Lanqi Felt Like He Was Going Mad Too

On the second floor of Boss Cat Restaurant, in Talia's room. Morning light poured down through the glass skylight, lingering across wooden crossbeams and bookshelves. The faint aroma of timber mingled with the bedroom diffuser set between the dressers, giving off a fresh, green fougère layered with a rum-like elegance—crisp and airy, without a trace of cloying sweetness. The room's atmosphere seemed cleaved clean in two: one half a peaceful sanctuary woven from soft cream, pale orange, and beige; the other a tense, suffocating panic churned from Talia's fury and Lanqi's terror. "You..." Talia's body was wound tight, the blade in her hand glittering beneath the sunlight filtering through the skylight. Her golden pupils held not only raging indignation, but utter, dizzying chaos. Backed against the wall with nowhere left to retreat, Lanqi raised his hands slightly in a posture of helpless surrender. His Adam's apple bobbed gently as he searched desperately for words, yet under Talia's glare, his voice remained trapped in his throat. Lanqi dearly wanted to cry out for Hyperion to save him, but he didn't dare. He didn't even dare think it, terrified Talia might read his mind again. "Not answering, are you?" Every word Talia uttered struck like a bullet straight into Lanqi's heart. "How... how should I take responsibility?" Lanqi could only ask. The air in the room froze solid, time grinding down to a slow, agonizing crawl. He was certain Talia had been driven half-mad by the Poet of Great Love. First, he had to get her to calm down. Otherwise, it truly would be the end of everything. "..." Lanqi's question seemed to catch Talia off guard. Her instinct was to snap that he should take responsibility just like that, but the words wouldn't leave her lips. Her mind grew more hopelessly tangled by the second, her surging emotions impossible to comprehend and with nowhere to vent. Suddenly, her gaze fell upon a book inside the handbag she had tossed onto the side table upon entering. Talia pulled out the brick-thick volume, and Lanqi squeezed his eyes shut in sheer terror. He felt certain that if she smashed him over the head with that brick, his skull would split wide open! Yet after a few moments with his eyes shut, finding himself unharmed, Lanqi cracked one eye open to peek. Talia was still holding the knife against him with one hand, but with the other, she had flipped the book open. She raised the book, thrusting it into Lanqi's line of sight. "Just read... the lines from *Romance of the Holy War*! Read them, now!" Talia's gaze was still clouded. It seemed she didn't even know what she wanted to accomplish right now—only that the storm inside her refused to subside. "...?" Lanqi looked at the page Talia had opened to. This was the book brought back from the Northern Continent, lent to Tata by Hyperion while Tata had been recuperating in South Vantina. It seemed that after finishing it, Tata had over-identified with one of the female leads. The page now lying open was an exchange between that very heroine and the male protagonist. Lanqi finally understood. When Talia demanded that he take responsibility, she meant confessing his feelings to her—turning the scandalous rumors into reality. But because she couldn't bring herself to say such things aloud, she was forcing Lanqi to read script lines instead. "..." The situation had devolved into Tata holding a knife in her left hand and a book in her right: *Read, or die.* Lanqi had to admit that Tata was a model demon instructor, perfectly embodying the educational philosophy they both championed. There was just one problem. This book was a romance squarely aimed at a female audience. Looking at each word now made Lanqi's scalp prickle with secondhand embarrassment. "Can't bring yourself to say it?" The knife in Talia's hand wavered ominously. Lanqi jolted, pure survival instinct snapping his gaze back to the page. "Tata, you're so cute today too... so cute that I want to eat you up instead of breakfast." Reciting such a line made Lanqi feel like coughing up blood. At the words, Talia's face flushed hot. It seemed she hadn't expected how mortifying it would actually sound coming out of his mouth. "C-can..." Talia forced herself forward, glancing at the page. Steeling her resolve with two deep breaths, she finally delivered the heroine's line in a slow murmur: "Can you wait until I finish breakfast first?" "?" Lanqi suddenly registered the context. As expected of this heroine, who held food in her hands every single time she appeared on the page. If dialogue like this actually deserves to win, what kind of crooked bookmaker was the author? Just as a storm of bewildered complaints raged in Lanqi's head, Talia's chilling glare drew an inch closer, her warm breath brushing against him. She found it utterly unbelievable that his thoughts could drift away at a time like this, and that he was actually thinking about such cursed nonsense! Immediately after. The two instruments of torture in Talia's hands issued a silent, continuous warning that it was his turn to continue. "So that means you agree?" Lanqi felt he would rather be put out of his misery. Why in the world was he reciting this dogshit dialogue? "I'm done eating. What were you saying just now?" Talia read after another glance at the book. She paused briefly upon reaching that part. How had the heroine finished eating in a single scene transition? "What I meant to say is, the adorable way you eat captivates me endlessly too. Before our memories begin to fade, I want to stay by your side forever, like a lucid dream." Staring at the book and then at Tata's face, Lanqi tasted copper in his throat, on the verge of vomiting blood. Such pure beta dialogue. At once. The book slipped from Talia's grip, clattering to the floor. Her mind had completely crashed again. What was she supposed to say next? Wait, weren't they just reading a script? Yet, with both of their minds entirely overwhelmed, neither Lanqi nor Talia noticed the presence of several listeners gathered outside the door. Hearing Lanqi deliver that line, the people outside lost their composure as well. In fact, Antanas grew so overly excited that she accidentally shoved the entire door panel right off its hinges. And so, across the fallen door: Three great demons and Hyperion stood staring at the two figures pressed against the wall inside. Lanqi and Talia stared back blankly at the silhouettes in the doorway. Hyperion was dumbfounded. Her aunt and her friend were engaged in something wildly avant-garde. Hyperion recalled that those sounded suspiciously like lines from a book she had once read. She had originally intended to rescue Lanqi, but after overhearing the bizarre dialogue between him and Talia from the hallway, she hadn't dared open the door at all. Then Hyperion realized with a jolt that the three great demons beside her were likely misunderstanding the situation even more severely. A man and a woman alone in a room, voices trembling, refusing to let anyone in—that alone was enough to fuel wild imaginations. And now they had been caught in the act. At that moment, perhaps because the mental activity of the three great demons was running entirely out of control—especially Antanas's— Talia seemed to catch an inner voice— "Inside the room... alone together... before indulging their passion, were they just playing some sort of special game?" Talia murmured the words in a daze. Lanqi frowned. That line wasn't right; it didn't match his memory of the book. Yet with the blade still resting against his neck and the book lying on the floor, he had no choice but to brace himself and continue from memory: "That's right. I feel like I'm suffocating, and you are my air. I can't wait a single second longer." "Holy sh*t!" the great demons outside blurted out in unison, completely unable to contain themselves. "?!" Talia suddenly snapped to her senses as realization crashed over her. The knife slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor. She looked toward the doorway—where, besides Hyperion, stood three demons and a cat. "Aaaahhhh..." Talia buried her face in her hands, her head practically venting steam. Lanqi clapped both hands over his eyes as the truth hit him in the very same breath: that last sentence hadn't been a line from the book at all. No one could tell whether he was crying or laughing. He felt like he was about to lose his mind too.