bookbashuk Chapter 1191 Nice to meet you, Arthur
Chapter 1191 Nice to meet you, Arthur
Shao Yun closed his eyes, but the worst scenario flashed through his mind uncontrollably.
He imagined in his dream that Yue Ruixi quietly took out a dagger and felt the cold blade touching his throat. He could even foresee the scene of blood spurting out and consciousness gradually blurring.
I really hope that this woman named Mengjianyue Ruixi won’t slit my throat and bleed to death...
But as time passed, the expected pain did not come, and only the gentle and soothing guidance of Meng Meiyue Ruixi came to her ears.
Accompanied by a soft and subtle tone, it gradually soothed his tense nerves.
His breathing gradually became steady, and his consciousness gradually sank into darkness. It turned out that all his worries were unnecessary after all.
Dreaming of Yue Ruixi was really just for the purpose of giving myself a pure psychological treatment.
After an unknown amount of time, Shao Yun opened his eyes in a daze and found himself standing on a familiar grassland with a wooden pasture fence in the distance.
This was none other than the Beecher's Wish Ranch he had dreamed of.
"Why did I dream about this place again..." Shao Yun frowned and muttered to himself, "Could it be that I will meet John again?"
He complained as he walked towards the pasture.
Shao Yun's eyes swept over the familiar wooden house, barn, and the gurgling stream in the distance of the pasture.
Just then, Shao Yun saw a figure leaning on the railing.
He was a man wearing a brown coat and a black gambler's hat. The brim of the hat was pulled down low, covering most of his face, revealing only his strong jaw and slightly pursed lips.
Shao Yun's steps suddenly stopped. He stared at the figure and screamed wildly in his heart: Impossible... How could I dream about him?
The man seemed to notice his gaze, slowly turned his head, and looked at Shao Yun from under the brim of his hat. A subtle arc appeared at the corner of his mouth, and he raised his hand and waved at him.
"Hello, other me?"
Is it Arthur?
Shao Yun walked towards Arthur in his dream as if possessed by a ghost, a sense of unreality lingering in his heart.
This dream is a bit... What will I dream about next time?
He stood beside Arthur, his eyes fixed on the house on the ranch. His throat was tight, and it took him a long time to squeeze out a word.
"This dream was really crazy... I actually saw you at John's ranch."
Arthur leaned against the ranch railing, his eyes swept across the ranch calmly, and asked calmly: "I just came to see John's ranch. What do you think of it here?"
Shao Yun looked away with a guilty conscience, and imitated Arthur, leaning against the railing beside him. He stroked the rough wood texture with his fingers and replied softly:
"Good... It's fine. John keeps it well."
The two of them leaned quietly on the railing, silently looking at the scenery in the distance, with only the sound of the wind blowing through the grassland and the occasional bird calls.
After an unknown amount of time, Arthur suddenly asked, "How do you think you are doing?"
Faced with Arthur's question that hit home, Shao Yun didn't know where to begin.
It’s been more than three years of experience, and it can’t be explained in a few words.
"I don't know... The process is too complicated, with too many unexpected twists and turns, and too many stories to tell. But there is one thing I am sure of: I have realized your unfulfilled dream."
When Arthur heard that he had realized his "unfulfilled dream", he sincerely exclaimed: "Oh, that's great. Being able to live the life you want is more important than anything else."
Shao Yun asked a question that had been accumulating in his mind for a long time.
"By the way, I have a question. If you could do it all over again and go back to the time when you were faced with those choices, would you make a different decision?"
He was not only asking Arthur, but also asking himself: if he had the chance to do it again, would he still choose the same path?
There was a tacit understanding between the two of them that needed no words. Arthur knew what the other person was talking about, old Dutch, right?
"No matter how many times I go through, I will support him and be loyal to him; he is my father."
"Loyalty?" Shao Yun softly pronounced these two words.
Arthur scratched his neck and added, "Plus twenty years of nurturing. He taught me survival skills and gave me the warmth of a home. This kind of affection can't be erased overnight."
"Even if everything falls apart in the end, the beauty of the past can't be easily given up, right?"
Shao Yun nodded, and then, for some unknown reason, he recounted his experience of seeing Daqi transformed by the abyss, saying, "Oh, by the way, I met him, and he apologized."
Arthur chose to doubt at the first moment.
"Did Old Dutch really say that, or do you think he apologized? You know, sometimes we subconsciously take our expectations as reality."
Shao Yun frowned, recalling the scene at that time, and said with great certainty:
"Before he dissipated, he looked at me and said, 'I'm sorry, my child.'"
Regardless of whether the apology was real or an illusion, when Arthur heard this long-overdue "I'm sorry", his tense shoulders slowly relaxed. He looked at the house in the distance, was silent for a few seconds, and then said calmly:
"Thank you for telling me this."
Then the wind gradually grew stronger, rustling the grass in the pasture.
Arthur looked up at the gradually fading clouds in the sky and said wistfully, "Our time is gone."
Shao Yun understood that the dream would eventually come to an end. He nodded, slowly withdrew his arms that were leaning on the railing, and his body gradually became lighter.
He looked at Arthur and whispered, "Okay. It's nice to see you in my dreams, Arthur."
The moment the words fell, the surrounding scene began to distort and blur, and the pasture fences, horses, and sheep gradually turned into light and shadows and disappeared.
Shao Yun felt his consciousness rising, and the gentle voice of Yue Ruixi in his dream came to his ears again, pulling him back to reality.
……
Shao Yun slowly opened his eyes as his consciousness withdrew from the light and shadow of the dream.
He blinked, still a little dazed. The conversation with Arthur at Beecher's Wish Ranch just now didn't seem like a dream. It felt more like a real encounter.
Arthur's words "our time is gone" were still echoing in my ears, and I felt an inexplicable sense of melancholy in my heart.
He slowly sat up and just as he was about to stretch his stiff neck, he met Meng Mingyue Ruixi's complicated gaze.
She was sitting on a small stool beside him. When she saw him wake up, she said:
"The consultation is over. I sensed a lot of mixed emotions from your dream..."
"But, how should I put it, what bothers me most is that you seem to have an indifferent attitude towards the matter of 'killing'?"
When Shao Yun heard this, the trance on his face gradually faded away, replaced by an almost calm indifference.
He leaned back in the recliner and explained calmly, "Killing is the simplest thing—pulling the trigger, swinging the blade, it's just a split-second action; but it's also a very difficult thing."
He paused, his tone adding a touch of realistic coldness. "But most of the situations I encounter are the former. Many times, killing is the fastest way to solve the problem."
When Meng Yue Ruixi heard this, she couldn't help but think of Chaska during the daytime treatment, and subconsciously said:
"Miss Chaska was the same. She killed many people to avenge her sister and to vent her anger. What about you? What is your purpose in killing people?"
Shao Yun turned his head and met her gaze. Without dodging, he said frankly, "Me? Maybe it's because I'm pursuing a better life."
Then he suddenly changed the subject and asked, "So, you want to criticize me? Criticize me for using violence to solve problems, criticize me for having blood on my hands?"
Dreaming about Yue Ruixi, she neither shook her head nor nodded, but just kept asking:
"I'm not qualified to judge you because I haven't experienced the difficulties you've faced."
"I just want to ask, if it's okay, during the Inazuma Civil War, did you ever think of 'mercy'? Did you ever think of 'stopping war with force'?"
"Instead of using killing to stop war and paving the road to peace with blood?"
Shao Yun sneered and mocked the bloodless war. War is bloody, including the Industrial Revolution.
"Being a kind person is indeed a good thing. You can be gentle to others and have good intentions towards the world."
"But most people will only mistake your kindness for cowardice, your benevolence for proof that you're easy to bully, and treat you as a fool who can be taken advantage of at will."
"In Xumi, I tried. I believed the promise of a diaper fairy."
"But what was the result? Since then, I have learned only one thing: never hesitate to shoot, and never pin your hopes on someone whose head is full of fairy tales and who thinks reality is utopian."
After listening to Shao Yun's theory, Yue Ruixi shook her head in confusion and disagreed with his words. But in the end, out of her professional ethics as a psychologist, she said:
"I don't completely agree with everything you said. Being kind shouldn't be a reason to be bullied, and violence isn't necessarily the only solution."
"But I think our chat tonight was pretty good. At least it helped me understand your heart better."
As a professional psychotherapist, even if opinions differ, I will respect the other person's experience rather than forcing my own ideas on them.
After saying this, Meng Meiyue Ruixi habitually mentioned the follow-up diagnosis and treatment, and said as a routine:
"If you want to continue sorting out your emotions later, or if you have new confusions, you can come to me at any time. Of course, just make an appointment in advance."
Shao Yun stood up from the recliner, stretched his numb limbs, and shook his head slightly when he heard this.
"I guess that's not necessary. There's no need to continue."
After a pause, he added, "By the way, if you go back to Inazuma later, remember to say hello to Yaegamiko, Kohleriya Shinkai, Goro, Teppei, Yomiya, Arataki Ichito and the others for me..."
Having said that, he paused slightly and added the Kamisato siblings, whom he was not very familiar with, into the conversation.
"Oh, by the way, please also give my regards to Ayaka and Ayato from the Kamisato family."
"Although my relationship with these two isn't very good, we are still acquaintances, so a greeting is always appropriate."
Meng Yue Ruixi memorized these names one by one, then nodded solemnly and readily agreed to the request.
"Okay, I'll bring your greetings to you when I get back to Inazuma."
Just as the two were about to end this late-night consultation, Mengming Yue Ruixi suddenly remembered the vague figure she saw in Shao Yun's dream. After hesitating for a moment, she couldn't help but ask:
"By the way, there's a question I've always been curious about. In your dream, I vaguely saw a man wearing a brown coat and a gambler's hat. You mentioned his name. Who is Arthur?"
When Shao Yun heard the word "Arthur", his body paused almost imperceptibly.
But he quickly suppressed this emotion, leaving only a brief sentence.
"A deadman."