The Golden Gaze and a Headless Companion

Early the next morning, Yuan Anqing immediately went to the bathroom sink to examine his eyes.

His pupils, which had been molten gold the day before, had now shifted to a deep, dark brown.

“You’ve recovered remarkably quickly,” Zhuo observed. Still clinging to his role as Yuan Anqing’s constant, overbearing companion, the monster hugged Yuan Anqing tightly from behind, shadowing his every step until they reached the mirror.

Zhuo reached out, lightly tapping the skin beneath Yuan Anqing’s eye. “This was only the first time,” he explained. “You’ll recover your normal eye color even faster after your future psychic drain.”

“My eyes will be back to normal by tomorrow?” Yuan Anqing asked, knowing Zhuo possessed far greater understanding in this area.

“No need to wait until tomorrow; they’ll be back to black by this afternoon,” Zhuo replied, resting his heavy chin on Yuan Anqing’s shoulder. To manage this, the towering chimera had to bend and arch his back significantly. “Besides, the gold isn’t ‘abnormal’ either. I quite like the color.”

Yuan Anqing harbored no particular preferences; golden or black, it made no aesthetic difference to him. However, he absolutely detested the sensation of the psychic hangover—the intense, uncontrollable emotions surging through his chest, swinging from extreme fondness to profound aversion to utter, suicidal despondency. Such powerful feelings exacted a heavy toll on his usually placid mind.

“Are your emotions completely fine now?” Zhuo inquired curiously.

“There’s still a slight issue,” Yuan Anqing admitted. A persistent, uncomfortable urgency lingered in his mind, though he couldn’t pinpoint its cause. “But I can control it.”

“You’re incredibly resilient, aren’t you?” Zhuo looked at Yuan Anqing with genuine admiration in the mirror. “But don’t you feel like something else is still missing?”

“What?” Yuan Anqing countered.

“Yesterday, you snapped back at me, looked down on other humans of your own kind, then quickly sank into suicidal despair. All those suppressed desires were brought to the surface,” Zhuo enumerated, item by item. After his list, he suddenly placed both hands on Yuan Anqing’s shoulders, turning the man to face him. “But what about the desire for procreation?”

“Huh?”

“I’m not joking, you know. I really think you should see a doctor.” Zhuo, after all, was an embodiment of desire. “Lust is a profoundly important biological drive among humans, yet even when your psychic inhibitors were completely blown off yesterday, you showed no inclination toward it.”

Yuan Anqing didn’t consider this a major problem. “I don’t have anyone I like.”

“Who said people can only feel lust with someone they like?” Zhuo raised an eyebrow. “Are you excluding all those pathetic humans who end up in bed together with just one look?”

Yuan Anqing offered no response.

Zhuo pressed on, “Your biological functions should have been completely restored when the system transferred you to this world. Don’t you feel any impulses at all?”

This touched upon Yuan Anqing’s blind spot. “What kind of impulses, specifically?”

“When you sleep, you might dream of doing ‘it’ with someone. And knowing humanity, if you’re a bit perverted, doing ‘it’ with animals happens too,” Zhuo explained, quite knowledgeable about the dark depths of mortal desire.

“Ah,” Yuan Anqing murmured, a flicker of deadpan understanding in his eyes. “Yesterday, I dreamt I was hugging a polar bear and sleeping.” But why would sleeping with a polar bear be considered perverted?

“The ‘it’ I’m talking about isn’t just taking a nap! It’s reproductive behavior! And wait, was I really a polar bear in your dream?” Zhuo squawked.

Yuan Anqing ignored the question.

“You’re missing out on a lot of fun,” Zhuo declared, having witnessed countless humans lost in such indulgences. They reveled in the most superficial, primal connections, suffering and yearning, only to return to their pleasures after the pain subsided.

It was a profoundly alluring experience to watch. Even strangers, in a moment of synchronized intimacy, could generate the illusion of spiritual connection, convincing themselves they were no longer alone.

Yuan Anqing patted Zhuo’s hand away. “So, you have personal experience?”

Zhuo’s red eyes widened slightly. “No! But I understand the theory very well! I definitely know more than you.”

“Perhaps,” Yuan Anqing said slowly, squeezing toothpaste onto his brush. “But I think anything said by someone without practical experience is just empty, exaggerated nonsense.”

For instance, Zhuo knew perfectly well the theory that working a 9-to-5 job was a capitalist prison, yet on his first day of work, he had still dressed up meticulously and treated it like a grand adventure.

“But I’ve truly witnessed so many twisted, depraved desires!” Zhuo insisted, feeling indignant at being doubted.

“You don’t need to specifically witness them in person; you can just look at forbidden websites on the internet,” Yuan Anqing said, filling his mouthwash cup with water. “I don’t think your understanding of desire actually runs that deep.”

After all, Zhuo’s personal “world of desire” was still akin to a childish tantrum. It was like a boy who hadn’t won an argument fantasizing about how regretful and desperate his parents would be after he ran away from home. It was somewhat absurd and lacked any significant destructive depth.

Zhuo opened his mouth to argue, but Yuan Anqing, already brushing his teeth, interrupted him. “Have you ever had such dreams?”

Zhuo froze. He was bewildered. He realized he genuinely hadn’t!

All his pleasures were of the mischievous, manipulative kind; he enjoyed watching others lose control, but he himself had no such physical desires.

“You seem quite healthy, then,” Yuan Anqing remarked dryly around his toothbrush. His own mischievous streak from the psychic hangover hadn’t vanished; it merely became less obvious. “Want to come see a doctor with me? Maybe the second patient gets half off.”

“Absolutely not!” Zhuo retorted loudly, then turned and stomped out of the bathroom.

Finally, he was gone. Yuan Anqing let out a sigh of relief.

Yuan Anqing himself didn’t care about his lack of libido. He simply didn’t have the energy to seek a partner. The sheer logistics of maintaining a relationship… Yuan Anqing couldn’t even fathom the calorie expenditure required. So, it didn’t matter to him.

But Zhuo’s nagging over this non-issue was annoying. Yuan Anqing just wanted some peace and quiet.

Yet, Yuan Anqing had overlooked a crucial point. His own desirelessness, born from the exhaustion of corporate life, was fundamentally different from Zhuo’s. Zhuo simply hadn’t considered his own lack of experience, which was why the monster was now somewhat disheartened.

This blow to his ego lasted until they boarded a shuttle bus that afternoon to return to the city.

By then, Yuan Anqing’s pupils were mostly black, and Zhuo had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the ride. During lunch, Zhuo had only eaten two bowls of rice, which for him was akin to starving.

His sulking demeanor made Yuan Anqing feel a touch awkward. “You don’t need to mind such things, Zhuo. Especially since you don’t even consider humans as beings equal to yourself.”

Zhuo took a deep breath, finally speaking. “Am I… really flawed?”

He wasn’t distressed; he was genuinely afraid.

Yuan Anqing’s carefully prepared words of comfort lodged in his throat. “Huh?”

“I… I truly have never experienced anything like that,” Zhuo whispered cautiously, leaning down to Yuan Anqing’s ear. “I haven’t even felt my heart flutter for anyone, you know.”

“That’s perfectly normal,” Yuan Anqing said, feeling helpless against the sudden vulnerability. “Would a human feel romantic affection for a pig or a chicken?”

Zhuo pondered for a moment, then nodded firmly. “Yes, they would!” Such depraved desires were indeed among those he had witnessed in humans.

Yuan Anqing: “…”

“Look, it’s perfectly normal for you not to feel attraction to humans. Since you can clearly induce and manipulate desire in others, it makes sense you wouldn’t easily believe in ‘true feelings,'” Yuan Anqing comforted him. He then added delicately, “Also, your human form’s organs probably aren’t 1-to-1 with your true body, are they? Is your human anatomy just for show?”

“Of course not!” Zhuo pointed indignantly at his own face. “I was born male, and I’ve never changed that about myself.”

“You can change?”

“Can’t you humans?”

Yuan Anqing understood; Zhuo was referring to surgery. “Alright, well, you don’t need to dwell on this. Don’t you have plenty of other fun things to focus on in life?”

“But I always feel… eh?” Zhuo suddenly noticed a blur flash past outside the bus window. His previously melancholic expression vanished, replaced instantly by a sharp, predatory smirk.

Zhuo’s mood shifted so rapidly that Yuan Anqing didn’t even grasp what had happened before a deafening BOOM echoed through the vehicle.

Something shattered the reinforced glass, hurtling directly toward Yuan Anqing’s head.

Because he had been chatting with Zhuo, Yuan Anqing had his back to the bus window.

Zhuo reached out with blinding speed and violently shoved Yuan Anqing’s upper body down. Yuan Anqing felt the projectile whiz past directly over his hair.

It flew out the other side with a heavy crash, shattering the opposite window. The entire bus swerved violently from the sudden impact, the driver screaming as the vehicle almost overturned.

“Zhuo! What is—” Yuan Anqing raised his head, but the rest of his words caught in his throat, utterly unspeakable.

Zhuo’s head had been cleanly severed from his shoulders.

Zhuo remained seated, maintaining his protective posture over Yuan Anqing, while thick, black-and-red gas continuously spewed from his severed neck.

Eh?

Yuan Anqing’s eyes widened slightly in shock.

Yet, the headless Zhuo seemed perfectly fine. The body even reached out to pat Yuan Anqing’s back, as if to soothe him. Then, playing his role, Zhuo’s headless body slumped backward and lay against the bus seat, feigning death.

Yuan Anqing felt his own breath catch in his throat.

Just then, the shattered bus door was violently kicked open from the outside.

The person who boarded was someone Yuan Anqing knew well: Qin Xiao, the nineteen-year-old Differentiated Being they had captured days ago.

He escaped from Bai Tian’s custody? No, that’s not right. Qin Xiao’s subspecies physically splits into a Reproductive Body at eighteen. So… this is his other half?

The Reproductive Body immediately noticed Yuan Anqing upon entering the ruined bus.

Due to the racial characteristic of Reproductive Bodies always being melancholic and hyper-sensitive, he seamlessly blended into the screaming, terrified crowd of passengers, appearing wretched and pitiful. Tears continuously streamed from his purple eyes, dripping off his chin. “You captured him. Give him back to me.”

Unlike the original body’s psychic abilities, this Reproductive Body was clearly built for physical combat. “Your guard dog died for you once; you won’t be so lucky next time.”

“Give him back to me!” The Reproductive Body screamed. He was the one who had just launched a decapitating attack, yet he was also the one in total emotional collapse.

Yuan Anqing silently rose from his seat, picking up the glasses that had fallen off in the chaos and sliding them back on. “Calling my companion a guard dog is very impolite.”

Yuan Anqing slowly lowered his hand. A faint, terrifying golden glow began to emanate from beneath his lenses. His pupils were shifting.

“Give him back to me!” The Reproductive Body paid no attention to Yuan Anqing’s calm demeanor.

“You’re scaring me,” Yuan Anqing said flatly, straightening his back. He and the weeping assassin were clearly operating on entirely different wavelengths.

“I told you to—” The Reproductive Body’s words were abruptly cut short as the scene before him suddenly vanished.

The wrecked bus, the screaming passengers, the headless bodyguard—all of it disappeared. Only a pitch-black void remained.

No, that wasn’t right. There was still a light.

The light was right beside the Reproductive Body’s face: Yuan Anqing’s glowing golden eyes.

The Savior had approached him in the mental realm, and Yuan Anqing’s hand was clamped tightly around the weeping assassin’s throat.

In an instant?! No, that’s not right. Mental manipulation cannot be judged by physical speed.

“I was almost completely healed from my headache just a moment ago,” Yuan Anqing sighed, sounding profoundly resigned. “You didn’t actually harm my friend. You’re not that powerful.”

Yuan Anqing calmly met the Reproductive Body’s terrified gaze. “He wanted to play dead to bait you, but I don’t have that kind of patience today.”

The Reproductive Body couldn’t move a muscle. Yuan Anqing reached out with his free hand and gently, almost clinically, wiped the tears from the assassin’s face. “Tears. How pitiful.”

The hand clutching the assassin’s neck suddenly tightened like a vice. Yuan Anqing’s expression remained that of a cold, exhausted observer—making it impossible to guess his next brutal move.

“Now,” Yuan Anqing whispered. “You should cry.”