"Oh, oh yeah, I am..." Jin Jiuchi responded sluggishly, still reluctant to crack open his eyes.
The ground beneath him felt cool, while the crackling fire nearby provided sufficient warmth to his skin, making the bones in his entire body felt soft. The only downside was the intense and relentless pounding on his skull which seed as if soone had cracked his head open before grinding his brain into a ss of bloody pulp. He couldn’t help but clutch his head, all the while moaning and groaning pitifully, "Ouch, my head... it’s killing ! Nian’er, did you whack my head when I was asleep??"
Shen Nianzu, who was shot even when lying down, shot a scathing glare at the unreasonable husky. "Do you want to whack you right here and now?" he bared his teeth in a threatening gesture, though his laid-back stance and the sparkling luster in his eyes betrayed the joy and relief he was feeling within.
"How cruel!" Jin Jiuchi cried out as if the entire world had done him a great injustice. Like a boneless invertebrate, he rolled and rolled across the forest floor until his head rolled straight onto Shen Nianzu’s small lap. He then adjusted his position a few more tis until he found the most comfortable position before wrapping his arms around Shen Nianzu’s soft and sweet-slling body, sighing in contentnt.
"Nian’er, my head hurts..." he complained in a muffled voice from where his face was buried into Shen Nianzu’s tummy.
"You—!" Shen Nianzu was amused, angry yet distressed at the sa ti at Jin Jiuchi’s spoiled appearance. His hand raised as though poised to hit the other person, but in the end it simply landed on Jin Jiuchi’s head, roughly ssing his hair up before massaging his temple. "You’re so goddamn heavy, do you know that?" Although his mouth said so, he did not shoo Jin Jiuchi away or even so much as shift his position, looking quite happy and content to be a temporary human pillow.
Watching the couple’s harmonious interaction, one big and one small, Gu Luoxin couldn’t help but feel like he was looking at a ferocious black dragon coiling its massive, lengthy body around its most precious and lovely possession. Too lost in his whimsical imagination, he did not even realize he was grinning in a rather silly and foolish way— until Noir snapped his fingers right in front of his face, jolting him back to the present.
"What’s on your mind?"
"Oh! Oh, I— um..." Gu Luoxin instinctively straightened up, his mind a little blank.
Did Senior just initiate a conversation with ? He blinked once, twice, and after making sure that his eyes and ears were not playing tricks on him, only then did he fully return to his senses. He couldn’t help but duck his head, cheeks flaming hot. Good Lord, why was he such a scatterbrain?! It was fortunate that the flickering fire helped to conceal the blush on his cheeks sowhat.
"It’s nothing. I just..." he tugged on his bangs in a nervous gesture and decided to voice his feelings candidly, "Sotis, I just feel so lucky to et them on my second Cycle. They’re both very good people, even though Da Shen is... you know." He let out a cough laden with aning, as he believed that Noir must be able to understand what he was implying.
"Sotis I can’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t mustered my courage to ask them to team up with back then, who knows what would have beco of now?" Gazing at the burning fire, Gu Luoxin was once again lost in thought.
Night was a ti when people felt the most vulnerable, coaxing out emotions and thoughts they would have kept hidden otherwise.
Gu Luoxin knew it was useless to dwell on ’what-ifs’. But perhaps, tonight’s bloodbath had once again opened his eyes to the depths of human malice, he couldn’t help but reminisce a bit about the past.
He was but an ordinary college student before the Nightmare Cycle appeared and turned his life upside down. He had led what he believed was a simple and honest life, but since he was forcibly pulled into the deadly instances, he couldn’t help but wonder... had he done sothing wrong? Had he unknowingly committed so grievous sin, sothing so unforgivable that God decided to punish him this way?
Truth to be told, he had even been ntally prepared for a grisly death once he learned the true nature of this place, for he knew his own shortcomings very well. He was slow, stupid, cowardly, and a scaredy-cat through and through. He often allowed his emotions to get the best of him. In every novel he had read and movie he had seen, soone like him would beco a cannon fodder at best, the kind who would highlight the protagonist’s wits, bravery, and magnificence.
Who could have guessed that he would survive until now? Not only that, he had even clawed his way into the leaderboard and amassed his own fans who would worship him as ’Goddess Xinxin’!
Alas, this glory and prestige was never what he wanted.
When he looked at Jin Jiuchi and Shen Nianzu’s interaction as well as the love and adoration they held for each other, it made him realize all over again— rather than possessing unimaginable power capable of razing the whole city to the ground with a stomp of his feet or having thousands of followers at his beck and call, what he yearned for the most was nothing more than... peace.
That’s right, it’s exactly the kind of peace where he would struggle to wake up each morning, take the sa road to his departnt building, buy delicious food from the road stalls, hang out with friends, frustrate over a mountain of assignnts... etc.
His forr life might be dull and uneventful, and sotis he might even fantasize whether a dragon would co to life and breathe fire on his campus, but he still liked that kind of life the best.
Thinking up to this point, Gu Luoxin couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh. He pillowed his cheek on his bent knee and snuck a glance at the handso man beside him, who had his gaze lowered in quiet thought. The flickering embers of the fire cast a golden glow over his sharp features, illuminating the soft curls of his brown hair and the delicate tips of his lashes. At a mont like this, he looked almost otherworldly, as though ti had immortalized him into a soul-stirring piece of oil painting.
"How about you, Senior?" Gu Luoxin couldn’t help but inquire, his voice soft, nearly a whisper. "Have you imagined what kind of life you would have without the Nightmare Cycle?"
After a period of silence, long enough that Gu Luoxin was starting to feel awkward thinking that the man would not respond to him, Noir finally opened his mouth,
"I wouldn’t know," he murmured, his voice barely rising above the whistling wind of the night. "Without the Nightmare Cycle, I wouldn’t have existed in the first place."
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