The Rose of Decay's soul was completely open to Anbaixiu, without the slightest guard.
Anbaixiu could easily tamper with her soul and turn this Undead Queen entirely into his slave.
In the past, Anbaixiu might not have resisted the temptation; after all, the Underdark held boundless gold.
Yet the current Anbaixiu... still hesitated for a long time.
It couldn't be helped. Having been a lich for so long, the matter of money had left too deep an impression on him, and even when he was alive, Anbaixiu could hardly be called a strong-willed, virtuous person.
Still, the best way to resist temptation was simply to look away and ignore it.
Anbaixiu shifted his focus to another matter: how to weave a complete soul.
Even with the ability of Simulated Soul, this was by no means an easy feat for Anbaixiu.
Though his mass production of soul coins made it seem like he held souls in the palm of his hand, those steadfast, unyielding soul fragments did not even know why they were unyielding. They were merely programmed application software, not souls possessing true independent thought.
In his lifetime, the only complete soul Anbaixiu had ever truly fashioned was Melina.
It couldn't be helped—he had been paid for it.
Back then, the Rose of Decay had paid a fortune, wanting to create a perfect child of her own. Anbaixiu couldn't let someone else's child be capable of nothing but mindless slaughter like a dull machine. Even if such a creation possessed the power of a legendary boon, it would ultimately amount to little.
So after ensuring Melina's combat strength and her affection for the Rose of Decay, Anbaixiu had needed to bestow upon her a true soul, a true self.
And before that, one point had to be made clear: what was the self?
Self-satisfaction was an "illusion" that no independently thinking individual could bypass, but this self-satisfaction first required stripping away biological instincts. Things like eating when hungry and sleeping when tired did not count. Desiring delicious food, wanting to sleep more comfortably, or even choosing to starve oneself on a hunger strike—these things that transcended instinct were what separated intelligent beings from mere beasts.
It sounded complex, and putting it into practice was even more so.
Anbaixiu needed to search the Rose of Decay's soul for these aspects of the self and then reactivate them.
Because the undead lacked sensations, all the beauty within their memories was forgotten and buried deep inside, leaving only their greatest obsession. And obsessions were almost always cruel, torturous things; over hundreds or thousands of years, a soul would become twisted by this torment.
Thus, once that obsession dissipated, the undead would experience an unprecedented surge of immense satisfaction, only to swiftly fade into dissolution. This was even more pronounced for liches, as obsession was the key anchor binding them to their phylactery. The Rose of Decay's current state was such that even her phylactery's ability to resurrect her had vanished.
"Forgive me, but let me see your most precious memories."
The soul connection unfolded countless memory fragments before Anbaixiu.
Resentment, curses, fury... These emotions surged repeatedly—the Rose of Decay's deepest feelings toward Ryan.
Anbaixiu parted these negative emotions bit by bit, probing deeper to find the memories from before she became an undead.
As a royal princess of Ryan, her youth had to have been happy, right?
Within the Synesthesia Dreamscape, the Rose of Decay lay quietly amid clouds, everything around her seeming ethereal and distorted.
The dream was hazy and indistinct, likely because she no longer even possessed the ability to dream. She thought of nothing, knew nothing, desiring only to sink into complete, eternal slumber—this life had been far too exhausting.
Suddenly, a blonde, blue-eyed young girl appeared beside the Rose of Decay. Their faces shared a strong resemblance, but this blonde girl looked far more youthful, her eyes filled with innocence.
The girl shook the Rose of Decay's shoulder and murmured, "Wake up, wake up quickly! Everything's about to be seen, including all the things from when you were little."
The Rose of Decay opened her eyes, looked at this younger version of herself, and asked in confusion, "Why... why are you here? You're already dead."
After fleeing Ryan and plummeting into the subterranean Mercury Lake, that Princess of Ryan should have died completely. The one who survived was the Rose of Decay—an undead whose ideal was the annihilation of Ryan.
The blonde Princess Rose smiled and said, "Am I not you? Now that all the hatred has vanished, what difference is there between you and me?"
"I..."
For a moment, the Rose of Decay did not know what to say. Just as the girl said, the hatred was gone, and everything was supposed to have ended.
The blonde Rose reminded her again, "Now's not the time to brood on that! Our memories, our everything is being peeked at by that man. Do you really not care? Even our most childish childhood dreams, our most embarrassing memories, our little secrets we never wanted to tell anyone... Is it really fine for him to know all that?"
At these words, a faint flush suddenly crept onto the Rose of Decay's pale face.
Why did she suddenly feel embarrassed?
Those things were supposed to no longer matter, and she had thought she had forgotten them all. After all, compared to her time among the living, she had spent dozens of times longer as a lich, compressing those trivial recollections into the deepest recesses of her mind, unopened for centuries.
The Rose of Decay had thought that this so-called past had long since rotted away in isolation, never imagining it would resurface at her most vulnerable moment.
The blonde girl seemed connected to her mind, knowing her thoughts without a word spoken. "That's not how it works," she continued. "The passage of time has nothing to do with how deep a memory runs. Remember the knight novels we used to read? The princess the knight glimpsed in his youth—even if it was only a single, distant look under the moonlight—remained unforgettable decades later. The moment he heard the kingdom was in peril, the knight mounted his old horse and rode off to battle.
"Decades of life could not eclipse that single glance. Hatred made hundreds of years pass by like a single day, but on the day the Ryan royal family was wiped out, did you even remember how much effort you had poured into it? All that day-after-day torment might not even compare to those ten-odd years of memories."
Hearing this, an indescribable sensation welled in the Rose of Decay's chest. She actually felt a sense of breathlessness.
As a lich, how could she feel breathless?
She had long forgotten what breathing was.
Yet the tight, suffocating sensation was so vivid, as if a great boulder had been shoved into her chest, relentlessly pressing against her ribs.
Clutching her chest in agony, the Rose of Decay curled up, enduring a kind of pain she had not experienced in centuries.
Finally, amid racking coughs, she parted her lips and drew in a breath of air.
The fragrant scent made her eyes widen in shock. She could actually smell something—how novel of an experience was this?
The boulder in her chest seemed to vanish, and she could not help taking deep breaths, as if purging and replacing all the foul, stagnant air buried within her for centuries.
"That's more like it." The blonde girl seemed to have grown a few years younger, turning into a girl barely ten years old. Looking at the Rose of Decay, she said in a childish voice, "We have to eat properly, sleep well, and study hard so that when we grow up, we can..."
Midway through, the little girl stopped abruptly and shifted her tone: "Well, you're already grown up anyway. You can choose your own future."
Gazing at this doll-like younger version of herself, the Rose of Decay felt heat well in her eyes, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
As the scalding tears ran down her cheeks, the dream before her shattered like a mirror. Her younger self fractured away, and before her eyes reappeared the gloomy underground palace, illuminated only by the faint glow of ghostly hellfire.
Looking toward Anbaixiu in the magic mirror, the Rose of Decay asked in bewilderment, "What did you do?"
Anbaixiu smiled and replied, "I merely unsealed your past memories and reminded you of the beauty you once had. Rose, I will not force you to live on. Only if you truly wish to live can I help you."
Anbaixiu had not directly modified the Rose of Decay's soul to forcibly implant some will to live.
All he had done was awaken her cherished memories as she sank into the dream, giving them tangible form within it.
In the dream, the Rose of Decay could temporarily regain the senses of the living, but only if she was willing.
Having forgotten those sensations for so many years, and with her soul on the verge of fading into quiescence, she had been incapable of recalling them on her own or manifesting them in a dream.
Anbaixiu had no desire to alter her consciousness by force, because what he wanted was not an obedient puppet.
Thus, he could only guide her.
Who could have guessed that a legendary Undead Queen had loved reading knight novels most of all when she was a child?
Dozens of tales of knights and princesses had been hidden secretly in her room. Even though getting caught by her parents or tutors meant being punished by copying the Prayers of Light hundreds of times, the princess had still tried every trick she knew to hide those novels away.
Under her pillow, beneath the mattress, in the wardrobe, inside the vanity... and some even tucked directly into her undergarments.
Seeing this memory had astonished Anbaixiu; it bore not the slightest resemblance to the decisive, ruthless Undead Queen.
He could only say that the fanatical dogmas of the Ryan royal family were truly damned, capable of driving any normal person mad—so much so that these past moments of beauty became like knives, stabbing with heart-wrenching pain whenever remembered.
Fortunately, all had gone smoothly. The Rose of Decay had finally recalled her childhood and was willing to embrace that touch of warmth.
Though it was only an attempt, she had at least regained sensation within the dream.
Sensation was the pillar that sustained an undead's existence. Joy, anger, sorrow, delight—any emotion would do. What was most terrifying was to have nothing at all, a state of complete void.
Anbaixiu did not explain in detail, but the Rose of Decay could guess what he had done.
"You didn't need to go through so much trouble. Why not just modify my soul directly? I wouldn't mind."
Reading memories might not be difficult, but enabling her to experience those memories again without harming her soul was an extraordinary challenge. The Rose of Decay understood this well, so she felt only gratitude toward Anbaixiu for everything he had done, yet she still could not understand why he went to such lengths.
Anbaixiu shook his head. "Directly modifying your soul—how would that be any different from killing you? Lady Rose, I have only brought back a fraction of your senses for now, but you are an undead after all, and these feelings will still fade over time. To resolve this problem once and for all, I have only an initial concept, which will take a long time to achieve.
"Therefore, you may call a halt at any time, and I will respect your choice."
Looking at Anbaixiu in the mirror, the Rose of Decay asked, "What is your idea? What you're doing now sounds like treating the symptoms rather than the root cause."
If she had to enter the dreamscape periodically for a "sensory recharge," living like that would be far too cumbersome; she doubted whether that could even be considered living.
"For now, we indeed need this method to stall the erosion of your humanity. But with Melina around, I am certain the undead do not strictly require intense love or hate to maintain their capacity for thought. Curiosity can also serve as a driving force—perhaps even the most vital internal drive for all intelligent life."
Anbaixiu joked, "Lady Rose, weren't you quite fond of knight novels? Perhaps reading more novels might help you find a reason to live?"
Her expression froze, and she couldn't help saying, "I'm starting to regret letting you see my memories."
Anbaixiu chuckled. "That's wonderful. That kind of emotion is precisely what you need right now."
Having made his joke, Anbaixiu adopted a serious tone once more: "Rest assured, I am studying the power of this mask. Since Oghma was able to grant me rebirth with it, the Lord of Knowledge surely won't mind me learning this lore. When the day comes that I can craft a mask of my own, I will place it upon you with my own hands."
The Rose of Decay fell silent for a moment before asking, "Do I need to enter the dreamscape every day now?"
"The longer, the better. If you have time, try to dream as much as you can. Even if you're truly busy, my recommendation is to sleep at least eight hours a day. Just keep regular hours, as if you were living."
She offered an enchanting smile and asked in a different tone, "One last question: can I see you in the dream?"
Anbaixiu froze for a moment. Looking at her stunningly beautiful face, his heart couldn't help but beat a little faster.
He had never felt anything like this before. But when a queen invited him to share a dream—even if she might not have meant anything romantic by it—Anbaixiu still felt his pulse quicken.
Was this a "side effect" of returning to the living? It was already hard for Anbaixiu to remain one hundred percent calm.
Yet seeing the anticipation in her eyes, Anbaixiu nodded nonetheless. "I'm not sure if my current state can be affected by the dreamscape, but I can give it a try."
The Synesthesia Dreamscape could affect even the undead, so theoretically an artifact spirit could fall asleep as well—not to mention that Anbaixiu had already regained all human senses.
The issue, however, was that Anbaixiu's collective entity was far too "vast." If he fell into slumber, there was no telling how the magic mirror network might be affected, and the Synesthesia Dreamscape might not even be able to support a "colossus" like him falling asleep.
Still, there was no harm in trying.
"Then I have no more questions." The Rose of Decay reached out and stroked the surface of the magic mirror, as if caressing Anbaixiu's face.
"Thank you, my knight," she murmured softly.
Anbaixiu smiled as well and said, "It is my honor, Your Majesty."
Chapter 541