I Raise My Wife in a Supernatural Story (Infinite) - Chapter 45

As soon as Qiu Ran’s voice faded, the glass music room began to shake even more violently. Bai Qing held Qi Yan firmly in her arms, her gaze cold and piercing as she looked toward Qiu Ran.

However, in the brief second they were distracted, Qiu Ran, who had been standing by the piano, vanished without a trace. Bai Qing scanned their surroundings; this room, walled on all four sides by mirrors, was small enough to see everything at a glance, yet the little ghost was nowhere to be found.

The tremors grew more intense. Initially, they hadn’t realized the source of the problem, but Qi Yan soon sensed something was wrong.

She grabbed Bai Qing’s sleeve. “The space is shrinking!”

At first, Bai Qing didn’t grasp her meaning. What did it mean for space to shrink? But after observing the surroundings, it clicked. Qi Yan meant it literally, the room was physically contracting.

Because the room was enclosed by mirrors, the mutual reflections created significant visual interference. It was difficult to notice at first that the four walls were slowly closing in toward the center.

By the time they realized it, the room had already shrunk by nearly half.

“Damn it! We have to find a way out, fast!” Qi Yan looked around anxiously, trying to locate any possible exit.

But the staircase they had entered through had long since disappeared. Qiu Ran, as the Heart of this script world, held absolute control over it. She could come and go as she pleased; Qi Yan couldn’t use the ghost’s appearance or disappearance to judge where a player’s exit might be.

Furthermore, the Qiu Ran who had appeared just now might not even have been her true form. In this world that belonged to her, she was essentially omnipotent.

Qi Yan’s mind raced. “We came down from the secret passage in Qiu Ran’s bedroom. We stepped onto the ground from the very last step of that staircase before the scene became clear.”

“If that staircase wasn’t a deliberate misdirection by Qiu Ran, it proves that coming down those stairs was the correct path. We should have arrived in the real underground secret room. This means everything before our eyes is likely an illusion created by Qiu Ran.”

Qi Yan squeezed Bai Qing’s hand. “Try using your spiritual power to destroy this space!”

Bai Qing trusted Qi Yan’s judgment implicitly. Without a shadow of a doubt, she swung her sword, unleashing a sharp, decisive arc of sword qi.

With 40% of her spiritual power restored, Bai Qing’s sword qi was fierce. It slammed directly into the mirror with a massive impact. Crack! A fracture appeared where the qi hit, spreading outward like a spiderweb.

Wild joy surged in Qi Yan’s heart. “It’s working! But it’s not enough—again!”

Bai Qing’s eyes narrowed. She coldly delivered a second strike. The sword qi hit almost the exact same spot as the first, but this time, it had no effect.

The joy that had just risen was instantly extinguished. Qi Yan’s heart sank as she stared at the mirror that remained only slightly cracked.

Bai Qing remained calmer than her. She didn’t continue to waste her energy. At her mental command, the sword in her right hand dissolved into a shimmer of light and receded into her body.

“My spiritual power is in conflict with the ghostly aura of the script’s owner. As I’ve said before, the script world is formed by the owner’s consciousness; she holds absolute control. Meeting the creations of her will with head-on force is not a wise move.”

In other words, while this space was indeed an illusion created by Qiu Ran, Bai Qing was fighting on “away” turf. She couldn’t easily destroy something created by the master of the script. This was a latent rule of the world: players were destined to be slightly outmatched in terms of raw power.

“Then what do we do? We can’t just wait to die!”

Bai Qing said calmly, “In such situations, usually only the master who set the illusion has the power to break it directly.”

Qi Yan was despairing. “Isn’t that obvious? We can’t exactly ask Qiu Ran to help us break her own trap! If this keeps up, we’re at a dead end!”

Everything within an illusion can change according to the master’s will. The speed at which the room was shrinking accelerated invisibly; the surrounding mirrors were now only an arm’s length away.

Suddenly, the room vibrated violently. The mirrors shifted, and countless images began to reflect and float in the air, appearing like puzzle pieces drifting in a phantom space. Each piece showed a different scene. Qi Yan didn’t know what they represented, but she knew this was their chance to survive.

This script rarely presented a guaranteed death trap. Even for someone marked by the BOSS to be killed, there was always a chance to escape—it all depended on whether the player had the skill to seize it.

By now, the space had become so cramped that it was difficult for two people to stand side-by-side. Bai Qing held Qi Yan in her arms, their chests pressed tightly against each other. In this eerie, life-or-death moment, Qi Yan could clearly feel the other woman’s steady, rhythmic heartbeat. Her own breathing, which had been ragged with fear, miraculously began to slow and harmonize with that beat.

There was a half-head difference in their heights, Bai Qing being taller. Qi Yan tilted her head up slightly to look at her, and their gazes locked in a silent understanding.

They had embraced many times since they met, mostly as temporary measures during crises. But no embrace had been as close as this one—close enough for their heartbeats to overlap and their breaths to entwine.

Qi Yan wrapped her arms around Bai Qing’s waist and stared into her eyes. She quickly saw a depth of emotion there: encouragement, comfort, and trust. For some reason, Qi Yan suddenly felt a surge of immense confidence. She turned her eyes to the fragments floating in the mirrors and abruptly reached her hand through the glass.

When her arm passed through the mirror’s surface, neither of them felt surprised. It was as if they had both anticipated this, and now they were simply confirming their theory.

These four mirrors were not real mirrors. As they had noted, the space they were in wasn’t real; it was a phantom space created by Qiu Ran.

This space might possess a physical form, but these so-called “physical” objects were vastly different from reality. To put it simply: everything here existed solely because it was supported by Qiu Ran’s ghostly aura.

What is reality? What is illusion?

Qi Yan knew how to look at the problem dialectically.

In this script, the house that imprisoned Qiu Ran was real; that reality was inherent to the script world itself. The house, the BOSS Qiu Ran, and the mini-bosses Yanyan and Ling Yi were all truths granted by the script. But the space before them was an attachment to Qiu Ran’s power, something she had created. No matter how real it looked to the players, or even how “real” it became due to the sheer density of ghostly aura, its essence remained a constructed illusion.

Since it was an illusion, it could be treated as something that shouldn’t exist.

What should be here? The staircase connecting the bedroom above to the secret room below. Yet, once they entered this space, the stairs had vanished.

This was an obscuration, a veil cast by the phantom space Qiu Ran had manufactured.

Having realized this, Qi Yan decided to take a gamble. The space was created by the BOSS’s aura, and even Bai Qing found it difficult to shatter with raw power. But if one treated it as though it simply didn’t exist, they might stand a chance.

Qi Yan wasn’t so reckless as to reach through Qiu Ran’s aura without preparation. She was now linked to Bai Qing via the spiritual contract, and with their bodies pressed together, Bai Qing used a special method to coat Qi Yan’s arm with spiritual power, protecting her completely.

The moment her arm penetrated the mirror, the fragmented images floating within began to oscillate. Qi Yan acted quickly, grabbing one of the fragments. She didn’t overthink; she used the fastest speed possible to rearrange the pieces in the mirror, piecing them together in the correct order to form a complete image.

There were four mirrors in total. Their space had shrunk so much that even hugging each other felt tight.

Bai Qing concentrated her spiritual power, manifesting a powerful sword qi to brace against the mirrors on both sides, buying Qi Yan time to continue.

The puzzle wasn’t difficult—it was the most basic type of jigsaw. There weren’t many fragments in the mirrors, so piecing them together was simple. The difficulty lay in the immense spiritual power required to hold out against Qiu Ran’s ghostly aura.

Bai Qing had to split her power: one part to protect Qi Yan, and the remainder to slow the contraction of the mirrored space. Very quickly, her spiritual power began to visibly weaken. The shrinking speed accelerated again, and Qi Yan still had half a picture left to complete.

Soon, a mirror with a completed image touched Bai Qing’s left arm. She had exhausted a massive amount of power, the most vital portion of which was maintained on Qi Yan, leaving herself with many vulnerabilities.

The moment the mirror touched her, it dissolved into thick, black ghostly aura. Like a dark, spreading wildfire, it rapidly corroded the sleeve of Bai Qing’s left arm, making a “sizzling” sound like burning fabric.

Qi Yan trembled, her focus breaking as she turned to Bai Qing. “What happened to you?”

Bai Qing tightened her right arm around Qi Yan’s waist, saying calmly, “It is nothing. Continue. Do not be distracted.”

Qi Yan’s gaze, however, fell on Bai Qing’s left arm, which was being eaten away by the aura. She cried out, “Your arm!”

“Do not be distracted!” The aura had completely corroded the sleeve and was now invading her skin, yet Bai Qing remained composed. “Concentrate. It is almost finished. Do not delay any further.”

Qi Yan gritted her teeth. She stole one last glance at the arm submerged in the thick black mist, then steeled her heart and turned back to rapidly assemble the final fragments.

Bai Qing’s expression was calm, but Qi Yan knew she was in pain. Because the spiritual contract had reached deep into their souls, linking them tightly, they could easily sense each other’s physical and mental state at any moment if they so chose.

No matter how much Qi Yan complained about this sudden contract, at this moment, she had to admit she was glad it existed—it allowed her to understand exactly what Bai Qing was enduring.

A stinging, dense pain radiated through her own left hand. Because their minds and bodies were connected, she could feel Bai Qing’s suffering as if it were her own.

As the final piece fell into place, Qi Yan spun around and hugged Bai Qing. She returned all the spiritual power that had been used to protect her, wrapping it tightly around Bai Qing’s corroded left arm.

With the puzzle complete, the illusion created by Qiu Ran underwent another massive change. The surrounding mirrors shattered instantly, reorganizing themselves like an out-of-control spatial sequence.

In the chaos, Bai Qing grabbed Qi Yan’s wrist. Her narrow, phoenix-like eyes locked onto Qi Yan’s, and she slowly shook her head.

Qi Yan was clutching an unremarkable tree branch tightly in her hand. It was the Gold Card she had obtained in the last script—the Divine Wood Branch. It possessed the miraculous healing ability to bring the dead back to life and turn decay into wonder, but its uses were limited. She would never use it lightly unless it was a dire emergency.

But right now, her first instinct was to use it without hesitation, wanting only to heal Bai Qing’s left arm.

That arm looked terrifying. It was entirely entwined with thick, black ghostly aura. Even though the mirrors had shattered and the space was reorganizing, that aura clung to Bai Qing’s arm like acid seeping into bone and blood.

Qi Yan had never seen anything like this. She was frantic, terrified that Bai Qing’s arm would be ruined forever. She had no other skills, but luckily her luck was decent, and she had pulled a life-saving God Card in the previous script.

Even if this “broken branch” had a limited number of uses, she didn’t care about being stingy now; she only wanted Bai Qing’s arm to be whole again.

But Bai Qing understood her thoughts before she could say a single word, and decisively stopped her.

“Keep such life-saving items for when they are truly needed,” Bai Qing said, holding her wrist firmly. “My arm is fine. It will heal in time.”

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