"So... why haven't you let go yet?"
Lin Chuan kept his hand poised in that half-handshake, scanned Klein's face twice, and finally couldn't hold back a deeply wary question:
"You're not gay, are you? Holy shit, I'll have to have a proper talk with your mom when I get back. Her son's sexual orientation might have some serious issues."
After more than ten seconds of what was almost a tender, lingering gaze(?), Lin Chuan felt he had to do something to puncture this inexplicably sentimental atmosphere.
After all, the last time Klein had made the rare effort to say something heartwarming, Lin Chuan had received news of his sudden death in bed just a few days later... Past mistakes were lessons for the future. He couldn't be too careful.
So he chose to attack Klein's sexual orientation directly. From what he knew of Klein, the guy should have shuddered, snatched his hand back like lightning, and started swearing at him.
But Klein didn't budge. His hand still hovered loosely in place, as though clutching something invisible.
Now Lin Chuan was genuinely creeped out. A chill ran through him from head to toe. He was clearly a spirit body, yet his back felt cold and stiff, and a line he'd heard somewhere inexplicably echoed in his mind-Bro, you smell so good.
"I'd rather it be a knife stabbing me from behind..." he muttered, alarm bells ringing in his mind as he hastily tried to pull his hand back.
Only then did Klein seem to come to his senses. He abruptly stood, stepped forward, and caught Lin Chuan's wrist again. Although that wrist was nothing but an illusory shimmer of light, his urgency almost seemed to give it substance.
Unable to retreat or stay put, Lin Chuan froze in midair as a jumble of thoughts raced through his mind: Tingen, Loen, steam engines-the Victorian era... Is this just how things are in Gayland?
While he was silently lamenting his plight, Klein spoke, his voice carrying barely suppressed urgency and tension. "You said... you'd tell my mom?"
Lin Chuan blinked.
"You can go back?"
Klein's gaze fixed squarely on his face. Emotions too complicated to describe surged in his eyes, like a drowning man who had finally caught hold of a rope and kept checking whether it was an illusion.
"You just said you'd talk to my mom... So you really can go back? Back to our original world?"
His voice was full of cautious yet desperate hope as he sought confirmation. "So you really do have a way? It wasn't just my guess, was it?"
Lin Chuan blinked, looking at Klein's expectant face, and tossed his ridiculous thoughts about "Gayland" to the back of his mind.
He fell silent for two seconds, then decided he couldn't be too much of a bastard. Deliberately keeping Klein in suspense at a time like this would be downright inhuman. He wasn't Mei Liangxin, after all. His conscience would hurt.
At least right here and now, with this particular person.
"Yes," he said.
There was a seriousness in his voice that Klein had never heard from Lin Chuan before. It didn't sound as though he was speaking to anyone so much as reciting words he had repeated countless times, until every single word was steeped in weight:
"I will make sure you're reunited with your mom and dad. I will make sure you get 'home' safely."
"Everything will get better. Everyone will have a good ending, including me."
"Good will be rewarded, and evil will get its due."
"That is precisely why I am here."
Klein froze. He suddenly realized something: he knew Lin Chuan had transmigrated before him, but how much earlier? Ten years? A hundred? A thousand? Or even... ten thousand?
He didn't know. He had seen Lin Chuan shortly after transmigrating, but what about Lin Chuan himself? How had he endured all those long years alone? The look on his face as he spoke made it seem as though he had used those words as an anchor for a very, very long time.
"...Still," Lin Chuan suddenly resumed his lazy, side-reclining pose and added airily, "all I can tell you is that there really is a way for us to go home. But how it works, and why we can't leave now-I can't tell you any of that."
Klein's attention snapped back, and he instinctively asked, "Why?"
"I can't say." Lin Chuan shook his head. Rather than continue the topic, he suddenly adopted an unfamiliar cadence and recited a passage of classical Chinese:
"I have oft heard that it is not men who diligently seek knowledge, but knowledge that diligently seeks men. Yet I know this to be false. Such knowledge does not seek men; it ventures forth to hunt them. Merciless and cruel, it pursues them as hawks and hounds pursue a hare."
"The Seven Chapters of the Mysterious Lord's Secret Scripture?" Klein frowned. "But isn't that a Chinese fan work based on the Cthulhu Mythos?"
As soon as the words left his mouth, his expression shifted, and he forced out a few words with difficulty. "It... can't... be?"
Lin Chuan shook his head again, but this time he didn't repeat those three words. He closed his eyes briefly, as though recalling something. When he spoke again, his voice was much calmer:
"It's not quite that bad. At least, in all the years since I transmigrated, I haven't found any sign of the Three Pillars of the Cthulhu Mythos Pantheon in this world."
"But gods do exist in this world, so I can't be certain either."
Klein nodded. He figured that even if Lin Chuan had transmigrated many years ago, he couldn't possibly have reached the level of the Seven Gods. It was only natural for there to be things he didn't know. After a moment's thought, he asked tentatively:
"So, although this world isn't part of the Cthulhu Mythos, some things are like that Imagination you mentioned earlier..."
Klein paused, skipped over the corresponding name, and continued, "There is some hidden knowledge that you aren't forbidden to tell me, but that I'm unable to know. Is that right?"
Lin Chuan gave a brief hum of assent and answered concisely:
"Yes. You can't know anything related to it yet. You have to become strong enough and travel far enough along the Beyonder path before you're qualified to come into contact with those secrets."
"What Sequence, at least?" Klein asked, a hint of tension unconsciously creeping into his voice. He already knew Beyonders started at Sequence 9, and that the lower the subsequent number, the stronger they became. Knowledge that made Lin Chuan repeatedly insist he "couldn't say" surely wouldn't be low-level.
Lin Chuan smiled and said:
"At least a little weaker than I was at my peak. Let me think... Sequence Two. No lower than that."
Klein fell silent for a few seconds.
He said nothing, but the expression on his face seemed to spell out Are you kidding me? perfectly clearly.
"Oh, right." Lin Chuan's smile deepened as he leisurely added:
"Here's a bit of relevant general knowledge for you. Sequence Two is now called 'Angel.' In the past, though-before the Fourth Epoch, for instance-a Sequence Two powerhouse could also be called a 'Subordinate Deity.'"
Outside the window, the clouds began to "burn," and the apartment's residents came home one after another. Night was about to draw its curtain over Tingen City. Meanwhile, Klein had begun seriously considering just how much farther he would have to travel before he could even touch the edges of that dream of "going home."
Or, to be a little more practical, he glanced at the smiling face before him and earnestly pondered one question: should he slap this bastard or not?
Before you continue