The Entire City Is My Husband - Chapter 17

It felt…

 

Wet.

 

X froze. There was something off about what was in his arms.

 

The person he was holding seemed to be… leaking.

 

The night breeze blew and X lowered his head—

 

Crack! 

 

Suddenly, Chu Feng, who had been in his embrace, suddenly shattered into a million blue pieces of data and disappeared into the air.

 

Beep— 

 

Lin Lan, who had been lying on the ground, jerked up after hearing Chu Feng’s helmet announce:

 

[A strong will to exit has been detected. Force Quit has been activated.]

 

Chu Feng’s eyes flew open, staring blankly at the ceiling of his own bedroom. Next to the bed was the picture wall of him and Xie Shiyu.

 

“Ge!!” Lin Lan exclaimed, “You’ve finally come back! I pressed Force Quit just now but it said you were too deeply immersed to wake you up. I was scared almost half to death!”

 

“Lin Lan.”

 

Chu Feng let out a breath of relief and patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a genius. Report to my company in September. Your starting salary will be thirty thousand.”

 

“??! G-Ge… I really didn’t do anything much. The real savior was God X, I just… clicked the force quit button and made a call on your WeChat, I-I didn’t do much.”

 

“It was a good decision to press that button. It’s worth thirty thousand.”

 

Chu Feng got down from the bed. Had Lin Lan not clicked that button, he would have basically lost all dignity in the game.

 

Lin Lan earnestly poured a cup of warm water for his future boss, Chu Feng.

 

“What happened in your Dream City, ge? You didn’t wake up for a really long time.”

 

“The kindergarten caught on fire.”

 

“…Oh my God! Are the Xie ges… okay?”

 

“They’re fine. I managed to save them all.”

 

Ding! 

 

The phone charging on the bedside table rang with a notification.

 

[Xiao Xie Manual] reminds you:

 

[Red Hat Xiao Xie]

 

[Squeaky Shoes Xiao Xie]

[Popsicle Xiao Xie]

[Water Gun Xiao Xie]

 

Have all been successfully saved. Profiles have been lit up!]

 

Chu Feng opened the [Xiao Xie Manual] on his phone and found that four black cutouts on the manual had turned into four real and alive Xiao Shiyu.

 

“Woah! They’re so cute!” Lin Lan shuffled over to look at the Xiao Xie Manual too. “Hey, is that one the one in the picture?”

 

Lin Lan pointed to the Xie ge holding a water gun on the manual, then pointed to the first picture on the picture wall.

 

It was sports day in the kindergarten. Five-year-old Xiao Chu Feng and Xiao Shiyu were both holding water guns, hands held as they stared at the camera. Xiao Shiyu adorned a cool expression, while Xiao Chu Feng was expressionless.

 

Click! 

 

It became their first picture together.

 

“That’s not right.” Lin Lan said suddenly, “Didn’t you meet Xie ge when you were seven? How come you have a picture with him in kindergarten?”

 

“We weren’t really friends back then.” Chu Feng raised his head, staring at the wall of pictures, “He was in the class next to mine, I didn’t even know his name back then. Then all of a sudden, he squirted me with the water gun on sports day.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Five-year-old Xiao Chu Feng had been pissed back then, raising his own water gun and retaliating. He sprayed water all over Xiao Shiyu’s face!

 

The two five-year-olds stood on the cheerful court, spraying each other with water, facing off.

 

“What happened after that?”

 

“Then the teacher pressed both our heads down and made us apologize to each other. My mom took that picture as a “souvenir.””

 

“?? Then why did Xie ge shoot you back then? You didn’t even know each other.”

 

“No idea.”

 

“Huh? Did you not ask him later on?”

 

“Nope.”

 

Chu Feng shuffled through the twenty few years of memories they had together and noticed—he never did ask Xie Shiyu why he had shot him with that water gun.

 

After all, Chu Feng wasn’t petty enough to shoot Xie Shiyu with a water gun for something that happened when they were five.

 

“I didn’t expect Xie ge to be a prankster when he was younger.” Lin Lan guffawed.

 

Chu Feng’s brows furrowed slightly. It felt like something was off. Xie Shiyu wasn’t the kind of kid who played pranks on people for attention. He didn’t like talking and was often alienated by the people in his class—no one had been willing to play with him. Xiao Shiyu had always held his water gun close and sat on the sand, not bothering anyone.

 

Wasn’t it weird that he’d shoot at someone from another class out of the blue?

 

Chu Feng stared at the picture. It’s been twenty four years. No matter how weird I think it is, it’s not like Xie Shiyu will be able to tell me. 

 

“I didn’t think you’d be so annoyed when you first met Xie ge.” Lin Lan looked at the five-year-old Xiao Chu Feng in the picture with his small hands and feet and the words “I’m pissed!” were written all over his babyface.

 

“I wasn’t that annoyed.” Chu Feng continued, “I teamed up with him to pass the ball and won after that.”

 

There was a two-man pass the ball competition in their kindergarten. Two people would form a team and trap a rubber ball between their backs and run to the end. It was the competition with the best prize—50 popsicles from the school store.

 

Xiao Chu Feng wanted it. He was the fastest runner and had great coordination skills. All his classmates had wanted to team up with him, but Xiao Chu Feng thought they’d only drag him down, yet he didn’t have the courage to say it to their faces. So he hid in a corner and decided not to participate, staring wantingly at the prize instead.

 

That was how he saw Xiao Shiyu looking wantingly at the prize too.

 

The two of them locked gazes and decided to participate together.

 

They had never practiced beforehand, yet easily managed to obtain first place and split the prize in half. Xiao Chu Feng was satisfied and forgave Xiao Shiyu for shooting him with the water gun. They even walked together after school.

 

Chu Feng clicked on the Water Gun Xiao Xie icon on the manual. He wanted to ask why he had shot him that year.

 

The virtual Xiao Xie was unable to answer his questions, and could only show him a window.

 

[Happiness: 90

Status: Happy

Chances of danger: 9% (previously 10%)]

 

Chu Feng sighed and gave up on that question. He clicked on the rest of the Xiao Shiyus one by one and made sure that all of their chances of danger had decreased by one percent.

 

“A 1% decrease is great!” Lin Lan exclaimed. “Does this mean they won’t be in danger as much in the future?”

 

Chu Feng nodded his head. Threats would find the Xiao Xies that had a 10% chance first instead.

 

“Then… if you manage to light all of them up once, doesn’t that mean Xie ge will never encounter danger in your Dream City again? Then you can play to your heart’s content!”

 

“Mhm.”

 

“How many do you have lit up right now?” Lin Lan was pumped and full of motivation.

 

Chu Feng flipped through the pages of the manual and showed it to Lin Lan. The bomb on the bus back then had lit up the highschool Xie Shiyus and Driver Xie Shiyu. The fire this time had lit up the kindergarten Xiao Shiyus.

 

Ding! 

 

[All kindergarten Xiao Xies have been lit up. Unlocked [Categories] in Xiao Xie Manual!]

 

The manual flashed and a bookmark function appeared on the bottom left side of the page. The category [Kindergarten] had lit up, shining gold.

 

The rest of the bookmarks were still monochrome in color and unlit.

 

[Primary School], [Secondary School], [Highschool], [University], [Working]

 

Chu Feng clicked into them one by one. The bookmarks [Primary School], [Secondary School], and [University] were full of blank cutouts, not a single one lit up. There were a few Xiao Xie’s lit up in [Highschool], while only Driver Xie was lit up in [Working].

 

[Completion Progress: 7%]

 

“Aw… You only have a few lit up.” Lin Lan sighed. “It feels like we’re collecting the fragments of the Shikon Jewel¹Something from Inuyasha (anime).”

 

Chu Feng: …

 

“It’s fine! The Shikon Jewel was whole in the end. You got this too, ge!”

 

Chu Feng: ……

 

“These two incidents were relatively small, so there isn’t a lot lit up yet.” Chu Feng stared at the unlit cutouts of Xiao Shiyu and explained, “If there was a large-scale incident, we’ll probably get a bunch of progress.”

 

What?! Lin Lan thought. A bomb and a fire incident are considered small? Then what would a large-scale incident be like? If success brings a wave of progress, then aren’t we screwed if we fail? The higher the reward, the riskier the plan! 

 

But his ge was speaking as if it were something casual, like telling him 1 plus 1 is 2 as if there was no doubt that they would succeed. So Lin Lan didn’t say anything.

 

Click! 

 

As the collector he is, Chu Feng took a picture of the Xiao Xies that were currently lit up, went into his photo album and made a new file called “Completion Progress” and dragged the pictures into it.

 

Lin Lan’s eyes were sharp. He instantly found that there was a picture that was out of place.

 

“Woah! You saved God X’s picture, ge?”

 

Chu Feng froze.

 

—Back during the bomb incident, he and Lin Lan were searching for ways to defrost in the community forum and saw the exposed picture a fan of God X had posted coincidentally.

 

X’s eyes were a little like Xie Shiyu’s.

 

“Just thought I should save it.”

 

Lin Lan took another look. The picture was clearly saved in the file “My Collections.” That was a file the phone came with, used to save pictures that the user had liked.

 

—His ge was lying.

 

Too afraid to say it, Lin Lan kept it to himself.

 

“You hungry?” He asked instead, “Let’s eat that suan cai yu! The takeout’s still on the table.”

 

、

 

After dinner, Chu Feng laid in his bedroom alone and picked up the gaming helmet.

 

Doctor Xie should still be waiting for him to go back.

 

He picked up the helmet and then put it down.

 

Doctor Xie was a little over the top today. Chu Feng was still annoyed.

 

—If it had been Xie Shiyu, then it wouldn’t matter how they played, Chu Feng wouldn’t care. But there was clearly an outsider there!

 

In front of X…

 

Chu Feng burrowed himself into the bed, still frustrated.

 

Flipping over, he was faced against the picture wall.

 

—Suddenly, he released the air in his lungs, like a popped balloon.

 

He was actually being mad at an in-game character right now.

 

Chu Feng found himself a bit laughable. He’d been staying in his Dream City for too long, he couldn’t even separate fiction from reality anymore.

 

—The real Xie Shiyu has been long gone.

 

Doctor Xie wasn’t a real person. He was just a character created out of the game system. He didn’t have any consciousness, he was just an intelligent NPC pretending to be alive and jumping. All his actions and words have been preset and follow a guide.

 

Chu Feng felt like he should really change his thought process. He felt like there was something off about how Doctor Xie let him meet X like that. But Doctor Xie was ultimately just a character from a game and not a real breathing person. The reason he did what he did was because he was following a set of actions that were categorized as [Correct].

 

Thus, Chu Feng began thinking about Doctor Xie’s specialties.

 

Doctor Xie was the only adult in the West District. Everyone else there were adolescent Xiao Xies. Chu Feng would go there during the day and visit the Xiao Xies in the kindergarten and primary school while he’d do all kinds of roleplays with the adult Xiao Xies in the Eastern District. He’d rarely ever meet Doctor Xie.

 

So whenever he had met up with him, he’d be in for a rough night.

 

Doctor Xie would also taunt the other Xiao Xies that were of age, purposely leaving marks where the other Xiao Xies would see when Chu Feng gets back to the Eastern District to piss them off.

 

When President Xie in the Eastern District had set up a movie date at 13:00, Chu Feng had almost reached the cinema when the system notified him that Water Gun Xiao Shiyu had a high fever.

 

He had no choice and rushed to the West District and sent Water Gun Xiao Shiyu to the hospital. As a result, he ended up missing the date.

 

Going to the hospital naturally meant making payment.

 

After paying for a few hours, Chu Feng had been done to the point where his head was spinning. When he felt Doctor Xie cleaning him up and putting him back in his clothes, the sun had already set.

 

The movie was long finished.

 

[President Xie

Happiness: 4]

 

Chu Feng could only rush back to President Xie’s mansion in the Eastern District at night and comfort him.

 

“Where were you all evening?” President Xie was mad.

 

Chu Feng didn’t dare tell him the whole thing, only said that the Xiao Shiyus in the kindergarten got sick, so he went to visit them.

 

President Xie’s expression took a turn for the better.

 

When they finally got on it and moved onto their king-sized bed, while his pants were getting peeled off…

 

President Xie stared at Chu Feng intensely, there was a scary look in his eyes.

 

On the inside of Chu Feng’s thighs was a string of words.

 

[Clinical Checkup: 13:05]

 

—The movie started at 13:00.

 

Every line and stroke of the words was written with complacency as if mocking President Xie.

 

That night, President Xie had almost drove his Lamborghini into the hospital, but he was held back by Chu Feng.

 

What if…

 

Chu Feng lay on the bed and thought.

 

Did Doctor Xie think X was one of the other Xiao Xies?

 

—But why?

 

Chu Feng opened his photo album and went into his collections, staring at the picture of X’s eye.

 

It did… resemble Xie Shiyu’s.

 

But X’s face was covered with a bandage, so it was hard to tell what his other features looked like.

 

Chu Feng’s interest was piqued. He wanted to see what X looked like.

 

If his eyes resemble Xie Shiyu’s, would his other features resemble his too? 

 

He turned on his WeChat, about to text X—

 

Ding! 

 

A notification from [Xiao Xie Manual] suddenly popped up on his phone.

 

Chu Feng’s heart froze, quickly turning off his WeChat to check on Xiao Xie’s conditions.

 

[Red Hat Xiao Xie]

[Squeaky Shoes Xiao Xie]

[Water Gun Xiao Xie]

 

[Happiness: -2

Reason: Bitten by a mosquito]

 

[Popsicle Xiao Xie]

 

[Happiness: -3

Reason: Mosquito bite still unhealed]

 

Chu Feng’s heart ached. Why hasn’t that stupid mosquito died yet? It’s always biting my poor Xiao Shiyus! 

 

Ding! 

 

All of a sudden, a new notification popped up.

 

[Doctor Xie]

 

[Happiness: -4

Reason: Bitten by mosquito]

 

Chu Feng: …