At this moment, Xia Yu wore a puzzled expression on his face. Looking around, he found himself surrounded by trees.
He had merely been playing with a fragment of stardust in his bedroom, so how had he suddenly ended up in an unfamiliar forest?
Was this a survival game in the wilderness? But where was the beautiful girl commonly found in such scenarios? A wilderness survival without a pretty girl lacked soul!
He looked up at the sky and walked toward the direction of the sun. Five minutes later, he exited the forest and arrived at a lakeside.
There, he saw tourists coming and going. It appeared to be a tourist attraction.
Feeling slightly disappointed that there was no wilderness survival adventure, Xia Yu took out his phone.
There was no signal.
He thought for a moment, turned the phone off and on again, but still, there was no signal.
Had he moved to another region?
Xia Yu was confused but not troubled. To him, everything was solvable.
After a long time, he activated his elegant skill and borrowed a phone from a passing girl to call Yu Ningmeng. Naturally, he wanted Yu Ningmeng to come and pick him up.
The call was quickly answered, and a voice asked, “Who is this?”
Xia Yu frowned. This was a male voice.
What was Yu Ningmeng doing?
He checked the phone number and confirmed he had dialed correctly.
“Please give the phone to Yu Ningmeng,” he said.
“What dream? You’ve got the wrong number.” The man hung up.
Listening to the busy signal, Xia Yu calmly analyzed the situation and drew a conclusion.
He opened the map on his phone, looked at the country and city names for two seconds, and confirmed his location.
He returned the phone to the girl and thanked her.
“Is your phone out of power? Can I help you with anything?” The girl was reluctant to leave Xia Yu.
“No thanks.” He waved goodbye and left the park.
Standing on the street, he took out the stardust fragment from his pocket. Compared to before, it was much dimmer, and the amount of golden powder inside had decreased by about half.
So, this stardust fragment was a world-traveling device? Using it consumed the golden powder to travel between Earth and Lanxing?
Earlier, the place names and country names on the map, as well as various app names on his phone, told Xia Yu he had returned to Earth.
Xia Yu’s mind flashed to his family.
He put the stardust fragment back into his pocket. Since he was already here, there was no rush to return.
He found a place with free Wi-Fi, connected his phone to the internet, and logged into his old QQ account.
His QQ account was flooded with unread messages, all from old friends asking where he had gone.
He did not reply. He glanced at the time. Two years had passed; he had disappeared for two whole years.
Rubbing his forehead, Xia Yu decided to go home first. The journey from here to his home would take about three hours by bus.
However, the money he had was from Lanxing and could not be used on Earth.
He tried to log into Alipay and WeChat, but due to the new phone and lack of a SIM card, complicated verification was required. More importantly, he had forgotten his original phone number.
He didn’t want to ask on QQ yet. He hadn’t decided what to do next.
While thinking, he walked toward the bus station.
On the way, he unexpectedly met the girl who had lent him her phone again. A girl about twelve or thirteen years old accompanied her. Seeing him, the girl waved excitedly.
Xia Yu had no intention of getting involved with two girls from different worlds. He had no interest in the older girl, but the younger girl beside her intrigued him greatly.
“Ning Qiuer?” Xia Yu asked the young girl.
“Hmm? Do you know me?” The girl looked up at Xia Yu.
He hadn’t expected Earth to have a Ning Qiuer as well, albeit in her younger form.
Xia Yu used his phone to search the names An Siyao and Liu Manman in the nearby store’s Wi-Fi network but found nothing. It seemed only Ning Qiuer was special.
“Hey, you haven’t answered me yet,” the young Ning Qiuer said, somewhat displeased.
“I’ve seen you once before,” Xia Yu replied vaguely.
“I figured it out. You saw me on TV, right?” The young girl looked proud.
Xia Yu searched for Ning Qiuer. The girl had only a two-line introduction and a half-body photo on Baidu Baike.
Since it was Ning Qiuer, there was no need to be polite.
“Can you lend me some money?” Xia Yu asked the young Ning Qiuer.
“Eh?” Ning Qiuer was surprised by his request.
She pointed at the older girl beside her: “Why are you asking me? Why should I lend you money?”
“Because I’m your fan.” Xia Yu looked at young Ning Qiuer with sincere eyes.
“Oh, okay then. I guess there’s nothing I can do about it,” the girl’s face couldn’t hide her delight. “What’s your WeChat ID? I’ll transfer the money to you.”
“Use QQ,” Xia Yu logged into a secondary account.
After tricking young Ning Qiuer into lending him the travel money and adding her on QQ, Xia Yu bid the two farewell and continued toward the station.
Just as he arrived at the station, the scenery in front of him blurred.
Everything went dark, and Xia Yu returned to his original room.
He took out the stardust fragment and found that the golden powder inside had completely vanished.
So it wasn’t charged per use but by time?
He felt a bit regretful. The money he had tricked out hadn’t even been used yet.
He looked again at the description of the stardust fragment.
[Empty Shell of Stardust: Collect seven empty shells to obtain a mysterious effect.]
Had it become unusable as an empty shell?
He then opened the rewards section, where he still had one unused reward.
[Clue of Stardust: Use to obtain clues about stardust.]
He used this reward.
In his mind, the faces of An Siyao, Xu Youxiang, Liu Manman, and others appeared.
To obtain new pieces of stardust, he needed to focus on them.
With the fragments, he could return to Earth again.
Thinking of his parents, he wondered how they were doing after his disappearance for two years.
Previously, since he thought he couldn’t return, Xia Yu had never considered this question. Now that there was a possibility of going back, this question surfaced in his heart, impossible to suppress.
He walked out of his room, poured a cup of coffee, and as he carried the coffee toward his bedroom, An Siyao came down the stairs.
The girl looked anxious. Seeing Xia Yu, she was overjoyed and rushed forward to hug him tightly.
Xia Yu couldn’t hold onto the cup, which fell to the ground and shattered.
Placing his hand on An Siyao’s back, Xia Yu asked in confusion, “What’s wrong?”
“You suddenly disappeared!” An Siyao said with a sob.
Xia Yu hadn’t expected this. He patted the girl’s head: “I just left for a while.”
“But you were gone! I searched the house for a long time but couldn’t find you. Mom said your phone’s location was gone too!” An Siyao looked up, pitifully at Xia Yu.
The “mom” An Siyao mentioned referred to Kong Hanyue.
Xia Yu noted the phone location issue first and comforted An Siyao: “Something urgent came up suddenly.”
“Didn’t you go find Zhu Mei?” An Siyao asked.
“…No.” Xia Yu tried hard to explain to An Siyao.
After half an hour, he seemed to have convinced An Siyao that he wouldn’t go looking for Zhu Mei. But An Siyao still refused to leave Xia Yu, afraid that as soon as she left, Xia Yu would disappear again.
At first, Xia Yu didn’t mind, but by evening, he began to sense something was wrong.
An Siyao, wearing pajamas, crawled into his bed.
“I’m not leaving.” The girl wrapped herself tightly in the blanket, watching Xia Yu warily, as if he were the one attacking her.
“If you don’t leave, I can’t guarantee what I might do.” Xia Yu threatened An Siyao. He wasn’t lying.
The girl covered half her face with the blanket, leaving only her eyes visible. She stammered, “I-I’m already an adult.”
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