Although he couldn't understand it, Jiang Ye chose to respect it.

Just as the saying goes—respect others' fates.

Therefore, he naturally wouldn't interfere with the "win-win" situation reached between Du Yuheng and He Yuliang.

It's just...

His gaze fell upon Du Yuheng again.

As his eyes swept over, Du Yuheng seemed to immediately know what he wanted to say.

He tentatively spoke, "So, during this time waiting for skill cooldown... why don't we explore this Blood Pool and Forest of Flesh?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Ye frowned, his eyes turning cold.

He grew increasingly suspicious that this guy was just using a delaying tactic!

Du Yuheng could absolutely guess his inner dissatisfaction.

But he still hesitated, continuing to probe:

"If I haven't guessed wrong..."

"Or rather, if Li Si hasn't lied to me..."

"Then just now, you received a message he sent you; you rejected his suggestion to you about throwing flesh and blood into the Blood Pool Skull..."

Jiang Ye remained silent for a moment, then nodded, "And then?"

Du Yuheng continued, "He advised me to persuade you to accept his suggestion."

"That is, to accept the flesh and blood he transmits, and then feed that flesh and blood to this giant skull."

Jiang Ye fell silent again for a moment.

In his field of vision, he looked towards the two dark purple light screens from his conversation with Li Si.

After he chose to cold-shoulder Li Si's message, Li Si hadn't sent any more messages either, seemingly not planning to persuade him further.

If not for Du Yuheng, then most likely, his choice would have been—ignoring Li Si's suggestion, not feeding any flesh and blood to the giant skull.

And that "future version of Li Si," seemed to want to change this history?

After sorting out his thoughts, Jiang Ye looked at Du Yuheng again:

"So, how do you plan to 'persuade' me?"

Du Yuheng was silent for a moment, then suddenly flipped his hand, a feather appearing in his palm.

The feather was colored black and white, and the distribution of these colors was utterly irregular, appearing very chaotic.

As for the size of the entire feather...

It looked quite similar in size to the [Raven Feather] that could extract Glyph Pattern Abilities.

It wouldn't even be an exaggeration to say that if this feather were purely black...

Then Jiang Ye would suspect it was the [Raven Feather].

Speaking of the [Raven Feather], its effect is to extract Glyph Pattern Abilities.

And earlier during the chess game, Jiang Ye had seen the [Blackened Funeral Crow] summoned by the Guiwen Master, whose feathers also had the effect of extracting Glyph Pattern Abilities...

So it's highly probable that the so-called [Raven Feather] comes from the feathers of the [Blackened Funeral Crow].

Then, this black-and-white feather in Du Yuheng's hand could perhaps be understood as... coming from a semi-blackened burial crow?

Just as this thought crossed his mind, he saw Du Yuheng pinch the stem of the feather, then aim the root end towards the center of the giant skull's forehead.

In that instant, it was as if a beam of black light rapidly shot into the giant skull.

Immediately after, the entire giant skull's pure white body actually began to slowly glow with a lustrous black light.

It sounds quite eerie...

Logically, black is the darkest color, having nothing to do with the word "light."

But inexplicably, looking with his naked eyes, Jiang Ye felt that the blackness had a luminous quality...

He couldn't describe this feeling, just watched wide-eyed—

The entire giant skull rapidly changed from white to black, then seemed to grow black "flesh and blood"!

Its originally clearly visible skeletal structure was soon completely covered by plump blackness, transforming into a humanoid figure with a pure black body!

Viewed this way, it seemed it was no longer a giant skull...

But a player with a massive, pure black body!

Simultaneously, the burnt smell mixed within the thick scent of blood became even more distinct at this moment.

He Yuliang stared at this scene, his eyes widening.

For a good while, he exclaimed in shock:

"This, this giant skull... grew a pure black body!"

"So is this the reason why my past self, who had a pure black body, could absorb the dark energy of the Blood Pool?"

"Right! That's it! After my past self's pure black body absorbed the dark energy of this Blood Pool, this giant skull then collapsed with a crash, shattered until not a single speck of bone dust remained..."

He Yuliang was still reeling in shock.

Jiang Ye was also still silent.

And Du Yuheng, holding the black-and-white feather, suddenly uttered in a low voice:

"The bones of the martyr, glowing like a stele in the abyss."

Jiang Ye's expression shook, his gaze abruptly turning towards him.

This coded phrase came from the prompt sound his main body heard when passing zero o’clock in the Prison.

The bones of the martyr...

Jiang Ye looked at this giant skull again.

Glowing like a stele...

That kind of black with a luminous quality could indeed be described as "glowing."

And the entire massive pure black body indeed looked like a tombstone.

However, very soon, Jiang Ye witnessed again—

That self-luminous pure black color quickly faded from the skull's body.

In the blink of an eye, the giant skull returned to its initial pure white skeletal form.

As if the giant pure black body was merely a momentary illusion.

Jiang Ye snapped back to reality and saw Du Yuheng had already put away that black-and-white feather.

He said slowly, "This funeral feather, it only reflects the appearance the deceased had in life."

"According to Li Si, perhaps you can resurrect this giant skull, let it regrow pure black flesh and blood."

Jiang Ye was silent for a moment, then analyzed in a deep voice:

"If it's just feeding flesh and blood, why doesn't Li Si do it himself? Or, why not arrange for you to do the feeding?"

"So... the person who feeds flesh and blood to this skull must be me?"

Du Yuheng nodded, conveniently performing an experiment right in front of him—

He directly chopped off the little finger of his left hand, then threw this small piece of "flesh and blood" towards the corner of the skull's smiling, blood-dripping mouth.

However, the result was that the small piece of "flesh and blood" failed to land in the skull's mouth.

Instead, after hitting the skull's mouth, it fell straight down.

Du Yuheng caught that little finger, then handed it to Jiang Ye, saying, "You want to try?"

Jiang Ye took the little finger but didn't immediately throw it towards the skull's mouth.

He roughly understood Du Yuheng's meaning—

This giant skull only eats the flesh and blood Jiang Ye feeds it.

So, if Jiang Ye tries, this little finger would most likely be successfully fed.

It's just that he hadn't yet figured out whether he should personally feed this skull.

Therefore, he naturally wouldn't rashly throw this little finger representing "flesh and blood" at the skull.

After a period of silence, he still looked at Du Yuheng and said:

"If it's just resurrecting this skull... that still seems insufficient to 'persuade' me."

The meaning in his words was also quite clear—

Because of Du Yuheng's revelation, his attitude had indeed softened somewhat.

But he still wasn't quite ready to commit.

Du Yuheng fell silent for a moment, then suddenly offered him the black-and-white feather, probing:

"Then, can you accept personally using this funeral feather?"

"..." Jiang Ye looked at the feather, silent for a moment, then still took it, "Aim the feather root at the skull's forehead?"

Du Yuheng said, "You can shine it on its eyes."

Jiang Ye was slightly silent, then pinched the feather, attempting to aim its root at the giant skull's empty eye sockets.

He was initially somewhat hesitant about whether to aim at the skull's left or right eye.

Yet, miraculously...

The black ray emitted from the feather's root seemed to automatically split into two streams.

One stream shot towards the left eye, the other towards the right eye.

This time, the first part of the entire giant skull to be "lit up" by blackness was those empty eye sockets.

However, those eyes also didn't look like normal eyeballs, but like the pure black body from before, appearing pure black...

Yet...

Jiang Ye's gaze fell upon that expanse of pure black, yet he seemed to see some blurry scenes within that blackness.

Simultaneously, in that instant, he clearly and distinctly sensed—clone!

So this giant skull "lit up" by the funeral feather, awakened to a pure black body...

It really seemed to be his clone!

Only, it was a dead clone corpse?!

Jiang Ye indeed sensed that this giant pure black-bodied skull was his clone, that was correct.

But there was only the clone-to-clone sensing, without any synchronized consciousness information.

This indicated two possibilities—

Either, this clone itself inherently had no consciousness.

Because it wasn't truly resurrected, but only temporarily "resurrected" in body due to the funeral feather.

Or...

This clone was a type of Fake Clone.

Just like when a player imitates him, they are judged as his clone, but the consciousness existing within these Fake Clones is the player's own consciousness.

A Fake Clone is equivalent to only the body being judged as Jiang Ye's clone.

Its consciousness remains the player's own autonomous consciousness.

Of these two situations, if it's the former, then naturally everyone is happy.

Then what Jiang Ye resurrects is his own clone;

But if it's the latter...

The clone's consciousness doesn't belong to him...

And he currently doesn't master any Clone Skills that can control clones...

Then a Fake Clone is essentially only something he can sense, and completely unable to be influenced or controlled by him.

The consequences of that would be entirely unknown.

At this moment, with He Yuliang the gambler as a reference, Jiang Ye naturally instinctively wanted to choose caution.

Moreover, there was another point of suspicion—

Why didn't Jiang Ye sense the clone when Du Yuheng "lit up" the skull's body earlier?

Only when he himself "lit up" the skull did he sense the clone?

This seemed far too fishy!

Thinking this, Jiang Ye prepared to continue rejecting Du Yuheng's suggestion.

However, just as he was about to put away the funeral feather...

He suddenly, in a daze, clearly saw the originally blurry scene within the skull's pure black eyes!

To be honest, the scene was still quite blurry.

But his mechanical eyeballs seemed to possess vision beyond the ordinary, magnifying that blurry scene like a microscope, presenting it clearly—

And what Jiang Ye saw seemed to be a lush forest.

The entire field of vision was filled with endless trees.

Those trees had black trunks and dense branches.

The branches were laden with densely packed Human-Shaped Leaves...

Yes! Human-Shaped Leaves!

Every single one of those densely packed trees looked like the Formless Trees his main body had seen within the [Formless Domain]!

To be precise, they looked like miniature versions of Formless Trees, copied and pasted countless times!

And such a densely packed "Formless Forest" inexplicably reminded Jiang Ye of the Forest of Oddities...

The densely packed "Hair Trees" in the Forest of Oddities only had a single black trunk resembling an enlarged hair...

And such black trunks actually looked like the trunks of Formless Trees that hadn't fully grown yet?

So...

The Forest of Oddities full of Hair Trees...

Perhaps should have been a Formless Forest full of Formless Trees?

But why would this scene appear in the eyes of this giant skull?

Was that his... scene before death?

So... that Formless Forest existed in the past?

Jiang Ye pondered in his heart, his gaze also fixed on the eyes of the giant pure black body.

He didn't deliberately withdraw the funeral feather.

Yet, in the blink of an eye, the pure black flesh and blood on the giant skull automatically faded away again.

Simultaneously, Jiang Ye's sensing of this clone instantly disappeared.

He had just frowned when Du Yuheng beside him explained:

"The funeral feather reflecting the deceased's appearance in life also has a time limit."

Jiang Ye didn't say anything, just aimed the feather's root at the giant skull again.

However, this time, the skull showed no reaction.

He frowned again, looking at Du Yuheng, "Can each person only use it once?"

Du Yuheng shook his head, "Not exactly. It's like a skill; using it on an individual has a Cooldown. Different individuals have separately calculated Cooldown times."

A light flashed in Jiang Ye's eyes, "Could the second and third uses show different scenes?"

As he spoke, he asked Du Yuheng, "Did your [True Sight Eye] see the scene in the resurrected skull's eyes just now?"

Du Yuheng shook his head, "Perhaps my [True Sight Eye] level isn't high enough; I didn't see any scene."

"If I can't even see the scene in the eyes, naturally I can't tell the difference between the first and second uses."

At this point, He Yuliang couldn't help but interject, "Calculating Cooldown per individual, then I can also use this feather to make the skull grow pure black flesh and blood again?"

Superficially, he used a question, but in reality, he was hinting that he also wanted to try this funeral feather.

Jiang Ye thought for a moment, then handed the feather to him, letting him try too.

He Yuliang, while mimicking the action, also aiming the feather's root at the giant skull, asked another question:

"This entire Blood Pool area is still surrounded by so many small skulls; can they also have their appearance in life reflected by this feather?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the giant skull was also made to show pure black flesh and blood by his use of the funeral feather.

This time, similar to when Du Yuheng used the funeral feather, Jiang Ye didn't sense the clone.

However...

It was at this moment that a "ding" sound suddenly rang in his mind.

To be precise, the "ding" sound rang simultaneously in Du Yuheng and He Yuliang's minds too!

[Ding!]

[Congratulations to the Land of Exile for successfully giving birth to the first moon infant!]

[Before the new moon is born, the old moon will automatically shift towards the Land of Exile!]

With just this brief announcement...

Jiang Ye was suddenly struck with realization—

That "Newborn" swallowed into the stomach of the Moon-Devouring Giant Toad...

It had truly... been born?!

And moreover, it was the "first" moon infant?

That is to say, in the past, the Land of Exile had never given birth to a moon infant?