Chapter 10: Watching From Afar
Dong Li lit the furnace, hurried through a few bites of food, then made up a good portion of the work he had missed over the past two days.
By the time he finished, he was exhausted.
He collapsed into bed and fell asleep almost immediately, with no energy left to wonder why Lufiel hadn’t come.
Still, there were only so many reasons someone would stand you up.
Maybe he was busy and didn’t have time.
Maybe he forgot.
Maybe something had happened to him.
Or maybe…he simply didn’t want to come.
The next day, Dong Li went up the mountain to gather herbs and returned to their meeting place to wait.
Then again on the third day.
The fourth…
He never counted exactly how many days passed.
All he knew was that Lufiel never showed up again.
Eventually, Dong Li finally realized—rather belatedly—that he had probably been dumped.
He was miserable for quite a while.
Then life went on, and he kept working every day as usual.
Back in the little room behind the medicine shop, Dong Li was still crouched against the wall, lost in thought.
Even Rongrong was unusually quiet, lying beside him.
The two little beasts sensed something was wrong and crawled out of his coat as well.
Yuanbao looked worried.
Heidan lifted a paw and patted the back of Dong Li’s hand as though asking what was wrong.
Dong Li stroked them one by one.
“I’m fine…”
Thinking about it now, if Lufiel had agreed to take him outside and then changed his mind—or if he had simply wanted to break up—he could have just said so.
If Lufiel wanted to end things, then fine.
Dong Li wouldn’t have clung to him.
And looking back, Lufiel’s growing distance before the breakup had probably been a warning sign too.
At the time, Dong Li still hadn’t realized there was something strange about the world he lived in.
He had simply wanted to leave the Fuling Region.
Whenever he tried to leave on his own, Supervisor Ba would stop him before he could even reach the gate.
Only later did Dong Li discover that Supervisor Ba could apparently be knocked unconscious with a single punch…
In the end, Dong Li had left the Fuling Region all by himself.
And once he was outside, he stopped overthinking everything.
As long as he was happy, what did anything else matter?
The whole world had turned into a game.
He could go wherever he wanted.
Keep as many pets as he wanted.
How fun was that?
Maybe he could even find himself a new boyfriend!
Still…
Dong Li hoped he wouldn’t run into Lufiel again.
—
On the other side of the wall, Lufiel entered the medicine shop once more.
The door to the back room was tightly shut.
Shu Bai was busy at the front counter, and Dong Li was nowhere in sight.
He was probably inside the back room rather than helping Shu Bai serve customers.
Liufeng had also arrived outside the shop.
When he saw that Lufiel seemed ready to go looking for Dong Li, he hurriedly whispered over the voice call, “Easy, easy. Don’t do anything reckless. That back room is NPC private territory. Remember what happened last time…”
Liufeng didn’t know exactly what had happened in the Fuling Region back then.
All he knew was that Lufiel had eventually been flagged by the system for repeatedly entering an NPC’s private area and for suspected inappropriate behavior toward an NPC.
“If you get red-named and wanted again, the whole server will get your exact coordinates,” Liufeng continued. “And then everyone’s going to wonder what you did here.”
Dragonbone Town was packed with shops and players.
It was nothing like the rear mountains of the Fuling Region.
Even if Lufiel hadn’t made any enemies, both of his identities—in-game and out—drew plenty of attention.
If anyone discovered just how much he cared about one particular NPC, Dong Li could be put in danger too.
In this game, players weren’t allowed to enter private NPC areas.
They weren’t allowed to harass NPCs or make improper advances toward them either.
But killing an NPC?
That was extremely easy.
Lufiel stopped.
He stared at the closed door for a moment, then turned and left with Liufeng.
A short while later, the two of them sat on a rooftop across from the medicine shop.
Rooftops were a favorite place for players to rest and survey their surroundings.
Waiting here wouldn’t attract much attention.
“That other NPC working in the shop,” Liufeng asked, “if I saw right, he’s a fox spirit too?”
“Yes,” Lufiel replied. “He’s Dong Li’s friend.”
Liufeng rubbed his chin.
“Same race, and they’re friends. Then Dong Li leaving the Fuling Region and coming to Dragonbone Town actually makes sense. I watched him walking over earlier. He didn’t look confused or out of it.”
Spirit forms were also used to distinguish race in the game.
All fox spirits belonged to the Fuling Region, and their jobs were generally related to healing.
In other words, Dong Li’s departure from the Fuling Region might have been perfectly normal—something arranged by the system.
Liufeng hadn’t found any record of an NPC reassignment, but the game changed things without informing players all the time.
Sometimes they were lucky to get an announcement through an NPC afterward.
Lufiel said nothing.
Liufeng glanced at him.
“Well, at least we found him. Go offline and get something to eat. Don’t you have training this afternoon?”
“I drank a nutrient solution,” Lufiel replied shortly. “Training isn’t for a while.”
By Liufeng’s estimate, Lufiel had barely rested since the night he learned Dong Li was missing from the Fuling Region.
There was nothing left to say.
Liufeng raised a thumb.
“Fine. If you’re not eating, I am.”
Then he logged out.
The streets below remained noisy and crowded.
Lufiel sat alone on the rooftop, looking down.
Several wisps of golden sword aura hovered silently near the medicine shop entrance.
A few more circled slowly above the courtyard behind it.
None had detected Dong Li.
He wasn’t in the courtyard.
He wasn’t at the front of the shop.
Which meant he was still inside that little room.
What was he doing in there?
And what about the faint trace of demonic energy Lufiel had sensed that morning?
Dong Li’s fox spirit occasionally gave off unusual mental-energy fluctuations too, but those were different from the aura of a demonic beast.
Lufiel glanced at the system’s history of warnings and barely suppressed the urge to force his way inside again.
The Taotie could only have entered Dragonbone Town because the players had failed to repel it when it appeared.
Otherwise, the regional runestone’s barrier would have prevented it from crossing into town.
Lufiel opened the forum and searched for all recent posts about the Taotie.
One bug report posted not long ago caught his attention almost immediately.
According to the report, the Taotie had appeared within Dragonbone Town at coordinates (80, 161) and had accidentally killed four players.
Lufiel frowned.
Those coordinates were along the route from the Trial Grounds to the herb field.
The four players were the same ones who had cornered Dong Li.
Naturally, they weren’t about to reveal the less-than-honorable reason they had been there, so they never mentioned Dong Li.
They merely claimed they had been walking normally when the Taotie suddenly appeared and swallowed all four of them.
No one else had seen the Taotie, however.
After eating the four players, it seemed to have vanished without a trace.
As for the other threads, they were all asking when the Taotie bug would be fixed.
The beast wouldn’t spawn in its normal region at all.
Lufiel closed the forum and resumed controlling his sword aura.
He hadn’t drawn the Crimson-Gold Sword.
The golden aura was more like his mental energy projected outward, possessing only a faint color and outline, difficult for others to notice.
One wisp slowly descended, testing the limits of the area restriction before settling above the courtyard wall.
From there, it could see the window of the back room.
Unfortunately, the window was shut too, blocking the entire interior.
But before long, something moved along the edge of the frame.
A small white paw appeared.
Then golden fur.
Rongrong squeezed through the opening and jumped to the ground, raising its fluffy tail as it stretched.
The golden sword aura hovered silently above the wall.
Watching.
Rongrong seemed to have come out to bask in the sun.
It wandered around the courtyard, pawing curiously at the flowers and plants growing in a corner bed.
After playing for a while, it jumped onto the wall, then nimbly climbed onto the roof.
The street lay on the other side and was far noisier than the courtyard.
Rongrong was cautious.
Rather than climbing to the highest point, it stayed low and peeked over the edge to watch the passing crowd.
From that angle, it happened to be unable to see Lufiel on the opposite rooftop.
The little fox stared down at the people below, apparently thinking about something.
Inside the room, Shu Bai brought out the reheated meal and gave half to Dong Li.
Dong Li was distracted and only ate a couple of bites.
His emotions had fluctuated too much earlier, and Rongrong had been affected.
He knew exactly why the little fox had gone outside.
Rongrong wanted to look for Lufiel.
To see whether he was still on the street.
A person could disguise their words and actions.
Their spirit form was much more honest.
Still, Lufiel had probably left by now.
Dong Li silently reassured himself.
They hadn’t seen each other in so long.
Of course he was a little nervous and concerned.
That didn’t mean he still liked Lufiel.
Outside, Rongrong eventually got bored.
It hopped down from the courtyard wall and decided to explore somewhere else.
The last time it had stolen an entire plate of peach pastries from the neighboring courtyard, the teahouse had promptly sealed off the yard.
Farther away, there was a large vegetable garden belonging to some unknown household.
Rongrong stood on the wall and looked around.
Then its nose twitched.
It turned toward something nearby.
As though it had discovered something interesting, the little fox cautiously approached.
Through the perception relayed by his sword aura, Lufiel watched Rongrong slowly walk toward it.
The little fox leaned closer and sniffed.
Then raised a furry paw and smacked it.
The sword aura scattered.
A moment later, it reformed nearby.
Rongrong’s eyes lit up.
Apparently having discovered a new toy, it happily batted the sword aura apart again and again.
Across the street, the corner of Lufiel’s mouth lifted faintly.
Even after coming to Dragonbone Town, Dong Li’s fox spirit was exactly the same as before.
From the very first day Lufiel had met Dong Li until now, Rongrong had never changed.
Playful.
Always running off.
Bold and lively.
Sometimes it didn’t even listen to Dong Li.
Completely unlike the stiff, obedient spirit forms of ordinary NPCs.
Which meant—
Dong Li was only still asleep.
After a while, Rongrong got tired of playing.
It jumped down outside the courtyard wall and wandered toward the vegetable garden.
With ease, it hopped over the fence.
Finding no one nearby, it secretly took a bite from a fully ripe tomato.
A wisp of sword aura followed closely behind, silently watching.
Whether out of instinct or caution, Rongrong avoided areas with too many players.
If an NPC happened to see it, that didn’t matter.
Lufiel’s gaze swept over the crowd below, his expression turning cold again.
But this wasn’t the Fuling Region.
There was still a risk that someone might notice something unusual about Rongrong.
Or when Dong Li went out without his spirit form beside him, players might mistake him for one of their own.
If possible, before Dong Li woke up, Lufiel would rather take him back to the Fuling Region and keep watch over him somewhere safer.
—
It was almost two in the afternoon when Liufeng logged back in.
He returned to the same rooftop and, unsurprisingly, found Lufiel still there.
“Hey!” Liufeng climbed up. “Brought the thing you wanted.”
He opened his inventory and took out a small metal sphere.
“Put this on the medicine shop roof. It’ll detect all mental-energy fluctuations within a small radius,” Liufeng explained. “That includes how many people go inside to buy medicine, when they arrive, and when they leave.”
Naturally, it would also detect when Dong Li left the shop.
He was in a new environment now, and Lufiel needed to know his daily movements.
Every NPC in the game had their own fixed routine.
Back when Dong Li lived in the Fuling Region, for example, he went out to turn the drying herbs at noon every day, never deviating by more than thirty seconds.
Once they knew his routine, protecting him would be much easier.
Lufiel had training that afternoon and couldn’t stay here forever.
Liufeng had class later too.
With the metal sphere monitoring the area in real time, they would also know immediately if anything else unusual happened nearby.
“It’ll last six hours at most,” Liufeng lowered his voice. “If it reports a device anomaly, remove it immediately. I sent the control interface to your communicator.”
This wasn’t a legitimate in-game item.
Liufeng had created it by exploiting a game loophole.
Technically, it counted as abusing a bug.
Fortunately, the metal sphere had little impact on the game itself.
Even if the system detected it, the punishment would only be a mild warning.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Lufiel took the metal sphere.
White light appeared along the seams, and the object transformed into a small runestone.
Once Liufeng left, Lufiel went to the roof of the medicine shop and placed the runestone there.
He stood quietly for another moment.
Then an offline formation appeared beneath him, and his figure vanished.
The moment he emerged from the gaming pod, Lufiel opened his communicator and accessed the file Liufeng had sent.
The file automatically decrypted into a simple diagram containing several dots.
Two were in the center.
Shu Bai and his spirit form.
Another dot beside them belonged to a player currently inside the shop.
Two more were farther back.
The dots were different sizes.
The larger one should be Rongrong.
The smaller one was Dong Li.
The small dot remained completely still.
The larger dot darted back and forth inside the back room, apparently playing with something.
At the same time, inside the medicine shop—
Dong Li was leaning over the metal plate, completely absorbed in the game forum.
Yuanbao was curled inside his coat, asleep as usual.
Rongrong and Heidan were chasing each other around the room.
Neither Heidan nor Yuanbao showed up on Liufeng’s device.
Perhaps because they were currently in noncombat forms, their mental-energy fluctuations were unusual and hadn’t been included in Liufeng’s database.
Lufiel watched the image for a while.
Then he marked the dot representing Dong Li.
If Dong Li left the detection range, the communicator would immediately alert him.
Only after finishing all of that did Lufiel put the communicator away, change clothes, and leave.
A few minutes later, he entered the mech department building and took the elevator to the simulation training area on the top floor.
The instructor standing outside the observation room visibly relaxed when he saw Lufiel enter the hall.
Training was about to begin.
All the other students were already in position.
For a moment, the instructor had thought Lufiel wasn’t coming.
His training check-in time yesterday had been strange, and no one had been able to find him.
At least he was here now.
Today was combat simulation training, which Lufiel rarely missed.
Once Lufiel entered his mech simulation pod and the instructor finished calibrating the systems, he asked,
“Everyone ready?”
Inside the observation room’s simulated projection, several mechs lit their eye lamps one after another.
Lufiel was the overall commander for the exercise.
Under his lead, all mechs and light spacecraft rapidly reached the battlefield.
Their simulated enemies were a troublesome species of insectoid star beast pouring endlessly from a wormhole.
The instructor watched the screen closely while an assistant recorded data for every student.
At first, everything went smoothly.
The students split into three teams.
One held the front line.
One flanked around the rear and attempted to seal the wormhole.
The third searched the surrounding area to determine whether any civilians were still alive.
Naturally, Lufiel had the highest kill count.
The mech he piloted was simultaneously fighting three giant star beasts and still held the advantage, demonstrating just how vast and powerful his mental domain was.
But before long, the instructor frowned.
The real focus of this simulation wasn’t fighting the star beasts.
It was figuring out how to rescue the civilians trapped aboard a passenger ship.
The beasts themselves weren’t strong enough to pose a major threat.
But Lufiel seemed almost lost in the killing.
Little by little, he stopped paying attention to his teammates—
Suddenly, an error message appeared across the simulation display.
[Connection error. Please try again.]
[Connection error. Please try again.]
…
At the exact same moment, a violent roar exploded in every student’s ears.
All of them were instantly disconnected from their simulation pods.
The instructor raised a hand to his forehead and sighed.
Lufiel had lost control again.
His mental power was simply too strong.
If he failed to control it properly, it would unconsciously continue expanding until it affected everyone around him.
In other words—
the other students’ mental domains had just been attacked by his.
In a real battle, the consequences would have been disastrous.
The simulation pods outside opened one after another.
Several students were suffering splitting headaches and couldn’t even stand up right away.
They had been closest to Lufiel during the battle.
Those farther away were in slightly better condition, though they were still uncomfortable.
Someone muttered irritably, “What the hell? Again…”
“Can’t they make him train alone from now on?”
“Keep your voice down…”
Lufiel sat on the edge of his pod.
He twisted open a bottle of mental stabilizer and drank it in one go.
The instructor walked over.
“Didn’t you just have another evaluation two days ago? What happened?”
Lufiel was silent for a moment.
“Sorry. I’m not in good condition today.”
The instructor didn’t press further.
Instead, he announced that today’s combat simulation was canceled and would be replaced with ordinary training.
“Everyone go rest for a while,” he told the room. “We’ll schedule the next simulation separately.”
Lufiel stood, tossed away the empty bottle, and lowered his gaze to his communicator.
On the display, Dong Li was still inside the medicine shop.
He hadn’t left once.
—
At that same moment, Dong Li lay sprawled across the table and gave an enormous yawn.
He had gone out to gather herbs that morning and brought back more than enough.
He didn’t feel like going to the herb field again this afternoon.
Dragonbone Town wasn’t exactly huge either.
He had already wandered through most of it yesterday and didn’t particularly want to go around again.
Partly because…
he was afraid Lufiel might still be somewhere on the streets.
And that they might accidentally run into each other again.
Though another reason was that Dong Li had no money.
There wasn’t much point wandering around when he couldn’t buy anything.
Dong Li thought quietly.
Maybe before the NPC who had been eaten respawned, he should figure out some way to earn a little money.
He really wanted that white hat from the clothing store.
Then whenever he went out, it could hide his conspicuous golden hair.
And Rongrong could easily hide inside the hood too.
But mostly…the hat was pretty.
It was also expensive.
Eight hundred cents.
Dong Li had never seen that much money in his life.
He closed his eyes again.
Forget it.
It was only a hat.
Worst case, he could just find a random headscarf and use that to cover his golden hair.
Same thing.
Then, in a sudden hazy flash of memory, Dong Li realized why he might have been so fixated on that particular hat.
Maybe…
because Lufiel had once given him one before.
And it had looked a lot like the hat in the clothing store.
Author’s Note:
Baby, your ex-boyfriend has money.
