Chapter 53: Comfort

After the game ended, He Jueyun didn’t log out immediately. He squatted on the ground with his fellow sufferers, smoking an imaginary cigarette and feeling the growing pains.

This instance, how should he put it, felt like he had learned a lot, yet also like he had learned nothing at all. In any case, a new posture had been added to his commemorative manual of “How to Feed the Enemy^[1] in Creative Ways.”

…Utterly useless.

But it had to be said that when there were many teammates, the frustration of defeat was greatly reduced. Looking at the dejected teammates around him, He Jueyun even found it a bit amusing.

Beside him, Zhang Wuping stared up at the server room in sorrow for a moment, clapped his hands, and exited the Live Stream Room. He Jueyun logged out right after him.

In the plain silver room, the howling of the autumn wind echoed. He Jueyun stepped off the machine, massaging his temples to relax his nerves.

The curtains billowed in the wind, and a still-green fallen leaf drifted inside. He Jueyun realized he had forgotten to close the window, but he didn’t feel like dealing with it right now. He turned the laptop on his desk toward him, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he logged into his Sanyao account.

Once the Live Stream Room screen loaded, He Jueyun first went to the room from his own perspective and scrolled through the comments.

He was no star player, and his audience was much smaller than Qiong Cang’s. Those who came to watch were mostly his fans, so the comment section was generally quite harmonious. His performance this time could be considered outstanding by comparison: calm, steady, and sharp-eyed… However, this did not stop netizens from continuing to call him Brother Q.

It was infuriating. Someone like Qiong Cang was truly capable at everything, but she was especially number one at giving nicknames.

He Jueyun skimmed the comments, confirming the audience’s feedback on this instance. After closing his Live Stream Room, he quietly slipped over to Qiong Cang’s side to watch, wanting to know how she had ultimately escaped and where she had ended up.

He had assumed that since Qiong Cang had successfully escaped the relentless pursuit of a hundred people and even turned the tables on them, she would be feeling quite smug. But when he dragged the live stream recording to the last few minutes and saw Qiong Cang clutching her handbag, walking alone on a deserted mountain path, his body froze.

Qiong Cang kept her eyes lowered, staring at the tips of her shoes, her slender figure almost dissolving into the hazy mist and rain. From her face, He Jueyun could clearly read her thoughts. She was probably wondering where she should go.

Like rootless duckweed, drifting without support. At most, she would follow the wind and rain, drifting along the current toward some unknown destination.

He didn’t know why this seemingly elusive, aloof, and cold person felt like she was about to be seen through by him.

He Jueyun raised a hand and rubbed his face.

For Qiong Cang and Fan Huai, leaving was not the end, but just the beginning.

While He Jueyun was still lost in thought, the door suddenly swung open. A young man, agile as a monkey, bounced in from outside and cried out in mock alarm, “Boss!”

He Jueyun immediately closed the window, slammed his laptop shut, and turned around to block the desk. “What are you doing?” he asked coldly. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

“Well, I saw you hadn’t come out for a long time,” the young man said, squirming and pretending to be bashful. “Why so tense, Boss? Are you looking at that woman you can never catch up to?”

He Jueyun: “??” Employees these days were getting awfully bold. They clearly didn’t understand the situation.

They had way too much freedom.

“Boss, Boss!” The young man hovered in front of him like a fly, flashing a mouthful of white teeth as he grinned. “I can tell you where she is. No charge! Just let me off work a little early today, okay?”

He Jueyun walked right past him toward the door and snorted, “No need. I’m not looking for her.”

“Then how about I make a solo highlight reel for her? With my god-tier editing skills, I’ll definitely give her a VIP-level spotlight and turn her into a premium regular. How about it?”

He Jueyun clicked his tongue in disdain, pushing the guy into an adjacent office to urge him to go back to being a corporate slave first.

Seeing his boss’s mind was made up, the young man wailed, locked the door from the inside, and sulked, “Even if you ask me now, I won’t tell you!”

He Jueyun: “I said I don’t need to know!”

He Jueyun thought to himself, where else would Qiong Cang go after finishing an instance? The lounge, of course. How could she possibly miss out on free premium services and dining?

But when he took the elevator to the lounge upstairs, he found no sign of Qiong Cang.

The lounge was crowded. This instance was a large-scale team instance, and the number of participating Players had broken Sanyao’s all-time record, so Sanyao was opening the instance in staggered time slots.

A large number of new Players who had never experienced this game before were reluctant to leave even after finishing. They gathered in the lounge, passionately discussing strategies with like-minded people and conducting their own post-mortems.

The large lounge, which was originally spacious and private, had actually become somewhat crowded.

He Jueyun searched the place thoroughly, only to find that Qiong Cang really wasn’t there.

Maybe she really was in a bad mood, to the point of not even eating.

He Jueyun felt a faint trace of worry.

Just as he was about to leave, the chef busy working by the kitchen counter called out to him.

“That young lady,” the uncle gestured, indicating he was highly reliable, “packed her food and left just now. Don’t worry, she took a lot. She’ll definitely have enough to eat.”

He Jueyun: “…”

As it turned out, his understanding of Qiong Cang was still very accurate.

…And as it also turned out, his employees were all a bit abnormal.

·

Qiong Cang sat on a wooden bench, taking bites of the savory sauce pancake in her hand, eating very seriously.

She heard approaching footsteps and caught a glimpse of the person stopping not far from her out of the corner of her eye.

“What a coincidence,” He Jueyun said, his hands in his pockets. “I had a feeling you’d be here.”

Qiong Cang lowered her head to take another bite of the pancake, then slowly pulled a card from her pocket. “Sanyao’s terminal tracking, right? A fate brought by technology.”

Not showing the slightest embarrassment at being exposed, He Jueyun walked over, gestured for her to budge over a bit, and sat down beside her. “What made you think of coming to a school? Is the scenery here that good?”

Directly opposite them was a high school. It was September, and all schools had officially started their semesters. A group of teenagers were fooling around at the school gate, their noisy chatter carrying all the way across the street.

Qiong Cang held down her wind-blown hair and said, “It’s alright. There are too many people in the lounge. Eating out here gives me more of an appetite.”

He Jueyun rubbed his nose, considering how to start the conversation. He turned his head to look at her profile and said, “I haven’t congratulated you yet on winning the game.”

Qiong Cang smiled at this, her voice as faint as the wind. “A game that begins on the foundation of death has no such thing as victory from the very start.”

He Jueyun fell silent for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right.”

Qiong Cang said, “I’m always right.”

…How shameless.

Qiong Cang lowered her hand, watching the figures running back and forth opposite them. Contrasting their liveliness, she felt a sudden urge to chat with the person beside her. She patted He Jueyun and said, “Do you know what it feels like to have your life severed?”

He Jueyun asked, “What do you mean by severed?”

“It means that starting from a certain day, the world suddenly becomes different. You have to accept another kind of life and follow another set of rules. From then on, you’re like a walking corpse, living someone else’s life with absolutely no sense of belonging.” Qiong Cang paused, then continued, “Once you look back, you’re forever stuck on the day the change happened. But except for you, no one misses the time when you existed.”

He Jueyun fell silent, unable to answer.

From this angle, he could see his reflection in Qiong Cang’s eyes.

Her face was dreadfully pale, with faint dark circles under her eyes, showing she clearly hadn’t rested well. The bones in her wrist were also thin and skeletal; when she exerted any force, the blue veins would bulge outward.

He Jueyun’s thoughts suddenly drifted, thinking to himself that geniuses like her mostly didn’t know how to take care of themselves.

Qiong Cang said, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I could never understand where Fan Huai wanted to go, or where he could go. Today, I understand a little. It doesn’t matter where you escape to, as long as you can get away from this world.”

He Jueyun snapped out of it and blinked. He clasped his hands together, pondered for a moment, and said, “Then do you know why Sanyao released the game 【Case Analysis】?”

Qiong Cang said, “Because people in this day and age are too impetuous.”

He Jueyun choked slightly, but maintained his solemn demeanor and continued, “Because people only care about what’s more entertaining, they are easily distracted by superficial, exaggerated content, becoming biased and harsh. It’s as if in this world, there is only absolute right and wrong, absolute good and evil. Because of this, some people use entertainment to present originally serious and dialectical content in a one-sided way just to attract attention.”

“Using public opinion to hijack the truth, using numbers to define good and evil. Using so-called justice as an outlet for venting, and blurring the boundaries of morality in the name of freedom…” He Jueyun shook his head. “That’s not right. The ones harmed might only be a minority, but once a tragedy happens, it’s irreversible. Since everyone thinks they are so smart, we also use entertainment to reveal the truth. The creators hoped that by using such a realistic and relatable approach, they could make everyone understand that what’s more important than the outcome is the cause behind it. What’s more important than criticism is the reflection to avoid repeating the same mistakes. That was the original intent behind 【Case Analysis】.”

Qiong Cang nodded as if enlightened, and summarized it in one sentence: “So it’s because humanity in this era is too impetuous.”

She had a proud expression that said, “What I said is the correct answer, what on earth are you babbling about, brother?”

He Jueyun: “…” There was simply no talking to this person. What kind of deity was she?

Qiong Cang raised her hand and continued eating her flatbread.

He Jueyun smelled the aroma of the food coming from her hand, and his stomach suddenly growled with hunger. Only then did he realize that in his rush to find her, he hadn’t even eaten lunch yet.

He laughed at himself, feeling like he was probably losing his mind too.

Sensing his gaze, Qiong Cang lifted the takeout bag beside her and offered politely, “Want some?”

He Jueyun pulled out a bowl of rice with toppings from inside.

Qiong Cang said, “My treat.”

He Jueyun: “?”

“It’s very expensive,” Qiong Cang emphasized. “The delivery service for this kind of high-end restaurant starts at a thousand yuan.”

He Jueyun almost spat at her. This was his family’s stuff!

Qiong Cang continued, “You got a good deal. You’ve only ever treated me to a bowl of noodles that cost a dozen yuan. But no need to pay me back the difference.”

Completely wasted!

He Jueyun felt that all his previous worry for her had been completely wasted on a dog, and he wished he could throw the lunchbox back at her.

This was charity handed out in contempt^[2]!

Looking at his contorted expression, Qiong Cang couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing, her shoulders shaking. “Brother Q, you really are a good person.”

He Jueyun said sourly, “Are you praising me?”

Qiong Cang said, “Of course! My mood improved as soon as you arrived.”

“Thank you very much!” He Jueyun didn’t feel praised at all. He said crossly, “Next time, I hope you use a different phrase. I’ve already heard this one.”

Qiong Cang smiled and agreed, “Alright.”

She pulled a box of spiced beef out of the bag and shared it with He Jueyun.

“Here.”

This box of beef jerky saved their precarious friendship. Sitting side by side, the atmosphere between them became harmonious once again.

Qiong Cang was actually already full, so in the end, she just sat there to keep He Jueyun company while he ate.

The bell of the school opposite them rang again and again. Out of the blue, Qiong Cang called his name.

“He Jueyun.”

She rarely called He Jueyun by his full name, so those three words carried an unexpected weight of solemnity.

He Jueyun raised his eyebrows, looking at her inquiringly.

Qiong Cang said, “I was thinking just now. If I ever ended up in a situation where I had to flee, the person I’d want to turn to in the end would probably be you.”

He Jueyun was flattered, and he didn’t hide it, the emotion showing clearly on his face.

“Actually, I don’t have many people I could tell anyway.” Qiong Cang held up her fingers to count for him. “Look, if I called Fang Qi, he’s so unserious. He’d probably drag me along and say, ‘Come on, play a round of a game with me first,’ and then turn around and sell me out to the police for the bounty. If he had a bit of a conscience, maybe he’d split it fifty-fifty with me.”

“I could also call the bank, since I haven’t finished paying off my loans yet. They would definitely remember me forever and search for me to the ends of the earth. Although my face won’t be on the banknotes, it would certainly be on a very lucrative wanted poster.”

Imagining that scene, both of them burst out laughing, finding it inexplicably hilarious.

Once the laughter subsided, He Jueyun said in all seriousness, “If you call me, I will definitely find you.”

Qiong Cang gave a casual “Oh?” After all, this man had just lost a game today, along with ninety-nine teammates.

He Jueyun: “No search radius, no red circles, no time limit. Even if I have to dig three feet into the ground, I’ll find you.”

His expression showed he was not joking at all.

Qiong Cang’s smile slowly stiffened. “Do you have a grudge against me?” she asked, startled.

He Jueyun said, “If you call me at a time like that, wouldn’t it be because you want me to find you?”

Qiong Cang froze, suddenly at a loss for words.

Was that it?

She wasn’t sure herself, but the thought had crossed her mind several times while playing the game.

“Probably,” Qiong Cang said vaguely. “But I won’t run.”

“You don’t have to run, I’ll help you,” He Jueyun promised. “I’m actually pretty good.”

Qiong Cang looked at him and nodded with a smile.

Meanwhile, on the Sanyao Forum, netizens were frantically searching for Qiong Cang.

#【Image】Who on earth is this 96-point god! Who is it!#