"Can we talk?"
A voice cut in.
Shen Yi turned her head.
Lu Mingyuan stood three steps away.
He was wearing a black suit, his tie meticulously tied, his eyes bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept for days, or as if he had been crying.
Before Shen Yi could speak, two voices answered simultaneously from her left and right.
"No."
"Get lost."
Those two were Sui Ning and Shen Wenta, respectively.
Shen Yi: "..."
Lu Mingyuan acted as if he hadn't heard them. His gaze passed between the two men, fixing directly on Shen Yi. His lips moved, and he spoke:
"Xiao Yi is dead."
Shen Yi said nothing.
"It has to do with you, doesn't it?"
The air went still for a moment.
Shen Yi looked at him.
"We've known each other for over ten years, Shen Yi." Lu Mingyuan's eyes reddened further. "I actually thought you looked familiar a long time ago, but we've never met. Yet—I always dream of you in my dreams."
"In the dreams, it's different from reality. She wasn't as obedient and well-behaved as you are in my dreams. In my dreams, she was always kind, and she always liked to cling to me."
"You know? In my dreams, I actually liked you a lot. I liked you more than Song Yi."
He didn't realize what he was saying at all; he was already somewhat deranged.
"But in the dreams, you always used me. You weren't obedient at all, so I gave up on you."
As Shen Yi listened to him speak, her brows furrowed.
Could this so-called dream of his be about their past lives?
"System."
The system said: 【Apologies, there were too many bugs. The world was reset. At that time, I was in hibernation due to insufficient energy, so it took me a bit longer to find you. Since your world was reset, a few bugs are only to be expected.】
Hearing the system's explanation, Shen Yi frowned.
Unconsciously, she hid behind Shen Wenta, grabbing his clothes.
This reaction involuntarily softened Shen Wenta's expression.
Lu Mingyuan continued: "If back then you hadn't used me and had really liked me instead... the outcome would have been different, right?"
Shen Yi peeked half her head out from behind Shen Wenta.
"...I'm sorry," she said, her voice softer than usual. "What you're talking about, it's just a dream, isn't it?"
She hesitated for a moment but decided to respond using the premise of a "dream." "Whether you liked me or not isn't important. I used you; that was my problem back then. And you gave up on me."
"So don't overthink it. It was just a dream."
Lu Mingyuan looked at her: "Was it really just a dream?"
Shen Wenta shielded Shen Yi further behind him. For a long time, he didn't come back to his senses. He could tell that when she spoke, Shen Yi was genuinely responding to what Lu Mingyuan called his "dream."
It wasn't a brush-off; she was really thinking, offering a carefully considered answer.
This was completely different from how Shen Yi usually acted in his memory.
This attitude made Shen Wenta suspect that Shen Yi actually believed the "dream" Lu Mingyuan talked about.
So much so that she responded so earnestly.
But could she and Lu Mingyuan really have some kind of entanglement?
Could the scenes in the dream really be related to reality?
He suddenly remembered the topics between Shen Yi and his several older brothers, topics he never seemed able to break into.
Shen Wenta had felt excluded by them more than once.
This suspicion filled him with fear.
Shen Wenta felt incredibly insecure around her. She was like a draft through a hall, rarely stopping for anyone.
Even the times they met were few and far between.
Instinctively, Shen Wenta grabbed her hand tightly, the force so strong it slipped his control.
Shen Yi kicked him.
He didn't let go.
She looked down at the hand holding hers; his knuckles were white, bones prominent, as if he were clinging to something that could disappear at any moment.
She kicked him again.
He still didn't let go.
Shen Yi gave up and let him hold on, then turned her head to look at Lu Mingyuan, coldly: "Aren't you leaving yet?"
"...A dream? Then I wish everything in front of me right now were also just a dream." After uttering this incoherent remark and seeing Shen Yi's response insisting it was only a dream, he gave a bitter smile and left.
He really did seem mentally unhinged.
The dream chaser made his regretful exit.
Shen Yi thought she could finally leave this over-the-top banquet.
But to her surprise, there was yet another contender.
He chose his moment and rushed up, speaking in English, his words firing out like a machine gun, heavy with an Italian accent.
"Hi, beautiful lady."
"I wonder if I might have the honor of inviting you to dinner?"
Shen Yi's mind was still tangled up in Lu Mingyuan's speech, and now another barrage of incomprehensible syllables hit her.
She couldn't take it anymore and yelled out: "Who the hell are you!?"
Where did all these men keep spawning from? Was the entrance to the banquet hall a personal spawn point?
Before her stood a standard hot Italian guy.
Misty blue eyes, delicate features, a straight nose bridge, with a kind of sorrowful yet gentle brow, a look that seemed affectionate even for a stray dog.
"Oh, I am a friend of your brother," he said, understanding some simple Chinese, bowing to Shen Yi with exaggerated enthusiasm. "A pleasure to meet you. My name is Visconti Lorenzo."
Shen Wenta felt he was getting too close and thrust the bare flower stem right up to Lorenzo's face.
It was half an inch away from piercing his eye.
Lorenzo blinked his misty blue eyes, completely unaware of the danger.
He even leaned back slightly, examining the bare stem as if appraising a precious artifact.
"Oh, is this a gift for me?" he said with that characteristic foreigner's enthusiastic tone. "A magic wand? A magic stick? Could it be from Harry Potter—"
"Of course not," Shen Wenta cut him off. "Get the hell away from me."
Lorenzo: "What?"
Shen Wenta's words were sharp, his tone icy: "I said, get lost."
"Go. Leave. Now. Pick whichever of those three words you can understand."
Lorenzo finally seemed to understand the meaning of "go to hell" from that gloomy face.
He stepped back half a pace, waved his hands, his tone still holding that optimistic air of "if not today, then another time."
"Alright, alright, I won't disturb you. Miss, I'm staying in the cabin suite in Block C. If you change your mind and feel like a drink—"
Shen Wenta snapped the flower stem in two.
"Crack."
Ominously, he said: "What fun is there in drinking with her? How about we have a drink tonight, just you and me?"
