One Body, Two Minds

“How…”

“Your desire to use my powers gave me an opening to push through. I don’t think I can stay for long, though. Listen, I heard everything that stupid, so-called god said to you. I know you’re not in this situation out of your free will, so as long as you don’t damage my body or get me killed, I won’t force you out.”

“Force me out? I’m not an evil spirit that you can exorcise.”

“I am willing to try if you behave even dumber than you already do.”

“Fine. I get it. I don’t actually want to die either.”

“Good. Now listen. Feng Yu and Liu Renqing were the best of friends and confidants until my debut tournament two years ago. I never told any of them I’d consider a relationship, but they fight about me anyway.”

I look towards Xiyang. “As long as I can fulfil my mission, they will both leave you alone and also be happy together.”

Murong Zhiyu smiles, but even in the reflection she looks sad.

“You don’t want them to be together?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “It’s not that. I just can’t get the vision of the city out of my head. Destroyed, broken…” her voice trails off.

“Because it was your responsibility to keep them safe?”

All of a sudden, I feel tears running over my face, dropping down into the lake below, blurring Murong Zhiyu’s face for a moment. I wipe my eyes, but the tears keep falling.

“I’m sorry,” Murong Zhiyu whispers.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You don’t know me, but I promise you I will do all I can to save this city.”

Something in my chest starts increasing in pressure and for a moment I feel like I can’t breathe. My throat is constricted and I try to cough, only to suddenly break through the block and exhale a cloud of snow. I cough out a few more snowflakes as I clear my throat.

“I’ve given you control over my powers, but you will need to work out how to use them on your own. Oh, one more thing… if you know my whole story, you also know that I am—”

“I know. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. I also won’t… do anything about it if I can help it. To be honest, I wouldn’t even know what to say to her if we did meet. She seemed… imposing.”

Murong Zhiyu laughs softly. “She is. But she is not unreasonable. Still, the mere notion of my soul having been pushed to the side… Well, you might not be able to act on your own anymore if she finds out about this.”

“Best avoid her then…”

“Good, then we’re on the same page. I’ll rest now. Don’t break my body.”

I can physically feel her soul fading into the background, like when you feel the migraine pressure in your head finally recede and that calmness descends over you which lets you fall into a restful sleep. A body isn’t meant to hold two souls, apparently. I wonder how it feels for her to be pushed to the background like this?

She might really need to sleep now, yet there is one thing I forgot to ask her. She said she didn’t want to start a relationship with either Feng Yu or Liu Renqing, but how does she actually feel about them? In the drama she seemed to have liked both and couldn’t decide, but that doesn’t necessarily need to be true for the actual Murong Zhiyu.

“And me? Who do I actually like? Does it even matter if I find out?” I whisper to myself. “It would be just my luck if I fall in love with one of them, only to be returned to my sad single life in the other world. Though Gui did say I have a free wish, and I don’t think giving me a perfect boyfriend would be so world-changing he’d refuse it.”

I dip my hand into the water and try to think of what it would look like if it turned to ice… and this time it does. Radiating outward from my fingers, the surface water freezes with a satisfying crackling noise, just like you would expect from a video game. Nice. Then…

I wave my hand through the air and an icy fog is created in its path. This is actually fun! I plant my hand on the bit of ice on the water again and decide to push it. Ice bursts forth, covering an area of several square metres in an instant. Also I start to feel faint and fall forward into the ice, catching myself with both hands before I crash.

“Right. Don’t overdo it, genius,” I chide myself. I have no idea where Murong Zhiyu’s limits are and if they’re different because I am in control. I need to be careful until we can talk again.

Instead I focus on the half-dragon form I’ve seen in the drama, and… have to put both hands over my mouth to stop myself from screaming as I shift. It’s not painful, it’s just… so, so weird! It feels like my skin is rearranging itself all over, stretching and bunching up in the weirdest places. My head grows heavier and so does, well, my butt. I crawl to the edge of the ice to observe my reflection and find two white horns on top of my head. I barely managed to pull my trousers down in the most undignified way before the growing tail could rip them. It curls around my leg, the scales white even in the dark of the night. I turn my hands over in the moonlight and silvery scales glitter like a decorative pattern.

That’s right. Murong Zhiyu never shifted in front of other people in her clothes, that’s why they weren’t made for extra body parts like the ones that for example Liu Renqing wore. When he shifted, he also grew a dragon-like tail as one of the dragon fish people, but there was space allocated for it.

“Don’t tell me I have to shift naked?” I mumble.