LWDC Chapter 198

Chapter 198 – The Ex

Chapter 198 – The Ex

Chapter 198 – The Ex

The teleportation pod door slid open smoothly, and Ning Fei walked out.

“Welcome back, Ning Fei.”

The system announcement, audible only to him, echoed in his ears: “You have successfully completed the ‘General’s Adjutant Debt Collection Mission,’ with a mission duration of 502 time coordinates. Now beginning the settlement process…”

Ning Fei was preoccupied, listening distractedly, but he still clearly heard his performance results. Purely in terms of the debt collection ratio, it barely met Ning Fei’s standard for passing. If he didn’t have other matters to attend to in that world, Ning Fei would definitely give this mission a bad review.

—As for these other matters…

“Ning Fei?”

The sudden greeting interrupted Ning Fei’s thoughts. He turned his head and emotionlessly uttered a name: “…Lyons.”

“Ha, it really is you.” A tall man approached, with tanned skin, a rugged physique, and a slightly open collar revealing defined muscle lines. He raised a smile, his tone quite familiar: “What a rare coincidence, I almost thought I had mistaken you… Long time no see.”

Ning Fei blandly spat out two words: “Indeed.”

Lyons glanced at the direction of the teleportation pod door: “Just back from a mission?”

Ning Fei: “Mm.”

Lyons: “With your skill, it must be another high score and high income, right?”

Ning Fei: “So-so.”

“…I mean, is that necessary?” Lyons raised an eyebrow, with a teasing tone, “We don’t have any feud between us, you don’t need to treat me with such an impatient attitude, right?”

“We don’t have a feud, but we don’t have much of a relationship either, not close enough to casually chat when we meet on the road,” Ning Fei said, one hand in his pocket, coldly, “If there’s nothing important to say, then that’s it, see you.”

Having said that, Ning Fei was about to turn away when he heard Lyons teasingly say, “It seems that even if it’s ‘no feud,’ you’re still venting your anger on me. After so long, you still haven’t cooled down?”

Ning Fei paused, glancing at him: “Me? Angry with you? What for?”

“You’re following in your teacher’s footsteps, hating me like he does.” Lyons “ha”ed, his tone leisurely.

“After all, I’m Yu Zhou’s ex—though that was ages ago.”

Ning Fei also sneered.

Yes, Lyons was that “old news that’s better off dead” to Yu Zhou.

Yu Zhou now resolutely refuses to date people who jump out of small worlds, and Lyons is the culprit. And the direct trigger for the breakup, to put it bluntly, was that Lyons cheated in a mission world.

Not just “playing around,” but outright cheating, which is to say he fell in love with someone in the mission world. Moreover, it wasn’t that he started a new relationship, but that he inserted himself into one, and these two relationships weren’t even concurrent. When Yu Zhou was around, Lyons would act wholeheartedly in love with him; when Lyons entered a mission world and separated from Yu Zhou, he might fall in love with someone in the mission world; and when he left the mission world and returned, he would continue dating Yu Zhou.

Lyons believed that this was better for “maintaining freshness,” and he didn’t care about the moral issues involved. In his opinion, people with long lifespans who had jumped out of these worlds didn’t need so many boring constraints in their emotions. He believed that he was serious in every relationship, and that was already considered a perfect lover. As for what happened in the mission world, since Yu Zhou wasn’t with him in the same mission world, everything in the mission world had nothing to do with Yu Zhou.

Yu Zhou, a person with extremely strong control desires, of course couldn’t accept Lyons’s views.

Admittedly, they were happy when they were together, and Lyons accepted Yu Zhou’s “control”—whether it was voluntary for fun or forced—but Yu Zhou couldn’t accept that Lyons suddenly had another “ex” after returning from a mission. Yu Zhou would rather love completely and passionately, and then break up cleanly, than become a “fixed refresh NPC” in the other person’s series of emotions.

And Lyons’s suggestion of “you can see it as a reconciliation” made Yu Zhou even more disgusted. In this situation, he was inexplicably “broken up with” without knowing it, and then inexplicably turned back to “eat shit.” Yu Zhou never wanted to eat his words, and Lyons went and returned on his own accord, making Yu Zhou a joke in fact. With multiple overlaps, the breakup scene between Yu Zhou and Lyons became very ugly.

Many people in the Time-Space Administration knew the scandalous story between these two, and Ning Fei, as Yu Zhou’s student, naturally knew more inside information. In fact, he didn’t offer any advice when Yu Zhou was in love, nor did he give any suggestions or reasons when they broke up. He believed that Yu Zhou didn’t need these, and Yu Zhou really didn’t need them. But undeniably, the relationship that Yu Zhou had had a clear impact on Ning Fei’s emotional views.

Although it didn’t reach the extreme of “even if I’m in a relationship, I’ll only date people with a definite lifespan,” Ning Fei did realize that dating someone with the same endless lifespan was really hard to predict.

Like Yu Zhou before, each has their own work, entering different worlds separately, and it’s impossible to know the other person’s emotional changes.

But if they always went in and out together, or even always went to the same world to work, wouldn’t they quickly get tired of each other? How can people who are entangled for too long and too deeply break up decently?

Ning Fei felt that his personality was very similar to Yu Zhou’s in some ways. If he also encountered an object like Lyons, his reaction might not be more explosive than Yu Zhou’s.

—Tsk, it’s like suddenly being sent a warning bell…

The thought flashed through Ning Fei’s mind, and suddenly, he made a temporary decision.

“Hey, got time for a drink?”

*

Ning Fei and Lyons sat down in a bar.

“That’s rare.” Lyons shook his glass, his expression probing, “Even when Yu Zhou and I were as close as honey, I never drank with you. Now that we’ve been separated for so long, I’m drinking one-on-one with you instead. Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly become interested in me?”

Ning Fei’s reaction to this was a cold laugh.

“Alright, just kidding, don’t be so serious.” Lyons shrugged, “Tell me your real purpose.”

Ning Fei also took a sip of his drink: “Just wanted to chat.”

“I don’t think it’s just casual, right? You and Yu Zhou aren’t people who speak without a purpose, you didn’t poison my drink, so you must have something to ask me.” Lyons put his arm on the back of the chair, extending a finger with his glass towards him, “Tell me, what do you want me to confess?”

“I want to ask about your love history.”

“…” Lyons raised an eyebrow, “How should I put it, not very surprising, you guys can only find me because of this mess. But why suddenly discuss this now? Could it be that Yu Zhou suddenly remembered what big mistake I made back then and sent you to scout and interrogate me?”

Ning Fei replied: “It has nothing to do with him. I’m the one who wants to ask.”

Lyons asked: “What specifically do you want to ask? Tell me first, and then I’ll consider whether to answer you or not.”

Ning Fei thought for a while, and finally blurted out a question: “Have you… ever regretted it?”

“Regretted what?” Lyons asked back, “Regretted breaking up?”

“No, regretted dating Yu Zhou?” Ning Fei looked at his face, seemingly trying to get a real result based on his observation, “Especially when you guys were making it so ugly, did you ever think that you should have never had this broken relationship in the first place?”

“You’re saying, who hasn’t thought ‘if I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have done it’ when their temper flares up?” Lyons wasn’t being coy, and replied directly, “But overall, I didn’t really regret it.”

Ning Fei took another sip: “You’re a smart person, I don’t believe you didn’t see Yu Zhou’s temper before you started dating. When you decided to date him, didn’t you resolve to not touch anyone else? Or were you confident that you wouldn’t be discovered by him?”

“Neither. But I was too caught up in the moment, who could care so much.” Lyons’s words carried some nostalgia, “I liked him, I loved him at the time, so being with him was the happiest thing at the time. Getting what you wanted, and getting everything you deserved, that feeling was just awesome, okay? As for what messes would come after, who could care about that.”

Saying that, Lyons suddenly downed several more mouthfuls of wine, adding: “Okay, actually I would occasionally have these thoughts flash through my mind. For example, if I made some mistake in the future and was caught by Yu Zhou, the consequences would be very bad. But in my opinion at the time—and in my opinion now—bad is bad, there’s nothing I can’t get over. If I gave up being with Yu Zhou because of something that might happen in the future, I guess I would regret it. Yeah, the kind of regret that would make me sigh with regret when I thought about it before I died.”

Ning Fei raised an eyebrow: “So you thought the same way when you were dating in the mission world? Anyway, you’re willing to bear the consequences, just enjoy it first?”

“…You can say that, but I think I’m just someone who likes to enjoy the moment.” Lyons replied, “We’re all people with nearly infinite lifespans, if we’re going to consider the long term, how long is that? When will it end? I vaguely heard that Yu Zhou now dates in the mission world, so the average mission duration has been extended a lot. Isn’t that also a way of thinking about enjoying it and moving on? On the other hand, you’re still struggling with this. Although I don’t know the real reason why you suddenly came to chat with me, you shouldn’t live too hard, brother.”

Ning Fei ignored his teasing, just pressing on: “So, is this your reason for cheating? The so-called—’live in the moment’?”

“Hey, you said you wanted to come find me to chat, it’s not like I came looking for trouble just to be ridiculed by you.” Lyons finished the rest of the wine in one breath, slamming the glass on the table, “My views are different from Yu Zhou’s, we ended up making it ugly, I admit all of that. But if you want me to evaluate the time when we were good, I’m also willing to give a high score. I’m not so bad that I’ve been internally consumed by a relationship with a bad ending.”

Saying that, he stood up: “Alright, I feel like if we keep chatting, we’ll have to argue. Whether the answer I gave is what you wanted to hear or not, I’ve said everything I can. I didn’t take care of you when I was dating Yu Zhou, so this time, consider it my treat.”

With that, Lyons really left.

Ning Fei didn’t say goodbye, he was even too lazy to look at the other person’s departing back. He just looked at the remaining wine in the glass, silently for a long time, and finally raised his head and drank it all.

“Another glass, make it strong.”