Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 102

Fu Zhiyu remembered and felt that he seemed to have an impression. At that time, he saw Xie Ke in the crowd, but there were too many people, and that feeling flashed by.

“Why aren’t there earlier ones?”Fu Zhiyu asked, “No first life, not a single one. Do you have any others?”

He thought it was quite interesting and wanted to see more.

“Of course it’s not just this one, there are many more,” Xie Ke pushed open the cabinet behind the bed, which was full of photo albums, “Slowly, I have made so many.”

“But…” He paused for a while, his voice much lower, “There are none from that time.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t good to you at that time,” Xie Ke couldn’t help but hug him tightly, “I’m scared to think of it.”

Fu Zhiyu was taken aback for a moment, then smiled and said, “It’s okay, I’ve let it go, that’s the thing of the past.”

“I haven’t let it go,” Xie Ke said. “I don’t want to think of it, I feel distressed when I think of it, and I can never let it go.”

Fu Zhiyu smiled. He didn’t say anything comforting at this time, just kissed Xie Ke’s face, hooked his palm with his fingers and whispered to Xie Ke’s ear: “Let’s go back, go back to our room.”

The days of living in the study were over.

Xie Ke restrained himself a lot later, and after a few more days, Fu Zhiyu took the initiative to take him into the study.

Xie Ke was a little afraid of staying in this place again, but Fu Zhiyu just pushed open the door of the cabinet.

“I asked the Lord God and made some too. Would you like to take a look?” Fu Zhiyu asked him, “Look at you through my eyes.”

Xie Ke couldn’t stop his hands from shaking from the moment he heard him say these things.

Fu Zhiyu’s arrangement was the same as Xie Ke’s. They were all arranged from back to front. Most of the time, Xie Ke was looking at Fu Zhiyu.

But further back to the past, it was a bit different.

Fu Zhiyu had also recorded the first life.

Xie Ke didn’t dare to look. He saw his eyes change abruptly in the pictures; when he looked at Zhiyu, what was left was only the coldness of the man who tried his best to suppress his feelings.

“Zhiyu, I…”

Xie Ke wanted to explain, but was stopped by Fu Zhiyu.

“I liked you very much at that time, I really liked you,” Fu Zhiyu took the photo album in his hand, “Not only because of the grace of saving my life, that was just the beginning. Xie Ke, you are a very powerful person. At that time, I was a bit softer, really not as good as you in many things. The person I adored was excellent in every way, except that he didn’t love me.”

“No, I loved you very much even then…”

“I know now,” Fu Zhiyu kissed his face and said to him in a gentle tone, “Fortunately, we didn’t miss it.”

He paused for a while, and then said, “Xie Ke, I just want to tell you that we started again, not because I forgot the past, but because I still remember and I don’t think it matters anymore. The same goes for you. You don’t have to be careful about the past. Sometimes I get angry. It’s normal. Couples who are in love will also get angry. You don’t have to be so scared anymore. I won’t leave you again.”

“Zhiyu……”

“I may not express my feelings for you so obviously every day like I did at the beginning, but Xie Ke, if I didn’t like you enough, I wouldn’t come back,” Fu Zhiyu said. “You… don’t be so scared anymore.”

Xie Ke didn’t know what he could answer. Fu Zhiyu hugged him and felt his body shaking; his shoulder was wet.

“It’s okay,” Fu Zhiyu said and smiled again, “Should I make another wedding for you? Just wearing that dress.”

In that middle-level world, they had a wedding, and there was a certificate. According to Fu Zhiyu’s request, the wedding hadn’t been too big.

Xie Ke: “!!!”

He really wanted it.

It was impossible to get that dress back from the past, but Fu Zhiyu made a similar one, and by the way, he also made one for Xie Ke.

It wasn’t like he was alone in getting married.

His small world could be controlled by him, and Fu Zhiyu briefly turned it into his own residence back then, complete with red lanterns. Although there were only two of them, the atmosphere was warm and festive.

Xie Ke was also very excited that day.

“I don’t know what to say, Zhiyu, thank you,” Xie Ke hugged him and didn’t want to let go. “I’m the happiest person in the world because you’ve come back and are willing to be by my side. I didn’t expect you to do this for me.”

Fu Zhiyu had always been gentle. He didn’t get as emotional as Xie Ke now, he was always somewhat muted, but he only had to do a little to make Xie Ke feel extremely happy.

“Let’s live a good life from now on,” Fu Zhiyu said, “We are all fine.”

After that, Xie Ke also relaxed a lot. He was still very clingy, and sometimes still too concerned and cautious, but he had a lot more sense of security, and he suffered from fewer moments of worry.

Soon after, Xie Ke’s work was finished; the opened free worlds requested by the World Consciousness were basically ready, and some actors could go and try.

After this was done, the two of them had a lot of free time.

Xie Ke suggested that they could also go and have a look.

“You’ve been in the Lord God’s space for too long, I’m afraid you will get bored,” he said. “Don’t you want to go back to ‘His Name Will Live On in History’ to take a look?”

Fu Zhiyu really wanted to, and they didn’t need to prepare anything, so they just went. This time, they didn’t have to occupy other people’s bodies, just using their own.

The flow of time in the world of “His Name Will Live On in History” was very fast, and the degree of development was now better than that of the middle-level world that Fu Zhiyu had been to.

As the World Consciousness said, the data of this world was circulating, and those who were deep in Fu Zhiyu’s memory were all living well even though they had forgotten him in reincarnation.

His blood was indeed useful.

He visited everyone in the Yuan family, and Xie Ke accompanied him. They were no longer a family or even knew each other, but they were always doing well.

His mother had lived a long life. She was now an elegant old lady who lived in a villa area that ordinary people couldn’t get in. She had her own filial children and grandchildren. It took Fu Zhiyu a while to see her.

She happened to go out that day and seemed to be picking gifts for her family in the jewellery store. Although her hair was grey, she looked in good spirits.

Fu Zhiyu was standing at the end of the counter, and she happened to see him just as she walked there.

She looked at the young man and was in a daze for a while.

It was a very beautiful man, who looked to be in his twenties. His whole body seemed to be glowing, and there was nothing in the jewellery store that would be as attractive as him. Behind him was another man, taller than him, with his head slightly lowered, silent, standing there as if guarding him.

When she saw him, in addition to being amazed, there was also an indescribable sense of familiarity, as if all kinds of thoughts rushed to her heart, making her feel like crying.

“…you are?”

“I’m just a passerby,” Fu Zhiyu wanted to help her brush away the scattered hair on her forehead as before, but it was inappropriate. He held back and continued, “You… you’re very nice.”

What he said was a bit strange, but she didn’t show any objection.

The old lady just smiled softly and said, “Child, there is fate between us.”

Gradually they began to talk. Fu Zhiyu rarely spoke, it was she who kept talking about her life, her happiness, the happiness of not having suffered any hardship.

“Today I am going to celebrate my great-grandson’s birthday and buy him a golden lock,” she said. “I am very happy to meet you and talk to you about this.”

“Me too.”

Fu Zhiyu smiled. He took out a hairpin from his sleeve and said softly: “I can’t stay here for too long. This… is for you.”

It was his mother’s favourite hairpin back then. Strictly speaking, it was a very beautiful antique.

No one wore such things anymore, and there was no way to comb such troublesome hair.

The old lady didn’t like to accept other people’s things, but she was stunned when she saw the hairpin, so much that Fu Zhiyu stuffed it into her hand, and she didn’t have time to push back.

When she recovered, Fu Zhiyu was gone.

Do people really have past lives?

If not, why did that person, and this thing, look so familiar?

Fu Zhiyu later went to see Mingdao. Unlike his mother, Mingdao was a little late in his reincarnation this time.

Mingdao was a junior high school student. When Fu Zhiyu went to see him, he was wearing a school uniform, studying at school.

He was no longer the Yuan Mingdao who relied on Fu Zhiyu with all his heart; he was now from a wealthy family with loving parents, and he was at the top of his class at school. Fu Zhiyu sneaked into the school playground to watch him play football. Countless young girls cheered for him.

He looked really good, young, warm and beautiful.

But when Fu Zhiyu went to that school, apart from Mingdao, he also saw something else.

After the football match was over, someone left his history textbook on the seat. Fu Zhiyu took it and flipped through it, and saw the records of his era, and even his and Xie Ke’s names appeared in it.

Jilin had long ceased to exist, but that powerful dynasty would always be remembered by people.

Many epoch-making practices that took place there were recorded. There was a history book written by Fu Yanxi himself. It had been well preserved and had been read and analysed many times by future generations.

However, Fu Zhiyu still felt a little embarrassed when he saw someone playing him in the historical adaptation in the media.

“There are you in there, too, my goodness,” he couldn’t help but hold his forehead, “I don’t even know what to say.”

“The plot is not reproduced well,” Xie Ke commented, having watched a few episodes in earnest, “It says here that I was fighting you tit for tat, where was I?”

Fu Zhiyu: “…Don’t watch it anymore, turn it off quickly.”

At the end, the two of them went to the canal to take a look.

The canal was still in use, but the river had been widened a lot, the surrounding area had been renovated, and the docks had become much larger. Huge cruise ships passed by the river, making a loud noise.

Fu Zhiyu took Xie Ke there, and it was a different experience to look back on the past at this time.

There were so many memories, good and bad, and almost everything had its twists and turns, but now when he looked back, he could just laugh it off.

What mattered was the present.

From the ship, the surface of the river was gilded with the light of the setting sun, and the sparkling light was very beautiful. Fu Zhiyu was lying on the windowsill of his room looking at the scenery, and Xie Ke was sitting next to him, watching him. After a while, he couldn’t help but go over and kiss his eyes.

“Zhiyu,” he said softly, “I love you and I will always love you.”

He watched his beloved turn his head at these words, and those shining eyes looked at him with a smile, as if to say: “Me too.”

THE END

Translator’s note: So, the story is finished 🙂 Once again I want to thank my dearest Blood, whose support really made me keep going this time. And lots of thanks to the people who supported me on Ko-fi and those who wrote positive reviews on NU; you’re the best!

If you liked the story, please leave a review and a good rating on Novelupdates (the key words are “if you liked the story”) 🙂 And if you like the translator’s works, you can support me on Ko-fi 🙂

Previous / ToC

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 101

Apart from a slightly clingy lover and an occasionally perverted boss, Fu Zhiyu felt that his life was flawless.

In the past, Fu Zhiyu’s quarters were next to his operation room. After working his ass off for the World Consciousness, it took him just a few steps to get there. It was more like a place to rest after work, very simple and cold.

He didn’t care about living like that before, but after Xie Ke came back, he became more and more uncomfortable. Fu Zhiyu felt that it would be impossible to live like this anymore, and he asked the World Consciousness for a place.

The World Consciousness disagreed at first, saying reluctantly, “What are you going to do? You can live wherever you want in such a large system space. Live next to the master brain, I don’t care. I can’t afford to feed you if you want this and that!”

“I do so much work for you, what’s wrong with a place? There are wages and bonuses for other people for their work. I don’t want money but you won’t even give me this.” Fu Zhiyu didn’t understand, “It’s not troublesome, it’s just a matter of moving a finger for you.”

“I don’t have fingers!”

“This is a metaphor, you know,” Fu Zhiyu reached out to the void, “Give me a piece of land, I want to build a house.”

“I won’t!” The World Consciousness changed its tune on the spot, ”Who said I didn’t give you a reward, wasn’t there Xie Ke?”

“Xie Ke was originally mine, he doesn’t count,” Fu Zhiyu firmly denied its statement, and continued to reach out, “Hurry up.”

The World Consciousness: “……”

In the end, it did it.

What Fu Zhiyu called “a piece of land” was actually a separate space that both he and Xie Ke could enter. It was a bit like the personal space of an actor, but it was much more flexible and changeable than that. It was a bit like a small world.

Fu Zhiyu was the designer of this small world, where he could build his own house as he pleased.

At the beginning, he made his home look like Xie Ke’s villa in the mountains. They had lived there for a long time and had long been used to it; but in addition to this, there was a large area outside.

Fu Zhiyu planted flowers and vegetables there. Although there was no hunger in the system space, the two of them would return home after work, pick some vegetables from the yard, cook a meal together and then eat it slowly. It was also a very happy experience.

It should be said that between lovers, no matter what they do, they are happy.

After Xie Ke had the new authority, he really had a lot of work.

The World Consciousness knew that if you wanted a horse to run, you had to let it graze, and it still wanted to give the actors some benefits.

Nowadays, there was a large pool of actors and actresses, and Xie Ke was one of the few who had no place to play. Since the World Consciousness discovered that the people in the worlds of the books had become alive, it had begun to select a large number of actors from them. Some were tempted by the benefits given by the World Consciousness, and many people voluntarily came here to take risks, such as Lin Yu, who enjoyed this feeling very much. After all, this kind of experience was difficult to have in the ordinary world.

With the increase in the number of actors, not only did the management difficulty increase, but the Lord God always needed Fu Zhiyu and Xie Ke to help, and they also needed more things. Although many actors liked the excitement of acting, they also needed to rest.

The World Consciousness intended to open up the free worlds as a place for the actors to rest and travel, and also for them to relax. But after all, the actors were different from the people in those worlds, and the World Consciousness was afraid that they would interfere with the development of the free worlds.

Speaking of which, it was a matter of “degree”, and this “degree” needed to be guaranteed by well-established rules. Xie Ke was doing this.

When two people share the same workplace, there is nothing to separate them. Fu Zhiyu and Xie Ke cooperated tacitly, and things were not difficult to do. In general, it was a stable and happy life.

However, Xie Ke’s clingy nature was sometimes quite troublesome.

Most of the time, Fu Zhiyu indulged him. He knew that Xie Ke’s sense of security came from this and it was also appropriate for lovers to spend more time together. But sometimes Xie Ke was getting too much, and Fu Zhiyu was also angry.

Comparing the matters of the heart, Fu Zhiyu felt that even at the beginning, when he was willing to follow Xie Ke with all his soul, he wasn’t so clingy. Lovers are not siamese twins. There is no need to be together all the time.

At first, Xie Ke just wanted to see him. If he hadn’t seen him for a while, after a little longer, he would unconsciously panic. Fu Zhiyu didn’t pay much attention to this. The two of them worked and lived together, and rarely separated. He was also willing to get along with Xie Ke. This kind of long-lasting relationship made him feel comfortable.

But when Xie Ke got insatiable, he stopped being comfortable.

This was the system space. Fu Zhiyu’s body was much better than that of ordinary people, but when he got up with a backache every morning, he still felt that the World Consciousness was biassed. At least Xie Ke’s physical strength and stamina were obviously much better than his own! 

He really asked, and the World Consciousness replied to him like this: “Xie Ke’s body is newly made according to the data of the original actor, and he was the top in everything. So in theory, it is indeed better than yours. After all, your body is still the one from the world in the book. Although it has changed, the foundation is the same. But the ability is a combination, not just physical fitness. Don’t worry. If you get into a fight, you can still beat him. If you can’t, I’ll help you. I love you the most.”

“Well, you don’t need to add the last sentence, it’s superfluous, you can go now,” Fu Zhiyu rubbed his waist, “I’m very tired today, I’m not going to work anymore, you can do it yourself.”

The World Consciousness: “……”

“Why don’t I reinforce you a bit more?” the World Consciousness mused, “No matter what, don’t delay your work…”

“It’s better for you to weaken Xie Ke a little than to strengthen me. If he finds out, he will be able to toss me even more,” Fu Zhiyu finished rubbing his waist and couldn’t help rubbing his frowning brow. “I want to rest, you hurry up and go.”

“Weaken?” The World Consciousness was really thinking about it, “Shall I try it?”

Fu Zhiyu: “No, don’t touch him, forget it, I can’t count on you, I will solve the matter between the two of us by myself.”

That night, Xie Ke was driven to sleep in the study.

Fu Zhiyu’s iron heart that hadn’t demonstrated itself for a long time played a role at this time, and no matter how Xie Ke begged for reassurance, it was useless.

“Reflect on yourself and see if you dare to toss me like this in the future,” Fu Zhiyu closed the door and locked it easily, “Hurry up and go, I’m going to get a good night’s sleep.”

Xie Ke was aggrieved, but he didn’t dare to argue when Fu Zhiyu was assertive, so he could only slink away to sleep in the study.

Fu Zhiyu was comfortable for a few days, but as time went on, he thought it would be better to let Xie Ke come back; it wasn’t really necessary to separate.

The past few days must have been enough for him to reflect clearly.

But when he opened the door of the study, he didn’t see Xie Ke.

Had he gone out?

They didn’t use the study often; except for some furnishings and books that had been added, there was nothing else.

Xie Ke’s bed was tidy. Fu Zhiyu glanced at it and found a strange lump under the pillow.

He lifted the pillow and took a look. Below was a photo album.

A photo album?

Fu Zhiyu was a little confused; he had never seen this thing at home.

He opened it and took a look, only to find that it was full of pictures of him.

There were all kinds of photos: him working with his head down, reading books, or eating. Many of them were candids, and he didn’t even notice that he had been photographed.

The first ones were the most recent, and the ones further back were more distant.

There were photos of him as an actor in that middle-level world, and there were photos of him in a suit, facing the spotlight at the award ceremony. Further back, it was him in the time of “His Name Will Live On in History“.

There were pictures of him dressed plainly and walking idly on the street; there were those of him touching the growing crops in the field, and there were those of when he was still in the palace, sitting on the swing in the garden and swinging slowly. Fu Zhiyu looked at these photos and felt a lot of nostalgia.

When he thought about it, it seemed that a long time had passed.

This photo album was arranged in chronological order, but the last one Fu Zhiyu saw was him wearing the red sacrificial costume, sitting in the exquisite sedan chair, tilting his head to look at Xie Ke. It was about the most carefully dressed he had ever been, and it completely captured Fu Zhiyu’s extremely beautiful face.

It didn’t seem to be a photo, and Fu Zhiyu didn’t know what method Xie Ke used to record his memory in this way.

“Zhiyu?”

At this moment, Xie Ke pushed the door open. Seeing Fu Zhiyu, he smiled first, and then showed him what he was holding in his hand.

“I just went out to bring this for our family. There is a new world on the side of the Lord God. There was a small problem in the process of completing the task, I helped solve it. The Lord God also used its authority to get me a little invention from that world. Come here, it can be regarded as furniture.” Xie Ke said, “Let me show it to you?”

It was actually a little trick. After it was set up, the ceiling of the room became like a starry sky, within reach. Fu Zhiyu stretched out his hand, and the shining stars like grains of rice slowly flew around him, as beautiful as a dream.

“It’s quite interesting,” Fu Zhiyu smiled. “We can put it in our room and play with it sometime.”

Xie Ke captured the words “our room” very sensitively.

Was there no need to live in the cold study anymore?

“It can also change modes, it can become clouds or something. Zhiyu, let me show you?”

“Can it change into this?” Fu Zhiyu showed him the photo album in his hand.

Xie Ke: “……”

He couldn’t figure out what Fu Zhiyu’s smiling expression meant, but it didn’t look like he was angry.

He was now very afraid that Zhiyu would be angry.

“It was taken from my memory. I always felt that it felt unreal, and I was afraid that I would forget it again, so I used the photo album,” he said honestly. “When you were angry a few days ago, I couldn’t sleep, so I couldn’t help but look at it.”

“Why put this at the end?”

“This one was the deepest memory. I secretly went to look at you at that time.” Xie Ke saw that one, and his eyes became gentle unconsciously. “It was red, very much like a wedding dress. You were also very beautiful. But I could only look at you from afar.”

Xie Ke had no hope at that time, so he regarded this moment as part of his imagination, thinking that on the day when they could really get married, Zhiyu probably would be so beautiful.

What Xie Ke didn’t say to Fu Zhiyu was that when he finally came to the end of the journey and was ready to die, he felt that he had no future, and he still remembered that one look.

That moment was very important to him. Even though Zhiyu had come back now, the sweetness of the memory when there was no more hope was something he would never forget.

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 100

Xie Ke’s current mood was like a roller-coaster; just when he felt that he was going to die, a surprise gift package suddenly fell from the sky.

He spent a long time looking at Fu Zhiyu’s post, word by word, afraid that he would misread a single one of them.

Trying to have a relationship!

To have a relationship!

A relationship!

Rounding up one to ten, it meant that he and Zhiyu were already married!

Fu Zhiyu served him a bowl of porridge, but saw Xie Ke staring at his mobile phone in a daze, looking as if he was about to cry, so he knew what Xie Ke must have seen.

“Eat first,” he said, “I didn’t think much about it. I thought it was like this, so I posted it. Is it a problem?”

No problem! No problem!

How could there be a problem!

Xie Ke’s brain and heart were screaming, but he himself couldn’t say a word. He just looked at his mobile phone and looked at the person in front of him, as if he had lost his ability to speak.

Fu Zhiyu lowered his head and took a sip of the porridge, frowned, and put the spoon down.

Probably used to the taste of Xie Ke’s cooking, he felt that the porridge at the hotel wasn’t cooked so carefully, so it was naturally not up to his taste.

“It’s actually very complicated between us, but I don’t know what to tell you now.” After Fu Zhiyu finished speaking, he felt that this sentence was a bit strange. He looked directly into Xie Ke’s eyes, “During this time, I actually haven’t thought about my intentions clearly, but I think we can give it a try. That’s why I said we’re trying to have a relationship. Xie Ke, I’m trying.”

He couldn’t say to Xie Ke something like “I like you too” or “I love you too”. At present, even if he said that, it would be a lie. He was now mostly grateful to Xie Ke.

But after all that, it was worth a try, right?

Not only to give Xie Ke a chance, but also to give himself a chance.

Let the time judge whether you can find the person who is willing to stay together with you for the rest of your life.

“Can you give me time?” Fu Zhiyu paused and asked.

Xie Ke stood up all at once, and the table was shifted by his movement. The bowl of porridge slid down the side of the table and fell to the floor.

At this critical moment, this scene really killed the atmosphere.

Xie Ke glanced at the bowl of porridge that had been broken, and felt as if he had sobered up. At least he had regained the ability to speak.

He took a few steps over to Fu Zhiyu and hugged him tightly.

“I’m willing to give you time, as long as you want,” he murmured, “Zhiyu, I seem to have been waiting for this moment for a long time. I’m really happy to hear you say that. I, I love you, Zhiyu, I’ve always loved you…”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t push him away and let him hold him.

By the end of Xie Ke’s speech, his tone was a little choked, and his body trembled slightly as he hugged Fu Zhiyu.

He was really happy.

Because the crew was shut down for a day, the two of them didn’t leave the hotel. Xie Ke was remotely dealing with public opinion issues on the Internet and deleted some excessive and malicious comments. He also forwarded Fu Zhiyu’s post, officially releasing what he wanted to say.

“The two of us are not only trying to have a relationship, but will also get married in the future.”

This post contained a lot of his personal ideas, but Fu Zhiyu read it and didn’t say anything.

The crew also clarified the casting in a timely manner. The director was a highly respected person, and the male and female leads also stepped in to speak for Fu Zhiyu, saying that he performed extremely well in the audition and was the most suitable person for this role. In this way, there were much fewer people gossiping.

After this public opinion incident, people’s attention was quickly attracted by other things, and for Fu Zhiyu and Xie Ke, life gradually returned to calm.

But after it calmed down, it seemed to be a bit different from the past.

Fu Zhiyu went home with Xie Ke during the New Year this year.

There were many messy relatives, not all of them friendly, but the old man in the family liked him, and Xie Ke was there, so others didn’t dare to say much.

It was true that Zhou Yu looked a bit weird. He probably couldn’t accept that his former teammate had become the significant other of his most feared youngest uncle. But he had matured a lot over the years. Although he felt a little uncomfortable in his heart, at least he wouldn’t demonstrate it on his face.

However, he originally thought that his youngest uncle, who was cold and indifferent to everyone, was going to die alone. When he saw Xie Ke lower his head and beg for a kiss, Zhou Yu’s expression still cracked uncontrollably.

Falling in love was really scary.

All in all, the two got a lot of blessings.

After Fu Zhiyu finished filming the movie, he took a long break. He lived with Xie Ke, and the two naturally became closer.

Because of previous memories, Fu Zhiyu had some shadow over being intimate with Xie Ke. But they started slowly from holding hands, and both of them gradually became familiar with this relationship.

Although Fu Zhiyu was trying to accept it, as he had said, in comparison with what Xie Ke was giving him, what he was giving Xie Ke was not in the same class.

There were times when he would be uncomfortable, saying to Xie Ke that there was no need to do this.

For example, his food and clothing didn’t need to be taken care of in his daily life, and he didn’t expect that Xie Ke would do something for him if he just said a word casually.

“You don’t have to be so nice to me,” Fu Zhiyu said, “Just… just be normal.”

But when he said this, Xie Ke would look at him with a very uncomprehending look.

“It’s not that exaggerated, is it? It’s already normal,” he said, even a little regretful, “There is still a lot more to do, it’s a pity…”

Whatever was done wasn’t much as long as it was for the person in front of him.

After living in this world for so long, sometimes Fu Zhiyu would forget what his true identity was.

He and Xie Ke gradually became an impeccable couple of lovers. It seemed that they had never had those memories of the past. Some new and beautiful memories gradually replaced the bad ones from before, and the shadows caused by Xie Ke were also erased by Xie Ke one by one.

When he finally left this world, his body was already old.

Time seemed to have passed very quickly. Fu Zhiyu held Xie Ke’s hand and looked at him. Suddenly he thought that everything was a big dream.

But the man in front of him had always been by his side.

“Zhiyu,” Xie Ke hugged him as tenderly as always, “will we meet again?”

Fu Zhiyu nodded and replied, “We will.”

“That’s good.”

Xie Ke leaned closer and kissed his forehead, and then Fu Zhiyu heard him say softly in his ear: “I love you.”

There were many things he wanted to say. For example, after meeting Zhiyu in this life, he hadn’t been unhappy for a moment, and for example, how much he didn’t want to let go. But a thousand words only came together into one sentence.

“Zhiyu, I love you so much…”

This scene reminded Fu Zhiyu of the last time they parted. He lowered his eyes and listened to these words. Xie Ke didn’t hear his response for a long time.

He only heard a reply from Fu Zhiyu at the last moment.

“Me too. I’ve fallen in love with you all over again,” Fu Zhiyu said, and then sighed softly, “Round and round, Xie Ke, we will be together. After you leave, you have to remember to come to see me. You can’t forget it anymore.”

Not long after Xie Ke left this world, Fu Zhiyu also returned to the system space.

When he first came back, he was a little unaccustomed, he had a feeling of being in a different world and was dizzy.

He sat in the chair for a while, a bit unsteady, but the voice of the World Consciousness attracted his attention.

“That world has returned to normal.”

When Fu Zhiyu heard this voice, he felt his head ache even more.

“You simply had another agenda,” he accused, “It’s the Lord God who solves all such systemic problems, but this time it was me. You already knew Xie Ke was in there.”

“What do you mean, another agenda? Don’t talk nonsense,” the World Consciousness was very serious. “The reason that world was stuck was that there was still an actor in it. A world with an actor naturally cannot be transformed into a free world. You helped bring the actor out and the problem was solved. Isn’t that great? The Lord God is also very busy, you happen to have time, so help it too.”

Listen to your nonsense here.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t want to argue with the World Consciousness about it. After hearing this, he also grasped the point and asked, “After Xie Ke left, where is he?”

“I don’t know,” the World Consciousness said, “The little things about the actors are all managed by the Lord God. Go and ask it.”

It was really tiring to talk to the World Consciousness. Fu Zhiyu planned to go to the Lord God, but turned back halfway.

“When I went to that world, I replaced Lin Yu’s identity. Where did Lin Yu’s data go?”

After borrowing someone else’s identity for so long, Fu Zhiyu felt that he should have cared about it, but he couldn’t contact the outside when he was in the world, so he didn’t have an opportunity to ask until now.

“Before you came over, he signed the actor’s agreement, and he had already left the world to be the actor, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to get in,” the World Consciousness did know this, “If you are interested, you can also go and see him. His number is… um… let me check… 20367, the task was completed quite well.”

Fu Zhiyu said “Oh”, then squinted his eyes and asked rhetorically: “Didn’t you say that you don’t care about the little things about the actors? So you can check it, huh?”

The World Consciousness was very suspiciously silent for a while, and then replied in an evasive manner: “I’m so busy, I’ll go first.”

Busy? I think you are too idle.

Fu Zhiyu turned around and went to find the Lord God, but when the Lord God heard his question, he was also confused.

“I know about Lin Yu, but Xie Ke…” the Lord God said, “I haven’t received any news. Are you sure it was him in that world?”

“I’m sure it’s him,” Fu Zhiyu said, “It must be him.”

“I really don’t know,” the Lord God sounded very honest, “If the World Consciousness doesn’t tell you, maybe it has its own considerations.”

But when Fu Zhiyu tried to contact the World Consciousness again, there was no response, as if it was really busy.

After several attempts, Fu Zhiyu couldn’t help but feel somewhat anxious.

Finally one day the Lord God took the initiative to give him some news.

“There is a new manager in the system space.” The tone of the Lord God sounded a little strange, “He is said to be sent to be in charge of the actors, and he took away part of my responsibilities. Do you… want to take a look?”

Fu Zhiyu originally thought that the World Consciousness had made another ball like the Lord God, but the tone of the Lord God sounded so strange that his heart pounded and he subconsciously thought of what he had been worrying about recently. 

It’s better to be him.

Otherwise, if the World Consciousness continued to play its games, Fu Zhiyu felt that sooner or later he would kill it.

He walked from his quarters to the master brain, but before he made a few steps, he saw a man standing there.

The man stood there stupidly, hesitating, and when he saw Fu Zhiyu come out, he first froze, and then looked like he was going to run. But he just took a few steps back and stopped.

“Zhiyu,” Xie Ke lowered his head and called his name anxiously, “I…”

Before he could finish his sentence, he was hugged by Fu Zhiyu.

“Scared me to death,” he complained in Xie Ke’s arms with a sigh of relief, “I really thought you were gone.”

Xie Ke was very pleased. He hugged Fu Zhiyu as if holding a treasure. After a while, he lowered his head and kissed Zhiyu’s hair.

“Why are you standing outside?” Fu Zhiyu looked up and asked him, “Why didn’t you come in and find me?”

Xie Ke opened his mouth. He couldn’t describe what he was afraid of for a while, and finally only managed a sentence: “I remembered what happened before.”

Compared with him who had lost all his memories apart from the deepest impression in his heart, Xie Ke, who remembered everything, was not as confident as back then. Even though he remembered the process of Zhiyu gradually softening and accepting him, now he could barely trust his own memory.

He didn’t expect that he could still be accepted by Zhiyu.

He was afraid that as soon as he went in, Zhiyu wouldn’t be like that, so even that beautiful memory would be shattered.

When he stammered out his thoughts, Fu Zhiyu didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh.

He knew that Xie Ke was actually very insecure and was very afraid of him leaving when he was in that world, let alone now when he remembered everything.

“You had no memories, but I had. In that world, I really wanted to try it again with you,” Fu Zhiyu sighed, and then said, “On the contrary, sometimes I was afraid that you would not be able to hold on. I… Sometimes I didn’t like you as much as you liked me.”

Fu Zhiyu, who was passionate and desperately in love in the first life, no longer existed, after all. Even if he wanted to be with Xie Ke again, he couldn’t go back to being the same.

Xie Ke heard him say this, but he didn’t feel that something was wrong at all. A big stone fell from his heart, and the corners of his mouth curled up in an uncontrollable smile.

“It’s okay, Zhiyu,” Xie Ke said, “As long as you are willing to like me even a little, it is already a big surprise to me.”

He lowered his head and cautiously kissed the corner of his beloved’s lips. Fu Zhiyu gave him a funny look and took the initiative to really kiss him, finally biting him a little.

Xie Ke hissed. Although he was bitten, he still looked like a fool who was sweetly in love.

“But you still have to explain to me clearly,” Fu Zhiyu said, “What happened in between?”

Many things the World Consciousness and the Lord God had explained to him, but there were still many things he didn’t know.

There was nothing Xie Ke couldn’t say to him, so he told him everything.

“In fact, the World Consciousness has been testing me all the time. Because its first test of ‘His Name Will Live On in History’ didn’t meet its requirements, the test has not stopped.” Xie Ke said, “Even when the world rebooted, there was its shadow.”

The abilities that Xie Ke showed during the reboot of the world were much higher than the ones he had revealed in “His Name Will Live On in History”, which was what the World Consciousness wanted to see.

In the end, it was Fu Zhiyu who made him pass.

The World Consciousness had never wanted the actors to become mindless, ruthless task machines. All the worlds had become alive, and if the actors had not changed, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with reality.

Therefore, for the World Consciousness, the Xie Ke it saw in this process was multifaceted, capable, experienced, keen and intuitive. For example, back then, he relied on some clues to quickly discover the source of Fu Zhiyu’s abnormality, and when it came to the critical moment, he was decisively willing to give everything for the person he loved.

This test was considered to have been passed.

“The authority I get now is the authority it planned to give me back then,” Xie Ke said, “So at the last moment, it decided to keep me.”

According to Xie Ke’s thoughts, if the World Consciousness really didn’t keep him, even if he was unwilling to leave Fu Zhiyu, he would definitely not be able to stay, let alone be here today.

But it took time to go through this process and to recover, and there was still the matter of the authority granted.

Xie Ke showed Fu Zhiyu his actor panel, and the numbers on it had changed.

As the Lord God said, 027 had disappeared, and the number on Xie Ke’s actor panel was 001.

“I am also familiar with all this, but I find that I don’t know a lot about this world,” Xie Ke lowered his head and couldn’t help but kiss his beloved baby again. “All things considered, Zhiyu is my senior. Excuse me, can Senior take the time to teach me?”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t push him away. After letting him kiss greedily, he smiled and replied: “The two of us go round and round, but we still have to work for the World Consciousness.”

Although it was quite a troll, the World Consciousness was the origin of all the worlds. It was annoying, but it was never vague in major matters, and all the choices it made were right.

Just the little things…

Other things could be explained, but Fu Zhiyu deeply suspected that the stuck world was most likely the bad taste of the World Consciousness, even though it didn’t admit it.

But it was really good to have that world. Without the sincere and open Xie Ke at that time, the two of them each would have a heavy past in their hearts, and even if they met again, they probably would have to make many detours.

Forget it, Fu Zhiyu thought after a while. Although sometimes he was so angry that he really wanted to kill the World Consciousness, overall, it wasn’t bad.

Now, he was also beginning to look forward to his future life.

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 99

However, even after a long time, Fu Zhiyu still wasn’t truly together with Xie Ke.

After staying in the system space for too long, although the systems were very intelligent and it was not like he didn’t have anyone to chat to, in the long run, it was still boring and life felt monotonous and uninteresting.

When he came to this world, although he was carrying a mission, after discovering Xie Ke, he probably guessed the intention of the World Consciousness, and he wasn’t so nervous. This world was a bit like travelling to him, much more relaxed than when he was in the system space.

His mode of getting along with Xie Ke was gradual, and it also made him feel comfortable.

When Xie Ke had disappeared, Fu Zhiyu thought of him from time to time, but he couldn’t tell whether missing him was because of gratitude for saving his life or because of love. In fact, the balance in his heart often tilted towards the former.

But even if this feeling could be regarded as gratitude, it was enough to make Fu Zhiyu’s vision of Xie Ke change.

He could at least really treat him normally, and most of the time, he would no longer refuse Xie Ke’s kindness.

In fact, Xie Ke also noticed it. The person in front of him didn’t seem to like him as much as he liked him, and Fu Zhiyu had never promised that the two of them would be officially together.

But this was good enough.

Xie Ke thought that one day there would be results, and even if not, it didn’t matter.

As long as this person was still by his side, it was fine.

The two of them were now making an ambiguous and vague progress. Neither of them felt that there was any problem. Fu Zhiyu felt that he still needed time. Xie Ke felt that the layer of paper had not been pierced and the sweet and sour feeling was also very enjoyable.

Sure enough, as long as the object is someone you like, everything you experience becomes fascinating.

The osmanthus candy looked like a simple thing, but when Xie Ke made it, the taste was average.

“It’s too sweet,” he took a bite to taste it himself, a little regretful, and said to Fu Zhiyu honestly, “It’s not very delicious. It’s all sugar. I’ll let the restaurant outside send some over.”

“Don’t bother,” Fu Zhiyu looked at it, “It’s just the two of us, let’s eat whatever we have.”

The two of them had a simple meal, and all the dishes were cooked by Xie Ke.

Seeing the process of his sweetheart eating what he made was enough to make Xie Ke happy.

After Fu Zhiyu had finished eating, he was ready to go back.

He didn’t live in the small villa like at the beginning. Lin Yu had already made a lot of money. He had his own house under his name. After Fu Zhiyu came to this world, except for Xie Ke’s accident, most of the time, he naturally followed Lin Yu’s life trajectory.

After the contract expired, he terminated the contract with the small company and set up a personal studio. He was still producing records. Lin Yu had a good voice, and Fu Zhiyu could adapt to it. Later, he had the opportunity to act, and he also grabbed it. Now his focus was more on acting. Compared with the thousands of idols like he was a few years ago, Fu Zhiyu was much lower-key than at that time. His works were not big hits, and he had lost a lot of fans, but the public awareness and goodwill had risen a lot.

When he first came here, he wasn’t used to wearing a mask and hat to go out. As a result, he was so crowded by fans that he almost doubted he would survive before he learned his lesson. Now he didn’t have so many crazy fans, but there were still a lot of people pointing and taking pictures when he showed his face. 

When he was leaving this time, Xie Ke plucked up the courage to stop him.

“Zhiyu, why don’t you move here?” He suggested, “The security in your community is not good enough. My side is quieter and safer. I don’t mean anything else. If you feel uncomfortable, I can move out.”

In fact, the security in Lin Yu’s community was already very strict, but he was still occasionally disturbed by fans. Xie Ke’s villa half up the mountain was very independent and had no community. The whole mountain belonged to him, and it was much quieter.

“This is your house, where are you going to move out?” Fu Zhiyu took off his scarf from the hanger and glanced at Xie Ke with a chuckle, “I’ll go back first…”

Xie Ke was a little disappointed when he heard this. He felt that Fu Zhiyu probably didn’t want to move to his place.

Sure enough, there was no progress yet. While thinking like this, he comforted himself, telling himself not to worry, and smiled at Fu Zhiyu, showing that he fully respected his thoughts and wasn’t upset.

Fu Zhiyu looked at him, only to feel that Xie Ke withered visibly to the naked eye. He was forcing out a smile, but in fact, Xie Ke was very sullen in his heart.

He sighed, and then went on: “I mean… I’ll go back first and get some daily things and clothes, okay?”

Xie Ke was taken aback for a moment, and then he was hit by a sudden surprise.

“Okay, okay!” He almost jumped up, “I’m calling the driver now… no! I will drive the car over now!”

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

No need to be so excited.

But when he went back to his house, he found that there was nothing to take.

He lived on the set a lot of time. When he was not filming, he went to Xie Ke’s house. Even Xie Ke’s house had more of his clothes and stuff than his home. As for the toiletries such as toothbrushes and towels, Xie Ke had already prepared them for him.

Looking at it this way, it seemed that there was no difference between moving or not, it was just a matter of wording.

Fu Zhiyu ended up carrying a travel bag and that was it.

It seemed very natural to live with Xie Ke. Probably because the two of them were not sharing a room yet, Fu Zhiyu accepted it well. Sometimes he was reading a script in the sun on the balcony, and Xie Ke was working on his computer next to him, staring at him from time to time, and even if the afternoon was spent like this, he didn’t feel bored.

Fu Zhiyu actually liked filming very much. It was also good to experience things he hadn’t experienced before.

The female protagonist and the male lead of this world were still very happy, and Lin Yu’s relationship with the heroine remained the one of the ordinary friends. The script in Fu Zhiyu’s hand was recommended by the heroine.

It was a high investment movie. The crew had no choice, the male and female leads had been set, and they were the top in the circle. The script Fu Zhiyu was currently reading was the second male lead.

Even if it was the second male lead, this role was also big. There were many scenes and the character had a colourful personality. Fu Zhiyu was not the best choice in the eyes of the studio, but there was an audition opportunity and he could still fight for it.

Of course, this was without going through Xie Ke’s back door.

Xie Ke had been with Fu Zhiyu for a long time and also knew his temper. He didn’t interfere with this matter. If Zhiyu needed it, he would have said it directly.

It was better to accompany him having fun than to go against his will, assuring him a place in the crew.

But what Fu Zhiyu didn’t expect was that there would be Fang Rongyu among his competitors.

Fang Rongyu’s face hadn’t changed much since a few years ago, but he was much more cheerful. He was also surprised when he saw Fu Zhiyu.

When there were fewer people, he came forward and greeted Fu Zhiyu in a regular manner: “Hello, Youngest Aunt.”

Fu Zhiyu: “…Don’t call people names indiscriminately.”

Fang Rongyu looked at him in surprise: “Why? Are you and Youngest Uncle not together yet?”

He and Zhou Yu got married early, and the marriage certificate was also made public. This world had a high degree of acceptance of homosexuality, and they had received a lot of blessings, so it made sense for Fang Rongyu to call Xie Ke “Uncle”.

“Didn’t you come home with Xie Ke when the old man had his birthday? I thought this was ‘meeting the parents’,” Fang Rongyu couldn’t understand. “I don’t know how many times Uncle and the family said that his life is all about you. I thought you were together a long time ago.”

Fu Zhiyu shook his head and said, “No, we are… supposed to be just friends now.”

He was very sure when he said this, but when he said it, his tone was a little inexplicably hesitant, and a “supposed” appeared.

Fang Rongyu looked at him with a very meaningful gaze.

“You’re being called over there, go in and audition,” Fu Zhiyu frowned and averted her eyes, “Don’t be so nosy.”

As a result of the final audition, the studio chose Fu Zhiyu.

Fang Rongyu was also magnanimous, came over to say goodbye, and even brought him some supplements from the nanny car, saying that Zhou Yu had brought them and that it was good for his health to eat more.

“I have watched the clip of your audition. It is indeed better than me. If it was me, I would have chosen you too.” Fang Rongyu said. He didn’t feel uncomfortable about losing to Fu Zhiyu, nor did he have any thoughts because of Xie Ke. He knew in his heart that if Xie Ke had spoken out, there would be no audition at all.

“You and Xie Ke… are actually quite suitable, but I can’t say much about the matter between the two of you, so you decide for yourself,” Fang Rongyu couldn’t help saying before he left. “He really likes you.”

After Fang Rongyu’s car left, Fu Zhiyu stood still. He seemed to be thinking about life. Then he spoke by himself and said, “I know.”

After he joined the set, life became a lot busier, but the filming place happened to be not far from Xie Ke’s house. So before the scene was changed, Fu Zhiyu could occasionally go home after he finished filming.

He was very cautious in his usual life, but perhaps because the drama had received a lot of attention from the beginning and there were too many paparazzi following him, using all kinds of tactics, Fu Zhiyu couldn’t prevent it.

Today, he was awakened by a call from his assistant.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t have an agent. He usually had few commercial activities, so he could pick his own appearances. However, for convenience, he still hired an assistant. The assistant usually only followed him when he was filming, and he didn’t even know about him and Xie Ke. 

“Something happened!” The assistant seemed to be anxious and panicked as if he had suffered a catastrophe, “Take a look, the hot search doesn’t go down!”

The paparazzi got the material that exploded last night. Fu Zhiyu took a look. In fact, it wasn’t that explosive. It was a series of photos of him and Xie Ke. He got out of Xie Ke’s car, and then the other party put a coat on him. The two talked in front of the car for a while. Fu Zhiyu turned and went to the set. Xie Ke stood there, watching his back. He waited until he couldn’t see Fu Zhiyu anymore before leaving, and then he was gone.

The next few photos probably showed the car driving out of Xie Ke’s house, and the rest was left to everyone’s imagination.

There were several explosive points in this incident. One was that Xie Ke had an awesome net worth and was a young talent. He had always been well-known to the public, and there were countless people who wanted to attract his attention. The second was that Fu Zhiyu was famous. He had had almost no scandals and dark spots over the years. This thing suddenly broke out, and people were very interested. The third was the movie. Many people speculated that his role as the second male lead was a covert operation, secured behind the scenes.

Anyway, there was a mess of all kinds of things being said.

Fu Zhiyu was quite calm. Before he finished reading the comments on the Internet, he saw that many malicious comments quickly disappeared, probably deleted forcibly.

Xie Ke also reacted?

Deleting comments was one aspect, but Fu Zhiyu felt that things like blocking public opinion were not the best way to go.

Not long after, he received a call from Xie Ke.

“Are you at the hotel?” Xie Ke’s tone sounded very anxious and worried, “Zhiyu, don’t come down yet. There are too many reporters below. The crew is also being followed today, so they can’t film. There is a temporary shutdown over there. It’ll continue when this matter is resolved. You wait for me in the room, I’ll go over now, let’s talk about it in detail, okay?”

“En.”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t expect to cause trouble to the crew, and he was going to apologise to the director and the lead actors when the time came.

Fu Zhiyu silently mused about it while he got out of bed and got dressed. When he slowly washed his face, he heard the sound of knocking on the door.

As soon as he opened the door, Xie Ke couldn’t help but step forward and hug him.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t know where he came back from, but his coat was wet.

“I’m sorry, Zhiyu,” Xie Ke was very nervous, “I, I didn’t pay attention at that time, I didn’t know someone was filming there.”

Fu Zhiyu thought for a while and didn’t push Xie Ke away. He stretched out his hand and patted him on the back, comforting: “It’s okay, this matter is not your responsibility.”

Although Zhiyu said that, after all, it caused him trouble.

At first, Xie Ke wanted to go to his official account to clarify this matter. He wanted to tell everyone that Zhiyu wasn’t holding his thigh, let alone being nurtured. He was pursuing Zhiyu seriously and it had been several years. Now there were a few signs of progress but he was afraid they would be extinguished because of this matter.

Before he was about to send the post, he changed his mind and stopped. He thought that if he sent it, it would also cause unnecessary pressure on Zhiyu.

The only thing Xie Ke could think about was his beloved.

“Zhiyu, how do you want to solve it?” He asked cautiously, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Just make it clear,” Fu Zhiyu said indifferently, and asked him, “Have you had breakfast yet?”

Xie Ke was taken aback, shook his head subconsciously and said, “Not yet.”

“Just in time, let’s eat together,” Fu Zhiyu said. “Before you came, the hotel brought breakfast over. It is quite rich, I can’t finish it alone.”

Xie Ke was a little confused. He didn’t know why the topic suddenly switched to breakfast. When the two of them sat down, he seemed to have guessed something, turned on his mobile phone, and secretly flipped through Fu Zhiyu’s public social account.

This account was rarely updated, and the number of posts per year could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Fu Zhiyu’s latest one already had a lot of likes.

“Thank you all for your concern. Xie Ke and I are currently trying to have a relationship.”

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 98

Meanwhile, Fu Zhiyu didn’t speak much, giving Xie Ke time. He could see that Xie Ke was very unsettled, and his heart felt actually just as complicated.

There were times when he felt that Xie Ke had really gone too far. From the beginning to the end, why couldn’t he ever discuss things with him? Every time Xie Ke made a decision, he was like this.

But perhaps that was why the two of them would be forever entangled. Otherwise, they would have parted ways a long time ago, and they wouldn’t be here now.

The World Consciousness had asked if Fu Zhiyu still loved Xie Ke.

Fu Zhiyu said at that time that he couldn’t say for sure. This was the truth. He had to wait until Xie Ke came back and the two of them had a good talk before they could sort it out.

But he also knew in his heart that Xie Ke was the only person he had ever loved. He loved Xie Ke as a lover. He loved him passionately and he loved him gently. All his memories of love were about Xie Ke. There was no possibility of anyone else.

Thinking of this, Fu Zhiyu sighed, stretched out his hand and rubbed his brow.

Xie Ke hadn’t really thought it through either, but seeing how irritable the young man in front of him was, he naturally focused on him again 

But before he could say anything, the door of the villa opened with a click, and Fu Zhiyu glanced up. It was the captain who came back.

It turned out that the relationship between Lin Yu and the other group members was relatively flimsy. Now that there was such a mess, the two of them didn’t even say hello.

“Why is someone here?” The captain walked to the living room and saw the man sitting opposite Fu Zhiyu. He frowned and subconsciously pulled down the cap on his head. His first reaction was to accuse, “Why do you bring someone here casually?”

Fu Zhiyu hadn’t spoken yet, and Xie Ke didn’t expect anyone to come back at this time. He glanced at this person with some hostility.

It was only then that they finally saw each other’s faces clearly. As a result, the captain’s original disgusted and defensive glare changed, turning into an indescribable surprise.

“Mr. Xie?” He immediately made his way to the dining room, “Why are you here?”

He glanced at Fu Zhiyu, and then reacted quickly.

“Xiao Yu and I are friends,” he patted Fu Zhiyu on the shoulder affectionately and then stretched out his hand to shake Xie Ke’s hand. “We just met a few days ago, at the opening ceremony of the film festival…”

When Xie Ke faced him, he was far from being as stunned as when he faced Fu Zhiyu. He returned a very cold and hard look: “Sorry, I don’t remember.”

The captain’s hand stopped in the air very awkwardly.

Seeing this scene, Fu Zhiyu sneered a little. He chuckled and said to Xie Ke: “Let’s go out, there are outsiders here.”

There was someone here, so he didn’t want to stay here anymore.

He cleaned up the bowls on the table. Lin Yu used to pile them up in the sink, waiting for the housekeeper to come and wash them. But after changing to Fu Zhiyu, he couldn’t see how dirty they were. It was fine for him to wash a bowl, he was not so precious.

But he wasn’t familiar with this kitchen, and after putting the bowls down and looking for detergent, he turned around and saw that Xie Ke had already finished washing the bowls and turned to draw a piece of paper towel to wipe his hands.

The captain who was sitting at the dinner table and watching all this seemed to have seen a ghost.

His thoughts at this point were highly overlapping with those of Zhou Yu who had already left. He felt that Lin Yu was a vixen who had been hiding for a long time and finally inexplicably hooked a man.

“Let’s go,” Xie Ke didn’t care what others thought, just looking at Fu Zhiyu brightly, “I… there are still many things to tell you.”

Fu Zhiyu actually wanted to know what Xie Ke had experienced in this world. He also took his phone and searched Xie Ke’s name in the process and came up with a whole bunch of stuff.

Most of Zhou Yu’s confidence in running away with Fang Rongyu came from Xie Ke. Although film and television investment was only part of Xie Ke’s group’s business, most of the news on the Internet was connected to it.

For example, a scandal with an actress.

Xie Ke’s eyes were sharp. He knew that Fu Zhiyu was searching for him, and he was very happy. He felt that this man wanted to know everything about him as much as he did, but when those pictures came out, he wasn’t so glad and started to worry.

“They’re all fake, they’re all fake,” He immediately began to explain. “Those reporters, they’re just taking pictures indiscriminately, just using them to get heat. I, I don’t like her, and I’ve never been in a relationship.”

“What are you nervous about?” Fu Zhiyu put the phone back and glanced at him with a smile, “We are only meeting for the first time. You don’t need to explain so much to me.”

“It’s not…”

Xie Ke couldn’t fully express all his inner thoughts at this time. He thought to himself, how could it be the first time they met?

Meeting you for the first time is like return of an old friend.

He remembered these words inexplicably; the indescribable familiarity of the person in front of him made him want to get close.

“Maybe it was a previous life?” He tried hard to explain, but after he said it, he felt very ridiculous while boldly expressing his thoughts, “Zhiyu, I think that if people really have a previous life, we must have been a couple of lovers in the previous life.”

After hearing the name “Fu Zhiyu”, Xie Ke felt that the name seemed to open up something, and it was more acceptable to him than the name “Lin Yu”.

Fu Zhiyu shook his head and said, “No, we have never been a couple.”

Xie Ke was a little disappointed when he heard his words, but he still added: “If we haven’t been together, then I must have loved you very much.”

So much so that I felt it as soon as I saw you.

When Fu Zhiyu heard this, he stopped talking, which could be regarded as a tacit acknowledgement.

“In the future, can I still ask you out for dinner?” Xie Ke pushed relentlessly, “If you still want to eat what I cook, it’s fine. I’ll learn more dishes and make sure they’re better than the ones made outside, okay?”

Fu Zhiyu nodded.

Xie Ke had been in this world for more than twenty years, but Fu Zhiyu had been working in the system space for far longer than this, not to mention that the time in the system space was much slower than in the world in the book.

Xie Ke had really disappeared for a long time, and Fu Zhiyu didn’t know why he became the “Xie Ke” of this world inexplicably.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t like the way the World Consciousness acted and couldn’t understand why it was doing this. If it found something, couldn’t it just tell him?

He didn’t want to play any more puzzle games.

Xie Ke really didn’t remember anything, and only a vague impression of him was left. Fu Zhiyu wanted to talk to him a lot, but looking into his eyes, he couldn’t say all these words

Forget it, it was useless to say it.

Fu Zhiyu originally wanted Xie Ke to remember. He obviously hadn’t lost all his memories, he might just have sealed them up. Maybe it meant that if a way was found, Xie Ke could remember and the problems of this world could be solved together.

He felt that the only way the two of them could have a good conversation was if Xie Ke remembered; but as time went on, his thoughts changed somewhat.

Xie Ke didn’t remember anything. He still treated him very kindly, but this kind of kindness no longer carried a heavy sense of guilt. Although Xie Ke was still cautious, still worried, and facing Fu Zhiyu, he would still show some silliness, but these feelings became pure and direct, making Fu Zhiyu feel a lot more comfortable.

As time went by, Fu Zhiyu felt a little something else in it.

If only fate hadn’t gotten in the way, if this and that misunderstanding hadn’t overlapped, if only they had both seen their own hearts clearly, if only they had met under normal circumstances…

So many ifs, and now it was really happening. If he, like Xie Ke, had no memories, such an encounter could be called perfect.

The precious feelings of love and understanding that Fu Zhiyu had seen between Yuan Xi and her husband could in fact happen to him as well.

For example, Xie Ke really devoted himself to learning to cook because of that one sentence. He was really talented in cooking, and he was proficient in it. He learned quickly, as if he had learned it before. After learning to cook, make soups and stir-fry, he also learned to make desserts.

“What kind of snacks does Zhiyu want to eat?” He asked gently, “I’ll learn them all.”

Fu Zhiyu looked at his busy back in the kitchen, pondered for a while, and said lightly: “Osmanthus candy.”

It was just the right night outside, and today happened to be the Qixi Festival again.

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 97

Fu Zhiyu’s mind was blank for a moment.

At the same time, a doubt quickly emerged in his thoughts. Why did the World Consciousness inexplicably send him here? Perhaps the stuck middle-level world was not the reason. The bigger reason was the person in front of him, right?

Was it brain-damaged? Was it necessary to make these twists and turns? As soon as Fu Zhiyu finished thinking that, he immediately realised that the World Consciousness was originally brainless.

After Zhou Yu met the man, he obediently took Fang Rongyu into the car, but the man he called “Youngest Uncle” remained in the same place, staring at Fu Zhiyu intently, unable to say a word.

Fu Zhiyu took the initiative to step forward, stared at him for a long time, and asked him, “Who are you?”

“I…” The man in the suit stuttered and even became obviously nervous, “I am… Xie Ke.”

Xie Ke also felt very strange. Because of his nephew’s affairs, he had seen the photos of everyone in their “idol group”. Lin Yu’s photo was a promotional photo taken by a fashion magazine. His face was very beautiful, but Xie Ke didn’t remember much after looking at it and forgot it almost immediately.

Why was meeting a real person so different?

After Fu Zhiyu heard this name, his face became even more indescribable.

After all this, you can’t say it’s a coincidence, can you?

This was him.

Xie Ke felt uneasy when he saw the young man’s stern face in front of him.

Did he seem too serious for their first meeting?

He regretted that he didn’t change into more casual clothes when he came from the meeting, making himself look more approachable.

“I, I’m Zhou Yu’s uncle, and I’m here to pick him up,” He tried to squeeze out a kind smile, but because of nervousness, the smile seemed very stiff, “Lin Yu, it’s very, very nice to meet you.”

He habitually stretched out a hand, probably because he was doing too much business. This handshake was no different from when he was negotiating a deal. As soon as he stretched out his hand, he regretted it.

It was too formal and didn’t express the friendliness he wanted to express at all.

But what he didn’t expect was that Lin Yu would stare at him for a while, reach out and shake his hand.

Although he quickly withdrew his hand, Xie Ke felt that his heartbeat had reached its peak at that moment.

His, his hand was so soft!

He didn’t understand what was wrong with him. Although Lin Yu was very good-looking, Xie Ke had seen hundreds of beauties and he had never taken more than one look. But the first glance at this person standing there had already made him unable to move his eyes away.

When Lin Yu stared at him, Xie Ke felt that his eyes seemed to be talking. He didn’t fully understand the meaning, but he couldn’t help but focus all his attention on Lin Yu.

“We… have we met before?”

The two of them stood in front of the car and talked. Zhou Yu took Fang Rongyu to sit down, and his uncle still didn’t come for a long time. He didn’t close the car window, so he could hear their conversation.

“Uncle?” He looked incredulous, “Your way of striking up a conversation is too old-fashioned, right?”

Xie Ke turned his head, and his eyes changed in a moment. Zhou Yu didn’t dare to joke with him like this, so he shrank his head back.

“Take him home immediately,” Xie Ke said to the driver, “I still have something to do.”

The driver nodded, and the car drove away quickly. Fu Zhiyu looked at Zhou Yu in the car, who watched him with very complicated eyes, and then said something to him.

The voice was too low, Fu Zhiyu didn’t hear it, but looking at the mouth shape, it should be “damn vixen”.

Xie Ke also saw it; he turned his head to Fu Zhiyu and said, “I’ll beat him up when I get back.”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t take this matter to heart. Zhou Yu’s silly behaviour was no different from that of a child. He had lived for so long, what would be the point of caring about this?

He tilted his head, glanced at Xie Ke and asked, “Aren’t you leaving? Didn’t you come to pick him up?”

“Zhou Yu has his mother to take care of him, I don’t usually need to bother,” Xie Ke explained hurriedly, “I, I have a lot of time today.”

Fu Zhiyu understood his frantic hint and thought for a while: “Are you free to have dinner with me?”

He looked at the sky and added, “Breakfast.”

Xie Ke was happier than ever at this moment and couldn’t help but grin, quickly agreeing: “Sure.”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t avoid him either, turned around and took him into the villa.

The strange relationship between the two of them meeting for the first time was a bit abnormal, but neither of them raised any objections.

Meanwhile, Zhou Yu, who took Fang Rongyu away, looked uncomfortable, and Fang Rongyu was also very worried.

“Whose car is this, is it your uncle’s?” He couldn’t help but look back, “Your uncle… what is he going to do to Xiao Yu?”

Zhou Yu looked at him and his tone sounded softer as he explained: “It’s my family’s car. You will understand when we get home. My uncle just has a cold personality, he won’t do anything to him. I think this guy Lin Yu is not simple. The way he looked at my uncle was like a hook.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Fang Rongyu looked at him disapprovingly, “Xiao Yu is very good, don’t be prejudiced against him.”

Zhou Yu curled his lips, but didn’t say anything.

Fu Zhiyu took Xie Ke into the house, told him to sit down on the sofa first and went upstairs to change his clothes.

He was used to dressing simply. He pulled out a camel-colored jumper that was at the bottom of his wardrobe and changed into it, then looked in the mirror.

This face was not at all similar to his original one, but looking at Xie Ke’s reaction, there was definitely something strange.

Did he… recognise him or not?

While Xie Ke was sitting on the sofa, he actually felt very confused. He looked around. After a while, he saw Fu Zhiyu, who had changed his clothes, walking down from upstairs, and quickly followed.

Fu Zhiyu first walked to the kitchen and took a look. Everything was new and almost unused.

The group had not lived here a lot, and even if they were here, no one would cook.

Fu Zhiyu wanted to go to the fridge to see if there were any ingredients, but as soon as he turned around, he bumped into Xie Ke who was following him.

“Why don’t I take you out to eat?” Xie Ke plucked up the courage to invite him, “I know a few restaurants that are not bad.”

“No,” Fu Zhiyu shook his head. “This is a suburb. It takes more than an hour to drive, and I’m already very hungry.”

“Then…”

“Can you cook?” Fu Zhiyu asked him. He went to the fridge and took a look. There were noodles and some vegetables, probably bought by the housekeeper. “Just something simple.”

Xie Ke really could.

But he cooked very little, and no one had eaten his meals except himself.

It was strange. It was obviously the first time they met, but he couldn’t refuse anything Lin Yu said. Zhou Yu complained about his old-fashioned way of striking up a conversation, but he was telling the truth.

Why was he so familiar?

While thinking about it, Xie Ke took off his coat and obediently went to the kitchen to make Fu Zhiyu a bowl of tomato and egg noodles.

The noodles were ordinary packaged noodles bought in the supermarket. The tomatoes had probably been in the fridge for several days. The ingredients were not fresh anymore. To be honest, this bowl of noodles was not very delicious.

Fu Zhiyu looked at the man in front of him, lowered his head and finished eating.

“Where do you know me from?” He asked, “Because of Zhou Yu?”

Xie Ke nodded and said, “Lin Yu…”

Fu Zhiyu interrupted him at this moment, and suddenly asked him: “I have another name, Fu Zhiyu, do you remember?”

He felt that the problem of this world should basically lie with Xie Ke, otherwise the World Consciousness wouldn’t send him over inexplicably.

But what would it take for this man to become “normal”?

Whether it was for the sake of the world becoming normal or for his own sake, this matter of Xie Ke had to be resolved.

Xie Ke couldn’t hide from him those things he had done for him inexplicably and then disappear quietly. Now Fu Zhiyu finally saw him again, but Xie Ke didn’t remember anything.

He had to remember all the memories, good or bad; no matter what, it was something the two of them had experienced.

“Fu Zhiyu,” Xie Ke looked at him blankly, muttering the name repeatedly, “Fu Zhiyu…”

The name seemed to be imprinted in his soul, and as soon as it was mentioned, it made the deepest part of his heart tremble.

He tried to look back on his life. Xie Ke’s memory was very good; since he remembered himself at an extremely young age, he wouldn’t forget a single thing, not a single thing had been missed.

But why wasn’t Fu Zhiyu there? It shouldn’t have been like that.

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 96

The World Consciousness was always like this. It only had the idea of “achieving the goal”, and if it couldn’t be achieved, it would force it willy-nilly anyway.

Fu Zhiyu wanted to ignore it, turned around and was going to leave, but as soon as he took a step, he heard a “ding” in his ear.

“The world is loading, please be prepared.”

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

How could this world have such an unreasonable consciousness!

Before he could curse, his vision went black, and when he opened his eyes again, the system space was no longer in front of him.

At this moment, a huge amount of information from this world instantly poured into his mind.

Fu Zhiyu had never had such an experience; he felt light-headed, and it took him a long time to recover.

This was a strange world to him. Although he had seen many various worlds when he was in the system space, it was like watching surveillance, and there were many differences from actually entering.

Moreover, this was not the same as the ancient world of “His Name Will Live On in History”. This was a modern world. The original work was a plot-driven novel. It is about the journey of the female protagonist from obscurity to becoming a movie queen. Although the emotional line with the male lead was not much, it was not too difficult.

The overall difficulty of playing was not high; Fu Zhiyu judged that it was probably a middle-level world.

The original work only said that after the female protagonist won the Best Actress award, she accepted the male protagonist’s marriage proposal and it was over. The actress in charge of the world played this part well, got the points reward and left the world.

After that, the heroine, the daughter of luck, still existed, but became a normal data. It stood to reason that the whole world should have become a free world, but it was the program that had an abnormality, and it was stuck there half up and half down.

Now it seemed that although everything was working as usual, it definitely would not be good in the long run. Stuck in the middle, there would be a risk of the world dissipating.

This kind of situation had never happened before. The situation was indeed quite urgent, but the problems that arose during the operation like this should be managed by the Lord God according to the distribution of responsibilities. Fu Zhiyu didn’t know what the World Consciousness was crazy about sending him in.

Fu Zhiyu’s identity this time was a supporting role. This supporting character was regarded as one of the heroine’s admirers, but the book was mainly plot-based and there were very few emotional lines. Even the male lead could be regarded as a part of the background.

In fact, his supporting character was at best agreeable. In addition to reflecting the charm of the heroine in the plot, there were very few other scenes. In short, he was an instrumental passerby.

The name of this supporting character was Lin Yu, and it partly coincided with Fu Zhiyu’s name, which could barely be considered a bit of fate.

This book was mainly about the entertainment industry. Lin Yu was an idol singer. When the book was over, he was only eighteen years old. The heroine treated him as her younger brother.

Fu Zhiyu walked to the mirror and looked at his face to familiarise himself with it somewhat.

It was good to have the face of an idol singer. Besides, Lin Yu was a popular idol. He was young and took the sweet boy route. His curly hair was dyed golden and surrounded his porcelain-white face, making him look like a cute doll.

Not like him, but a little bit like Yuan Lu.

Lin Yu was not living alone yet. He was a member of an idol group. The company rented a small villa for five people of the group, each having a separate room.

The allocation of the rooms showed the company’s bias. The popularity of the group members was not equal. Lin Yu alone carried more than half of the attention. He lived in the largest room on the second floor, with a separate cloakroom, bathroom and even a small garden. Members who were not so popular lived in the rooms that were not half as big as his and had no private bathroom.

This kind of approach with pleasing the winner and stepping on the loser was actually quite bad. No matter when and where, no one would be happy with such differential treatment.

As a result, the plot had developed to the point when the group could no longer sustain itself and was already in the process of disbanding. Everyone was waiting to fly solo. The popular members didn’t want to be dragged down. The non-popular ones also felt that they didn’t want to live in the shadow of the others. After they left, there would definitely be more opportunities in the future. Anyway, no one wanted to stay.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t care about this. He was thinking about the key to the world’s problem of being stuck. Was there something wrong with the female protagonist and the male lead?

He had some contact with the heroine in this identity, and the relationship was okay. He belonged to the kind of person who couldn’t be a lover but could be a friend. He fished out his mobile phone from the bed, groped it carefully, and then sent a message to the heroine, asking if she had time to come out to meet.

After he waited for a while, the heroine didn’t reply, probably very busy.

But at this time, there was a noise downstairs.

“Don’t bully people too much!”

Then there was a bang, like the sound of a cup being smashed.

And as if this was not enough, the noise was getting louder and louder, and it sounded as if a fight was about to start. Fu Zhiyu glanced at his mobile phone. The heroine hadn’t replied to him yet. Fu Zhiyu and the male lead were not familiar with each other, so he could only go down to the living room to have a look.

There was a group of people sitting on the sofa in the living room. The agent was sitting in the middle, his face ugly. But after seeing Fu Zhiyu coming down, he forced out a smile.

“Woke up from your nap? Come on, come and sit here.”

Fu Zhiyu took a look; it was a glass cup that had just been broken. It was right at his feet, and no one went to clean up the broken glass on the floor.

He didn’t go over either, afraid of cutting his feet. He found a stool and sat down, asking, “What’s the matter? What’s all the noise about?”

The people present didn’t seem to be in a good mood, so when he asked, no one said anything, and the scene was very awkward for a while.

Fu Zhiyu looked around. The captain was regarded as the second most popular in the group, making some splashes in the circle. Today, he wore a very formal suit. He lowered his head and was thinking about something. Among the other three, one was admitted to the film academy and was going to school next month, feeling very impatient. Sitting at the dining table, far away from everyone, there were two more people, the least popular ones. One huddled on the small sofa and seemed to have cried; his eyes were red. The other one stood in front of him. His protective posture was obvious, and his face was the most discontent.

To Fu Zhiyu, these people were nothing to be concerned about, they didn’t even add up to a few pages in the original story, but there was one of them that made Fu Zhiyu take a few more looks.

It was the one with the most angry face; Fu Zhiyu remembered, his name was Zhou Yu.

He was not bad-looking but he was extremely arrogant and often looked at people down his nose, offending many people. He didn’t like to participate in business activities, so it was normal for him to be at the bottom of the popularity.

But this young master’s temper was not unwarranted. He was really a young master. He fell out with his family and ran away to be an idol. He never told the company about his family background from beginning to end. Otherwise, this very ordinary entertainment company would have put him to use a long time ago.

The strange thing was that this setting was actually not mentioned in the original work. After all, these people were not worthy of the author’s attention to develop in so much detail. But perhaps the world completed itself or some changes occurred in the process. The information Fu Zhiyu received was not only from the original work, but also from the current situation in the world.

The world’s completion of the original work was actually quite interesting. Everyone had an independent story. Just like now, when the story of the wealthy and noble young master hiding his identity and falling in love with Cinderella was happening.

The red-eyed “Cinderella” who was protected by Zhou Yu was called Fang Rongyu. Perhaps because they both were the least popular, the two of them sympathised with each other, and their relationship was getting better and better. Fang Rongyu’s family was very ordinary or even poor. He was probably the most troubled soul in the group, but Zhou Yu didn’t want him to be wronged, so he was dragging him away.

The disbandment was a certainty, and now they were talking about the termination of the contract.

In fact, all five people wanted to terminate their contracts. This small company was simply lucky to get a group that became a big hit. But it was run so poorly that everyone didn’t want to stay. However, there were still three years left in the contract, so there was a quarrel.

Zhou Yu hadn’t said anything about his family background yet; he hadn’t even mentioned it to Fang Rongyu. In the future, he planned to take Fang Rongyu to sign up with his relative’s company, which was currently the best company in the industry.

Fu Zhiyu had already received this information when he entered the world. It was really too detailed. The World Consciousness didn’t tell him where the problem was, so he could only pay attention to everything, like a headless fly, hoping to solve it as soon as possible and go back quickly.

There was a solid quarrel in the living room for a long time, and Fu Zhiyu waited until the evening before getting the heroine’s reply.

“Sorry, ah, Xiao Yu, I have been filming abroad for the last month, and I may not have time to go out. When I return home, I will bring you a gift.”

Followed by a smiley face.

It seemed everything was normal with the heroine.

Fu Zhiyu flipped through her Moments. Last night, the heroine also posted a photo of a loving scene with the male lead. The two most important people in the world seemed to be very stable emotionally, and there was no problem.

Could it be that the problem lay with other people?

While Fu Zhiyu was thinking hard, the living room continued to be noisy; but there was no result anyway, and everyone finally broke up unhappily.

But the good thing was that recently, because of this incident, the team’s activities had basically come to a standstill. Fu Zhiyu was happy to be free and spend time looking around for the problem.

He hadn’t found anything in the next few days, but Zhou Yu’s plan to terminate the contract had basically come to fruition.

The company wasn’t concerned about the two unpopular ones, mainly because it thought that Lin Yu and the captain couldn’t run away, and the one who had gotten into film school was also a potential stock. As for the rest, they could go wherever they wanted to.

On the day Zhou Yu took Fang Rongyu away, Fang Rongyu seemed to have cried again. He saw Fu Zhiyu coming down the stairs and looked at him expectantly.

“What’s wrong with you?” Fu Zhiyu was taken aback by his look.

“Xiao Yu, after we separate, you have to be good,” Fang Rongyu sniffed and shoved at him something he was holding behind his back. “I will always remember our days together.”

Fu Zhiyu looked down and saw that it was five little dolls. It was probably something that had been sold to the fan circle before, but the dolls were well done and seemed alive.

“Let’s go.” Zhou Yu saw it, pulled Fang Rongyu over with a cold face and glared at Fu Zhiyu as he left.

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

What does it have to do with me? It’s not that I provoked him.

Fang Rongyu was pulled by Zhou Yu, and the two quickly walked to the door of the villa, where in addition to the moving company’s truck, there was also a car parked behind.

Zhou Yu pulled Fang Rongyu to the car and told him to sit inside, but when Fang Rongyu looked at the car logo, his face became weird, and he stopped on his tracks.

He was simple but not stupid. This car was obviously not something they could afford to drive.

“I’ll explain to you slowly,” Zhou Yu also saw his doubts and coaxed, “You get in first.”

Fu Zhiyu was already at the door at this time. He hadn’t received a gift for a long time, and Fang Rongyu was also a friend of the original owner. He thought about seeing them off; anyway, it was just an effort of a few words.

But before he could say anything, a man came out of the parked car.

“You get in too.” The man wore a decent suit, as if he had just gotten out of a meeting. He glanced at Zhou Yu and said to him in a calm voice, “When you get home, you can also explain to us slowly.”

There was a look of surprise on Zhou Yu’s face when saw the man. His raised head immediately lowered; he even looked a little cramped and laughed dryly: “Youngest Uncle… why are you here?”

As he spoke, he subconsciously pulled Fang Rongyu aside for symbolical protection.

Fu Zhiyu originally wanted to see them off at the door. He was still wearing home clothes and walked in a pair of bear slippers, just in time to meet this man.

The “youngest uncle” Zhou Yu mentioned had Xie Ke’s face.

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 95

The Lord God wanted to say something else, but Fu Zhiyu couldn’t listen anymore. He felt his ears buzzing.

Why did he do this?

Fu Zhiyu couldn’t think clearly.

He tried to recall the last time he saw Xie Ke. His memory of that night was actually very vague. He only remembered the hug and the words “I love you”, and nothing more.

He thought that this was the end for him and Xie Ke, and it was the best end he could think of at the time. The two of them let go, and if they met in the future, at best, they would just look at each other and smile.

Forgetting each other in this world was perfect.

But now that these things were uncovered, everything changed, and the seemingly peaceful ending was actually indescribable in retrospect.

At this point in time, Fu Zhiyu wanted to ask Xie Ke what he was thinking, and why he was doing this.

But there was only one thing he couldn’t say. This time he couldn’t tell Xie Ke that he didn’t need to do it. If it weren’t for Xie Ke’s initiative, Fu Zhiyu wouldn’t even have the opportunity to stand here.

The Lord God left at some moment. Perhaps it saw Fu Zhiyu’s inability to listen and felt that it was useless to say anything, so it left.

The time here was very long, enough for Fu Zhiyu to think.

Fu Zhiyu had always thought that he was a very open-minded person. Because of his complicated experience, he was always easy to let go of the wrongs that others had done to him, such as Shen Yang, such as Xie Ke before.

He could let others wrong him, but he couldn’t let himself wrong others. In other words, Fu Zhiyu didn’t like to owe others.

He only had a few people he felt regrets about and owed, and he did everything possible to compensate them. If others treated him well, he would return the favour in double, whether they were family or friends.

But he and Xie Ke were too entangled. Before Fu Zhiyu knew the truth, he could still say that their two lives compensated each other and in general, no one owed anyone. But it was all wishful thinking; after this incident, he couldn’t say that he didn’t owe anything.

Why did he and Xie Ke end up like this?

It was not that Fu Zhiyu had never seen love. Sister Yuan Xi and her husband loved each other for a long time, and he watched them from falling in love, to getting married, to staying together side by side. Even if sometimes the couple quarrelled, it could still be seen that the two people respected each other and loved each other. 

The love of others was calm and happy, and it was sweet to watch. He couldn’t understand why when it was the turn of the two of them, it was just a ball of wool that couldn’t be untangled.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t know how long he was thinking about it alone. The past between him and Xie Ke swirled through his mind like a spinning lantern.

When he used to think of Xie Ke, it was always some unhappy memories. But now that he thought of him, those sad memories of the past still existed, but there were more, the ones that made Fu Zhiyu feel different.

One night, two people walked together on a deserted street, two lanterns without writing floating along the water. He also met Xie Ke on the construction site where the canal was dug. Xie Ke’s face was grey and he couldn’t wipe it clean. And further in the past, Xie Ke cautiously climbed over the wall of the residence, habitually avoiding Rongrong, and when he got there, he didn’t dare to get too close to Fu Zhiyu, so he stood there like that, looking at him a little stupidly.

When you hate someone, everything this person does is wrong. But when Fu Zhiyu’s mood changed and he remembered these things again, he felt different.

He and Xie Ke had experienced almost everything before, ups and downs, the sweet and the sour.

It was just that in the end, they were separated.

The time Fu Zhiyu spent alone wasn’t much, and the World Consciousness came to him not long after.

It was at this time that Fu Zhiyu felt what was “different”, as the Lord God had said. It was very difficult for the Lord God to communicate with the World Consciousness, only getting a few words at a time. The Lord God explained to him many things, but it itself had received them intermittently, taking a long time to learn everything.

But the communication between Fu Zhiyu and the World Consciousness was very smooth, without any barriers.

When he first felt the presence of the World Consciousness in the midst of his memories, he felt a force pulling his cheek.

Fu Zhiyu hissed and touched his affected cheek.

“What is it?”

“Me, the World Consciousness.” He heard a low voice coming into his ear, “It’s the first time I’ve seen you, so I’m trying it out.”

Trying out what?

Fu Zhiyu clutched his cheek; did this World Consciousness think he was dough? Knead him whatever way you want?

“When can you start working?” The World Consciousness pretended that nothing happened, and got to the point, “There are many things you need to do.”

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

He couldn’t speak for a while; the World Consciousness had no body and there was nothing in front of his eyes. He could only smile bitterly and sigh. “Do you think I can still do things for you?”

“Why can’t you?” The World Consciousness was very puzzled, “I have observed your actions in the world of ‘His Name Will Live On in History’. You have some ideas and also are active and enthusiastic. Many of the things I explained to you are connected. Shouldn’t you find it enjoyable and meaningful?”

“And you still wanted to delete me before?”

“And what if you didn’t obey?” The World Consciousness felt it was very reasonable, “Now you are fine anyway.”

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

He didn’t want to talk, so he turned away.

“It’s useless for you to do this, I’m everywhere,” the World Consciousness reminded him, “Don’t get emotional.”

Fu Zhiyu resisted passively, ignoring it.

He didn’t want to get along with the World Consciousness, but in the end, he agreed to the work demands of the World Consciousness.

It was because of its words: “In this universe, anything can happen. What the Lord God says is not absolute, but whether you can do it or not depends on yourself. If you don’t do anything and don’t understand anything, then it’s impossible.”

Xie Ke also had done everything he could to get him back.

“Do you have the same feelings for him?” the World Consciousness asked, “But you can’t go crazy like him and not listen to reason. If you do, it will be very detrimental to your work.”

Fu Zhiyu: “I won’t.”

He was silent for a while before answering the first question.

“Actually, I don’t know,” he said, “So I have to find him, and he… will have to answer me personally.”

Putting everything aside, the World Consciousness’s idea of changing the world was actually quite interesting.

“I wrote the sentence on the title page of the actor’s manual,” the World Consciousness said, “I love all the worlds deeply, so I think, at this point in time today, what’s more important than a 100 per cent re-enactment is respect, respect for all the characters in the original.”

Fu Zhiyu helped the World Consciousness to change the existing rules for the actors little by little. There was no longer a rigid points system, and the scoring was more flexible.

“If the characters in the world change without harming the foundation of the world, don’t forcibly break them back according to the original work. Their development should be respected,” the World Consciousness said. “You reap what you sow, everyone has their own fate, and the protagonists played by the vast majority of actors always make their worlds a better place. Even in a tragic world, there are personal ups and downs and growth. I really hope that people in these worlds can have their own lives; whether it is good or bad, they should not be shackled by the original work.”

In fact, the World Consciousness ultimately hoped that there would be no more actors in these worlds, and all worlds would be free worlds.

But these worlds had basic operating rules. The protagonist of a world was the son of luck. If the protagonist had an accident, the world would collapse, so the actor needed to save the day. So this idea of the World Consciousness was still an unattainable wish.

Compared with the previous practice when every line had to conform to the original work, this method of judgement was more complicated, mainly because it was difficult to grasp the “degree”, and the difficulty of the task was greatly increased for the actors.

This also caused the actor organisations to be no longer as strong as before. Now that the task changed drastically, they were all focused on the task. How could they have extra energy to do other things? At least the Lord God was very happy about it.

Fu Zhiyu was now one level higher than the Lord God. Strictly speaking, he was the real Lord God, but he didn’t care about daily affairs and didn’t usually interfere. Most of the work was still done by the original Lord God. Fu Zhiyu didn’t plan to fight with it. Other systems still called him “Zhiyu.”

The actors sneakily called him the devil, and after knowing that he was the one Xie Ke died for, the actors became even more respectful to the former actor who had disappeared.

What kind of strong man could fall in love with an unreasonable workaholic demon like Fu Zhiyu?

Very, very capable.

Fu Zhiyu was still alone. For a while, he thought about finding his mother and the others, but he was denied by the World Consciousness.

“No matter what they are, they are ordinary data. They can’t come to the system space. If you forcibly transfer them over, they will be automatically deleted as abnormal data. Not everyone is as special as you,” the World Consciousness explained. “But in those worlds, all data circulates. You can understand it as reincarnation. The data that has eaten your blood will be more or less different. You don’t have to worry about them having a bad time.”

Fu Zhiyu also sneaked around to make sure that the people he cared about were all doing very well, and it made him somewhat relieved.

Xie Ke was probably the only regret in his heart now. Even after so much experience, he still hadn’t figured it out.

Fu Zhiyu heard Xie Ke say before that he had lived for many, many years and still loved him deeply, but at that time he only half believed it.

He probably felt it now. After so long, he had also experienced a lot, but he still wanted to see Xie Ke and remembered the words of the World Consciousness.

In a roundabout way, Xie Ke became a knot in his heart.

Time will only make some feelings more profound, not make them stale.

But for Fu Zhiyu it was not a matter of life and death; he just lived calmly like this. Sometimes, the Lord God asked him, and he smiled very serenely.

“He will come back and make it clear to me,” Fu Zhiyu said. “If he really loves me as much as he said, he won’t be willing to leave me alone.”

The Lord God stopped asking.

There was no time in the system space, and Fu Zhiyu didn’t know how long he had been working. When the work entrusted to him by the World Consciousness was almost done, the rest was just patches and daily maintenance for abnormal situations. He was idle all of a sudden.

Fu Zhiyu couldn’t afford to be idle now; when he was idle, he tended to think more.

“There just happens to be one more thing,” the World Consciousness approached him, “There is a world recently where the task has been completed, but it has not been transformed into a free world. So it is stuck there, unable to get up or down. The actor has left it, and the task rewards have been settled. In the absence of a task, other actors can’t get in. The only one I can think about is you.

You are idle now anyway, go and have a look. At any rate, you’re half an actor, you haven’t been to other worlds for so long, right?”

Fu Zhiyu refused on the spot: “I’m not going, you can solve it by yourself, I don’t want to be an actor.”

As his identity of half an actor, he even carried the pile of points and props that Xie Ke left him, but Fu Zhiyu didn’t even want to touch them.

“No, this is work,” the World Consciousness said righteously, “Zhiyu, be good, you have to be obedient.”

Fu Zhiyu: “…Don’t talk to me in this disgusting tone.”

It was probably that the Lord God’s strange “child of the World Consciousness” description of him was also heard by the World Consciousness. Fu Zhiyu didn’t take it seriously. He only recognised his own mother; but the World Consciousness accepted it very smoothly and even felt it was very reasonable.

So sometimes when Fu Zhiyu talked to it, he really wanted to fight it because of its strange tone, but he suffered from the fact that the World Consciousness had no body.

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 94

It was said that it is a test world. It took a lot of time for the Lord God to set up a simulation environment in the world of “His Name Will Live On in History”.

The reason for choosing it was also because “His Name Will Live On in History” had a good historical foundation. According to the World Consciousness’s analysis, the “vitality” of this world was much stronger than that of other worlds, which meant that the authenticity and personality of the characters inside would be much stronger, which fully met the screening criteria.

But this foundation alone was not enough. The World Consciousness had put part of its own power into some of the main characters in this world. Shen Yang had it, and Yuan Mingdao also had, in order to make them do more things that were different from the original work. 

Fu Zhiyu, the villain, attracted the World Consciousness. It put a lot of its cognizance into Fu Zhiyu and spent more effort on him. But even this was not enough. It made this role an interference task and wanted to find an actor to create new difficulties.

The World Consciousness interference with Fu Zhiyu’s role in the mission was leaked out. It didn’t care. This mission was very different from the previous interference mission. The actors thought they knew the situation and were caught off guard. This way, on the contrary, allowed the World Consciousness to better test Xie Ke’s level and test whether he could get this authority.

Obviously everything was ready, but when Xie Ke entered the world, everything changed.

To be precise, Fu Zhiyu had changed.

When the mission opened, the moment the character was “lit up”, it was like a black hole, sucking up most of the World’s Consciousness’s layout and power left in that world, and the person who was given the task of playing the role couldn’t take over, because this “Fu Zhiyu” had absorbed so much that he almost became part of the World Consciousness.

Fu Zhiyu completely deviated from the character that belonged to the original; he was a new “person”, and very different compared to the other people in this world.

Because of this accident, the original arrangement of the World Consciousness almost failed, and the character Fu Zhiyu didn’t live according to its original arrangement and was far from the original work.

Xie Ke was supposed to have an alternative method of scoring the mission, and of course, his system would have received a reminder when he started the mission, but because of this accident, many of the arrangements didn’t work.

The World Consciousness: “……”

This could be regarded as its fault. It probably spent too much effort on the character Fu Zhiyu, and it was the first time it did this. Maybe it didn’t control its sense of proportion and finally created this kind of accident, and it couldn’t help it. 

The mission had already begun, and forced adjustment at this time might have caused the world to collapse, so this character was just allowed to go on.

In all fairness, Xie Ke did a good job. He should have received another rating rule, but he didn’t. In the end, he followed the original one. Fu Zhiyu’s accident made the risk of deducting points in many aspects greater, and in many places points were deducted. Even so, Xie Ke still passed, indicating that he was indeed an excellent actor. 

But in the end, the World Consciousness didn’t give him the authority it had originally promised, because the result was different from its imagination.

However, except for one Xie Ke, none of the actors were able to withstand the test of the World Consciousness to that extent. Originally, the World Consciousness was waiting to see if Xie Ke could do it again, but it didn’t expect this actor favoured by the World Consciousness would go crazy.

Because of “Fu Zhiyu”.

The World Consciousness had received news from the Lord God, but it doesn’t know how to reply.

It was certain that “Fu Zhiyu” couldn’t be deleted. He was almost completely composed of the World Consciousness. In other words, he was part of the origin of this world, and he was one level higher than the master brain and the Lord God. How could he be deleted by them!

The World Consciousness deeply regretted the entire self-inflicted mistake, but it didn’t know how to solve it and it couldn’t delete a part of itself.

“Zhiyu, I’ve just told you that we are all hired workers of the World Consciousness. As for me, I’m just a senior employee, but you are different. To use an appropriate and inappropriate metaphor, you are a child of the World Consciousness.”

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

He didn’t have any expression of excitement, just a dawning realisation.

It seemed that he was neither a bug nor a virus. His inexplicable strength and the blood in his body probably came from the World Consciousness.

The Lord God also knew what he was thinking, and explained: “You didn’t have it when you were in the mission world. It was because the mission world itself had restrictions, and the World Consciousness is not omnipotent. For example, after the mission starts, it can’t make changes anymore, so you are the same.

But after the world becomes a free world, it’s different. You no longer have these restrictions on you. Zhiyu, you have also discovered that not only your blood was useful and your strength increased, but these two items were just the most external manifestations. The power of the World Consciousness in you is much more than that.

And you are not the same as the World Consciousness. It has no specific image and cannot come to this world. It is just a managing existence. But you are different. You have a body. In other words, you can do anything. Zhiyu, the ability you were born with is already higher than mine and higher than the master brain’s, but you don’t know how to use it yet.”

No wonder the Lord God wanted to find a place for him to sit down at the beginning. Fu Zhiyu looked at his hands and listened in shock. It took a while before he digested this amount of information.

He really didn’t think so much. After he left the world, he thought he would go back to the small room again, reading those never-ending books with no concept of time.

But since the Lord God was telling him this now, it was probably not that simple.

“Then, what does the World Consciousness think of the matter of ‘His Name Will Live On in History’ rebooting?” Fu Zhiyu asked the Lord God, “There is me and there is Xie Ke. At that time, you said that this world could easily have an impact on the overall stability, so it was very important. What about the World Consciousness, did it care?”

“It cared,” the Lord God said, “Didn’t I tell you at the beginning that the world of ‘His Name Will Live On in History’ should have returned to its normal track a long time ago?”

After listening to this, Fu Zhiyu sensitively felt that this matter seemed to be different from what he understood at that time.

“When… was it supposed to return to normal?”

“Its reboot was supported by Xie Ke. The time of its return to normal was naturally when Xie Ke couldn’t support it anymore,” the Lord God said. “You should remember, it was that arrow.”

Fu Zhiyu naturally remembered, and his fingers curled up unconsciously.

The Lord God said: “It should have returned to normal at that time, but Xie Ke was underestimated by the World Consciousness. He was indeed an excellent actor, very good.

Because the trauma was too serious, his body couldn’t hold on for the time being. He had come back once. At about that time, he had some clues. He had some correct conjectures about your true identity, and he also had some guesses about the actions of World Consciousness.”

“…What guesses?” Fu Zhiyu asked. In fact, when he heard the beginning, he already had a faint sense of crisis, “The World Consciousness should not tolerate accidents like me. The authority is too high to control.”

The World Consciousness couldn’t tolerate him, the “child” who escaped inexplicably.

The Lord God was silent for a while and said, “Indeed, I don’t deny that the World Consciousness wanted to delete you. To be precise, not to delete, it just wanted to take back its power. But it was not good to do this directly. After you and Xie Ke entered ‘His Name Will Live On in History’, it wanted to pack up the troubles and solve them together. When Xie Ke was at his weakest, it was indeed the best opportunity.”

When Fu Zhiyu heard this, he clenched his fists tightly.

Although the Lord God said that… nothing happened.

He lived in Jiangnan at that time, thinking that everything was fine, not knowing that the dark currents were raging outside.

“Delete the world of ‘His Name Will Live On in History’, maybe delete you along with it, take back part of your power, and then enter the initial data of that world again. Then it could be regarded as nothing ever happened,” the Lord God said. “Xie Ke was actually not the goal of the World Consciousness. As an actor, he still could be controlled. The World Consciousness also had a use of him. He was temporarily out of the world at that time. Originally, Xie Ke could escape all of this.”

Fu Zhiyu froze. When he heard this, he suddenly remembered that when he saw Xie Ke for the last time, he saw his white hair and his visibly aged face.

“Why didn’t I know any of this?” Fu Zhiyu felt that his hands were shaking, “I…”

He originally felt that he and the Lord God were friends, and wanted to ask why it didn’t let him know, but he quickly remembered that the Lord God was a responsible manager before it was his friend.

“Have you ever opened three red bloodstone boxes?” The Lord God asked him, “This man Xie Ke really… I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe he was planning ahead. He was probably afraid that you would disappear again, so he used this. This thing… it worked on you.”

Fu Zhiyu had some memories.

But at that time, he just felt that it was a boring thing Xie Ke did in his free time and deliberately used his curiosity to make him open three boxes just to see what he wrote in them.

“This is about the most advanced prop that the current actor can get. It’s a transfer prop, a box that gives the actor a chance to escape obliteration. Of course, the effect is more than that, it all depends on how people use it. Xie Ke took it and reversed it. He relied on his high authority and high points to bind himself to you. Maybe he was afraid that you would disappear at that time,” the Lord God said, “If it were only him, he would probably not be able to resist the World Consciousness. But Xie Ke was the first person to play this kind of role. Although he exchanged many things before, he still had residual power and he pulled almost half of the actors to make temporary resistance. He also relied on those three boxes to leave everything to you.”

“…What do you mean?”

“The World Consciousness also has operating rules. For example, it cannot delete you directly. For example, the actor can only be obliterated when the mission fails. This is the only way to die.” The mechanical voice of the Lord God was very calm, without any emotion. “Xie Ke gave you his power through the links in those three boxes. If you were half an actor, it was useless for the World Consciousness to delete ‘His Name Will Leave On in History’, so nothing could be done.

But you will have to come back one day. When Xie Ke’s power is exhausted, which is now, you will come back.”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t speak for a long time.

When he uncovered the layers of truth and saw the reality hidden at the bottom, he knew what was going on behind the quiet years in the world in the book.

“You are very special now, half of you is the World Consciousness and half of you is the actor,” the Lord God said, “It’s a good thing. The World Consciousness was originally afraid that it wouldn’t be able to control you at all, so it had to take back your power. But now that you have the identity of half of the actor, you have to be subject to some control, so that it can rest assured. Instead it feels good that you have such great innate conditions, and it’s a pity not to use them. Now, it won’t delete you because you can do many things for it.”

“…Where’s Xie Ke?”

“Naturally, he disappeared,” the Lord God said, “There is no longer Actor 027 in the system record.”

Previous / ToC / Next

Buddha-like Rebirth Chapter 93

Fu Zhiyu covered his eyes, feeling that the sudden light was stinging painfully. He slowly rubbed his eyes for a long time before he could see everything in front of him clearly.

Sure enough, it was the Lord God’s space.

“…Why did I come back here again?” He looked around, looked down at his hands and feet and muttered to himself, “What happened?”

“You were supposed to be here,” the Lord God said. It was usually strict with actors and systems, but it was much softer towards Fu Zhiyu, “Zhiyu, come with me, I have something to tell you.”

Fu Zhiyu could only follow the Lord God, his mind gradually regaining its clarity. Walking in this space, he felt both familiar and unfamiliar. After a while, he couldn’t help but ask: “Then, how is the world of ‘His Name Will Live On in History’?”

“After you and Xie Ke left that world, it returned to normal,” the Lord God said. “It should have returned to normal a long time ago, but there was a delay.”

Fu Zhiyu knew that it was originally a mission world that had been completed. If Xie Ke hadn’t rebooted it, it should have returned to its proper track and developed freely and uncontrollably in the future.

“Of course, there are still some changes,” the Lord God said, “The changes you made to that world are different from the original book. Maybe there will be new developments in that world, but these are minor issues.”

Fu Zhiyu remembered that the Lord God had described the world as a time-bomb before, and he couldn’t help but ask one more question: “Isn’t it a threat to the stability of the system?”

“Not for a long time,” the voice of the Lord God was very calm, “Don’t worry, come with me, I will explain it to you.”

After listening to this sentence, Fu Zhiyu felt a little relieved. He lowered his head while thinking; he couldn’t help feeling a little sad, but he also knew in his heart that everything should have had an end.

They finally walked to the small room where the master brain was, the Lord God stopped, then let Fu Zhiyu sit down, and suddenly asked him: “Do you have any knowledge of this world?”

Knowledge?

Fu Zhiyu’s knowledge of this entire acting world came from the Lord God and Xie Ke, and he didn’t know much about the rest.

“What do you think is the top level of this world?” The Lord God felt that Fu Zhiyu didn’t seem to be able to answer well, so it changed the question.

Fu Zhiyu thought for a while, then hesitantly said: “You?”

The Lord God smiled.

“No, Zhiyu, you have to know that although this world is composed of novels, it has developed to such an extent that it is no longer possible to distinguish between real and false. It can be even said that it is no different from the original world that produced these books. Even if we were its derivatives at the beginning, but over time, many things changed,” the Lord God said, “Outside of this world is the World Consciousness that is running all of this, and the World Consciousness is much higher than us. I and those systems, as well as actors, and many people inside the worlds, are actually the same. We are not superior or inferior, and no one is more noble than anyone else. For the World Consciousness, we are ants, worker bees. I am just its hired worker, too. We can’t even communicate directly with the World Consciousness. Because we are at two different levels, when I sometimes communicate with the World Consciousness, it is very difficult, and it is always only a few words. These few words are mostly instructions, and there are not many explanations.”

Speaking of this, the Lord God paused for a while, and then said: “Most of the information transmitted by the World Consciousness during this period of time was about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes,” the Lord God asked him again, “Zhiyu, do you think you are just a piece of data that can’t be deleted?”

Fu Zhiyu nodded calmly. He had tried to find the reason when he was in the system space before, but he didn’t have a clue. This kind of thing couldn’t be worked out, so he stopped thinking about it, just seeing it as the reality of the situation.

“I originally thought that too, but then I found out that you were not not, and it was the World Consciousness that reminded me of that.”

The Lord God recalled what it had experienced, only to feel that the running programs in its mind were about to get stuck.

In fact, the Lord God had always been aware of its status as a senior employee. Although the name “Lord God” sounded nice, in fact, it only assumed management responsibilities, and sometimes it was just a loudspeaker. Its actual power was not very great, otherwise it would be impossible to be troubled by the actors for a long time and only rely on patches one by one to deal with them. If the Lord God really dominated everything, why would there be need for such trouble?

In theory, the Lord God was the closest to the World Consciousness, except for one moment, when Xie Ke got the authority as the highest actor. At that time Xie Ke was the closest to the World Consciousness;

Because his authority was not given by the Lord God; it was directly given to him by the World Consciousness.

However, after that incident, strange things followed.

First, there was a Fu Zhiyu that couldn’t be deleted. When the Lord God transmitted this abnormal information to the World Consciousness, there was no response and there was no intention to solve the problem, so Fu Zhiyu’s matter dragged on like this, and nothing could be done.

Even though Fu Zhiyu was here, he was quite well-behaved. He stayed in the space, was just given some information to read usually, and was very easy to control and very obedient.

But this was not the case with Xie Ke. After taking the authority, he was like crazy, making trouble everywhere. Although the Lord God was overwhelmed by him, it also found something wrong when dealing with him.

Xie Ke’s authority was incomplete; it had flaws, otherwise he wouldn’t need to go to so much trouble. According to the understanding of the Lord God, Xie Ke’s authority could have directly rebooted the world. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t do it. Instead, he struggled hard.

…What was the World Consciousness doing?

Only after Xie Ke got what he wanted and rebooted the world did the Lord God receive a reply from the World Consciousness.

This time the reply was longer than the previous one, as if to make up for the previous silence.

It was also a long story for the World Consciousness.

It had actually discovered a long time ago that there was a certain problem with the mechanism by which the actors now worked.

This world was composed of books. The layout was completely created by the people of the source world. The playing worlds naturally followed the original books step by step at the beginning, and after the plot of the original books was completed, these worlds were relegated to the free worlds and left to their own devices. But while the plot of the original book was followed, accidents occasionally occurred, and actors appeared at this time to make up for the mistakes of the world.

In the past, there had been no problems with this mechanism, but after the World Consciousness had watched it for a long time, it found that the worlds of the books were changing. This change was not that one or two people deviated from the plot, but that the whole changed.

The people in the worlds of the books were no longer two-dimensional paper people like they were at the beginning. They were getting more and more individual, had more and more ideas, and were more and more like real people, not even different from the people of the source world anymore.

It was not hard to understand. Novels were originally projections of the real world. Every novel was more or less the shadow of the real world, and so were the characters in it. But the authors wouldn’t spend effort on every character, not to mention that not every novel was a perfect novel.

But the worlds were getting more and more real, so the two-dimensional characters in the novel were beginning to become flesh and blood.

A normal person was inherently contradictory. There were few pure bad guys and pure good people. Among the “villains” in the book, some people would hesitate, some people would be in pain, and some people would even give up when they were about to do something. And some “decent” people occasionally had evil thoughts, not as flawless as the book said.

For example, the vicious female character in a certain world had been bullying the little white flower heroine throughout the book. In fact, they only had a misunderstanding at the beginning. The vicious female character mistakenly thought that the heroine stole her things and hated her. Because of this misunderstanding, other contradictions occurred, and the two became incompatible. But in this world, when it actually happened, the villainess found out that the things she lost had actually fallen into the space between the bed and the wall because of a small accident.

The initial misunderstanding was resolved; the villainess was still arrogant. She couldn’t bow her head to apologise, but then, she didn’t go crazy to harm the heroine either.

This villainess was indeed of a bad character. She was very selfish and egotistical. She had never shown the slightest sign of becoming a good person because of this incident. After that, she still had a very bad attitude towards the heroine, and she hadn’t even given the explanation about the theft. But she wouldn’t do anything more excessive.

The biggest difference between a person and a paper person was probably this. In the real world, no one would follow the rules, everyone would have changes and have their own ideas.

The worlds in the book had also begun to produce the independent logic and emotions that they should have.

Was this a bug?

The World Consciousness said “no”.

Of course, the reality was not as extreme as the above example. The actions of a large part of people had not changed, otherwise the world would be in a mess, and no matter how many actors were involved, they couldn’t save it. The vast majority of changes were in the way that made the emotions of the people more real.

What the Lord God saw was that the actors were out of control, but what the World Consciousness saw was more. It felt that the worlds had changed, but the mechanisms of the actors had remained the same, and that this wasn’t the way to go on.

The World Consciousness was trying to find the reason. Perhaps there were too many completed mission worlds; after they became free, this uncontrolled consciousness infected the whole universe. But whatever the reason, the change was irreversible and the World Consciousness had to adapt to it.

In this process, it saw some of the actors’ coping methods, forcibly correcting the plot. Even if the bad guy wanted to be good, he wasn’t allowed to be good, and the actor deliberately guided him to do evil like in the original book. Even if the good man was evil, the actor would do everything possible to cover him up.

Because the people in the book were set up like this, and the book was written like this. If the actors didn’t do this, there would be a risk of points deduction. They might be at fault, but it seemed that they couldn’t be blamed.

In the world of “His Name Will Live On in History”, the original difficulty setting was advanced. It had to be carefully calculated but it wasn’t particularly difficult for an advanced task. The reason why it became a super-advanced task, and also Xie Ke’s highest authority upgrade task, was because it was the test world of the Lord God, mainly to deal with this new situation.

On the one hand, the World Consciousness wanted to see what the actors would do in response to this situation, and on the other hand, it wanted to see if its ideas were correct.

But an accident happened.

The World Consciousness didn’t expect such an accident. As soon as Xie Ke entered that world, things were out of its control.

Previous / ToC / Next