Chapter 208: Photo

Chen Ling felt his mind was a mess at this moment.

He looked at the pages in his hand, which contained information about "Chen Ling" and "Chen Yan." A strange, chilling sensation crept into his heart; reality and his memories were completely opposite, as if someone had switched his life with another.

"Impossible... Ah Yan was clearly the one with heart disease, how could it be me?" Chen Ling muttered to himself, shaking his head. "I lost my heart, my chest is empty, so how could Ah Yan's name be there... Are you playing games with me?!"

Chen Ling glared furiously at Yan Xishou, as if he wanted to devour him whole.

"I didn't... I really didn't!" Yan Xishou trembled. "That Chen Yan... Chen Yan's organs are still in the basement, and Chen Ling's records from that time are also there. You... you can go see for yourself!"

"Where are the keys?!"

"In the second drawer on the left side of the desk..."

Chen Ling rushed to the desk, pulled out an antique-looking key from the drawer, and was about to leave the study. Then, as if he remembered something, he turned back and punched Yan Xishou, knocking him unconscious.

Chen Ling dragged Yan Xishou into a cabinet beneath the bookshelf to hide him. Only then did he push open the door and quickly head towards the basement.

Now that he had the transaction records, Chen Ling should have ideally left as soon as possible. The longer he stayed, the greater the risk of the outsiders finding him. But at this moment, Chen Ling couldn't care less... there were some things he absolutely had to figure out.

Chen Ling didn't know why he was so preoccupied with this confusion of names. Perhaps the Starlight Guild had simply made a registration error... but he felt something was deeply wrong, as if he was afraid of something.

With the key, Chen Ling smoothly opened the basement door, and a blast of cold air immediately assailed him.

The cold air drifted like tendrils of white smoke in the warm interior. Beyond the door lay a spacious, dimly lit area, with shelves neatly arranged, looking like some kind of storage facility.

Chen Ling frowned and walked straight in.

Most of the items stored here were containers for preserving organs. The shelves were arranged by date, and most of the containers on them were empty, likely already distributed. Even so, next to the empty containers were some kraft paper envelopes, seemingly holding records of something.

Looking around, there were at least several hundred containers, meaning at least several hundred lives had lost their health and organs.

Chen Ling had no interest in other people's containers. He followed the signs on the shelves directly to the day his heart was removed—the day he experienced the Gray Realm convergence and woke up in the mass grave...

On the shelf, several containers were arranged in order. The one labeled "Chen Yan" was empty.

Chen Ling's brows furrowed deeply. He immediately took down the kraft paper envelope placed next to it and opened it. Inside were several photos... The first photo showed a dilapidated operating room, with a young boy lying flat on the operating table, eyes closed as if asleep.

"Ah Yan..." Chen Ling murmured.

The second photo showed the same operating table, but the boy on it now had his chest opened. Boneblade stood beside him, holding a scalpel, fully focused on the surgery.

In the third photo, the boy's face was pale, and blood almost covered the entire operating table. Boneblade had put down the scalpel and was holding a bright red heart in both hands, looking towards the camera, as if deliberately proving that this heart had been taken from the boy's body.

The fourth photo showed no one, only a container for holding a heart. A hand was placing the heart inside, sealing the container, and attaching a numbered security strip to its surface.

These four photos were likely proof of the heart's origin for the buyer. As Chen Ling saw them, a deep sense of bewilderment appeared in his eyes...

Text might contain errors, but the images in the photos didn't lie. The person lying on the operating table was indeed Chen Yan, and that heart was taken from his body... But how could this be? It was completely different from what he remembered!

Chen Ling's breathing grew heavy. He immediately walked to a nearby container, took down the kraft paper envelope labeled "Chen Ling," and successively took out the photos inside.

The Chen Ling in the photos also had organs removed one by one on the operating table, but there was no heart among them...

Chen Ling stood rooted to the spot, unmoving like a statue.

"If Ah Yan was truly the one who lost his heart... then who am I?" Chen Ling felt his brain was about to explode. At that moment, countless lingering images he had previously ignored flashed through his mind.

They were scenes that had appeared in his mind as he stumbled through the heavy snow towards the mass grave... those were Chen Yan's memories.

He didn't know why Chen Yan's memories were in his mind, but in that memory, he felt as if he had become Chen Yan, personally experiencing that heartbreaking past. Yet, he couldn't recall anything that happened after he was drugged... The first time he regained consciousness was on his way home from the mass grave.

He remembered clearly that he had struggled for a long time in the rainy night before recalling his name: Chen Ling.

"I am Chen Ling... or am I not Chen Ling? No... impossible... I have almost all of his memories, only missing a small part of that one night... If I'm not Chen Ling, then who could I be?!"

"No... I'm Chen Ling, the transmigrator! Not the Chen Ling from this world... That's also not right, but I've clearly become Chen Ling..."

Chen Ling clutched his head with both hands, his jumbled memories churning in his mind. He could no longer distinguish between what was real and what was fake.

Chen Ling's palm brushed against his cheek. As if remembering something, he suddenly lifted his head and stumbled out of the basement... He knew how to prove who he was now.

He rushed back to Yan Xishou's study, locked the door, and stood before the large wooden grandfather clock in the center of the room.

The ancient, mottled pendulum swung with the rhythm of time, emitting a mysterious, faint sound like the passage of ages. The pristine glass surface of the clock clearly reflected Yan Xishou's face.

Chen Ling reached his right hand to his chin, tore hard, and a human face floated lightly to the floor...

Beneath Yan Xishou's face was the face of the Paper Puppeteer.

Seeing this, Chen Ling continued to reach for his chin and tore again.

As the Paper Puppeteer's face floated down, another face appeared in the clock's reflection: Ah Feng's face from the Starlight Guild dungeon... Chen Ling's brows furrowed tighter and tighter. He frantically tore at his own skin, face after face that had appeared before, one by one, like magic tricks, showing up in the clock's reflection.