"Having a nightmare? What did you dream about?"
The young man tried carefully to recall what had happened in his dream, but part of the people and events had already blurred.
When he tried to move his fingers, he realized Li Wei was holding his hand in a tight grip.
It was gripped so tightly that a heavy sense of never wanting to let go traveled along the young man's arm straight to his cerebral cortex.
And since he could see Li Wei's face the moment he opened his eyes, he realized that she was pressing most of her body onto his bed while clutching his palm, which showed just how anxious she had been.
"I dreamed that... I was framed and hunted down by my father and older brother, and then... it wasn't just them trying to kill me, a whole bunch of random things too. After that... I can't remember a lot of the details..."
Hearing that this was the plot, Li Wei actually let out a sigh of relief.
On the one hand, she never believed in the ability to foresee the future, and no matter how she looked at it, Lin Xiu's dream seemed like the normal result of thinking about it day and night.
On the other hand, even if such "magic" truly existed, the fact that she did not appear in his dream meant at least that their relationship would not be distorted or bound together.
She thought to herself secretly...
No matter what, it's still better than life and death parting.
But why do I care about him so much...? I don't even understand myself anymore. Tricking him into going to my father was supposed to be the goal...
The Witch's mind was somewhat in disarray; it had been a very long time since she had felt the stimulating sensation of her heartstrings being plucked.
Yet given her father's temperament, he would probably treat him like a tortured animal! That simply won't do! Absolutely not!
"From now on, not even Father can take away the person I have chosen." ——— Li Wei made up her mind.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"Less than an hour. Right now... it's half-past two in the morning. I made a late-night snack and was getting ready to wake you up, but when I heard such a loud noise coming from your room, I thought something had happened, only to find out you were crying out in your sleep during a nightmare."
"How embarrassing..."
Lin Xiu slowly spat out a few words, regaining his rational thinking only after the lingering resonance of the nightmare faded away.
"Never mind, I won't blame you either; ordinary people really do feel uncomfortable and have weird dreams when sleeping in a strange bed. Let's go downstairs to eat and talk."
The white-haired Witch got down from the young man's bed with a preoccupied mind, and as soon as he put on his coat, she caught him off guard and dragged him out of the room.
A strong aura of a desire for control.
"I have this indescribable feeling. Am I a pet?"
Hearing those words, Li Wei paused on the staircase steps. If she had to reflect on it, her compulsory restrictions on Lin Xiu were indeed a bit excessive.
Yet this was necessary.
"Prey" could only die by her own hands, not by anyone else's, and no Magician had the right to snatch the "prey" of the number one modern Witch.
"If you think you are, then you are. If you think you aren't, then you never are."
She turned her head and stared at the boy who was on the verge of affecting her heart rate as she spoke.
Lin Xiu understood her meaning.
Self-awareness should not be influenced by the outside world; as long as he could still judge who he was for himself, there was no need to care about what others thought.
"At least in the Ancient Mansion, I'd better be your pet."
"Cowardly"...
Li Wei didn't say those words out loud either. After all, who doesn't like someone who is obedient? It was just that, specifically regarding her perception of the person in front of her, she would have preferred to see the unrestrained true face of the Pupil Master.
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The dining table was laden with freshly made Western-style steaks, cooked not long ago, at around medium-rare.
Beside them were also some fruit platters, juice drinks, and pastries like egg tarts.
A few pieces of cheese were cut up on a plate, looking like a garnish for the main course, yet upon looking around, they were also fine as protagonists in their own right.
What made Lin Xiu's eyes light up was that he could also see traditional culinary snacks from his Eastern homeland here — pan-fried buns and rice noodles.
"This is already up to the calorie count of a full dinner. How can you eat this much for a late-night snack?"
The young man said with a frown.
Li Wei handed the plates, knives, forks, bowls, and chopsticks all at once to Lin Xiu and began to enjoy her fruit salad without paying attention to Lin Xiu's words.
"Huh? What did you just say?"
"Nothing, consider what I said unsaid..." Perhaps afraid of provoking the Witch's anger, he stopped himself in time.
Thinking carefully, he hadn't eaten dinner anyway, so the midnight snack was actually the third meal of the day in every sense. It was already the middle of the night, and as long as he wasn't dead asleep, he wouldn't be conquered by a calorie bomb.
"Why keep things bottled up? Do you dislike the late-night snack? I specifically... prepared... the steak and pan-fried buns... for you..."
Specifically? What...?
The latter part of Li Wei's sentence, "prepared for you," grew softer and softer, faint as a mosquito's buzzing.
Yet halfway through the sentence, Lin Xiu could easily guess what the second half probably was.
He had only just arrived at her Ancient Mansion, yet ingredients and such could be arranged in advance...
As expected, he had already been thoroughly figured out; she was truly terrifying...
The young man remained silent, awkwardly using the unfamiliar knife and fork to cut the meat on his plate.
Li Wei noticed this.
"As expected, you're still deeply influenced by Eastern culture, but honestly, so am I. If I hadn't spent so many years getting used to the West, I wouldn't even know how to use a knife and fork either."
Li Wei didn't like eating high-fat foods, so most of the midnight snack was prepared with Lin Xiu in mind.
"It's different... It's not like I've never been to Britain or Gaul, but I lived an Eastern lifestyle even there. The culture of the Phoenix lineage is simply the one I can accept."
Different regions have different cultural lineages, and even the same region can have different cultural lineages. This is the best and most crucial way to distinguish between civilizations.
And something like a cultural lineage naturally cannot be separated from the two opposing entities of science and religion.
Magicians, just like ordinary people, unconsciously form their own unique "factions" amidst choices, which also evolves into a deeper conflict that transcends the acquisition of "magic power."
That is a story for another time.
For the new generation like Li Wei and Lin Xiu, these things did not yet bear any bone-deep traces.
"Why is Li Wei only eating fruit and nothing else?"
"I'll eat a bit of the cheese and the egg tarts. As for the fries and the steak, I'm leaving all of them to you."
Lin Xiu didn't hold any special affection for these foods; he could only say he consumed them out of necessity to fill his stomach. Furthermore, he knew very well that a young lady like Li Wei would not make food she didn't eat for no reason.
So she had indeed prepared it specifically for him.
Pointing it out would make him look petty and self-absorbed, so he just pretended not to know and complied.
Seeing him looking somewhat melancholic, the white-haired Witch still wanted to bring up some serious topics.
However, she was preempted by the young man.
"I still can't understand... I feel like it was different from the nightmares I usually have," Lin Xiu said, holding a cup of hot tea after wiping his mouth with a napkin.
「Clear? Or... do you feel it had special significance?」
"Clear isn't quite the word, but it was certainly very logical, even though the way the logic manifested was twisted and surreal."
Lin Xiu took a sip of the hot tea, quietly watching the hour hand on the wall point to "3".
"Yet your meaning is precisely that it lacked logic."
"………… Or perhaps my definition differs from yours, Li Wei."
"Then tell me, in what ways was the manifestation surreal."
The young young Witch knew she understood neither art nor logic, so she had no choice but to "ask for instruction" on the young man's lofty views.
"According to most people's thoughts, being omnipotent in a dream is surreal, meaning it lacks logic. But I don't think so. That very omnipotence in dreams is actually a reflection of real-world logical explanation. But in the nightmare I just had, the terrifying part was that everything I could do had no difference from reality."
So from that perspective, it was instead a "surreal" dream, completely unique.
"For example?"
"My psychological reactions regarding escaping the pursuit were entirely identical, and even facing those... things resembling magic... I realized at the time that this might not be reality, yet I could still genuinely feel the pain of being injured."
Li Wei nodded, placing her hand on his shoulder to gesture for him to calm down.
Lin Xiu didn't continue.
"If I told you your nightmare was the masterpiece of this Ancient Mansion, would you believe it?"
"I have no choice but to believe in things like magic... I'm just curious, Li Wei, are you hiding something from me?"
For a moment, the Witch was at a loss for words, her crystal-blue pupils involuntarily shifting away from Lin Xiu's gaze.
"No... no, I'm not? Classmate Lin Xiu must be wondering why a young lady like me would choose such a haunted Ancient Mansion for a home, and suspecting that I'm some sort of Magician, right?"
"Not really. I'm just curious; of course I wouldn't doubt President Li Wei's identity."
Faced with Li Wei's counter-question, he naturally brushed it off.
Actually... she was lying, wasn't she...?
Yet he knew neither the reason nor whether his own thoughts were correct. Perhaps he was truly overthinking it, or perhaps she was merely concealing some past events rather than who he really was.
There were points of light upon her.
The unfettered, absolutely uncompromising points of light of freedom.
Lin Xiu knew he felt a strong fondness for such a girl, because pursuing the truth and the self is the most dazzling thing of all.
And she was both the truth and the self he wished to pursue, as well as the most dazzling thing of all.