ushernet Chapter 782
Chapter 782
Chapter 782: Chapter 163: I am the Answer, What is the Question?
Chapter 782: Chapter 163: I am the Answer, What is the Question?
In the early morning, sunbeams scattered.
Isabel let out a sudden “hmm” as if startled awake, drifting back to consciousness within her dream.
Her cheeks were slightly flushed.
She rubbed her face vigorously, trying to remove the lingering warmth with her palms.
“Hmm, hmm, ah...”
She made noises like the whining of a small animal, murmuring something.
...
But soon, Isabel fell silent again.
She spread her arms wide, lying on the vast bed, gazing blankly at the bedroom’s ceiling adorned with red cloth and silver chandeliers, made of silver and tin.
Involuntarily, Isabel grasped at the air beside her.
She had long prepared a pillow for Aiwass, but so far, he had only slept here once.
—Sometimes, Isabel too wished that upon waking, she would find that familiar person beside her, rather than meeting only in dreams.
But on the other hand...
it is always better to reunite in dreams than to struggle to meet after parting.
At least now, every night before she falls asleep, she could look forward to being embraced by Aiwass in another world.
“...But I still miss you.”
She turned slightly, gazing at the cold, empty space by her side, and whispered softly, “I want to see you.”
Next, Aiwass was about to prepare for a dangerous ritual.
To conserve his energy and adjust his state, Isabel would not see him for at least several nights.
Isabel missed Aiwass deeply, but she didn’t wish to ask him to spare some time to see her at night—although she could control her own desires, content just to hold each other and sleep more peacefully.
Yet she made no such request.
For she was more concerned for Aiwass’s safety than her own loneliness for wanting to see him.
A ritual that even Aiwass deemed “very dangerous” unsettled Isabel just hearing about it.
In her mind, Aiwass was nearly all-powerful—he had saved her from such a desperate situation and tamed the chaotic Avalon like a hunting dog.
Even when facing real demons, he only took them seriously, never showing fear or despair.
—But even Aiwass thought the upcoming action would be perilous.
He even refrained from telling Isabel the details of the ritual.
Isabel understood Aiwass well.
This was because Aiwass believed that knowing the details of the ritual would worry Isabel.
To spare her the anxiety of feeling like a loved one was being pushed into an operating room, he stayed silent.
He discovered Xiaolv’s diary but did not report her; instead, he chatted with her in the margins.
They expressed different opinions regarding the Serpent Queen’s diary and conversed with each other, sharing feelings, exchanging secrets.
But this Codex Book in the Elvish Language had mixed these three different texts together.
Isabel initially thought that the translator had not done a good job, having read the book for two days without understanding it.
It wasn’t until she had a headache from reading that this morning, while flipping through “Hell’s Metamorphosis: Puppet Play” casually...
after a while, a sudden inspiration struck her.
Isabel suddenly realized—it wasn’t that the translator hadn’t done a good job; he had done it too well.
The initial version of this Codex Book must have been a mix of three different handwritings on the same book, and the translator combined them with the same font.
She looked at the slim picture album, searching for each item.
Then, using these individual items to seek words identical to the original text, and starting from that word to read onward.
Consequently, it turned into a completely different sentence with a whole new meaning.
Every sentence was a question; each was a riddle.
Though she completely failed to understand the meaning of these riddles, Isabel felt a captivating mysterious attraction.
And as Isabel gazed, entranced, she suddenly understood the incomprehensible words of the “Queen of Kings.”
The incomprehensible words turned out to be the answers to the riddles posed by the “reference book.”
“—The very riddles that initially composed the riddle’s face were, in fact, the answers to the riddle itself!”
Isabel had an epiphany.
And in the moment Isabel fully grasped the secrets of this book, she felt a distortion.
As if breaking free from an illusion—the world around her shattered like a broken windowpane.
Her consciousness was pulled into the Codex Book.
Inside, she saw the alluring Serpent Queen, the naive and romantic university student Xiaolv, the serious yet tender professor John, and many others...
They were part of many stories revolving around this book, narrating the “Serpent Queen’s” tale.
Then they became stories, and afterward, stories developed around this storybook in a perpetual cycle.
Finally, the scene shifted—
—from the very beginning, there were no people at all!
It was merely a collection of masks with different expressions, dancing around the stage.
As the scene danced inwardly, it transformed into the content of another book, with yet more masks appearing on the outside; and then the scene shrank once again...
Within the cycle of one book after another, all masks were connected by transparent thin threads, trailing into the darkness above.
“I ask you, my successor.
“If I am the answer.”
A layered voice echoed in Isabel’s ears: “Then, what is the question?”