Chapter: Chapter 74: Did You Ever Love Me?
Chapter 74: Did You Ever Love Me?
Xi Wei didn’t know that not long after he and Ruo Yi left her room, the Nightmare Imprint, which should have subsided, launched its final attack on Ruo Yi.
This time, the attack became even more violent, exhausting all its power.
Having failed to break the girl’s will twice in a row, the entity behind the Nightmare Imprint seemed to be growing anxious. It even wondered if the Nightmare Imprint was broken.
It sensed something was helping the girl, and the once favorable situation took a sharp turn. The girl was always able to overcome her inner nightmares time and again.
However, it didn’t know what was helping the girl, and naturally, it had no way to target it.
This was because it couldn’t see everything in the dream, nor could it control the dream. Everything in the dream originated from the girl’s weakest and most vulnerable points. It could be an event or a person. The development of the nightmare was based on the girl’s soul shaping the events.
It could only provide the Nightmare Imprint with the energy to generate dreams, guiding the girl’s shaping of events in a direction she unwillingly experienced.
In fact, the Nightmare Imprint, as a tool for creating nightmares, had been very diligent. In the first round of nightmares, it exploited the girl’s timidity and combined it with her deepest memories to create one terrifying nightmare after another, leaving her powerless.
But this originally timid girl, somehow found courage, saw through the illusion of fear, and fought her way through the empire’s army in the nightmare alone, one person with one sword, leaving a mountain of corpses and shaking the earth.
In the second round of nightmares, it found the man who left the deepest impression on the girl’s mind. It made them meet repeatedly in a peaceful and serene small town until they fell in love. And at the peak of their feelings, it cruelly crushed the man into a pulp of flesh. The way to break this nightmare was to kill the man she deeply loved. But the entire small town couldn’t find a single sharp weapon capable of killing anyone.
The girl had already begun to fall into the dream, unable to extricate herself. From falling in love to losing her partner, her emotions shifted from sadness to gradual numbness. Logically, she should have fallen into despair, gradually sinking into the dream and losing touch with reality.
But who knew what made her react, see through the truth, and force herself to kill her lover despite the pain in her heart.
Now it was the third round of nightmares. The entity behind the imprint would invest more energy, doing its best to make the girl construct a more realistic and cruel dream under the influence of the Nightmare Imprint. It wanted to destroy the girl’s beliefs. No matter what was helping her, it wanted her to collapse and her soul to sink completely! Only in this way could it obtain that trace of divinity from the girl without any loss.
…
The sunset fell into the vast starry sky.
Winter arrived suddenly, casting a dim light on the mountains and rivers.
In the room, Ruo Yi, with a pale face, slowly opened her eyes.
A warm and comfortable feeling washed over her. She found herself lying on the familiar velvet bed. What greeted her eyes was the luxurious crystal chandelier above. Ruo Yi looked around. The clean room, the exquisite furniture, the gorgeous beast-wool carpet – it was exactly as she had seen it when she first woke up.
“…Is it over?” Ruo Yi murmured, a hint of hesitation in her voice. Had the repetitive nightmares truly ended? Or was everything she saw before her just another new nightmare?
*Click—*
The room door opened, and Ruo Yi turned her head slightly. A familiar man walked in. Blue eyes, golden messy hair, and a gentle gaze. Ruo Yi suddenly felt an urge to cry.
“You’re awake? How do you feel? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?” Xi Wei came to Ruo Yi’s bedside, looking at her with concern and asking tenderly.
Ruo Yi gazed softly at the man and shook her head gently.
“You’ve been unconscious for a whole day. I brought you over from Dawn Town.”
“Those foreign people tried many methods, but they couldn’t heal you, so they could only ask me for help in the end.”
“It just so happens that I have some ancient curiosities here that might help you.”
So that was it. Ruo Yi felt a sweetness in her heart upon hearing this. She knew that she might have truly escaped those terrible nightmares this time. The reason she was able to maintain her self in the nightmare and break free from its constraints was because she felt a very warm and familiar aura. This aura had also transformed into a long sword and a short sword beside her. So it was because of him. She just didn’t know why, now that she had woken up, she no longer felt that warm and familiar aura. That curiosity must have been something very precious, and it was likely used up entirely to save her.
“I’m sorry… for making you…”
Before Ruo Yi could finish speaking, Xi Wei put an unknown fruit into her mouth. She took a small bite; the sweet juice filled her mouth, so sweet it felt like honey dripping into her heart.
“Actually, the first time I came to Dawn Town, I saw you. You were truly beautiful. I had a good impression of you right then.” Xi Wei looked at the girl on the bed with gentle eyes, his voice sincere and pleasing, as if he were telling a story of a prince meeting a princess.
“But, as you know, the foreign people who were with you killed my mayor in my territory.”
“If I didn’t punish them, wouldn’t they think I was a pushover?”
Ruo Yi blushed, looking away from the man sitting by her bed uncomfortably and stammering, “Then… then what about the second time? You… you still did that, deliberately not clarifying in the contract…”
“And… and you even… you were still in my room…” Ruo Yi couldn’t continue. The scene from that time flashed through her mind, along with the strange changes that happened to her afterward. She was so embarrassed that her fair skin began to show a faint rosy hue. Although in the nightmare, she and Xi Wei had fallen in love and even did everything together, that wasn’t real. Now, what she faced was the real Xi Wei.
“The second time, hahaha,” Xi Wei laughed heartily, seeming very happy. He said with a suppressed chuckle, “The second time, I was deliberately teasing you. Although I said I would collect taxes from Dawn Town, I never actually collected them.”
“And,” he said, pausing for a moment, then suddenly leaning down, placing his hands on Ruo Yi’s pillow, his lips coming close to her ear, and saying in a low, predatory voice, “I just wanted an excuse to kiss you forcefully. Is that not allowed?”
“You… you…” Ruo Yi’s pretty face turned even redder. Under the influence of the familiar scent from the man, tears of shyness welled up in her eyes, and her entire skin flushed a more vibrant rosy red than before.
A look like that of a grey wolf flashed in Xi Wei’s eyes. He smiled and kissed her. The kiss lasted for a long time. It lasted until the girl gradually shifted from feigning resistance to welcoming his advances. It lasted until the lights in the room were turned off. It lasted until the sheets and torn clothes fell to the floor.
…
A month later, Eagle Territory welcomed its first mistress, a beautiful and charming demi-human girl. Her lustrous, flowing white hair reached her waist. Her golden eyes were like the stars in the sky, and her silky tail behind her was like clouds fallen from heaven. The townsfolk of the territory rejoiced, praising how beautiful the Lord’s wife was. Bards sang songs of her in every tavern. Ruo Yi put on a sacred and dignified white wedding dress, and at that moment, she felt like the happiest girl in the world.
But her happiness didn’t last long. Xi Wei was a complete lunatic, scum, and pervert. All his halos and gentle, refined demeanor were merely a disguise. After the initial sweetness passed, his inherent brutality and cruelty were nakedly revealed, and they were unleashed upon her. She was locked in the dungeons by Xi Wei. Tortured, whipped, and insulted, she was subjected to extreme humiliation. Ruo Yi, covered in bruises, felt as though she had returned to the nightmare. Only this time, the nightmare did not repeat. This was reality. From initial confusion to anger, then to actively pleasing him, and now she had even grown accustomed to being beaten and abused. Every day, Ruo Yi would ask Xi Wei one question: “Did you ever love me?”
