By the time Ye Tianxie logged out the sky had begun to darken — and over the course of one afternoon, his level 15 experience bar had climbed from under 10% to 50%. That kind of pace would have made those self-styled leveling maniacs, who fancied nobody could match them, bash their own heads in from shame. Because what Ye Tianxie had earned in six hours would have taken them a solid twenty-four, grinding day and night without pause.

Back in the real world, he opened his eyes to an intoxicating smell already reaching him, and the clock reading exactly seven — the hour Su Feifei finished dinner each day. A world that had once been solitary now had a girl in it who always had a meal ready when he needed one. The feeling was, honestly, very good…

Hearing him stir, Su Feifei hurried out of the kitchen, untying her little apron, and leaned excitedly over the back of the sofa. “Hee, Tianxie, good news — while you were playing, I played for ages too, and now I’m this close to level 10, and then I can come to the city and find you and we can play together. Aren’t you pleased?”

“…”

“Oh, and you still haven’t told me what your name is in the game. Tell me, tell me.” Su Feifei edged a little closer, wheedling, unconsciously radiating exactly the sort of feminine charm a man could drown in. She’d asked this several times already, and Ye Tianxie had always been mysteriously evasive… The trouble was that the name Xietian had become far too loud. He’d cleared the Abyss Trial single-handedly, like something out of a myth — and even now, no team had cleared it, let alone an individual. And on the Level Ranking, he’d erupted from outside the top thousand to first place at a pace that beggared belief, overtaking even the acknowledged undefeated legend, Tian Moxie… and in two days more he’d left the man far behind, and was pulling further ahead by the hour.

Only, almost nobody knew that the Tian Moxie on the rankings wasn’t the Tian Moxie everyone knew. The real Tian Moxie was Xietian, who stood above them all regardless.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m a bit hungry right now.” Ye Tianxie fudged his way past it, shifted position at the table, and adopted the posture of a man waiting to be fed.

“Fine, fine, tomorrow then… Hmph. And no weaseling out of it.” Then, more quietly: “Always being so mysterious. Obviously treats me like an outsider. Hmph!”

Ye Tianxie: “…”

The next day.

The daughter of the richest man in Asia dutifully served Bodyguard Ye his breakfast, cleaned up after, then trotted over, slapped away the hand he was about to press to his gaming device, and scolded him. “Trying to run off again. Time to tell me your name in the game, isn’t it? I stayed up all night so I could hit level 10 sooner and get through that wretched trial, and staying up is the single greatest killer of a girl’s youth and beauty. Can you really bear not to tell me?”

Isn’t being in the game more or less indistinguishable from sleeping? Ye Tianxie grumbled inwardly.

“I’m afraid you won’t believe me if I say it.” He weighed his words and settled on a tone of resignation.

“Hm? Why wouldn’t I believe you?” Su Feifei wrinkled her nose, paused, then said in a strange voice, “You’re not about to tell me you’re… very famous, and you’re worried the name will shock me? Hee hee. Just say it already. It’s not as though you’re going to tell me you’re that Xietian everyone talks about like he’s some kind of god… uh?”

Ye Tianxie: “…”

Su Feifei: “…”

The two of them stared at each other, both frozen. After a moment, Su Feifei asked, very quietly, “Tianxie… Xietian… Tianxie, you couldn’t possibly be—”

“Send me a call in a bit and you’ll find out,” Ye Tianxie said, thoroughly out of words.

“You really are that Xietian… Wow!” Su Feifei let out a small cry, hands clasped to her chest, her lovely eyes filling with stars of adoration and excitement. “I’m so stupid. I should have worked it out from the name! Of course you are, my Tianxie is so amazing. Amazing everywhere he goes—”

Ye Tianxie shifted back three centimeters, wary. “Miss Su, a personality cult is all very well, but please stop looking at me like a female wolf sizing up prey…”

An enormous cushion hit him in the head. Su Feifei’s mouth curled and she stamped a small foot. “Don’t flatter yourself. This young lady is merely relieved to have a bit of backing in the game as well… You wait for me in there, I’m coming to find you right now… And then you’re taking me out to bully small monsters. And also, also, you’re so strong, so from now on you can just carry me while I level. I’m not doing all that work.”

Ye Tianxie: “…”

He entered the World of Fate, appearing where he’d left off among the wolves, then made his way back to the City of Stars and jogged home to his residence in this world — Guoguo’s Cottage. Sure enough, no sooner had he stepped through the gate than the communicator on his wrist chimed.

“Tianxie, can you hear me? It’s Feifei…”

And the caller’s name displayed on the communicator was… Su Causeway in the Misty Rain.

Su Causeway in the Misty Rain. Su Feifei’s name in the World of Fate. A name with all the color of a beautiful poem.

“I hear you.” Ye Tianxie answered rather feebly. All things considered, having this young lady attached to him in the game world too was not an ideal development — he was accustomed to adventuring alone, chasing his own thrills, walking his own road across the world.

Su Feifei’s voice brightened noticeably. “Where are you, then? I’ve just been sent to the City of Stars… Come quickly.”

“That’s… perhaps you’d better come to me…” Ye Tianxie hesitated, then, ignoring her complaints, told her where he was.

The plaza of the City of Stars was vast; crossing it on foot alone took more than ten minutes. Its western side gave onto the city’s most crowded and clamorous commercial street, and a little further west from the middle of that street stood Ye Tianxie’s residence.

Timing it, he stepped outside — just in time to see a lovely figure looking about in front of his gate.

Su Feifei was in a mage’s white robe, holding a blank-stat withered-wood staff, a pointed white magic hat on her head. The outfit wasn’t dazzling, but the mage’s garb lent her a strange and rather enchanting charm. Hearing him, she turned — and stared in astonishment as Ye Tianxie came out through the door.

“You… you were in there?” She had no time to greet him excitedly in this new world, and no time to marvel at the assortment of strange colors he was wearing. What astonished her most was that he had walked out of that door — the gate of this staggeringly opulent mansion. When she’d first arrived she had, in fact, spent five full seconds staring at the buildings inside.

Ye Tianxie was entirely satisfied with her expression, since even he had barely contained his own astonishment the first time he saw the place. He said, smugly, “This is my residence in this game. Well? Not bad, is it?”

“Wow! My god! Really? Take me in, take me in — hurry up!” Her desire to see it left no room for asking how on earth he’d come to own such a place. This might be a game world rather than a parallel one, but she understood perfectly well what a residence of this grandeur meant here.

He was about to lead her in when his communicator chimed again.

“Ding… You have an incoming call from outside. Answer?”

Ye Tianxie knew at once who was calling. He smiled faintly and connected — and a rough, urgent voice came through immediately. “Second Brother! Number Four and I are already at the center of the City of Stars, but… for some reason we can’t reach you at all. You must have blocked all your calls, so we had to phone you instead. Where are you—”

Ye Tianxie knew that the person they’d been trying to reach in the game world was, of course, Tian Moxie. Not Xietian.

And the false Tian Moxie evidently didn’t want to be disturbed, and had blocked all incoming calls.

Ye Tianxie gave him his location and hung up. Then he took the visibly overexcited Su Feifei on a tour of what was, without exaggeration, one of the finest mansions in the whole City of Stars. The moment she crossed the threshold, the chime — Welcome to Guoguo’s Cottage — made her stop dead, and she turned an extremely peculiar look on him. “Guoguo’s Cottage?”

“It’s a residence I got from a quest. The system assigned the name. I’ve no idea what it means.” Ye Tianxie said it without so much as a flicker.

“Oh.” Su Feifei made a noncommittal noise, the strangeness still plain in her eyes. Whatever else, that name was hard to forget. Fortunately, her attention didn’t linger on it long; she was soon touring the place in high spirits, exclaiming with excitement… as delighted as if she were viewing her own new home. She was living under one roof with him now, and her heart had quietly and thoroughly attached itself to him. On some level, his home was already her home.

He was the master of this house.

And she was its mistress.

And under a campaign of threats and inducements, Ye Tianxie found himself obliged to grant her free access to come and go as she pleased.

“Mm-hm! From now on this room is mine, and nobody but me is allowed in!” Su Feifei announced from the doorway of the top-floor loft, eyes shining as she took in its lavish furnishings, in a tone that made it perfectly clear the matter was settled whether he agreed or not.

“Not even me?” said Ye Tianxie, who had been trailing the young lady around for half a morning, with some sourness.

“Absolutely not… You’re the most not allowed in, you sex-starved great lecher who gropes girls on the street. Hmph.” Su Feifei snorted. She had not forgotten how the two of them had actually first met… a genuinely extraordinary and thoroughly unforgettable way to meet. And it was from that day that she had truly come to understand what a marvelous thing fate was.

“Fine, do as you like. But this is my property, so if you’re going to live here, that’s five thousand a month in rent!”

“Miser!”

“All right. Let me take you to meet some friends of mine.” Ye Tianxie checked the time; they’d be arriving about now.

“Friends? You have friends?” That stopped her briefly. After these days together she had a rough map of his character, and given that character and how he lived, what sort of person could possibly be his friend?

“Heh…” Knowing exactly what she’d say, Ye Tianxie added, “The world is actually quite small. You might even know them.”

(End of Chapter 140)