Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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Lu Huan had never encountered such a situation before; the curtain had suddenly vanished as if it had never existed. He stepped over the shattered table and looked around. Sunlight streamed in through the carved wooden window, revealing only dust particles in the air.
His heart pounded wildly with panic, and he subconsciously tentatively called out to the air, “Xiao Xi, Xiao Xi…?”
He called out several times, each call more urgent than the last, but the room was as silent as a tomb, and even the wind that used to flutter his sleeves had ceased to appear.
There was no response.
….
Lu Huan looked around, his face as white as paper, wondering if he was having a nightmare.
This was a scene that only appeared in his nightmares.
Because he was unsure when she might suddenly disappear, he was eager from the beginning to know her identity, to see her, and to go to her world. Only with her by his side could he feel at ease. But to his utter surprise, his worst fears came true.
He had a premonition that this time, her absence for eight whole days was not the same as before. If he couldn’t find her this time, he might never see her again…
But why did it suddenly happen like this?!
Was something wrong with her? Or had he been pushing her too hard lately, so she… didn’t want him anymore… and had cut off all contact with him?
Lu Huan felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.
The table had just collapsed with a loud thud, startling the guards outside. Two guards rushed in and saw scrolls scattered all over the floor, trampled under the Ninth Prince’s feet. They hurriedly asked, “Your Highness, what happened?”
Lu Huan composed himself, trying his best to stay calm, and said in a deep voice, “It’s nothing.”
The curtain had now completely disappeared, and she was not responding at all. He didn’t know how long this situation would last. If he could only wait like this, it would be too passive.
Moreover, he was worried that something unexpected might have happened to her— the only thing he could do now was to complete task fifteen, which was given before the curtain disappeared, as quickly as possible.
Thinking of this, Lu Huan disregarded the mess of inkstones and brushes scattered all over the floor and hurried outside.
As he walked, he said to the guards behind him, “Prepare the horse, I’m going to Chengzhou.”
The palace eunuchs rushed over from the carved corridor, but missed the Ninth Prince, only managing to see his robes disappear into the prince’s residence. The eunuchs exchanged bewildered glances, wondering what had spurred the Ninth Prince in such a hurry.
….
Su Xi squatted at home and used a hairdryer to blow-dry her phone for half an hour, but the phone still wouldn’t turn on.
So she dug out an old phone she’d discarded last year, spent over twenty minutes managing to charge it up a bit, and then opened the App Store. However, she couldn’t find the game at all; no matter which word or even the English word related to the game, nothing came up. Baidu did the same— it returned nothing.
Su Xi started to panic. She wasn’t afraid of her phone breaking; she was afraid of losing contact with the cub’s world.
“It should be able to be fixed…” Su Xi hurriedly reassured herself, then grabbed her keys and two phones, changed her shoes and went out, intending to hurry to the phone repair shop.
The sun outside was blazing, but Su Xi didn’t even bother to grab a parasol. As she walked to the entrance of the residential area, she ran into Huo Jingchuan, who was returning from playing basketball. Seeing her hurrying away on her bicycle, Huo Jingchuan stopped her: “Su Xi, it’s so hot outside, where are you going?”
Upon seeing Huo Jingchuan, Su Xi quickly said, “Can I borrow your phone for a moment?”
“Is your phone broken?” Huo Jingchuan then noticed that she was holding a phone with a black screen, so he took it out of his pocket and handed it to her.
As usual, Su Xi tried to find the game on his phone, but just like at the hospital, he couldn’t find it at all— the game seemed to have vanished into thin air.
…Could it be that only my broken phone has this game?!
Su Xi’s bad premonition grew stronger and stronger. So she threw his phone back to Huo Jingchuan and, without even taking time to explain, hurriedly rode her bicycle out of the community gate.
There was a mobile phone repair shop just two streets away, but because it was too hot at noon, Su Xi rode her bicycle there and found that it was closed. So she searched on her old phone and found that there was another one two streets away.
Without thinking, she quickly rode her bike over.
Fortunately, there weren’t many people in the shop, so there was no need to wait in line. Su Xi left her bicycle outside and went inside, sweating profusely. She eagerly handed her phone to the owner: “Boss, could you please fix this as soon as possible?”
“It depends on the extent of the damage.” The shop owner looked up from behind the counter and took the phone.
After handing it to the shop owner, Su Xi quickly searched through the demo units on the counter but couldn’t find the game.
In other words, only if one solution is fixed, otherwise—
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she held her breath as she looked at her boss: “How is it?”
The shopkeeper fiddled with the tools for a while, frowned, and said to Su Xi, “I’m not sure if your motherboard is fried. If it is, it’s probably beyond repair. And even if it can be repaired, some of the data on your phone that was formatted will be lost. I’ll try my best.”
“It’s highly unlikely that it can’t be repaired?” Su Xi was stunned.
“Yes,” the shopkeeper said, “Be prepared. But phones are cheap now, how about adding a few thousand more to buy a newly released model…”
Su Xi didn’t hear a word he said after that. Her hands and feet had gone ice-cold as she left the mobile phone store. She pushed her bicycle back along the road, and as she walked, tears started to fall uncontrollably.
The sun was scorching hot, making the ground scalding. When Su Xi crossed the long bridge, her vision blurred. She couldn’t help but stop her bicycle, sit down on the curb, and rub her eyes.
It was not just about a mobile phone.
The phone, worth tens of thousands of yuan, offered no way to contact that other world, and therefore held no meaning for her.
What if, what if I lose my phone in the pool and lose all contact with his world?
What if I never see him again?
And the last time I saw him, I behaved so badly and said things that upset him.
She clearly didn’t want to avoid seeing him; it’s just that she hadn’t known how to face him these past few days, so she uselessly avoided him, which made him mistakenly think that she didn’t really want to see him.
He also asked me to visit him tonight if I had nothing else to do, but I couldn’t keep my promise.
Su Xi was filled with anxiety. What if this phone could never be repaired? Would her first encounter, acquaintance, companionship, and the gradual dependence she had formed with that world all come to an abrupt end this summer?
All of this felt like a long dream to her.
She stared at the ground in a panic, feeling so afraid she wanted to cry.
….
The boss said it would take at least three days to determine whether the repair could be done well, so Su Xi could only go home and wait anxiously.
When Su Xi’s parents got home, they heard that her phone had gotten wet. Seeing her slumped on the sofa looking listless, they assumed she was unhappy and planned to take her to buy another one. However, Su Xi had no intention of going out and just said, “Let’s wait a bit longer. Maybe it can be fixed. I’ll use the old one for now.”
Mother Su was puzzled: “It’s just a cell phone, you can just buy a new one if it breaks.”
Su Xi shoveled rice into her mouth, trying hard to hold back her tears. She had never felt that three days pass so slowly.
On the third day, she couldn’t wait to call the owner, only to be told that the phone was still under repair, the motherboard was damaged to some extent and was no longer usable, and the store’s technicians were trying to see if they could transfer the previous data so that it could be used in the new phone.
“It’s useless now?” Su Xi couldn’t believe her ears.
She hung up the phone and stayed alone in her room, her mind buzzing, feeling extremely sad.
It was all her fault for being careless…
There had been no response from him these past few days. It seems that after her phone crashed, the curtain on Lu Huan’s end must have disappeared as well. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have stopped looking for her.
Su Xi hugged her knees, buried her face in them, and her mind went blank.
Many scenes flashed through her mind… When she first moved the teacup in the woodshed of the Ning Wang’s mansion, Lu Huan, who was still a simple line drawing, was extremely wary and suspected that it was haunted. Thinking of those times, Su Xi couldn’t help but smile.
She was extremely surprised when a little heart first appeared on his head, and afterwards she couldn’t help but poke him often to see what kind of bubbles would appear on his head.
When he first mistook her for a ghost, he even tried to hold an umbrella over her to shield her from the snow… Later, after he also got his own screen, he forcibly changed the cartoon drawings she could see to his own original drawings.
Although Su Xi missed that chubby face, she didn’t want to upset Lu Huan, so she never switched back. She thought there was plenty of time, and she would quietly switch back when he wasn’t looking…
But now… there was no such thing as a long future…
Su Xi’s tears soaked a small patch of her knee.
As time went by, it seemed like she was keeping him company, but in reality, on those nights when she stayed up late doing practice papers, it was him who was with her.
She was completely unaware when she had it, but when she lost it, she was shocked to realize how many shared memories they had, and that these memories were about to come to an abrupt end today. From now on, neither the little one nor Lu Huan would appear in front of her again… She felt as if a piece of her heart had been ripped out.
….
Seven days passed in Su Xi’s place. Although she ate as usual, she was listless all day long.
Mother Su couldn’t help but worry. After dinner that day, she touched her forehead and said, “You don’t have a fever, Xi Xi. Then why do you look so pale? Should we go to the hospital for a check-up tomorrow?”
“I’m fine.” Su Xi paused for a moment, shoveled some rice into her mouth again, and said, “I probably just slept too much at home during the summer vacation.”
Mother Su was still worried and said to Su Xi, “Your father and I both have things to do tomorrow and can’t get away. Let Jingchuan and Xiao Qin accompany you to the hospital for an outpatient visit.”
Su Xi hesitated for a moment, but fearing that her parents would worry, she nodded in agreement.
Her phone was broken and couldn’t be repaired, so yesterday she bought a new phone and took it to the shop owner to ask him to help transfer the data.
Su Xi stared at the old phone, all hope gone.
On the one hand, she felt heartbroken, knowing she would never see her son again. On the other hand, she thought that at least before she disappeared, he had regained his status as a prince, and he could marry, have children, realize his ideals, and live a good life. Although he might be a little sad now, just like her, he should forget her after a while, since she had only been in that world for two years. That wouldn’t be a bad ending…
No matter how she tried to comfort herself, she still felt empty and extremely upset. The water damage to her phone was so sudden— so much so that she couldn’t even keep her promise to visit the cub that night.
Su Xi felt so frustrated she wanted to bang her head against the wall, but there was nothing she could do. She had done her best; the phone was broken, and that was that.
….
The next day, Su Xi got dressed, washed her face, applied sunscreen, and felt a little more refreshed before heading out to the hospital.
She had been depressed these past few days, and Huo Jingchuan and Gu Qin had no idea what was wrong with her. Since the two of them also needed to have a physical examination during the summer vacation, they simply moved their schedule forward and accompanied her to the hospital.
Su Xi felt she might have a bit of a heat rash, as her head was indeed a little dizzy, so she made an appointment at the outpatient clinic to wait for a blood test.
Huo Jingchuan sat to her left playing King of Glory, while Gu Qin sat to her right reading a novel.
In the sweltering summer heat, the hospital was crowded and noisy, unbearably hot. She was drowsy, her head nodding as she waited for the results.
Unbeknownst to her, at that moment, her broken phone, which was lying in the cupboard, suddenly struggled to light up for a moment.
In that brief moment of brightness, a new message popped up on the game screen, which hadn’t been turned off before the crash:
[Congratulations on completing Mission Fifteen (Advanced): Controlling the Flood in Chengzhou. You have received a points reward of +18. Your total points now amount to 200, officially unlocking the second big gift pack.]
[Countdown, three—two—one—]
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