An ordinary day
“…Host, do you really intend to proceed like this?”
“Yes.”
Deep into the night, Qiao Yu sat alone at her desk, the only sound being the clacking of the keyboard echoing through the room.
“Why not wait a bit longer? After all, it’s not yet the urgent moment—”
“No.”
Qiao Yu’s response was concise, yet heavy with determination, though she stopped typing and rubbed her temples wearily.
“…I have already greedily waited far too long.”
“Continuing like this is just dragging things out, a mere pretense of peace. Both you and I know that this matter needs to be concluded.”
“…”
The system, struggling with an indescribable bitterness, spoke in a voice as if it were about to cry.
“But but, if the first twenty chapters can’t be changed… it’s all my uselessness…”
“What are you talking about? Without your help, wouldn’t I even be unable to modify my own writing?”
To be comforted by the host in return, it really felt like such a useless system. The system felt a mix of bitterness and sourness in its heart, indescribable.
What Qiao Yu is doing now is actually quite straightforward, which is editing her writing.
She thought of many ways, but none could perfectly deceive. They were all temporary solutions, not addressing the root cause.
Qiao Yu deeply understood that every piece of text she wrote was a lie, all used to cover up that fundamental lie. And such an act could not be kept up forever; more and more gaps would be unable to be covered, and the edifice would collapse. She was powerless.
Perhaps it was better for her to overturn everything and build anew from the ruins.
The texts that had been sent out had no function to be edited, after all, her standard of judgment included OOC, and if it could be modified anytime, then there would be no significance.
But the system had been a great help to her. After learning Qiao Yu’s intention, it did something. Anyway, in the past few days, there was finally a result. It laboriously informed Qiao Yu: Those chapters she continued to write could now be modified.
But there was only one chance to modify, and the first twenty chapters left by the original author couldn’t be changed.
Honestly, this is truly a headache.
Qiao Yu made a decision, aiming not for the satisfaction of old readers but for potential new ones.
Changing even the gender orientation and protagonist in a story, hoping for the original readers’ forgiveness is almost a pipe dream. Qiao Yu has never written a Yuri novel, but she is confident she can write Lin Qing and her story more touchingly than the current fictitious tale, focusing on authenticity with every word.
However, the inability to modify the first twenty chapters and the discordance with the subsequent plot present the greatest challenge for Qiao Yu.
The success of her strategy hinges on whether the readers of the Yuri genre can persevere past the first twenty chapters.
No matter how much she racks her brain, there seems to be no better solution. Qiao Yu’s current action is nothing short of a gamble.
She only needs a 0.5% satisfaction rate.
“Host… really not going to talk to Lin Qing about this?”
“…”
Qiao Yu slowly exhaled a breath of stale air and closed her eyes.
“After this is over, I’m okay with apologizing to her for keeping secrets.”
“But I’m really scared. The closer I get to her, the more panicked I feel.”
All the preparations were made the week they returned from the City of Dreams.
But on the day she planned to take action, she received Lin Qing’s confession.
So, Qiao Yu’s heart softened, and she got a dream-like time; she became Lin Qing’s girlfriend. They fell in love under everyone’s blessings, even giving her an illusion of being loved by the world.
She became more and more greedy, increasingly satisfied with the status quo, unable to bring herself to do something that would cause a huge turmoil.
But this is not okay. It’s like a person tied to a time bomb, deluding themselves by taking the ticking sound as the heartbeat of life continuing. It’s a real obstacle that Qiao Yu must face.
“I know this is all my own doing, my presumptuousness.”
Just thinking about Lin Qing makes her resolve start to waver, Qiao Yu bit her teeth and made her trembling fingers move on the keyboard.
“Being with Lin Qing, it’s hard for me to think about anything else.”
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“Wait until everything settles down… wait until then.”
“…It would be great if you don’t need to step in to help me.”
Her voice faded as she spoke to the system, her words becoming more mumbled and indistinct, as she shifted her focus back to revising the article.
Qiao Yu doesn’t know what kind of flower would bloom amidst the ruins.
But planting the seed is something only Qiao Yu can do.
It was a bright sunny afternoon.
After stepping into summer, the weather always made people feel lethargic. Even though the air conditioning was on in the classroom, it still wasn’t enough; the lively high school students also turned on the ceiling fans. The buzzing sound of the spinning blades added a layer of drowsiness to the already tough first period of the afternoon.
“Qiao Yu, are you about to fall asleep?”
The homeroom teacher sighed and called out the girl who was daydreaming and staring blankly at her book by the window. She responded slowly and stood up, half-awake.
“You’re so sleepy you can barely keep your eyes open… Really, do you know what I was just discussing?”
“…”
Without speaking, Qiao Yu slightly lowered her head, redirecting her gaze to the book and blinked hesitantly.
No matter how you looked at it, Qiao Yu seemed to be so sleepy that she wasn’t fully awake. Lin Qing quietly straightened up, lightly tapping her finger on the section the teacher had just explained, and nudged the book a bit towards Qiao Yu. This small gesture did not escape the class teacher on the podium, who, feeling somewhat helpless, pushed up his glasses and decided to turn a blind eye.
Yet, the standing Qiao Yu remained motionless.
Lin Qing began to sense something was wrong.
Her heart suddenly started to pound uncontrollably, unable to understand where this sudden feeling of suffocation came from. She abruptly looked up in panic towards Qiao Yu.
Qiao Yu was still standing there just fine, but there was a slight frown on her face as if she encountered some perplexing problem.
Whenever Qiao Yu couldn’t solve a problem, she would always show this expression. First, she would think hard by herself for a while, and only when she really couldn’t figure it out would she sneakily glance at Lin Qing, pushing her workbook towards Lin Qing with a sheepish smile after confirming Lin Qing wasn’t busy, oblivious to how long Lin Qing had been watching her.
But now, she had been frowning for quite a while and still hadn’t looked towards Lin Qing.
The rest of the classmates and the teacher gradually realized something was off, and whispers began to fill the classroom. Everyone was craning their necks to look at Qiao Yu. Her classmate behind her, Cong Ye, couldn’t hold back any longer. Leaning forward and lowering his voice, he repeatedly called out to her, “Page eighty-seven! Look at Lin Qing if you need to! Wake up, Qiao Yu!”
The class teacher also hesitantly came down from the podium. This period of silence had lasted unnaturally long; to say it was merely sleepiness seemed an exaggeration, and Qiao Yu wasn’t the type of student to intentionally not respond to cause chaos.
“Qiao Yu? What’s wrong?”
He tentatively called out again, but it was like talking to a brick wall. Qiao Yu stood there unmoving, with a distant look in her eyes, not reacting at all.
Lin Qing couldn’t care less about the fact that they were in the middle of a class.
She noticed Qiao Yu’s hand on the desk slowly clenched into a fist. She stood up, covering Qiao Yu’s hand with her own, leaning forward with an unmistakable air of panic, and started trembling as she spoke.
“…Qiao Yu…?”
Qiao Yu wasn’t doing well.
Since the class started in the afternoon, she had been acting strangely. She felt like an old TV nearing the end of its life, with the image before her eyes gradually becoming coarse and distorted, occasionally interspersed with black and white static. She tried to rub her eyes but found it futile, and even her bodily reactions started to become sluggish.
Luckily, her mind was still clear. Amid the broken sounds of electrical current, Qiao Yu barely made out the intermittent words of the system, finally understanding the situation.
She couldn’t say she was completely clueless about the sudden abnormalities happening to her.
The entire process of editing the article took not a short amount of time. She went over it again and again, finally finalizing the draft yesterday and submitted the revised article to the system.
‘Just pick the right time and send it all out.’
‘…All of it?’
‘Yeah.’
Qiao Yu nodded seriously at that time, her smile was carefree.
‘After all, feedback comes quickly. If I can get through tomorrow safely, then of course, everything is great. But if not—’
If not, it would be like now.
A bitter taste surged in her throat, yet her heart was inexplicably calm.
Did she lose?
The calls around her ears seemed to come from a far-off place, as if muffled by mist, mountains, and seas. She struggled to identify the voices: her teacher’s, Cong Ye’s, and also Mi Yi’s and Lu Yao’s, and then—
“…Qiao Yu”
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There is also Lin Qing, Lin Qing.
Suddenly, Qiao Yu regained control over her body, took a deep breath, and turned her head. In her blurred vision, only Lin Qing’s face was clear.
Qiao Yu realized this was probably the last moment, a time like the final flicker of light before it fades. She smiled at Lin Qing, and seeing the girl’s expression as if she was about to cry, a sudden brightness flashed in her eyes, which strangely made Qiao Yu’s heart feel a sharp pain.
What to say? What should be said?
Farewells, expressions of love, words of comfort, blessings.
No, these don’t fit.
Qiao Yu closed her eyes, feeling the faint flame still burning within her.
She hadn’t lost so completely; she was just momentarily stepping aside.
She didn’t feel happy, nor as sad as one might imagine. She just felt very calm, having done everything she could. The only thing she intentionally omitted… was her explanation to Lin Qing.
I’m going to do something very unfair to you.
I might regret this in the future, but in this moment about to be realized, I harbor no regrets.
If it were just you and me in this world, perhaps selfishly, I would hold you tight, dragging you down into the mire with me. But reality is not so.
Selfish, self-satisfied, presumptuous—I am all these. This is my unilateral decision, and any consequences are mine alone to bear.
Ah, don’t look so sad, my dear.
It’s not that I’m fearless.
Of everything in the world, what I fear most is the pain you might endure because of me.
I’ve thought about telling you this—I should have told you, but I was afraid.
I don’t know how to tell you that I’m about to do something with less than a one in ten chance of success, nor whether I should tell you that I might go to a place far, far away. I’m afraid you’ll look at me with almost tearful eyes, stubbornly telling me not to go; then, all my resolution and courage would crumble to dust.
So, I skipped the goodbyes.
I haven’t given up, but I don’t want to make you wait for a return that has no set time.
Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, so many thoughts.
But in the final moments, Qiao Yu didn’t say a word. She just tenderly and gently kissed Lin Qing’s forehead.
And then she lost consciousness in the classroom, her vision plunging into darkness, her last thought one of relief and firmness.
—After all, without you, I can just bear it and it will pass.
Everyone has had this experience in a dream, the sensation of falling from a high place.
But sometimes, there are additions or changes to this scenario, much like what Lin Qing is experiencing now.
She seemed to be walking aimlessly on the clouds. Suddenly, Lin Qing realized this was a dream. Through the clouds, she saw the city below, covered in twilight. Neon lights accompanied the flashing hustle, so real it was startling.
Her slender figure stood on the clouds, her footing still solid, but if she took a step forward—if she just took that step forward.
Suddenly, Lin Qing felt an urge, tentatively taking a step, only to be held back by a hand.
She instinctively turned around. The figure in her vision was vague, a slender silhouette without a clear face.
But inexplicably, Lin Qing felt a familiar aura about this person, even though the temperature of the hand on hers was unusually cold.
Seeing her stop, the person finally let go of her, seemingly in a good mood, and smiled at her.
Then, the cloud beneath that person’s feet suddenly dispersed.
It took Lin Qing a while to realize that the person was falling. Without much thought, she ran and jumped after them, stretching out her hand in panic as far as she could.
As they fell, the scenery around them kept changing. From a warm dusk, it quickly turned into a lightless night. The distant noise of fireworks also gradually faded away, eventually leading to complete silence. It was like diving into a deep sea where light couldn’t reach, with only the two of them sinking endlessly.
But she still couldn’t catch up with that person, no matter how hard she tried or how far she stretched her hand, there was always a seemingly close yet distant gap between them.
The thought crossed her mind chaotically that even falling together would be acceptable—
Just as Lin Qing was overwhelmed by this resolute thought, a rope suddenly tightened around her waist, and she was involuntarily catapulted upwards.
She was tied to a rope.
Lin Qing felt helpless and resigned as the scenery reversed again. She went back from darkness to light, the warmth of the real world enveloped her, and she gently landed back on the cloud. As she scrambled to the edge, she could only watch that figure fall into the darkness, alone.
Finally, they disappeared from her sight, swallowed up by the thick darkness, never to be seen again.
She couldn’t even make out their face clearly, yet she always had the illusion that the person had been watching her all this time. Their gaze was gentle and soft, easily bringing tears to her eyes.
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Lin Qing didn’t know how long she had been daydreaming in the clouds. She looked up at the sky; the sunset had begun to sink to the other side of the city, casting a golden light on the tips of her hair. The sky was painted in vibrant, soft watercolors with deep purples, as night slowly rolled in from behind. But it was just a light ink stain, nowhere near as terrifying as the darkness she encountered earlier.
It looked very cold over there; would 【——】 feel uncomfortable?
This thought suddenly popped into her mind, fleeting. Lin Qing vaguely felt like she was trying to remember something, yet it slipped away like a cloud, elusive.
The scenery gradually blurred into one, and the city beneath her feet slowly lost its warmth, turning to dust. A cold wind blew from the horizon, scattering the ashes of the day everywhere, leaving Lin Qing as the only person in the world.
Lin Qing finally woke up from her dream.
Those vague and complicated dreams instantly turned into blurry remnants, the fragments of the dream disappearing before they could stick in her memory, leaving only a feeling of “seems like there was something,” which quickly faded away.
Lin Qing’s temples throbbed repeatedly, bringing pain, even making it difficult for her breath. She felt the loss of sleepiness, so she simply got up, went to the window, and opened the curtain to stare out at the night.
In front of her was a familiar scene. It was now three in the morning, all was silent, with only the streetlights below and the occasional lights from buildings in the distance still on.
As if sensing her gaze, a street lamp not far away flickered several times at that moment without any warning, dimming several times before it finally went out and never came back on again.
Nobody cared, there was no sound, but indeed, a lamp in the world had extinguished right here.
Lin Qing suddenly felt a pang of sorrow.
She didn’t understand where this emotion came from; perhaps the night naturally brings a sense of sadness and unease.
Today was just an ordinary day, and so would be tomorrow.
Confused, she lifted her hand and felt a dampness on her face.
LP: What just happened?!?!?! Did Qiao Yu just disappeared from the world?!?!?!?
