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Shen Yuan jolted awake, heart racing and breaths straining his ridiculously weak lungs. His eyes jumped around, trying to ascertain where he was-
His sister, Shen Qiantu, was watching him with furrowed brows, her hand settled on his shoulder.
Yuan swallowed, the blaring in his ears settling into his drumming heartbeat instead. It was… better. His nightmares always settled into some form of reminder that… that he could never see Binghe again. Of course, his family would insist it was just a coma dream because he had absolutely no proof. There were no physical markers, internal or external, that he had lived a whole other life. In another world.
So, what would even be the point in sharing?
Even Meimei… Shen Yuan just knew she would tease him about dreaming up a life with his favorite character.
“The plane has landed. We’ll be pulling in soon. So, be ready, okay?”
Listlessly, he nodded, still caught in his head.
He always was lately. He just couldn’t get out of it. Forty years- almost double his life here- gone just like that. Poof. Non-existent.
He’d had six months to wallow on this. And fucking wallow he did. He just couldn’t let it go, gnawing and picking like one would at a particularly painful hangnail. He’d tried everything he could think of in the beginning to get some measure of proof, even for himself.
He screamed himself hoarse in his apartment for the System. It never came.
He meditated often. No qi miraculously sparked in his heavy and weak body.
He reached out angrily. No answer ever came from that stupid hack author.
He desperately poured over PIDW-
And… found a lot of very uncomfortable issues that he’d ignored when he first read it. He had always advocated for Binghe, had always wanted him to win, even if that win was stupidly contrived. It’s just… he hadn’t wanted those wins to come at the cost of… well… Shen Yuan almost couldn’t believe it when he’d first read it, but… knowing Binghe as he did now. Bingge did not have love. He wed the girls he saved, of course, but for most of them it was like a one-and-done experience. Rinse and repeat even when the girls… weren’t so enthusiastic. Even for the women at the top of his harem- Ning Yingying, Sha Hualing, Liu Mingyang- he hardly seemed to spare a thought for them outside of sustaining Xin Mo.
Bingge was… truly pitiful.
And Binghe would have turned out just like that. Yuan couldn’t even imagine how furious and despairing his husband would be with him gone. Would it cause the end of the world again? He surely hoped not… There was a good twenty years of stability for them, working through issues and feeling comfortable in themselves and each other. Yet… When Binghe loved, he did so with his everything.
“San-ge…c’mon. It’s time to go.”
He jerked his head up, unsure of when he closed his eyes again.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, hauling himself out of his seat. He tugged up the mask around his neck, fitting it over his mouth. He really didn’t like feeling his own breath washing over his face. It was one of the reasons he hardly went outside. Well, besides the fact that exercise winded him in less than a minute.
Stupid preemie body.
The flight attendant smiled at them like they weren’t holding up the rest of the plane while his sister hauled their bags down from the overhead luggage. They were the only two in first class because his parents were overprotective of his health sometimes. He would have been fine with other passengers, but at least it allowed him to nap.
“San-ge.”
Mentally, he sighed. He really wanted to go back to sleep even if it was filled with nightmares. At least there he could see Binghe’s face again. The fan-art just couldn’t capture the true beauty of his entire… everything really. It was like looking through the bronze mirrors and seeing a slightly warped copy. Some came really close and others were so far off the mark it wasn’t even funny-
“San-ge!”
“Sorry, sorry!”
He accepted the handle of the suitcase, following after his sister. The flight attendant was still smiling as she bowed farewell to them. He couldn’t bring himself to smile back even if it was the polite thing to do. Instead he reached up to adjust his mask so it would settle better on his nose, and moved on.
The rest of the walk through the airport passed in a blur of muted colors. Their chauffeur was waiting for them at the luggage carousel with a name sign. Yuan only noticed because his sister cheerfully pointed him out, before dragging him over. As soon as he was seated in the car, he turned his eyes to the window, zoning out.
Qiantu would be worried. That was all he could seem to do lately. Worry his family.
Didn’t help the cesspool of emotions he carried around in his chest now. A vicious cycle of dissociation caused by too much worrying his family, which made him feel worse -
Yuan sighed.
His sister pinched his arm.
He twitched and shot her a glare.
“C’mon, Ge! We’re in Seoul for the next few days. I’m sure there’s plenty we can do before meeting up with Mom.”
“One big city is like any other,” he huffed. Beijing and Seoul couldn’t be that different besides the language barrier. Shen Yuan was actually better off than his sister in that area. She was fluent in English, but Yuan had taught himself Korean. Well, taught himself to read it, but that was still better than nothing.
His sister was going to need him to focus. Which was probably the whole point instead of going straight over to their mother at the retreat. Qiantu had claimed it was so Mom could finish up business, but with how efficient their mother was, and how long it had been since seeing Shen Yuan… he doubted she would want to wait if they were in the same country.
“So not true!” Qiantu pouted, pinching him again, this time more gently. He swatted at her lazily, making her grin. “There’s going to be plenty to explore! I want to check out their fashion districts! And some of the history museums! Do you think they have any leather working shops around?”
“In the middle of the city?”
“You never know!”
Yuan rolled his eyes, slouching back into the seat. There would surely be some shops like that, but likely they’d have to take the train to get to the outer parts. He wasn’t really interested in that. Besides the smell of leather… only reminded him of sitting with Liu-shidi as he repaired his bracers, of sitting with his students as he patiently taught them how to shape leather to cradle their instruments or make armor, of waking next to Binghe after a nap while his husband fashioned leather sheaths for some ancient knife set he’d found.
He was jerked from his reminiscing when their driver jerked the wheel with a strangled shout. Yuan’s arm shot out to grab his sister’s shoulder as she was almost thrown into him, stopped only by the seat belt. In turn, he smacked into the door, his head smashing into the glass painfully.
“What the fu-!”
Yuan groaned, blinking his eyes open. There was someone speaking next to him? No. He gazed around blearily. Near him?
Agh… his head hurt and that voice-
It sounded so happy in contrast the way his body ached. He was… in a car. Right. They’d been on the way to their hotel-
“Meimei,” he gasped, vision clearing as caught sight of his sister slumped in her seat. He jerked forward and hissed as the seatbelt refused to stretch. With impatience, he unclicked it and leaned over, hand to her neck. Her pulse was strong.
The driver on the other hand…
Yuan gaped at the wreck of the front seat. The back had been spared most of it, but it looked like they went right into the center divider and the front seat was crumpled. He peered over, catching sight of the blood covering half the chauffeur's face. His legs were a mangled mess that definitely weren’t getting pulled out without professional assistance.
Grimly, he reached forward, ignoring the ache in his wrenched shoulder, and checked for a pulse. It fluttered weakly beneath his hand.
Well, at least he could try to call for help.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen was cracked at the corner but it turned on just fine. He caught the time- a little after 7pm- before he typed in his password and dialed the emergency line. It kept ringing and ringing and ringing-
No help there.
Right. Bystanders would probably be gawking. He could have someone else help. There were people moving around the car already even on the highway, looking a bit frenzied.
He just needed to get out-
The door sizzled against his fingers and he jerked back with a hiss.
“Ahahah! Weren’t you listening? Only single riders can exit their vehicles!”
What? What the fuck?
“C’mon! Make this a show worth watching! Show me some beautiful chaos!”
That happy voice from earlier?
“Show me your worth!”
A screen appeared in front of his face and Yuan jolted, heart racing harder.
“System,” he choked out, in surprise. But, no. This wasn’t the same. The borders were different and the screen itself was opaque instead of mostly see-through. Written across the screen:
[MAIN SCENARIO #1
Proof of Value
Category: Main
Difficulty: F
Clear Condition: Kill one or more living organisms.
Time Limit: 30 minutes
Rewards: 300 coins
Penalty for Failure: Death]
What the absolute shit was this? No wait- even worse. Why did it look so familiar?
Actually, fuck that- what did it mean death? Kill an organism? And they couldn’t leave the car?
With a mounting sense of mania, Shen Yuan took in the frenzied people outside the car. They weren’t buzzing around because of a car crash. Oh no- they were attacking each other.
He dragged his eyes away from the gruesome scene on the street.
Shen Yuan… Shen Yuan was the person who wouldn’t freak out. He wouldn’t doubt the strange things happening if he somehow transmigrated. That was his creed to himself. He’d done pretty well before-
He just… Needed to look at the facts.
Fact 1: there was some version of the system giving a quest.
Based on past experience, not following the quests would hurt him in some fashion. Currently, it was threatening death. Better to be safe than sorry?
Fact 2: he couldn’t leave the car.
If the door had been jammed, that would be another matter entirely. No, this was different. There was some kind of barrier , and this modern world of his didn’t have magic. Something supernatural was obviously at play.
Fact 3: everyone else seemed to act as if the quest was a legitimate threat.
Based on the frenzy outside, something had kicked people into high gear trying to fulfill the quest. Humanity was skeptical in general, and some people believing the system wouldn’t cause the mess outside the car.
It was real.
This-
Why this?
Was he cursed or something?
Three people in a car they couldn’t leave. Each person needed a death to survive. The math-
He giggled into his fist, his knuckles pressing his mask uncomfortably to his lips, hunching over as his eyes started to burn.
The math didn’t add up.
Three people.
Three deaths needed.
Not possible.
Only…. Only one person could live.
Only one…
Automatically, his eyes slid to his sister. There was no way he was going to let her die. Absolutely no way in all the heavens and hells. While the Shens were pretty close for being a family of business moguls, Shen Yuan was particularly close to Shen Qiantu. His precious, tenacious little sister. Not only were they the closest in age, but also in interests as well; both nerds with reading addictions and tearing apart awful plot lines.
She stuck to him through thick and thin, never letting him wallow alone in his apartment for long. She’d come over and bully him into cleaning and buying non-perishable groceries that she knew he could stomach and easily pop into the microwave. She taught herself the equivalent of an American EMT license just to be able to help him with his shitty body, while still going through senior secondary schooling*.
Qiantu deserved to live.
And… and maybe if he finally…
Shen Yuan could never bring himself to do it when he still had his family reaching out and trying to connect with him. But in a situation like this?
His hand crept up to rub at the Guanyin necklace beneath his clothes. He’d bought it on his first outing that his sister had finally dragged him on after waking up from his mini coma. Sitting right there at the checkout had been a mini display of jewelry and… It was a cheap plastic thing, but it brought him comfort and reminded him of his husband.
“Guanyin,” he murmured, “grant me strength.”
After taking a moment to collect himself, Shen Yuan felt a rock solid core of determination solidify inside of him.
He shifted himself across the seat so he sat right next to his sister, unbuckling her limp form. Carefully, he did his best to lean her against his chest, so he could get one of her hands in his. It took more time than he would like, being careful not to jostle her awake. He knew how she would feel about this, but he didn’t care. She was more important.
And there was the chance…
With a grunt of effort, he shifted them forward making sure her hand settled around as much of the driver’s neck as she could reach. Then, reaching deep into himself for that well of strength that he had lost ever since coming back to the modern world, he placed his hand over hers and squeezed.
Immediately, the driver’s soft wheezing breath stuttered. His body jerked, but his eyes never opened, even as his sister shifted against him, head rolling onto his shoulder.
“Just a bit more, Meimei. Only a bit. Stay asleep, okay?” His murmurs were soft, a stark contrast to the brutal grip he had on his sister’s hand against the chauffeur’s neck. The countdown continued in his head, as he kept whispering to her, as he kept apologizing and pleading.
Would it count if she wasn’t awake?
He really really hoped so, because she’d never do this. He’d never want her to do this and have to remember it.
“Ohoho! What do we have here? What an interesting choice going on in this vehicle!”