C78 Part1

Translated by boilpoil Edited by boilpoil

A year and a half in the Main World later, Shao Yanxi suddenly wanted to go back to the Virtual World. Their Virtual World.

“What’s wrong?” Liu Yu’an thought Shao Yanxi wouldn’t have wanted to return since he didn’t exactly have it comfortable there. He’s slightly surprised.

“I just want to go back and see.” Despite the bad blood, there’s still a lot of sweetness and nostalgia. Not to mention his mother’s grave.

The timelines flow differently between the worlds, and it’s been a long, long time there. He’s worried that if they still don’t go back everyone they knew would have passed away.

Plus, His Majesty has finally, despite all the protests from Liu Yu’an, ordered him into the military the next month a few days ago.

Well, he’s going to land directly onto a squad as a Staff Sergeant in a slightly less bloody battlezone not too far away, but obviously, he isn’t going to be let off the frontline roles, given his immense fighting power.

This means they’ll still be able to spend a few months together every year, but still. And, most importantly, the damned nephews from Liu Yu’an’s older brother keeps following them around, going ‘uncle!’ ‘uncle!’ and being a general nuisance.

Shao Yanxi would’ve picked them out and thrown them into the non-recyclables if they were just about anybody else.

“Sure,” Liu Yu’an agrees. He’s not exactly busy since he’s going to be shipped off to the frontlines soon.

Though who knows how the little brat heard they’re headed for the Virtual World and is already waiting by the time they leave the front door, and is wailing with a long face seeing them, “oh, poor me, to have never seen the big wide world since birth. Woe is me and I dare say there is none else more pitiable and miserable than I. Would you not concur, my dear uncles?”

Then, a very strategically timed tear rolls off his cheeks.

Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi “…”

Ok, but you’re only three years old. How did you learn those big words, anyway?

Shao Yanxi says, “go tell your dad to have someone take you there.”

He would much rather not have a third wheel on his romantic trip.

“Someone who?”

“Go ask your dad.”

“But what if that person tries to sell me off in the Virtual World? An object of such cuteness and beauty fetches quite the haul.” He says, his lips pursed.

“Quite the thick-skinned brat you are,” Liu Yu’an can’t help but start chuckling and harrumphs.

“I say nothing but the truth,” then his eyes turn and he goes to hug Shao Yanxi’s thighs, “uncle, uncle! Pwease?”

“…”

Damned little pipsqueak. When there’s something he needs then its ‘uncle,’ otherwise it’s ‘auntie,’ I’ve seen through you all.

He removes the brat from his thigh and puts him square on the ground, while Liu Yu’an rejects him mercilessly, “no way. We are going on a honeymoon, are you even sure you want the dog food?”

Three-year-olds know quite a lot in this world; he understands what all of those words mean.

“But it’s been a year and a half… Oh, wait, got it. I won’t barge in. When you’re ‘honeymooning’ in your rooms I will be on the lookout outside. I’ll definitely not interrupt or let anyone interrupt,” then he raises his chin, looking like he’s ready to be showered with praises.

Liu Yu’an almost chokes on his words, and is so angry he just blurts out, “the hell! Go back home to your daddy, kiddo.” Then he picks him up by the collar and puts him down outside. He then tells the guard to send the kid home.

Then the kid sits down and starts being a kid, looking at Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi with puppy eyes with all the tears rolling down, “uncles! You can’t abandon me here! You promised daddy you would look after me; the moment he goes off working and I’m no longer welcome! Oh, woe is me, uwuwuwuw…”

And thus, twelve people end up on the trip together. Two from his older brother, two from his second older brother, and his parents, with four elite members of the royal guard.

Thus the brats can stay with their grandparents. Shao Yanxi and Liu Yu’an are happy with the arrangement.

As soon as they are in the Virtual World, Liu Yu’an calls up their doppelgangers to arrange for a guide, the kind that will watch them over 24/7. Then they tell the royal couple, “mom, dad, Mr. Zhou is a local. He knows Lai inside-out, and he will guide you these few days. Call us if anything comes up.”

His mother gives him a glare, “what, and don’t call you ever if nothing comes up?”

“Well, you know what I mean,” Liu Yu’an says, “but you’re here to vacation, right? You’ll be too busy to call me. Besides, dad’s gonna be jelly and start oppressing me again. Won’t you pity your poor, poor son?”

… Perhaps you could see where the brat learned their language from.

“Yeah, shoo, shoo!” His dad waves him away dismissively, impatient, “‘oppress’? You’ll know oppress when we’re home,” and off to the furthest stars you go, hmph.

Though of course, he’s merely joking and not exactly angry. Shao Yanxi also adds to the fire, “dad, don’t worry. He’s always infuriating like that.”

“Yeah, uncle always spouts BS.” The little brat, Liu Mu, is glaring at Liu Yu’an, clearly unhappy that he was ‘abandoned’ by them earlier.

“Xiao-Mu, don’t use that word. It’s bad,” the brat’s older brother picks him back up and puts him on the seat next to him. Being twelve years his elder, the kid obviously can’t move. So instead he tries to sway him to his side, “bro, sis! Say, isn’t it really cruel that uncle and auntie wouldn’t take us along to play?”

“Why? Isn’t it the same if we’re with gramps and granny?”

“Of course not! Uncle knows where to go to have fun. And gramps and granny… Well, it’s their first time here so what’re we even gonna do?”

The guide, Mr. Zhou, is looking quietly at the sky.

“Right, but uncles are on their honeymoon. It can’t be helped.”

“But it’s even crueller! They’re enjoying themselves without a care in the wind for us! I’m definitely gonna post this to Galnet. Remember to help me push it up when we’re back.”

Meanwhile, the parents and their parents, chatting away, fail to notice the schemes of the kids.

When they’re done, Liu Yu’an comes and pats the brat on the head, and says to the four little Brussel sprouts, “listen to your grandparents these days and be good. Then we’ll take you somewhere fun the last few days.”

“Aye~” The three bigger ones say.

The youngest, still biting his lips, is ignored. After Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi head off, he says, “ah, I want to play too.”

“Well, we’re gonna have fun ourselves, too, aren’t we?” The eldest daughter of the second older brother of Liu Yu’an says.

“It’s different!” No idea different how, though.

Meanwhile, Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi throw thoughts about them onto the back burner as soon as they left the hotel, and instead, they open a new room at another five-star hotel.

Then they take a car to visit Shao Yanxi’s older company, currently under the Anyan Trust fund’s management.

Over twenty years on, Heng’an hasn’t grown much in size. The doppelganger has followed Shao Yanxi’s will to dedicate to charity, so obviously the business side hasn’t developed much.

It’s still the company worth the most in the world, but the percentage incomparable to when Shao Yanxi was here as its CEO.

Looking around, there’s quite a lot of photos of them, with lots of praises about what saints they are.

Shao Yanxi is a bit surprised, “huh? The politicians sure would never have agreed to this being displayed in public,” given how much they were afraid of them.

“Our doppelgangers practically left the business world and left the companies to the Vice Directors, as a charity, no less, so they can praise us for the goodwill points from the public without worrying it would backfire and encroach on their power.”

Plus, if they kept silent instead, isn’t it just losing out? The couple has donated everything out and then went to live in private with their families already. They could surely exploit all this for more approval ratings.

Thankfully there aren’t a lot of people traffic to the front building of a charity, or they’d probably have been spooked by young versions of Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi talking about ‘doppelgangers.’

Though of course, they don’t actually enter the building itself. Or it would probably actually be spooky.

“Let’s go elsewhere.”

Nostalgia. So, there’s not really anything to it other than to look around.

After looking at where they worked, they went to their former home. Twenty years on, Qingjiangshui is still here, but it’s already looking pretty outdated now, bordering on disrepair, especially since their doppelgangers went to spend time with Liu Yu’an’s family in this world. The properties here are still probably as expensive as ever, though.

Meanwhile, Shao Yanxi’s mansion-in-a-lake, after donation, has been turned into a public museum. The kind that charges for entry.

Since Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi have practically ‘retired,’ this mansion is kind of like the only chance for the public to see them here. They checked up with the doppelgangers, and apparently, they sometimes appear here in public. So a lot of people come to visit. There’s even a waiting list, because in the name of ‘preservation,’ only 300 people are allowed in every day, so of course, Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi won’t be able to gain entry today… Though, their doppelgangers have come here today, so they are let in – on the words of the doppelgangers, of course.

Their parents are also here, even, who are looking rather nonplussed seeing a younger version of Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi practically out of the blue.

Our real Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi didn’t expect to see them here, since they’re almost 80 already, and not exactly light on their feet. Liu Yu’an’s mother comes and asks to hold their hands, then says, “hey, old man, come and see, they sure look like young versions of Anan and Yanxi, don’t they?”

Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi didn’t employ a different look, so of course people do recognise them, but obviously they’d assume they’ve got plastic surgery or something.

“Hello mom, dad,” Liu Yu’an says, passing it off as a joke.

And their doppelgangers, in their 40s, also come and start chatting. His dad seems to have a rather complex expression, “I get you admire our sons, but…”

Then the mom says, “it’s alright isn’t it. It’s really well-done too, I’m practically seeing my sons’ body doubles or something! If you were here some 20 years ago, you might have got a good career being a stunt double of my son.” She says to the real Liu Yu’an. Then the doppelganger Liu Yu’an shrugs. It’s actually slightly spooky to see how much alike the doppelganger is to the real person – at least, to Shao Yanxi.

The two are then invited to come along with them. Someone who didn’t know what was happening sees them cut the line and says, “isn’t it just 300 every day? Who are they?”

Some others try to tell him not to say it so loudly, since it’s actually Liu Yu’an, Shao Yanxi and Liu Yu’an’s parents here.

Perhaps they remind Liu Yu’an’s father too much of Liu Yu’an’s younger selves, the father isn’t exactly happy hearing that, and says, “it’s my son’s house, so he could let whoever he wants in, got it?” And the doppelganger also tells the guard, “mark down his name. He will no longer be welcome at any locations under Anyan’s management.”

“…” And the person blurting that out just now is shocked senseless.

Huh? What? Why? Just because he questioned them for cutting the line? He didn’t even know…

Well, life is unfair and sometimes misfortune can just strike like this.

Not exactly wanting trouble in their honeymoon either, Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi stay quiet, and enter the house along with the family.

The building, over 300 square metres, is quite the large mansion here, of course, but, since Shao Yanxi has got used to the even more unrestricted sizes in the Main World, especially on the Galnet, it is no longer as impressive.

After walking a bit with them, Shao Yanxi asks to take a photo with the family with the doppelgangers as a novelty, then parts with them to tour with Liu Yu’an by themselves. His father and mother quite happily wave them away, clearly having positive feelings about them, and they seem to have found it interesting that these two are a couple too; they didn’t tell them their names, of course.

They walk outside to the back garden, then take a seat under the willow tree.

Looking at a boat tied to a post by the shore, Shao Yanxi suddenly speaks up, “do you know why I don’t like people in my house?”

“Why?” Liu Yu’an turns his head to him.

“Once, my dad gave me limited edition sneakers. It was the only birthday present I received that year; I was overjoyed,” then, he pauses, and his gaze drifts distant, no longer focusing on the boat, but looking beyond, “but, when I was lying on the boat to look at the stars that night, I overheard that, the present was actually from my dad to that bastard son of his, but he rejected it because it was too ugly. Then after throwing a tantrum, dad bought him the shoes from the entire reseller, and clothes for the bastard daughter from a few shops wholesale.”

He knew. Of course he always knew. There are some things, however, that you could assume naïvely, putting a veneer over it all. Some words could just easily rip through it all, though, and he couldn’t help but sink to the depths from that, and never crawled back out again.

He used to only hate his dad and the mistress, but never really thought about the bastard sons and daughters.

After that stargazing night, though, he hates them all. He doesn’t want to let anybody into his world anymore.

Hate really is a tiring thing; it was a lot just for his dad and mistress, but his bastard sons and daughters too.

It was suffocating.

He’d almost gone and killed himself too, if he didn’t meet the young, little ‘Liu Yu’an’ back then. He was just passing by, and chatting with his own little friends, when he just yelled out, “heck, crying’s for sissies. If it’s me, I’d just beat them all up to a pulp and trample them underfoot.”

Who knows why he uttered such stuff at such a young age, but that sentence, saved him… Or rather, it pulled him deeper, but he was no longer suffocating.

Yeah, what good do tears do? He’s not a sissy.

Since that day, he has begun seriously thinking about how he could take revenge. He disciplined himself and started planning.

As for Liu Yu’an, he couldn’t help but start paying attention to him ever since. At first, it was attention, not like.

Then, perhaps because he was too lonely, save for work. All his ‘entertainment’ was just stopping to read the latest info on Liu Yu’an. Eventually, he came to like him… Or perhaps, not like. Just an emotional haven that he has come to rely on.

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