Under Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting’s suppression, Lin Feng glanced at Chen Yu from the corner of his eye.
One look, and Lin Feng’s heart plunged to the bottom of his chest.
Chen Yu’s condition was extremely bad.
The black patterns had already spread to his neck, and thick black bloody tears had begun seeping from his pitch-black eyes.
He, too, had received a system notification.
[Warning! Your lover “Chen Yu”‘s soul body is being deeply corroded.]
[Negative status sharply increasing! Love value continuously dropping: 40%… 30%…]
“Chen Yu! Stop!”
Lin Feng’s eyes were about to split. He couldn’t even afford to conceal his own openings.
Chen Yu’s body trembled violently, but he didn’t retract those chains of resentment.
Gritting his teeth, he stared dead at Fu Songcheng, desperately driving the remaining power within him to block these two.
“I said stop!”
Lin Feng burst out with force. Risking taking a heavy blow from Yu Huaiting head-on, he forcibly pressed his long saber forward, using the recoil to retreat backward, trying to get closer to Chen Yu.
But Yu Huaiting and Fu Songcheng were not the soft-hearted kind.
“You got distracted.”
Yu Huaiting paid no mind to Lin Feng’s retreat. He swung his greatsword in a full circle and, with a howl that tore through the air, swept it straight at Lin Feng’s waist and abdomen.
If that strike landed, Lin Feng would be cut clean in half at the waist.
Fu Songcheng’s movements were equally unhesitating—he struck away the chain lunging at Yu Huaiting.
Chen Yu watched that sword strike and knew Lin Feng couldn’t dodge it.
In this instant, he made his decision.
He drove all the gathered resentment—along with his own—into a physical form to block Yu Huaiting’s strike.
Yu Huaiting’s greatsword blade directly scattered the resentment of countless civilians that Chen Yu had gathered.
The starved, the wrongfully killed, the driven-to-suicide by oppression…
Countless aggrieved souls howled as they dispersed.
Their great vengeance unfulfilled, their wrongs unredressed, and they were cut into smoke and scattered.
Just like most people of that era—able only to cry out, to scream, to rage against injustice… before being swallowed by fate.
A single misstep, and the Lin young miss and Yu young master were separated by life and death; a single misstep, and the aggrieved souls were used by Chen Yu to block Yu Huaiting’s charged strike.
Thus the old dream of revenge shattered completely.
The aggrieved souls had trusted the Lin young miss, willing to be driven by her, seeking redress for their wrongs, seeking evil repaid with evil.
But Chen Yu was not the Lin young miss. He was an ordinary man with no grand ambitions—he only wanted to save his beloved.
In the moment before they dispersed, the aggrieved souls didn’t actually resent Chen Yu.
What their unwilling cries demanded was: when would a future of equality for all, without strife, ever arrive?
There was no answer anywhere.
Reality couldn’t give one; the fictional instance story couldn’t give one either.
Fulfillment is always the minority; incompleteness is the norm.
…
Meanwhile, the backlash of overdrawn power erupted completely.
Chen Yu’s figure flickered once, then vanished at once.
He didn’t even have the strength to manifest his form again.
“Chen Yu—!”
Lin Feng could faintly sense his lover, but couldn’t see his figure.
The cold mechanical voice echoed in everyone’s minds:
[Warning: Player Chen Yu’s vital signs are extremely weak.]
[Lin Feng, Chen Yu’s love value continues to plummet: 10%… 5%…]
[0%.]
Lin Feng felt plunged into an ice cavern.
Yu Huaiting dragged his greatsword, the tip scraping out a grating sound against the wooden floor.
He looked down at Lin Feng from above, no pity in his eyes—only the coldness of a victor. He slowly raised the greatsword, preparing to deliver the final blow.
Fu Songcheng stood to the side, calmly wiping the blood off his dagger with a handkerchief, his other hand pressing through the fabric against the letter hidden in his inner lining.
Just as Yu Huaiting’s sword was about to fall, the system’s voice came:
[Final settlement stage begins.]
[Current Lin Feng, Chen Yu love value: 0%.]
[Current Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting love value: 42%.]
[Judgment result: Players Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting are about to become—]
The voice cut off abruptly.
The originally deep-blue system light screen in the side room suddenly erupted with an extremely piercing burst of static.
Immediately after, all the panels flickered violently.
Yu Huaiting’s sword-raising motion halted, his brows knitting tightly. “What?”
Fu Songcheng’s expression also sank.
On the crimson panel, rows of garbled text flashed rapidly, then recomposed into clear characters:
[Settlement result corrected.]
[Players Lin Feng, Chen Yu meet the extreme reversal condition. Unlocked identity: ‘Lifelong Partners.’]
[Players Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting—love value zeroed. Unlocked identity: ‘Bitter Couple.’]
The instant this verdict fell, an indescribable agony pierced through both Yu Huaiting’s and Fu Songcheng’s hearts simultaneously.
Yu Huaiting braced his greatsword against the ground, clutching his chest, his tall frame bending uncontrollably.
Fu Songcheng likewise leaned back against the wall.
His originally calm expression twisted in an instant, veins bulging on his forehead.
————————————
[Bitter Couple contract bound.]
Rule 1 [Heart’s Reprieve]: Near each other, killing intent surges; apart, longing becomes illness.
Rule 2 [Damage Synchronization (Bitter Couple)]: When one party suffers physical or mental damage, both parties simultaneously endure 200% damage (HP deducted), and corresponding wounds manifest in real time.
Rule 3 [Love and Resentment’s End]: Kill the other party to remove all negative effects and gain double attribute bonuses; thereafter, no form of blessing can be obtained.
————————————
Beyond the rules’ constraints, what was more direct was the sense of unfamiliarity in both their hearts after the love value was zeroed.
Yu Huaiting lifted his head, staring dead at Fu Songcheng, who was so close at hand.
The moment he saw the other’s face, killing intent and disgust welled up from the bottom of his heart—yet a second ago he’d been secretly marveling at how in sync he and Fu Songcheng were.
When he instinctively wanted to retreat, to get away from Fu Songcheng, it was as if an invisible chain were wrenching his very soul.
An irresistible longing drove him to draw closer to Fu Songcheng.
Closer means pain; farther is even more painful. Want to kill the other, yet still drawn to each other.
[Bitter Couple].
Yu Huaiting’s eyes instantly flooded with bloodshot veins. “Why! We clearly won!”
The fury in his heart had no outlet.
He turned his head, locking all his killing intent onto Lin Feng and Chen Yu not far away.
“Die!”
Yu Huaiting’s greatsword slashed viciously at Lin Feng. This strike was fiercer, more lethal than any before—no holding back at all.
Lin Feng had collapsed weakly, with no room to block.
The greatsword was about to fall.
At the critical moment, Lin Feng’s figure blurred.
[Lifelong Partner skill triggered: World’s End (ignores spatial obstacles, instantly teleports to the partner’s side).]
The greatsword slammed viciously into empty ground.
Wood chips mixed with dust shot skyward; a huge pit was smashed into the floor.
And three meters away by the door, Lin Feng appeared out of thin air, holding Chen Yu.
He glanced at the furiously enraged Yu Huaiting, then didn’t linger for a moment.
Because the instance’s settlement notification had already been issued:
[Instance core conditions satisfied.]
[Players Lin Feng, Chen Yu unlocked the ‘Lifelong Partners’ identity, obtained clearance qualification, permitted to exit.]
[Players Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting hold the final clue letter, obtained clearance qualification, permitted to exit.]
Four white teleportation beams descended from the sky, enveloping the four of them respectively.
In the second before the beams vanished, Yu Huaiting’s and Fu Songcheng’s gazes met—then, because of the mutual repulsion deep in their souls, they simultaneously averted their eyes in pain.
The next instant, the side room was empty.
…
Outside the screen.
Quan Heng leaned back on the wide, soft leather sofa, legs crossed, watching the massive holographic projection screen before him with satisfaction.
Frozen on the screen was the image of Yu Huaiting’s sword striking empty air, along with the instance settlement notice.
From the very beginning, he hadn’t counted on Lin Feng and Chen Yu winning.
In Yu Huaiting’s past twenty-plus instances, had he ever not enraged every NPC from the start, even offending all the players in his own faction? Yet every time, he’d cut his way through everything in his path.
Against Yu Huaiting, no tactic, no psychological game worked—all you had to do was believe he’d win.
Lin Feng and Chen Yu’s defeat was only a matter of time.
So Quan Heng’s bet from the start had been that Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting would win.
But what he wanted wasn’t for these two to leave happily with their spoils.
He didn’t need Yu Huaiting and Fu Songcheng dead.
He only needed them to stop being lovey-dovey every day—he only needed Fu Songcheng gone.
So he’d modified the judgment conditions in the instance’s underlying logic.
He’d zeroed out Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting’s love value and reversed the judgment result.
So what if they won the fight?
So what if they got the evidence?
Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting were nothing but pieces on the chessboard—and Quan Heng was neither player nor referee. He was the board.
Whatever offended his eye, he would split apart.
It was just that recently there’d been rather a lot of buzz about these two on the star network. But no matter—he’d just secured Shen Ning’s investment, and this was his moment of greatest triumph. Everything had to go his way.
Fu Songcheng could only become the cage Yu Huaiting hated most.
As for Lin Feng and Chen Yu.
Quan Heng waved his hand casually and shut off the holographic screen.
He didn’t care whether those two lived or died.
The original clearance conditions for the A Thought of Old Dreams instance had been varied—kill the entire opposing faction, obtain the final letter, or become Lifelong Partners; complete any one and you could clear it.
Reversing the love value had inadvertently saved the two of them—nothing more than letting two more ants survive.
If not for Yu Huaiting, he wouldn’t have bothered interfering with the instance at all.
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