LWDC Chapter 156

One Hundred and Fifty-Sixth Chapter – If It’s a Choice Between Two

One Hundred and Fifty-Sixth Chapter – If It’s a Choice Between Two

One Hundred and Fifty-Sixth Chapter – If It’s a Choice Between Two

In the era without electricity, there wasn’t much to see in the night view.

Even if the moonlight was bright enough and the starry sky was nice, it was just that after seeing it too many times. Moreover, under the night sky, there were very few bright places on the ground, most of it was pitch black, like a terrifying mouth devouring everything in the human world.

Ning Fei and Duan Yunhong were sitting on the narrow rooftop ridge, their feet on the sloping tiles, drinking wine in the night wind. Because the wind was too strong, the wine glass that Duan Yunhong casually placed on the ridge was blown over. Not only did the wine spill, but the glass also rolled down the slope. Fortunately, after Ning Fei paused for a moment, he immediately raised his hand and waved it, and the wind wrapped around the glass, sending it back into his hand.

“Damn it, I almost let it roll down.” Ning Fei was amused by this sudden interlude, and handed the empty glass to Duan Yunhong, “If you don’t have a glass to drink from, then your pretense will fail.”

Duan Yunhong casually said, “Anyway, no one else is watching you pretend, and I don’t mind sharing a glass with you.”

Ning Fei glanced at him.

Then he raised the glass and threw it out.

Rolling, rolling, rolling, this time the two watched as the glass rolled off the roof. The next second, a “smash” of glass breaking came from far below. Luckily, it was the middle of the night, otherwise it might have attracted the attention of the servants.

Duan Yunhong: “…”

Ning Fei raised his own glass, deliberately took several large gulps, and then handed the almost empty glass to Duan Yunhong.

“What, you still think I’m a clean freak?” Duan Yunhong raised his eyebrows slightly, took the glass, and drank it all in one gulp – it was just a sip anyway.

“You are a clean freak.” Ning Fei propped himself up on one leg, extended the index finger of his hand propped on his knee, and poked Duan Yunhong, “You just have a filter for me. Wait until the filter disappears, then see if you’ll dislike me.”

Duan Yunhong was a little surprised: “You want to talk about the ‘filter’ thing?”

Ning Fei had always disliked this topic and adopted an avoidance strategy. Now he actually brought it up, Duan Yunhong was a little slow to react.

“No.” Sure enough, Ning Fei refused decisively. But he changed the subject: “However, you’ve looked like you have something to say since just now, speak.”

“…Are you sure?”

“Sure.”

Duan Yunhong didn’t believe that Ning Fei hadn’t guessed what he wanted to say at all. So, he wanted himself to say it, was he trying to face this matter?

Duan Yunhong pondered in his heart, but his face didn’t show any hesitation, and he immediately asked: “What do you feel about the death of Duke Bartley?”

“…No feelings.” Ning Fei paused and added, “I’m not being perfunctory. I originally thought that I should have some kind of reaction, but in fact, I don’t have any clear ideas yet. I don’t understand whether I haven’t reacted yet, don’t have a real feeling, or really don’t care.”

Duan Yunhong was about to say “Then you probably really don’t care,” but Ning Fei pointed to his chest again: “But here, it always feels empty.”

Duan Yunhong’s gaze followed his fingertips over and back again.

“So I think I should still have some ideas.” Ning Fei took the glass back from his hand and poured half a glass again, “It’s good too, I thought I was already numb, but it turns out I’m not completely numb.”

Duan Yunhong thought, he should be using my question to sort out his emotions.

If he could figure out his feelings for Bartley, would he be able to… take the first step?

So Duan Yunhong simply and decisively asked: “Do you hate him?”

“…What a superficial question.” Ning Fei raised his eyebrows slightly and mocked, “I thought a cultured person like you wouldn’t be so superficial.”

“It doesn’t hurt to be superficial sometimes.” Duan Yunhong said, “I don’t think you can answer a long speech now, so let’s keep it simple, ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

“If I can only choose one of the two, then I choose ‘no’. When I was still in that world before, I might have chosen ‘yes’, but now it’s ‘no’.” Ning Fei took two more sips, “Do you believe it?”

“I believe it.” Duan Yunhong felt that this answer was expected, “With your ability, if you had always hated him, you should have come back and killed him long ago.”

“What you said is exactly what I’ve always thought. Or, what I thought was my ‘idea’.” Ning Fei lowered his eyes and smiled, “But now that I think about it, I suddenly can’t figure out whether this is my true thought, or whether I want to be that kind of person – a person who doesn’t take this kind of past seriously, can laugh at everything, and therefore won’t hate.”

“Especially since I and him are no longer on the same level. He’s just a small NPC in a small world, and he doesn’t recognize me at all. It sounds a bit ridiculous for me to argue with him, doesn’t it?”

Duan Yunhong looked into his eyes: “Do you have to think so complicatedly about whether you hate or not? What, does your Administration Bureau require you to maintain a pretense persona? Or are you not allowed to have your own emotions?”

“It’s my own bad habit.” Ning Fei finished the wine in his glass again and mocked himself, “Look at what kind of person Miyaer was raised to be. Isn’t it normal for me to like pretending?”

Duan Yunhong said: “You’re used to using this trick to protect yourself.”

Well, there should also be some of the stinky temper he learned from Yu Zhou, but Duan Yunhong wisely didn’t mention this.

“Protect? Maybe.” Ning Fei asked back, “Then have you ever hated anyone? I’ll use it as a reference.”

“Can you even use that as a reference?”

“You look so arrogant that no one is worthy of your hatred.” Ning Fei replied, “If you have hated someone too, I might be able to feel a little more balanced.”

“I have hated.” Duan Yunhong replied simply, “Killed.”

Ning Fei blinked slowly: “Oh, it’s you, you usually chase after and take revenge immediately when you have a feud.”

After all, Ning Fei himself had experienced it firsthand.

“It wasn’t really like that back then.” Duan Yunhong replied, “Someone said that if I killed him too quickly, I wouldn’t have any motivation. I thought so too, so I left him for a while.”

Ning Fei gave him a thumbs up.

After thinking about it, he simply poured more wine and handed the glass over.

Duan Yunhong took the glass: “How is it? Did it give you any inspiration?”

“No inspiration, my comprehension is low, I’m wasting Teacher Duan’s guidance.” Ning Fei propped his chin up and looked at the starry sky, “The duke was so perverted before, using whips, daggers, shards of vases that I accidentally broke… I did once think painfully about stabbing him, or stabbing the Pope, and just dying together. But then again, wasn’t the duke myself who ‘chose’ him? If I hate him, I’m actually hating myself. I don’t want to hate myself.”

Duan Yunhong secretly breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the last sentence.

He was worried that Ning Fei’s self-loathing emotions would soar after returning here. Now it seems that at least Ning Fei doesn’t want to let himself indulge in it, that’s good.

As long as Ning Fei doesn’t want to get trapped subjectively, Duan Yunhong will definitely find a way to pull him out.

“It wasn’t you who ‘chose’ him, it was the church that threw you into a pile of demons and monsters. You just had to cling to one, otherwise you would be ‘drowned’ and eaten clean.” Duan Yunhong finished the red wine in his glass and corrected, “Actually, it’s not just the church, it’s this country, this world has completely decayed. If I were in your position, I might find a chance to set the palace and the church on fire.”

Ning Fei actually smiled, turned his head to look at him: “Oh, that sounds kind of cool.”

Duan Yunhong said: “You can do it now.”

“No. Let it fall, fall, and fall again-” Ning Fei’s tone was sarcastic, he raised his hand, feeling the night wind passing through his fingers, “Why should I burn it all down directly? Ending it too abruptly is also a kind of pleasure, why?”

He finally revealed a corner of his emotions.

“Then do you think I gave Bartley a quick death, was that too easy on him?” Duan Yunhong took the opportunity to ask, “And it was me who chose him and killed him, will this give you a special feeling?”

“What ‘special feeling’?” Ning Fei blinked lightly, “If his death is going to deduct luck, the biggest deduction is also on you, right?”

“You know that’s not what I’m asking.” Duan Yunhong used the action of placing the glass on the ridge to prop himself up and lean towards Ning Fei, “I thought I was at least a little special in your heart.”

Ning Fei: “…”

Duan Yunhong: “I was the one who killed the first person you chose, the first person who hurt you, are you happy or not?”

“…Another choice between two?” Ning Fei looked into his eyes, “But I really didn’t feel happy or unhappy.”

“Are you sure?” Duan Yunhong said, “I said I wanted to write about Duke Bartley, you didn’t object. His name was erased, but I still insisted on killing him, which violated the rules you set before, and you didn’t object. My first two arrows were just scaring him, if it weren’t for your wind magic, the third arrow might have only killed a Seris. In any link, as long as you didn’t want me to kill him, you would definitely have spoken up. Especially on the matter of me violating your ‘rules of the game’, you didn’t even give a half-joking reminder. This shows that you were actually expecting to see my actions in your heart, but you didn’t even realize it yourself.”

“Is it possible that you’re thinking too much?” Ning Fei scoffed, “Don’t think you understand me, I don’t even understand myself. Maybe I’m just pretending, so after I agreed to you ‘doing whatever you want’, I insisted on not changing this decision?”

“Then I’ll go kill another one of your ‘exes’.”

“…Huh?”

Duan Yunhong poured the last of the wine from the bottle into the glass and handed it to Ning Fei: “Anyway, you said that you have more than one ex in this world. Then let’s make a list and I’ll go kill them. If I kill too many, there will always be a time when you can distinguish between happy and unhappy. Maybe, one day when you think about it, you’ll feel pretty good.”

Ning Fei didn’t take the glass, just raised his eyebrows: “What you want is the ‘ex list’, not the ‘enemy list’, who is going to be happy, me or you?”

“You know why I only want the ‘ex list’, if you want, you can also write me the ‘enemy list’. It is the duty of a follower to share your worries.” Duan Yunhong still held up the glass, “Maybe you don’t feel empty in your heart, but a piece of old illness has been cut away. I have experience, sometimes when I think about it, it will feel like a stone has fallen to the ground in my heart, and I think ‘at least this thing that once troubled me, is settled’.”

“You think I can’t break away from the relationship with this mud?” Ning Fei still didn’t raise his hand, just met his eyes, “…I can’t even refute you. After all, this place that can’t make me feel any joy, I would actually come back to see and experience during my vacation, I’m really rushing to find abuse.”

“Don’t get trapped. You said, you don’t want to hate yourself.” Duan Yunhong insisted on sending the wine glass in front of him, “If you can’t help but think about it again and again, then I’ll update these memories with some plots – for example, those dumbasses were all killed by me.”

“Pfft…” Ning Fei inexplicably found Duan Yunhong’s words a little funny, so he really laughed. Originally, the purpose of coming back this time was to watch the cruel story repeat itself over and over again, so that he wouldn’t easily fall into a sweet trap. Now it’s good, it’s Duan Yunhong who is pulling himself, so that he doesn’t always indulge in cruel memories.

– It’s really upside down, turning against the heavens…

After Ning Fei laughed enough, he turned his head and looked at Duan Yunhong and said, “What a pretentious statement, President Duan.”

Duan Yunhong said: “Aren’t you also trying to pretend by coming up to the roof?”

Ning Fei said again: “My second ex should be dying soon.”

Duan Yunhong replied: “Then we have to act quickly, kill him before he dies.”

“Duan Yunhong.” Ning Fei suddenly pointed to the horizon and said, “It’s almost dawn.”

Duan Yunhong’s attention was diverted by this sudden topic, and he looked up: “Indeed…Um?”

Ning Fei snatched the wine glass from his hand, raised his head, and drank it all in one gulp.

Duan Yunhong silently watched his movements.

After drinking, Ning Fei smashed the only remaining glass, and also smashed the wine bottle. Then, he climbed onto Duan Yunhong, sitting face to face in the man’s arms.

“Do you really want to find the excitement of insubordination, Lord Earl?” Ning Fei hugged Duan Yunhong’s neck, the heat brought by the alcohol offset the coolness of the night wind, infecting the two, “Even more awkward, more exciting, do you want to try it?”

“…Now?” Faced with this sudden intimacy, Duan Yunhong’s first reaction was to hug his waist tightly, stabilize the posture of the two, and then glanced at the sloping roof and the increasingly dark ground, “…Okay.”

“Pfft, what are you considering? You don’t think I’m going to grab you on this, and test your sense of balance, do you!” Ning Fei laughed and leaned on his shoulder, “Watch the sunrise and go back to try?”

“Cough, okay.”

“Also… I really want to grab something.”

“Yeah, okay.”