Love, Gun, Cupid

The female doctor threw herself into the young man's arms, clasped her hands behind his back, and murmured, "I have never heard of such a thing, but humans can swagger in like this, and your expression is very natural, which proves that the Empire knows but keeps it a secret from people like us."

Lin Jiade, what will happen if we go back? Will I be dissected and studied like in the novels? Or will you get rid of me so that the secret can be kept forever?

This is really scary... Rather than this, I'd rather stay here; at least this maze doesn't mean me any harm.

Would you like to stay with me?

Lin Jiade shook his head and said, "No."

The woman holding him stiffened slightly, and Lin Jiade continued, "You're not Teacher Yang."

The Colt M1847 slid out of Lingard's pocket. He pushed the imposter aside, pressed the muzzle of the gun against the imposter's chin, and fired, without worrying about being cursed by Angolan Mainyu, who was wearing Mrs. Leather.

The scenery before him changed, and a radiant scepter came into view. He hurriedly let go, staggered backward, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the sword orchid beside him.

“You were spacing out for three seconds,” Jianlan said.

This was exactly the question Lin Jiade wanted to ask. He was surprised by his tacit understanding with the Lich Lady, and straightened up to say, "I was in the illusion for about two minutes, where the Mirror Realm creatures transformed into Teacher Yang."

How did you figure it out?

"Because you weren't in that illusion, now you are my reality."

Gladiolus widened her eyes slightly, then smiled back. The deceased's smile was as beautiful as a mirror, crystalline, beautiful, and cold. Lin Jiade's heart suddenly began to beat faster.

"So that's how it is. Was it because I didn't project a vision that suited your taste? If I hadn't read your memories, I would have thought you were talking to thin air."

The creatures from the Mirror Realm emitted a soft light. Lin Jiade reached into his pocket, and just as he drew his weapon and aimed it at the creatures, Jasmine's endearing face appeared before him.

"Lin Jiade, stay here," she said coquettishly.

"You bastard, don't talk like Jasmine!"

Lin Jiade couldn't pull the trigger. The Mirror Realm creature smiled and walked forward. She quickly transformed back into a cuckoo. She removed her clothes, revealing a torso and well-proportioned limbs enveloped in holy light magic.

Even knowing she was an imposter, Lin Jiade couldn't look her in the eye. He staggered back and saw the Mirror World creature transform back into Gladiolus. The form-fitting evening gown accentuated the sexy curves of this mature fruit, making her irresistible.

"You crave a woman with a youthful appearance to act coquettishly towards you, you crave a charming woman to shed her halo, you crave a mature woman to open her arms... You crave for them to become different versions of Jasmine, for you to give them pleasure, and for them to give you pleasure."

"It wasn't me..." Lin Jiade said guiltily, "I didn't..."

"I am a mirror, reflecting your undisguised desires. I am a mirror, I will not deny your desires, and I can become just like the real me, to fulfill the desires you cannot achieve in reality."

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Flying Birds III

"Why?" Lin Jiade asked.

The Mirror Creature replied, "Because I want to know what love is, and I long to have an independent name like the Houyhnhnm, which are things that don't exist in the Mirror Realm."

My kin are immersed in a near-nihilistic spiritual world, while you upright apes understand these things and teach us to use mirrors with passion and joy.

I really like the story of the Houyhnhnms, and she only made one mistake: letting Gulliver go. I won't repeat her mistake.

“The Empire and the Mirror Realm have a ceasefire agreement,” Lin Jiade said.

"So, you came to me on your own initiative."

All the illusions appeared: Jasmine, innocent and romantic like a girl next door; Azalea, showing him the body of a goddess; Gladiolus, seducing him with mature charm; in the blink of an eye, three Jasmines with different styles reached out to him.

"The eternal paradise is here, where all desires can be fulfilled, and you will live forever," said the creature from the Mirror Realm.

Lin Jiade took a step forward, and the phantoms opened their arms. He suddenly stopped, looked up, and asked, "Can I play football?"

"? Yes, of course."

“But even five-a-side football requires ten players. You only manifested three phantoms, which is far from enough to meet the minimum requirement. Sorry to bother you.”

Lin Jiade took two steps back and raised a middle finger at the creatures of the Mirror Realm: "They can't even play football. What kind of eternal paradise is this? It's more like an eternal hell."

The Mirror Creature said somewhat exasperatedly, "Don't lie to me! There's absolutely no football in your strongest desires!"

"Does liking something mean you have to think about it all the time and harbor the deepest desires for it?"

Lin Jiade looked at the other person strangely: "Football is a part of my life, it's like air, food, and water. I don't think about them intentionally, but they are so important to my life."

Your mirror-like lives are slow, almost static, confined to a small world. You don't know the joy of striving to move yourself within deliberately restricted time and space.

Jianlan knew that the young man had never succumbed to temptation for a moment. Perhaps it was because he was exceptionally determined, or perhaps the offer from the creatures of the Mirror World was not enough to sway him, or perhaps it was a combination of both.

She approached Lin Jiade from behind, reaching out to shield his eyes, casting a transparent, light gray hue over his vision. In this newly cleared view, Lin Jiade saw many golden flames scattered across the mountains.

"This is the world seen by the dead. The bodies of the living are blurred, while their souls are a ball of light. Human souls are turned golden because they are blessed by the celestial observers," Jianlan said.

Lin Jiade instantly understood Jianlan's meaning. He looked around and asked, "Are all the people here human?"

"I think it's the humans who accepted the offer from the beings of the Mirror Realm and stayed here forever. Their souls retained their color, while their bodies were assimilated by the mirror, achieving a different kind of immortality."

Lin Jiade shook his head: "Gulliver's Travels was a required reading for my junior high school Chinese teacher. I wrote several weekly journal entries based on this book, and quoted it many times when writing essays in high school. It left a deep impression on me."

The paradise depicted by the creatures of the Mirror Realm is an illusion. The trainer Gulliver longs for the Houyhnhnms and hates the Yahoos. After failing to obtain them, he returns home and it takes him a long time to be able to get along with his human wife again.

He used the creatures of the Mirror Realm as substitutes to satisfy his various desires for the Houyhnhnms, but in the end he still chose to leave her.

Of course, this is scumbag behavior, but I think the reason Gulliver left the Mirror World creatures was also because illusions can't compare to reality. Love fades with substitutes. And passion declines even faster.

Lin Jiade looked at the Mirror Realm creature that had tempted him: "So, even if you succeed in tempting me, the final outcome will only be a repetition of the tragedy of your kind."

You might be able to forcibly confine me, but what you want to experience is love. Love, like a building, cannot be built on a foundation of deception; otherwise, problems will arise.

Perhaps influenced by Lin Jiade's teachings, or perhaps impatient with Lin Jiade's lectures, the Mirror Realm creature told him a coordinate through the fluctuations. He made a gesture of thanks to the creature and then ran towards it with all his might.

To conserve his energy, he kept his breathing steady and sprinted forward without looking up until he saw the person in front of him, at which point he suddenly stopped.

"Hiss, whoosh!"

He transformed into the emperor's sharp blade and stood there catching his breath for a while. He saw Teacher Yang sitting in the corner, hugging her knees and crying.

“She’s still alive,” Gladiolus said, “but it looks like she’s about to succumb to the temptations of the Mirror Realm creatures.”

Lin Jiade walked over and nudged Teacher Yang's shoulder. The latter remained unresponsive, tears streaming down her face.

In desperation, he pulled out the magic potion he had stored in his eye drops, squeezed out a little, and applied it to Ms. Yang's eyelids. Based on his previous experience at the police station, his magic potion felt like Tiger Balm on ordinary people's skin.

The external stimulation brought a hint of life to Ms. Yang's face, but it wasn't enough to wake her from the temptation, so Lin Jiade had to apply another drop to her nose.

Teacher Yang looked pained, but he was still some distance from waking up. He looked at Jianlan, hoping that the Lich Lady would give him some reasonable advice.

Jianlan said, "After Snow White ate the poisoned apple and fell into a coma, the dwarves placed her in a stasis field. At that time, the queen's pursuers, riding on Terrorclaws, had arrived. In desperation, Prince Charming cut the power lines of the stasis field and woke Snow White up with a series of slaps."

"??? Is this the time for fairy tales? And why is this story different from the version I've heard before?"

"But what fairy tales and reality have in common is that slaps work."

Lin Jiade glanced at her; Ms. Yang's eyes were red from crying, and her scarlet-streaked hair clung to her cheeks. She looked weak, helpless, and pitiful. He simply couldn't bring himself to hit her.

Gladiolus offered a second solution: "She should be able to hear outside sounds now. Go and talk to her about the thing that's causing her blood pressure to rise the most."

Now Lin Jiade understood. He knelt down, brushed the hair behind Ms. Yang's ear, and said to her, "You're twenty-eight and still single."

Teacher Yang trembled slightly. Seeing that this had worked, Lin Jiade pressed his advantage, saying, "Not only that, you've never been in a relationship even once. You're the epitome of a saint, and the students in the department secretly laugh at you."

These words were even more damaging. Teacher Yang put on an angry expression, her face flushed with anger, and her hands unconsciously clenched into fists.

However, she still did not wake up.

Chapter Thirty: Flying Bird IV (Bonus Chapter)

Lin Jiade was so anxious he jumped up and down. He thought Teacher Yang had woken up, but he didn't expect her to fall back asleep.

"If you can't wake up, are you Duanmu Rong with a damaged heart meridian?!" he roared inwardly.

The young man was so anxious that he wanted to slap Teacher Yang across the face. He didn't want to do something so tasteless unless absolutely necessary, but he had already told her everything he knew that could raise her blood pressure.

Did you really say everything?

Lin Jiade patted his cheeks and muttered to himself, "Calm down, calm down. You are Emperor Lin, infinitely arrogant. Use your brain carefully, and you will definitely find something to make Teacher Yang's blood pressure rise!"

So, he carefully reviewed his limited memories with Teacher Yang, and suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He shouted at Teacher Yang, "Teacher Yang, Lin Jiade fell asleep in your class again!"

This worked! Ms. Yang's anger flared up, and she opened her eyes and roared, "Lin Jiade, you've lost your participation points!"

After saying that, she froze, staring at the glittering maze under the eternally dark night. She covered her head and said, "Am I...dreaming?"

Lin Jiade breathed a sigh of relief: "No, I just woke up from a dream. Welcome back to reality, Teacher Yang."

He reached out and helped Ms. Yang up; the female PhD student was still dazed. The young man asked curiously, "What did you dream about?"

At this moment, Ms. Yang was bursting with urgency to speak, and she couldn't wait to answer: "I saw another version of myself. This time, her childhood was carefree. She didn't have to attend various tutoring classes, nor was she burdened by her parents' status and forced to strive in a direction she didn't like."

No need to study hard, no need to teach students, no need to write academic papers, no need to diet to maintain weight, no need to exercise to maintain health.

I eat, drink, and sleep all day long, indulging in all sorts of delicious food, watching TV series, movies, or reading novels, or simply lying in bed playing on my phone.

I sleep until I naturally wake up every day, take a selfie and post it on WeChat Moments. Everyone raves about my fairy-like looks, and every day young, handsome, and wealthy men come downstairs to confess their love to me. It's so annoying; it bothers the neighbors.

So, your true nature is that of a lazy dog ​​who dreams of being a Mary Sue?

Lin Jiade was somewhat disillusioned. He had originally thought that Ms. Yang was an independent woman who was very serious about her career and life, and he respected serious people.

Unexpectedly, it seemed that Ms. Yang's seriousness and independence were largely forced upon her by her parents. Therefore, Lin Jiade transferred all his original respect for Ms. Yang to her parents.

This is education. Education is a three-dimensional cultivation mechanism that combines the social, school, and family environments. The absence of any link will result in a defective product from this mechanism.

Ms. Yang was lucky because Lin Jiade knew that not every family had the same conditions as hers. Therefore, he had met some people who had similar personalities to Ms. Yang but whose fates were completely different.

I think I understand why some people in the department are spreading rumors about her. Who wouldn't be jealous of someone who is so unambitious and wastes opportunities, yet still manages to succeed by leveraging resources?

"So, it was a dream?" Ms. Yang asked pitifully. "Can I fall back asleep?"

Isn't this a complete surrender to temptation?!

Lin Jiade felt his blood pressure rise and his fists harden. He thought about how his junior year major courses were still in Professor Yang's hands. He took a deep breath, slowly loosened his fists, and pointed to the mirror next to him, saying, "If the teacher chooses to fall asleep, he will end up like this."

"Really?"

“If I were lying to you, there would be no need for me to risk aggravating my old injury to save you.” Lin Jiade clutched his knee. “Go home, Teacher Yang. Your nightmare is over.”

"I'm sorry, I don't know anything..."

The woman's face turned pale. She scurried away and hid behind Lin Jiade, warily watching the things that had brought her joy not long ago.

Gladiolus whispered, "I can feel that she carries fragments of my soul."

The young man frowned: "So that's why she was dragged in..."

"Lin Jiade..." The woman tugged at his sleeve fearfully, "Who are you talking to? Why do I feel so cold?"

Like Old Mu, Teacher Yang couldn't see the sword orchid but vaguely sensed its presence. Considering that her memory would definitely be erased after she returned, Lin Jiade didn't want to waste time, so he went straight to the point: "Teacher Yang, when you were teleported here, did you bring anything unusual with you?"