My Shijie Seems Intent on Destroying the World – Chapter 39
by Little PandaQuestioning the Heart
Beat Someone Up, Me?
Qi Zhi sat with her chin cupped in both hands, staring at the two jade cups on the table for a long while — and in the end, she didn’t pour them together.
Mu Qingshi watched from the side. Suddenly hearing Qi Zhi sigh, she couldn’t help asking, “The wine is right in front of you. Don’t you want to dream again?”
“I do.” Qi Zhi answered honestly.
“Then what’s stopping you? I’m right here. If you want to, go ahead.”
Qi Zhi shook her head and said earnestly, “The dream was wonderful, but it was false. Once was enough. Any more than that, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to carry on once I woke.”
It was rather like how someone who has eaten too many sweets finds bitterness hard to bear.
There were so many people in this villa sunk deep in those dreams, past all pulling themselves free — Qi Zhi hardly believed she could withstand the temptation better than every last one of them.
Hearing this, Mu Qingshi reached over and stroked Qi Zhi’s head.
Qi Zhi tilted her face up, gazing into Mu Qingshi’s eyes. “Shijie, don’t you ever want to step into a dream and take a look?”
“What I want, no dream can give.” Mu Qingshi’s smile was faint and untroubled. “Nor do I need a dream to give it.”
— What does Shijie want?
On reflex, Qi Zhi wanted to follow the thread and ask. But with the words at her lips, she felt it would overstep her place.
After a brief silence, she said in a small voice, “That little rabbit… it seemed to be trying to talk me out of renewing my dream. Does it say a word to everyone who wants to renew? Or did it simply see that I’m a demon — half a kin to its kind, so to speak — and want to give me a warning?”
Qi Zhi tilted her head, thinking hard for a good while, then blinked and murmured with a soft sigh, “I keep feeling its voice was so listless. Like… like something is holding it against its will.”
As she spoke, her eyes couldn’t help going wide, and she asked Mu Qingshi, curiosity written across her whole face, “Shijie, do you know it? Why does it work for Villa Master Yin? And why does it hint that guests shouldn’t renew their dreams? Does it truly want to help someone — or is it a calculated ploy, letting the quarry slip loose so it can be snared again?”
Qi Zhi’s questions tumbled out rapid-fire, one after another.
Mu Qingshi shook her head, a laugh escaping her despite herself. “I merely told you a few extra things, and now you truly take me for all-knowing?”
“Aren’t you?” Qi Zhi said, perfectly earnest. “Shijie knows the villa’s affairs like the back of her hand. I figured you’d sent Ah Yun over ahead of time to feel out everything.”
Mu Qingshi: “Not counting the scouting we did after reaching Sui City, this is Ah Yun’s first visit too.”
Qi Zhi: “Huh?”
Ah Yun’s first visit too?
Qi Zhi’s brow furrowed, her eyes brimming with disbelief.
“Shijie’s teasing me again. I’m not clever, I’ll grant, but I’m not that dim…” Qi Zhi lowered her lashes and muttered, “Shijie has been in Suihan Hall all this time. If Ah Yun never came, how does Shijie know so much? You even deliberately led Miss Ling into poking around here and there.”
Mu Qingshi: “That would be because…”
Qi Zhi: “Because what?”
Mu Qingshi smiled, leaned in until her lips hovered at Qi Zhi’s ear, her breath sweet as orchid: “I have a friend. Her intelligence is the keenest in all the Mortal World.”
Qi Zhi: “…That’s it?”
Mu Qingshi: “Mm.”
For one instant, Qi Zhi genuinely suspected that Mu Qingshi had conjured up a friend out of thin air1.
But true or false, anything whose time had not yet come was, presumably, something no amount of pressing would ever pry out of her.
So Qi Zhi stopped dwelling on it, and let her gaze fall once more upon the two jade cups on the table.
The wine was beautiful, though. A shame to leave it sitting there undrunk.
“Shijie…”
“Mm?”
“This wine — shall we have one cup each?” As she said it, Qi Zhi’s brows and eyes curved up at Mu Qingshi. “Didn’t they say — Shuiyue Jinghua, drunk apart, is a fine wine in its own right?”
Mu Qingshi looked at those smiling eyes of hers, crescent as new moons, and after a moment, smiled and nodded.
Qi Zhi: “Which cup does Shijie want?”
Mu Qingshi: “Either…”
“Either one, right?” Qi Zhi stole the words off Mu Qingshi’s lips, gave a tiny frown, then pushed the cup of Shuiyue over to her. “Then Shijie doesn’t get a choice!”
Between two cups of wine, the one aglitter like a riot of blossoms will always hold the greater pull for a young girl.
Since Shijie was only ever going to say “either one,” she wouldn’t stand on ceremony!
Qi Zhi lifted her cup, tipped her head back, and drained it in one go.
This wine was like the moment a riot of blossoms burst into bloom — a whole swath of fragrance falling upon the mortal world, coiling around the heart and lingering long after it went down.
Set against the Yinmeng, it was a flavor apart entirely.
The other cup, the Shuiyue, Mu Qingshi drank.
When she set it down, she said nothing; not a thread of change crossed her face, as though she’d drunk a cup of plain water.
Qi Zhi gazed at those eyes — always smiling, and always serene — and couldn’t help but wonder: was there anything in this world that could truly stir this person’s heart?
But what business did she have thinking such things?
These were hardly hers to think.
Ling Qiansu sat cross-legged on her bed, eyes shut, senses gathered, tracking where that single thread of spiritual power hidden in Qi Zhi’s dream had gone.
The ear-rabbit had carried it to the Lake-Heart Pavilion.
Following that thread, Ling Qiansu caught the sound of Yinsha’s voice, languid as ever.
“Whose have you brought back this time?”
“Miss Qi Zhi’s.”
“Oh?” Yinsha gave a light laugh, her tone brightening a shade. “Now that’s strange — she wants to renew a dream too? From what I saw of that shijie of hers at the banquet, perfectly composed — her cultivation must run deep. Not the sort to drown in illusions. What’s this? The little shimei wants to renew her dream, and she doesn’t stop her?”
“She didn’t stop her. She only said her shimei enjoys it — what harm is one more dream?” the ear-rabbit answered in a small voice. “In any case, with her awake and watching, she’d never let her shimei sink.”
“That may not be hers to decide,” Yinsha said. “I rather like this little one. I’d hate to see her go so soon.”
Ling Qiansu froze for an instant; a moment’s distraction later, she gathered her focus and listened on.
“Then this dream…”
“Show it to me first. A little girl’s ought to be a good deal cleaner than those filthy men’s.”
The words fell, and for a long while nothing was said — only the sound of spiritual power coursing.
After who knew how long, the long-silent Yinsha suddenly drew a sharp breath.
“Tiandao Sect… these two — both of them, disciples of the Daoist Venerable?”
“The name that white-robed woman left on the gate stone was Mu Qingshi. You’re young; you may never have heard of her,” the ear-rabbit said gravely. “She was once the most celebrated disciple under the Daoist Venerable. Before she turned one hundred, she had already reached the Heavenly Tribulation Realm. But five hundred years ago, in the God-Demon War, her spiritual root was ravaged by demonic qi, her realm came crashing down, and she withdrew into obscurity ever since.”
“And here I wondered how formidable she was. Isn’t she just ruined now, then?” Yinsha asked with a laugh. “No wonder you insisted on warning me back there. So you were frightened.”
“…Let them go. They’re Tiandao Sect people. Why go out of our way to provoke them?”
“What about Tiandao Sect? From what I hear, they don’t even have a Daoist Venerable anymore, do they? Who’s even left?” Yinsha seemed to mull it over a moment. “Shen Zhuxing? Ming Songxue?”
She gave a scornful laugh. “Those two can do nothing to me.”
…
“Go. Take all that jumble and feed every last bit of it into the Dream Furnace. Get it brewing early.”
The Dream Furnace? Brewing?!
It took Ling Qiansu a beat to process; then her eyes flew wide in shock.
“Oh, and Xixue — that little girl’s dream is interesting. Next time she renews it, add a dose of brewing primer into it. I mean to go in and have a closer look.”
“And if she doesn’t want to renew it?”
“You know I don’t care for questions like that.” Yinsha’s voice gained an edge of impatience.
The ear-rabbit said nothing more. It simply carried the dream out of the Lake-Heart Pavilion, into a barrier-warded place wholly beyond Ling Qiansu’s senses.
After that, the thread of spiritual power was dissolved by some force.
Ling Qiansu’s brow creased. She hastily left a phantom double of herself behind, activated her Invisibility Talisman, rose, and slipped out of the guest room.
Ah Yun had alighted on the Chinese scholar tree outside her window at some point, tilting her head in greeting: “Heya! Find anything?”
Ling Qiansu nodded and was about to beckon her along to find Mu Qingshi — but the moment she raised a hand, she felt something flash past in her mind.
Ah Yun landed on her upraised hand: “What’s up?”
Ling Qiansu: “You can see me?”
Ah Yun: “Yep-yep!”
Ling Qiansu: “…So much for ‘negligible cultivation,’ then.”
Never mind — no time to dwell on that. What she’d just overheard had to reach Mu Qingshi at once!
…
Lake-Heart Pavilion. Sheer gauze drifted, soft and slow.
Yinsha lounged against a beauty couch, her gaze hazy and far away.
She had seen it — at the very end of that dream just now, a sword buried under dust.
She had never laid eyes on that sword before.
But why — in the instant the dreamscape collapsed — did its blade shimmer with… spiritual power so strikingly like his…?
Afternoon. The warm sun slanted gently, and a breeze came in wave after wave.
It carried the sweetness of scholar-tree blossoms, and the clear lotuses in the lake swayed, leaf and petal.
Qi Zhi squatted at the lake’s edge, teasing the spirit fish in the water.
Then Ah Yun came flitting down onto a lotus leaf, wobbled until she found her footing, patted her wings, and said hello.
“What brings you back so suddenly?” Qi Zhi leaned forward slightly, reached out, and let her hop onto her fingertip.
“It’s not just me!”
The moment Ah Yun spoke, Qi Zhi heard another familiar voice.
Ling Qiansu: “I know what Yinsha wants with all those dreams she’s collecting!”
Qi Zhi turned toward the voice on reflex, saw no one at all behind her, and blinked, thrown.
Ah Yun prompted: “Inside first!”
Qi Zhi scrambled up, hiked her skirts in hand, and ran back into the room.
The instant the door clicked shut, Ling Qiansu’s form appeared beside the table. She sat, and in quick strokes sketched out her findings and her conjectures.
She said the dreams of all these villa guests ended up cast by the ear-rabbit into the Dream Furnace.
From what Yinsha had said, that furnace was for brewing wine.
The most singular wine of Mingyue Villa was that Yinmeng; beyond it, no other vintage should require any especially particular brewing.
They brewed wine from dreams, served it to the guests to drink, then took the dreams back and brewed on.
It must be a cycle — one that kept the Yinmeng from ever running dry.
But if all they wanted was a wine that never ran out, it wasn’t as if this world lacked spirit treasures of the sort — put in a mere drop and it multiplies on and on; draw from it without end and it never runs dry.
Besides, Villa Master Yin herself didn’t seem to care for drinking it.
Ah Yun gave a little chirp from the side, then suddenly tilted her head: “So why does she do all this, then?”
Ling Qiansu turned it over a moment, then hazarded a bold guess: “Is it possible the wine is, in the end, for killing?”
At that, Qi Zhi couldn’t hold back a shiver.
“But so many people have drunk it, and Zhi-zhi’s drunk it too, and nobody’s come to any harm! Worst is you feel a bit weak — that’s just drinking for you!” Ah Yun said, then glanced up at Qi Zhi and clucked with laughter. “Don’t scare her — her courage is teeny-tiny!”
Ling Qiansu: “Once or twice does no harm. Three times, five, ten, a hundred — still no harm. But a thousand? Ten thousand?”
Ah Yun: “A thousand, ten thousand?! If you love drinking that much, any wine at all would drink you into your grave!”
Ling Qiansu shook her head, wanting to rebut, yet not knowing where to begin.
Mu Qingshi had been listening closely; now she fell into thought.
After a long moment, she said softly, “What Miss Ling proposes is indeed possible.”
Ah Yun: “Hah?”
Mu Qingshi: “For a living person’s soul to part from the body — what agony that is. Yet this villa holds so many ‘living’ wooden puppets. How could not a single wisp of resentful qi remain behind?”
“Exactly — Miss Mu has it! That’s the crux of it!” Ling Qiansu hurriedly nodded along. “By all reason, it’s impossible — no matter how high one’s cultivation, it couldn’t be done! And yet it’s happened, so there must be a reason!”
“So I believe the Dream Furnace can brew, from the most beautiful of dreams, the most beautiful of illusions — one that sinks people under again and again, past all pulling free. And when dream and reality can no longer be told apart, the memories of the dream are taken for truth and slowly carved deep into the soul.” She went on, “At that point, if something can be used to… tamper with matters within the dream. For instance — letting the dream’s owner die a painless, peaceful death of old age, inside the dream…”
Yes — Yinsha can enter dreams!
And her manner of entering is special — it requires a brewing primer. She wouldn’t go to that trouble merely to peek; she must mean to interfere!
“If a person dies inside a dream they believe to be real — dies quite comfortably, at that — the soul may never realize it’s still alive. And the body outside the dream has long since gone to ruin. When the soul is drawn out, it will likely treat the body only as a cage — fleeing it as fast as it can. Why would it struggle?”
No struggle, no pain — and of course no resentful qi is born.
And the puppets, given human souls and steeped in celestial qi, would look no different from anyone else.
That being so, no matter how high the cultivation of the cultivators who came to investigate, no matter how many doubts they carried, they would never find a single shred of proof that Mingyue Villa harms its guests!
By the time Ling Qiansu reached this point, a chill had welled up from the bottom of her heart. “No wonder every cultivator who has come here says only that Mingyue Villa truly belongs to immortals…”
Mu Qingshi: “If this is true, a great many things fall neatly into place.”
“Wow, amazing!” Ah Yun marveled aloud — and, since she couldn’t clap, patted the table with her wings instead.
Qi Zhi, chin propped on one hand, took a good while to digest it all.
Then, unable to hold it in, she asked: “So what do we do now?”
“Renew the dream!” Ling Qiansu answered without a sliver of hesitation. “Qi Zhi — Yinsha wants into your dream. Let her in!”
“Huh?”
“Ooh, right — shut the door and beat the dog2!” Ah Yun flapped her wings and bounced up in one hop.
“Me… me?” Qi Zhi said, taken aback.
Ling Qiansu nodded, grave and solemn. “Only you. Yours is the only dreamscape that interests her!”
Seeming to fear Qi Zhi would lose her nerve, she added words of encouragement: “Don’t be afraid. You are the dream’s master — everything inside it answers to you alone. In your dream, even if my own master came, he couldn’t stand against you!”
“When the time comes, we’ll keep watch at your bedside — no one will so much as interrupt your dream.” She went on, her tone kindling hotter by the word. “You, inside — seal the dream’s exit shut! Cripple her! Then ask her why she’s doing all of this!”
That bearing, that tone — she truly hated evil as she would a mortal foe.
Qi Zhi’s mouth worked open, but she didn’t dare say a word.
Seeing Qi Zhi still hanging back, Ling Qiansu’s tone went soft all at once, and she gazed at her as if begging: “Miss Qi Zhi, look at this Mingyue Villa — Immortal Landscape Creation beyond doubt — and Yinsha’s cultivation is fathomless. If we truly chose to fight it out head-on, even granting us some sliver of a chance, I fear it would drag down many innocent people of Sui City with it…”
“You alone have the chance to wound her — inside the dream!” Ling Qiansu said — and here something seemed to strike her, her eyes brightening. “And at the very worst, Yinsha has no intention of sparing you anyway. Even if only for your own sake, you must try, mustn’t you?”
Qi Zhi: “But…”
Ling Qiansu: “Whatever still worries you — say it all out!”
“It’s just — today’s Yinmeng… I, I split it with Shijie. There’s no new dream to, to give the rabbit anymore.” As she spoke, as though she’d committed some grave offense, Qi Zhi slowly drooped her little head. “In that case… can I still renew it?”
Ling Qiansu: “…”
The corner of Mu Qingshi’s mouth lifted, ever so slightly, and just as noiselessly she pressed it back down.
Ah Yun blinked, then raised one clever little wing: “I know where there’s Yinmeng!”
Qi Zhi: “Where?”
Ah Yun puffed out her chest, fluttered up to the windowsill, and left one parting line as she went: “Wait right there! I’ll have it for you in a jiffy!”
Ling Qiansu stared after her out the window, dazed a good while. “Ah Yun truly is remarkably dependable.”
Qi Zhi: “Isn’t she just?”
Mu Qingshi: “…”
The author has something to say:
Ling Qiansu: Beat her up!
Qi Zhi: Me? 【trembling like a leaf】
Ah Yun: There’s wine on the rabbit!
Xixue: Me? 【trembling like a leaf】
Footnotes
- 无中生友 | wu zhong sheng you | A modern internet pun on the classical idiom wu zhong sheng you, 'to create something out of nothing' — the final character is swapped for 'friend,' describing someone who invents a friend that does not exist.
- 关门打狗 | guanmen dagou | Literally 'shut the door to beat the dog' — a classic Chinese stratagem: seal off the enemy's escape route first, then attack, so the trapped target has nowhere left to flee.
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