I Am Your Natural Enemy

The visitor was a guest of Meng An; they’d had dealings before, so after casually asking a couple of questions and seeing Meng An get caught up in things, they didn’t press further.

After all, their task wasn’t to hunt down the perpetrator, but to search the area for about a dozen miles and see what had been eliminated by Tuoba Martial God, so they could help handle any aftermath.

As for lending a hand in a fight, that had never even crossed their minds.

It was just that after seeing the terrifying burst of yang energy quickly subside, they figured the matter was resolved, and that’s the only reason they dared to relax so much.

The few people outside the door quickly left; Meng An pulled down the rolling shutter again and locked it.

He returned upstairs, looking at the still-sleeping Lu Jing, while Wen Yan sat nearby, holding the Ghost Bone in one hand and brooding over her phone.

Wen Yan checked Lu Jing’s recent records; she should have been targeted by the Big Mouth Ghost on her way home a few days ago.

Using her privileges, Wen Yan checked the call logs― previously, Lu Jing and her mother would talk every night on the phone.

Each call would last from more than ten minutes to half an hour.

But the night before last, the call log showed less than a minute; the past two days only had several missed calls, followed by brief call-backs of under a minute.

Wen Yan could easily imagine it: already struggling with insomnia and nightmares, she wouldn’t even call her mother anymore, adding even more pressure on her heart.

Staring at the scenes within those rows of teeth, Wen Yan thought they were so ordinary, but as a child, he had most envied this kind of ordinary life.

He could no longer recover what had been taken, but Wen Yan really didn’t want to see what was once a harmonious mother-daughter pair becoming distant without knowing why, nor one of them gradually developing new feelings over time.

He looked at Lu Jing lying on the hospital bed, wanting to tell her everything just as it happened, but worried that dragging a normal person into this world might not be right.

But if he said nothing, that felt even worse inside.

He sat beside her, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.

He entered the mist and stepped into Lu Jing’s dream.

The place was fragmented; the whole city seemed shattered into floating pieces.

Lu Jing was curled up, crouching on one of the shards suspended in mid-air—a corner of a room—facing the wall as if hiding.

Wen Yan drifted over, putting on the still-lingering Deduction Method.

With a flick of his hand, his clothes turned into flame-colored loose sleeves, his face became gentle and kind, head crowned with feathers, and two halos glowed behind his head, like the Great Sun casting light.

He stepped across the fragments, approaching step by step, stretched out a hand, and patted Lu Jing’s head.

”Everything is over now. From today on, you don’t have to worry anymore.

The nightmare in your heart is already gone.”

Warm, golden sunlight flooded down.

Wen Yan blessed himself with the Explosive Great Sun. He still maintained his Burst Qi state—not sure if dream visitation worked, but at least it helped him.

Besides, even if his dream visitation couldn’t hurt anyone directly, it never stopped him from talking them through it.

This had already been verified with Cai Heizi.

The gentle sunshine descended, and the shattered world here slowly began to fall back together.

Lu Jing, huddled in the corner with her face buried in her knees, slowly raised her head, dazedly looking at Wen Yan.

”Immortal? Demon?”

”Who I am doesn’t matter; I just have something to tell you.”

Wen Yan’s voice was imbued with the warmth of the Scorching Sun, gently blowing over, neither harsh nor blinding.

”You were targeted by an Evil Ghost, who stole your mother’s love for you.

Although that ghost is dead now, the harm done can’t be undone.”

”Do you understand what I’m saying?”

In Lu Jing’s dazed eyes, a glimmer of hope suddenly lit up like a spark.

”So my mom isn’t annoyed with me?”

”No, how could she be? She’s already survived the hardest and most exhausting days, and sent you to college.”

How could she just suddenly start getting annoyed at you now?

At most, when you come home for break, she might nag you a couple times after three days.

Your mother’s love for you has never changed, just that more than half of it has been stolen away now.

I want you to understand this—she actually hasn’t changed.

It’s just that someone stole something from you, and what changed on the surface, the one who seems different, is her.”

”Can my mom get back to the way she was?”

”That, I don’t know. I just wanted you to know the truth. What you do after this, how you feel, that’s all up to you.”

Lu Jing’s expression shifted from shock to resolve, slowly changing.

The broken world around them started rebuilding itself; the drifting shards in the sky began reassembling into a city.

Wen Yan smiled, satisfaction in his heart.

The beauty of dreams is that the dreamer won’t question anything; seeing cows flying in the sky or flying themselves, it all seems normal there.

Only on waking, recalling it all, will they realize it was false.

”The damage done can’t be undone, but you can try to make up for it. And no one else can help you with this—it all depends on you.”