Denial of the Self

If I had to use a metaphor, I'd say she's like a viewer of a painting, admiring every corner of it. She's not a person in the painting; she observes everything in the painting from a superior position, and... she could burn the painting at any time.

Whenever Lin tried to attack Yue's unguarded back, his brain would stop him, and every cell in his body would restrain him, making it impossible for him to act according to his own will.

"Then, as a family member, may I ask you?"

"Hmm... a request..." Perhaps because it was the first time Lin had acknowledged his status as a member of the family, Yue didn't refuse as decisively as before. She licked the apple's icing with her little tongue, pondered for a moment, and then the beautiful ruby reflected Lin's solemn expression. "What request?"

"After breaking this Three-Day Cycle, I hope you will stop killing humans."

"So it's still the same old story. In human terms, it's just... boring." Yue turned her gaze back to the slide in the distance. "But if it's a request from a familiar, I can grant it, but there's a condition: you have to help me find my parents."

"Parents?"

"That's right."

She glanced at the little girl who was happily running past her with her parents, and wondered what she was thinking.

Lin then noticed that after she started queuing at the entrance, she would occasionally look at people in groups of two or three, not with curiosity, but with a kind of indifferent hostility.

"Didn't you say your name was given to you by your parents? Then I should also have parents, right?" Yue's tone was quite indifferent.

"Wow! Hahahaha!"

Cheers erupted around them, rushing past the two who remained expressionless and silent.

Parents...

Herrscher have parents? They should, right? Herrscher are humans chosen by the Honkai, so they should have parents too.

But Yue and Theresa look exactly alike, which is not normal. Could she be... created?

"Moreover, her situation is very complicated, and it doesn't just stem from a Herrscher; there must be someone interfering..."

The white-haired man's meaningful words seemed to have already revealed something.

Speaking of which, ever since Lin became Yue's familiar, the white-haired man has never appeared again. Is this related to Yue?

"Should I say yes or no?"

"...Okay." Lin seemed to understand why Yue was so obsessed with "family members".

This also gave him a somewhat strange feeling towards the moon.

"I want to know, if you killed all of humanity and were the only one left, what would you do?"

"I won't be the only one left; I still have my family."

"But what if your own people don't want you to destroy humanity?"

"It's okay if the family members don't want to, right?"

"... So what exactly is a family member to you? A talking toy?"

Birds perched in the woods, hopping from branch to branch, carrying weeds to place in their nests, chirping merrily, their gray-brown eyes gazing down at the humans.

"I don't know either, I just feel that I need to have a family member."

"Then why choose me? Is it just because I'm different from the others?"

"..."

At this moment, those words were like a switch, lowering the already cold atmosphere to below zero. The silver-haired girl's silence was like a powder keg with its fuse lit, giving the impression of an impending explosion, both from the hissing sound of the fuse and its visual appearance.

"Then why are you willing to be that person's servant but not mine?" Yue's fingers tapped lightly on her thigh. Her cold words made the hot air seem to flutter with snowflakes. "Aren't we the same kind of people?"

"Because she is different from you. She would be terrified by her bloodlust and would not let herself hurt others, while you... you are more like a... beast than she is."

Lin unconsciously emphasized the word "beast," always recalling Theresa's terror and self-blame. The image of that beast, intertwined with the figure of the monster before him, only intensified the feeling of something chilling him to the bone.

"You mean she won't kill people randomly, that's why you're planning to make a contract with her? But..."

Strangeness.

Lin felt a strange sense of unease as he listened to what Yue was about to say; it was as if he knew what she was going to say.

He knew what this cold-blooded, bloodthirsty monster was about to say.

But he didn't really want to listen, just as he indirectly ignored the other party's repeated mention of "we are the same kind of people".

"But you've also killed a lot of people."

"..."

"And they killed far more than I did."

What are you saying?

"Don't admit it? I can smell blood." Yue stepped forward, pulled down Lin's collar, sniffed his neck with her long nose, and then whispered in his ear to confirm, "I have killed the people of this city three times, and I have killed you thousands of times, but I still can't compare to the blood smell you exude. You have killed at least... hundreds of millions of people, right?"

Kill?

Hundreds of millions of people?

Lin first thought he had misheard, then he wondered how a Herrscher could possibly say such a thing...

How could that be...

How could that be...

"..."

Lin recalled the strangeness of his fragmented memories, and the guilt that weighed heavily on him, making it hard to breathe.

He didn't want to admit it, but just as he was about to righteously refute Yue, her nonchalant gaze shattered his heart.

The young beast before her, the monster, the vampire—she had killed so many people that even lakes were stained a thick, bright red with blood, and she even thought it was just a matter of course. But at least she never denied that she had killed so many people.

And he didn't even have the courage to admit his past.

He finally understood why Yue was indifferent to his attempts to persuade her not to kill, no matter what methods he used.

Because he is the least qualified person to do such a thing.

His very existence is a mistake.

"Oh! You finally understand! You yourself are the beast you're talking about."

The moon smiled.

This was the first time Lin had seen her smile; a happy and joyful smile appeared on her usually aloof and pretty face.

He felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.

Chapter Fifty: Self-Deniement

"What are you so depressed about? Are you so distraught because you know you've killed someone? Humans are such self-destructive creatures."

Yue leaned against the shade of a tree, her eyes peering through her hair as she observed the passersby, and spoke to the man leaning against the other side.

"..."

Lin leaned against the tree trunk with his arms crossed. His dark and gray eyes were like shadows that had nowhere to hide in the sunlight, and they stung painfully.

"So you're starting to doubt yourself?" Yue Qing's cold tone wasn't accusatory, but it carried a hint of amusement. "You used to always try to stop me from killing people. Now, even if I kill every man, woman, and child here right now, are you not going to do anything?"

Lin remained silent, but upon hearing Yue's words, he cast a sharp, mournful glance at her.

That look made Yue nod.

"So why do you have any feelings about your past self? Aren't you doing your best to protect those insignificant humans?" Yue pointed to the humans in the distance, the laughing people, who, through her palm, looked like playthings she could manipulate at will. "They have no right to criticize what you did in the past, do they?"

"..."

That's right. Lin also said that he couldn't define himself in the past. Even if he was truly wicked in the past, he would not give up his current will.

However, this is not a reason to deny one's past crimes.

His fingers, gripping his forearm, trembled almost imperceptibly. His only eyes, which could see light, were now lifeless, like a corpse just dug out of a pit, the dirt still clinging to it.

If you lose your memory, can things that happened be treated as if they never existed? Will people you've killed be resurrected?

So, does that mean Yue never killed anyone? Since she was resurrected anyway, the blood on her hands must have been wiped clean... or even never existed at all?

This world is not a fairy tale. Crimes are filth etched on the soul, and mistakes are mistakes... an absolute "fact" that cannot be denied.

This world is very boring.

The Herrscher named Moon always thinks this way.

She doesn't remember how she was born, but from the moment she gained consciousness and saw the first ray of sunlight, she already considered humans to be boring creatures that didn't need to be cared about.

They possess fragile and sensitive emotions that other creatures lack, yet they are as ubiquitous as insects. It's as if God played a cruel joke on the world by creating humankind.

That being said, Yue didn't have any special feelings towards humans. Just as she told Lin, in her eyes, humans were no different from insects. It was perfectly normal to accidentally step on and kill a few of them.

That means... she doesn't hate humans either.

Sometimes she finds it very interesting to see humans using things they have made to move around, like ants moving house on rainy days, cooperating to carry food, and even raising another kind of insect specifically to satisfy their appetite.

Imagine if you poured a basin of hot water on ants while they were moving house, and they scattered and rolled around on the ground – wouldn't that be quite amusing?

But who would be so bored as to keep doing that kind of thing?

The moon was the same; she didn't care how humans died, nor did she pay attention to whether she had casually killed a human.

Perhaps one day she'll have a sudden inspiration and decide to kill all of humanity and then wait for the world to give birth to new civilizations and species. Wouldn't that be more interesting?

Until she met a man.

He carried an even stronger scent of blood than she did, yet he gazed at her with concern in a way she couldn't understand.

An inexplicable, oppressive feeling weighed heavily on her heart, a feeling she hadn't experienced even when gazing into the distance under the sunlight for the first time.

Therefore, in order to confirm the indescribable strange feeling, she decided to forcibly turn him into her familiar and keep him by her side to observe.

Now, his eyes are gradually becoming like those of those boring humans—numb and lifeless. Even though the muscles on his face form an expression called a smile, it is still as boring as a dead object.

But Yue felt something was reviving within him, like waking from a deep sleep.

The moon, with which he has a contract, is able to ascertain his changes.

No matter how wooden his expression was, the fire in his heart had not been extinguished.

This made Yue... very uncomfortable.

The source of the emotion is unknown.

She shouldn't care, but now she's annoyed.

Just like every time he mentioned that imposter who borrowed her appearance, a strange emotion would quietly rise in Yue's heart, accumulating until now, and finally being completely ignited.

"... Be prepared, there are biting bugs coming."

Under the shade of the tree, Yue and Lin simultaneously noticed something amiss. They both turned their gazes around and saw that the number of pedestrians outside the woods had dwindled considerably, and those who remained seemed to be in a hurry to leave.

There are very few people, and there are many people.

As far as the eye could see, there was only a vast yet crowded woodland area. The surroundings were so quiet that even the wind seemed to have stopped, and leaves were quietly falling from the branches.

What happens when you throw a pebble into a mirror-like lake that reflects the sky so clearly?

"Bang!"

The scorching wind stung his cheeks, and Lin's reaction was pushed to the limit. In the instant that the red bullet was blocked by Yue's Honkai Energy shield, he clearly saw how the bullet with a rose-red tip tore through the Honkai Energy shield like a nail piercing the sole of his foot.

"Smack!"

It turns out that this seemingly cold-blooded monster actually has warm blood.

A dark red filter obscured the view.

My face was burning hot, as if I had been slapped hard across the face.

"Hmm..."

Her usually expressionless, sculpted face was now wrinkled and contorted in slight pain.

"..."

Wrong...

The greatest threat in this World Bubble is the Herrscher beside me; the disaster she caused is the root cause of the World Bubble's distortion.

In other words, she is the culprit, she is Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes, she is the Demon King from the Hero Demon King game, and everything will end as long as she is gone.

But at this moment, when her right arm was shattered by a bullet with unimaginable power, when he first saw her bleeding profusely, when she was frowning in pain, why did he... feel a pang of heartache?