“Uncle Xi, you’re a celestial being, can you help me find my mobile phone?” Xie Tao sniffled, looking at the middle-aged man sitting opposite her, hope shimmering in her dewy, almond eyes.
“He’s a celestial being, not some kind of detection radar. How could he possibly find a phone?”
Before Old Xi could speak, Xie Lan interjected.
“I just don’t understand what’s so important about that phone. I’ve already said I’d buy you a new one, yet you refuse?” Xie Lan reached out, poking her forehead.
Xie Tao, touching her head, glared at him, “I don’t want you to buy it!”
Regarding the matter of Wei Yun, Xie Tao had already realized that many things were beyond her imagination, as if a huge net had descended. She hesitated, wondering whether to share these concerns with Xie Lan and Old Xi.
In the end, she merely said, “I… There’s someone I know, and I can’t find him.”
Lowering her eyelids, her voice became very soft.
“Is he a very important person?” Old Xi observed all of Xie Tao’s expressions and asked after a long moment.
Is he a very important person?
Xie Tao became slightly lost in thought.
Her drunken words that night seemed to have slipped out due to a sudden flutter in her heart.
Falling for someone she had never met sounded utterly absurd.
They had never met.
But when she returned alone to the Nan City, determined to uncover all truths for Zhou Xinyue yet feeling lost on where to start, it was he who helped her achieve her goal.
At that moment, her heart was filled with nothing but pure gratitude.
He seemed to be of the coldest disposition, but whenever Xie Tao felt helpless and confused, he always came through for her, like sending charcoal in snowy weather.
Just like on her birthday, when she opened the delivery locker and saw that wooden box.
Apart from Zhou Xinyue, Xie Tao had no other friends.
The emotions and secrets she was used to hiding, perhaps because of the virtual distance that didn’t require seeing each other, she began to share little by little with him.
And he became accustomed to listening to all she had to say, used to her chattiness.
When one’s curiosity about another becomes enough, it might unconsciously transform into another kind of unfamiliar emotion.
This seemed illogical.
Yet, it also seemed perfectly reasonable.
“Tao Tao, perhaps, all that you see is an illusion,” Old Xi’s voice suddenly came, with a hint of profound meaning, “Some people, some things, you shouldn’t take too seriously.”
His words were very cryptic, as if reminding her of something.
But seeing Xie Tao bowing her head, she remained silent for a long time. He then sighed again, reached out to touch the top of her head with a touch of kindness, “Take it easy, your belongings will eventually return to your hands.”
Upon hearing his words, Xie Tao instantly looked up at him, “Uncle Xi, you have a way, right?”
Old Xi looked at Xie Tao with an even more amiable and affectionate gaze, but he smiled without answering.
The workings of fate in this world, even he, a deity who has lived for over a thousand years, could not fully explain.
The opportunity facing this young girl was something no one could stop or interfere with.
An image of a face with a cold beauty flashed through Old Xi’s mind, and those eyes suddenly became somewhat dim.
Even she… could not interfere.
“Old Xi, you’re always mumbling, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
Xie Lan clicked his tongue.
Then he said to Xie Tao, “Don’t be sad, Sister Tao Tao. If Lan brother said he’d buy you a phone, he will buy you a phone. And, are you hungry now? If you’re hungry, Lan brother will cook you a bowl of instant noodles!”
Cooking instant noodles was all Xie Lan knew how to do.
To comfort the girl in front of him, he had already tried his best.
He even told a joke.
And Old Xi peeled a small bowl of melon seeds for her and pushed it in front of her.
Although Xie Lan’s joke was not funny, and although Old Xi didn’t talk much, Xie Tao still felt a bit of warmth from them.
They were just strangers who did not know each other before.
But in the deep of the night, they sincerely comforted her.
On the way home, Xie Tao refused Xie Lan’s offer to escort her, walking alone on the dimly lit pedestrian path.
It was already a bit cold in the autumn night.
Xie Tao zipped up her jacket, lowered her eyelids, and walked forward step by step.
Looking at the colorful neon lights not far away, she couldn’t help but wonder, what was Wei Yun doing at this moment?
Practicing calligraphy?
Reading?
So many days have passed, would he worry about her not contacting him?
Would he?
Her mind was a mess as Xie Tao slowly walked back to the residential complex, not noticing a young man who had been following her from a distance.
Seeing her enter the complex, he stopped on the sidewalk across the street, under the tree shadows illuminated by the lights, his figure somewhat indistinct.
Xie Lan stretched lazily, yawned, and as he turned around, his figure also disappeared in a sudden haze of fog.
Xie Tao was unaware of all these, she went upstairs, took out her keys, opened the door, and went in.
The moment she turned on the light, the dark room was instantly illuminated by the warm yellow light.
Initially, she just casually glanced around, but unexpectedly, she found a square box on her desk.
She paused for a moment, then walked over.
When she opened the box, she saw a cell phone inside.
It was her phone.
Xie Tao’s eyes widened, the sudden surprise made her stand still, forgetting to move.
As if suddenly thinking of something, she hurriedly opened the drawer of her desk.
The phone that had mysteriously appeared before was gone, as if it had never been there.
Who could have done this?
Xie Tao couldn’t imagine.
At this moment, she couldn’t think about much else; she quickly took out her own phone and turned it on.
Once connected to the network, she opened WeChat and saw the familiar nickname in her contacts, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Then she opened the chat interface and tried to send a message.
But a red exclamation mark suddenly appeared.
Xie Tao was shocked, holding her phone for a while, before tentatively sending another message, only for another red exclamation mark to appear.
Her messages couldn’t be sent out at all.
However, when she replied to Zhou Xinyue’s message, this problem did not occur.
The sudden joy from the phone gradually cooled down, the light in her almond eyes dimmed, Xie Tao sat blankly in front of the desk, looking somewhat lost.
Unbeknownst to her, at this moment, a man was standing downstairs, holding his waist and looking up at her lit window.
Every person who passed by downstairs couldn’t see him.
“Boss, I’ve already returned the phone to her,” the man said to the crystal ball in his hand. “What were you thinking, stealing a young girl’s phone for no reason? Even after stealing it, you couldn’t extract the phoenix tail scale inside. Keeping it is useless to you…”
“Where would I know that thing wouldn’t listen to me anymore!! I’m also very upset, okay? Do you know how important that thing is to me? It’s my token of love, a token of love! And now, it has become someone else’s…” The crystal ball was wrapped in electric currents, its light flickering, and the woman’s voice could be heard clearly.
“…Your old lover is gone, what’s the use of keeping the token of love? It might as well be left to the youngsters to fall in love,” the man muttered.
“AM670, if you keep going, you’ll lose your job number,” the woman’s voice came from the orb, gritting her teeth.
Losing the job number meant disappearing, which was unacceptable.
So the man hastily chuckled and said, “Boss, my mistake…”
“Stop dawdling, get back here now!”
“Yes, yes, yes…”
The man stuffed the crystal ball into his waist pouch, rubbed his nose, and with a sneeze, he had vanished.
At this moment, it was an endless night, and in another dimension, it was also a cool autumn night.
The same night in two different dimensions.
A group of guards in dark robes, holding torches, surrounded an abandoned and dilapidated mansion covered in fallen leaves, and standing before them was a young master in a dark red brocade robe.
This person was the Imperial Advisor of the great Zhou Dynasty, Wei Yun.
At that time, Wei Jing’s long sword was emitting a fierce cold light in front of the moonlight and fire, and he heavily kicked the leg of a man in a blue robe, causing him to uncontrollably kneel down, his knee heavily hitting the weed-embedded tiles.
The man winced in pain, and when he looked up at the young Imperial Advisor standing before him, he tried to appear calm, “Who are you? Why are you capturing me?”
Upon hearing his question, Wei Yun’s usually emotionless face seemed even colder.
“Don’t recognize me?” he said, his voice low and clear, with a hint of coldness.
Before the man could speak, he saw the brocade-clad young master immediately draw the long sword from the guard standing beside him.
With a slight lift of his wide sleeves, a flash of cold light.
The man screamed in sudden, excruciating pain, so intense that his eyes nearly split open, his veins bulging.
His right hand was abruptly severed by the sword, blood spurting, the smell of blood growing stronger.
“Dare to steal from me, yet not dare to admit?”
Wei Yun’s eyes seemed to have been soaked in broken ice and snow, still emanating bursts of coldness, with a touch of fierceness.
“Are all the dogs raised by Song Jinian as disobedient as you?”
Wei Yun lifted the sword in his hand, the blade still stained with fresh blood, pointing straight at the man’s neck, barely touching his jugular vein. The thin blade could easily cut through his vein with just a half-inch move forward.
