The hours leading up to the lunch date were the longest of Yuan Lin's life. Every minute stretched into an eternity. He tried to focus on his work, but his mind was elsewhere. He was stuck in a vicious cycle of anxiety.
"What will I say to her? How can I act normal for a whole hour? What if another notification pops up in the middle of our conversation? What if she asks me about my hobbies? Am I supposed to tell her, "Oh, in my spare time, I pretend to be a legendary demon lord and convince my followers to meditate on computer viruses"?
Every simple office task required double the effort.
Updating a database turned into an epic mission because his eyes were seeing the blue data threads flowing, while part of his consciousness was constantly on watch for any potential flash from the System interface.
He was living in a state of high alert, like a soldier in a minefield, where any wrong step could lead to disaster.
When one o'clock finally struck, he felt a mixture of dread and relief. At least the waiting was over.
He found Su Ling waiting for him by the elevator, smiling with the same enthusiasm she had shown in the morning. "Ready? I'm starving."
"Ready," he lied, feeling his stomach tie itself into a thousand knots.
They went to a small, crowded restaurant near the company, the kind that serves quick lunches for employees. The noise was the first thing that hit him.
People's conversations, the clatter of dishes, the calls of the waiters. Through his new perception, all of this was a storm of tangled threads, a chaos of emotions and energies that made his head spin.
They sat at a small two-person table. Su Ling talked excitedly about her new marketing campaign, her annoying manager, and a new TV series she had started watching.
Yuan Lin nodded and smiled at the right moments, but he wasn't really listening.
He was watching her. Watching the pure golden threads of her energy, and feeling the strangeness of sitting so close to someone so "normal," so unaware of the other worlds that lay just beyond the veil.
"And what about you, Lin?" she said suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. "You're always so quiet at the office. You must have an interesting life outside to make up for all that quiet."
He felt the blood drain from his face. "My life? Oh, no, it's not interesting at all," he said quickly. "Actually, my life is now so interesting it might kill me at any moment,
"he thought with bitter sarcasm. "I... I read a lot. Fantasy novels. And I play some video games." It was a half-truth, the best he could offer.
Her face lit up. "Really? I love fantasy! What's your favorite kind of world? One with magic and dragons, or one with demon lords and armies of darkness?"
Before he could answer, before he could even appreciate the irony of fate in her question, the blue screen flashed in his vision.
It was a private message from Queen Xue. Her words were elegant, but they dripped with a terrifying coldness.
[Dark Fairy Queen Xue]: "Sire, the tribute I prepared for you is ready. It is a Spirit Blossom Nymph I captured from the Meadow of Lunar Petals. It is said her tears grant visions of the future to whoever drinks them. Shall I command her to... weep for you? A single word from you is all it takes."
Yuan Lin felt the air get sucked out of his lungs. This wasn't a joke. This wasn't a request to meditate on an abstract concept. She was talking about capturing a living being and torturing it for his pleasure. This was the first time he was confronting true evil, the true nature of the group he had become the "master" of.
Clatter.
The chopsticks fell from his trembling hand onto the table.
"Lin?" Su Ling's voice was filled with genuine concern. "Are you okay? Your face... it's as white as a sheet. Is the food bad?"
He looked at her, but he didn't really see her. He was seeing an image of a crying nymph, and the cold eyes of Xue watching her. He felt nauseous.
"I'm... I'm fine," he stammered, picking up his chopsticks. "Just... remembered something bad."
He had to reply to Xue. Now. Ignoring her would be a sign of weakness. Accepting her offer would be an unimaginable cruelty. He had to find a third path. The path of an arrogant demon lord who doesn't care for such "trivial" matters.
With the part of his mind that was still functioning, he formulated a reply with feigned coldness.
"Insolence!" he sent the thought. "Do you think I need such primitive methods to see the future? My vision transcends the tears of lesser beings. Your offering... lacks inspiration. Find me something worthy of my attention."
It was a huge risk. But it worked.
[Dark Fairy Queen Xue]: "...I apologize for my crudeness, Sire. Understood. I will search for a more... creative offering."
The message vanished. But its impact remained.
"Lin, you're really not okay," Su Ling said quietly, no longer smiling. "Maybe we should go back to the office."
He shook his head. "No, I'm fine now. Sorry, I just zoned out." He tried to eat, but the food was tasteless in his mouth.
The lunch ended in an awkward silence. Something had been broken. That brief moment of normal connection had been shattered by an intrusion from another world.
As they returned to the company building, they walked side-by-side in silence. Yuan Lin looked at Su Ling, at her worried expression, and realized the new feeling that was washing over him.
It wasn't fear, and it wasn't panic.
It was a deep, painful feeling of loneliness.
He was standing on a bridge between two worlds, truly belonging to neither. He could sit with her, talk with her, but he could never share his reality with her. And he could command demons, but he would never be one of them.
He had survived another test, but he felt he had lost something that could never be recovered. He had lost the simplicity of being a normal human.
And that, he now realized, was a price he would continue to pay every day.