MCL CH25

Chapter 25: “This Is Already the… Time You’ve Touched Me”

“A move like this?” The feeling of suffocation had already twisted his face, yet a morbid smile appeared in “Lin Xi’s” eyes. “Isn’t this the very manifestation of your deepest thoughts? You miss me, you want to possess me, and I am merely here to satisfy you, mmph…”

As the pressure on his neck tightened, the rest of his words were cut off abruptly.

“I do miss him. But you are not him.” Not a single ripple of emotion showed in Yan Xingzhou’s eyes. Facing the visage that had haunted his dreams for countless nights, the aura around him grew even heavier. 

The hand that was slowly tightening treated its target like an inanimate object unworthy of any pity. Finally, with the crack of breaking bone, it was as if something had completely shattered. At a speed of decay difficult to capture with the naked eye, “Lin Xi’s” body instantly collapsed into a pile of ash, silently scattering into the air with a sudden gust of wind.

It was as if he had never been there, leaving only the residual warmth in his hand.

A voice, ethereal and distant, faintly echoed from the air, “Why… are you so unwilling to face your own desires…”

Gradually, the trailing sound faded completely.

The entire office fell silent once more.

Yan Xingzhou remained standing in the same spot, his lowered hair obscuring his expression, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking.

After a long while, he finally pulled his gaze away from his own hand and turned to look back.

That one glance, combined with the chilling aura still surrounding him, made the temperature in the room drop suddenly.

The moment their eyes met, Lin Xi, still sitting in the chair, blinked with an air of utter innocence. “I really didn’t see anything.”

A slight smile appeared on Yan Xingzhou’s lips. “Didn’t see… anything?”

“…”

After a brief silence, Lin Xi confessed honestly, “I admit I saw a little bit, but President Yan, you can’t blame me for not averting my eyes. This office is only so big. Even if I wanted to give you two some private space, I couldn’t possibly…”

Watching the icy smile on Yan Xingzhou’s face deepen, Lin Xi suddenly realized something, and his words faltered.

It was obvious he had let something slip.

Although he wanted to hope that Yan Xingzhou hadn’t noticed this slip-up, based on his understanding of the man, the probability of that was—practically zero.

Moreover, Yan Xingzhou’s expression at this moment already said it all.

Suddenly striding forward, Yan Xingzhou braced his hands on the arms of the chair on either side of Lin Xi. He leaned down slightly, trapping Lin Xi’s gaze at an extremely close distance, his tone slow and full of danger. “How did you know this is an office and not an ordinary study?”

Without waiting for an answer, his hand had already locked onto Lin Xi’s neck. He continued, word by word, “You remember this place. Or rather, you have been here before.”

He used a declarative tone.

His actions left no doubt that, in his clearly terrible mood, he would snap this seemingly exquisite and fragile neck without a second thought if he received an inappropriate answer, just as he had with the illusion moments ago.

However, even under such obvious pressure, Lin Xi’s expression did not change in the slightest. Or rather, it remained as gentle and harmless as ever.

As if he didn’t understand what Yan Xingzhou was saying, he glanced with some surprise at the hand on his throat and appropriately lowered his voice. “Why do you ask? Isn’t it obvious that this is an office?”

Yan Xingzhou narrowed his eyes but said nothing.

As if to confirm it once more, Lin Xi’s gaze swept past Yan Xingzhou, slowly and carefully observing the surroundings again. When he spoke again, his tone was more certain. 

“When I was checking just now, I could see stacks of documents everywhere. Although I didn’t open them specifically, they looked like archival records from the United Administration. Normally, no one would bring so many private documents into their personal study, so I guessed this scene must be one of the offices at the United Administration. Is… is there something wrong with that?”

His final rhetorical question was delivered with his expression controlled to the extreme, so much so that the voice in his head couldn’t help but pop up: [You can really act, and you can really spin a tale…]

Lin Xi ignored the commentary, staring fixedly at Yan Xingzhou as if waiting for an answer.

A few seconds felt as long as several centuries.

Yan Xingzhou’s gaze, fixed on Lin Xi, flashed with countless complex thoughts. Finally, he slowly withdrew his hand. As he straightened up, the intense oppressive feeling lessened considerably.

Lin Xi touched his still-intact neck as if with lingering fear. “President Yan, you seem to have a special fondness for the neck.”

Yan Xingzhou’s eyes asked the question for him: “?”

Lin Xi gave a short laugh. “We haven’t known each other for very long, all told, and yet, this is already the second time you’ve grabbed my neck.”

Yan Xingzhou: “…”

Seeing Yan Xingzhou at a rare loss for words, Lin Xi suddenly felt completely over the coercive experience he had just endured.

Forget it, forget it. Ignorance is no sin. I’m the one who chose to hide this from him, so if he wants to touch me a few times, so be it.

With the space in front of him now clear, Lin Xi finally stood up from his seat. “To get back on topic, President Yan, it looks like you already know how to get out?”

Yan Xingzhou nodded. “As you just saw, because I was the first one to enter this door, that contaminant spied on the depths of my mind and created this place. The inner world of a mental-type Contaminant is like this; the environment is a reflection of one’s inner world. As long as the obsession in the heart is completely let go, then this place will, just like that…”

He paused for a moment before continuing, “…that illusion, cease to exist.”

“Thank you for the explanation, I understand the principle now,” Lin Xi said with humble politeness. “So, President Yan, has your obsession been completely let go now?”

Yan Xingzhou: “There’s no need. This level of mental contamination cannot affect me.”

Lin Xi nodded, then posed a question, “Since it can’t affect you, then why hasn’t this office we’re in disappeared yet?”

Yan Xingzhou: “.”

A subtle silence fell around them following his question.

Yan Xingzhou turned and scanned every corner of the office inch by inch once more. Finally, he withdrew his gaze and slowly closed his eyes.

In the silence, a light breeze suddenly stirred. He reached out, grabbed Lin Xi, and pulled him to his side.

The initially gentle airflow began to intensify.

Gradually, it swelled into a howling gale.

The books and documents in the office were swept up into the air.

The two stood in the center of the room, the hems of their clothes whipping wildly.

Finally, all the swirling objects turned into crystalline dust upon impact.

Like a grand baptism, the dust rained down upon them.

The once calm and peaceful office space twisted and was once again plunged into darkness. Countless spacetimes stacked and unfolded again. Bizarre lights and shadows spun around them, ultimately swallowed by an endless darkness.

When their vision finally cleared again, they found themselves back in the initial, boundless, barren desert.

The surrounding yellow sand settled as the wind gradually subsided. Ten meters away stood the same solitary “door,” appearing out of thin air.

But the two people within it knew very well that what they had just experienced was no illusion. The passageway at this moment was exactly where the office door had been.

This was why he hated mental-type contaminants the most. As long as your will was strong enough, you could clear it with almost no harm, but the process was always extremely troublesome.

Lin Xi sighed silently in his heart and, in a manner befitting his current identity, posed a question, “President Yan, are we back again? So, do we have to go in again?”

He had only asked casually, but unexpectedly, Yan Xingzhou patiently explained, “We are not back. Although it’s all desert, this place is not the same as where we started.”

“Oh,” Lin Xi nodded in cooperation. “Then I’ll just continue to follow behind you.”

He moved to walk behind Yan Xingzhou but was surprised when the man in front of him didn’t move. “What’s wrong?”

Yan Xingzhou calmly took two steps back. “This time, you go first.”

[Hahahahahaha, here it comes, here it comes! The test has arrived, late as it may be!]

“…”

Pausing for a moment, Lin Xi put on a hesitant expression. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m a little scared.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Yan Xingzhou was unmoved by his pitiable state. “I’ve already told you, the contaminant here attacks the deepest obsession in one’s heart. As it happens, I am also very curious. What, I wonder, is your obsession?”

An obsession in my heart?

Forget Yan Xingzhou; even he himself was actually a little curious.

Lin Xi looked up toward the door.

Refusing now was clearly not an option. It seemed he could only take it one step at a time.

Withdrawing his gaze, Lin Xi extended a hand toward Yan Xingzhou.

Yan Xingzhou: “What is this for?”

“If you want me to go in, of course I’ll need President Yan to stay close to me.” Lin Xi smiled and blinked. “After all, I really am a little scared.”

At his inviting gesture, the two faced off for a brief moment.

Finally, Yan Xingzhou offered a compromise. “You can hold onto the corner of my clothes.”

If Ju Ze had been present, he would have known that for someone with Yan Xingzhou’s disposition, granting such permission was an incredibly shocking event.

However, this was clearly not enough to satisfy Lin Xi.

As if he hadn’t heard the answer, he walked over, took Yan Xingzhou’s hand, and without looking back, pushed open the door and walked in