From his superior, he heard a curious story.
From his mother, he heard a neighborhood story.
From Shen Zhiyi, he heard… an earth-shattering tale.
Broadly speaking, “college student” refers to a group. Zhou Qi’an tried his best not to think too much. He forced a smile. “So the night school you run also has college students coming for tutoring.”
Shen Zhiyi: “Just one.”
Some words, including those with sensitive identities, couldn’t be mentioned before, but after clearing the game completely, the restrictions in this area were greatly lifted.
Zhou Qi’an silently poured himself another full glass of wine and downed it in one go.
He held out his hand. “Let me see your certificate.”
The certificate was passed to the shadow in the next second. Shen Zhiyi said with a straight face, “It’s not an antique, not worth appreciating.”
“…” Zhou Qi’an deeply doubted the authenticity of the teaching certificate.
Finally, the corner of his mouth twitched as he asked, “This college student, do I know him?”
Shen Zhiyi: “Very well.”
Zhou Qi’an immediately stopped asking questions, his gaze falling on the round table.
Tender and juicy crab roe soup dumplings, sweet and crispy roast duck, delicious soup… He had to eat these things first, and then ask questions in private.
Otherwise, if he was shocked later and the food got cold, wouldn’t it be a total loss?
With this in mind, Zhou Qi’an decisively began to enjoy the delicacies.
He didn’t say any secrets.
The other people at the table also didn’t ask him about any secrets or shocking things, quietly watching him eat.
In a sense, Zhou Qi’an was a ‘transparent person’ in their eyes.
“Oh heavens, oh earth…”
After finishing the last bite, Zhou Qi’an sighed in his heart.
After a while, he felt that another two words could better reflect the soaring emotional change. The game, the company, he closed his eyes…
Are there any normal people left in this world?
After dinner, everyone came to the Huagu City Grand Theater.
There were many guest rooms here, and the environment was not bad.
Revisiting the old place, Zhou Qi’an felt a surge of emotion. The scene of him racing against time to find the little thief lady was still vivid in his mind.
There was a performance at the theater tonight. Mother Zhou was planning to watch the show and asked Zhou Qi’an if he wanted to go with her.
“No, I’m going to the little woods to have a quiet chat.”
Mother Zhou nodded. Before leaving, she glanced at Shen Zhiyi. After regaining most of her sanity, for the first time, she felt that looking at a person was more pleasing to the eye than looking at a rice cooker.
The superior was equally indifferent to worldly love and affection. Only work and the company were his obsessions. Now that he had a rare moment of leisure, he chose to go upstairs to his room and continue reading the book he hadn’t finished in the church.
Zhou Qi’an praised, “A great step for mankind.”
At least it was better than reading something like “The Chick Effect.”
After they dispersed, Zhou Qi’an and Shen Zhiyi plunged into the small woods.
A little light from the theater left the dense forest in a dim, starry environment. Occasionally, the call of a crow could be heard at night, and the ground was covered with fallen leaves. This was a sacred place for young couples on dates.
Zhou Qi’an leaned against a tree trunk with his arms crossed, his posture casual, waiting for Shen Zhiyi to speak first.
He was very clear about the abnormality of the college student. Shen Zhiyi would hide things from him, but he wouldn’t lie to him. Back at the Cyclamen Hospital, Shen Zhiyi had said that the terrifying yin energy came from the college student. Later, seeing the melted medical staff in the treatment room, it must have been the college student’s doing as well.
To be able to easily erase the existence of a monster and even cause some damage to the game data before retreating completely.
How should one put it?
He didn’t seem human.
“He’s not a good person.”
At almost the same time, Shen Zhiyi spoke.
The restrictions were not many, but directly speaking about everything related to Taisui was definitely not possible. He summarized it in extremely short words, “It involves a transaction. As for the specifics…”
Shen Zhiyi moved a little closer, seemingly wanting to take the opportunity to whisper something intimate, but his own breathing became disordered and his body temperature shot up.
On that cold face, the tips of his ears began to turn slightly red.
Zhou Qi’an: “?”
A moment later, Shen Zhiyi finally finished his sentence. “Tonight, I will pull you into my dream.”
At that time, everything would become clear.
The performance had already begun in the theater. The frequently changing lights gave the small woods a different kind of brilliance. The audience’s loud cheers and applause floated out from the windows, interrupting their conversation.
Zhou Qi’an subconsciously glanced over.
When he retracted his gaze, a small whale condensed from yin energy suddenly appeared in front of him.
A palm-sized little whale, with an adorable appearance. What it sprayed was not water, but rose petals.
Shen Zhiyi: “Magic, I can do it too.”
It was indeed very realistic. Zhou Qi’an looked at it for a few more seconds and subconsciously poked the seemingly overly soft rose petals with his fingertip.
A faint coolness spread. The black petals seemed to bend a little, wrapping around his fingertip, and a酥麻 sensation came over him.
He suddenly smiled. “A gift in return… You gave me this, what gift should I give back?”
Under the fragmented lights, Shen Zhiyi lowered his eyes. “This.”
With that, he…
Because there was something to do in the dream tonight…
The Huagu City was right, the starry sky was vast, and the night’s sleep was very comfortable.
The velvet bed, the soft pillow core, everything was perfect. In a short while…
Even after completing his evolution, the problem of lucid dreaming still existed. For example, at this moment, Zhou Qi’an could clearly perceive that he was in a dream.
The world was a sea of blood red. The entire sky seemed to be woven from scarlet meat threads.
He didn’t know why he thought of such a physiologically uncomfortable description, but it was the most real feeling. Even the ground he was stepping on had a strange fleshy texture.
Squeak, squeak. Zhou Qi’an couldn’t help but control the force of his landing to prevent sinking in.
“This is… Shen Zhiyi’s dream?”
He was a little surprised. He had originally thought that the other’s recent dreams would be full of pink love bubbles. But now it looked a bit cynical.
As he was thinking, from the crevice of the abyss in front, countless mycelium-like things extended without any warning. The fine threads covered the sky and the earth. Each one was like a writhing living creature, and you could even see many forked places on them, with strange eye-like things growing.
Zhou Qi’an couldn’t help but take a step back. “Fine threads…”
Fine threads are extremely scary!
The entire expanse of blood red affected his vision, but fortunately, it was a dream, so he didn’t have to worry too much. Zhou Qi’an boldly tried to bypass the spiderweb formed by the mycelium. He walked endlessly for a period of time, and the ends of the fine threads actually began to form blood clots. Like play-doh, the blood clots further indented and extended, already taking on a preliminary human form.
With such a terrifying scene, he should have run away or looked away at the first moment, but for some reason, that blood-colored figure always gave Zhou Qi’an a faint sense of familiarity.
The red blood threads continued to weave, a thousand times faster than a spider spinning its web.
The outermost layer of skin wrapped around the flesh and blood, finally gradually condensing into a perfect body. A delicate and evil face was revealed before his eyes.
Zhou Qi’an’s breathing hitched.
“It’s…”
It was the college student! Although his temperament was completely different, he still recognized him at a glance. This was definitely the college student.
“How is this possible…” All of this continued to impact his cognition. Next, Zhou Qi’an almost completely forgot to breathe. “How could the college student not be born from a womb?”
His astonished gaze remained fixed on that spot, unable to even move away.
On that delicate and evil face, the eyelids twitched slightly, as if about to open. Zhou Qi’an’s subconscious tried several times to avoid his gaze, but all failed.
Just as those eyes were about to open completely, another figure suddenly appeared in this world. This figure landed right in front of him, blocking the possible eye contact in the next moment.
But as if he couldn’t see Zhou Qi’an, the man completely ignored him and walked straight to the crevice, the terrifying blood threads in the surrounding air actually moved to avoid the man.
The man’s appearance and figure were all illusory.
Before long, the familiar, low voice unique to Shen Zhiyi came intermittently.
Zhou Qi’an couldn’t hear clearly. Every time he wanted to get closer, he couldn’t bypass these blood threads.
‘Taisui meat’, ‘sacred object’… The few keywords floating in the air made his heart pound for a moment, especially the two words ‘Taisui’.
Just as Zhou Qi’an was about to carelessly try to go over, an incomparably clear voice suddenly came from within the abyss crevice. Every word carried a huge sense of pressure—
“You help me hypnotize this flesh and blood clone, so that he is born with a conscience, knows good and evil, and understands compassion.”
“Afterwards, you must forget this matter.”
Zhou Qi’an, upon hearing this, suddenly looked at the flesh and blood body connected by the blood threads. In the distance, two pieces of strangely colored things appeared in Shen Zhiyi’s hands.
At this moment, he completely understood the deal Shen Zhiyi had made with the monster hidden in the abyss.
This monster was Taisui. The latter voluntarily cut off its flesh and blood in exchange for Shen Zhiyi’s brainwashing of the ‘born’ flesh and blood body.
“The college student is a part of Taisui?!”
The moment Zhou Qi’an completely confirmed this conclusion, the world before his eyes began to flicker. The entire scene blurred, like a lagging television. After flickering at a high frequency for a period of time, with a click, it suddenly fell into darkness.
His head was groggy, not at all like the feeling he usually had before waking up. Instead, he had fallen into a deeper dream.
When he regained consciousness, all the scenes had been replaced. The red world had disappeared, replaced by an old, dim classroom.
The light tube flickered strangely with a buzzing sound. The entire classroom was filled with a cold and gloomy atmosphere.
Zhou Qi’an recognized this place. Opposite the night school Shen Zhiyi ran, there was an almost abandoned teaching building. According to the latter, it was going to be demolished at any time, and there were rumors of ghosts, so it was not in use.
He had come here once out of curiosity before. The walls inside the abandoned teaching building were painted with a strange red paint.
It was exactly the same as the scene before his eyes.
At the front of the classroom, Shen Zhiyi stood on the podium, his expression cold.
Below the podium, only one person was sitting.
The college student was dressed in a plain white, clean suit. Those eyes were bizarre to the extreme, exuding an evil aura at all times.
Unfortunately, this aura was completely suppressed by Shen Zhiyi.
The moment countless blood threads shot towards the podium, they were all controlled in reverse by a deeper shadow. A dazed look appeared in the college student’s dark eyes, and his mind became uncontrollably scattered.
After knocking the ‘student’ around, Shen Zhiyi began to brainwash him.
“Goodness is the act of being good.”
After just one sentence, he lost his patience. The light tube above his head was disturbed by the magnetic field and screeched wildly.
A very terrifying scene, but because it was the two people he was most familiar with, Zhou Qi’an didn’t feel any tension.
He slowly walked over and sat at the desk next to the college student. While digesting the shock that the college student was a part of Taisui, he also wanted to see how Shen Zhiyi would teach someone about good and evil and compassion.
Shen Zhiyi was holding his phone and searching for something, quickly becoming engrossed in reading.
Even in a dream, every word from his mouth still had the bewitching power to be forcibly implanted into the mind:
“…The concept of crime, anything that endangers the national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security… violates the personal rights of citizens… are all crimes.”
Zhou Qi’an, who had been feeling a little dizzy, was instantly wide awake.
Isn’t this the “Criminal Law”?
Next, the scene flashed by as if on fast forward. He was forced to watch Shen Zhiyi read the “Criminal Law” at several times the speed, then the “Civil Law,” and after finishing the “Civil Law,” he began on the “Economic Law.”
Finally, he directly jumped to the “Labor Law.” Shen Zhiyi continuously forced various legal provisions and their literal meanings into the college student’s mind.
During this time, the college student’s eyes gradually changed from evil to clear, and finally, there was even a hint of dogmatic foolishness.
Seemingly having reached his limit, Shen Zhiyi threw a few normal student textbooks in front of the college student.
After listening to various vocabulary annotations for a long time, the college student suddenly found this stuff much more interesting and began to study thirstily.
Directly ignoring the latter half, Zhou Qi’an closed his eyes fiercely.
Labor Law.
What a Labor Law!
He would never forget the college student’s first day at the company, throwing the printed “Labor Law” in front of the superior and asking if he was also here to promote the “Labor Law.”
“So it was your doing.”
No wonder the college student’s kindness could be so superficial!
Zhou Qi’an took a deep breath, preparing to forcibly wake up and bring up the old score of Shen Zhiyi tricking him into buying courses from a diploma mill.
It was also about teaching people to read.
Why didn’t he just use books to brainwash himself, but insisted on teaching personally, and in the end, cultivated a glorious second-to-last!
How could he endure this?
On the podium, Shen Zhiyi, who was reading from the script, suddenly lowered his gaze.
Seemingly sensing something, Zhou Qi’an looked up at almost the same time.
It was unknown since when, but Shen Zhiyi had completely ignored the college student and had been staring at this spot, his tone serious and stiff:
“Next, we will talk about the marriage law…”
“Everything I have should belong to the other party.”
“I should help the other party bear the responsibility of supporting their parents,”
“No matter how late the person I care about comes into my world, I will wait…”
This was a monster’s top-level understanding of marriage law.
The previous resentment was completely gone.
Zhou Qi’an was stunned for a moment. He heard Shen Zhiyi say in the lightest yet firmest voice:
“I will always trust him.”
