After Transmigrating as the Northeast CEO's Pampered Little Husband - Chapter 57

“You need to clear your head!” Gu Jiaoyang grabbed Dai Gucan’s shoulders and shouted. He didn’t know how to comfort him, so he resorted to the usual clichéd inspirational speeches seen in novels and TV shows, attempting to talk Dai Gucan out of his self-made illusion.

The effect was clearly poor.

The car crash scene continued to replay repeatedly behind them. The powerful smell of blood filled the entire illusion, and as time dragged on, Gu Jiaoyang noticed that Dai Gucan’s physical form was starting to fade.

Dai Gucan’s fingertips were becoming semi-transparent, as if something were absorbing him, leaving only a faint outline.

“Damn it, if you don’t wake up now, I’m going to hit you!” Gu Jiaoyang’s long-winded, copied-and-pasted dialogue was useless. Distressed by Dai Gucan’s fading form, he cursed under his breath and directly swung his fist towards Dai Gucan’s face.

Apparently, talk was not enough to save a man trapped in his own despair; a beating was far more effective than trying to reason with a confused mind.

“You get up and wake up!”

Slap!

“Did you hear me?!”

Slap!

“Even if you broke up with me, the engagement contract is still valid! Don’t you dare try to commit suicide and run away!!”

Slap!

Combining punches and slaps, Gu Jiaoyang gritted his teeth and targeted Dai Gucan’s face. He couldn’t afford to feel sorry for him now; his only thought was to shake Dai Gucan awake, or his soul would surely be devoured by something if he remained immersed in the past, leaving nothing but an empty shell.

Slap!

Dai Gucan was nearly beaten black and blue by Gu Jiaoyang, yet he didn’t wake up, acting as if he felt no pain.

However, Gu Jiaoyang’s violent wake-up call might have worked a little. Dai Gucan’s illusion was no longer the endlessly looping car crash; it shifted to a different scene.

Gu Jiaoyang stood beside the silent Dai Gucan. The surroundings had changed to a mountainside, covered in green plants. The scene slowly transitioned to a cemetery.

The cemetery on the mountain was vast, with marble partitions separating the graves. The young Dai Gucan, dressed in black, stood with Qin Yuan in front of a tombstone, holding a bouquet of chrysanthemums.

In this memory, Qin Yuan looked much more normal. She had no bright red nails or lipstick; she was simple and elegant, her long black hair falling to her waist.

“Brother, Sister, Gucan still hasn’t recovered. I hope you can speak to him in a dream to guide him… You don’t need to worry about the company. Mr Lan and I are holding the fort. Once Gucan grows up, the crisis will pass. I’ve taken good care of everything you left him. When Gucan…”

The younger Qin Yuan smiled at the photo on the tombstone, a faint sheen of moisture in her eyes. She tilted her head, blinked, squatted down, and guided young Dai Gucan’s hand to place the chrysanthemums on the stand, embracing him silently.

“Gucan, we all love you very much. Please get better soon.”

Qin Yuan crouched with her head buried in the young Dai Gucan’s shoulder, gently stroking his back.

The subsequent scenes showed Qin Yuan, this gentle woman who always smiled like his brother, silently taking on the company’s burden and gradually introducing the young Dai Gucan to the business, treating him entirely like her own son. Aside from being quieter on the anniversary of Dai Gucan’s parents’ death, she was unfailingly attentive to him.

However, everything changed when Dai Gucan became an adult. Qin Yuan took a trip abroad and returned wearing bright red nails, vivid lipstick, and acting increasingly volatile, as if a lifetime of malice had been unleashed. It escalated from angry reprimands to physical violence, and later, outright curses…

Gu Jiaoyang felt a shiver of revulsion. He simply couldn’t comprehend Qin Yuan’s transformation.

“After my parents passed away, my aunt raised me. She was very powerful in the business world; hardly anyone dared to offend her. Even when I was ill as a child, no one dared to bully me at school.”

“She loved me more than my mother did, I think. I know the burden she carried not just responsibility, but accumulated love.”

“She poured three times the love into me… but sometimes, I felt it wasn’t real, more like a heavy shackle that was constricting me, making it hard to breathe.”

The adult Dai Gucan, standing beside him, suddenly started speaking. Gu Jiaoyang followed his gaze towards the changing scene. The pictures began to loop from the cemetery again.

Qin Yuan certainly loved Dai Gucan very much.

Gu Jiaoyang had no parents, but even without that experience, he could feel how kind Qin Yuan was to Dai Gucan. That kindness was laced with extreme caution, as if Dai Gucan were a fragile, easily broken object.

He was cherished in an enviable way.

Gu Jiaoyang blinked, his chest feeling heavy.

“She was a good aunt.”

Gu Jiaoyang spoke sincerely, though he felt the need to add a timeframe: before Dai Gucan became an adult.

“Yes, she was always a very good person.”

Dai Gucan seemed to have absorbed Gu Jiaoyang’s words, suddenly replying with that. However, immediately after, he fell back into a silent, self-destructive loop, like all obstinate patients, constantly reliving the most painful scenes.

Gu Jiaoyang quietly stood beside Dai Gucan, watching the images in the illusion transition from scenes of Qin Yuan’s kindness to only focusing on her later, hateful actions.

The contrast was truly shocking.

No wonder Dai Gucan was so obedient to his aunt, even when she… seemed less and less like herself.

Gu Jiaoyang stared at the images. Something was slowly becoming clear in his mind.

In the last replay of the early Qin Yuan scene, the young Dai Gucan was shown secretly watching Qin Yuan sitting on the bed, gently stroking a photograph of his father, Dai Yanjun. Her eyes showed nostalgia and longing, but absolutely no hatred.

Yet, the later Qin Yuan… the hatred in her eyes was like a bloody knife, stabbing directly into Dai Gucan’s heart.

Could a person who felt no hatred suddenly become hateful?

Gu Jiaoyang’s mind suddenly went into turmoil…

Spirit Chrysanthemum can preserve a person’s soul. In the cultivation world, it’s an elixir for resurrection, but the Spirit Chrysanthemum only has the ability to host a soul while it is alive.

The virus system in Qin Yuan’s body never struck when he was fighting her head-on; it was always Qin Yuan who attacked under suggestion.

And the medicine Qin Yuan gave Doctor Li…

Connecting these clues, Gu Jiaoyang’s mind suddenly went cold. A possible truth was becoming increasingly clear.

“Little Zhi!!! Little Zhi, are you there?”

Gu Jiaoyang shouted for the Overseer System in his Sea of Consciousness, only to find that this environment had blocked his connection with the system.

Failing to connect with the Overseer System didn’t panic Gu Jiaoyang; instead, it solidified his inner conjecture.

The Spirit Chrysanthemum Illusion Array could only create hallucinations, but it couldn’t shield a person’s consciousness. This meant the Spirit Chrysanthemum was not the most important ingredient in the pills Dai Gucan was taking!

There’s virus system energy in there!

That Qin Yuan wasn’t Qin Yuan at all! She was a fabricated personality created by the virus system after it parasitized the real Qin Yuan!

The virus system used the Spirit Chrysanthemum to create an illusion for the real Qin Yuan, who knew the car crash had nothing to do with Dai Gucan, forcing her to believe Dai Gucan was responsible for Dai Yanjun’s death! Then, it forcibly twisted Qin Yuan’s inner longing for Dai Yanjun into hatred for Dai Gucan for “killing” Dai Yanjun. This hatred was magnified infinitely, and the virus system directly used that hatred as a medium to create a second personality!

The real Qin Yuan’s original personality was probably still struggling inside. That’s why Qin Yuan sometimes seemed relatively normal and sometimes acted insane.

Prolonged exposure to an illusion would damage the soul. Once the Spirit Chrysanthemum dies, it no longer hosts a soul but becomes a soul-eating flower that consumes the soul to sustain itself!

The reason the virus system couldn’t directly parasitize Dai Gucan was likely due to the world’s inherent protective consciousness. Unless Dai Gucan himself lost the will to live first, the opposing system wouldn’t be able to seize the opportunity.

And the best way to crush a successful person with an unhappy childhood was to strike through their closest relative, turning their childhood into an endlessly repeating, intensified nightmare, until he felt that his survival was a living sin!

“Damn you, you old bastard! Playing dirty!”

Gu Jiaoyang couldn’t help but curse when he realised the truth. He turned and grabbed Dai Gucan’s shoulders, forcefully pulling him around to face him.

“Listen to me, Dai Gucan! That is not your aunt! She is not Qin Yuan!”

“The aunt you truly loved and were grateful to never hated you! She’s a fake! Your aunt never hated you! She loved you so cautiously for all those years—how could she possibly hate you now!!!”

“Your real aunt has been locked away by that demon! She needs you to save her!”

“If you die, who will save her?!”

“Open your eyes and look properly: is that woman your real aunt or not!!!”

…

The voice in his ear slowly grew from a faint buzzing to clarity. Dai Gucan stared blankly at the person in front of him…

“She’s not Qin Yuan! Your aunt never hated you!!!”

All the words resonated in his ears like thunder, slowly assembling into comprehensible speech, cutting through something in his mind like a sharp sword.

“…What did you say?” Dai Gucan’s voice was hoarse. The previously vacant pupils in his eyes gradually began to contract.

Gu Jiaoyang let out a sigh of relief when he saw Dai Gucan finally react. He shouted even louder, standing just two fists’ distance away, yet shouting loud enough to span two mountains.

Dai Gucan blinked, looking down at Gu Jiaoyang, who was shouting and clutching his shoulders. “Why are you shouting so loudly? I’m not deaf.”

“Is your condition cured? Are you awake?” Gu Jiaoyang waved his hand in front of Dai Gucan’s eyes, seeing them finally follow his movement.

“Is what you just said… true?”

Despite being a large man nearly six foot three, Gu Jiaoyang heard a profound, suppressed sorrow and hope in that long-awaited question.

“Yes, what I said is true. But your aunt is genuinely an impostor.” Gu Jiaoyang’s eyes stung. He reached out and grasped Dai Gucan’s slightly trembling hand.

“Are you developing Parkinson’s, Uncle?”

Despite feeling like crying, Gu Jiaoyang couldn’t help but say something strange.

“Your emotional sickness was never about the car crash; it was about your Aunt Qin Yuan, wasn’t it?” His tone was certain. Gu Jiaoyang blinked, his eyes reddening slightly.

Dai Gucan didn’t answer, but his silence was not a denial.

“Then let me help you resolve this trauma, alright?”

The boy’s expression was full of hope. The worry and heartache in his eyes were reflected behind the glistening tears, catching the light like shining gems.

The heat transferred through their clasped hands felt scorching, like holding a small sun.

“Alright.”

After a long pause, Dai Gucan finally replied. His voice was raw but utterly resolute.

The surrounding illusion shattered instantly, like breaking glass, turning into scattered sparkles of light that danced around the silhouettes of their clasped hands, like a grand meteor shower.

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