The wind enshrouded the entire world.
A vivid red butterfly floated in the night sky, sprinkling down glittering phosphor, like a galaxy shimring with light.
In the distance, the night sky stretched out, rging smoothly into the horizon like spring breezes through layers of leafy waves. The streams of people in the city-state gathered and ran on the ground like a swarm of ants.
"The building is collapsing, everyone watch your heads!" soone in the crowd called out to the evacuating people.
"There’s the chanical Army ahead! Rimu Sheng, co with to destroy them!" Noel’s voice emanated from between the buildings.
"What’s the situation now? Where’s Su Ming’an? I want to follow his lead," soone in the crowd asked.
"Everyone, follow the commands! Don’t panic! The Number One Player surely has things he needs to do!" soone else responded spontaneously.
"The battle hasn’t ended! Watch out for the chanical Army!!"
Buildings collapsed, and the ground trembled. Such intense commotion awoke many soldiers and civilians lost in emotional resonance.
A little girl who had just awakened rubbed her eyes suddenly looked up.
"Mommy! Look, there’s a huge butterfly in the sky!" she pointed excitedly to the sky.
Her mother looked up and also saw the beautiful sight.
"It’s true, like a ball of fire, so beautiful," her mother murmured.
Many others also noticed the commotion in the sky and raised their heads.
——Even from a great distance, people could clearly see the red butterfly.
Dragging its beautiful luminescence through the night sky, the fiery red wings of the butterfly slowly opened and closed with a graceful rhythm, and the sparkling phosphor it scattered was like a galaxy made of diamonds in the rich night, dreamy and beautiful.
It flowed in the eyes of the onlookers, like a fairy from a fairy tale that symbolizes beauty. It seed as if all the cruel events that had happened to this land could also be scattered by the wind because of it.
"Mommy, look, there seems to be soone on the butterfly?" the little girl with sharp eyes spotted sothing, "It must be the Flower Fairy—the Flower Fairy!!"
"Really? The Flower Fairy from the fairy tales?"
"The one who brings spring, the Flower Fairy?"
Many children lifted their heads; the fiery red butterfly in the night sky was so conspicuous, easy to spot at a glance.
Like a bird breaking through the clouds, pushing through the thick layers of leaves, the fiery red butterfly charged into the denser night.
Above the fiery red butterfly, Lin Guang’s hair fluttered among the sparkling phosphor. He gazed at Su Ming’an, hand placed on his chest, as if sensing his heartbeat.
Thump thump, thump thump.
His heart was beating fast, but his voice was very soft, as if to dissipate into the night:
"Over these years, I’ve painted more than a thousand paintings for you, but alas, they’ve all been burned. I couldn’t keep even one."
"I’ve learned the characters of Dragon Country, Lewis. I believe I won’t make any mistakes writing them anymore. If I were to write couplets for you, my brush writing is quite good."
There was a bone-deep loneliness harbored in Lin Guang’s tone as he said this.
It seed he had always been like this, in the long span of his life, bewildered, lonely.
He swallowed the pain alone, understood the bitterness alone, and perceived all negative and non-negative emotions. Any happiness drifted away from him, no beauty belonged to him, and love was beyond his touch.
Even now, behind him still trailed the crimson hoses, like feathers of flamingos.
These crimson hoses, also known as "Everything Interconnected," were like the "Internet" of the old era. Once connected to the Dawn System within the body, it was like installing a power source into a computer.
After connecting the hoses, everything in Kaius Tower beca omniscient, including the knowledge of where the firewalls were weak, which Lin Guang could discern.
Of course, being linked to the entire world, he heard countless resonances.
Sad, despairing, excited, sorrowful, joyous, downhearted... in the Ruined World, negative emotions always outnumbered positive ones by far—a single person’s sorrow might be trivial, but the sorrow of the whole world pressing down was a mountain high enough to crush anyone.
Lin Guang always bore this mountain.
Negative emotions clung to his back like leeches, gnawing at his senses. Only after leaving the City of Gods could he free himself from this bondage.
His gaze settled on Su Ming’an, pausing for a mont, not shifting away.
White hair fluttered in the wind, like willow catkins that were scattered, yet not.
"Lewis, I never thought you would actually agree to my request, pull my hand from the tangle of hoses, and call out my na," Su Ming’an said.
In that mont, Su Ming’an felt an extre lowliness in Lin Guang’s tone.
"Violet said, this is a kind of emotion that makes one feel warm. I’ve never felt it before, but now I do," Lin Guang said. "I really... treasure it."
Su Ming’an remained silent.
If it hadn’t been for Lin Guang’s death last cycle, he would have considered Lin Guang nothing more than a lackey complicit with the Deities.
The warmth Lin Guang now experienced was built on the cruelty and despair of the last cycle.
It was the rewinds of death again and again that broke the story’s endlessly despairing endings, his own painful deaths that allowed the plot to progress smoothly. All the beauty was born atop his own bones.
"Rustle—rustle—" The crimson butterflies flapped their wings, slicing through the darkness like a boat splitting the water’s surface, as if reaching for so unseen distance.
Above the City-State, the sounds of collapsing buildings were incessant; every brick, every pane of glass, every light... all were destroyed in explosions. Su Ming’an felt that everything before his eyes was so fragile, including the torrential rain, the cracking bricks, and even... the white-haired youth before him.
Lin Guang’s white hair fluttered in the rain, like fine snow that is about to lt on a winter night, flakes of snow condensing on his pale face, finally reflecting light in those light-colored pupils.
——Mantises, crimson butterflies, Hanfu, white hair, tea art, dreams of Taihua Mountain.
——Paranoia, obstinacy, focus, silence, determination, the similar smiles and features.
Every preference Lin Guang exhibited was extrely like Lv Shu, every bit of temperant he showed matched Lv Shu, everything about him was inseparable from the shadow of Lv Shu, be it facial features or habits.
It was not until today that Su Ming’an realized Lin Guang also liked Hanfu; he had only deliberately avoided it because it resembled Lv Shu too much.
But how could it be avoided.
The two of them were like beings fused together, one side belonged to light, and the other to shadow.
Lv Shu, although silent, felt like an unworn reef, or like a ray of sunshine that never shifted from behind. Even if you didn’t look back, you could know Lv Shu was there, and Lv Shu himself readily accepted the fact that "you would care about him."
In other words, Lv Shu’s essence was confidence. He believed he would be cared for; he believed his efforts would be reciprocated. Even if Su Ming’an said he didn’t need it, Lv Shu would still proffer what he thought was beautiful, waiting like a child yearning for praise. Because Lv Shu knew soone needed him.
But Lin Guang was different.
He never believed he would be loved or that anyone would care about him. Even a slight warmth could scald him, subconsciously convinced it was "a form of harm."
Because he had never made a friend, had never been cared for, he’d always faced only the fear and hatred of the public. He relied on self-harm to sense emotions, ti and again like a moth to fla, using the wrong thod.
It was only natural that he beca a flawed shell, stubborn and gloomy, cruel yet naive, like the shadow of Lv Shu.
Uncontrollable, false, wrong, unpredictable.
Humble, unfortunate, abnormal, unneeded.
If Lv Shu was composed of moonlight, tea leaves, and pine bamboo, then for Lin Guang... all negative emotions, everything lowly, damp, ugly, mud, shadows, and blood combined to form him.
The difference between him and Lv Shu was precisely this one point: "luck" and "misfortune".
Su Ming’an shifted his gaze, intertwining with Lin Guang’s stare in the night, watching him with a mix of barely discernible pain in his expression.
Suddenly, an angry voice of a deity ca from nearby:
"—So you ran off to the sky."
In an instant, a heavy cannon aid in Su Ming’an’s direction, like thunder piercing the fuchsia butterflies.
In a mont, the fuchsia butterfly turned into fragnts.
The fuchsia butterfly beneath his feet vanished instantly, Su Ming’an stepped into the void, and Lin Guang promptly pulled him, rolling onto a platform below.
"Cough—!" Su Ming’an coughed out a mouthful of blood, covering his mouth, quickly standing up with his palms full of a warm, wet sensation.
"Click-clack click-clack click-clack—"
The sound of a helicopter filled his ears, a raven-like helicopter suspended in the night sky, as if the moonlight was inverted. The deity stood at the hatch, overlooking the two of them like a hawk hunting its prey.
"Lin Guang, I originally thought you were just a fool, but I didn’t expect you to actually have a brain, to think of betraying ." the deity said: "But, it ends here. Do you think blowing up the building would be of any use?"
"I’m not a fool." Lin Guang stood on the platform and said coldly.
"Ha, hahaha..." The deity laughed while clapping his hands: "Everyone thinks you are a fool, every spectator—every onlooker—thinks you’re a fool, a villain, a butcher, an executioner. Including Lewis beside you... he despises you so much, yet you still want to stand by his side, it’s really... the epito of humility. I pity you, Lin Guang."
"He’s not a fool." Su Ming’an said indifferently.
"Hmm?" The deity seed surprised: "You’ve actually started to speak for him... Su Ming’an. If you knew what Lin Guang’s true nature was, you’d only pity him too."
...Lin Guang’s true nature?
...What is it?
Su Ming’an gripped the hilt of his sword, wanting to ask, but he found that the deity’s figure suddenly disappeared.
In its place was the sound of Lin Guang’s agony.
"Ah... Ah ah ah..."
Lin Guang held his head, his eyes filled with a blood-red hue, his chest heaving violently, his face unnaturally flushed.
Su Ming’an understood what the deity was doing.
The deity was invading Lin Guang.
As an Agent of the deity, Lin Guang was deeply eroded and could be easily invaded.
Once the deity took over Lin Guang’s body, he could control the Dawn System within Lin Guang, and everything would be the sa as the previous week, nothing would change.
Su Ming’an clutched the hilt of the sword but didn’t know what to do. Even if he killed Lin Guang now, it would just play into the hands of the deity.
And at that mont,
he saw Lin Guang’s pupils gradually turn bright red. But those eyes still held the last bit of rationality, staring intently at him as if pleading for sothing.
In that mont, Su Ming’an suddenly realized.
There was a sentence that had echoed in his mind. Although he still didn’t understand its precise aning or what it would result in.
But the increasingly faster beating of his heart and the sharpest string in his mind was telling him—this sentence was ant to be used right here.
...
...
[—Shoot him.]
...
With a "click", the bullet was chambered, Su Ming’an’s gun aid at Lin Guang.
And Lin Guang, who preserved the last of his sanity, saw Su Ming’an aiming the gun at him.
He smiled in relief, as if he finally saw the correct answer.
While struggling against the deity’s consciousness, he took out the wilted lily and slowly knelt down, lifting it high.
Across a distance, he lifted his head, the petals in his hand and the cold muzzle of Su Ming’an’s gun seed to connect in a straight line.
"Lewis."
"I still rember the first ti we t... You were in front of the fountain in the garden villa, and like spring, the flowers were beautiful." Lin Guang’s features moved slightly, his eyes squinted down, and the corners of his mouth curled upward.
That was a smile practiced over forty years.
"I really... really want to beco friends with you."
"...Shoot."
Su Ming’an tightened his grip on the trigger, his gaze trembling. He didn’t understand why he had to shoot Lin Guang. But his acuity told him that now was the exact ti to do so.
He slowly exerted force on his finger, targeting Lin Guang’s heart.
The luminescence of shattered butterflies coated Lin Guang’s white hair as if signifying destruction and rebirth.
In an instant, light burst forth from the muzzle, like a streak of brand new dawn—
...
...
"Bang!"
...
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