People often liken death to sleep, envisioning it as a fantastical journey, a comprehensive review of one’s life from beginning to end, culminating in a serene release from all worldly attachments.
Darkness, an icy grip, akin to plummeting into a frigid chasm.
Even the sensation of cold itself began to numb, to dissipate, as everything constituting his ‘self’ relentlessly drained away.
First, his memories, then the lingering reluctance to fade away, and finally, his very thoughts succumbed to a profound numbness.
‘I’m dead…’
Such a thought began to form in Lin Xiao’s mind.
His sluggish brain could no longer process it smoothly.
He only knew he was about to vanish, yet he had forgotten why, and no longer felt anything about it.
Yet, just as he was about to reach the bottom, a warm, gentle heat enveloped him.
He seemed to be drawn by it, a soft, comforting power mending his fragmented thoughts and consciousness, much like the genesis of life itself.
A warm current surged, and his consciousness was the first to revive.
Following the source of this warmth, he tasted a spring of sweet, soft water, imbued with the essence of life itself, seeming to be the very origin of the heat.
However, as he sought to delve deeper, the scene before him abruptly shifted, followed by a sensation of falling.
“Mmm-hmm… *chu*…”
A crushing weight, an oppressive heaviness that stole his breath, rendered his limbs immobile.
His chest felt as though a great burden pressed upon it, while a warm, sticky itch began at his neck, slowly shifting across his skin.
He struggled to open his eyes, yet his eyelids felt as heavy as a thousand tons.
He sensed himself lying in a cold, damp place, yet a warm object was pressed against his body.
The warm touch continued to move, finally settling, softly embracing him, before a warm kiss descended.
He felt like a patient in a vegetative state, lying rigidly on a bed, awaiting his end.
But that warmth enveloped him, its temperature steadily rising, much like a prince kissing Sleeping Beauty, yearning to awaken his slumbering beloved.
Ultimately, his sunken consciousness broke free from the abyss, akin to a flame rekindling.
“Ugh…”
Regaining his senses, Lin Xiao struggled to open his eyes.
He sat up, the dizziness momentarily preventing him from focusing.
“Ah… you’re awake.”
A calm voice resonated before him, and he discerned a blurry figure.
She was seemingly tasting something, licking her hand, her voice devoid of any discernible inflection.
“Don’t get up yet… your condition isn’t stable…”
As she cautioned him, she rose and walked towards clothes drying by the bonfire.
Lin Xiao still felt disoriented.
He forced himself to survey his surroundings.
It appeared they were by a small river near a forest, where the water murmured gently and the fire crackled.
Profound darkness enveloped the area.
He looked up, and the starry night sky, shimmering with tiny lights, was confined to a narrow strip by the towering cliffs on either side, which seemed hundreds of meters high.
The girl had already dressed.
She slowly approached Lin Xiao, the firelight illuminating her profile, allowing him to finally discern her features.
“An…”
He called out the name of the person whose face he now saw, for despite the horrifying scene he had witnessed earlier, his purpose in coming to the heart of the Crown of Reason remained unshaken.
Hearing his voice, the figure, still dressing, paused momentarily.
The girl finished tying her straps, then returned to stand before him.
She seemed to react to his call, but it felt less like a response to being addressed and more like a curious acknowledgment of a sound.
“Here… for you.”
She tossed him a set of clothes that looked pristine.
Lin Xiao instinctively caught them, only then realizing his current state.
A flush immediately crept onto his face, and he hastily put on the clothes, using the bonfire’s light as concealment.
“An, what exactly were those identical phantoms of you? And what is this place?”
Lin Xiao inquired, for even though he currently felt as powerless as an ordinary person, the joy of reuniting with her was immense.
He remembered that she had saved him before he lost consciousness; he could never mistake that purple jealousy and the golden sword.
“This place… I don’t know either.
I’ve been here since I gained consciousness.
As for them… I don’t know…”
She seemed a little dejected, yet her silver eyes remained utterly void and hollow, showing no trace of regret or sorrow.
“I only know that they hate me and want to kill me, so I need to eliminate them.
And every time I defeat them… it’s as if something returns to my ‘heart’…
“An… is that my name? Who am I?”
The girl braced herself on the ground, looking at Lin Xiao, her eyes filled with questions.
Hearing all this, he formed an initial hypothesis about their situation.
His expression shifted from wary to gentle, finally settling into deep guilt and heartache.
“You are An, named Qi Yue’an.
You are the most important person to me.
I… owe you a great deal, and I’ve come to rescue you.”
Hearing his words, Qi Yue’an tilted her head, appearing somewhat perplexed.
Seeing her memory-lost state, Lin Xiao’s guilt intensified.
He reached out to touch her, but stopped, recalling the series of events that had transpired in the past.
‘Did he truly have the right to touch her again?’
‘He had torn her from the sanctuary she had finally found, kept her by his side, and drawn her into a maelstrom, only for her to die for him beneath the cold Nails of Judgment.’
‘Time and again, he had arrogantly taken everything from her, and now, even with her soul shattered, he was still forcing her to remain in this world.’
Just as he was about to withdraw his hand, the girl reached out and grasped his.
Then, under his astonished gaze, she gently leaned in, stopping the words he was about to utter with a warm kiss.
Her movements were incredibly clumsy, yet they carried a genuine yearning and comfort, only releasing him when he, stunned, was on the verge of gasping for breath.
“An… you…”
Lin Xiao’s thoughts were completely disrupted by this sudden action, leaving him somewhat incoherent.
Qi Yue’an, however, smacked her lips as if savoring a taste.
“Mmm… a taste I like…”
She mumbled like a judge appraising food, her face still utterly devoid of expression.
A faint ripple appeared in her dead-still, emotionless silver eyes, before they settled back into calm.
“You are Xiao, right?”
Qi Yue’an posed an odd question, and Lin Xiao, whose brain was somewhat ‘offline’ at the moment, nodded mechanically.
“But… why did you suddenly… uh… do that?”
He recalled the recent kiss, so different from the first, which was laced with a bloody farewell as she lay dying, pierced by the Nails of Judgment.
This one was sweet and warm, imbued with a distinctly vibrant life force.
Watching his rare display of shyness, a slight curve, unnoticed even by herself, appeared at the corners of Qi Yue’an’s lips.
“I know Xiao.
Every time I encounter them, I always hear that name, and in those memories, I always see Xiao.”
As she spoke, a faint glint flickered in her eyes.
“Xiao looks a little unhappy.
Previous fragments told me… this can make you happy.”
The girl used her finger to lift the corners of her mouth, forming a smile that wasn’t quite authentic, her silver eyes devoid of any mirth.
“And… your taste, I like it very much.”
With these words, she lowered her hand.
Lin Xiao wanted to ask more, but a strong sensation of hunger washed over him.
He was momentarily perplexed, for the world within the Crown of Reason fundamentally accommodated conscious entities; logically, hunger, a phenomenon caused by a lack of physical nutrients, should not occur here.
Yet, he not only still felt no magic, but also a profound weakness.
“Xiao, are you hungry?”
Qi Yue’an seemed to sense something, turning back to look at him.
She was adding wood to the bonfire, and in her hand, inexplicably, was a slice of toast—something utterly out of place in a survival scenario—now propped over the fire.
“This is…”
Qi Yue’an handed him the toast, which, despite having been on the fire for only a short time, was already golden-brown.
He hadn’t seen any bread there before.
“If I think of it, it appears.
People must need to eat, right?”
Lin Xiao, taking the bread, noticed that after performing this act, she became motionless, as if on standby.
“Um… An, aren’t you eating?”
Hearing his question, she hugged her knees and lowered her head.
“I can’t taste anything, and… I don’t seem to need to.”
Her words pierced Lin Xiao’s heart.
He wanted to offer comfort, but her voice came first.
“However, thank you for the ‘bandwidth’ earlier, Xiao.
I found something with a taste, though it’s a little bitter… but I like it very much.”
Lin Xiao’s words caught in his throat.
‘While she might have been referring to the taste of the kiss, he couldn’t shake the feeling she meant something more.’
“What do we do next? Where exactly are we? Can we return to that previous place?”
Lin Xiao forced himself to redirect his attention, posing a series of practical questions.
He needed to quickly ascertain their current situation, for now that he had found Qi Yue’an, his next step was to devise a way to return to Ancheng and seek guidance from the City Lord, Qi Wei.
“Return?”
Qi Yue’an tilted her head, her eyes showing clear confusion for the first time.
“Return where?
I… I’ve been here since I gained consciousness.
Perhaps… less than five days?”
“Five days?”
Lin Xiao’s heart jolted.
He clearly remembered that his entry into the Crown of Reason and his discovery of the Silent Corridor had taken no more than half a day.
Could the flow of time here be different from the outside world, or even from other parts of Ancheng?
This realization filled him with a trace of unease.
Suppressing his doubts, he extended his hand to her:
“Let’s leave here first and try to find our way back, alright?
I know a place called ‘Ancheng’; perhaps there are people there who can help us.”
Qi Yue’an looked at his hand, hesitated for a moment, then placed her own upon it.
He led her, carefully advancing along the river valley’s edge, towards the direction of the Silent Corridor in his memory.
Along the way, Qi Yue’an became unusually animated, incessantly asking him about ‘herself’.
“Xiao, what was I… like before?”
“Have we… truly known each other for a long time? Did I truly like you?”
“Those images in my memories…”
She seemed to instinctively glean scattered memory fragments from those she had absorbed, yet she could not draw any emotion from them—neither joy, sorrow, nor affection.
She merely recounted ‘information’ related to herself, as if reading a biography about a stranger.
Lin Xiao patiently answered her questions, attempting to use words to paint a picture for her of the Qi Yue’an he knew—the vibrant soul, a blend of strength and vulnerability.
However, observing her consistently calm, unruffled eyes, his sense of powerlessness grew heavier.
Gradually, the surrounding landscape began to feel familiar.
The desolate gravel, the twisted dead trees, and that faint, pervasive sorrow and stillness in the air…
Unbeknownst to them, they had returned to the very place that had left Lin Xiao’s heart trembling—the edge of the Silent Corridor.
Only, unlike the previous hair-raising ‘bustle,’ the corridor now appeared exceptionally empty and desolate.
The wind whistled through the broken arches and stone pillars, emitting a mournful moan.
However, deep within this ruin, a figure curled beneath a colossal broken pillar drew their gaze.
It was yet another phantom of ‘Qi Yue’an’.
She wore the somewhat tattered nightgown Lin Xiao knew so well, belonging to the Dawn Star Palace’s sleeping chambers.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, her face buried deep in her knees, her body trembling uncontrollably.
Most striking was the hideous, constantly oozing dark red particles from a hollow in her chest—a clear, unhealing wound left by the ‘Nails of Judgment’.
This particular figure had left the deepest impression on Lin Xiao; that intense blend of love, desire, and madness was still etched in his mind.
But unlike her previous appearance, which was filled with aggression and distorted possessiveness, this phantom now exuded a pure, almost tangible… pain and despair.
“Stop, Xiao, she has revived once again.”
Qi Yue’an halted, her silver eyes calmly fixed on the curled figure.
No emotion could be read in her hollow pupils.
Like a protector guarding her food, she shielded Lin Xiao behind her, deftly drawing her longsword and advancing towards the phantom.