Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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“Xiao Ye,” Li Yuebai said softly, “Can I ask you one last question?”
Ye Qing bit his neck again.
“The last question is,” Li Yuebai gritted his teeth, “How many stars are there in the sky?”
Ye Qing froze, not answering.
“Tell me,” Li Yuebai pressed, “That night on the rooftop, I asked you the same question, and you answered immediately… Why can’t you answer now?”
That night, even though he was exhausted, Ye Qing insisted on going to the rooftop alone to look at the stars. Li Yuebai, worried, followed him and watched for a long time, chatting as well.
Wanting to tease him, Li Yuebai jokingly asked about the number of stars, and Ye Qing actually gave an astronomical figure. Li Yuebai had forgotten the exact number, but Ye Qing couldn’t possibly forget.
Ye Qing’s genius had always been in this area— a sensitivity to numbers, a talent for mathematics, and an extraordinary perception of shape, weight, and quantity.
“If you can’t answer, then that only means…” Li Yuebai sighed, stroking the other’s hair, the touch exactly the same as in his memory: “You’re a fake.”
A crow cawed alarmedly from the windowsill.
Ye Qing’s body suddenly lost its strength, and the hand that had been gripping Li Yuebai’s neck loosened: “You don’t believe me, Master?”
Li Yuebai pushed him away, coughing violently until he finally caught his breath: “Answer my questions first.”
“Then Master, answer me first: How many seconds are in eternity? How many drops of water are in the ocean? How many petals are in the lotus flower in the Bodhisattva’s hand?” Ye Qing smiled, his voice still calm: “Then I can answer how many stars there are.”
A very poetic answer; in a Chinese class, Li Yuebai would give it a high score.
But here, zero points.
“Give me a number.” Li Yuebai pressed on relentlessly.
“An immeasurable number.” Ye Qing smiled and looked at him.
An immeasurable number was not a number, but an ancient Indian counting unit; in modern mathematics, it was approximately 10 to the power of one million.
“Wrong.” Li Yuebai looked at the face that still looked exactly like Ye Qing’s, and for a moment he felt a pang of pity. “Completely wrong. You disguised yourself very well, everything was exactly the same as him… but you were still wrong.”
“Why?” Ye Qing asked coldly.
“I heard that illusions disappear automatically the moment they are shattered. Why haven’t you disappeared yet? Are you still waiting for me to completely expose you?” Li Yuebai’s tone grew colder and colder. After realizing that the person in front of him was not Ye Qing, all his impulsive, guilty, self-pitying, and fragile thoughts vanished.
The Ye Qing in front of him was fake, a trap set by Gao Chengyu.
The real purpose of setting up this trap was not to have this Ye Qing kill him, but to force him to kill Ye Qing with his own hands in a state of despair and then suffer even deeper pain and guilt.
This was Gao Chengyu’s mistake. Since he had driven him to a dead end, he had to bear the consequences of his own counterattack.
“Am I fake?” Ye Qing’s voice grew colder. “Reason?”
“Because you’re too similar.” Li Yuebai shook his head with a smile. “Even if he played the role himself, he wouldn’t be as similar as you.”
“That reason is unbelievable.” The blue teardrops under the fake Ye Qing’s eyes disappeared, as did the strand of red in his hair. He was slowly returning to his original appearance. “Tell me, how exactly did you discover the suspicious points?”
“The biggest suspicious point is that the Ye Qing you played was exactly the same as the one in my memory.” Li Yuebai shook his head. “The appearance in my memory, the touch in my memory, the tone of voice in my memory, the behavior in my memory… From beginning to end, you didn’t do anything beyond what I remember.”
Vampire mind control could only control humans, not other vampires, nor could it control VILA. However, vampires with sufficient magical power could read VILA’s memories, although it was more difficult than reading human memories, it was entirely possible.
One of Gao Chengyu’s powerful subordinates did just that, reading his own memories of Ye Qing— very detailed and complete memories— and then using this information to create a fake one.
It must be admitted that this was an extremely powerful spell, completely indistinguishable from the real thing.
At first, Li Yuebai was completely fooled. How could a Ye Qing who looked exactly like the one in his memory not be Ye Qing? Moreover, he felt guilty towards Ye Qing, an insurmountable mental barrier. Therefore, as long as Ye Qing said he hated him, he couldn’t bear to doubt him.
However, when Gao Chengyu ordered him to kill Ye Qing, he suddenly realized the truth and gradually came to his senses.
When faced with a difficult choice, people often become trapped in unbearable pain, eventually succumbing to madness.
In a flash, after countless moments of contemplation, Li Yuebai opened up a third line of thought— this Ye Qing was an imposter.
“Maybe he hasn’t changed, maybe he just is like this…” The imposter in front of him shook his head. “What truly made you make your judgment was that last question, wasn’t it? What was the answer to that question?”
“I don’t remember either.” Li Yuebai shook his head with a smile. “How many stars are there? I only remember asking Ye Qing that question once, and he answered it, but I don’t remember the specific answer.”
Unlike Ye Qing, Li Yuebai wasn’t good at math, especially numbers. He often couldn’t remember phone numbers, dates, prices of things… so he forgot that number too.
“It’s precisely because I didn’t remember that I had to ask you.” Li Yuebai said, “Only with this kind of answer can you not retrieve it from my memory… so you have to answer it yourself. And that’s where the difference between you and Ye Qing comes in.”
“…”
“System.” Li Yuebai called out to the system fiercely, “Come out, stop pretending to be dead.”
“Dear host, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Just now, I went into hibernation, so…” The system started its disgusting sweet talk again.
“Still picks the right time, going into hibernation just when I asked you to contact Ye Qing.” Li Yuebai sneered. “The reason must be— this is quite amusing, isn’t it?”
“Dear host, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” The system feigned innocence. “I’m awake now, ready to fulfil any of your requests.”
“Then help me recall, how many stars are there?” Li Yuebai brought up the previous question.
“Approximately four hundred billion.” The system quickly gave its answer.
Although the system often betrayed, it never lied.
“Approximately four hundred billion.” Li Yuebai smiled. “Xiao Ye is that kind of person, purely rational. When faced with questions like this, he will always give a number as an answer, not some romantic poetry…that’s irrelevant to him.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a soft explosion sounded in front of him.
For those having nightmares, once they wake up, the nightmares gradually dissipate, unstoppable.
The imposter Ye Qing, so convincingly realistic, immediately shed all pretense after his identity was exposed.
His once clearly defined body suddenly exploded into countless grains of sand, scattering into the air.
Moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the sand grains until they shimmered and dispersed, leaving nothing behind.
“Ye Qing” wasn’t some vampire in disguise, but a phantom created from sand.
The ability to read memories, create illusions, and mimic various tactile sensations— such magic was powerful and dangerous. Where was the caster?
Li Yuebai looked around; all he saw was emptiness.
The crows on the windowsill had vanished sometime earlier.
The door had been closed the moment he entered, completely sealed, not letting in a ray of light.
The parchment on the floor remained. Li Yuebai walked over, picked it up again, and saw new words displayed on it—”It’s regrettable that you’ve passed the first level of the test. You won’t always be so lucky.”
A loud rumbling sound came from the stairs— the sound of a door opening. The door to the second floor was open; just follow the stairs and you’d reach the second floor.
The game-like atmosphere was getting stronger.
Li Yuebai wasn’t very good at computer games, but he knew about famous games like “Magic Tower”— dungeons, castles, warriors…these were common elements in Western fantasy games. He hadn’t expected that in this vampire world, he would have to use a game-like format for his final showdown.
He had no choice but to react to each move as it came.
Li Yuebai pondered for a moment, clutching the parchment, and was about to turn and go up the stairs when he heard footsteps behind him.
Someone was coming?
He whirled around and saw the last person he wanted to see:
Gao Chengyu.
Gao Chengyu looked completely different from the person in his memory, and even more so from the corpse in the news— he wore a simple, dark robe in the Ottoman Empire style, understated and meticulously designed, which would look perfectly natural even in modern society. A feather was pinned to his collar, his light gray hair was neatly combed, his face was pale and his features were deep, and a monocle was perched on his left eye. To be fair, he had a very refined appearance, if one ignored the cruelty and ambition hidden deep within his eyes.
“Welcome.” Gao Chengyu actually spoke first, his words delivered in the tiresome, formulaic tone of a refined but scoundrel business elite.
“You don’t even dare to show your true form, only using an illusion to welcome me. Your manners are rather lacking, you legendary Impaler King.” Li Yuebai rubbed his temples and sneered.
The Gao Chengyu before him, like Ye Qing from before, was an illusion composed of grains of sand.
Because a real vampire standing so close to him should have already been unable to hold back.
“What does etiquette matter when your goal is right?” Gao Chengyu chuckled. “Mr. Gu, even if I made you kneel to come in, wouldn’t you still have to obediently comply?”
“What’s so great about being the king of vampires? In human society, you’re just a pathetic criminal.” Li Yuebai didn’t want to waste time with his endless lines and quickly changed the subject. “Alright, enough nonsense. Your goal is clear. Do I need to spell it out?”
“Hmm?”
“This tower has seven floors.” Li Yuebai looked around. “I’ve already passed the first floor, unharmed.”
“That’s only temporary.” Gao Chengyu smiled.
“You have so many vampires under your command, why don’t you send them to tear me to pieces?” Li Yuebai shook his head. “Because your goal isn’t to kill me, not to devour my flesh. You don’t intend to kill me, you only intend to destroy my spirit.”
Destroying the spirit is an old cliché, but it always applies.
“How do you turn a VILA into your tool?” Li Yuebai carefully recalled the records he had read in “The Examination of Blood Charms”: “Destroying the body is useless. The most thorough way is to destroy its mind, to make it lose all thoughts, and only obey your manipulation. There are many ways to achieve this goal. This is only the first level, and you have already used the most ruthless move— forcing me to kill the person I value most with my own hands.”
“I didn’t force you to kill him, I just made you make a choice.” Gao Chengyu raised an eyebrow: “Besides, even if you kill him, it’s just killing a phantom, no loss whatsoever.”
“But if I firmly believe that this phantom is him, if I don’t see through your illusions.” Li Yuebai took a deep breath: “Then at the moment I kill the phantom, something deep within me will die. This tower has seven levels. With each level I ascend, a part of my heart dies. When I reach the top, if it’s as you wish, I will only be a shell.”
“Such an obvious general direction, it’s hard for you not to guess.” Something flashed in Gao Chengyu’s eyes: “But the specific details that follow will probably be much harder for you to guess.”
“I’m here for only one purpose,” Li Yuebai said, trying to project the imposing aura of Gu Xisha: “That is to make this world not what you want it to be.”
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