Chapter 85

Chapter 85

"Click this one, this one."

"No, no, click this one."

"Click this one first, then this one."

...

The hushed squabbling from the room quickly faded away.

Soon after, in the darkness, the tightly shut door quietly opened just a slit.

Through the gap, a hand's width off the floor, a dark, shadowy head peeked out.

Before the hand-sized doll could get a clear look at the situation outside, he was pushed aside from below, and a silver head popped up above him.

Meng Shijiu, now shrunken, had just climbed onto See's back when he saw Butler Lin coming up the stairs. He immediately urged See, "He's coming up, hurry up, let's go!"

"What kind of eyesight is that? He's practically in your face," Meng Shijiu grumbled, poking See's shoulder, then nimbly slid down from his back.

See: First time being human, please be understanding 🙂

See finally spotted Butler Lin and gauged the distance—

Too late.

See decided instantly, grabbed Meng Shijiu's arm, and pulled the silver-haired doll along as they dashed out the door toward a dark corner.

"..."

"Snick." The door to Meng Shijiu's bedroom was locked again.

Meng Shijiu and See exchanged a look.

—Did he not notice?

The two dolls huddled in the corner, listening as Butler Lin's footsteps grew closer, about to round the corner.

See tugged on Meng Shijiu's sleeve and pointed to the waist-high window behind them.

"Ding—10 points have been successfully deducted."

After purchasing the flight function in the shop again, the two dolls quickly flew into the air and landed by the window.

Meng Shijiu tinkered with the window for half a second; See noted his movements were even more practiced than Cui Suifu's.

The window opened silently.

See: What exactly did you do in your past life?

"..."

Butler Lin reached the corner, saw the open window, and frowned again, puzzled.

A moment later, the window was closed by Butler Lin. Though he moved carefully, it still made a clear sound.

Hovering in mid-air, See asked, worried, "Then how do we get back later?"

Meng Shijiu didn't answer, twirling happily in the air.

The brainy one and the grumpy one.

Meng Shijiu tugged his sleeve. "Kitchen, kitchen!"

Yielding to authority, See sighed and silently led the way.

*

Frost Manor, the black buildings stood in silence. On the roof of the main villa, purple clematis climbed the gray glazed tiles along the stonework.

The night was endless, the starry sky expansive.

To see all of Frost Manor, the bell tower was best. For a comfortable spot to stay, the westernmost building was ideal. But Meng Shijiu chose the roof of the main villa.

Meng Shijiu and See had returned to their normal sizes.

Meng Shijiu held a cake, perched casually on the stone ledge of the roof. See sat nearby.

The night breeze ruffled the Alpha's long hair, revealing eyes like a siren's.

Brilliant starlight shone in his eyes.

See could finally take a good look at his host.

So this is what it felt like.

The first feeling was actually jealousy.

He felt equally jealous of everyone in this world who had seen the host before him.

Since Meng Shijiu woke up, See hadn't really talked much with his host.

"Shi Jiu." Even in human form, See's voice remained mechanical, which was why Meng Shijiu dismissed the idea of letting him appear before others.

Hiding a man was better than See being captured and studied as a rare specimen. Meng Shijiu firmly believed this.

"Are you still leaving?" See turned his face completely towards him.

Apart from his voice, he looked no different from a real person. Even the tenderness and indulgence in his eyes as he gazed at Meng Shijiu seemed deeper and more genuine than most.

He had actually thought a lot these past few days.

"I'm not leaving." Meng Shijiu answered without hesitation, his tone light, his voice like a clear rain in the stillness.

"The cake here is better." He lifted his chin slightly, speaking between bites.

See softly agreed. "Okay."

Whatever the host wanted, he would do.

Wherever the host wanted to go, he would go.

Anything was fine.

However...

Since task settlements could only be conducted once a month, Shi Jiu's occasional semi-transparent state would also persist for a while.

Thinking of the unexpectedly triggered task settlement, See frowned.

That's weird, See thought. There’s something off about Ye Lingxi.

Lately, he’d been thinking more about how Shi Jiu was welcome to stay here, but only if he wanted to.

Not because Shi Jiu was trapped here by some accident.

See asked, "Shi Jiu, when did you wake up?"

He was referring to the day Shi Jiu was trapped in the basement by Qian Zhangli.

There was a reason See asked this out of the blue; he had felt something was off from the start. At the time, Shi Jiu didn't put up much of a fight and just swallowed the emetic Qian Chunyan fed him, which went against his bodily instincts.

Ever since returning to Frost, Meng Shijiu hadn't messaged Qian Chunyan either—even after See had briefly explained the father-son relationship between Qian Chunyan and Qian Zhangli, and what had happened in the basement.

Given Shi Jiu's personality, it was strange that he neither thanked Qian Chunyan nor asked further about that lab. Even more peculiar.

Meng Shijiu paused, licking the cream off his lips: "Oh, when his father took out the syringe."

He leaned back and lay down on the platform, gazing at the stars in the sky.

Actually, he wasn't fully awake then; it was just a conditioned reflex to danger and malice. His mind had woken up a little, but he couldn't yet control his body.

In fact, even if See didn't tell him, Meng Shijiu could mostly guess what had happened during those days.

As for why he hadn't contacted Qian Chunyan...

Precisely because he was "conscious" and had witnessed the confrontation, he understood that Qian Chunyan probably didn't want him to know what had happened either.

A "thank you" wasn't appropriate to say right now.

He'd just owe it for now.

...Huh, when was the last time I looked at the stars like this?

Meng Shijiu thought for a moment and for some reason remembered the aquarium Cui Suifu took him to on the day they skipped class.

"Shi Jiu," See hesitated before speaking up, "while you were unconscious... did you remember anything?"

Meng Shijiu didn't understand. His voice was a bit muffled with him lying down: "Huh? What?"

See: "Like... past lives, or something like that."

"No." Meng Shijiu laughed.

"You have quite the imagination."

See scooted over, lying down on the platform beside him, both gazing at the wide-open night sky.

Back when he was doing his old missions, See had never used points to become a living person, let alone lie on a rooftop with his host like this, watching the stars.

In See's monotonous daily grind as a model employee, he'd slacked off for the first time, gone on strike for the first time, just because he wanted to look at his host a little longer.

Like this, just the two of them together, feeling the evening breeze, watching the stars—it felt beautiful, almost like a dream.

The more it felt like this, the more attachment and unwillingness grew.

See didn't know how long he could maintain this state of "willingly" staying by Shi Jiu's side, asking for nothing.

See: "Ye Lingxi is suspicious. The change in the Worldline Deviation Level seems like he was suddenly reborn or recovered some memory... I also feel..."

See trailed off.

"Ye Lingxi seems to know of my existence, even knows... you were going to leave."

"Hmm... I don't know." Meng Shijiu looked at the stars.

"Whatever," Meng Shijiu said.

"We'll figure it out later. Tonight, we're watching the stars."

Meng Shijiu: "But. There's one thing you might have gotten wrong."

"The Worldline Deviation Level didn't reach 100% because of Ye Lingxi."

See frowned: "How could that be..."

"From the time I received the alert until I encountered Ye Lingxi that night, it probably wasn't more than half an hour."

Meng Shijiu smiled faintly: "In such a short time, Classmate Ye wouldn't have had time to prepare such a meticulous kidnapping plan."

"So, at that time... it wasn't that I didn't hear the alert. It was that the moment I chose to settle the mission, the Worldline Deviation Level changed."

See's heart skipped a beat.

...If... if the change in the Worldline Restoration Progress at that time was because of the host's departure.

Shi Jiu didn't know, but he did.

—What reaching 100% Worldline Deviation Level meant.

It meant the possibility of the story's deviated ending occurring became 100%.

The system's algorithms were bizarre and detached, but this point remained unchanged.

See felt the heart that didn't belong to him suddenly beat faster.

—The story's ending was.

Ye Lingxi destroys the world.

No.

That wasn't entirely accurate.

The story's ending was...

The world is destroyed.

See almost immediately realized—

A long, long time ago, he had thought it strange that someone like his host would be bound and brought over from the original world.

If someone who wasn't the protagonist but was an important figure left their original world, it would inevitably affect that world's stability.

...Then what if.

The host wasn't from that world? What if the host was actually from this ABO world?

See's heart raced wildly.

Luckily, even if his heart was racing so fast he could barely breathe, it wouldn't show on his face, See thought, distracted.

A huge wave of worry and fear suddenly hit him.

If Shi Jiu truly belonged to this world... then according to the original, altered plot, what in the world happened later that caused Shi Jiu to leave this world?

—Leaving... wasn't that just...

See jolted awake.

He gazed blankly at the starry sky, pushed down his chaotic thoughts, and turned his face to look at the person beside him.

Meng Shijiu, as if completely oblivious to his inner turmoil, pushed himself up on an elbow and got up from the platform, browsing the system store.

Meng Shijiu asked him, "What's this?"

Most items in the store were meant for completing tasks and were mostly functional—shrinking, flying, teleporting...

Shi Jiu had secretly tried all these things over the past few days—he used to be so guarded, unwilling to spend a single point because he was afraid of forming a connection. Thinking about it amused See.

His earlier panic subsided slightly.

No matter what, he wouldn't let his host get hurt again.

See thought.

He'd rather stay off the grid forever than return to Meng Shijiu's mind.

He'd had enough of those days of feeling powerless.

Meng Shijiu's finger now hovered over some wine tucked away in a corner of the store.

Two kinds.

One in a pink porcelain bottle, the other in a blue one.

See knew what Meng Shijiu was thinking: "Both are drinkable, just ordinary wine."

Meng Shijiu ordered them right away.

"Ding—1 point successfully deducted."

"Ding—1 point successfully deducted."

See: "..."

See warned, "Only a sip."

Meng Shijiu: "Got it."

He took a small sip from each.

The pink bottle tasted like gardenia-flavored ice cream.

The blue one was pomegranate wine.