Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 621 - 581 Little Bowl 1

Chapter 621: 581 Little Bowl 1

Little Bowl said seriously, "Who exactly am I, where did I come from... and where am I going. I remembered all of these things clearly."

"Then... would you mind telling me about them?" I asked.

"Of course." Little Bowl nodded earnestly.

"Do I need to step aside?" No. 7 asked.

Little Bowl glanced at No. 7, thought for a moment, and then said, "Although no one knew these things until just now, they aren’t exactly secrets that need to be hidden on purpose."

"However, since it’s your personal affair, I’ll just go ahead and retreat first." No. 7 pointed to a road sign far outside the gas station, "I’ll stand over there and wait until you finish talking, I won’t eavesdrop on your conversation. Just call me when you’re done."

Little Bowl was not shy and politely said, "Thank you, Lady No. 7."

No. 7 nodded and then walked to the road sign in the distance. Although her hearing could easily capture any sound from our side at that distance, since she said so, let’s just trust that she would somehow make herself not hear for now.

Little Bowl turned her face toward me, then said: "Then... I’ll start talking now."

"I’m ready," I said.

"First, Brother Zhuang Cheng, just as we judged in the past, my true identity is not as your and Zhu Shi’s daughter, but rather someone intricately linked with both Zhu Shi and her mother, Zhu Jiu," Little Bowl said. "I once speculated whether I was Zhu Jiu who had turned into a child during the Doomsday Era, and you seemed to have thought about whether I might be Zhu Shi’s Dream Avatar... Both these answers are correct in a sense, but not completely so."

"In other words, you are both the child version of Zhu Jiu and the Dream Avatar of Zhu Shi?" This answer was something I couldn’t possibly think of, "How did this happen?"

"Well... strictly speaking, I can’t be considered Zhu Jiu either..." Little Bowl seemed troubled about defining herself, "Anyway, please listen as I explain slowly."

She seemed to take some time to organize the information in her mind, then spoke to me at length—

Let’s start from the time Zhu Jiu entered the "Doomsday Era."

Now, Little Bowl possesses the childhood memories of both Zhu Jiu and Zhu Shi, but according to her own way, both Zhu Jiu’s and Zhu Shi’s memories seem like reading a book, hard to fully consider as her own. However, at the very least, she can narrate what specifically happened in the past from the perspective of those involved.

As a soul-loss patient, Zhu Jiu’s soul naturally entered this post-mortem world mimicking the Doomsday Era. And just like the initial me, faced with this space filled with apocalyptic oddities, she quickly fell into a massive life-and-death crisis.

Although coming from a demon hunter family and having received systematic demon hunter training, Zhu Shi, as a demon hunter, doesn’t possess significant combat power. Using the Formation, Abiding, Decay, Void System to evaluate, she can barely get a Residence Level evaluation. Without her family’s magic artifact, the Yama Sword, her combat abilities were only moderately stronger than an average person.

Indeed, there exist Residence Level demon hunters like her who don’t have much combat power. Although I was used to using the Formation, Abiding, Decay, Void System as a "combat power evaluation system," its standards aren’t combat power but the distance walked on the cultivation path. The "Residence" level symbolizes a stage where the demon hunter, even if they stop cultivating, won’t revert to an ordinary person, standing firm in the realm of demon hunters.

Even possessing mana doesn’t mean one can inherently release overpowering offensive or defensive capabilities but must first convert through "spells." To strengthen the body, one must first learn "spells for strengthening the body"; to summon flames, one must first learn "spells for summoning flames."

The mere scenario of having powerful mana and conjuring divine skills with just a thought mostly appears only at the Great Success Rank and above, which is already beyond the common knowledge domain of demon hunters. Zhu Jiu’s character destined her to be unfit for most combat-related spells, rather more suited to eliminate anomalies by non-combat means as White Evil.

Fortunately, the weak too have their ways of survival, and after a series of ordeals and indispensable luck, Zhu Jiu managed to hold on through life-threatening situations. However, her luck also had its limits, as she couldn’t meet any other survivors besides herself. After surviving peril, what awaited her wasn’t safety but a more desperate situation.

Frenzy began to erode her soul.

In a situation where no one around is calling her name, completely alone, a personality based on social relationships is prone to disintegrate over time. Even so-called shut-ins often connect with society through the internet and logistics; in the "Doomsday Era," even these basic conditions don’t exist. True loneliness slowly erodes Zhu Jiu’s mental surface, frenzy infiltrates through tiny holes, twisting her mind.

After some time, Zhu Jiu forgot her own name and her past, wandering aimlessly in the post-mortem world. And then, unavoidably, the phenomenon of sin demonization occurred to her, and she began transforming from a human into something anomalous.

However, within her heart, there was still a wish, or rather an obsession. Because this thought was deeply rooted in her consciousness, to the point that at the very last moment — when all thoughts were to be uprooted and completely erased from her heart — its profound mark wasn’t fully gone.

And a "certain spirituality" attached to her also became active, joining in Zhu Jiu’s transformation into a Sin Demon...

"—’Certain spirituality’?"

Upon hearing this, I curiously asked, "What was that?"

"It was Zhu Jiu’s daughter—what Zhu Shi lost during childhood, or rather, what she voluntarily abandoned... It carried Zhu Shi’s yearning for romance, her innocent longing, her soft and childish heart... all elements unrelated to ’becoming a capable demon hunter,’ symbolizing her childhood portion," Little Bowl said.

"Like the emblem that Lu Youxun once discarded in the past... with the ’dream of achieving justice’ attached to that emblem?" I asked, "Why would such an obsession attach itself to Zhu Jiu?"

I had briefly told Little Bowl about Lu Chan’s matter when the Void Realm was yet to shatter.

In the past, Lu Youxun had discarded his medal as a "national first-level demon hunter," and Zhu Shi also threw away all her beloved dolls during her childhood. As I saw it, these two events could correspond. Since Lu Youxun’s discarded dream obsession attached itself to the medal, Zhu Shi’s discarded childhood obsession should attach itself to those dolls.

This is also why I believed "Zhu Shi’s Dream Avatar couldn’t appear in the post-mortem world" to be the biggest reason... However, if it actually attached itself to Zhu Jiu, then things become different. Zhu Shi’s childhood obsession unexpectedly entered the post-mortem world in such a manner...

"Because, to the childhood Zhu Shi, the first object that could symbolize her childhood... wasn’t the dolls, but her mother who allowed her to live a childish and happy life and spoiled her in every way," Little Bowl said.

Upon hearing this, I remembered words Zhu Shi had said in the past.

—"To me, my deepest and warmest childhood memory might just be hugging my favorite doll and being held in the arms of my most beloved mother."

And Little Bowl seemed to be showing an expression of reminiscence, and after a short pause, she continued, "...Zhu Shi abandoned all her dolls as a gesture to say goodbye to her childhood, and so her obsession was also attached to those dolls.

"After that, Zhu Jiu secretly collected all the dolls her daughter abandoned and hid them in a white box, tending and maintaining them meticulously.

"Zhu Jiu’s childhood lacked warmth and happiness, so she at least hoped her daughter could live a warm and joyful life. Perhaps this is also a form of transference psychology commonly seen from parents to children. And even after such a drastic change in Zhu Shi’s childhood, Zhu Jiu still quietly hoped to someday return all happiness along with these dolls to her beloved daughter.

"In this process, the obsession attached to those dolls gradually shifted onto Zhu Jiu, the ’first object,’ and later followed Zhu Jiu into this ’Doomsday Era,’ and eventually got involved in Zhu Jiu’s sin-demonization process.

"Putting it this way, Brother Zhuang Cheng, do you still remember the definition of an ’avatar’?"

I nodded.

Manifesting the aspect of one’s own soul as an "avatar" was originally an ability only Gods could use; the "Dream Avatar" of the young Lu Chan was also realized through the power of the Divine Seal Fragment. Though the Divine Son could also use the power of "avatars," they couldn’t manifest independently and required a Spirit Summoning Container to do so.

With this knowledge point in mind, I sequentially derived my next step of inference: "So, did Zhu Jiu become the childhood dream... the childhood-side self Spirit Summoning Container of her daughter, Zhu Shi?"

"Calling it a container may not be very accurate. Because the sin demonization process completely reorganizes the soul of the person, finally turning into an anomalous shape," Little Bowl said, "A normal Spirit Summoning Container may be like a complete glass of water used to catch water. But at that time, Zhu Jiu was as if the glass itself was smashed into shards, entirely mixed together with the water.

"And just when she was about to be completely reorganized as a Sin Demon, Sister Mazao appeared."

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