Chapter 28, 028. He stepped on Duan Lansheng's chest, signaling him to let go...

Duan Lansheng paused, then suddenly opened his eyes.

Her soft breasts bumped into his hard thighs, but luckily, the blanket cushioned the impact and it didn't hurt. Unfortunately, Lu Yuanyuan's already numb leg was pressed hard against her own buttocks in the chaos due to the change in position.

Lu Yuanyuan's pent-up energy suddenly dissipated, she gasped and clutched her right calf.

Her legs! Legs, legs, legs, legs, legs!

Hearing her groan of pain, the initial confusion in Duan Lansheng's eyes quickly dissipated. He propped himself up, his black hair flowing down the bed. In the darkness, he saw Lu Yuanyuan's face contorted in pain, clutching her previously sprained leg. He stiffened, immediately reaching out to pull her to the inside of the bed, making her lie flat.

Lu Yuanyuan's vision blurred, and she felt her right leg being lifted up and her trouser leg being rolled up. Duan Lansheng calmly pressed along her ankle and asked, "Did you press on the place where you sprained your ankle before?"

Lu Yuanyuan hissed, propped herself up, her eyes misty with tears: "My legs are numb. Move aside, I'll go down and stretch."

Duan Lansheng's hand moved up her ankle and pressed on her calf muscles. He didn't use much force, but he could feel her waist trembling. He stopped, looked at her, and told her the truth: "You can't go down, you'll fall."

"Do you think I'm seventy or eighty years old? I... ah!"

Duan Lansheng didn't speak, and continued massaging her legs. He seemed to only ever do what he thought was right.

His hands were large, lean, and strong, his fingertips moving like he was playing a piano. His gaze was fixed on her face, judging her discomfort by her reactions. Lu Yuanyuan's ankle was gripped by him, and she couldn't pull away. Her toes curled, her eyes were wet with tears, feeling deeply humiliated by being outmaneuvered and stripped of her defenses once again. She clenched her fists: "I told you, I don't need your help..."

However, even insults don't have much of a destructive effect.

Because her breath was trembling and she was lying pitifully on the bed, it sounded more like a kitten meowing than cursing.

She kicked and twisted frantically for a while, but it did nothing to help her, only making her breathless. And, she had to admit, the loosening of her calf muscles did make her feel much better, and Lu Yuanyuan's cursing gradually subsided. Noticing that Duan Lansheng was still watching her, she pursed her lips, simply pulled the blanket next to her over her head, passively resisting and preventing him from seeing.

With their heads and faces shrouded in darkness, time seemed to flow exceptionally slowly.

After an unknown amount of time, her calves completely relaxed, and Lu Yuanyuan was almost asleep, but Duan Lansheng's hand was still not removed.

She mumbled sleepily, "Is it not done yet? I'm not numb anymore."

Seemingly surprised that she was still awake, the other person's hand seemed to stiffen for a moment.

Because her mind was clouded by sleepiness and she was a little confused, Lu Yuanyuan did not notice his unnaturalness and her attitude became less proper. She used her unaffected left leg to step on Duan Lansheng's chest, indicating that he could let go.

Unexpectedly, during her struggle, his clothes were already somewhat disheveled. By sheer bad luck, her left heel pressed against his front, and with a forceful movement, she managed to lift his shirt, step on his chest, and slide down.

Both of them froze simultaneously. With a "smack," before she could stop herself, she had already stomped heavily on the other's hand.

The boy's body temperature was like a furnace in the cold winter; his chest was already warm enough, but his hands were even hotter. Clearly, she had hurt him by stepping on his foot, and Duan Lansheng suddenly tightened his grip on her ankle with his other hand.

Lu Yuanyuan winced in pain from the grip, her sleepiness vanishing. She yanked the blanket off her face, sat up, and looked closely. Just as she had suspected, her left leg was braced against his body, while her right leg was still held in his hands.

...Wait a minute, his hands are here?

For about half a second, her brain went blank, and then Lu Yuanyuan realized what was happening, her toes curling in disbelief. But immediately, she knew she had made a mistake. Because she watched as the person in front of her trembled slightly, his cheeks flushing. His appearance was as aloof as snow, and in this state, he seemed somewhat like a deity fallen to earth.

Immediately afterwards, something uncontrollably rose up above his head.

—They are a pair of snow-white fox ears.

Lu Yuanyuan's fingers gripped the bed, tightening and loosening, her gaze towards him a mixture of surprise, embarrassment, and a hint of disgust, before she abruptly pulled away. Because she pulled her leg back so forcefully, she felt as if she had kicked something, and a deafening "smack" echoed through the air.

Then, the whole world became quiet.

.

The next day, the two sat at the dining table and ate breakfast.

A faint sense of awkwardness filled the air.

Duan Lansheng, with his eyes lowered, was drinking soy milk from a bowl, bathed in the morning light; the scene was quite pleasing to the eye.

—If you ignore the bluish bruise on his cheek.

These bruises were made by Lu Yuanyuan herself last night... no, by her own foot.

It was initially just a little red and swollen from the kick. But unexpectedly, by daybreak, it had turned bluish-green, indicating that it had been kicked quite hard.

Through the rising smoke, Lu Yuanyuan glanced at it, then looked away, sighing in frustration and silently reflecting on her actions.

He hasn't mastered the art yet.

No matter what happens, she should control herself even more meticulously. For example, last night, even if she was caught off guard and never expected Duan Lansheng to have such a fetish, she shouldn't have avoided him like the plague and so obviously shown her resistance.

As the saying goes, you shouldn't hit someone in the face. But this time, she went straight for a kick.

Duan Lansheng isn't stupid. If things continue like this, when he looks back in the future, he'll probably doubt whether she was actually hypnotized by her mind's eye.

That won't do.

According to the system's prompts, the road to Luzhou will open in January. This means the time I spend imprisoned in the Sea of ​​Consciousness is counting down. There's no reason to have worked so hard to maintain this facade only to leave a flaw and ruin everything.

What can we do to salvage the situation?

After finishing her breakfast, Lu Yuanyuan slowly wiped her mouth, pondered for a moment, and then had an idea.

When Duan Lansheng returned after cleaning up the dishes and sweeping the snow outside, as usual, Lu Yuanyuan had already prepared everything. She pulled him to the window, pressed his shoulder, and made him sit in a chair: "Sit here."

After he sat down, Lu Yuanyuan took out a warm hard-boiled egg, which she had run to the kitchen to boil. She waved it in the air and said apologetically, "I really didn't mean to kick your face last night. Don't worry, I'll put this warm egg on your face now, and the bruise should go away by tonight."

As she spoke, she tentatively reached out and gently pinched his chin, turning his head to the side.

His chin was fair and clean, rather narrow. Yet, one could feel a roughness invisible to the naked eye with the fingertips—the stubble hidden beneath the skin of a young man.

It felt a little prickly, and Lu Yuanyuan pulled her fingers back.

To onlookers, the gesture appeared ambiguous and frivolous, as if he were deliberately teasing and caressing his chin.

Duan Lansheng's eyes widened slightly.

Lu Yuanyuan suddenly stopped, slowly took a breath, pretended nothing had happened, and began rolling the hot egg on his cheek. Because it was so hot, she had to alternate between both hands to roll the egg and blow on her fingertips to make herself feel better.

In the dead of winter, the charcoal fire burned quietly inside the house.

The air was quiet, her breath gently brushing against his face, her almond-shaped eyes lowered, brimming with a shimmering light like autumn water.

As the eggs cooled down, Lu Yuanyuan stopped, looked up, and found that Duan Lansheng had been silently watching her.

Lu Yuanyuan curled her fingers slightly, casually looked away, took a step back, and said with a smile, "Okay."

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, and these everyday matters are just a minor interlude. Next, they have something more important to do: travel to Luzhou.

As the system said, the road to Luzhou opened as soon as January arrived.

The trip to Luzhou began when the dwarf version of Duan Lansheng saw Fan Shen on the boat. Lu Yuanyuan subtly inquired and discovered that Duan Lansheng's memory of this event had already been altered in his mind.

In the current young Duan Lansheng's mind, he did indeed meet Fan Shen before the New Year, and it was at that time that he decided to go to Luzhou. The difference was that he was already an adult then, no longer a child.

Since the goal is to find our enemies, the sooner we set off, the better.

Two days later, the two traveled light and set off for Luzhou. However, without the aid of magical artifacts, relying solely on carriages and boats for transportation, the journey took much longer than Lu Yuanyuan had anticipated. When they arrived in Luzhou, only 1/10 of the sand remained at the top of the hourglass, and time was running out.

Luzhou was far more prosperous than the unknown small town they had stayed in. As night fell, many boats were still coming and going at the ferry crossing.

After several days on the boat, the two were a little tired, so they went to a teahouse near the ferry terminal to get something to eat.

They had barely sat down when they overheard people at the next table discussing a recent case of bandits killing someone.

"Hey, I've disliked that Fan Shen for a long time. He was always bullying men and women. He deserved to die!"

"I heard that the bandits who robbed him killed him and his servants, and threw their bodies into the deep mountains. They were probably eaten by bears or some other wild beasts. In the end, they only found his head."

Upon hearing a familiar name mentioned in the middle, Duan Lansheng's eyes turned cold, and he abruptly turned around.

Hearing of Fan Shen's death, Lu Yuanyuan wasn't surprised, as she already knew he wouldn't have a good ending. She just hadn't expected the clues to come so easily. Before they even formulated a plan, the clues found them on their own.

System: "Because this is the final test of the beginner dungeon, it's impossible for it to be difficult from the beginning to the end."

Lu Yuanyuan: "I didn't actually find the beginning that difficult."

System: "That's because you accidentally entered Duan Lansheng's sea of ​​consciousness. You see, this sea of ​​consciousness predicament was originally arranged for Duan Lansheng when he was five or six years old. Imagine, the first challenge was that he had to walk out of that boundless snowfield while frozen, in darkness and fear—because you saw the flaw in his sea of ​​consciousness, and followed the white light, you skipped the step of getting lost and directly found the exit. The second challenge was how he could survive in a human town in the form of a fox, and how he could survive after transforming into a human. The third challenge was how he could avoid the attention of human traffickers and cultivators and successfully reach Luzhou. These three challenges are difficult enough to trap a five or six-year-old child in his sea of ​​consciousness, making it difficult for him to find the source of his inner conflict."

Lu Yuanyuan murmured, "So, I accidentally helped Duan Lansheng and sped up the process."

System: "Correct. To be precise, there was more than one."

Now that we have a lead, let's strike while the iron is hot. Lu Yuanyuan turned around, bowed to the people at the next table, and asked, "Gentlemen, what was the story you were telling me about the bandits killing people?"

Two men at the next table looked over, puzzled. Their gazes were first captured by a handsome young man, and they both paused in surprise. Then, seeing Lu Yuanyuan immediately asking them about a notorious local bully, they became somewhat wary: "What, do you know Fan Shen?"

Lu Yuanyuan revealed an angry expression, slammed her hand on the table and made up a story: "That's right! To tell you the truth, that guy surnamed Fan cheated us out of a lot of money, and we're here to collect the debt."

Upon learning that they were Fan Shen's enemies, the two men's expressions softened considerably. They even grabbed a handful of melon seeds from their table and shared them with the men, launching into a long and detailed discussion of the information.

Duan Lansheng: "..."

"That guy surnamed Fan used to be a small merchant. I don't know what kind of opportunity he had, but his wife and children died in the mountains. He had a stroke of good luck and made a fortune. He became a notorious bully in Luzhou and forcibly abducted countless innocent women." The younger man snorted coldly, spitting out a melon seed shell.

His friend continued, “You’ll definitely get your comeuppance for all the bad things you do. Look, he was killed by bandits half a month ago, and the news only got back to Luzhou yesterday. If you want to collect your debts from him, it’s probably too late. However, there should still be some valuables in his house. If you go and move them now, you might still be able to recover some of your losses.”

Lu Yuanyuan and Duan Lansheng exchanged a glance, asked for Fan Shen's address, and rushed over there without stopping.

According to the two men, Fan Shen lived in a large mansion in the west of the city. From afar, Lu Yuanyuan could see flames soaring into the sky inside the mansion. Moreover, the closer she got to its gate, the more distorted the surrounding scenery became, as if she had stepped into an abstract painting. Except for the solid ground beneath her feet, the surrounding walls, trees, sky, ashes... were all twisting and writhing, emitting black smoke.

Lu Yuanyuan's heart raced; she saw a glimmer of hope.

It seems they've come to the right place. This is the key to leaving the sea of ​​consciousness!

The master of the sea of ​​consciousness has found this place; they are only one step away from leaving. The power of the lustful demon is beginning to wane, and it can no longer maintain its exquisite deception.

But at this point, they couldn't relax; instead, they had to be extremely vigilant. Because they were standing on the edge of the illusion's annihilation, and the game was entering its final stage, the lustful demon would definitely use every means to prevent Duan Lansheng from reaching the end.

“Lan Sheng, let’s go in and see…” Lu Yuanyuan said, then turned her head and her heart sank.

The boy standing beside her seemed to have entered a state of confusion, as if a thousand needles were piercing his brain. He painfully covered his temples with the heel of his hand, and the next second, he suddenly knelt on the ground, transforming into a ragged child.

Not the version of himself that Lu Yuanyuan raised in his mind's eye. But the real, powerless version of himself that existed without anyone's help.

As an outsider in the sea of ​​consciousness, Lu Yuanyuan could not empathize with Duan Lansheng. However, she could clearly see his torment with her naked eyes—the thin child covered his head with his hands, kneeling on the ground, with bruises on his brow bone from being beaten.

Two opposing forces were tearing at his mind; it hurt so much that he trembled, his lips shook, and tears welled up in his eyes.

At that moment, a fair hand was offered to him.

It was a familiar angle, a familiar hand.

"Hold my hand." He heard the person in front of him say softly, "Don't be afraid, let's go in and take a look."