Since waking that day, Shi Deng had never again revealed even the slightest trace of vulnerability. He never mentioned Shi-ge either, as if he’d completely erased him from memory. He brought Xiao Deng and Uncle Fu back to Yuan Guang and cared for them meticulously. Though he refused to speak Shi-ge’s name aloud, traces of that unfamiliar yet familiar composed detachment had begun seeping into his words and manner.
Although Yuan had been destroyed, the contamination qi that had erupted during the battle still lingered across the land, driving exotic beasts into violent frenzies. Ability users were stretched thin, exhausted from constant combat. Shi Deng not only hunted relentlessly himself but deployed every single Yuan Guang ability user to help suppress the raging beasts. Within Yuan Guang’s walls, aside from Uncle Fu and Xiao Deng, only a handful of ability users with limited offensive capabilities remained—water, fire, light, wood, and earth types.
These few ability users had been assigned a single, peculiar task: planting sunflowers beneath Yuan Guang’s rear cliff.
This was Shi Deng’s only truly abnormal behavior. As the weather turned increasingly cold, he made near-impossible demands of these subordinates, insisting they cultivate an entire field of blooming sunflowers despite the harsh conditions.
***
Yuan Guang
“Master Fu, the Leader and his team have returned,” a servant announced hurriedly upon entering.
Uncle Fu acknowledged with a nod and ordered the prepared meal brought up immediately. Recently, Shi Deng had pushed himself without pause—hunting beasts from dawn to dusk, his abilities flowing endlessly as if they would never run dry. He’d transformed himself into nothing more than a tireless weapon, treating his body like combat machinery that required neither rest nor mercy.
When Shi Deng entered the dining hall, cold air and the metallic tang of blood still clung to him. He stripped off his coat and draped it over the back of a chair. The small decorative braids that once adorned both sides of his hair hadn’t been woven in weeks; instead, his hair was simply tied back in a practical style that wouldn’t interfere with battle.
Yuan Ting, Zhi Ze, and Cen Le had already seated themselves properly and begun eating their portions. Lately, the beasts they hunted weren’t far from Yuan Guang, making it more convenient to return here for meals.
Shi Deng’s gaze fell on the empty small chair beside him, and his brows drew together slightly. “Where’s Xiao Deng?”
Uncle Fu glanced at the time. “He still hasn’t woken up.”
Shi Deng’s frown deepened. “Skipping meals again.”
Ever since time had continued moving forward, the youth seemed to have broken free from some invisible restraint. He’d grown noticeably taller, and his features had matured considerably. Those heterochromatic eyes now held depths that were impossible to read—shadows and secrets that hadn’t been there before.
He rose from his seat. “Sister Le, you all eat first. I’ll go check on him.”
Cen Le nodded gently. “Alright. We finished today’s mission early, so make sure you rest too.”
Shi Deng selected a few of Xiao Deng’s favorite foods and placed them on a plate, then instructed Uncle Fu to eat his meal without following him. He left the dining hall alone.
Once Shi Deng’s figure had disappeared into the palace’s winding corridors, Cen Le exchanged worried glances with the others. All their eyes reflected the same concern.
Since Shi Deng had awakened, they hadn’t witnessed him truly rest even once. He was like someone who’d been shattered and crudely reassembled—bones reset at wrong angles, tendons still torn—yet forced to stand upright before the pieces had properly healed. His actions appeared normal on the surface, but they could all sense he’d been fundamentally transformed, as if he’d become an entirely different person. His protectiveness toward those close to him had intensified to an almost suffocating extreme.
Uncle Fu’s situation was somewhat manageable since he possessed abilities of his own. At most, Shi Deng had exempted him from many routine tasks and insisted he rest more frequently. When fighting alongside them, Shi Deng always prioritized eliminating the strongest exotic beasts and showed little concern for his own injuries—yet when any of them were hurt, they could see him struggling to maintain emotional control, his composure cracking at the edges.
These behaviors were worrying enough, but the situation with Xiao Deng—who had no combat abilities whatsoever—was even more concerning. Xiao Deng’s room had been moved directly adjacent to Shi Deng’s bedroom, positioned so close the walls nearly touched. At the slightest disturbance, those time chains that constantly shadowed Shi Deng would materialize beside Xiao Deng, coiling protectively around him like translucent guardians emerging from darkness.
Shi Deng appeared fine on the surface, but underneath, he was wound impossibly tight—a single thread stretched to its breaking point, waiting for the moment it would finally snap.
After Shi Deng’s back had vanished around the corridor’s turn, Zhi Ze finally released a heavy sigh. “Shi Deng is clearly traumatized…”
Uncle Fu’s response was quiet and resigned. “It’s inevitable.”
Yuan Ting spoke in a low voice, hesitation coloring his tone. “Should we follow and check on him?”
The atmosphere grew heavy with shared silence.
Uncle Fu shook his head firmly. “Let’s eat first.”
***
Shi Deng carried the plate toward Xiao Deng’s bedroom, each step bringing him closer. The floor was covered with thick carpeting in alternating shades of black and crimson, and fragile threads of light filtered through the tall windows, pooling on the fabric below. Wall-mounted lamps lined both sides of the corridor, their gentle glow creating pools of amber warmth.
His footsteps were nearly silent against the plush carpeting, each step muffled into near-nothingness. No servants were present in this section of the palace—Shi Deng had forbidden anyone except Uncle Fu and the core group from approaching within a hundred paces.
As he reached the door, the cold detachment in his expression melted away slightly. He consciously suppressed the violent energy that combat always left clinging to him, lowering his eyes until they regained their usual gentle appearance. Then he extended his hand and gently pushed the door open.
Xiao Deng was nestled safely beneath the blankets, his small face flushed pink with warmth, sleeping soundly and peacefully. A faint smile touched Shi Deng’s lips as he prepared to enter, but the fingers gripping the door handle suddenly froze rigid.
His heterochromatic eyes—reflecting the image of the sleeping child on the bed—dilated with sudden, overwhelming fear. Shi Deng stood completely still in the light cast by the wall lamps, half his face disappearing into shadow. For a long moment, he didn’t move at all.
Several breaths later, his fingertips began to tremble.
The plate slipped from his grasp and fell straight onto the carpeting. It made almost no sound, but the pastries scattered across the floor in a messy array. Shi Deng’s head jerked downward rigidly, his gaze falling on the colorful fruits now strewn about like some bizarre kaleidoscope. The sight triggered a violent sense of vertigo, the world spinning around him. He couldn’t stop his hand from clutching at his chest, struggling to suppress his ragged breathing as waves of discomfort crashed over him.
It had been so long…
So long since he’d had an episode.
These past weeks, drowning himself in slaughter, he’d nearly forgotten he was even sick. But this attack—triggered by the accumulated bloodlust—came with devastating force. His medication wasn’t nearby, and all-consuming terror instantly devoured what remained of Shi Deng’s rationality.
The child lying on that bed should have been infinitely familiar to him, yet now felt utterly alien. Xiao Deng’s body had been replaced by a powerful monster he could never defeat…
That wasn’t Xiao Deng on the bed.
It was a monster.
A monster.
Shi Deng could barely control the violent, explosive killing intent surging through his mind. The ability flowing through his meridians roared with savage hunger—
Kill him.
Kill him…
His palm made contact with soft, tender flesh. Somehow the youth had crossed to the bedside without conscious thought, and his hand had closed around the child’s throat. Gradually, incrementally, his fingers tightened.
His eyes were flooded with muddy hatred, confusion, terror, and razor-sharp killing intent all churning together in a poisonous mixture.
It wasn’t until the ‘monster’ he was strangling opened its eyes and began frantically beating at his arm with near-panicked desperation that something shifted.
Xiao Deng couldn’t breathe. He could only struggle with all his strength, a thin, hoarse sound squeezing from his constricted throat: “Shi… Deng…”
Shi Deng’s voice was eerily calm. “Where did you put Xiao Deng? Can you give him back to me? Please?”
“I don’t have Shi-ge anymore.”
“Don’t take him away too. He’s still so small.”
Tears streamed down the youth’s face even as he continued his low, pleading whisper. Yet his killing intent only intensified with each word, and he smiled—a pitiful, ingratiating expression.
“Please… I’m begging you…”
Anyone witnessing this scene would have called him insane without hesitation.
Xiao Deng’s form was growing increasingly transparent. As a semi-energy being without offensive capabilities, he couldn’t hold out much longer. He didn’t know if dying would make him vanish like Shi-ge had, or what other consequences his death might trigger.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty: if he actually died at the hands of his own pathetic future self, when Shi Deng finally woke from this delusion, he would truly, irreversibly lose his mind.
Damn it…
How did his future turn out to be such a disaster?!
Though Xiao Deng’s vision was going white from lack of oxygen, he found the situation grimly appropriate to his current emotional state. He stopped struggling entirely, focusing all his energy on survival, actively holding his breath as long as possible.
Fortunately, his young age gave him one advantage—the very first lesson taught in Yuan Guang had been how to convincingly play dead.
The ‘monster’ in his grasp gradually went still.
No more breathing.
The monster was dead.
A wave of panic crashed over Shi Deng. He released his grip, and the ‘monster’ collapsed limply onto the bed. He discovered his hands were shaking uncontrollably, trembling so badly he couldn’t steady them. Mocking laughter echoed around him from all directions. Shi Deng’s head snapped up, searching frantically, and saw countless shadowy figures materializing around the room. Those shadows pointed at him accusingly, their voices overlapping:
Look at him—he killed the wrong person.
He killed someone real, not a monster.
He’s just like us—he made a mistake…
Heh, made a mistake…
The world inverted itself. Shi Deng laughed once—a broken, jagged sound. A drop of water landed on his trembling hand, and for a long, confused moment, he couldn’t understand what it was. Finally, realization dawned: it was his own tear.
Was he crying?
Why would he cry?
He’d killed a monster.
Bit by bit, Shi Deng composed himself, carefully arranging his expression until no trace of abnormality remained visible on his face. He didn’t dare look at the monster he’d killed lying on the bed. Suppressing the terror churning in his chest, he walked calmly out of the room with measured, unhurried steps.
He accidentally stepped on some of the scattered pastries, crushing them beneath his feet, but continued back the way he’d come with perfect composure.
Uncle Fu and the four others who were still eating heard faint movement from around the corridor corner. Zhi Ze set down his chopsticks and looked up in surprise. “Shi Deng?”
The youth stood at the corridor junction, watching them with a smile. He wore a simple white shirt, and his expression was genuinely pleasant.
Uncle Fu and the others hadn’t seen Shi Deng smile in far too long.
Uncle Fu’s furrowed brow relaxed slightly, and he asked in a gentle voice, “Why are you back? Did Xiao Deng wake up?”
The youth’s gaze settled on him.
For no reason he could articulate, Uncle Fu suddenly felt deeply unsettled. Before he could identify the source of his unease, Shi Deng had already walked closer.
He picked up another plate with casual ease. “Mm, he did. I’m just getting him some more food.”
Shi Deng selected items seemingly at random. While everyone’s attention was elsewhere, he surreptitiously sprinkled something into the food on the table.
Terror coursed through him, yet his lips couldn’t suppress their upward curve of dark satisfaction.
These monsters wearing his friends’ faces were truly disgusting, utterly hateful. They weren’t his friends at all—they were just pretending. But he’d seen through their disguises, hadn’t he?
They should all die.
The youth betrayed no hint of his thoughts as he left carrying the plate. His steps were almost light and cheerful, with an spring of eager anticipation.
The people he needed to protect couldn’t be harmed or replaced by monsters.
After he’d gone, Yuan Ting reached for his chopsticks again, but Cen Le stopped him with a firm grip on his wrist. She shook her head silently, her expression grave.
Uncle Fu also sensed something was terribly wrong, though his instincts screamed that following Shi Deng right now would be a catastrophic mistake.
His gaze fixed on the direction Shi Deng had gone, his brow furrowing deeply. Using thin threads of silk materialized from his ability, he wrote several characters in the air: [Follow me. We’re checking the surveillance footage.]
***
Shi Deng returned to his own room.
But he discovered things were far more complicated than he’d thought. Everything in his room had also been replaced with fakes, all of it substituted.
On the desk sat the sunflowers Shi-ge had given him, positioned beside the glass jar filled with green stars.
His expression grew progressively colder. He walked over and ran his fingers along the vase holding the sunflowers and the glass container. Then, with sudden violence, he hurled them both to the floor.
CRASH.
Everything shattered into pieces.
The sunflowers he’d carefully nurtured, repeatedly using his ability to reverse their wilting and preserve their bloom, now lay beneath his feet as he trampled them expressionlessly. Water spread across the floor, soaking the ruined, rotting petals.
Green stars scattered everywhere across the ground.
These stars woven from Yellow Springs reed leaves had maintained their tender green color all this time, and now they emitted a faint glow where they lay on the floor.
He picked one up and began tearing it apart, but before he could finish destroying it, a small fragment floated up from the unfolded reed leaves.
Immediately afterward, the leaves began vibrating, producing a soft “rustling” sound. Accompanied by the leaves’ peculiar rhythm, the melody drifted through the silent room, playing gently.
Hidden inside this star was a piece of music.
The Two Worlds Song.
The tiny floating fragment looked somewhat familiar. Shi Deng examined it more closely and realized it was a fragment of a time chain. When he lightly touched it, a miniature image appeared at the center of the reed leaves.
In the projection, moonlight fell softly as a young man leaned against a tree, playing music on a leaf. His deep, gentle gaze remained fixed on a window not far away throughout the entire scene.
That was…
On the wasteland in F City, when Yuan had lured him into having an episode in front of Yuan Ting’s three for the first time, and Shi-ge had arrived just in time to rescue him.
He’d tested Shi-ge afterward, requesting to hear the Two Worlds Song.
Shi Deng remembered that night—after hearing the melody, he’d fallen into an unusually peaceful sleep, as if the music continued playing softly through his dreams.
From Shi-ge’s perspective, this was what it had looked like…
Were these stars filled with fragments of time chains infused with Shi-ge’s memories?
This one didn’t feel fake to Shi Deng.
He was nearly lost in the moment, but within seconds, even deeper terror swallowed him whole. The youth’s eyes snapped open, his brain buzzing with a deafening hum, his entire body going numb.
If this was real…
Then what he’d just done… Xiao Deng’s flushed, straining face appeared in his mind’s eye, followed immediately by the image of himself smiling as he sprinkled poison into the food on the table.
His blood seemed to freeze solid, drop by drop, as if ice needles were piercing through his pores.
Shi Deng shuddered violently.
No—those WERE monsters!
Everything was fake! Fake!
The world around him felt utterly false, yet the Two Worlds Song cradled in his palm felt impossibly, undeniably real.
The youth collapsed in panic, falling to the floor. His palm was sliced open by shattered porcelain fragments on the ground. His gaze landed on the medicine bottle by his bedside. Suppressing every instinct screaming at him to flee, he crawled desperately toward it. With trembling hands, he poured pills into his palm and forced them down his throat, swallowing despite the nausea.
He curled into a tight ball, clutching the reed leaves against his chest with one hand while desperately pressing the other over both ears.
He’d taken his medication.
Soon this feeling would disappear.
He’d killed monsters. Just monsters.
Gradually, the youth bit down hard on his jaw, fighting to prevent even the slightest vulnerable sound from escaping. He didn’t know who he was begging in his heart.
He killed monsters…
They had to be monsters.
Please, they had to be monsters.
***
**
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152