"Nonsense!" Gu Mian immediately retorted, "Your instance is a disaster, so the houses you build are also shoddy, which is perfectly reasonable."

Slaughter was pacing anxiously and didn't have time to listen to his arguments, only searching the house for the loose-leaf door key to send Gu Mian down, as if the house would collapse if he stayed a second longer.

Gu Mian watched as Slaughter approached the sofa, reaching into the gap between the couch cushions.

When at home, he often couldn't find the remote control, and there were many times when Fatty found it in the sofa crevice.

Just then, while groping the sofa crevice, Slaughter suddenly touched something rectangular.

What is this?

He puzzledly pulled it out from the gap, finding a remote control in his hand.

A strange remote control.

Slaughter froze for two seconds, then immediately turned around to look at Gu Mian: "What are you thinking again? I beg you, stop imagining things!"

Gu Mian, embarrassed, turned his head away.

It seemed Slaughter was quite afraid he'd think of something dangerous, like a bomb detonated by remote control, a giant excavator that could level this place, or a direct earthquake reducing it to rubble.

Just as he was pondering, Gu Mian suddenly felt the ground seem to shake.

Slaughter finally found the key behind the cushion, but before he could relax, he suddenly felt the sofa seemed to be shaking.

No, it's not just the sofa.

His shadow cast on the ground was also shaking, and he turned around in astonishment to see the entire room beginning to vibrate slightly. The projector on the ceiling trembled left and right, and the electronic display on the balcony turned pitch black due to the shaking.

And the instigator was standing awkwardly in the center of the living room, pretending to look at the scenery outside the balcony.

The mechanical dog that came in with him was also wobbling around on the ground, bumping its head against Gu Mian's leg.

"You, you..." Slaughter's hand holding the key began to tremble, he stared at Gu Mian, uttering two "you" without managing to say anything further.

No need to think, it's certainly Gu Mian causing the shaking.

He was so angry he couldn't speak, his pallid face flushing with a thin layer of redness from anger.

Luckily, the earthquake wasn't very destructive, the ground seemed like a reluctant employee, merely shook symbolically, then settled down.

"Immediately, get down this instant!" Slaughter clutched the key in one hand, grabbed the helmet with the other, and swiftly walked to the loose-leaf door beneath the carpet, his voice trembling from excitement, "If you stay here any longer, this... it'll be the end of me. We must go down immediately and see that statue, once you've seen it, hurry and get lost!"

If this place collapsed, the helmet would have to be welded onto his head until he constructed another house to isolate consciousness.

He said, trembling slightly, as he inserted the newly found key into the keyhole.

Since his emotions hadn't calmed, Slaughter had to align several times before fully inserting the key, then he twisted it, a "click" sounded from the lock hole.

The specialized material of the loose-leaf door slowly rose, transforming into a staircase leading downward.

Gu Mian curiously leaned over to look, "This thing is quite smart."

Slaughter put on the helmet and descended the stairs, then impatiently beckoned Gu Mian, "The Evil God statue is right below, hurry and come down with me."

He felt his house couldn't endure another hit from Gu Mian.

Gu Mian also ascended the stairs with the mechanical dog by his feet.

Then the loose-leaf door slowly descended, leaving only 'Fatty' in the living room muttering to himself, "Where's my key? Where's my key? Where's my key?"

Watching the loose-leaf door close overhead, Slaughter finally breathed a sigh of relief, now Gu Mian couldn't continue wrecking his house.

"The statue is at the very bottom, just follow the stairs all the way down and you'll see it." He spoke feeling better.

The underground was unlike above, taking a few seconds for Gu Mian to adjust to the lighting here.

This was a cylindrical, vertically downward space, like an expanded well.

The stone staircase underfoot spiraled down along the wall, Gu Mian took a glance down from the stairs, below was a deep black hole, even with wall lamps illuminating the walls, the bottom of the cavern was invisible.

The air here was somewhat moist, and the stone steps underfoot even had moss growing on them, with no railing at the staircase edge, descending carefully to avoid slipping and falling.

A person dying was trivial, but damaging the Evil God statue would be bad.

This downward cavern wasn't made of special material, unable to block thought lines, so Slaughter donned a helmet upon entering.

"Going down these stairs is really tedious, why not listen to the story I hadn't finished earlier. Ah! Where did I leave off... Oh right, I mentioned my skin color wasn't like this before." Gu Mian had only taken two steps down when he heard exaggerated, insincere voices nearby.

Slaughter didn't seem to have anything to say but chatted endlessly, probably fearing Gu Mian might think up some brilliant idea out of boredom.

"Previously, there was no difference in appearance between the Upper Class People and lower-class people, standing together they couldn't be distinguished by the naked eye, until that statue appeared." At this point, Slaughter's exaggerated voice became somewhat somber, seemingly recalling something unpleasant.

"That statue can fulfill wishes, often people would wish upon it. Although most of the wishes it fulfilled were failures or simple, there were one or two surprises, and an Upper Class Person's wish was perfectly realized by the statue."

Saying this, he instinctively lowered his head to look at his hands, hands reflecting a deathly white glow beneath the nearby wall lamp, a color Gu Mian often saw on corpses.

He continued descending while listening to Slaughter tell stories.

"The one who bathed in acid... just now I mentioned about the Upper Class Person whose bath suddenly became acid, thanks to others' timely discovery he managed to survive, but his skin was eroded by acid, even his face was no exception;

"When first rescued, he looked like a melting monster, his skin drooping layer by layer, even affecting his facial features, can you imagine, one of his eyes was in the normal position, but the other was nearly drooping to the nose. No, he didn't have a nose anymore then, where his nose had been were merely two holes for breathing;

"He became something not quite human nor ghostly, yet didn't resent the statue. Knowing that it was due to the statue that he ended up looking that way, he not only refrained from blame but also frequently came here to solemnly wish;

"He believed firmly that the statue was the work of a god, since a god could turn him into that wretched state, surely the god could restore him to his original form. At first he came almost daily, wishing to be restored, wishing to return to how he was before;

"Day after day, day after day, 'the god' never fulfilled his wishes. Over time, his piety slowly turned to doubt, he grew angry, questioned, covered his face with his nearly melted hands and sobbed, but to no avail."

Slaughter's eyes appeared somewhat vacant, his mind wandered back to those distant memories: "Later, for quite a long time, I didn't see him again. When we met again two years later, I was genuinely startled, not knowing what he had experienced, he had cast off his previous despair, becoming crazed yet confident;

"He told me this time 'the god' would surely hear his plea, he had thoroughly understood the deity's intentions, figured out how to induce the god's blessings;

"So I led him to the statue, I also hoped he could return to how he used to be, ever since he became like that, he changed in many ways, in every aspect I hoped he could revert to his old self;

"But I never imagined his wish wasn't to return to the past, but a grand, terrifying wish encompassing the entire world."