Oooo they doo the deed! (I lost the chapter title for this so deal with it!)
At this moment, Xia Yu had a blank expression on his face as he looked around at the surrounding trees.
He was merely tinkering with the star fragments in his bedroom; how did he suddenly end up in an unfamiliar forest?
Was he supposed to survive in the wilderness? But where was the standard-issue beautiful girl for wilderness survival? Wilderness survival without a beautiful girl was soulless!
Looking up at the sky, Xia Yu walked towards the sun. Five minutes later, he emerged from the forest and arrived at the edge of a lake.
He saw tourists coming and going; this place seemed to be a tourist attraction.
Regretting that he couldn't experience wilderness survival, Xia Yu took out his mobile phone.
There was no signal on the phone.
He pondered for a second, turned off the phone and restarted it, but there was still no signal.
Had he moved to another area?
Xia Yu was a little puzzled. However, he wasn't troubled, as nothing was a problem for him.
After a long time, he used his elegant skill and borrowed a phone from a passing girl to call Yu Ningmeng. At this time, of course, she should come and pick him up.
The phone was quickly answered, and a voice came through: "Who?"
Xia Yu frowned; this was a male voice.
What was Yu Ningmeng doing?
He checked the phone number, making sure he didn't dial the wrong one.
"Please give the phone to Yu Ningmeng," he said.
"What dream? You dialed the wrong number." After saying that, the other party hung up the call.
Listening to the busy tone from the phone, Xia Yu calmly thought, carefully analyzed, and drew a conclusion.
He opened the map on the phone, stared at the country and place names for two seconds, and confirmed the situation.
Returning the phone to the girl, Xia Yu thanked her.
"Is your phone out of battery? Anything you need me to help with?" The girl was reluctant to leave Xia Yu.
"No need, thank you." Waving to her, Xia Yu left the park where he was standing.
Standing on the street, he took out the star fragments from his pocket and looked at them—the star fragments were much dimmer than before, and the amount of golden powder inside had decreased by about half.
So, were these star fragments a world-traveling mechanism? By consuming them, could he travel between Earth and Blue Star?
The place names and country names Xia Yu just saw from the map, and the various software names in the phone, all told him that he had returned to Earth.
In Xia Yu's mind, his family members flashed through his thoughts.
Stashing the star fragments back into his pocket, he decided he didn't need to rush back since he was already here.
Finding a place with free wifi, Xia Yu connected to the internet using his phone and logged into his old QQ account.
In his QQ account, there were many unread messages from his old friends, asking where he had gone.
Without replying, Xia Yu glanced at the time. Two years had passed; he had been missing for two years.
Rubbing his forehead, Xia Yu decided to go home and see for himself. His home was about a three-hour bus ride away.
However, the money he had was Blue Star currency, which could not be used on Earth.
He tried to log into Alipay and WeChat, but due to having a new phone and no SIM card, complicated authentication was required. More importantly, he had forgotten his original phone number.
He didn't want to inquire about it on QQ, as he hadn't decided what to do next.
As he pondered, he walked towards the bus station.
On the way, he accidentally met the girl who had lent him her phone again. The girl was accompanied by a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl who waved excitedly upon seeing him.
Xia Yu was not interested in the older girl, but he was very interested in the younger girl beside her.
"Ning Qiu'er?" Xia Yu asked the girl.
"Huh? Do you know me?" The girl looked up at Xia Yu.
Unexpectedly, there was also a Ning Qiu'er on Earth, although she was still a child.
Xia Yu used his phone to connect to the nearby shop's network and searched for names like An Siyao and Liu Manman. But there were no results; it seemed that only Ning Qiu'er was special.
"Hey, you haven't answered me yet." Little Ning Qiu'er was somewhat unhappy.
"I've seen you once before." Xia Yu vaguely replied.
"I know, you must have seen me on TV, right?" Little Ning Qiu'er said with a somewhat smug expression.
Xia Yu searched Ning Qiu'er online, and the girl was an entertainer with only two lines of introduction and a half-body photo on Baidu Encyclopedia.
Since it was Ning Qiu'er, there was no need to be polite.
"Can I borrow some money from you?" Xia Yu asked Little Ning Qiu'er.
"Eh?" Little Ning Qiu'er didn't expect Xia Yu to say that.
She pointed to the girl beside her: "Why are you asking me? Shouldn't you be asking her? Why should I lend you money?"
"Because I'm your fan." Xia Yu looked earnestly at Little Ning Qiu'er.
"Oh, I see. Then I have no choice." The girl's face showed a grin she couldn't hide, "What's your WeChat? I'll transfer the money to you."
"Let's use QQ." Xia Yu logged into his secondary account.
After coaxing Little Ning Qiu'er into giving him some travel expenses and adding her QQ, Xia Yu bid farewell to the two and continued walking towards the bus station.
As he arrived at the station, the scenery before him began to blur.
With a sudden darkness, Xia Yu was back in his original room.
He pulled out the star fragment and found that the golden powder inside had completely dispersed.
So it wasn't charged by the number of uses, but by time?
He was a bit regretful that he hadn't had time to use the money he'd scammed.
He looked at the description of the star fragment again.
Empty shell of a star fragment: Collect seven empty shells to obtain a mysterious effect.
Had it become an empty shell, so it couldn't be used anymore?
He opened the rewards list again. He still had one reward that he hadn't used.
Star fragment clue: Use to obtain a clue to a star fragment.
He used the reward.
In his mind's eye, the faces of An Siyao, Xu Youxiang, and Liu Manman appeared.
To obtain a new star fragment, he would have to act through them.
With the fragments, he could return to Earth.
Xia Yu thought of his parents and wondered how they were doing after not seeing him for two years.
Before, he had never thought about this problem since he assumed he couldn't go back. But now that there was a possibility of returning, this question came to his mind and couldn't be suppressed.
He walked out of the room, poured a cup of coffee, and as he carried the coffee back to the bedroom, An Siyao came down the stairs.
The young girl looked anxious, and upon seeing Xia Yu, she was overjoyed and rushed forward to hug him.
Xia Yu failed to grasp the cup tightly, and it fell to the ground, shattering.
Placing his hand on An Siyao's back, Xia Yu asked with puzzlement, "What's wrong?"
"You suddenly disappeared!" An Siyao said with a sob.
Xia Yu didn't expect this, he touched the girl's head: "Just went away for a bit."
"But you were gone! I searched the house for a long time and couldn't find you; Mom said your phone location was gone too!" An Siyao raised her head, looking at Xia Yu pitifully.
The mother An Siyao mentioned referred to Kong Hanyue.
Xia Yu took note of the phone location issue and comforted An Siyao: "Suddenly had an urgent matter."
"Wasn't it to find Zhu Mei?" An Siyao asked.
"...No." Xia Yu tried hard to explain to An Siyao.
After half an hour, he seemed to have made An Siyao understand that he wouldn't look for Zhu Mei, but An Siyao still refused to leave Xia Yu, afraid that once she left, Xia Yu would disappear again.
At first, Xia Yu didn't care, but by nightfall, he sensed trouble.
An Siyao, wearing her pajamas, crawled into his bed.
"I'm not leaving." The girl wrapped herself tightly in the blanket, looking at Xia Yu warily, as if he were attacking her.
"If you don't leave, I can't guarantee what I'll do." Xia Yu threatened An Siyao, not lying.
The girl used the blanket to cover half her face, leaving only her eyes exposed, and stammered, "I-I'm already an adult."