The good news was that Annan had not said this because she overheard Yaxiu's blasphemous remarks.
The bad news was that Annan meant every word.
"The second Future Board has two key factors: Love and Family."
Annan kept it short and sweet. "So you get it now, right?"
Although Gospel Country's air was practically thick with the sweetness of love compared to Blood Moon Country, if... well, there was no need for "ifs." Ever since the day the *National Friendly and Loving City Rankings* was first promulgated, Fanmula had defended its title without interruption, reigning as the nation's undisputed most loving city. That distinguished honor reportedly earned every citizen of Fanmula a bonus of five Gospel points each year.
If the second board required love and family, they had certainly come to the right place.
"No, I still don't get it."
Harvey walked over to the window, cat grass smoke pinched between his fingers. A puzzled wisp of greyish-white smoke slowly drifted upward. "Why do we have to start dating?"
"Because that is your shortcut to obtaining love and family," Annan said. "For bugs like you with no past to speak of, so long as you put in the slightest effort to step over a tiny mound of dirt, the Gospel will mistakenly assume you're prepared to scale mountains and cross rivers.
"The same logic applies to love and family. It's impossible for you to build a family of your own in just a few days, nor can you find an unforgettable, bone-deep romance. But as long as you show your yearning for love and family, the Book of Gospel will naturally acknowledge your heart's will."
"A very reasonable deduction," Yaxiu said. "Which brings us to the problem: dating, roughly, seemingly, perhaps, ought to be an activity requiring at least two people, right? Is the eldest young lady finally rolling out employee benefits—one girlfriend per person?"
"That's the part that requires your own effort." Annan toyed with her earring. "I've already bought your tickets onto the stage. What kind of show you put on depends on your own abilities."
"Eldest Young Lady, are you saying that in this Fanmula—a city that's fiercely xenophobic, possesses practically zero material desire, and where everyone's already paired off with prearranged fiancés and fiancées—we're supposed to find people willing to date us?" Yaxiu looked utterly baffled. "I feel like keeping it in-house among ourselves would be more realistic."
"Are you talking about the family reincarnation dreamscape?" Igola piped up suddenly.
Annan cast him a glance. "Seems you didn't waste your day after all... Exactly. I'm not asking you to look for people to date in reality, but to enter the family reincarnation dreamscape and participate directly in romance matchmaking."
"Romance matchmaking?" Yaxiu caught onto the nuance of the term immediately. "Sounds like some terrifying social ordeal, like blind-date mixers full of cutthroat game theory and disguised mind games."
"I have no idea why you hold that impression, but I can assure you that romance matchmaking is far simpler than you imagine," Annan said. "Put it this way: in the time it takes you to get a stranger's contact information in the real world, you might already have kissed and shared intimate embraces inside the family reincarnation dreamscape.
"As I mentioned before, the family reincarnation dreamscape is a place every clan member must log into daily. They need to burn off their excess positive emotions in there to prevent their sensory thresholds from rising permanently. To let members burn through those positive emotions as quickly as possible, the dreamscape is virtually unregulated. As long as you want to, you can do whatever you please inside.
"Those who want to indulge in masochism can find hordes of sadistic interrogators. Those who want to sing will find endless audiences. Those who want to kill can participate in battle royale games anywhere, anytime... Do you know how many Sennheiser clan members there are? A full seven figures. With such an enormous baseline population, the craziest things your imagination could ever fathom wouldn't even cover a tenth of what goes on in the family dreamscape.
"In the dreamscape, a mainstream pastime like romance is almost as simple as finding a stranger to party up with in an online game. No prelude is needed whatsoever. The moment you meet, you can dive straight into the most passionate parts."
Annan twined and twisted her fingers together, turning a perfectly ordinary gesture into something dripping with illicit, steamy intimacy. "I'm not making things difficult for you. On the contrary, this task is far easier than making your way here was.
"Inside the dreamscape, you can customize your appearance however you like—race, gender, and age cease to be obstacles. Likewise, every person you encounter will, without exception, be an intricately sculpted work of art crafted with immense care, guaranteed to cover whatever type you fancy. Add to that the nature of dreamscape anonymity, and you can imagine just how unhinged it gets in there."
Anonymous identities, phantom appearances, completely open scenarios.
Apart from Igola, who already had some inkling of it, the others were left wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
Even straining their imaginations to the limit, they still couldn't fathom the sheer chaos of this clan dreamscape.
As Yaxiu and Lisi listened, they huddled together, shivering in dread.
Banjie walked over beside Harvey, ignited a second wisp of greyish-white smoke, and added, "The Sennheiser clan members are indifferent to reality not just because the Beauty Mist keeps them in a state of perpetual physical pleasure, but also because the family reincarnation dreamscape satisfies every one of their sordid desires. To them, the dreamscape is reality, while reality is nothing more than an inconsequential dream."
"Butler, it sounds like you have something more to say," Igola remarked. "If you have thoughts, you might as well speak plainly. After all, besides me, you still have to cater to these colleagues of ours whose brains aren't quite as sharp."
"Yeah, exactly," Yaxiu said, looking sympathetically at Harvey. Harvey returned the exact same look to Yaxiu.
"I'm worried you will sink completely into it and become Sennheisers yourselves," Banjie said bluntly. "To tell the truth, I only learned the details of the eldest young lady's plan today, and I am opposed to it. The family reincarnation dreamscape possesses immense assimilative power. For people like you who have never experienced love, it is like a primitive tribe encountering a modern army, or an artisanal workshop facing an industrial assembly line. It is a temptation you can hardly resist."
"We are very grateful for Mr. Banjie's warning, but your tone sounds rather rich with emotion. Do you have some personal experiences you'd like to share with us?" Igola pressed on without hesitation, like a man who had just cracked open the rim of a tin can and shoved his hand all the way in.
Annan also looked at Banjie with a hint of curiosity.
Banjie went quiet for a moment. "Eldest Young Lady, my caring for you in Sennheiser when you were a child was not, in fact, the master's order."
"Then...?"
"It was Madame Qinna's request," Banjie said. "At that time, my name was Banjie Sennheiser. After Madame parted ways with the master, I followed her and defected from Doran."
Yaxiu was shocked. "A slave of three surnames?"
Banjie shot him a flat, annoyed glare.
"The Doran family showed me great kindness, and the master treated me like kin. Yet whether it was 'kindness' or 'love,' both were intangible sentiments existing purely in the heart. Because hearts cannot physically touch one another, insurmountable barriers exist between every person."
Banjie continued, "The existence of the family reincarnation dreamscape, however, tears right through those barriers. It allows everyone's inner worlds to weave directly together, so that anyone can directly experience a stranger's innermost self.
"Romance, listening, conversation, play—those are merely its outward forms. Its true terror lies in this: feelings become tangible, physical entities. Nobody's interactions can be faked; all of it is pure, authentic emotion. That is why the clan remains solid as bedrock, and that is where the terror of familial love lies.
"Anyone who has experienced that cannot pull themselves away from the clan—just like someone who has lived in an immaculate city where everyone abides by the rules would find it unbearable to return to a filthy den of chaos.
"Eldest Young Lady, you have never experienced the complete family reincarnation dreamscape, because all minors are confined to their private dreamscapes without access to the 'Network Link' feature, and you left Sennheiser before coming of age.
"Had I known your plan earlier, I certainly would have dissuaded you. Fanmula is the ultimate evolution of a family clan. Ordinary people cannot escape this honeyed cage."
"Then how did you end up betraying Sennheiser later?" Igola suddenly asked.
"Because I needed to protect the eldest young lady," Banjie replied placidly. "My devotion to protecting her supersedes everything—including myself, and including the clan. That is the only reason I was able to resist the pollution and assimilation of clan love.
"Not that I look down on you, but do any of you possess a love that asks for nothing in return?"
"I did, once."
Everyone stared in utter astonishment at the necromancer, the single least likely person to have uttered those words. Yet Harvey merely lit a second cat grass smoke in silence, attempting to pile strain onto his body to relieve the stress.
"So, are you trying to oppose me?"
Annan's voice carried undisguised displeasure, though her gaze wasn't directed at Banjie. Instead, she stared at her own reflection in her goblet—it seemed opposition was not the real root of her anger.
"No. The will of Doran is my fate," Banjie replied at once.
"So," Yaxiu steered the conversation back, "our next mission is basically to dive into the family reincarnation dreamscape and act like total sluts who date non-stop?"
"To be precise, it's their mission."
Annan quickly regained her composure, returning to the calculating strategist known as the Purple Moth. "Neither you nor Lisi need to."
Chapter 329