Chapter 97:Cross-Dimensional Call

Huo Yuqing's sudden mention of marriage left Wang Rui completely flustered.

He had originally planned to talk about how she had disguised herself as a man without ever coming clean on her own initiative, showing a lack of trust in him. But in the end, she managed to get away with it by throwing a tantrum, acting cute, and apologizing profusely.

So, that matter was considered settled.

That same evening, she headed to the Soul Tool Department to undergo her Soul Engineer certification.

Qian Duoduo even specifically sent a student from the Soul Tool Department to fetch her, fearing that if he was even a step too slow, some unexpected change might occur.

Meanwhile, Wang Rui stayed in the dormitory, continuing to question his own existence.

To be honest... a large portion of the current situation was completely different from the original story. Many things that had little description in the original work had undergone significant changes.

Yet, some parts of the plot remained stubbornly the same—just like how Yan Shaozhe's bloodline and martial soul had changed, yet his name was still the same as in the original. Perhaps this was a kind of convergence of world lines.

Huo Gua had always been a girl from birth, and her name had changed to Huo Yuqing. But her alias was still Huo Yuhao, another stubborn remnant of the original timeline.

Wang Rui closed his eyes.

A golden Rui Beast appeared in his sea of consciousness, feeling overwhelmed as it scratched at the illusionary grass within his mindscape. After a while, its frustration eased slightly, and it rolled on the ground, shifting back into its human form.

He suddenly sensed something amiss and looked up—only to see Electrolux's head peeking through his room's window.

The old man blinked mischievously, wearing an expression of "I understand, I won't disturb you," before retracting his head.

"..." Wang Rui's face was filled with embarrassment as he trudged into the castle.

Behind him, bricks and staircases shifted and reshaped. Wang Rui climbed a spiral staircase leading up a tower until he reached an attic.

Beyond the door lay an entirely different world.

The space inside was decorated in a modern style, as if he had suddenly stepped out of a magical castle and into a contemporary Muggle home.

The room wasn't large but was arranged cozily. On the computer desk sat a round fish tank, its bottom covered in colorful pebbles, with a few half-dead guppies sluggishly swimming around.

These fish originally belonged to Wang Rui's sister, Wang Rui, but she changed fish more frequently than she changed the water. Wang Rui found it quite fitting to call this fish tank a postmodern aquatic concentration camp—or perhaps the gateway to fish heaven wasn't too far off either.

[T/N: Yes, his sister's name is also Wang Rui, Wang Xiaohua is her pen name]

This space was an illusion of Wang Rui's past room—or rather, a fusion of all the places he had once lived in. Some areas even contained blurry elements that didn't belong to his past world.

The most prominent feature was a family photo on the bookshelf. However, the faces of the four people in the frame were completely blank—nothing remained of them.

Fifteen thousand years had, after all, changed some things.

Wang Rui flopped onto the bed, unplugged his phone from the charging cable, and made a call.

"Hello?" A cool, slightly puzzled female voice answered. "Why are you calling all of a sudden? Didn't you say last time that this kind of cross-world communication consumes a lot of energy?"

"Something big happened," Wang Rui said. "In this world, Huo Yuhao is a girl!"

"The Three-Eyed Golden Lion has always been male. If Huo Yuhao turns out to be a girl, what's the big deal?" The woman on the other end sounded completely unfazed. "That world is already different from the original one—have you heard of parallel worlds? Differences like these are totally normal. For example, in Marvel's Earth-3490, Iron Man is gender-swapped—"

"Wait, what kind of stuff have you been looking at online?" Wang Rui interrupted, feeling a bit overwhelmed.

"..." The other side seemed momentarily guilty. "W-Well… I read it in a comic. Anyway, when a single change causes massive alterations in the world, it's completely normal. It's like when we switched places, two completely new timelines were created. So, the changes in your world are still understandable."

"But—"

"Anyway… after you went there, that place stopped being my world," the voice on the other end said. "You should know by now, since you've mastered fate energy better than I have, right? That world is yours now."

Wang Rui was silent for a moment before asking, "...But do you really not care anymore?"

"..." The silence from the other end lasted longer than he expected. Then, the woman's voice came through, pretending to be casual, "Then just be with her. That would be the same as me being with him."

"Be happy, okay?"

...

Wang Rui put down the phone in his spiritual space.

A wave of dizziness hit him, and for the first time in a long while, he felt mentally drained. Using even the faintest thread of karma to reach across worlds and contact someone from another reality was still too exhausting.

Parallel worlds, huh…

Forget it. If even Miss Jin wasn't bothered by the gender swap of the person she liked, why should he get hung up on Huo Gua turning into Huo Yuqing?

He yawned and fell asleep peacefully.

The next morning, when Wang Rui woke up, he felt as though an octopus—or maybe some kind of tentacle monster—was clinging to his body.

Huo Yuqing was in his bed. She was still in her school uniform, with a brand-new Soul Engineer badge pinned to her chest, which suggested that her assessment the previous day had gone quite well.

She must have been exhausted lately, because she was sleeping deeply.

Her sleeping posture, however, was anything but reserved—one arm and one leg were draped over half of Wang Rui's body.

…Who was taking advantage of whom here? Who was ruining whose innocence? Wang Rui complained internally.

Wasn't it said that people who lack a sense of security tend to curl up when they sleep? Why was Huo Yuqing's posture so dominant…? He carefully moved her arm and leg off himself and got up.

Huo Yuqing mumbled something in her sleep, then instinctively groped around the bed. Slowly, she curled herself into a ball.

…She looked kind of pitiful like that.

Wang Rui felt an inexplicable twinge of sympathy and slid his arm under her.

Still half-asleep, the girl clutched his hand and hugged it to her chest.

…There was a slight curve… but still fairly flat.

Wang Rui's ears turned red as his thoughts drifted toward inappropriate territory.

He decided he needed to feed Huo Yuqing better.

Oh, right. There was still a bit of unfinished business.

(End of Chapter)