A Dog Father Cannot Beget a Dragon Son

World 51: Part 2

"No. No." The boy in the tank didn't so much wake up, as wail himself into consciousness. "No! Wife! Xiao San! Xiao San!" The blue flame blazed. "GIVE HER BACK TO ME!" 

The glass exploded outward, startling Fei Chuan out of his seat. "What the," he muttered, teeth clacking in bewilderment. "Fu-fucheng?" 

The boy seemed to snap out of his rage at the sound of Fei Chuan's voice, if the windy rasp counted as one. A wisp of the child's magic curled itself around the his bones and Fei Chuan was taken aback by the flash of familiarity "Gege? Jing-ge, have you seen, my wife, where is Xiao San?"

"Get the doctor," Fei Chuan snapped at an endlessly giggling windchime. It saluted to him, bursting into another fresh bout of laughter and whisking itself away. He turned back to the boy. "This isn't the Purple Firmament Sect, Fucheng. Fucheng, look at me." 

The boy didn't process his voice for a good while, but when he did the face that looked up was devoid of emotion. "Father." 

Fei Chuan fought not to take a step back. "Child," he said, deciding not to call Fucheng's name lest it incited a breakdown. "What happened?" 

The blue flame dulled, and the boy's lone eye unfocused. "It was nothing. I merely had a ...nice dream." 

******

"Is he remembering the memories of his past life? Or is this a trap?" 

Dr. Gumbai looked just as confused as Fei Chuan felt. It's nice to know he wasn't the only one.

 Fei Chuan had been at a loss for what to do, and so he followed the scientist over to the large magic crystal in the basement of the lab. It also happened to be the only thing powering the lab in the middle of the desert. 

Gumbai reached out, typing on a keyboard that had appeared out of nowhere, and the crystal shuddered, dissipating first into ones and zeros before a large screen filled with code flickered into existence. 

"I think," began Gumbai slowly, "that this was even less than a freebie world, like two and seven were. I think this world was meant to be a dummy world. Look at this code!" He gestures to a veritable wall of tightly packed sequences. Fei Chuan's eye flames narrow, but he couldn't make heads nor tails of it. Gumbai rolled his eyes. "Everything is a conditional!" he said in pure disgust. "I can't see a single wick of error handling, except for the parts that relates to the host. In fact, the host status effect is the most robust part of this entire mess!"

"So it's poorly written," Fei Chuan tried to clarify. 

"It's poorly formed!" Gumbai said that like the string of characters in front of him were a personal affront. "There are so many loopholes in this fucking thing! No wonder the kid could recall past memories!" 

Fei Chuan ignore the twinge in his nonexistent heart and relaxed. "So long as [They] aren't onto us then." 

At this, Gumbai scoffed. "Have some faith, why don't you." He frowned deeply. "It's just a world with really shitty quality control. We're still okay." 

****** 

They weren't okay.

Fei Chuan had taken to using a crystal ball to keep a distant eye on the [Protagonist]. His child, whom his dumb-as-a-rock subjects had taken to calling "Malkid," was too mentally ill-composed to take her out himself. Fei Chuan would truthfully rather not name him until the multiple lifetimes settle. 

Today's personality was Huang San. He had greeted Fei Chuan by stabbing a sword through the Lich's left eye socket, and spent the rest of the day soaking up whatever attention he could get like a particularly vicious and aggressive sponge. When Fei Chuan tried to give him that and apologize, however, his actions only grew more manic.