Ira rode in a carriage next to Li Dawei. Contrary to his expectations, they would not be riding swords to the sect Amanda lived in. On the one hand, this was a disappointment. What could possibly be cooler than flying on swords? On the other hand, he kind of enjoyed the opportunity to slowly ride through the countryside and see the world with his actual physical eyes—not just using his omniscience to see everything.
Lying with his head on Xiao Wei’s lap, Ira slept for hours at a time. Of course, he had a pillow under him to be comfortable since humans weren’t really made for sleeping on, no matter how fluffy they were. When he wasn’t sleeping, he’d read or play games with Xiao Wei (possibly his fiancé???). There was no bumping from the road; some kind of cultivator’s trick was deployed to make certain the carriage ride was smooth and bump-free. Ira wasn’t interested in the particulars of that, but he would gladly enjoy the benefits.
They stayed at an inn the first night after they set out. Ira climbed down from the carriage with his hand on Xiao Wei’s and rose a hand to protect his eyes from the sun; the inn was right ahead. It was smaller than he would have expected, but the outside sported an inviting look and the people who were going in and out all seemed in high spirits.
Ira hummed. He let go of Li Dawei’s hand and walked toward the open front door. Though many people had been going in and out, not many were visible from the entrance.
A thought occurred to him, “Do we have reservations?” he asked Li Dawei, turning to face him fully and tilting his head to the side.
Li Dawei smiled at him and walked up, holding his hand out. Ira took it again, threading his fingers through Xiao Wei’s. “Yes, I had a servant arrange it. We have reservations all along the road to your friend.”
“Okay,” Ira said. He glanced around, saw that no-one was paying them much attention, and quickly pecked Xiao Wei’s cheek. It was part of a project of his; the Show Li Dawei My Affection Project. So far, he thought it was going swimmingly.
Li Dawei rose a hand to press against his cheek where Ira had just touched and his ears reddened. Ira grinned, pleased to see that he was having such an effect on the other man. Then he turned and pulled Xiao Wei into the building. Xiao Wei followed, easily keeping pace with Ira.
They really did have a reservation.
The room they got was gigantic. Ira didn’t know where their servants would be spending the night and quite frankly, he did not care. It had nothing to do with him, they were Li Dawei’s servants and it was his duty to ensure they got decent rest. Ira had no influence on that and didn’t pretend to. Instead, he watched while some of the inn’s workers filled the bathtub with water, his eyes sparkling.
It was a big wooden tub, placed behind one of those room separators that you could place wherever you wanted. He couldn’t remember what they were called, but these ones had flowery patterns and were very nice to look at. When the servants were done, Ira said, “Thank you.”
They bowed to him and left.
Alone, Ira swiftly removed all his clothing and climbed into the tub. Xiao Wei was doing something with one of his disciples, the two talking in hushed voices in another room. There were lots of hushed whispering going on and while Ira could hear what they were saying if he wanted to, he felt no desire for that knowledge. Whatever Darcy was up to was his own prerogative and he would share it with Ira when and if he wanted to.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Until then, it was really none of Ira’s business.
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When his lungs were screaming so loudly that he could no longer ignore it, Ira abruptly breached the surface of the water. He inhaled sharply, pushing his hair out of his face and rubbing his eyes. Sputtering as he attempted to force air back into his lungs without choking on it, he leaned over the edge of the bathtub and took great, big breaths.
It was without saying that that had been a bad idea. Which was unfair, really. This was a cultivator’s body and even an utterly ordinary, basic cultivator should still have the ability to hold their breath for longer than five minutes! But this body couldn’t even manage that; he was left wheezing in the bathtub as he desperately tried to catch his breath again.
Unfair!
Footsteps ran into the room, stopping just by the tub. Xiao Wei dropped to his knees right in front of Ira and softly brushed Ira’s hair out of his face. With furrowed brows, he asked, “Are you alright?”
“I need to cultivate,” Ira answered, puffing his cheeks out irritably.
Xiao Wei’s hand cupped his cheek and his fingers gently swept over the skin. Ira stilled, staring wide-eyed at the other man. He felt… a soft burning in his chest, like something beginning to spark. It was odd and weird and a pressure he assumed he would dislike, yet didn’t. Really, at this point even Ira could tell; he obviously liked Li Dawei.
What he liked about him didn’t matter as much as the fact that he did. It was almost irritating, the fact that he’d grown to like someone who’d followed him through half-a-dozen worlds. Didn’t humans call that stalking? When a person followed one around without or against permission? If so, was Ira the stalkee?
Should he be offended by Silas? Should he fear him? Should he hate him for following him, even though Ira never said he could? Did Ira ever say he couldn’t? (He really couldn’t remember.) His head increasing tilting to the side as he tried to come to some kind of conclusion, he eventually decided that he didn’t know enough about this subject.
“Have you been stalking me, Xiao Wei?” Ira asked, staring right at his boyfriend(?).
Xiao Wei started. He gulped, then said, “I wouldn’t… yes, I suppose so. Maybe. Not in the sense that I follow you from world to world though, that’s impossible. I’m not like you, I can’t anticipate where you’re going. But I can… wait. And if you arrive at a world I’m already on, I do suppose that I have stalked you sometimes. Do you… dislike me for it?”
“Not really,” Ira shrugged. In the first place, was stalking even a thing for Systems?
A System was an omniscient being existing outside of what humans thought of as spacetime. They lived in an entirely different dimension, procured nourishment through means humans would think impossible, didn’t have a physical body in the same sense as humans, could even freely possess human body’s for their own pleasure. Stalking was (from what Ira had picked up) categorized as one human following another one against expressed permission.
So. Had Ira told Silas he didn’t want to be followed? Had Ira felt uncomfortable at the fact that he was being followed? And by a person from another species, at that. Had Ira disliked the human following him?
Had he wanted him to stop?
The thing was, Ira genuinely couldn’t remember. More precisely, he didn’t care to remember.
Ira didn’t want Silas to stop following him. He didn’t feel uncomfortable being followed. He didn’t dislike the person following him. He didn’t want him to stop. If Ira had changed his mind at some point without noticing, was that a bad thing?
“It’s fine as long as you’re not going to try to trap me again. It was fun to watch you fail, but I didn’t like the attempt,” said Ira. He frowned, leaning back slightly from Silas.
“Of course,” Xiao Wei said. “I will never do that again.”
“Good.”
Because otherwise Ira would be forced to ditch him again, possibly for good. Really, the idea of being trapped in a situation with no way out made him break out in hives. And the thought of somebody he actually liked doing that to him made him furious—furious in a way he hadn’t been in eons. He really might truly break Silas’s soul if that happened again.
Easing himself back into the water until it reached his chin, now that he could breathe properly again, Ira closed his eyes and rested his head against the edge of the tub. His hands slowly moved through the water, causing ripples to form and beat against his skin.
“I’m sorry for trying to trap you,” Silas said. When Ira peeked at him, he’d moved so he was sitting with his back to the tub and looking forlornly down at his lap. “It was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have done that. I understand if you don’t want to marry me.”
“Who said anything about not marrying you?”
“Then you will—”
“I don’t mind marrying you. It’s not like it’s real, anyway,” Ira mused, now opening his eyes and staring up at the ceiling.
He didn’t get a response to that. When a couple of minutes had passed by, he turned his head to the side and gazed at Xiao Wei. He frowned, wondering what had caused the melancholy look on Xiao Wei’s face. It was… probably his fault. He must have said something wrong, but he didn’t know what.
“Okay,” said Xiao Wei at last, taking a deep breath. He turned to Ira and placed his arms on the tub’s edge, resting his head on them. “I will put the wedding preparations on hold.”
“Eh?” Ira’s eyes widened. “But I do want to marry you, it just wouldn’t be a real marriage. It’s like a game, and I want to play it!”
Xiao Wei frowned. “It doesn’t count for your species, marriage with a human?”
“No, it counts. When it’s done consensually in our dimension, and the appropriate paperwork is filed. We possess so many bodies during our work that we end up marrying humans lots of times; if every one of those marriages counted, I would be married to fifty-seven people.”
“Of course,” Xiao Wei nodded, but Ira was not entirely certain he understood.
Obviously, Systems could marry humans. It wasn’t really done a lot though, because a human couldn’t survive in the System’s dimension and so the System would have to leave their home to join the human. And well, not a lot of people wanted to do that. It was hard work! It required building a human body made just for you, and that took a lot of energy. So much energy that you very rarely got a new one if the old one broke.
“You can keep going with the wedding preparations,” Ira said, just to make it clear that he did want to get human-married to Xiao Wei. It would be like a game; like two human children getting married in the backyard by another child while the adults (his Boss) watched on indulgently. It wasn’t a real marriage, but that didn’t mean it was emotionless or didn’t carry any weight.
Genuine affection was still there. Caring for the other person was still there. Enjoying the other person’s company was still there.
Xiao Wei’s gaze lowered to the water. He hummed, his eyes seeing something that wasn’t there. Ira didn’t know what he was thinking, but hopefully, it was all good things.
Closing his eyes again, Ira sank deeper into the water until his nose was just above the surface. The water was still steaming hot, despite all the time he’d spent talking.
A/N: Well. That hiatus was longer than expected. If you’re not on CG’s discord, the reason was simple. I got my 2nd covid vaccine shot! ….And then I forgot to take my rheumatism meds for a week (if my phone doesn’t remind me, I will not remember) and so I physically couldn’t write for a bit there. And Microsoft has been messing with their speech-to-text function, so that wasn’t really an option. Hopefully, things are back to normal now though (no promises).
Thank you for the chapter.
hope your feeling better! Thanks for the chapter☺
Thank you for the hard work but don’t forget to rest
Wooh you’re back! Ira and Silas’s feelings are developing and I can just smell a confession in the next world
The feels. I wonder if Silas can get promoted and become a system and follow along with Ira.
I started this story a few days ago and enjoy it a lot! Waiting for the next chapter. 😊 hope you’re doing good. 💛
Thanks for the chapter and get well soon
\ ( ○ v ○ ) / ~~~~~~~
Hopefully Ira can marry Silas “for real”