The Kitchen Knife?!

Bai Yuze felt as though he was in a void. That strange yet familiar feeling had returned.

"Am I having another nightmare? Or did I just die suddenly?"

Bai Yuze's voice echoed all around him. He was completely alone in this space.

"Tsk! What a pain! Come to think of it, isn't this instance a little too difficult? Isn't it a bit much to crank up the difficulty as soon as I get here?"

This time, Bai Yuze's grumbling got a response.

Clang! Clang!

"What was that?"

Bai Yuze focused all his attention on where the sound was coming from.

"Sounds like someone's knocking. Could something have happened in the world outside my dream?"

Bai Yuze thought something had happened outside because he'd once realized in a dream that something was going on in the real world. For example, one New Year, he'd been asleep and dreamed he was collecting red envelopes when someone outside set off a firecracker.

With a bang, all the red envelopes in his dream blew away. That was when he realized he was dreaming, and then he woke up.

"By all rights, I know I'm dreaming, so why haven't I woken up?"

Suddenly, Bai Yuze felt the world spin around him. The scene before his eyes changed. Now, a beautiful, mature woman stood before him, holding a little girl in her arms. The girl was adorable and had inherited all her mother's best features.

"Y-You're... Yukino?!"

Bai Yuze rubbed his eyes in disbelief. The woman before him was Yukino, only now with the added aura of a married woman.

Yukino smiled at Bai Yuze.

"Yuze, you're home."

"Daddy! Welcome home!"

Bai Yuze stood there in a daze, utterly confused. Where had this dream taken him? Had he slept straight through to the ending?

He hadn't even finished the instance! He hadn't collected all the Zhenxie Guiqi! Yamauchi Haruki was still asleep!

As if she'd sensed the shift in Bai Yuze's mood, a door appeared behind him. He turned around, and the moment he saw it, he knew he'd found his way back.

He'd just started to move when someone grabbed his hand.

"Yuze, where are you going?"

"Uh... My stomach hurts. I need to use the bathroom."

"But... the bathroom is over there."

Bai Yuze was speechless, and Yukino silently let go of his hand.

"Daddy, are you going to see those aunties? But... today's my birthday. You promised me!"

The little girl's voice wavered with tears, and Yukino's expression had gone completely dark.

"Heh. You're going to see those little foxes again, aren't you? You're so caught up in your ridiculous harem fantasy that you'd abandon your own family?!"

"Waaah! Daddy, don't go!"

Yukino's scolding and the little girl's cries gave Bai Yuze a headache. His brain was about to stop working.

"Fine, then go to hell and live out that laughable dream of yours!"

Yukino produced a knife from who knew where and plunged it straight into Bai Yuze's chest. The pain felt so real that it jolted every nerve in his body.

"This... kind of feels like the kitchen-knife ending from an anime..."

At that moment, the door behind Bai Yuze unleashed a powerful suction force and dragged him inside. As his consciousness blurred, he understood what Yukino was mouthing.

[You'll come back here again and meet the fate that awaits you.]

"Xiaoxue! Xiaoxue! Xiaoxue, are you okay?"

At Tuanzi's repeated calls, Bai Yuze woke up drenched in sweat.

"What just happened?"

"You have the nerve to ask? You scared me half to death! First, you were mumbling, then you curled up and started sweating all over your forehead. No matter how Xiaoxue and I called you, you wouldn't wake up."

"Yukino?! Where is she now?"

Bai Yuze asked in alarm, but a voice came from behind him, nearly scaring him half to death.

"I'm right here. Did you need something?"

Bai Yuze stiffened, Bai Yuze went limp, Bai Yuze fainted.

"Honestly, Xiaoxue, why'd you scare him by speaking from behind him? Look how badly you frightened Yuze."

"Who knew he wasn't afraid of creepy monsters, but was scared of someone talking behind him?"

Yukino looked like she was trying not to laugh. She did feel a little guilty about scaring Bai Yuze unconscious, but not much.

"Don't blame Yukino... Yukinoshita. I had a nightmare."

Hearing Bai Yuze make excuses for her, Yukino moved her face even closer to his.

"Oh? A nightmare? Yukinoshita? Since when are you so formal? Did you do something to me in your dream?"

"N-Not at all..."

Bai Yuze guiltily turned his head away. Getting the kitchen-knife treatment for building a harem in a dream... was way too terrifying!

"Turn around and look me in the eye! Answer me! Look in my eyes!"

"Did you add English so I wouldn't misunderstand? Hajiyuki, you..."

Thump!

Now it was Yukino's turn to knock Bai Yuze on the head.

"Don't change the subject. Confess everything. Confess and you'll be treated leniently; resist and you'll be dealt with harshly."

Seeing Yukino looking so sure she had him cornered, Bai Yuze remembered how it had felt to get stabbed with a kitchen knife. He bowed and apologized.

"I'm really sorry. I did something unforgivable to you in my dream, so I'm asking you, the real you, to forgive me."

"Mm! Good! You owned up to it, so I won't hold it against you. After all, I'm just that adorable. I can't help being the dream girl of certain ape-like beings who fantasize about romance."

Yukino chuckled. She'd finally gotten one over on Bai Yuze. At that moment, Yukinoshita Yukino was as happy as Yukinoshita Nya-no.

"Uh... Honestly, I don't know why I had such a ridiculous dream. If we're talking about reality, Tuanzi is my ideal type, so the dream really has me stumped. You've got no personality, and no figure, either..."

Whoosh! Clang!

A flash of cold steel streaked past. Bai Yuze swallowed. If he hadn't dodged in time, the kitchen knife would have split his head open.

"Heh! Mr. Ape, whose head is full of nothing but filthy, lewd thoughts—could you do us all a favor and die? You're becoming a nuisance. I bet only bugs could love a creature like you. I can't even imagine how much trouble your parents had to deal with, raising you."

"Uh... I don't have parents. I grew up in an orphanage."

Yukino: ...

One sentence, and the match was over! Bai Yuze really wasn't lying. In this world, he had no parents—after all, he'd arrived here in his own body. Where would parents have come from?

Yukino said nothing. She simply took Tuanzi's hand and said,

"Come on. Let's go to the next destination."