“He’s pushed too hard!” Lian Yufan angrily arrived at work and saw President Zhen, Director Yuan, and Director Ha gathered in a circle and went over to them. “What are you doing?” 

“Oh, this is the contract Director Yu sent. I printed it out in triplicate.” Zhen Li took out a thick stack of A4 paper. 

The contract itself didn’t have many pages, but the appendix concerning the talent show script was very thick. It had all been hammered out by Yu Hua word by word with the talent show group. 

“I came because of this thing,” said Lian Yufan, who had been called to work on a weekend. “Director Yu called me at five-thirty this morning and told me to take you two and the official seal to their company to sign the contract. I’ll take a look at what it says.” 

Three copies was just right for each person to get one. Director Ha didn’t get a contract. It stuck up its front legs and stood up, wanting to read. 

Director Ha didn’t really want to know the contents of the contract, it was just that huskies naturally couldn’t resist getting in on the fun. If other people were together without taking it along, it felt bad! 

“Awoo, awoooo,” it called in an undulating voice, batting Yuan Luori’s leg with its two front paws. 

Lian Yufan said unhappily, “Did it use the toilet on time today?” 

“Yes.” Yuan Luori, who was responsible for taking care of Director Ha at night and during the day, rubbed the dog’s head. “It’s pretty intelligent. It studied law with me at night.” 

“Let’s put it in the cage for now. We’ll keep it in there temporarily to wear down its wild nature. Right now it doesn’t have any discipline.” Lian Yufan picked Director Ha up by the scruff of the neck, put it in the cage, and closed it. Then he patiently read the contract. 

“This contract…” Zhen Li was the first to finish reading. He relaxed. “It’s pretty good. I thought Yu Hua was going to sell you off.” 

Zhen Li looked at Yuan Luori. Before, the great master had appeared ready to get the hundred million by hook or by crook. Yu Hua held a contract he could use to sell off Yuan Luori; once Yuan Luori’s popularity was high enough, he could easily have sold him on at a high price. That way, Yuan Luori really would have been exploited by the other company until the contract ran out, and he would have had hardly any income. When that time came, Yuan Luori, who had lost his abilities and was near-sighted and astigmatic on top of it, would have been totally miserable. 

“He’s making me take part in a talent show!” Yuan Luori, who hadn’t finished reading yet, said angrily. “Is that also being nice to me? I want to study law!” 

“…When did you acquire that dream?” Zhen Li asked soundlessly. 

“You didn’t read it carefully. The script is in fact very beneficial for you.” Lian Yufan had finished reading it, too. He explained to Yuan Luori, “Yu Hua isn’t making you join the group. He signed a conttact for not joining, leaving you a lot of latitude.” 

“What does that mean?” Yuan Luori’s studies had only reached Civil Law. He hadn’t yet attacked Contract Law. 

In Yu Hua’s planned script, Yuan Luori played the supporting role of a character who unfortunately lost by a small margin. In the early stages, he would use his livestream popularity to increase volume and conversations. Then, when the show’s popularity soared, he would become a supporting character, helping promote whatever trainee the show group wanted to promote. When he had increased their popularity, he would retire after covering himself in glory, take his law books to test into university, and fulfill his dream of legal studies. 

“This is a plan where both sides win,” Lian Yufan said. “You and the show group get mutual achievements. You bring popularity, conversation, and atmosphere for them, promote the people they want to promote, and they’ll help you establish your legal studies persona while spurring on the studio’s popularity and traffic. You’ll only be a walk-on on the show. You won’t join the group. You don’t have that dream.” 

“That’s all right, then.” Yuan Luori pounded his chest. 

Zhen Li said, “After signing, the show group will come film you and Director Ha studying together. They want to get a lot of material. Luckily they’ll edit it later for use. I feel that we may be able to get quite a lot of advertisements for pet products.” 

Zhen Li thought that the great master had become quite a bit gentler towards the levelers. He was planning for their futures, not to dredge up a sum of money in three years and then leave. 

“Yu Hua said that you’re the public relations director, so you should understand a lot of verbal traps. He’s making you take us to sign the contract to avoid us being tricked when we’re faced with the contract,” Zhen Li explained for Yu Hua. “He’s not deliberately putting pressure on you by making you work overtime.” 

Lian Yufan smacked his forehead, looking speechless. 

Zhen Li really was the most naïve Destroyer. He considered everything in the best light. Why did they absolutely have to sign the contract on a Saturday? And when Yu Hua had determined the contract himself, shouldn’t he personally check it? He must have deliberately made Lian Yufan work overtime! 

Although… Lian Yufan looked at the sweetly foolish Zhen Li and at Yuan Luori, who couldn’t even understand the script appendix. The two of them really couldn’t go on their own. They would definitely be tricked. 

Lian Yufan had backing. With him to oversee the situation, even if the other side went back on their word at the last minute and wanted to change the contract, he could invite someone in a higher position to supervise the fairness of the contract. 

“Let’s go, I’ll take you.” Lian Yufan rubbed his temples. He would take this as thanking Zhen Li and Yuan Luori for their efforts at the mall. 

After agreeing, he viciously sent Yu Hua a message: You win!

Yu Hua put his phone away expressionlessly. Before going out, he also specifically asked You Zhengping, “What are Cen Xiao and the others doing today?” 

You Zhengping said, “I told him to buzz off and leave us in peace. He’s probably taken the others out for a drive.” 

Very good. The people who might get in the way had all been cleaned up. Yu Hua gave a restrained smile and held out a hand towards You Zhengping. “Then let’s go.” 

You Zhengping, who had dark circles around his eyes, took Yu Hua’s hand. After waking up from last night’s dream, he hadn’t gone back to sleep. He had closed his eyes and thought about the dream. 

During their training, they had been given a simple understanding of psychology. The teacher had emphasized that Protectors should take their dreams seriously. 

The theory of Protectors’ dreams said that all thoughts could become brain waves, and that different people’s brain waves mutually inferred with each other, forming a field of thought. Those with similar amplitudes of brain waves could feel a portion of each other’s mental state. For example, when a person perished, their unknowing family member in another place would have feelings of irritation or worry, would burst into tears, or would get into fights with others. That was a response to the amplitude. 

Protectors were extremely sensitive to energy. They could absorb the light energy, heat energy, and dark matter energy, and receive signals put out by the field of thought. At present, human technology had no way of detecting those signals, but a Protector’s subconscious could sense their presence and manifest them in his dreamscape. 

Because of this, the organization took the instincts or sixth sense of a Protector very seriously and requested that Protectors take each of their unusual dreams very seriously. 

In fact, fifteen years ago, You Zhengping had had a dream. 

On the night when all the adult Protectors had felt that world-destroying power, the underaged reserve Protectors hadn’t yet had such acute senses. But You Zhengping had had a dream. 

He dreamed that two powerful, steady, gentle arms were holding his ten-year-old self, quietly saying into his ear, “I’m here.” 

He had slept very deeply that night, and when he had woken up he had felt that his mind was especially active. He could have fought one against ten. He had made a clear contrast to the anxious-looking drill instructors. 

At the time, You Zhengping hadn’t studied the theory of Protectors’ dreams By the time he had taken that class at fifteen, the dream had become faint and blurred, and he hadn’t asked the teacher to help him explain it. 

The organization had warned the Protectors that if they had a strange dream, they had to report it to their superiors and describe it as clearly as possible so that experts could analyze it. 

Even though this dream touched on the black-cloaked man and the Xuyang District’s future safety, after thinking about it all night, You Zhengping had determined not to report it for the moment and secretly analyze it himself. 

He had to use the theory of Protectors’ dreams as a basis to determine which parts of his dream were his wishful thinking, which were early warning signs of crisis, and which were disturbances from the field of thought. Only after clearly distinguishing these could he better analyze the information his sixth sense was telling him. 

Dream analysis was a heavily weighted subject on the reasoning test. Lian Yufan had gotten full marks in reasoning, but You Zhengping had failed each time. His dream analysis was especially rotten. The dream analysis teacher had angrily claimed that You Zhengping dreamed with his feet. 

You Zhengping analyzed himself. He, Lian Yufan, and Luo Huai donating sperm was a result of his worries after hearing about the Protector Perpetuation Program. The black-cloaked man’s face becoming Yu Hua’s in the end was because after being kissed, he had formed a delusion. He had never dated anyone but Yu Hua. Of course he didn’t want to have intimate relations with others. After being kissed by the black-cloaked man, he had deeply wished for the black-cloaked man to become Yu Hua. As for the black-cloaked man taking him prisoner and the Xuyang District being destroyed…

Ugh! You Zhengping clutched at his hair. His dream analysis grades had always been bad! 

Another day he would go to the library and borrow the Analytical Theory of Protectors Dreams textbook and past reasoning test papers to study the subject again. If he really couldn’t analyze it himself, then he would tell the organize…then…then he would see! 

“Do you want me to drive?” Yu Hua asked in concern, looking at his husband with his messy hair. 

Because he was worried about the date plan, Xiao You hadn’t slept well in two nights. When cleaning up the bedding in the morning, Yu Hua had seen the pillow covered in hair and felt extremely distressed. If he had known that this would give Xiao You such a headache, he would have taken the lead. 

It wasn’t that Yu Hua hadn’t thought that Xiao You might dream about him being the black-cloaked man last night, it was that he had already guessed wrong once. Yu Hua wasn’t the sort of person to fall into the same trap twice. So he reasonably thought that Xiao You’s nightmare and sleeplessness last night were all because he was worried about today’s date. 

“No, no, no, I’ll drive!” You Zhengping said stubbornly, smacking his head.

He had promised Yu Hua a perfect date. How could that be affected by these trivialities?! He could worry about dream analysis once the date was over. Today he had to focus on the date! 

You Zhengping arrived at the movie theater as though sleepwalking. The movie they had chosen started at ten and was an hour and a half long. When they were finished, it would be time to go eat lunch. 

It was nine-thirty now. You Zhengping had Yu Hua sit in the rest area and wait patiently while he picked up the tickets and bought the popcorn and coke. 

You Zhengping came to the self-service ticket machine to pick up the tickets he had reserved yesterday. It was the weekend, and there were quite a few people who had come to watch a movie. Standing in front of him was a bulky man over a meter ninety tall, nearly two meters. The man’s muscles were large but well-proportioned. He wasn’t one of those men with exaggerated muscles; he was more like a bodybuilder, his whole body full of the beauty of strength. His expression was cold. His bronze-colored skin had a metallic texture. Compared to him, You Zhengping, who was 181 cm tall, actually seemed frail. 

The bulky man seemed something like the robot protagonist of a classic robot movie, and the movement of his head had a sort of sluggishness to it, like a robot turning its head. His eyes were fixed directly on the ticket machine, unblinking. 

The mechanical-seeming man was very eye-catching. The lines of his muscles were very attractive. Many people were privately discussing him, and there was someone stealthily taking pictures. 

You Zhengping was standing at the back of the ticket line. He noticed someone taking pictures and took a step back, doing his best to avoid being in the shot with the mechanical-seeming man so he wouldn’t seem like a little while rabbit compared to him. You Zhengping was tall and long-legged! 

When he stepped back, he bumped into someone. You Zhengping had thought that he was the last one in line; he hadn’t expected there to be someone behind him. 

“Sorry,” You Zhengping said. 

“No, I should say sorry.” This man about the same height as You Zhengping. His skin was white, his hair was long, and his features were no less exquisite than Zhen Li’s. The difference was that Zhen Li’s eyes were full of sweet foolishness, while this man’s long and narrow phoenix eyes contained a hint of slyness. “I was looking for that tall one up ahead and accidentally bumped into you.” 

The phoenix-eyed man came up next to the mechanical man and stood on tiptoe to pat his shoulder. “What are you doing here?” 

The mechanical man stifle raised his hand, pointing at the self-service ticket machine. 

The phoenix-eyed man smiled faintly and held down his hand, quietly saying, “We aren’t going to watch a movie.” 

The mechanical man stubbornly continued to point at the self-service ticket machine. 

The phoenix-eyed man shook his head firmly. “No.” 

The mechanical man looked into his eyes for a long time, then his head instantly drooped, like a robot running out of power. 

The people around them covered their chests, feeling that the mechanical man was rather pitiful, like a muscular doll that had been bullied. 

There were other people guessing about the relationship between these two people. One honest and other witty, one big and broad and the other beautiful. It really was…

You Zhengping looked at them and frowned doubtfully. He couldn’t be this unlucky, could he? He and Yu Hua had gone out on a date for once, and they had run into Destroyers again? And two of them at once? 

However much he didn’t want anything to go wrong with the date, You Zhengping and the other Protectors rather trusted their instincts. They couldn’t relax. You Zhengping pulled a long face and stealthily turned on his phone’s camera, turned off the camera sound effect, and was about to photograph the two people’s faces. 

“I’m sorry, we’ve held you up.” Just as You Zhengping was about to take a picture of the two of them, the phoenix-eyed man suddenly took his hand and put a package of Extra chewing gum in it. “This is for you, to show my apology.” 

You Zhengping stopped taking the picture. He looked on calmly as the two of them left, then continued waiting in line to pick up tickets. 

After he picked up the tickets, he looked doubtfully at the Extra gum in his hand. Frowning, he said, “When did I buy this? What the hell did I buy it for? Was I planning to make my kisses taste better?” 

As he thought this, You Zhengping shook out two pieces of mint-flavored gum, tossed them into his mouth, and chewed. 

He had already forgotten that he had seen two very eye-catching men. 

Yu Hua looked at the movies starting at ten and saw that the remake of Waterloo Bridge was being screened today. He remembered looking up the plot of Waterloo Bridge before and smiled involuntarily. It was in fact a poignant and classic romance film, and it somewhat resembled him and Xiao You, the love of a young army officer and an impoverished beautiful dancer who were separated by bitter war…

While he was recalling the plot, You Zhengping came to the rest area chewing gum. He gave Yu Hua a cup of coke, wrapped his gum in a paper napkin, and threw it into a trash can. 

Yu Hua took the tickets and saw what was written on them: 10 AM, Gone Girl. 

Yu Hua: “…” 

When You Zhengping came back from throwing away the gum, Yu Hua said, as though indifferent, “What movie are we watching today?” 

“Gone Girl,” You Zhengping acknowledged happily. “I spent a long time choosing. This must be a poignant story of searching for your lover. It’s perfect for watching on a date!” 

Yu Hua licked his dry lips. Pointing at the movie theater’s LED screen, he asked, “What about Waterloo Bridge¹?” 

“That one? That must be a monster movie,” You Zhengping said disdainfully. “Are today’s horror movies worth watching? They’re all duds with less than 30% ratings, and at the end it’s all about mental problems, treating mental illness, or something.” 

Yu Hua: “…” 

Fine, it was romantic enough just to watch a movie with Xiao You. It didn’t matter what movie they watched. 

The tickets were inspected at 9:50. The two of them went into the theater. The phoenix-eyed man and the mechanical man, who had left the movie theater, reappeared. 

“Did you see what tickets they bought?” the phoenix-eyed man asked. 

“Gone…Girl,” the mechanical man answered. His voice was stiff. 

“You need to talk more, communicate more. You can’t avoid using speech to communicate just because it’s troublesome.” The phoenix-eyed man went up on tiptoe to pat the mechanical man’s shoulder. “If you don’t persevere in talking, then when your initial item upgrades again, you’ll lose the ability to speak.” 

“Okay.” The mechanical man half-crouched so the phoenix-eyed man could pat his shoulder. 

“You really can’t get any taller,” the phoenix-eyed man said anxiously. 

He took the mechanical man to a free self-service ticket machine and bought tickets to the same showing of Gone Girl that Yu Hua was in. 

The mechanical man pointed at the self-service ticket machine and looked longingly at the phoenix-eyed man, waiting for his permission. 

“No, you can’t eat that. Eating it constitutes destroying public property, which is against the law. I can’t pay for it, so we’d be arrested!” The phoenix-eyed man did everything he could to hold him back. 

“Okay,” the mechanical man agreed heavily. Somewhat unhappily, he said, “Before…you always…let me.” 

The phoenix-eyed man patiently said, “The world before was chaotic and disordered. We could do whatever we wanted. But the clearing mission is different. The mission target has forbidden us from breaking the law. Also, I’ve done some investigating, and this world may have a special organization more powerful than we are. Many levelers have died here already. The whole league saw what became of that idiot bomb freak. If we act as impudently as he did, we’ll end up even worse.” 

The mechanical man titled his head and nodded in a constrained way. “All right. When you…say act…I’ll act.” 

“For now it’s no use acting. We have to observe,” the phoenix-eyed man said. “This Yu Hua works at the same company as Zhen Li and Yuan Luori, but he’s an ordinary person. I don’t believe there can be such a coincidence. Even if there really is such a coincidence, there must be something about him that would make two levelers value him. I think that observation will definitely bear fruit.” 

“I don’t…understand. Whatever…you say,” the mechanical man said, holding his head. 

“You have to listen.” Sadness flashed through the phoenix-eyed man’s long, narrow eyes. “You have to understand, you can’t give up on thinking. You can’t leave everything up to calculations just because thinking takes effort. I’m going to tell you everything I can think of, and you take your time understanding it.” 

“But…why?” the mechanical man asked dully. 

“Because you aren’t my robot, aren’t my AI. You’re my companion, who’s fought with me starting from our first world. I can’t just watch you lose your humanity.” Grimness flashed through the phoenix-eyed man’s eyes. “I know you’ve thrown away what happened on many worlds to clear your memory, but this, at least, you can’t delete.” 

“I’ll…run out…of memory.” The mechanical man pointed to his head. “I have to…choose something…to give up.” 

“I know. That’s why I want to clear.” The phoenix-eyed man put his arms around the mechanical man’s waist and said resolutely, “Murder and arson, forgery and fraud, everything base and shameless…anything goes. I can’t let you keep upgrading.” 

---

Author's Note

Of course Yu Hua wasn’t controlling Xiao You’s dream. The truth is like this: 

Yu Hua (muttering to himself): When will Xiao You find out when will Xiao You find out when will Xiao You find out? 

Brainwaves tune to the same frequency…

Xiao You: Goodness! I dreamed that the black-cloaked man and my husband are the same person! 

---

Translator's Note

¹To explain this misunderstanding slightly more to You Zhengping’s credit: the Chinese translation of the title of Waterloo Bridge is 魂断蓝桥, which is more like “Blue Bridge of Rending Souls,” whereas Gone Girl is 消失的爱人, more like “Vanished Lover” (or “Vanished Wife,” if you like).