Myself in the dream

“…”

There is silence between heaven and earth.

All that remained was the sound of the spider demons swinging heartlessly on the beams.

"I'm so sorry, I feel a little dizzy looking at them, maybe because there are too many legs," Xu Shulou couldn't help but ask, "Demon Lord, can you let them leave first?"

A spider demon hung upside down on the beam and looked at her. Its eyes were strange and terrifying, making people shudder. When it spoke, its voice was hoarse and rough, but it made people feel a little aggrieved: "I just borrowed needles and thread from the cleaning lady and didn't return them. Is it necessary for you to do that?"

“…”

"So you borrowed the needle and thread?" Xu Shulou felt strange. "What do you need the needle and thread for? Don't you have spider silk?"

"Can your family use spider silk to sew clothes?" The spider demon was not convinced. "My spider silk is poisonous. Sew one for me and see..."

"That's enough!" Demon Lord Xuan Yang interrupted this childish conversation and said to Xu Shulou, "They are responsible for protecting my safety. Miss, you want them to withdraw, but I'm sorry that I can't obey your order."

"Okay," Xu Shulou said happily, "Then ask him to take out the needle and thread and return it to you."

“…Go ahead.”

"Yes." The Spider Demon took the order and went back to his room to get needle and thread.

Xu Shulou unfolded the thin silk again: "Well, may I ask who is the lecherous demon who stole the servant boy's 'The Brave Has No Tears and No Fear' and the husband and wife?"

Silence, total silence. No one answered her, but the demons on the opposite side glanced vaguely at Demon Lord Xuan Yang.

Xu Shulou was greatly shocked: "It's you, the Demon Lord?"

The demon king looked unhappy: "How can it be called robbery if it is something we both agree on?"

“…”

While Xu Shulou was silent, the spider demon had retrieved the needle and thread, strode up to her, and stuffed the needle and thread into her hands. Xu Shulou then noticed that he was wearing an embroidered shoe on each foot, which was quite delicate.

The chef who came with her to help angrily swung his knife behind her and reminded Xu Shulou: "Stealing recipes, there is also stealing recipes!"

He might have meant to quietly warn, but his loud voice had already been heard by the demons on the other side. Someone stood up and scratched his head: "Well, A-Xie, this is actually a misunderstanding."

The chef, whose full name is 'Your Uncle, I'll Cut You If You See Me Again' and nickname is 'Axue', was furious: "What misunderstanding could there be? I used to treat you as a friend, but you followed that damn Demon Lord to rebel against the Demon Palace and took away my recipes. This is a double betrayal of me! You are clearly jealous of my cooking skills. From now on, you have no right to call me 'Axue'. You can only respectfully call me 'Your Uncle' like my other enemies!"

The other party sighed: "In this case, I will tell you the truth."

"I want to hear your story!"

The man shook his head. "Alas, in fact, that was all the Demon Lord's painstaking effort. He... had been suffering from your recipe for a long time and couldn't eat all day, but he couldn't bear to tell you directly, fearing to hurt your feelings, so he came to me privately and asked if I had any ideas. I was about to follow the Demon Lord in rebellion, so I suddenly had an idea and took the opportunity to take away your recipe. I would rather bear this infamy, and at the time of rebellion, I made some contributions to my old master, the Demon Lord."

Listen, even when they rebelled against the Demon Palace, they still remembered their old master. What a touching friendship.

Bai Roushuang was finally no longer sleepy. She pricked up her ears and was completely awake from laughing.

"The Demon Lord really didn't have to do that, and you don't have to do that either," the cook Ah Xie cried sincerely, "Without a recipe, the food I cook will still taste just as bad!"

After hearing his heartfelt confession, the other party burst into tears and said, "I was wrong!"

"I can't blame you!"

The two held hands and looked at each other with tears in their eyes, and hugged each other after a moment.

The onlookers were all staring in amazement, and no one, whether from Xu Shulou's side or Xuanyang Palace's side, had the heart to interrupt them.

Bai Roushuang rubbed against her senior sister: "The demons are really quite... simple."

Xu Shulou glanced down at the thin silk in his hand, and for a moment he didn't know whether he should continue to seek revenge.

Bai Roushuang saw through her thoughts and shrugged, "At least... there is no misunderstanding in Grandma Liuli's request. That spider demon really didn't return the needle and thread. We helped her, so this trip is not in vain?"

When she said the last sentence, her tone rose slightly, and she forced the comforting words to turn into a question.

Xu Shulou glanced at his junior sister with a hard-to-tell expression: "Do you still remember why we came to the Demon Realm?"

"..." Bai Roushuang slapped her head, "To find out if they are going to mobilize troops against the cultivation world! I almost forgot. Alas, after staying here for too long, my wisdom is about to be assimilated by the surroundings."

Xu Shulou touched his junior sister's head with pity.

The two demons who were hugging each other had almost finished crying, and suggested to everyone: "This is all a misunderstanding. How about we two cook a meal for everyone, and everyone sit down and eat while chatting?"

Xu Shulou saw that the Demon Lord's face twitched, as if he wanted to say something, but he didn't know how to express his ridiculous feelings about the matter, so he finally chose to keep silent.

The group finally sat down in the open space in front of Xuanyang Palace. The two chefs were quick and efficient and quickly brought out pot after pot of steaming hot dishes.

Xu Shulou was very adventurous. He picked up his chopsticks to try and soon determined that the cooking skills of the two chefs were equally good, so he put down his chopsticks.

No one knew what Demon Lord Xuan Yang was thinking. He just sat aside, not leaving but not picking up his chopsticks either.

Xu Shulou looked at him and casually asked, "Lord Demon, is there a piece of paint falling off the door behind you?"

"Shut up!" the Demon Lord was furious.

Bai Roushuang and Xu Shulou looked at each other. The Demon Lord and the Demon King were equally poor. On the one hand, they were raising cochineal insects to make money, and on the other hand, they couldn't even repair the paint peeling off the door in time.

She leaned close to her senior sister's ear and whispered, "It really doesn't look like they can spare the money to attack the cultivation world."

Xu Shulou thought thoughtfully: "If the two worlds fight, I don't think the root cause will necessarily come from this world."

She cleared her throat and looked at Xuan Yang: "Master Demon, I have another commission from the Demon Lord to complete. May I ask if you have the power to lead your own troops and privately train low-level demons in order to invade the cultivation world?"

The Demon Lord sneered: "Even if there is, will I tell you?"

"Then let me change the question. Do you still remember the last great war between Taoism and demons? That happened hundreds of years ago. In the past few hundred years, the major sects in the cultivation world have been striving to improve themselves and recruit more disciples. The scale is no longer comparable to that of the past. What about the demons? What's the situation?"

Xuan Yang narrowed his eyes and looked at her: "Are you threatening me?"

"No, I was just chatting casually," Xu Shulou smiled, "After all, it is you, the Demon Lord, and many, many other people who are carefully maintaining the balance between the two worlds. Who would have the heart to destroy it?"

"..." The Demon Lord snorted coldly, "Go back and tell that old man to stop interfering in my business!"

During the banquet, cups were passed around. A few spider demons, who could not drink much, got a little drunk and began to perform a strange eight-legged dance for everyone.

The Demon Lord covered his face, seeming to feel very ashamed.

Bai Roushuang pulled her senior sister aside to complain: "I think these two parties are quite compatible, how could they have gotten to the point of rebelling against the Demon Palace?"

Xu Shulou looked at the happy demons in front of him, thoughtful.

There was a plot in the dream where Lu Beichen brought back several corpses of demons with the help of Ling Yuechan's information, but this also led to revenge. When the demons launched an attack, Bai Roushuang and Xu Shulou were also implicated and surrounded by him. Everyone in the sect was busy protecting Bai Roushuang, but they forgot that Xu Shulou had long been deprived of his spiritual power, causing her to fall into the hands of the demons. Later, the attacking demons were completely wiped out, and she was rescued. Lu Beichen had already promised to take her in, and for the sake of face, he did not regret it. Only Bai Roushuang mocked her for being a broken woman.

Of course, this is not the point. Xu Shulou recalled again and again at this time that there was not much content about the demons in his dreams. He only knew that under the leadership of the righteous sect headed by Lingxiao Sect, they were defeated step by step and did not cause any major waves.

In reality, Lu Beichen had never met Ling Yuechan. The few times Xu Shulou had heard about him recently, they were all about him being very close to a female cultivator from a certain sect, or a female cultivator being driven away by a lonely girl beside him. It was far from the heroic spirit and thousands of followers in his dream, and such a thing would never happen again.

Perhaps she thought too much about the content of the dream, and what she thought about during the day she dreamed about at night. That night, in the Demon Palace, Xu Shulou fell asleep again.

The first thing that appeared in the dream was Luo Fusheng's stunning face. She was walking in a corridor with a serious face. This was a very beautiful courtyard, full of pear blossoms. The breeze blew and blew down a bunch of white petals, like falling snow, which was very beautiful. But Luo Fusheng didn't pay any attention to this scenery. There was only coldness and determination in her eyes, and she strode into a room.

The room was decorated elegantly and contained many ornaments that were very expensive even for cultivators. Luo Fusheng walked straight to the table, opened the teapot, and took out a porcelain bottle from the storage ring.

Just at this moment, a hand grabbed her wrist.

It was obvious at first glance that this hand belonged to a woman. She had long, slender fingers and perfect bone shape, but there were calluses and scars of varying depths on her fingers, showing that she had suffered a lot.

Luo Fusheng's face suddenly turned pale: "Xu Shulou?"

The woman holding her wrist was Xu Shulou from the dream world. She smiled at Luo Fusheng and asked, "What are you doing?"

"...I just borrowed the tea here to take some medicine." Luo Fusheng panicked and quickly changed the subject, "Why are you in the main room? Didn't you attend the funeral of Elder Fan Yang?"

Xu Shulou lowered his head, seemingly unaware of her panic, and immersed himself in his own sadness: "My husband thinks I am embarrassed and refuses to take me with him."

"Shame? Could there be a more shameful death than Fan Yang?" Luo Fusheng's expression was full of sarcasm, "He even messed up such a simple mission and died at the hands of the lingering demons."

"Yeah, he is really...too careless."

"You..." Luo Fusheng seemed to catch something from her expression.

"Hmm?" Xu Shulou turned his head to look at her, his expression full of confusion.

Luo Fusheng felt that he had seen it wrong, so he shook his head: "Nothing."

She made an excuse and left in a hurry.

Xu Shulou was left standing alone in the main room, the sunlight shining through the window onto her face, making her complexion half bright and half dark.

———

When Xu Shulou in reality woke up in the mushroom house, she felt mixed emotions. She really shouldn't look down on anyone, even if that person was herself in her dream.