“Li Fei?”
Lei Xiuyuan grabbed her abruptly. Her body was weak and powerless, completely unable to resist. He pinned her to the ground, forcing her to stare at him in terror.
“… What illusion did you just see?” He gazed at her intently.
Li Fei turned her head away and closed her eyes. Perhaps this was yet another illusion; she didn’t want to be hurt again. She struggled to push herself away with her feet, but each time she managed to move an inch, he immediately followed, closing in relentlessly.
“What did you see?” he asked once more.
She didn’t want to hear his voice. Covering her ears with both hands, she curled up into a ball on the ground.
After an indeterminate time, a mournful wind suddenly howled. Something hot seemed to fall gently on her skin. Li Fei slowly opened her eyes a crack to see dense black ash raining down like sand. The floating island had inexplicably disintegrated into tiny fragments in an instant. The wind blew, scattering the glowing particles over everyone.
As the fine ash fell, Li Fei felt some strength returning to her weak body. She struggled to get up when suddenly a pair of feet appeared in her line of sight. Without looking up, she knew who it was. She sat up with effort, stumbling as she tried to crawl away on all fours. Suddenly, someone grabbed her by the collar, and she was involuntarily placed in front of Lei Xiuyuan.
He frowned as he looked at her. Li Fei wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she felt as if there was a sharp golden light hidden in his eyes. Even his skin seemed to emit a cold, dazzling golden glow. This radiance made Lei Xiuyuan look very unfamiliar.
“The mirage beast is gone. Where are you trying to run?” Lei Xiuyuan’s hands clamped onto her cheeks with a “pa” sound. Li Fei, in pain, instinctively slapped him hard on the ear. He didn’t dodge, just stared at her quietly. “Does it hurt? If it hurts, then it’s not an illusion. Everything you saw just now was fake.”
He emphasized the last two words “was fake” particularly heavily. Li Fei’s chaotic mind finally began to calm down. She looked around to see cultivators lying unconscious everywhere. The thick fog had not yet fully dissipated. The mirage beast had attracted all the cultivators on the island here, and everyone was still immersed in either beautiful dreams or nightmares.
She turned her gaze back to Lei Xiuyuan’s face. It was still the same face, the same expression.
Fortunately, those were false.
Li Fei managed a faint smile. “… Do you have to hit so hard?”
Lei Xiuyuan pinched her face again. “If it’s not hard, you won’t know it hurts. What did you see?”
Li Fei recalled those warm, beautiful dreams that had filled the cracks in her heart, as well as those nightmares that had exposed her greatest fears in broad daylight. In the illusion, she had asked a question she had always wanted to ask and received the answer she most desired. However, all of that was false, non-existent.
A trace of sadness flitted across Li Fei’s heart. What she hoped for most, she had already obtained in the illusion. What she feared most, she had also experienced in the illusion. She and he were ultimately different. Lei Xiuyuan was a rare genius who would surely shine brilliantly in the future, while she was an anomaly who needed to carefully conceal her secrets to survive.
The question that had been troubling her all this time, she suddenly didn’t want to ask, nor did she dare to ask anymore.
“Then what did you see?” she asked in return, trying to appear relaxed.
Lei Xiuyuan paused, which was rare for him. He slowly folded his arms, a finger resting on his chin, looking at her thoughtfully. Li Fei had only asked casually, but seeing his expression, she suddenly became curious. Why was he looking at her like that? Could it be that she was in his illusion too? What was it like?!
She stared at him, speechless. Lei Xiuyuan seemed to have been lost in thought for a long time. Seeing her staring at him like this, he couldn’t help but smile. “You want to know?”
Selling suspense again? Li Fei suddenly remembered that it was he who had woken her up, and she couldn’t help but laugh bitterly to herself. For someone like him, he probably didn’t see any illusions at all. Even if he did, it was probably something like dominating the world and becoming the most powerful immortal. Her appearance in it probably wasn’t important. But she was different. Her illusion was full of him, the person who made her extremely happy and extremely painful, it was all him.
She laughed softly twice involuntarily, not knowing if she was laughing at those illusions or herself.
The chaotic feelings in her heart that couldn’t find an outlet finally began to calm down. It was indeed time to truly calm down. She didn’t want to be the only one going up and down like a fool from beginning to end. Like or dislike? It’s only three words at most, isn’t it?
“No, forget it. Let’s not talk about this.”
She looked away. The hot black ash was still falling. The body of the mirage beast had long since turned to ash, no longer recognizable in any shape. That lush, verdant small island was probably an illusion too.
The thick fog had not yet dissipated. Hundreds of disciples lay sprawled on the ground, some with happy smiles on their faces, others gritting their teeth. What a terrifying beast. No wonder Ri Yan said even he would be affected. The mirage beast didn’t need powerful demonic energy or terrifying combat power; it only needed to release various illusions to kill people invisibly.
Such a powerful beast, what method did Lei Xiuyuan use to cut it into these fragments so quickly? He didn’t say a word, silently killing the mirage beast all by himself. It was indeed Lei Xiuyuan’s style.
She glanced at him. The golden light in his skin and eyes was rapidly fading, gradually becoming indiscernible.
“Did you push yourself again?” Li Fei asked in a low voice. “Was it that move from Li Lie Valley last time?”
Lei Xiuyuan was still looking at her thoughtfully. After a while, he said, “As long as you break free from the mirage’s illusion, it’s not hard to kill. You can kill it even standing still.”
Kill it standing still? Li Fei laughed. He was always like this. This time he had pushed himself, and next time it might be another episode of exhaustion and intense pain. She waved her hand and set up a healing net on him first, just in case.
She stood up and dusted herself off. “I’ll go check on the others.”
Lei Xiuyuan’s fingers suddenly gently pinched her face, forcing her to turn back. He looked somewhat dissatisfied. “You haven’t answered my question yet.”
Li Fei swatted his hand away, ignoring his gloomy expression. “Don’t be so handsy.” With that, she quickly walked away.
She soon found Ge Lin and the others. They had all fainted together. Bai Li Ge Lin was lying face down on the ground, sobbing softly and muttering something. Li Fei hurried over and slapped her face hard twice. “Ge Lin! Wake up!”
Bai Li Ge Lin suddenly opened her eyes, large tears rolling down. Her eyes were red and full of despair. She suddenly grabbed Li Fei and said in a trembling voice, “Where’s my sister? How is she? If anything happens to her, I… I…”
Li Fei held her, patting her back gently. “It’s okay, everything’s fine. It was just an illusion.”
Bai Li Ge Lin hugged her knees and cried for a long time before gradually realizing that everything just now was only an illusion. Her red eyes stared at the unconscious Ye Ye for a while, finally shedding a tear and letting out a long sigh.
“I’m going to find my sister,” she said, getting up and leaving.
Li Fei then woke up Lu Li. When he woke up, he looked around in confusion and only asked half a question: “Ge Lin, is she…”
Before he could finish, this clever young man seemed to notice something amiss and immediately fell silent. Then he sat to one side, motionless, lost in thought.
Li Fei saw that Ji Tongzhou was lying the farthest away, and his body was trembling slightly, probably amid some nightmare. She went over to him, just about to slap him awake, when he suddenly opened his eyes and sat up abruptly, covered in cold sweat. He turned to look at her, his gaze intense yet seemingly hiding endless sorrow.
She hurriedly comforted him, “Are you alright? It was all just a dream…”
Before she could finish speaking, Ji Tongzhou suddenly reached out and hugged her tightly. His heartbeat was very rapid, his breathing equally hurried, and even his voice was trembling: “You didn’t leave! Thank goodness! You didn’t leave!”
Li Fei awkwardly pushed him away. “Ji Tongzhou, what kind of dream did you have?! Wake up!”
His sweaty, hot palm caressed her face. Li Fei suddenly felt a tear fall on her cheek. This prince, still trapped in the illusion, was hugging her tightly and crying. She was so shocked that her whole body froze—crying?! Ji Tongzhou was crying?! What kind of dream did he have? Could it be that he dreamed about her?
Li Fei felt like she was about to be crushed by him. His strength was terrifyingly great. She struggled several times with all her might, but it was of no use. She could only pound on his back, saying urgently, “Let go! You just had a nightmare! It wasn’t real!”
He seemed not to hear. In utter helplessness, Li Fei had to open her mouth and bite his arm hard. Ji Tongzhou winced in pain and finally let her go. Li Fei jumped up like a rabbit, retreating several steps, staring at him warily and helplessly. He first stared at her blankly, but slowly, as if waking up from a shock, he gradually turned his head to look around and finally seemed to freeze.
Was it a dream? So it was just a dream?
Ji Tongzhou didn’t know whether to be relieved or pained. That absurd illusion had given him everything beautiful, then brutally shattered all that beauty before him. The Kingdom of Yue was destroyed, his lover abandoned him, and he stood alone in the vast snowy wilderness with nowhere to go.
Thankfully, it was just a dream… Ji Tongzhou wearily covered his forehead. The painful lump in his throat and the tearing pain still lingered. He instinctively looked up to find Jiang Li Fei, only to see that she had already left. Another wave of pain swept through his heart. Why was it only a dream? He had been entangled with her in love and hate in the dream, experiencing the ultimate pleasure of three thousand worlds and the extreme pain of the nineteen layers of the Yellow Springs. Yet in the blink of an eye, upon waking, everything had turned to nothing.
At least in the illusion, he had possessed her. Upon waking, he couldn’t even get a hug.
Ji Tongzhou tilted his head back, feeling as if he was about to suffocate. Invisible, raging fires seemed to burn his heart and body across the mountains and plains. He was deeply trapped in the illusion, unable to break free. Truth and falsehood were intertwined. In this fleeting life, it was all but a dream, yet he felt as if he had lived an entire lifetime, unable to forget.