Chapter 304: A Parting Embrace
Bai Cha had no desire to poke her nose into other people’s business—least of all between two people in an intimate relationship. Since Shen Qingchen was unwilling to tell Yang Qingyun herself, it was hardly appropriate for an outsider like her to speak up.
She glanced at Yang Yuexi, who was playing with her toy completely oblivious to the world, breaking into a smile every now and then.
Turning her gaze back to Yang Qingyun, she saw a look in his eyes that verged on pleading.
“Brother Yang, if you can accept her death, what is there left for you to fear?”
“I don’t know,” Yang Qingyun answered without hesitation.
“I just think there are many things in this world far more terrifying than death. Otherwise, people wouldn’t take their own lives. I can accept her death… but is that really all there is to it?”
If that were truly all, why would Shen Qingchen keep it from him? Even if there were things she couldn’t bring herself to say, she could surely at least drop a hint about whether she was going to die or not, couldn’t she?
Yet Shen Qingchen was running away.
He knew her all too well.
For her to act like this, there had to be something else going on.
“Sigh… When she wakes up, I’ll try to persuade her to tell you.”
In truth, it was just death.
It was only that the living would forget.
It wasn’t even merely forgetting; every trace of that person’s former existence would vanish completely.
Yang Qingyun fell silent for a moment. He nodded, refraining from asking any further.
“I’m sorry,” he offered an apology, then stood up and picked up Yang Yuexi.
A little while later, the nanny arrived. Yang Qingyun handed the child over to her, as he had to make a trip to the company.
Since it was uncertain when Shen Qingchen would wake up, the company’s affairs still needed to be managed.
Bai Cha kept Yang Yuexi company for a while. Although she wasn’t particularly fond of children, Yang Yuexi was the type who didn’t throw tantrums, making her quite endearing on that virtue alone.
It was already around noon by the time Shen Qingchen woke up.
She came over to take over caring for the child, and the nanny prepared lunch before taking her leave.
Normally, if something came up at home, the nanny would stay in the room Bai Cha was currently occupying, mainly to make it easier to look after the child.
However, Bai Cha was staying there right now.
Shen Qingchen’s mental state didn’t look very good.
She first fed Yang Yuexi and coaxed her to sleep before sitting down to eat her own meal.
Bai Cha was truly of no help with these kinds of domestic chores.
When Shen Qingchen finally sat down to eat, Bai Cha sat down opposite her.
“Sister Shen, I’ll be heading back tomorrow.”
Shen Qingchen paused silently before saying, “I’ll go to your place with you. We can enter a game together while we’re at it. I’ve been entering games far too frequently lately.”
It was so frequent that it had become difficult to make up excuses. In truth, she was well aware that Yang Qingyun had been suspicious all along and was even more aware of his recent anxiety.
Hearing this, Bai Cha spoke up candidly, “Brother Yang came to me today. He asked me about you.”
She recounted everything Yang Qingyun had said, word for word.
“Sister Shen, I think you’d be better off telling him. Even if he forgets in the future, he still has the right to know right now.”
Although telling him wouldn’t change the outcome—unless she survived, everything would be in vain anyway—at least for the two of them right now, laying cards on the table would bring a measure of peace.
Shen Qingchen fell silent, letting out a deep sigh.
“I’ve thought about telling him, too. I thought about telling him right now that he’ll forget me, and I’ve also thought about waiting until I’m completely free of the game before telling him everything.”
She had envisioned countless possibilities, as well as the scenario where she failed.
“I just don’t want to say it. I just want to run away one last time.”
After all, if she failed, he would forget her anyway.
With every trace of her existence erased, whether she spoke today or not wouldn’t make a difference—it was coming soon, in any case.
And if she succeeded, there would be no point in bringing up these dreary thoughts; there would be plenty of time to talk about it then.
“What if he can’t forget?” Bai Cha recalled the box left behind by the erased Yu Zhenzhen, which clearly held a trace of Yu Zhenzhen’s presence in the world.
Evidently, the erasure following a game failure was by no means absolute.
“If a portion of your traces still remains, and that portion happens to reside in his memories, what will you do then?”
Having been in the game for so many years, how could Shen Qingchen not be aware of such a possibility?
Just as she admitted, she simply wanted to run away one last time.
Shen Qingchen rubbed the space between her eyebrows.
“Let me think about it some more. Let’s eat.”
Bai Cha pressed the matter no further.
Having some free time, she picked up her phone and found quite a few messages, mostly from Wen Xing and Xiao Xiao asking if she was alright.
Only then did Bai Cha realize that during her last game, when the system had been disabled, her livestream room had actually been blocked as well.
She checked the forums and saw that during the last dungeon, other players had also experienced their streams being blocked, mainly when issues arose in the world and the red moon began to appear overhead.
Later, when the dungeon restarted and the NPCs forced them into the Biyi Building, the broadcasts resumed, but Bai Cha’s had remained dark.
Furthermore, Bai Cha wasn’t visible in the camera feeds of other players’ streams.
In other words, the existence of that eyeball and her state at the time had both been shielded from view.
There were actually still many unresolved questions in that dungeon.
Especially regarding her parents; she planned to use this return trip to ask her aunt about them properly.
The next day, Bai Cha and Shen Qingchen departed.
Bai Cha’s stitches hadn’t been removed yet, so walking was still a bit difficult for her, though moving at a slower pace posed no issue.
Yang Qingyun made no move to stop Shen Qingchen from seeing Bai Cha off, even though he knew Shen Qingchen was merely avoiding him.
He drove them to the high-speed railway station.
When getting out of the car, Bai Cha stayed seated inside a bit longer, sensing that the two of them wanted to talk.
Yang Qingyun and Shen Qingchen stood side-by-side in silence.
“Get some rest,” Yang Qingyun said, ultimately choosing not to press his questions after all.
Shen Qingchen looked at him. Fine lines had already begun to form on Yang Qingyun’s face—and on hers as well.
Neither of them was young anymore.
From meeting at twenty-five until now, a full eight years had passed.
Shen Qingchen suddenly wrapped her arms around him.
Yang Qingyun’s body trembled slightly before he pulled her into a tight embrace.
“Yang Qingyun, I’m just scared.”
Shen Qingchen closed her eyes.
“I’m scared you’ll forget me, but that’s the truth… that’s why I didn’t dare tell you…”
She knew her behavior was nothing more than burying her head in the sand and deceiving herself.
She kept feeling that as long as she didn’t say it, the matter wouldn’t exist—yet she was constantly preparing for it, so how could she possibly pretend it wasn’t real?
“I’m sorry. Just wait for me a little longer. If it all ends and I’m still alive, there won’t be any of these troubling matters anymore. Truth be told, I was always reluctant to say anything because I felt like I’d be raising a flag.”
It was as if the moment someone raised a flag, they were bound to fail.
“If I die, you won’t remember me, and the child won’t remember me either. For you two, the impact won’t actually… be that great.”
Yang Qingyun finally received the answer he had been seeking all along, finally learning where that sense of panic had come from.
“What do you mean, ‘won’t remember’? How can you say that isn’t an impact?”
He felt rage rising within him, yet his tone remained quiet. Shen Qingchen knew that Yang Qingyun was truly furious.
Shen Qingchen was left speechless.
Yang Qingyun gritted his teeth tightly. After a long moment, the air went out of him, and he murmured, “Can’t I come with you?”
Shen Qingchen lifted her head from his chest in silence and gently pressed her lips to his.
