Chapter 164: Dan Feng

A choked, nasal cry tore through the air.

March 7th scrambled up from the floor, practically on all fours. His movements were clumsy with desperation as he ignored the tears still streaking down his face and threw his arms wide.

He launched himself into Chen’s embrace, slamming into him with enough force to make Chen stumble. March’s arms locked around his waist like a vise, his tear-stained face burying itself in the fabric of Chen’s chest.

“Waaaah… You—you can see me?!”

“You can hear me?! You can touch me?! Waaaaah—!!!”

All the fear and grievance he had been suppressing for what felt like an eternity erupted in a single, overwhelming torrent. He began to wail, his voice raw and loud.

“They—they all couldn’t see me!”

“They couldn’t hear me! No matter how I shouted, or made a scene, or touched them, it was useless!”

“It was like I was a ghost!”

“Uwah… I thought—I thought I was the only one left… that I could never, ever go back… waaaah…”

He sobbed incoherently, his arms tightening around Chen as if he feared that this person, the only one in the world who could perceive him, might suddenly vanish too.

Chen swayed from the impact, caught off guard by the sudden, heavy embrace and the torrential downpour of tears. He held his hands up, hovering awkwardly for a moment.

Finally, he let them rest gently on March s trembling back, patting him in a steady, rhythmic motion.

“Alright, alright, stop wailing. You’re getting snot and tears all over my clothes…”

His words were habitually dismissive, but his soothing pats never slowed.

“Haven’t I come for you now?”

“What’s all this about ghosts? Have you ever seen a ghost… well, have you ever seen one cry so earth-shatteringly?”

“You—you’re the one who’s devastating!” March 7th retorted through his sobs.

“Yes, yes, I’m devastating,” Chen humored him, letting him vent while held in his arms until he felt the trembling gradually subside.

Only then did he use a little force to gently push March 7th back to arm’s length.

He looked at the boy’s eyes, red and swollen from crying, his long eyelashes still beaded with tears. He truly looked like a beautiful young girl, a thought that never failed to briefly short-circuit Chen’s brain.

Chen sighed, his tone finally turning serious. “Listen, March, we’re currently in a damn illusion created by Phantylia. Those people outside are all fakes, or they’ve been affected by the power of the illusion.”

“Only the two of us are awake, at least for now.”

He raised his hand and used a relatively clean part of his sleeve to roughly wipe the tears from March 7th’s face. The movement wasn’t gentle in the slightest, but it was familiar, and it successfully stemmed the flow of tears.

All that remained were small, hiccuping whimpers as March looked up at him, his watery eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and absolute dependency.

“So, don’t be afraid.”

Chen pulled the familiar, confident smile that March knew so well.

“I’m here.”

“We need to find a way to drag out that fellow who’s using the green fire and give them a good thrashing.”

“Then we’ll smash this crappy illusion and save the real everyone.”

“How about it? Do you have the guts?”

His words were like a beacon, cutting through the heaviest gloom that had settled in March s heart. With a companion by his side and a clear goal ahead, even if the path was unknown, it was infinitely better than the despair of being forgotten by the entire world.

March 7th sniffled hard and wiped away the last of his tears with the back of his hand. Though his eyes and nose were still red, that familiar, brilliant radiance had returned to his gaze. He clenched his small fists and nodded with fierce determination.

“Yeah! I do! Let’s do it together! We’ll beat up that Green Fire Monster!”

“And save Aunt Yang, Dan Heng, and Caelus!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Chen habitually raised his hand to rub March’s hair, but it stopped halfway. He changed the gesture to a firm pat on the shoulder instead.

“Let’s go, Comrade Scout March 7th, first we’ll…”

His words came to an abrupt halt.

The scene before him began to dissolve, vanishing with terrifying speed, like a pencil drawing being aggressively erased.

March 7th’s surprised expression, the warm room, the familiar corridor of the Astral Express… everything crumbled before his eyes. The solid world broke apart into countless scattered specks of light.

“Chen?!”

March 7th only had time to shout his name before his figure, along with his voice, was swallowed by a surging tide of darkness.

“March!”

Chen instinctively reached out, his fingers closing on nothing but cold, empty air.

The next moment, a deep sense of weightlessness seized him, and darkness once again shrouded his vision completely.

When the feeling of solid ground returned beneath his feet and light flooded his eyes again…

Chen found himself standing on a street steeped in ancient charm.

The eaves of the buildings curved gracefully like the wings of a crane, supported by painted railings and stonework that shone like polished jade. In the distance, he could hear the faint clamor of a marketplace and the gentle, melodious drift of music.

‘This is… the Exalting Sanctum of the Xianzhou Luofu?’ he wondered.

The architectural style was very similar, but there were slight differences. It all appeared more… primitive. Or rather, it looked like the Luofu from a specific, bygone era.

“Another scene change? Phantylia’s really keeping busy…” Chen rubbed his temples, feeling a bit dizzy from the jarring, rapid-fire transitions. “And this time… March didn’t come with me?”

It seemed each illusion was triggered independently, or perhaps sequentially. Not everyone was on the same server, so to speak.

‘Let me get my thoughts straight…’Chen leaned against a decorative pillar by the roadside, his mind racing.’Phantylia said she wanted us to suffer in despair.”Despair… that most likely means targeting the thing each person fears most, or is most unwilling to face.”That previous illusion, the school harem dream… was that for me? Doesn’t seem like it. That was too shallow. It felt more like something Phantylia threw together to annoy me or test my reactions.”Then there was the Astral Express illusion where everyone ignored him. That was clearly for March; he’s so afraid of being alone and forgotten by his companions…”So this Luofu scene… who is it for? Ms. Welt? Jing Yuan? Or…’

His gaze swept over the pedestrians passing by on the street. These people seemed a bit more lifelike than the paper-thin characters in the first two illusions.

Just as he was lost in thought…

A familiar figure turned a corner under an archway at the other end of the street, entering Chen’s line of sight.

The person was tall and slender, with ink-black hair tied high in an elegant jade crown, a few stray strands fluttering with an air of cold indifference. The face was exquisitely beautiful, almost extraordinary, with a natural majesty settled between the brows.

Most striking, however, were the pair of translucent, teal-colored dragon horns that grew from either side of her forehead.

It was Dan Heng… but not the Dan Heng Chen knew.

The aura emanating from this person was distant and noble, laced with an unapproachable chill. As she walked down the street, the illusory pedestrians instinctively stepped aside to make way, bowing their heads in a gesture of deep greeting.

Yet she simply looked straight ahead, her expression unmoved, as if she were long accustomed to such universal reverence.

“Dan Heng?”

Chen’s eyes lit up. He immediately pushed off the pillar and started toward her, habitually reaching out a hand to pat his friend on the shoulder.

However, before his hand could even touch the fine brocade of her robe, the other person sidestepped with fluid grace, avoiding his touch as if she had eyes in the back of her head.

At the same time, a female voice, as clear as ice and sharp with displeasure, rang out.

“Who are you? How presumptuous.”

Chen’s hand froze in mid-air. He looked up and met a pair of clear, cold eyes. The shape of the eyes was exactly the same as Dan Heng’s, but the expression within them was entirely, utterly different.

“Dan Heng, it’s me, Chen!” Chen withdrew his hand, looking her over with a growing sense of confusion.

“Dan Heng?”

Hearing the name, the woman’s delicate brows furrowed slightly. Her scrutinizing gaze lingered on Chen’s face for a long moment, as if she were trying to confirm something.

Then, her frown deepened.

“You have the wrong person.”

She spoke each word with deliberate, chilling precision, her clear voice rippling through the air like a stone dropped in a frozen pond.

“My name is Dan Feng.”

[Elysian’s Note: Having a good time with the story? Every single bit helps immensely: