“Eh?!
Old geezer!
What are you doing here?!”
Nian opened the door after hearing someone knock.
The moment she saw Hongyu standing outside, her expression transformed into one of astonishment and delight.
“Can’t I come visit you without a particular reason?”
Hongyu tilted his head and smiled.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, ‘What are you doing here?'”
“Don’t I come see you every time you finish writing me a letter?”
‘Hmm…’
‘Why does that sound so familiar?’
‘I feel like I said exactly the same thing to Shu once…’
‘Ah, all this repeated teleporting must be scrambling my brain.’
“Haah, that’s different!”
Nian leaned forward with a grin and playfully nudged Hongyu in the side with her elbow.
“Every other time, you just appear out of nowhere, say a few words, and disappear again before I can even figure out what’s going on!”
“But this time, you actually knocked on the door!”
“Does that mean you’re planning to stay here for a while?”
“Ha!
Congratulations, you guessed correctly!”
Hongyu casually walked into Nian’s residence in Shangshu.
“Your prize is one lonely old man named Hongyu!”
“I’ll be in your care for the foreseeable future, Nian.”
“A lonely old man?
You?”
Nian shut the door behind him, looking thoroughly unconvinced.
“What about little Dusky and Sister Ling?”
“Little Dusky…?”
Hongyu looked genuinely surprised.
‘Wait, that nickname still came into existence?’
‘Ah, how strangely nostalgic…’
‘Though I’m not entirely sure why.’
“You mean Dusk, right?”
“Well, she and your Sister Ling have gone off to travel around Great Yan together.”
“So now I really am a lonely old man.”
“What?
Don’t tell me you don’t want me staying with you?”
As he asked, Hongyu made a show of wiping away tears that didn’t exist.
“Haaah.
As expected.
Once children grow up, they all start…”
Nian immediately gave him the equivalent of a sweating, exasperated emoji.
“Alright, alright, that’s enough, old geezer.”
‘Huh…’
‘Why does this feel even more familiar?’
‘I’m pretty sure another version of me is having almost exactly the same conversation with Shu right now.’
‘As expected of sisters, I suppose.’
‘They can both see straight through my magnificent acting skills!’
“Heh, perfect timing!
I’ve bought a whole bunch of storybooks here in Shangshu recently.”
“You know what storybooks are, right?
Those books where people write down the stories they’ve imagined?”
“I’ve found a few really interesting ones!”
Nian had stopped responding to Hongyu’s theatrics.
Instead, she enthusiastically began introducing him to her latest hobby.
‘Storybooks?’
‘Oh, novels.’
‘Now that’s something I’m familiar with.’
‘Back when I first arrived in the world of Arknights, I actually considered making a fortune by plagiarizing famous novels from my previous life.’
‘Unfortunately, my writing skills were so terrible that I gave up after just two chapters.’
Hongyu scratched his head and pushed the distracting thoughts aside.
On the surface, everything seemed perfectly fine.
She was energetic enough to throw an arm around his shoulders and joke with him.
But what Hongyu discovered beneath that cheerful exterior was far from reassuring.
‘Nian…’
‘Has she already started questioning her own existence?’
Hongyu had originally assumed that Dusk or Ling would be the first to suffer from the erosion of Sui’s consciousness.
To his surprise, however, the earliest signs had actually appeared in Nian.
Nian, who had never displayed even the slightest indication that something was wrong.
‘But why has this girl been hiding it from me?’
‘If I hadn’t become worried about everyone after Dusk started showing such obvious symptoms, I might never have come to investigate.’
‘Nian probably would have kept this secret from me forever…’
‘Was this the reason she originally asked to leave home?’
‘Haaah…’
‘I’m really not a very competent Grand Warden, am I?’
‘Fortunately, things haven’t reached the worst possible outcome yet.’
‘There’s still time.’
“Storybooks?
Of course I know what storybooks are!”
Hongyu waved his hand dismissively, smoothly picking up the conversation.
“Don’t seriously treat me like some old geezer who only knows how to read newspapers.”
At the same time, without Nian noticing, he began suppressing Sui’s consciousness within her.
Instantly, a wave of dizziness and intense pain assaulted Hongyu’s mind.
His brows tightened almost imperceptibly.
The shoulder around which Nian had draped her arm also stiffened slightly.
Fortunately, the normally carefree Nian failed to notice anything unusual.
Instead, after hearing Hongyu deny being an old geezer, she immediately began teasing him.
“Oh, really?”
“Then who was it that used to wake up before sunrise and go outside for walks carrying a cage with a featherbeast inside?”
Nian’s tone was merciless.
“That was ages ago!
Besides, after that featherbeast died of old age, I never raised another one…”
Hongyu averted his gaze.
“And who was it that kept dragging Big Brother out of bed at the crack of dawn to practice Tai Chi?”
Nian refused to let up.
“That was your big brother’s idea!
Don’t drag me into it!”
Hongyu was rapidly running out of excuses.
“Alright, old geezer, no matter how much you argue, you can’t hide the fact that you’re older than all of us giant beasts.”
“An ordinary human would’ve died centuries ago!”
Nian delivered the finishing blow.
“…”
The corners of Hongyu’s mouth twitched.
It was the first time anyone had been so relentlessly determined to tease him about his age.
Fortunately, he didn’t particularly care about the subject.
If he had been a woman with the same personality, Nian would probably already have found herself receiving a rather stern reminder of her childhood.
“Fine, fine!
I’m an old man!”
Hongyu raised his head proudly.
“But even so, I’m still a charming, handsome, stylish old man who’s thousands of years ahead of his time!”
“…”
Nian fell completely silent.
Then she smiled.
‘Still the same as ever, Yu.’
If someone called him narcissistic, well…
He really was handsome.
Even when he concealed his eyes, and despite his rather inconsistent work habits, the Sui Regulator still attracted an unusually large number of young women hoping to become Candleholders.
There wasn’t much mystery behind it.
But if someone claimed he wasn’t narcissistic…
Well, here was a man several hundred years old who still couldn’t resist bragging about his own appearance.
His attitude really was remarkably youthful.
Nevertheless, Nian liked Hongyu.
She always had, both in the past and in the present.
Even after several centuries, he still retained the appearance he’d possessed when they first met.
His personality seemed just as youthful as ever.
Being around him sometimes made Nian feel as though she’d never grown up.
As though time itself had stopped flowing for the man beside her.
‘Ever since I was little, I’ve always thought that old geezer could do absolutely anything.’
‘There doesn’t seem to be a single subject he isn’t good at.’
‘Even if I wanted to learn more about him…’
‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
‘Although Yu still has plenty of time, so there’s no need to rush.’
‘But what about me…?’
The influence of Sui’s consciousness caused Nian’s mood to gradually sink.
She casually reached toward a nearby shelf and picked up another storybook.
Then she began explaining its contents to Hongyu.
“Now, this one’s really interesting!”
“It’s about a scholar traveling to the imperial capital to take the examinations.
One day, while passing through a remote wilderness…”
Nian enthusiastically began describing the plot.
“…He rescues a little Vulpo, and several years later, that same creature transforms into a beautiful Vulpo woman who comes looking for the scholar to repay his kindness?”
Hongyu interrupted her before she could finish.
Honestly, it was rather impressive.
Only in Great Yan a thousand years ago could such an overused storyline still become wildly popular.
‘What exactly are you reading?’
‘Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio?’
‘Even that book wouldn’t bother with something this predictable!’
“Eh?
Old geezer, you’ve already read this one?”
“Well…
something like that.”
‘The story is such a classic cliché that it’d be harder not to know it.’
Hongyu sighed inwardly.
“Hmm…
The novels coming out this year are really padded, aren’t they?”
Nian was sprawled across a sofa in a lazy, slouched position, holding a novel in her hands.
“They’re terrible.”
Dusk offered a much more straightforward assessment.
Bad writing was bad writing, no matter how anyone tried to dress it up.
“They’re even worse than the opening ceremony of that international sporting event Gaul held years ago.”
“By the way, didn’t you adapt a bunch of Sir’s stories into movies?”
Dusk suddenly became curious.
“How did those turn out?”
Of course, what she was really interested in were Hongyu’s stories.
The movies Nian had made were merely an afterthought.
“Well, the movies based on the old geezer’s stories were all pretty successful.”
Nian shrugged.
“It’s just that every movie based on my own ideas has been a complete disaster…”
Thus spoke the most legendary director in Great Yan’s history, who was somehow simultaneously one of its greatest and worst filmmakers.
To this day, every movie directed by Nian had fallen into one of two categories.
Either it became a masterpiece celebrated throughout Great Yan…
Or it turned into an absolute disaster that would struggle to earn even a 2.0 rating on Douban.
As a result, whenever Nian began recruiting actors for a new production, every performer approached the opportunity as though they were taking a gamble.
‘What if Director Nian’s next movie becomes another enormous hit?’
Many people were willing to take that chance.
Unfortunately, if Nian decided not to base the film on one of Hongyu’s stories…
Then the actors who participated were probably about to acquire a rather embarrassing stain on their careers.