I Raise My Wife in a Supernatural Story (Infinite) - Chapter 49

Qi Yan’s sleep was far from restful, plagued by constant dreams. In them, she was either fending off ghosts within a script or locked in a battle of wits against players whose faces she couldn’t see. It felt as though she hadn’t slept at all; she woke up feeling utterly exhausted.

Bai Qing’s spiritual power had recovered much better than it had after the beginner script. She woke up early and watched Qi Yan toss and turn restlessly in her arms. She tried to soothe Qi Yan’s emotions, but it had little effect. She could only watch helplessly as the girl remained trapped in an unknown nightmare until she finally struggled awake.

When Qi Yan opened her eyes, she was met with a sight of fluffy, snowy white. She was nestled within this soft, warm whiteness as if embracing a cloud. Still groggy from sleep, she blinked and looked up, meeting a pair of blue and gold heterochromatic eyes. They were exquisite, like the most beautiful twin gemstones she had ever seen.

“Awake?” the snow fox spoke, her front paws still holding Qi Yan in her arms.

“Mhm…” Qi Yan responded languidly. She found a more comfortable position in the fox’s soft embrace and settled in again without moving.

Bai Qing remained in her fox form and asked calmly, “You seemed to sleep fitfully. A nightmare?”

“Mhm, sort of. It wasn’t a particularly terrifying dream, just very tiring…” Qi Yan continued to rest with her eyes closed, her brows slightly knit. “In the dream, I was still running around like I was in a script, and I even had to deal with attacks from players.”

Players? Hearing about this dream, the snow fox’s eyes darkened.

The two didn’t speak for a while. Qi Yan’s breathing was steady, making it seem as if she had fallen asleep again. But Bai Qing, who was linked to her soul, knew otherwise. Qi Yan seemed to be using her brain at high intensity again, pondering something complex.

After a long silence, Qi Yan spoke while muffled against the fox’s chest, “I suppose it’s a case of ‘what you think about by day, you dream of by night.’ I was thinking about things in the script before I fell asleep after coming back, so that’s probably why I kept having these exhausting dreams.”

Since she had initiated the topic, Bai Qing naturally followed up, “So, what were you thinking about? Those two black shadows that attacked us at the end of the script?”

Seemingly unsurprised that she had guessed her thoughts, Qi Yan answered frankly, “Yes. They definitely weren’t ghosts from within the script. You could tell from Qiu Ran and Yanyan’s reactions; their anger was beyond the limit of endurance. That was the anger of having their authority challenged by something that didn’t belong to that script.”

Unlike the vengeful spirit their murdered father had become, the reactions of Qiu Ran and Yanyan showed that those two black shadows were clearly not under their control. What kind of entity could strike at a player within a script completely controlled by the Heart of the World?

Based on Qi Yan’s current understanding of the scripts, she could think of two answers. The first was an existence that transcended a single script world—a powerful force higher than the Heart of the World, Qiu Ran. While Qiu Ran was the absolute ruler and a high deity within the Carnival script, there must be entities stronger than her within the entirety of the Spiritual Scripts. The second possibility was players. Inside a script, players can attack each other; players are also “variables” that are inherently not controlled by the BOSS who acts as the Heart of the World.

Between these two possibilities, Qi Yan leaned toward the second. Recalling her final moments in the script with Bai Qing, Qiu Ran and Yanyan were trying to keep Qi Yan as a friend. Although Qi Yan could never agree, she could see that the two little ghosts truly felt close to her. Under such a premise, for someone to still strike at her provoked intense rage in Qiu Ran and Yanyan. If it were a higher rule transcending them, perhaps they wouldn’t have dared to express their anger so directly. But if it were a player, it was different. As the BOSSes of the script, this was undoubtedly a provocation they couldn’t and didn’t need to tolerate.

If her analysis was correct, the answer to who the player was that suddenly attacked her at the last moment seemed obvious.

A total of seven players entered that script, with four remaining toward the end. Jiang Miao and Xinyi were personally sent out of the script by Qi Yan, so it wasn’t them. The only possibility was Wushuang, even though he had looked like he was being swallowed by ghostly aura, lying motionless on the ground.

“At the last second before leaving the script, I looked toward the wall. the person lying on the ground was gone, leaving only a faint, lingering ghostly aura…” Qi Yan sighed in the snow fox’s arms. “It must be him. I just don’t quite understand why there were two black shadows. Both of them looked very strong, definitely not at the level of strength Wushuang had shown before. He really was hiding a trump card.”

Bai Qing gave a soft “Mhm” and said, “While I couldn’t be certain, ever since we met again at the Qiu house after leaving the Carnival, I felt that man named Wushuang was a bit off. Because I wasn’t sure, I didn’t say it directly and only told you to be more careful of him. With his blatant attack at the end, I can be more certain now—I feel that he might be just like you.”

Qi Yan froze and finally opened her eyes, looking at Bai Qing blankly. “What do you mean ‘just like me’?”

Bai Qing didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she raised her front paw and lightly touched Qi Yan’s chest, then touched the ring between them that symbolized their contract.

In an instant, Qi Yan realized what Bai Qing meant but hadn’t said aloud. Her eyes widened in shock. If there had been any lingering drowsiness earlier, she was now completely startled awake.

Qi Yan looked at Bai Qing in disbelief, pointed a finger at herself, then at the fox, and asked tentatively, “You mean… just like us?”

She was always clever. Bai Qing knew that with just a little hint, she would react immediately, so she nodded in confirmation.

With her suspicion confirmed, Qi Yan’s heart was suddenly filled with an even more complex mix of emotions: shock, confusion, and a strange sense of panic. These complex feelings piled up in an instant, leaving her dazed for a moment.

The human and the fox lay quietly on the bed. Bai Qing narrowed her eyes to rest, and since Qi Yan didn’t speak, she waited patiently for her to process it. Once she got over the initial shock, there would inevitably be more questions.

Bai Qing was right. After Qi Yan processed the suspicion, her paws immediately became restless, fumbling with the fox’s ears.

Bai Qing twitched her ears and dodged away, eyeing her sideways with impatience. “What are you doing? Don’t just touch them.”

Qi Yan watched curiously as the tips of her ears turned pink. She rubbed her nose and said, “Your ears are quite cute.”

Bai Qing twitched her ears again. The pink on the tips of the fur became more obvious, yet she maintained her calm expression, showing no sign of anything being wrong. But as Qi Yan’s understanding of her deepened, she knew that the pinking of her ear tips was due to shyness.

It was truly amazing. This old fox looked like a very straight-laced person, like some old-school official, but her ears were extremely sensitive and she got shy very easily. Even after becoming shy, she wouldn’t show it on her face. Qi Yan wondered if it was tiring to keep such a stiff front.

Qi Yan giggled while covering her mouth and then reached out to touch her ears again, only for Bai Qing to pin her down with her front paws in embarrassed anger. “I told you not to touch them!”

“But your ears are really too cute. I can’t help but touch them when I see them.”

Bai Qing gritted her teeth. Suddenly, a white mist surfaced on her body, and as it cleared, she revealed her human form.

The stunningly beautiful woman, dressed in an expensive silver-threaded cloud-patterned robe, pinned Qi Yan beneath her. Her hands firmly controlled Qi Yan’s restless hands. Her delicate brows were slightly knit as her heterochromatic eyes fixed on the girl. “Behave yourself!” she said.

“Aww,” Qi Yan pouted in dissatisfaction. “Why change back? You’re no fun at all. Now that you’ve changed back, there’s no more fluffiness.”

“Hmph,” Bai Qing looked down at her with narrowed eyes and chuckled. “This is precisely so you have no fluffiness, to save a certain little one from looking for trouble by touching things they shouldn’t. Be careful, or I might chop off your paws.”

Their relationship grew more familiar by the day. Qi Yan wasn’t afraid of this threat that carried no real weight. She simply said, “Let me go first. I have serious business to ask you.”

“Who was it that ignored ‘serious business’ to provoke me first?”

“I just wanted to tease you.”

Bai Qing raised an eyebrow. “Not teasing me anymore?”

“No more teasing, no more. Let go first, let’s talk business!”

Bai Qing looked down at her. The two were currently very close, and the posture was extremely intimate. After being stared at for a while, Qi Yan gradually began to feel uneasy. She shifted her hands, which were pinned above her head, awkwardly.

“Hey…” the little one glared at her, signaling for her to let go.

Bai Qing continued to look down at her from above. Seeing a flash of rosy light cross her face, the fox’s eyes narrowed, showing a hint of confusion. she didn’t know why Qi Yan was making this expression; it looked a bit like she was annoyed yet also shy. The Demon King, who had lived for over a thousand years, had seen everything. She had watched the loves and hates of others from the sidelines but had never experienced them herself. Her understanding of such things was only surface-level. Even though she told Qi Yan she had seen everything in her thousand years, she had actually never even touched someone else’s hand. Whether male or female, in those thousand years of living a carefree life, no one had ever had such intimate contact with her.

She wasn’t exactly a loner and had had close friends, but they were all different from Qi Yan. She had never formed a spiritual contract with any human or demon and didn’t know what such a relationship should feel like. Her time with Qi Yan was mostly spent in natural, spontaneous interactions—doing whatever they felt like. Linked by this spiritual contract, neither had yet truly pondered how they should carry themselves in this relationship.

In the Carnival script, the two had many instances of close contact, mostly a natural proximity during dangerous moments. Qi Yan was incredibly dependent on her, showing her weakness to her again and again in that dangerous environment. Facing such a fragile human, Bai Qing felt she could snap her with just a little force.

And yet, she was strong. Bai Qing recalled their experiences in the two scripts and reached such a seemingly contradictory conclusion.

The powerful Demon King was incredibly prideful, yet here she was, letting this weak human become her concern. One thing she was certain of, however, was that Qi Yan wasn’t entirely weak. Her physical strength was not great, but she possessed immense wisdom and a strong heart.

Bai Qing lowered her head and rubbed her nose against Qi Yan’s face. The sudden touch made Qi Yan tremble instinctively. She widened her eyes like a startled fawn and tried to dodge to the side.

“W-What are you doing?” Qi Yan’s voice shook. She was caught off guard by the fox’s sudden action. A strange tremor spread from the skin of her cheek downward, making her unable to control her body’s trembling. Because that stinky fox was still buried in the crook of her neck, the breath from her nose continuously falling upon her skin, making the unfamiliar and stimulating throb impossible to stop.

The fox hadn’t experienced this before and was testing it with curiosity. The human was also a blank slate, but due to the abundance of information in modern society, she had understood everything long ago. Although she hadn’t experienced it, she understood every bit of change occurring in her body.

It wouldn’t do; it was simply too itchy and unbearable.

Qi Yan dodged to the side with all her might, using her shoulder to block Bai Qing’s face and scolding her, “Stinky fox! Stop moving around. You’re being a hooligan!”

She wanted to sound angry, but perhaps because her body was stimulated, her heart was also trembling, which affected her vocal cords. The result was that she didn’t sound very angry; instead, there was a hint of bashful timidity. Hearing it herself, her face turned a fiery red with embarrassment.

Bai Qing, having been avoided, released the hands she was pinning down. Her narrow eyes merely observed her reaction silently, as if thinking and contemplating.

Qi Yan finally escaped the stinky fox’s clutches. she quickly rolled to the side and sat at the corner of the bed, silently adjusting her mood to let the intimate heat dissipate.

Bai Qing didn’t press too closely, instead observing the little one’s various reactions with great interest, guessing in her heart what kind of emotion caused each one.

As the intimate atmosphere gradually faded, Qi Yan cleared her throat. Not intending to continue the awkward topic, she forcefully brought the conversation back to the serious business they hadn’t finished.

“Let’s talk business first…” Qi Yan paused, looked at Bai Qing with a blank face, and grumbled, “Where were we?”

Bai Qing found this expression cute. She leaned back against the cushions in a good mood and said languidly, “The person at the end of the script is just like you.”

“Oh, right. It’s all your fault; you interrupted me and made me forget.” she glared at Bai Qing again, though the pique in her eyes was too obvious—it didn’t look like blame, but more like acting spoiled.

Bai Qing remained as lazy as ever. “Wasn’t it you who touched my ears first?”

If they truly had to backtrack and review, Qi Yan really was the one in the wrong. She coughed twice and shifted the topic again, “There couldn’t have been any other players in that script. Excluding Sister Miao and Xinyi, that person could only be Wushuang. So, his appearance of being swallowed by ghostly aura and lying motionless on the ground at the end was an act?”

Bai Qing recalled the situation inside the script, then narrowed her eyes and shook her head, “No, he likely was indeed swallowed by ghostly aura initially. However, the thing following him quickly separated him from his and Qiu Ran’s ghostly aura and protected him.”

Qi Yan stared at her and asked, “You saw something else following him when you met him at the Qiu house?”

Bai Qing said, “I said I didn’t like the scent on him and he gave me a very unpleasant feeling precisely because of the thing beside him. When those two black shadows rushed over at the end, you thought they were covered in ghostly aura, but they weren’t. That fellow was covered in the demonic aura of an evil cultivator.”

“A demon?” This conclusion matched Qi Yan’s suspicion. “Wushuang has also formed a spiritual contract with a demon?”

Bai Qing shook her head again, “No, it’s not necessarily a spiritual contract. A spiritual contract is not something anyone can easily form. Between you and me, there should be some kind of predestined connection that neither of us knows about. That’s what allowed you to rescue me from that seal and even form a spiritual contract naturally.”

Qi Yan scratched her head, puzzled, “Exactly what kind of connection do we have? A spiritual contract is clearly very important to a demon. For me to be able to break your seal and form a contract with you, the connection must be more than just ordinary.”

Perhaps even a connection of a thousand years wouldn’t be enough to achieve this…

But if it truly was such a deep connection, why did Bai Qing herself seem not to know?

Seeing that the confusion in Bai Qing’s eyes was no less than her own, Qi Yan felt that this fate was truly mysterious.

“Have we met sometime in these thousand years?” Qi Yan truly couldn’t help her curiosity and asked, “I’m an ordinary person, so I must have gone through reincarnation. Could it be that we’ve met many times?”

She tried to guide Bai Qing’s memories of the past thousand years. What if she could remember something?

But the bewilderment in Bai Qing’s eyes remained the same as always. She knit her brows and shook her head, “I have no memory of it.” She thought about it carefully again and finally shook her head, “Truly none. I rarely had contact with humans.”

Qi Yan’s shoulders slumped as she gave up. “Fine, let’s stop talking about our situation and go back to Wushuang. Do you know what kind of demon is following him?”

At this, the confusion in Bai Qing’s eyes vanished, replaced by a much colder gaze. “If my feeling is correct, it is a wolf demon.”

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