“Why?”

Mingmei repeated the faint question back, watching Mei Jiu, who looked like she was about to cry. Mingmei's calm demeanor made Chan Guang even more intrigued.

“You are the grown-up Mingmei, aren’t you?”

As soon as Chan Guang said this, Mingmei’s eyes widened involuntarily, an expression that completely confirmed his words.

In her heart, Mingmei couldn't help but roar, "What the hell is this game?!"

How did she get exposed?

“What the heck?”

Compared to Mingmei’s reaction, Lu Xiaoyao’s was much bigger.

She suddenly looked down at Mingmei, who only reached her waist, and asked incredulously, “You’re Mingmei?”

This Mingmei, of course, wasn't the "Mingmei" in the game, but her classmate, Mingmei.

Mingmei looked at Mei Jiu, who was already dumbfounded beside her, and nodded in acknowledgment.

“Holy crap, you were messing with me!?” Lu Xiaoyao never expected Mingmei to hide so deeply!

“I didn’t mess with you. This body is off. I can’t help it…”

“Oh, right, there’s something wrong with this body. Is it part of the character setting?”

Mingmei: “……”

Lu Xiaoyao clearly believed her and understood instantly, but somehow, those words made her uncomfortable.

However, the next second, Lu Xiaoyao’s expression suddenly turned ugly. She turned to Chan Guang, who was standing not far away, and whispered nervously to Mingmei, “Then, did you get your mask ripped off by an NPC?”

Mingmei: “……”

Ah, it seemed that was the case.

Seeing Mingmei’s silence, Chan Guang wasn't angry, but rather asked hesitantly, "So, the way you are now, could it be that you failed to ascend with Mingxiao Zhenren back then…?"

“Are you the grown-up Chan Guang?” Mingmei didn’t answer directly. She was afraid that if she said another word, Lu Xiaoyao’s confused face would turn into a mosaic.

Subway Grandpa watching phone.jpg

Baoqiang roaring: What the hell is all this?!.jpg

Her past wasn’t the main storyline of this game, right?

“Hehe, not really.”

The always-expressionless Buddha suddenly chuckled, sending chills down everyone’s spines!

Eek! The scene was very similar to the sudden madness of a ghost in a horror movie, scaring those who see it to death.

The eerie laughter matched the scene where a large number of people had just died.

It was as if the protagonist group had caught the murderer, and then—the culprit turned out to be a supernatural force!

“My existence will disappear in ten years.”

As a ghostly smile spread across Chan Guang’s face, a vivid red mark, like a flame, appeared between his eyebrows.

“T-That’s a demonic heart!”

A disciple from Jingyun Mountain recognized the meaning of the mark on Chan Guang’s brow at a glance and shouted, “That’s a sign of Demonic Heart Possession!”

“Oh my god!”

Lu Xiaoyao had been in the game for so long that she couldn’t possibly not know what Demonic Heart Possession was. She immediately pulled Mingmei and Mei Jiu back a step. “No wonder he was so impressive at such a young age, able to dissolve attacks!”

Lu Xiaoyao's words gave Mingmei inspiration.

“The relics! The relics from your temple are with you!”

Even if he was possessed by a Demonic Heart, even if the game was designed so that he might be reborn, his age was still there. How could he have dissolved an attack that was almost a full blow from a Yuanying cultivator?

Unless he used other methods to increase his strength.

“Come with me.”

Without answering Mingmei’s question, Chan Guang reached out to her and said the same words as the Fifth Elder had said earlier.

“No…” Mingmei refused, but at the same time, she looked at him, her eyes full of disbelief. She asked, “Why? Why are you doing this? You have no reason to? You’re a Buddha, you…”

Mingmei didn't even know what to say. Why would this perfectly good Buddha turn evil?

She thought that Xie Chen, as the blackened Boss, was a possibility, but what about Chan Guang?

He had a bright future that he could see at a glance. She even knew through Mei Jiu that in the original world, Chan Guang did ascend and become a Buddha in the end!

What’s going on in this game… What is her uncle doing?!

Isn't this Chan Guang out of character?

“I am Chan Guang, but I am not a Buddha. I am me. I am not someone else, shaped by others’ expectations and fantasies. Why should I be compelled to save all living beings just because others say I am a Buddha?

“Does that mean that if others say you are a lone star destined for misfortune and ungratefulness, you should find a deserted place to live out your days in solitude?”

Somehow, the conversation shifted to Mingmei’s fate, and then his gaze fell on Mei Jiu, who had long been frightened.

“Why should she be the focus of all geniuses and possessors of the Phoenix Fate just because others say she has the rare Ten Thousand Year Heavenly Phoenix Fate? Just because Xie Zhen said so?”

…

“Why? Why should our fate be sealed as destined to be apart just because you say so?!”

On the other side of the City Lord’s mansion, another person asked almost the same question as Chan Guang.

Lou Jia and Julian were slumped on the outermost edge, their bodies covered in blood, barely clinging to life. Not far from them, a pool of unrecognizable sludge was all that remained of the Zerg that had been obliterated at the beginning.

They never expected that the Zerg they were chasing in the game would disappear like this.

Gone without a trace!

Not only did they disappear, but this damn game wasn’t over yet. The two of them, heavily injured and barely alive, finally began to slack off.

Forget it, let's just be the storyline photographers.

It doesn’t matter if a wind blade slices them to pieces at any time. So be it!

Therefore, when they watched the black-clad man who came to break into the prison fight with a group of big shots for hundreds of rounds, one person against the Enforcers, the Bu Tian Sect Master, and two Tribulation Stage cultivators from Jingyun Mountain for so long, they were dumbfounded when his mask fell off.

Especially Xie Zhen, he never expected his disciple, a boy of only ten years old, to have such great power and do so many bad things!

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“Why am I doing this… why… heh~”

Xie Chen smiled and turned to Ming Yi and Mei Shi, asking, “Your daughters, two people with completely different fates, did you just believe it?”

…

When Xie Chen said these words to the camera, even though it wasn't the first time they had heard him ask, Mei Shi and Ming Yi still felt a shock in their hearts.

[You can take her away from here, take her to a place where she is not bound by fate. I'm not you, I don't know where to find her!

What do you want me to do?

Resign myself to fate?

Then accept her departure and cherish her memory in the long years to come? Did I do so much just for that one sentence of "a deep connection, but a shallow fate, destined to be apart"?]

[I don't believe it, I only believe my own heart. Whoever wavers my heart, I will kill them, even if it is the Heavenly Dao!]