Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 558 – Liu Ruyan

Rubble rolled down from the edge of the pit.

Lin Li lay at the bottom, her cheek pressed against the cold dirt, ears ringing.

Long Zhan’s claw strike had not held back.

The area from her left shoulder to her waist burned with pain, but no bones were broken.

Those translucent crystalline bones had taken the brunt for her.

She braced her hands against the ground, trying to push herself up, but the moment her fingers exerted force, the images flooded back into her mind—even more chaotic than before.

Long Xi’s face.

Long Teng’s smile.

The streets of Border Dragon City.

The dome of the Dragon Emperor Hall.

And a scene of a purple-haired woman clinging to Long Zhan’s arm, acting coquettish.

No… these memories weren’t hers.

They came from the Skin.

They were Long Ningshuang’s, Long Wu’s, and Long Xuan’s.

Their life memories mixed together, surging forth in a rush, yet refusing to piece into a complete picture.

A piece was missing in the middle.

“About myself.”

Lin Li said in a low voice.

Just then, footsteps sounded from above the pit’s edge.

Not Dragon Clan.

Human.

Running in panic, breathing short and urgent, soles clattering against broken bricks.

A woman.

Lin Li looked up.

The woman burst out from behind a half-collapsed ruin.

She wore a dark coat caked with dust and dirt, hair disheveled, her face streaked with gray-white smears of dust and sweat.

Early thirties, decent features underneath, but clearly someone who had endured much hardship.

Terrified by the commotion of the battle, she stumbled as she ran, fleeing without direction, and just like that, she charged straight to the edge of the pit.

Lin Li saw her face.

Her mind went blank with a buzz.

Her own thoughts stopped in that instant, leaving only one.

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She recognized this face.

Even five years older, without the seductive charm it once had, with fine lines at the corners of the eyes and cracked, chapped lips.

She recognized it.

Because this was the first Skin she had ever peeled with her own hands.

Liu Ruyan.

It was as if some shackle in her mind snapped with a resounding crack.

Memories surged back like a tidal wave.

A wheelchair.

The eighth floor.

Instant noodles on the balcony.

The dull thud of the arm-strength bar striking the back of a skull.

Liu Ruyan collapsing in a pool of blood, her body turning into a human Skin.

Wearing it, the real sensation of feet touching the ground.

The first day of the apocalypse.

The supermarket.

The pharmacy.

Zombies.

Zhou Ming.

Chen Yao and Lei Li at Fragrant Hills International.

The Slave Market of Border Dragon City.

Long Ningshuang’s face.

Long Yan.

Long Teng.

Long Yi.

Su Xiaoxiao.

Sun Jing.

Chu Chen.

Lu Yuan’s grinning, cheeky expression.

Zhu Yan’s stubborn refusal to give up her human identity.

White Bone Pass.

The Women’s Camp.

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Forty-three Skins.

Long Xi.

Long Hao.

The Portal.

Self-detonation.

A fall spanning three hundred years.

All of it.

All of it came back.

Lin Li… no, Lin Fan, she braced herself against the pit wall and slowly stood up.

Her head still ached, but those iridescent eyes had brightened.

That timid, soft demeanor was gone.

What remained was an extreme, profound stillness.

She looked at the trembling woman at the pit’s edge.

Liu Ruyan noticed someone in the pit too.

She glanced down, met Lin Fan’s eyes, and instinctively stepped back.

There was no killing intent in those eyes, but Liu Ruyan’s legs felt weak nonetheless.

“No… don’t kill me.”

Liu Ruyan’s voice trembled.

Lin Fan didn’t answer.

Her gaze passed over Liu Ruyan, landing on the battlefield three hundred meters away.

That black-haired man was being pressed hard by the Dragon Emperor and Long Hao working together, covered in blood, but still struggling to hold on.

His Death Rule was already growing weak. It wouldn’t hold for much longer.

Lin Fan looked back at Liu Ruyan.

Alive.

Still whole.

She had survived until now, under this otherworld Lin Fan’s hands.

She was beginning to understand.

This man, who had started from the same point as her, had killed Long Hao, absorbed the Dragon Bloodline, abandoned his humanity, and turned himself into a monster.

To get home, he had slaughtered cities and exterminated clans, throwing two worlds into chaos.

Three hundred years.

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He had been willing to throw away everything.

But from the very beginning, he had never killed Liu Ruyan.

The woman who had pushed him off a building to feed the Zombies—he had spared her life.

Why?

Because Liu Ruyan was the first.

The starting point of everything.

The proof that he was still “Lin Fan.”

If he killed her, then truly nothing would remain.

Lin Fan suddenly felt a tightness in her chest.

It wasn’t pity for that man.

It was that she saw, in him, another path—a path she herself had nearly walked.

If not for the influence of Bai Lu’s and Long Xi’s personalities…

If not for the friends along the way who had trusted her with their lives…

Would she have become like this too?

“Hey.”

Lin Li spoke.

Liu Ruyan flinched in fright.

“Run further away. Don’t stand here,” Lin Fan said.

“I don’t have time to protect you.”

Liu Ruyan scrambled away, crawling and stumbling.

Lin Fan leaped up from the pit, barefoot on the rubble.

She straightened her body.

Her white hair fell behind her, dusted with ash and blood, but the faint green patterns were slowly lighting up across her skin.

Deep in her chest, the thing that had lain dormant for who knows how long finally exploded open.

Life Origin surged from every crystallized cell, flooding her meridians, filling her dantian.

Five hundred thousand in physical constitution—returned.

Five hundred thousand in Mental Strength—returned.

Even the forgotten talents were surfacing one by one.

Lord of All Spirits.

Spirit-Flesh Unity.

Tyranny.

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Heart of Envy.

Hymn of Life.

Time Control.

All of it returned.

On the distant battlefield, the male version of Lin Fan was sent flying by the Dragon Emperor’s tail, carving a long trench through the ruins.

He pushed himself up on his knees, spat out the blood in his mouth, and caught a glimpse of the white figure three hundred meters away.

He froze.

Not because he saw Lin Li.

But because the aura on Lin Li had changed.

That blank, empty feeling was gone.

A Life Origin—both familiar and foreign—had appeared.

Familiar, because that power was exactly like the one he had once possessed and personally discarded.

Foreign, because in her, it was immeasurably stronger than his had ever been.

Long Hao felt it too.

He turned his head toward Lin Li, confusion appearing on his face for the first time.

“This Energy Level… what the hell is going on?”

Lin Fan raised her right hand.

She looked at her palm, feeling the power surging from within her body.

Then she smiled.

A faint, gentle smile.

“I remember everything now,” she said.

Her voice was soft, but every person on the battlefield heard it clearly.

Including the black-haired man who was still coughing up blood.

His pupils contracted sharply.

Lin Li took a step forward, walking toward the battlefield.

With every step, tender green sprouts pushed up through the rubble beneath her feet.

“You spent three hundred years trying to get home.”

Her voice drifted across the ruins, reaching that man’s ears.

“Funny thing.”

“Now I’m going home too.”