At the dining table, there was initially a silence, broken only by faint chewing sounds and the clink of cutlery.
An Luo ate while observing Meieruita.
Meieruita’s eating movements were very measured. When he cut into the steak with his knife and fork, he did so quietly, without the harsh scraping of metal.
His gray-green eyes were slightly downcast, his lashes casting a shadow on his eyelids.
From his facial expression and hand movements, there was almost no difference between how he ate the steak and how he ate black bread.
It seemed that the taste of the food held no meaning for him.
Whether it was delicious or not, as long as it filled his stomach, that was enough.
But that was merely how it “seemed.”
An Luo knew that the mere act of voluntarily sitting down to eat already signified Meieruita’s attitude.
Though the protagonist was very fierce, he considered that Meieruita was only seventeen now—a high schooler in modern terms.
He was still young.
Ignoring his mature demeanor and gaze, Meieruita’s appearance hovered between boy and youth. His features had the nascent sharpness of outlines, but only nascent.
And when he thought about it, Meieruita was entirely An Luo’s creation.
Previously, survival anxiety had left An Luo with no mind to closely observe Meieruita, but now the hot dinner and bubbling meat soup gave him a sense of familiarity, allowing him to relax considerably.
As he watched Meieruita, a particularly wondrous feeling welled up in An Luo’s heart.
It was like the myth of Pygmalion.
Meieruita had once been mere strings of text, but now he had transformed into a living person, vividly present before An Luo.
Though An Luo was the author, even he had only a vague image of his protagonist.
Unlike video or film, text lacked vivid clarity but offered more room for imagination.
In An Luo’s mind, Meieruita was a rather generalized concept—a hazy humanoid shape, like a flower in the mist or the moon in water, with only a rough outline, quite blurry.
When Supreme Wizard had just started serializing, An Luo had been blindly optimistic, convinced he had a good shot at instant success. Amid thoughts of where to buy a house, he had even fantasized about which celebrities might play the protagonist if the rights were sold.
Recalling it now was a bit amusing, but he had pondered it seriously at the time.
He had rigorously compared domestic and international stars, picking and choosing.
This one was too fat, that one too short, and that other one just looked dumb.
No, no.
Even some global superstars didn’t match An Luo’s vision.
His protagonist should be tall and slender, appearing wise and calm.
Tall and thin, but not the stick-figure kind of thin—filled with elegantly shaped muscles. He looked like a scholarly, brooding intellectual, but even without witchcraft, a single punch from him would be like Rutui Jie fist-fighting the town gatekeeper, making one’s eyes spin with stars and one’s face a sauce shop.
Accomplished in both letters and arms.
Some foreign stars looked very muscular and powerful, but An Luo couldn’t appreciate that. He felt those walking muscle mountains carried a primal wildness, as if they might ascend to the steroid planet at any moment, accompanied by the startling sound effects from short videos: “Tragedy strikes the bodybuilding world.”
Eventually, as time passed and reality set in, An Luo stopped thinking about it.
His protagonist wandered through the text, his wide wizard robe shadowy and indistinct, shrouded in a thin mist.
Even An Luo, the author, couldn’t see him completely clearly.
Until that day when he pushed open the door and caught sight of Meieruita at first glance.
In that instant, even though Meieruita wasn’t yet the world-shattering powerful wizard of the later stages—just a weak wizard apprentice—An Luo recognized him instantly.
This was how Meieruita should be.
Though An Luo didn’t fall in love with his own creation like Pygmalion with his carved statue, seeing Meieruita still made him very happy.
Supreme Wizard was his first book. Though it hadn’t brought him fame or fortune, nor the financial freedom he had hoped for, it had become a real world, giving An Luo a sense of immense reward for his efforts.
No amount of money could buy that.
Especially Meieruita.
The protagonist under his pen, the one into which he had poured the most heart and soul.
An Luo’s current mood, in an inappropriate analogy, was like those parents showing off photos of their kids saying, “My child could be a child model.”
Meieruita lifted his eyes to look at An Luo.
An Luo had been staring at him for a long time.
Meieruita disliked being watched.
As an orphan without father or mother, he was the lowest among the servants.
Being seen meant being noticed by another being.
That often heralded impending harm.
Only by avoiding all gazes, blending himself into the shadows, and remaining undiscovered could he avoid injury and increase his chances of survival.
Meieruita had passed his most vulnerable childhood years hiding like this, like moss growing in the shadows, surviving beyond the reach of eyes.
Weakness was the original sin. Once noticed by the powerful, one would surely be trampled.
On the surface, Meieruita remained calm, but in reality, every muscle in his body tensed.
In his youth, such vigilance was for escape; as he grew, he gained another option: fight.
But fighting wasn’t viable against every being.
Like Lan Lian.
Though one-on-one, Lan Lian wouldn’t be Meieruita’s opponent, Lan Lian was the “young master,” the “master,” so Meieruita could only flee.
Meieruita had grown up, but he was still weak.
Being seen was a privilege of the strong.
Only the sufficiently powerful could walk openly under countless gazes without fear of harm.
But Meieruita was not strong.
He hated being seen.
Yet An Luo’s gaze was different.
It wasn’t condescending pity, amusement, disgust, or malice, but a soft gaze that Meieruita couldn’t categorize.
Very strange.
He felt his bones creak, like branches swaying in the wind, and his taut muscles oddly relaxed, like wheat seedlings under sunlight and rain.
Meieruita felt himself “growing.”
He probed his body with his mental power. No changes—bones and muscles arranged calmly, blood circulating regularly, though his heart beat a bit faster.
What was this?
Meieruita thought of the word “father.”
Though an orphan, he didn’t yearn for family.
Father meant the stench of alcohol, broad palms, punches and kicks when displeased, and extreme demands for obedience.
Masters demanded obedience from servants, who then replicated it at home on their children, savoring the pleasure of dominance and power.
The master’s horsewhip on him, his palm on the child—a wondrous cycle.
No, not the same.
An Luo’s gaze didn’t match that word.
Then, “Creator”?
The statues of gods in the church were towering, overlooking the masses, but their eyes were hollow.
Meieruita felt his hands trembling.
A sudden extreme resistance surged within him.
He didn’t want to be looked at anymore.
Whatever An Luo’s gaze represented, it shook Meieruita’s very existence. If he were a building, his foundation was now quaking, dust and debris falling from the top.
This was uncharted territory, a wholly dark sea.
Meieruita’s spine shivered.
Without a word, he abruptly stood, returned to the desk, sat down, and fixed his gaze firmly on the book.
The obscure, cold text gradually calmed him.
Meieruita didn’t want excessive contact with that gaze.
It was dangerous.
He had a premonition: too much exposure to it carried a fifty percent chance of utterly destroying him.
Meieruita felt himself stabilizing.
At the same time, he heightened his wariness toward An Luo.
An Luo was very dangerous.
Even if he appeared fragile, delicate, vulnerable—like a swaying flower unable to withstand wind or rain—that rich fragrance quietly permeated the air, carrying a deadly poison tempting one to their doom.
He could destroy Meieruita with a mere gaze.
I must reduce contact with him.
After slowly calming down, Meieruita rationally made the decision.
The pages rustled faintly. Focusing, Meieruita realized the tremor came from his fingertips.
He let go, feeling An Luo’s gaze shift away.
The dangerous tide receded, but a junkie’s craving arose.
Like a foolish moth to the flame.
Knowing the rising fire would reduce it to ashes, yet yearning unbearably for the warmth and light, risking total annihilation.
The text on the page gradually distorted, morphing into a dark vortex. Meieruita saw an image.
He and An Luo separated by a pane of transparent glass, blue preservation fluid bubbling with tiny bubbles.
An Luo floated within, black hair drifting in the blue liquid, robes swaying gently.
His hand weakly patted the glass wall, lips opening and closing, wet lashes framing black eyes blinking slowly.
While cleaning the manor, Meieruita had seen nobles’ exquisite specimens.
A butterfly with blue wings spread, dreamlike beautiful patterns.
But it was pinned firmly in a frame, wings forcibly flattened, displaying its beauty to all viewers.
In the memory, Meieruita in the manor looked up at the butterfly specimen.
In the vortex image, he looked through the glass at his future butterfly specimen.
Even if it was a poisonous, dangerous butterfly.
One that sprinkled glowing phosphorescent powder—capable of easily corroding souls—while fluttering.
But pinned in a frame, behind a glass cover, what threat could it pose?
A helpless, beautiful specimen.
The vortex dissipated, text reemerged, and Meieruita smiled faintly.
An Luo didn’t know why Meieruita suddenly left, but he didn’t ask.
Maybe he ate too long? Felt it was a waste of time?
Seeing him immediately return to the desk and resume reading, An Luo secretly admired his diligence.
So disciplined!
Not like the protagonist at all—no, wait, he was the protagonist, with strong self-management skills.
Far better than An Luo, the author.
Just then, the soup was nearly ready, hot steam laced with aroma wafting toward his face.
Oh… bliss…
