Chapter 56: Thank You for Always Being By My Side
Especially like horses or rabbits…
Ah, right, I’ve been dead for a long time.
Is this place heaven or hell?
I live in a daze every day,
Feeling like I only have less than an hour of clear consciousness each day. But in reality, this is probably the kind of life every man desires.
Ruan Ruan gave me everything she could, what more could I ask for?
But…
No, what “but”?
What am I even doing?
…
My movements seemed to wake Ruan, who was sleeping beside me. I turned to look at her smooth, bare back and a wave of dizziness washed over my head for no reason.
…
The air I inhaled into my lungs carried a intoxicating incense, and as I exhaled, it felt like my very soul was being expelled.
My brain felt sluggish and blank, as if a faulty cleaning software had deleted a lot of important data.
I’d even forgotten what I had lost, only feeling my mind and body becoming lighter and lighter.
I felt empty.
“Don’t overthink it, Jun Jun, I’m by your side… Come into my embrace, I will give you a…
My heart was tightly bound by her, and from then on, I no longer longed for the outside world…
So, I covered my eyes,
As if I had lost
My light. I plugged my ears, as if to shut out all sound.
I buried my doubts in this way, telling myself in my heart that this was what I desired,
What I desired, and what Ruan desired.
But in the endless nights, I gradually lost my sense of reality, as if I were dreaming, or as if the dream were becoming reality.
Mixed between dream and reality, peace drowned in the depths of the swamp, and seeds of darkness sprouted, trapped in the mud.
I frantically drove out the darkness within my heart, until my heart became completely empty.
I suddenly felt very free.
Too much freedom, like an empty can with both ends cut off, with everything inside spilled out.
…I felt lonely.
However, this is the atonement I must undertake.
Until the person who brought me back a sense of reality appeared again.
She suddenly appeared before me.
“Should I stab you to death, and then stab the vixen who stole you away,
And finally leave this sorrowful place with your head? Huhu…”
Ruan Ruan was still sleeping beside me. I looked at the woman before me in a daze.
Who is she?
We are… so familiar yet so strange.
I can’t remember anything.
Seeing my dazed eyes, the woman’s smile instantly disappeared, and she looked at me with lonely eyes.
“It’s nothing, if you can’t remember, then forget it.”
She turned and vanished.
After that, she would occasionally appear by my side, mostly when I was meeting with another woman. She would always appear nearby with a teasing expression, then mock me.
“Great King Juncheng,
Huhu, those maids must have a hard time cleaning up these messes every day.”
Others couldn’t see her, only I could.
She was like a ghost, appearing and disappearing suddenly.
“It’s a shame you can’t get pregnant in this world~”
“Is it fun, having a drunken feast with these replicated mental constructs?”
“Huhu, Juncheng, you really are a pervert…”
The sharp, sarcastic words didn’t make me angry, but deep in her eyes, I saw sadness.
When she realized her biting words were useless, she changed her approach.
“Juncheng, are you happy like this?”
“Juncheng, do you have any regrets?”
“Juncheng, do you think this is okay?”
These were questions without proper answers, and pursuing them was meaningless.
So I didn’t reply, or rather, I didn’t know how to reply.
Seeing my silence, she became even angrier and…
She hysterically shouted at me,
“You belong only to me! Why are you still messing around with these women? They are just replicated
Mental constructs! They’re fake!” Finally, she burst into tears before me.
I didn’t comfort her, nor did I even look at her directly, always ignoring her.
After a long time, she changed her method again. She no longer asked me any questions. Whenever she appeared, she would just say some irrelevant things,
As if chatting about everyday life. No matter what I was doing, or who I was with, she could ignore everything else and, with a calm expression, smile and talk to me.
Even though I never replied, she would still talk to me as if I were talking to her, talking to herself.
“Hey, hey, a long time has passed, hasn’t it.”
Yes, a long time has passed… Although I couldn’t remember exactly how long, it felt like a long time.
She walked behind me and hugged me from behind, resting her chin on my shoulder and reaching up to stroke my hair.
“Your hair has gotten longer too, long enough to tie up, huh…”
Then, for the first time, I responded to her.
“…It’s a bit long.”
It had already reached my shoulders, like an artist’s, and could be tied up.
I felt the body behind me tremble suddenly, and then I heard an incredulous voice in my ear.
“Let’s cut it short later, for now, let’s find a hair tie to tie it up.
Let’s ask a maid for a hair tie later. I need to shave too.
But before that, let’s put on some clothes.
It feels like I haven’t worn clothes in a long time, I’m really regressing.
“Jun, Jun…”
I looked back at her, scratching my head and saying with a wry smile.
“I’m sorry, I still can’t remember who you are right now, but please don’t tell me. I’ll try my best to remember on my own, okay?”
“…!”
I… forgot many things.
I know it was done by you.
Every time I… with her, I would lose some memories. Ruan Ruan was slowly devouring my memories.
But I knew she was doing it “for my own good,” so I never stopped her.
After all, in this spiritual world that felt like a dream, it felt like anything was fine.
“But this world isn’t your dream, you idiot…”
Yes, this isn’t a dream, but it shares the same characteristic as a dream—falsehood.
I knew from the start that this place was a fabricated, false harem created by Ruan Ruan.
This world too.
Everything was fake.
But it doesn’t mean fake is bad. Ruan Ruan truly created a paradise for me.
However, this was not just a paradise, but also a hell of desire.
Desire here doesn’t refer to lust, but to obsession.
Yes, this was a world without pain, created by Ruan Ruan’s obsession for me.
But I didn’t stay here to fall into depravity.
…Like her, I made the same mistake. I labeled personal possessiveness as ‘
Love for Juncheng,’ and then imprisoned you… We were equally selfish and despicable.
“Heh heh, it makes me happy that you value me so much?…”
She slowly shook her head and spoke before I could,
“I know, you told us from the beginning that you can’t belong to just one person, so if you can’t accept it, let go.”
“I know,
…It’s our arrogance that always made us think we could win the war called love, when in reality, we never even…
Instead, we drew you into this endless war, even though you wanted peace.
“I’m just like scum, irresponsibly throwing the choice to you all. I’m not that great.”
That’s right, I’m not a great person at all, and I don’t have any ability, so I can only struggle like an ant, desperately struggling.
In the end, I might not even get a good ending…
…I am also escaping.”
Cheng, you’re escaping too? But you always face things head-on.
“No, I truly… Accepting Ruan like this is escaping. Because I…
Yes, I am afraid.
Admit it, I am afraid.
Trying to conceal this fact with love.
But from the very beginning, from the first moment I saw her, it wasn’t a feeling of love at first sight, but genuine fear.
PoP SF Novel
“I’ve actually been… Although it was just a dream, I escaped it by abandoning my emotions, but the fear I felt then…
In that spiral nightmare, Ji Lianbing, the white-haired killer, killed everyone.
The fear I felt then has always remained in my heart.
I’m afraid that Ruan Ruan will eventually become like that in the dream and kill everyone.
She can do anything now. If I resist her and try to leave her side, she might very well do that.
Therefore, I dare not resist Ruan Ruan.
“You too, I’ve always been afraid of you, both you and Lianbing are existences that frighten me.
“I think no man would NOT be afraid of a yandere like you…
…But I’m not afraid of that. I can accept whatever you do to me… I’m afraid of what you might do to others…
Sending away my younger sisters, something that could drive me insane. If that were to really happen, I might want to destroy the world.
She suddenly burst out laughing, then happily…
“How could I do something that would scare you, Juncheng? But then again, from another perspective, Juncheng, you
Hate me so much you want to kill me, meaning you only have eyes for me, and are possessed by me alone.”
“That kind of thinking is dangerous!”
“Huhu, but I want to love you more. When you rejected me, my heart shattered as if I was going to die on the spot. So
From that time on, I knew how precious the feeling of falling in love with you was. So if you hated me, I would die on the spot!”
“Is that so? Then I… can… overcome this fear.”
After getting dressed, washing up, and shaving, I tied my hair back with a hair tie in front of the mirror.
Then I said to her in the mirror.
“Sorry, Lan, for making you wait.”
She… Lanhua.
Her mind was full of dangerous thoughts of imprisoning and possessing me, but I loved her for it.
“Idiot… You made me wait for too long!”
She smiled, tears in her eyes.
Thank you for always being by my side.
