Chapter 51

The sound of flesh tearing.

A choked, guttural cry.

Shen Qingqiu pressed his fingers to his temples, the scene before him slowly coming into focus.

A sea of blood.

A mountain of corpses.

Luo Binghe stood amidst this hellscape, motionless as a statue.

His black robes refused to stain, but one side of his face was spattered with crimson. His movements were mechanical, brutally efficient, as he raised his sword and brought it down again.

Shen Qingqiu stared, dumbfounded.

Usually, the mere sight of Luo Binghe conjured the memory of being tumbled from the bed, limbs entangled, sending a shiver of dread down his spine and an urge to flee as far as possible. But now, even that instinct to retreat was drowned out by sheer shock.

Luo Binghe was slaughtering the constructs of his own dream. It was no different from taking a steel blade and stirring up his own brain matter.

Only a fool who didn’t know any better, or a madman, would do such a thing!

Shen Qingqiu often joked that Luo Binghe was a masochist who enjoyed suffering, but seeing it escalate to this degree wiped any trace of humor from his mind.

Luo Binghe looked up. His gaze was clouded, utterly vacant. Then, clarity flashed in his eyes. He immediately threw the sword in his hand aside, sending it skittering far away.

He hid his blood-soaked hands behind his back and called out softly, "Shizun."

Then, as if remembering the blood on his face, he frantically tried to wipe it with his sleeve. The gesture only smeared the red further, making him look like a child caught stealing, his anxiety mounting with each failed attempt.

Shen Qingqiu forced himself to steady his voice. "...What are you doing?"

Luo Binghe lowered his head. "Shizun, I... I lost you again. This disciple is useless. I couldn't even protect your body."

A complicated expression crossed Shen Qingqiu's face.

So this slaughter of dream constructs... was it a form of self-punishment?

No wonder Luo Binghe couldn't even distinguish whether he was a phantom of the dream or an intruder from outside.

Shen Qingqiu truly hadn't realized things had gotten this bad. In this state, Luo Binghe was indistinguishable from a madman.

Judging by his practiced ease, this wasn't the first time. Shen Qingqiu felt more than just pity; it felt like a sin to witness.

He sighed, his voice softening involuntarily. "If it's lost, then it's lost."

Luo Binghe stared at him blankly. "...But that's all I have left now."

Had he really spent the last five years clinging to a corpse, an empty shell?!

Luo Binghe's voice suddenly turned cold. "After Hua Yue City, I swore I would never lose you again in this lifetime. And yet, I let someone else take you from me."

The bone-deep hatred was as clear as the dark red flickering in his pupils. The discarded sword flew back to his call, piercing through the chests of several "figures" still writhing on the ground. Amidst their dying screams, Shen Qingqiu instinctively grabbed his arm. "Stop this madness! Do you have any idea you're mutilating your own mind in here?!"

Of course Luo Binghe knew. He had created this entire dream realm himself.

He stared fixedly at Shen Qingqiu, then turned his hand to cover the one on his arm. After a long moment, he said, "I know this is a dream. It's only in dreams that Shizun will still scold me like this."

Hearing those words, a sudden clarity struck Shen Qingqiu.

No. This is wrong.

I can't do this to him.

If you don't feel that way about someone, you shouldn't give them hope. Greater hope leads to greater despair, and a higher chance of spiraling further into madness. Even in a dream, this hesitant, ambiguous kindness was cruelty.

He had to cut it clean. Dragging it out would only create a deeper entanglement. Resolute, Shen Qingqiu pulled his hand back, straightened his expression into one of icy detachment, and turned to leave.

The moment he was shaken off, Luo Binghe froze for a second, then immediately pursued him. "Shizun, I know I was wrong."

Shen Qingqiu said coldly, "If you know you're wrong, then don't follow me!"

"I've regretted it for a long time, I just never had the chance to tell you," Luo Binghe pleaded, urgency creeping into his voice. "Are you still angry that I forced you to detonate your spiritual form? I've already repaired all the spiritual veins in your body, I swear it! If I can just enter the Sacred Mausoleum... I will find a way to wake you up."

Shen Qingqiu didn't answer, wondering if a few sharp blows to the head might shock him back to sanity. But before he could act, Luo Binghe lunged forward, wrapping his arms around him from behind in a desperate, unyielding hold, refusing to let go even when Shen Qingqiu stiffened.

Shen Qingqiu went rigid in his embrace, a shiver running down his spine as if touched by something furry. He gathered energy in his palm, yet still couldn't bring himself to strike. Through gritted teeth, he forced out a single word. "Release me!"

Weren't you supposed to be a dark, ruthless protagonist after your corruption? Stop with the tragic clinging!

Luo Binghe paid no heed. "Or is Shizun angry about what happened in Jinlan City?"

"Correct," Shen Qingqiu bit out.

Still refusing to loosen his grip, Luo Binghe murmured, "When I first returned from the Endless Abyss, and learned you had told the world I was killed by demons... at first, I thought it was Shizun's mercy. That you still held some affection for me, and didn't want my name utterly ruined. But when I saw you again, and saw your attitude... I was afraid I had been too presumptuous. I feared you hid the truth only because you felt ashamed for raising a demonic disciple, for tarnishing your own reputation."

His words spilled out, pitiful and rushed, as if he feared Shen Qingqiu would cut him off. "I didn't arrange for the Seed-Bearers. I was just so angry back then that I let them throw you into the water prison... I've known it was wrong for a long time."

The real Luo Binghe would probably never be this talkative. Only in this dream of his own making would he dare to ramble on like this. To shove him away now would be like slapping a drowning girl who had finally found a piece of driftwood to cling to. It felt unbearably cruel.

Shen Qingqiu was torn between pity and a sense of the absurd.

What could be more absurd than spending years desperately running from someone, only to discover they didn't want to kill you, but wanted to have you? Though whether it was death or that, the result was the same—Shen Qingqiu would still run for his life.

One longed to see what he couldn't, clinging to a corpse for five years. The other avoided him at all costs, yet somehow still saw him far too often.

His hand, held stiffly in the air, rose and fell, clenched and relaxed. Finally, he sighed and reached up to pat the head that was taller than his own.

Damn it, Shen Qingqiu thought. I've really lost.

Here was a perfectly good, dark-style harem protagonist. Now, forget a harem—the guy was probably still a virgin. He'd already driven himself to this state. Delivering another blow now seemed downright dishonorable. In the end, Shen Qingqiu lost to Luo Binghe's expertly performed misery, and to his own sympathy.

Luo Binghe immediately seized that hand.

Where their skin met, Shen Qingqiu felt a slight unevenness on Luo Binghe's palm. Looking closer, he saw it was a sword scar.

He hadn't understood the origin of these many wounds before, but now he remembered. That night in Jinlan City, during their game of cat and mouse, when Luo Binghe finally caught him, Shen Qingqiu had stabbed him. Luo Binghe had caught the blade of Xiuyu Jian with his bare hand.

As for the wound near his heart... he should never have forgotten that one. That was from the Immortal Alliance Conference, when Shen Qingqiu forced him into the abyss.

It seemed every time Shen Qingqiu tried to stab him, Luo Binghe never dodged. He always faced it head-on, letting himself be pierced, letting himself be cut. Because of that, both times Shen Qingqiu hadn't truly intended to hit him, yet he did. And after the cutting was done, Luo Binghe never treated the wounds, instead deliberately preserving them.

Before, Shen Qingqiu could have convinced himself it was Luo Binghe nursing a grudge, keeping the scars to remind himself of his hatred. But now, he could no longer deceive himself about what such behavior truly meant.

He'd read the entire long book. He'd raised the kid. Yet he'd never realized Luo Binghe was, at heart, a pure and earnest youth. When a "deeply affectionate harem protagonist" turned out to be gay, the last two words seemed to vanish entirely. This Luo Binghe, whom he'd somehow raised into this twisted state, had a heart more delicate than a young girl's, prone to overthinking, masochistic and easily wounded.

Or perhaps, it wasn't that he'd never noticed, but that he'd never bothered to look. In the end, Shen Qingqiu had still treated Luo Binghe as a character from a book—a stereotype, a template. He maintained a respectful distance, occasionally deigning to interact. Most of the time, he kept him at arm's length. The Luo Binghe with the strongest presence in the original work ironically carried the heaviest "NPC aura" in his eyes.

Faced with this version of Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu found himself utterly at a loss, despite feeling profoundly annoyed. A lone wolf for so many years, finally encountering someone who seemed to have those kinds of feelings for him, and it turned out: 1) he was male, 2) he was his disciple, 3) he was the protagonist, and 4) his methods of expression were slightly deranged.

Should he slap him awake, or just let him continue his madness? His head was pounding, but he no longer dared to act recklessly.

For the first time in so long, Shen Qingqiu experienced just how frustrating the emotion of "bewilderment" could be.

---

When he awoke, Shen Qingqiu opened his eyes to a canopy of white gauze above him.

The door opened. Someone entered, closing it softly behind them with measured steps.

"Awake?" a voice asked.

Shen Qingqiu turned his head, looking sideways with his eyes.

A face seen by lamplight is fairer than one seen by moonlight. The man truly possessed striking features, a faint smile gracing his lips, radiant and peerless. Especially his eyes, which held a gentle, lively intelligence.

They were absolutely eyes nurtured by the Dewwater Lake.

Shen Qingqiu scrambled to sit up, the ice pack tumbling from his forehead. The man bent to retrieve it, placed it on the table, and fetched a fresh one.

Seeing this, the barrage of questions Shen Qingqiu had prepared—"Who are you?" "What are your intentions?"—died in his throat, too awkward to voice. He cleared his throat and said with measured politeness, "My thanks for your assistance within Huan Hua Palace."

The young man paused by the table, smiling. "There is a saying: a drop of kindness deserves a flood of gratitude in return. Moreover, the kindness Shen-xianshi has shown me far surpasses a mere drop."

First, he was indeed the snake-man from White Dew Forest.

Second, he knew the person inside this shell was Shen Qingqiu.

Shen Qingqiu ventured cautiously, "...Tianlang-jun?"

The reason the ancient Heavenly Demon lineage bore the character for "Heaven" was due to the legend that this bloodline had fallen from the Immortal Realm into demonhood.

Only a purer bloodline than Luo Binghe's could suppress the Heavenly Demon blood within Shen Qingqiu.

Thus, the question arose. Among the Heavenly Demon bloodline, the names given in the original work, the ones Shen Qingqiu knew, were only two: Luo Binghe, and his father. Who else could he possibly guess?

However, even a lucky streak has its limits. Shen Qingqiu's bizarre guessing method, which had yet to fail him, finally met its match here.

The man shook his head. "Shen-xianshi mistaking me for Junshang is far too great an honor."

Hearing the term "Junshang," Shen Qingqiu finally understood who this figure was.

In the original work's opening, Tianlang-jun was already suppressed beneath a great mountain. The great battle from years past, being largely irrelevant to the male lead's cheat-like, harem-building journey, was glossed over by Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky with a mere "overwhelmed by the combined forces of the human cultivation world's great masters, suppressed beneath Mount XX, never to rise again, his trusted generals dead or scattered."

Just what mountain was "Mount XX"? Shen Qingqiu had never pondered it seriously. But now, stimulated, he suddenly remembered what "XX" stood for.

Damn it! White Dew Mountain!!!

White Dew Forest on White Dew Mountain!!!

Shen Qingqiu looked the man up and down.

This was one of Luo Binghe's father's "trusted generals"!

Now, there was no trace left of the deformed snake-man's shadow upon him.

Shen Qingqiu swallowed. "Might I ask... your esteemed name?"

The man replied courteously, "Under Tianlang-jun's command, Zhuzhi-lang."

As the words left his lips, the system chimed: [Plot and Character Registry Completion increased. Coolness Points +300. Plot Hole Filling Project initiated. Coolness Points +100!]

An uncontrollable surge of excitement washed over Shen Qingqiu.

"Filling plot holes" absolutely referred to those several infuriating, unresolved cases in the original work where the true mastermind was never revealed.

This was (one of) the reasons Shen Yuan most despised the story. It was also one of the greatest sources of his chest-pounding, teeth-gnashing frustration after finishing it!

Now, he was beginning to draw out characters who had never appeared on-stage, and the system had initiated the hole-filling project. Could it be that the truth behind those gaping, sky-high plot holes was about to be unveiled?!