Chapter Text
Shen Yuan annoyedly waits for the loading bar in his phone screen to load.
It has been at least fifty minutes since this damned game has started downloading; while the hospital’s Wi-fi isn’t exactly the best one around, it surely isn’t bad enough to leave Shen Yuan waiting for so long for a stupid mobile dating sim to download! How the hell can a single game have more than 50gb of downloadable content after just being launched?!
That 50gb occupating my phone storage better have some hidden lore not addressed in the novel, Shen Yuan thinks as the progress bar slowly reaches the end. 98%, half of that probably being dedicated to cringy suggestive dialogue, if the game is a true part of the PIDW universe. Knowing Airplane’s cashgrabby tendencies, Shen Yuan can’t help but let out a sigh at the thought of his impending disappointment.
Suddenly, the promotional art of Luo Binghe fighting monsters during his time in the Endless Abyss changes to a quick animation of bamboo leaves floating around with mountains standing behind them, alongside a calm and melodic traditional song. The download bar is gone, with Shen Yuan finally being able to see the game’s menu.
In big, bold traditional lettering, Proud Immortal Demon Romance is finally in Shen Yuan’s hands.
In true, authentic Proud Immortal Demon Way style, Airplane/the game’s creative directors did not put an ounce of imagination into naming — truthfully, Shen Yuan didn’t expect any more from them, but he surely expected way less, so he will take the win. It was already surprising that Airplane authorized the creation of not just a PIDW game, but a PIDW Otome game instead of a trashy gacha battle royale style game with sexualized woman everywhere dressed in scraps one could barely call clothes.
Of course, not straying from Airplane’s cashgrab lifestyle, the game has microtransactions — which Shen Yuan is shamefully prepared for, his credit card perfectly ready inside his virtual wallet. Well, it’s not like Shen Yuan has anything else to spend his parents hard-earned money, at least besides the mountain of hospital bills that are about to flood his house once he is cleared to go back home.
It is a tad uncomfortable to play with a cannula stuck on his right arm, but Shen Yuan has long been used by the feeling of his veins about to burst whenever he moves the arm too fast or with too much strength. If something kills him, it surely won’t be bursting one little vein open.
Quickly logging into the game, Shen Yuan presses the ‘start game’ button with anticipation creeping through his body.
He has a reason to be excited about the game’s launch! First, the focus would not be on romancing Luo Binghe’s huge harem of mostly forgettable maidens, but instead it focuses on romancing both Luo Binghe and his most memorable generals and the last generation of Cang Qiong Peak Lords!
Shen Yuan was pleasantly surprised when it was announced. Some fans got angry at the fact the game would be of the ‘dating simulation’ genre, mostly the ones who read PIDW for the papapapa scenes. Now, the true fans were ecstatic to hear it — many of the Peak Lords had huge fandoms of their own, even if overshadowed by Luo Binghe, Mobei-Jun and the harem’s popularity.
Shen Yuan is absolutely going to romance Liu Qingge the moment he starts the Cang Qiong route. Not that he’s gay or anything, of course not! It’s just that the amount of lore that not only Liu Qingge’s route but all the Cang Qiong Peak Lords could provide — it is all Shen Yuan ever wanted from a hack author like Airplane. It would explain so much about the novel that never got its spotlight, that fans like Shen Yuan could only spend hours upon hours exploring PIDW forums to discuss their theories.
That is, if this game actually bothers to include some lore in it.
Shen Yuan wants to believe it will, he really does. Airplane isn’t a terrible author per se, he’s just an absolute sellout that will write anything for money, even borderline monsterfucking if that’s what got the most votes in his last poll. Shen Yuan remembers that one time he spent a whole night rigging votes with bots just so the option ‘Threesome with the Catkin Twins’ wouldn’t win, because he felt like that would have literally nothing to do with the current plot. Thankfully, his plan worked, and Shen Yuan only had to skim over a boring Sha Hualing focused chapter with a little too many feet scenes appearing on it.
Even if the game has some… suggestive content in it, Shen Yuan is pretty sure no one will enter his room for the next few hours. A nurse had just given him his nighttime medicine and changed his IV fluids, besides checking his signals just to make sure everything is ok — which it is. His kidneys already healed a lot, and they don’t even hurt that much anymore! Soon enough, he should be good to go home.
As the game finishes launching, Shen Yuan is greeted with two options — Tales of Cang Qiong Mountain and Legends of the Endless Abyss. Shen Yuan wants to play both routes, of course, but he cannot deny he is a little more curious about the first. The Abyss route is pretty self-explanatory; you start in the Endless Abyss and eventually find your way to the Demon Realm, where many characters will be available for courting.
In Cang Qiong’s route, however, you start as a new disciple to the famous sect — alongside the disciples that would eventually become the last Peak Lords of Cang Qiong Sect. Luo Binghe isn’t even born yet, and some leaks said there would even be a battle between the sects and Luo Binghe’s Heavenly Demon father who got sealed. How can Shen Yuan not be excited to play it?!
The amount of lore that could appear…! New monsters, new villains, new locations to explore — and with the absolutely overpowered abilities some of the peak lords have, it should be as epic as Luo Binghe’s struggles in the Endless Abyss! Tapping the Cang Qiong story mode as frantically as he can, Shen Yuan anxiously watches as the screen fades into black.
A pop-up suddenly appears, making Shen Yuan frown.
Does user wish to activate ‘write your dialogue’ mode? Pre-made dialogue can be chosen at any time by clicking the ‘…’ icon during a dialogue.
Disclaimer: pre-made cutscenes do not include ‘write your dialogue’ mode. Feature still in testing, so bugs may be experienced.
A demonstration of the game with and without the option being activated is displayed under the pop up. Shen Yuan ponders for a moment, deciding to activate the option. He didn’t really expect Airplane to have invested that much money into the game, to the point you can decide your answers yourself and (hopefully) the characters will answer accordingly.
Pressing the ‘yes’ button, Shen Yuan watches as the pop up closes and a cutscene starts playing.
The camera flies from the sky to a burning village, screams being cut by the growling of beasts and the wailing of people. Shen Yuan doesn’t doubt this is where the main character lives, since every self-respecting MC must have a tragic background — what’s more tragic than seeing your whole family and village being devoured by demonic beasts?
As predicted, the camera quickly zooms into first person view, a middle-aged woman lying on the dirty wooden floor, covered by ashes and blood. The woman looks towards the camera with teary eyes, reaching her hand towards the MC.
“You… must survive,” the woman weakly says, coughing as she speaks. Her hand moves above the main character’s own hand, placing a small, wood-carved pendant on it. “Leave before it’s too late…”
Shen Yuan sighs at the cliché background, complete with the MC’s own version of Luo Binghe’s jade pendant. To the game’s only defense so far, the graphics are pretty cool, especially since it is a mobile game yet somehow the 3D models all look realistic and the physics seem to be decent as well. Airplane’s money-grabbing operations worked out in the end, if that author could fund such graphics.
“Mama,” the MC says, voice chocked up with upcoming sobs. “You must stay awake- help will come soon, surely!”
Protagonist, your mother was fated to die the moment Airplane started pitching the game’s story to executives, Shen Yuan sighs in his mind. As expected, the MC’s mother smiles one final time before closing her eyes forever, leaving the MC sobbing at their late mother’s side. Not for long, however, because Shen Yuan barely has the time to blink before a sudden loud noise echoes through his earbuds.
A wolf-like beast appears out of nowhere, jumping towards the MC as a time-sensitive event shows on the screen, causing Shen Yuan to immediately tap it. The MC dodges the beast, rolling to the side opposite of their mother’s body. Another time-sensitive event appears, with even less time given for Shen Yuan to choose an option as he is presented with three.
- Grab a wood plank
- Attempt to kick the beast
- Throw a glass bottle
In a panic, Shen Yuan chooses the second option, which turns out to be a very terrible choice. His meager 5 health points are immediately down to 2 as the wolf bites on the protagonist’s leg. Shen Yuan grunts in annoyance as he is once again given the choices, minus the one he had chosen before. Perhaps throwing a glass bottle could work?
Thankfully, the glass bottle hits right on the beast’s head and it slumps to the ground unconscious. Shen Yuan is conflicted if he should be happy that the game at least requires a few functioning braincells to play, or if he should be pissed off the kick he chose also hit the beast’s head but didn’t knock it unconscious for who knows what reason.
Looking around, you see an abandoned bag. When you check the inside, you find 5 low-grade tonics and 3 bandages. Placing them inside your bag, you tearfully look back towards your mother before turning away and running.
Shen Yuan immediately opens the MC’s inventory and looks at the new finds. The low-grade tonics restore 5 health points per use, and the bandages only restore 2. Shen Yuan decides to use two of the bandages instead of a tonic, since he’s pretty sure that’s supposed to be his healing materials for not only the prologue, but also the first chapter. Why would the game give him so many, then?
At least now the character can’t get one shotted, Shen Yuan thinks as he clicks twice on the bandages. Leaving the inventory and going back to the prologue, Shen Yuan watches the camera bounce as the character runs and jumps through charred wood and burnt corpses. Then, another time-limited event, because apparently that’s gonna be the main battle mode until Shen Yuan gets a weapon.
- Fling your bag on the beast’s face
- Grab a fallen piece of wood plank
- Dodge and run
Weary of his last option to beat a wolf with only his leg, Shen Yuan immediately chooses to pick the fallen piece of wood plank. Dodge and run could perhaps work, but it sounds like it might fail as well — after all, isn’t this supposed to be a very fast and strong beast?
You pick a piece of wood plank on the ground and aim for the beast’s head. Upon impact, you notice the wood plank had been damaged in the fire, as it quickly breaks apart and only makes the beast angrier. -2 health points.
- Fling your bag on the beast’s face
- Dodge and run
Fuck it, Shen Yuan is gonna just choose the dodge and run option and be done with it. What gave Airplane the right to make such an annoying game?! How was Shen Yuan supposed to know the plank was damaged? It’s utter crap, just as PIDW’s nonsensical plots have always been. Of course, that won’t stop Shen Yuan from playing. Out of a need to hate, of course.
At least running works out in his favor. Before any next encounters with more beasts, Shen Yuan opens the inventory once again to use the last bandages. He doesn’t suck at the game, the game is simply unreasonable with its choices! Is Shen Yuan really supposed to follow a guide to know what answer is the correct one? Out of sheer pettiness, Shen Yuan refuses to open Weibo to look for a guide.
As expected, the beast does catch up with the poor protagonist. However, no time-limited events appear, so Shen Yuan knows this must mean someone else will kill the beast because the protagonist won’t die horribly, which means…!
As you struggle against the beast, you hear a fast-approaching noise. A sword flies into the beast’s side, the creature howling in pain as it falls to the side, its blood splattered through your clothes. Bewildered, you look up to meet the gaze of your savior.
Shen Yuan gasps at the new appearance. Airplane really put money into graphics, especially for the male leads…! What else would explain the most beautiful face Shen Yuan had ever seen in a video game staring right back at him, blood splattered just at the right place at the person’s jaw, just enough that he looks sort of sexy. Black hair cascades from his ponytail, with a part of his bangs falling to the side as well, his hair just as high-quality as the drop of sweat slowly falling down his perfect face.
It is very sexy, as expected of an otome game. Not that Shen Yuan thinks that, of course, he’s just analyzing what the game is trying to do.
He looks at you with an indiscernible expression for a second before turning his head to the left, quickly calling back his sword and charging towards another beast. You stay bewildered, looking at the massacre caused by the demonic beasts who ravaged your village with wide, shocked eyes.
The fight choreographer also worked overtime, for Shen Yuan’s delight. Truthfully, one of the most interesting aspects of PIDW is the combat, especially the way Luo Binghe would plan his victory and the way he managed to overcome any obstacle with logic instead of brute strength.
Other characters join in the fight, the beasts not standing a chance against the five disciples charging against them. Shen Yuan assumes the only girl must be the Xian Shu Peak Lord, who fiercely strikes her sword as lilac ribbons fly alongside her hair. He doesn’t need any clues besides the blue-greenish disciple robes worn by one of the boys to know it must be Shen Qingqiu — who, surprisingly, fights just as well as the others.
There was some commotion in the fandom as it was announced that Shen Qingqiu was one of the characters available to romance. Shen Yuan was baffled by the decision at first; Shen Qingqiu is, quite literally, a piece of trash and an abuser who killed Qiu Haitang’s family mercilessly. However, the Qing Jing Peak Lord’s character always felt awfully rushed, as if Airplane did once have a deeper story meant for him yet chose to go with the easier 0 IQ villain.
Still, Shen Yuan doesn’t feel like trying out Shen Qingqiu’s route, at least for now. Airplane is going to have to work overtime to find a way to give an explanation to Shen Qingqiu’s actions in a way that doesn’t make him into a disgusting lecher and a cruel murderer.
There’s another two disciples fighting, one using a shining dao and another using a sword that is clearly not his spiritual sword — just based off the fact it has zero decorations and is clearly not a special sword in any way. That must be Yue Qingyuan, Shen Yuan excitedly thinks. As expected of the sect leader that had to be sniped off-screen due to his OP abilities that would give Luo Binghe too much trouble, Yue Qingyuan slashes through countless beasts without breaking a sweat; and all while using a normal sword!
The camera moves to the side as the MC turns their head, another disciple approaching their position — from the head garment, Shen Yuan thinks this must be Mu Qingfang.
“Are you injured?” the disciple asks, hands upon a small bag strapped to his waist. You nod, feeling the wounds from the beast’s attack with each move you take. The disciple opens his bag but immediately looks up, and before you can understand what is happening, a needle flies through the air and hits an approaching beast with perfect accuracy, making the beast fall unconscious to the ground.
Why did this sort of thing never appear in PIDW?! Shen Yuan internally screams, already imagining the countless fight techniques never used during the novel that could be as cool as Mu Qingfang’s aimbot needle. Did Airplane finally decide to become a decent author?
“Mu-shidi seems to have dealt with the last beast,” one of the disciples says, his eyes lingering on you with surprise. “I thought there were no survivors-”
“Wei-shidi should consider thinking before speaking,” another disciple sneers, looking down at his bloodied robes and sword with disgust before turning away to inspect the dead beasts.
You look around the village, finding only the remnants of the place you grew up at. Ashes scattered throughout the ground fly with the wind, and tears start forming in your eyes as you grip the wooden pendant in your pocket with grief.
Shen Yuan gives it two chapters before the MC’s grief is completely gone. At least he has found out who the unknown disciple is — Wei Qingwei, from Wan Jian Peak.
“Don’t mind them,” disciple Mu says, reaching out a small cylindrical flask towards you. You reach for it, your fingers brushing against the disciple’s own for a split second, which causes him to widen his eyes in surprise. Startled, the disciple retracts his hand and looks to another disciple standing nearby watching. “Yue-shixiong has recently learned how to identify someone’s potential, correct?”
“Yes, that is correct,” disciple Yue says, furrowing his brows for a moment before turning towards you with a polite smile. “Would you mind reaching your wrist for a moment? It seems like my shidi has felt something different in you.”
Unsure of what they mean by ‘different’, you nod your head in confusion. Reaching your wrist towards the disciple, you watch as he sits next to you and places two of his fingers on top of your wrist.
Truthfully, Airplane went all-in for the clichés, if somehow touching the MC immediately makes a cultivator notice their potential. It seems like the protagonist is indeed a Mary-Sue, parents dying in a tragedy and a hidden potential being found just as their life takes a turn for the worst — and of course, they are just about to get into the Human Realm’s most prestigious sect.
Gasping lightly for a second, disciple Yue looks up to your eyes with anticipation. “Your spiritual veins hold unforeseen potential. Even starting later than most, you could easily become a great cultivator,” he says, causing you to widen your eyes in surprise. “There is no doubt you can easily join a sect. We are disciples from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect; would you like to go back with us and see if a Peak Lord might want to take you as a disciple?”
“Really…?” you ask, shocked by the statement. You are but a normal person from a small village, how could you hold so much potential? Disciple Yue nods and smiles, reaching his hand.
You make a decision. Looking around your destroyed village one last time, you look up towards disciple Yue and speak. “Yes, I will go to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.”
Shen Yuan wants to bash his head against the bedside table right next to him, but wisely refrains from doing it. As he expected, MC is the most powerful and incredible person to ever grace the earth. It didn’t even take them two chapters to get over the grief of seeing their whole village being massacred in front of them; they are immediately ready to make life-altering decisions with zero hesitation instead of breaking down mentally because they, quite literally, just saw their whole village being massacred and mauled by beasts.
Any compliments given to Airplane are immediately confiscated for further revision. The fact the male lead models look so good is solely due to the hard work of the artists involved. Airplane, as always, did nothing useful for humanity once again.
“Ah, forgive this one, but I forgot to ask it before,” disciple Yue says upon holding your hand and helping you stand. “What is your name?”
“My name is…”
A box pops up on the screen, prompting Shen Yuan to write a name and a surname. After a few seconds of pondering if he should make up a stupid name and go with it, he finds that his mind can’t come up with anything to his liking. Shen Yuan wonders if it would be too cringy to put his own name; it’s just a game, no one would know he just put his own name in a dating sim that has guys as love interests, right?
In the end, Shen Yuan writes his own name as his face burns with embarrassment. It’s just a game, and he’s not gay, so it’s ok!
As he clicks the ‘accept’ option, the screen then shows a list of skills.
Choose skills to apply points. Choice will not affect the player’s Peak.
- Health: lvl 0
- Speed: lvl 0
- Intelligence: lvl 0
- Strength: lvl 0
- Awareness: lvl 0
- Dexterity: lvl 0
- Charm: lvl 0
- Beauty: lvl 0
- Luck: lvl 0
Remaining points: 21
Shen Yuan stares baffled at the last options. What the hell is ‘charm’ and ‘beauty’ supposed to do?! Only in Airplane’s game would someone find such options, even worse is that they might actually be OP abilities considering this is inside PIDW. It doesn’t take longer than a few seconds for Shen Yuan to immediately start spamming the buttons in those abilities, maxing out the ‘beauty’ stat and giving himself 8 ‘charm’ points.
The remaining three points could be used on anything, truthfully. Shen Yuan settles on using one in ‘luck’ and the other two in ‘speed’, since it might be useful for dodging or something like that. Without a second thought, Shen Yuan clicks the ‘accept’ button once more and watches as the screen fades to dark and the prologue is complete.
Immediately clicking to continue to the first chapter, Shen Yuan watches as a cutscene starts playing, like an anime opening with the love interest’s names in it. Surprisingly, not every peak lord is available for romancing — in fact, only the peak lords that had a little more screen time in the novel are present. Shen Yuan is not sure who exactly wanted a Shang Qinghua dating sim, but he guesses there must be a small but rich part of the fandom that likes the An Ding Peak Lord.
In total, there are five options: Yue Qingyuan, Shen Qingqiu, Shang Qinghua, Liu Qingge and Mu Qingfang.
Shen Yuan has no clue why poor Wei Qingwei was left out, and he assumes it was the lack of demand or Airplane didn’t feel like writing an extra backstory. At least you could be accepted into most peaks, with the exclusion of Ku Xing Peak.
Unfortunately, Shen Yuan should have minded more about his choices during the prologue — apparently it defined the peak in which he would have to be a disciple of. It seems like having bad luck and having to use multiple medicines to heal your character must mean they are a perfect fit for Qian Cao, because… They know how to apply bandages? Shen Yuan is still not sure of the logic behind the choice, but whatever.
The first chapter turned out to be more boring than anything. It’s just a guide for how the game works and how to gain skills, which consist of going to class and doing actions that improve said skill. The game works on a task system, and of course is filled with microtransactions for when you run out of stamina but you absolutely need to gather more materials and have no patience to wait until tomorrow, which is Shen Yuan’s case.
That 720 yuan charge on Shen Yuan’s credit card is a shameful reminder of that. Even worse, as soon as the shop was available, Shen Yuan spared no time spending that money so he could rid himself of any grinding inconveniences.
Shen Yuan only managed to get a single extra dexterity point from three days of class that he could be using to flirt with the male leads; apparently, you need intelligence to improve quicker. Why did Airplane decide to be meticulous with that out of everything?!
There’s barely any interaction with any of the romantic options during the first chapter. Shen Yuan’s character had a brief meeting with Mu Qingfang that lasted two lines of dialogue and that was it; at least he hadn’t run into Shen Qingqiu. Running into others was sort of complicated as well, since Shen Yuan had to grind a lot to increase his dexterity — which is very needed for Qian Cao, apparently — so his character doesn’t get negatives points for their shit skills.
So, when the second chapter starts, Shen Yuan is begging the game for something more. Thankfully, the chapter is focused on a small mission near Cang Qiong, and no strength skills are needed since Shen Yuan’s character is from Qian Cao and is simply accompanying some Bai Zhan disciples and providing minor healing for them if anything goes awry.
In fact, most of the chapter is in the visual novel format, so it is more of a big cutscene rather than actually playing. Shen Yuan is more interested in watching the beasts rather than paying attention to the NPCs who don’t seem to have any useful information or lore to tell him.
It is late and Shen Yuan knows he should go to sleep soon, but he holds on until he can finish the chapter. By the time the character arrives in the location, Shen Yuan is half-reading the sentences, simply clicking so the game goes by faster.
You watch from afar as the Bai Zhan disciples fiercely fight against the Blood-eyed Owls, always on standby if anything goes awry. However, before you can realize, a disciple shouts at you, eyes widened as he looks at your location. “Move!”
A jumpscare worthy of being in a horror film appears, two scarily red eyes popping out of nowhere as the character turns their head. Shen Yuan lets out a startled curse, his heart rate going up immediately as he places a hand on his heart. The chapter ends there, the screen fading out as Shen Yuan curses once again and turns off the phone.
Airplane is a devil, he’s sure. Who would expect a jumpscare in a goddamn PIDW game?! Shen Yuan surely didn’t. In fact, he was so unprepared for it that his head has started pounding because of the stress it brought him — because his night wasn’t bad enough already.
Stupid fucking game, Shen Yuan curses in his head. It can’t just be a game made to wear you out with its never-stopping grind so you are more susceptible to buying the useless currency sold by it, it now wants to kill its customers too!
The pressure in his head increases with each second, to the point where Shen Yuan is pondering if he has a really bad migraine. He usually doesn’t get those, but perhaps Airplane knew exactly what to do to stress him out — including the fact he barely interacted with any of the characters he wanted three chapters into the damn game. How is Shen Yuan supposed to find out any lore about PIDW when he can’t find the damn characters!
It’s too late into the night for Shen Yuan to call for a nurse, and he’s too thin faced to do that anyways; he sort of did it to himself, after all, so no one else needs to know he stayed up well into 3AM playing a shitty otome game. Shen Yuan can just sleep it off as he usually does whenever he’s in pain!
As Shen Yuan lays in bed with a pounding headache, his conscience slowly drifts away as the patient monitor’s noise fades.
Opening his eyes slowly, Shen Yuan feels as if he just got run over by a truck and then got run over by a train as an extra treat.
Honestly, pinpointing what hurts is very difficult — it is as if his whole body is twisting from the inside, sporadic bursts of pain making his muscles contract in agony. What the hell even happened to cause this…? Shen Yuan ponders, fully opening his eyes and finding… a wooden ceiling, somehow.
The hospital has no rooms with wooden ceilings, he’s pretty sure of that. Not even his house has one, at least his apartment; Shen Yuan thinks his parent’s resting house outside the city has one, but he’s not sure. In any case, he has no reason to be there, especially not when he’s clearly having something.
This pain isn’t something Shen Yuan has experienced before. Pain is something that varies wildly depending on its place and intensity, and this surely doesn’t feel like that one time his joints decided to rebel against his body, neither does it feel like the countless times he’s had high fevers that just wouldn’t go away. This, however, just feels like he’s dying and being brought back to his misery whenever the pain dissipates for a few seconds.
“…shidi? Can you hear me?” someone says, causing Shen Yuan to groan in pain and close his eyes as the noise just makes things worse. This does not deter the person from speaking again, this time being heard more clearly by Shen Yuan. “Shen-shidi, please hang on. Shizun is already fetching the antidote for you…”
“What?” Shen Yuan mutters, wondering if he heard that wrong. Maybe he played too much yesterday and now he’s hearing things, great.
“Shizun will be here soon,” the person replies, a worried sigh coming out. “I knew Shen-shidi shouldn’t have gone to a mission so soon into training… Those Bai Zhan disciples were too careless, letting Shen-shidi be so close to the beasts…”
Shen Yuan’s brain activates at the mention of Bai Zhan, his eyes immediately opening as he shoots his body upright in shock, almost bumping into the person’s head if not for them dodging. The room in front of him is absolutely not in the hospital — unless they have a traditional ward and didn’t tell him.
However, that wouldn’t explain what the hell a person looking the exact same as Mu Qingfang’s 3D model in PIDW’s game is doing sitting next to his bed, staring wide-eyed at him as if Shen Yuan has just gone crazy. Perhaps he has, as he is clearly hallucinating. Is this the afterlife? And if so, is the afterlife really just PIDW?
“Where am I?!” Shen Yuan frantically asks, earnestly hoping this is either a very vivid dream or just a hallucination.
“Shidi is in Qian Cao, recuperating after being bitten by a Blood-eyed Owl,” the Mu Qingfang-lookalike’s shock at the sudden movement is quickly gone as reaches his hands towards Shen Yuan’s shoulders with a careful grip. “Shen-shidi, I understand you’re confused, but please do not move so harshly, there’s still venom in your body-!”
Shen Yuan doesn’t get to hear the rest of whatever Mu Qingfang’s lookalike has to say before fainting back into unconsciousness.