Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 96: Negotiation Specialist

Hu Die sat upright at the table. With the cool-toned lighting, the room even carried a hint of an interrogation atmosphere.

Fang Xiu sat across from her with a smile, fingertips pressed together. He didn’t look at all like someone who hadn’t slept for three or four days.

“How did you know?”

Hu Die didn’t respond to Fang Xiu’s proposal. Instead, she countered with a question.

“You made it too obvious,” Fang Xiu said. “I couldn’t see any real affection from you toward Meng Xiaomeng. During the cycles, you just went about your normal life. Even when Meng Xiaomeng died in pain, you could still go for a walk in the park with a straight face.”

“There are plenty of awful parents in the world.” Hu Die adjusted her posture.

“If you truly didn’t care about Meng Xiaomeng, then give up on the dream. You’re not the one dying horribly.”

Fang Xiu smiled. “But you can’t do it. Even if it means enduring the pain of suicide, you still want Meng Xiaomeng to live. You don’t love her, yet she’s incredibly important to you. Do I need to explain further?”

Hu Die stayed silent.

Her gaze drifted to the snowy night outside the window. After a long pause, she finally said, “How did you know my age? Both of us are just dream projections.”

“Just a guess,” Fang Xiu said. “This Immortal E is quite powerful. Adults have broader and deeper wishes. Only kids who aren’t ready to move on would make a wish like this.”

A trace of melancholy flashed across Hu Die’s face.

Fang Xiu continued, “If your family was utterly terrible, your focus would be on escaping and seeking your own future. If you had no parents, you’d be fixated on being loved. Even stuck in a deadlock, you probably wouldn’t do something like ‘leave the kid to fend for herself’.”

“So I figured, you probably came from a fairly normal home. Imperfect parents, so most likely your mother. You didn’t agree with how she did things, and you wanted to prove you could do better.”

“But in the end, you didn’t do any better. That’s why you treat yourself so… half-heartedly, like it’s a kind of self-mockery. Or maybe punishment.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of creepy?” Hu Die gave a bitter chuckle. “You should play a psychic in a drama. You’d make a fortune.”

Out of her sight, Bai Shuangying nodded silently in agreement.

Before understanding Fang Xiu, he thought he simply didn’t know the guy well. After understanding him, he began to feel like he didn’t understand humans at all.

Fang Xiu laughed it off. “I work in a hospital. You get a front-row seat to the best and worst of humanity.”

Hu Die raised her eyebrows, clearly skeptical.

Still, she didn’t press the topic. “That’s a decent analysis, but I don’t have to negotiate with you.”

Fang Xiu blinked, feigning confusion.

“Because I’ve already ‘moved on’.” Hu Die pulled her lips into a slight smile. “Just to be clear, next time you put on a show like this, I won’t come again…”

This was a simple story.

Meng Xiaomeng’s mother, the real Hu Die, also raised her daughter alone.

In real life, Hu Die looked nothing like Meng Xiaomeng. She didn’t look young, had no lovely curls, no burgundy sweater with a subtle fragrance; just cheap, drab clothing.

She and Meng Xiaomeng’s father had divorced early. She raised her daughter alone in a dilapidated apartment building. The place was in terrible condition, neighbors left trash by the door, and the air always had a sour stench.

Meng Xiaomeng didn’t like her home.

Her family wasn’t whole.

The father never showed up, and even the few hundred yuan in child support came irregularly. Her mom had once been just a working-class woman, more worn-down than other moms and spoke with an unpleasant accent.

Her family wasn’t well-off.

They lived in that old apartment forever. Her mother liked to collect cardboard to save money, filling their cramped space even more. When buying clothes, she only cared about fabric and price, dressing her daughter like a joke.

And her mom rarely spent time with her.

She was always busy, juggling two jobs. Even if Meng Xiaomeng got hurt, her mother would only glance over and lecture her to be more careful next time.

Forget about pop culture or school drama, Meng Xiaomeng couldn’t communicate with her mom at all. Her mother didn’t even understand basic math. If Meng Xiaomeng got a bad grade, all she got was a stream of crude insults.

The rift between mother and daughter started with a small event.

One Mother’s Day in middle school, Meng Xiaomeng followed her classmates’ lead and spent twenty yuan on a bouquet of carnations. She even borrowed ten yuan from her deskmate.

She thought she was being very mature and understanding. Even if her mom was rough, she could be moved. She would soften, just like her classmate’s mother.

She brought the bright flowers home and found her mom returning after losing a fight over scrap cardboard with a downstairs neighbor.

Disheveled, Hu Die was serving turnip stew, peeling two boiled eggs for her daughter while cursing the neighbor nonstop.

Meng Xiaomeng snuck up behind her, hiding the bouquet, then suddenly pulled it out.

“Mom, happy Mother’s Day!” she said with a smile.

Seeing the flowers, Hu Die’s eyes first showed confusion, then surprise, and finally, instead of being moved, she became panicked and angry.

“How much did this cost? Where did you get the money?” she barked, pointing at the bouquet.

It was like a punch to the gut. Meng Xiaomeng stood frozen for several seconds, then braced herself: “Twenty. I used my breakfast money! Why are you even asking that?”

“Where’d you get so much breakfast money?” Hu Die pressed.

“I borrowed ten from my deskmate!” Meng Xiaomeng yelled, her eyes stinging. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go… wasn’t Mom supposed to be touched?

Her classmate’s mom had kissed her several times and their family had dinner together, full of joy. Why did she have to get scolded?

“Always buying useless crap!”

Hu Die dug out ten yuan in change and slammed it on the table. “Return it to them tomorrow, got it? What’s a kid doing borrowing money for? And your grades are awful… You’re copying bad habits already…”

“Can we return this bouquet? After dinner we’ll go return it. This thing won’t last a few days. Twenty yuan? You could buy two kilos of pork, damn it…”

Meng Xiaomeng’s tears fell all at once.

Why couldn’t her mother be a little gentler, just a little? Why not be touched, even a bit, before scolding her? Her mother felt like some other creature, a monster that couldn’t feel love.

Everything was always like this. Her mom never acknowledged her.

Meng Xiaomeng threw the flowers on the ground and stomped on them. The lovely bouquet instantly turned to trash. Then she rushed into her room and slammed the door shut.

Her mother banged on the door, yelling for her to come out and eat. Meng Xiaomeng buried her head under the blanket, crying uncontrollably.

From that day on, she took back her love.

She started acting out at school, hanging with bullies, skipping class to surf the internet. Since her mom didn’t care, why not find comfort elsewhere?

In the end, she scored poorly and was sent to a vocational high school.

She believed her life was ruined and that she would grow up to be just another “working girl”. All of it, she believed, was her mother’s fault, her background’s fault.

“…And then I found that porcelain pillow.”

Meng Xiaomeng—no, “Hu Die”—continued, “Actually, my dad’s family is pretty rich. I asked him for money but he wouldn’t give me a cent… I thought that little porcelain pillow was some artifact, so I stole it from his collection.”

“Then I found a note inside, with instructions for using a ‘Yellow Millet Pillow’. I think he inherited it from my grandfather and never looked closely.”

Fang Xiu stared at her silently.

Now Hu Die looked calm and composed with no trace of her former impulsive persona. When she spoke of her mother, there was no anger, only a faint nostalgia.

“Anyway, I learned some metaphysics while drifting through society and used it,” Hu Die said with a wry smile. “Turns out I’ve got some talent for the supernatural. No idea who I got it from.”

A mysterious relic, promising your dreams would come true. What kid could resist that?

She threw herself into learning metaphysics, no matter the cost. Young and reckless, she did something any proper practitioner would call extremely risky…

Meng Xiaomeng used the dream to split her own memories.

Her living soul retained only memories up to around age one. All memories from age two to sixteen were shaped by the dream into a new “Hu Die”, a figure formed from memory, with only a sliver of soul remaining, not quite human.

In her design, she knew her own pain best, so she would surely understand. She would love herself unconditionally, raise herself with great care. So she willingly cut away her memories, her control over the dream, and everything from the real world.

She would dream, and in that dream, grow into someone bright and resilient.

Meng Xiaomeng fell asleep full of hope… and entered an endless dream.

“…I’m a memory meant to be abandoned. After all these cycles, my soul now barely counts as a mimicry of a Disaster Resolver’s soul.” Hu Die said calmly, “You can only save Meng Xiaomeng, not me.”

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Fang Xiu’s smile didn’t waver as he slowly applauded.

“Thank you for telling me the full story,” he said. “The details were richer than I expected.”

Hu Die froze, then realized what he meant. “You—”

Was he lying all along? He might never have intended to save her!

“I don’t know metaphysics. I had no way of knowing. Meng Xiaomeng doesn’t realize this is a dream. I could only guess something was wrong with her memory.”

Fang Xiu leaned back. “Now I understand. You’re the ‘neglected self’ Meng Xiaomeng planned to throw away from the start.”

But Meng Xiaomeng didn’t expect that neglected self to persevere and carve out a life. She didn’t expect the idealized version to end up in a worse dead end than reality.

Hu Die narrowed her eyes, and energy began gathering in her hands. “Over the years, I’ve kept up with metaphysics. I—”

“I repeat, I’m here to negotiate.” Fang Xiu cut her off. “If you’re willing to end this, I’ll pull you out of this endless trap. In return, you hand me that porcelain pillow the moment you wake up.”

Hu Die: “…???” Why did the deal get better?

Hu Die: “Didn’t you hear me say I—”

“I’ll let you curse me, bind me with spells, whatever you want.”

Fang Xiu laced his fingers together. “It’s eight. You’ve got four hours to decide.”

Monster, Hu Die thought.

Anyone else would have dropped dead by now without sleep. This guy was still calmly negotiating.

But that “impossible” attitude gave her… the faintest sliver of hope.

…

Zhuang Pengdao waited outside the police station, frowning deeply.

They had already set up the Heaven-Breaking Technique on Hu Die’s route home. All they had to do was wait.

Zhuang Pengdao never cared about the story behind a sacrifice. He just knew that cutting off Hu Die’s control of the Immortal E would end the dream by force. As for what she had to sacrifice, that didn’t concern him.

He just needed to claim the Immortal E first.

Everything was ready, but then Fang Xiu took Hu Die into the station, and the two had been talking nonstop. Worse still, Zhuang Pengdao couldn’t kill her again like last time to reset the loop. If the dream restarted, all their setup would be wasted.

“What’s going on?” Zhuang Pengdao asked Mei Lan.

“I don’t know,” she said coolly. “I told you, I’ve never been able to figure out Fang Xiu.”

“You sure don’t seem anxious.”

“My only goal is to survive in these rituals,” Mei Lan replied. “Whether you win or he wins doesn’t matter to me.”

“No matter what he says, Hu Die’s coming home tonight. You think he’ll really convince her to give up on her own?”

Convincing people to give up was a game he was quite familiar with.

But they’d barely spent time with Hu Die, and their relationship wasn’t close. Zhuang Pengdao squinted at her face, trying to read it, but saw no despair.

Then, under his gaze, Fang Xiu said something more. Hu Die fell into brief thought, then pulled out her phone.

Not long after, a cab arrived at the station. Meng Xiaomeng walked in, carrying a paper bag, her face full of irritation.

A few minutes later, Jiao Jiao and Yan Yan slipped in as well.

Zhuang Pengdao narrowed his eyes, and then noticed Fang Xiu, standing at the window, had quietly turned his head to look straight at them.

He curled his lips into a faint, unsmiling grin.

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