Chapter 261 Happy Cemetery
Qiao Song felt like he had fallen asleep on the bus and had a very long dream.
She dreamed of her days on earth. It should have been a fake world, but it became particularly real because of the active sharing of a group of people.
Most of the material in dreams comes from friends, from small shops on the street to classmates at school and neighbors' faces, all of which are people in friends' memories.
This is how Qiao Song lives in a world between games and reality.
Because she had given away most of her strength in one breath, she was as weak as a real newborn soul, needing to learn all the survival instincts in an unfamiliar environment.
The newborn Qiao Song was different from other babies. She didn’t make any noise or fuss. She always kept her eyes wide open, looking at the world around her vigilantly and curiously. Then she saw her mother.
Li Yuan's mother.
Everyone else decided to exchange their proud survival skills so that if Qiao Song could enter the game in the future, he would not be completely blind.
But Li Yuan felt that he couldn't give her more.
He, Annie and the others had actually melted in the light at the last moment. It was Little Stone who condensed his own power into a few small gadgets made by hands and conducted a resurrection experiment on them just like in the game.
It doesn't make sense that only humans can conduct experiments. This is a world that exists because of her, so of course she has to figure out the rules that govern it.
Li Yuan and the others needed some time to grow flesh and blood again like the little stone they once were, and then take a boat back to the mall.
This time is longer than expected.
They are like being caught in the gap between the fake world and the game world, watching the little stone grow up little by little beyond the mirror and water.
It was Li Yuan who contributed family memories to Xiao Shitou, because he was an only child, of the right age, and had a very good pair of parents, so there would not be more complicated interpersonal relationships involved. Although his father left early, he knew that his mother could take good care of Xiao Shitou, just like she had taken care of him before.
And, Li Yuan still has that last little bit, a little bit of selfishness.
He wanted to get closer to the stone.
Sometimes, Li Yuan felt that he was a bit like a stone.
Annie and Guang, who were also waiting in the fantasy world and occasionally interacting with Qiao Qiao as NPCs, couldn't help but complain: "Stones are cuter than you!"
But Li Yuan, who grew up in that family, knew that Xiao Shitou was indeed similar to him.
He has been full of curiosity about the world since he was young. He wants to try everything and do everything. Shu Ruyue always tolerates and supports him, but Li Yuan also thinks Qiao Song is indeed much cuter than him.
Even in the fantasy world, Shu Ruyue will become more like a happy mother when facing Qiao Song.
Qiao Song is more capable of causing trouble than Li Yuan was when he was a child. Today he climbs up the roof to remove the tiles, tomorrow he skis in the corridor, and the day after tomorrow he surfs in the community fountain.
On the first day of my life, I felt like I was in chaos.
The gifts Li Yuan received were far more than what he gave to the stone.
He was the first person to notice that something was wrong with Shu Ruyue.
A Guang and Annie, and even the old principal, can enter the false world and interact with Xiao Shitou in their original appearance, but Li Yuan only enters as a passerby.
He and his mother had once seen each other from a distance in the community. The light and shadow puppet, which was originally copied from his memory, suddenly appeared in panic, dropped all the vegetables in his hands, and started chasing after Qiao Song, who was only a few years old.
Xiao Qiaosong was particularly happy chasing after her.
Instead, Li Yuan, who was chasing in front of him, was stunned for a long time. He turned a corner and directly edited his data into a bird.
He turned into a pitch-black crow and stood on the electric pole, silently watching his mother and Qiao Song leave in disappointment after searching for a few rounds.
Annie, A Guang and Li Yuan have known each other for a long time. A Guang also said that Li Yuan was a somewhat nagging dormitory head in college. He would make seven or eight backup plans for one project, and for an independent game, he had to create a complete world view.
Since when did Li Yuan become silent?
Ever since he found out that his mother gave him the house after he graduated from college, he would always cry in front of the photo album in the study.
I discovered that my mother was forcing herself to smile on the phone, but in fact the refrigerator was empty, she didn't like to eat, and she was getting thinner and thinner.
My father used to love cooking, and his cooking skills were only okay. But on the family table, whether the food was bad or delicious, the taste was never what mattered.
When Li Yuan was a child, he didn't have the chance to learn the skills his father could teach him, and he and his mother were left alone at home.
Many years later, Shu Ruyue lost her husband and then her son. When she called his name in the hospital, she was like a dried carnation.
Before, when Li Yuan was in the white light and facing death, he heard his mother calling him.
His mother, who looked haggard and extremely thin, was staying by his bed. Perhaps she was waiting for him to wake up, so she tried to eat as much as possible, but she couldn't stop the fatigue in her eyes.
And in this false world, in the timeline when Xiao Shitou was just five or six years old and was taken by his mother to the community to play with a puppy, Li Yuan saw Shu Ruyue, who should not have forgotten that she had a child. Although she was healthier and a little rounder, she still had the same expression as in the hospital.
The expression of losing both husband and child at the same time.
Li Yuan turned into a crow and sat on the electric pole, quietly gazing down.
After he was pulled away from this world and returned to the boat, Li Yuan asked A Guang and Annie, who were also connected to this world through the objects left behind by the small stone.
"In that fantasy world made up of memories, can other souls from the real world enter besides us?"
Ah Guang immediately looked at him with a look of astonishment: "How is that possible! If the living people in the real world can come in, then we can also get out."
After the white light last time, they dragged their broken bodies to recover for a long time, preparing to slowly take the boat back to the mall.
It was eternal night after that. It seemed that after the stone fell into a deep sleep, even the white light disappeared. The broadcast on the ship and the system prompts in the players' ears never appeared again.
Li Yuan could occasionally even use his skills to enter a huge, constantly improving remote game world map, which was the shopping mall he was about to return to.
He knew that the game was expanding and transforming wildly, and they needed to go back, catch this train, join them, and not just be players, but also be people who could open doors.
Li Yuan would occasionally stare at the palm of his hand in a daze. There were two strange things there, which were given to him by Xiao Shitou before he went to bed.
A doodle card, and a jokingly drawn note.
Xiao Shitou said that the ghost money in your world is too ugly. If there is money circulating in our world, it has to look better. By the way, with Annie's help, he drew a Q version of himself on it.
While listening to Li Yuan's story, Xiao Shitou drew a graffiti card with the 18 levels of hell.
"I hate guys with stinky souls. Your game mall is too messy. If it were me, I would move hell into this world, and good people would get extra points, and bad people would lose points."
Although she didn't know where the way back was, she felt that the novel was well written, that good people should be rewarded and bad people should be punished.
Ghosts before reincarnation still know to stay in the water to look for their enemies, and take a bite of their flesh before they are reincarnated so as to take revenge.
Li Yuan felt that Qiao Song, who had grown up little by little from a stone, probably also wanted revenge.
Life in the false world constructed by memory is actually very monotonous. Qiao Song is like a sponge thirsty for knowledge, wanting to learn a little bit of everything.
The souls resurrected by Qiao Song on the ship almost worked around the clock to serve as free teachers at her workplace every day.
There is no way. The dummies in the memory world cannot behave in ways that are unexpected by the memory provider himself.
This made Li Yuan feel that his mother Shu Ruyue was increasingly strange.
This character always does things that Li Yuan doesn't know about. For example, if Qiao Song hadn't dismantled an old-fashioned radio in the bookcase, Li Yuan would never have known that there was a love letter written by his father to his mother hidden inside it.
There were also many old photos in the photo albums in the study that he didn't remember having seen.
If the provider of these memories was not him, then it could only be someone else.
One day, Li Yuan, who once again turned into a crow and watched Qiao Song and Shu Ruyue from the window, was arrested on the spot by a small hand.
The girl, who was barely tall enough to reach the window, somehow lurked by the window and unexpectedly caught the crow that had been hanging around their house recently.
"Little crow, be good and don't make any noise. I won't hurt you. I'm just watching."
The small Qiao Song looks a little different from the little Shitou before. It seems that as time changes, she can adjust her appearance through her own aesthetic taste.
She was a very healthy baby and looked very much like Li Yuan's father, so Shu Ruyue cried less often when looking at the photo.
Qiao Song, who is sensitive to other people's emotions and is quite smart and curious, pinched the crow's mouth to prevent it from making any sound, then spread its wings and observed little by little this bird that he had only seen in books.
The crow's feathers in the sun are a very eye-catching, colorful black.
"Wow, little crow, you are so beautiful."
Shu Ruyue knocked on the door outside: "Xiao Song, why did you lock the door? Did you encounter something difficult to solve? Do you want mom to find the key to open the door?"
Qiao Song turned around and said to his mother, "It's okay, wait a moment, I'll open the door myself." Then he opened the window and gently threw the crow out.
"Mom said that if someone is staring at you strangely, you should tell her. Since you are a cute and beautiful bird, I won't tell on you. Goodbye, little crow. Be careful not to get caught by Garfield next door."
Li Yuan himself couldn't remember when his neighbor started raising a Garfield.
The flow rate of the memory world is different from that of the outside world. Every time he comes in slowly, he will find that, with his home as the center, this place seems to have gradually become a place that is completely different from his memory.
When Qiao Song was a child, no animal dared to approach him.
Annie and the others had no way to solve this problem. They couldn't control every animal in this world all the time. The animals in the memory world acted entirely on instinct, and when they encountered small stones, they would be suppressed as if they had encountered a natural enemy.
A Guang also complained that it might be the threat from the god of death.
Li Yuan turned into a crow and walked around the community many times. He never knew that so many families in the community had dogs. Shu Ruyue saw that Qiao Song liked puppies and kittens, but those animals avoided him, so she took the initiative to establish good relationships with the owners of the puppies and kittens.
Mom became a bridge between the little girl and the little animals.
This reminded Li Yuan of his childhood when he was addicted to cartridge games for a long time after his father passed away.
That was a happy after-meal pastime for them father and son. Even though Shu Ruyue was in a lot of pain at that time, she would accompany her son to buy more game cartridges and play with him late at night.
I would also show him the notes my father left, reminding Li Yuan that it’s okay to like playing games or even want to make games, but you have to study hard, because these hobbies and dreams also require a lot of down-to-earth knowledge accumulation to achieve them.
Shu Ruyue is a very good mother, and Qiao Song, the little god of death in the memory world, is gradually accepted by the animals.
After continuous observation, Li Yuan also came to a conclusion that Shu Ruyue was different from other NPCs in this world. The living soul of his mother seemed to have really entered here and stayed by Qiao Song's side, raising her like his own daughter.
Li Yuan turned into a crow and watched them from afar.
As Qiao Song grew up day by day, A Guang and the old principal gradually completed their missions. The ship was about to dock, and they sometimes left here to deal with matters outside.
Only Li Yuan's stay in this world is getting longer.
He merged with the Hell Card left by Qiao Song, and his own hell was still under construction, so he would come in to see Qiao Song every day.
At first, Annie thought that Li Yuan might miss his mother too much.
But even Mo Wen, the guy who used to see his wife every day, later rarely came to this world, using the excuse that his wife in the fantasy world was not his real lover.
Only Li Yuan stayed longer and longer.
During this period, A Guang and his team also came once, fearing that Li Yuan would be too obsessed with his fantasy and unwilling to go back to the mall to continue their great plan.
It turned out that Li Yuan, who had turned into a crow, was caught by Xiao Shitou who had just finished the college entrance examination. The crow, whose vital point was caught, was carefully touched from the tip of its beak to the base of its wings by the curious Qiao Song.
"Little crow, you haven't changed at all in all these years. Hey, why are you still angry? It's just a touch of wings. Oh, don't cry, don't cry. If mom finds out that I like crows, I'll have to ask the old man downstairs to lend me a pug to play with in a few days."
Qiao Song knew that she liked kittens and puppies and her mother had done a lot for her. She didn't dare let her mother know that she cared a lot about this beautiful crow that often followed them.
Others who sneaked over to watch their interaction: …
A Guang is very sure that in this world, even if he turns into an animal, he can still feel empathy.
Li Yuan could have clearly struggled free, but when he just turned his head and was about to scream twice symbolically, his mouth was pinched precisely. He then let Qiao Song rub his back like a cat and manipulate the feathers on his wings.
It can be said that he is good at speaking but bad at acting, and he is particularly skilled at it.
Even Annie's expression when looking at their captain was becoming more and more strange.
"Li Yuan... does he have this kind of hobby?"
Turn into an animal and be played with in the palm of Qiao Qiao's hand?
Later, Qiao Song was nineteen years old and was no longer the little girl she used to be. She was sunny and pretty. She had just started college and would go home after military training to show her mother her healthy tanned skin.
I heard the bedroom window open and the sound of birds flapping their wings.
Shu Ruyue in the kitchen looked back as if she knew something.
Shu Ruyue recently learned how to make soup because Qiao Song said he liked the delicious smell of the house after opening the door.
After Li Yuan flapped his wings and flew away, he stood on a telephone pole in the distance and looked at the house which was completely different from what he remembered.
He had never dared to ask his mother to learn anything for him before, as he was afraid of troubling Shu Ruyue.
Li Yuan would only repay Shu Ruyue's love for him and support for his hobbies with a wall full of award certificates and admission letters from top universities. He would even show his mother the payment records of the scholarship to show that he was independent and had never asked his family for a penny when he started his own business.
But Qiao Song seemed to be the opposite. She was more rebellious than Li Yuan. Because she was playful and curious about the world, Qiao Song even delayed her school time for a few years when she was a child. Shu Ruyue took her out traveling.
Just because Shu Ruyue asked Qiao Song if he wanted to go traveling with his mother if he was unhappy?
Li Yuan had heard the same question before. That was after his father passed away. He chose to continue his studies and said it was okay and that he could adjust himself and continue to go to school.
Qiao Song doesn't need that kind of adjustment. She is a god who can see through people's hearts. She accompanies Shu Ruyue, and Shu Ruyue accompanies her.
This made it difficult for the other people who were building this world. During that period, they even held a small meeting to recall what the major scenic spots across the country looked like. Later, when they really couldn't figure it out, they just made up a plan.
Li Yuan would sometimes silently work with others to transform the map, but more often he realized that in this world, his mother and Qiao Song were very special too.
The blueprints of the Hell Community are still being perfected. Li Queyuan is no longer as anxious as before. He must be clear and organized and force himself to complete the Hell construction plan.
He felt that he had to learn something from Qiao Song.
Li Yuan followed the two men like a lonely black shadow.
He was learning how to love others, learning from the stone that was becoming a human being for the first time, and from his mother who had never seen him in this state before.
During this period, Li Yuan couldn't tell how many times he had been caught.
It was as if Qiao Song had a life detection radar on his body. Li Yuan actually didn't tell anyone else that Qiao Song seemed to be able to recognize all the NPCs that A Guang and the others took the initiative to play in this environment and world.
She neither exposed nor investigated the matter. She just grew up day by day according to the established order, only playing pranks on the crow occasionally.
Li Yuan did not resist either, he knew that there was not much time left.
What Fan Xi got in the data room is also part of the support of this world.
The time of death of each of them must also conform to the operating logic of this world.
The ship had landed half a year ago. Xiao Shitou's information could not be revealed. Aunt Huo hypnotized many captives from Qi Fan, including Jin Jiaqi, and made them feel that they had never been on the ship and had only conducted some prop transactions on the shore.
Twelve committees were set up, allowing different people to mix in and occupy seats to compete with Qi Fan and others.
Li Yuan and his friends' plan was proceeding step by step, just waiting for Xiao Shitou to complete her dream and become the adult Qiao Song.
Annie sighed: "It's great. Qiao Qiao is already 21 years old and a grown-up girl."
They were so small and cute when they were little, but they were interested in so many things. The various industries they worked in over the years almost drained all their brain cells.
Armed with a rich spiritual world and a strong body, such a Qiao Song would not suffer any loss even if she came to the game.
"According to the time, Qiao Qiao should be able to come out soon. If he can really enter a game, it means our experiment is successful."
Before Qiao Song entered the fantasy world, she said that she would divide her abilities among several other people. Li Yuan, Annie and others would do what they were good at, while Qiao Song would work hard to learn how to be a human being.
If she wants to open the channel between here and the human world, she must first understand why humans have such strong emotions.
In fact, Li Yuan felt that Qiao Song had already learned it and even did it much better than most people.
The time when the dream ended, which was also the time of the car accident, finally arrived.
Li Yuan saw the chain of car accidents that were bound to happen in the distance. For a moment, he wanted to end this illusion directly, but he couldn't do it.
He changed back to his original form again, and the flow of time slowed down. He appeared near the rainy overpass, holding an umbrella, looking at Qiao Song under the overpass.
Suddenly, someone on the other side of the road noticed him.
When Li Yuan turned into a crow, he would occasionally make a few mischievous noises to attract his mother's attention, but would always be violently suppressed by Qiao Song.
Later it even turned into a game between the girl and the crow.
When he transformed into a human form, a certain uneasiness and the complicated feeling of knowing the inevitable ending were like a hand that kept squeezing his heart tightly.
Li Yuan noticed that the girl on this side of the road looked at the traffic light, and then when the green light came on, she walked over without hesitation.
Qiao Song moved away from the place where Li Yuan would have been hit by a car accident in that timeline.
"You look like an old friend of mine, a annoying, cute, and beautiful crow—"
Li Yuan seemed to be frozen, motionless. He looked at his reflection in Qiao Song's eyes and was shocked by his own look at that moment.
When did he start looking at Xiao Shitou like that?
His heart had just accelerated a few times, and before Li Yuan tried to greet Qiao Song for the first time in human form, he saw the car slowly flying down from the overpass in the distance.
The destined car accident could not be avoided after all, and it smashed both of them into pieces in this bubble-like world.
Large pieces of foam were squeezed and flew into the sky, like bubbles at the bottom of the water, finally returning to the water world from the bottom of the river of death.
Li Yuan was ejected from that world.
Because of the different flow rates, others were busy with their careers, but only Li Yuan went there every day. Annie was about to criticize him as usual, asking if he was planning to betray the revolution, saying "You are not allowed to eat the grass near your own nest", but before she could say it, Li Yuan said first: "Her journey is over."
On the other end of the communicator, the other people who were communicating were stunned for a moment, and indeed found that the props in their hands could no longer allow them to enter that fantasy world.
"What about Qiao Qiao now?"
Li Yuan: "I don't know where she went. It may take some time for her to come ashore and completely transform into a player."
Each of them has his own journey and each of them has his own mission.
At least when that world collapsed, Li Yuan understood one thing.
The moment the fantasy disappeared, everything disappeared instantly, except for him and Qiao Song, who were a little slower, and then his mother at home.
Shu Ruyue even rubbed her eyes and looked at him, and of course she also saw Qiao Song. It was difficult for Li Yuan to describe the look in her eyes, as if she was about to cry but also seemed to be laughing.
"Nightmares, sweet dreams, we are always dreams. It would be great if you were all real." Shu Ruyue's expression was very similar to the scene Li Yuan saw when he almost died in the white light.
He was finally completely certain that Shu Ruyue must have come here through a dream.
This confirmed a speculation he had made long ago.
"If we want to go back, in addition to widening the passage, we also need to meet two conditions: longing and love from the real world, which are the guiding lights, and a real death, which is the umbrella for crossing the river."
Ah Guang sighed, "Mo Wen and I have already made a lot of preparations. We got back the half of the broken ship and integrated it with the props given by Xiao Shitou. This game map was made according to your requirements, but those rules are too conspicuous. Once turned on, Qi Fan and his guys will definitely notice it, and system monitoring is also very troublesome."
Fan Xi: "I can help you cover up the surveillance. I have already dealt with the papers in the data room."
There are also Aunt Huo, Fang Jinyu and Mo Wen, who will deal with the main system and personnel hypnosis issues respectively.
Everyone is working towards the final goal.
But no one said that it takes longing and love, or even the call from the hospital bed, to open the channel, follow the voice to see the reality, and go back along the widened channel.
What about Qiao Song?
What about the little stone that was born here, slept, and woke up in the water, giving them a second chance?
What A Guang and Annie thought was, we are Qiao Qiao’s friends, we will definitely remember her name.
What Li Yuan was thinking was that his mother should also remember Qiao Song, the girl who appeared in his dream and brought her beautiful dreams.
If she needed someone to love her to go home, he and her mother would love her very much.
The special copy prepared for death was hidden away and kept secret.
Only very few people know the name of that place.
Because Little Stone said that death is a cold night, but it should not be a lonely and unbearable dusk, but a dawn waiting for the daybreak.
Meeting Li Yuan and the others is a very happy journey to escape from death.
This copy, which can bring about a special kind of death, has been secretly hidden by various undercover agents.
Until the new soul named Qiao Song really turned the game upside down.
One by one, she took back the authority she had once given away, and used the river that gave birth to her to flood everything, restart everything, and correct this wrong game world.
Now, the last stepping stone to go home has appeared. These are Annie Li Yuan, A Guang Mo Wen, Aunt Huo, Doctor Wu, Fang Jinyu, and many others who have made countless preparations for passing the special copy.
Its name is Happy Cemetery.
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