My Strange Tale Love Strategy Simulator

Just as the prompt popped up on the task panel, Zhang Ying was placing the comb on the coffee table. A few fine strands of hair were still tangled in the comb's teeth.

He carefully removed the strands of hair, which instantly turned into a bloody mist and dissipated.

Li Ziqing was still sitting on the carpet in front of the sofa, her fingers touching the end of the braid by her ear, a smile always on her lips.

The mission was successfully completed, and everyone was happy, but Zhang Ying's face did not show any signs of relief.

"Senior," Zhang Ying pushed the mirror on the coffee table aside, placed her hands on her knees, and leaned forward slightly, "There's something I'd like to ask you."

Li Ziqing turned her head to look at him, her eyes under the brim of her hat still carrying a lingering smile, but her expression subsided slightly the moment he spoke.

She keenly sensed the sincerity in Zhang Ying's tone.

"I'm still worried about the spiritual exchange meeting," he said. "Those two are gone, but they still have people behind them. What if they trace it back to my family..." He paused, his mind flashing to his mother's back. "I'm not afraid of myself, but my mother is just an ordinary person. Anything can happen when I'm not around."

Li Ziqing nodded and replied with only two words: "Address".

Zhang Ying gave the flower shop's address. Although his mother was still away on a business trip, he figured the retaliation from the spiritual exchange association shouldn't come so soon.

After listening, Li Ziqing simply nodded slightly.

The sky outside the window had completely darkened. A dog barked once in the neighborhood, then fell silent again.

Looking at her profile, Zhang Ying suddenly felt a lump in his throat.

He knew Li Ziqing's strength; she could even kill Old Man Xu and Old Man Wu instantly in that blood-red, eerie domain, so protecting an ordinary middle-aged woman was nothing to her.

But he also knew that Li Ziqing had just broken free from the state of being sealed for three years and hadn't even had a chance to catch her breath before he had to give her another mission.

Li Ziqing probably figured out what he was thinking.

She pulled her hat down further, covering half her face, and the voice coming from under the brim was muffled, with a hint of deliberate disdain:

"Quickly say thank you, senior."

The words that had been stuck in Zhang Ying's throat were completely dispelled by these one sentence.

He sat back on the carpet, leaning against the sofa, and said with a light laugh, "Thank you, senior."

"That's more like it." She pulled her hat down a little further, covering her entire face.

But he noticed a faint blush on the tips of her ears. It turned out that even the ruthless and cunning Li Gui couldn't hide her ears when she was shy.

After seeing Li Ziqing off that evening, Zhang Ying sat in front of the coffee table, staring blankly at the green bubble on his phone screen for a long time before finally finishing editing the message.

The person who sent the message was his mother.

Sending a message to his mother was more mentally taxing than battling wits with two old monsters in the vocal studio.

He carefully considered his words several times, making sure they weren't too unusual or too detailed, striking a perfect balance between "his son has important business" and "don't ask too many questions."

The final version sent was simple: "Mom, I want to study for my exams at home. I've been feeling a bit down lately." He stared at the "typing..." indicator for several seconds.

His mother's reply came faster than he expected, and surprisingly, she didn't ask any follow-up questions: "Okay, you can arrange it yourself. You've never done anything reckless since you were little. If you want to study at home, you must have your reasons."

Take care and get some rest; don't stay up late. Then I added: There are dumplings I made before I left in the fridge; heat them up and eat them yourself. Don't always order takeout.

Zhang Ying put his phone on the coffee table, leaned back on the sofa, and stared at the chandelier on the ceiling for a long time.

Over the past month, a series of events have occurred, including the 30-day countdown to the mission, the confrontation with Li Danyang, the ghostly screaming behind the haunted house, and the green lantern that trapped Li Ziqing in the vocal music room.

It's all in the past now.

These heavy burdens felt like layers of iron plates had been removed from someone's back, one after another.

He was finally able to relax a little.

A tiny flying insect was fluttering inside the chandelier's bulb. He listened to the extremely fine sound of its wings hitting the glass, and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

He didn't have time to go back to his bedroom and fell asleep on the sofa.

I slept until 11 a.m. the next day.

He was awakened by the sunlight. The curtains weren't fully drawn, and a narrow strip of golden light shone directly on his face, making him so hot that he tossed and turned several times before reluctantly opening his eyes.

The phone screen on the coffee table reflected the sunlight. He touched it and saw that it was noon.

When he got up and washed up, he wiped his face, grinned at himself in the mirror, and made sure he was still alive and not doing too badly.

The next three days followed a rhythm he had almost forgotten.

I sleep until I naturally wake up in the morning, usually between 9:30 and 10:00. After opening my eyes, I don't rush to get out of bed. I stare at the ceiling for a few minutes, listening to the sparrows chirping on the air conditioner unit outside the window.

Then I got up and heated a cup of milk, took a few dumplings that my mother had made before she left and put them in the steamer. While the dumplings were steaming in the pot, I sat down at my desk and took out the stack of dusty mock exam papers.

The senior year review was no longer a big deal for him.

With the comprehensive enhancement of physical fitness, memory and logical abilities also improved significantly.

Previously, I would spend a whole hour working on a math test, but now I can finish it in twenty minutes, and my error rate is much lower than before.

The parts of English and politics that required memorization were even easier. He found several shorthand tutorials online and, combined with the focused state of mind achieved by the Mind-Cleansing Mantra, was able to memorize all the knowledge points of an entire unit within half a day.

Those things I originally forced myself to memorize for the college entrance exam have now become quite interesting.

Especially in the philosophy section of politics, when he read the section on dialectical materialism, he couldn't help but apply the concept of "mutual transformation of contradictory sides" to his own experiences over the past month, and the more he thought about it, the more interesting it seemed.

When he gets tired of studying, he goes downstairs for a walk.

Li Ziqing would come over from time to time, sometimes appearing silently beside him while he was taking a walk, accompanying him for a couple of laps around the artificial lake in the community.

Sometimes she would knock on his window at dusk. He lived on the third floor, and when he opened the window, he could see her hanging outside.

One time when she came, he was memorizing English words.

She sat quietly by his bedside, her legs dangling over the edge, gently swinging, listening to him turn one page of his book, then another.

When he recited the word "horizon," she suddenly said that she had learned this word before, which means horizon.

She still remembers the example sentence the teacher gave in class.

"The sun sinks below the horizon."

She said she had never seen a sunset over the sea in person. When she used to practice dancing, the windows of the dance studio faced west, and every evening the entire mirror would be bathed in gold. But the windows were too small to see the horizon.

Zhang Ying closed the vocabulary book and said he would take her to see it after the college entrance examination.

She pulled her hat brim down a little, didn't say anything, but he saw the corners of her mouth turn up.

Over three days, his sanity level rose from 9 to 15.

Whether it was due to his improved physical condition or not, his sanity points increased from recovering two points per day to recovering three points per day.

These three days of leisure were like a rag that had been wrung out for too long finally being spread out and dried in the sun.

The taut fibers stretched out one by one, regaining their absorbent elasticity.

Sometimes, when he sits at his desk and looks up at the sycamore leaves outside the window rustling in the wind, he feels that he could live like this forever.

The college entrance exam, going to university, occasionally doing simulator tasks, chatting with Li Ziqing about interesting news I saw that day in the living room at night, and helping my mom move flower pots at the flower shop on weekends.

That's all there is to it, and that's good enough.

But he knew this was just halftime.

The simulator's panel still lingered on the edge of his consciousness, ready to pop up at any moment. The shadow of the spiritual exchange meeting had not yet completely dissipated.

Once you've seen another side of this world, there's no going back.

Sunday, May 4.

At 6:40 PM, Zhang Ying went for a walk after dinner, as usual. Her mother was still away on a business trip, and the last batch of dumplings in the refrigerator had been eaten the day before yesterday.

He had no choice but to rummage through a bag of noodles in the corner and cook a bowl of tomato and egg noodles. The noodles were a bit mushy, but the taste was alright.

After finishing his meal, he prepared to go downstairs for a walk to clear his mind, as usual.

Just as he reached the fourth floor, a very faint wisp of black mist drifted past his eyes.