Although Lu Huan didn’t know what those white bubbles popping up were, she had clearly only said one sentence, yet so many appeared. Obviously, the rectangular black box contained her spoken words, while the oval white bubbles must be her inner thoughts.
Lu Huan’s brows twitched; he felt both exasperated and amused. Now he finally understood why she always treated him like a child—he had once thought it was just his imagination. Turns out, in her eyes, his appearance had always been that short-limbed, big-headed little figure inside the screen…
After staring at a childlike version of him for an entire year, how could she not treat him like a Zai Zai?!
Remembering how she had patted his head before, the more Lu Huan thought about it, the darker his expression became…
He clenched his teeth, unable to resist walking to the desk. Picking up a long-tipped brush, he dipped it in ink, went to the wall, stood with his back pressed against it, and drew a line at the top of his head. Then he took a long ruler, measured the mark, and showed it to her through the screen. He spoke seriously:
“Xiao Xi, my height is eight chi and two cun. Don’t tell me you still didn’t know that?”
Damn it—he’d never imagined that on her screen, he had always looked like a dwarf.
Su Xi was a bit dazed, not understanding why her Zai Zai suddenly started bragging about his height. She calculated carefully—one chi in Yan Kingdom seemed to be around 22.3 centimeters. Then… didn’t that mean Zai Zai was over one-point-eight meters tall?!
…Heavens above, why was a “child” so tall? Could the eggs she’d exchanged for him in the mall have contained hormones?!
But it was true that, before, the game had always been in a cartoon art style—except for slight differences in body shape, height wasn’t really visible. So in her eyes, Zai Zai had always been a little dumpling. Now that the game had forcibly switched to the original artwork, Su Xi finally realized that Zai Zai had already grown into a tall, handsome youth.
However, he wasn’t even sixteen yet and already that tall… Thinking of those hens nearly laying themselves to death, Su Xi suddenly felt a bit guilty. She coughed lightly and said to Zai Zai, “Zai, I get it now.”
When Lu Huan saw that the person on the screen still hadn’t realized anything, the corner of his brow twitched violently. He almost wanted to pull off his robe to show her that he truly wasn’t some little Zai Zai anymore!
But such a thing would be far too improper, he couldn’t possibly do it.
Still, the more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became. For a whole year of getting along, in her eyes he had been that big-headed, tiny-bodied figure, needing to bounce up and down just to walk a bit faster—so ugly. She didn’t even want to look at his face properly…
Lu Huan felt both helpless and seething.
In the end, he rubbed his temples and said irritably to Su Xi, “…Don’t call me Zai anymore.”
Su Xi took it as Zai Zai being coy, smiling as she replied, “Hahaha, got it.”
Lu Huan: “…”
Before this, the two of them had already been able to communicate using simple “yes” or “no” exchanges, but now their conversation was clearly smoother. From those white bubbles above Su Xi’s head, Lu Huan began to wonder—could it be that some of his own inner thoughts had also been displayed to her in the same way before?
The thought made his face burn red. But judging from Xiao Xi’s reactions, she probably hadn’t known about those possessive and dark thoughts hidden in his heart. Otherwise, she wouldn’t still be treating him the same way…
Thinking this, Lu Huan finally felt a little relieved. He was about to say something more when suddenly, identical lines of text popped up on both his and Su Xi’s screens—
[Please accept Main Quest Eleven (Advanced): The Emperor of Yan will soon depart for the Yunzhou palace. He will encounter assassins there—rescue him in time.]
Lu Huan’s gaze immediately passed through his own screen, landing on the small rectangular device in Xiao Xi’s hands. He saw that when she read the new quest text popping up, she seemed entirely used to it, swiping it casually to the side. Lu Huan thought to himself—so it was true. His earlier guess hadn’t been wrong. She must have already had a screen like this long ago, and it was because of the series of quests on her side that they had met in the first place.
And now, he had his own screen too yet she still didn’t know.
Lu Huan was just about to speak, but then he saw that after Su Xi temporarily closed the new quest, a long green bar suddenly appeared on top of the brick-like device in her hand. She pulled it down, and the entire small screen was replaced by another interface—it seemed that someone had sent her a message.
Before Lu Huan could even think to avert his eyes from her private matters, the message had already appeared clearly before him.
Gu Qin: Xixi baby, are you staying home even on the weekend? Come out and have some fun!
Baby?
Someone called her baby?
Lu Huan’s eyelids twitched.
Then, he saw her casually grab a bag of chips, smile a little, and rapidly tap her fingers across the surface of the brick-like thing. A new line appeared in the rectangular box between her and that person:
Xixi: Dear, I can’t. Haven’t finished my homework yet. Mua, kiss you~
Dear?
She even called someone else dear?
Even if he didn’t fully understand those two words, how could he not know what “kiss” meant?!
In the Yan Kingdom, only a man and woman with a marriage contract could ever do such intimate things…
Lu Huan stared at the screen, watching her smiling face, and it struck him like lightning. In an instant, all color drained from his face.
This—what is this behavior?!
He forced himself to stay calm. Perhaps… a thousand years later, customs and morals were different. Maybe, in her world, even those who were not yet married could speak and act in such familiar ways, addressing each other with such affectionate names.
It was just that—originally, in his world, she was the most important person to him; and in her world, even if he wasn’t her only one, he had thought he was still someone special. Yet seeing her so casually close the screen showing him, just to reply to someone else—calling another person “dear”—
And that green interface she opened seemed filled with lines upon lines of conversation, as if there were many others she spoke with.
Even from what was visible on the screen, there were seven or eight different names.
In that moment, a mix of unease and gloomy emotion stirred faintly within his heart.
Before she could switch back to the interface that showed him, her little brick lit up again. This time, a green curved button appeared on the left side, and a red curved button on the right. She slid her finger toward the green one, then walked toward the window, holding the brick against her ear—someone began speaking on the other end.
Only then did Lu Huan realize that he had been entirely immersed in the joy of finally seeing her, of being able to talk with her freely, and had completely forgotten—he actually knew nothing about her world at all.
All he could recognize were those tall buildings, which he assumed must be the kind of temples his own dynasty might have; and those things with four wheels speeding along the long streets—those should be like the carriages of his era.
That was all he could discern.
He couldn’t even understand those tiny, curving little words that appeared in her thought bubbles, nor the ones she used when speaking to others.
Beyond that, he knew nothing of her daily life—what she ate, what she did, whether she attended some kind of school, if she had close friends, where her father and mother were, or what those thick books stacked on her desk were about…
And that person who had just called her baby—was that… the one she liked?
He felt like an ancient relic, unable to comprehend her entirely new, future world.
The excitement that had been surging through Lu Huan’s veins cooled instantly, as though a bucket of cold water had been poured over him.
He lifted his head, gazing at that world beyond the screen. Even though he could see her, she still felt so far away.
A faint, tangled melancholy welled up in his heart—perhaps jealousy of that person, or perhaps fear of how little he knew about her world.
───♡───
When Su Xi finished her call with her mother and returned, she immediately reopened the game. She found her Zai Zai packing his luggage inside the room. Just moments ago he had been so bright and lively, but now he seemed oddly downcast.
A little puzzled, she poked his shoulder and asked, “What’s wrong? I just had something to do, so I was gone for a bit.”
Lu Huan had originally planned to tell her that he could now see her too—but at that moment, he changed his mind.
He thought that since he currently knew nothing about her world, he must first learn to read those curling little symbols of hers, and understand how those strange, carriage-like things worked. Once he quietly figured all that out, then he would tell her.
And by that time—if what the screen said was true—once he had accumulated two hundred points and gained the chance to enter her world to meet her in person, he wouldn’t have to be like some ancient relic from a thousand years ago, lost and bewildered in her time, needing her help for everything.
Of course, the most important reason was that Lu Huan was afraid—afraid that if he told her he now had a screen like hers and could see her as well, she might be frightened, might not want him to intrude upon her world, might not want him to see the other people around her…
For now, he didn’t understand why such a screen had suddenly appeared on his side.
He could only assume that something had gone wrong somewhere.
And since this screen that crossed a thousand years was a creation of her world, that meant all the control lay in Xiao Xi’s hands. If she wanted to shut off the screen on his end, she could do so instantly.
He, on the other hand, had no such power.
To him, she was the most important, the only one. But she had so many people beside her. To her, he might only be a companion from a thousand years ago—or, judging by the thoughts he had glimpsed in her mind, perhaps merely the Zai Zai she was raising.
If she were to find out that this relic from a millennium past wished to understand her world, to truly meet her face to face, to hold her, even harbored possessive feelings toward her—would she want to run away? Would she cut off the connection between them entirely?
Lu Huan’s heart felt heavy, complicated.
But for now, there were only two things that mattered. One was to complete the series of quests displayed on his screen as soon as possible—if he guessed right, all of them were connected to his origins. The other was to understand the strange inventions of her era as quickly as he could.
