VAP - Chapter 161
Chapter 161: The Intersection of Illusion and Reality (End)
With the Ji family’s affairs settled, Yue Du had no desire to linger in the north. She and Ji You soon returned to the stronghold where they lived.
When they left, they had given Wen Yilan a break. The private chef had gone to stay with her brother for a few days and had returned long ago. After waiting and waiting for her employers to no avail, she could only treat it as an extended vacation for herself, researching new dishes and desserts at home. It was a fulfilling time.
But when she went out today, she noticed something different about the house across the way—there were signs that the owners had been coming and going.
Wen Yilan went over and knocked, but it wasn't Yue Du who opened the door.
Ji You only opened the door a crack, revealing half her face. Her expression was cold as she said, “It’s not mealtime yet.”
Wen Yilan said, “I know. I just saw you were back and wanted to check on you. Is your sister not here?”
“Sister is still sleeping,” Ji You replied.
The atmosphere immediately fell into a somewhat awkward silence.
Wen Yilan knew about her two employers’ relationship. After all, they hadn't made any special effort to hide it. After Ji You grew up, her little gestures, small affections, and blatant displays of love were obvious to anyone with eyes.
When she first noticed, Wen Yilan had been very conflicted, as she had always thought her employers were biological sisters.
However, Yue Du had noticed her complex emotions almost immediately and frankly told her they weren't related by blood. That's when she had a sudden realization and stopped feeling conflicted.
Speaking of which, the two of them hadn't said where they were going when they left. They were gone for several months… could they have gone on a honeymoon?
Stop.
Wen Yilan coughed lightly, mentally scolding herself for speculating about her employers' private travels. She then adopted a proper attitude and said, “In that case, I won't disturb you any longer.”
Ji You was about to nod when she paused, seeming to hear a faint sound from the room. She changed her mind and said in a low voice, “Sister is awake. Please, come in.”
Wen Yilan sat down on the sofa, but Ji You turned and went into her and Yue Du's room, closing the door behind her. A moment later, the two of them came out together.
“It’s been a while. You’re looking even better,” Yue Du greeted with a smile.
Wen Yilan sighed. “I’ve gained weight from eating sweets every day, of course I'm looking better.” She glanced at Ji You, then said, “Let’s not talk about that. Why were you gone for so long this time? I was afraid you’d leave and never come back, and I’d be out of a job.”
Yue Du and her host exchanged a look, reaching a consensus. She then said slowly, “It’s a long story. We went to save all of humanity this time.”
Wen Yilan was shocked.
She immediately sat up straight, her face screaming, “Tell me, tell me!” Yue Du smiled and repeated the story she had told the stronghold leaders.
This matter had just caused a huge uproar in the north, but it was still unknown in the more southern strongholds. As the first person in this stronghold to know—and one who heard it directly from the people involved—Wen Yilan's heart surged with excitement, her emotions rising and falling with the tale.
If she hadn't felt Ji You's intense gaze on her, she might have even thrown her decorum to the wind, rushed forward, and hugged her employer while screaming wildly.
Even so, she still let out a string of praises, enough to write a short essay, to express her excitement.
She even wanted to ask Yue Du and Ji You for their autographs.
“Calm down,” Yue Du said.
Wen Yilan took a deep breath. “I’m trying to calm down… I can’t calm down! Ahhh! This is definitely a major event that will go down in human history!”
Yue Du didn't know whether to laugh or cry. “Alright, don’t get too excited. Besides, this matter is strictly confidential. You can’t tell anyone, because we can’t be sure if there are any half-Scarlet Beasts hiding their identities among those who might hear it.”
“Don’t worry, I promise I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone.” Wen Yilan stood up, sat down, then stood up again. Finally, unable to suppress her impulse, she walked toward the door. “No, I need to cool down. I’m going to make you a huge meal. I have to properly reward the heroes of humanity!”
Yue Du, being called a hero of humanity for the first time in her life, was speechless.
There was no need to be that excited.
Halfway there, Wen Yilan suddenly turned her head and asked, “Oh, right! Do you want a large portion or a small portion today?”
A large portion was Gluttony's appetite, while a small portion was Jealousy's.
“A small portion, please. Thank you for the trouble,” Yue Du said.
“Understood! I promise to use all my best skills!”
With a soft click, the door closed.
Wen Yilan walked briskly to her own kitchen, humming a tune as she selected ingredients. When a wide variety of them were laid out before her, she paused her movements and smiled, as if remembering something.
This pair of sisters—no, this pair of lovers—had too many mysterious things about them. Be it their overly powerful abilities, their fluctuating appetites, or Yue Du's appearance that hadn't changed in years, Wen Yilan had noticed it all.
But so what? The facts proved they were just good people who were a little special… alright, very special.
Wen Yilan shook her head, resolving to continue being a good private chef in the future, starting with today's grand meal.
After returning, Yue Du took a good few days to rest, only staying busy when it came to receiving intelligence.
The half-Scarlet Beasts had nowhere to hide from the crystal fragments' detection, but they were scattered across various strongholds, so the investigation took some time. It wasn't fully completed until three months after the siege.
A letter from the leader of the stronghold near the Scarlet Beast nest and a message from Jiang Yao arrived in Yue Du's hands on the same day. The contents were more or less the same: a summary of the aftermath of the operation to eradicate the half-breeds.
After two rounds of investigation, one covert and one overt, a total of 494 half-Scarlet Beasts were identified and captured alive on the spot. All of them were young children, and without exception, all possessed the aptitude to become powerful hunters. One had even already become a star-ranked hunter.
If the Scarlet Beasts' plan hadn't been exposed this time, no one could have imagined that these children were daggers aimed in secret at those with the Reality ability.
They hid themselves too well. To achieve their goal, they would kill Scarlet Beasts alongside their teammates without revealing any flaws, acting even more decisively than their comrades.
When some of them were exposed and captured alive, some of their unsuspecting companions even stood up to speak for them. When they learned the truth, they nearly suffocated from the shock.
Besides the living ones, there were also the dead.
The survival rate of the half-breeds was very high because the illusions of ordinary Scarlet Beasts were ineffective against them. The Scarlet Beasts also seemed to vaguely sense that the half-breeds were less like food than real humans and never actively attacked them.
But the half-breeds could also die for other reasons.
For example, after attempting to assassinate someone with the Reality ability, if they succeeded, they would be killed by their enraged teammates. If they failed, they might be killed or imprisoned. Their only other option was to assassinate their target silently and then escape without drawing attention.
The various strongholds reviewed the data on the deaths of Reality ability users over the past decade or so. After careful examination, they determined that at least twenty-three cases were caused by half-breeds, with most of the perpetrators having been executed after the incidents.
With that, the numbers roughly matched up.
That was all the information. Yue Du couldn't be bothered to read the effusive praise the stronghold leader had written at the end of the letter. She turned to the message from Jiang Yao and found no discrepancies in the data.
However, Jiang Yao also mentioned one person, someone who seemed to have no connection to this matter: the opera singer, Dai Mi.
Yue Du was very familiar with the name Dai Mi. She was the female singer who had performed the “Yun Dynasty Epic” in this stronghold and whose autograph Wen Yilan had wanted. More importantly, she was accompanied by Han Li, who looked identical to Xiao Yi.
Jiang Yao wrote:
“Dai Mi participated in the entire process of investigating the half-Scarlet Beasts. According to her, she had been investigating the Scarlet Beasts before. Her younger sister was a Reality ability user who was killed by a half-Scarlet Beast before she had a chance to grow strong. That half-breed vanished without a trace after the act. Dai Mi later joined a wandering hunter squad under a false name to track down the killer, only realizing last year that the matter was related to the Scarlet Beasts.”
“However, before they could find anything, you brought the news back. Among the half-breeds captured alive this time was the one who, three years ago, got close to Dai Mi’s sister by pretending to be of a similar age and then killed her. Dai Mi executed it with her own hands and said she wants to find you to thank you. She’s probably on her way now.”
Jiang Yao also apologized for this. “You asked me to send you regular intelligence on Dai Mi before, but my network failed to uncover her true recent activities. I thought she was just idle at home. I wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t said it herself. This was my dereliction of duty.”
Yue Du had no intention of blaming her. There was no internet here, and contact between strongholds was sparse. Moreover, Dai Mi had deliberately been operating under a false name, so it was normal that the investigation wasn't accurate.
Her attention was more focused on the information about Dai Mi.
A wandering hunter squad, meaning a team of hunters with no fixed residence, moving between various strongholds.
Most hunters who joined such teams were looking for lost friends or relatives, though occasionally there were strange reasons like “the world is so big, I want to see it all,” “I just want to get away from that suffocating family,” or “I simply want to roam the world.”
Yue Du fell into thought. She flipped through the simple files on Dai Mi and her teammates and found that this was indeed the case. Furthermore, their team had just been named the strongest wandering hunter team last year.
Doesn’t that sound a lot like a protagonist party setup?
And consider Dai Mi's story: originally a famous female singer, she resolutely gave up her fame and status after her sister was murdered, joined a wandering squad under a false name, and was on the verge of uncovering the Scarlet Beasts' plan.
This looked exactly like a protagonist's script!
For Yue Du, there was another point: one of Dai Mi's assistants was one of the Main God's people. And considering Ji You's identity as the final villain, it aligned with the direction of Dai Mi's investigation. This made Yue Du feel even more certain.
However, regardless of whether Dai Mi was the protagonist, it didn't have much to do with them. The information from the Main System didn't include protagonists, and the mission had never mentioned her. It was best to just let things take their course.
Compared to Dai Mi, Yue Du was more concerned about her assistant, Han Li.
Dai Mi arrived at the stronghold half a month later, bringing her friends from the wandering hunter squad.
With a calm mindset, Yue Du subtly asked about Han Li and the other assistants while speaking with Dai Mi, who had come specifically to thank her. Still immersed in the relief and gratitude of having avenged her sister, Dai Mi naturally told her everything she knew.
“Han Li?” When she first heard Yue Du ask about her, Dai Mi was a bit blank. It seemed she didn't have a deep impression of her and wasn't very familiar with her—just one of several assistants. “Han Li is a bit rigid, but she’s very obedient. I guess she’s not very good at communicating with others.”
In fact, Han Li had worked by her side for at least eight years. She shouldn't have had such a shallow impression of her.
Was this also because of Han Li's special nature?
Knowing she wouldn't get any more information from Dai Mi, Yue Du watched the grateful singer leave before telling Ji You her thoughts.
Ji You was unconcerned.
“Even if she’s connected to the Main System, it won’t affect us. Look at that System Xiao Yi you mentioned. She was clearly one of the Main System’s people, but did she affect you?”
Yue Du shook her head.
“See?” Ji You said. “So just be on guard. If she doesn’t approach us, we’ll just ignore her.”
Yue Du felt that made a lot of sense.
Ji You, determined to distract her sister, said, “By the way, I have a new game I want to show you, Sister.”
“Wha—” Yue Du had just started to speak when a kiss stole all her breath. Just as she was about to run out of air, everything before her suddenly dissipated. Her host was still sitting beside her, but with a composed expression, showing no signs of the passionate kiss from just a moment ago.
“An illusion?” Yue Du asked.
Ji You's eyes sparkled. “Isn't it fun?”
At that moment, even if Yue Du said it wasn't fun, deep down she found it a little thrilling.
But later, when her clothes were stripped away, her body opened up, pushed to the peak of a wave from below only to fall heavily back down—yet in the blink of an eye, she saw her host, neatly dressed and with a calm expression, looking as if nothing had happened, while her own clothes were also perfectly in place.
Not fun. Really, not fun at all!
Yue Du thought this from the bottom of her heart.
But Ji You seemed to really like this method, resorting to it every few days. Perhaps it was because this was something Gluttony couldn't do.
Later, on one occasion, after waking from an illusion, Yue Du found her lips were red and swollen as if they had really been kissed. But she didn't know if it was an upgrade to Ji You's illusion ability, or if her host, who was an expert at seizing every opportunity, had bitten her while she was disoriented.
This would probably remain an eternal mystery.
After all, Gluttony, the only one who might have known the truth at the time, was still asleep. Otherwise, she would have been dedicated to undermining Jealousy, telling Yue Du what bad things her other self had done at the first opportunity.
Were Jealousy and Gluttony always so incompatible?
Not necessarily.
Once, the stronghold leader's young daughter saw Yue Du at a hunter's banquet.
Whether it was love at first sight or something else, she confessed on their very first meeting. Just as Yue Du was about to refuse, the little girl saw Ji You—Gluttony at that moment—walking over from the other side to declare her sovereignty.
Instantly, her eyes were fixed.
“A threesome is fine with me too!”
It took a lot of persuasion from Yue Du to stop Gluttony from flying into a rage and biting someone.
Immediately, the little girl was brought over by her parents to apologize, her eyes brimming with tears.
The leader sighed heavily. “Sigh, this child just likes beautiful people. Please forgive her for any offense. We will discipline her more strictly in the future.”
Yue Du smiled politely. “It’s fine. Everyone appreciates beauty.”
The little girl looked at her, then at Ji You, flinched, and looked like she was about to cry again.
With her ice-cold stare, Ji You successfully cured the girl's severe obsession with looks.
However, this incident flipped a strange switch. Ji You seemed to feel that, compared to other people, her other self wasn't so unacceptable after all.
So she tricked Yue Du into her mental space.
The deep pool in the center meandered and froze over. Yue Du lay on the ice, her wrists held down by her host's two consciousnesses, completely immobilized.
When it was all over, Yue Du left the mental space without a word. The first thing she did was kick her host out of the room.
You can't always spoil the host. Sometimes, you have to give her the cold shoulder.
Otherwise, she was truly capable of anything!
For the next five years, the Main System vanished without a trace. It didn't pull any of its usual tricks, seeming to have given up the struggle.
If other hosts had encountered this situation, they would have worried about the lack of missions and large point rewards. But Ji You wished the Main System would never issue another mission, allowing her sister to stay in this small world for even longer.
But the day of parting was bound to come.
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