Chapter 121 A Promise Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold (Part 9) "Actually, you already knew, didn't you..."

"Go on."

Linqi sat back down heavily, looking down at the petals falling all over the ground. At this moment, she was like a flower that had bloomed and then withered quickly, and she had returned to the dejected look she had when they first met, uninterested in anything. All the passion that had just surfaced withered and died, as fleeting as an illusion.

"Me and her, her and me, us and this world, are actually the same."

Linqi took a deep breath, clasped her hands together and pressed them against the tip of her nose, her voice sounding somewhat muffled: "A person who likes to wear shirts is wearing a skirt today, a person who hates the smell of perfume is wearing perfume, an instrument that hasn't broken down in over ten years suddenly malfunctions—there are many causes for these little accidents, but in a novel, all accidents are due to one reason—the main storyline is about to begin."

"For readers, such novels have a tight plot and are full of excitement... but for the 'characters' in the novel, all possibilities collapse into one, which is a place more terrifying than hell."

Du Yu followed her gaze downwards. Even though they had only recently fallen, the edges of the pure white petals were already tinged with withered yellow. She was momentarily speechless, her voice flowing steadily as she spoke:

"You can guess the ending just by seeing the beginning, and you can know death just by seeing life. In the unchanging and mundane life, you realize that the unbreakable shackles of fate have long been imposed on you... This world is too hopeless for smart people. Perhaps only people like Tian Tian can be happy."

“Even if she didn’t realize it, or dared not think about what had happened, she was not happy. Tian Yinuo knew nothing, but she was in pain just like you.”

"...I'm sorry, I lost my temper. Please convey my apology. She's right, this is an era where no one is happy."

"Is 'she' the one who's depressed, or is the other one too?"

Linqi clearly had a good relationship with the original owner of the body, so hiding her transmigration was meaningless for her.

“Yes, she is the most special person I have ever met. Over the years, it’s not that no one has realized they are living in a ‘story’, but she was the quickest to separate the ‘non-self’ and find myself.”

As if knowing that Du Yu had many questions, Lin Qi continued to explain: "Let's understand it in the context of novels for now. Every 'character' who appears in a novel has their own mission. Sometimes, driven by their mission, people will do things that are completely against their own conscience—I usually call this state the 'non-self' state."

"As for me—you can simply understand me as the illusion of a group of unwilling people before their collapse, or as the first 'protagonist' in this serial drama."

"The first main character? Then you and Yushi..."

Thinking of the real name that Linqi had never revealed, Du Yu's voice became more hesitant, but Linqi didn't seem to care: "The more solid the plot is, the more frequently the 'non-self' state appears, and the stronger the 'non-self' becomes. As you can see, You Shi is my 'non-self'."

Du Yu briefly understood that if the "serial drama" mentioned by Lin Qi, including "The Real and Fake Heiress," was written by the reader, then "You Shi" was a flawed character created by the reader based on Lin Qi's personality to advance the plot?

"非我" can also be understood as an "OOC" version of myself?

Thinking of this, Du Yu's expression suddenly became strange. Speaking of which, her personality is very different from the original owner's. Could she be considered the original owner's "non-self"?

"No."

As if knowing what Du Yu was thinking, Lin Qi shook his head, denying Du Yu's guess: "Otherwise, I wouldn't be standing here explaining to you, but would have stabbed you."

“‘Non-self’ only emerges after the plot has finished and the main personality has completely collapsed, like a host and a parasite… You and she are different people, just like the great comet Fenglan and the prophetic long-beaked moth. She only saw your arrival through the torrent of ‘fate’ and asked me to come and say hello to you.”

"Why?"

To be honest, this is what confuses Du Yu the most.

It's perfectly normal to find yourself being manipulated and everything around you operating according to a predetermined path, and to decide to resist in a state of shock.

But one day she discovers that she will be replaced by someone else, and even her body will be replaced by a stranger. How can she accept all of this so peacefully, and even keep the most precious things for herself?

"Tian Tian told you about the story of how she raised moths when she was little, right?"

Du Yu nodded. Tian Yinuo had told her that on the day she first entered the spirit world, a sense of sadness welled up in her heart, and she recalled the little story that the original owner had mentioned when she was raising moths as a child.

"In fact, moths and larvae can be seen as two completely different life forms. In order to have wings, the larvae will gradually shed their old skin, and the pupa will emerge from the body. The larvae will dissolve in the pupa they have grown, turning into a lifeless solution. The new life will then consume this solution and become a moth flying in the sky."

"...The young lady asked me a question: Do newly born moths dream of memories of crawling on the ground in the past?"

At the time, Du Yu asked 166, who said that this was her first time entering the spirit world, signifying that she was completely bound to this world, and the remnants of the original owner left in this body had completely vanished. Tian Yinuo had spent so much time with the original owner, so it was normal for her to be sad at this time.

But now that I think about it, when the original owner told Tian Yinuo this story, she had already foreseen that her body would be replaced by another person. Was the moth that emerged from the cocoon the original larva?

Du Yu took a deep breath. Being replaced by a stranger and transformed into an unknown form, she had also experienced pain and sorrow. To be aware of the world's falseness from a young age… Du Yu dared not think further.

“That’s what she thought when she was a child. After all, it’s perfectly normal to feel angry and scared when you become someone else’s stepping stone for no reason. But before the plan was implemented, she told me that her thoughts had changed. If you are worthy of my trust, then I want to leave you a message.”

At this point, Linqi seemed to finally perk up a bit, shifting his gaze from the ground to the empty sky, as if recalling something:

"In the past, I always thought that after emerging from the cocoon, the moth replaced the larva, and a higher life replaced a lower life... But growing wings, flying into the sky, and becoming a moth—this was written into the genes from the very beginning of the larva's birth. The moth part remained dormant in the body until the larva was ready for rebirth, so that we could become one, inseparable."

"So you don't need to feel embarrassed. You are different people, but you are intertwined in fate. You are destined to meet."

Du Yu took a deep breath and laughed: "You think too highly of me. I have my reasons for moving forward. I will not stop because of guilt. If she hates me, I will find an opportunity to apologize to her in person."

Linqi glanced at her in surprise, muttering softly, but Du Yu heard it clearly: "No wonder... you're both just as stubborn."

After finishing speaking the words left by the original owner, Linqi straightened up, kicked the chair behind him into the air, and clapped his hands as if he had completed an important task. "Alright, enough of the small talk. Let me tell you how to get the seed."

"Aren't the seeds with Tian Yinuo?"

Du Yu frowned, and Lin Qi knew what she was thinking. She shook her head with amusement: "It's not what you think... Didn't you already guess? How could someone who suffers from not being free clip someone else's wings?"

Even after being exposed, Du Yu wasn't angry. Although in the clip just now, Tian Yinuo swallowed the silver pearl without hesitation, and he did feel a pure power in Tian Yinuo's body, who can say that the facts, especially the edited facts, are the truth?

Du Yu didn't believe You Shi's words from the beginning. Killing Tian Yinuo would allow them to retrieve the seed. It wasn't like gambling on stones; it couldn't be that simple.

“The seed is indeed with Tiantian, but it’s not the pearl. The pearl is a gift; the real seed is something else.”

"If we forcibly remove the pearl, it means our tiny plan of resistance has completely failed. The seed of [Destiny] will wither and be automatically reclaimed by that being. The person who removes the pearl will be killed by the backlash, and Tian Tian will forget everything and continue to live carefree until the day everything ends."

After saying that, Linqi gave a bitter smile: "To be honest, this was actually more like our plan. Two people who couldn't save the world decided to use their last strength to make their friend happier before the end of the world... But now that I think about it, we underestimated both you and Tiantian. She won't be happy."

Du Yu raised an eyebrow and said that even if Tian Yinuo was the only person she could trust at the time, the original owner of this body would not have put Tian Yinuo in danger.

"Look, the portal is right there."

As Linqi led Du Yu to stand in front of the villa, it was as if she had lifted an exquisite curtain to reveal the messy scene behind the stage. She bent down slightly and "lifted" a corner of the villa, and the space immediately flipped up, revealing a constantly rotating vortex in the lower left corner.

The vortex grew larger and larger, the space trembled, and the void of darkness swallowed everything, leaving only a small, messy garden. Lin Qi stood before a surviving comet-shaped orchid, smiled slightly at Du Yu, bent down to pick up a wilted moth, and gently placed it on the orchid's white petals. Her lips parted, uttering a dreamlike murmur:

"In an age when no one is happy, no one dies peacefully; the living will see the bones of the dead."

"You are me, and I am you. We are different in our paths but the same in our destination. We will eventually become one."

"The pain of not being free entangles me like silk threads. In my dreams, which I yearn for day and night, I long for the moth to break free of its suffocating cocoon, even if the price is the complete annihilation of my personal will."

"No one is happy..."

In a chanting tone, the vortex grew larger and larger, and a clear image was faintly revealed at the center. Tian Yinuo, who should have been working, lowered her head slightly, staring blankly at her hands, lost in thought.

The person who had just faced the unknown without flinching and confidently declared that he would not stop out of guilt was now hesitant.

Du Yu took a deep breath, suppressing his complex emotions, and stepped into the spatial vortex amidst the increasingly distant chanting behind him.

"Who?! Miss?! Didn't you go to the upper district to look for something?"

The sudden appearance of another person in the room startled Tian Yinuo. She turned around and saw that it was the young lady with a different face. She breathed a sigh of relief and was about to go closer when she was fixed in the distance by the young lady's complicated gaze.

"Miss? What's wrong? Is something not going well? I can help you..."

For some reason, even though Du Yu hadn't said anything harsh, Tian Yinuo panicked as if something terrifying was about to happen. She reached out to touch Du Yu's hand, stammering anxiously.

The spatial vortex closed, and everything within the spacetime rift seemed like a dream. Only the fragrance of the orchid lingered at the tip of her nose. Du Yu took a step back, subtly avoiding Tian Yinuo's touch, and looked directly at her:

"You already knew, didn't you? I'm not your mistress."