The system’s prompt tone rang out right on cue: Triggered Side Quest 2—Resolve Sui Yu’s inner knot. You must guide him to personally ‘kill’ you within the illusionary realm in order to break the deadlock.
Yun Mu froze: Let him kill me with his own hands?! Are you even listening to yourself?!
Mumu, this nightmare illusion is influenced by the Ghost King’s resentment, stirring up Sui Yu’s negative childhood memories. You are the person he subconsciously wants to kill the most, and it has already become an obsession. Until the obsession is broken, he will never be able to wake up, the system explained. In the early stages, the host needs to play the ‘redeemer’ and make him believe that he, too, is worthy of being loved. In the later stages, shatter the illusion, smash the redemption filter, and let Sui Yu personally take action to break the deadlock.
Ah-shibal, honestly, just come and give my neck a slash instead. This kind of quest is toxic as hell. Rather than waiting to be messed with this way and that by the villain protagonist in the future, committing suicide right now feels way more refreshing!
The system gave two awkward ha-has: Mumu, don’t be discouraged! The reward for this quest is generous. Who knows, by the time you wake up, Sui Yu’s darkening value might have dropped.
Don’t feed me pie in the sky, I’m already stuffed!
“Who are you?” Young Sui Yu asked hoarsely.
“I’m the person coming to take you home.” Yun Mu choked back a lump in his throat, somewhat irritably untying his outer robe to wrap him up. “From now on, no one will bully you ever again.”
Young Sui Yu suddenly grabbed Yun Mu’s wrist with shocking force: “You’re lying.” The fur on his ear tips trembled slightly in the rain. “Everyone hates me, fears me, and says I’m a monster. No one will ever be good to me. You’re a liar!”
“I’m not lying to you.” Yun Mu pulled him into his arms, feeling how shockingly thin the little fellow was. “I’ll take you to eat osmanthus sugar cake and buy you new clothes, alright?”
Yun Mu currently felt that he definitely looked a lot like a scammer abducting a child.
Young Sui Yu bit back his tears, half-believing: “Really?”
“Really.” Yun Mu stroked his white, fluffy ears. “My name is Yun Mu, and from now on, I am your Master.”
The osmanthus tree in the illusion was just sprouting fresh buds. Yun Mu squatted in the corner of the courtyard watering the vegetables, catching out of the corner of his eye that Sui Yu was peering out from behind the bamboo curtains, clutching a scroll of Basic Alchemy Recipes.
The fur on the youth’s ear tips was dampened by the morning dew, drooping limply in the spring breeze: “Master, does the growth cycle of this ‘Flame Grass’ really need to be memorized across three full pages?”
“Idol.” Yun Mu flicked the water droplets off his hand and deliberately put on a stern face, “The Dao of Alchemy values drawing inferences about other cases from one instance. Memorizing it ten times doesn’t compare to following me to refine a furnace of Qi-Gathering Pills.”
Though he said that, he still turned around and fished a piece of osmanthus sugar cake off the stone table, tossing it over while deliberately slowing down his spiritual power so that the cake landed precisely in Sui Yu’s palm.
The instant the youth lowered his head and bit into the sugar cake, a sudden surge of sourness welled up in Yun Mu’s throat.
He gazed at the rolling green mountains outside the courtyard, at the cowlick sticking up atop Sui Yu’s head, and at that string of copper bells beneath the eaves chiming in the wind. All these vibrant, down-to-earth details were entirely projections of Sui Yu’s subconscious depiction of ‘home’.
Yet the system’s countdown had already exploded within his sea of consciousness for three days, every “tick-tock” striking his heart like a heavy hammer.
Mumu! The system’s electronic voice abruptly pierced through the morning mist. The compatibility between Sui Yu’s divine soul and the illusionary realm has reached 92%. The vitality of his real-world body is gradually fading. In seven days at most, his spiritual meridians will completely wither away.
Yun Mu’s hand trembled violently, and the copper ladle used for watering vegetables dropped to the ground with a clatter.
He stared at Sui Yu, who had squatted down to help him pick up the ladle. Sugar residue still clung to the youth’s eyelashes, and when he looked up, his eyes held a light clearer than the morning dew: “Is Master tired? I’ll go warm a pot of tea.”
“No need.” Yun Mu grabbed his wrist, gripping with a force so heavy it nearly pinched out red marks.
Sui Yu let out a soft gasp of pain, making Yun Mu realize he had lost his composure, and he hurriedly loosened his grip.
“Sui-sui, have you ever thought… that everything here isn’t real?”
The youth’s movements paused.
He gently placed the copper ladle back onto the stone table, his fingertips rubbing against the red mark Yun Mu had just pinched: “Master is talking nonsense again.” A hint of aggrieved laughter laced his voice. “Just the day before yesterday, you even said you’d wait for the osmanthus trees to bloom and brew osmanthus wine for me.”
“I was lying to you!” Yun Mu grew anxious, turning to grab the youth’s shoulders and shake him. “You were locked in the cellar when you were little, thrown into the mass grave, and cursed as a monster by everyone those are the real things! Everything here is just an illusion conjured up by your own mind!”
Sui Yu’s pupils contracted slightly.
He gazed at Yun Mu’s reddened eye rims, suddenly reaching out to cover the back of the other person’s trembling hand. The youth’s palms were scalding hot, as though trying to brand that warmth into Yun Mu’s bones and blood: “Why must Master lie to me?” The youth’s palm was burning hot, as if trying to brand the temperature into Yun Mu’s bones and blood. “That day at the mass grave, you were the one who said you’d take me home. You took care of me in every way, bought me osmanthus sugar cakes, bought me new clothes, taught me to read, write, cultivate immortality, and refine alchemy… The other day when I caught a cold and coughed, you stayed up the whole night, warming my hands against your chest…”
He paused here for a moment, lowering his head to kiss the back of Yun Mu’s hand: “Could all of this… also be fake?”
Yun Mu’s breathing hitched abruptly. He suddenly recalled that he himself wasn’t restricted by the system within the illusion; he could act as he pleased without needing to maintain the persona of a vicious master, and all that tenderness was the overflow of his true heart.
Turns out the scariest thing wasn’t Sui Yu wallowing in an illusion filled with hatred, but rather… that he finally dared to believe there really was someone in this world who would treat him unconditionally and without reservation.
Mumu, time waits for no one. After all, this is just a nightmare illusion. If you don’t make him take action… you’ll both die here.
Yun Mu helplessly closed his eyes, his thought flickered to summon the natal weapon Siyu Sword from within his sea of consciousness, and he inspected it for a moment.
Sigh, he had never seen anyone rush so eagerly to court death like this. Might as well slack off, time to lie flat!
This kind of life was truly not meant for humans. Too tired to hustle, too restless to lie flat, repeatedly doing sit-ups how exhausting must that be!
When Yun Mu shoved the sword into Sui Yu’s hands, the youth’s fingertips were trembling: “What is Master doing?”
“Pierce it in.” Yun Mu gripped his hand, pressing the tip of the sword against his own heart. “Everything is fake, Master lied to you about everything. Love and hatred neutralizing each other, shattering all calamities only this way can you truly wake up.”
“I won’t!” Sui Yu suddenly flung the sword away and stepped back, the sword body dropping to the ground with a clatter. “You said you would never leave me!”
His ear tips instantly flushed crimson, then rapidly faded back to a deathly pale: “Is it because I didn’t do well enough somewhere? I’m slow at learning alchemy, always hurt myself practicing swordsmanship, and even my ears are… are so weird…”
“No, you aren’t.”
Yun Mu stepped forward and pulled Sui Yu into his arms.
The youth’s back was taut like a bowstring, yet he still tentatively hugged him back in return.
“Sui-sui is wonderful, so wonderful that it makes me…” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Makes me not want to face the real you in reality.”
The final syllable dissolved into the wind as Yun Mu’s spiritual power surged forth like a tidal wave, wrapping around Sui Yu’s wrist to force his grip back onto the hilt.
The instant the sword tip pierced through his garments, the illusionary realm began to collapse.
Blue tiles and white walls turned into fragments, and the fragrance of osmanthus trees was replaced by the stench of rotting corpses.
Yun Mu gazed at the swirling pain in the depths of Sui Yu’s eyes, whispering softly, “I’ll wait for you outside.”