Chapter 588

Fang Qi shot to his feet at the edge of the platform!

His heel nearly slipped off, and his body swayed at the edge of the raft before he managed to steady himself.

But as he stared out at the endless sea, his mind went completely blank.

The sea breeze blew straight into his face, carrying warm, humid air that felt wonderfully comfortable.

Yet Fang Qi felt a chill…

A wave after wave of cold spreading across his back.

Wait… wait, wait, wait.

What had he just… deduced?

Fang Qi swallowed hard. He blinked forcefully several times, then lowered his head to stare at his palms.

His fingers were trembling slightly. He opened and clenched them again and again before finally recovering a bit of his sense of reality.

No, no, no.

Start over. Think it through again!

What had he been thinking about just now?

He still remembered every detail of the conversation between his amnesiac self and Lin Xiaoyou in the cabin.

Those emotions and physical reactions had been real. Not a trace of them had vanished along with his memories!

So there was only one possible conclusion.

The amnesiac Fang Qi wasn’t some fabricated, false personality called “Fang Xiaoqi.”

He was Fang Qi himself.

A younger version of Fang Qi, with the memories of the years that came afterward sealed away.

There was nothing wrong with that conclusion in itself.

But the problem was…!

Fang Qi slowly raised a hand and covered his mouth, his fingers digging hard into the flesh of his cheek.

He lowered his head and looked at the seawater. The surface was crystal clear, so clear that he could see the seaweed swaying gently with the currents below, along with several silver-white fish slipping through the gaps between the planks.

So beautiful.

Beautiful enough to make his heart tremble with panic.

His eyes quivered.

Liguang—his little liar.

She was a little liar, but whenever she deceived him, it was only to keep him by her side.

She wouldn’t lie about something like that.

Then the apocalyptic scene she had described earlier…

Fang Qi slowly shook his head.

No. No, no, no.

“Hey, hey, hey…”

He stared blankly at the sea. The beautiful ripples suddenly seemed painfully harsh.

Earth…

Was it really over?

That scene Liguang had described—the man in a protective suit, standing amid the ruins and muttering to himself beneath a grayish-yellow sky…

That man had been him?

Were those memories what the amnesiac Fang Qi had been trying to escape?

Come to think of it, Lin Xiaoyou had told him what he’d said when he found her after losing his memories, hadn’t she?

—I’m in so much pain. I want to forget all of this completely.

“All of this”…

Could it have meant the destruction of the world? The end of humanity?

Had the world he knew turned into nothing but broken stones and clouds of dust?

Fang Qi’s breathing grew more and more rapid, and a terrible pain seized his chest!

He had no choice but to bend over, brace his hands on his knees, and gasp for breath!

No…

No, no, no!

Not wanting to go back was one thing. Being able to go back was another!

He could stay here with Liguang and live out the rest of their lives together. But if one day he suddenly started missing home…

At least he could still imagine that there was a way back!

In fact, he had even been afraid of it before!

Afraid that one day he would wake up and find himself back in front of his computer, staring at the completed ending of Eternal Beloved, only for…

His parents to push open the door, laugh at him for calling a fictional character his wife, and say he had gone crazy from playing games.

That was what he had feared.

He had feared that all of this was merely a dream, that Liguang was nothing but an illusion, that reality and fantasy would tear him in two.

But now, his deduction was telling him…

His worry had been unnecessary from beginning to end?

He could never go back?

That world with his parents, his friends, and the life he had lived for more than twenty years…

Did it already no longer exist?

Those people who had once been real within his memories…

The streets he had walked down countless times every day…

The rented apartment where he had spent countless all-nighters…

Had they all become ruins?

Fang Qi felt his mind shaking violently!

It hurt…!

His vision trembled!

At the edges of his sight, faint blue spots of light began to flicker!

【WARNING: REALITY_ANCHOR_STRESS_DETECTED】

【WARNING: COGNITIVE_LOAD EXCEEDING THRESHOLD】

【WARNING: MEMORY_FRAGMENT_UNSTABLE】

Before his eyes, the ocean suddenly began to boil!

Massive clusters of bubbles surged up from the seafloor and churned wildly, as though the water were being boiled!

Within seconds, the sky was swallowed by thick, dark clouds!

The sunlight was completely cut off, and the entire world sank into gloom!

Fang Qi: “...!”

He violently shook his head, but his knees suddenly gave way…

His whole body dropped into a crouch, and he clutched his head with both hands!

His fingernails dug into his hair, the sharp pain in his scalp utterly distinct as he stared fixedly at the sea!

No.

No, no, no.

It couldn’t possibly be true!

Liguang had said so herself. It might…

Just be the full-dive game he had played.

That was it!

Fang Qi panted rapidly, forcing himself to believe it.

It made perfect sense!

What he had lost were his memories of the future, and the technology of the future…

It had to be far more advanced than that of the era he remembered!

The world he was in now was the best proof of that!

A digital world where everything was made up of zeroes and ones, and every living being was an awakened AI!

If game technology in the future had developed to that extent, what was so strange about it?

A full-dive game about the destruction of the world was still just a full-dive game!

What Liguang had seen was merely a scene he had extracted from the game.

The “him” wearing a protective suit was only the player character in the game.

That wasteland was merely a game map. Nothing more…

Fang Qi dropped back down onto the edge of the platform.

The sea breeze slipped into his collar, cool against his skin.

He stared blankly at the sea as it gradually returned to calm.

The dark clouds slowly dispersed, and sunlight streamed down once more.

…Was that really all it was?

No.

Heh.

That was a little too much self-deception.

Because when he had just recovered his memories and spoken with Lin Xiaoyou, he had clearly remembered the way his fist had clenched, the aching sorrow that had gripped his heart…

He remembered it all perfectly.

Pain that had seeped out from between his bones.

And, most importantly…

Images suddenly began flashing through his mind!

Fragments of memory.

One shattered scene after another flashed before his eyes and vanished in an instant!

The apartment building where he had lived…

One moment, it stood intact beneath the sunlight, its walls coated in familiar pale-yellow paint, with elderly residents playing chess downstairs.

The next, the building was reduced to half a ruin, rebar jutting from the broken floors!

The street he had passed through every day on his way to and from work…

One moment, it was packed with people, with a long line outside the milk-tea shop and shared bicycles lying haphazardly along the roadside.

The next, the ground had split apart, the asphalt collapsing into deep fissures, leaving only a charred roller shutter hanging in midair!

The sky…

One moment, it was bright and sunny, the kind of beautiful weather that made people want to hum as they headed out.

The next, thick black-and-yellow smoke surged in from every direction, staining the sky a suffocating color!

These scenes flooded in as fragmented flashes, accompanied by the flickering of the ghostly blue code in his vision.

They were incomplete, lacking any beginning or end, but…

Every frame was terrifyingly real.

So real that…

Fang Qi could smell the dust and smoke, feel the grit on his face.

He could hear something collapsing in the distance with a thunderous roar.

Fang Qi’s gaze trembled.

Just like Lin Xiaoyou had said.

Right now, he was that…

Fang Qi who had once believed the world would go on like this forever, and that he would always be carefree.

Fang Xiaoqi.

Fang Qi tugged at the corners of his mouth, trying to smile, but he couldn’t.

If that was really how things were, then…

The name “Fang Xiaoqi” was rather fitting.

Young. Naive. With his family there to bail him out. Carefree. Just muddling through one day at a time.

His biggest worries each day were that someone had snatched all the coupons for his takeout, that his game’s gacha pulls had gone wrong again, or that he was going to be late for work.

He had never imagined…

That one day, the entire world would become such a place.

Never once imagined it.

So it turned out…

From the moment he opened his eyes in this world—from the moment the silver-haired, mismatched-eyed girl had knelt across from him at the coffee table, cradling a white porcelain teacup in both hands and smiling at him so gently…

There had been no going back.

Was that it?

Fang Qi’s lips trembled. Bitterness welled up in his throat, like he had swallowed a mouthful of seawater—salty and bitter.

So it turned out…

He had lost his home long ago.

Those scenes he occasionally still saw in his dreams, the landscapes he had believed would exist forever as long as he remained alive, the people he thought would continue living on in some parallel universe…

They were all gone.

All of them…

“Bang!”

The wooden door behind him was suddenly slammed open!

The thunderous crash made Fang Qi’s entire body jolt. Before he even had time to turn around…

“Master!!!!”

Liguang’s cry was frantic and piercing!

The next moment, her soft, warm body crashed into him from behind!

Two pale arms wrapped around his neck, crossing over each other as they clung tightly around his chest!

Her hot breath brushed against his ear, hurried and ragged!

“Master… Master…! Master, don’t be sad!”

Her voice trembled, thick with sobs and a desperate possessiveness.

“This will always be Master’s home… Liguang will create a beautiful new world for Master!!”

…What?

Fang Qi slowly turned his head.

The silver-haired girl’s cheek was pressed against his. Its soft, tender touch carried a faint chill.

Her amber left eye was brimming with tears, while her crimson right eye darted about anxiously!

Her lips trembled. She bit down on her lower lip, leaving behind a faint white mark.

Her arms kept tightening, squeezing harder and harder around his neck, clinging to him with all her strength!

Lin Xiaoyou was limping out through the doorway.

Miss Genius had one hand pressed against her backside. Her round little face still bore traces of tears that had yet to dry, and every step she took was accompanied by a soft hiss of pain.

When she saw Fang Qi looking over, she first pursed her lips at him. Then, cautiously, she raised a hand and pointed at Liguang in his arms.

She rolled her eyes, curled her lips, and made a…

—This is going to be troublesome!

…kind of expression.

Then she held up two fingers, pointed at her own head, and drew a circle.

Fang Qi understood.

—Your wife is such a handful.

—You deal with her yourself.

He stared blankly at the two girls.

Ah. Lin Xiaoyou had told Liguang…?

Told Liguang about his…

…Heh.

Fang Qi stretched out both arms, pulled Liguang into his embrace from behind, and hugged her tightly!

The silver-haired girl let out a soft “Mm,” and her entire body melted against him.

She buried her face in his chest, her little hands clutching his shirt tightly!

Fang Qi rested his chin against her fluffy silver hair.

Yes. That was right.

He still had a wife. What was there to fear?

The sea breeze turned gentle once more, lightly brushing through their hair.

The dark clouds parted, and warm sunlight poured down.

Fang Qi slowly lifted his head and looked toward Lin Xiaoyou.

Miss Genius had already moved to the edge of the platform and carefully sat down sideways.

She buried her face in her knees, revealing only a pair of reddened eyes as she secretly peeked over at them.

The corners of Fang Qi’s mouth lifted slightly.

He lowered his head and gently kissed the crown of Liguang’s head.

Miss Genius, you…

Really are a great teammate.