I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

"Where's Mumu? She should be having dinner soon, right?"

"Yes, my mom should be calling me soon. I have to continue doing my summer homework after dinner."

"I haven't finished writing it yet, and school is about to start."

"Well, there's nothing I can do about it. I've been watching the two of you all day."

After chatting idly with Lin Mu for about ten minutes, Xu Youwei, who had changed her clothes, finally walked over, looking a little nervous. She made her most glamorous appearance to date in front of the two of them, just like the Mu Mu that Chen Junqian saw at Lin Mu's tenth birthday party a few years ago. Her silver headdress shone brightly in her black hair, but her shy expression and movements slightly ruined her aloofness. However, Youyou was never the kind of cold and arrogant girl.

After applauding her best friend's outfit, Lin Mu, who was about to have dinner, said goodbye to the two of them with the words "See you in Guoning tomorrow," ending the somewhat long video call, after all, they had been sitting in front of their computers for almost a whole day.

Xu Youwei started growing her hair long again more than two years ago and started wearing skirts again more than a year ago. Now, with her long hair and skirts, she is indeed significantly different in appearance from the girl Chen Junqian first saw on the country road. However, judging from her uncomfortable expression as she tugs at her clothes and walks with her skirt hem unaccustomed to it, she seems to be no different from back then.

"It should look pretty good in photos."

Chen Junqian took out the cake, which was almost set, and placed it on the table. He then placed it, along with the knife and fork, in front of Xu Youwei. After gently removing the mousse mold, he turned off all the lights in the room and lit the candles one by one.

"Yoyo, are you happy today?"

"Ok!"

The girl's pupils flickered in the swaying candle flame. She nodded vigorously and then closed her eyes.

Of course I'm very happy right now, because you're kind, you like me, you want me to be happy, and you like to tell me everything. You and I are like two little children, sitting around a cake we made together, tasting it little by little to see how sweet it is.

P.S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing. The last paragraph is from Wang Xiaobo's "Loving You Is Like Loving Life".

PS2: I've been lazy again. I've already paid off all the bounties from last time, so I'll start another one at noon today. I'll post a separate chapter at 12:00.

September Bounty

Each update is still counted as a reward of 200 monthly tickets, 100 razor blades, and 10,000 cat cookies. Each update is still a two-in-one four thousand words.

The timeframe is from today until next Saturday, lasting a week. Writing the third volume has taken longer than I anticipated, and there are several more major plot developments to come. I hope everyone enjoys reading it!

Thank you all for your continued support. I wish all readers and their families and friends good health and all the best.

Chapter 62: The Starry River Dawns Before the Sky (Bonus Chapter 1/?)

Xu Youwei came to Beijing alone by plane, but returned with someone else.

When Chen Junqian came to Beijing, he flew there with another person, and he returned with another person as well.

After a very fulfilling birthday day, at the end of this summer vacation, Chen Junqian is finally going to temporarily leave the international metropolis of Beijing and return to the place where the romantic comedy started, the small 18th-tier county town called Guoning, and downgrade his IP address from the "Grandpa" suffix.

"What are you planning to do when you get back, Qinqin? You should have finished all your summer homework, right? But I think even if you haven't finished it, the school probably won't care. After all, you've made them famous during this time. They'll probably give you some kind of award when you get back."

Unlike Zhu Wenjun, who spent most of her time flipping through Chinese dictionaries on the way here, Xu Youwei was much more talkative, especially since their relationship had become incredibly close in the past two days, and they had even slept in the same bed twice. So as soon as the plane took off, she immediately came over with a curious look and started talking to Chen Junqian.

"I have indeed finished all my homework. As for going back... Zhong Yu has been asking me to play games for several days in a row. As his godfather, I have to go back and help him get back to Gold rank."

"Gold? Oh, Qinqin, you mean League of Legends, right?"

Perhaps feeling a little embarrassed to say the abbreviation for the game "LoL," Xu Youwei solemnly recited the full name:

"Is it fun? I only played it for a short time before I stopped. It feels like you two have been playing this all the time. And 'Counter-Strike Online'? I've played that too. It feels like CF has better graphics and more gameplay."

"It's alright, Yoyo can actually give it a try, our team is just one player short."

"There are actually teams? And there are already four of them."

"Well, me, Zhong Yu, Lu Cheng, and Zhong Yu's girlfriend. They always go bot lane. My class monitor and I play mid and jungle. When we play together, we randomly pick a random person to be our top laner."

"One top laner? When I played against bots before, there were always two bots in the top lane. And back then, we would group up at level one and go to the tri-bush behind the enemy's bottom lane turret to gank them. We could kill both bots in one go, and then go back to our lane to play our own game."

Listening to Xu Youwei's words, Chen Junqian himself also felt a bit nostalgic.

It has to be said that in 2013, the year that truly marked the beginning of the popularity of the League of Legends game and its esports scene, if this were a film set for a gaming community, he could probably start writing two esports novels on the spot, such as "I, the Eagle, Return to the Team" or "Reborn in S3, Starting from Defeating the Great Demon King." But what can he do? He's the male protagonist of a romantic comedy.

To be fair, it wasn't until the All-Star tournament in the middle of this year that someone used Lee Sin's R-flash Insec kick, which, thanks to the publicity, made Zhong Yu think that WE was the world champion of last year's S-series. Ruofeng, the person behind his later favorite catchphrase "instant explosion to complete a solo kill," hadn't officially retired to sell meat floss cakes yet. A certain illegal streamer hadn't uttered the classic line "I'm even with him." Teacher Xu was still making early comedic videos like "The Thirty-Six Stratagems." Chen Junqian, who had absolutely no problems in terms of physical fitness and game understanding, seemed to have a real chance to become the savior of Chinese esports if he wanted to.

But to use a popular internet meme from over a decade later as an example, the moment he was chosen to be the protagonist of a romantic comedy reborn instead of the male lead in an e-sports novel, he knew that LPL would not be able to defeat Faker in the next ten years.

However, this did not prevent Chen Junqian, as a simple gamer, from enjoying the fun of playing games with his friends. To be honest, before he suddenly came across the "Chinese Character Dictation Competition" program this summer, Chen Junqian had actually thought about using the game to trick the system into achieving the so-called "national competition" achievement.

After all, to put it bluntly, for middle school students in China, the most common team-based competitive sports are never football, basketball, baseball, or anything like that; games are. Chen Junqian himself had seen a decent-looking League of Legends tournament held at an internet cafe near his home when he was in high school.

"If we're missing one player, I can join, but I'm pretty bad at it."

"That's no problem. It's just about having fun playing games together. Besides, it's not just Yoyo who's bad at games. Zhong Yu's girlfriend is also incredibly bad, but I can still carry the game."

As the male protagonist of a romantic comedy who couldn't become the last hope for Chinese esports, Chen Junqian spoke with considerable confidence. He admitted he couldn't compete, but if he were to lead the team through a Bronze or Silver game, then the title of "Mid-lane God of Death" that Ruofeng later boasted about in his videos would have to be attached to him for a while.

"If I'm going to call later, I'll let you know in advance, okay?"

"Yes, sure."

And so, Chen Junqian brought Xu Youwei, the last piece of the puzzle, into the team, forming a mysterious lineup of three men and two women. If you were to look at the numerous old LOL fanfics that would emerge in a couple of years, his team would be at least one man and four women.

But you know what, it seems like he has a lot of girls around him, even more than a substitute and a coach.

But students' primary responsibility is still to study, so after discussing game-related topics, Xu Youwei brought the conversation back to studying.

In fact, judging solely from the number of courses, the second year of junior high school, which is prone to developing "chuunibyou" (middle school syndrome), is indeed the most academically demanding year of junior high school. After the addition of four new subjects in the first year—biology, geography, history, and moral education and law—the second year brings the even more difficult subjects of physics and chemistry, bringing the total number of subjects students have to study and take exams to nine. Just looking at that makes you feel like you're in prison.

This is exactly what Hsu Yu-wei is worried about.

After a year of junior high school, not to mention Lin Mu who was struggling in the middle ranks, Xu Youwei herself was not having an easy time either. Although she hadn't reached the point where her grades plummeted in junior high school after doing very well in elementary school, her overall grades and rankings were not as good as when she was in elementary school and could easily rank in the top ten of her class. At present, she was considered to be in a stable middle-to-upper position, and this was already the result of her hard work.

"It seems that Mu Mu has been taking extra classes in physics and chemistry this summer. She's a little worried that she won't be able to keep up after school starts, so she specifically asked the family to find a tutor."

"Well, Mu Mu might indeed be more inclined towards humanities subjects. Her grades weren't very good in biology and geography before, so I'll try to tutor her as much as possible. It doesn't matter if she's not good at biology and geography, since they won't be on the high school entrance exam anyway. But she still needs to do well in physics and chemistry, otherwise she'll be at a disadvantage in the high school entrance exam."

It has to be said that even in situations where only Chen Junqian and Xu Youwei are together, their conversations always inadvertently veer towards Lin Mu, and they both sigh and worry about their mutual friend, trying to find solutions. Today was no exception.

Guoning doesn't have an airport, and the two of them got off the plane in Nanjing. Theoretically, they should have had to take a train back, but Xu Zhiling knew the time in advance and specially arranged for his driver to come and pick them up, so it saved them a lot of trouble. They met up smoothly at the airport and started heading back towards Guoning.

Unlike airplanes where you have to sit properly in your seat and fasten your seatbelt, Xu Youwei, sitting in the back seat behind the pilot, undoubtedly had a much larger range of movement and space, so her posture was quite free. In no time, half of her body was already leaning against Chen Junqian, and finally she slid down onto his thighs, as if she wanted to take a nap there.

Chen Junqian had always had an achievement related to lap pillows in his mind. At first, the conditions for achieving it were written as "lap pillowing or being lapped by a female lead who is suitable for romantic comedies once", which made him think that he could achieve it by lap pillowing the female leads. However, he later found out that lap pillowing or being lapped actually meant that he had to lie on the girl's lap. The former required him to lie down voluntarily, while the latter required the other party to suggest it first. So it was delayed for a long time, and he finally achieved it when he went to Lin'an to see Shen Nianqiu for the first time at the beginning of last year.

Well, the main thing is that over the years, it's been more common for him to give others his lap as a pillow, but it's been rare for him to lean on a girl's lap... mainly because both Lin Mu and Xu Youwei are obviously young girls. Zhu Wenyun is more acceptable in appearance, but the two of them haven't had much in-depth physical contact until now, so it's been dragged out to his older sister.

I wonder who will ultimately complete the achievement related to the lap pillow achievement, "After the lap pillow, of course you have to clean your ears."

As Chen Junqian's mind wandered, he adjusted his position to make Xu Youwei, who was lying there, more comfortable. However, due to an unavoidable and sudden stop, the girl on his lap was startled awake from her drowsy state and sat up, rubbing her sleepy eyes.

"Hmm...have we arrived yet?"

"We'll be there soon. We'll get there after we exit the highway now. This side is closer to the wear-resistant factory, so we'll take Youyou back first."

“The wear-resistant factory—perfect! How about Qinqin and I go down there together? It's that old house I told you about the day before yesterday; we can go see it together.”

Whether she thought that she was going to get hurt no matter what, or simply felt that today was the best opportunity after the groundwork laid over the past two days, Xu Youwei decided to go all out and extend an invitation to Chen Junqian. However, her thoughts were already immersed in those past scenes.

Time and again, she locked the door, shutting out the whole world to face that empty white wall.

Time and again, she unscrewed the caps of those invisible pens; the nibs showed no sign of anything amiss under the light. The transparent ink, like her long-hidden secrets, only revealed themselves under that specific ultraviolet light.

The canvas was the wall closest to the desk, the one Chen Junqian faced when she sat at the desk before she lived here. After the bookshelves and the things on them were moved away, it became the best place to start painting. So she squatted down and began to paint from the bottom.

The first stroke on the wall left no trace, as if it had sunk into the sea.

Unlike the blackboard bulletins she used to draw on, when drawing these, Xu Youwei relied not on her eyes, but on the memory of the brushstrokes in her fingers, on the blueprint in her mind that had been sketched out thousands of times. The lines had to be smooth and could not be modified. Every stroke was a risky gamble. Only after a part was completed would she take a few steps away to check the overall effect with an ultraviolet light.

Of course, you can just follow the steps and draw them, but Hsu Yu-Wei insists on making things difficult for herself. Just like how she would actively follow the steps in "Artistic Creativity" to replicate her ideas in reality since she was a child, she would look down on anything too simple.

Time flowed silently, sunlight slanted in through the window, gradually fading to a warm yellow, and finally being completely replaced by the dark blue night. Day after day passed, and when I finally came to my senses, more than a year had passed.

In fact, later on, Xu Youwei herself couldn't quite remember what she initially wanted to draw, or what she actually drew in the end. She drew whatever came to mind, including the calendar of the day they met, the melody of his favorite lyric, the curve of his smile that she had seen countless times, the starry sky they had seen together, and the alleyways they had run through.

All of this, in the visible light, is utter nothingness.

This wall, weathered and yellowed by time, appears innocently blank, its blankness seemingly justified, yet within it lies a vast foreshadowing laid with all the courage of a young girl.

Just like the hand-copied newspapers they made many times in elementary school, drawings alone are never enough; words are also needed to embellish and explain them.

So, Xu Youwei started leaving messages and writing on it again.

One evening, after everything was completely finished, she deliberately turned off the desk lamp and, in complete darkness, turned on the small ultraviolet lamp.

A pale purple light, like a magician's incantation, slowly swept across the wall.

In an instant, the entire universe was born before her eyes.

Stars shift and lines shimmer, a gentle yet resolute blue fluorescence blooms, each stroke crystal clear, converging into a silent and magnificent galaxy that shines solely for one person. And the words hidden at the center and around it are the brightest light in this sea of ​​stars, the handwriting both new and old, folding and intertwining with each other, stretching as far as the eye can see.

Then, the girl turned off the light.

Now, the wall looks no different from usual.

It still waits silently and anxiously for the light of another lamp, waiting for the person who can see it to discover this invisible heart that has been beating for him for so long.

"Okay, let's go take a look together."

Chen Junqian nodded in agreement.

Xu Youwei looked away.

How much courage and heartbeat must it take for a star, having lost its loved ones and been traveling alone, to choose to cross the vast Milky Way to chase a distant ray of light that doesn't seem to stay for long?

P.S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

PS2: Among the LOL-related online novels I read in 2013, the two that left a deep impression were Luan's "League of Legends: Who Dares to Challenge" and Robot Blitz's "My Name is Blitz". Both of them were officially serialized in May and June of 2013.

PS3: Thank you to reader Yui Yuigahama for the golden treasure chest, we are so grateful!

Chapter 63: Youyou Also Has Her Own Diary (Part 2)

Completely unaware that just moments before, Xu Youwei had already gone through a whole fantasy in her mind with a thick layer of filters, Chen Junqian felt a little emotional as he opened the car door and got out. After all, it had been a while since he had been back here. The last time he had come was around September of last year to stop that accident, which was already a year ago.

Since this place was neither Chen Junqian's home nor Xu Youwei's home, it was more like a transit and rest stop for the two of them. So neither of them took any luggage and got off the car empty-handed, heading towards the dormitory buildings that served as employee dormitories.

Walking into the familiar "Talented Scholar Building," climbing from the rather narrow stairwell to the familiar floor, and standing once again at the door of the old house he had lived in for almost two years, Chen Junqian felt a strange mix of emotions, like a stranger returning to his hometown. It inexplicably reminded him of the day four years ago when he was reborn, when he took a swaying bus back here.

This time, however, his house key wasn't in the outer compartment of his backpack. Instead, the girl next to him took it out from a hidden compartment in her bag, carefully aligned it with the keyhole, and then clicked open the door.

Xu Youwei didn't push the door open immediately. Instead, she first gently pushed the door open a crack to make sure the strand of hair stuck there was still there before pulling it out. Then, she pushed the door open completely and went inside.

However, the living room was almost exactly the same as when Chen Junqian moved out. It was empty and bare with nothing in it. The mottled cement floor looked like no one was still living there. There was no trace of life in it.

"here."

It felt like in that instant, Chen Junqian and Xu Youwei's roles as host and guest had undergone a strange reversal. In the old house where the former had lived for more than ten years since birth, he was now looking around curiously like a guest visiting for the first time, while Xu Youwei took the initiative to introduce and guide him, leading him to the door of the room he knew all too well.

Then, he saw a lock that hadn't been there at all.

"...It even has a lock?"