"Looks like you really have no more tricks left."
The Purple-Eyed Youth watched He Ao. Even that gentle smile, as standard as if copied from a template, rarely showed a ripple of different emotion. "Using the same trick over and over won't make me believe you truly have a way to solve this. It will only make your desperate struggling look rather pathetic."
He sighed softly. "If you choose to give up now and accept your final fate, perhaps you can still gain a less painful release."
"You seem unwilling to believe what I'm saying." He Ao quietly listened to the Purple-Eyed Youth. He slowly set down the steaming enamel cup in his hand, raised his head, and calmly looked at the other man's composed face.
Clearly, the Purple-Eyed Youth was imitating him—imitating his movements, his expressions, his habits.
Like an exquisite imitator copying the person he was trying to replace.
He Ao placed the cup on the table. With a crisp clink, he asked softly, "Don't you think the 'time' we've spent 'chatting' has been too long?"
At He Ao's words, the Purple-Eyed Youth was visibly stunned.
He looked up at the somewhat blurry houses around them and at the windows that seemed like glowing panels.
The light throughout the room flickered with a hazy, dreamlike unreality.
This was a "dream," but not one created by the Purple-Eyed Youth. It was a "dream" deep within He Ao's own subconscious, the embodiment of He Ao's sanity and self.
Here, he was the "intruder."
He had once wanted to use suggestion to make He Ao believe this was an illusion he had created, leading He Ao into cognitive error and self-denial.
But clearly, his plan had been seen through before it had even truly begun.
Of course, He Ao possessed a