Who says those who retire at the speed of light are not heroes?

"I'm leaving now."

Lin Cheng rolled out of the bathroom obediently. Half an hour later, Lizhi came out wearing a white suspender nightgown with a V-neck. Lin Cheng couldn't help but glance at Tuan Tuan. Hey, it seemed that Lizhi had grown a lot.

That's right, she is at the stage of growing up.

Will Lizhi become a tall lady in the future? She is already quite tall now. If she is taller, she will step on me to death. Hehehehe...

"Hurry up and take a shower..." Lizhi pushed Lin Cheng into the bathroom. When Lin Cheng came back, Lizhi was already lying on the bed and almost asleep. Lin Cheng came to her side. Lizhi, who noticed the noise, came to his arms and moved. Lin Cheng gently hugged her and said, "Go to sleep."

"relative."

Lin Cheng lowered his head and kissed her forehead gently. Only then did Lizhi lower her head obediently, resting her forehead on his chest and went to sleep.

..............................

The next day, early morning.

Lin Cheng vaguely felt as if something was stepping on his chest. He slowly opened his eyes and found that it was Lizhi standing on the bed. Her white and tender toes were rubbing gently on his chest. She was also wearing white lingering calf socks. The slightly transparent socks made her white and tender soles particularly clear. It was so astringent!

Lin Cheng looked up. From his current perspective, Lizhi's thighs were faintly visible under her skirt. Seeing that he was awake, Lizhi raised the corners of her lips and lowered her head, "You had a good rest."

"No, isn't it?"

"You must make up the four payments you owe today."

"Can you, can you do it another way?"

"Isn't this just a reward for you, a pervert?"

"I won't control myself anymore. I won't control myself again." Lin Cheng was about to cry.

"Then what do you want? Biting you is impossible." Lizhi's cheeks are pink and tender, with the shyness that only belongs to a girl.

"I think Litchi's little hands are cute too."

"Hehe." Lizhi came and lay down beside him, her slender fingertips wandering on his chest. Lin Cheng didn't dare to move. After a while, he looked at Lizhi's serious face and suddenly asked in a low voice, "Can I kiss the little bear?"

"What do you think?"

"I think...it's okay."

"It seems that I am too gentle to you and you are hallucinating. You are only worthy of kissing your feet." Lizhi's white and tender little hands stopped, "It seems... it's time to stop and rest for a while."

Lin Xiaocheng's hell is coming.

221 This is my story

There is nothing more blissful than taking a nap on a sunny afternoon.

Lin Cheng developed the habit of taking naps after retiring. He never liked taking naps when he was a child. He vaguely remembered his mother coaxing him to take naps when he was four or five years old, but the images were already very blurry. He seldom took naps after his parents passed away. He developed this habit because he often suffered from insomnia after retiring.

Actually, it shouldn’t be considered insomnia.

But during those years, he was trying very hard to learn how to sleep again.

After returning from the abyss, he had to rely on his memories from a hundred years ago to relearn many things. The flow of time in the abyss was a hundred times faster than in the world here. He had been in the abyss for a hundred years, and his memories of the past eighteen years only accounted for a very small part of those hundred years. During those hundred years, he developed the habit of staying up all night, not eating or drinking, like the purest killing machine, absorbing the power of the abyss and allowing his destiny to grow uninterruptedly.

Later, his fate reached its peak. He became a demigod in the abyss and devoured the Queen of the Abyss. The existence of the Queen of the Abyss itself was indescribable. He could not return to the world as an abyss creature, so he recreated a human body for himself.

Before that, he had repeatedly recalled the memories of the first eighteen years of his life in the cocoon he created, and tried to use this new body to simulate human emotions, joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire, because those emotions disappeared the moment he became a demigod. Gods do not need these things. The true feeling of being free of desires is indescribable.

After becoming a god, he could break free from the pain caused by human desires. But at the last moment of ascending the long steps to godhood, he suddenly thought of lychees.

He suddenly remembered that he had promised his sister to take good care of her. Her sister died because of him, so it was his responsibility, so he came back. At first, he tried to adapt for a long time, adapt to the senses, adapt to the emotions, adapt to the desires, adapt to the world, adapt to... become a human being.

In fact, he doesn't need to sleep. He is more like an entity condensed by energy and can stay awake all the time, but humans need sleep...so it took him a long time to finally learn how to sleep again.

It’s like a naive child gradually growing up in the world and getting to know the world all over again.

He had never told Lizhi or anyone else about this secret. He told Lizhi because he was afraid that she would feel burdened. But in fact, Lizhi had vaguely guessed it... Perhaps compared to returning here, staying in the abyss forever is a more suitable destination for him.

Lin Cheng had a wonderful nap lying on Lizhi's snow-white thighs. After waking up, he went shopping with Lizhi and bought a new autumn dress. The new clothes that Lizhi had customized for him arrived, which was a black casual suit. Lin Cheng happily carried the suit bag home. This wonderful day should have ended, but he saw Lu Xiaoxiao at the door of his house.

....................................

Lu Xiaoxiao was in a hurry when she went out. She waited until four in the morning, but Lin Cheng still didn't come home. She went home to catch up on her sleep, bought a basket of dumplings after waking up, and waited for Lin Cheng here for another whole day.

Lin Cheng will eventually go home.

Lin Cheng looked at Lu Xiaoxiao in front of him. She was wearing a white sweatshirt and jeans, carrying a small bag, leaning against his door with her hair loose, and her face looked somewhat haggard.

The moment she saw him, Lu Xiaoxiao regained her spirits. Their eyes met. After a few seconds of silence, Lu Xiaoxiao spoke, "Yesterday... that was not what I meant..."

"Yeah, I know, I don't blame you." Lin Cheng nodded slightly.

Lu Xiaoxiao was stunned for a moment.

She thought Lin Cheng would be very angry. She spent the whole night thinking about the reasons why Lin Cheng was angry. He had been accompanying her to practice swordplay these days. This guy was such a lazy person, but when he was with her, he seemed to have a lot more patience. Lu Xiaoxiao also contacted Jiang Lingxue last night and learned that Jiang Lingxue had been out of town recently. The purpose of her shooting the MV was to warm up for the concert tour.

At least... Lu Xiaoxiao knew that the only people who had had a real relationship with Lin Cheng were Jiang Lingxue and her.

She began to try to think about the problem from Lin Cheng's perspective. If she wanted to be shy, it seemed that only she could do it... No, to be precise, Lin Cheng could have gone to find the girl named Jiang Li, or Grape, Lychee... They could all be with him, but he took all his time out to practice swordplay with her. For more than half a month, he had not taken the initiative to bring up the issue of being shy because of her request... Maybe he finally couldn't help it yesterday, but after he said it... he was ridiculed by her again.

It was at this moment that Lu Xiaoxiao suddenly figured it out.

The question she asked Lin Cheng was "If I weren't shy, would you still like me?" In fact, Lin Cheng had already answered with his actions. He was extremely lazy, and would never move a step if he could stay at home. He was willing to practice sword skills with her for more than half a month. Even though he had shy needs, he never looked for other girls who could satisfy him during this time. This was already the answer.

Moreover, Lu Xiaoxiao also asked Xu Wanyue, but Xu Wanyue told her something she didn’t know at all... Lin Cheng had never contacted Xu Wanyue since he brought Xu Linglan back.

It was obvious that he loved to act like a spoiled child in front of Xu Wanyue in the past. In Lu Xiaoxiao's opinion, she always felt that Lin Cheng liked Xu Wanyue much more than her. However, he had not contacted Xu Wanyue during this period. Lu Xiaoxiao asked Xu Wanyue the reason out of curiosity. Xu Wanyue was silent for a long time, but could only answer that she didn't know what to do.

Lu Xiaoxiao walked up to Lin Cheng and bit her lip. Her expression was not coy, but serious. She lowered her head and gently grasped the corner of his clothes, saying, "I'm sorry... I shouldn't have said those words, and I shouldn't have lost my temper."

Lin Cheng was still holding the suit bag in his hand. He looked at Lu Xiaoxiao in front of him. He knew the reason why Lu Xiaoxiao apologized. It was a rare thing for the always proud girl to lower her head at this moment. But he didn't really think Lu Xiaoxiao was wrong, but he was indeed broken by Lu Xiaoxiao's words.

But the reason for his breakdown was not because of Lu Xiaoxiao's curse, but because he finally realized that love is an emotion that is difficult to simulate.

Saying goodbye silently may hurt the other person, so some things might be better said more clearly.

Lin Cheng thought about it seriously and said, "I don't blame you, nor am I angry with you, really."

His voice was more sincere than Lu Xiaoxiao's. Lu Xiaoxiao raised her head. He clearly said so, but Lu Xiaoxiao always felt that his tone was so cold and distant, completely different from the guy in front of her before.

How many faces does he have? Lu Xiaoxiao has seen him being gentle, childish, and cold and heartless. Many times, she can't tell which one is the real Lin Cheng. It seems that this guy is a natural actor who can switch between different masks at will.

"Then...can you forgive me?" Lu Xiaoxiao shook his hand gently.

She was not good at doing this kind of thing, nor was she good at acting like a spoiled child. Even the action of holding his arm now was unconscious. Lin Cheng looked at her face and was silent for a while. "I didn't blame you, why should I forgive you?"

Lin Cheng's voice was very soft and calm at this moment. "There are some things I think it is necessary to explain to you again. Once I explain them clearly... you should understand."

Lin Cheng quietly retracted his hand that was held by Lu Xiaoxiao and opened the door. Lu Xiaoxiao followed him in. She kept her head down all the way, her fingers clenched on the sleeves of her sweatshirt. An inexplicable uneasiness spread in her heart, because Lin Cheng's expression was really strange now, completely different from the past. She couldn't tell where this strangeness came from, until Lin Cheng came into the room and took out the box hidden under the bed.

That box was not the treasure of One Piece. Lin Cheng slammed the box on the table. His expression was calm from beginning to end. The box was opened, and the dusty past appeared in front of Lu Xiaoxiao.

"I made several masks for Siming. This is the original one, as well as the clothes. Because I grew taller in those few years, I had to make new ones." Lin Cheng took out the mask and the clothes. "I wanted to keep these things as souvenirs when I was a child, so I never threw them away."

Lu Xiaoxiao suddenly raised her head and met Lin Cheng's calm eyes. He calmly explained his past. Obviously those were his memories, but when he talked about them, it was as if he was an irrelevant old friend. There was no expression, no remembrance, no showing off, and no sadness.

“And these medals were issued by the Anti-Abyss Alliance. Many of them were obtained together with my former teammates, so I kept them.” Lin Cheng continued to tell his story.

"Three years ago, I took a trip to the abyss."

"I thought I would just die in the abyss, but everything I saw in the abyss was beyond my expectations. The speed of time in the abyss is not equal to that in our world, and I am not qualified to meet the Queen of the Abyss, so I can only keep moving forward in the endless wasteland, absorbing the power of the abyss to grow my destiny and become a demigod. I stayed in the abyss for a hundred years before I was finally qualified to meet the Queen of the Abyss, but by then I had gone crazy."

"I don't know if the word crazy is appropriate enough to describe me... During those hundred years, I was alone all the time. Every day, I would silently repeat my name and tell myself that I was Lin Cheng. My purpose of coming here was to kill the Queen of the Abyss and then close the Abyss rift. This thought has been with me for a hundred years."

"When I met the Queen of the Abyss, I only remember these few things. I devoured her and obtained her demigod status. I was going to become the new Emperor of the Abyss. By then, I would have fulfilled my last thought and closed the Abyss rift."

"But at that time I thought of lychees, so I came back."

The evening sunlight outside the window fell on the table in the living room, as if sprinkling a layer of gold powder on the table. Lin Cheng's face was in the shadow of the light, and his expression was still strangely calm.

"But I am no longer human. The moment I became a demigod, I lost all my emotions and my human body. I can only use the power of fate to create an entity, but I am not a true god, not the creator, and I cannot create humans with emotions... So I rely on the power of fate to simulate emotions for myself."

"You know what? People's anger is just to achieve their goals. Aggression and reproductive desire are the underlying factors. But creating such a body is also a very troublesome thing. Taste, vision, hearing, smell and touch are all simple, but emotions are difficult. I can only rely on instinctive simulation... I don't know how to describe this feeling to you, because you already have it and don't need to simulate it, but I need... and I have to turn the simulation into a subconscious instinct, not a deliberate disguise."

"That's why I told you before that the meaning of life is to believe and hope, which is to lie and lie to yourself. I need to deceive myself in order to have instinctive emotions... anger, pain, loneliness, sadness, happiness, I have tried hard to simulate these emotions through my memories of the past eighteen years, but I don't understand... what love is."

"So when you asked me the answer, I really didn't know how to answer you, just like I did with Jiang Lingxue before... I'm sorry, I don't understand what love is. I used to try very hard to find the answer, just like when I said I like Xu Wanyue... I think I should like her. She is gentle and sensible, and can tolerate my naivety... I think I should love her."

"What she wants is love for her alone. What kind of love do you want? I tried very hard to simulate this emotion... but I can't do it. I can't find it. I don't know what kind of love you want... I have never had this feeling before."

"I wasn't angry with you yesterday. I was just so inexplicable... I'm sorry, but I'm really not angry because of your temper. I don't think you did anything wrong. Maybe love should be more noble and pure than instinctive desire... But I don't know what it is, and I can't give it to you. Not only you, but anyone who asks me for this thing... I can't give it to you."

"I tried very hard to find the answer... but I couldn't. Maybe love is a natural emotion of human beings, but I can't be a human anymore, so I can't simulate it, so..."

Lin Cheng took a deep breath.

His expression was still calm, but tears kept falling from the corners of his eyes for unknown reasons. The scene in front of him even looked a little weird. Lu Xiaoxiao's body was shaking uncontrollably, her eyes were red, and her tears were gradually blurred by mist.

"If you want love from me, I can't give it to you, so I suggest that we separate. Your expectations are doomed to be dashed, so it's better not to expect them from the beginning."

"The day we first met, I came to you because you looked a lot like Lu Lingling. I knew Lu Lingling a long time ago, and because you had used the Evolution Blood I left behind, but you had the Abyss Crystal Core in your body. That night I took you home, and I wanted to use the power of fate to smooth out the possible mutations between the Evolution Blood and the Abyss Crystal Core in your body in the future, but I didn't expect that day... you would come over to me."

"I thought about refusing, but it's human nature to be driven by desire, so I hugged you without thinking... Maybe this was a mistake from the beginning, I'm sorry."

"This is my story, and also the story of Siming that you have always been curious about. Siming is a mask, and Lin Cheng is also a mask, but there is nothing underneath the mask, not even flesh and blood."

"This is also my secret, please keep it secret for me." The calmness on Lin Cheng's face suddenly disappeared.

He took out a tissue from the table and wiped his tears, and wiped Lu Xiaoxiao's tears as well. Then he smiled, but the tears on his face were not dry yet, which made him look a little funny. "Look, except for the emotion of love, have I successfully evolved other emotions into instincts? I suddenly felt so sad when I said this just now, and I couldn't help but cry... Why are you crying? Don't cry... There's nothing to cry about."

But Lu Xiaoxiao's tears continued to fall.

"These things...why didn't you...tell me...earlier..." Her voice was intermittent and choked.

Lin Cheng scratched his head. "I told you a long time ago that I am Sima Ming, but you just don't believe it. As for simulating emotions... it has become my instinct, so I am no different from ordinary people. I don't think there is any need to explain. It's just something like love... I have been thinking about it for several years, and I have been wondering whether there is an emotion like love in the human heart? Did I go astray from the beginning? Maybe love has never existed, but it is just a high-sounding excuse catalyzed by reproductive desire."

"Okay, okay, don't cry... I really don't know what to do if you cry like this... But I still sincerely hope... that you don't want to get love from me. I don't know what kind of love you want, so if you ask me the answer, I can't answer it. Maybe to me, my love is really like a male dog in heat, with only desire as the underlying color."

"But... sometimes I really want a hug. Maybe in a few years I'll be completely normal and no longer act like a psychopath. So I always selfishly hope that others can be more tolerant of me, tolerate my childish and unreasonable behavior, because I still have some things I need to explore in this world..."

"But asking others to tolerate me is a bit unreasonable, so you really don't have to blame yourself for what you said yesterday. I know it was just a joke, but I just don't think it's funny. But... it doesn't matter. I have been healed by Sister Litchi."

"Is she... the most important person in your heart?" Lu Xiaoxiao asked.

"I guess so. She is the anchor of my becoming a human being. She hopes that I can live well, so I am still alive."

Lin Cheng looked at Lu Xiaoxiao who was still crying in front of him, feeling a little overwhelmed. He scratched his head and said, "Like I said just now, you have never had the need to tolerate me, so I think we should break up. Otherwise, I will only disappoint your expectations again and again. This is a very sincere suggestion, Lu Xiaoxiao."

"What if I...don't want you to leave?"

"Even if your expectations of love are dashed time and time again, and it can never give you the answer you want?"

"I already know the answer." Lu Xiaoxiao stretched out the back of her hand and wiped away all her tears. She tried to make her voice sound serious and sincere, but her speech was still a little unsound because of her sobs.

"From now on...as long as I love you, that's all."

The crystal in her eyes seemed to be glowing, and Lin Cheng didn't know what to say for a moment. He looked around, the sun outside the window was about to set, and the girl in front of him was in tears, her eyes shining sincerely.

After five or six seconds, he shook his head helplessly, and after a moment he was at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

"Forget it, whatever you want... I just hope you don't torture yourself because your expectations are dashed."

Lu Xiaoxiao's tears finally stopped slowly, and Lin Cheng suddenly thought of something, "Have you not had dinner yet?"

Lu Xiaoxiao nodded.

"We only have instant noodles at home. Do you want some? I'll go boil some water."

Lu Xiaoxiao nodded obediently, "Then I'll go add the seasoning."

The black cat at home was lying on the balcony, listening to the boring conversation between the two. It stretched lazily and suddenly said, "How strange. Logically speaking... it should be impossible to reverse after becoming a demigod. How did you regain consciousness from a demigod and desire to become a human being again?"

Lin Cheng boiled water and looked back at it, "I don't know how to tell you, at that time... I seemed to see a butterfly from another world."

"Butterflies from another world?"

"Yes, and it's hard to describe. That butterfly looked like both a butterfly and a crow. Isn't that a strange sentence? When I saw that creature, I felt that it was both white and black, and looked like both a butterfly and a crow. At that moment, I suddenly remembered all my memories from eighteen years ago, and then I thought of what I promised Litchi... Then the butterfly merged into my body, and I was able to leave the long stairway to the gods, which originally had no way out."

The black cat looked surprised, "So that person... is back again."

"Who?"

"It's okay. You don't have to understand. There's no point in understanding. I can only say... you are lucky."

Lin Cheng picked up the cat by the scruff of its neck and said, "No, Riddler!"

But the cat ignored it and lay down lazily again.

Lin Cheng grabbed its tail and shook it for a long time but it didn't respond, so he had to give up. Lu Xiaoxiao also heard the cat talking and her eyes widened in surprise.

"I brought this back from the abyss. It's not a creature from the abyss itself, but it accidentally fell into the abyss and couldn't get out. It stayed with me for a long time and helped me a lot, so I turned it into a cat and brought it back when I left."

Lu Xiaoxiao nodded as if she understood. Lin Cheng had already boiled water and made instant noodles for her. He also made a bucket of noodles for himself. The two of them sat on the sofa with instant noodles. Lin Cheng turned on the TV and the lights in the living room. It was already dark outside the window.