Back to Basics
Cuicui came over not as a cat, but with a chinchilla in her mouth.
Su Liu was surprised. When he brought the chinchilla back, he had already told it that there were cats in the city, and asked it and its rabbit friend to stay at the ranch for the time being, and he would introduce them to each other when Cuicui came back.
Unexpectedly...
Cuicui threw the Totoro onto the carpet.
The chinchilla rolled over a few times, twisted its little butt, and jumped into Qi Fengling's arms. After keeping a safe distance from Cuicui, it rubbed its little face hard with both hands, as if it was disgusted by the smell of Cuicui's saliva on its body.
"I even dislike you," Cuicui spat, jumped onto Su Liu's shoulder, and started swearing at Totoro.
The chinchilla made a "vomit" sound, and the sound didn't sound soft and cute, but the low yet clear voice of a young Alpha.
Su Liu listened to Cuicui's one-sided scolding in a childish voice, and his dimples appeared on his face. He remembered that the protagonist of the midnight snack street seemed to be only twenty-one years old.
So young.
Su Liu couldn't help but sigh.
"Su Liu, that little yellow-haired cat said you are his wife, so I am playing with it. Otherwise, I would not touch it!" Cuicui said defensively when she saw that the chinchilla ignored her provocation.
"What? When did I become its wife?" Su Liu, who was originally outside the game, was caught off guard and was pulled into the game by Cuicui's words.
The nicknamed Totoro nodded humanely, with a serious expression: That's right.
Su Liu looked at Qi Fengling, "Just take care of it, it's crazy..."
Qi Fengling was also stunned for a moment. He slowly lowered his head and looked at the soft little thing in his arms.
The air flow stagnated for a moment.
Su Liu thought of Qi Fengling's four completed works. "The Man in the Mirror" was his debut work written when he was sixteen years old. Perhaps because there were too many indignations and emotions that needed to be expressed, Qi Fengling wrote more than one million words in just three months, and finished it in one go very smoothly.
His second book, "Convenience Store," began shortly after meeting Su Liu. He spent three years writing it. After all, he still had school to go to. High school textbooks were difficult, and the academic pressure was greater than in junior high. Add to that the fact that the protagonist had a wife in the second half of the book, and it felt a bit awkward. When he finally had some free time after the college entrance exam and wanted to regroup and resume daily updates, he was met with nothing but negative reviews. He blamed his youth. Though precocious, he was still a child at heart, psychologically immature, unable to accept reality. He simply believed his innocent love was being spurned, so he rushed through updates and rushed to a close. In fact, the book had a somewhat unfinished ending, and subsequent subscription figures were indeed far inferior to the previous one.
The third book, "The Dilapidated Hotel", was written by Qi Fengling after he had calmed down. He was only nineteen years old when he wrote it. He had just entered college at that time, and the people he met were not as green and innocent as in his "closed" student days. He had almost just touched the edge of society and had already understood a lot of human nature.
Perhaps it involved too many allusions to real-life issues, or perhaps it was simply that the plot was even more intense than the previous two, so just after reaching 200,000 words, the first volume was published due to its overwhelming popularity. Su Liu hadn't paid attention when he first started reading, captivated by the intense and suspenseful atmosphere. By the time he came to his senses, it was already 11 p.m., well past his usual bedtime. He couldn't sleep, but he didn't dare read any more. He tossed and turned all night with a nightlight on, and when he woke up in the morning, he was so angry he swore he'd never read at night again.
God knows how Su Liu controlled herself to put that book aside. Qi Fengling's writing was really great. If she hadn't set a few alarms, Su Liu would have felt unsatisfied after finishing the first volume and might have stayed up late on the website to catch up, joining the group of "hungry" readers.
Later, Su Liu couldn't help but peek over the screen. Near the end of the book, he saw Qi Fengling asking his readers for a week's leave. He immediately called Qi Fengling's editor, like a woman questioning her husband: Where is he? Why did he ask for leave? Is his wife pregnant? Is there anything more important than writing? He's almost finished, and yet he's doing this? Aren't we all waiting to see?
That year, Qi Fengling was twenty-one years old.
Su Liu's friend listened to Su Liu's repeated questions and laughed until his stomach hurt. After he had laughed enough, he said, "Don't they have manuscripts saved? It's just that they've changed from daily updates to every other day, which isn't a big difference... Besides, he has to live his life too. He's traveling to relax, so why would you interfere?"
"Who are you going with?" Su Liu bit her lip, and the resentment in her tone reached the other party's ears through the signal line.
My friend sighed and asked tentatively, "I'll put the speakerphone on. Did you talk to him? He's right next to me, chatting with that author I told you about last time. There are five of us, waiting in the terminal for boarding. Our flight is delayed, so we'll have to wait another two hours... This place is relatively close to where you are, so if you'd like, I can come pick you up."
Before he finished speaking, Su Liu heard Qi Fengling hesitantly ask softly, "Is anyone else coming? Why don't I go get it?"
Su Liu quickly said, "Forget it." He wasn't very close to the airport, but for someone who truly wanted to pick him up, any distance seemed close. He remembered a friend asking him a few days ago if he wanted to travel, but he was so engrossed in a novel at the time that he flatly declined. It was too late to regret it now. Besides, if he went with Qi Fengling and the others, he'd have to charter a plane, clear the area, and rearrange security. It was a hassle, not something that could be easily resolved.
Moreover, instead of going out with Qi Fengling, who was still a stranger at the time, he wanted to ask Qi Fengling how the subsequent plot would develop. Sometimes he would get so obsessed with it that he even imagined in his dreams that after marrying Qi Fengling, he could lie in Qi Fengling's arms at night and ask him to recite the novel in his "male god voice" or discuss the plot and foreshadowing. But after waking up, he would immediately put aside all distractions and return to his cold and distant self, as if he sneered at love.
The friend also knew that it was not an easy thing to come and pick up Su Liu at short notice. He said this just to tease Su Liu and force him to reveal some of his true nature. Seeing Su Liu's refusal, he no longer insisted.
It is worth noting that as soon as Su Liu said no, he seemed to faintly hear Qi Fengling, who was standing next to his friend, sigh softly.
That sigh was like blowing in his ear.
Itchy.
After that, they didn't see each other for a long time.
The third book was completed very quickly, and in the same year, the fourth book, "Midnight Snack Street", was launched.
This book looks at human society from an animal's perspective, examining human nature from the perspective of animality. It contains profound discussions on good and evil, such as "If you were rewarded with 100,000 yuan for killing a butterfly, would you do it?"
"If you don't want to, how about replacing the butterfly with a cockroach?"
“How do you define helpful and unhelpful?”
Soul-searching questions like these.
It once tore off the hypocritical masks of many people.
Su Liu's love for Qi Fengling was accumulated bit by bit from reading his books over and over again. It evolved from a superficial fascination with his appearance to "I can only have him" and "If it weren't for him, I wouldn't get married."
but……
There is a huge real gap between them.
Qi Fengling was 23 years old. The day of the book signing event for "Midnight Snack Street" was the last time Su Liu met him.
That time, Su Liu didn't know that Qi Fengling was just outside the door, so she said a lot of vicious words.
After returning home, Su Liu felt he'd gone too far. He even wondered if Qi Fengling had just happened to be hiding somewhere and overheard him. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it was possible. But he wasn't such a mean person; he hadn't meant to hurt Qi Fengling. Perhaps it was because he felt so guilty that when he woke up the next morning from a nightmare, his face was wet with tears. He couldn't remember what he'd dreamed of, only that he felt miserable. He'd slept for ten hours, a record-breaking night, but he was still exhausted...
Su Liu sometimes even thought that if Qi Fengling suddenly got married, such a result would be a relief for him. He could then be single until his death without any distractions and would no longer have to endure the repeated torture of "pushing away-approaching, approaching-pushing away".
If someone asks: Su Liu, you have such good conditions, why don't you get married? Do you have any concerns?
He can then tell others calmly: "Oh, the person I like is married." Yes, he and his lover are very happy, I can't disturb him, it's a pity to miss this life.
But he didn't expect that three years later, Qi Fengling suddenly passed away.
It was so sudden.
He was only twenty-six years old, yet...
When the news of his death came, Su Liu was strolling on the grassland where Qi Fengling had visited when he was twenty-one years old. He was accompanied by bodyguards. The surroundings were vast and quiet.
The silence lasted for a long time until a call came from the communication tool.
"How is this possible?" Su Liu took the phone from the bodyguard and heard the sobbing voice of her friend on the other end of the signal. She still felt like she was dreaming.
"He was tall, so the blood supply to his heart was less than that of others... sudden death... is normal," the friend said intermittently, suppressing his sadness.
The journey came to an abrupt end.
After returning, Su Liu repeatedly thought about what Qi Fengling said on that day when he was 23 years old. He inexplicably had the illusion that Qi Fengling was angered to death by him.
Although it was narcissistic to think this way, for some reason, he felt guilty, uneasy, and in pain. Even the cemetery where Qi Fengling's ashes were buried was a forbidden place for Su Liu, a sinner, who could not set foot in it.
Su Liu thought that if there was an afterlife, Qi Fengling would definitely avoid people like him and would no longer want to have anything to do with him.
Maybe, I will never want to know him again.
"You are not allowed to be with it!" Cuicui's crisp childish voice pulled Su Liu back to reality from her memories, and she used her pink paw pads to turn Su Liu's face, which was looking at Qi Fengling, towards her.
Su Liu's face turned red. He somehow clicked on the Spark City and used the system to perform a full body scan on Qi Fengling.
[Scanning people]
【Scan completed】
【Start character analysis】
【Analysis completed】
[Target Person: Protoss Alpha]
[Name (alias): Qi Fengling]
[Faction: Human Spectators]
[Character Status: 95% Completeness]
【Luck Value: 0%】
【Love Value: Full】
Su Liu looked at the character interface, then at Qi Fengling. He felt that the amount of information was a bit overwhelming, and he didn't know how to start.
If he had scanned Qi Fengling when he first reunited with him, would some of the problems have been easily resolved?
But Su Liu felt that he couldn't do it. At that time, he regarded Qi Fengling as a book traveler like himself, and did not regard the indigenous people of this world as living people. In his bones, he still had some arrogance of playing with the world, but now... he no longer rejected this method of analyzing people into data. Su Liu felt that his inexplicable insistence at the time was really stupid.
Why doesn’t Su Liu think about it? His city lord panel is the earliest digitized character analysis diagram. What is the difference between him and these analyzed indigenous people?
Su Liu fixed his eyes on the row of target people and looked down.
God Clan? Why not the ancestor of the blood clan?
95% complete?
Where is the other 5 percent?
Even if we add the fragments of the four protagonists from the four novels, it would only be 99%. What about the remaining 1%? Where should Su Liu find it?
...The luck value is zero, my God, isn’t this a state of being deprived?
[System: Congratulations to the City Lord for unlocking the hidden mode.]
【Version loading】
【Loading completed】
【System panel updated】
【System Mode: Back to Basics 2.0】
[Return Type: Luck Value (i.e., in Deprivation Mode: Protagonist Aura)]
[Conditions for returning to the original state: 1. Become a king; 2. Sever the marriage ties between the Sons of Destiny; 3. Stop the Sons of Destiny from continuing to plunder the bloodline of the gods.]
The system switched to version 2.0 and gave clearer instructions. Version 1.0 was mainly aimed at the male protagonist, the king, but version 2.0 was very straightforward. Qi Fengling's luck was not only divided by the king, but also by the "female protagonist" hidden in the dark.
Su Liu has studied numerology. Everyone has more or less luck, but this kind of thing cannot be taken away by any stranger. If you want to take away someone's luck, you must have an inseparable close relationship with him or her. Moreover, this deprivation is not intentional. It is a natural entropy change after long-term contact, where high energy flows irreversibly to low energy. This is why some people are obviously very happy in the first half of their lives, but meet the wrong person when they get married, or their faces change after their relatives and friends make the wrong acquaintances.
Their luck was subtly sucked away by those close to them.
This is the most difficult to guard against "symbiotic strangulation situation".
Anyone who enters the game will either die or be injured.
As Qi Fengling's brother, the king has a certain chance of "depriving" Qi Fengling of his luck. So, what path does the "heroine" take?
Yes.
If the "female protagonist" is Qi Fengling's former cousin, everything would make sense.
The dust in front of you?
cousin?
It was really a speck of dust right under his nose, so small that Su Liu almost ignored it.
"If you are nice to it, you have to find me a rabbit as a pet," Cui Cui saw Su Liu staring at something in the void with empty eyes, as if he didn't want to pay any attention to it, so she had to emphasize it as a compromise.
"What pet?" Su Liu came back to his senses.
"It's the little white one, the one following the little yellow-haired one," Cui Cui raised her front legs and pointed seriously at the little rabbit lying on the crack of the door, looking inside the door in a dog-like manner.
"That's its friend, not a pet? You're talking nonsense," Su Liu said with amusement as she gently hit Cuicui's little pink pad.
"I don't have one," Cui Cui meowed excitedly. "It, that little yellow-haired rat said it was its pet, and it said it so proudly. It's just a little yellow-haired, stinky rat, how come it has a wife and a pet? I've grown up so big and still have nothing!"
"...Okay, I'll keep an eye on it for you," Su Liu couldn't stand Cuicui's coquettishness. He felt like the eldest child in the family was fighting with the second child.
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