Within the mountain crevice, the Insect Demon’s presence had long since dissipated.

  What a generous 'greeting gift' from a Master, Gensheng sneered inwardly.

  The Insect Demon was indeed munificent. From a scattered pile of storage bags, Gensheng pulled a crumpled sheet of yellow paper—a bounty notice from Maple Red Valley.

  There were no portraits, only a few scrawled lines describing an Evil Cultivator known as the Insect Demon. It detailed his use of lethal Corpse-Wasps and warned that he had recently entered the valley’s territory.

  The old bastard is being hunted like a dog with nowhere to hide, so he sought me out.

  He gifts me a human skin and grants me his signature swarm. The moment I step out and kill with these wasps, I—Chen Gensheng—will become the 'New' Insect Demon.

  The old fox can then shed his identity like a cicada’s shell, free to roam the world, while I carry the weight of his crimes and his pursuers. Even if I succeed in destroying the Saintess and crippling the sect, he is the one who profits. And if I am caught? Dead men tell no tales. It truly is a seamless calculation.

  From a common insect to a pawn of the Shadowfire Butterfly, and now a scapegoat for the Insect Demon—everyone wanted to take a piece of him.

  Gensheng stood and selected a relatively intact set of cyan disciple robes from the loot. He walked to the mouth of the crevice, using a stagnant puddle to inspect his new form.

  The reflection showed a man with handsome features, though his eyes were far too deep, far too hollow.

  If you want to give me the title of 'Insect Demon,' I will take it. But as for whether this valley is your graveyard or my feeding ground... we shall see.

  He reached into his robes and touched the cold jade box containing the Dream-Weaver Silkworm. A drop of blood seeped from his finger—crimson at the edges, but with a dark, murky core.

  The silkworm inside began to vibrate violently before transforming into a streak of light that plunged into Gensheng’s mind.

  The surrounding rocks, the puddles, and the piles of bleached bone began to warp and melt like wax cast into a furnace. When his consciousness reformed, he was standing in an endless sea of flowers. The sky was a pure, cerulean blue without a single cloud.

  The place was too perfect; it was jarringly artificial.

  Gensheng looked down at his six hands. They had followed him into this realm, fully functional. He flexed his fingers—the sensation was real.

  A crisp, clear voice drifted from the depths of the floral sea.

  "Who are you?"

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  A girl in a plain white dress stepped out from the flowers, her feet bare. She looked to be fifteen or sixteen, her features delicate and her eyes crystal clear, untainted by the dust of the world.

  The Saintess. Lu Zhaozhao.

  She tilted her head, seemingly dissatisfied by his silence. She walked a circle around him, her gaze eventually landing on the six arms hanging at his sides. Instead of finding them grotesque, her eyes sparkled with curiosity.

  "Six hands... that’s wonderful."

  She reached out and gently touched his lowest hand. "This way, you can hold my hand with one, hold an umbrella for me with another, peel fruit for me with a third, flip through my books with a fourth, and the last two..."

  She paused, a trace of innocent, girlish charm flitting across her face. "And the last two can be used specifically to hold me."

  Gensheng remained silent.

  "You are very handsome," Lu Zhaozhao said, returning to his front and looking up at the face the Demon had sculpted. "From today on, you belong to me."

  "I want you to be my husband."

  In dreams, logic holds no sway.

  One moment they were in a sea of flowers; the next, Gensheng found himself in a magnificent, hollow palace. The robes he had scavenged from the dead had been replaced by a red wedding gown of intricate embroidery.

  Lu Zhaozhao had also changed into bridal attire. She sat opposite him, smiling brightly. There were no guests, no ceremony. She simply raised a cup of wine to his lips.

  "Drink this cup of union, and you shall be mine."

  Gensheng took the cup and drained it. Thus, he began to play the part of the husband she imagined—a man of few words, yet entirely devoted to her every whim.

  Years blurred by within the dream.

  They walked through the flowers. She chirped incessantly while he listened in silence. When she grew tired, she would rest her head on his lap and sleep peacefully.

  Gensheng would use his uppermost pair of hands to gently massage her temples. His middle pair would flip through the cultivation insights she had carelessly tossed aside. His lowest pair remained braced against the ground, ready for any sudden shift in this artificial reality.

  She taught him how to cultivate. Before him, Lu Zhaozhao had no defenses. She explained her understanding of mantras, her insights into realms, and the intricate secrets of Qi circulation in exhaustive detail.

  To her, it was the intimacy of a couple. To him, it was the harvest of a parasite.

  Chen Gensheng was like a starving tick, gorging himself on everything she was. He learned fast—so fast it even surprised her.

  "Husband, you are truly a genius," she would say, clinging to his arm with adoration.

  Gensheng would stroke her hair with one hand while the other five secretly formed different mudras behind his back, verifying the theories he had just stolen.

  The human heart is truly this simple. A little bit of compliance is all it takes to buy absolute trust.

  A hundred years flickered by in the blink of an eye. From a young couple, they grew old together. Lu Zhaozhao’s beauty faded within the dream, and her cultivation had long since stagnated. The heaven-sent genius who once sought the Dao now focused her entire soul on her six-armed husband.

  Her Dao Heart hadn't just crumbled. She had dug it out with her own hands and offered it to him on a silver platter.

  One day, they sat on the threshold of the palace, watching a sunset that never dipped below the horizon.

  "Husband... I think I am dying," Lu Zhaozhao whispered, leaning against his shoulder.

  He knew the dream was ending.

  "Husband, don't leave me," she gripped his hand tightly. "If there is a real world... you must come find me. No matter what you become, you must find me..."

  Her voice faded into a whisper before vanishing entirely. The dream-world began to shudder and collapse. The flowers withered; the palace turned to ash.

  In the mountain crevice, Chen Gensheng snapped his eyes open.

  He was still sitting cross-legged in his cyan robes. The jade box in his lap let out a sharp crack as a fissure appeared. Inside, the Dream-Weaver Silkworm had turned from snow-white to a deathly, stagnant grey. Its life force was spent.

  A century-long dream had consumed its entire essence.

  Gensheng raised a hand and touched his face. His mind was now flooded with things that didn't belong to him.