IRAJAS Chapter 148

Thank you to the person who provided the raw for the 2 extras. I really really appreciate it.

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At first, Xiao Shengjing thought it was just a dream.

In the dream, he unleashed the darkest evil within him, revealing without restraint his possessiveness towards Lin Lan. He hid the unconscious Lin Lan in his room, not allowing anyone to peek.

When he opened that door and saw Lin Lan lying on the bed, an inexplicable fear enveloped him.

Xiao Shengjing admitted that he desired Lin Lan and was suppressing himself. But the demon hidden in his heart was silently released in the dream.

He had always been this kind of person, yet he feared becoming such a person.

If one day Lin Lan were to leave him somehow, he wasn’t sure if he would release the demon suppressed deep in his heart and do something to harm him…

The dream continued, flowing like the real world, so real it was terrifying.

The most frightening part was that several times, he woke up in Lin Lan’s room.

Xiao Shengjing was uncertain if he would hurt Lin Lan, and in his unease, he went alone to a hospital to see a psychologist.

Upon learning that dreams reflect the deepest parts of the human mind, Xiao Shengjing’s thoughts sank to the bottom.

So, in the future, would he really imprison Lin Lan by his side as he did in the dream?

No, that’s not right. It’s not like that.

He would never harm Lin Lan, nor could he ever harm him!

Even if he had that dream a hundred or a thousand times, it didn’t mean he would actually do such a thing!

He and that person in the dream were clearly two different people!

Everyone has desires, but the first thing is to restrain oneself. That is what makes a real person.

Xiao Shengjing consciously fought against the dreams; he would turn off the surveillance camera in the dream, unlock Lin Lan’s room, and confront those online who insulted Lin Lan.

Returning to the real world, he suppressed his desires, forcing himself not to control Lin Lan, and tried to give him everything he wanted as much as possible.

The process of suppression was painful. But everything was moving in a better direction.

Until that time.

He was printing materials in the training room when suddenly a consciousness invaded, and he fainted.

During the fainting spell, he returned to the place in his dream, surrounded by strange devices, resembling some kind of magnetic field area, and right at the center of the bed was himself.

A computer was placed at the bedside, with a webpage about altering the magnetic field to change the worldline axis displayed.

It was the first time Xiao Shengjing began to doubt the reality of this dream.

His consciousness lingered briefly before being pulled back to the real world.

He opened his eyes and saw Lin Lan, saw his own room, and he couldn’t remember how he got there.

Lin Lan’s gaze was somewhat evasive, smiling and saying it was Lu Shi who carried him up.

His mind was too muddled to think it through at the time. But when he rested, he suddenly realized that his contact lenses had been removed, and his awareness abruptly heightened.

If it was Lu Shi and the others who carried him up while he was unconscious, then who took out his contact lenses? Would Lin Lan remove them while he was unconscious?

The answer was clearly impossible.

Xiao Shengjing immediately went to the security room to check the surveillance. He saw himself get up shortly after fainting, looking around like a stranger.

A chill shot from his heels to the back of his head. Xiao Shengjing couldn’t describe his shock; for a moment, he suspected he had split personalities, just like Lin Lan.

But looking at his clean bill of health, he quickly dismissed that idea.

Moreover, Lin Lan’s attempt to cover up the incident suggested that he knew the truth and might even be involved himself.

Xiao Shengjing didn’t dare to think further; he felt Lin Lan slipping out of his control, and the demon hidden in his heart began to stir again.

When Lin Lan told him the truth about the transversing, Xiao Shengjing indeed considered imprisoning him, doing everything possible to reverse the world.

But that was wrong.

He shouldn’t be like that person; he couldn’t let the demon rule his heart; he should respect Lin Lan’s own wishes.

In his self-restraint and determination to give Lin Lan freedom, he never expected that Lin Lan’s final choice was to stay.

He said he liked it here, liked the team, and liked him.

Those were the happiest days of Xiao Shengjing’s life; he had never felt such joy before. The obsession hidden in his heart slowly dissipated.

Lin Lan loved freedom, so Xiao Shengjing gave him absolute freedom.

He wanted to give Lin Lan the best of everything, allowing him to soar like a free bird, unrestrained.

Every time he saw Lin Lan happy by his side, an indescribable sense of satisfaction would surge in his heart.

This was the correct way to take care of Lin Lan.

He was very glad he made the right choice.

Time passed bit by bit and many things were forgotten. During the peak of the world competition, the manager, fearing that poor sleep would affect their performance, arranged a single room for each of them.

While Xiao Shengjing was packing his room, that piercing dizziness struck again, and he suddenly lost consciousness, waking up outside the room.

He knew that person had come again.

He was just like his old self, obsessive, pathological, and unwilling to let go of Lin Lan.

He tried to break the barriers of the world, to disturb the magnetic field, to take over this body…

Xiao Shengjing remained calm upon realizing this, continuing to chat with Lin Lan as usual. After their conversation, he kissed Lin Lan’s forehead, saying, “I’m going to sleep now, you should rest early too.”

Then he returned to his room, locked the door, and calmly took out the combination lock he had purchased, locking himself in the room.

The password couldn’t be his birthday, a special date, or anything related to Lin Lan, so he used a string of meaningless numbers.

After setting the password, he lit a calming incense, then removed all WiFi passwords from his electronic devices, opened his laptop, and stared at his own reflection on the screen, recording the content with excessive calmness: “Hello, I am Xiao Shengjing from another world. I know what you want to do, but Lin Lan is doing well here. He likes it here, and I sincerely hope you won’t disturb him anymore…”

Under the effect of the calming incense, he soon arrived in another world.

The electromagnetic field equipment in the room had been improved. But there still seemed to be insurmountable challenges, preventing true success despite generation after generation of attempts.

Xiao Shengjing thought that person had gone mad. After all, only one Lin Lan had appeared in the parallel worlds running for so many years. How could it be easy to change the world?

Their consciousness swaps lasted no more than an hour, and it required this world’s Xiao Shengjing to take sleeping pills during the day to even have a chance. How long could his body endure?

This time, the swap lasted just over twenty minutes before his consciousness was pulled back to his original body.

Xiao Shengjing, enduring the pain, got up and saw the chair in the room kicked over, and his phone’s smart software showed the password lock had failed 69 times. A new video had been recorded on the computer.

That person had raged, gone mad, and finally chosen to calm down.

Xiao Shengjing clicked on the video and saw his own face.

“He” looked visibly exhausted, like an empty shell, a walking corpse.

He rubbed his hair vigorously, his voice hoarse: “I just… want to see him again. He died in that world, and I… I haven’t seen him for so long… I can’t hold on much longer.”

The video ended there.

This was the first meeting of Xiao Shengjing from both worlds, the first connection point between the two worlds.

Xiao Shengjing felt an indescribable complexity of emotions; he couldn’t tell if he was more shocked or more terrified.

He turned off the computer, forcing himself to remain calm.

Lin Lan must never know about this. It was the most crucial time for his competition, and nothing should affect him.

Keeping it from Lin Lan, Xiao Shengjing contacted the other him three times during the world competition.

In these three instances, that person mostly asked about Lin Lan’s well-being. Upon learning that Lin Lan was doing well, his mental state gradually improved, though he remained mostly despondent.

The last time, that person suddenly asked in the video: “If I had learned to let go, to give him freedom, would he have accepted me?”

He looked up, and a tear suddenly fell from his reddened eyes. He seemed to know the answer already, smiling despairingly, “We are really different, you know? When Lin Lan was cyberbullied, how did I comfort him? I said those people’s words were false and that ignoring them would be fine. I thought he was like a fortress, unaffected by it all. I never considered helping him eliminate that online violence. Even when the team carded his contract, I accepted it because I thought it would keep him by my side forever…”

“I could actually sense it. I could sense that he wasn’t happy. But I… I really didn’t want to let go. I couldn’t let him go.”

“If I had treated him differently back then, everything might have turned out differently, right?”

His voice became hoarse towards the end. In the video, he broke down, tears falling in large drops.

Perhaps because they shared the same genes deep down, Xiao Shengjing empathized with him more than anyone else. The other person felt like a version of himself that had taken the wrong path, so real that it made him deeply fearful.

He used this video to warn himself, to never, ever make the same mistakes again…

On the eve of the finals, Xiao Shengjing, as if possessed, suddenly asked Lin Lan, “Do you still think about that other world?”

Lin Lan didn’t seem too bothered, but there was real regret. He admitted that there were still things he had left unfinished in that world.

Since there were unfinished matters, Xiao Shengjing decided to help him.

Returning to his room, Xiao Shengjing lit the calming incense again, and sat in front of his computer, calmly recounting the story of Tai Zhen and Tai Yuan’s plot to murder Lin Lan.

Two worlds, two Xiao Shengjings, communicating through the same computer, and in less than two months, they worked together to send Tai Zhen and Tai Yuan of the other world to prison.

When the dust settled, the other Xiao Shengjing smiled at the camera, then suddenly started crying again. It seemed he had made peace with this ending, and with himself.

He said, “He’s doing well over there. I saw the videos on your phone, I haven’t seen him smile that happily in a long time.”

He said, “I’m not worried at all that you’ll treat him badly because I know myself. Once I love someone, I want to give them everything. Entrusting him to you, I feel more at ease than anyone else.”

He also said, “I finally did something right. I don’t feel so bad anymore. Well, let’s end it here, let’s end it here. It’s time for me to go.”

When he said he was leaving, he truly meant it.

He never came back after that.

That obsessive and pathological Xiao Shengjing was choosing to make peace with himself, trying to accept the outcome. Perhaps, one day, the passage of time would dilute everything.

In the long days that followed, they would remain in different worlds, living their own lives.

They would never intersect again.

That night, after watching the video, Xiao Shengjing immediately got up, turned off the computer, threw away the combination lock, opened the door to the next room, and climbed into Lin Lan’s bed, holding him tightly.

Lin Lan, half-asleep, asked, “Why did you come over? Didn’t you say we should sleep separately because you were afraid you couldn’t control yourself?”

Xiao Shengjing shook his head, hugging Lin Lan’s soft body tightly, almost as if he wanted to meld him into his bones, letting his own thundering heartbeat convey how much he liked him.

“No more separation. From now on, forever, for a lifetime, we won’t be apart.”

“I will treat you well for a lifetime, until my heart stops beating, until the day I die…”

He wasn’t good at sweet talk.

What he said could only be the truth.

 

Author’s note:

The next chapter will be from Xie Zilu’s perspective and involves transversing. Don’t buy the wrong one~

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