Dual Chaos: The Foolish Genius and the Phoenix Queen

Bai Suzhen's voice was like smooth, cool silk.

"The ritual is simple, Li Wei."

They stood in a chamber deep within Penglai, the air thick with the scent of ancient magic and ozone.

Phoenix-Feng Yue, still massive and fiery, lay in a trance in the center of a complex array of glowing symbols.

"She has lost herself in the fire of her own soul," the White Snake explained, her face a mask of serene concern. "You must enter her mindscape. Find her. And guide her back."

"Enter her mind?" Li Wei squeaked. "Like, Inception-style?"

Bai Suzhen just smiled.

"Something like that. Just focus on your connection to her. The rest will be... intuitive."

She placed a hand on his forehead.

It was cold.

Impossibly cold.

The world dissolved.

**

He was floating.

In a sea of liquid gold and crimson light.

It was warm.

It was her.

This was her consciousness. Her soul.

It was vast, powerful, and beautiful.

Okay, this isn't so bad, Yin Mode thought. It's like a giant, cosmic lava lamp.

He drifted through the currents of her thoughts, looking for... well, her.

He found a memory of her as a child, practicing sword forms until her hands bled.

He found a flicker of her pride, bright and hot as a sun.

He found a sliver of her loneliness, cold and sharp as a shard of glass.

Then, the golden sea gave way to solid ground.

He stood in a magnificent palace hall, the ceilings impossibly high, the pillars carved from pure moonlight.

And he was not alone.

**

Dozens of women stood before him.

They were all breathtakingly beautiful.

They all wore the robes of a queen.

And they all looked exactly like Feng Yue.

One, with eyes like chips of ice and a warrior's stance, held a flaming spear. "I am Feng Yue," she declared, her voice ringing with the authority of a conqueror. "The thirty-second Phoenix Queen. I have laid waste to armies."

Another, with a gentle smile and ink-stains on her fingers, held a scroll. "No, I am Feng Yue," she said softly. "The fifty-seventh. I wrote the definitive treatise on celestial poetry."

A third, draped in suggestive silks and wearing a seductive smirk, stepped forward. "You are both mistaken," she purred. "I am Feng Yue, the eighty-first. I seduced the Demon King of the Western Wastes and made him my vassal."

They all started talking at once.

"I am the wisest Feng Yue!"

"I am the strongest Feng Yue!"

"I am the one who looks best in this shade of crimson!"

Li Wei's brain short-circuited.

This wasn't a mindscape.

This was a multiversal season of The Bachelorette.

And he was the only contestant.

**

This is a problem, Yin Mode whimpered. Which one is the real one? They're all so... intense.

The warrior queen pointed her spear at him. "You are the anomaly. The catalyst. Your chaotic soul is the key. Choose me, and together we shall forge a new dynasty!"

The scholar queen offered him a scroll. "Choose me, and we shall unlock the deepest secrets of the cosmos."

The seductress queen just winked. "Choose me, and... well. You can imagine."

He was going to die here.

Death by a thousand beautiful, terrifying, alternate-history girlfriends.

This is illogical, a cold voice cut through his panic. The concept of a "real" Feng Yue is subjective. However, only one can be the primary consciousness of the current host body. I must devise a test.

Yang Mode was online.

The golden light of pure reason bloomed in his eyes.

He stepped forward, his posture shifting from a panicked slump to one of cool, academic authority.

"Greetings," he said, his voice flat. "I will now administer the Feng Yue Authenticity Verification Exam."

The queens stared at him.

"Question one," Yang Mode began. "Please calculate the optimal angle of attack for a phoenix-fire strafing run, assuming a crosswind of fifteen knots and a target with 30% magic resistance."

The warrior queen answered instantly. The scholar queen gave a more theoretical, but equally correct, response. The seductress queen just laughed and said the answer was to distract the target first.

They all passed.

"Question two," Yang Mode continued, unfazed. "Recite the third stanza of the 'Ode to the Lonely Moon,' paying close attention to the subtextual themes of existential isolation."

The scholar queen recited it perfectly. The warrior queen gave a surprisingly moving, if gruff, interpretation. The seductress queen sang it as a blues song.

They all passed again.

This wasn't working.

Every version of her was a valid facet of her soul.

My logic is flawed, Yang Mode realized, a flicker of something like panic cracking his cold facade. Identity cannot be quantified. The data is... emotional.

**

As his logic failed, the mindscape began to tremble.

The moonstone pillars cracked.

The golden sea of light began to churn, turning a stormy, angry red.

The different queens flickered, their forms becoming unstable.

"What's happening?" Li Wei cried out.

A voice, smooth and cold as a snake's scales, echoed through the collapsing hall.

It was Bai Suzhen.

"The ritual is proceeding perfectly," she said, her disembodied voice dripping with triumph.

"Her Highness's soul is fractured, you see. So many conflicting personalities. The proud warrior. The lonely scholar. The insecure, modern girl who falls for an idiot."

The ground beneath Li Wei's feet began to shatter.

"This ritual was never about guiding her back," Bai Suzhen's voice laughed. "It was about purification. A battle royale of the soul. The strongest aspect of her will consume the others, leaving behind a single, perfect, and powerful Phoenix Queen."

"A queen without flaws. Without doubt. Without her embarrassing affection for you."

**

The truth hit Li Wei like a physical blow.

This was a trap.

Bai Suzhen was trying to delete the Feng Yue he knew.

The flawed, proud, easily flustered, secretly soft, beautiful, impossible Feng Yue.

The one who screamed internally.

The one who blushed with literal fire.

The one who saw an idiot and, for some insane reason, decided he was magnificent.

He didn't want the perfect warrior queen.

He didn't want the flawless scholar.

He wanted his Feng Yue.

His beautiful, chaotic, wonderful mess.

A surge of pure, unadulterated emotion ripped through him. It wasn't Yin's panic. It wasn't Yang's logic.

It was just... love.

Fierce.

Protective.

And utterly, completely, stupidly real.

"NO!" he roared, his voice echoing with a power that came not from his fractured soul, but from his whole heart.

"I don't want the 'best' version of her! I want HER! Flaws and all! Her pride is what makes her strong! Her loneliness is what makes her kind! Her feelings for me are... they're what make her, her!"

His voice, his genuine, heartfelt emotion, became an anchor in the storm.

The collapsing mindscape shuddered.

And stabilized.

**

The chaos subsided.

The hall was still cracked, but it was holding.

The dozens of queens were still there, all staring at him.

He had saved them from collapsing.

But he still had a problem.

Which one was she?

He needed a test. Not a logic test. A him test.

He took a deep breath.

"Okay," he announced to the hall of divine women. "I have one more question."

He looked at each and every one of them.

"Which one of you," he asked, his voice ringing with profound seriousness, "knows all the words to my terrible, off-key, shower-singing version of 'Baby Shark'?"

The queens stared.

The warrior queen looked utterly baffled.

The scholar queen tilted her head in academic confusion.

The seductress queen just looked disgusted.

But at the very back of the crowd, a single Feng Yue, the one who had been trying to hide behind a pillar, went completely, incandescently red.

Her cheeks smoldered.

She looked like she wanted the collapsing ground to swallow her whole.

Li Wei grinned.

Found her.

📣 [SYSTEM NOTICE: AUTHOR SUPPORT INTERFACE]

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