The afterlife blew up Gensokyo

Thinking of Mengyue, who had confessed her feelings to him before, Shi Bai's lips twitched slightly.

"Don't even think about hiding it anymore, Huan Yue has told me everything."

With her arms crossed, Kazami Yuuka let out a cold snort.

"Patchouli, Sally, Lumia, Alice, Yume, you've only been gone a few years, and you've already offended five more. Can't you be a little more careful...?"

"Wait, wait, wait! Besides Mengyue, who are the other four? And why is Alice in there too!?"

Before Kazami Yuuka could finish her sentence, Shi Bai was immediately stunned.

"It's obvious she's making this up, isn't it? You actually believe that?"

"Those involved are often confused, while bystanders see things clearly. You're known for being oblivious when it comes to relationships, so it's perfectly normal that you don't notice these things."

Kazami Yuuka replied quite calmly.

"If you think about it carefully, you probably have accumulated a lot of romantic entanglements during the years I was away."

"How dare you slander someone's innocence out of thin air? Even Dou E wasn't wronged as much as I am, okay?"

Shi Bai opened his eyes wide.

"How could a gentleman like me possibly get involved in romantic entanglements?! This is entirely against my principles..."

"Oh? What did Mononobe no Futo say? You almost married her back then."

Kazami Yuuka narrowed her eyes slightly.

"Cough cough cough!! That was just a thought..."

Shi Bai coughed a few times, slightly embarrassed.

"Really? Then what about that demon on Youkai Mountain? When I first settled down in Gensokyo, she came looking for me like a rival and we fought hundreds of times."

With her arms crossed, Yuuka Kazami wore a cold smile.

"I heard you two made a promise that you would marry her once she comes of age?"

"Hundreds of times...that was just..."

Shi Bai turned his head away, feeling rather guilty.

"Also, don't think I don't know about Mengyue and Huanyue. You're something else, aren't you? One trip and you've made two sisters fall for you and insist on marrying you?"

"I already said they're just... okay, I admit I'm a complete mess when it comes to relationships, alright?"

Dejected, he gave up struggling and slumped back on the sofa. Shi Bai rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Living too long and experiencing too many things can gradually make one's emotions fade. Although I've managed to rediscover my feelings, my way of thinking has been shaped by my behavior over the past few years... Heaven knows how I ended up getting involved with so many people?"

Frustrated, Shi Bai scratched his hair, his words carrying a hint of self-abandonment.

"So what if I'm a virgin forever? Anyway, I'm still a vibrant 18-year-old, a handsome and youthful boy. This is my youth, and youth is invincible!!"

"...Put yourself in their shoes. In their eyes, you've always been the hero who saves the damsel in distress, haven't you?"

With a slight twitch at the corner of her eye, Kazami Yuuka began to speak.

"Always giving light in darkness and hope in despair, it's normal for them to like you, right? Don't you even know what you've done?"

"Uh... but those things... shouldn't they be easy to do?"

After a moment of stunned silence, Shi Bai scratched his hair.

"Look, it's like a cup falling off the table, and I casually reach out and catch it, then put it back on the table. Isn't that a perfectly normal thing to do? After all, the public morality competition officially starts today... I always did this when I was wandering around other worlds, and I never saw any problems."

"........."

Her eyebrows twitched slightly, and Kazami Yuuka realized that she seemed to have finally found the culprit behind everything.

The bigger problem is that, judging from the other person's description, the rival I'm facing might not just be someone from this world... wait, he just said something quite shocking...

As if suddenly remembering something, Kazami Yuuka froze on the spot, while in front of her, someone lying on the sofa was still rambling on and on.

“Yuuka, look, what I did was actually just a very normal thing. I caught a cup falling off the table, I stomped out the sparks when a fire was about to ignite an ant nest, and I picked up the trash and threw it in the trash can when there was trash on the ground... These things are no different from what I’ve done before, right? I don’t think I did anything wrong…”

"Wait, what did you just say?"

Before Shi Bai could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Kazami Yuuka.

"Uh... Yuuka, look..."

"The previous sentence!!"

"Uh...look, it's like the cup..."

"One more sentence!!!"

"A virgin for life is a virgin for life..."

"That's right, that's the line!!"

"........."

Shi Bai's face involuntarily darkened.

"In all those years before, you've never had another woman?"

"……No."

Looking up at the ceiling, Shi Bai rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"My self-control is pretty good, after all, I can't let Xiaoye and the others down. Besides, Teletubbies, SpongeBob SquarePants, Peppa Pig, the story of Lei Feng, Black Cat Detective... you can't even find one that's worth rushing into here, okay!?"

As if recalling that extremely dark past, Shi Bai's words were filled with resentment, and his face showed signs of toothache.

"Actually, I take relationships quite seriously. Besides, at that time I couldn't even take care of myself, so I had no way to give them a complete and happy future. It was better to cut my losses quickly..."

When talking about these past events, someone's eyes seemed a little misty.

"After all, it's best not to meet, so we won't fall in love; it's best not to know each other, so we won't miss each other... That's just how it is."

"Is this a matter of your personal principles?"

A glimmer seemed to flicker in Yuuka Kazami's eyes.

"That's right, principles must be followed, otherwise you will gradually degenerate into depravity in the endless and long course of life."

Shi Bai nodded very seriously.

"So, Yuuka, you must also remember that no matter what, we must always have one thing in our hearts... Wait, what are you doing?"

Looking at Kazami Yuuka straddling him, Shi Bai was momentarily stunned.

"What do you think? I'd consider myself your wife, wouldn't I?"

Her fair skin, as white as the moon, was inexplicably tinged with an alluring blush. Looking at the astonished gaze of the man so close to her, Yuuka Kazami's eyes seemed to sparkle with stars.

She bit her lip, leaned down to the other person's ear, and whispered something in their ear.

"You've left your wife alone in this empty house for so many years. As her husband, shouldn't you at least show some consideration?"

"Wait, wait a minute, I'm not done yet..."

As the man's slightly flustered voice drifted from inside the room, the curtains in front of the wide French windows were silently and gently drawn shut...

Outside the Dream Pavilion, Ellie raised her head with a slight puzzlement.

PS: 36000 words are omitted below.

Chapter Two: The Riluo Institute is Fighting

The sun was warm but not scorching, the wind was gentle and the clouds were light, and the sky was high and clear.

In the center of the huge sunflower field, after rolling around on the grass a dozen times out of boredom, the girl with long golden hair finally made up her mind to get up from the grass.

"Mengyue, let's go find him!!"

"Why? He told us to wait for him here."

Looking up at her older sister, Mengyue, who was sitting at the table enjoying the sun, tilted her head slightly in confusion.

"Because this is obviously abnormal!!"

With a sudden wave of her hand, Huan Yue spoke loudly.

"You left the three of us here, and then ran off to do who-knows-what with her. Aren't you worried about something like this?!"

"Yes, I'm not worried."

Lowering her head to continue flipping through the comic books placed on the table in front of her, Mengyue answered calmly.

"This is just a very normal thing..."

"But they haven't come back for three months, okay?!"

Before Mengyue could finish her sentence, Huanyue interrupted her fiercely.

"I have ample evidence that he's trying to use this opportunity to get rid of us, his burdens!!"

"Is it really okay to call yourself a burden? Next time you speak, please don't include me in your insults."

Without even raising her head, Mengyue spoke calmly.

"I actually think you seem a bit too anxious, sister. Ever since you came back from the Western world, you've seemed quite insecure... Can you tell me why?"

"Where did I show any insecurity?!"

"The sentence you just said."

"........."

"Is my sister unwilling to tell me? If she does, I might be able to offer some advice, but if she's unwilling to tell me, then there's nothing I can do."

"...Okay, okay, I admit I do feel insecure, alright?"

Rolling her eyes, she fell to the side, sprawling out on the soft grass, and looked up at the sky.

"Back when I was hiding in the nameless dream world, all I did every day was cultivate, grow stronger and stronger, day after day, for hundreds of years... My biggest dream back then was to take revenge one day. But now that my biggest dream has been realized, I have no idea what to do now. Sometimes I even wonder in my heart if everything I've experienced up to this point has just been a dream?"

"Dream?"

Mengyue raised her head.

"Yeah, if you think about it carefully, how could there possibly be such a good thing in the world? It's simply impossible..."

Placing the back of her right hand on her forehead, and looking through the gaps between her fingers at the clear blue sky, Huan Yue sighed silently.

"Mengyue, think about it yourself. We were originally just wanted and hunted by the entire Western world. Even after hiding in the Eastern world, we were still confined to a place like the Nameless Dream World for hundreds of years, afraid to come out. But then one day, a man appeared who was incredibly powerful, yet approachable and easy to get along with. This man brought us to the Western world, cleared our names, and allowed us to walk openly in the sunlight from then on, no longer needing to live in constant fear. Moreover, everything this man did was done by chance. Even if we wanted to repay him, he didn't need to at all... Do you really think such a perfect man exists in this world?"

"Why not? He's already shown up, hasn't he?"

Mengyue tilted her head slightly to the side.

"Because it was so wonderful, everything went so smoothly, it was like a dream..."

Huan Yue's voice suddenly became slightly low.

"I'm really scared. I'm scared that when I wake up, I'll find myself still in that nameless dream world, and everything before was just a beautiful dream I had. I'll still have to face that cruel world and reality... You should be able to understand how I feel, right?"

"This is reality, not a dream."

Mengyue shook her head.

"...Of course I know this is reality, but how can you be so sure it's not a dream?"

Huan Yue gave Meng Yue a disapproving look and replied.

"During these three months, I've had a recurring, strange dream. The world in the dream isn't like this at all. In that dream world, although Kazami Yuuka appears, the man never shows up. Later, Kazami Yuuka left the Dream Mansion and settled in Gensokyo, where she also planted a sunflower field. Ellie has been sitting in front of the Dream Mansion with her scythe, waiting for its owner to return, while we remain trapped in the nameless dream world, without any end in sight..."

That was just a dream.

"Although it was a dream, everything in the dream seemed incredibly real, so real that it was as if our fate was meant to be that way."

Huan Yue remained steadfast in her resolve.

"If I can't see him and confirm his existence, I really will doubt whether everything I'm doing is a dream, and that everything in the dream is the real world."

"...I think you might be feeling too empty inside, sister."

After tilting her head slightly and thinking for a moment, Mengyue spoke calmly.

"Sister, you've started to blur the line between truth and falsehood, which is a very dangerous thing."

"emptiness?"