Ark, I got cold a little early

"You're not also thinking of flipping Terra off if you can't find me, are you?"

"uh-huh?"

"..."

The heroine has become the boss, what should he, the hero, do?

Ark, Transformed into a Scumbag, Saves the World

Chapter 21: The Year That Has Been Offline for a Long Time (Revised)

"Huh?! Old man, how come you have time to come and see me?!" Nian opened the door that was knocked, with a look of surprise and joy on his face.

"Can't I come to see you if I have nothing to do?" Hong Yu tilted his head and smiled. "And what do you mean by 'I'll come to see you when I have time'? Don't I always come to see you as soon as you finish writing a letter?"

Hiss—why does this sentence sound so familiar? I think I said it once to Shu.

Ah, my brain has been confused by the repeated teleportation.

"Well, you always appear suddenly and inexplicably, and usually disappear inexplicably after saying a few words. But this time you come and knock on the door! Are you planning to stay here for a while?" Nian leaned forward, stretched out his elbow and nudged Hongyu's waist with a smile on his face.

"Ha, congratulations on guessing it right. I'll give the lonely old man a Hongyu as a reward. Please give me your guidance in the days ahead, Nian." Hongyu naturally walked into the house where Nian lived in Shangshu.

"An old widower? You? Where are Xigua and your sister?" Hongyu walked into the house. When Nian heard him call himself an "old widower", he closed the door with a look of disbelief on his face.

"Xigua..." Hongyu was surprised. This nickname actually appeared again?

Ah, I miss you so much, I don't know why...

"It's Xi, right? She's... traveling around Dayan with your sister, so now I'm a veritable 'lonely old man'. What? Don't you like me coming to see you?"

Asking this question, Hongyu pretended to wipe away the tears that were not there at all: "Alas, as expected, grown-up children are..."

Seeing this, Nian sweated profusely: "That's enough, old man."

Hiss—more familiar, doesn't it? It felt like this scene was happening simultaneously to me over there.

Should we say we're sisters after all? Seeing my superb acting skills, you can actually see through it simultaneously?!

"Hey, well, I bought a lot of storybooks in Shangshu...you know storybooks, right? The kind where people record their own fantasies. I found several very interesting ones." Nian no longer responded to Hongyu's antics, but instead excitedly mentioned his recent interests to Hongyu.

Storybook?

Oh, novels.

I know. When I first came to Arknights, I tried to make a fortune by being a plagiarist. However, my writing skills were not that good, so I gave up after writing two chapters.

Scratching his head, Hongyu shook off the random thoughts in his mind and carefully observed Nian's condition.

She looked fine and even put her arm around Hongyu's shoulders and joked with him, but what Hongyu observed was not optimistic.

Has she... begun to question her own existence?

Hongyu thought that the first person to be eroded by the "Sui" consciousness would be either Xi or Ling, but what surprised Hongyu was that the first person to be eroded was Nian, who had never shown any abnormality.

But this girl...why has she been hiding this from me?

If I hadn't come this time out of concern for everyone because of Xi's obvious behavior, Nian would probably have kept it a secret for the rest of his life...

The reason why I took the initiative to leave... was it because of this?

Huh... I am really an incompetent "prefect".

Fortunately, the timeline is not too bad now, and there is still time.

"Storybook? Of course I know that, okay? Don't really think of me as an old guy who can only read newspapers." Hongyu waved his hand and took over Nian's words. At the same time, when Nian didn't notice, he began to suppress "Sui".

For a moment, dizziness and severe pain continued to stimulate Hongyu's brain, causing him to frown slightly, and his shoulders, which were held by Nian, also stiffened slightly.

Nian, who was always carefree, did not notice Hongyu's abnormality. She just started complaining about Hongyu after hearing Hongyu's rebuttal that he was an "old guy".

"Who was it that took the feathered beast cage out for a walk at dawn?" Nian asked sharply.

"I haven't raised that feathered beast since it died..." Hongyu shifted his gaze.

"Then who is it that drags my brother to practice Tai Chi early in the morning every day?" Nian insisted.

"That was your eldest brother's request. It's none of my business, okay?" Hongyu had no way to argue.

"Okay, old man, no matter how much you say, it can't cover up the fact that you are older than us giants. An ordinary person would have died hundreds of years ago..." Nian killed the competition.

"..." The corners of Hongyu's mouth twitched slightly. It was the first time that someone had insisted on talking about his age.

It’s a good thing that he doesn’t care much about age. If it were a female version of me, I’d probably be held on his knees and reminiscing about my childhood.

"Okay, okay, I'm an old man, but even so, I'm still a handsome, cool old man who is thousands of years ahead of the times." Hongyu raised his head slightly and proudly accepted Nian's evaluation of him as an "old guy".

“…” Nian Yi was silent for a whole moment, then smiled.

It’s still the same, Yu.

Say he is narcissistic... He is indeed quite handsome. As a prefect, even if he covers his eyes and works intermittently, most of the people holding candles in Simuitai are young ladies. Needless to say, they all go there to have a chance to exchange a few words with Hongyu.

Say he's not narcissistic... He's a centuries-old old man who still brags about himself. His mentality is still really young...

But Nian likes Hongyu very much, both now and in the past.

Even after hundreds of years, Hongyu still maintains the appearance of his youth a hundred years ago, and the mentality of that time. Being with him even makes people feel like they have never grown up, and time seems to have stopped flowing for that person.

Ever since I was a kid, I felt that the old guy was truly omnipotent.

It seems that there is nothing he is not good at in every aspect.

If I want to know more about him...it seems like I don't know where to start.

Although Yu still has a lot of time and can take his time, but what about me...

Nian, who was gradually feeling lost due to the influence of "years", thought so, picked up a storybook on the shelf and began to explain it to Hongyu.

"This is very interesting. It is said that when the scholar who was going to the capital to take the imperial examination was walking through the wilderness..." He began to explain the specific plot to Hongyu.

"...he rescued a Wolper beast relative and then a few years later that beast relative turned into a beautiful Wolper girl who came to repay the scholar?" Hongyu interrupted Nian's explanation directly. To be honest, it was worthy of the Great Yan a thousand years ago. This kind of story that has been everywhere for a long time can also become popular.

What storybook are you reading?

"Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio"?

Even "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" doesn't bother to write such a common story, okay?

"Eh? Have you seen it, old man?"

"Well...I guess I've seen it."

This story is so classic that it is impossible not to know it.

Hongyu thought helplessly.

————————————————————

"Hmm... this year's novels... are so good." Nian sat on the sofa in a bored Ge You-like posture, reading a novel in his hand.

"It's so rotten." Xi pointed out directly that a rotten orange is a rotten orange.

"It's even worse than the opening ceremony of the World Games held in Gaul."

"By the way, haven't you adapted many of the stories your teacher told you into movies? How were the results?" Xi was a little curious at this time, mainly curious about Hongyu's story, and Nian's movie as a by-product.

“Well, those movies were all quite successful, but all the ones I came up with were flops…” said the greatest and worst legendary director in the history of Dayan.

Up to now, all the director's films in the year are either well-known throughout the country or are terrible works with a Douban score of 2.0 at most.

So every time a movie is about to be made and actors are being recruited, all the actors participate with a gambling mentality.

What if the director’s movie becomes a hit again this year?

Many people think so, but if they don’t plan to adapt the story told by Hongyu that year, what awaits these actors will be a big stain on their lives.

PS: Please vote, please comment, please comment!!

Thanks to the blade of "刺龙宝".

Thanks to "Texiri" for the monthly ticket.

Vote for the next volume

This volume was finished in about a week. I'll vote on the next volume in advance so I can come up with some ideas.

(1) Ursus: Three Model Workers of the Integration Movement

(2) Syracuse: Texas, Lapland, and condemnation

(6) Agor: Skadi, Ghost Shark, Golletia

(IV) Casimir: Lin Guang, Xia Guang, vvan

(5) Longmen: Chen, Xingxiong, Shi Huaiya, Jiu, Lin Yuxia (I think I will explode if I write so many heroines. I pray that I don’t have to write such a torturous volume so early.)

Until the end of this volume.

By the way, Chapter 20 has also been released from the small black room, and the content that was reviewed and ganked has been added to the interstitial post.

Chapter 3: I want to leave some traces in this world (k)

"So these things like storybooks are really a great invention." Nian said with some emotion while holding one of the storybooks.

At this time, the two of them were sitting on a rather large bench, having read together many of the novels that Nian called "masterpieces".

Although it looked like a masterpiece in the past, it was just...

I've tasted enough. Take it away.

Although Hongyu did not want to spoil Nian's interest, he always maintained a very interested look and never complained a word.

"The passing of a person can leave these works on this earth, and people in the future will remember those who have passed away through the works they left behind..."

She opened one of the books, which contained a story that seemed quite old-fashioned to Hongyu.

But the reason they are old-fashioned is because they are classics.

"Why are you suddenly saying something that only an old person would say?" Hongyu took the script from Nian's hand, and his words made the other party speechless.

"What? Can't I just reflect on life? Old man, you are discriminating against the giant beasts. I'm going to sue you at Simuitai!" Nian said seriously.

"Good fellow, what do you call 'Who in the hall is suing me'? Also, wasn't the original mission of the Simaitai to protect your rights? (Although now it's almost like that under Hongyu's series of operations)" Now it was Hongyu's turn to be choked by Nian's words "If you go and sue me, I hope you will be the first one to disagree..."

"And I just think that saying this doesn't fit your personality."

"If it was Chongyue, I might understand."

"Brother? Well, I've been to Yumen to see him before. His personality is becoming more and more old-fashioned, and he's not interesting at all compared to before." Nian recalled his memories of Zhongyue and then commented.

"I still prefer the older brother who used to learn how to steal pieces from you when he couldn't win at chess with the second brother. Back then, he was just pretending to be calm, but he was actually quite impulsive."

"His growth is a good thing." Hongyu is optimistic about the change of Shuo Cheng into Chongyue, and is happy to see it.

Because only when one of the twelve fragments grows up to become the "head of the family" who can replace Hongyu, can he leave with peace of mind.

Hongyu is very satisfied with the current growth of Zhongyue and Wang.

Zhongyue had long since become the master he remembered, and although Wang did not embark on the path of a crazy family knight because of Jie's death, he was gradually taking over his position as "prefect".

It is also the fundamental reason why Hongyu can use his life, which is about to end, to solve the problem of "Sui".

"But you haven't changed at all, old man." Nian suddenly smiled and leaned his head on Hongyu's legs.

"I've changed a lot." Hongyu put his legs together so that Nian could lean on him more comfortably.

"Oh? Tell me about it?" Nian looked at Hongyu's unchanged face and the same mentality, and was curious about what changes Hongyu was talking about.

Could it be that... Yuta is also experiencing what I am experiencing?

For no reason, this thought came to Nian's mind, but he suppressed it the next second.

How could that be possible? Yuta wasn't part of the monster, so how could he have to go through what we were going through?

"Don't you think I've become more handsome?" Hongyu confidently lifted his hair, looking cocky.

"Puff——" Nian's mouth seemed to be leaking air and she refused to cooperate with Hongyu's antics. She laughed twice and said to him: "Ah, yes, yes, you have become more handsome."

"Isn't that right?!"

A joyful atmosphere gradually spread as the two chatted and joked with each other, and the smile had never left Nian's face since Hongyu's arrival.