Rong Chunsong carefully examined the details of a certain item.
【Item "Dream-Weaving Rhinoceros Incense: Spring Dream": This item can be used to construct a dream for the target character, and the Host may enter said dream. When the target character's Favorability Value toward the Host is above 40, both parties may engage in certain delightful springtime activities within the dream. The Host may freely arrange the setting and methods of the activities.】
【The higher the target character's Favorability Value toward the Host, the higher the Pleasure Value for both parties. Friendly reminder: within the dream, the target character's obsession with "things their subconscious desires" will intensify. Please be mindful of your limits—don't get so carried away during activities that you lose yourself and go wild! Otherwise, after the dream ends, the target may develop obsessive feelings toward the Host.】
What followed was an enthusiastic recommendation of various "activity settings" and "activity types."
Mm. A recommendation several thousand words long. As if afraid the Host's ideas wouldn't be creative enough.
This item's details were surprisingly long.
She scrolled and scrolled, and after scrolling past that long string of edge-wiping descriptions to the very end, she finally saw the effects for when the Favorability Value is below 40.
【When the target character's Favorability Value toward the Host is below 40, this item can be used to construct a dream for the target character, and the Host may enter the target's dream. However, after entering the dream, activities cannot be performed.】
【The Host may make simple arrangements to the dream scene; the specific presentation depends on the target's subconscious within the dream—that is, when Favorability is below 40, the Host's control over the dream is inferior to the target's.】
【Due to numerous uncontrollable factors, it is not recommended that you use this item when the target's Favorability Value is below 40.】
When Rong Chunsong saw the phrases "numerous uncontrollable factors" and "not recommended," she thought to herself: You're the one I'm choosing. Go forth, Dream-Weaving Rhinoceros Incense!
The more difficult it was, the more she wanted to take on the challenge.
When the Favorability Value is below 40, this item truly lived up to its name—a spring dream.
She opened the Dream-Weaving Panel. The initial scene was one of spring warmth and bright scenery: early orioles vying for the warm trees, new swallows pecking at the spring mud.
Currently, the target character's Favorability Value was too low, so the arrangement permissions granted to her were not many—but arranging a garden was more than enough.
Abandoning 【Area】, she poured all her points into 【Rendering】.
Bringing out the flair of playing a building game, Rong Chunsong enthusiastically tapped away on the panel.
A swallow's cry came from the treetops.
Swallow cries, oriole songs, the rustling of leaves.
Shang Daoling opened his eyes to a scene of lush green shadows. Was he in a tree?
He distinctly remembered choosing to lodge in a desolate rural temple.
Casting his gaze downward, he saw a garden.
From within the garden came intermittent, indistinct human voices. The words were unintelligible—only the tone could be discerned, and it was quite respectful. But they were all adult voices; there was no laughter of children at play.
At this moment, Rong Chunsong was watching from outside as well. She immediately spotted the richly dressed child with black markings, surrounded by attendants. But why did this child seem, uh, a bit dim-witted? He looked five or six years old, yet seemed unable to speak, dull and slow. No way—could the great male lead have been an idiot as a child, only wising up later?
Shang Daoling sat in the tree with his arms crossed, watching coldly. A shadow covered the upper half of his face, making his expression unreadable.
"Who is playing tricks here, constructing this boring dream?"
"Sect Master, it wouldn't happen to be you again, would it?"
The female ghost admitted it readily enough.
A woman's voice soon echoed through the void: "Yes, it was me. Got a problem?"
He let out a faint chuckle. "Your Excellency the Sect Leader, you toyed with me during the day, and at night you pry into my privacy and trap me in this dream."
His Daoist robe fluttering, Shang Daoling leaped down from the tree, landing as lightly as an ink-black fox.
He was versed in hundreds of techniques for breaking through Illusory Realms or Dream-Weaving Arts. Perhaps this Ghost Immortal's Magic Array was not as easy to shatter as those he had encountered before, but if he cast his spells a few more times, he would soon—
Yet before him lay a lush expanse of spring scenery, with voices and laughter drifting like a veil of mist before his eyes, impossible to brush away.
This was his only memory of the "home" he once had.
She dared… she actually dared to pry into his most deeply buried memories. Like a hand descending from the heavens, churning seas and overturning rivers, dredging up from the darkest corner of the ocean's depths the most treasured shell of a vicious flood dragon.
That hand plucked the shell up and toyed with it.
[Ding. Target Shang Daoling's Favorability Value -3. Current Favorability Value: 10.]
Rong Chunsong raised an eyebrow. So the favorability could go down too?
But soon—
[Ding. Target Shang Daoling's Favorability Value +3. Current Favorability Value: 13.]
Fine, at least he knew what was good for him.
Shang Daoling's face betrayed no expression, save for the spring sunlight spilling into his pitch-black eyes. This shell, long corroded at the bottom of the sea—had that hand not retrieved it, he might have forgotten the faint glow it once cast during his days of wandering and drifting.
For some reason, he did not cast the spell to dispel the dream. Instead, he stood still beneath the tree, gazing into the scenes unfolding before him.
In the dream, a warm afternoon breeze blew past, brushing gently against his face.
And a crippled child, a youth who had wandered the four seas—the sparse memories such a one could recall had never carried so vivid a breeze.
He extended his right hand—the same one she had repaired—and the balmy wind swept over his whole, restored hand. The afternoon breeze, like a heavenly maiden seated high on a lotus throne casually sprinkling a few drops of nectar, brushed past his arm and slipped through his fingers.
Following the direction the breeze carried, not far off stood two figures.
The Ghost Immortal spoke again at his ear: "Won't you go take a look?"
He did not answer, merely stepping forward a few paces as if at random.
When the last screen of leaves and blossoms fell away, Shang Daoling's form abruptly froze.
The two figures were nothing but wavering gray shadows—chaotic and hollow. Like two tears ripped through the fabric of a beautiful painting.
Cold fury surged through him, and a sheet of icy fire rose from his organs.
All the blood in his body rushed to his skull, and his gaze turned utterly sinister.
"Your Excellency the Sect Leader, you show me this?" The man standing in the shadow of the ancient tree let out a cold laugh.
Mocking him for having no father or mother?
Mocking that his long-lost family were nothing but hollow phantoms?
Veins bulged along his pale cheeks as Shang Daoling's fists clenched tighter and tighter, his knuckles cracking audibly.
[Ding. Target Shang Daoling's Favorability Value -1.]
[Ding. Target Shang Daoling's Favorability Value -2.]
[Ding. Target Shang Daoling's Favorability Value -5.]
[Ding. Target Shang Daoling's Favorability Value -10.]
[Ding. Target Shang Daoling's Favorability Value -…]
The alerts blasted one after another at his ear as the Favorability Value plummeted sharply. But Rong Chunsong remained perfectly composed, unhurried and unruffled.
She hadn't entered the dream again—she was just watching the livestream. No matter how much he raged, he was only breaking down at thin air.
She spoke slowly: "In this dream, I've only built the scenery of this garden. As for everything else, it all depends on your own will."
"I can indeed fill in clothing and faces for these two shadows."
Actually, she couldn't—because the original novel never described them, and even if it had, she had no way to precisely sculpt the faces of these people who seemed to be his parents based on text alone.
"But in your memories, you've never clearly recalled what these two looked like, have you? In this dream, as long as you try hard to remember, perhaps you'll be able to see their features clearly. Rather than me filling in the blanks, wouldn't it be better for you to remember it yourself? This is the little gift I'm giving you."
Of course, whether he could remember still depended on his own subconscious.
But then again, this male lead had the best memory in the entire book—he'd seek blood for blood over the smallest grudge. Recalling two people should be more than easy for him! She had full confidence in this virtual pet's attribute values. Besides, she'd lit the Dream-Weaving Rhinoceros Incense, which came with a BUFF that strengthened the obsession with things the subconscious desired.
Shang Daoling's eyes darkened for a moment.
As long as you try hard to remember, perhaps you'll be able to see their features clearly.
He squeezed a scoff from his throat.
Try hard to remember? A little gift?
Why should he dance to her tune!
But beneath his fury, irrepressibly, his thoughts gradually drifted back to that distant afternoon.
She truly… had seen through his every thought.
Remembering the appearance of those two was the thing he'd most wanted to do throughout his childhood, wandering like a wild dog.
Spring wood bears glory, spreading leaves cast shade, the sky fair as if wiped clean. In distant memory, his even younger self was like a stone, insensate to the outside world—but warm sunlight shone upon a stone without bias or favor. In this garden at the edge of the sky, these attendants who played with him, these two who gazed at him with smiles—they were the only ones in the world who hadn't looked at him with contempt and disgust.
He stood there for a long time, until the two chaotic figures before him took on a trace of color.
It actually worked…
She hadn't lied to him.
Both wore splendid crimson robes. One with handsome features, one with a gentle and graceful bearing, both wearing smiles as they looked toward the child not far away. Though their exact features still weren't quite clear, compared to what he'd seen in his past memories, it was already much more distinct.
The beloved smiles from memory reappeared before his eyes—he who had long since become a man with no family left.
Rong Chunsong also zoomed in on the image to look.
There seemed to be some kind of emblem on the two people's clothing, but it was blurry and indistinct. She casually found a piece of drawing paper from the drawer and sketched its rough outline.
As she drew, she heard the sound of the Favorability Value rising.
[Ding. Target of conquest Shang Daoling's Favorability Value +1.]
[Ding. Target of conquest Shang Daoling's Favorability Value +2.]
[Ding. Target of conquest Shang Daoling's Favorability Value +5.]
[Ding…]
Ding-ding and dong-dong, everything was within her grasp.
Boring.
Truly utterly boring.
It was just her method of domination—reward and punishment combined, seeing through his heart to control him.
Creating this boring dreamscape, using a bit of magic to let him see the faces of his family in the dream—did she think this would make him loyal and devoted unto death?
And yet.
A child once held dear in someone's palms had, in the blink of an eye, become an orphan shunned like a rat in the streets. Having glimpsed such a past, by this Ghost Immortal's usual pattern, she could have heaped scorn upon him.
But she did not.
Instead, she had constructed such a tedious dream and led him into it…
He had dabbled in the Dream-Weaving Art himself, and a dream this vivid—no matter how accomplished the dream-weaver's magical prowess—could not have been conjured without considerable effort.
Why? Pity? Charity?
Leisurely, she spoke again at his ear: "You spread Lotus Heaven's renown at Gusu Terrace—this is my little reward to you." She deliberately lowered her voice, as if teasing, as if joking, as if she had seen through his thoughts and was telling him this was neither pity nor charity.
A gentle, warm breeze drifted past, and for a fleeting moment, one could almost mistake it for her breath brushing against his ear.
Shang Daoling's breathing hitched for a breath, and his pitch-black, deep-set eyes trembled for an instant.
Sweet dew falling from the heavens might merely be that celestial maiden's careless sprinkle. But even what she casually scattered was not to be refused by anyone.
Besides, he could not… He stood frozen on the ground, unable to utter a single word of refusal. Like a man walking through a desert who looks up to find raindrops drifting down. Soft rain and sweet nectar fell upon him, faintly warm. A fine drizzle, a few threads of unfamiliar warmth, was enough to send a fine, dense tremor rolling through him, a fine, dense tingling numbness.
How tedious.
How ridiculous.
How could he be moved by such a tedious little reward…
Rong Chunsong propped her chin on one hand, watching his stiffened form in the scene, quite satisfied.
The Favorability Value rose and fell, fluctuating wildly, before finally settling at 25.
It had started at 13 points—this fellow, not knowing when he was well off, had made it drop—only to climb back up by 12 points after the turn of events.
Well, though it was on the low side, it still met her expectations.
It seemed that before the main story of the Celestial Feast of Consumption began, Shang Daoling had not yet lost all humanity. A shred of lingering emotion remained, enough to be stirred by a wisp of spring sunlight in his memories.
This illusory dream seemed only able to replay fragments from his memory: an attendant accompanying a child along a winding path, disappearing behind a moon-gate, then reappearing at the start of the garden trail. And those two figures, even with their faces somewhat clearer now, simply remained in their smiling poses, unmoving.
He gazed at the scene looping before him, standing there for a long while, until the Ghost Immortal spoke at his ear: "Why are you standing there frozen? Before this dream ends, just wander around and take in the sights. Consider it a sect garden tour and team-building exercise."
Shang Daoling's tone was as usual, as if the inner turmoil of moments ago had never happened. He only smiled casually: "Sect Master, what strange word is 'team-building'?"
Yet another ding sounded—the Favorability Value was now 26.
This fellow was putting on his air of calm detachment again, as if nothing had occurred. But well, it seemed that once a baseline of Favorability Value was established, gaining more came easily—a few casual words sufficed.
The foundation was laid, and the building stood firm!
Rong Chunsong said: "It means team building—organizing a little activity to strengthen team cohesion."
Shang Daoling let out a light laugh: "A sect with only the Sect Master and me as members—can that even count as a team?"
Rong Chunsong immediately retorted: "Of course you're not my only believer. Beneath my command, I have tens of thousands of followers."
This guy is destined to be a cult leader. But his cult—she wasn't entirely opposed to finding a way to whitewash it and gladly accept it, after all, an army of loyal followers bound by faith was genuinely tempting.
That being the case, his followers, rounding up, were naturally her followers too—subsidiary employees of the conglomerate, so to speak. Was there any problem with declaring in advance that she commanded tens of thousands of devotees under her banner?