Chapter 75: With Me Here…
“Hey! Hey! Luxianbei, are you freaking dead asleep or what!?”
“Huh?” Luxianbei was taken aback for a moment, then yelled into the phone at Su Mi, “You’re the one who’s dead asleep! I’m listening!”
“Now that you’re awake, hurry over here! Let Huacheng’s top mid-laner, SUMAKER, take you flying!”
Luxianbei rolled his eyes. “What if you can’t take me flying?”
“If I can’t take you flying, I’ll treat you to milk tea!”
“You said it!”
“I said it!” Su Mi quickly interrupted Luxianbei, “We’re at that internet café on Cultural Road! Hurry up!”
Without waiting for Luxianbei to refuse, he swiftly hung up the phone.
“Beep—!”
Luxianbei, “…”
After hanging up, he sat on the bed, looking out at the sunny scene outside the window and thought for a while before finally understanding the current situation.
The special space had resumed operation, and the projection pulled from Huacheng had reconstituted the entire city.
Although the Solar Eclipse Society had seized quite a bit of the power used to construct the special space from the special space, causing some “residents” within to vanish without a trace.
However, compared to the portion that remained, the disappeared “residents” actually accounted for only a small part.
For Luxianbei, the recent turmoil had been perilous, almost costing him his life.
But for those “residents” who had reappeared with the city’s reconstruction, it might have just been a short nightmare after a nap.
After waking from the dream, the sun rose as usual, and the shadows of nightmares left in their minds quickly disappeared under the sunlight, leaving no trace in their memories.
“Should I go to the internet café and the farewell gathering…?”
Luxianbei muttered, getting up from the bed and rubbing his messy hair as he walked toward the bathroom.
Even though now that he had fully mastered this special space, he could easily erase all traces left by “Luxianbei’s projection” here.
And then let the city born from Huacheng’s projection operate as if Luxianbei had never existed.
However, he felt that leaving like that seemed to lack something.
Living always requires a bit of ritual, just as ordinary days need a beam of sunlight.
He wanted to say goodbye properly, a more ritualistic farewell, even though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what he was saying goodbye to…
————
“Creak—!”
Turning off the faucet, Luxianbei supported himself on the edge of the sink and looked up at his reflection in the mirror.
“Handsome, I didn’t expect that using Mrs. Wang Meili’s flesh to reshape my body would have such an effect? Amazing, Wang Ying!”
At this moment, his image in the mirror still had the familiar facial contours, but they were more refined and perfect, with all those small flaws disappearing, as if the beautifying effect had been maximized.
Luxianbei pinched his face, feeling the real sensation at his fingertips, and the heavy stone in his heart finally fell, letting out a long breath.
“Phew, fortunately, it’s real…”
As he spoke, he tried to force a smile at the mirror, and then…
He saw a face that was twitching with a forced smile, looking awkward and stiff.
It seemed that during the perfect reshaping of his body, his facial paralysis was also perfectly replicated.
Luxianbei, “…”
Before parting ways with Proxy Player Sister, he had seriously asked her a solemn question: whether he could return to his original self after waking up.
However, the only answer he received was dismissive, “You should prepare a few sets of girls’ clothes? Some things might be hard to accept at first, but once accepted, it’s just like that.”
Upon hearing Proxy Player Sister’s reply, Luxianbei turned pale, swayed a bit, and then leaned forward like a pigeon that had given up on its dreams, falling off the rooftop.
Mr. Lu Xun once said: “The temperament of the people of Z Country is always to like reconciliation and compromise.”
Luxianbei was the same way.
For instance, if you tell him that the good days are over and that he must live on as a girl, he would definitely not accept it. But if you asserted that he could revert to the way he was before entering the special space, or even look a bit better than before, he would compromise and be willing to accept reality.
In fact, Proxy Player Sister wasn’t trying to scare Luxianbei; she genuinely didn’t know if, after reshaping his body with the flesh of the Inheritance Beast, Luxianbei could return to his original form.
After all, she had never experienced such things. Theoretically, restoring the body to exactly the same as before was almost an impossible task.
Any deviation might result in Luxianbei turning into that grotesque image he had created when “pinching his face” back then.
Fortunately, Mrs. Wang Meili’s albums existed.
Those photos recorded all his experiences from childhood to youth, and even his urban legends in intricate detail, allowing him to relive the journey from childhood to adolescence, ultimately reshaping his body perfectly.
It was like restoring a backup.
However.
Even though Luxianbei was well aware that his ability to recover hinged entirely on Mrs. Wang Meili, he deliberately avoided thinking about it.
Not thinking, not recalling, nor mentioning it.
“Forget it, I can consider this a lucky escape, so I won’t fuss over such minor details like facial paralysis!” Luxianbei muttered to himself.
“I should probably go find Su Mi and the others; I’m definitely having that milk tea today!”
After saying that, he changed his clothes and left.
As he passed the third floor, he slightly paused and lifted his hand to gently knock on the door of Nanling Yaohua’s house.
After a long wait, no one responded.
————
A few hours later, at an internet café on Cultural Road.
Looking at the large word “FAILURE” on the screen, Luxianbei pulled his hands away from the keyboard, removed his headphones, and looked expressionlessly at Su Mi beside him.
Feeling Luxianbei’s stare, Su Mi was taken aback for a moment, scratching the back of his head awkwardly and changing the subject, “Hey, I haven’t been to your house in a while. Is Mrs. Wang Meili doing well lately?”
Hearing Su Mi mention Mrs. Wang Meili, Luxianbei’s eyes slightly trembled, his heart felt as if it had been squeezed, missing a beat, but quickly returned to normal, and he began to ramble.
“Ah, this Mi Mi is just useless! Didn’t we say I would take you flying? It’s laughable; you simply can’t take off! No way, really? Did the mid-laner even output less than the support in a whole game?”
“And you said, our SUMAKER just wanted to treat me to a cup of milk tea? Wow, are you a bodhisattva? So generous with the gifts?”
“I…” Listening to Luxianbei’s strange tone, Su Mi’s chest heaved, and he angrily roared, “Shut up! It’s just milk tea! I can buy you a cup!”
“One cup is enough to shut me up?”
“How many do you want?”
“A hundred cups?”
“d*mn, at most fifty cups!” Su Mi shouted.
“Deal!” Luxianbei’s eyes sharpened, and he turned to shout to the classmates with him, “Everyone, if you want milk tea, just tell me in the class group! Today, the entire cost is on Young Master Su!”
As soon as he finished speaking, the internet café erupted in cheers.
“Woohoo~!”
“Young Master Su is so generous!”
“……”
At once, the internet café was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.
However, human joys and sorrows are not shared; their happiness belonged to them, not to Su Mi or Luxianbei.
As the students cheered, Luxianbei sat in his chair, staring blankly at them, silent.
He knew all these people, his former high school classmates, or rather, their projections, and some had even been close to him.
Luxianbei once thought that as long as he didn’t attend the farewell dinner, everyone wouldn’t part ways.
However, ever since he graduated and had a car accident during a trip, missing the graduation gathering and then seemingly evaporating from the world, lying in the hospital for nearly a year, he lost contact and disappeared into the sea of people.
Luxianbei looked at them, expressionless, and then, as if recalling something, his eyes dimmed…
————
Half an hour later.
Cultural Road, in front of the Red Sun self-service hotpot restaurant, a group of young people holding milk tea walked in synchronously, slurping straws.
Aside from the group of ten or so people from the internet café gaming, the other classmates attending the graduation dinner had already arrived early, and the hotpot restaurant was lively.
Indeed, it was lively; two classmates at the entrance seemed to have just started eating not long ago and were already quite drunk, hugging each other and awkwardly dancing.
In a corner of the private room, a certain buddy who had suppressed his feelings for three years was clumsily strumming a guitar under the influence of alcohol, seizing the last opportunity to confess to the boy he liked, whose face was blushing, uncertain if it was from the drink or shyness.
Navigating through the chaotic center, Luxianbei and Su Mi’s group found a table in a corner to sit down.
Su Mi glanced down at the yin-yang hotpot on the table, and his expression instantly darkened.
“What the heck? Is there a mistake? A yin-yang hotpot? Xu Dazhi, did you order this?”
“I, I’ve been having issues again…” a timid male classmate said weakly.
“Not happening! Absolutely not!” Su Mi slammed the table and shouted, “The red pot being mildly spicy is our final bottom line!”
The other classmates not only didn’t help the male classmate named Xu but instead began to tease, “Yeah! Stick to your bottom line, Xu Dazhi, if you’re afraid of feeling pain in your b*tt, go eat at another table!”
Luxianbei watched this scene, inwardly sighing.
So this is what so-called farewell dinners are like? It doesn’t seem bad!
However, can Xu Dazhi really eat this? I remember he had surgery for hemorrhoids three times during senior year.
Just as he was musing quietly, a small hand suddenly reached from behind and gently tapped his shoulder.
“Luxianbei, where’s Xiao Hua? Didn’t she come with you?”
Luxianbei was taken aback for a moment, turned to look at the girl who had appeared behind him at some point, paused for two or three seconds, then shook his head, “No, I went gaming with them today, didn’t come with Xiao Hua.”
Upon hearing this, the girl frowned, mumbling, “That’s strange. We agreed to go shopping together in the afternoon, but I haven’t seen her all day, and I can’t reach her on the phone… now even you, her boyfriend, don’t know where she is. That’s really odd.”
“Forget it, it’s fine, you continue to eat!” The girl smiled at Luxianbei and turned back to her own seat.
Watching the girl’s back as she left, Luxianbei slightly furrowed his eyebrows.
Xiao Hua… Although he didn’t know why that married girl became his childhood sweetheart within the special space, from his previous interactions with her, she should be a Spiritual Ability User.
That being said, her projection was very likely taken away by the Solar Eclipse Society along with her powers.
In other words, there’s no longer her presence in this city? Just like…
Luxianbei thought, shaking his head as he ruthlessly pushed the figure of Mrs. Wang Meili, which was gradually emerging in his mind, out of his thoughts and focused on eating.
Tripe, duck intestines, tender beef… As the ingredients were cooked in the bubbling oil of the red broth, Luxianbei silently stuffed the food into his mouth, using his predictive abilities to ensure he got to eat the perfectly cooked delicacies as soon as possible.
Originally, he had decided to be an invisible man, bury himself in finishing this farewell dinner, which symbolized more significance than actual meaning, and quietly erase his own traces, fully playing his role as a tool to maintain the operation of the special space.
However, as he ate, an accident occurred.
A classmate at the same table accidentally knocked over a cup, spilling the beverage into the stove, and the flickering flames emitted an unpleasant odor.
As the classmates smelled the odd odor and started to retreat, Su Mi, however, noticed that Luxianbei acted as if nothing had happened, his eyes fixated on the hotpot as if the spirit of eating had awakened, continuously shoving the cooked tripe into his mouth.
Seeing this, he knit his brows and walked over, crouching next to Luxianbei to pat his thigh, “Xiao Bei, can’t you smell that strange odor?”
“Strange odor… no!” Luxianbei looked blankly at Su Mi, then at the hotpot on the table, frowning.
He noticed that the stove underneath was emitting wisps of green smoke from the spilled drink, yet that smoke wasn’t drifting toward him at all.
After a two-second daze, he suddenly seemed to realize something and began to search through his clothes, eventually finding the bracelet left by Mrs. Wang Meili, which prevented the smoke from floating toward him when eating hotpot.
Luxianbei remained silent for a moment, then suddenly stood up, saying to Su Mi, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and quickly left the private room.
————
In the evening, as the lights began to glow.
Jiang Li walked along the streets of Cultural Road, the treetops swaying with the wind, occasionally dropping a few half-green, half-yellow leaves.
She walked slowly, searching, occasionally glancing down at the compass she had just bought, then looking around, gradually approaching Luxianbei.
Then…
At a bustling crossroads, she looked across the crowd and, under the sign reading “Red Sun Self-service Hotpot,” spotted a familiar figure, feeling as if she had the moment of “when I turn around, that person is there at the edge of the dim light.”
The boy was sitting on a stone bench by the road, hands holding something, his head bowed, engrossed in whatever it was, looking lonely and desolate, like a solitary little beast.
Jiang Li opened her mouth instinctively to call out Luxianbei’s name, but in the second before she spoke, she closed her lips, quickened her pace as the green light came on.
————
By the street.
Luxianbei was staring blankly at the bracelet, his mind blank.
He initially thought his inexplicable attachment to a “farewell” was just a sudden bout of sentimentality.
However, the moment he pulled out the bracelet from his pocket, he suddenly understood that he wasn’t saying goodbye to these classmates, nor to Nanling Yaohua, or this special space; he just wanted to say goodbye to Mrs. Wang Meili.
Although he had been avoiding it, pretending not to feel any sadness by gaming with classmates and attending graduation farewell dinners, that was ultimately avoidance, self-deception…
Just like before, he couldn’t face his father’s departure, he now couldn’t face Mrs. Wang Meili’s departure.
d*mn, if only she were a completely irresponsible mother who only gave birth and didn’t raise him…
Luxianbei thought fiercely, letting out a light sigh, tightening his grip on the bracelet.
At that moment, a voice unexpectedly sounded beside him.
“Looks like the hotpot here isn’t very tasty; this customer is almost crying from eating.”
Seeing the round-toed shoes suddenly entering his field of vision, Luxianbei was startled, raised his gaze, swept past the simple, plain white dress, and saw a familiar face.
The streetlight cast its light on the girl’s softly contoured face, adding a hint of warm golden glow to her slightly cold eyes.
The glow illuminated the girl’s facial features softly, turning the light in her eyes into a charming golden hue.
“……” Luxianbei wanted to say something but hesitated. He glanced at the hotpot restaurant sign behind him, trying to force a happy expression, “Actually, this hotpot isn’t bad; the broth is rich, the ingredients are fresh, and the value for money for the self-service items is excellent, plus the drinks are free.”
“Oh.” Jiang Li responded lightly, tilting her head to ask, “So, are you working here part-time? Did the boss bully you while working, and now you want to cry?”
“Of course not! I wouldn’t bully the boss!”
“……” Jiang Li glanced at the small sign hanging at the hotpot restaurant’s entrance that read “Three-Year Class Two Teacher Appreciation Dinner,” nodded thoughtfully, “Oh, I get it. Taking a moment to reminisce about the scent of youth makes you abruptly sentimental.”
“People like us have no youth at all!” Luxianbei joked, lowering his head silently, not daring to look into Jiang Li’s eyes, which seemed to see through the soul.
However, Jiang Li still caught the moment he looked down, her emotions struggling to be restrained in her eyes.
She stepped forward, gently embracing Luxianbei’s head, speaking softly, “Why is that? If you’re willing, can you share it with me?”
Feeling the faint warmth from her soft arms, Luxianbei stiffened for a moment, and the next second, tears uncontrollably streamed from his eyes.
He could have buried everything deep inside, if it weren’t for Jiang Li’s appearance…
“Leader… I don’t have a mother anymore! I don’t have any family left! It’s all gone from now on!”
“……” Jiang Li was taken aback, fell silent for a long time, then slowly lowered her head, pressing her forehead against Luxianbei’s crown, softly saying, “It’s alright, I’m here…”
