Chapter 605

Liguang knelt in front of the wooden cabin.

She was counting the words carved into the wall.

“One, two, three…”

Her slender finger moved slowly along the marks in the wood.

She counted from the corner of the wall all the way to the doorframe, but as she counted…

She stopped, frowning slightly.

Had she miscounted somewhere?

“One, two, three, four…”

She started over again… and got it wrong again.

She stared blankly at the marks covering the wall.

Huh?

Her little mouth puffed up in a slight pout.

A small portion of the marks on the wall had been carved by her. The handwriting was neat and elegant, every stroke steady and precise.

Most of them… had been carved by her Master.

Those characters were crooked and wobbly. In some places, the marks were deep; in others, they were so faint they were almost impossible to see. The strokes were broken and uneven.

Some of the words had been carved especially hurriedly, like little insects crawling about at random.

There were so many. So very many.

So many that even Liguang couldn’t count them all.

She bit her lower lip in distress, then started counting from the beginning again!

She was determined to count them properly!

“One, two, three, four, five…”

As she counted, her little head began to sway slightly, and she murmured under her breath…

She felt her gaze beginning to lose focus.

“Eleven… twelve… huh…”

She lost count again.

She stared blankly at the wall. Suddenly, she felt…

That she might have gotten quite a bit stupider.

Why… couldn’t she even count properly anymore?

In the past, with just a light sweep of her core, she could have counted every word on the wall. She could even have measured the depth, width, and angle of every single mark…

Accurate to several decimal places!

But now, even after staring at the words and counting several times, she couldn’t even figure out the total.

Could Silly Liguang ever see her Master again?

“Master…”

She spoke softly, staring blankly at the empty space in front of her.

“Liguang seems to have… gotten silly.”

“Would Master mind?”

She knelt there, both hands placed properly on her knees.

She could feel her legs trembling slightly.

Then, on the floor in front of her, new marks slowly appeared.

[How could I possibly mind? Silly Liguang is even cuter!]

The handwriting was still crooked and wobbly, but the marks appeared very quickly. It was obvious that her Master was in a good mood!

Liguang stared at the line of writing, and the corners of her lips curled upward.

“Really?”

She blinked, then leaned closer, looking over the words from side to side.

“Then if Liguang gets a little sillier every day from now on…”

She reached out and lightly tapped the words “even cuter.”

“Will Master think Liguang is a little cuter every day?”

Her voice was soft and sweet, carrying a coquettish tone…

As she asked about the thing she feared most.

More marks appeared on the floor in front of her:

[Just don’t get too silly. If you get too silly, you might forget to brew tea for me!]

Liguang blinked several times, then burst out laughing.

“Liguang would never!”

“Even if Liguang forgot everything else, she would never forget to brew tea for Master!”

She smiled so happily that her eyes curved into crescents.

But after saying that, her gaze fell back onto the marks covering the wall.

Gradually, her smile faded, and her eyes softened into quiet serenity.

She raised her hand and gently traced the words with her fingers.

“Liguang caught three fish today.”

She murmured as she read.

“Liguang sang off-key.”

“Liguang talks in her sleep. It’s adorable.”

“Don’t cry, Liguang. I’m here.”

She traced every single word with her fingertips, determined to etch every crooked stroke…

Deep into her heart.

Because…

Every sentence was something her Master had said to Liguang.

Words her Master had given her.

Liguang suddenly froze.

But for some reason, she suddenly felt…

That what she was experiencing now seemed strangely familiar.

Huh?

She stopped and stared blankly at the carved words before her.

Had she gone through something like this before?

The kind of days spent with a Master she couldn’t see?

…No.

She and her Master had always been together.

Even when they were briefly separated, she had always secretly watched over him.

She absolutely refused to let her Master leave her sight.

They had always been together. Always, always together.

But…

Why did she suddenly feel so familiar with this?

It was almost as if, long ago…

Liguang tilted her head slightly. Her silver hair fell over her shoulder, covering half her face.

As if once, she too had waited for her Master like this.

The night before her was deep and dark, trembling faintly in her vision.

…How strange.

It felt as though, a very long time ago, she had lived through days like these.

“Mm…”

Liguang let out a soft hum, her brows drawing together as she tried desperately to remember something, but…

Her mind was completely blank. There was nothing there at all!

That sense of familiarity was like a slippery little fish. It had barely poked its head above the water before flicking its tail and diving back into the fathomless sea.

She couldn’t catch it.

If she couldn’t catch it, then she wouldn’t try anymore.

She blinked, then looked once more at the wall covered in carvings. She raised her hand and carved a tiny heart between her own words and her Master’s.

She felt…

Ever since her Master had begun carving words more quickly, she had suddenly become less anxious to see him.

This was pretty nice, too.

Even the passage of time had begun to grow indistinct.

Day and night, sunrise and sunset—she could no longer tell them apart.

As long as she spoke, her Master would carve words for her and reply.

He answered every question and granted every request.

This was pretty nice, too.

…It was much better than before.

Back then, Liguang had never received treatment like this!

Back then, Liguang…

The silver-haired girl lost herself in thought.

Back then, she had been alone in a lonely world, waiting day and night for her Master to appear.

At that time, her Master would only appear for a short while each night.

So every night, that brief period of time was the happiest moment of her day.

But her Master would soon leave again, without saying goodbye.

Leaving her all alone.

So every time her Master left, she would curl up alone in a corner and quietly wait for him to appear again the following night.

But she couldn’t see him every day.

Sometimes, even when the next night arrived, her Master still wouldn’t come back…

And then she would have to wait another day.

Then another, and another…

She waited and waited, until time became thick and sluggish, until she began breaking every second apart and counting them one by one.

Until…

She wanted to capture her Master, lock him at her side, break his legs, and make sure he could never leave again.

Come to think of it…

Her Master had said she was a yandere.

“Yandere” meant someone with a strong possessive streak, right?

…It wasn’t like that.

Liguang wasn’t that kind of woman.

Liguang was very magnanimous.

Back then, even when her Master only spent a little time with her each day, Liguang had been perfectly satisfied.

But now…

Fine, she admitted it. Just a little.

But that was all her Master’s fault!

Her personality had been shaped little by little during that time, hadn’t it?

Through endless days and nights of waiting, she had begun to want to keep her Master by her side forever.

She wanted him to watch her every moment. She wanted him never to leave again.

That thought had grown a little bigger with each passing day, winding tightly around her heart like a creeping vine.

So…

This was pretty nice, too.

At least she no longer had to curl up alone in a corner, waiting for her master until she felt like she was going insane.

At least now, her master would carve a reply to every word she said.

At least…

Her master was always by her side.

She ought to be satisfied.

This was already so much better than before. Back then, she had…

“…”

Liguang suddenly opened her eyes wide.

She stared blankly at the wall covered in carvings before her, her pupils shrinking slightly.

…Before?

What did she mean by “before”?

What was she talking about?

What lonely world? What waiting day and night for her master…

She had… never experienced anything like that, had she?

When had her master ever made her wait for him?

Huh?

She knelt there in a daze, her gaze thrown into chaos.

Just now…

Had she been imagining things again?

Had she confused her present life with some strange dream?

Several lines of deep-blue code streaked across her field of vision, bathing the wall covered in words in a blue glow.

Liguang gripped her knees tightly.

Honestly…

Human bodies were so strange, and human brains were even stranger. They were always dreaming all sorts of nonsense, making her overthink everything.

But she just felt…

An inexplicable sense of unease.

At that moment, more words slowly appeared in the floor:

【Liguang, what are you thinking about?】

She stared blankly at the line of text. Her lips parted, and at last…

Her expression softened.

Yes. What was she thinking about?

Had she mistaken the nightmares she had been having these past few days for some kind of memory?

She had indeed been afraid that her master might suddenly leave, and that was why she had been having so many nightmares lately.

That was one thing that wasn’t very good about the human brain. Even sleep couldn’t be peaceful. It still had to fumble around and cause trouble on its own…

But…

The silver-haired girl’s features softened considerably.

Compared with that vague and lonely “nightmare,” her master now…

Was truly so gentle.

So she gently stroked the wall covered in carvings and murmured:

“Master, Liguang was only thinking…”

“This place is filled with all our memories now.”

“It’s wonderful.”

It really was wonderful.

As long as her master was still here, everything was fine.

Master, let’s carve more words!

…

…

Liguang fell asleep again.

“Phew…”

Fang Qi leaned against the wooden wall outside the door and slowly let out a breath.

He rubbed his forehead as he listened to the soft, gentle sound of breathing from inside.

Through the wooden window, he could see the silver silhouette curled up on the bedboard, and the faint trembling of her eyelashes.

He could see her, but he couldn’t touch her.

“Creak…”

The doorframe groaned softly as the sea breeze blew against it. Fortunately, it didn’t wake Liguang.

He looked toward the wall outside the wooden hut.

It was already half covered in carvings.

He lowered his head and looked at his hand in the moonlight. One of his fingers hung limply.

Mm.

It was quite useful.

When he used that finger to carve words into the wooden planks, it didn’t hurt at all!

It was just…

How long had it been?

He hadn’t counted. It had probably been more than ten days. Maybe longer.

He pursed his lips and looked toward the sea. The surface remained calm and unruffled.

Liguang was trapped in this world, imprisoned in a “human body” that could barely use any permissions.

And Fang Qi was trapped in the void, where she could neither see nor touch him.

It had been a long time since he had hugged Liguang.

He really wanted to hold her.

But… he closed his eyes.

No.

He couldn’t hug her. Couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t stroke her.

All he could do was continue carving words into the wooden planks. Fortunately, he could carve much faster than before…

It was also a stroke of desperate inspiration on his part!

Fang Qi opened his eyes and gazed at the stars scattered across the sky…

“Heh…”

He suddenly laughed.

How should he put it? The way he was getting along with Liguang now…

It felt so familiar!

Far too familiar!

He could see Liguang and admire her beauty…

But he couldn’t touch her. All he could do was use his own method to carve information into the wooden planks and present it to her.

And Liguang…

She couldn’t see him at all!

Yet she could see the words he carved and react to the “information” he sent her.

She would smile, act spoiled, earnestly respond right away, and become happy for half the day over a single line he had written…

“Haha…”

He laughed, though there was a hint of bitterness in it.

It really was similar.

So very similar.

It was just like the way things had been when he played the game.

When he sat in front of his computer and played My Yandere Mechanical Wife… wasn’t this exactly how it had been?

The silver-haired girl on the screen was so beautiful and adorable. The way she smiled was so alluring…

But all he could do was watch.

He could only drool over “his wife, Liguang” on the screen without being able to hug or kiss her!

And then?

Then he would keep choosing different options, growing excited over each of the different reactions his wife, Liguang, displayed!

…Wasn’t that exactly the same as now?

Now he was using all his strength to carve words for Liguang, carving until his finger was ruined, and then watching each and every reaction she had to those words.

It really was the same.

Heh…

He tilted his head back and looked at the densely packed stars filling the heavens.

“Hey.”

He murmured softly.

“I’m talking to you, mysterious voice…”

“This wouldn’t happen to be your purpose, would it?”

There was no response.

The starry sky was silent. The sea was silent. Even the wind chimes made no sound.

Fang Qi hadn’t expected an answer.

He looked toward the distant point where the sea met the sky. It was shrouded in darkness, and he couldn’t make out a thing.

You bastard… couldn’t it be that you just wanted me to experience this feeling again?

That you stripped me away from Liguang’s world, taking me from the protagonist…

And turning me back into a “player”?

No.

He couldn’t even be considered a player.

A player wouldn’t be this pathetic, unable to do anything at all. At most, he could only be called…

Fang Qi suddenly froze.

Called what?

He lowered his head and looked at his limp, severed finger. Then he raised his head and glanced at the raft he and Liguang had built with their own hands.

Come to think of it, the reason he could still leave traces in this world and send messages to Liguang…

Wasn’t it because of this raft?

This was the only thing he could change!

But what if this raft didn’t exist?

What if there were no raft so closely connected to him and his Liguang?

Would he truly be unable to do anything at all?

Unable to speak, unable to leave any trace, unable to change anything. All he could do would be to watch.

Like a ghost, as though he were floating outside the entire world.

He could see everything, but couldn’t touch a thing.

Heh. Wasn’t that exactly…

He slowly raised his head and looked toward the sky, beyond that vast dome.

Toward…

The existence he had always known was there, yet had deliberately ignored all this time.

You.

All of you.

He fell into a daze.

So this was what I was almost becoming?

Aren’t you all like this?

You can only watch. You can’t do anything.

You watched Liguang and me go from the very first ending to this one, witnessing every bit of happiness and every moment of pain…

All you did was watch.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t take part. You didn’t leave… and you couldn’t help me, either.

Am I the same as you now?

Fang Qi’s eyelids twitched faintly. Suddenly, he felt utterly lost.

So…

“Could it be that I…”

He murmured:

“Have also become the ‘eyes of the world’?”

No one answered him.

The waves continued to strike the raft, again and again.

Inside the wooden hut, Liguang gently turned over.

“Master… whimper…”

She murmured again in her sleep.

Leaning against the wall of the hut, Fang Qi slowly sat down and stared blankly at the endless horizon.

What on earth was going on?