Chapter 19 June Nineteenth, S City, Reality

A week ago, Feng Bujue and Li Ruoyu visited the Inner World together and successfully returned to the Landing Space before dawn.

No one knew where they went or what they did at the time...

The four teammates who were with them in the script that night only saw the two of them inexplicably disappear from the rooftop of the Ghastly Electric Company.

After that, the script ended bizarrely.

Since V1-Ares had disappeared from the script world, the system immediately determined that the players had completed the task and met the clearance conditions.

For Wang Tanzhi, Gu Xiaoling, Juan Meng Huan, and Tanlang, this should have been good news... because they had cleared this Nightmare Difficulty Team Scenario after only one battle.

But... the four who cleared the stage didn't show much joy.

Juan Meng Huan was alright, just a little confused; Tanlang was more troublesome. As a member of Saber, he had seen so many strange things in this script that he had to write a detailed report and submit it; as for Xiaotan and Xiaoling, they were very worried...

Fortunately, one thing was certain... in the Landing Space, they could see on their friend lists that [疯不觉] (Feng Bujue) and [似雨若离] (Si Yu Ruo Li) were currently "in-game". It was because of this that Xiaotan and Xiaoling didn't call or rush to their homes to check on them.

The next day, Jue-ge and Ruoyu both said that they had only triggered a hidden mission and entered a new map. Nothing unusual had happened.

Hearing them say this, Xiaotan and Xiaoling didn't ask any further...

And so... the matter was left unresolved.

A week passed in the blink of an eye.

During this time, Feng Bujue and Li Ruoyu were almost always together. Their online time had obviously increased, and their levels and strength had also improved significantly. Clearly... they had reached some kind of agreement, transaction, or conspiracy with Lute...

But on the surface, they still pretended to be nonchalant, claiming that they weren't deliberately leveling up.

And these actions... in the eyes of onlookers, had a different flavor to them...

Considering their strange dialogue on the rooftop that night, the other three members of the Hell Front naturally thought of "that aspect."

Of course, as Feng Bujue and Li Ruoyu's friends, relatives, and colleagues in the real world... Xiaotan, Xiaoling, and An Yueqin were all very tactful and chose to play dumb. Their mentality was simple—if those two weirdos wanted to have a secret date in a horror game, then let them have it...

…………

The nineteenth, one o'clock in the afternoon, in front of a certain coffee shop.

"Hmm... Playing the 'late' game, huh..." Feng Bujue looked down at the time on his phone and muttered, "Clearly works at the art gallery her family owns, basically going whenever she wants and taking time off whenever she feels like it; and has a car at home... more than one..." He said this, but he didn't feel impatient or angry, "...Even so, she's still late, so it's undoubtedly intentional..."

"Eh? Feng Bujue?" Suddenly, a woman's voice sounded from behind Jue-ge.

The voice was familiar, but the speaker wasn't the person Jue-ge was waiting for.

Feng Bujue's expression changed slightly when he heard this voice, because after a brief search in his Mind Sanctuary, he remembered... the owner of this voice was his ex-girlfriend from high school.

"Uh... It's you..." Jue-ge slowly turned around and said a polite greeting, "Long time no see."

The girl in front of him was wearing a very plain dress. Her appearance was delicate and charming, and she still looked like a seventeen or eighteen-year-old student. However, her actual age was the same as Jue-ge's, twenty-four.

"Yeah... Long time no see..." the girl replied, "About... five years, right?"

"More or less." Feng Bujue replied, deliberately appearing absent-minded as he spoke.

"You seem... taller again?" the girl said.

"A little bit." Feng Bujue didn't want to say more, and he tried to respond in a cold, concise manner.

"Hehe... You're much more handsome now than you were in high school." the other party added.

"Is that so..." Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes and replied casually.

Actually, Jue-ge had just casually combed his hair today, casually put on a long-sleeved t-shirt, casually picked out a pair of jeans, casually put on a pair of sneakers, and casually came out... To be praised for his appearance under such casual circumstances, he didn't even take the opportunity to show off, which showed how eager he was to end this conversation...

"Oh! I saw you on TV before..." But the girl's desire to chat didn't seem to diminish at all, "It was that show called *I'm a Writer, Please Roast Me*, you were amazing!"

"It's alright..." Jue-ge replied lukewarmly, but in his heart, he was saying, "Hey hey... I was clearly eliminated, okay? To say I'm amazing like that... This situation isn't right... Could it be that after running into me, she had a misconception like 'This is fate', and now that she's single, her brain short-circuited and she wants to reconnect with me as a backup plan or something..."

(Note: Jue-ge knew that the other party was currently single through observation and reasoning. For him, this level of deduction was almost instinctive. When he was standing on the street with nothing to do, he would look at the passersby and do some irresponsible analysis to pass the time...)

"By the way... You haven't come to any of the class reunions in the past few years. It's rare that we've run into each other like this today, can you give me your phone number? Many old classmates want to contact you but can't." Sure enough, the other party said a line that Jue-ge was very unwilling to hear.

"Hmm... So many old (vic)class(tim)mates(s) want to contact me..." Feng Bujue murmured.

What kind of person was Jue-ge? As soon as he heard this, he knew that the other party was just making an excuse to get his phone number.

"Hmph... Girl, there should be a limit to your bullshit." Feng Bujue snorted coldly in his heart, "Based on what I did in school back then... Those who 'want' to contact me, or rather... those who 'dare' to contact me, would only be those guys from the 'Feng Bujue Extermination Committee' and the 'Avengers Alliance' (this group is truly bitter and resentful)... Besides, everyone is in their mid-twenties now, those childish organizations have long disappeared, right..."

"What's wrong? Is it inconvenient?" The girl asked with a puzzled look on her face, seeing that Feng Bujue had not taken out his phone for a long time.

"Crap... I can't think of an excuse." Jue-ge thought to himself. Cold sweat was breaking out on his forehead... He really didn't want to have any more to do with his ex-girlfriend, and he didn't want to contact those old classmates who weren't his friends.

Feng Bujue didn't use social networking sites and rarely disclosed personal information, all in order to keep his social circle from expanding. But in this situation, people were just communicating with him normally... If he didn't even give them a phone number, it would seem too strange and too lacking in grace...

"Phew—I say, you're really something..."

Just as Jue-ge was at a loss and preparing to give in, another voice sounded.

Feng Bujue turned around and saw Li Ruoyu.

She was still dressed in the same way, black t-shirt, jeans, medium-length hair casually draped over her shoulders.

But... Ruoyu was actually smoking.

"Uh..." Seeing this scene, Jue-ge stood there dumbfounded, unable to speak.

"I just went to buy a pack of cigarettes, and another one popped up, huh?" Ruoyu's tone was like that of a complete female gangster. She crossed her left arm over her chest, held a cigarette in her right hand, and glared at Feng Bujue with an unhappy expression. "Tell me... How long have you been hiding this one?"

"Uh..." Jue-ge still couldn't answer.

"You won't say? You don't need to say it, anyway, there's no truth in your mouth." Ruoyu quickly added, then tilted her head and glanced at Jue-ge's ex-girlfriend, "Girl... Sister advises you, even if you're just being seduced, that's one thing, but you have to take care of your money, don't get sold without even knowing it. And... if this bastard takes you to get an abortion, you have to insist on going to a proper hospital. Last time he took that other girl to a back alley clinic..."

Before she could finish her words, the girl had already turned around and left, running away as if she was avoiding a plague. And before she left, she also gave Jue-ge a disgusted look, seeming to regret talking to him.

After the other party walked away and disappeared around a corner, Ruoyu put down the cigarette butt, "Cough cough... Ah cough..." She covered her mouth and coughed violently a few times, taking more than ten seconds to catch her breath, "Hoo... Smoking is so choking..."

"Hey..." Jue-ge was shocked. He stared at Ruoyu with wide eyes and asked, "What's going on?"

"Oh, it's like this..." Ruoyu said, while already extinguishing the cigarette butt and throwing the entire pack of cigarettes and the lighter into the trash can by the side of the road. Then, she raised her hand and pointed to Jue-ge's side and back, "Just now, I was walking over from that corner, and I happened to see you chatting with her. Seeing you looking so troubled, I quickly turned around and bought cigarettes and a lighter from the cigarette shop (a common term in Shanghai dialect, often referring to small shops located on street corners or by the side of the road, with counters directly facing the street) at the corner, and then came over to help you out."

"Whoa..." Jue-ge wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, "Your acting is very good, you even fooled me."

"Likewise..." Ruoyu turned around and said.

"I really troubled you this time..." Jue-ge added, "Consider that I owe you one."

"It's nothing." Ruoyu said, "If I hadn't been late, we would have already been sitting in the shop, and that wouldn't have happened."

Actually, she was also quite depressed, because it was very troublesome to find a parking space outside, so she came by taxi, and then she got stuck in traffic on the way, which was why she was more than ten minutes late.

"Anyway... Let's go in first..." Feng Bujue changed the subject at the right time.

"Mm." Ruoyu responded, and the two walked into the coffee shop behind them together.