In Your Dreams

Weixi bent down and pulled up the low-rise briefs hanging around her calves, the lace fabric wiping away a few slowly trickling drops of moisture along the way before vanishing beneath her short skirt. She washed her hands first, poured herself a cup of water to drink, then idly summoned a water mirror to dab away the tears that had welled at the corners of her eyes. After tidying her appearance, she summoned the Knowing and Guarding Fire to ignite the stove. This was one reason their cooking flavors differed: Weixi loved using the Four-Wing sorcery spirit Knowing and Guarding Fire for fierce heat on high-powered burners; Felix excelled at using wind and water sorceries to enhance flavors; only Daidalos cooked normally without any sorcery. Yaxiu helped prep the ingredients, though he was useless when it came to stir-frying and seasoning. He snatched a bite of beef from the wok with lightning speed only to scald his tongue, hastily pulling a bottle of chilled pineapple juice from his spatial ring to chug it down. Come to think of it, all the other drinks had run out, leaving only an abundance of pineapple juice; before leaving, Weise seemed to have prepared hundreds of jin of pineapple puree... While Yaxiu liked it well enough, drinking it constantly made him crave variety. He hoped Felix would hurry up and concoct those orange juice and lemon tea drinks... At that moment, Yaxiu suddenly recalled the potion Felix had been brewing, the one bubbling with pink froth. He then realized that these past few days he had drunk nothing but water and pineapple juice, and that pink potion obviously couldn't have been mixed into plain water... He stared at the pineapple juice bottle, which was still almost half-full, and fell into deep thought. "Do you want some?" Weixi glanced sidelong at him and said in a languid tone, "My hands are full~" With both hands busy stir-frying, she was indeed occupied, but Yaxiu caught her unspoken meaning at once, like a kitten rolling onto its back to show its belly. Most of the time, Weixi loved speaking with sarcastic barbs; she was too proud to expose her true thoughts and would even suppress her emotions, loath to indulge herself. But there were two exceptions—before a transaction, and after a transaction. Only when exchanging false affection was she willing to set aside a fraction of the Spectre Prophet's pride. Since Weixi's hands were full, Yaxiu had no choice but to take a mouthful of the remaining pineapple juice and, relying on his demigod-level mastery of water sorcery, pass it to her without spilling a single drop. After drinking it, Weixi casually resumed cooking, not minding that Yaxiu's arms remained wrapped around her. Yaxiu quietly savored this rare peace, then suddenly sighed, "Weixi, why are you so obnoxious..." Boom! Flames suddenly shot up two meters high. Weixi swiftly finished searing the lamb chops, plated them on a dish beside her, then turned off the heat, spun around, and pinned Yaxiu against the wall. Bringing two fingers to her lips in a gagging gesture, she stared straight at him. "Believe it or not, I can throw up everything I just swallowed right into your face." Yaxiu seized both her wrists, skillfully pinning them behind her waist as he pulled her into his embrace, chuckling. "I only said you're obnoxious, not that I dislike you... though I do dislike you a tiny bit..." "I really will throw up!" "Do you have any idea that your reputation cost you a soul spectacle...?" Yaxiu briefly explained how Dead Frenzy had targeted her, adding, "...Now do you see how much being obnoxious costs you?" "Even if I weren't obnoxious, I wouldn't get anything out of it." Weixi turned her head away with an indifferent shrug. "You'd all still favor the Sword Princess the most anyway." "Fine," Yaxiu sighed. "I thought self-interest might nudge your mindset, but if even profit won't work, I'm out of ideas. If you refuse to change, I just have to accept it—who told you to be my maid? It just means I need to practice swordsmanship more these days, so at least the next time Dead Frenzy scolds you, I can take fewer beatings." "What does that have to do with you?" "If she insults you in front of me, of course I have to talk back." "Why don't you just stay out of it? It won't take a chunk of flesh off me; plenty of people curse my name," Weixi said. "If I cared about that, I wouldn't be the Spectre Prophet." "But she didn't insult you because of how vile your crimes are," Yaxiu said softly. "To tell the truth, no one really cares all that much about your infamous track record... The reason everyone despises you is because of me. "If you were just my prisoner, my tool, they wouldn't object much even if I allocated resources to you. Because then I would be wary of you, fear you, exploit you, and never give you a chance to dominate my soul—let alone betray me. "Why can Dead Frenzy begrudgingly tolerate the Witch and the Silver Lantern, yet detest you to the bone?" Yaxiu gazed into Weixi's eyes. "Because no one thinks the Witch or the Silver Lantern would ever betray me, but everyone believes that the moment you get a chance, you'll turn on me. "That's why I can't bear Dead Frenzy insulting you." Yaxiu let go of her wrists. "If she cursed you for your past sins, I'd stand squarely on her side and badmouth you with her. But this time you clearly did nothing wrong; the one at fault is me." Weixi's eyelashes fluttered slightly. The sharp edge in her gaze faded, giving way to an unprecedented vulnerability. "You think you're wrong?" she asked softly. "I don't know." Yaxiu held her close. "Can you tell me?" After a brief silence, Weixi looked away, avoiding Yaxiu's gaze. "Of course you're wrong. You're the sworn enemy I must kill, and I'm a tool for you to use at will. As long as you remember that, you won't clash with Dead Frenzy. "Your mistake is always thinking I'm something more than your prisoner, your tool." A suffocating silence suddenly enveloped the kitchen. Moments after the words left her mouth, Weixi felt a twinge of regret, quietly bracing for Yaxiu's rebuke. Yet Yaxiu merely let go of her and said calmly, "Keep cooking. I should go clean the others' rooms." A moment ago, Weixi had looked away; now it was his turn. The Spectre Prophet had looked away to disguise her feelings, whereas he could no longer keep up the pretense. Watching Yaxiu pick up the mop and turn to leave, Weixi suddenly sensed what he was feeling—a wretched ache hovering somewhere between pain and exhaustion... Perhaps it wasn't just Yaxiu's feelings. Without hesitation, she grabbed his wrist, dragged him back, and pinned him to the wall once more, deliberately teasing, "Are you angry?" No answer. "Weren't we just chatting casually? Why take it so seriously?" He refused to meet her eyes. "You get finished feeling good and immediately find fault with me? You really are..." Faced with this personal attack, he still showed no reaction, not even bothering to rebut her. "I was wrong, alright?" Weixi humbled herself. "Forgive me, won't you?" Yaxiu finally spoke. "What were you wrong about?" Such a fatal counterquestion instantly struck the cunning, silver-tongued Spectre Prophet speechless. Weixi thought for a moment, then decided to turn Yaxiu's own trick against him. She leaned in to kiss him, only for Yaxiu to turn his face and dodge it. At any other time, having her kiss rejected would have made her fume with rage, but at this very moment, she didn't mind in the slightest. She fished a wad of cotton candy from her pocket and offered it to his lips. When Yaxiu finally opened his mouth, Weixi pressed right up against him, slipping her tongue and the cotton candy into his mouth together. This was a game unique to the two of them. Even if the other girls wanted to add something sweet, they would only use ordinary candies, because cotton candy didn't dissolve easily, which meant one of them would ultimately have to chew and swallow it... It was actually rather gross. Yet perhaps that was the best reflection of them: sweet and sickening. By the time they had each eaten half of the cotton candy, Weixi's legs had unconsciously wrapped around Yaxiu's waist, clinging to him like a koala. Looking at Weixi's pitiful, pleading expression, Yaxiu sighed helplessly. "I don't know whether I'm wrong, and you don't know what you did wrong... Not only is our affection false, our whole lives are a mess. "Perhaps only at the end of a long, distant road will we find the answers to what's true or false, right or wrong." Weixi hooked her arms around his neck, her voice soft and sweet. "We definitely will." "Your lips are so sweet, so why is your tongue always so sharp?" Yaxiu coaxed. "If you weren't so sarcastic all the time, everyone wouldn't dislike you as much." "Because a serpent's kiss is venomous," Weixi replied leisurely. "Did you forget? A snake kills with hugs and kisses. Sooner or later, I'll turn on you, which is why I use tenderness to bewitch you. No one else is worthy of the effort." "That's another reason they dislike you," Yaxiu said. "They've always suspected that once you're capable of breaking your chains, you'll take revenge on me." "What is there to suspect?" Weixi blinked. "Of course I'll take revenge on you! "It's just that there are so many of you, and I can't beat you, so I have to lie low for now. When the time comes, I'll slaughter lives and refine souls without restraint, sacking cities and toppling nations, turning everything in sight into a haunted wasteland and exterminating all living things wherever I walk. If you dare hunt me, I'll evade you and go even farther to slaughter even more people. If you leave me alone, I'll haunt you and bring down catastrophes to plunge the world into chaos." Even as the most vicious declarations spilled from her lips, her arms and legs held Yaxiu tightly. "I want your heart to burn day and night, wracked with agony. Every sin I commit will be to torture you, and every person I kill will be on your head. I want you thinking of me every waking second, spending the rest of your life entangled with me... Only then can I wash away the Spectre Prophet's shame! That is the price for treating me like dirt!" Yaxiu looked at her speechlessly. Not particularly angry, he merely gave her backside a firm swat and grumbled, "Would it kill you to humor me? Where's the false affection now?" Weixi's eyes fluttered, and she suddenly broke into a bright smile, every trace of brutality and malice vanishing, replaced by a delicate allure curling at the corners of her brows. "Fine." She pecked his lips and leaned close to his ear, whispering softly, "Though the Spectre Prophet wants to break her chains... "I'm willing to be your slave for the rest of my life." Yaxiu's heart pounded like war drums. He pressed his lips tight and averted his gaze. Weixi giggled. "You didn't actually take that seriously, did you? It's just pillow talk in our game of false affection~" "Of course I didn't take it seriously." A faint blush crept across Yaxiu's face. "Then do you think you have any hope of breaking your chains?" "Without a doubt. The Spectre Prophet will never be subject to anyone," Weixi said decisively. "I see." Yaxiu nodded. "Which means before you break free, I just need to reach the pinnacle of sorcery first. That way, even if you snap your chains, I will still be your cage. "Let me say it again," his lips curved upward. "I will never grant you your freedom in this lifetime—in every sense of the word." "In your dreams," Weixi chuckled softly.