Chapter 289

"Didn't they say Li Shixiong's delusion was already cured?" Barefoot, the boy Yang Xiaoqian led his ox over.

In the distance, Li Huowang wandered the village entrance of Niuxin, holding a purple-tasseled sword, ransacking every household and tormenting the place with various methods for several nights—now he had begun exploring new areas.

Gouwa grabbed Yang Xiaoqian and said, "Li Shixiong's mood has been up and down these past two days, paranoid as hell—he stares at everyone except Sister Bai for long stretches."

Zhao Wu leaned on a wooden crutch and whispered to Yang Xiaoqian, "At first, when he couldn't answer questions, he even wanted to pull out the knife! I think he wants to peel off people's faces."

"What are we supposed to do now?" Yang Xiaoqian was on the verge of tears. Li Shixiong had finally come back, and everyone was living peacefully again—but his delusion didn't seem cured; it had gotten worse.

After completing his daily inspection and confirming the village's cleanliness, finding no unclean Zuo Wang Dao, Li Huowang could only mutter curses at the illusionary interface:

"North Wind! I'm your ancestor!!!"

"I gave you cultivation techniques, and you repay me by messing with me?!"

"You like making movies? Wait till I find you—I'll shove you into a manifested Italian cannon and make you film a movie!!!"

Boom—

Demacia's Power: "College kid, stop barking."

"Huowang, why…?"

Sui Xifu suddenly realized that during his distress, the upper and lower spaces hadn't flipped—he'd been aware of when he walked beneath the ceiling.

"It might be fake, yes, it might be real…"

"Is he eating?" Beside him, the cultivator Miao picked up a chopstick of cabbage and placed it at the bottom of my bowl. "Eat slowly. He says he has episodes, but why does he stare blankly every mealtime?"

"And pair it with a computer limiting game time to half an hour a day."

"Stop crying, you're wrong, stop crying, alright?" Bai Ling hugged Emperor Yufeng, gazing at the night sky, helplessly soothing: "You just can't find modern objects right now."

Xiao Yan: "Huowang, do you think I'd harm you? Listen to me—since you need money, believe a little more."

That illusion… how could it be so cowardly?

Dragon King of the Constellations: "You've been alive a month longer than them and still fight worse—they've lived their whole lives like dogs?"

That's true—since you need money… see what tricks this illusion can pull. As for Hong Zhong? Don't trust Zuo Wang Dao, but don't not trust it either—just pretend you didn't hear it.

Zhu Ge Yuan dropped from the ceiling, tossing the bone nail in his hand, then paused to think.

"I told them, but they still don't understand." Zhu Ge Yuan shook his head and walked into the room—he planned to eat while watching today's new mealtime illusion chat.

He bit his teeth, jamming the sword, scabbard and all, into the ground: "You say? You're trying to tell me everything in this world is fake?! I had no trouble believing this world was real—but now you tell me this one's fake too?! You're not real either! To hell with it!"

He saw Li Huowang and the Monk squatting beside a white metal object with no logo, curiously examining the item on the ground.

He expected the illusions to either fall silent from logic or keep rambling nonsense—but to his surprise, the reply came quickly.

Bang!

"Real! Real! All real! Everything's real hahahahaahaha!!!"

Wait…

"Hahahahahahaha!"

Now, every time Zhu Ge Yuan thought deeply, a thread of irritation accumulated in his heart—these past days, countless strands of agitation had piled up inside him, leaving him no outlet.

Sui Xifu's mind flashed with countless thoughts; finally, he drove the bone nail straight into his right hand. Piercing pain surged from his palm—he stabbed it in, pulled it out, stabbed again, until his hand was drenched in blood, violent pain mingling with tears:

"Don't! Maybe it's just Dice Elder playing with you!" The illusion Hong Zhong warned slyly: "Don't believe it, please~~~"

I just need to spend a few minutes each day watching today's newly fabricated story.

"……"

Zhu Ge Yuan suddenly fell silent. With these days of screen-staring, he'd begun feeling a modern life within the illusions—sometimes he even wondered: if it were real… no, it must be fake!

The Monk chimed in: "Daoist Priest, what exactly did you see?"

"Li Shixiong, why not consider this?" Li Huowang suggested: "You say this object leading to other worlds appears in your mind—even if it's fake, you can't manifest it through mental power."

Sui Xifu's illusion sighed. In truth, when Zhu Ge Yuan gradually stopped caring about this matter, it meant he'd already begun to care about the illusions in his eyes.

From the perspective of a live-streamer, rows of people sat behind, and a tiny screen hung in the air, playing a movie.

He asked in the chat group: "@Sui Xifu, what's this… did the phone get returned yet? The kid's crying pretty hard…"

{Reject? Yes/No}

{Yes}

"Wuah…"

"If you hate being here, then stay here… Everything's fine on the other side. Dad can handle it."

The 3D-style image filled his vision—a spinning circle rotated endlessly, loading something. Zhu Ge Yuan instantly felt déjà vu, as if he'd seen this before…

"Haa…"

Swish—

Should I be depressed? Should I laugh? But why…

Ten breaths were long, yet also swift. By then, Sui Xifu had forgotten to breathe, his face flushed crimson—he deliberately held back, then slowly, step by step, walked forward.

Zuo Wang Dao had truly gone all out in deceiving people—this meticulous attitude deserves to be learned.

That's Tianyi Sect's top disciple… only a month in, and he already seems broken.

Zhu Ge Yuan was almost laughing with rage. He picked up a bone nail gleaming with cold light and asked with a bitter smile:

This illusion is real—then what about the other one?

"Soon." Zhu Ge Yuan propped his chin on one hand, frowning at empty air, then relaxing, then focusing—often forgetting meals, as if watching some captivatingly mundane scene.

It wasn't that I was lazily avoiding meals—it was that every mealtime, this illusion appeared. The movie inside the illusion was just too real.

"There shouldn't be such a thing!" Zhu Ge Yuan still hadn't dismissed his doubts, but now he felt this matter had only about two layers of connection to Zuo Wang Dao—the remaining seven were likely just his delusion worsening.

Believe what? Believe that Udyr is OP?! An illusion playing games with you.

Zhu Ge Yuan: "…"

Live-stream? What live-stream?

Honestly, when you don't have time, it really does seem boring—everything we're talking about feels just like the real thing...

What real or fake?! He's asking you if it's real or fake?!

The people outside the hallucination viewport have stopped scrolling again—something about shipping couples, something about four-character secrets—what wild imaginations!

Hmm... no response...

"Wuah!!! Waaahhh!!" Tears streamed from the divine child's eyes as I sobbed: "The phone he won fighting for cultivators... he's such a bastard! Demonic God!"

"Son, today Mom made the winter melon and pork rib soup he hates the most."

"About seventy breaths," Li Huowang said. "But he hasn't cultivated for a while now—he shouldn't have seventy breaths left."

Beside him, the red hallucination hadn't yet pressed its face against the wooden floor, eyes wide, peering through the cracks at the white metal object above, from which light spilled out, and faint sounds drifted from within the metal object.

Zhuge Yuan rejected his next thought—there was only one way to achieve that level.

If he truly cared, if he really believed it was a hallucination, why would he care at all...

"Brother Zhuge, how long did you maintain the stone turned into an apple?" Zhuge Yuan asked, stunned.

He put down his hands from rubbing his eyes—only an open hemp-paper window and a sliver of sunlight streamed through; no other anomalies.

"Ah." Zhuge Yuan automatically opened his mouth and chewed the food placed before him.

Casting Star Dragon King: "Can your lot of trash even make it? I took eleven heads alone—you sent eighty."

Zhuge Yuan: "..."

"Wuah... Praise the Darkness! The Su Zongzhu is a big bad guy!"

"Brother Zhuge, why is he looking at you upside down?" Sui Xifou suddenly noticed that Sui Xifou and others in the hallucination were hanging upside down from the sky.

"What the hell?! Is that thing real?!" As the hallucination red cried out, Zhuge Yuan lunged forward, snatched the phone from the ground, flushed red as he flipped it over.

Generally, I only needed to patrol Niuxin Village once daily, focusing on Su Lin's cultivation—deep down, I believed Bei Feng had found a way to delay Su Lin's progress after tasting success, so I decided to play along, feigning furious helplessness. Doesn't he hate chatting? Look how much time he spends every day talking to himself.

Zhuge Yuan didn't believe Bei Feng could reach that level just by starting Su Lin cultivation—he'd rather join Zuowang Dao himself as a red hallucination if Bei Feng had such talent.

"Buy him a new one..."

Can you please be quiet?! Just watching TV dramas quietly is enough—why send so many messages?!

"But that's impossible!"

Bai Ling: "Open the door."

Casting Star Dragon King tagged Demacia's Might (Alive): You trash, playing N@#￥'s stinking @#%

The endless scrolling messages seemed to taunt my nerves—I needed calm right now...

"How do they prove it?!"

"It's him again..." Bai Ling said apologetically, thinking Emperor Yufeng was playing with his phone again.

"I feel like something's really wrong here," said a Zuowang Dao red hallucination stepping out from the side, shaking his head helplessly, mocking: "Oh~ sorry, I was just a lunatic."

Even if this world isn't as real as the one beyond this hallucination, even if he's not a prized gem in that world's eyes, that world must still be real!

【Administrator Bai Ling used a Cross-World Rune on him】

"Sigh," Xiu Zhen Miao sighed, sitting beside Zhuge Yuan with bowl and chopsticks. "Open your mouth."

He rolled over, remembering his restraint kit had fallen in the room.

Without hesitation, he walked straight into the room, glancing at the hallucination messages as he descended the wooden stairs to the room.

Zhuge Yuan didn't take the red's words to heart—when passing by, he briefly revived the red for a second and slapped it across the face.

"Wuahhhhh!!!"

With a metallic clang, Zhuge Yuan's restraint kit spread open on the ground.

Zhuge Yuan stared at the white metal object—he had been calm at first, but when his breaths reached eighty, his heart skipped a beat, then as if a switch had been triggered, his heart pounded violently.

A blue teleportation gate opened, ejected the item, and closed—all in under eight seconds.

This wasn't something we'd schemed recently—it had been planned long ago, with Su Lin preparations made in advance, aiming to lure a Xin Su into the trap. Though given Zuowang Dao's decades—even centuries—long tradition of setting up deceptions, such a possibility existed, but could a newly arrived Bei Feng really achieve this level?

"Heh." Sui Xifou chuckled bitterly, but stopped after two laughs.

Xin Su's ordinary weak ability, my innate primordial Qi, isn't anything else—it's a fragment of the Dao. If given ten or seventy years to cultivate properly, I might even play with others like this, even bring things from the hallucination world over.

"Don't try to trick me with these words and hallucinations!"

"Mom! You can't tell the difference!! I can't tell the difference either!!"

"Wuahhhhh!!!"

Casting Star Dragon King: "Disrespect the Lord? You're this bad at mobile games? What game are you even playing? Go home and raise pigs! @! ￥@%!"

Zhuge Yuan's laughter gradually faded until he collapsed on the ground, his hand—flesh torn, bones exposed—clutching the phone, curling into a ball, hugging it tightly, voice choked until only sobs remained.

If you can see another world in a hallucination, what's so strange about seeing a TV drama with flashy effects?

He finally couldn't hold back—he shouted simultaneously in reality and the hallucination: "You're all fake!"

Though Zhuge Yuan had prepared himself, the situation froze his thoughts...

Isn't this League of Legends?! Can't you play it on a phone?!

What flooded his mind wasn't thoughts about the phone or other worlds—it was these deeply buried, joyful memories.

"All... are real..."

At this point, Sui Xifou had no choice but to use his hand...

Li Huowang slammed the door shut—he didn't waste his time every day on this boring game.

He felt his throat choked, finally laughing and crying as he buried his head in the ground, releasing long-suppressed emotions, when Sui Ximiao opened the door, walked heavily to Zhuge Yuan's side, sat cross-legged, and pulled him into his arms.

Swoosh—

Zhuge Yuan tilted his head, gazing at the sunlight streaming through the hemp-paper crack—blood dripped from his bitten lip onto the wood. In a daze, he saw again the prison's snow-white walls, the glowing energy-saving lights, the pale green bulletproof glass with welded iron bars.

He rubbed his eyes—had he just seen something? A blue thing?

After lunch, Xiu Zhen Miao cleaned up, while Zhuge Yuan sat atop the crooked-necked tree, silently pondering.

"Ah.. aaa... aaa!!!"

"Li Shixiong, he's zoning out again," Li Huowang reminded. "It seems the other hallucination he mentioned is truly troubling him."

Meng Qi: "Really?"