SYNOPSIS:

Just as we finally managed to – with some difficulty – reach where Long Dian was hiding, our way was barred by a bunch of super-strong robots. We could only watch as Long Dian escaped easily. What now?

For Lolidragon’s sake, Long Dian reopened Second Life, but we discovered that Second Life had changed greatly from before. Plus, Kenshin and Sunshine had disappeared without a trace! Just as I was worried to death about them, the Dictator of Life appeared once again before my eyes… And revealed the truth of the matter to me: Long Dian had an incurable illness! His only hope for survival was to merge together with the Dictator of Life. Great, this way he would be able to control just about anything on the Internet and he could even create a body in the real world for fun!

“When Father and I merge as one, I will give up my consciousness in order to prevent our consciousnesses from clashing. I am here to say goodbye to you, Prince.”

What should I do?

Don’t miss the exciting grand finale of ½ Prince! You’ve already picked up the book, so hurry up and take it to the cashier, or else you’ll regret it!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Yu Wo:

Who am I? Sometimes I am like a warrior, wielding a sword on the battlefield with limitless passion and energy.

At other times, I resemble a mage, with a mind devoted to research, completely absorbed in the things I like.

Or I might be like a thief, leading a free and easy life, letting fate lead me to distant and unfamiliar lands.

Occasionally, however I am similar to a priest, with a gentle heart, filled with compassion towards the living things of this world.

Ultimately, I am a kindly Fantastical world.

Eternal Legend

½ PRINCE VOL. 8

Original novel in Chinese by: 御 我 (Yu Wo)

Please support the author Yu Wo as well as the wonderful people at Prince Revolution!

Prince Revolution!

http://www.princerevolution.org/

Yu Wo’s Blog

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/kim1984429

Table of Contents

Disclaimer !

Chapter 1: Greetings to Long Dian

Chapter 2: Second Life - Out of Control

Chapter 3: Danger to the Entire World

Chapter 4: Cold Fox's Terrifying Special Training

Chapter 5: Departure

Chapter 6: Deception

Chapter 7: The Eternal Legend

Extra Chapter: Epilogue (End)

Notes

Disclaimer!

Please take note of the following:

- The following translation of ½ Prince is by Prince Revolution! and is a “by fans, for fans” translation.

- This translation is completely FREE of charge, so if you have paid for this, you have been ripped off!

- Prince Revolution! does NOT ask for donations, payment, or anything else of the sort. We do not benefit monetarily from our translations AT ALL.

- We only ask that you do NOT steal credit or attempt to profit monetarily from our translation. Please also inform us if you come across any individuals or groups stealing credit or profiting monetarily from our translation.

- Copyrights to the ½ Prince novels are held by Yu Wo, the author of the novels.

- Copyrights to the ½ Prince novel artworks are held by Ya Sha and Zhan Bu Lu, the cover artists for the first and second editions of the novels respectively.

- Copyrights to the ½ Prince manhua artwork are held by Cai Hong Zhong, the artist for the ½ Prince manhua.

- Prince Revolution! has received permission from Yu Wo to translate the novels into English. However, this is NOT an official translation of the novels!

- As such, please cease distribution of this PDF once an official ENGLISH version of the novels has been published.

Credits :

Translators:

Bleachpanda (chapter 4)

Dahlys (chapter 6-7)

ErodingPersona (chapter 2)

Evangeline (chapter 1)

Lucathia (chapter 5)

Nausicaä (chapter 3)

Proofreaders:

Arcedemius (chapter 7)

CesiumBlack (chapter 1, 5-6)

Cjfrost (chapter 3-5)

EvlNabiki (extra)

Liene (chapter 1, 3-4, 6)

Maddie (chapter 2)

Nagihiko (chapter 5, 7 & extra)

Null (chapter 5)

Vapore (chapter 2)

C/E Editors:

Amgine (chapter 1)

Dahlys (chapter extra)

Eilinel (chapter 5)

Larka (chapter 1, 4)

Lucathia (chapter 1-4, 6-7 & extra)

PDF and E-Book Formatter:

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Chapter 1 : Greetings to Long Dian

The people who had been sitting obediently in the car all came crowding over to the window closest to me. Even though general traffic safety rules did say that sticking one’s head or hands out of a car is prohibited, that rule was clearly only taught to children, and wasn’t shown to the insolent adults and youngsters in this car. All of them were just short of sticking their legs out the car.

“Hi, everyone!” Since this was our first meeting, I was curious to guess who was who. Eh? That super classy, cute girl looks a lot like Doll. Hmm? Could that woman being embraced by my school’s doctor Wolf-dàgē be Yu Lian-dàsăo? Wolf-dàgē is so lucky. She looks like she will be a great wife and mother… Strange, who’s the boy with the baby face?

“Ah, we’re going to crash!” Yang Ming suddenly jerked the steering wheel around with both hands, narrowly missing a car by an inch. After the vehicle recovered its balance, he screamed in a voice that shook with fear, “Bastard! Can’t you keep your eyes on the road?”

I couldn’t help but turn around and ask my brother, who was in the seat behind me, “Yang Ming, who is that baby-faced boy?”

“How should I know!” Yang Ming answered without daring to take his eyes off of the oncoming traffic.

I turned back to face the front. Could he be Ming Huang? But, I remember that Ming Bin doesn’t look like this? Maybe boys’ appearances also change completely when they grow up? [1]

“Prince, turn left and we’re there!” shouted Lolidragon as she hung out of the window.

“Got it!” Hearing that, I immediately turned the steering wheel 180 degrees to the left and took a big whirl. An old rickety building came into view, with the surrounding weeds that grew thick as a thicket, and the building didn’t even have a front door, as though no one had lived there for years.

“Crap!” I frowned. “There wouldn’t be any rats in there, right?”

Bang! Yang Ming staggered out of the car and collapsed on the filthy grass, skewed. He “roared” faintly at me, barely able to catch his breath, “You should already be glad if there are no gigantic spiders in there. How could there be no rats!”

“Someone’s here!” I suddenly spied a silhouette emerging slowly from the darkness of the building, with an alarmingly huge shadow behind it…

“Prince, put on this equipment!” Lolidragon decelerated from 250km/h to 0km/h in one moment and parked her car masterfully. She then dumped a pile of equipment on me and explained, “Helmet, light defensive armor set, power gloves, bouncing boots, ray gun, light sword…”

I stared at the pile of powerful weapons that should only be seen in movies. Is it possible that the Second Life Corporation is secretly a weapons manufacturing company as well? However, it was true that I felt much safer with the weapons, and with the help of Lolidragon, I was geared up to the last inch like a terrorist within minutes.

“I think I will take the light sword.” I have never used guns before, so I would probably end up shooting myself in the foot and making a joke out of myself.

“Prince… is that you?” Gui stumbled over in a hurry, his eyes filled with emotion… The reason for his stumbling was the same reason Yang Ming was sprawled out next to the road: carsickness!

“It’s me!” I lowered my voice and answered, but I was a bit lost at what to do. I had just remembered that everyone still didn’t know that I was a girl! How am I going to explain?

Just as Gui and I locked eyes, Lolidragon cried out in alarm, “Prince, that shadow is walking towards us!”

What! I immediately snapped to attention and grabbed the light sword tightly, and then conveniently trampled on my brother. He had already wriggled into his gear, but was still continuing to play dead.

“Everyone be careful!” I shouted in a deep voice. Strange, when did I get so used to speaking in Prince’s tone and inflection?

“Prince, you seem…” a haughty high school student who was clearly wearing his school uniform under his gear said with cold arrogance, “a bit short, hmm?”

Ouch! Short? I am at least 163 cm, okay? That’s not short for a girl, right? Damn it, I want to grow a couple more centimeters too! In a rage, I couldn’t stop myself from retorting sarcastically, “This little bro here, you seem…a little young? Why don’t you go back to your high school, attend the morning assembly, and sing the national anthem, hmm?”

“Anyway, who are you?” Yang Ming asked in surprise.

“Cold Fox!” Cold Fox answered succinctly.

Cold Fox is a high school student… Right, who is that baby-faced boy? I hurriedly looked at everyone who was coming out of the car in succession and shouted, “Hey! Baby face, who are you? Not a spy from Long Dian, right?”

“…”

The baby-faced boy made an expression that I was very familiar with, similar to… Zui being exasperated at my reckless actions.

“Nan. Gong. Zui?” I was surprised out of my wits. This is Nan Gong Zui? God, how could the big-brother-like Nan Gong Zui with his decisive commanding be a cute little boy?

Zui gave me an incomparably cute smile and nodded.

“Prince, if you don’t stop gaping, you’re going to get chopped in two by the enemy!” Lolidragon quipped coldly.

I snapped around, facing the anonymous silhouette that was almost at the doorway. I calmed myself. Right, now is not the time to be “visiting the in-laws.” [2] First we have to ferret out Long Dian and save the Dictator of Life. Moreover, Kenshin and Sunshine are still in Second Life, their situation yet unknown!

I twirled my blade… Hm? It feels just like being in the game! I continued, executing a few slashes and kicks. I can actually do a 180 degree kicking slash? Could I really do that? I am currently in the real world, right?

“Hehe, awesome gear, right?” Lolidragon slipped on a face of extreme satisfaction, “Even though you can’t do any special techniques like the ones in the game, you can still achieve all kinds of regular attacks!”

“I see!” So it will be fine if I just fight the way I do in Second Life. I leveled my sword, pointed it toward the silhouette, and challenged lazily, “Whoever you are, come on out. I’m don’t have the time to be in a standoff here with you.”

At the same time, everyone came over and stood either behind me or beside me… exactly like in the game!

The silhouette also strolled out. It was definitely over two meters tall, with a bulky figure to which even Wolf-dàgē couldn’t even compare. The most important fact was…

“A robot?” I gaped, astonished.

Lolidragon was strangely calm. She calmly explained, “Careful, Prince. Robots designed by Long Dian-biǎogē are definitely not to be trifled with.”

“Got it.” I will just pretend that it’s an NPC in the form of a robot. I walked out slowly with my sword raised.

A shadow flashed in front of me, the familiar figure making me call out, “Zhuo-gēgē?”

“Xiao Lan, don’t go over there! This is not a game!” Zhuo-gēgē’s voiced was laced with worry and determination.

“I have to go. Zhuo-gēgē, you can stay by my side and help me, but don’t try to stop me.” I know that Zhuo-gēgē is worried, but how can I back down?

“But Xiao Lan, you…” Zhuo-gēgē turned and began to lecture me sternly.

“Look out!” I shoved Zhuo-gēgē aside and met the charging robot. It didn’t have any weapons, but its steel fists and iron strength was the most formidable offensive. I could feel the pressure even with Lolidragon’s power gloves on.

However, I wasn’t planning on going head to head with it; I was, after all, an agility-type warrior! With a flick of the light sword in my hand, I sliced at the robot’s head. Although the robot immediately raised its hands and blocked my light sword, stopping my blade was not enough. I ruthlessly kicked at the robot’s right leg with my own right leg. The moment it staggered, I sliced off its head with my sword.

Dead as a post! Elated, I turned and made the victory sign at everyone.

“Prince! Look out!” Lolidragon shrieked, her eyes focused on something behind me.

Before I could even react, Zhuo-gēgē had already tackled me, sending us flying to the side. I finally saw that the headless robot kept on attacking, as if it didn’t care about its decapitated head at all.

As the robot continued to charge at the two of us, beams of light suddenly flew at the robot’s knee. After a few sizzles, the robot crumbled to the ground. I turned and saw Nan Gong Zui assuming a 100% proper gun-firing posture with a serious expression, looking very handsome… sans the baby face.

“Give me back my Sunshine!” A girl with high pigtails screamed as she let loose her ray gun against the robot. Even though the rays were bouncing everywhere, the technique of shooting everything in sight, comrades included, was comparable to Meatbun’s Aroma Release.

A frenzy of rays and screaming followed as both humans and robot alike dove for shelter. The rays scorched big smouldering holes in the grass, on the walls, on the trees, and even on my mom’s precious hover bike. Eek, my mom’s going to kill me.

“Girls that have just lost their boyfriends are truly frightening.” Yang Ming patted his chest, face pale as he looked at the disastrous aftermath all around.

“So she’s Fairsky.” Hearing Sunshine’s name, I was absolutely certain that she was Fairsky.

With glistening eyes, Fairsky charged at me, grabbed my shoulders, shook me as if her life depended on it, and yelled, “Prince, go save Sunshine, quickly!”

“Stop shaking me, my goggles are almost about to fall off!” Nausea started to take effect. God, are all women with romantic crises this violently strong? I had not even finished speaking when my poor goggles flew off my face and kissed the dirt with a thump.

“Ah! My goggles!” I wailed. Those are my mom’s. If anything happens to them then she would skin me alive!

“Who cares about goggles, my Sunshine is more important…” Fairsky’s voice grew softer and softer until she stopped altogether and stared at me, dumbfounded.

“What’s wrong? Fairsky?” I waved my hand in front of Fairsky’s face, but she kept on staring at me with her mouth agape…

Suddenly, she made her move! With lightning speed she peeled off my light armor deftly and tore off my cute windbreaker with one breath… If I hadn’t sensed that something was wrong and tightly grabbed my last article of clothing, Fairsky would have probably torn off my little t-shirt too. I gaped at her and said in surprise, “Fairsky, even though Sunshine’s not here, you don’t have to be that eager, do you? Everyone’s still here!”

Fairsky stared at my chest in shock… Crap, did Sunshine’s absence totally change Fairsky’s temperament and even her inclinations?

“Y-You…you are a girl?” Fairsky stuttered and finally yelled.

I stared. What, everyone… hasn’t figured that out yet? Impossible! Do I look like that much like a boy? Even if my chest is a little on the small side… a petite figure can also be appealing, right?

“Stupid old sis, explain already!” Yang Ming hurriedly and agitatedly reminded me as he glanced at the crowd that had already fallen into a stupefied state.

“Huh?” I turned around stupidly to look at Yang Ming. Explain what?

“Student Feng Lan, it really is…” Wolf-dàgē forced a chuckle and scratched his head, his face full of knowing.

“Wolf? Is she really Prince? But… she’s a girl.” Yu Lian-dàsăo stared at me in disbelief, but after mumbling to herself, she fell silent without saying anything else, a look of sudden realization coming over her face.

“Your majesty, Gui missed you.” A person lunged at me. The open arms, the impossible feat of lunging parallel to the ground, and the disgusting name of “your majesty”…

“Gui, I’ve told you a hundred times, don’t call me your majesty!” I dispatched Gui with a flying kick, and then I went stomp stomp stomp!

“It really is Prince!” Everyone yelled.

“Prince…” Gui hugged my legs like usual, but not with eyes full of grievance and desire. It was as if he was burying his head into my legs, refusing to raise his head to look at me.

“Gui?” I asked, baffled.

Gui slowly raised his head but was not like his usual silly and smiling self. His eyes were conflicted and serious. He kept on gazing at me in such a way, his eyes penetrating into the depths of my eyes, and said softly, “Student Feng Lan… you’re skipping class?”

“Oh… Professor Min Gui Wen, you’re not teaching class?” I replied calmly.

Gui forced a laugh and shook his head, muttering to himself as if in disbelief, “So you were right by my side the entire time. It turns out I saw you every day. In fact…”

Standing up, Gui raised his arms as if to embrace me, but before I could even punch him as a warning, he retracted his hands. Breathing deeply, he muttered, “No, I can’t, I can’t, I’m your teacher.”

I giggled, unable to believe it. Who would have thought Gui would be scared of hugging me because he’s my teacher? How amusing! I couldn’t help but challenge his limits, edging closer until I was only a few centimeters away. I asked, “Oh, are you sure you don’t want to hug me?”

Gui actually blushed? And turned away, not daring to look at me?! This is not like Gui at all. For some odd reason, I felt unsatisfied, so I started to make jabs at him, “Who cares about protocol? Nowadays, there’s no one who prohibits teacher-student relationships anyway! I can’t believe how wimpy you are!”

“Or is it…” I suddenly remembered something. I don’t look like Prince anymore. Is that the reason? I bit my lower lip. Does Gui still like me more as a guy? Even though he said that he didn’t care what I looked like, I still had to admit that Prince’s 40% beautified looks was much more glamorous than my own, which could merely be called comely.

Use your head, I chided myself, He loves the handsome and incomparable “Prince,” not the plain and ordinary “Feng Lan!”

“Prince…” Gui called out hesitantly.

“Don’t call me Prince!” I yelled back, discontent. For some odd reason, hearing Gui call me Prince like always sent a bolt of extraordinary resentment through me.

“Xiao Lan! Look out!” Zhuo-gēgē fired near me, the ray whizzing by within twenty centimeters of me. A clear clanking sound signaled that it had found its mark.

“Long Dian-biǎogē?” Lolidragon looked up at the building in disbelief.

Everyone looked in the direction of Lolidragon’s gaze. A silhouette had appeared in the third story window, bearing a familiar face – it was the Dictator of Life’s appearance! The handsome face was the same as the one in the game, but it was somewhat haggard, and his hair wasn’t the signature fiery red, but an even stranger color — white. It wasn’t the same sparkling hue as Prince’s white hair, but rather a more sickly hue with some gray. Combined with his pallid complexion, it looked as if he were tired and sick of this world.

But… how is that possible? The Dictator of Life only exists in the game, so why is he in the real world?

“Long time no see, Shui Han.” The person stared at Lolidragon with a faint smile.

“Lolidragon, could he be the Dictator of Life?” I asked in shock.

“He’s Long Dian, not the Dictator of Life.” Lolidragon’s eyes sparkled with tears, and she asked out of concern, “Long Dian-biǎogē, how come your black hair has turned white?”

Long Dian smiled and touched his white tresses, “Can’t help it. There are too many stressing affairs so my hair turned white before I even realized it.”

“Biǎogē, I don’t know what has happened, but please, stop going down the wrong path!” urged Lolidragon relentlessly until even her voice cracked. Lolidragon, who had never shown even a sign of weakness before anyone, sobbed, “Dian… please, don’t hurt everyone anymore.”

However, Long Dian chuckled and then laughed. Soon, his laughter turned into wild guffaws, “Don’t hurt anyone? Hahahahaha! Then who is to stop fate from hurting me?!

“Who is going to stop fate from toying with me… cough, cough…” Long Dian’s handsome face suddenly contorted. He clenched his fists until they turned white, and he howled at the heavens in pain… but then he suddenly looked as if he couldn’t breathe and his face turned as pale as a sheet. This was followed by a painful cacophony of coughing.

“Dian?” Lolidragon cried out in concern.

Long Dian didn’t answer and kept on coughing. Like in the most clichéd soap opera shown on television, he coughed up a puddle of blood. What kind of situation is this? Why can’t any of the final bosses live up to their reputations? The previous final boss confessed to me, and this one coughed up blood even before we started fighting?

“Dian, what’s wrong?” Lolidragon’s tears were running freely by now.

“Nothing, don’t worry.” Long Dian smiled and reassured Lolidragon softly.

“What ‘don’t worry’?!” Lolidragon swiped at her tears and growled, “First you started to act strange and worked on Second Life as if your life depended on it… and then you did that experiment that killed a bunch of people, and after that you went and created mayhem and havoc in Second Life, and now you’re coughing up blood?! You haven’t told me anything, not even an explanation, and you expect me to not worry? You are going too far, Long Dian!”

“Shui Han, I…” Long Dian looked taken aback. Crap, I mistook him for the Dictator of Life for a second there.

However, Long Dian’s expression vanished and was instantly replaced by a look of utter coldness. He said frostily, “You have nothing to do with my business and none of my actions involves any of you anymore, Long Shui Han. I advise you not to try to stop me, because I will not show mercy next time.”

Lolidragon stared for a long time, dumbfounded. She blinked again and again, trying to force back her welling tears; her fists were clenched so tightly that her skin was turning red…

“Who cares about you! I don’t need your mercy. You better be careful. I swear I will catch you and take you back to Dad!” Lolidragon yelled with her cracking voice.

Long Dian smirked and turned from the window to leave. Another shadow detached itself from the background. A cold, mechanical voice threatened, “Leave, or die.”

“Humph, we are not leaving.” I laughed coldly, “As for killing us, go ahead and try.”

Bang! The shadow briskly leaped from the window and landed on the ground, his movements incomparably nimble… I didn’t know if my eyes were playing tricks on me or not, but his feet seemed to sink into the ground a couple of centimeters. Was he that strong? Could it be that he broke his legs before we even started fighting?

Obviously, my thoughts of having our work done for us didn’t work! He stood up without a scratch, and we soon saw the reason: it was because he was an “it!” It was another robot. However, its appearance when compared with the previous one was more suave and stylish. If robots also had a sense of aesthetics, this one must be considered pretty handsome among robots!

Dispatch him, and then go grab Long Dian! Lolidragon seemed to have reached the same conclusion as I had, because before I could even raise my light sword, Lolidragon had already let loose countless lines of rays with her ray gun.

Lolidragon was definitely cut out to be a terrorist as well. I scratched my face, ready to see holes opening in the arm of an innocent passerby robot, but the robot disappeared in a flash. Where did it go? I gripped my light sword. Is this one completely different from the last one?

“Lolidragon, watch out!” I spied a figure out of the corner of my eye hurling toward Lolidragon. Unable to do anything else in time, I could only block in front of her with my own body, straining to stop the attack with my light sword.

Bang! The light sword and power gloves actually cracked, and the huge pressure bore me into the ground. I couldn’t even raise my arms… That hit almost took my dear little life! The previous robot could not at all compare to this robot’s strength.

Even worse, I could only watch as the robot sent Lolidragon flying with a punch and swiped at me with a karate chop… Will I be singing my swan song at the tender age of twenty? The heavens must truly be envious of fair and youthful maidens…

“Stop!” a voice rang out, accompanied by gunshots, forcing the robot to step back and stop its karate chop. I looked around and saw that it was the baby-faced boy… no, Nan Gong Zui, who had saved me.

I struggled to lift my body. Damn, I can’t even crawl up. My chest feels… If I borrowed a phrase from martial art novels, this would be called having my blood and qi surge? I was just short of spitting blood out to signify my severe injuries, but I was in enough pain to turn pale. Pain definitely feels different in real life, unlike being in the game!

I could only lay there, half-sitting, and watch everyone risk their lives fighting that incredibly strong robot… The tall and strapping Wolf-dàgē wielded a light sword and stubbornly started fighting with the robot. He carefully avoided my earlier mistake of fighting within close range of the robot while effectively preventing the robot from attacking others. Meanwhile, Nan Gong Zui and Zhuo-gēgē were practically superb experts with their guns. With the rays from their seamless cooperation, the robot’s moves soon became evidently labored.

Even though I was worried about Wolf-dàgē’s safety, at the same time, I also worried about how there was a large chance that I could die from Fairsky’s crazy, stray shots before the robot got to me!

“Prince-gē… uh, are you alright?” A cute and sweet looking girl with a dignified air suddenly rushed over and carefully helped me up.

“Doll?” If she had called me Prince-gēgē, then she was definitely Doll! I never thought that Doll would be such a beautiful and elegant-looking girl. Unlike her “innocent” personality in the game, the real Doll truly did have the presence of a princess.

At this time, I also noticed the man and woman standing next to Doll. The man wore gold-rimmed glasses and bore a gentle smile, but even though he looked as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly, I could tell that there was something more to him. That gentle smile of his was a great weapon to lower an enemy’s defense, and his gold-rimmed glasses spoke of books and knowledge, giving him a favorable impression of being well-read. His neat clothing was also a guise that couldn’t be missed for lowering an enemy’s defenses… In conclusion, this guy looked exactly like Winter Triumph, so he was definitely a horrifying and ruthless character.

As for the woman, I blurted out without thinking, “Yu Lian-dàsăo!”

Just like in the game, Yu Lian-dàsăo rubbed my head, and smiled gently. “Really, Prince is Prince after all. No matter if it’s in the game or not, you’re always making a scene.”

Hearing that, I grinned stupidly like usual. Yu Lian-dàsăo is truly so gentle!

“Ah! You dare to attack my future husband?! You must have a death wish!” Yu Lian-dàsăo heaved her heavy machine gun and after a hailstorm of rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat, a new row of smoking holes appeared in the ground. Even the robot stared wordlessly at the two new punctures in its arm.

“Prince, look up!” Gui yelled desperately.

I followed Gui’s instructions and looked up. An aircraft appeared before our eyes and started to slowly descend to the top of the building. Come to help Long Dian make his getaway?

“No! Dian is getting away!” Lolidragon shouted in worry. However, the robot before us was too strong, and we were seemingly unable to even handle him, let alone rush up to the rooftop to stop Long Dian from getting away.

“Everyone, get out of the way immediately!” Doll, who normally had an air of elegance, suddenly shouted out.

We all knew that Doll was normally very cute, but she was equally known for being terrible as well as for being cute. Thus, when everyone heard her shout, we all took ten steps away. Even I got dragged away by Yu Lian-dàsăo and Winter Triumph by about a dozen meters.

Doll did a very simple action: her right hand reached into her pocket, she grabbed some unidentified object, made a throwing motion, and the object got thrown… landing about ten steps away from the robot.

“God, Doll, don’t ever become a pitcher! You’d definitely be out of a job!” Everyone wailed.

Boom! With a blinding flash, the unknown object suddenly gave off much heat, the fervent flames almost roasting me until I dripped a layer of oil. After I finally recovered from being blinded, I saw what looked like a deep and blackened meteor crater. Even more terrifying, the edge of the crater was only about a meter away from my feet…

Don’t even mention the robot — not even a scrap of it was left behind.

Everyone’s faces turned pale, no, everyone looked like they had stepped in shit, as they stared at Doll. Yet she looked with interest at the crater and gasped, “Wow, it is really powerful!”

“P-princess, that fire grenade cost a couple hundred-thousand dollars…” Winter Triumph’s voice shook with immeasurable grief as he stared at the hundred-thousand dollar crater.

A couple hundre- thousand dollars? Was that bomb made of gold? I said calmly, “So the robot was actually flattened by cash.”

“Ah!” Lolidragon’s scream caught everyone’s attention as she rushed into the building.

“Too late!” Wolf-dàgē said in a low voice.

I looked up at the top of the building and saw that the aircraft was leaving. No one was in the cockpit, but Long Dian sat leisurely in the backseat, even acknowledging us with a nod. His faint smile was truly very infuriating to me.

“No one is piloting, yet the aircraft is moving.” Zhuo-gēgē frowned and guessed while mumbling, “Could the Dictator of Life be piloting that aircraft? Does that mean the Dictator’s core is in that aircraft? No, if he were placed in the aircraft, that’s not safe enough. It could get shot down.”

“Shoot it down!” I snapped abruptly, and hurriedly asked Doll, “Doll, do you have something like a cannon that we can use to shoot down Long Dian?”

“Yes, but…” Doll hesitated somewhat, and then she asked with extreme skepticism, “If we shoot him down, Long Dian would definitely die! Prince-gēgē… Are we really going to use that?”

He’ll die? I felt as if lightning had struck me. Right, what was I thinking? This is not Second Life, this is the real world where people could truly die. I actually said that I was going to shoot Long Dian down. I shook my head. No, we definitely can’t use cannons!

“Dian!” shrieked Lolidragon, who had suddenly appeared on the rooftop. We could hear her wheezing even from the ground and realized that she had never run so quickly in her life.

“Dian, I’m begging you, don’t do anything stupid!!” She screamed desperately, the high-pitched sound rattling even the surrounding glass.

Long Dian stared at Lolidragon, his infuriating smile disappearing. His hand caressed the glass… Maybe all he really wanted to do then was touch Lolidragon’s face.

“Shui Han, I have already genuinely completed Second Life. Think of it as a…” Long Dian’s expression changed back into a faint smile, “final parting gift to you.”

“Parting gift?” Lolidragon’s voice sounded as though it was shaking.

Chapter 2 : Second Life – Out of Control

After I struggled to stand, I charged to the rooftop with everyone else and saw Lolidragon kneeling down on the ground. Her entire demeanor was that of a person in shock. There were even two tracks of tears running down her face…

How am I supposed to comfort Lolidragon like this? I couldn’t help feeling frustrated. The total number of times I had actually comforted someone was so infrequent that it was pathetic… I think it’s mostly been other people comforting me instead of the other way around.

“Wow, so you actually know how to cry? I thought that you only knew how to cackle evilly like a witch.” Yang Ming walked over to Lolidragon in an infuriating manner and teased her.

Lolidragon swiveled her head around. “That’s right! After all, I’m just a scary old witch that no one loves.”

Yang Ming suddenly coughed. “Actually, riding on a broomstick is also quite fun!”

Everyone stared at Yang Ming strangely while Lolidragon looked at him, perplexed… I, on the other hand, as Yang Ming’s elder twin sister, completely understood what he was trying to do. He was trying to “comfort” Lolidragon.

“Witches wearing pointy hats are actually very cute too. After all, it’s not only princesses who get loved by others… I, I for one prefer witches…” Yang Ming stammered and stuttered, his face completely red. Even his voice had gradually become softer and softer.

Lolidragon seemed to finally understand that the moronic Yang Ming was trying to comfort her. A blush bloomed on her face and, for the first time, she had a bashful look on her face. “What nonsense are you talking about?!”

Both of them looked down with their faces red, once in a while looking up and sneaking glances at the other, completely consumed in their own little world!

“Long Dian ran away already, but what about the Dictator, Kenshin, and Sunshine?” I worriedly thought of the three people whose statuses were unknown. Since Lolidragon was immersed in her own world, I could only ask everyone else about what to do next.

If we didn’t hurry up and think of an idea, Fairsky, who was green with envy and shooting death glares at Lolidragon and Yang Ming might… whip out a machine gun and shoot randomly in anger, possibly even shooting holes in innocent bystanders. As one of those innocent bystanders, I of course needed to hurry and come up with a plan to rescue Sunshine.

“If they just disappeared like this, it might still be alright,” Wicked said. “But I don’t believe that Long Dian will go into hiding so easily.”

“There’s a one hundred percent chance that he will never go into hiding.” Gui immediately explained, “I definitely do not believe that Long Dian snatched the Dictator of Life for the sole purpose of hiding. There must be some other plot behind that.”

Plot? I asked in surprise, “Could it be that he wants to use the Dictator to control the world? I remember that he once said that the Dictator could set off the missiles of every country like fireworks?”

“Dian wants to control the world? He’s not that type of person!” Lolidragon, who had still been in her own little world, suddenly protested this furiously. The determined look on her face said that she was not going to allow anyone to insult Long Dian.

Yang Ming, whose face twisted in jealousy, bitterly asked, “Oh? You’re so sure?”

“Then why would Long Dian want to take the Dictator of Life away?” Even though I tried with all my might, I just could not fathom it. Could it be that Long Dian had fallen in love with the Dictator of Life and wanted to take him away so that they could live together forever? Ugh, two people who look exactly alike, living together forever… That’s a really disgusting image.

Although they heard my question, nobody could give me an answer. Everyone lowered their heads and tried to brainstorm several different reasons why he could have done so.

“Prince, let’s just ignore that for the moment. How are your wounds?” Gui’s worried stare roamed over my body and lingered for a long time on my bruised hands, his concern written all over his face.

“Xiao Lan, I have already called the ambulance. Don’t move about for now.” Zhuo-gēgē gently lifted my hands up and frowned when he saw the swelling bruises littered all over them.

“Okay.” Facing Zhuo-gēgē, I could only readily comply. If I moved about restlessly, I would definitely receive an endless lecture from him.

“Prince, you…” The baby-faced Nan Gong Zui had walked up to me. He said somewhat helplessly, “You’re actually a girl.”

My heart skipped a beat. Ugh, that’s right; my real gender had been revealed. Because the situation with Long Dian had yet to be solved, no one had overly questioned me. How am I supposed to face them now? I couldn’t help lowering my head and playing with my fingers. However, repeatedly linking and unlinking ten fingers that had swollen to the size of sausages was really tough.

“Phew!” Nan Gong Zui gave a big sigh, shook his head and said, “Luckily Phoenix hadn’t come along. If she found out that you’re of the same gender as her, she might…”

Hearing this, my head dipped even lower. Normally, I hate bad guys who cheat on a girl’s feelings the most. Now, I had actually turned into… a girl who cheats on another girl’s feelings!

“I’m so sorry, Zui…” I apologized with my head lowered. I tentatively turned around to face my teammates, whom I had lied to for the longest time. “I’m sorry everyone, I didn’t want to lie to you on purpose. Originally it was because…”

I turned around and grabbed Yang Ming, who was standing around, not doing anything. I pointed my index finger directly at his nose and loudly proclaimed his wrongdoing. “It’s all his fault! Because I fought with him, I went on to become a transvestite! Please, don’t blame only me!” After all, if I was going to die, I had to drag someone down with me. How can I leave my brother, who was the cause of all of this, to just go unscathed?

Yu Lian-dàsăo suddenly giggled aloud and, while I was still staring in confusion, she looked passionately at Wolf-dàgē and said, “I already knew that you were actually a girl, Prince. Wolf even knew who you actually were!”

What! My eyes bulged out of my head. Could I have really been such a failure as a transgender person? If Yu Lian-dàsăo saw through me, that’s alright, but even Wolf-dàgē, who was as oblivious as me, knew?

“How did you find out?” I asked, dazed.

Yu Lian-dàsăo smiled gently, laid her hand on my head, and patted me. “I’ve been with you for so long, how could I not tell your true gender?”

“Ah… Doll didn’t know that Prince-gēgē was actually Prince-jiějie.” Doll chewed at her fingers, pursing her mouth in dissatisfaction. (It’s normal that you couldn’t tell…)

“Prince, no, Feng Lan, you don’t have any more period cramps, do you?” Wolf-dàgē laughed cheerfully.

Period cramps? Ah! I suddenly remembered that when I had snuck off to peek at Wolf-dàgē, I had used something like that as an excuse…

“Although I did say that I didn’t care about guessing who you really were, I had already seen the real you. Even if I didn’t want to recognize you, it’d be too hard not to do so!” Wolf-dàgē scratched at his face and shook his head. “Prince, your expressions and actions were too similar to the ones in the game. Even though your appearances differ, if one took a bit of extra care to notice, it was easy to recognize you.”

If this is true, then Gui, who sees me in class every day, had also… recognized me a long time ago? I turned my head around quickly and looked at Gui. I asked unhappily, “You purposely acted like you didn’t know it was me?”

Gui had a blank look on his face as he murmured, “This… Was it really so easy to recognize you?”

I flinched. Could Gui not have recognized me? How could that be true? Isn’t he a genius with an IQ of 200?

“You couldn’t even recognize Xiao Lan? Were you only able to see Prince’s ‘looks’ the entire time?” Zhuo-gēgē ruthlessly attacked.

Gui’s face tightened, and he yelled, “That’s not true, I don’t care what Prince looks like!”

“Then why didn’t you recognize me?” I asked coldly. Gui was the one person who had spent the longest amount of time with me, yet he hadn’t recognized me. Gui must only like Prince’s looks after all! I suddenly felt very unhappy.

“I…” Gui was at a lost for words. His mouth hung open, but he wasn’t able to say a single word the entire time. Finally, he dropped his head down sadly.

Miffed, I ignored Gui and swivelled my head around to look at everyone, planning to continue on taking care of the Long Dian problem. However, Lolidragon made a shushing gesture at me.

“The blockade on Second Life has been removed? Are you sure?” Lolidragon asked, holding a cell phone. “There are already people who have entered inside?”

“Have there been any changes in the game?” Lolidragon asked while frowning. Upon hearing the reply, her jaw dropped open and her eyes bugged out as she hurriedly demanded, “Repeat that!”

Lolidragon pressed the loudspeaker button and summoned everyone to come closer. The cell phone announced the inconceivable changes in Second Life in succession.

“The shape of the entire world has had little to no changes. The main changes have been in the NPCs. All of the NPCs have been modified to have very high IQ’s, and the humanoid NPCs in the cities no longer just stand in one spot. They run around like real humans. Even the NPCs who worked to help players change their classes are now not willing to do that, and are coming up with absurd requests.

“Several boss NPCs are also wandering around. I just saw a boss walking around the streets of Star City and quite a few cities have already been massacred by the NPCs.”

“What on earth is Long Dian trying to do?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“A real Second Life,” Cold Fox suddenly replied. He had kept silent for so long that I had long forgotten his presence. His sudden words were like lightning, shocking everyone present.



After yet another car racing journey, Lolidragon brought all of us to Second Life’s headquarters. I noticed with surprise that the glass I had shattered had already reverted back to its original shape. The Second Life Company really did do things very efficiently.

“Miss, the Chairman wanted you to see him when you returned.” Upon seeing Lolidragon, the female worker at the reception immediately bowed and gave her the Chairman’s message.

“Got it.” Lolidragon nodded her head, turned to us, and said, “All of you, try going online to see what the game has turned into and check on Kenshin and Sunshine. I’ll go see my father first and tell him about Dian’s escape.”

After we nodded our heads, Lolidragon told the receptionist, “Bring them up to my office and give them the game helmets to allow them to enter Second Life.”

“Yes, miss,” the receptionist replied and politely said to us, “Please follow me.”

Lolidragon hurriedly rushed into one of the elevators. Without even saying goodbye to us, she left, the elevator doors closing behind her. She must be really worried.

The receptionist brought us to the elevator and elegantly pressed the 44th floor [3] (Lolidragon, you really should have chosen a better floor…). The minute the elevator doors opened, a roomy office, that was obviously far larger than my home, appeared. The decorations on the desk were simple and plain and, behind the desk, was a large glass surface providing a view of the entire city. The only thing out of the ordinary was that the bookshelves weren’t filled with books, but were rather filled with brand name bags like Chanel…

The receptionist unhurriedly helped us to set up some ten-odd helmets. She gave a polite ninety degree bow to us and said, “If you need anything, please let me know. I will help you prepare it.”

Flattered, I nodded at the lady and said to everyone, “Then let’s all go and see what has become of Second Life.”

“Yes, let’s all gather at Flower City’s Central Tower.” Zhuo-gēgē also nodded his head.

Everyone put on their helmets and returned to the Second Life that had been thought to be closed forever to us.

I put on the helmet and entered the game. When I slowly opened my eyes again, the sight that greeted me was both familiar and foreign… It was the initial scene to create a character, but the GM standing in front of me wasn’t Lolidragon. It was a completely foreign NPC beauty. She stared at me curiously and tentatively gave a greeting. “Hi?”

What is going on? Why am I here? Why am I not in Flower City… Ah! That’s right, my character, Prince, had disappeared completely. Once I remembered this, I couldn’t help but feel sad.

“Do you want to create a character?” The NPC beauty blinked her eyes.

“I already created one before, but my character has disappeared. Can you help me get my character back?” I asked without much hope. How could I not try? Prince was a character that I had painstakingly trained. How could I let him go just like that?

“Of course not.” The NPC beauty shrugged her shoulders. “If you were previously destroyed by ND or HD, even the God of Life can’t bring the character back!”

“Oh…” I was a little disappointed but didn’t lose hope and continued by asking, “Then can you let me play as a guy? I want white hair and red eyes, and then beautification by forty percent?”

“Anything’s fine, you can design your character however you like. The game’s original rules were that the players could design their characters in any way they wanted!” The NPC beauty answered matter-of-factly.

What? However we want to design it? Before, it had obviously been based on the person’s actual face, and gender couldn’t be changed. I stared doubtfully at the NPC beauty. She couldn’t be toying with me, could she?

“Hehe… You look so confused.” The NPC beauty laughed and urged, “Hurry up and create your character. There are still a lot of people I have to help create characters for.”

Still suspicious, I could only design my character. When Prince’s appearance appeared before me once again, I couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief. Now all I have to do is just regain my levels, right?

“Where do you want to be born?” The NPC beauty laughingly asked.

“Anywhere is fine… No, the Northern Continent! I want to go to the Northern Continent.” I hurriedly changed my words, almost making the same mistake I had made the first time. If I had unwittingly landed in the Southern Continent, I would really have to cry myself to death.

“The Northern Continent again? Everyone really has no creativity. A group of people all like this sort of look, and another group of people all choose either the Northern Continent or the Central Continent,” the NPC beauty murmured to herself.

This sort of look… What does that mean? An alarm sounded from the bottom of my heart, but before I could ask the NPC beauty, I already started to feel myself free-falling…

When I landed on the ground like a meteor, I found my answer…

“Why…” My eyes bulged out as I stared at the group of white-haired, red-eyed people. I yelled loudly, “Why are there so many Princes?!”

The surrounding Princes snickered. “Look who’s talking. Aren’t you using Prince’s looks yourself?”

I couldn’t help yelling back in frustration, “I’m the real Prince!”

“Haha, yet another person who’s saying that he’s the real Prince.” A snobby and infuriating expression came over one of the people with Prince’s looks. My God, please don’t use that sort of expression, it is completely staining my reputation and destroying my style!

My God, there are actually so many people using my looks, it’s no wonder the NPC beauty said that… Ah! Oh no, what if Wolf-dàgē and the rest of them mistake someone else for me? I couldn’t help feeling worried.

“Calm down, calm down.” I breathed in two deep breaths, my emotions finally calming down a little. That’s right! I should PM and tell them about this first… But I can’t open the PM channel. What on earth is going on?

“My God! Why can’t I PM?” I yelled up at the sky.

“Duh, did you set a name before you entered?” one of the surrounding Princes asked coldly. This particular Prince looked very cool. He probably wasn’t that obnoxious Prince from earlier.

“No…” That’s right; I didn’t even set a name! I suddenly recalled this.

“The private messaging system has completely disappeared,” a cheerful Prince told me with a smile.

“What?” My entire body turned to jelly. How am I supposed to communicate with everyone else now?

“Ignore that guy, we should hurry up and see what’s happening at the Central Tower.” When an excited Prince finished saying this, the surrounding crowd then started moving in the same direction.

I tilted my head upwards and looked toward the Central Tower. Hasn’t Wicked mentioned gathering at the Central Tower? Everything will be alright. If I mention that I’m Feng Lan, then wouldn’t everyone know that I’m the real Prince? Realizing this, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Alright, move forth toward the Central Tower! I relaxed and followed the crowd of moving people.

“So many people…” I stared open-mouthed at the crowds of people thronging the grounds.

“Everyone, look! This is the place where the Execution Squad massacred NPCs while outnumbered a thousand to one! Then, Prince bypassed all of the guards and led the charge into Flower City’s plaza alone. Upon seeing the tens of thousands of NPCs, his expression didn’t even change! With a slash of his blade, he turned thousands of NPCs into mincemeat, and arrogantly laughed that he wanted the Dictator of Life to stop sending out trash like them…”

“Long live Prince, Liege Lord of Infinite City! Long live the Blood Elf~” The crowds started cheering.

This… Is he really talking about me? The corner of my lips stiffened. With a slash of my blade, I turned thousands of NPCs into mincemeat? Why is it that my memory tells me that it was the NPCs that had almost turned me into mincemeat?

“Everyone look! The Execution Squad is here!” Some sharp-eyed individual gave a loud shout.

“Execution Squad! Execution Squad…” The tens of thousands of people cramped together in the plaza suddenly turned wild, screaming out the name of the Execution Squad.

“Doll!” I could also see everyone now, so I hurriedly yelled, “Cold Fox! Zui! Fairsky!”

“Doll! Cold Fox~~” The people around me, upon hearing me yell their names, immediately started calling out their names too. The surrounding atmosphere became even more frenzied, almost as if the crowd had gone crazy…

I flinched again. Why is this happening?

I saw them standing before the Central Tower, their faces all sharing stony expressions. I wanted to rush forward and squeeze through the crowd, but I kept on being pushed back by the frenzied crowd and ended up farther and farther away from everyone… I was so worried that tears were already threatening to fall.

“Prince! Over here.” Just as I was growing more and more dejected, my right hand was suddenly tugged by someone, and a familiar voice yelled for me in panic.

I was stunned for a half a beat. There’s actually someone who could recognize me amongst this crowd of “Princes”? I turned my head around, and Gui’s slightly seductive demon face greeted my eyes.

“Gui?” Confused, I couldn’t react properly.

“Prince, hurry up and come over here, everyone’s looking for you.” Gui pulled my hand and led me out of the crowd of people.

As I squeezed out of the crowd with all my effort, I asked doubtfully, “Gui, why were you so sure it’s me? There are so many people with this look now.”

Gui stopped in his tracks. He slowly turned his head around and looked at me. His gaze was still as gentle as ever. “I will never mistake you for someone else. Your light footsteps, your blank expression. When you fly into a temper, your favorite action is to tighten your fist and show a stubborn expression on your face.

“Also, you always unintentionally tilt your head to one side.” Gui couldn’t help laughing, “The minute I saw you, I knew you were Prince.”

My heart warmed, yet I couldn’t help retaliating, “But you didn’t recognize that Feng Lan was me.”

Gui’s expression suddenly became distant. It was as if he was not answering me, but was actually talking to himself. He murmured, “How could I not have recognized you? But I really hadn’t… Maybe I had already known beforehand, but I had promised you… I promised that I would never try and guess your real identity. My promise to you was so important to me, so important that… I let myself be blinded and could not see your real identity.”

Tentatively, I asked, “Gui… What are you saying, why can’t I understand a single word?”

Hearing my words, Gui smiled bitterly. His shoulders dropped, and with frustration he said, “I also have no idea what I’m saying.”

Seeing Gui’s sad look, I scratched my head and couldn’t help but say, “It’s alright. You, you did recognize me, I’m really happy, uh…” Seeing Gui’s gaze brighten all of a sudden, I couldn’t help but blush. I completely forgot the words I had planned on saying.

The atmosphere became very awkward. We walked for a short while before Gui abruptly said, “Prince, no matter how it has turned out… I still like you.”

Hearing this, I couldn’t help feeling very, very surprised. Could Gui really have such a good temperament? “You’re not angry? I, I lied to you and even had other people think you were gay…” The more I went on, the smaller my voice became. Even I thought that Gui should be furious at me.

Gui fell silent for a while, and then finally said, “I am a little angry, yet I don’t dare to be angry.”

I blinked my eyes. Today’s Gui seemed to enjoy saying a bunch of incomprehensible things.

“I’m angry that you lied to me, angry about the things I don’t know but that Wicked knows so clearly…” After saying this, Gui gave a light sigh. “But I don’t dare to get angry. I’m scared that you won’t be happy, scared that you won’t care about me anymore, scared… that I will no longer have any chance of getting you to like me.”

“Gui!” I tugged at him, and with the greatest amount of courage I could muster, admitted my wrongdoings. “This time it’s my fault. You don’t need to cover for me. It’ll just make me feel very guilty.”

Gui turned around and faced me. He opened his mouth, but didn’t seem to know what to say. His expression turned conflicted… Finally, his shoulders slumped and he said dimly, “I don’t blame you for lying to me anymore. We should hurry and meet up with the others.”

Did Gui want to say something? Deep in my heart, I believed that he did. I, again, strongly tugged at Gui. Being pulled back by me, his face betrayed his surprise.

“What’s wrong, Prince?” Gui asked hesitantly.

“What did you want to say? Tell me.” I stubbornly refused to let go of Gui.

Gui acted as though he had made some kind of decision and said, “I wasn’t thinking of saying something. I was thinking of doing something.”

“Then what were you thinking of…” My words were lost in Gui’s mouth….

I stared wide-eyed at Gui’s handsome face. His lips were pressed closely against mine… This wasn’t the first time I’d been kissed, but, but Gui’s absolutely serious expression made me feel very shy all of a sudden. Embarrassed, I pushed him away slightly. “Gui, you…”

But Gui kissed me again, and this time he even, he even slipped his tongue into my mouth! Panicked, I tried to push him away, but his hands were firmly locked onto the back of my head… Even worse, the character I had just created didn’t have any advantage over him in strength. I could not push Gui away.

Even though this wasn’t the first time I’d been kissed, this time I felt as though I truly understood it for the first time, truly understood the feeling of kissing someone…

Gui’s palms were still strongly latched onto me, not allowing me even half a chance of escape. But his kiss was very soft, his tongue light in my mouth… I had no idea what description to use, but it felt very soft, very very soft. It was almost making me feel drunk, drunk on that gentleness. Slowly, Gui stopped holding onto me tightly, and instead started running his hand lightly through my hair.

Looking at Gui, who had his eyes closed, his expression drunk and soft, I unconsciously closed my eyes as well and felt Gui’s utter gentleness: inside my mouth, the gentle touches on my hair, the hand hugging my waist tightly, the light heat between our bodies pressed close together.

“Oh my God! A guy’s kissing a guy!” The surrounding people suddenly yelled aloud.

Gui and I both started. My God! I almost forgot that we were on a busy street. I actually kissed Gui in public, which was made even worse since we were both guys at the moment…

A burning sensation on my face made me feel like meat could be grilled on it instantly. I hurriedly pushed Gui away, but just as I was about to smack him and release my anger, I saw someone — Zhuo-gēgē!

Never before had I seen Zhuo-gēgē, who was always so strong and unyielding, with such a weak expression on his face. It was as if all his beliefs had been destroyed. His face was stark white and… His eyes were red-rimmed.

I almost thought that Zhuo-gēgē… was crying? “Zhuo-gēgē…”

Zhuo-gēgē didn’t say anything and quickly turned around… I might have been wrong, but were Zhuo-gēgē’s shoulders shaking?

Gui sighed, and told me unhappily, “Prince… The longer you take to decide, the deeper you will hurt the two of us.”

My heart wavered. Have I… hurt Zhuo-gēgē?

“Eh? Both Gui-gēgē and Wicked-gēgē are here? Then is this the real Prince-gēgē?” Doll rushed over, opened her eyes wide and stared at the three of us, a little bit of doubt in her eyes.

“Prince, is that you?” Nan Gong Zui frowned, as if he were making a rather hard decision.

“Baby-faced police!” I immediately said.

Nan Gong Zui let out a bleak expression. “Alright, you really are the real Prince.”

“Prince! Sunshine has disappeared!” Fairsky yelled furiously, then couldn’t help herself and started sobbing with her head bent low.

I started. That’s right! We came here to ensure Sunshine and Kenshin’s safety! I hurriedly tried to make sense of the situation. “Sunshine and Kenshin are not in the Central Tower?”

“There is no one in the Central Tower; even the Dictator of Life is not there.” Doll said with worry.

What? Sunshine and Kenshin couldn’t have… I couldn’t help sucking in a breath. This was the thing that I had dreaded the most.

Chapter 3 : Danger to the Entire World

<Ding! System notice: Game has experienced a disturbance from the outside world. Please conduct verification.>

I paused for a few seconds before finally reacting. Disturbance from outside?

“Lolidragon is probably looking for us,” Cold Fox muttered to himself after a while.

Lolidragon is looking for us? Did something happen in the outside world? Quickly I said to everyone, “Hurry, let’s all go offline and see what’s happening outside.”

I hastened to take off the helmet, and no sooner had I removed it than I received the sudden shock of seeing Lolidragon’s face immediately before my own. The sight of Lolidragon’s tearful eyes and trembling mouth caused my own mouth to drop open in surprise. Lolidragon is… actually crying!

“Prince! What are we going to do?” Lolidragon couldn’t help throwing herself at me. As she proceeded to sob loudly and uncontrollably into my chest, I found myself at a complete loss for what to do.

“What’s wrong, Lolidragon? Don’t be upset. What happened?” I worriedly asked as I hurriedly hugged her.

“Dian, he—he… sob sob…” Lolidragon was crying so hard that she couldn’t utter a single word.

What in the world has happened? Just what earth-shattering event would cause Lolidragon to break down like this? I simply could not believe it. Even earlier when Long Dian had said all those heartless things, Lolidragon had been able to endure it. Yet here she is, crying her heart out?

“Long Dian has threatened the entire world!” said a very commanding voice as Long-bà’s imposing figure appeared at the door. With heavy steps, he walked into the room. He no longer had a smile on his face and now wore an anguished yet forceful expression.

“He threatened the entire world?” I blankly repeated, not knowing how to react.

Long-bà’s imposing aura vanished, and his face, which had originally been full of vigor, seemed to have suddenly aged by ten years. In an extremely exhausted tone he said, “He used the Dictator of Life to fire a nuclear missile. Even though it was launched into the ocean, its effects spread to the small islands nearby, resulting in thousands of casualties.”

“…What?” I nearly couldn't respond. Thousands of lives gone… just like that?

“Moreover, he has also demanded that the entire world send him the things he needs. Otherwise, the next nuclear attack won’t be as forgiving.” Long-bà said, his voice almost pained.

“How has the government chosen to respond?” Nan Gong Zui immediately inquired. “Surely the government won’t permit him to do whatever he pleases.”

“That’s true, but the government has its hands tied,” Long-bà said coldly. “This world is entirely dependent on computers, and since the computers are now being controlled, the government is unable to do anything. All of the immigration administration, all of the radar detection systems, and all of the satellites are under Long Dian’s control. The government has no way to track his whereabouts, much less actually capture him.”

Long-bà sighed again. “The truth is, even if Dian were to boldly appear before the police in broad daylight, no one would try to arrest him, because according to the government’s information, Long Dian’s identity and appearance have already been altered.”

“What does Long Dian want?” Gui asked. “If we know what he wants, we can speculate why he’s doing all of this.”

“He requested many things, including various instruments and human resources, most of which are related to the area of biotechnology, but he also wants personnel from the medical field, authorities on neurosurgery, and experts on energy,” Long-bà said in a frustrated voice.

“Hm… I’m no expert in those areas.” Gui turned to look toward Wicked. “What do you think, Wicked?”

Wicked turned his face toward Gui, but said nothing; instead, he violently punched Gui, who was caught completely off guard, knocking him to the ground. Everyone was overcome by the same sense of utter disbelief.

“Gui!” I quickly rushed to check on Gui. A large, red bruise was forming high on his cheek, and trickles of blood were seeping from the corner of his mouth. My heart ached a little when I saw Gui in such a miserable state.

“Zhuo-gēgē, why did you hit Gui?” I angrily turned on Zhuo-gēgē, but when I saw his red-rimmed eyes, I found myself unable to criticize him. At the same time I realized that I was the reason Zhuo-gēgē had hit Gui…

With some hesitation, I opened my mouth and said, “Zhuo-gēgē…”

Zhuo-gēgē did not look at me, but fixed his glare at Gui, who was lying on the ground, and muttered, “I won’t give up Lan.”

“That’s my line. I definitely won’t give up Prince. Even if you break both my arms, I will use my mouth to hang onto her and never let go,” Gui replied, smiling an extremely arrogant smile.

I couldn’t stop myself from fiercely whacking Gui on the head with my hand. “What the heck are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

A complicated look flashed across Zhuo-gēgē’s eyes. Upon seeing his sorrowful expression, I felt my heart clench tightly. By delaying my decision, am I hurting them even more?

“Zhuo-dàgē, Gui, Sis—let’s go take care of Long Dian first!” Yang Ming’s serious voice called us back to our current situation. He sounded almost reproachful, as if he were suggesting that we weren’t aware of the gravity of the situation. Moreover, Lolidragon, who had been sobbing into my chest, had switched positions and was presently tucked away into Yang Ming’s chest.

Lolidragon gave a shudder, lifted her tear-stained face, and with an expression akin to shock, gave a shout and jumped away from him as she babbled, “Wasn’t I with Prince? How did it become you?”

Yang Ming’s serious expression evaporated in an instant and was replaced with an increasingly lewd-looking one as he chortled, “Hehehe…”

Upon seeing such a lascivious expression, Lolidragon couldn’t stop herself from throwing a kick at him, which Yang Ming easily dodged. As his smile became lewder, Lolidragon became even angrier, her face turning completely red.

As I watched the two play around, I couldn’t help mocking Yang Ming, saying, “Hey! Who’s the one fooling around now?”

As soon as he heard this, Yang Ming immediately assumed a look of embarrassment, while Lolidragon’s face filled with guilt.

“Alas. As things currently stand, none of you need to help anymore,” Long-bà sighed heavily.

Right away Lolidragon loudly protested, “I can’t do that! Dad, there’s no way I can leave Dian alone.”

Hearing this, Long-bà immediately reprimanded, “It’s very obvious now that Long Dian is no longer the Dian that we knew. This time he almost killed all of you! Do you think you’ll be so fortunate next time?”

“But…” Lolidragon argued in determination.

“Enough, Shui Han!” Long-bà roared. “I forbid you from interfering in this matter anymore. I will have the entire company cooperate to assist the government in arresting Long Dian and bringing him to justice. I will not allow him to harm anyone else.”

Upon hearing this, Lolidragon dropped weakly onto a chair, all the strength seemingly gone from her legs.

On the other hand, Long-bà turned to face us and said, “The same goes for all of you. Do not involve yourselves in this matter anymore. Especially you, Prince!” After saying this, he even gave me a severe look.

Why am I the one being singled out? It’s not like I particularly enjoy looking for trouble… Nevertheless, under Long-bà’s terrifying stare, I couldn’t do anything besides meekly answering with an “Oh.”

After hearing my reply, Long-bà gave another quiet sigh and walked out of the room.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, turning to look at Lolidragon. Are we really going to leave things as they are? Based on Lolidragon’s personality, there is no way she’d just give up…

“Just do as my dad says,” Lolidragon said in a most unprecedented turn of events. Seeing our dumbstruck faces she quietly snorted, “Don’t be mistaken. My dad looks like he’s easy to deal with, but when he’s serious, things get really scary. If you don’t do as he says, some people will immediately come to drag you away and throw you into an underground cellar where you’ll be locked up and never see the light of day for over a year.”

“Is it that bad?” I asked blankly. That can’t be true, can it? After all, Long-bà looks so kind…

Lolidragon rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I’ve been his daughter for twenty-some years.”

“So that’s it? We’re giving up, just like that?” asked Fairsky in an extremely frigid voice.

We all froze. Then every head turned to look toward Fairsky, whose former look of sorrow had been replaced by an icy cold expression. Even Cold Fox, who had been silently standing by this entire time, had never worn such a terrifying expression before.

Both Lolidragon and I swallowed. Of course we all knew that not knowing where Sunshine was, or even whether he was dead or alive, had thrown Fairsky into a state of distress.

I thought quietly for a bit and then said, “We didn’t have enough time to carefully search just now. Why don’t we try going into Second Life again? Maybe it’s just that they couldn’t wait for us, and since there were too many players there, they left Central Tower, and that’s why we couldn’t find them.”

“Really?” Fairsky’s original look of sorrow finally broke through her icy expression.

Both Lolidragon and I hurriedly nodded our heads. No one wanted to see that expression on Fairsky again, the one that looked as though she had just walked right out of a freezer.

“Let’s hurry up and log in then.” Before Fairsky had even finished speaking she had already put on her helmet, lain down, and appeared as though she had already entered the game.

"Man, if anything has actually happened to Sunshine, I don't want to imagine how Fairsky will respond," Lolidragon said worriedly.

“Fairsky would probably turn into a thunderous sky…” No, a thunderous sky wouldn’t be all that bad… I'm just afraid that the Ice Age would repeat itself…

“Stop joking around, Prince. Let’s hurry up and go take a look.” Lolidragon smacked me on the head, even as she forced herself to smile. “Even though we can’t do anything about Long Dian, we need to at least save Sunshine and Kenshin and bring them back. After all, it was completely my fault that we weren’t able to download them in time.”

“Lolidragon…” I hadn’t known that Lolidragon felt this way. I couldn’t help wanting to open my mouth and urge her not to blame herself, to tell her that there was no way anyone could have known things would turn out like this.

However, before I had the chance to say anything, Lolidragon swiftly put on her helmet, and her haste caused to me suspect that she had done it on purpose… Oh well, I knew very well that with Lolidragon’s personality, I couldn't persuade her out of her thoughts. Perhaps Yang Ming would be able to? After all, every time Lolidragon fell into one of her rare moments of sadness, Yang Ming especially loved to rile her up, and in the end Lolidragon would toss all of her sadness out the window and proceed to try to kill him…

I turned my head to look, and as expected, Yang Ming had already put on his helmet. It looked like my idiot brother was pretty serious this time.

“Let’s also go find Sunshine and Kenshin!” I turned to look at the others, at the same time putting a helmet on my own head, thus entering Second Life once again.



I entered the game, and the second I opened my eyes… I realized that something weird was going on. Why are there so many people staring so intently at me? It was only at this point that I discovered that I was actually surrounded by a massive crowd of legions upon legions of people.

“That’s the real Prince,” “The Blood Elf has logged on,” “It’s about time! Waiting here wasn’t a complete waste of time, after all.” A rush of excited chatter escaped from the surrounding crowd, which included a number of people who had the same appearance as me.

Eh? What kind of situation is this? I stammered in incomprehension, “H-How do you guys know that I’m Prince?”

“Of course we’d know! The demon bard and the emotionless swordsman have both appeared, so of course everyone knows that you’re the real Prince.”

Demon bard? Emotionless swordsman? What are they talking about… I could guess that the former probably referred to Gui, since there weren’t that many bards of the demon race… but what the heck was an emotionless swordsman? Obviously there was only me, Gui, and… Wicked?

So Wicked is the emotionless swordsman? Alright, I admit that the title is rather fitting.

“Prince, why are there so many people?” At this point, the “demon bard” also appeared, looking with astonishment at the surrounding crowds of people.

As befitting his title of the “emotionless swordsman,” Wicked, for his part, furrowed his brow, but said nothing.

“Wow, all three of them look so handsome,” some girl exclaimed longingly, and then swallowed her saliva. “I really want to kiss them.”

As soon as I heard the words “really want to kiss,” I was suddenly struck by an extremely uneasy feeling… as though if we didn’t flee now, that phrase would very quickly become a reality…

“Crap! Wicked, Gui, let’s run for it!” I shouted as I prepared to use my Ultimate Run-for-My-Life-Qing-Gong-Technique. But at that precise moment, I tripped over my legs and, in a spread-eagle position, kissed the ground.

Seeing my situation, both Wicked and Gui tried to rush over to save me, but unfortunately their speed wasn’t as fast as it was before, and they could only watch helplessly as I performed the act of prostrating myself for all to see.

The whole scene had fallen silent, and I could even clearly hear the sound of saliva dripping from some person’s widely gaping mouth. I slowly crawled up, and holding back my tears I gave a muffled groan. “It hurts!

“Why did I fall?” I asked, slightly vexed. At this rate, my fame for my military prowess as well as my prestige were sure to disappear down the drain.

“Prince, you’re only at level one. You can’t use qing gong anymore.” Wicked softly reminded me.

That’s right! No wonder I had fallen in such in unsightly manner. My skills and levels had disappeared without a trace the second I’d created a new character from scratch. Sigh, all my levels and skills, gone… Oh well, those can all be regained through training.

“Forget about that for now. Let’s hurry and go look for Sunshine and Kenshin,” I hurriedly said to the other two.

“Prince, maybe you…” Gui started hesitantly, then broke off.

“What?” I asked, frowning.

Gui seemed to make up his mind, and in one breath he said, “Shouldn’t we also be looking for Meatbun and Fire Phoenix?”

Meatbun… my Meatbun! Oh my goodness, I actually completely forgot that as soon as my character disappeared, Meatbun would become a wild meat bun. What should I do? Panicking, I wailed, “Oh no! I don’t even know where Meatbun is. What if he’s being bullied by players and NPCs? Maybe he’s already been mistaken for a regular meat bun and has been eaten! Sob sob sob! Meatbun, Mommy’s so sorry.”

“Meatbun! That bun with a pair of eyes? So that was your bun!” The people around me murmured, fuming with anger.

A bun with a pair of eyes… besides my meat bun, there can't be anything else with this distinctive trait. I hastily asked, “Yes, that’s right, have you seen my Meatbun?”

“Of course we have! That gluttonous scoundrel of a meat bun and that despotic phoenix have been tyrannizing Flower City. They have been stealing food from players one day, and flooding the place the next. Last time all of the hair on my body was burned to a crisp by that phoenix.”

This… it sounds like Meatbun and Fire Phoenix are doing pretty well for themselves! *Sweat

“I wonder if Meatbun would still be willing to be my pet?” I couldn’t help being a little worried. He would, wouldn’t he?

“Mama!” Meatbun’s cheerful shout could suddenly be heard.

I felt a bit dazed. I seemed to have heard Meatbun’s voice, calling for me. Or is it that I was so worried, I imagined it? I looked left and right, hoping to see that white, chubby figure, but I didn’t see anything.

Bang! My head was suddenly dealt a heavy blow, and while my head spun and my vision blurred I heard…

<System notice: You have been attacked by Meatbun, -30 HP.>

My god! I was only level one, and had no more than some ten drops of blood. No wonder my swollen head felt as though it were on the verge of exploding.

“Oh my god, it’s Meatbun! Everyone run!” A flurry of movement embroiled the surrounding crowd, and even the girl who had expressed a desire to kiss me gathered up her skirts and in the blink of an eye fled many meters away.

I stood quite still, opened my mouth, spat out a lot of blood, and then spoke. When I did, my voice sounded so feeble that I suspected that I would soon turn into a pillar of light and check back at the rebirth point. “Meatbun… don’t do that again, you’ll commit matricide…”

“Matricide? Meat-bunbun doesn’t know what Mama’s talking about,” Meatbun said, very happily bouncing onto my shoulder.

<System notice: You have been attacked by Meatbun, -10 HP.>

I violently spat out another mouthful of blood as I finally understood that, for a level one player facing a pet over level fifty, even the slightest touch could be lethal!

“Meatbun, don’t move, please, please don’t move anymore,” I begged, my face deathly pale. At this rate, I was really going to kick the bucket.

“Where did Mama go? Meat-bunbun missed Mama so much!” As Meatbun talked, it began to bawl and howl uncontrollably, and its lovable yet loathsome head kept burrowing itself into my chest…

<System notice: You have been attacked by Meatbun, -50 HP, you have died.>

“…” I looked at the huge cavity that Meatbun had burrowed into my chest, at a complete loss for words. Meanwhile, Meatbun actually bounced out of the bloody hole, its cute face wearing a questioning look.

“Gui, be careful not to follow me to the rebirth point,” I helplessly warned the other pet master, even though I had the feeling that Gui would soon follow in my footsteps.

I instantly became a pillar of light. I didn’t know where the rebirth point in Flower City was, and wondered whether I should wait there for Gui and Wicked, or look for them myself… forget it. Given the degree to which I was directionally challenged, even after Fairsky had found Sunshine and the two had finished throwing their wedding ceremony, I still wouldn’t have found the other two.

As soon as I landed on the ground, I was overcome by a wave of nausea, and I doubled over vomiting, though nothing came out. Once the nauseous feeling that always followed death passed, I looked up and saw a person, someone who could not possibly be here, yet was actually before me right now… Rather I should say, it wasn’t a person.

The Dictator of Life! I was a hundred percent certain that it was the Dictator of Life and not Long Dian, even though he possessed an identical appearance. I could not be mistaken about that pair of eyes that revealed a sorrowful resignation to fate.

“Y-You…” I was so shocked that I couldn’t even speak properly. Why is the Dictator of Life here?

Huh? Where is this place, anyway? I glanced left and right. This wasn’t the rebirth point, but a palace, a gray-colored, magnificent palace. Beneath my feet lay a gigantic magic portal, and behind the Dictator of Life was a very large throne. Surrounding us were countless giant pillars, each so wide it would have taken two people to completely wrap their arms around any of them.

“Meat-bunbun is so muddle-headed, as usual,” the Dictator of Life said with a slight smile. “As I expected, he really did end up killing you.”

My heart trembled as I asked, “Did you order Meatbun to come kill me?”

“Do you believe that Meat-bunbun would do such a thing? Intentionally kill you?” A trace of grief came over the Dictator of Life’s face.

I tilted my head to the side, thinking. “No, I don’t.” There was no way Meatbun would kill me intentionally, because… just having to explain to Meatbun what the word “kill” meant was enough to give anyone a major headache. It would have been faster to find some other NPC to come hack me to pieces.

The Dictator of Life broke into a smile, an incomparably brilliant smile. It was the most genuine one I’d seen since meeting him.

I nearly drooled at the sight. The Dictator of Life was a peerless super hottie after all. I couldn’t resist telling him, “You should smile more often. It’s such a waste of that face if you don’t smile.”

The Dictator of Life blinked, and then asked, like a child, “Do I look nice when I smile?”

“Yep! I’d say even super idols can’t compare!” I praised him very directly. With beautiful guys, I was always very generous with giving the praise that was due… ah, with the exception of that idiot brother of mine. If I told him he was handsome to his face, not only would I die of revulsion, Yang Ming himself would promptly take me to visit the doctor to see if something had gone wrong with my brain.

“Then, do you like my appearance?” asked the Dictator of Life, a little hesitantly.

I vigorously nodded my head, but then I suddenly remembered that the Dictator of Life was also one of my admirers. Thinking of this, my head started hurting again. Gui and Zhuo-gēgē are already giving me enough trouble to deal with, and now there is the Dictator of Life to add into the mix! Heavens, just when did my charisma become so irresistible?

“You don’t like it?” the Dictator of Life asked, suddenly looking very discouraged.

“No, that’s not it. Appearances aren’t that important,” I vaguely said. (Who? Who says I’m lying?)

“Wait a sec-” I suddenly wondered what in the world I was doing. Here I am, discussing appearances and looks with the Dictator of Life when there are clearly more important matters at hand. There is the question of Sunshine and Kenshin’s whereabouts, not to mention the issue regarding Long Dian.

I hurriedly asked, “What happened to Sunshine and Kenshin? And just where is this place?”

“I have already sent Kenshin and Sunshine to find your comrades, and this is my real residence, my palace,” the Dictator of Life answered simply.

Upon hearing that Kenshin and Sunshine were both alright, I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief; at least this meant that I wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore. However, I would never have guessed that after dying this time, I would neither go up to heaven nor descend into hell, but rather end up in the residence of the Dictator of Life. This was just as well, because I could use this chance to resolve the matter concerning Long Dian. If I could persuade the Dictator of Life to stop helping Long Dian, then everything would be solved.

Yet, how am I to convince the Dictator of Life to stop helping Long Dian, who is almost like a father to him? Is it possible that I would have to resort to using my charm and beauty to seduce him? I struggled with myself for a bit, but decided that I didn’t want to use this method after all. Thus, I could only cautiously ask, “Dictator of Life, can you stop helping Long Dian? Everything he’s doing is wrong.”

“I cannot disobey Father,” the Dictator of Life told me plainly upon hearing my request.

I immediately countered, “But you did disobey him when you refused to return to his side, didn’t you?”

“The situation was different,” the Dictator of Life said calmly. “At that time, Father was utterly unprepared for my rebellion because he had not imagined that I would revolt. Things are different now. He has complete control over me, and if he gives me an order, even if it is an order to kill you, I would do it without the slightest hesitation.”

I found myself at a loss for words. This time, even my last hope was gone. I forcefully asked, “Then how did you leave Long Dian to come here?”

“I didn’t actually leave Father,” the Dictator of Life explained. “I am not a human, whose existence is limited to a single place. For an AI, simultaneously appearing in countless locations is a very simple task.”

“Of course I know that! How big of an idiot do you take me for?” A bit dissatisfied I retorted, “I’m just doubtful that Long Dian would let you come here.”

Hearing my question, the Dictator of Life stopped abruptly, and remained silent for a very, very long time… until I suddenly realized that he had come here in secret. Considering things in this light, he still had some way to disobey Long Dian.

“Father is very pitiful,” the Dictator of Life finally said.

When I heard this, I was filled with extreme rage. How can a scumbag who fired a nuclear weapon and killed thousands of people be called pitiful? I icily said, “That scumbag ought to die. The word ‘pitiful’ has nothing to do with him.”

“Father only treasures too much the happiness he worked so hard to obtain,” the Dictator of Life said serenely.

Even though I knew I shouldn’t sympathize with that scoundrel Long Dian, I still couldn’t keep myself from asking, “Just what happened to Long Dian? Why’s he threatening the world? What’s he requesting those strange items and people for?”

“Ahh…” the Dictator of Life gave a deep sigh. “Father only wants to keep on living, to remain with the ones he loves forever. If it was me, I might have done the same thing, if it meant that I could remain by your side forever.”

Even though I already knew the Dictator of Life’s feelings for me, I couldn’t keep my face from turning red upon hearing such a direct confession. In an attempt to change the subject, I said, “Isn’t Long Dian doing fine? I don’t see how his life is in any danger.”

“Terminal illness!” stated the Dictator of Life directly.

Terminal illness… I remained silent for a very long time and recalled Long Dian’s figure from when I had met him before… It was true, his condition had looked quite terrible, as though he had fallen very ill… Why haven't I thought of it before?

“Father, he… originally he had only wanted to live within Second Life, but that plan completely failed,” the Dictator of Life said with regret.

“Now, there’s only one way left.” A sorrowful smile appeared on the Dictator of Life’s face. “Father will merge together with me. This way, not only can he continue living and control the entire internet world, but he can also create an artificial body that can exist in the real world.

“Prince…” the Dictator of Life gently called me.

“Huh?” I was only aware of a sense of dizziness that had enveloped my head, which felt very swollen. This matter is simply too complex; Long Dian actually wants to merge together with the Dictator of Life?

“When I have merged with Father, in order for there not to be a conflict between two people’s consciousnesses, I will let go of my consciousness. So, I came here to say goodbye to you, Prince,” the Dictator of Life said with a gentle smile.

“Also, I want to thank you,” the Dictator of Life continued in a light voice. “Thank you for letting me understand what love is.”

Why does someone always have to sacrifice themselves? I simply could not understand. Why?

The Dictator of Life actually reached out his hand, and wiped away the tears on my face. “Don’t cry, Prince. Don’t worry, Father has promised me that once the plan to merge and produce a body has been completed, he won’t hurt anyone else anymore.”

“He has already hurt too many people,” I said hoarsely.

“There won’t be any more casualties. Rest assured, I will do everything I can to not hurt anyone.” As he gave me his word, the Dictator of Life gave me a painfully loving look, as though he was concerned that I was still worried.

“Liar!” I angrily shouted. “At the very least, you will get hurt. You will die.”

At this, the Dictator of Life actually smiled happily. “Are you worried for me?”

I forcefully wiped away my tears as I yelled, “Obviously!”

Sounding very content, the Dictator of Life sighed, “That is good enough for me.”

Upon hearing this, I nearly went mad. Even though the Dictator of Life has a very high level of comprehension and intelligence, in the end, this guy is no different from Meatbun!

“Then, will… will you remember me forever, Prince?” There was a look close to longing in his eyes.

“I won’t!” I coldly replied. Upon hearing my answer, the Dictator of Life froze at once, as if he had been struck by lightning.

“If you dare to go and die, I swear that I will forget about you completely! You hear me?” I threatened the Dictator of Life, glaring at him.

After remaining still for a while, the Dictator of Life suddenly kissed me lightly on my forehead. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, you have to live—” Before I could finish speaking, everything before my eyes began to turn fuzzy. The throne, the palace, and the figure of the Dictator of Life all faded away, and the only thing that remained vivid was the bright smile that rested on the Dictator of Life’s face.



“Prince? Prince? Wake up…”

I rubbed my eyes. What just happened? Is that the Dictator of Life calling me? But when I opened my eyes, it was Gui’s handsome face that materialized before me.

“Huh? Gui, why are you here? Were you also brought here by the Dictator of Life?” I asked stupidly, even though I didn’t know why the Dictator of Life would bring him here. Strictly speaking, Gui was his love rival, after all.

Gui paused. “The Dictator of Life? Prince, what are you talking about? I don't understand anything you’re saying.”

Upon hearing Gui’s response, I also stopped abruptly. Right then, I suddenly discovered that the surrounding scenery looked very strange. I was no longer in that gray palace, but in a most ordinary-looking rebirth point, where there couldn’t possibly be any trace of the Dictator of Life.

“I was definitely in the Dictator of Life’s palace just now,” I insisted, not comprehending the situation.

“Prince, did you fall asleep? After you were accidentally killed by Meatbun, I was also burned to death by Fire Phoenix. When I was reborn, I saw you lying here.” Gui looked at me with some concern.

I fell asleep? Could it be that it was all a dream? I couldn’t help but begin to wonder if my sleeping skills were so amazing that I was able to sleep soundly to the point of dreaming even within the game, but the dream… had felt a bit too real.

“Was it really a dream?” I furrowed my brow, thinking hard. But that smile on the Dictator of Life’s face was so genuine; it didn’t look anything like a dream.

“Prince… were you crying?” Gui asked, suddenly staring at me. He lifted my chin up, and looked over my face carefully. “And someone even wiped away your tears for you.”

Gui…Your observational skills are a little too much, don’t you think? You even knew that someone wiped my tears away for me? It looked like if I married Gui, I definitely wouldn’t be able get away with sneaking around behind his back… Bah! What am I thinking? I'm not even married yet and already I was planning on sneaking around…

“Then I definitely wasn’t dreaming. The one who wiped my tears away was the Dictator of Life,” I answered with utmost certainty. “Oh yeah, Gui, the Dictator of Life told me a lot of things. Help me think of a solution.”

“Okay.” Gui did not look entirely convinced, but still he obediently listened.

Immediately I narrated in full detail everything that had happened, and then hurriedly asked Gui, “Is there any way that the Dictator of Life doesn’t have to die?”

After hearing everything I said, Gui stood silently for a moment, his brow furrowed in very deep thought. “Terminal illness… so Long Dian can only survive by merging with the Dictator of Life?

“The way things currently stand, the most obvious decision is to sacrifice either Long Dian or the Dictator of Life,” Gui analyzed critically. “Moreover, from my point of view, sacrificing the Dictator of Life is for the best. That way, everything will be resolved even if we don’t do anything. And what is more… after all is said and done, the Dictator of Life is not really a human being.”

“Sacrificing the Dictator of Life… is for the best?” Even though I knew that Gui could not possibly have erred in his judgment, I couldn’t help asking again, “Does there have to be a sacrifice?”

Gui looked deeply into my eyes and said with purpose, “Prince, there are many things that cannot be resolved perfectly. If you forcefully insist on a perfect resolution, you may lose everything.”

“Is that the way it has to be?” But is the Dictator of Life… really going to be sacrificed like this?

Chapter 4 : Cold Fox's Terrifying Special Training

“Thank you, Prince. Thank you for letting me understand what love is.”

I suddenly woke up, only to find my face covered in tears and that phrase resounding incessantly in my mind…

Dictator of Life….

After the day I saw the Dictator of Life, we also encountered Fairsky and the rest. Sunshine and Kenshin had really come back, proving that the things that had happened that day weren’t the result of becoming muddleheaded from oversleeping and dreaming everything! They were real! The Dictator of Life really had come to say his farewells.

After Lolidragon heard the news that Long Dian had an incurable disease and needed to combine with the Dictator of Life in order to live, she was stupefied and had no idea what to do.

Everyone told me that not doing anything and letting them combine would be the best method… But I just couldn’t forget the content smile the Dictator of Life had shown just because of a few words of mine.

Is sacrificing the Dictator of Life… really the best way to do this? If the Dictator of Life were an actual human being, perhaps everyone wouldn’t have made such a decision… However, to me, he was a real human being. It was similar to how Fairsky felt that Sunshine was definitely not an NPC.

“Sis! You overslept again! What about my breakfast…” Yang Ming kicked open the door, only to freeze upon seeing the scene before him. He paused for a long time before finally saying, “Sis… Even if you haven’t slept enough, you don’t need to cry like that, right? I can always help you tell Gui that you don’t want to get out of bed to go to class. I bet he wouldn’t dare flunk you anyway…”

Shut up! I immediately used all my strength to throw my pillow at him. As I heard his cry of agony, I felt immensely pleased. Twitching my mouth, I said, “I’m sad. Sad! Do you understand?”

“Sad about what?” Yang Ming replied as he lazily remained on the floor, not bothering to get back up.

I hesitatingly asked Yang Ming, “Do you think… the Dictator of Life should really be sacrificed?”

“There is no one in this world who should be sacrificed!” Yang Ming said in all seriousness.

“But, if we don’t sacrifice the Dictator of Life, we will need to sacrifice Long Dian.” I stared at Yang Ming. “And you know that Long Dian is really important family to Lolidragon. If Long Dian were to die, Lolidragon would definitely be really heartbroken.”

“I know!” Yang Ming sighed, “But no one should be sacrificed. If Long Dian died, my future wife Lolidragon would be deeply hurt. However, if the Dictator of Life died, my sis would feel remorse and regret toward him for the rest of her life.”

Yang Ming exaggeratedly held his head in indecision. “This is horrible! It really is hard to choose between family and love.”

What and what? What has this got to do with family and love… My bro’s ability to speak irresponsibly at any time had really grown day-by-day. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him exaggeratedly.

“Sis, I think you still have a week to think about it properly,” said Yang Ming, suddenly raising his head.

“One week?” I don’t understand, why one week?

Yang Ming softly uttered, “The government has agreed to Long Dian’s conditions. They have handed over the people he wants and the equipment he needs. According to their estimations, making an artificial body might only take two weeks. The fusion plan will probably start after that.”

“I need to go save him!” I stood up abruptly.

Hearing this, Yang Ming nearly fell to the floor again. He rubbed his nose and said, “You sure decided quickly when you were so indecisive just now.”

“That was then. Right now, there isn’t any time for hesitation!” I desperately shouted.

“Even if you’ve decided to try, you still won’t be able to save him. Even the government can’t handle Long Dian, so what could you possibly do?” Yang Ming coldly broke my confidence apart.

“Regardless, I have to go save him! Otherwise, I will regret it for the rest of my life!” I said with no doubt in my mind. I definitely couldn’t wait here blindly. If I did, I would definitely be tortured for the rest of my life by my conscience.

Yang Ming guffawed, “You really are my sis. I knew you would definitely go to save him.

“Follow me.” Once again, Yang Ming revealed an enigmatic smile, muddling my mind and making me unable to guess his intentions. Where does he want me to follow him to?

“However!” Yang Ming spun the keys to the hover bike around his finger, “I’m driving this time.”

Although I didn’t know what Yang Ming was trying to do, I still climbed onto the back seat of the bike. As we sped off, I became more and more confused. “Where are we going? Don’t we need to go to class?”

“Gui helped us take leave,” Yang Ming replied without turning his head.

What? Take leave? I furrowed my brows. In addition, the route that Yang Ming was driving through was a route that I was extremely familiar with. After all, I had speeded on this very road last time in order to arrive at the transmission station to go to Lolidragon’s. Could it be that we’re going to Second Life’s main headquarters right now?

Not long after, my speculations were confirmed. Yang Ming rode into the transmission station and drove all the way to Second Life’s main headquarters. After he parked, Yang Ming led me into the company silently, not explaining a single thing.

After going through many twists and turns, we finally made it to a steel door.

At that moment, Yang Ming gestured for me to open the door and enter.

I was completely and utterly baffled about the entire situation, but I still put my hands on the door’s handle. I put in some strength and pushed open the door…

“Ah, you finally came. I thought you had changed and decided to be an obedient and compliant girl,” said Lolidragon, who was wearing a set of light armor, as she smiled at me.

It’s not just Lolidragon, everyone else….

I called out everyone’s names, dumbfounded, “Wolf-dàgē, Yulian-dàsăo, Doll, Gui and Wicked, Nan Gong Zui, Phoenix, Fairsky and also Cold Fox?”

“Why do you always like putting my name along with this guy’s?” muttered Gui, dissatisfied. Wicked also revealed a look of disdain toward Gui.

“What is…everyone doing here?” My mind was filled with confusion. What exactly is going on here? Is it possible that everyone has gathered together for a Second Life get-together?

“Waiting for you,” everyone said in unison.

“Waiting for me?” This reply made me even more confused. I guarantee that my eyes right then definitely looked exactly like Meat-bunbun’s whenever he says, “Mama, Meat-bunbun doesn’t understand.”

“Even if we don’t use our brains and merely use a bone in our spines to think about it, we would know that it’s impossible for you to simply sacrifice the Dictator of Life.” Lolidragon revealed an expression that said “I saw through you ages ago.”

“If we were to leave you to do everything yourself, we wouldn’t know what accidents you would get into. Therefore, we thought, why don’t we try to make well-made, foolproof preparations and greatly increase the success rate instead?” Yang Ming light-heartedly smiled.

“But… Everyone said that it would be better to just leave it,” I replied a bit guiltily. How come everyone understands me so well? The past few days, even I myself still doubted whether I should go or not, but everyone already knew that I would definitely go.

“It’s true that if we don’t do anything, it would probably bring about the best results since only the Dictator of Life would be sacrificed… However, I understand and know that things are not that simple.” Lolidragon’s eyes revealed her determination. “Long Dian… he just hasn’t figured it out yet. He wants to stay beside Dad and me but he has forgotten that if he were to combine with the Dictator of Life, he would be immortal. Whereas, the two of us would only have a life expectancy of, at most, two hundred years.”

Lolidragon stopped for a moment. Then, she slowly said, “At that time, how would he cope with his eternal life and endless solitude?”

“Actually, it wouldn’t take that long,” Yang Ming dimly said. “A life bought with the sacrifice of others would definitely bring sorrow. And Long Dian has already sacrificed the lives of over a thousand people. He has already stepped onto a path of no return on which he will never be able to obtain happiness.”

“That’s why we’re all here,” said Wolf-dàgē as his hearty laughter broke the dark and gloomy atmosphere. “It’s to save the Dictator of Life and Long Dian as well!”

I finally understood everything. Earlier, although everyone said that allowing Long Dian to merge with the Dictator of Life would be the best outcome, in reality, everyone doubted like me and thought, “Is this really for the best?”

And right now, with the support of my teammates, I could finally freely scream, “No it isn’t! That definitely isn’t the best outcome!”

“Everyone…is willing to go stop Long Dian and save the Dictator of Life?” I asked with a smile on my face.

“Everyone here agrees to that,” Lolidragon lightly smiled. “After all, they came to this conclusion much faster than you.”

Then, once again, Lolidragon’s expression turned stern. “However, this time’s operation will be severely dangerous. There is a high possibility that we will encounter even stronger robots than the one we ran into before. Therefore, the only ones who can go to save the Dictator of Life are the ones that can pass the test.”

Lolidragon walked toward a gigantic machine that had a similar shape to a birdcage. It had a circular pedestal and a clear outer shell wrapped around it. It looked like one of those virtual combat games that I’d seen in electrically controlled amusement parks, except this one was much, much larger.

“This is a battle simulator that the military uses to train their soldiers’ combative abilities. Fighting inside here is exactly the same as fighting in the real world and, of course, the degree of pain felt can be manually controlled and adjusted. But all of you should be prepared for more than that. In my case, I will definitely set the pain level at one hundred percent,” Lolidragon said with no leniency.

“All of you will have to become familiar with the equipment we used in the previous battle within two weeks. In addition, you will have to fight using this equipment in the simulator. Only those who achieve level B are allowed to participate in the actual operation,” Lolidragon strictly said. “Anyone who does not reach level B or higher, even if it is you, Prince, will not be allowed to go.”

Everyone revealed an expression of determination to achieve this no matter what. As for me, it was obvious that I definitely wouldn’t allow myself to fail!

“Everyone, work hard!” Lolidragon said, sighing. “ Level B isn’t something normal people can achieve. However, my dad insisted that unless we reach level B, he won’t allow us to leave this room.”

<Beep Beep Beep , your level is A, your level is A>

… I stood, my mouth agape, staring at the simulator. I was positive that the sound had come from the simulator… Who was it? Who is at level A without even going through any training…

“Cold Fox?” said Lolidragon, amazed, as she looked at the shadow inside the simulator. Even more frightening was that Cold Fox was only holding a small knife similar to letter-openers and had no other gear at all!

“A… How could that be possible? Even I could only reach level B. A is a level that only elite military personnel can achieve…” said Nan Gong Zui, dumbstruck as a policeman familiar with the machine.

It seems that the most terrifying terrorist is actually the student wearing a high school uniform!

Cold Fox turned around and scanned everyone with his eyes. Upon seeing his cold eyes, we started to suspect whether Cold Fox’s face had actually appeared on the ten most wanted criminals list before.

“In these two weeks, allow me to train you guys.” As usual, Cold Fox was a man of few words. However, these few words were enough to make our hearts tighten at the thought.

And in reality, although this guy might not actually be on the ten most wanted criminals list, his cold-bloodedness could definitely match up to that of the ten most wanted criminals in the world.

“Wake up at four every day and run fifty laps around the room. The women, run thirty laps.”

What? Run fifty laps around the room? This room isn’t my bedroom man, not to mention, this can’t even be called a room. This is a training ground and considering Second Life’s financial status, how big do you guys think this training ground is? It’s definitely no smaller than a school’s sports field!

Everyone’s faces paled. People these days lack exercise and thus running fifty laps was definitely something outside of our imagination.

Cold Fox coldly shot a glance at me, “Besides Prince. You have to run fifty laps.”

Could he be implying that I don't count as a woman? I suddenly had an urge to strangle the man in front of me to death.

“Afterwards, wear your protective gear and we will do different types of battle training. Then it will be one versus one matches.” After speaking up to this point, Cold Fox once again icily shot a glance at me for some unknown reason. “Your opponent will be me.”

I suddenly felt uneasy. Can it be that I accidentally angered Cold Fox because of being Kenshin’s master?

In the following two weeks, I felt that the sweat on my back never ceased to flow. If the training grounds had a bed, I definitely would have crashed on it and then slept for a week without waking up at all.

The fifty laps every morning were already torturous enough. Near the end, my legs would stop responding to me. Every time I wanted to just forget about everything, stop, and shout "I don’t want to do this anymore," the Dictator of Life’s smile and his damn "thank you" would appear before me.

“If running can save him, then running one hundred laps or even one thousand laps would be worth it.” It was because of these words that I was able to survive through the fifty laps on the first day.

After I finished running, my face was already ghostly pale to the point that both Gui and Wicked furrowed their eyebrows at me. Seeing their expressions, I knew that they really wanted to tell me to give up and stop running, but they also knew that I wouldn’t give up.

However, I deeply believed that Gui’s complexion was much more terrible than mine. As I caught my breath, I couldn’t help but say to Gui, “Gui, if you really can’t do it, then don’t force yourself. Look at your face, it looks so horrible!”

Gui actually revealed a weak smile, “Prince doesn’t look so good either, so why aren’t you giving up?”

“Because I need to save the Dictator of Life…” I suddenly realized that I was doing this in order to save the Dictator of Life and Gui was doing this for me. This determination wasn’t something anyone could break.

Meanwhile, Wicked didn't say anything. Clearly, his physical strength was extremely good. It was possible that running was basically his daily exercise, merely that fifty laps may just be a little more than usual.

I patted Gui’s back, encouraging him. Since I knew that he wouldn’t give up, there was no need to give him the cold shoulder to try and force him to give up. Judging from the past, giving him the cold shoulder would be nothing; even if I were to bash him up, he still wouldn't give up.

I walked to Zhuo-gēgē’s side. Although Zhuo-gēgē didn’t show any expression, I knew that he wasn’t happy and that he was, in fact, extremely unhappy. I couldn’t help but open my mouth and say, “Zhuo-gēgē, keep on going!”

At first, Zhuo-gēgē was shocked, but then he nodded and smiled my way.

I finally felt relieved and began happily humming a song while putting on the gear that Lolidragon had meticulously prepared.

“Sis, you shouldn’t do that!” said Yang Ming as he lazily leaned against a wall, evidently having finished equipping his gear a long time ago. “Don’t give hope to two men at the same time. It could cause dire consequences in the future.”

“I just don’t want to hurt either of them,” I said, feeling a bit guilty.

“Do you remember what I said before? If you try to force a perfect resolution, you will likely lose everything,” Yang Ming said profoundly.

Has Yang Ming recently been able to speak more like a human? I replied a bit miserably, “I know. No matter what, after this, I will give them both an answer.”

Suddenly, Yang Ming put his hand on my shoulder. “Sis, choose Gui!”

I was stunned. “Do you think Gui is better?”

“Yeah.” Yang Ming tightened his fist and passionately said, “I really like Zhuo-dàgē as well, but if Professor Min Gui Wen were to be my brother-in-law, it would definitely guarantee that I will be able to graduate from university. For my graduation certificate, for this graduation certificate that will help me find a job, for this job that will allow me marry Lolidragon, and for the children that will carry on the Feng family line, you should choose him, Sis!”

This guy….

Bam! A power glove ruthlessly hit my bro’s precious little thing, also known as my bro’s little willy [4]. Then, as my bro tragically howled, Lolidragon came and dragged him away. Lolidragon continued cynically, “With this, you don’t need to carry on the Feng family line anymore, so just let Prince choose at her own pace!”

“Still have energy to talk?” Suddenly, Cold Fox revealed a smile we had never seen before. However, from that point onwards, no one wanted to see that smile ever again, especially afterwards when he dealt with us so brutally and inhumanly…

“Individually pick a sword or a gun as your weapon,” Cold Fox dictated. “Those who choose swords, go to the test performance machine and practice swinging the sword five thousand times. Only swings with a power above one hundred fifty will count. Those who choose guns, go to the shooting range and practice. You must hit bull’s eye at least five hundred times.”

After his speech, everyone chose their own weapons while Cold Fox once again shot a glance at me. “Come here!”

Sob… Why is this happening again? I want to sue Cold Fox for discriminating against me!

“This is your weapon.” Cold Fox threw a light sword at me… No, this weapon was different from other light swords. The subtle curve of the blade’s shape… a dao’s shape? This is a dao! In addition, it is exactly the same as my Black Dao! (Of course, this had a white luster instead as it was impossible for it to be black.)

I raised the lightsaber [5]. It felt so smooth and light in my hands, exactly like my good partner Black Dao. It felt precisely the same.

“I know you are best at using the dao,” said Cold Fox simply.

“Thanks!” I said from the bottom of my heart. You know, Cold Fox isn't as cold as he appears. On the contrary, he's actually very considerate and attentive.

“Go practice swinging!” ordered Cold Fox simply. However, he stopped for a moment and then continued, “Prince, you have a lot of potential. I could tell from Second Life. That game is one that is real beyond imagination, which is also why I decided to play it.

“Magic and abilities may not be possible in real life; however, if you are capable of exerting your fighting skills in the game, then you are capable of them in reality.” After Cold Fox finished his unprecedented long speech, he reverted back to the silent and wordless him as he quietly supervised everyone’s practice.

“Thank you Cold Fox. Really, thank you,” I softly murmured, completely understanding that under Cold Fox’s cold appearance was an extremely gentle and caring person.



“Bastard Cold Fox, idiot Cold Fox, you have no blood, no tears, no heart and no liver… Huff, huff…” I said while quietly cursing him in my mind and panting for breath. Stupid Cold Fox, treating us like this.

I finally understood what "swing the blade five thousand times with each swing having a power of over one hundred fifty" finally meant. Listening to what I was supposed to do as an idea didn’t sound like very much, but once the phrase became an action, it was really something that could kill me. Especially when the one completing these actions was myself, it really… made my whole body feel like jelly and my spine tingle with pain to the point where I couldn’t even pick up chopsticks anymore… That was my current situation.

“Eyes forward and straighten up your back. Your upper body is slouching and you’re swinging your blade too flimsily. Do you think Long Dian is using a few dogs to obstruct you?” Cold Fox said as he ruthlessly smacked his bamboo sword on my slightly slumped back, making my teeth clench in pain right then and there.

I hurriedly straightened up my back, focused my eyes on the swinging at hand, not even squinting at any possible distraction, and shouted continuously every time I brandished my blade. It was only then that Cold Fox slightly nodded his head in approval and walked over to see how the others were doing.

After much difficulty in completing the five thousand swings, I was as tired as a dog and sprawled across the floor. It felt like only a fleeting moment had passed and I hadn’t even rested enough when Cold Fox’s frosty voice sounded once again, “You’ve rested enough! Get up! Spar with me.”

We can finally spar! The moment this word entered into the language center of my brain, I immediately jumped up. My eyes couldn’t help but sparkle and shine as I looked toward Cold Fox. It didn’t matter whether it was the thought of fighting against the third best player from the game or the fact that I would be sparring against an opponent in real life that possessed the capabilities of an A level soldier in the military simulation machine; both of these ideas rendered me equally excited.

A rare smile surfaced on Cold Fox's face. “As expected of one who loves combat.”

I looked at Cold Fox who was on the opposite side. He still hadn't equipped his armor and his hands merely held a small knife that was akin to a letter opener. However, every strand of hair on my body that was standing up told me that the guy in front of me was serious!

I raised the dao in my hands; my stance was the same as when I was in the game. I single-handedly held the dao and raised it in line with my body at an angle of thirty degrees. This was the best stance that could adjust to changing circumstances.

Cold Fox’s eyes revealed a hint of admiration. However, he didn’t go easy on me because of that. The speed at which he rushed toward me made me feel terrified. In an instant, he appeared in front of my face. I only managed to dodge his attack clumsily, barely avoiding his attack. However, Cold Fox had already changed the direction of his knife, which meant that my throat was heading right for it. I hurriedly turned my head, allowing the knife to barely scrape by me. Cold Fox, however, only had to lightly push the knife before it rested directly against my neck.

I lost. It was a loss that I can’t even brand as merely a crushing defeat!

Cold Fox slowly withdrew his knife and said plainly, “Return to your position; we’re doing it again.”

Unsatisfied, I instantly returned to my original position. Once again, I fought against Cold Fox… However, the result was the same as before. I couldn’t retaliate at all. I couldn’t even dodge.

“Again. This time, make use of your equipment,” said Cold Fox indifferently.

“I did make good use of my equipment!” I retorted, aggrieved. If I didn't have any equipment, how would it have been possible for an untrained girl like me to be able to spar with Cold Fox, who could possibly be an assassin or a terrorist?

Cold Fox snorted, “You don’t understand the capabilities of your gear at all.

“We’ll end it at this today, Prince. You have really disappointed me!” After Cold Fox finished, he turned around and left without batting an eye.

Cold Fox’s words hit me really hard. What did I do wrong? I had been trying really hard to cooperate with Cold Fox’s whole training program. As I thought about being wronged, tears started welling up in my eyes.

“Prince, don’t cry.” Gui immediately ran toward me and then turned his head to complain at Cold Fox who was far away, “Cold Fox, aren’t you a bit too strict? Prince is only a girl and this is only the first day of training.”

“Don’t train anymore, Xiao Lan!” Zhuo-gēgē’s distressed expression could clearly be seen. “We will help rescue the Dictator of Life in your stead.”

I jumped up immediately and yelled, “No! I definitely won’t give up!”

Everyone took quite a fright in reaction to my high-decibel shout. Only Cold Fox plainly said, “You finally seem a bit more like Prince.”

I froze. What does Cold Fox mean? He thinks that I’m not like Prince? But I am Prince…

I immediately rushed before Cold Fox and extended my arms and legs widely to block his way [6]. However, Cold Fox only raised his eyebrows a little and turned to go around me from the side.

“Wait a moment, Cold Fox,” I hurriedly opened my mouth. “What did you mean by what you just said? Do you doubt the fact that I’m Prince?”

Cold Fox once again shot a cold glance at me. “Which part of you resembles Prince? At least, I have never seen Prince shed tears, and I have also never seen Prince use such sloppy fighting skills.”

“This is real life! It’s not a game!” I couldn’t help but retort. Who compares combative abilities within games with reality?!

“Hmph, Prince is actually held back by these words?” Cold Fox icily said in ridicule.

I… have been held back by these words? Could it be that because I unconsciously thought that it was impossible to do these things in reality, I then couldn’t do them?

I touched the equipment on my body and tried my best to recall all the battles I had fought in Second Life.

The first battle. How could I forget? I changed from being extremely scared of wolves to playfully chopping them like I did fish. At that time, I learned that the most important thing was to look for their weaknesses and use the simplest yet most effective method to attack.

I also remembered the first time I fought against a player. It was against Dark Emperor and my opponent was Wicked. The resounding moment whenever our weapons collided had exhilarated us at every turn.

I closed my eyes. The images of all the battles I had fought flashed across my mind. Unknowingly, I began doing my favorite exercise: dancing with my blade!

One after another, I performed all kinds of horizontal slashes and vertical chops. My movements were smooth and accompanied by firm but flexible shifts. In addition, my body slowly felt lighter and lighter. I am an agility-based warrior; my speed should be extremely fast and light and dodging attacks should be simple for me!

I took a few strides and landed on the wall beside me. Using my speed, I ran up it in one go. At the end, I turned my body and safely dropped down to the ground face-to-face with Cold Fox, less than half a step between us.

“Prince!” Cold Fox once again revealed one of his rare smiles (Although I later realized that those were "dangerous" smiles and not "grinning" smiles!) [7]

“From tomorrow onwards, besides running, you're dueling with just me.”

“Let’s not wait until tomorrow. Take this, Cold Fox!” I said, smiling and filled with confidence as my chest beamed with pride and delight.

“No problem,” Cold Fox said with a hint of excitement in his eyes.

In an instant, I withdrew a step and in the same moment that I retreated backwards, I slashed horizontally at Cold Fox with my lightsaber. Cold Fox took the tactic of besieging Wei to rescue Zhao [8]. He didn’t guard against my lightsaber but instead raised his knife and thrust it toward me. In the moment that would have decided life or death, we both retreated a step, dodging the opponent’s attack.

“Excellent!” Cold Fox bellowed loudly. He took the initiative to go on the offensive and, with his speed, he instantly appeared before my eyes.

In the moment Cold Fox started his movement, I had already raised my lightsaber in line with my chest, using the dao’s length to keep the distance between us. After all, my dao’s attack radius was larger than his. Keeping a certain distance between Cold Fox and me was the best way to ensure that I wouldn’t lose.

Right as Cold Fox was about to enter my attack radius, he suddenly switched to a strange stance. His hand that was holding the knife changed into...the throwing knife position. I abruptly realized, It couldn’t be…

“You would have been dead, Prince,” Cold Fox said steadily, “if this were a real battle.”

Like I had feared… Discouraged, I dropped my combative stance. A loss is a loss. I magnanimously admitted, “Yeah, I lost. But that’s all right, there’s still a lot of days left for me to defeat you.”

Cold Fox’s eyes revealed his admiration. However, he only uttered, “The time for dinner passed long ago. Let’s go and eat. Then you can go and familiarize yourself with how you should be using the equipment.”

After he finished speaking, Cold Fox’s eyes left me. He used his eyes to inspect everyone and said, “Everyone else, after dinner, I will correct your fighting techniques.” With that, Cold Fox walked to the door and casually took a boxed meal from the ones that were delivered and began eating without a care for the others.

Lolidragon couldn’t stop herself from asking me, “Prince, at that moment, you guys hadn’t even crossed blades yet, so why did you say you lost?”

I matter-of-factly replied, “Didn’t you see Cold Fox’s motion? There was a throwing knife in his hand, and if he were to really throw it at me, I believe that with Cold Fox’s ability, I would have definitely died in one hit.”

“Holy crap, a throwing knife?” Although Yang Ming didn’t have a feather fan, he still posed as if he were an elegant and handsome knight-errant. He continued playing his act and bowed with his hands together to Cold Fox, “It couldn’t be that brother, you are the descendant of Xiaoli Feidao? [9] Excuse my lack of manners.”

“Chu Liu Xiang [10], you’d better hurry up and think about what errors you are making in combat or else afterwards, we will see a good show where Chu Liu Xiang is miserably taken care of by Xiaoli Feidao,” Lolidragon coldly ridiculed.

Unfortunately, after dinner, Chu Liu Xiang was taken care of by Xiaoli Feidao, and it was an extra tragic kind of "taking care of."

Chapter 5 : Departure

“Everyone, come here for a moment.” Lolidragon suddenly mysteriously gathered everyone together.

“Lolidragon, what are you doing?” I had just been having an awesome battle with Cold Fox, and there were only three days left before our two weeks were up. Even though I had long passed level B, I had still not reached level A. Cold Fox even coldly tossed me the words, “Not even close,” making me feel super pissed off. If I didn’t pass level A to prove myself to Cold Fox, how would I ever feel satisfied?

“Stop grumbling and hurry over!” Lolidragon walked in front of a large screen, pressed a few buttons, and then the screen displayed… an excited Sunshine and an exasperated Kenshin!

“Fairsky!” With incomparable excitement, Sunshine gazed at Fairsky.

“Sunshine!” Immediately, Fairsky rushed to the front of the screen, almost pressing her entire body against it. Rapidly, she fired off like a machine gun, “Sunshine, are you alright in the game? You haven’t been bullied by players or NPCs, have you? Do you have enough to eat? When you’re cold, remember to wear more clothes.”

“Okay, I’ll wear more clothes.” Sunshine smiled idiotically in his overwhelming happiness. (You’re an AI… You try getting sick!)

Since Sunshine already had someone caring for him, I also asked after Kenshin. “Kenshin, how have you been?”

“Not too good.” Kenshin furrowed his brows.

Originally, I had only asked in afterthought. I didn’t think Kenshin would actually answer “not good.” I blanked out for a moment before I hurriedly asked in worry, “Has something happened?”

“NPCs have been endlessly attacking the cities. With just Sunshine, AnRui, Fire Phoenix, Meatbun, and I, plus a few other players of Infinite City defending, things are a little tough.” Kenshin revealed a worried expression.

“NPCs are attacking the cities?” My eyes widened. What in the world is going on? NPCs are actually attacking the cities now?

“Besides Infinite City, all the other cities have been attacked too, and the damage is extremely extensive. Right now, fewer and fewer players dare to log on to Second Life.” Sunshine even revealed a helpless smile as he said, “In contrast, there are a lot of NPCs running about now.”

“Sorry, we don’t have the manpower to protect Sun, Moon, and Star Cities,” said Kenshin faintly.

“That’s fine.” I was thankful from the bottom of my heart. “You’re willing to help us protect Infinite City. I am super, super thankful to all of you for that.”

“Sunshine, Kenshin, have you helped us pinpoint Long Dian’s current location?” asked Lolidragon urgently.

“Pinpointing Long Dian’s location? What’s going on?” I asked in incomprehension.

Lolidragon rolled her eyes. “Idiot! If even the government is unable to find Long Dian, how would we be able to find him? Of course we have to depend on NPCs with self-awareness just like he does!”

Sunshine smiled as he said, “We found him. Fortunately, the Dictator wasn’t on guard against the two of us. When I ran into him, the Dictator even greeted me and told me to treat Fairsky well. He told me that a girl like Fairsky is very rare.”

Fairsky couldn’t help but blush. “That’s not true, I’m so overbearing…”

Sunshine revealed a passionate expression. “Fairsky is lively and honest. I love Fairsky the most.”

Hearing this, Fairsky’s face looked even more like a cooked crab, with how red it was.

“Alright, if you want to profess your love to each other, do that later off to the side. Right now, tell us where Long Dian is located first.” Lolidragon spread her two hands out, looking helplessly at this pair of lovers who did not know what being corny meant.

“He’s on an island.” After Sunshine spoke, a world map suddenly appeared on the screen. Slowly, the map locked onto a specific area. Lastly, a small island appeared on the map.

“An island! That makes things difficult. How are we going to escape the Dictator of Life’s notice and reach that island?” Lolidragon furrowed her brows. With the Dictator of Life’s power, if we even approached the island’s vicinity, we would be discovered.

“Simple.” Calmly, Kenshin said, “In two days, the government will send supplies to Long Dian. All you have to do is sneak onto that airship. Sunshine and I will help you avoid the Dictator of Life’s detection.”

“Whoa, you can even do something like that?” I stared at Kenshin in shock.

Kenshin fell silent for a while before he said, “Originally, the fusion plan would have worked as well if Long Dian wanted to fuse with either me or Sunshine, but the Dictator convinced Long Dian, so Long Dian decided to continue fusing with the Dictator…”

Everyone fell silent. I sincerely believed that the Dictator of Life would definitely do this. He was… truly too kind.

“Prince, I leave the Dictator to you.” Kenshin looked straight at me.

“Don’t worry. Even if you didn’t ask me, I would definitely save him.” Without a hint of cowardice, I looked at Kenshin, and Kenshin, who always had a cold face, actually revealed a rare smile.

“Okay, then let’s decide on who will go.” Lolidragon revealed a cruel smile. “Cold Fox goes without saying. Nan Gong Zui has also reached level B for some time. Prince has passed as well. Wicked also has no problems. Feng Wu Qing has also passed, and of course so did Wolf-dàgē. Lastly, there’s also me. I’ve successfully passed!”

“Boo, can’t Doll go?” Doll’s two eyes filled with tears. “Doll also passed.”

“No!” Everyone yelled at the same time.

“Princess, if something were to happen to you, it would cause a grave foreign affair problem.” Yu Lian-dàsăo furrowed her brows.

“Oh…” Doll couldn’t help pouting, but she also knew the severity of the situation, so she did not argue any further.

“Fairsky and Phoenix are out too. As expected, asking women to train and reach level B in two short weeks is a bit too much.” Lolidragon shook her head and sighed, forgetting that there were three women who trained and passed level B in two short weeks, and one of them was even herself.

Fairsky and Phoenix smiled helplessly.

“Let me go!” An incomparably mournful and unrelenting sound arose. Yes, Gui was currently pulling on the corner of my shirt as if his life depended on it, and he kept repeating, “Let me go let me go let me go…”

I helplessly lowered my head to look at him. “But you haven’t passed…”

“I know.” Gui dispiritedly let his shoulders drop.

“Then don’t go and be a burden!” said Wicked, mercilessly.

Gui’s shoulders shuddered, but he still persevered. “I want to go.”

“Based on what abilities?” Wicked went as far as roaring, “Do you want to drag Xiao Lan down? Do you want her to lose her focus in dangerous moments to protect you?”

“I…” In pain, Gui used both hands to cover his face. “I want to go with Prince.”

I felt a little sorry for him, but I still did not plan on letting Gui go. After all, it was too dangerous, and I did not want to see anyone get hurt. “You can just wait for me here. It’s alright even if you don’t go with me.”

“I…” After Gui barely managed to squeeze this word out, he slowly lowered his head and said no more.

Even though I knew Gui was very disappointed, I could do nothing about it. I could only leave him and start discussing with Lolidragon. How were we going to stow away on the airship the government was going to use to send supplies to Long Dian?

“We can help you avoid all detection from machines, but you will have to avoid human eyes by yourself,” Kenshin clearly explained what he could do.

After I heard this, I happily said, “That’s enough.” Even though someone like Long Dian had appeared and caused the entire world to begin worrying about the usage of computers, we had been dependent on computers and the internet for such a long time already. Humans became unable to step away from technology ages ago. Even with Long Dian’s appearance, people were still depending mostly on computers for surveillance.

“Lolidragon, remember to download me into a small computer that you can bring along with you. This way, I can help control the situation on the scene, and I can also keep in contact with Sunshine in case we need to change tactics.” For the first time, Kenshin lengthily rambled on, “The two of us are not as powerful as the Dictator and cannot be in too many places at the same time. This is the most we can do.”

“That is enough.” I nodded my head.



After stowing away on the government ship, I could only call the experience a thrilling and exciting activity, as well as an unsuitable exercise for people with bad hearts.

Thankfully, everyone’s hearts were functioning quite normally. With Cold Fox’s expertise in stealth, along with Kenshin and Sunshine’s guidance, we were, on a whole, alarmed but not in danger of a heart attack…

“Ah, I’m actually knowingly committing a crime. This is bad!” Even though Nan Gong Zui had protested before our departure, he still obediently accompanied us in breaking the law because our current situation left us with no choice. He even utilized his position as a police officer to help us avoid many dangerous traps.

However, once we stepped onto the ship, we discovered that the situation was kind of bad. The ship’s cargo capacity truly wasn’t very large, so there wasn’t enough space for all of us to hide in. The moment the government began transporting supplies onto the ship, they would discover the lot of us for sure.

I clenched my teeth and then yelled at the tablet pc Lolidragon held in her hands, “Kenshin, start up this airship and head toward Long Dian’s location, then seal off the government’s communication with Long Dian. Don’t let them use computers to contact Long Dian to alert him about the ship being seized.”

“Are you planning on directly impersonating government workers to head over there?” Lolidragon was stunned.

By the time I finished instructing Kenshin, the airship had already begun launching. Kenshin also straightforwardly said, “The government workers are pressing closer. There’s no time for hesitation. I will start the ship. Everyone, please stay seated and buckle your seat belts.”

Hearing this, we immediately found seats and sat down. We almost didn’t have time to buckle our seat belts when all of a sudden the airship’s main body shook and then we took off, rising into the sky in an instant.

“Sunshine, have you opened the gate?” Kenshin’s face appeared on the airship’s screen. Next to his face there was a small image of Sunshine, like Kenshin was communicating with him.

“I am in the process of opening it, but we’re too pressed for time, so there’s no way for me to open it wide.” Very professionally, Sunshine said, “Kenshin, it would be best if you tilt the airship vertically to fly through.”

“Understood.” Kenshin still had no expression on his face, but in an instant, the airship went from a horizontal state to a vertical state.

“I have this feeling like I’m riding a clam…” Yang Ming’s face was pale as he recalled the frightening memories of riding AnRui.

“Kenshin, there are small airships chasing you from behind.” After Sunshine said this, a radar image appeared on the screen. There were truly some small airships chasing us from behind.

“They seem hostile.” Sunshine wrinkled his brows. “Should we retaliate?”

I had a sudden flash of inspiration. “Sunshine, you can pretend to be the Dictator of Life and issue them a warning, telling them not to chase us, or else we’ll launch nuclear weapons.”

Happily, Sunshine smiled and said, “Okay, this way we won’t have to attack them.”

It only took a moment for the small airships behind us to stop. They no longer dared to take any action, and they let us swagger through the gates in our departure.

After all this, we finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well then, I’m going to focus all of my efforts on stopping the government from releasing a public statement. Kenshin, I’m going to leave it to you to help them avoid the Dictator’s detection.” Sunshine’s happily smiling face slowly disappeared from the screen.

Under Kenshin’s control, the airship flew very smoothly. I couldn’t help but break the silence, lamenting, “In the past, if someone had told me that I would steal a government airship, I would definitely have scolded him for being such an alarmist.”

Hearing my words, Nan Gong Zui smiled wryly. “I had the same thought.”

Everyone started laughing, and since I was bored sitting on the airship, I started thinking about Cold Fox’s strong fighting abilities and his expertise in stealth. I couldn’t help but ask, “Cold Fox, just how did you gain such a strong fighting ability?”

Once my words left my mouth, everyone stared curiously at Cold Fox. It looked like they had been harboring the same question for quite a while.

“My family is part of the criminal underworld,” said Cold Fox simply.

Everyone fell silent for a bit until Nan Gong Zui couldn’t help but ask, “Even if crime syndicates know how to use a dao, it’s still only used under circumstances with no other alternatives. They will definitely use guns if guns are available. A crime syndicate member like you using flying daggers for all situations, I really haven’t seen before…” As Nan Gong Zui trailed off, Cold Fox remained silent. Instead, it was Nan Gong Zui himself who stopped as if he was thinking about something.

Finally, Nan Gong Zui carefully asked, “You can’t be… someone from the Guan Dong Group?”

Guan Dong Zhu? [11] Hasn’t this type of food been gone for a long time? I thought I was the only one who knew about the deliciousness of this type of food. I didn’t think Nan Gong Zui would also be interested in it.

“No.” Cold Fox glanced at Nan Gong Zui. Just as Nan Gong Zui started relaxing visibly, Cold Fox wore an extremely rare smile as he said, “I am a member of the Ice Emperor Syndicate.”

Ice Emperor Syndicate? I was completely confused, but Nan Gong Zui’s mouth dropped wide open, making me very worried that his jaw might fall off at any time. After a moment, he revealed an expression of sudden realization as he shouted, “Silver-Masked Quick Fox from the Ice Emperor Syndicate! My god! How come I didn’t make the connection?”

I was still completely confused, but my brother Yang Ming had already revealed an expression full of worship. Touched, he said, “Who knew that I was guided by Silver-Masked Quick Fox in martial arts? Sniff, my life is complete.”

Is this really such a big deal? Before, he had still been mocking Cold Fox with “Xiaoli Feidao,” yet now he looked like a rabid fan of Cold Fox. I couldn’t help but cut in, “What’s going on? What’s the Ice Emperor Syndicate? Silver-Masked Quick Fox?”

“Oh please, Sis, the righteous syndicate of the criminal underworld, Ice Emperor Syndicate. You don’t know about them? The Ice Emperor Syndicate has a famous assassin—Silver-Masked Quick Fox. You don’t know about him? He was rumored to be a fierce person who killed the prime ministers of two countries.” Yang Ming revealed an expression that implied I was truly ignorant and inexperienced, but he suddenly thought of something else and loudly shouted, “My god! My sis was actually able to spar against Silver-Masked Quick Fox for ten minutes. Sis, you’ve become a top tier fighter.”

Blankly, I looked toward Cold Fox. This guy got rid of the prime ministers of two countries?

“They don’t count as prime ministers. They were merely the military leaders of rebellions from small countries,” explained Cold Fox indifferently.

That’s still impressive… So this guy really is a terrorist. I tilted my head to think. Oh well, it’s not like there are many ordinary people among this group.

“We have arrived above the island.” Kenshin calmly said, “Prepare for landing.”

Quietly, we sat in our seats to wait for landing, but when the airship finally rocked slightly once we landed, all of us impatiently undid our seatbelts.

“I can’t help you with what follows.” Kenshin straightforwardly said, “I will remain here to look after the airship and wait for your return. Sunshine will be responsible for shielding all of you from here on out, but we don’t know how effective Sunshine will be against the Dictator of Life. Be careful.”

I nodded my head. “Got it.”

One after another, everyone got off the ship. When I abruptly turned my head to look, Cold Fox had his gaze fixed on the screen on Kenshin. In a cool voice, he asked, “When everything’s over, come to my place? I can guarantee your safety.”

Kenshin fell silent for a good while. “We’ll speak later. For now… Help me protect Prince.”

“Got it.” Cold Fox didn’t pursue the matter further, and turned to leave.

Kenshin actually cares this much about me. I couldn’t help crack a smile. So this guy is also the type to be cold on the outside, but warm on the inside.

Once I left the airship, I surveyed our surroundings. Other than the aircraft parking lot where we parked the airship, the other areas made me feel like I had arrived at a primitive forest, but this was fine. This way, we didn’t have to be worried about not being able to find Long Dian on this small island. The entire island only had one building. Even a world-class idiot with directions like me could leisurely walk up to the place.

“Everyone, hide. Something’s coming,” Cold Fox warned suddenly. We quickly hid in the thickets surrounding us, and then we peered through the small openings between the leaves.

Two robots were walking toward our direction. One was a humanoid robot while the other was a horse-shaped robot, and it was even pulling along a horse carriage that I had only ever seen in my history textbooks.

The two robots stopped in front of the airship, and the humanoid robot even walked into the airship. It didn’t take long for him to walk out and broadcast, “The inside of the airship contains no supplies; the inside of the airship contains no supplies… Airship, the airship has not landed yet… The airship has crashed.” Once he said this, the humanoid robot led the horse-shaped robot and left.

What happened? The airship was perfectly alright and parked right there, yet this robot first said the airship hadn’t landed, and then said the airship had crashed. Just which nerve of this robot’s– No, I mean, just which screw of this robot’s wasn’t screwed tightly, causing its brain to break down?

Lolidragon walked out of the thickets and called out to us. “Come over quickly. Sunshine has already helped us in confusing that robot.”

I suddenly realized that it was Sunshine who had done this. I hurried out of the thickets, asking, “Are we heading to the building now?”

“Wait for a moment. Sunshine said that this place is strange. He wants to look into it first.” Lolidragon wrinkled her brows in apparent worry.

After a while, Sunshine’s warm voice came out of the tablet pc in Lolidragon’s hand. “Phew, I spent a lot of effort deactivating the building’s security system so that it won’t react to you, but be careful everyone. My control against robots isn’t great. Inside that building, there are a few robots that I was unable to hack into.”

“Got it. When we see robots, we will try to evade as many as we can.” I nodded my head.

It was truly apt calling this an island with a primitive forest. All around us were trees, and it looked like humans had yet to develop the area. If it weren’t for that building, I would absolutely never believe that someone had come here before.

Stepping over the ground that was overgrown with moss and crawling with vines and weeds, our group passed through very carefully. Although I was the nimble type, I still stumbled a lot, so don’t even mention the others… Of course, this didn’t include Cold Fox and Lolidragon. Cold Fox’s abilities could already be described as inhuman, and Lolidragon was a thief that could even burrow underground in-game, so a little forest like this wouldn’t trip her up.

What was lucky for us was that this small island was as described: truly very small. We didn’t have to walk for long before the entirety of the building clearly came into our view.

The entire building looked like an old, five-story apartment. It had ugly, ash-colored walls and a rectangular shape… What was different was that it did not have any windows, not even a single one. The entire wall was bare, and the only door flashed with the gleam of metal. It looked like it would not be easy to break, and by each side of the door stood a humanoid robot.

“No windows. This is actually not what I expected,” Cold Fox murmured.

“Are we going to break through the front door? Or does Sunshine have other means?” I asked.

“You can enter through the front door. I already told the robots by the door to let you inside,” came Sunshine’s voice from the tablet pc.

I took a deep breath. “Then let’s go.” After I said this, I took the lead, walking toward the two robots by the door. Nonetheless, when I walked by them, I still could not resist timidly looking their way. However, they did not react even the slightest bit, so I finally relaxed. When I walked up to the door, an ethereal, androgynous voice came from the door.

“Confirming the identities of the arriving parties. Please do not move. Begin scan… Scan concluded. Your arrival brings much joy, Prince.” Once the ethereal, androgynous voice finished speaking, the metal door slowly opened.

I walked inside, and my companions behind me also followed me in. Except for an old elevator, the place was absolutely empty.

“Then there’s no choice except to enter the elevator?” I motioned toward the elevator, turning my head to ask for everyone’s opinions.

Everyone nodded their heads. Only Cold Fox showed hesitation on his face. I couldn’t help but ask, “Cold Fox? Do you think that something’s wrong?”

Cold Fox lightly wrinkled his brows and said, “It’s too simple, so simple that it’s strange.”

“You’re saying that the course of events that got us here was too simple?” I carefully pondered Cold Fox’s words. True, this is really not what I had expected. Even the government has no choice but to follow Long Dian’s words, yet we were able to come here so easily?

“Oh please, what was easy about this? You guys just don’t know how hard it was.” Lolidragon rolled her eyes and started explaining, “Dian can now control all of the satellites of the world. These satellites alone are enough for him to seize control over the entire world’s transport means. Also, without satellites to probe for us, trying to find a small island in the boundless ocean would require more luck than Columbus finding new land.

“On top of that, this island is completely protected by a heat-sensing apparatus. Unless your body temperature is lower than zero degrees Celsius, you will be discovered immediately. Even if you were to wear a special outfit that completely insulated you, how would you reach this island? Any ships or planes that approach would be discovered right away.

“Unless you row a canoe or swim over,” added Lolidragon in a disdainful tone. Of course, that was something that would never happen.

“If someone unexpectedly found this place, then they could have directly launched missiles to destroy the island,” Wicked tried to raise a conjecture.

Lolidragon shook her finger. “First, all of the missiles in the entire world are pretty much under Dian’s command. Even if the government immediately makes new missiles, and they don’t connect to any internet system and don’t use the satellites to direct the missiles’ flight, Dian still has all types of missiles from all over the world under his control. He can use those to intercept them.”

Lastly, Lolidragon simply said, “Reaching this island is actually a very, very difficult task. If not for Sunshine and Kenshin’s existence, I would never have let any of you take part in that special training because we wouldn’t have had any means of finding this island. Don’t even mention actually coming to the island.”

“Phew, then it’s a good thing the Dictator of Life returned Kenshin and Sunshine to us at that time, or else we would have had our hands bound without being able to do anything about it.” I sighed in relief, and turned my head to ask Cold Fox, “Then can we enter now?”

Cold Fox paused for a bit before he nodded his head.

“Okay, let’s enter the elevator, everyone.” I took the lead and walked into the elevator. With the robots outside and the deactivated security system as examples, I no longer doubted Sunshine’s abilities.

This is an ordinary and standard elevator. I sincerely believed this, and I even felt it needed a good fixing. There was nothing inside the elevator except for a few number buttons for the different floors, but what was strange was that other than the digit two that was glowing, all the other buttons were darkened. When I pressed the numbers that weren’t glowing, the elevator did not respond at all. Could it be… We can only go to the second floor? With trepidation, I pressed the two.

The elevator immediately moved, slowly rising. In a short while, we arrived at the second floor, and the door slowly opened…

I sucked in my breath. In front of my eyes, there was… What kind of animal is this? I really didn’t know. I could only tell that its outer appearance was like that of a huge, white dog, but it felt a little more noble and elegant than a dog… Curse it! This was the first time I’d ever used descriptions like “noble” and “elegant” to describe an animal.

Its face was exceptionally unusual with a snout that was particularly sharp, and its two eyes were particularly slender as well, giving off a clever and crafty kind of feeling. Its tail was even stranger. It actually had nine tails, and its nine large tails were waving behind it.

“A nine-tailed fox?” Cold Fox couldn’t refrain from lightly shouting out.

Chapter 6 : Deception

“Fox? So this is a fox.” I had never seen a fox before, so it was no wonder I didn’t know what it was… But to think that foxes actually have nine tails! That was a real eye-opener.

“So foxes actually have nine tails…” Sigh, if I had known this before, then I would have put more effort into studying biology properly. How could I have not even known that foxes have nine tails?

“Of course foxes don’t have nine tails!” Lolidragon said as she fiercely punched me.

“This should also be a robot,” said Wicked, who immediately pulled out his gun as a precaution.

“A robot?” I exclaimed. “I don’t believe it. It’s too beautiful.”

“Humans…” The fox actually talked, and it had an extremely pleasant voice too. It said, “You are not my master. Besides my master, no one else is permitted to enter this place.”

“Oh?” I calmed down a little. Since the fox could talk, it couldn’t possibly be a real fox. After hesitating for a bit, I asked, “Do you know what we have to do in order to continue going up? Why can we only reach the second floor?”

“Haha,” laughed the nine-tailed fox. “I know how you can continue going up. Once you have defeated me, the elevator will automatically allow you to go up.”

“Defeat you?” Why is this situation so similar to a fighting game? After fighting through an army of cannon fodder, I will finally meet the final boss, and the stage will be cleared when the final boss is defeated…

“That’s right,” said the calm and composed nine-tailed fox as it paced around.

“Then bring it on! I don’t have much time to waste, since the artificial body could have already been created.” I immediately drew my lightsaber and was about to charge forward when Cold Fox stretched out a hand and stopped me. He furrowed his brow slightly and said, “Let me test its strength first.”

“Oh.” Although I’m a little disappointed, I should let Cold Fox attack first. Even though the first enemy that appears is usually just cannon fodder, there was always the possibility of this being an exception to the norm, especially since the one we were dealing with now was the Dictator of Life who was even harder to fathom. He had even given me a meat bun for a pet, so nothing is impossible, right?

Cold Fox slowly walked forward, moving closer to the nine-tailed fox one step at a time. The nine-tailed fox seemed to know that the person approaching it was very strong. Its fur bristled slightly and its nine tails stopped moving randomly. Instead, the tails fanned out like a peacock’s tail.

Cold Fox stopped walking and remained where he was… No, he was no longer standing there. I suddenly discovered that the Cold Fox that was standing there was just an afterimage, and the real Cold Fox… I immediately looked in the nine-tailed fox’s direction. As if it were in a frenzy, the nine-tailed fox’s white fur bristled and shot out like needles. A few hundred of these needles were all aimed at a very fast-moving figure.

I jumped in alarm. Oh no, Cold Fox won’t get hurt, will he?

However, Cold Fox moved left and right quickly, causing all the needles to pierce the ground and soften back into normal fur. At that moment, Cold Fox moved in front of the nine-tailed fox and hurled a flying dagger at it. However, he missed as the nine-tailed fox dodged to the side gracefully.

According to my previous experiences, Cold Fox would definitely pursue the enemy whenever he could, and would never give up all the way until the opponent felt like committing suicide. However, this time, not only did Cold Fox not pursue the enemy, he actually turned around and walked back, coldly saying, “Prince, you try it.”

“Me?” I was stunned.

“You should be more than enough to take care of it,” said Cold Fox before he irresponsibly walked to the back and closed his eyes to rest.

“Then I will not hold back any longer.” Once again, I drew my lightsaber and walked toward the nine-tailed fox, eyes gleaming…

“Wait!” shouted the nine-tailed fox suddenly.

I looked at it suspiciously. What on earth does it want to do?

The nine-tailed fox walked toward me slowly, moving closer and closer… Could this be a trap? I immediately raised my guard and held my lightsaber thirty degrees from the plane of my body.

The nine-tailed fox finally stopped walking when it was three steps away from me. It looked me in the eye…

The fox said, “My Lord! I have an eighty year old parent and a three year old child to take care of. The entire fox den depends on me to survive. If you slay me, my family will have no one to depend on.” As the nine-tailed fox recounted its sad story, it lay down on the ground and bawled its eyes out. The fox’s previous aura of nobility and elegance instantly vanished, and he… no, it appeared extremely miserable, so much so that one who heard the story would cry, and one who witnessed it would grieve…

I could not help but… raise my leg and kick it ruthlessly before scolding, “I was almost fooled, you sly fox.”

The nine-tailed fox paled when it heard what I had said. It exclaimed, “How did you know I was trying to fool you?”

“That’s obvious!” I glared at it while saying, “Have you forgotten what you are? You’re a robot. Have you ever heard of a robot that has parents and can give birth?”

“Ah!” The nine-tailed fox looked extremely shocked. Chagrined, the fox said, “I forgot.”

I fell! The fox was indeed another NPC that just couldn’t get any stranger. How on earth did Long Dian educate the Dictator of Life? Why are all the NPCs created by the Dictator so weird?

“Boo hoo hoo, I’ve lost. You guys can go up now.” The nine-tailed fox raised its forelegs and cried tragically.

“H-How can it be that simple?” Stunned, I remained where I was.

“It’s true, the button to go to the third floor has lit up,” said Lolidragon as she stuck her head out from inside the elevator. “Quick, hurry up and come in, we can go up now.”

I followed everyone into the elevator in a daze. I didn’t know at this point whether I should laugh or cry. Originally, I had wanted to have a warm-up exercise, but in the end, I didn’t get any warm-up at all. Even Cold Fox didn’t look happy… A proper fight with the nine-tailed fox would have been better.

The elevator door opened again. As expected, a monster appeared on the third floor… but the description I used isn’t quite right; this should be a can of a monster!

“Why?” I said, shedding a drop of cold sweat. “Why does it have to be Pepsi, not Coca Cola? Coca Cola is obviously the more famous brand, and curvy bottles also look better than aluminum cans.”

“I heard that Pepsi sales are higher than Coca Cola sales. Perhaps that’s the reason why the Dictator of Life chose Pepsi,” explained Lolidragon calmly.

That’s right, a can of Pepsi as tall as a man has appeared in front of my eyes…

“I wonder how this thing attacks. It’s really hard to imagine,” said Cold Fox, who also couldn’t help but be curious.

“Err…” I couldn’t imagine that as well.

However, we quickly learned how a can of Pepsi attacked. We saw the pull tab of the aluminum can being pulled out, the can tilting itself forty-five degrees…

“Get down!” Cold Fox shouted as he pushed me to the ground forcefully.

BANG!

A loud noise and vibration scared me out of my wits. While I was confused, someone suddenly threw me out of the elevator. I turned around, only to see Cold Fox tossing everyone out of the elevator, which had been damaged beyond recognition. There was a huge hole at the back of the elevator which allowed one to actually see the forest outside, and the elevator itself looked like it was on the verge of collapse.

“Cold Fox, come out quickly!” I exclaimed.

After Cold Fox had thrown the last person, Wolf-dàgē, out, he too leapt out of the elevator. However, the elevator had already begun to fall, and at the last second, Cold Fox’s legs brushed against the falling elevator…

I heard Cold Fox’s soft but extremely clear grunt of pain.

Cold Fox propped himself up and shouted at the same time, “Prince, finish it off!”

I turned around abruptly and saw that damn can of Pepsi begin to tilt itself again. I quickly charged forward and straightened it with a kick. Now, the can opening faced the ceiling… Oh no! I immediately retreated as the Pepsi spat out another large pillar of cola water that punched a hole in the ceiling.

An unknown object suddenly dropped down from the large hole and landed on the Pepsi can’s body with great precision. Furious, the unknown object yelled, “Pi~ka~chu~~”

The strong electric discharge stung my eyes with its brilliance, and I could not help but cover my eyes with my hands. After some time, I noticed the horrible smell of a burnt object. I opened my eyes only to see a burnt, round pillar with that unknown object on top of it. Unfortunately, I did not get a good look at the unknown object before it was turned into ash.

“What on earth is going on?” I asked, my head in a blur.

“Probably…” A little uncertain, Lolidragon answered, “The robot on the fourth floor seems to be able to use lightning attacks, and it happened to fall down when the hole was punched through the ceiling. Angry, it attacked with lightning, but the Pepsi can happened to attack with its water pillar again. Just like that, both robots electrocuted themselves to death.”

This ending really left me… totally speechless!

I abruptly remembered that Cold Fox had let out a grunt when he leapt out of the elevator. I immediately looked toward him, only to see him standing at his original position with a cold expression on his face, as if nothing had happened.

Is Cold Fox okay? Doubtful, I looked him over. Blood! I suddenly noticed that there was a bloodstain at the base of Cold Fox’s right trouser leg. I rushed toward him, pushed him over with one movement, and raised his right foot to see if it was okay. Cold Fox grunted softly.

“Wolf-dàgē, hurry up and take a look at Cold Fox’s foot!” In a panic, I shouted to Wolf-dàgē, the only medical staff present.

Wolf-dàgē furrowed his brows as he examined Cold Fox’s foot. I wanted to remove Cold Fox’s shoe so that Wolf-dàgē could examine him more carefully, but Wolf-dàgē quickly stopped me by saying, “Prince, don’t remove it. The bones in the sole of Cold Fox’s foot have been shattered, so you must not touch his foot at all costs. Most importantly, don’t remove his shoe, as it will help stabilize his foot.”

“Cold Fox…” I looked at Cold Fox, but didn’t know what to say. If he had not risked his life to save everyone, he would not have gotten hurt.

With his usual icy expression, Cold Fox said, “Time is short. Since the elevator is broken, you guys should use the hole that the Pepsi can made to go up. Use a human pyramid to send one person up, and then have that person dangle a rope down for the others to climb.”

In the face of Cold Fox’s calm attitude, I also calmed down without realizing it. “Okay,” I said.

Using the human pyramid and rope method, we successfully climbed up to the fourth floor. Of course, the robot on the fourth floor had already been destroyed together with the Pepsi can. But how would we proceed to the fifth floor without an elevator?

Wicked took his time to load a bazooka, and he fired three shots in a row at the ceiling. After a large hole had finally been made, I happily thought to use the human pyramid again to climb up. We were soon going to see the Dictator of Life.

“Wicked, make the hole larger so that we can see where the fifth floor robot is,” commanded Cold Fox coolly.

That’s right! There was a robot guarding the fifth floor, so we could not climb up unprepared like we had done for the fourth floor. I stuck out my tongue and silently berated myself for being too careless.

Wicked fired several more rounds, but there was no response from above. Also, the hole was only big enough to let us see a third of the room. Wicked frowned and began shooting at different parts of the ceiling. He even carried a machine gun in his left hand and raked the ceiling with gunfire. Under Wicked’s shocking destructive power, the ceiling soon seemed like…it was going to collapse.

“Oh no!” Wicked said calmly. “Looks like I’ve gone overboard with the shooting.”

“…”

Everyone was dumbfounded, and even Cold Fox couldn’t refrain from making a helpless expression while saying, “Everyone lean against the wall.”

I had just leaned against the wall when the ceiling announced that it was doomed. It fell down in large blocks, and the resultant huge cloud of dust nearly caused me to cough my lungs out. But where is the robot? I did not dare relax, and instead searched for traces of the robot within the dust cloud.

Found it! I saw an oddly shaped object. Although I didn’t know what it was, it definitely wasn’t human. I stepped lightly toward it because if I could use this opportunity to finish it off from behind, that would save us a lot of trouble.

I moved closer to the unknown object one step at a time. This thing looks a lot like a bus stop sign. How does something like that fight? Don’t tell me it can summon buses?

Whatever, I’ll just go for it! I immediately accelerated and charged at the bus stop sign, aiming my lightsaber at its thinnest part… Actually, the entire pole was uniformly thin. Anyways, I used all my strength to cut it in half. I felt a little resistance from the lightsaber when it hit the pole, but after I put in more strength, that resistance disappeared and the bus stop sign was sliced in two.

“Prince, you…” shouted Lolidragon in shock.

“How’s that? I’m really strong, aren’t I?” Elated, I turned around and said, “I defeated the fifth floor robot in one strike.”

“…You mean that this bus stop sign is the fifth floor robot?” Lolidragon picked up the two halves of the bus stop sign and tossed them around unconcernedly. She said, “If this counts as a robot, then I could probably add a sixth floor and guard it with the toaster I have at home.”

I looked at the thing that Lolidragon was tossing around. One half was a long metal pole, and the other was a round metal board. It really could not possibly be anything except a bus stop sign.

“Wait,” I said, noticing the words written on the round metal board. Neither the name of the bus stop nor the available bus services was written on it. Instead, there was this sentence: ‘Was the fighting game fun? I hope that Prince did not get hurt.’

I stared into space for a long, long time. Even if I had used the dandruff on my head to think, I would still know that this was definitely a message that the Dictator of Life had left behind. However, what on earth does this mean?

“We have been deceived!” Zhuo-gēge’s face was very, very cold. He said, “This is not Long Dian’s base of operations, it’s just a sham.”

“That’s impossible!” Lolidragon retorted. “This island is definitely Long Dian’s base of operations. Sunshine and I confirmed this fact over and over again.”

“Don’t get agitated, Lolidragon. Wicked just said that this place is a sham, not that this whole island is a sham,” said Nan Gong Zui as he analyzed the situation calmly.

“Something is definitely wrong,” sighed Cold Fox.

Visibly annoyed, Zhuo-gēge hit his forehead several times and said, “We should have known that he would take precautions against Kenshin and Sunshine when he returned them to us.”

“What should we do? How are we going to find them now?” Lolidragon was so depressed that she just plopped down on the floor. She said, “There are no other buildings on this island, so Long Dian’s base of operations is probably underground. At this point, even if we kept digging without any rest or sleep, it could take us months or years to find him.”

I furrowed my brows and asked uncertainly, “Lolidragon, isn’t there something called a metal detector?” I seemed to remember reading about things like that in adventure novels.

“There is!” Lolidragon jumped up, but then started pulling her hair desperately. “I didn’t bring one! I didn’t prepare a metal detector. Ahh! How could I be so stupid? If we had a metal detector, we would immediately know where Long Dian is. His laboratory definitely contains metal!”

“Hmph, I don’t need a metal detector. I already know where Long Dian is,” Wu Qing, who had been keeping quiet all this time, said suddenly. Not only that, the moment he opened his mouth, everyone was taken aback.

“Where is he?” Lolidragon jumped vigorously and rushed to Yang Ming’s side. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, saying, “Hurry up and tell us!”

“He is in a place we can’t find, even if we use a metal detector.” Yang Ming smiled mysteriously and took a deep breath before saying, “The aircraft parking ground!”

“Ah!” Nan Gong Zui exclaimed in shock. “That’s right, the aircraft parking ground already has a lot of metal. Even if we went there with a metal detector, we would just think that we were detecting the metal in the parking ground, and not Long Dian’s base of operations.”

“So we had already stepped on Long Dian’s head just now, but we didn’t realize it?” muttered Lolidragon to herself.

“Those incompetent robots were meant to delay us,” concluded Cold Fox.

Everyone looked upset, and I also could not help but be affected by this failure. However, the Dictator of Life was still waiting for me to save him. I calmed my emotions and firmly said, “Let’s go. We have already wasted too much time.”

Upon hearing this, everyone’s fighting spirits ignited once more and we rushed back to the aircraft parking ground without resting.



After we told him how we had been deceived, Kenshin simply said, “This is not unexpected. The Dictator of Life’s abilities are above mine and Sunshine’s, and Long Dian is a rarely seen genius among humans. Your failure was hard to avoid.”

“How do we get in?” Everyone looked around for an entrance to the base, but our efforts were in vain. No matter how we looked at it, this appeared to be a normal aircraft parking ground. The cement floor was hexagonal in shape, and a metal fence surrounded the entire place. There was even a metal signboard which had the words “Danger! Living people may not enter” written on it.

“Want to ask Gui?” asked Kenshin plainly as he looked at our exhausted and troubled appearances.

“Can you contact Gui?” I asked hopefully. After all, Gui was a genius with an IQ of 200. He should be able to compete with Long Dian.

“There is no need to contact him.” Kenshin said something very strange.

“No need to contact him?” The moment I asked this question, an unlikely person walked out of the airship. Need I say who it is? Of course it’s Gui!

In front of everyone’s shocked faces, the fully equipped Gui made an embarrassed expression. He stuttered as he explained, “S-Sorry, but because I really wanted to come with Prince, I hid in the airship a day earlier. The engine room is just big enough for one person to hide in…”

I could not resist scolding, “You really are an idiot. You even stayed in the aircraft parking ground, the place closest to Long Dian, alone.” If Long Dian had felt like taking the airship into his base of operations, there would have been no way for Gui to avoid being detected.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted…to follow you here. If I did anything more, I would just become a burden,” said Gui. The more he said, the gloomier his eyes became, and the weaker his voice.

“Anyway, you’re still alive and in one piece, that’s the most important thing,” I said. I could not bear to blame Gui any more. After all, he had just wanted to follow me.

“Gui, hurry up and tell us, how will we be able to enter Long Dian’s base?” demanded Lolidragon hastily, as though she could not wait any longer.

Gui muttered to himself in a low voice, then walked in front of the metal signboard and said, “Living humans may not enter? Interesting. Lolidragon, Sunshine is inside your tablet pc, right?”

Lolidragon nodded earnestly.

“Sunshine, let’s see if you can invade this signboard,” said Gui, smiling mysteriously. “If my guess is correct, the reason living people may not enter is because only NPCs can approach this signboard.”

“Okay, I will try it,” said Sunshine. After that, he paused for a moment. Only one or two seconds had passed when he happily spoke again, saying, “It’s fine, there’s an AI inside this signboard. I have already opened the entrance.”

Faster than you could blink, the entire hexagonal, cement floor started to sink. After I had gotten over the initial shock, I immediately pulled out my lightsaber as a precaution. Who knows how many robots could be gathered down there?

“The door has opened, the door has opened!” A few panicked voices shouted, as if they were very happy at being saved.

Those did not sound like voices of robots, but it was better to be careful. I pulled Gui behind me and nagged, “Gui, you are not very strong in battle, so you should stay behind me as much as possible.”

“Okay,” said Gui in a happy but slightly sorrowful voice, happy to be cared for by the person he liked, but depressed that he had to let his beloved woman protect him.

The hexagonal floor finally landed on the ground. To summarize the situation, about twenty “people” looked at us with fear and expectation, leaving us extremely confused, wondering what was going on. Are they people or robots?

“Are you robots?” someone on their side asked, first in surprise and then in fear.

“No, of course not,” I answered, shocked. “We are definitely human.”

“That’s great!” They actually started to hug each other in joy. One of them said, “Are you here to rescue us? Has the government finally found a way to control ‘him’?”

Filled with suspicion, I asked, “Just who are you people?”

“They are the world’s most talented people,” said Zhuo-gēge suddenly. He then walked toward an old man with a white beard. The old man’s eyes had nearly popped out in astonishment.

“Professor, I have been very worried for your safety. It looks like you’re okay,” said Zhuo-gēge as he held the white-bearded old man’s hands, face filled with emotion.

“Ling Bin? Why are you here?” The white-bearded old man was so surprised that he stuttered.

“There is something I must do,” said Zhuo-gēge, smiling. “On the contrary, Professor, why are you people allowed to wander around freely? Won’t Long Dian restrict your movements?”

The white-bearded old man shook his head, saying, “Previously, he kept threatening us by saying that he would launch a nuclear weapon and destroy the world unless we helped him. Thus, we had no choice but to help him successfully create an artificial body. Also, we performed some strange brain surgery on him.”

“Did you guys take the opportunity to kill him during the operation?” asked Lolidragon, worried.

“Of course not!” yelled a doctor in a white coat. “He said that he had already set a time for the launch of the nuclear weapon, and if the surgery failed, causing him to die, no one would be able to stop it.” The doctor’s face was so pale it was almost white. He continued, “That was the first time I’d ever heard about that kind of surgery. I did not expect it to be successful… Luckily, we succeeded in the end.”

“Oh my god, this lunatic actually wants the whole world to die with him,” said the old man, who could not help but shudder at the thought.

However, I felt like I had been struck by lightning. The surgery was successful? Does this mean that the Dictator of Life has already…disappeared?

Chapter 7 : The Eternal Legend

“So you guys came after all. What a waste of the Dictator’s repeated pleas for your lives.” This voice was all too familiar. It was Long Dian’s cold and taunting voice.

I turned and looked at him, unable to believe my eyes. Long Dian no longer had white hair; his black hair had been restored. His leisurely worn white robes and exceedingly beautiful face made him look just like an angel that had fallen into the mortal world.

If I had not known what he was really like, that might have been what I would have thought. However, I knew very well that the man in front of me now was a devil who had murdered thousands of people, threatened the whole world, and even condemned the child he had created! Even though that child had cared so much for him!

He killed the Dictator of Life. I clenched my fists. In the end, I… didn’t make it in time to save the Dictator.

“Is the Dictator of Life already… dead?” I asked in a hoarse voice. No, I must not cry!

Long Dian dismissively said, “He has never been alive, so how could he die?”

“He was alive! No one can understand that better than you. You know that he is not just an intelligent computer.” After hearing what he had said and seeing his attitude, I lost my temper. Did the Dictator sacrifice his life for such a person?

“Of course he’s just an intelligent computer. He always will be.” Long Dian’s expression had also changed. There was no smile on his face, just a cold, heartless expression.

“YOU!” A flash of anger rose up from the bottom of my heart. If I did not let it out, I felt that I would vomit blood. I raised my lightsaber and charged toward him without hesitation. In a few strides, I was already swinging my lightsaber directly at him.

I know that I must not do this. I know that this is murder, but… isn’t him killing the Dictator of Life also murder?

“Prince!” shouted Lolidragon in shock.

Although I swung my blade down, my hands did not encounter any resistance. I hadn’t managed to cut anything at all; it had been just an afterimage. I immediately retreated, raising my vigilance at the same time. Where is Long Dian?

Cold Fox suddenly yelled, “At eleven o’clock!”

I looked in the direction Cold Fox was pointing. Long Dian continued to smile faintly, but his eyes were filled with madness. He raised his right hand and actually moved it directly in front of my lightsaber… Before I could stop my blade, he was already gripping the lightsaber with his hand. That’s right, he actually grabbed a light weapon that could burn though everything with his bare hand!

I could not help but reveal an expression of shock and horror. He can’t even be harmed by a lightsaber. What should I do now?

Suddenly, a shadow flew toward Long Dian’s hands. Long Dian did not pay it much attention—since even a lightsaber could not harm him, what was there for him to worry about?

However, dark red blood started to flow from Long Dian’s hands… No, that probably was not blood. Since Long Dian was no longer human, it was likely something created to mimic blood. Where that dark red blood flowed from, a flying dagger was firmly stuck—Cold Fox’s flying dagger.

For the first time, an expression of alarm appeared on Long Dian’s face. His eyes seemed even more insane and his voice was filled with irrepressible anger as he demanded, “How? How could you hurt me? My skin ought to be made of the toughest man-made skin available that even a light weapon cannot harm… Unless you old folks are lying to me!” Long Dian’s eyes slowly turned to face the group of the world’s most talented people.

“No, we wouldn’t dare lie to you.” Trembling, the doctor who had spoken continued, “We don’t dare to gamble with the whole world at stake. Following your wishes, we used the highest quality and toughest man-made skin. The fact that you just blocked a light weapon is the best piece of evidence for that.”

Long Dian looked at them suspiciously. He was probably thinking that these cowering old folks wouldn’t have the guts to lie to him, so he slowly shifted his gaze toward the person who had thrown the flying dagger—Cold Fox.

Alarmed yet curious, Long Dian pulled out the dagger as if he hadn’t felt any pain and asked, “What kind of weapon is this?”

“It’s a special weapon. I’m the only person in the world who has that weapon,” said Cold Fox indifferently.

Long Dian laughed softly, saying, “Haha, in the future, no one will have this weapon.”

Then, Long Dian actually did something crazy. He stabbed his own stomach with the flying dagger. Just like that, the entire dagger went into his body. After doing this, Long Dian raised his hands and shrugged, saying, “My apologies. Looks like your flying dagger will be in my stomach forever.”

“You’re a total lunatic!” I could not help but yell at him.

Long Dian laughed even more arrogantly. That laughter made all the hairs on my body stand. Could the Long Dian in front of me even be considered a normal human anymore? Why does he seem even less human than before? Previously, he was cold and expressionless, but now… he just made people feel utterly disgusted.

“Dian… Why have you become like this?” Lolidragon finally could not help but cover her face with her hands and cry.

Long Dian finally stopped laughing in that frightening way. The expression that flashed across his eyes, was it concern? I was extremely familiar with the look in those eyes because Gui also often had that kind of expression.

“That has nothing to do with you.” Long Dian went back to his devil-may-care attitude. He said, “Shui Han, you should leave. For old times’ sake, I’ll let you go.”

Lolidragon’s entire body shuddered. She raised her head and asked in disbelief, “What do those words mean?”

Long Dian did not speak. He just smiled cruelly.

“You want to kill everyone here?” Two streams of tears fell from Lolidragon’s eyes. She stood in front of everyone else, her arms wide open, saying, “I won’t allow that. I won’t let you lay a finger on anyone.”

Long Dian smiled even more cruelly. With one movement, he instantly appeared in front of Lolidragon’s eyes, making her jump in shock. However, at that moment, a light sword slashed at Long Dian. He caught the sword unconcernedly and looked at the attacker. It was a young man, and a rather handsome one at that. Unfortunately, he was my younger brother who rarely ever got serious, Feng. Yang. Ming. And now was one of the rare times when he got serious.

“I won’t let you hurt her, be it mentally or physically.” Although his sword had been grabbed, Yang Ming still stared at Long Dian without fear.

“You…” Long Dian’s eyes narrowed.

“A man with no sense of responsibility is not fit to be her man.” Yang Ming smiled an annoying smile that was unparalleled when it came to making one want to hit him. If this were a normal situation, I definitely would not be able to resist dragging him to a game of Happy Corner. (Note: An inhumane punishment carried out on a man’s little XX. It often results in irreparable mental and physical damage to the victim.)

But right now, I really admired my little brother, regardless of whether he was actually being manly or was just plain crazy.

Long Dian’s smile vanished again. The insanity in his eyes let everyone know that he was going to start killing now. Yang Ming also became as wary as he could, although that probably wouldn’t make much difference…

Long Dian did not use any flashy moves; he just swung his palm toward Yang Ming. Yang Ming used his light sword to defend against Long Dian’s attack, but Long Dian was so strong that the light. Sword. Actually. Broke!

“Yang Ming!” I howled in alarm. However, I was too late. Everything played out like a movie in slow-motion.

Long Dian’s palm was unavoidable, and it seemed that Yang Ming would lose his life by Long Dian’s hand. However, Lolidragon suddenly threw herself at Yang Ming, her back facing Long Dian’s palm. Shocked, Long Dian could not stop himself in time. He could only shift his hand slightly to the side… hitting Lolidragon’s shoulder!

Lolidragon immediately vomited blood, the fresh red blood spattering on my younger brother’s face and chest. His eyes widened, letting the blood flow into his eyes. He hugged Lolidragon’s body as she slid down, calling in a hoarse and trembling voice, “Lolidragon? Loli… dragon?” Finally, sobbing, he choked out, “LOLIDRAGON!”

“Let her go!” This voice belonged to none other than Wolf-dàgē. Frantic, he tried to pull Yang Ming’s arms, which were wrapped around Lolidragon, away. He said, “Let her go, Wu Qing. I need to look at her wound.”

At this point, I also rushed to their side. I forcefully pulled Yang Ming’s arms away from Lolidragon, yelling, “If you don’t want Lolidragon to die, then let go of her quickly!”

The moment Yang Ming heard that, he immediately let go and let Wolf-dàgē hold Lolidragon. As Wolf-dàgē carefully examined her wound, Lolidragon opened her eyes and weakly said, “Wu Qing, are you alright? I’m… sorry… for getting you involved.”

“I-Idiot!” Yang Ming shouted angrily, “So what if you got me involved? Even if I have to spend the rest of my life immersed in a water tank with you, I would never regret it!”

Lolidragon could not help but laugh, but this actually made her cough repeatedly because of the blood.

“Wolf-gē, how is Lolidragon’s wound?” Yang Ming looked like he was about to burst into tears.

“Her collarbone and upper arm bone are fractured. I need an operating room right now!” Without hesitation, Wolf-dàgē turned to face the cowering doctor, “You guys just operated on Long Dian, so you definitely have the best operating room here. Quickly, take me there.”

“We do have one, but we don’t have any blood for transfusion.” The doctor frowned.

“My blood type is O. It’s the universal donor, right?” asked Yang Ming worriedly.

Wolf-dàgē nodded and immediately bent down to set Lolidragon’s injured shoulder in place. With Yang Ming’s help, he carried Lolidragon into the operating room.

I wanted to follow them, but Cold Fox suddenly stretched out a hand and blocked my path. Not understanding what he was doing, I looked at him, but he was looking in another direction… I followed his gaze and saw Long Dian. Long Dian, whose eyes were deeply filled with pain.

“There is nothing more dangerous than an injured wild beast,” said Cold Fox in a grave tone, worry evident in his eyes.

“I… have nothing left.” With two streams of tears flowing down his face, Long Dian looked up toward the sky and shouted, “I HAVE NOTHING LEFT!”

After shouting, Long Dian started to hyperventilate. However, he suddenly stopped breathing hard and laughed hysterically, “Panting? Why am I panting? I don’t even need to breathe. Hahaha, I actually hyperventilated?”

Has Long Dian… gone crazy? Why is he acting so strangely? I also began to feel the truth in Cold Fox’s words, that there was an injured wild beast right in front of me. A wild beast with a broken heart… insane, yet possessing incredible destructive power.

“WHY? WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE STILL ALIVE AND WELL?” With a deranged look on his face, Long Dian looked at us and said, “You people are just some lucky children who have never gone through any hardships before. Why am I the one who has to die instead of you? I have been working hard for so many years. So many years of happiness, gone just like that… HOW CAN I BE SATISFIED WITH THIS!?”

“Even if it’s like that, it’s not up to you to decide whether others should live or die!” I said severely.

“Really? Even my own life was taken away so easily, so why can’t I take away others’ lives too?” Long Dian smiled faintly; it was a smile full of malice and blood thirst.

He’s going to attack! My heart skipped a beat. Cold Fox, who was beside me, suddenly stuffed something into my belt and whispered quickly, “I have three flying daggers, but my leg is injured. Prince, I need you to cooperate with me in order to subdue Long Dian.”

I nodded. No matter what, I had to help him. Otherwise, all the people behind me would probably lose their lives.

“Wicked, please support us. Although light guns cannot hurt him, they can still hinder his movement,” muttered Cold Fox, his mouth barely opening as he spoke.

“Got it,” said Wicked in a low voice.

Deep breath, OK! I shouted, “LONG DIAN, YOUR OPPONENT IS ME!”

Cold Fox jerked violently, saying, “Prince, you…”

I smiled and said, “I can’t let an injured person do everything!”

I raised my lightsaber, planning on defeating Long Dian in one strike with the flying dagger when he was at his most relaxed. Even… even if both of us get seriously injured and neither side wins, I will not hesitate. I must not let Long Dian hurt any of the people behind me!

“You, a woman, want to challenge me?” Long Dian revealed a look of disdain, as he had only contempt for the word “woman”.

“That’s right, challenging you is exactly what I want to do.” I calmed my emotions. This would be my hardest battle, but in order to protect everyone, it was a battle I could not afford to lose!

Long Dian’s eyes narrowed, and without saying anything more, he immediately leapt toward me. His weapons were the same palms that had hurt Lolidragon, and from Yang Ming’s painful experience, I knew that I must avoid a direct confrontation with Long Dian. I dodged to the side, making Long Dian’s attack miss. However, Long Dian’s reflexes were inhumanly good… Err, he isn’t even human, actually…

Long Dian did not even stop. He simply rotated his body by ninety degrees and charged toward me again. I dodged Long Dian’s palms again, but a sudden strong gust of wind suddenly hit my stomach… Damn it, I actually forgot that Long Dian has legs. There was no way to dodge, so I had no choice but to endure his kick…

The sound of several gunshots rang out, causing Long Dian to pause for a moment. I instantly understood that Wicked was restraining Long Dian, and I glanced at Cold Fox’s eyes — eyes that were waiting for the best opportunity to hunt down its prey.

Create the best opportunity for Cold Fox to strike! I made my decision and pulled out the flying dagger in my belt. I waved the dagger in front of Long Dian on purpose, and observed the change in his expression with satisfaction.

Holding the dagger tightly, I taunted Long Dian on purpose, “Long Dian, let’s have a bet. We’ll bet on this last attack, whether you die or I perish.”

Anger flashed across Long Dian’s eyes.

Moving as quickly as I could, I charged toward Long Dian, hoping that Cold Fox would seize the opportunity to stab Long Dian while his attention was completely focused on me.

“Xiao Lan, don’t…” Zhuo-gēge suddenly warned me.

But how can I stop now? Long Dian’s full attention is on me, so I must keep going! This thought flashed across my mind. In the next moment, just as Long Dian and I were about to clash… Long Dian suddenly disappeared, and I swung my weapon at thin air!

Suddenly, I heard a grunt. Long Dian had actually gone and attacked Cold Fox, and Cold Fox’s body was slowing sliding down to the ground. Shocked, I wanted to run to him. “Cold Fox!”

“Don’t go there!” Zhuo-gēge held me back with all his might, even as he fired relentlessly at Long Dian to prevent him from dealing the final blow to Cold Fox, who was lying on the ground.

However, light guns were obviously completely beneath Long Dian’s notice. He raised the flying dagger that had been in Cold Fox’s hand and was going to stab Cold Fox’s head with it…

“Haaaaa!” Nan Gong Zui suddenly jumped down onto Long Dian’s body from above, a light gun in his hand. However, the difference between him and Wicked was that his gun barrel was in contact with Long Dian’s body, and it was pointed directly at his heart. BANG! Zui fired without hesitation.

Will this shot be effective? Long Dian stood still as bright red blood slowly flowed out of the gunshot wound. Did we succeed?

“Ugh!” Regret showed in Nan Gong Zui’s eyes. It was very vexing for him that a shot fired right next to Long Dian’s heart still could not stop him.

Long Dian stabbed Nan Gong Zui with Cold Fox’s dagger, aiming to push the dagger all the way into Zui’s chest. If Zui hadn’t dodged to the side at the last moment, this dagger would undoubtedly have pierced his heart. However, his current situation was not much better than having his heart pierced.

The flying dagger penetrated Zui’s shoulder, going right through him and even pinning him to the wall. Zui’s face was shockingly pale, and cold sweat flowed down his face. However, even though it was so painful that his face had contorted, Zui absolutely refused to let out any cry of pain.

“Zui!” I was so horrified that my face had also paled. Oh my god, Cold Fox has fallen on the ground and no one knows whether he is alive or dead. Now, Zui has been pinned to the wall…

Long Dian glanced at me and Zhuo-gēge coldly. However, the people he walked toward were not us, but the group of more than twenty professors, doctors, and scientists… With one punch, he sent an old man with a white beard—Zhuo-gēge’s professor—flying. Right after that, a communication device suddenly appeared in his hand. Long Dian smiled icily, saying, “Are you trying to contact the outside world for help? I will let your wish come true.” Long Dian snapped his fingers.

None of us had forgotten that besides having a ridiculously strong body, Long Dian could also move freely around the Internet. A snap of his fingers could mean that… a nuclear missile has been fired? As this thought occurred to me, my facial expression became as ugly as it could possibly be.

“There are four CCTV cameras that can be rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees in this room. From now onward, a video of everything that happens here will be sent to every broadcasting station in the world. All the television channels will show only what is going on here.” Long Dian smiled brilliantly, saying, “Happy now? Your lifeless bodies will be seen by the whole world.”

What a psycho. Worried, I looked at Cold Fox, who was lying on the ground with his situation still unknown, and Zui, who was pinned to the wall. Both of them desperately needed treatment. We couldn’t afford any more delays.

“Zhuo-gēge, we have to save the two of them,” I said resolutely.

“I will save them, you stay here and don’t follow me,” replied Wicked without hesitation.

“No, Zhuo-gēge, it’s too dangerous,” I stubbornly objected.

“Xiao Lan…”

Long Dian said coldly, “Why argue? I can just go over there instead, right?” After saying that, Long Dian really charged at us. I immediately raised the flying dagger in my hand, which was the only thing that could penetrate Long Dian’s skin…

“LONG DIAN!” Gui’s voice suddenly rang out like thunder.

Long Dian quickly turned his head around to look. The enormous airship to the side had begun to move with Gui standing in its cockpit. The image of two people also suddenly appeared on the transparent glass of the cockpit—Sunshine and Kenshin.

“Dictator of Life!” shouted Sunshine, worried.

Is it just my eyes, or did Long Dian sway a little when he heard the three words “Dictator of Life”?

“Stop messing around, Long Dian.” With a voice so icy that it could chill people’s hearts, Kenshin said, “Otherwise, even if you and the Dictator of Life are the same person, I will not let you go.”

“Oh? And how will you defeat me?” asked Long Dian with a cold expression on his face.

“We will crush your artificial body using this airship. Although you can escape into the online world, Sunshine and I will trap you inside Second Life and infect it with several viruses that will delete everything.” Kenshin described his plan while remaining absolutely calm and composed.

Long Dian’s face had also changed noticeably. He said viciously, “Do you two think that you can escape from the virus?”

“We cannot escape,” said Kenshin frankly.

On hearing Kenshin’s indifferent tone, Long Dian started to breathe harder… Looks like he forgot that he doesn’t need to breathe again.

Long Dian stood there silently, as if he were thinking about something.

Worried, I looked at Cold Fox, who was still lying on the ground, and Nan Gong Zui, whose face was becoming paler and paler. I hastily shouted, “Kenshin, please make him decide quickly. If not, Cold Fox and Zui are going to die.”

Kenshin frowned and was just about to open his mouth to urge Long Dian on when Long Dian suddenly moved. He was so fast that I didn’t even have time to respond as he grabbed my throat with one hand and sent Zhuo-gēge flying with the other.

Unable to breathe properly, I desperately clawed at Long Dian’s hands with my own two hands. However, skin that could not even be harmed by light weapons was obviously not going to be scratched by my nails.

On the other hand, Kenshin fell silent.

Oh no, Kenshin definitely would not be able to smash me to pieces as well. What should we do now? Suddenly, the thought that the Dictator of Life still existed in Long Dian rang out in my oxygen-deprived brain. Even though the Dictator of Life gave up on his consciousness, could he possibly still be around? Otherwise, why would the words “Dictator of Life” have affected Long Dian?

“D-Dictator of Life…” I choked desperately.

Long Dian shuddered again, but he himself did not notice this slight movement. He only reflexively squeezed my throat even harder. Damn it, I’m starting to lose my consciousness.

“Stop, don’t you dare hurt Prince!” Gui, who had been on the airship, suddenly charged at us recklessly.

Since he could send even Zhuo-gēge flying with one shove, naturally, Long Dian did not consider Gui a threat. He simply raised his leg slightly and kicked Gui, sending him a long distance away and making him vomit blood continuously.

Probably because he saw my face turn pale, Gui did his best to crawl back toward us. He said, “Stop, or you will strangle Prince. If Prince dies, you won’t have a hostage to threaten Kenshin with.”

Long Dian furrowed his brows and relaxed his grip. Impatient, he yelled at Kenshin, “Get lost. You two better take the airship and scram, or I will break this woman’s neck.”

“Dictator of Life, I am here because you said ‘thank you’ to me that time,” I squeezed out through my teeth.

Long Dian looked at me suspiciously and tightened his grip, but relaxed it immediately after. His expression changed dramatically as he finally sensed that something was wrong. However, this also confirmed my suspicions that the Dictator of Life had not completely vanished.

“Dictator, do you remember who I am? I’m Prince…”

“Prince…” A look of longing flashed across Long Dian’s face. He lost his focus for a moment and actually released me.

Long Dian’s expression then changed to one of disbelief, and he tried to grab me again… By then, I had already picked up the flying dagger that had fallen to the ground. However, I wasn’t going to stab Long Dian with it; I had another plan.

I cut off my hair with one movement, leaving it around the same length as Prince’s. I leaned toward Long Dian, but said the Dictator of Life’s name instead. “Dictator of Life, do you remember? You thanked me for letting you understand the meaning of love.”

Many expressions flashed across Long Dian’s face. There was shock, gentleness, some regret…

“Dictator of Life, you too saw what your father did. Don’t give in to him anymore,” I shouted rather emotionally.

“Prince…” Long Dian hung his head.

Did I succeed? I moved even closer, hoping to see whether the Dictator of Life had returned…

Long Dian, or the Dictator of Life, held out his hand to me. Is it the Dictator of Life? I watched as he slowly lifted his head, eyes filled with deceit… and that hand was currently being thrust at my heart…

I finally understood how my younger brother had felt when Lolidragon protected him. In front of me stood Gui, a cruel hand piercing right through his chest.

“Gui, please don’t die.” My mind initially blanked out, but it was then slowly dyed with the red of Gui’s flowing blood. No! Gui must not die! At that moment, I finally understood. I definitely cannot lose Gui, absolutely not!

However, the expression that appeared on Gui’s face was part gratification and part apologetic. Before collapsing, he said something in a voice that was too soft to be heard. “Thank god you’re okay…”

There was blood everywhere — Lolidragon’s, Cold Fox’s, Nan Gong Zui’s, Wicked’s, and Gui’s… My comrades have all fallen. Everyone has fallen.

My tears were flowing, but I felt a frightening emptiness in my heart. I raised Cold Fox’s dagger and simply said, “Long Dian, you said that you had nothing left to lose. What a coincidence. I too have nothing left now.”

I glared directly at Long Dian, who actually looked away as if he were feeling guilty. Calmly, I said, “Come. Let us finish this.”

Long Dian also revealed an expression which showed that he wanted to end all this. At that moment, I took the initiative to attack. The terror, the fear of death, and the fear of pain that I originally had, all of it disappeared. The only feeling that remained was the need to defeat the person in front of me, the person who had taken everything away from me!

In a flash, I appeared in front of Long Dian, moving with a speed comparable to his. Of course, the price I paid was how all of the muscles in my body were protesting. No matter how sore my body felt, however, it could not be compared to the pain of witnessing all my comrades collapse one by one.

My flying dagger clashed at lightning speed with Long Dian’s hands. Surprisingly, I could actually match Long Dian’s speed. With his bare hands, Long Dian was defending against a flying dagger that could actually hurt him, so naturally, he did not stand to benefit. Soon, his hands were completely stained with blood.

Realizing that he could not continue like this, a devious look appeared in Long Dian’s eyes again. It was a pity that I could not guess, and did not have any extra energy to guess, what he was up to. I was already pushing myself past my limit just to keep up with Long Dian’s speed. Even the light armor that I was wearing was making crackling sounds, making me worry about whether the armor would last until I defeated Long Dian.

I was still thinking about how to end this battle as quickly as possible, when Long Dian, who had been avoiding the flying dagger, suddenly took the initiative and moved his hands toward the flying dagger that I was holding. Before I could even figure out what Long Dian was trying to do, my flying dagger was already stuck in one of his palms, and his other hand was lunging toward my stomach. Knowing that if the blow landed solidly on me I would probably never get up again, I had no choice but to let go of the flying dagger and retreat in the same direction as Long Dian’s attack. This was the only way to successfully avoid most of the damage caused by Long Dian’s terrifying strength.

However, the remaining force of the attack was bad enough. The immense pain in my stomach made my face turn deathly pale.

Without the flying dagger, I had no choice but to pick up the lightsaber. Although I already knew that it was useless, I was used to holding a dao. Long Dian pulled the flying dagger out of his palm, twisted it until it was like a screw and tossed it aside. He then moved slowly toward me.

Trembling slightly, I could not help but move a step backwards. However, I actually kicked something. Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cold Fox, who was lying down on the ground…

“I have three flying daggers.”

This sentence suddenly sprung up in my mind. Three daggers! I calmed my emotions, and charged at Long Dian recklessly. When he noticed that I was wielding a lightsaber, a smile of disdain appeared on his face.

I made a show of slashing at Long Dian with the lightsaber multiple times, blows which Long Dian easily blocked using his hands. However, my goal was not to defeat Long Dian with a lightsaber. What I want to do is… Once Long Dian let down his guard, I used the lightsaber and sliced into the old wound in his stomach… causing the wound to immediately split open.

“You!” Furious, Long Dian slammed his fist onto my back. This blow landed solidly, and blood instantly sprayed out of my mouth like a fountain…

I sank to my knees right in front of Long Dian. Someone who did not know what was going on might’ve actually thought that I was prostrating myself before him.

“So, Prince, you still lost in the end.” Long Dian smiled cruelly, saying, “Now, I’m going to make you die a very painful death. Count it as my return gift for when you made the Dictator revolt against me.”

I had lost too much blood and my consciousness was beginning to fade, but I was only one step away from success. I cut my thigh with the lightsaber, the new pain bringing me to my senses. After that, I stuck my hand into the wound in Long Dian’s stomach without hesitation.

“Hmph, you wouldn’t happen to think that you can hurt me with just your hands, right?” Long Dian laughed, but as if remembering something, he added, “Don’t think that I have any organs for you to injure. My organs are there just for show; they do not serve any purpose.”

I managed to find a hard object while searching around inside Long Dian’s stomach. In an instant, I pulled it out, stood up, tightened my grip on Cold Fox’s flying dagger and slashed at Long Dian’s neck with all my strength…

Thunk! And there was naught but a headless corpse in front of me. In the next instant, I thrust the flying dagger into the head that had fallen on the ground and hacked it into mush. Can I actually kill Long Dian by doing this…? Probably not. I plopped down on the ground. He can return to the online world…

“Long Dian… is dead.” Kenshin actually said this outrageous line.

I lacked the strength to open my mouth, so I just turned my head and looked at Kenshin, asking him a wordless question.

“The two of us have been constantly monitoring him, and he has not returned to the online world.” Kenshin simply stated what he knew.

“Sigh, he’s still human after all. When he saw his own head fall onto the ground, he instinctively thought that he was dead. Just like that, his consciousness also vanished,” sighed Sunshine.

“Quickly… save the other… people…” I panted desperately, before feeling giddy and finally becoming enveloped in darkness.

What all of us had forgotten was that Long Dian had originally wanted the entire world to see our lifeless bodies. However, his plan had backfired and the whole world could see that the terrorist was now dead. Also, he had been killed by a famous person that everyone knew: the Lord of Infinite City in Second Life — the Blood Elf Prince!

Although Prince had been wearing light armor that covered his entire body [12], and no one ever found the real Prince, the legend of the Prince who saved the whole world would always remain… becoming an Eternal Legend!

Extra Chapter : Epilogue (End)

The story has finally reached this point! I couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief. I have finally finished penning down the final battle! I had only realized as I was writing how dangerous and adrenaline-inducing the battle had been. As someone who had been involved, I could only feel my heart racing and beating really loudly.

Afterwards, everyone started living their own separate lives. Wolf-dàgē and Yu Lian-dàsǎo were finally married in real life as well, and both of them followed Doll back to her country. Wolf-dàgē continued to practice medicine there, and Yu Lian-dàsǎo continued her job as a financial advisor as well.

Five years later, Doll became the queen of her country. This was really shocking news—Doll, a queen? God bless her country; hopefully it will survive until Doll steps down from the throne.

In the end, Nan Gong Zui married Ice Phoenix… although there was a mishap during the day of the wedding ceremony. Fan actually appeared without notice! With an obnoxious smile, he presented the bride with 999 red roses… Everyone was worrying whether the bride would be the first person to raise an objection if the priest were to ask if there was anyone who objected to the marriage, when Phoenix did something that all of us applauded in our hearts. She walked up to Fan, raised a 10-centimeter-high bridal heel, and kicked Fan’s XXX with all her might. I’m not too sure, but I thought I heard a “Pop!” sound at that moment! However, the thing that broke definitely hadn’t been Phoenix’s heels…

After we called an ambulance to send Fan to hospital, Zui and Phoenix’s wedding ceremony ended perfectly (though I would have preferred to call a garbage truck instead of an ambulance!). The sweet couple then went on to become the nemesis of all criminals; they were known as the Criminal-Busting-Couple.

The most unbelievable thing was… Lolidragon actually became my sister-in-law! Moreover, it was a shotgun marriage…

Although my younger brother and Lolidragon were in a relationship, Lolidragon kept refusing to marry Yang Ming because he was a few years younger than her. However, one day, for some unknown reason, Yang Ming borrowed a sewing needle that I had never used before and poked something—ahem, you know, the thing that starts with “con” and ends with “dom”—as though he had an unforgivable feud with it…

Three months later I had a sister-in-law and a nephew who was due to be born in seven months.

Hehe, now that I’ve reached this point, everyone must be worried about Sunshine and Kenshin, right?

All’s well that ends well. In order for Sunshine to be together with Fairsky in real life, Gui and Zhuo-gēge finally agreed to work together. With Lolidragon and Doll providing funding, “Project Artificial Body Development” was established. Basically, the project was an extension of Long Dian’s initial plan to develop an artificial body. In the end, Sunshine was able to move out of the game and forever stay by Fairsky’s side in reality. Their location at the moment is currently unknown, as they are always traveling around the globe. They might be adventuring in Africa right now for all I know!

As the saying goes, one example will trigger a chain reaction. Since Celestial wanted to pester Doll, he was the first among the rest of the NPCs to come out of the game. Currently, he is working as Queen Doll’s exclusive bodyguard.

Next was my cute Meatbun. If I had left it alone in Second Life, it would have definitely created a new record for flooding in Second Life. Naturally, after that, Fire Phoenix insisted on playing in reality together with her husband, so we let it out too.

Finally, we even created an artificial body for Kenshin, who hadn’t really wanted to enter reality. (Of course, one very important factor for the creation of his body was the fact that Cold Fox had been threatening Gui and Wicked with flying daggers.)

Kenshin is still refusing to follow Cold Fox home. Since he has nowhere else to go, he stays in my house. After he started to clean my house because he had nothing else to do, he became my place’s ultimate housekeeper. The floors of my house are always as shiny as a mirror, and if you don’t pay attention when walking on it, you would probably fall from the fifth floor to the first floor.

Cold Fox still comes to spar with Kenshin every three days, though to date, he has never won. (Obviously! Gui and Wicked designed Kenshin’s body as the supreme bodyguard type. Even if you were to shoot at Kenshin with a machine gun, he wouldn’t have any injuries at all. It would take a miracle for a human to beat him.)

Ah, that reminds me, my cousin Rose and Broken Sword got married shortly after the final battle. When they found out that I was Prince, they were so surprised that their jaws nearly dropped. Nonetheless, they didn’t forget to use this information to blackmail me into giving them a very big red packet [13] for their wedding…

Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen everyone in a while. Ever since that battle ten years ago, everyone went their separate ways and returned to their normal lives. It has been such a long time that I can’t help but reminisce about the time we spent together…

BANG! My cypress door which cost me an arm and a leg was suddenly kicked open. I couldn’t hold my anger in and yelled, “Just who dares to kick my precious door and disturb me? Don’t you know that today is the day when I pretend to have a calm disposition?”

“But, Xiao Xiao Lan was asking for you.” With an innocent smile, my mom put the cute little girl in her arms down. That pair of big eyes that was exactly the same as mine was the source of my pride! Although everyone keeps telling me that Xiao Xiao Lan looks more like her dad, her eyes are a carbon copy of mine.

“Daddy~~,” said Xiao Xiao Lan. Once my mom put Xiao Xiao Lan on the ground, she wasted no time running into my arms.

“It’s Mommy!” Resigned, I corrected my daughter for the Nth time.

“It’s not!” Xiao Xiao Lan said while pouting with her tiny mouth, “My kindergarten teacher said that the person who carried and gave birth to Xiao Xiao Lan is Mommy, while the other person is Daddy!”

This… I twiddled my thumbs, feeling slightly guilty. It’s because I’m scared of pain… so, so that time I…

“Gui, I want a child!” I blurted all of a sudden.



The story started when my stupid brother, after the Long Dian event, finally won the heart of big sister Lolidragon. After his marriage proposal had been shot down tens of times, my brother finally married Lolidragon with the help of a sewing needle. At the day of my brother’s graduation, he suddenly received the news that his wife was going into labor, so he left the ceremony abruptly in his graduation robes, dragging me along.

“Sis, drive faster!” Yang Ming was like a cat on hot bricks. He was so anxious that he forgot he had sworn never to ride anything that I was driving ever again, and he even wanted me to speed up. Alright, since he was so anxious, I pressed down harder on the accelerator until we were going at three hundred kilometers per hour…

Fortunately, little Long Ming still has his dad!

I held Lolidragon and my brother’s baby, Feng Long Ming, in my arms. As I stared at his soft body and chubby arms, I thought that he looked really cute! However, my stupid brother kept saying that whenever he saw the way I held little Long Ming, he would nearly have a heart attack, so he always refused to let me hold the baby…

…The only chance I ever had of carrying Long Ming was when he wasn’t around, and Lolidragon had passed him to me so that she could sneak out and buy LV and Chanel goods.

Gui, who had been massaging my shoulders, was stunned for ten seconds when he heard my sudden declaration. Then, he asked excitedly, “But dear, didn’t you say that you don’t want to give birth because you are scared of pain?”

“That’s right, it will be painful…” I said. I tilted my head and recalled the time when Lolidragon was in the delivery room. The way she kept yelling that she wanted to kill Yang Ming while she was giving birth gave me a sense of trepidation. (Though, Yang Ming’s yell when his arm was broken by Lolidragon as he stayed by her side while she was giving birth wasn’t that much softer…)

“Babies are so cute, but it would be so painful…” I knocked my head with my hand repeatedly and didn’t realize that I nearly dropped little Long Ming. Gui quickly took little Long Ming away from me to prevent a tragedy. Namely, the tragedy where Yang Ming, Lolidragon, my parents, and Long-bà hunted me down.

“What should I do…” I thought harder and harder…

Kenshin, who had been cleaning quietly at the side, suddenly walked over in silence and put a newspaper down before leaving silently as well.

“Kenshin, didn’t Cold Fox ask you out for tea?” I recalled that Cold Fox had asked Kenshin out the last time he was here.

“I’m not going.” Kenshin answered simply and directly, “I still want to be a man.”

What a good reason for not going. I bit my index finger and shrugged, “Is there any difference between going and not going? Even if you don’t go, Cold Fox will still come over to our house to drink with you.”

“To be exact, this is Lolidragon’s house.” After Kenshin stated this fact, he continued vacuuming the house.

Poor Cold Fox, I wonder how much tea he would have to drink before he can win Kenshin’s icy heart… I casually picked up today’s newspaper, thinking about reading which political figures were messing around today, but when I saw the headline, my eyes lit up like two infinitely dazzling light bulbs!

“Gui, look!” With eyes that were still shining brightly, I looked pleadingly at my dearest husband, Gui.

“This is…” Gui was dumbstruck. He stared at the newspaper in my hand in disbelief, and then looked at me.

Written clearly on the newspaper was, “XX Hospital Has Successfully Impregnated A Man, And He Gave Birth To A Healthy Baby Yesterday!”

I looked at cute little Long Ming in Gui’s arms, and then I looked at Gui with my most irresistible puppy dog face…

Gui has never let me down.

Ten months later…

“Hubby, hang in there!” I said as I looked at Gui’s pale face anxiously.

“Ok…” said Gui. He lay on the bed with a pale face and kept gasping for air.

“Wolf-dàgē, Gui will be fine, right?” I quickly asked Wolf-dàgē, who was wearing a surgeon’s scrubs.

In order to help Gui deliver the baby without a hitch, Wolf-dàgē had specially come back from overseas. He laughed in a sunny way, and put his mask on. He said, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. There is no problem at all with Gui’s prenatal examination reports, so he will definitely be able to give birth to a healthy child.”

“Relax, Prince. Gui will be fine!” said Yu Lian-dàsǎo. She was dressed as a nurse, and she consoled me with a smile, “You should leave the room first. We are going to cut his abdomen open so we can take the child out now.”

What? They are going to cut Gui’s abdomen open? Wouldn’t he die then? After all, doesn’t one kill a fish by cutting its stomach open? I was panicking so much that my tears kept flowing, “Boohoohoo, don’t cut Gui’s stomach open! I don’t want a child anymore. Gui, don’t give birth anymore! You will die! Sob…”

Three black lines were visible on both Wolf-dàgē and Yu Lian-dàsǎo’s faces. Gui suppressed the pain with his willpower and gently consoled, “No, I will be fine. Dear, you should go out and wait. In a moment, I will be out and holding the baby for you to see.”

I stopped sobbing. A little suspicious, I asked, “Is that true?”

“Yes, you should leave faster!” said the three of them in unison.

I pouted and said, “I want to stay and keep Gui company.”

All of a sudden, the door to the delivery room was opened and Zhuo-gēge appeared at the doorway with a resigned look on his face. He walked to my side, hugged me with one swift movement and proceeded to drag me out of the room. As he left, he said, “You guys can start now!”

“Bastard! Don’t you dare take advantage of my wife while I’m giving birth!” yelled Gui. He was so angry that he leapt up from the bed and continued, “Do you hear me, Wicked? Let go of Prince!”

Wolf-dàgē grabbed Gui and threw him back onto the bed in one movement. He then sighed, “What a troublesome husband and wife pair indeed.”

Next, since I didn’t hear Gui’s voice yelling for Zhuo-gēge not to do anything to me coming from the delivery room anymore, I started to get worried instead. Don’t tell me that, like a fish, Gui died after his stomach was cut open? I couldn’t stop my imagination from running wild, and I paced back and forth furiously outside the delivery room as though as my life depended on it.

“So, how is my brother-in-law? He still hasn’t given birth to the baby yet?” said Yang Ming as he slowly walked over. He tried to maintain a serious demeanor, but he couldn’t suppress his laughter anymore. As he slapped Zhuo Ling Bin’s back, he laughed so hard that he became short of breath. He gasped, “Hahaha Zhuo-dàgē, you really should rejoice that you didn’t marry my sister, or you would be the one giving birth right now!”

“Rejoice?” Zhuo Ling Bin repeated with a slight smile. The bitterness at the corner of his mouth couldn’t be wiped off. He knew that if he had been the one who had taken the final blow for me and ended up lying on the sick bed for a month, the person giving birth right now could have been himself. Unfortunately, thinking of “what ifs” was completely meaningless.

“Waaa…” The clear sound of a baby crying came from the delivery room.

I opened my mouth wide. Has the baby… really been born?

After a while, the door to the delivery room was pushed open. Yu Lian-dàsǎo walked out with a cloth bundle in her arms. I walked past Yu Lian-dàsǎo with large strides, combining three steps into two, and stopped in front of Gui. His eyes were still shut tightly, and his face was still pale, but it was evident that he was still breathing…

I finally let out a sigh of relief. I softly caressed Gui who was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and smiled broadly. I thought I should say something.

“Good job, hubby.”



In order to name the child, Gui and I referred to astrology, the Eight Trigrams, I-ching, Tian Di-ching, I Chin Ching etc [14]. All in all, after very careful consideration, we decided to name the cute daughter that Gui worked very hard to give birth to as Min Lan Lan. Everyone affectionately nicknamed her Xiao Xiao Lan. She has grown up to become the superbly cute young girl in front of me now.

“Oh right. Daddy, Zhuo-gēge is here,” said Xiao Xiao Lan while smiling happily.

“Xiao Xiao Lan should call him Zhuo-shūshu [15]; only Mommy can call him Zhuo-gēge.” Once again, I corrected my daughter’s messed-up terms of address.

“Oh Daddy, just to let you know, Mommy and Zhuo-gēge are fighting!” Xiao Xiao Lan’s face was full of excitement as she said this, and she even punched the air energetically with her little fists.

“What?” My eyes nearly dropped out of their sockets. They’re fighting again? But I’ve been here this whole time, so I couldn’t have been the one who lit the fuse…

“Why are they fighting again?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” answered Xiao Xiao Lan. She tilted her little head and tapped the dimples on her face with her forefinger in confusion. She continued, “After Xiao Xiao Lan said that she wanted to marry Zhuo-gēge when she grows up, Mommy immediately said he would fight Zhuo-gēge to the death, so Xiao Xiao Lan really doesn’t know why they are fighting.”

“…You want to marry Zhuo-gēge?” I picked Xiao Xiao Lan up and said, “Xiao Xiao Lan, the age gap between you and Zhuo-gēge is more than thirty years!”

“Why does it matter?” Xiao Xiao Lan puffed out her chest and counted her fingers, saying, “Long-jiějie is older than Ming-gēge by a few years, Kenshin-gēge and Cold Fox-gēge are both men, Doll-jiějie and Celestial-jiějie are both women…”

“Celestial is a man, he only looks like a woman.” Once again, I corrected my daughter’s mistakes. Also… Xiao Xiao Lan, are gēge and jiějie the only terms of address you know?

“There is also Meatbunbun-gēge and Fire Phoenix-jiějie!” The last couple that Xiao Xiao Lan used as an example was neither human nor even living creatures!

Don’t tell me that due to being wrongly influenced by these messed-up couples, she has decided that she wants to marry Zhuo-gēge? I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry. Then again, it was quite common for humans to live for about two hundred years now, so a thirty-year age difference shouldn’t be a problem, right? Though, Gui would definitely go crazy over this…

“Alright Daddy, Xiao Xiao Lan wants to go and play with Meatbunbun-gēge now,” said my beloved daughter as she skipped happily out of my study.

I reminded Xiao Xiao Lan, “Be careful of Fire Phoenix’s jealousy. Don’t get burned by her.”

“Yes~~~,” answered Xiao Xiao Lan as she closed the door to the study behind her.

“I wonder how long Gui and Zhuo-gēge are going to fight for?” I said as I scratched my face. Although I knew that Zhuo-gēge wouldn’t injure Gui heavily, if that handsome face of Gui’s were injured, I’d still feel pained.

As for Zhuo-gēge’s safety, I didn’t need to worry about that at all. These two have been fighting for the past ten years, and I have never seen him get injured before. More often than not, it was Gui’s wounds that I had to tend to while he winced in pain.

“Kenshin is cleaning the living room, so they can’t continue fighting for long,” my mother explained with a smile.

“Kenshin’s there? Then I have nothing to worry about,” I said, relieved. I then decided to continue working. Who? Who is the one who said that my job is just me pretending to be a lady? That’s not my job, okay? I’m writing a book! A book!

“Dictator, summon my incomplete book,” I commanded to the air.

A holographic human form appeared before my study desk. He had a head of flowing red hair and grey eyes, and there was even an exotic magic tattoo under his left eye. The Dictator of Life gently smiled and asked, “Are you going to finish writing the book now?”

“Yes!” I laughed. Thank goodness I have the Dictator of Life to help me out, or else I would mess everything up. Luckily, after Long Dian’s consciousness disappeared, the Dictator of Life’s consciousness came back, and he returned to the world of the internet… However, that guy Kenshin said that revealing that the Dictator of Life was still alive would create a lot of problems, so it would be better to say he had died… That made me really sad for a while!

Anyway, this story is finally nearing its end. I gently knocked my head and said, “Let me think… Mm, let’s do this. ‘From then on, everyone lived happily ever after.’ Is this a good ending?”

“That is perfect. What about the title of the book?” asked the Dictator of Life with a smile.

As I opened my mouth to answer, the door to the study was slammed open once again. Just like before, someone rushed into my embrace. He complained with a face covered in tears and snot, “Dear, Wicked is trying to make off with our Xiao Xiao Lan!”

“I am not!” Wicked said in a stern voice with pursed lips.

“No? If you aren’t, then why would Xiao Xiao Lan say that she wants to marry you? You obviously saw how young and innocent our Xiao Xiao Lan is, and that’s why you deliberately tricked her! You perverted pedophile!” Not to be outdone, Gui roared back.

“I. Am. Not. A. Pedophile!” Zhuo-gēge snarled each word with gritted teeth.

“Yes you are!” Gui said with iron conviction, “Back then, you fell in love with my wife when she was only a few years old, and now you are aiming for our Xiao Xiao Lan. If you don’t call this pedophilia, what do you call it?”

“Gui, stop creating a ruckus.” I quickly said in order to stop the escalating situation. Zhuo-gēge’s face’s was so livid with rage that he seemed like he was going to go berserk soon. If Gui had continued causing an uproar, I might’ve ended up becoming a widow today.

“I… I was only worried about our beloved daughter,” Gui said as he wore an expression of hurt, hugging me in the process, and then he looked at Zhuo-gēge with a victorious expression.

“Rest assured. Rather than me, you should be more worried about yourself, the gay-with-a-daughter-complex!” Zhuo-gēge coldly sneered back.

“What did you say?” Gui asked, furious.

The two of them immediately started fighting again. With his martial prowess, Zhuo Ling Bin was dangerous even if he was unarmed…

At least, against Gui, a defenseless professor, his attacks were lethal! Although Gui couldn’t defeat even one finger of Zhuo Ling Bin’s, he could still use the only attack he knew, which was to dodge constantly while picking up random stuff beside him to throw in Zhuo Ling Bin’s direction.

I watched my belongings—my book, my paperweight, and my mouse—being thrown around by Gui. Zhuo-gēge destroyed my flower vase and chair with his random kicks. My precious study is being devastated by these two tactless people… I’m furious!

I was so angry that N number of my veins popped out, and my fists were clenched tightly. Finally, I unleashed my ultimate attack, bellowing, “Cold Fox! Some people are increasing the amount of cleaning that Kenshin has to do!”

As the words left my mouth, Zhuo-gēge froze in midair in the middle of a kick, while Gui looked at the mug he was going to throw and carefully placed it back at its original spot.

Cold Fox is truly the most ruthless of all. Especially when it comes to matters concerning Kenshin, he doesn’t know what it means to have mercy!

After all, no one wants to go against a person who, at the age of eighteen and still wearing his school uniform, already wielded flying daggers as a member of the criminal underworld! Unless you feel you’ve lived too long and want to die immediately, that is.

From the door, two figures walked in silently. One of them was Kenshin, and the other was his perpetual stalker — Cold Fox.

“Everyone is here,” said Kenshin succinctly.

Everyone? Who is “everyone”? I thought, confused.

“Wicked and Gui, are both of you fighting again?” asked Wolf-dàgē. His hearty laugh was so loud that it could be heard coming from outside the study, and it was accompanied by the sound of Yu Lian-dàsǎo’s soft laughter.

“Wolf-dàgē/Wolf-gē!” The three of us said in unison.

“Wolf-gē, why are you here?” asked Gui, surprised.

“Oh? Has everyone forgotten what day today is?” asked Yu Lian-dàsǎo. The smile on her face was as warm as ever.

“Yu Lian-dàsǎo is here too?” I said as I rushed into her arms, unable to restrain myself as I hadn’t seen her in a long time.

“You’re an adult now, yet you still act like a spoiled child.” Yu Lian-dàsǎo gently chided me, but there was an obvious hint of a smile in the corner of her eyes.

“This fellow has always been like this. She hasn’t grown up at all.” Lolidragon teased me as she leaned on the doorway.

“As the saying goes, a leopard never changes its spots!” said Yang Ming as he revealed a helpless expression.

Astonished, I asked, “Eh? Why are both of you home early today? Doesn’t Gui usually have to drive to the pub in order to drag the two of you, who are completely wasted, home?”

“Sigh, the pub has closed down,” said Lolidragon with an expression full of heartfelt pain.

“Oh?” It can’t be that…

“I only picked a few fights in their shop. To my surprise, they went out of business and now we have to look for a new pub again.” Yang Ming sighed as he shook his head. He said, “Lolidragon, if you had flirted less, then I wouldn’t have had to fight with that group of perverts.”

“Hmph! You‘re the one who should flirt less. This reminds me, what happened to that hot babe from last time?” replied Lolidragon, determined not to be outdone.

As expected, the closure of the pub was caused by these two people. I shook my head.

“Prince-gēge!” A dignified face with a hint of playfulness appeared beside the door. The androgynous beauty standing beside her revealed the identity of the young girl.

“Doll! Celestial!” Now I was really shocked. If a queen had come and leaned on your door, even if you knew her true nature, you would be shocked, right? I asked in slight disbelief, “Doll, why are you here too?”

“Hehe, this is because Doll wants to marry Celestial!” Doll said while pouting.

“You want to marry him?” I asked, though I wasn’t very surprised about that. After all, Fairsky and Sunshine had already set an example. But how is this linked to the reason why she’s at my house now?

“However, my chancellors said that because I am the Queen, I can’t marry Celestial. Therefore, I abdicated and passed the crown to my younger sister.” Doll was all smiles as she said, “Now Doll doesn’t have a place to go anymore, so is it alright for Doll to stay with Prince-gēge and everyone else from now on?”

“Of course! I’ve always felt that this house is too big and the number of people staying here too few. It’s not lively enough!” I said, laughing happily.

“What was Prince-gēge doing? The Dictator of Life has been grinning stupidly beside you this whole time.” The observant Doll noticed the virtual form of the Dictator of Life awaiting my order beside me.

“Ah!” I exclaimed, almost forgetting that the Dictator was still waiting for me to name the book.

“I’m naming my book!”

On hearing this, everyone looked at one another. They said, “Didn’t you already name it long ago?”

“Ah?” My book’s name has already been decided? How come I’m the only person who doesn’t know that?

“Everyone felt that, regardless of whether you were a guy or girl, you’d forever remain in our hearts as the Blood Elf Prince who always laughed with pride, cherished his comrades, and was a most incredible person; but since you’re really a woman, we reluctantly named you Half Prince.”

[½ Prince END]

[1] “Maybe boys’ appearances also change completely when they grow up”: This is a twist on the usual Chinese saying (女大十八變) about how girls’ change greatly (usually becoming a lot more gorgeous) when they grow up, so much that they are hard to recognize.

[2] “visiting the in-laws”: This is a phrase used to describe the families of the bride and groom visiting each other for the first time after marriage.

[3] “…the 44th floor…”: The number four in Chinese culture is considered an unlucky number because it sounds the same as “death,” so many apartments actually skip the 4th floor. Hospitals also do not usually have a 4th floor. Needless to say, the 44th floor is also considered unlucky. What a double dose of bad fortune!

[4] "...also known as my bro’s little willy...": Literally, Lan says, "...also known as my little bro's little bro." In Chinese, "little brother" can be used as a euphemism for the same as willy.

[5] "lightsaber": At first, we were going to call light swords this, but then we decided that a dao is much more like a lightsaber than swords are. Light daos will be called lightsabers in this translation. Whenever Lan's dao is not prefixed by "light," we will still be calling it a dao, but when it is prefixed by light, it will be known as a lightsaber.

[6] "...extended my arms and legs widely to block his way...": In the original, Lan describes her stance as extending her arms and legs into the Chinese character "big," which looks like this: 大. She was obstructing Cold Fox with her entire body.

[7] "(Although I later realized that those were "dangerous" smiles and not "grinning" smiles!)": This is a pun on the characters for "smile," which can be written as 微笑 (wēixiào), while dangerous smiles is written as 危笑 (wēixiào) with the same pronunciation, just different characters.

[8] "...besieging Wei to rescue Zhao...": This was a strategy used in the Battle of Guiling where the state of Wei was attacked to direct attention away from the state of Zhao. The strategy is part of the Thirty-Six Stratagems and means avoiding head on battle. Strike at weaknesses elsewhere.

[9] "Xiaoli Feidao": Literally, this can be read as "Little Li Flying Dagger," also known as the Romantic Swordsman. The Romantic Swordsman is a wuxia (martial arts) novel series featuring a man whose signature weapon is a flying dagger.

[10] "Chu Liu Xiang": Chu Liu Xiang is the protagonist of the wuxia novel series by the same name. He is someone who robs from the rich to help the poor. Yang Ming has been said to imitate his mannerisms in Second Life.

[11] Guan Dong Zhu: Pronounced the same as Guan Dong Group but written with different Chinese characters, Guan Dong Zhu refers to oden, a type of Japanese dish that contains several ingredients such as boiled eggs, daikon radish, and fish cakes in broth. “Guan Dong” is the Chinese pronunciation of Kantou, an area in Japan.

[12] “Light armor that covered his entire body”: Prince’s face was hidden by the armor, so no one knew if it was actually him.

[13] Big red packet: Red packets contain a sum of money folded inside red paper and are given both during Chinese New Year to unmarried younger relatives as well as to the bride and groom during their wedding ceremony. A big red packet refers to there being more money inside, not to the actual size of the red packet.

[14] Tian Di-ching, I Chin Ching: These last two are rather unexpected choices… Tian Di-ching was a method used by ancient Chinese to tell time by the heavens. For example, one day was split into 12 hours (not 24!), 5 of which were night. Also, it was used to mark the calendar by the seasons. I Chin Ching is “changing tendon exercise”, which is a way of training one’s muscles and tendons. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yijin_Jing.

[15] Zhuo-shūshu: Shūshu means uncle.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 : Greetings to Long Dian

Chapter 2 : Second Life - Out of Control

Chapter 3 : Danger to the Entire World

Chapter 4 : Cold Fox's Terrifying Special Training

Chapter 5 : Departure

Chapter 6 : Deception

Chapter 7 : The Eternal Legend

Extra Chapter : Epilogue (End)

Notes