An endless forest lay under an unnaturally pallid moon.
The instant he "opened his eyes," it swallowed his entire awareness with silent, overwhelming weight.
There was moonlight—yet not the clean, familiar glow of the human world. It was a sickly, bloodless white, leaking stingily through gaps in a canopy so dense it looked like black iron. The light fell in cold patches, like shattered silver coins with all warmth drained out, barely illuminating the thick humus underfoot—soft as velvet, breathing a sweet rot.
Everywhere else was darkness—heavy, almost tangible. It wasn't the dead quiet of an empty room, but an uneasy stillness that felt like it was sheltering some immense, unseen vitality. Sound and temperature seemed to be swallowed by a vast, velvet curtain.
Only one thing truly moved here: the wind.
It threaded between countless gigantic trees whose bark was rough as scales. The sound wasn't a howl so much as a long, slow exhalation—like the land itself was breathing. It brushed through pine needles fine as steel pins, raising a continuous rasping hush; it slipped over unknown broad leaves with serrated edges, coaxing a subtle, whisper-like rustle as they rubbed together.
And if he listened hard enough—beneath the wind's breathing—there was another sound: colder, more stubborn, arriving in broken strands like a thin string guiding the lost through blackness.
A stream.
It refused to sleep—refused, even, to obey whatever rules governed this place. Hidden beneath bushes so dense they felt predatory, beneath exposed roots like the spines of coiled dragons, it ran on in absolute darkness, gurgling with quiet insistence.
Water slid over mossy stones, sending up a chill mist that dampened the air along the banks. That clean, sharp scent—old moss and deep wet earth—was the only breath here that felt like life.
Wherever he looked, it was a kingdom of twisted shadows.
Ancient trees knotted and contorted, stretching into shapes that resembled frozen screams—painful giants turned to statues by pale light. Thick vines hung from branches like black waterfalls, or like the shed skins of enormous snakes. Fallen leaves had piled for years—feet deep, layer upon layer—soft enough to swallow his steps, as if he were walking across the hushed corpses of countless autumns.
Huge ferns curled their jagged fronds near the roots. The beads clinging to them weren't dew so much as cold, tear-like droplets that flashed faintly in moonlight, then vanished into deeper black.
Everything here was drowned in boundless gloom. Only the wind wandered without tiring; only the water kept flowing without end. Together, they formed an ancient, complete night—one that belonged to altered plants, absolute darkness, and deep, patient solitude.
And now, this forest—absent from every known map—seemed to have finally received the visitor it had been waiting for.
Qianye stood on the thick humus, his body unnaturally light, as if he were nothing but a shadow shaped by consciousness.
His emerald eyes swept the unfamiliar world—confused, wary.
His last memory was Ellen's strawberry-sweet kiss… and the sudden darkness that drowned his awareness like a tide.
So where was this?
A dream?
A pull began to grow in his chest—like invisible thread tugging him forward. Without meaning to, he started walking, following the stream's coaxing sound deeper into the forest.
The fallen leaves devoured every footstep. The warped silhouettes of trees felt like living eyes watching an intruder.
He didn't know how long he walked. Time here had no meaning—until, ahead, a softer light appeared, different from moon and shadow.
The stream fed into a clearing.
A vast lake lay there, utterly still—like an enormous mirror set between the pallid forest and the pitch sky. Mist hovered above the water, faintly luminous. The lake itself was strangely clear, like liquid moonlight, as though it had swallowed the pale moon whole.
And then his gaze locked onto something at the shoreline.
His breath stopped.
On a smooth boulder polished by water over years and years, someone sat quietly at the lake's edge.
A woman's back.
A white research coat marked with the Helios insignia—familiar, unmistakable. Long black hair flowed down her back, threaded with a few signature streaks of red.
Her figure was slim, almost fragile, seated there as if she were part of the stillness itself, watching the lake's faint gleam.
Even from behind, even at a distance—Qianye could not mistake her.
That was… Teacher Carlos.
The woman who had raised him, taught him, warmed him—then, eleven years ago, during the catastrophe of Old City's fall, had been seized by a mysterious white hand and vanished without trace… later slandered by the world as the disaster's culprit.
His mind went white. Thought itself simply shut down.
Shock. Joy. Disbelief. A buried ache of longing, grievance, and helpless yearning—everything broke through him at once, like a dam collapsing.
"T-Teacher…?"
The two words scraped out of his dry throat, so weak they almost dissolved into the wind.
But the figure heard.
She turned—slowly, slowly.
The same gentle, beautiful face. The same quiet scholar's composure. The same familiar glasses, and behind them, the same eyes—wise, patient, sheltering.
Only deep within that gaze, Qianye caught something else: a thread of exhaustion… and a complexity he could not understand.
"Qianye."
Her voice was as soft as ripples, calm as the lake—carrying a soothing power that slipped past every defense he had.
In that instant, Qianye lost control.
He was a child finding the family he'd mourned for years. Every mask, every forced strength, crumbled to dust.
He staggered forward and threw himself into her arms, clinging with all his strength—like he could keep her from vanishing if he held tight enough.
"Teacher! Teacher—are you really you? Teacher Carlos!"
He buried his face in her coat. It carried that faint smell of disinfectant and old books—exactly as he remembered. His voice broke into sobs. Tears poured out, soaking her collar.
"I missed you so much… we all missed you… Zhe and Ling—everyone… we've been looking for you…"
Her body went rigid for the briefest moment—so slight he might've imagined it. Then she wrapped him back with immense gentleness, her arms enclosing his shaking frame.
Her hand patted his back in steady rhythm—just like when he was small, just like when nightmares woke him.
"Alright… alright…" her voice murmured above his head, still warm. "I'm here, Qianye. It's okay. My child… it's okay…"
His trembling eased under that familiar comfort—yet he still didn't let go.
After a long time, he finally lifted his head, eyes wet and desperate.
"Teacher… that day—what happened? That white hand… where did it take you? These eleven years… how did you live? Do you know they said you were…?"
Questions spilled out like he couldn't stop them.
But Carlos only listened, her expression almost gently sorrowful.
When he finished, she raised a finger and pressed it lightly to his lips, stopping him.
Her eyes stayed soft—but he understood the message clearly.
She wasn't going to answer.
Not now.
That small refusal—so minor on its own—hit like cold water to the face. The joy of reunion dimmed, and something sharper rose beneath it.
Why wouldn't she tell him?
After everything he'd endured lately, he could no longer afford to ignore anything "off."
A seed of doubt sprouted, fast and poisonous.
She felt real. Her arms were warm. Her scent was true.
But where was this place, really?
Why had he come here?
Was this a trap—another web spun by that vicious woman, Sara?
Or was this simply his own desperate mind creating a comforting hallucination?
His arms loosened by instinct. His gaze sharpened, searching.
Carlos didn't seem to notice his withdrawal. Her eyes moved past his shoulder to the mirror lake.
She extended her free hand and dipped her fingers into the cold water, stirring slowly.
Ripples spread.
And the reflection changed.
The moon's pale image blurred like a lens refocusing, then snapped into clarity—showing a scene from earlier at Lumina Square: Ellen smiling lazily, sly and bright, pushing a lollipop into his hand.
Qianye froze, staring at the lake, then back at Carlos.
She withdrew her hand. Her gaze lingered on Ellen's image.
Her voice was quiet—yet it pierced Qianye's heart like a cold needle.
"This girl…" Carlos said softly. "I don't like her."
Qianye jolted as if he'd misheard.
He looked up sharply, disbelief on his face.
"Why?! Ellen—she's my—"
"Who," Carlos cut him off, calm but edged with something unyielding, "would smile at a woman who's trying to steal her child away?"
The reason was blunt… and yet absurd.
It didn't fit.
It didn't fit the teacher he remembered—the rational, generous woman who'd always encouraged him to make friends, to trust people.
Joy drained away, replaced by a deeper unease.
Qianye inhaled, then chose to test her—carefully, precisely.
He stared into her eyes and asked, slowly, clearly:
"Teacher… do you remember Zhe and Ling? Our… Faethon."
Carlos turned her face toward him.
Her eyes remained gentle—almost puzzled, as if she were rummaging through distant, irrelevant names.
She tilted her head slightly and asked:
"Who's that?"
Something detonated in Qianye's mind.
All doubt became certainty.
A brutal wave of disappointment and fury crashed over him.
She forgot.
She forgot Zhe and Ling—the other two children she had treated as her own.
That was impossible.
The real Teacher Carlos would never forget them.
"So that's it…" Qianye stepped back, wrenching himself out of her arms, his voice shaking with anger. "You're a fake. You're not Teacher Carlos!"
The tears in his eyes dried in an instant, burned away by betrayal and alarm.
He turned to leave—no hesitation now, only refusal.
And the moment he did, the world convulsed.
The ground groaned like something breaking. The pale trees tilted, collapsing like toppled scaffolding. The "moon" cracked as if the sky itself were splitting apart.
The entire space—this strange mental realm—began to crumble under the force of his rejection.
Yet the "Carlos" by the lake didn't panic.
She watched Qianye's retreating back, then glanced down at her own body—already dissolving at the hem of her skirt into drifting pink motes.
She smiled—faintly, knowingly, with a trace of mockery.
"As expected…" she murmured.
Her voice was no longer purely Carlos's—an older, hollower cadence threaded through it.
"When that thing called Sara forced her way into my Qianye's mind, trying to plant a seed… you took the chance to root a fragment of yourself here."
Her gaze lifted toward the widening裂—where thick pink radiance poured out, growing denser by the second—raw, chaotic, alluring.
"Progenitor…" she whispered.
As if answering, the pink glow surged, boiling like living fog. From it, something forced itself outward:
A single, enormous eye—so huge it crushed the air—streaming thick, viscous blood-tears, emerging with suffocating pressure.
A roar—made of countless scrambled intentions stitched together—exploded directly into consciousness, hers and (before he fully escaped) Qianye's:
"Why… interfere! Why… break… the pact!"
The "Carlos" only huffed, unafraid.
She lifted a hand—already turning transparent—and brushed imaginary hair back with cold elegance.
"I'm nothing but a 'fuse'—a failsafe fragment the original self stripped off and left in Qianye's mind."
"She made a pact with you. I don't have to."
Her eyes sharpened, as though they could see through the collapsing realm to where Qianye fled.
"And besides… I only wanted to see him again. To confirm he's safe."
"The only thing I said that carried my personal bias… was that I dislike that shark Thiren girl."
Her voice lowered—firm, undeniable.
"I never forgot my Faethon."
"I simply… don't like the girl who tries to get close to him."
The great eye's blood-tears ran faster. The pressure intensified, as if it could grind worlds into powder. The realm's collapse accelerated; the pink radiance thrashed, furious—
But "Carlos" stepped forward, gaze unwavering, and offered a bargain instead.
"Let's make a separate deal."
"Until Qianye truly finds his way through his own knot—by his own will—don't use your power to directly interfere with his choices."
A storm of jumbled intent slammed back:
"Why… would… I… agree… to you, fragment!"
"Because," "Carlos" said, and a cold light of understanding flashed in her eyes, "for a vessel like him—only natural growth has value."
"Real struggle. Real choice."
"Force him—catalyze him, twist him—and you'll get a malformed fruit."
"That can't be what you ultimately want."
"He is your child. But a Qianye who walks toward the light by his own decision… or who sinks into darkness of his own accord…"
Her smile was thin as a blade.
"Isn't that far more valuable?"
The great eye stared.
The blood-tears slowed—just slightly.
The inner storm of intentions hesitated, stalled, as if something essential had been struck.
Silence stretched—endless.
Then the tremors eased.
The cracks remained, but the total collapse stopped. The pink radiance steadied, no longer reaching for Qianye's fleeing consciousness.
That quiet retreat was an answer.
Consent.
"Carlos" smiled again—satisfied, complicated, faintly lonely.
Her body was nearly transparent now.
She turned back to the lake.
The surface had calmed.
She stirred it one last time, and the reflection became Qianye's sleeping face in the real world—peaceful, unaware.
She gazed at it with hungry devotion, as if she wanted to carve his features into whatever part of her could still remember.
Her voice fell to a whisper, almost a lullaby—tender in a way that felt warped by obsession:
"Ah… my child…"
"I will… forever, forever… accompany you in ways you'll never notice…"
"This space may die… but I won't."
"I will help you… control your power…"
Her final words dispersed with her body.
She became a handful of faint lights and melted into the pale forest, as if she had never existed.
Only the great blood-weeping eye remained, suspended in the pink glow, silent—watching the direction Qianye's consciousness had gone, as if waiting.
A moment later, something like a sigh passed through the space.
And then the entire realm collapsed into nothing.
"—Hah!"
A sharp, forceful gasp shattered the still air.
Qianye jolted upright in bed so violently the velvet mattress beneath him complained with a strained creak.
His silver hair was damp with sweat, strands sticking to his forehead and pale cheeks. His emerald pupils contracted hard in the dim light, his gaze still scattered with dream-terror and disbelief.
He panted, chest heaving like he'd clawed his way up from deep water.
His fingers dug into the expensive silk sheets, crushing them into ugly wrinkles.
That dream—
The pallid forest. The mirror lake. His teacher's voice. The lie. The eye.
It all felt too real.
"Chiya—Chiya's awake!"
A cry—bright with relief and worry—rippled into his still-iced mind.
Before he could fully surface, arms slid around his neck, gentle yet firm, pulling his stiff body slightly to the side.
Lina.
She was already there at the bedside, seated with perfect elegance. The black folds of her maid dress spread like a dark flower across the sheets. Her silver hair, usually immaculate, had a few strands fallen loose over her shoulder, softening her into something almost domestic.
Her red eyes—normally calm as deep water—were glossy now, rimmed faintly with red, reflecting Qianye's shaken face up close. There was moisture there, as if she'd just finished crying in silence.
"You're awake…" she breathed, voice trembling almost imperceptibly.
It wasn't a question.
It was confirmation—relief too heavy to hide.
She studied him with painstaking care, as if checking whether his soul had truly returned.
Qianye stared at her, dazed. Her scent—light tea and clean fabric—wrapped around him like something real, something safe.
Her arms around his neck held steady warmth, utterly unlike the hollow touch of a dream.
He tried to speak, but his throat was too dry. Only breath came out—broken, meaningless.
Dream fragments still slammed through him.
Ellen. His teacher's face. The eye's blood-tears.
Seeing his emptiness, Lina didn't press him with questions. She only tightened her hold and rested her cool cheek against his sweat-damp temple, protective and sure.
"I'm here, Qianye," she murmured again, feather-soft. "The nightmare is over. You're safe."
"In Victoria Housekeeping… and by my side."
Her voice, her breathing, the simple reality of being held—slowly pulled his heart back from its frantic, pounding edge.
His body loosened. His tremors eased.
Almost without thinking, he allowed a small part of his weight to lean into her—like a ship finally finding harbor after a storm.
Moonlight slipped quietly through the window, laying a pale silver edge along the two of them.
The room held only their interlaced breaths… and the wordless gentleness that spread like warmth through frozen nerves.
Then, suddenly, Qianye's voice—still rough—broke the hush:
"Lina… why are you here? Where's Ellen?"
Lina's smile twitched—just once.
"Ah, Qianye…"
Her tone darkened with a weight that didn't match her sweetness.
"In the very moment Lina is wholeheartedly missing you, thinking of you, holding you…"
"To mention Ellen…"
She tilted her head slightly, eyes soft—and dangerous.
"…sounds like something that deserves a little punishment, doesn't it?"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 150)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter190)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter105)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter225)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 195
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 170
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/5
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 225
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 210
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/30
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 115
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 130
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 105
I Can Copy Unique Skills 100
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 90
My Harem Is Indescribable 85
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 90
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 100
Still playing traditional Honk 69
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 75
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 60
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 71
Checking In in Demon Slayer 75
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 80
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 66
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 58
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 65
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 63
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 59
Why did they assign me to Uma 55
MYGO Beauties 56
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 45
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 49
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 36
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 35
The Uma Musume Who Became 30
I'm Definitely Not the King of 35
After Maxing Out Every Class 35
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