It's women I like

Five days later.

The emotionally unstable Yu Lin Bloodhawk was gone, and so was the Yu Lin Bloodhawk who had once laughed in the face of life and death. The Yu Lin Bloodhawk who remained was calm and serious-the true Yu Lin Bloodhawk.

"Have you made up your mind?" Sylvanas asked.

"I have," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

"You're not going to think about killing yourself again, are you?" Sylvanas asked doubtfully.

"No!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said coldly. "Lin Yu is dead, so Yu Lin Bloodhawk won't die again. Nor can he."

"Won't die again? What do you mean?" Sylvanas asked with a frown.

"If Lin Yu hadn't died, Yu Lin Bloodhawk might never truly die. But Lin Yu is dead, so Yu Lin Bloodhawk can't die. If he does, he'll be dead for real," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

Five days of confinement had thoroughly calmed him down. However bitter and unwilling he felt, he had finally accepted the reality that Lin Yu, back in the outside world, was truly dead, and he could never return. All he could do was accept his new body and his new identity: Yu Lin Bloodhawk!

Whatever this place was, whether or not it was a real world, he could no longer treat its people and events like a game. He considered himself a living person, so he also had to treat those he had once thought of as NPCs as living people. After all, he was an NPC now, too.

Only upon reaching this point had Yu Lin Bloodhawk truly become part of this world. There was no longer a Lin Yu in the world, only Yu Lin Bloodhawk! Lin Yu was dead, his connection to Yu Lin Bloodhawk completely severed.

Sylvanas's pupils suddenly contracted. "Who is Lin Yu?"

"Someone from another world," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

"An Orc?" Sylvanas asked.

"He could be, or he could be something else. He could be an Orc, a human, a High Elf, a Night Elf, a Tauren, a Troll, a Dwarf, a Gnome, a Worgen, a Pandaren, or a Draenei," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

Sylvanas's eyes filled with bewilderment. She could not understand what Yu Lin Bloodhawk meant at all.

"You probably can't understand." Yu Lin Bloodhawk was in no mood to explain it to her now. "I want to put up a gravestone for him. Do you know where I can get one carved?"

Sylvanas nodded to indicate that she did.

"Please take me there. I have no money!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

Sylvanas was speechless...

Yu Lin Bloodhawk and Sylvanas stood before a newly erected gravestone in the cemetery. Yu Lin Bloodhawk carefully wiped the dust from it. Fruit and other food offerings lay on the ground, and three sticks of incense stood in front of the stone.

Sylvanas watched quietly from the side. She had never seen a funeral like this, and she could not read the writing on the gravestone. Yu Lin Bloodhawk said it was the writing of Lin Yu's homeland, called Chinese characters. Then she watched him fold a stack of yellow paper into strange shapes and burn them before the gravestone, murmuring in a language she could not understand.

Sylvanas watched all of this, but she did not know what ceremonial gestures she should make, so she could only stand there silently.

Yu Lin Bloodhawk was bidding farewell to Lin Yu-or rather, to his former self. He did not know why he was doing all this, but he felt he had to. Perhaps it was a tradition, a way of showing respect to the dead. But was I dead or not? Even he could not make sense of it. Fine! Let this be a farewell to my former body, then. My body came from my parents. Let this be an apology to my birth father and mother, if nothing else.

After Yu Lin Bloodhawk finished, the two of them walked back to the barracks in silence.

"What was he to you?" Sylvanas asked.

"Him?" Lin Yu suddenly found himself at a loss for words. After a while, he said, "I can't really explain it." He truly did not know how to put it.

"A girl?" Sylvanas asked again. As far as she could see, only someone he had loved deeply could have made him act this way.

"A man," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

"A man?" Sylvanas's eyes widened. "You two weren't..."

"What are you thinking? Do I look that much like it?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk knew perfectly well what Sylvanas meant. "I'm perfectly normal. It's women I like."

"You like women?" Sylvanas still looked doubtful.

"Of course I like women!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk was almost choking with anger as he spoke through gritted teeth.

Sylvanas said nothing, but her wandering gaze made her opinion quite clear.

"What is that look supposed to mean?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk demanded angrily.

"Nothing," Sylvanas said, her gaze drifting away.

Yu Lin Bloodhawk ground his teeth audibly. Suddenly, a gleam flashed in his eyes, and he gave her a wicked smile. "Do you know why I told you all those things in the first place?"

"Why?" This was indeed a question Sylvanas had never been able to figure out.

"Simple! I wanted to trick you and steal a kiss." Yu Lin Bloodhawk felt the satisfaction of a successful scheme.

"Trick me? Steal a kiss?" Sylvanas's mouth fell open in astonishment.

"That's right! You didn't notice, did you?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said smugly.

"Then all those things you told me..." Sylvanas asked.

"They're true! But now that you know, you'll certainly take steps to deal with them. What things will look like in the end, I can't say," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

"They can still change?" Sylvanas frowned, but inwardly she felt relieved. Even she thought her feelings were strange. She wanted those things to be untrue, yet she also wanted what Yu Lin Bloodhawk had said to be true. It was a deeply contradictory feeling.

"Of course they can! If you don't interfere with anything, nothing will change. It'll definitely turn out that way! But would you do that? Wasn't the whole point of telling you to get you to change the original outcome?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

Sylvanas fell silent. If those things were true, she was very grateful to Yu Lin Bloodhawk for telling her. But had he really done it just-just to kiss her? No matter how she looked at it, she could not believe that.

"Just to kiss me? You expect me to believe that? Tell me yourself: do you think it was worth it?" Sylvanas said.

"Of course it wasn't. That's why I'm regretting it to death now!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said. "I should have pushed you down back then."

"You..." Sylvanas said furiously. "If you had done that, I guarantee you'd be a corpse by now. No one could have saved you!"

"Wouldn't that have been perfect?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk waved a hand indifferently. "Then Lin Yu wouldn't have died. That's why I'm regretting it to death now."

"...You!"

Sylvanas was too angry to speak. After a while, she said, "Do you really care so little about your own life?"

To her surprise, Yu Lin Bloodhawk replied, "Of course I care. I'm terrified of dying! That's why I don't dare actually push you down now!"

Sylvanas gritted her teeth and said indignantly, "If it could bring that Lin Yu back to life, would you dare push me down right now?"

"Of course!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk answered without hesitation. "Not only would I dare, I'd do it this very instant! We might even make a little Yu Lin Windrunner." Then he sighed. "But you know that's impossible. Lin Yu is already dead."

Sylvanas gave him a wicked look. "How do you know he's dead? Perhaps he's still alive."

Yu Lin Bloodhawk stared straight at her for a while, then suddenly said, "I know because I'm alive!" He pointed at his own nose.

...Sylvanas was left speechless. Even now, she still could not figure out whether this man was afraid of death.

After a while, she said softly, "I'm sorry. Perhaps I was wrong."

Yu Lin Bloodhawk froze. He stopped walking and looked at Sylvanas earnestly, then sighed deeply. "Actually, you weren't wrong. This wasn't your fault. It was mine!" He shook his head and resumed walking. "Why did I have to tell you all those things for no reason? I brought this trouble on myself. I can't blame you."

The two fell silent for a while. Neither spoke; they simply walked quietly.

"What are you planning to do next?" Sylvanas broke the silence.

"What else can I do? Find a way to keep myself alive, of course. I can't just sit around doing nothing, waiting for the Undead to invade, the Sunwell to be destroyed, and then turn into one of the Wretched," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said helplessly.

It was one of the few choices he had, and also his only choice.

"You've decided to change what happens in the future?" Sylvanas asked in delighted surprise. She had been worrying about having no one to discuss this with. So many things had yet to happen. If she told anyone, who would take a mere unit commander like her seriously? Who would believe her?

It was not that she had never considered reporting these things to Silvermoon City. She had thought about it for a long time and concluded that, never mind Silvermoon City, even her own family probably would not believe her. Only after some of those events came to pass might anyone remember that her warnings had been true! All she could do was record everything she knew in a Memory Crystal, in case she died too and no one was left who knew.

She had decided to wait until there was some solid evidence before reporting to Silvermoon City. Now she finally had someone to discuss it with. How could she not be happy?

"Yes! I want to change things. I can't become a Betrayer," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

He had not considered as much as Sylvanas had. He only wanted to live out his life in peace.

"Do you have a plan?" Sylvanas asked. What she had in mind was quite different from what he was thinking.

"No! I need to go back and think it over properly," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.

"Come to my office. Perhaps talking it over together will help," Sylvanas said.

Yu Lin Bloodhawk nodded.

In Sylvanas's office, a huge map of Quel'Thalas lay spread across the desk. The two had clearly been talking inside for a long time.

"How are you planning to report this to Silvermoon City?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked. "Let me make this clear first: I won't admit that I told you. Even if someone from Silvermoon City comes to question me, I'll say I know nothing about it!"

"Why?" Sylvanas asked. "Isn't this a good opportunity for you to earn credit and get promoted?"