VCRMM: Chapter 128

Xu Sili left the game cabin, sorted out his slightly messy silver hair and walked out of the dark room to look at the sky outside.

Evening was approaching and the sun set over the western mountains. Red clouds painted the entire sky, layers upon layers framed by transparent glass panes into a brilliant oil painting.

The light entered the bedroom, covering all of the scenery with warm colors. It created a sense of tranquility and peace.

Xu Sili smiled gently. He raised his arms and stretched. He was just about to go out when his steps paused slightly. Then he continued to walk into the cloakroom connected to the dormitory and changed into heavy winter clothes.

“Where is Si Sheng?”

He walked out of the bedroom, saw the empty corridor and asked Li Zhecheng.

Li Zhecheng replied, “Reporting to Your Majesty, the marshal sent the brave Yushu Linfeng away. I haven’t seen him come back yet. It is estimated that… he went to Administrator Qiu.”

Due to his special talent, Qiu Zheng had been dealing with these tedious government affairs and he was later made into an administrator.

The brave Yushu Linfeng…

Hearing his second brother being called like this, Xu Sili couldn’t help wanting to laugh. The name of his brother was really showing off quite shamelessly, but it was also quite in line with his character.

He nodded, gathered the cloak around his body and walked toward Qiu Zheng’s office. Li Zhecheng wanted to follow but was casually dismissed by him.

In any case, there were the shadow guards, he was in the palace and he had reached level 25. In the entire empire, he had the highest level apart from Si Sheng and Li Zhecheng. There was no need for a personal guard.

Xu Sili walked through the long corridor and his steps unknowingly became a bit eager. He couldn’t care about the cold wind that kept whistling from both sides of the corridor.

At this moment, he really wanted to see Si Sheng quickly.

He never thought that Si Sheng would confess his love so early…

At that time, it hadn’t even been a month since he came to this world, right? He had still been trying to earn 10 million star coins for the alliance so it must’ve been less than a month.

Si Sheng, this fool, adjusted himself to the age of a teenager and suddenly ran to confess to him, expressing his adoration. How could Xu Sili believe it?

Looking back now, that scene was already a bit blurry. He only remembered the gray-blue eyes full of fiery emotions under the mask of the young white fox.

Perhaps at that time, Si Sheng didn’t want him to know.

Even if Si Sheng really confessed his love, would Xu Sili believe it at that time? Impossible.

Xu Sili knew his personality. It was impossible for him to trust Si Sheng completely until Si Sheng confessed that he had kept his memories of the previous world.

He shook his head and quickened his pace a bit.

He had just come to the palace where the administrators handled government affairs. Xu Sili didn’t see anyone apart from Qiu Zheng and Wen Jishan, who were buried in the piles of paper.

Now the situation in Doha Town and Mercenary Town had basically stabilized. The expansion was still in progress but the speed had decreased significantly after winter. Wen Jishan had time to come back to help Qiu Zheng.

Originally, according to the custom of previous years, they could take a vacation after entering winter. However, due to the series of decrees and reforms from the emperor, there were still piles of things to deal with every day.

In general, the work might be a bit hard but when compared to some of the data and reports from a year ago, one would find that the empire had changed drastically.

It was just that the time of the change was still too short.

Take Imperial City as an example. It was only a city but it had a vast territory and a total population of over 10 million. Originally, only the inner city with a population of nearly one million was considered to not be in need of food and clothing.

Now counting Mercenary Town and Doha Town, there were around four million people living a prosperous life with a lot of food and clothing. However, there were still nearly 10 million people.

The construction and transformation of the empire still had a long way to go, but Qiu Zheng was full of confidence.

He believed that in another one or two years, everyone would be fed, clothed and able to stay warm. Yet for now, these were still difficult problems that needed to be solved.

At this moment, Wen Jishan and Qiu Zheng were discussing with several ministers about the difficulty of grain transportation in remote mountainous areas.

Xu Sili wasn’t in a hurry and stood at the door to listen for a while.

Due to the wood elementalists training day and night, now there was enough Black Valley and grain in Imperial City. However, there was indeed a big problem in terms of transportation.

After all, the area of more than 300,000 square kilometers was larger than many provinces in reality.

Yet at this juncture when the second closed beta was launched, this problem wasn’t a problem.

Xu Sili walked into the room. Once his arrival was noticed, several ministers who usually didn’t have much contact with him stood up in fear.

Wen Jishan and Qiu Zheng also stood up and bowed to him.

Xu Sili waved at them to sit down. “I heard what you were discussing from outside just now.”

He looked around at everyone and his eyes fell on the ministers.

There were four people. Two were veteran nobles and two were new nobles from a commoner origin. The favorability label they showed was ‘Respect’, which made Xu Sili nod with satisfaction.

Ever since he publicly upgraded Imperial City and lifted the level limit, most of the nobles had accepted him. Of course, the treatment of these latecomers wasn’t quite the same as those who were loyal to him from the beginning.

They needed to prove their usefulness with their actions in order to gain his trust.

“The transportation of food isn’t a problem,” Xu Sili continued.

Their eyes lit up and Qiu Zheng couldn’t help saying, “Your Majesty, do you have a way to solve it?”

Xu Sili smiled. “Yes. It isn’t difficult to solve this problem. Just leave it to the braves.”

“The braves?”

Qiu Zheng and the four ministers were stunned. Only Wen Jishan, who had the most dealings with the braves, was thoughtful.

“That’s right, the braves.”

Xu Sili tapped his fingers on the desk and thought for a while. “In this way, sort out all the places that need relief and mark them on a map, preferably an electronic map.”

“How much relief is needed in each place, the latest arrival time, the person in charge of the area and the contact details.”

“Can these things be sorted out by tomorrow?”

Qiu Zheng saw Xu Sili looking over and quickly nodded. “No problem, Your Majesty.”

Xu Sili told him, “Very good. Send it to me after sorting through it.”

It was possible for him to directly summon the players, but considering that most of the braves were in Mercenary Town or Doha Town, it took a lot of time to go back and forth.

It was winter and someone might starve to death if they couldn’t eat. Thus, he would use the mission system to distribute it directly.

“You guys keep busy.”

After Xu Sili finished speaking, he turned around and left while continuing to look for Si Sheng.

If Si Sheng wasn’t here with Qiu Zheng, where would he be?

Xu Sili frowned. He really didn’t want to use the summoning, but now it seemed like he could only summon Si Sheng.

He suddenly stopped and his gaze crossed the corridor to land on the figure standing in the garden.

Hah, he had been searching high and low. Why was this guy here? Looking at his back, Xu Sili’s lips curved slightly. He raised his feet and walked over.

The snow that fell last night hadn’t completely melted today. His shoes made a creaking sound when he stepped on it.

It wasn’t known what Si Sheng was thinking, but he was thinking so deeply that he didn’t even react when Xu Sili approached him.

Xu Sili cocked his head slightly. Then he secretly tiptoed, stretched out his frozen hands and inserted them into the man’s collar. He asked with a smile, “Ah Sheng, what are you thinking?”

Si Sheng trembled, as if he wanted to look back at Xu Sili. Then he stopped abruptly halfway through.

“Ah Li…”

His voice was a bit hoarse, as if he was suppressing something.

Xu Sili frowned slightly when he realized that something was wrong. He withdrew his hand from the warm collar and was about to go to the front to look at Si Sheng. Then he was grabbed by the man and hugged.

Xu Sili couldn’t move the moment these powerful arms tightened.

“Si Sheng, what’s wrong with you?”

He asked, “Did my second brother make things difficult for you?”

Based on Li Zhecheng’s words, it seemed that Si Sheng had just sent his second brother away.

“No, your second brother didn’t make things difficult for me.”

Si Sheng buried his head in the other person’s shoulders and whispered.

Hearing him call out ‘second brother’ so smoothly, he thought that the two of them should’ve gotten along well. That made Xu Sili even more puzzled.

So what was going on now?

He reached out to hug Si Sheng back. He felt his body tremble slightly and felt even stranger in his heart. “Then you…”

At this time, Si Sheng suddenly let go of him and took his cold hand.

“Let’s go back to the room to talk.”

His voice was still hoarse and he tried to avoid Xu Sili’s inquiring gaze. Nevertheless, Xu Sili still saw his red eyes.

Xu Sili calmed down and didn’t ask any more questions. Under Si Sheng’s guidance, they flashed to a familiar yet somewhat unfamiliar courtyard.

This was…

Xu Sili looked around and quickly remembered that this was the other courtyard where he and Si Sheng had lived in the trial realm. Snow Roland had lived here before.

It had been left unused after he moved out.

Si Sheng took him by the hand and pushed open the door to enter the place where the two of them had ‘lived.’ Even if no one lived there, someone had been coming for a long time to clean it. It still looked clean and tidy.

Seeing this familiar yet somewhat different room from the trial world, Xu Sili couldn’t help sighing. At the same time, he didn’t quite understand why Si Sheng brought him here.

Si Sheng let go of his hand, took dry firewood from outside and placed it in the fireplace to light it. Roaring flames rose up and dispelled all the coldness in the room.

Xu Sili breathed out comfortably. Then he watched Si Sheng come over and take his hand, leading him to the edge of the bed to sit down. He crouched in front of Xu Sili and looked up at him.

The man’s eyes were still slightly red as he looked at Xu Sili with deep guilt and pity. This made Xu Sili feel at a loss.

However, he didn’t speak and waited quietly. He knew that Si Sheng would give him an answer.

Si Sheng took his hands and pressed the palms to his face. Then Si Sheng closed his eyes slightly, as if calming the still agitated emotions.

“I… in fact, I’ve been scared…”

The man spoke softly. His voice was still hoarse and Xu Sili trembled when he heard it.

He pursed his lips, held this man’s cheeks and gently stroked his face.

“What is your fear?” Xu Sili asked.

He actually felt something. Yesterday, he thought that it was because Si Sheng misunderstood him and his second brother. Now it seemed this wasn’t the case.

Si Sheng opened his eyes, gray-blue eyes staring at him obsessively. “I’m afraid… you will abandon me, just like in the original world.”

“I have been thinking about what I did wrong in the first place to annoy you and make you leave without any regrets…”

He was abandoned in the abyss of endless darkness. Even if Lord God thought of him again and took him to a new world, he never appeared again and didn’t even say a word to him.

Xu Sili was slightly stunned. He never knew that Si Sheng would think like this. Abandonment…

From Si Sheng’s point of view, it was indeed abandonment.

He opened his mouth slightly. He was about to explain but he heard Si Sheng continue.

“Now I finally know the reason…”

The man’s voice trembled. His eyes became redder and his deeply wrinkled and almost distorted facial features were full of pain and sorrow.

“It turns out that…”

The corners of his mouth spread like he wanted to smile, but he couldn’t smile. Finally, he simply buried his face in Xu Sili’s arms. He hugged Xu Sili tightly, as if he would never let go again.

Feeling his grief and shame, Xu Sili was at a loss over what to do. Finally, he reached out and stroked the soft blond hair, patting Si Sheng’s back with his other hand.

He probably guessed what his second brother said to Si Sheng.

Moreover, he also understood why Si Sheng always loved to hide from him before and refused to tell him many things.

For Si Sheng, he was abandoned…

What did Si Sheng experience before he was transferred to Starry Sky Age? In the past, he always took it for granted that he should’ve fallen into a deep sleep, but what if this wasn’t the case?

Besides, what a bad experience it must’ve been to become a little slave again in this world?

He just had to think of the young man with dull and emotionless eyes that he saw in the underground slave market in the world of trials and he would be full of distress.

Xu Sili looked at him and said in a low voice, “I’m sorry…”

If he hadn’t been sick, hadn’t died in the plane crash or hadn’t willfully asked the game team to transfer Si Sheng’s data to Starry Sky Age, would Si Sheng have needed to go through these pains?

Si Sheng’s body was slightly stiff as he raised his head to look up at Xu Sili. “The person who should say this is me.”

It turned out that his god didn’t abandon him.

He didn’t reappear because… he was dead.

He died ten years ago.

His god had already fallen by the time that world collapsed.

“I should’ve guessed.”

His brow was wrinkled with pain and his voice was even more uncomfortable, as if he was choking. “I was too weak. I couldn’t protect you at that time. It is my fault…”

Xu Sili was a bit moved and also a bit amused. He touched Si Sheng’s cheek and asked softly, “How can this be your fault?”

“It is my fault. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gone through so much pain…”

Hearing this, Si Sheng shook his head.

“I said, if these pains are the only way to come to you then I am willing.”

Xu Sili trembled slightly when looking at Si Sheng’s determined expression.

His eyelashes drooped slightly and he thought for a moment. “Then let go of the past… we still have the present and the future.”

He gently touched the corner of the man’s eyes and said with a smile, “Now you don’t have to be afraid.”

“I won’t leave you, nor will I abandon you.”

“Si Sheng, it is my greatest luck to live again in this world and to meet you again.”

The corners of Si Sheng’s lips curved. His eyes were still red and pitiful, making Xu Sili very soft.

“So you kidnapped me here. Are we going to talk about this all night?”

The young man cocked his head. His purple eyes were slightly teasing and were ambiguous in the light of the fire.

Si Sheng looked a bit dazed. The young man placed his hands on Si Sheng’s shoulders. He leaned close to Si Sheng’s ear and whispered in a low and hoarse voice. “Tonight… do you want to be above or below?”

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TL: Advance chapters are available over on my Patreon. You can go check out the details on my Patreon page.

Proofreader: Purichan