VAP - Chapter 154
Chapter 154: The Intersection of Illusion and Reality (19)
Their free hands were clasped together. In their other hands, the wine glasses tilted slightly at the same height, the liquid within hovering on the very edge.
Yue Du recognized the music. It was the accompaniment to a stage play with set choreography, one she had watched with Ji You. Despite never having practiced the steps, their formidable physical conditioning and memory allowed them to dance gracefully to the instrumental score without a single misstep. The mead in their glasses remained perfectly still, as steady as if it were sitting on a table.
The choreography, suited for a dance with wine, involved a great deal of spinning. It would have been even more beautiful had they been wearing dresses, like two flowers blooming on the same branch, their petals brushing against each other in a dance of approach and retreat.
However, their pantsuits better showcased the extension of their limbs—a combination of softness, slenderness, and strength. Their dance was impeccable.
More and more gazes discreetly fell upon the pair, filled with no small amount of amazement and envy. Compared to the earlier, more casual glances, these looks put Ji You at ease.
Even if everyone discovered how wonderful her sister was, it didn't matter. She could make them understand that Sister belonged only to her.
In truth, they never needed to change into formal attire. With Ji You's ability, they could have entered the Ji family courtyard wearing ragged burlap sacks and no one would have found it inappropriate.
But she had still gone to the dress shop first, wasting time on the whole affair, simply because she wanted to dance this one dance with her sister in front of everyone, surrounded by a hall of candlelight and melodic music.
When the dance ended, not a single drop of wine had been spilled; one couldn't even find a trace of liquid on the sides of the glass from any movement. Yue Du smiled. Keeping her right hand clasped with her host's, she gently clinked their glasses together with a crisp sound before downing the mead in one go.
"You two dance wonderfully," a man in a blue formal suit nearby said, clapping lightly. He spoke with considerable grace, "I don't believe I've seen either of you at the nearby strongholds. May I have the honor of knowing your names?"
There was no reply. Ji You shot him a hostile glance before turning to take Yue Du's hand. As if no one else existed, she led her across the dance floor toward the spiral staircase at the edge of the main hall.
The man's pupils unfocused for an instant before he snapped back to his senses. Before he could process what had happened, he heard his female companion ask from behind, "What are you looking at over there?"
"Ah, I must have spaced out for a moment. Please forgive my rudeness," the man said quickly.
But he himself was bewildered. Why had he suddenly turned to face the other way? Had he really just spaced out?
There was nothing over there to catch his attention.
The prelude to another dance began to play. The man immediately cleared his mind, placed his now-useless wine glass back on the long table, and extended a hand to his partner in a gentlemanly invitation.
Everyone present likewise prepared for the next partner dance. No one noticed two people heading upstairs, just as no one remembered their arrival.
On the third floor, Ji Ruying remained shut in her room. She paid no mind to the melodic music drifting up from downstairs, focused only on scribbling all over the wanted poster.
The maid Ji Zhouzhang had left behind was afraid she might stab herself with the pen, but she didn't dare snatch it directly from Miss Ji's hand. All she could do was watch over her from a close distance.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door—three unhurried taps, a three-second pause, and then three more.
The maid, thinking Young Master Ji had returned, breathed a sigh of relief and hurried to open the door.
But the person standing outside was not Ji Zhouzhang, as she had assumed. A tall, slender girl with long hair rested her fingers on the doorknob, her gaze lowered nonchalantly. The moment the maid met those eyes, as black as a bottomless abyss, her body went rigid and her pupils glazed over.
Ji You manipulated an illusion, guiding the maid to step aside. The maid walked mechanically to a corner and stood motionless.
The illusion targeted only the maid; the other person in the room was outside its range. Sensing something was amiss, Ji Ruying tossed aside the wanted poster she had just finished scribbling on and slowly raised her head.
She began to tremble violently.
Ji You paid Ji Ruying no mind. She scanned the room and found a sufficiently comfortable armchair by the bed, but it was the only one.
So Ji You pulled Yue Du over to sit down, then settled herself onto her sister's lap, wrapping her arms around her sister's shoulders and neck. Her posture was that of a nation-toppling femme fatale—the kind who interferes with court affairs while draped in a tyrant's embrace.
From this position, Ji You turned and looked down imperiously at Ji Ruying.
Ji Ruying stared at her flowing, wine-red hair and those eyes as black as eternal night. Her trembling grew more pronounced. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but when she noticed how Ji You was entwined around Yue Du like a dodder vine, the words caught in her throat.
After a long moment, Ji Ruying stopped trembling. She gripped the wanted poster on the table, her nails tearing through the paper.
"It's you..." she said, her expression complex.
Ji You said, "If you mean Ji You, then yes, that's me."
Ji Ruying muttered, "Didn't you run away?" After a brief pause, her voice suddenly shot up, the corners of her eyes turning red. "Didn't you run away? Why did you have to come back?!"
"Monster!!!"
That cry of "monster" was extremely high-pitched, the end of it sharp and deafening. Ji You reacted instantly. Before the word was even fully out, her hands were already covering Yue Du's ears. "If you have something to say, just say it. Why shout?" she muttered. "Sister has sensitive hearing. What if you startle her?"
Ji Ruying was rendered speechless again, but she quickly seized on the key word and snapped her gaze toward Yue Du.
"She calls you Sister... You're a monster too. Both of you are... What are you here for? Who else are you going to kill? Go die, just die!"
Seeing that Miss Ji was on the verge of another hysterical fit, Ji You's gaze sharpened. She was tempted to throw Ji Ruying into an illusion and interrogate her, certain she could extract whatever information she wanted.
Yue Du patted her on the side of her waist, signaling her not to be hasty.
"Miss Ji, please calm yourself," Yue Du said, watching the woman. The pride and radiance spoken of in rumors were long gone, replaced by the skittishness of a startled bird. She was a victim, and also a perpetrator.
"You've known all along, haven't you? If Ji You hadn't killed them, you never would have been able to return home."
The question acted like a pause button, freezing Ji Ruying in place. She abruptly transformed from a screaming doll into a silent, pale puppet.
"She saved you, yet you wanted to kill her. Is that right?" Yue Du continued.
Ji Ruying snapped her head up, her voice hoarse. "How could you know..."
This was something Ji You had never mentioned. To be precise, while Ji You had her suspicions, she wasn't certain, and so she hadn't brought it up with Yue Du. Her arms tightened around Yue Du.
Yue Du's suspicion was confirmed.
She closed her eyes briefly. "It was just a guess, but it seems it was true."
Ji Ruying gave an imperceptible shudder and looked at her with hostility.
Yue Du continued, "We just want to know what happened back then, Miss Ji. If you would rather let your enemies continue to harm people than allow your own daughter to know the truth, then fine, don't say anything. We'll find out from somewhere else eventually."
"You—are you human?" Ji Ruying asked, the question completely out of left field.
Yue Du replied with perfect composure, "I'm not human." I'm a System.
After a full minute of silence, Ji Ruying gave a cold sneer.
"Not human. At least you have some self-awareness. As for my enemies? My daughter? No need to distinguish between them. My enemies are almost all dead. There's just one left, and she's sitting on your lap."
Ji You didn't mind Ji Ruying talking about her, but she took issue with the sarcastic tone aimed at Yue Du. Yue Du placed a placating kiss on the top of her head, which was the only thing that kept Ji You from leaping up and trapping the woman in a torturous illusion.
"So, you don't plan on talking?"
Ji Ruying shook her head. "The truth. Fine. I'll let you monsters know. I'll let you know what crimes you've committed!"
The latter half of her sentence was directed solely at Ji You.
Her expression was mocking, as if she had suddenly transformed from a hysterical, neurotic woman back into the proud young lady she once was.
However, this change lasted only for a moment. When Ji Ruying began to recount the events of that year, her words once again became jumbled and fragmented. She herself didn't seem to notice, still struggling to describe the devils from her memory.
Ji You pursed her lips and pulled a truth talisman from the System store, applying it to prevent Ji Ruying from inserting her own agenda, exaggerating the facts, or saying anything else bizarre.
With this information now guaranteed to be true, Yue Du gradually pieced together Ji Ruying's past ordeal.
Ji Ruying had indeed been a pampered young lady. Not spoiled, exactly, but overly naive and idealistic, unaware of the consequences of acting rashly in a world fraught with danger. Her teammates were much the same—all friends she had known since childhood.
Ji Ruying had only ever been exposed to people like that. The Ji family acted as a shield, protecting her from danger but also stripping her of the ability to accept the real world. A user of the Reality ability who didn't know the reality of the world—it went without saying how effective her power was.
Just as Yue Du already knew, Ji Ruying had led her teammates to a Scarlet Beast lair. They decided to storm it and kill the monsters inside, believing this would be the start of their squad's legendary career.
But she had absolutely no experience.
The consequence of a novice choosing a difficult mountain path from the outset was that she understood nothing of the Scarlet Beasts' habits, the characteristics of different types, or the likely habitats of high-level ones. And so, she ignored all the inconsistencies and led her teammates into a hell disguised as an ordinary lair, one that was in fact home to a high-level Scarlet Beast.
Yue Du's earlier suspicion was confirmed: Ji You's paternal lineage came from a high-level Scarlet Beast.
Humans and Scarlet Beasts should have been reproductively isolated, but as the mental influence deepened, this barrier had long since vanished between high-level Scarlet Beasts and humans.
The Scarlet Beast wasn't actually interested in human females, but it wanted to create offspring—offspring with a human appearance who would obey its commands, who could infiltrate human society and bring it more food.
As she said this, hatred flared in Ji Ruying's eyes. She stared deathly at Ji You and repeated, "If it wasn't for creating a monster, if it wasn't for you—"
Ji You said, "You all would have been kept as livestock by the Scarlet Beast, to be eaten after you bore its young. You don't need to spell out the consequences for me."
The fact was, humans captured alive by Scarlet Beasts had only two fates: one was to be eaten immediately if their flesh was tender, and the other was to be kept to bear children before being eaten. Ji Ruying had faced the cruelest third fate—all roads led to the same end, but hers was the most despairing.
But could Ji You really be blamed for that?
She wasn't even an embryo at the time.
After that, Ji Ruying spent several months in despair. She wanted to commit suicide but never found the courage to act.
Her teammates were lost in the false happiness of an illusion; only Ji Ruying remained lucid. As a user of the Reality ability, the illusions of ordinary Scarlet Beasts had no effect on her, and the high-level one couldn't be bothered to create a separate illusion just for her.
She couldn't escape on her own anyway, so why waste effort keeping the prey in a good mood?
Until one day.
Ji Ruying would never forget that day. She was suddenly seized by a groundless panic, the kind a small animal feels when facing a large predator. She had never been so afraid, not even when facing the high-level Scarlet Beast.
An invisible, cold tendril extended from her abdomen. She could feel it. First, it pierced her teammates and the other captured humans, making them die silently within their illusions. Then, it pierced the Scarlet Beasts guarding the prey. She watched as those monsters froze in place before collapsing with a crash... and still, it continued to spread further.
Before long, the thing returned. It was scorching hot, as if it had absorbed all that life force, almost hot enough to burn through her organs.
Only Ji Ruying survived.
Panicked, Ji Ruying tried to flee, but not far away she saw the corpse of the high-level Scarlet Beast lying there. This meant the little monster in her belly was far more terrifying than she had ever imagined. And so, she tried every method she could think of to get rid of the monster in her womb.
She deliberately fell onto jagged rocks, starved herself, and beat her own stomach with all her might. She even jumped into a river, where she was nearly swallowed by a massive black fish.
Yet the monster remained. It seemed that as long as she didn't die, the monster wouldn't either.
But did Ji Ruying dare to die? If she had, it wouldn't have been Ji You who devoured all the living creatures in that lair.
Finally, with no other options, Ji Ruying chose to return to the Ji family. She was half-mad, her memories jumbled, only able to repeat that she didn't want this child and wanted to kill it. Her father and brother didn't understand at first, assuming she was delirious and would regret her words once she came to her senses.
In fact, Miss Ji had a moment of clarity two months later. She told her father of her experience and begged him to kill it. But the head of the Ji family, worried that a forced removal would harm the mother, comforted his daughter, saying, "Let's just wait until it's born. We'll kill it then."
As Ji Ruying reached this point, she seemed to want to stop, but she quickly discovered she couldn't halt her own story. Under the effect of the truth talisman, she could only speak the truth.
The little monster's gestation period seemed longer than a human's. Ji Ruying wasn't sure; she had completely lost her sense of time in the Scarlet Beast lair. When she finally delivered her terrifying burden, the head of the Ji family didn't kill the monster.
"She's still useful," her father had said.
The monster was useful.
The monster was even given a name: Ji You.
If she had been an ordinary child, as Miss Ji's only daughter, her name should have been Ji Zhouyou. But Ji You was merely a tool to be used, so there was clearly no need to place her in the "Zhou" generation.
The head of the Ji family even issued a strict gag order. Most people who were kept in the dark simply thought Ji You was an orphan from a branch of the Ji family. A small minority knew a fraction of the truth but believed they knew the whole story.
Only Ji Ruying, her father, and her brother knew the truth: Ji You wasn't just "possibly" of mixed Scarlet Beast blood, as the rumors claimed. She was, unequivocally, the offspring of a Scarlet Beast. A monster.
The head of the Ji family had planned it all out, but he never expected Ji You to be uncontrollable. Through experimentation, they determined that Ji You's ability was illusion-crafting, and they tried everything to make her serve their purposes.
Ji You wouldn't listen. They were powerless against her, yet they still held out hope that things might change in the future.
When Ji You was three, a turning point arrived. It just wasn't the one the head of the Ji family had been hoping for.
She activated her ability and killed all of her guards. When the head of the Ji family rushed to the scene, he saw Ji You squatting beside a corpse, expressionlessly tearing off a finger with her teeth.
She chewed it for a moment, then spat it out in disgust.
Hearing this, Yue Du and Ji You exchanged a knowing glance.
This was clearly the appearance of Little Gluttony. Based on their deductions, she had absorbed too much energy as an unconscious fetus, so she had fallen asleep right after her "meal." Waking up three years later, what would a genuine three-year-old with no education know? She was acting purely on instinct.
She felt hungry and couldn't find any food, so she activated her ability again and devoured the guards' souls. When that still didn't sate her hunger, she tried eating the flesh, only to abandon the idea decisively the moment she found it distasteful.
But in the eyes of others, such an act was simply the natural behavior of a Scarlet Beast.
The head of the Ji family finally realized that half of Ji You's bloodline came from a man-eating Scarlet Beast. If he kept her around, he himself might one day suffer the same fate as his subordinate—bitten and then spat out.
But here was this great weapon—one they couldn't kill, yet were unwilling to simply let go of for nothing. Besides, what if Ji You caused a major incident while wandering free? Would the Ji family have to bear the responsibility?
In the end, Ji You was sent to the woods outside the stronghold. Few people ever went into that forest, but Scarlet Beasts often approached it; nine out of ten beasts that attacked the stronghold came from that direction.
Ever since Ji You took up residence there, the stronghold's security had improved dramatically. The Northern Stronghold enjoyed several years of peace, right up until Yue Du appeared and lured Ji You away with herself plus some food.
The story was indeed quite long. In the time it took Ji Ruying to tell it, the music downstairs had changed a dozen times. By the time she finished, the music had stopped entirely, leaving only the clamor of voices.
Evidently, the gathering had ended, and the Ji family was seeing their guests out.
"No wonder you refused to take down the wanted poster," Yue Du said coldly.
For one, they didn't want to give up their useful, walking human defense system. For another, they were afraid Ji You would cause trouble elsewhere and draw suspicion to the Ji family.
From beginning to end, this family had never shown the slightest warmth toward Ji You. Even their affection and adoration for their own Miss Ji took a backseat to their interests—
It was precisely this realization that had caused Ji Ruying to grow increasingly gloomy and hysterical, her temporary bout of madness hardening into a permanent neurosis.
She couldn't bring herself to resent her father and brother, so she could only add this debt to Ji You's account.
She had grown up in a greenhouse, only to suffer a sudden blow that turned her world upside down. For Miss Ji, this kind of displaced anger was a rather normal psychological response. But how pitiful, and how tragic.
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