Chapter 26: The Unreachable Cold God (1)
Huo Xian opened his eyes.
Sunlight streamed into the room from the window, the bright light making him squint slightly in discomfort. After his eyes adjusted, he called out in his mind: [Huo Yuan, are you there?]
A clear, pleasant voice immediately responded: [Huo Xian, I’m here. Are you feeling unwell anywhere?]
Huo Xian smiled, saying: [You protected me very well; I don’t feel any discomfort at all.]
[Really? That’s good.] Huo Yuan said happily.
Influenced by his good mood, the curve of Huo Xian’s lips involuntarily widened. He said, [You can transfer the character’s memories to me now.]
Huo Yuan agreed, adding, [It might be a little uncomfortable.]
Huo Xian: [Okay.]
Huo Yuan gave him some time to adjust. Once Huo Xian felt ready, Huo Yuan transferred the character’s memories to him.
Honestly, the feeling of having memories forcibly stuffed into his brain wasn’t pleasant. His brain was forced to accept memories that didn’t belong to him in a short period, resulting in an overload. Especially since most of the memory fragments were dark, heavy, and sorrowful, even brief empathy was enough to make his heart ache and suffocate.
To make Huo Xian feel more immersed in his mission, Huo Yuan chose mission worlds where the protagonist was also named Huo Xian.
The original owner was the only son of the scholarly Huo family. He excelled academically since childhood, loved by his elders and teachers, and grew into a handsome young man, captivating countless boys and girls.
He Wenqu was one of them.
The original owner had a cold personality and was not easy to get close to, but under He Wenqu’s enthusiasm, his defenses gradually crumbled, and his once cold heart began to warm. However, just before the two of them crossed the final line, He Wenqu’s gaze shifted to his childhood friend, You Zi’an.
You Zi’an had noticed his feelings for He Wenqu since his adolescence, but because of his appearance and personality, he had been hesitant to express his true feelings.
This world, affected by the explosion of the Godly Space, had loopholes in its laws and time regressed ten years. You Zi’an retained his memories from the past life and obtained a learning system. Knowing the trajectory of the next ten years, many things changed.
For example: Due to steadily improving grades from the system, and a qualitative improvement in his appearance, he successfully attracted He Wenqu’s attention, shifting it from the original owner.
The original owner, having already opened his heart and begun to accept He Wenqu’s advances, felt tense when You Zi’an’s change attracted He Wenqu, leading him to actively respond to He Wenqu. In contrast, You Zi’an suddenly became cold towards He Wenqu.
There’s a saying, isn’t there? What you have, you don’t cherish; what you don’t have, you always desire. He Wenqu abandoned the original owner, whom he had successfully attracted, and ran after You Zi’an without any burden.
Due to emotional setbacks, the original owner frequently spaced out in class, his grades plummeting. Meanwhile, You Zi’an, who had previously only been in the middle of the pack, excelled, and the special items he exchanged from the system mall gave him a qualitative leap in appearance and temperament. He gradually replaced the original owner as the campus heartthrob.
The original owner suffered setbacks in both his academic and love life. Seeing He Wenqu and You Zi’an together, his heart was filled with resentment. He couldn’t help but question He Wenqu if he had been playing with him from the beginning. Unexpectedly, this questioning not only failed to get an answer but also exposed the fact that he liked boys.
The Huo family was a prestigious scholarly family; they couldn’t accept the original owner’s sexual orientation, so they applied for his leave of absence for “treatment.” During “treatment,” he encountered a sadistic doctor, enduring excruciatingly painful “therapy.” He finally contacted He Wenqu for help, but instead of receiving help, the monitoring exposed his plea, leading to even more sadistic torment. Finally, he jumped from a building to escape, but unfortunately broke both legs. His heartbroken parents, Huo Fu and Huo Mu, took him home. However, the teenager, who had been tortured for half a year, had become a person who feared everything in the outside world.
While regretful, Huo Fu and Huo Mu still sought renowned doctors to treat his legs, but unfortunately, they died in a car accident during their search for medical treatment.
At the funeral, He Wenqu’s appearance seemed to offer him a last lifeline. However, He Wenqu wasn’t alone; the excellent and handsome You Zi’an stood by his side. When he accused He Wenqu of being the culprit who caused his family’s ruin, You Zi’an retorted, saying the original owner was the third party between him and He Wenqu. Even more ridiculous, He Wenqu, who had initiated the pursuit, actually sided with You Zi’an.
The original owner, enraged, steered his wheelchair to hit You Zi’an, but He Wenqu stopped him and threw both the wheelchair and him into a lake. The lake bottom was full of jagged rocks, his face was scratched, and he lost an eye…
The once-gifted young man was completely reduced to a timid coward, who died of depression in just two years.
After sorting through the original owner’s memories, Huo Xian had a terrible headache.
[Huo Xian, are you okay?] Huo Yuan worriedly asked.
Huo Xian replied sullenly, [Not really.]
Huo Yuan was immediately nervous. A phantom emerged from his consciousness, half its body leaning on the bedside, looking at him worriedly, “Your face looks awful. Did I choose a bad world? Is the mission too difficult? It’s okay, we can change worlds.”
Huo Xian, who was indeed in a bad mood, felt his depression lessen considerably when he saw Huo Yuan’s god-like face. After hearing his concern, the remaining depression disappeared. He smiled and asked, “Failing the mission will deduct points, right? Your points are already negative.”
Huo Yuan didn’t care, “It’s okay, I can accept the punishment.”
Huo Xian didn’t ask what the punishment was but turned to say, “You haven’t even told me what the mission is yet. Shouldn’t you assign the mission first?”
“Ah?” Huo Yuan, the unqualified Bureau employee, reacted before realizing the purpose of his arrival in the mission world, saying awkwardly, “There are two missions: 1. Retrieve the protagonist’s luck and perfect the world’s laws; 2. Ensure the health and safety of Huo Qingping and Xu Youyuan. The second mission is the protagonist’s wish. His soul combined with the power of the world’s laws barely allowed time to return to the past. There’s no reward or thanks upon completion. You can choose not to do it.”
Huo Xian focused on: “What do you mean by the protagonist’s soul combining with the power of the world’s laws to turn back time?”
“Because except for the gods of the Godly Space, other lifeforms don’t have the ability to control time. The mission worlds assigned by the Bureau are all worlds with loopholes in the world’s laws. The protagonist’s luck can gradually repair the laws, but the loopholes in the laws cause the protagonist’s ending to be very miserable in some world lines. Therefore, colleagues from the Bureau’s monitoring department will ask the protagonist’s wishes after their death, whether they are willing to have time reversed and have Bureau colleagues redo it. If the protagonist agrees, they will hand over their consciousness, their soul, to the world’s laws. The world’s laws will follow the protagonist’s wishes to reverse time, back to the beginning.” Huo Yuan patiently explained.
Huo Xian thought for a moment and asked, “So, the souls of the protagonists in the mission worlds no longer exist?”
Huo Yuan nodded, “Yes.”
Huo Xian asked again, “Is there only one protagonist in this world?”
“To be precise, there’s only one protagonist in this world line!” Huo Yuan corrected him.
“…Okay.” Huo Xian smiled helplessly, “If there was no You Zi’an, would the original owner and He Wenqu have ended up together?”
Huo Yuan nodded repeatedly, “That’s right, in most parallel worlds, the original owner and He Wenqu are together.”
“One last question…”
“What?”
Huo Xian sat up, pulling back the covers. Looking at the long limbs of this body and the muscle lines on his arms, he looked down at Huo Yuan, smiling and asking, “Do I look like a uke?” In the original owner’s memories, He Wenqu was clearly the seme in every aspect.
Huo Yuan looked up at him, asking in confusion, “Don’t you like it? Isn’t a uke a male? Don’t you like males?”
Huo Xian: “…”
Oh right, he forgot that this was a high-dimensional space visitor; their training probably didn’t include lessons on the harmonious activities of lower-dimensional humans.
“Huo Xian?” Huo Yuan didn’t get a response and felt a little uneasy. Had he made a mistake again?
Huo Xian smiled brightly, reaching out to touch his hair, black as silk. Although it was just a phantom, only a half-body phantom, Huo Xian still stroked the phantom’s hair, “No mistake, I do like males.”
Hearing this, Huo Yuan breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, “That’s good.”
Huo Xian then asked, “Besides mission points allowing you to appear in physical form, are there any other ways?”
“I’m fine without a physical form now. Others can’t see me anyway,” Huo Yuan wasn’t attached to a physical form.
“…Okay.” Huo Xian said, glancing at Huo Yuan’s exquisite and beautiful, but exceptionally innocent face. His hair must also feel very good, but it may not be possible to touch it for a while.
As the two were communicating, there was a gentle knock on the door, followed by a gentle female voice: “A Xian, are you awake?”
“Wait a moment, I’ll change my clothes and come down.” Huo Xian replied.
The person outside laughed, “No rush, come down for breakfast after you’ve changed.”
“Okay.”
This body was sixteen years old, just admitted to Haicheng Experimental High School. The day after tomorrow, September 1st, was the start of school, and the past two weeks were for freshman military training, which ended yesterday. The original owner had a rare lazy morning.
It was a lazy morning, but it was only 7:30 when he went downstairs after getting dressed.
The Huo family lived in a small high-rise duplex. Huo Fu and Huo Mu lived on the first floor, and the second floor was basically the original owner’s space. Only Huo Fu, Huo Mu, and Huo Xian lived in the house. Huo Mu was responsible for breakfast for the family of three, and a part-time cleaner came to clean the house.
When Huo Xian went downstairs, Huo Fu was reading the newspaper, and Huo Mu was serving breakfast. After greeting his parents, Huo Xian helped Huo Mu carry the dishes.
After the three of them sat down, Huo Xian peeled an egg for both Huo Fu and Huo Mu.
Huo Fu glanced at it and said with a straight face, “Eat your own.”
Huo Mu gave Huo Fu a sideways glance and then gave Huo Xian a look, signaling him to ignore his father: “Thank you, son.”
Both were university professors, intellectuals. Huo Fu taught physics, with the rigor of a science scholar, but he wasn’t rigid, only his appearance was habitually serious. Huo Mu taught foreign languages, with a gentle temperament and a friendly smile, a woman who was easy to like.
They didn’t speak while eating.
After putting down his chopsticks, Huo Xian helped clean up. The original owner could do this from the start, so Huo Xian didn’t break character while doing it.
Huo Mu asked about the military training, “A Xian, was the military training tiring for two weeks?”
Huo Xian shook his head, “It was okay, the training wasn’t strenuous.”
“Not strenuous? I see that you’ve lost weight.” Huo Mu looked at her son, who was already six feet tall but thin, and felt a little distressed.
Huo Xian smiled slightly, “Mom, I’m growing taller. I had two servings of food every day during military training, but I was starving again in less than an hour.”
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, Huo Fu, who had walked by, said with his hands behind his back, “Teenagers grow taller during puberty, remember to increase physical exercise, ensure adequate sleep, and keep up your nutrition. My old classmate, nutritionist Lao Xu, gave me two nutritional meal plans suitable for adolescents. You can make some for Huo Xian when you have time.”
Upon hearing this, Huo Xian and Huo Mu exchanged a glance. Huo Fu, despite always having a stern fatherly face, cared for his son no less than Huo Mu.
“By the way, A Xian, you’re going to school to register the day after tomorrow. Have you really decided to live in the dormitory?” After a while, Huo Mu brought up another topic, the smile on her face gradually fading.
The original owner had chosen to live in the dormitory because he felt that boys of this age shouldn’t rely too much on their parents and the warmth of home. Unfortunately, dormitory life wasn’t as good as he imagined. His roommates were sloppier than each other, and the smell of stinky socks in the dormitory could suffocate people. It gave He Wenqu with his cleanliness issues the chance to flirt with him.
“I’ve considered it carefully. I still think it’s better to commute. It’s more convenient to ask you and Dad for help if I encounter any difficult problems.” Huo Xian was determined not to give He Wenqu a chance to flirt with him.
Hearing this, Huo Mu immediately smiled, “That’s right, your father and I will always be your strongest support in your studies.”
Huo Fu, who had been listening attentively, added leisurely, “The Experimental High School is farther away than the middle school. Minors can’t ride electric bikes. Let’s buy him a bicycle tomorrow.”
Author’s Note: Second update~