But I Want to Go With You

Freya lingered outside the door for a long time, listening to the hot oil sizzling within. Her hand rested on the doorknob, yet she never turned it. It was not until a neighboring door clicked open and someone seemed about to step out that she gathered the courage to push her way inside. "Welcome back. Dinner's ready." It was the same greeting as always. Freya hesitated for a moment. "I'm back." "Do you want to watch *The College Student's Moon* or *Death Tracking*?" Yaxiu set the dishes onto the long table, operating the Curtain of Knowledge to pull up a video for them to watch over dinner. *The College Student's Moon* was a light campus comedy about a goblin student with terrible grades who, upon taking moon sugar, entered a hyper-intelligent 'Moon Mode.' In that state, he breezed through every exam, even getting into the Blood Moon Country's highest institution of learning with the top score on the unified examination. Yet taking the sugar also brought severe side effects, turning his personality wildly erratic: one moment irresponsible and the next reliable, one moment ascetic and the next lustful, one moment gentle and the next berserk. To conceal his identity as an academic failure, the goblin had to battle these side effects while actively taking part in campus life, leading to a lively, laugh-a-minute college saga. Fairly speaking, the campus drama was very well made. The pacing was brisk, the jokes landed one after another, and it was packed with playful mockery and satire of university life. Even in Yaxiu's eyes, it was an exceptionally rare treat of a show. Provided one could overlook the fact that it was subtly stoking public sentiment in favor of legalizing moon sugar. After Kaimeng City announced the legalization of moon sugar, other cities were actively pushing similar bills. For *The College Student's Moon* to become such an explosive hit, there had to be powerful interest groups pulling the strings behind the scenes. In fact, it could practically be called an advertisement disguised as a drama, aimed at erasing public stigma against moon sugar and encouraging everyone to treat it as an everyday consumer good. Incidentally, the show's sole designated brand of moon sugar was 'Snow White,' a name quite familiar even to Yaxiu, which made it obvious who the biggest sponsor was. *Death Tracking*, on the other hand, was a fantasy thriller. The premise followed a protagonist who was murdered by his close friend. At the instant of death, the protagonist's soul swapped with his friend's; the friend's soul perished in the protagonist's body, while the protagonist lived on inside his friend's. To uncover the reason behind the murder, the protagonist assumed different identities, investigating his way up layer by layer, enduring death time and time again, foiling the villains' plots, and unraveling mystery after mystery. It was a tightly paced suspense drama. Yaxiu had skimmed the spoilers and discovered that the villain was an evil cult. No matter how he looked at it, even though the cult wasn't called the Four Pillar Gods, it looked like the Four Pillar Gods, acted like the Four Pillar Gods, and sounded like the Four Pillar Gods. It was blatantly the Four Pillar Cult! As if that weren't enough, someone in the reviews had actually asked, *"Is this adapted from Yaxiu Heath's true story?"* Yaxiu had immediately posed as an impartial passerby to blast them: *When this show started airing, I hadn't even been caught yet!* "Let's watch *The College Student's Moon*," Freya said. Yaxiu had no objections. He ate heartily while enjoying the show, his shoulders occasionally shaking with laughter. As he ate, he reached out to stroke Xiaoxian. The cat let out a grumble of displeasure before going back to scarfing down kibble. Freya's attention was nowhere near the screen or the delicious food. Beneath her lovely, enchanting beauty, a storm of complex emotions was brewing. Adela had been right. Yaxiu was a dangerous man; Freya had known that from the start. What she hadn't anticipated was that, beyond his outward danger, he was so 'malicious' inside—for there was nothing more wicked than binding a free soul. Even prison only bound the physical body. Freya couldn't help recalling the materials she had researched a few days ago while writing her paper on socialized child-rearing: *"The blood tie between progenitor and offspring is the shackle furthest removed from freedom. Severing all innate relationships is the very foundation of individual freedom... All dependent relationships between people are a rebellion against freedom."* Beyond that, the moral teachings drilled into her over the past decade or more surfaced in her mind as well. *"Human nature is the most mercurial hue: a good person today may turn into a heartless criminal tomorrow. Trusting someone wholeheartedly means granting them free rein to hurt you."* *"Harbor no expectations of others. Hell is other people."* *"Trust only yourself, answer only for yourself, live only for yourself, and die only for yourself."* *"The finest form of equality is when neither side can take advantage of the other—absolute, detached equality. Only when people remain completely unattached is there room to breathe freely."* *"Never let anyone plant a seed in your heart."* Freya stole a glance at Yaxiu and saw him laughing so hard he nearly spat his food, leaving a smear of cream beside his mouth. Confronted with table manners fit for an ogre, she felt not the slightest disgust. Instead, an inexplicable urge rose within her—she wanted to lick that smear of cream away with her tongue. *This is terrifying,* the Veela thought. Adela was right. While she still had her wits about her, she had to sever this connection immediately and banish Yaxiu from her life. Otherwise, she would fail to maintain an 'intact self.' She would degenerate into a slave of emotion, bound by tenuous attachments, completely losing her autonomy as an individual. She would become a mere appendage of social relationships, reduced to an empty shell. No wonder Yaxiu was a cult leader. If every member of the Four Pillar Cult was a 'shameless scoundrel' who sought to taint others like this, they truly deserved to be stamped out without mercy. No wonder she felt such revulsion and a desire to pull away from him. The mere thought of continuing to fixate on his every move in the future—rejoicing in his joy, weeping for his sorrow, willing to sacrifice everything for his sake—made her chest swell with... swell with... ...anxious anticipation? *No, Freya! You are a Veela with an independent soul! You must never surrender to the despicable methods of a cult leader!* *Muster your courage and drive him out of this apartment!* *Without him, you will be so much better off!* *Say it as soon as dinner is finished!* *Say it as soon as the dishes are washed!* *Once this homework assignment is done, I'll—* "I'm leaving tonight." Freya jerked her head up. "Where are you going?" "Where an escaped convict belongs." Yaxiu pulled on his coat and put on his mask. "Thank you so much for taking care of me these past few days. Well, though I feel like I was the one taking care of you for the most part." "S-so soon?" Freya began to panic. "It's not even the seventh day yet..." "Seven days was the deadline, but I've already found the information I needed. There's no reason to linger." Yaxiu summoned the sympathy sorcery spirit. "You're not a sorcerer yet, right? Do you have a vessel to store a sorcery spirit?" "I do, I do." Freya hurried over and opened a cabinet. "I have a fluorescent sphere that can temporarily hold a sorcery spirit..." Yaxiu waited for quite a while, watching Freya crouch there, rummaging frantically through the cupboards. He walked over, glanced inside, and reached out to pull out a transparent spherical container. "Is it this?" "Ah, that's the one." Freya scratched her head in embarrassment. "Goodness, it was sitting right there. How did I miss it?" Yaxiu placed the sympathy sorcery spirit into the fluorescent sphere and severed his connection with it. The sphere immediately radiated a soft fluorescence, and the sympathy sorcery spirit stretched lazily, as though drifting off to sleep. "Here." Yaxiu handed the sphere to Freya. "Our contract is complete." "Mm." "After I leave, don't reveal anything about me. Harboring an escaped convict could bring you trouble, after all. I've tried my best to avoid the neighbors, but someone might have spotted me coming and going. If anyone asks, just tell them you picked me up from a wine cafe, and you didn't expect me to still be alive after you finished with me." "Okay." Yaxiu squatted down, looking at Xiaoxian, and reached out to stroke the cat's head. "Goodbye, little guy. Next time you're in pain, don't just tough it out on your own. Cry out loud, or nobody will ever know." He stood up, looked at Freya, and smiled. "Well, wishing you peace and happiness, Freya." Freya did not reply. She kept her head down, staring at Xiaoxian as if the Scottish Fold had suddenly turned into an unrecognizable monster, unable to tear her eyes away from the cat. Yaxiu thought nothing of it. He stepped past her toward the entryway. "Will you ever come back?" Yaxiu slipped on his shoes as he answered, "No. Unless something goes wrong, I'm doing something big tonight. Coming back to see you would only drag you into trouble." "Where will you stay from now on?" "Sleeping rough out in the open. I'll probably have to leave Kaimeng City. I'll figure something out." "That sounds awful." "It is pretty awful. The only reason tonight's dinner was so lavish was that I had a hunch I'd be living like a dog for the next month. Consider it my last hurrah." As Yaxiu gripped the doorknob with his right hand, someone caught his left. He turned his head to find Freya gripping his wrist tightly. Yaxiu had an inkling of what she meant. "You want me to stay?" "No." Freya shook her head. "I don't want you staying in this apartment any longer." "But I want to go with you."