Chapter 47: “I Just Want to Celebrate Your Birthday, Alright?” Part 2

Meieruita shifted his gaze from the pages to An Luo.

He frowned.

Earlier, he’d sensed An Luo softening, but it lasted only briefly before the icy walls rose again.

Meieruita didn’t need much guesswork to deduce the reason.

An Luo was the author; Meieruita was his creation. He knew Meieruita intimately.

From the plot An Luo described and Meieruita’s self-knowledge, he was no one worthy of trust, no matter what.

And that was the truth.

Meieruita wasn’t the type to worship his Creator as a god. He desperately wanted freedom from An Luo’s control and had tried many methods.

Even bringing An Luo to the Underground Laboratory—initially to close the distance through proximity—lacked full commitment. Instead, Meieruita aimed to provoke disgust, slipping free from the Creator’s silent grip.

Dispelling the curse was half to draw An Luo closer, half to breed dissatisfaction from the side effects. With no strong reaction from An Luo after settling by the fire, Meieruita proactively pulled him into his lap.

Half intimacy, half defiance of the Creator’s authority.

A father’s authority brooked no defiance. Though An Luo didn’t aggressively assert dominance like fathers Meieruita knew, being held by his “inferior” son should still discomfort him, right?

Two impulses tore at Meieruita.

One urged total flattery to win An Luo’s favor; the other brimmed with doubt, seeking to provoke disgust and justify quashing weak sentiments.

Meieruita craved this realization:

An Luo isn’t worth my devotion, not even a shred.

But every time, he got the completely opposite result, which made his heart writhe in agony. He didn’t want to accept this fact.

Because Meieruita refused to act like a foolish idiot and offer himself up.

Relationships between people were all about competition and seizure. He didn’t want to hand over resources that rightfully belonged to him, because a lack of resources would make him weak.

Even if An Luo was the Creator, Meieruita didn’t want to.

This was the beginning stage of the plot.

He analyzed it: if the entire book represented his life, then right now he was still in his “childhood” phase, so he couldn’t help but feel a sense of adoration toward the Creator.

But as he had said before, times changed. Once the plot progressed and he grew into his “youth” phase, An Luo’s influence on him would surely diminish greatly.

The distress he faced now was merely a temporary struggle.

His gray-green eyes returned to the book.

This pain was only temporary. All Meieruita needed to do was wait.

But he didn’t want to feel this tugging, churning emotion anymore.

He both wanted to enshrine An Luo like a god and kill him.

These two extreme thoughts pulled him in opposite directions, leaving him at a loss.

Sometimes, Meieruita even hated An Luo.

He hated why An Luo had to appear. He hated why An Luo was such a good Creator.

If An Luo hadn’t appeared, he could have continued on his own planned path.

If An Luo had been a terrible Creator, Meieruita could have simply killed him with one stroke.

In either case, he wouldn’t have ended up in his current predicament.

An Luo slept soundly in his arms.

For a fleeting moment, Meieruita wanted to shove An Luo straight into the fire in front of him.

Let this detestable Creator turn to ashes.

Yet in the end, he merely tightened his arm around An Luo’s waist.

Just before shifting his attention back to the book, Meieruita thought that once An Luo’s authority completely lost its hold on him, he would take the most vicious revenge.

Meieruita had never hated anyone as intensely as he did now.

Even Lan Lian, who had once nearly driven him to desperation, was just an obstacle to be removed in Meieruita’s eyes. He loathed him, but that was all.

It wasn’t hate.

Did people hate rats?

People only hated other people.

Meieruita hated An Luo, but he knew An Luo didn’t hate him—and that made him hate An Luo even more.

The flames twisted before his eyes. Meieruita closed them, and when he opened them again, the surging emotions in their depths had calmed.

He turned his attention back to the obscure book in his hands.

He had to grow stronger as quickly as possible, to end his “childhood” phase at the fastest speed.

The desire to become more powerful had never felt as urgent as it did now.

An Luo woke from a deep sleep, and nothing around him had changed.

The fire was still burning, Meieruita was still reading, and with no windows in the underground laboratory, he had no way to judge how much time had passed by the sky.

“You’re awake.”

Meieruita said flatly, and An Luo could sense he was in a bad mood.

Immediately after, he heard Meieruita add, “It’s been about three hours. Are you still cold?”

An Luo: !

So long?!

It made sense—anyone who served as a human cushion for that long wouldn’t be in a great mood. An Luo put himself in Meieruita’s shoes and thought that if it were him, he’d probably have started cursing already.

For Meieruita to hold out until now, with only a slightly cold tone, was already very composed.

Was this the self-cultivation of a protagonist?

An Luo gave him a mental thumbs-up.

“I shouldn’t be cold anymore,” An Luo said.

Whether he was cold or not, he couldn’t tell right now, but Meieruita had said the side effects would last at most three to four hours, so even if he still felt cold, An Luo planned to tough it out.

No choice—using Meieruita as a heat source any longer would make his conscience ache.

He climbed down from Meieruita and stretched his body a bit.

Luckily, he wasn’t cold anymore.

He asked, “Meieruita, are you okay? Is your leg numb?”

“A little,” Meieruita replied calmly. “Just a minor side effect from poor blood circulation. It’ll go away soon.”

Hearing that made An Luo feel even guiltier, like there was a little person in his head condemning him:

Heartless author, exploiting the protagonist—outrageous! Despicable!

He said sheepishly, “…How about I rub it for you?”

Meieruita looked up at him. “Sure.”

An Luo had no massage training, and his technique was basic. Meieruita’s thigh was tense, hard to knead, so he pressed both hands down, hoping sheer force would do the trick. After a short while, he heard Meieruita say, “That’s enough, thanks.”

The words sounded squeezed out one by one, with a hint of barely restrained impatience.

An Luo: “…?”

Meieruita stood up. His wizard robe had become wrinkled and rumpled. He frowned at it for a moment, then shook it out a bit.

No use.

So he simply ignored it and dragged the wooden chair back to the table.

“What do you want to eat tonight?” he asked coldly. “Live frogs?”

An Luo: “What? Live… frogs?”

Holy crap, that scared me!

Another day passed.

Finally, the pack of Thorn Beasts gave up, and the faint rustling sounds from above completely vanished.

“I’ll go check first,” Meieruita said.

With their imprisonment about to end, An Luo waited eagerly.

Soon, Meieruita returned, brushing dried leaves off himself. “The Thorn Beasts are gone.”

An Luo followed him out of the underground cell.

The feeling of seeing daylight again was wonderful!

Back at the dormitory, An Luo called out to Meieruita, who was about to leave.

“What is it?”

“Even though your birthday was yesterday, if you’re free tonight, come over. I’ll make you a bowl of longevity noodles?”

Meieruita’s footsteps halted.

He lowered his gaze. “Why?”

An Luo: “Because celebrating a birthday a day late is no big deal, right? I used to shift mine to the weekend all the time.”

A small treat on the actual birthday, a big feast on the weekend of that week!

Meieruita didn’t turn around. His voice remained indifferent. “What I mean is, why are you celebrating my birthday?”

That stumped An Luo.

It was like someone asking why one plus one equaled two—the answer was simple, but the reasoning wasn’t easy to explain.

So An Luo replied, “Because you’re my protagonist. Wanting to celebrate your birthday is totally normal, isn’t it?”

Though his stance was still “beware of fire, theft, and protagonists,” a protagonist was a protagonist. He had to stay vigilant, but his fondness was genuine.

Meieruita was silent for a moment, then said, “What about John? Do you celebrate his birthday too?”

An Luo: “…Uh, actually, besides you, I don’t know anyone else’s birthday in this book because I didn’t write them down.”

“So if you knew, would you celebrate his?”

An Luo: “…”

I’m done with you.

He always felt like Meieruita harbored some hostility toward John, and these words only made it feel more subtle.

Meieruita didn’t turn back. His hand rested on the doorknob, leaving An Luo with a silent, inscrutable silhouette.

“No.”

He answered bluntly. “I just want to celebrate yours, alright?”

“…It had better be that way,” An Luo heard him say, his tone lifting noticeably, as if satisfied with the answer.

An Luo chuckled. “Alright, alright. Are you free tonight, then?”

“I’ll make time.”

As Meieruita spoke, he pulled open the door and left, his steps quick. He slammed it shut behind him with a heavy thud.