Lin Guanyue's eyes held a hint of expectation, but also a touch of caution, as if she was afraid he would refuse.
Even knowing it was a little trick, Ren Yifei couldn't help but feel troubled: "He probably doesn't know that if he accepts this gift, he will really have to say goodbye."
"Could you put it on for me yourself?" Ren Yifei looked at him. "I want you to put it on for me yourself."
Lin Guanyue didn't say anything. He simply took the brooch, lowered his head, and carefully pinned the beautiful gemstone brooch onto Ren Yifei's cute bear pajamas, then gently wiped away the dust from the gemstone.
Ren Yifei reached out and touched the brooch, taking the last keepsake. He suddenly sensed it was time to leave.
"There's one thing I'm not lying to you about," he said. "I really do have a boyfriend. Shh, wait until I'm finished."
Lin Guanyue wanted to speak, but a finger pressed against her lips.
"My boyfriend's surname is Lin, his name is Guanyue, he's a small businessman who makes games." Ren Yifei leaned closer, so close it looked like he was about to kiss him. "A few years from now, you will meet me, the real me. And I will find you too."
The world spun, the illusion shattered, and He Zhaoming's appearance also crumbled and flew away like dust. Lin Guanyue saw a beautiful man, a stranger, but he made her feel warm and wanted to get close to him.
The stranger's left eye turned red, and black characters swirled around it.
"My boyfriend is you in the future."
Pale purple smoke gathered behind him, slowly transforming into someone Lin Guanyue knew intimately, someone he saw in the mirror every day. He also noticed that his own body was slowly dissipating.
"Am I a dream? Am I the past?" He seemed to understand something, and looked up at the incredibly familiar 'self'.
"I'm jealous of him." Lin Guanyue looked at his future self, whose body was slowly dissipating, yet also seemed to be returning. Perhaps he would return to where he belonged, back to his 'future self,' but that couldn't stop him from feeling a pang of bitterness at this moment.
If the 'future' can be done, why can't the 'present'?
Just as he was about to disappear, Lin Guanyue approached and carefully and tenderly kissed his beloved's forehead: "Not just the 'future,' but also the 'present.'"
He was late, not that he lost.
"No, it's the present, not the past." Finally realizing what was happening, Saman pulled his lover into his arms, his eyes sharpening as he looked at the disappearing Lin Guanyue. "She's mine."
Ren Yifei, who was being held tightly, was in a complicated mood.
"Ah Fei…" After the 'love rival' completely disappeared, Saman hugged Ren Yifei, their hair rubbing against each other, their cheeks touching. "I'm so jealous, you treat that kid so differently."
"It's you, but from the past," Ren Yifei tried to correct his misconception.
Samantha thought about everything he had seen: "There are millions of 'Lin Guanyue's' in the world, I'm not that special. Don't fall for anyone else, okay?"
He had originally wanted to question Saman about whether he had killed someone to get into the Desolate Corner, and how much of this small merchant's credentials were questionable. But before he could even think of asking, he was bitten on the cheek by a little wolfhound.
Ren Yifei was startled and instinctively tore open a space, sending them into his own domain.
The warm palm tried to penetrate the inner layer of her clothes, moving up and down, but Ren Yifei pressed it down, panting: "Stop fooling around, it's just you, there's no one else."
Samantha's coffee-colored eyes darkened as his pupils dilated, his hands lingered in the soft nest, unwilling to leave, and he wanted to bury himself entirely within it.
"Don't be jealous. Even if there are thousands of Lin Guanyues, you are the only one, the most special one, the one I chose... um." Ren Yifei didn't know what mechanism he had triggered, but he was suddenly numb and easily pulled onto his lap. He was quite at a loss.
What followed seemed to foreshadow yet another night of chaos.
"I couldn't do that in the past either. Only I can do such excessive things to you, please you, and see all aspects of you."
His tongue slowly traced a line across her fair, pink ear, and the person in his arms seemed to be bathed in the glow of clouds on white jade, her long, black, satin-like hair trembling slightly.
"You look like you're about to cry, Afei." Samantha's lips moved down, her mouth holding a pink pearl, and her voice became unusually muffled. "So cute."
Ren Yifei covered his lips with his hand, suppressing all sounds in his throat. His brows furrowed slightly, his damp eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings, and glistening little pearls fell to the ground.
The evil god, obsessed with human emotions, finally paid a heavy price for his indulgence.
When the desolate corner finally saw him after clearing the level, what they saw was Ren Yifei with a frown, a dark face, and a not-so-good expression.
"What's wrong? Is something not going well?" asked the desolate corner curiously.
Ren Yifei gave a forced smile: "Everything went very smoothly."
The desolate corner retreated, wisely deciding not to ask any more questions: "You can state your request now."
"I think there are some problems with the current screening mechanism in the Wasteland," Ren Yifei said seriously. "People with blood on their hands can have many possible reasons for meeting this condition. The Wasteland's screening mechanism is: maliciously taking another's life without punishment. But human emotions are complex. How do you know that the person whose life was taken is not an evil person?"
"Putting everything else aside, in Samantha's world, do you think those four people didn't deserve to die? Their pointless pranks caused countless families to break apart. If people like that continued to live, who knows how many more people would die? Do you think that's justice?" Ren Yifei added.
"Not every country has a strict rule of law. In those places where justice cannot be served and darkness reigns, is there any other way but to take matters into one's own hands?"
"What do you want to say?" The desolate corner also wanted to know what Ren Yifei, who was both a long-lived person and a human, was thinking.
"Have you considered hiring the top ten most difficult-to-hunt individuals who passed the test as employees?"
"Humans are more easily corrupted than systems," said the desolate corner. "Besides, none of those ten are good people."
"I know," Ren Yifei said. "The Desolate Corner is the first line. The candidates selected by it are then confirmed by the top ten. Each candidate is reviewed by three random people. If two of them pass, that person will enter the Desolate Corner. If only one person passes, they will enter the second review, which is the Desolate Corner review. If there are no problems, they will be sent back."
He looked at the desolate corner: "The desolate corner can only accommodate a limited number of players. You've been troubled by this for a long time, haven't you? You even thought about devouring other systems and beings beyond matter, wanting to expand the desolate corner."
The Wasteland did not deny that it was indeed looking for ways to expand its capacity.
"Open source and cost reduction. Open source is not feasible for now, but cost reduction is still possible. And you don't need to worry about the top ten becoming too powerful and becoming holdouts. You can promise to work for free for ten years in exchange for the same retirement benefits as ordinary players. I think no player can refuse that."
Ren Yifei thought of what those players longed for most: "If they could still bring some of their assets and skills, or even a person, they would be even more willing to work hard for you and leave without hesitation in the end, making way for those who come after them."
It's a waste to leave resources like the Top Ten unused.
Although many players dislike dungeons, it must be admitted that the people selected through this process are indeed mostly exceptional individuals.
"I'll consider it." After careful consideration, the desolate corner agreed, then asked, "Are you sure you want to leave?"
Ren Yifei thought for a moment and said, "I promised to give Wenli and the others a surprise."
The desolate corner thought to himself, "Where did you guys get this kind of relationship? You're even showing surprise?" But he still forced himself to give a promise: "Human participation will begin with this year's Top Ten." Heard that? Get lost!
"Guiding Spirit..."
"take away."
"My junk cards..."
"take away."
"The fan that Crane Lord gave me."
"take away!"
"Alright, I choose to leave immediately." Ren Yifei knew when to stop; if he really pushed it too far, the Desolate Corner could become quite troublesome. As for other items, skills, and external possessions, he could do them if he wanted, so he wouldn't bother with them.
With the ghost cards and Saman, who was temporarily locked in the dark room, Ren Yifei left the Desolate Corner. After he left, the Desolate Corner did indeed begin to consider using 'human resources'.
It had actually considered this a long time ago, but harbored doubts. However, in recent years, more and more humans have entered, and their overall quality has also increased, causing it to eliminate high-level players more frequently. But it's still to no avail; the number of players far exceeds what it used to be.
"Why not use this year's batch as an experiment?" thought the desolate corner, and began to erase the traces left by Ren Yifei.
Because the person was not dead and was a rather special case, it did not delete the videos on the internet, but simply distributed the property according to Ren Yifei's own will.
The wasteland and houses were all wiped out with a single click by the Desolate Corner, leaving no personal belongings behind. He left cleanly, just as he had hoped.
He gave most of the money to Saman's subordinates and a small portion to Boss Akin. It wasn't that he particularly valued the relationship, but mainly because he didn't know anyone else who was in dire need of money and had nowhere else to give it to.
All the props, except for the Ghost Card, were distributed to the top ten people who had expressed goodwill towards him.
Actually, Ren Yifei didn't have many useful items, but he did have quite a few useful skills, unfortunately, those skills couldn't be given away. Saman had originally left him a pool of rare items, but he didn't give them away, preferring to let them disappear.
When his personal belongings disappeared, Ren Yifei, who was wandering outside, immediately sensed it.
He is currently in the form of an evil god, walking through the chaotic gaps in spacetime, because time in the normal Origin Realm cannot be altered. If he wants to return to his life as the human 'Ren Yifei,' he must go back to before the events occurred and open a parallel timeline.
The evil god's perspective transcends the three-dimensional world; each world he sees is like a caterpillar, and time is the unit that measures the length of this world. Every instantaneous world node is a '☐', and countless time nodes make up the moving world.
What he needs to do is find the point in time after his filming ends, and create a subplot, like a branching tree, to create a parallel world.
"No matter what, I still want to live out 'Ren Yifei's' life first. Does Guan Yue think so too?" Like an ordinary human couple, to stay together for a hundred years.
He touched his left eye as if he were touching his lover.
Although this lover is a little willful and jealous, even jealous of himself, he is the one he chose, so what else can he do but continue to indulge him?
He walks along the timeline, traversing various boundary nodes, searching for the moment he left.
"Found it."
Ren Yifei reached out and grabbed it.
On the set of a film crew.
It was very cold outside, with heavy night dew, and the chill seeped in from the soles of my feet.
The assistant was squatting on the ground smoking, wrapped in a thick military overcoat, rubbing his hands together from the cold. He was guarding an ordinary-looking limousine, carefully trying not to make too much noise. The artist he was working with had been up for two nights straight, and he was a light sleeper, waking up at the slightest sound.
The moonlight shone down, and the world was quiet and deserted. The sound of dogs barking came from afar; I wondered whose dog it was.
Suddenly, the director's booming voice rang out from inside, and a moment later a staff member ran out: "Where's Teacher Ren?"
"He's taking a nap. Whose show is this? What's wrong with him?" the assistant stamped his foot.
Inside the train carriage, the sleeping young movie star opened his eyes.
"I'm back, world."
Author's Note: I've currently decided to start writing the worlds of Afei, Crane Lord, and the adorable evil god, with others yet to be decided~~~
Can I update the extra chapters once a day? I want to work on the cover art for the pre-orders.
The pre-order novel "A Badger Grows in the Melon Patch (Quick Transmigration)" has been changed to "The Protagonist Isn't Going to Work Today (Quick Transmigration)". The synopsis remains the same. I'll post the full version later; let's get the cover sorted out first.