Volume 3: Old Tales of Kunlun
I Like It When You Lie to Me.
Amidst the swirling snow, the little alpaca quietly gazed into the tear-filled pupils1 of the young woman before her. She watched as they shifted from boundless sorrow to a deepening bewilderment.
Until finally, her gaze grew placid and still, so calm it was as if the gashes, with their still-wet blood, were merely faint traces left from millennia ago. Perhaps they had once been carved into her very bones, but so much time had passed that they were now of no consequence.
“You Yan?” Yi Qiu ventured softly, testing whether the person she so deeply missed had truly returned.
After a brief silence, the young woman lifted her bloodstained fingertips, gently flicked the little alpaca’s ear, and said with a curved brow, “You really are ill-suited to be a mount.”
Yi Qiu was speechless. “…”
You Yan: “You run so slowly.”
The little alpaca gritted her teeth. “Do you have any idea how heavy you are? I’m an alpaca, not a horse…”
Before she could finish, You Yan pressed down on her ears and vigorously ruffled the fur on her head.
Yi Qiu couldn’t help but lower her head, murmuring, “Be gentle…”
Hearing this, You Yan studied the blood-soaked little alpaca before her—thankfully, it was all her blood. She had not let this delicate little creature suffer even the slightest new injury for her sake.
After a moment of silence, she could not resist calling out softly, “Silly little lamb.”
The name, so familiar yet unheard for so long, once again reached Yi Qiu’s ears.
Yi Qiu froze, staring blankly at You Yan for a long while. Then, a shimmer of tears welled in her eyes. Sniffling, she said, “You… you really…”
Are you really awake? But their surroundings had not dissipated.
It seemed they were still in this dream…
“Do you know that this is my dreamscape? If I were to be gravely injured and die in this dream, I would at worst forget everything and, with a damaged soul, re-enter the cycle of the next dream. But you are different. You are an intruder. None of this is a dream for you. If you die here, your soul will fly away and your spirit will scatter2.”
“I… I know. I know that if you didn’t wake up, you would be trapped in this endless nightmare cycle.” Yi Qiu’s grubby little head drooped. “And I could pretty much guess that if I died, my soul would dissipate in the dream.”
One who forces their way into another’s dream will have their soul shatter if they die within it—plenty of novels are written that way.
It was like an unwritten rule, and stepmother authors3, for the most part, loved using this kind of unfortunate setup to write heartbreakingly tragic plotlines, and then watch as their readers wailed like ghosts and howled like wolves4 in the comment section.
In short, if you read enough novels, this kind of common, pit-father5 setting, is still relatively easy to guess.
“Since you knew, you could have first figured out how I failed this time, and then gone to the next dreamscape to find me,” You Yan said coolly. “With the experience from the last time, you could have devised a way to prevent it all from happening and brought me away from Kunlun6.”
Her tone was rational and exceedingly calm. With one simple sentence, she had laid out the optimal solution.
Yi Qiu was almost certain now. The You Yan she knew was back.
The You Yan who could face anything with composure had finally, after escaping that nightmare, successfully regained her own consciousness.
“You should not have taken such a huge risk, fleeing with me. You have no idea what I went through back then, nor do you know how much this dreamscape deviates from reality…” She spoke calmly, but no amount of calm could hide the deep-seated worry in her heart. “Did you never consider—what if? What if I could not escape?”
“I…”
“When will you learn to be a little smarter?”
Yi Qiu lowered her head, aggrieved. “I, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”
The moment all that agony descended in You Yan’s dream, she truly had not been thinking that far ahead.
In that instant, her only thought was that she had to save that girl.
Even if it was a dream, even if everything in it was an illusion that could be restarted, she was unwilling to abandon the girl who had already suffered so much loneliness and hardship.
“Why should I be smarter? It’s not like I’m writing a rebirth novel…7 I just wanted to save you, the you right in front of me. I didn’t want to fail, I didn’t want to have to find you in the next cycle, not even once…” Yi Qiu murmured, an unidentifiable emotion stirring in her heart. She suddenly became incoherent. “I didn’t want to leave you behind, not any version of you… Dream or illusion, all I knew was that you needed me. All I knew was that, at that moment, I was the only one still by your side…”
“…”
“Yes, I’m useless, I’m stupid, my brain doesn’t take turns… But I know, I know very clearly what I’m doing. I came here to be with you, so no matter what, I couldn’t leave you behind, not even once… Otherwise, when you woke up and remembered that I had abandoned you in the dream, how sad would you be…?”
“I would not mind such a thing.”
“I mind!” the little alpaca said softly, then suddenly lifted her eyes to meet You Yan’s, saying nothing more.
After what felt like a long time, You Yan could not help but ask softly, “What do you mind?”
“I mind that you hide everything in your heart. I mind that you clearly do mind, but you keep lying and telling me you don’t.” Yi Qiu said, shaking her head, her eyes red-rimmed. “I do not believe that someone like you would place your complete trust in a person who had once abandoned you at a moment of life and death.”
“You…”
“I do not believe that if I had taken even one step back when you needed me most, you would be able to muster even a shred of hope for me the next time you faced hardship.” As she spoke, Yi Qiu gave a bitter smile. “Because, forget you, even I wouldn’t debase myself to that extent… After all, I’m a very straightforward person. I don’t understand things like calculated exchanges. I only know that you once dashed ahead regardless of your own safety for me8, so I must do the same for you…”
Yi Qiu spoke, lowering her head and lifting a foreleg to wipe away a tear.
Then, she looked up at You Yan again and said, enunciating each word with care, “But if you had abandoned me, even once, I… might not care about you so much anymore.”
You Yan was taken aback.
She stared blankly at the stubborn-eyed little alpaca, as if finding it difficult to comprehend the words the little creature had just spoken.
She was silent for a long while before finally uttering four cold words.
“Acting on emotion.”9
“So what if I am? Aren’t you?”
“I am not—”
“You are!” Yi Qiu cut her off, continuing with absolute certainty. “If you were not, why would you have been sucked into the Floating Dream Pearl? If you were not, why is it that when you were trapped in your nightmare, I remained conscious?”
“…”
“This time, you can’t fool me!” Yi Qiu pressed on aggressively. “I know it was you who could not bear to leave me behind. It was you who used your remaining strength to protect me, when you clearly could have let me go. If you had been willing to release me, this burden, could a mere pearl possibly harm you?”
You Yan could not help but close her eyes.
Yi Qiu sat quietly beside her, waiting for a response.
She really could not understand. Was it so hard to admit you cared about someone?
She’d like to see how this bird woman at this very moment still wanted to speciously argue, her words not matching her heart.
She refused to believe it. This bird woman had laid so much of herself bare to her in the dream; how could she still pretend that nothing had happened?
The atmosphere between them remained silent for a long while.
The cold wind howled, and the little alpaca couldn’t help but sneeze. In the next second, without a word from You Yan, a small barrier that shielded them from the cold erected itself around them.
After a few more seconds of silence, You Yan finally opened her eyes. She looked down at Yi Qiu and asked coolly, “You said you wanted to have my complete trust?”
Yi Qiu choked. This response was completely outside her expectations.
“You, I… I’m asking you a question, why are you…”
“Answer,” You Yan interrupted.
So bossy…
The little alpaca took a sharp, muffled breath, gritted her teeth, and lowered her eyes. “I, of course I hope… If you have something on your mind, you can let me help you share the burden, instead of hiding everything and bearing it all alone…”
“Then what about you?” You Yan countered.
“I…” Yi Qiu was at a loss for words.
She knew it would be like this. The more she tried to see through You Yan, the more You Yan would try to see through her.
Trust was mutual.
Since she had not managed it herself, she had no right to demand it of You Yan.
After a brief silence, You Yan asked again, “When was the first time you saw me?”
“I… the first time I saw you, was…”
“The day I scared you with the demon seed. It was that day, was it not?” You Yan pressed.
Yi Qiu swallowed nervously. She knew she’d said something to that effect in the dream, so there was really no refuting it. She nodded.
“As I thought…” You Yan murmured, looking up at the snowy night sky with a relieved smile.
“As you thought?” The little alpaca was instantly stunned. “You, you… when did you find out…”
“That day,” You Yan said, lowering her gaze to look at the dumbfounded little alpaca with a hint of a smile. Seeing her dazed expression, she could not help but let out a soft chuckle.
“Huh?” Yi Qiu stammered quietly, “Was, was I… that, that obvious…?”
“What do you think?” You Yan countered with a smile.
“I don’t have an opinion on the matter…” the little alpaca said, turning her head away. She sulked for a good while before finally asking, “Then, why didn’t you just kill me on the spot…? Weren’t you afraid I had ulterior motives?”
“With your level of skill, even if I gave you the chance, could you have harmed me?” You Yan said, pinching the scruff of the little alpaca’s neck. “The way you look so guilty when you lie is truly foolish. So foolish that I often wondered, even if a little creature this clumsy had ill intentions, what trouble could she possibly cause?”
“…” Stabbed the heart.10
“I just wanted to see what medicine you were selling in your gourd11.”
“…” Please stop talking.
“It would not have been too late to kill you after I found out.”
“…” Can we just not?
What was with this feeling of a max-level boss12 looking down on a mere ant? Although it was all the honest truth, could she not have said it so hurtfully?
Fine, she thought. Since I’ve been seen through completely, an apology now should still be in time to use merits to make up for my faults.13
“You Yan, I’m… I’m sorry. I really did lie to you about a lot of things, but I’ve already…”
“I know.”
“I really didn’t want to, but…”
“I know.”
As she spoke, You Yan gently placed her hand on the little alpaca’s head. The pad of her index finger seemed to press on a specific pressure point, making her forehead ache slightly, yet it also transferred a stream of spiritual energy into her, making the winter day feel less frigid.
Yi Qiu could not help but lower her head, grumbling internally—Can’t you just let a person finish their sentence?
“No.”
“Huh?” The little alpaca flinched. “You, you can read my mind…?”
“Excluding today, I have only looked once,” You Yan said. Her fingers slid from the top of the alpaca’s head to the nape of her neck. “It was not intentional. It was just a coincidence that I came into contact with your spiritual consciousness while transferring power, just like a moment ago.”
“You…”
“I like it when you lie to me. You cannot fool me anyway,” You Yan said, her eyes curving into a smile. “As long as you wish it, I can pretend not to notice. As long as it makes you happy, you can lie to me for a lifetime.”
Just don’t leave. Anything else is fine.
The author has something to say:
For the little angels who have forgotten the previous text, a pointer—the one and only time You Yan peeked into Yi Qiu’s thoughts was in Chapter 8.
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