Chapter 16: Who Are You

"What a blunder!" Director Zhou said.

"Indeed, using the handsome man tactic? That move is too vicious," Feng Liancheng added.

"If we replace her with a handsome assistant now, won't that seem too deliberate?"

"It's useless. She's been a fan of this male star for over four years; she started obsessing over him before she awakened. No one else has this kind of power."

"Sigh!" Director Zhou sighed. "I've made blunders several times regarding her."

"Director, she herself is a black swan event; anyone facing her will make blunders."

"By the way, isn't there a pair of quite handsome young men in the Special Action Team? How about assigning them to her as team members later? Whatever type she likes, we can pick from the awakened sub-bureaus below..."

Feng Liancheng hesitated, then said, "Director, you must believe Comrade Yang Yi's loyalty to the motherland."

"I do believe that, but the enemy is too cunning; we must do something too, otherwise we look too passive. This is our super strategic weapon! The higher-ups attach great importance to it."

"I think what she needs most right now isn't to be viewed as a weapon, but equality and respect."

Director Zhou paused, patted Feng Liancheng's shoulder: "You are very right." He smiled: "You were responsible for collecting and organizing Yang Yi's initial data, weren't you?"

"Yes, Director."

"Does Yang Yi know about this?"

Feng Liancheng immediately made a bitter face: "I just found out."

"Little Feng, you've worked hard! If... just bear the grievance!"

"Yang Yi probably... isn't the type to take out her anger on others; besides, this is all normal procedure... Director, you must speak up for me!"

"You've worked hard."

"Director—"

————

On the plane returning to Xia Country, Yang Yi stared at Feng Liancheng opposite her.

In just over ten minutes, Feng Liancheng went from pretending nothing was wrong at the start, to feeling like sitting on pins and needles later, to breaking out in cold sweat all over.

During this process, Feng Liancheng looked to Director Zhou countless times for help, but the Director acted as if he didn't see him, sometimes making phone calls, sometimes opening his computer to check some documents, sometimes frowning deeply, sometimes concentrating in thought, always looking very busy.

Feng Liancheng finally realized no one could help him.

"Comrade Yang Yi, if you have any dissatisfaction, just say it directly; stop staring at me like this, the pressure is huge!"

Yang Yi remained expressionless.

Even if she exploded right now, Feng Liancheng wouldn't be this nervous; he just feared the calm before the storm.

Feng Liancheng sat uneasily, as if there were a hedgehog under his bottom.

Finally, Yang Yi spoke: "Why are you nervous? I'm just looking at you."

Upon hearing this, Feng Liancheng felt even worse; he smiled bitterly: "You probably don't know how tense your gaze makes people right now!"

"What, isn't the old me the same as the current me? Why are you nervous now? Bring out the 'familiar' attitude you had when we first met."

"If I had known your strength, really, I would have worshipped you like the Queen Mother of the West."

Yang Yi let out a "pfft" laugh.

Feng Liancheng breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Director Zhou, as if just discovering the two had a conflict, smoothed things over: "Misunderstandings between colleagues are very normal; as long as it's cleared up, it's fine! Everyone has a common goal; what irreconcilable contradictions could there be? Tonight when we return, I'll treat everyone to a meal to reward everyone for their hard work this time—"

"Then I must make sure to really feast on the Director's expense," Yang Yi said with a smile.

Director Zhou looked as if his heart was aching, which made Yang Yi and Feng Liancheng both join in the teasing.

Regarding this matter of her privacy being violated, Yang Yi let it go lightly, but no one would think she truly didn't care.

After returning that evening, Feng Liancheng indeed called Chen Chen Yushu, Wei Chang'an, and Li Li Chengxuan, and the four of them went together to Jingcheng's top-tier "Royal Kitchen". It was said that the restaurant's owner, Wang Liu Siyuan, was a descendant of a former dynasty's imperial chef; originally, all private rooms were full, but upon seeing Yang Yi, Boss Wang's eyes instantly widened, and he immediately cleared out a spare top-tier private room.

Boss Wang of Royal Kitchen was too enthusiastic; not only did he offer all the food for free, but he also gifted over a dozen signature dishes, and even kept sighing that the time was too tight, many dishes simply couldn't be prepared in time, urging Yang Yi and the others to remind him a few days in advance next time they came, so he could prepare a Manchu-Han Imperial Feast for them.

In the end, Director Zhou insisted on paying the bill, citing that civil servants cannot eat and drink for free; although a discount was applied, paying the bill still felt like a heartache, and Boss Wang brought out all the specialty dishes he rarely made.

At Boss Wang's strong request, Yang Yi took a photo with him, and left Royal Kitchen amidst Boss Wang's enthusiastic escort, following him step by step.

On the way back, Yang Yi sighed: "If everyone is this enthusiastic in the future, it really will be hard to handle."

Director Zhou smiled without speaking.

Wei Chang'an was very direct: "If you want people not to be this enthusiastic, you probably can only go out wearing a face mask."

Li Li Chengxuan said somewhat sourly: "It's great; from now on, you don't need to bring money when going out, just pay by face scan."

"As long as you have strength, you can too. Why be sour?" Chen Chen Yushu said coldly.

Yang Yi looked at Chen Chen Yushu in surprise; she didn't expect the usually silent-as-gold him to speak up for her.

Feng Liancheng quickly smoothed things over: "This rescue mission was thanks to Yang Yi; if not for her, maybe we would have been wiped out this time. Never mind this meal; even if we cover Yang Yi's meals for the rest of our lives, it's what we should do, haha..."

Li Li Chengxuan felt a bit awkward and awkwardly turned his head away.

Back in the dorm, after closing the door, the smile Yang Yi had deliberately maintained slowly faded.

She felt a bit tired; this tiredness was from the inside out; she slumped onto the sofa and unknowingly fell into a daze.

The ceiling light was circular, with a string of purple small flowers printed on it, like the flowers of the vitex; around her secret base, these small shrubs grew in abundance.

Whenever the spring and summer blooming season arrived, purple small flowers covered the cliff edges; the smell when they bloomed was truly strange, usable for repelling mosquitoes; some thought it was a fresh fragrance, others thought it was a foul odor.

When the vitex first bloomed, the scent was faint, and Yang Yi could still dishonestly call it a fresh fragrance, but as this thing bloomed more and more, the scent grew stronger and stronger; the strange smell always drifted in the salty sea breeze. When lying on the lounge chair in her secret base resting comfortably, this smell always desperately drilled into her nostrils; she really couldn't force herself to praise its scent.

Next to bloom were the oleanders. They had no scent themselves, and the flowers were quite pretty, but they were poisonous; she had to guard against being poisoned by fallen flowers while drinking tea under the tree.

After that, it was fine; the osmanthus bloomed in August, with a scent that was overwhelmingly bold and pungent, fragrant enough to overwhelm people. She often picked osmanthus to make desserts or brew tea. The sea buckthorn bore small orange-yellow beans in August; they looked very cute and pleasing; this was a good thing; sometimes she would pick some to take home to make jam.

She treated these as her friends.

Now, she had finally left her friends.

Her consciousness gradually blurred, then she fell into a hallucinatory and bizarre dream.

She flew over an endless azure ocean, flying and flying, as if that blue color had no end. Countless beasts of terrifyingly huge size lived here; beasts as large as giant crabs were merely the least conspicuous among the sea beast clan.

She did not know how long she had flown before arriving on land, where everything carried a hazy, dreamlike hue; mist coiled and shrouded all. Strange vines writhed beneath her feet, lunging toward her, while countless carnivorous beasts and venomous insects lay hidden in the dense, humid jungle around, waiting to pounce.

Then, with a sudden wave of her hand, the mist dispersed, revealing all that had been hidden behind the white fog. Every creature seemed to sense something and fled instantly; even the writhing vines beneath her feet suddenly stopped, growing soft and harmless as they slumped to the ground.

Seeing all this, her emotions showed not the slightest fluctuation; she remained so calm that she regarded everything as ordinary.

Suddenly, the scene shifted, and she found herself in a world of fire and magma seas. Before her surged a great river of molten lava, and the air warped and twisted under the scorching heat.

She strolled through this magma world, passed a waterfall of cascading lava, and arrived before a erupting volcano.

Suddenly, the volcano belched a plume of black smoke, and a deep voice issued from within: "Why dare you trespass into the Flame Demon's forbidden domain? Do you wish to die?"

"Asarthe, open your eyes and see who I am," she heard herself say.

Yang Yi was abruptly jolted awake from her dream, her heart pounding violently in her chest as if someone were hammering her heart with a massive mallet. Cold sweat soaked her clothes; her shirt clung to her body, and her bra felt like wet, icy ropes binding tightly across her chest. She used her telekinesis to unclasp the bra, tossed it carelessly onto the sofa, then slumped there in a daze.

Why had she suddenly had such a dream?

Where was that world? Was it... the world of alien creatures?

Did she truly know a fire demon named Asarthe?

The "her" in the dream seemed to be her, yet also not her; it was as if an consciousness not her own had possessed her body. That "her" was utterly familiar with everything in that world, even to the point of taking it for granted; everything appeared so ordinary, so... dull.

Who was she?

I—who am I?

Outside the window, the night was heavy; only the distant streetlights cast shadows piled thick.

Strands of hair stuck to her forehead, sticky and slimy, like leeches in a summer sewer burrowing into the skin. She roughly wiped her face with her shirt sleeve, rose, and approached the mirror to gaze at her wretched reflection.

The young girl in the mirror had a pale complexion and dry lips; her skin, tanned slightly by the abundant sunlight of Haibei City, was visible. Her eyes were a pure, absolute black, like two light-swallowing black holes; whatever was reflected in them could only sink into an endless black vortex.

She stared without blinking for a while, then suddenly asked, "Who are you?"

The person in the mirror opened her mouth in sync, forming the words: "Who are you?"

"I am Yang Yi," she said.

The person in the mirror formed the words in sync: "I am Yang Yi."

The person in the mirror was very familiar, yet after staring long enough, seemed somewhat strange.

Yang Yi let out a helpless, bitter smile, turned on the faucet to brush her teeth, then took a shower. By the time she lay down in bed, she was fully awake and could not sleep again.

She turned on her phone and decided to scroll through some novels to pass this long, wakeful night.

Then she saw a new text message, with her own saved contact name: God of Men.

Her hand moved faster than her mind; she immediately tapped to open the message content: "Did you see my personal blog? People are about to die of jealousy!"

The message had been sent about three hours ago; given the time difference between the Xia Kingdom and the Aka Kingdom, it should be mid-afternoon over there.

The corners of Yang Yi's lips curled upward, and her heavy mood lightened slightly. She opened Chris's personal blog and saw that the comments had already reached over a hundred thousand; the comment section was nearly going mad.