Chapter 116 I Am Also Me (Part 4) I observe the floating world, just as the universe observes me...

Shi Hong was staying here tonight, sleeping side by side with Zhang Deng. Xiao Mi was startled at first, but then she recognized him and happily kept circling around him. Shi Hong grabbed Xiao Mi by the scruff of the neck and said, "You little bastard, you're too weak to be vigilant."

Zhang Deng said, "Your martial arts skills are too high, even Xiao Mi didn't hear it."

Shi Hong also really thought he was in danger and said, "Luckily I saw you, otherwise you would have died in your sleep."

But Zhang Deng thought that maybe Shi Hong saw him crying in his dream and didn't wake him up.

Zhang Deng had always thought Shi Hong was too patriarchal, but only now did he realize that he actually had a soft side, but he seldom showed it to others.

Shi Hong had never mentioned anything about Wei Yuanye since he arrived, as if this person had never appeared. After hearing about Zhang Deng's plan, he readily agreed that it was no problem.

Then at breakfast the next day, the door was violently kicked open from the outside. Dong Yu rushed in and saw three people sitting in front of a small coffee table drinking tofu pudding.

It only took Dong Yu three seconds to accept this reality. He put the knife away, put it back in his pocket, and asked, "Anything else?"

Zhang Deng took out another box from the bottom and said, "Yes."

Dong Yu calmly sat down, opened the tofu pudding, and said, "Your method is too immoral."

"Fortunately, tofu pudding is salty." Dong Yu said.

Zhang Deng said, "Let's wait a little longer. Do you think Lin Yuzhou will come?"

It was hard for several people to explain. In fact, they all had complicated feelings towards Lin Yuzhou. Lin Yuzhou did have some abilities, but he definitely had no true feelings for them.

Talking too much would hurt feelings, so everyone ate in silence. Shi Hong sighed that this place was so rich in resources and much better than Yingzhou. Dong Yu said, "Shi Hong, you have no ties in Yingzhou now. Why don't you come and join me?"

Shi Hong thought for a long time and said, "No."

"What good would it be for you to stay in that barren land of Yingzhou," Dong Yu said.

Shi Hongdao said, "Since this is my home, it doesn't matter whether it's poor or not. This is my fate. I was born in a barren land. Although there are constant wars and the ground is full of starving people, I haven't starved or been hurt. I can't complain."

Zhang Deng understood that Shi Hong valued the concepts of "home" and "brotherhood" and said, "I want to go home too."

"Okay," Dong Yu said, "I think anywhere is fine. I'll live wherever I feel comfortable. What about you, beautiful lady?"

Li Mai said: "I have a father, a mother and a best friend, I have to go back."

Dong Yu couldn't find anyone who resonated with him. At this moment, he was suddenly shocked and almost dropped the chopsticks in his hand: "When did he come here?"

Inexplicably, several people followed his gaze and saw a man standing outside the window, with his hand outstretched to block the light and his eyes pressed against the window.

Zhang Deng screamed in fright, and the tofu pudding burned the back of his hand. He said, "Ghost!"

Lin Yuzhou stood in mid-air, lowered his hands, folded his arms, and looked at them.

Dong Yu scolded him bitterly, "You're the only one who's so impressive, but you have to be so scary?!"

Zhang Deng pointed to the side and said, "I've installed screens. Let's go to the elevator."

After a while, several people sat together and everyone was silent.

Lin Yuzhou said, "Back then, we swore an oath of blood to share happiness and hardship. Ever since I became sworn brothers with you, I haven't had a single day of happiness."

Zhang Deng has forgotten about that incident. He still remembers cutting his hand that day. He was very reluctant to do it, but now he thinks about it, it was actually a very important thing for them.

"I thought you ascended with Wei Yuanye and the others." Shi Hong said.

Lin Yuzhou said: "They are not from this world. I have been here from the beginning, where else can I go?"

He studied everyone's expressions and said, "I know you don't trust me, but I don't really know much more than you do. That Bufa found me and told me a bunch of nonsense. I agreed to help him. I didn't have any other conditions, I just wanted to be a free man again. It's really boring in the World Tree."

Zhang Deng said, "We are all chess pieces that are not sent out, so there is no need for anyone to criticize anyone else."

"It would have taken so much effort if he hadn't succeeded," Shi Hong said. "He deserves to succeed."

"The only one who got something for nothing is Wei Yuanye," Dong Yu said. "He just sat back and reaped the benefits. Even Bufa was taken advantage of by him."

Zhang Deng said, "That's not bad. We didn't gain nothing. The Heaven Gate opened and the World Tree collapsed. We can count it as a great achievement."

"But no one knows," Lin Yuzhou said, "and no one can judge the merits or demerits."

Zhang Deng was speechless. He said, "When I get out, I'll write you a history of my own."

"It's important to write it down," Lin Yuzhou said. "If you do good things but no one knows about them, isn't it the same as not doing them at all?"

In fact, Zhang Deng felt that the World Tree’s initial aid idea was indeed very interesting. How could everyone in this world be the protagonist who saves the world? In life, there are still many ordinary people who are full of ambition. For example, in this room, everyone is a pawn and supporting role under Wei Yuanye and Bufa, but aren’t they also flesh and blood?

Zhang Deng said, "Okay, let's do one last thing, chess pieces."

"What are you going to do?"

Zhang Deng said, "Let everyone go home, and we'll truly say goodbye."

"I'm afraid it'll be difficult for us to meet again after this separation," Zhang Deng said. "Let's do one last thing together."

Zhang Deng told them his plan. He told everyone, "We need to cut off everything and everyone around Li Xin and make her world quiet for two minutes. There are many things that need to be involved, but we still have a lot of time and can try a few more times."

At this moment, there was a sudden knock on the door. Zhang Deng felt strange: "Who else is there?"

"I don't know," Lin Yuzhou said, "Are they all here?"

Dong Yu went to open the door. He scratched his butt nonchalantly and said, "Could it be Wei Yuanye who is back?"

Of course Zhang Deng knew that it was impossible, but he was still startled by what he said. He subconsciously stared at him. Dong Yu kicked the door into pieces and it took a long time to open it. A thin and beautiful boy was standing outside the door.

Zhang Deng was stunned for a moment before he said, "He Xiaoqiu?"

He Xiaoqiu was still a little hesitant at first, but when he saw the room full of strangers, he finally fixed his eyes on Zhang Deng, still glancing at him suspiciously.

Zhang Deng said, "Ah, don't worry, these are all my friends."

Dong Yu said, "Come in."

He Xiaoqiu walked into the house, but found that the furnishings in the house were exactly the same as Zhang Deng's previous home. He was completely confused and looked at Zhang Deng. Zhang Deng had never expected him to come and didn't know where to start.

Shi Hong saw the relationship between the two, stood up and made way for them, and said, "You were also deceived by his video, right? Have you had breakfast?"

He Xiaoqiu shook his head and said, "I'm not hungry."

Li Mai stared at He Xiaoqiu and said, "Why are you so good-looking?"

He Xiaoqiu smiled awkwardly and asked Zhang Deng, "Are you okay? I thought..."

Zhang Deng didn't know how to describe his feelings at the moment. He couldn't express it simply with words like "touched" or "relieved". No matter how smart he was, he couldn't have imagined that He Xiaoqiu would come to see him if he thought about going next year.

He Xiaoqiu is such a selfish, cowardly and self-interested person. Zhang Deng's feelings for He Xiaoqiu are all based on his bad understanding of him. After knowing that He Xiaoqiu is so unbearable, Zhang Deng also accepted him into his life.

But how can we let go of this rotten guy's sincerity?

Zhang Deng was silent for a moment, but decided to tell He Xiaoqiu everything.

Zhang Deng told this story for a long time, starting from the conflict between the two of them and their acquaintance with Wei Yuanye. Others had not heard the whole story.

Among all the friends in Zhang Deng's life, no one has a complete understanding of Zhang Deng's life. They all appear at a certain point and then disappear. Zhang Deng never talks about these things. He feels that no one really needs to listen to a very ordinary story. Everyone is busy and has their own life to live.

But at this moment, he had to say it. If he didn't say it, he would be sorry for these people.

Zhang Deng explained everything clearly. It was such a long story, and everyone could find their own chapter in it.

He Xiaoqiu listened attentively. When he finished speaking, it was already noon. Li Mai secretly ordered takeout. They ate, chatted and discussed at the same time. Finally, Zhang Deng finished speaking and everyone was silent for a moment.

It's really hard to comment.

Should we solely blame Wei Yuanye? It seems that Zhang Deng doesn't even harbor such hatred.

He Xiaoqiu said: "When Liu Yan and I broke up before, although I pretended not to care, I actually felt like the sky had fallen."

"I was so hungry I didn't eat for three days, and I cried until I felt dizzy," He Xiaoqiu said. "I felt like there was no hope. No one would love me anymore. My reputation was ruined, and I had no way to make money. Everything was ruined. My situation was very difficult."

In fact, all this was related to Zhang Deng, and Zhang Deng felt inexplicably guilty.

He Xiaoqiu said, "I was also very stubborn at first. I said I didn't care, that I didn't love Liu Yan at all, nor did I hate Liu Yan, and that I wasn't sad at all. But then I went abroad and found a psychologist, who told me that if I wanted to move on, I had to allow myself to love, but also to hate with all my might."

He Xiaoqiu said, "If people can't distinguish between love and hate, then sadness and joy will kill each other in their hearts, which will only make them more miserable. People can't be so kind as to allow everyone to hurt them. If you force yourself to be such a great person, you will never get out of the pain. So I told myself at the time that I must hate Liu Yan, hate you, hate everyone. I cursed you every day, and slowly, life got better, and I forgot."

"People often say hatred lasts longer than love," He Xiaoqiu said. "But that's not true. Once hatred is vented, it quickly passes. Love, on the other hand, is something that lasts forever. The more you vent it, the crazier it becomes."

He Xiaoqiu really said something very valuable to Zhang Deng at this moment. At this stage, Zhang Deng was indeed persuading himself not to hate and not to blame others.

He also felt even more sad because he could not be as open-minded as he wanted to be.

Zhang Deng digested these words in his mind, nodded, and said, "I understand."

He Xiaoqiu said, "I'm willing to help you too."

Zhang Deng looked at these faces and couldn't help but think, who said his life was a failure?

At least at this moment, he has so many people around him who are willing to come for him.

Li Xin lost her cell phone for unknown reasons. She went to the supermarket to buy groceries and paid with her cell phone. But when she got home, she couldn't find it anywhere.

She felt like the sky was falling. This was a huge expense, and no mobile phone stores were open at the moment. She would have to wait until tomorrow when everyone was at work to buy a new one.

Fortunately, there was not much money in the phone. She had just paid the rent and was penniless. At least she didn't have to worry about the money being transferred.

Li Xin blamed herself for being careless. She had bought the vegetables to cook a meal for herself, but she didn't do anything. She just washed up and went to bed in a daze.

She was preoccupied with her own affairs, so she naturally didn't notice it, and she didn't know when the clock in the living room stopped ticking.

I'll definitely have a good night's sleep tonight. Even the street beneath my feet is completely empty. He Xiaoqiu, Dong Yu, and Shi Hong, each wearing a fake traffic police uniform, stand at the intersection, stopping all vehicles and forcing them to go the other way. If they can't stop them, Li Mai steps into the middle of the road and won't allow anyone to pass. Anyone who does will be blackmailed.

A man came hurriedly and tried to go into the building, but was stopped. He turned left, and the man also turned left. He turned right, and the man also turned right. The man finally raised his head impatiently and saw the man's face, but was surprised.

Zhang Deng asked him, "Where are you going?"

Huo Lian was startled. He subconsciously took a step back and said, "Why are you..."

"Why am I here?" Zhang Deng asked, "Why can't I be here anymore? I want to ask, why are you here?"

Huo Lian laughed dryly and said, "I have something to do."

"Is this the matter?" Zhang Deng turned on the screen of his mobile phone, on which was the chat history between the two of them. Huo Lian was talking sweet words and showing deep affection. He asked Li Xin what she was doing. Li Xin simply said that she lived there. Huo Lian then said that he wanted to order takeout for her and asked for Li Xin's home address.

Huo Lian's expression changed drastically: "How did you get this?"

"What do you think?" Zhang Deng asked, "Do you think I have no idea what the character I created is doing?"

Huo Lian took a step forward: "Actually, I think you misunderstood me. I didn't mean anything else. I just really like her."

Zhang Deng looked at him expressionlessly.

"I'm not easy to fool," Zhang Deng said, "at least people like you can't fool me."

Zhang Deng said, "I'm only warning you this time. Stay away from Li Xin and get out of this world as soon as possible. If I see you around her again, I'll write you to death."

Zhang Deng had been through a lot, after all. The "death" he described was more real than that of someone who had never actually seen death. Huo Lian was frightened by his tone, looked at him, and took a step back.

Then he took several steps back and ran away without looking back.

He hadn't run a few steps when he felt a sharp pain at the back of his head and fell to the ground with a muffled sound.

Li Mai threw away the baseball bat, dragged him aside, and made a gesture to Zhang Deng.

Zhang Deng raised his head and glanced at Lin Yuzhou on the second-floor windowsill. Lin Yuzhou nodded at him.

He cut off the power of the entire building. Lin Yuzhou pinched his fingers and made hand gestures, and the strange yet familiar hand gestures reappeared. Lin Yuzhou once again recited what he called the "Crazy Sleeping Technique".

A sudden drowsiness swept through the entire building.

Fate had arranged everything. When Zhang Deng first met Lin Yuzhou, he was also forced to sleep for two minutes by this spell. He woke up under the watchful eyes of Lin Yuzhou and Wei Yuanye. He thought at the time, although this spell is very effective, what's the use? Only two minutes.

Now Lin Yuzhou made everyone in this building fall asleep, even if it was only for two minutes——

Then they quickly evacuated the area, and everyone stayed as far away from Li Xin as possible. No one missed or thought about Li Xin. Li Mai, who had known Li Xin, was afraid of being affected by the plot, so he found a place on the spot and lay down to take a nap.

Zhang Deng sat in the corner and opened the document.

I watched as the text on the document gradually slowed down, and the cursor finally waited empty-handed, but I had nothing to say.

Zhang Deng was just about to type when he noticed that the cursor suddenly moved and a new line of words appeared in the document.

“No one knows that this ordinary girl is actually the protagonist of this world, not even she herself knows it.

Huo Lian has his own selfish motives. Although he was warned by Zhang Deng, he still refused to give up. In his own world, he was mediocre and he needed to prove his existence. Li Xin was the best way to prove it.

Zhang Deng raised his head and realized that Huo Lian was not really asleep.

He immediately called out to Li Mai, "Where's Huo Lian?"

Li Mai said, "Why? It's right under my feet."

"Give him another push."

Li Mai suddenly stopped moving, and soon there was the sound of fighting. Zhang Deng hurriedly shouted Li Mai's name. After a while, there was another sound of heavy hitting. Li Mai's voice came from the other side, panting, "Mission completed."

Zhang Deng glanced at the screen, which updated Huo Lian's situation. "Zhang Deng and his friends wouldn't allow Huo Lian to hurt Li Xin. Li Mai was hit on the back of the head by Huo Lian. Despite the severe pain, he managed to regain control of the baseball bat and hit Huo Lian in the head. A bloody hole was opened on Huo Lian's head, and he fell straight down.

The strong woman picked up the pager and, regardless of her own injuries, told Zhang Deng to "complete the mission."

Zhang Deng asked nervously, "Are you injured?"

"Well?" Li Mai said, "Not bad."

Document: "At this moment, everything returned to silence. Zhang Deng was waiting for an opportunity, and Lin Yuzhou's 'Crazy Sleeping Technique' was about to run out of time."

As soon as the cursor stopped, Zhang Deng typed a line of words:

"This world's disturbance of Li Xin ends here. Everyone should return to their own world and do their own job—"

Document: "Zhang Deng carefully typed this line. His friends, as if sensing something, all looked up at the moon in the sky, realizing that separation was imminent."

Zhang Deng wrote: "People say that separation is for a better reunion, but there are also some separations in this world that mean we will never meet again. In our own time, we will eventually taste happiness, sadness, aging and death alone, never to meet again in life or death."

Document: "Zhang Deng's eyes were wet. He felt the pain of separation and fear of the upcoming loneliness, but he still decided to do it."

Zhang Deng wrote: "Go back, inhabitants of Earth, my friends."

Zhang Deng: "I will remember you, the heroes in my heart, for the rest of my life."

Document: "Zhang Deng typed the last word. Shi Hong and Dong Yu took off their funny clothes. They smiled at each other from across the street. Lin Yuzhou stood in the far corner, leaning against the wall, and waved at them."

Zhang Deng typed the last word.

"Change."

Suddenly, the world turned upside down, and the sun and moon rotated.

Zhang Deng was still holding his computer and standing on the street, but all the people, pagers, and noise around him had disappeared.

When Zhang Deng saw the familiar street scene, he knew in his heart that it was completely over.

He held the computer and figured out the way, then walked towards home. But after a while, his cell phone suddenly rang. Zhang Deng took it out of his pocket and it was He Xiaoqiu.

Zhang Deng said, "Hmm?"

He Xiaoqiu was silent for a long time on the other end of the computer, and just asked, "Are you back?"

"Yes." Zhang Deng said.

He Xiaoqiu asked, "Do you want to go out for a drink?"

Zhang Deng sighed, stretched, and said, "Forget it today, maybe next time."

He Xiaoqiu said on the phone: "Zhang Deng, I know I owe you an apology."

"Actually, I know," Zhang Deng said, "even though you haven't said it, you've been apologizing all the time."

He Xiaoqiu also took a deep breath and said, "I'm sorry."

Zhang Deng said, "It's okay."

He repeated again: "It really doesn't matter."

"I've forgotten everything," Zhang Deng said. "You told me that love lasts longer than hate."

"No more talking," Zhang Deng said lightly, "I'm going home now. Xiao Mi is still waiting for me."