A gentle breeze suddenly blew over from not far away, pushing the soft hem of her skirt against Lu Shizhen's calves, tenderly and tightly, as if trying to hold her back.
The unobstructed sun shone brightly between the two of them, and Lu Shizhen looked at Xu Shiyue's gaze as she looked at her.
Like shattered glass, pitch black yet filled with anticipation, each shard reflecting her image.
Lu Shizhen seemed to see in those eyes pearls, smooth and bright, polished and refined over countless ages, causing a sharp pain in her heart: "I..."
"teacher!"
Just as Lu Shizhen was about to give an answer, Xiaoning, who had received her message, ran out quickly and waved to her from afar.
Lu Shizhen seemed to wake up from a dream.
She watched her colleagues waving in the distance, swallowed back the answer she hadn't even had a chance to give, and said to Xu Shiyue, "They're here to see me. I have to go. Goodbye."
As soon as she finished speaking, the soft warmth that Xu Shiyue's palm had been pressed against suddenly vanished.
She watched Lu Shizhen leave, her hand, which had been hanging outside the window, slowly clenched.
The midday sun generously poured down on the world, brightly enveloping Lu Shizhen's receding figure.
The full skirt swayed and undulated with her steps, exuding a lively and cheerful charm.
She's still the same as before, easygoing and easy-going.
Everything was just like it was five years ago, but her once thick, long hair had been cut short to her chin, giving her an indescribable neatness, as if she had grown a lot in the past five years.
The vile wind leaves no trace of warmth that doesn't belong to you. The tighter Xu Shiyue clenched her hands, the faster the remaining warmth disappeared, leaving only the accumulated dampness.
Xu Shiyue looked at her damp palms and squinted slightly.
She stared at Lu Shizhen's tiny, almost disappearing figure, as if recalling what Lu Shizhen had just said to her, and said softly with a meaningful tone, "Goodbye."
In the distance, kites released in the spring breeze soar freely through the air.
As long as the string remains unbroken, the kite will always be in its owner's hands, no matter how far it flies.
The fact that Lu Shizhen disappeared for almost a day left a deep psychological scar on Xiaoning. All the way there, she kept talking about how worried she was about Lu Shizhen that day and where the group of them went to look for her.
Qiuqiu nestled listlessly in Lu Shizhen's arms, still shaken and looking terrified: "Host, do you think Xu Shiyue might have noticed something?"
Lu Shizhen felt somewhat helpless, thinking to herself, "Shouldn't I be the one asking you this?"
"This shouldn't be possible... The technology level of this world is too advanced... Could it be that we've forgotten something?" Qiuqiu pondered, her distressed expression masking her overloaded state. "But I added dozens of encryption layers to Yuanzi's chip, so this shouldn't be happening either..."
Seeing Qiuqiu's distressed expression, Lu Shizhen's mood suddenly became somewhat indescribable.
She believed in Xu Shiyue's abilities, as she was able to defeat that old man Xu Shouxian at the age of nineteen, more than two years earlier than in the original story.
The relationship between Xu Shouxian and the main system is that of a chess piece and its owner.
Moreover, this piece was the player's most inconspicuous sacrifice.
Infiltrate the system, control its operation, and manipulate the world's consciousness.
Is this... even possible?
As Lu Shizhen was thinking this, she suddenly felt that she had been fixed by a certain idea without knowing when.
Before she could figure it out, the cat in her arms raised its head and said, "Meow~ (Host, will you go back?)"
Qiuqiu's question sounded somewhat incoherent, but Lu Shizhen knew which sentence it was referring to, and for some reason felt a bit resistant to this cat from the system: "What?"
"I was just asking..." Qiuqiu said, sounding a little aggrieved, "Besides, Xu Shiyue's feelings for you are special, which will affect the development of her relationship with Shen Yanxing. After all, the two of them are the core of this world. Have you thought about that, host..."
Before Qiuqiu could finish her persuasion, Lu Shizhen interrupted her: "What are you thinking about?"
Lu Shizhen's words came suddenly, and her tone was somewhat stiff. Qiuqiu heard them clearly, and her small body trembled slightly in Lu Shizhen's arms.
Perhaps sensing that her attitude had been a bit off, Lu Shizhen scratched Qiuqiu's stomach.
She watched the cat in her arms, which kept reminding her in various ways, and retorted in return, "And don't forget, I'm a straight woman..."
Lu Shizhen's voice was relaxed, and the breeze seemed to carry a hint of laughter.
Qiuqiu listened as its host emphasized this "fact" to it and to herself. The wind swept through the fragrant flower buds in the flower bed beside it, but left a bitter taste on its nose.
Lu Shizhen didn't realize that sometimes, emphasizing something too deliberately only makes it seem like an attempt to cover it up.
"Besides, we're going back after the book signing tomorrow, right?" Lu Shizhen gently rubbed Qiuqiu's back, her eyes lowered, making a serious yet careless plan. "Don't worry, once we never see each other again, everything will be back on track."
The consequences of deviating from the plot, expressed through different ways, piled up in Lu Shizhen's mind. She looked down and kicked a small pebble on the road ahead, not with much force, just to move it aside.
The wind rustled through the weeping willows on one side, casually lifting the hair on Lu Shizhen's face.
She never thought of herself as a great person. Her wishes were not for the world or for the peace of the universe. She simply wanted that person to live well.
She has seen her future.
That was a love story that moved everyone in her world who read it, and Shen Yanxing was someone she could rely on.
“As long as this world doesn’t collapse, I know she’s doing well.” Lu Shizhen said “contented,” but her voice was even colder than before. “Didn’t you say that the story calculated by the main god through the main system is her best life?”
Animals are always very perceptive of their owners' emotional changes, and Qiuqiu nestled in Lu Shizhen's arms was no exception.
Somehow, it seemed like something went wrong in the program, and it suddenly felt an urge to tell Lu Shizhen, though maybe not.
What the main god deduces through the main system is not necessarily the best.
It had seen this before when Lu Shizhen was earning points. Things that were clearly judged as useless by its system algorithm became Lu Shizhen's points, far exceeding the optimal solution it calculated.
Qiuqiu thought that the reason why humans are human and cannot be replaced by systems must be because they have unique characteristics.
...Is it possible that the main system might also make a mistake?
The parts hidden beneath the thick fur emitted a strange electric light, and the faint hissing sound dissipated in the wind.
This was the first time since Qiuqiu opened her eyes and came into this world that her faith in it had wavered, subtly entangled her, and she dared not easily utter it aloud.
Lu Shizhen's book signing event in S City was incredibly popular, with the huge bookstore packed with people.
Lu Shizhen sat on the stage, looking at the snake-like formation that had formed in the venue, and was somewhat surprised by the appeal of her comics and the enthusiasm of everyone.
One comic book after another was placed on the table, and Lu Shizhen signed her name amidst the crowd, occasionally adding a T-sign.
Although Lu Shizhen was very happy to see that she was so popular in this place, to be honest, her hand gradually became numb from repeatedly signing so many names.
The continuously unfolded sheets of white paper fell and swept across Lu Shizhen's vision, and for a moment, they made her feel that the world had become monotonous.
Lu Shizhen quickly loosened her fingers before the next reader came up, and took a moment to close her eyes.
She never expected that, just as she was preparing to receive the next batch of white pages, a burst of intense red would intrude into her continuously pale white world.
A cluster of roses was placed on the table in front of Lu Shizhen, the black wrapping paper concealing large patches of vibrant red, both somber and dazzling.
Just like the woman who slowly walked to the front of the autograph table at this moment.
Without warning, Xu Shiyue showed up at Lu Shizhen's autograph session.
Her long, seaweed-like hair swayed slightly as she stood still, contrasting sharply with her pale skin.
Light poured down from above her head, making Xu Shiyue's entire body glow, like a star suddenly shining in the dark night sky, or the moon that makes even the stars dim.
The tables at the autograph session were set a little high for convenience, and Xu Shiyue's hips rested right against them. Her lake-green halter dress clung to her waist, which was so slender it seemed like it could be grasped in one hand, right in front of Lu Shizhen's line of sight.
Xiaoning, who was the assistant at the autograph session, was a little stunned. It took her a while to react before she asked, "Miss, may I ask your name?"
"Xu Shiyue." Xu Shiyue gently stroked the long hair that fell to the side of her face and looked at Lu Shizhen slowly, saying, "Xu as in permission, Shi as in picking up, and Yue as in the moon."
Xiao Ning nodded hesitantly, looking bewitched by the beauty, without thinking about why the name sounded so familiar. Then, she took it upon herself to ask on Lu Shizhen's behalf, "Is there anything you'd like Teacher Sixteen to sign? You can tell us, and Teacher Sixteen can sign it for you on the book."
"Is that alright?" Xu Shiyue asked calmly, her slightly raised gaze fixed on Lu Shizhen.
Lu Shizhen was completely taken aback by Xu Shiyue's arrival.
The fragrance of roses slowly wafted before her, mixed with an almost imperceptible, delicate scent emanating from her.
The lips, lightly pressed together, opened and closed again, and the retracted tongue inadvertently brushed past the back teeth.
The lingering taste lingered on her tongue, its ambiguous and subtle flavor overlapping with the scent of the person in front of her, in this noisy meeting place filled with her readers.
The overhead lights were like the midday sun of yesterday, and the person in front of me was still the same person.
After a long pause, Lu Shizhen nodded steadily and said, "Of course, but it can't be too long."
"Then please sign a note for me, Teacher Sixteen." Xu Shiyue said calmly, as if she hadn't heard Lu Shizhen's second half of the instruction, "I never thought you would leave me, so I have been searching for you all this time."
Xu Shiyue paused for a moment at this point.
Those raven-feather-like eyelashes opened and closed like fans, spreading a gentle and refined smile in the dark and cold atmosphere, as they spoke to the person holding the pen in front of them: "And now that I have you, I will never let you go again."
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