I Really Want to Live

There might be something wrong with the flow of time in the Yin Yang Corridor. After entering the room, Yu Xing felt a sense of stuffiness and drowsiness.

Simply waiting for someone, with nothing to do, makes you feel sleepy.

His eyes were half-closed, and he was about to fall asleep on the octagonal table. The jingling and clanging sounds from Yi Qing's body were not only quiet at this time, but actually helped him fall asleep.

"Sigh, you really don't know how to enjoy life." Yi Qing looked at the back of his head, shook her head in exasperation, and scraped the rim of the cup with the lid. "This tea can't be found anywhere else; it's the Longevity Tea that only exists in Yin Yang City!"

Yu Xing lazily retorted, "Will drinking it grant immortality?"

Before Yi Qing could answer, Yu Xing continued, "You've been dead for so long, even if you could live forever, it's none of your business."

"..." Yi Qing swallowed a mouthful of tea, which lingered in her mouth for a couple of seconds, then clutched her chest.

The gentle, scholarly air was eroded by the grinding of his teeth. He put down his teacup and, like a ghost haunting him, climbed onto Yu Xing's back. "What do you mean, want to fight?"

Yu Xing fell asleep.

It wasn't a deep sleep, just a state of being able to wake up at any moment with eyes closed.

Yi Qing shook him twice, then silently got off him. Sensing something was wrong, she murmured, "Why are you so sleepy?"

Logically speaking, at Yu Xing's level, not sleeping for days wouldn't have any effect. Moreover, the first section of the corridor tests one's temperament and thinking more than one's physical strength.

The Sheqing Ghost circled in the air, thinking to himself— Yu Xing should have come in full of energy, argued with him after seeing him, or coerced him into revealing some secrets of Yin Yang City, and then started thinking about how to face the Lingren later.

But how did he fall asleep like that?

Are you injured? I don't smell any blood.

Feeling frustrated? There's nothing in this dungeon that could frustrate Yu Xing.

Yi Qing couldn't resist tapping the system.

His communication with the system never required speaking; he only needed to think, "What did you do to him?"

The system has become increasingly difficult to please over the past year, and it doesn't always respond to him anymore. This time, however, the system did throw out a question mark in his mind.

[?]

"Look at him, why does he look so listless? Didn't you secretly sabotage him?" Yi Qing said.

[...]

[Have you forgotten? He just reconnected with me, and the first and only function I restored for him was his ghost contract with you.]

[Aside from that, I didn't do anything to him, and you'd better not cause me any trouble.]

Yi Qing didn't care about being scolded by the system and ended the communication. Anyway, every time his power was restricted by the system, he would openly exchange a few insults with the system, so he wasn't afraid of the system.

If it wasn't the system causing trouble, then Yu Xing must have exhausted too much mental energy without his knowledge and couldn't hold on any longer?

He, a ghost, drifted left and right, and each time his ethereal body passed through Yu Xing, it brought Yu Xing a chill.

Unable to bear it any longer, Yu Xing didn't even open her eyes and said in a deep voice, "... Go move over there."

"I'm just concerned about you!" Yi Qing was so angry that he started to speak in a refined tone, but seeing that Yu Xing was tired, he didn't disturb her and went to lie down on the chaise longue to wait for her.

Without the alternating hot and cold sensation, Yu Xing changed her lying position, her mind still foggy.

The drowsiness came on so suddenly that Yu Xing didn't have time to think about why, nor did she want to resist it, letting herself drift into a hazy dream.

The buildings in my dream were all white-walled and black-tiled, like the legendary water towns of Jiangnan. The ancient city was surrounded by a black lake, its surface shimmering and reflecting something bright.

Funeral music and drumming echoed through the city, and paper money and gold leaf flew everywhere. A cold wind blew, and the paper money spontaneously combusted and turned to ashes in mid-air.

"Life is great, death is great, life and death are great indeed—let go of your obsessions!" The old man sat cross-legged on the side of the street, with a fortune-telling stall in front of him. As the funeral procession passed by the old man, all the mourners looked at him.

One, two, three... countless paper figures, some crying, some laughing, holding paper musical instruments, their pale faces painted with two patches of crimson, hopping and skipping.

They carried the coffin palanquin forward, keeping an eye on the old man, until they could no longer see him even after turning their necks 180 degrees, and then they turned their gaze away.

The old man casually shook his legs, seemingly used to it, but when he got stiff and tried to change his posture, his head rolled off his neck as soon as he lifted his buttocks.

It rolled around... to the center of the fortune-telling Bagua formation.

His body was completely still, his head was also motionless, and the expression on his face still held a sense of composure, yet he was completely dead.

The entire street was deserted except for the elderly.

Yu Xing couldn't find his place in the dream; it was as if he were watching a video, following the "camera" to another location.

On the banks of the Heihe River, two women are washing clothes in basins.

They squatted down obediently and scooped water obediently, their faces expressionless, colder than puppets. The red lucky bags hanging on their chests swayed with their movements, one of them not tied tightly, the opening was open, revealing a strand of black hair.

"Another one has survived," the woman suddenly said.

Another woman, as if copied and pasted, listened to the approaching funeral dirge and slowly repeated, "Another one has come back to life."

The two suddenly stopped what they were doing and said to Heihe, "I want to live too."

They stood up, a strange smile appearing on their expressionless faces, and the next moment, they fell straight into the water.

With a splash, the water barely broke, and the two women never resurfaced.

The funeral procession paraded along the city streets.

As they passed an inn, someone on the second floor of a building along the street opened a window and cautiously leaned out. A long head of hair was tied back, revealing a face that Yu Xing recognized all too well.

His hazy consciousness in the dream suddenly cleared a little, and he recognized the person.

Qu Xuanqing?

Why did she open the window?

The funeral procession was almost here when the image of the headless old man suddenly appeared in Yu Xing's mind. He didn't care when the old man had materialized in his dream, grabbed a broken piece of wooden plaque from the ground, and threw it at Qu Xuanqing without any mercy.

Qu Xuanqing was opening the window, looked over when she heard the sound. When she met his gaze, she was startled and didn't dodge the thrown object. She was hit squarely on the forehead and stepped back, clutching her head.

The next second, another hand reached out from the room and closed the window.

Yu Xing breathed a sigh of relief. Just then, the funeral procession arrived, and he belatedly realized that he was standing right in the middle of the street.

He turned his head and saw that the entire funeral procession had stopped because of his obstruction. The paper figure at the head of the procession stopped banging the gong, and all the paper figures were looking at him strangely.

Die.

The feeling of death pressed down on him like an overwhelming force. Yu Xing's head fell to the ground, his perspective flipped several times, rolling to a corner. He could still see his body standing in the middle of the street, being pulled aside by the paper figure and discarded like trash.

It was a dream.

It was just a dream...

Yu Xing knew this deeply, and he also knew that his thinking was only so sluggish in his dreams.

Where did this rumor come from?

It felt like someone pounced on him, pinning him down and making it hard for him to breathe.

The dream was becoming increasingly dangerous, and Yu Xing's mind was becoming clearer and clearer, and her senses were becoming more and more acute.

He felt as if something was pressing down on him, and he heard Zhao Yijiu's cold and gloomy voice above him. "Don't go near him."

Yu Xing suddenly opened his eyes, shaking off the oppressive force above his head.

He saw Zhao Yijiu withdraw her hand, still in a protective posture, while not far away, the Lingren seemed to want to approach but was blocked, with a leisurely smile on his face.

Yiqing lay on the chaise longue watching the play, and pulled out a handful of melon seeds from somewhere.

"..." Yu Xing rubbed his temples, surprised by the meaning of the dream he had just had. He suppressed his thoughts and began to deal with the scene in front of him.

I don't know how long I slept...

"You're all here?" Yu Xing's voice was still hoarse from waking up. She sat up straight, pulled Zhao Yijiu behind her, and looked at the Lingren. "You asked me to come and play with you, but you arrived even later than me. It's been a while since we last met, and you've gotten so slow."

The Lingren chuckled, "Yes, our young master is getting more and more impressive."