snowstorm howled. An Yu stood in the vast white of the snowstorm, a colossal mirror coffin before him.

The mirror coffin reflected the scene inside—

A-Ji, her face pale like frost, lay amidst shattered ice. She didn’t look asleep, but rather as if she had long since died.

Her orphanage uniform was tattered, her exposed limbs had already withered and were pale, all covered in rosy pustules. Only her slightly rising chest seemed to retain a faint breath of life.

An Yu wanted to search his terminal for what kind of abnormality these physical features indicated, but he patted himself all over and couldn’t find his terminal.

Not only his terminal, but his [Order] dagger and the few compressed biscuits he had brought from the cafeteria were also gone.

The only things he had brought into the mirror space were the three shattered mirror fragments.

He had no choice but to give up. His red pupils narrowed slightly. The next moment, the lid of the mirror coffin was moved far away.

A-Ji finally saw the light of day again.

Just as An Yu stepped forward to examine her closely, the pustules on A-Ji’s limbs suddenly began to swell. Those pustules were like blood-filled seeds, rapidly sprouting and blossoming. The moment the pustules burst, A-Ji’s chest stopped rising and falling.

The mirror coffin opened, the guardianship failed, and she automatically died. Or perhaps, on that very day, when Bai Jing hid her, she was already on her last breath.

Not everyone could withstand an aberrant transformation. Humans only knew very few Protectors and countless insane aberrants, but they forgot that there were also so many lives that fell into chaos during abnormality, twisting and exploding to death.

An Yu looked down at the highly aberrant but still slender body.

His red pupils showed no emotion. He seemed to just stand quietly before the mirror coffin, spacing out for a while amidst the swirling snowstorm.

When he came back to himself, he took off Qin Zhilu’s trench coat and draped it over the little girl’s body, covering those beautiful yet eerie pustules.

An Yu was about to leave this shattered mirror fragment.

As he withdrew his hand, his palm suddenly touched something hard and cold.

The fourth shattered mirror fragment.

Everyone had thought three fragments were all, but they never expected there would be a fourth.

This fragment was a bit smaller than the others and also had black and white sides. The black side was engraved with “Clamor,” but the white side was no longer “Protect” but two words—

“Mirror Core”

According to the previous rules, the moment An Yu left the third shattered mirror fragment, his survival limit would drop from 71% to 41%.

If he then entered the fourth fragment, upon exiting, his survival limit would inevitably be only 1%. And there would be an additional burst of damage.

No matter how low the burst damage from the fourth fragment was, a 1% limit meant that the person who entered could not come out alive.

Author’s Note: