Chapter 92: Beauty 12

The stairwell was quiet, with no one else passing through.

The gray fire door stood tightly shut, its faded and battered sign reading “12” in worn letters. The two men who had just climbed the stairs had yet to push it open, and behind them, the spiral staircase stretched downward endlessly.

At Yu Bai’s somewhat abrupt question, Xie Wufang didn’t take long to think.

“I’ve been wondering,” the man said, “humans are all so clever.”

His tone was calm, but Yu Bai paused in surprise.

It didn’t sound like a lament over Yuan Yuxing’s choice.

Because those gray-blue eyes, clear and bright, held earnestness, confusion, and a swirl of thoughts—but no trace of regret.

Any ordinary person who learned of Yuan Yuxing’s decision would feel at least a flicker of regret welling up in their heart.

Xie Wufang truly wasn’t human, after all.

Just like before, he remained unmoved by the joys and sorrows, loves and hatreds playing out around him.

A god didn’t understand many things in the human world, let alone those mundane yet profound moments in human lives.

The human who had been so eager to ask questions moments ago suddenly felt a pang of inexplicable disappointment.

Yu Bai gathered his thoughts and pressed on from Xie Wufang’s words. “Clever? Why do you say that?”

“Because humans are so good at making things up.”

He paused, then added, “Lying, acting, imagining—they’re all forms of fabrication, aren’t they?”

Yu Bai hadn’t expected that answer; even his expression froze for a moment before he instinctively replied, “Yeah.”

Imagination was fabrication in the mind, lying was fabrication in words and actions, and acting was fabrication shaped by a script.

“But I can’t fabricate,” Xie Wufang said, his calm voice growing quieter. “…And I don’t know how to learn.”

“How do humans even learn to fabricate in the first place?”

Yu Bai was stunned, left speechless for a good while.

He had been stumped by Xie Wufang.

Having lived twenty-two years as a human, he had never once pondered that question.

Did humans need to learn how to fabricate?

His first instinct was no.

Crafting an intricate, captivating novel required practice, sure—but when writing a composition in school on the theme “When I Grow Up, I Want to Be…,” no one asked the teacher, “How do I imagine what I’ll be like as an adult?”

Everyone fabricated; they just excelled in different ways and to varying degrees.

It was like a human instinct.

…Or maybe not entirely.

Toddlers just learning to babble clearly couldn’t picture themselves grown up, nor did they use lies to curry favor with their parents.

So how did humans learn to fabricate?

Yu Bai thought for a long time, earnestness, confusion, and myriad thoughts swirling in his pale eyes.

Finally, he shook his head with a vague realization.

“Sorry, I don’t know.”

As he spoke, Yu Bai couldn’t help but laugh. “Didn’t expect the tables to turn like this—I’m the one telling you ‘I don’t know’ now.”

Xie Wufang, who neither lied nor imagined well, would honestly admit “I don’t know” when faced with unanswerable questions.

“I don’t know how humans learn to fabricate,” Yu Bai said earnestly. “But I do know it happens somewhere along the road to growing up, without us even noticing.”

Xie Wufang watched him quietly, silent for a moment before asking softly, “So just by living in this world, you can learn it?”

“…Yeah, you could put it that way.”

After all, in all his years, Yu Bai had never met a human who was completely incapable of fabrication like Xie Wufang.

But why had he suddenly grown so curious about “fabrication”?

Yu Bai considered it, then simply turned the question back. “Why do you ask all of a sudden?”

Was it because he had been deeply shocked by Old Man Yuan’s effortlessly natural performance?

“I want to learn to fabricate like humans do.”

Xie Wufang’s tone was earnest and straightforward.

“To imagine, to act, and to lie.”

…

Yu Bai froze again, unsure how to react for a moment.

This was the first time he’d heard Xie Wufang express what he wanted to do.

The first two sounded reasonable enough.

But this innocent god, declaring with such frank innocence that he wanted to learn to lie…

Should Yu Bai encourage him and offer guidance, or firmly dissuade him to nip the idea in the bud?

Neither felt quite right.

No matter how he answered, it seemed wrong.

Yu Bai suddenly felt the bewilderment of a kindergarten teacher hearing a child spout something utterly bizarre.

Bewildered and amused.

So he stood there dazed for a bit, and when he snapped out of it, the corners of his mouth were curving upward uncontrollably.

“Actually,” Yu Bai said, “in one of the previous time loops, you did learn to act.”

Now it was Xie Wufang’s turn to be caught off guard.

“Really?”

“Really. Though if we’re being precise, it might not count as truly learning… Come with me.”

Five minutes later, in the living room of Yu Bai’s home, the plush sofa sank comfortably under their weight. The air buzzed with lively dialogue from the TV.

The screen in front of them played a randomly selected drama series.

“Acting has two meanings,” Yu Bai explained, hugging a pillow as he lounged casually on the sofa beside Xie Wufang, recounting that time loop. “One is like lying—pretending to be someone else, like Uncle Yuan just did.

“The other is real acting, in all sorts of formats: TV dramas, movies, stage plays… Actors strive to embody the state of the character in the script.

“But in a way, both kinds of acting are the same at their core. The only difference is whether there’s a camera there to capture it.”

“That time, we both got picked for small roles with lines. You picked it up fast—way better than me. I even thought, if we weren’t in a time loop, you’d definitely become a movie star someday.”

As Xie Wufang listened to him and watched the earnest performances on TV, he asked uncertainly, “Did I just read the script and bring it to life?”

“No.” Yu Bai shook his head. “That’s why I said it might not count as truly learning.

“I told the director on set that day that neither of us could act, but he thought our looks were unique enough for those minor roles. Acting skill didn’t matter much—as long as we could pull a face and deliver the lines, it’d do.

“Your character was a tad more important than mine, so the director showed you a clip from another scene as reference and told you to mimic that guy’s vibe.

“And you nailed it. One look, and you copied it perfectly—shocked the director, and the final result was even better.”

Because he was far more handsome than that actor.

Yu Bai hadn’t thought deeply about it back then; he’d just figured Xie Wufang’s learning ability was exceptional, even at acting.

Looking back now, it hadn’t been true acting.

Just mimicry.

Great actors needed powerful fabrication skills to turn written descriptions into living, breathing reality.

At that, the uncertainty in Xie Wufang’s eyes cleared, and he nodded slightly.

He stared at the TV screen, thought for a moment, and asked, “In that time loop, why did we go to Film City? Were you interested in acting?”

“Not me, and not you either.”

Yu Bai laughed and admitted honestly, “It was like the Go incident in the park—I wanted to test your learning ability.”

Ever since learning that people who personally visited alternate time loops regained their memories when the loop dissolved, Yu Bai had lost his appetite for lying to Xie Wufang.

Getting caught in a lie was socially mortifying, after all.

So he came clean about the reason for the park Go game too.

But Xie Wufang didn’t seem surprised at all, as if he’d heard it already.

From the mouth of someone with a drunken blackout.

“Acting was pretty fun, but I’m just average at it, and I don’t love being the center of attention.” Yu Bai asked with a touch of emotion, “What about you? Want to be an actor?”

With Xie Wufang’s looks, even without top-notch skills, becoming a star shouldn’t be hard.

As the internet saying went, he could just stand there doing nothing and still be a feast for the eyes.

The living room’s white walls flickered with the colorful glow of the screen. In the drama, the characters began screaming accusations at each other, the noisy waves of sound crashing in suddenly. Yu Bai hurriedly grabbed the remote and turned down the volume.

Xie Wufang’s gaze shifted away as well.

“No,” he said. “The kind of acting I want to learn is the other one.”

“The one closer to lying.”

…

Well then. True to his goal.

In the end, it all boiled down to wanting to learn how to lie.

Yu Bai chuckled despite himself. “Good luck with that.”

He definitely wasn’t going to teach Xie Wufang how to lie.

First off, he had no idea how to teach it.

Second, there was this inexplicable sense that he was committing a crime.

…Teaching a pure, innocent god to lie—what difference did that have from breaking the law?

He was a law-abiding citizen, after all.

Curled up on the sofa, the young man suddenly broke into a beaming smile, his soft locks glowing warmly in the sunlight spilling into the room.

The man beside him caught the starlight sparkling in his eyes and asked abruptly, “Are there many worlds like the ones where pretending to act made you have so much fun?”

“Lots,” Yu Bai replied. “Pretty much every loop was a blast.”

He had once been so immersed in those time loops that he never wanted to leave, all because the days there were dazzling, brimming with wild ideas and endless possibilities.

“Which loop was the most fun?” Xie Wufang asked.

After Yu Bai had earnestly explained the concept of “the best” to him, the nonhuman had gradually learned how to choose and compare.

“The most fun?”

Yu Bai pondered seriously for a moment. “Probably the loop where we watched that cartoon together.”

They had been sitting right here on this very sofa.

Whether it was the loop where they went filming or the one where they watched cartoons, nothing untoward had happened that Xie Wufang shouldn’t know about. So Yu Bai brought it up without a shred of guilt.

“Why?”

“Because that cartoon was about an alien prince who sneaks onto Earth with a mission to wipe out humanity, disguising himself as an ordinary human. But bit by bit, he gets lost in all the bewildering wonders of human life.”

“The show was totally absurd and hilarious. Every time one of his kin asked how things were going or when they’d launch the full invasion of Earth, he’d snap impatiently, ‘I’m biding my time!’ But that was a lie. In every episode, the prince would set out to find his chance, only to get sidetracked by some new human gimmick and completely forget his mission.”

And back then, Xie Wufang had been right there in front of him, trying just as hard to pass as human, lingering in awe amid all the world’s novelties.

Watching a story like that with someone like “him” was especially amusing.

As Yu Bai spoke, amusement welled up in his eyes. “I was so looking forward to your reaction the whole time. I kept glancing over at you, but you stayed totally chill—no unusual response at all.”

He wasn’t sure if Xie Wufang just didn’t get the subtext or if the wildly imaginative plot went right over his head.

Either way, Yu Bai in that loop had gotten double the fun out of it.

Seeing Xie Wufang show no reaction—no laughs, no tension—had tickled his own funny bone for no reason. He’d cracked up so hard he couldn’t stop, drawing repeated glances from the nonhuman beside him.

It had to be that cartoon’s ridiculousness.

He’d been laughing himself to pieces, while the guy next to him just gave him a quiet look.

Then turned back to the screen.

Then looked at him again.

Utterly baffled, clearly.

Remembering that day now, Yu Bai started chuckling again, almost wanting to bury his face in the throw pillow.

The man beside him watched him for a long moment, a faint smile flickering in his eyes.

The afternoon was peaceful and serene.

Until he murmured softly, “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

“Can you tell me everything that happened in every loop?”

“…”

Yu Bai’s expression froze. His laughter vanished in an instant, and he declared categorically, “No way!!”