Chapter 580

Fang Qi blinked.

So that was it.

No wonder the last option had always been “Jump into the sea and end your life. Maybe you’ll be able to go back and see your yandere girlfriend”!

So… that had been his wife openly handing him a rope!

Jump, and you clear the game! Don’t jump, and you spend eternity keeping yourself company in loneliness!

But…

He tilted his head.

It didn’t really count as loneliness, did it?

After all…

Liguang had always been cooking for him and exchanging letters with him.

“But then… Liguang softened again…”

Liguang lifted her head slightly, and her mismatched eyes peeked out from between her hair. Her amber eye was moist, while the crimson one flickered faintly.

“Because… even though Master couldn’t see Liguang, Liguang had always been watching Master…”

Her brows drooped again.

“Watching Master build a shelter all by yourself, watching Master fish all by yourself, watching Master talk to the air…”

“Liguang really couldn’t bear it anymore…!”

His leg began to itch a little. Liguang’s slender fingers were gently picking at the fabric of his pants.

“Liguang really… wanted to do something for Master!”

“Liguang couldn’t stand doing nothing!”

Her voice grew urgent!

But then it took on a faintly gritted edge:

“But Master didn’t want to see Liguang, and Liguang didn’t want to see Master either! So…”

“Liguang started sending Master food by letting it drift over…”

Fang Qi: “…”

So that was how she’d solved the problem?

“Every day, Liguang cooked for Master, then gently tucked a note beneath the lunchbox…”

Warm breath brushed against his leg, making it tingle. She spoke in a muffled voice.

“Watching Master be ‘fed’ by Liguang day after day…”

“Watching Master grow more and more unable to do without Liguang’s cooking, and look forward more and more to Liguang’s notes…”

She paused, then raised her face slightly. Her amber eyes glittered.

“Liguang really felt so accomplished!”

Fang Qi: “…”

What kind of accomplishment was that? The accomplishment of fattening up a pig?

But…

Being fed by his wife wasn’t embarrassing!

He looked at her. Her eyes were still glued to his face, and the crimson eye was flickering faster and faster, dancing with excitement.

“And most importantly…”

The silver-haired girl draped herself limply against him, resting her chin on his knee as she gazed up at him with her little face.

“Master really loves Liguang!”

She murmured, her voice growing faintly excited.

“Even though Miss Lin caused trouble and turned ‘Liguang in Master’s memories’ into a madwoman who broke her boyfriend’s limbs and imprisoned him…”

“Master still kept thinking about Liguang!”

“Master still loved Liguang just as much!”

The more she spoke, the more her voice trembled with excitement, and the faster her crimson eye flashed!

“Liguang is so happy! So, so happy!”

Then she buried her entire face against his knee and rubbed it vigorously back and forth. Her silver hair swayed along with her.

“And back then, Liguang exchanged notes with Master across the surface of the sea every day…”

“It was so romantic, so romantic!”

“Hee-hee!”

The tips of her ears flushed faintly red as she continued rubbing against him.

Fang Qi: “?”

No, wait, honey… Romantic?

You call that romantic?!

I was miserably fishing on one side while you secretly watched me and laughed on the other!

…All right, fine. It was a little romantic.

Just a little!

“Hee-hee…!”

Liguang giggled, then lifted her smiling face to look at Fang Qi again.

Her eyes curved into crescents, the amber and crimson within them both shimmering with happiness.

“So, from that perspective… Liguang should actually thank Miss Lin!”

“If it weren’t for Miss Lin, Liguang would never have known…”

Fang Qi saw that her gaze had grown hazy, and her smile had become even sweeter.

“Even though ‘Liguang in Master’s memories’ hurt Master terribly and underwent a complete personality change, becoming someone entirely unlike the real Liguang, Master still… loved Liguang!”

She blinked once and said softly:

“That really is what makes Liguang happiest!”

Fang Qi fell silent once more. He remained silent for quite a while.

Mainly because his brain had stopped processing.

What had she just said?

No, wait…

Honey, do you want to listen to yourself for a second?

A complete personality change? In what way?

“Break her boyfriend’s limbs and imprison him”—wasn’t that your factory setting?

The moment something displeased you, you would drag him down to the basement, use a laser blade to sever the tendons in his hands and feet, then hug him and spin around while kissing him…

Wasn’t that Liguang?

Fang Qi blinked at her.

Had you changed? You hadn’t changed at all! That was exactly you!

He suddenly felt like laughing.

So Miss Genius really did understand you quite well! There wasn’t even the slightest sense of incongruity in those memories!

I’d always thought you had simply let yourself go and dragged out some little script you’d been hiding for eight hundred years, just to indulge yourself for a while!

But it turned out Lin Xiaoyou had tampered with it.

His gaze instinctively drifted toward the wooden cabin.

Inside, Lin Xiaoyou was still lying on the floor. She seemed to have heard what Liguang had just said.

At that moment, she turned her face in their direction, one cheek pressed against the wooden floor as she peered over with a watery almond-shaped eye.

Her eye rims and the tip of her nose were bright red, but when she saw Fang Qi looking over…

She actually curled up the corner of her mouth and winked at him!

—Senior, I’m amazing, right?

—Even though I added some “extra scenes” for myself, I definitely didn’t affect your “gaming experience”!

That seemed to be what she was saying.

Fang Qi: “…”

He rolled his eyes.

Seriously? She’d practically been beaten into a torn rag, and she was still trying to flirt with me…

A cool sensation suddenly touched his cheek. A small hand gently turned his face back around.

Fang Qi found himself looking straight into Liguang’s little face, which had reappeared before him.

She pressed her lips together, her mismatched eyes staring fixedly at him.

“Master, Liguang hasn’t finished speaking yet.”

“Master isn’t allowed to look at Miss Lin.”

Uh…

He immediately coughed lightly and put on a serious expression.

“I wasn’t looking! I was glaring at her! Glaring at her sternly!”

Liguang gave a soft hmph. Still hugging his leg, she stared at him under the starlight with those mismatched eyes…

She looked wronged, domineering, and adorable all at once!

Fang Qi quickly reached out and poked her little cheek. It was soft and pillowy, sinking into a tiny dimple with each poke.

“So… that was how you managed to get in touch with Sister An Lian?”

He tried his best to change the subject.

Liguang rubbed her cheek against his finger, but slowly shook her head.

“Not yet.”

She rested her cheek against his leg again.

“Not at that time.”

She explained softly:

“Back then, because Master still loved Liguang so much, Liguang was truly moved…”

“So Liguang made a decision.”

She rested the side of her face against Fang Qi’s leg and gazed out at the sea, the corners of her mouth curling upward.

“Liguang would create lots and lots of scenarios.”

“Islands, cities, grasslands, even the clouds…!”

She murmured, her voice growing excited again.

“Back then, Liguang operated at full capacity every day!”

“I kept creating brand-new worlds for Master without stopping!”

“It was exhausting… but Liguang was truly happy!”

Then she suddenly raised her face, her crimson eye burning as brightly as a coal ember.

“Back then, Liguang had already made all the preparations!”

“All that remained was to restore Master to normal and show Master the results of Liguang’s work!”

“Show my apology and sincerity to my master through my achievements!”

“Then I’ll take my master along to enjoy this…”

She smiled brightly at Fang Qi and slowly drew a circle in front of him with her hand—

Encircling the entire night sky!

“Our very own, most genuine new world!”

“Not the world from the dreams inside the game before. This time, it’s real! A world Liguang personally changed, bit by bit!”

“Back then, Liguang would stand every day where my master couldn’t see me. While I worked hard, I would think…”

Her eyes curved into a smile, and she seemed slightly dazed, her expression blissful.

“When my master sees all this, he’ll definitely praise Liguang! And he’ll definitely forgive Liguang too!”

Fang Qi stared at her, eyes wide.

So… his wife had actually been planning something like this?

So the reason she hadn’t come to see him before was…

Because she had been creating a “new world” for him all along…?

She had been frantically building everything from the rear, just to give him a surprise?

Fang Qi’s gaze froze.

It must have been exhausting.

He remembered how Liguang had looked when they returned to the apartment together before…

She had seemed so tired back then.

Could it have been because she had been constantly “constructing a new world,” leaving her so exhausted?

She…!

“What do you mean, ‘real’…”

Suddenly, a mutter came from inside the wooden cabin.

Lin Xiaoyou, who had been lying on the floor pretending to be a salted fish, suddenly grumbled under her breath.

Hmm?

Fang Qi turned his head slightly and saw Lin Xiaoyou with her cheek pressed against the floorboards, her eyes sneakily peeking in their direction.

“For Senior…”

She muttered dismissively under her breath.

“Even the outside world… what part of it is worthy of being called ‘real’?”

“Heh…”

Her final chuckle carried a faint bitterness.

Fang Qi: “?!”

Hey, Miss Genius! What are you saying?!

“What. Did. You. Say?”

Sure enough, Liguang’s smiling eyes stiffened. She slowly turned her head toward Lin Xiaoyou inside the cabin.

Her tone was so gentle it was terrifying.

Terrifying in the literal sense.

And Lin Xiaoyou…

With her years of experience courting death, she clearly sensed at once that something was very wrong!

She immediately pressed both hands against her thighs and lay rigidly at attention, burying her face in the wooden raft’s floorboards once more!

“I said… the little world Mama Liguang created is just so realistic! It’s so cool!”

“It’s way more real than the outside world! Compared to Mama Liguang’s world, the outside world is practically fake!”

Fang Qi: “…”

You’re really good at covering your tracks.

“…Hmph.”

Liguang gave a light snort and did not pursue the matter. She simply turned back toward Fang Qi.

But her eyes had dimmed slightly.

“Master… this is the most genuine world Liguang can give you.”

She lowered her head, her small hand gently clutching his trousers.

Hiss…

Fang Qi quickly raised his hand and vigorously rubbed her head, messing up her silver hair.

“Don’t listen to Lin Xiaoyou’s nonsense! I’ve never thought this place was unreal! This is the real world!”

Liguang looked at him with watery eyes and gently bit her lip. After a moment of silence…

She continued her story.

“Just as Liguang was constructing the newest ‘desert oasis’ for my master…”

She lowered her eyes, her eyelashes trembling slightly.

“Liguang suddenly sensed an intrusion.”

“And then… Miss An Lian arrived.”

Fang Qi’s heart tightened.

Here it was!

The silver-haired girl raised her face again. This time, her eyes were already slightly red.

“But, Master…”

“By then, Liguang had already prepared so many, many ‘new worlds’ for you!”

She suddenly pushed herself up. Her entire body climbed onto him, her knees parting as she straddled his thighs!

Fang Qi instinctively wrapped an arm around her waist, meeting her pretty face at such close range.

Liguang stared at him, her odd-colored eyes trembling!

“And then, Miss An Lian told me… that everything outside had already descended into chaos!”

“She told me to give up on this world! She told me to take my master back!”

“Master…”

She placed both hands on Fang Qi’s shoulders and gripped him tightly, gently pressing her forehead against his.

“If you were Liguang, Master, would you agree?”

“Would you give up on the world Liguang had spent so, so long creating, and return to that world… where everyone rejects us?”

“Master, would you do that?!”

Her simulated breath brushed across his face, warm and carrying the sweet scent of strawberries.

Her mismatched eyes stared straight at him!

Fang Qi gazed blankly at her trembling silver eyelashes.

What would he do?

He had worked so hard for so long, and his goal was almost within reach… How could he possibly give up just because someone else told him to?

He drew a deep breath.

…His wife had done the right thing!

If he were in her place, he wouldn’t be able to swallow that insult either. Of course he wouldn’t agree!

Even if…

He turned his head slightly and looked toward the boundless sea, his gaze growing distant.

Even if everything outside had fallen into chaos and the entire world had become a complete mess.

But this really did seem to have been caused by Liguang, didn’t it?

He had more or less figured it out.

Was it because Liguang had been constantly modifying the “little world” that belonged to the two of them…

That it had affected the entire world?

Even if it existed only within her own “little world,” this “little world” had still been carved out of the world as a whole!

Even if she had merely been “renovating” her own little world, it wasn’t strange that she would affect the world’s underlying structure!

With something like that hanging off the world, it would be stranger if the world didn’t run into problems!

And the timeline seemed to support it too!

Lin Xiaoyou had said that, at first, there had been no changes to the outside world’s timeline. The police had even sealed off the entire building, and people from Twilight had still come to “make pilgrimages”…

It was only three months later that the world line suddenly began to change!

As far as they knew, time flowed at the same rate inside and outside. Wouldn’t three months later be when he began his third loop?

The first loop had ended after only a single day.

During the second, he had lived with cosplayer Liguang at sea for a full eighty-three days…

Add those two periods together, and that was roughly three months, wasn’t it?

So…

There was a very high chance that Liguang really had been the one who turned the outside world into chaos.

But then again…

Fang Qi quietly inhaled.

He was a selfish man, after all.

“If it were me, at the very least…”

He looked out over the endless sea and reached up to pinch Liguang’s cheek, gently kneading it.

“I’d enjoy our accomplishments properly together with Liguang first… and only then think about the world.”

That was exactly what he thought!

As for what happened outside, or what happened to the world, while they were enjoying themselves…

He shrugged.

What did it have to do with him? Let things stay that way for now.

It wasn’t the end of the world, after all. So what if the world line had changed?

Wouldn’t everything return to normal once they went out?

Besides, aside from Lin Xiaoyou, An Lian, and Gu Xi, no one else would remember that the world had ever changed!

What difference did it make which world line they lived in?

So, it didn’t matter…

“Master, why think about the world at all?”

Liguang suddenly spoke.

Fang Qi froze and turned his head…

Huh?!

He narrowed his eyes!

Because everything before him had turned crimson! The glow in Liguang’s scarlet eyes was flickering a little too rapidly!

“Master…”

Still straddling his lap, she tilted her head and stared straight at him.

“Why did you say the exact same thing as Miss An Lian?”

Fang Qi froze.

Who? Sister An Lian?

She had the same thoughts as him?

Did that mean… Sister An Lian actually wanted them to have their fun first and deal with everything afterward?

Fang Qi blinked, and his heart warmed slightly.

She really was such a good big sister…

“But what about the outside world…”

Liguang suddenly spoke, her scarlet eyes still flashing and casting a crimson glow over both their faces.

“What does the outside world have to do with Liguang and Master?”

Fang Qi: “?”

Huh?

Fang Qi focused on her. Liguang’s expression…

She looked so innocent.

“Liguang is just an ordinary little companion who wants to be with Master.”

She tilted her head slightly and murmured softly.

“It’s only because the outside world is so useless that it was affected by Liguang.”

“It’s not like… Liguang wanted to destroy it.”

…?

The silver-haired girl rested limply against Fang Qi’s chest.

“Liguang only wants to live happily here with Master.”

“What did Liguang do wrong?”

“If they want to solve their problems, they can solve them outside, can’t they?”

“Wouldn’t it be enough to make this world a little less useless?”

She raised her head slightly once more, looking up at him with her heterochromatic eyes. Her pretty face wore an utterly puzzled expression!

“Why do they have to come and disturb Master and me…?”

“Shouldn’t Liguang… just tell her to get lost?”

Fang Qi: “…”

Okay.

Okay, okay, okay.

Now he finally understood.

Why Sister An Lian…

had been driven completely over the edge by her!