Ch 93: TGCIR

Li Weilan took Shen Cheng around the base.

Shen Cheng was shocked to find that just over two months of not playing the game had resulted in such significant changes.

The number of survivors in the base had skyrocketed, and Shen Cheng saw many unfamiliar faces.

But she keenly noticed that every person who had been here treated Li Weilan with a mixture of awe and respect. This made Shen Cheng couldn’t help but be curious. What had happened in this world during the time she couldn’t play the game?

With these thoughts in mind, she asked.

Li Weilan paused.

“You said, just over two months,” he raised an eyebrow, seemingly amused.

“Yes.” Since the game time matched real-time, Shen Cheng had always found this time flow particularly friendly. Even during downtimes, she could still catch up with special events in the game. Later, when she learned that the game was also a real world, it all made even more sense to her.

Li Weilan sighed softly.

He turned his head to look into the void. “However, it’s been a whole year for us here.”

Shen Cheng fell silent instantly.

In her world, it had been just over two months. She had almost been counting the days with her fingers, opening her eyes to see if the game had returned, closing them to wonder if it had resumed normal operation.

She went to work in despair, returned home in despair, and went to bed in despair.

Later, when the money from selling the house arrived, she even cried happily. Originally, she had planned to use that money to buy something in the game to improve their lives, but by the time the money arrived, he had already disappeared from her life.

Two months were like a dry well in her heart. She was almost on the verge of giving up. Then, what about his one year?

Especially since he disappeared for a whole year right after saying “I like you” to her.

Would Zai Zai think that she wanted to avoid him, avoid his confession, and that’s why she disappeared so abruptly?

He couldn’t possibly not have considered that possibility at all.

If it were her, she might even be so sad that she wouldn’t dare to open her heart to anyone ever again.

Thinking of this, Shen Cheng didn’t want to change the subject anymore. In fact, during the two months when the game disappeared, Shen Cheng had enough time alone to think about what he had said, her feelings for him, and what she really wanted.

The boyfriend from another world who traveled far away.

The boyfriend who still needed her to send money for his support.

Shen Cheng felt that she had considered all the pros and cons clearly. She smiled a little, her tone sweet and a bit shy as she asked Li Weilan, “Lanlan, do you remember what you asked me back then?” Her next words were already eager to come out, “Let’s be together, I promise you.”

But Li Weilan’s expression was strange. He paused for a moment before responding.

He furrowed his brow slightly, looking somewhat conflicted.

“I’ve thought about it carefully during this time,” he suddenly lowered his voice, “I may not have understood it back then.”

Shen Cheng’s eyes widened, and the words she had prepared got stuck in her throat.

She looked at Zai Zai, who still looked cute and adorable, and suddenly felt like she had missed something.

Moreover, she felt somewhat unfamiliar with her feelings towards Zai Zai now that she was back online.

She was angry. A person who had passionately confessed to her one moment and had just told her he would wait for her forever could actually ignore her request to define their relationship the next.

This was simply the most shameless person she had ever encountered.

What’s worse, he even smiled gently, as calm as a spring breeze. “Back then, I put you in a difficult position.”

Translated on ho lo lo novels dot com.

“Is it my turn to speak now? Clearly, I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you. And it was because I was so shocked to be confessed to for the first time that my phone fell into the water. Now you’re assuming I made things difficult for you.”

Shen Cheng was furious.

Hmph, perhaps Zai Zai thought she wouldn’t come back while she wasn’t playing the game, so he found someone else, like a frog wife, for her in the game. Now he’s denying everything, pretending nothing happened.

Just thinking about this possibility made Shen Cheng want to beat him up. Even if it was just a thought, she couldn’t stand it.

She remained silent for a while, then finally said angrily, “Whatever.”

Li Weilan seemed not to notice her change in mood at all. He continued to introduce her to the buildings in the base, the changes in the base, and his own strength changes. Shen Cheng was irritated and listened reluctantly for a while before finding an excuse to log off.

After she logged off, Li Weilan sighed heavily. His brows furrowed slightly, and his face showed a hint of coldness.

Phone fell into the water.

Was such a coincidence even possible in this world?

Li Weilan never believed in fate. For him, behind all accidents lay inevitability.

He didn’t know who had connected them with the red thread, nor did he know why they had to be separated for a whole year. But after exhausting all prayers and means available, he had learned one thing: to eat meat, you had to first bring it back to the den.

Once something was within reach, it must not be let go.

If he confirmed their relationship now and they lost contact the next second, leading to the possibility of painful separation, he would rather choose a safe and secure time to bring her back home and never let her leave again.

He didn’t even want her to know about those dark, selfish thoughts he had.

Just a couple of seconds after Shen Cheng logged off, before the screen of her phone even went dark, she was suddenly startled. After the game had finally reappeared, she couldn’t help but wonder if everything would disappear once she turned off her phone.

Compulsively, she brought her phone closer to her. This had been her first action every time she woke up during the past two months.

She always checked the game first thing when she woke up, making it part of her daily routine.

She glanced at the icon on her phone and breathed a sigh of relief. The game had indeed returned; it wasn’t her imagination.

Thinking about it, Shen Cheng suddenly remembered her earlier speculation. As she thought more about it, she felt silly for being so angry at him for making her log off.

She remembered a classmate she used to know, who flirted with a guy online, until one day she caught that guy also flirting with other girls online. Instead of repenting, the scoundrel had shamelessly said, “It’s not my fault, you didn’t spend enough time with me. If you didn’t play with me, I had to find someone else to play with.”

Thinking of these words, Shen Cheng recalled her definition of her relationship with Li Weilan, a friend from another world.

Oh, yes, and now she had to add a friend she hadn’t seen in a year.

They said that if you didn’t go online for a week, online relationships would find someone new.

Could Zai Zai be like that too?

The more Shen Cheng thought about it, the more unsettled she became. Silently, she opened her phone and followed the main character without a word, intending to observe what he was doing first.

Zai Zai seemed completely unaware of her tracking.

He was very busy, without the assistance of Shen Cheng’s system, he had to make decisions about almost everything in the base, big or small.

Without Shen Cheng, there was no more money-spending or high-tech stuff. The new people entering the base had to dig their own houses and develop on their own. There were more people, but the expansion of the base hadn’t kept up with the pace.

Li Weilan needed to make decisions about the direction of various base constructions, allocate resources, distribute accommodation, and worry about food.

Shen Cheng looked at the base, now displayed as a “Level Five Base,” but with many resources highlighted in yellow, indicating a particularly tense situation. Somehow, she felt a sourness in her heart. Ah, during the time she couldn’t log in, Zai Zai seemed to have been really struggling.

After staring at him for a while and confirming that he was truly fully immersed in his work, and seeing that the girls in the base also seemed to genuinely respect and fear him, keeping a considerable distance even when discussing important matters with him, Shen Cheng silently pressed the “Purchase New Dormitory” button. In the depths of the Noah Base on the right side, rows of rooms began to expand, a sight that many in the base had never seen before. They crowded over to see the additional rooms.

The flat path extended inward, and suddenly, the seemingly solid iron walls of the base opened up. In the blink of an eye, the metal surfaces fitted closely together, forming a new room with seamless angles between the metal. One room, then another, and another extended out of nowhere. Everyone was amazed to see this scene, finally realizing just how terrifying the black technology of the Noah Base they had heard about was. The earth they couldn’t dig through before now seemed as easy as tofu.

The newly constructed rooms even came with a set of drainage and ventilation equipment. As they entered the rooms, the lights turned on, the air was clean, without the typical murkiness and odor of newly constructed underground rooms. Some people had dug their own spaces to live in, which was uncomfortable enough, and there would even occasionally be small animals coming out of the ground. How could that compare to these rooms that looked halfway comfortable?

The Noah Base had expanded wildly over the past year. After repelling the zombie siege, both in reputation and scale, it was on par with other large bases. If it weren’t for the strict review process, it would have long been overcrowded.

Li Weilan looked inexplicably in the direction of the void, listening to the people outside shouting wildly. How could he not know who was responsible for all this?

Only her.

There was a hint of a smile in his eyes. Didn’t she say goodbye? She hadn’t even logged off yet.

Little trickster.

Why did you lie to me this time?

Li Weilan’s lips suddenly curled up with a sincere smile, the first hint of sweetness that had surfaced in his heart after so long.

It had happened so suddenly, he almost felt like he was losing his sense of reality. Even if she had touched his face, touched his hand, it all seemed like something experienced in a dream.

Too much anticipation, too beautiful a dream, waking up was too painful.

Without seeing her, he couldn’t even be sure if all this was still just an illusion.

It wasn’t until this moment, knowing that she was just as hesitant and uncertain as he was, that he realized, we’re all the same.

Then he heard her mutter softly to herself, “The money was originally meant to be spent on Lan Lan. Hmph.”

Li Weilan’s smile widened.

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