Chapter 512: With Me Here……

“Hey! Hey! Lu Yibei, are you dead asleep again or what!?”

“Huh?” Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment, picked up his phone and snapped at Su Mi on the other end, “You’re the one who’s dead asleep! I’m listening!”

“If you’re awake, hurry up and get over here! Let Hua City’s number one mid, sumaker, carry you!”

Lu Yibei rolled his eyes. “What if you can’t carry me?”

“If I can’t, I’ll buy you milk tea!”

“You said it!”

“I said it!” Su Mi cut him off, “We’re at that internet cafe on Wenhua Road! Get over here!”

With that, not giving Lu Yibei a chance to refuse, he quickly hung up.

“Beep—-!”

Lu Yibei, “……”

After hanging up, he sat on the bed, looked at the bright sunshine outside the window, and pondered for a long while before finally figuring out what was going on.

The special space had resumed operation, and the projection drawn from Hua City had reconstructed the entire city.

Although the Eclipse Society had snatched away a considerable amount of the powers used to construct the special space, causing some “residents” within it to vanish into thin air,

compared to those who remained, the vanished “residents” were actually just a small fraction.

For Lu Yibei, the recent turmoil had been extremely dangerous, nearly costing him his life.

But for those “residents” who reappeared with the city’s reconstruction, perhaps it was just a nap, a brief nightmare.

When the dream ended, the sun rose as usual, and the shadow of the nightmare lingering in their minds quickly faded away in the sunlight, leaving no trace in their memories.

“Internet cafe and farewell dinner… I guess I should go?”

Lu Yibei muttered, got up from the bed, rubbed his messy hair, and headed to the bathroom.

Now that he had complete control over this special space, with just a little effort, he could erase every trace that “Lu Yibei’s projection” had left here.

Then, let this city, born from Hua City’s projection, continue to run as if Lu Yibei had never existed.

But he always felt that leaving just like that would be missing something.

People always need a sense of ritual in life, just like ordinary days need a ray of sunshine.

He wanted to say a proper goodbye here, a farewell with a bit of ceremony, though he couldn’t quite say what exactly he was bidding farewell to……

——–

“Squeak—-!”

Turning off the faucet, Lu Yibei braced his hands on the edge of the sink and looked up at the face reflected in the mirror.

“Handsome! Who would’ve thought that rebuilding my body with Wang Yingying’s flesh and blood would have this effect? Awesome, Wang Yingying!”

At this moment, his facial features were still the same as before, but more refined and perfect; all those tiny flaws had vanished, as if the beauty filter was maxed out.

Lu Yibei pinched his own face, feeling the real sensation at his fingertips, and finally let go of the anxiety in his heart, letting out a long sigh of relief.

“Whew, thank goodness, it’s real……”

As he spoke, he tried to force a smile at the mirror, and then……

He saw a face with trembling lips trying to curve upward, a facial paralysis that smiled without warmth.

It seemed that in the process of perfect bodily reconstruction, his facial paralysis had also been perfectly replicated.

Lu Yibei, “……”

Before parting with the PL girl, he had seriously asked her a grave question: after he woke up, could he return to his original form.

But the only answer he got was a casual, “Just prepare a few more sets of girls’ clothes when you get back? Some things are hard to accept at first, but once you do, it’s not a big deal.”

Hearing the PL girl’s reply, Lu Yibei’s face instantly turned ashen, his body swayed a few times, and then, like a pigeon giving up on its dreams, he leaned forward and fell off the rooftop.

Lu Xun once said: “The temperament of people in Country Z is always to seek compromise and the middle ground.”

Lu Yibei was the same.

For example, if you said the good days were over, further haunting transformation, living as a girl–he would never accept it. But if you suggested restoring him to how he was before entering the special space, maybe even a bit more handsome, he’d compromise and be willing to accept reality.

In fact, the PL girl hadn’t tried to scare Lu Yibei; she really didn’t know if, after using the Beast of Inheritance’s flesh and blood to rebuild his body, Lu Yibei could return to his original form.

After all, she hadn’t experienced anything like this either. Theoretically, restoring the body to exactly as it was before was almost impossible.

Any slight deviation, and Lu Yibei might end up looking like that mentally polluting face he “sculpted” himself.

Fortunately, there was Ms. Wang Meili’s photo album.

Those photos meticulously recorded him from childhood to adulthood, even all his haunting transformation experiences, allowing him to relive his growth from a child to a teenager to his final haunting transformation, and thus perfectly reconstruct his body.

Just like restoring from a backup.

However.

Although Lu Yibei knew full well that the reason he could recover was all thanks to Ms. Wang Meili, he deliberately avoided thinking about it.

He didn’t think about it, didn’t recall it, and didn’t mention it.

“Forget it, surviving a disaster like this, I shouldn’t sweat the small stuff like facial paralysis!” Lu Yibei muttered to himself.

“Time to go find Su Mi and the others. That milk tea today, I’m definitely getting it!”

With that, he changed clothes and went out.

When he passed the third floor, he paused for a moment, raised his hand, and gently knocked on the door of the Nanling Rao Hua family.

He waited a long time, but no one answered.

Several hours later, at an internet café on Wenhua Road in Hua City.

Staring at the huge word “Defeat” on the screen, Lu Yibei took his hands off the keyboard, set down his headphones, and looked expressionlessly at Su Mi beside him.

Being stared at by Lu Yibei, Su Mi froze for a moment, scratched the back of his head awkwardly, forced a smile, and changed the subject, “Uh, it’s been a while since I went to your place. How’s Ms. Wang Meili doing lately?”

Hearing Su Mi mention Ms. Wang Meili, Lu Yibei’s eyes trembled slightly, his heart skipped a beat as if squeezed, but quickly returned to normal, and then he started rambling.

“Aiyo, this Su Mi is just too weak! Didn’t you say you’d carry me? Hilarious, you can’t even lift off! No way, no way? Is there really a mid-laner who deals less damage than the support in a whole game!”

“And you say, our sumaker just wanted to buy me a cup of milk tea? Wow, are you a Bodhisattva or something?! You love giving gifts that much?”

“I…” Listening to Lu Yibei’s sarcastic banter, Su Mi’s chest heaved, and he growled fiercely, “Shut up! It’s just milk tea, right? I’ll buy you a cup, okay?”

“You think one cup is enough to shut me up?”

“Then how many do you want?”

“One hundred cups?”

“Damn, fifty at most!” Su Mi growled.

“Deal!” Lu Yibei’s eyes sharpened. He turned and shouted to the classmates with them, “Hey everyone, if you want milk tea, send your order in the class group chat. Today, it’s all on Young Master Su!”

As soon as he finished, the internet café erupted in cheers.

“Wuhu~!”

“Young Master Su is so generous!”

“……”

For a moment, the internet café was filled with a joyful atmosphere.

However, human joys and sorrows are not shared. The happiness belonged to them, but not to Su Mi, nor to Lu Yibei.

While the classmates cheered and celebrated, Lu Yibei sat in his chair, staring blankly at them, silent.

He knew all these people–they were his former high school classmates, or rather, their projections. Some of them had even been quite close to him.

Lu Yibei once thought that as long as he didn’t attend the farewell dinner, no one would really part ways.

However, ever since he got into a car accident during the graduation trip, missed the graduation gathering, and then vanished as if evaporated from the world, lying in the hospital for nearly a year, he lost contact with everyone, disappearing into the sea of people.

Lu Yibei looked at them, his face expressionless. Then, as if remembering something, his eyes dimmed……

——–

Half an hour later.

In front of Red Sun Self-Service Hot Pot on Wenhua Road, a group of teenagers holding milk tea walked in through the doors in neat lines, sipping through their straws.

Aside from the dozen or so who had played games at the internet café, the rest of the classmates attending the graduation dinner had arrived early. Inside the hot pot restaurant, the atmosphere was lively and festive.

That’s right, it was truly lively–two classmates at the entrance seemed to have started drinking before the meal even began, already tipsy, hugging each other and twisting around as if dancing a waltz.

In a corner of a private room, a guy who had suppressed his feelings for three years, emboldened by alcohol, was clumsily strumming a guitar, seizing his last chance to confess to the boy he liked. The boy sat there dazed, his cheeks flushed–who knew if it was from the alcohol or from shyness.

Avoiding the chaos at the center, Lu Yibei and Su Mi’s group found a table in the corner and sat down.

Su Mi glanced at the mandarin duck hot pot on the table and his face instantly darkened.

“What the hell? Are you kidding me, mandarin duck hot pot? Xu Dazhi, did you order this?”

“I… my problem flared up again recently…” a male classmate said weakly.

“No way! Absolutely not!” Su Mi slapped the table and declared, “Mild spicy is our final bottom line!”

Instead of helping Xu Dazhi out, the other classmates jeered, “Yeah! Hold the line! Xu Dazhi, if you’re afraid your butt will hurt, go eat at another table!”

Watching this scene, Lu Yibei felt a quiet sense of emotion.

So, this is what a farewell dinner is like? Not bad at all!

But, can Xu Dazhi really eat this? I remember, in senior year, he had hemorrhoid surgery three times.

As he was secretly pondering, a small hand suddenly reached out from behind and gently patted his shoulder.

“Lu Yibei, where’s Ah-Hua? Didn’t she come with you?”

Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment. He turned to look at the girl who had appeared behind him at some point, stared for two or three seconds, then shook his head. “No, I went gaming with them today. I didn’t come with Ah-Hua.”

Hearing this, the girl frowned and muttered, “That’s strange. We clearly agreed to go shopping this afternoon, but I haven’t seen her all day, and I can’t reach her by phone… Now, even her boyfriend doesn’t know where she is. That’s really weird.”

“Forget it, it’s fine. You go ahead and eat!” The girl smiled at Lu Yibei, then turned and went back to her seat.

Watching the girl’s departing figure, Lu Yibei frowned slightly.

Ah-Hua… Although I don’t know why, in that special space, that married woman became my childhood friend, but judging from my previous interactions with her, she should be a psychic.

So, her projection was probably taken away by the Eclipse Society along with her power.

In other words, she no longer exists in this city, right? Just like…

Lu Yibei thought, shaking his head to ruthlessly cast out the image of Ms. Wang Meili that was surfacing in his mind. He pulled himself together and focused on eating.

Beef tripe, duck intestines, tender beef… As the bubbling spicy oil broth cooked the food, Lu Yibei silently stuffed bite after bite into his mouth. To taste the perfectly cooked delicacies at the first moment, he even used his predictive abilities.

He had originally decided to be invisible, to bury his head and finish this farewell dinner that was more symbolic than meaningful, then quietly erase his traces and continue being a pawn maintaining the operation of the special space.

However, something unexpected happened as he ate.

A classmate at the same table accidentally knocked over a glass, spilling the drink into the stove. The flickering flames ignited it, instantly releasing an unpleasant smell.

As the other classmates caught the strange odor and hurriedly moved back, Su Mi noticed that Lu Yibei acted as if nothing had happened, his eyes fixed on the hot pot in a daze, as if his soul for eating had awakened, continuously sending cooked beef tripe into his mouth.

Seeing this, Su Mi frowned slightly, walked over, squatted beside Lu Yibei, and patted his thigh. “Yibei, don’t you smell something strange?”

“Strange smell… No!” Lu Yibei looked blankly at Su Mi, then at the hot pot on the table, frowning.

He noticed that wisps of blue smoke were rising from the stove under the hot pot, caused by the spilled drink, but none of the smoke drifted toward him at all.

After being stunned for two seconds, he suddenly realized something, searched himself, and then found in his pocket the bracelet left by Ms. Wang Meili, which could keep smoke from drifting his way while eating hot pot.

Lu Yibei was silent for a while, then suddenly stood up and said to Su Mi, “I’m going to the restroom.” With that, he quickly left the private room.

——–

At dusk, as the lights began to glow.

Jiang Li walked along Wenhua Road, the treetops of the street trees swaying in the wind, with a few half-green, half-yellow leaves occasionally drifting down.

She walked, stopped, searched, and looked down from time to time at the newly bought compass in her hand, then at her surroundings, gradually moving closer to Lu Yibei.

Then…

At a bustling intersection, her gaze passed through the crowd. Under the sign reading “Red Sun Self-Service Hot Pot,” she saw a familiar figure, evoking that feeling of “suddenly turning around, that person is right there where the lights are dimmest.”

The boy sat on a stone post by the roadside, holding something in his hands, head lowered, staring intently, his figure so lonely and desolate, like a little beast separated from its group.

Jiang Li opened her mouth, instinctively wanting to call out Lu Yibei’s name, but just before she spoke, she closed her lips again. Taking advantage of the green light, she quickly walked over.

——–

By the street.

Lu Yibei stared blankly at the bracelet in his hand, his mind a complete blank.

He had thought that his inexplicable obsession with this “farewell” was just some sudden sentimental illness.

However, the moment he pulled the bracelet from his pocket, he suddenly understood. He didn’t want to say goodbye to these classmates, nor to Nanling Rao Hua, or this special space. He just wanted to say goodbye to Ms. Wang Meili.

Although he had been avoiding it, pretending to be unaffected by playing games with classmates, attending graduation and farewell dinners, it was all just avoidance, just self-deception…

Just like he couldn’t face his father’s departure before, now he couldn’t face Ms. Wang Meili’s departure either.

Damn it, if only she had been an irresponsible mother who only gave birth and didn’t care for him…

Lu Yibei thought bitterly, sighed softly, and gripped the bracelet tightly in his hand.

At that moment, a voice suddenly sounded beside him.

“Looks like the hot pot here isn’t very good. This customer is about to cry from eating.”

Seeing the round-toed little leather shoes suddenly appear in his line of sight, Lu Yibei froze for a moment. His gaze moved upward, past the simple white dress, and saw a familiar face.

The streetlight cast a gentle glow on the girl’s soft features, tinting the slightly cold eyes with a faint golden shimmer.

The light made the girl’s facial lines look very soft, and the light in her eyes was dyed a charming gold.

“…” Lu Yibei hesitated to speak, then glanced at the hot pot restaurant sign behind him, trying his best to look cheerful. “Actually, the hot pot here is pretty good. The base is rich, the stir-fry is fragrant, the self-service dishes are good and cheap, and most importantly, the drinks are free.”

“Oh.” Jiang Li responded lightly, tilting her head and asking, “So, are you working part-time here? Did the boss bully you while you were working, so you want to cry?”

“Of course not. It’s good enough that I don’t bully the boss.”

“…” Jiang Li glanced at the small sign hanging at the hot pot restaurant entrance, “Class 2, Grade 3 Teacher Appreciation Banquet,” and nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, I get it. You were reminiscing about your youth, and before you knew it, you got all sentimental.”

“People like us, what youth do we have!” Lu Yibei joked, lowering his head quietly, not daring to look into Jiang Li’s eyes that seemed to see through people’s hearts.

However, Jiang Li still caught the moment he lowered his head, and the emotion he was trying so hard to suppress in his eyes.

She stepped forward, gently hugged Lu Yibei’s head, and said softly, “Then why? If you want, you can tell me.”

Feeling the faint warmth from those soft arms, Lu Yibei’s body stiffened, and in the next moment, tears burst uncontrollably from his eyes.

He could have kept everything buried in his heart, if Jiang Li hadn’t appeared…

“Boss… I don’t have a mom anymore! I don’t have any family left! I won’t have any in the future!”

“…” Jiang Li was stunned for a moment, then after a long silence, she slowly lowered her head, pressing her forehead to the top of Lu Yibei’s head, and said softly, “It’s okay, I’m here…”