LWGP - Chapter 250
Chapter 250: Spacetime
The Old Lady elegantly singled out a few people, asking if they could help bring her up to speed.
She was quite polite, but she possessed an air of unassailable authority, much like a certain someone.
She pointed to Xie Lu, Qing He, Lin Guiwan, Qiao Xuejing, and Roy.
It was like picking people out at a nightclub.
Someone secretly wondered: Is it because all these people are connected to Wang Jiu?
The Old Lady hadn’t forgotten Wang Jiu?
But in the next second, someone else muttered, “Is she picking the good-looking ones?”
Number One, who had been about to step forward and speak: “…”
For Xie Lu and the others, the information they shared was carefully selected. They all had a tacit understanding… not to mention Wang Jiu in their words.
It was out of respect for Wang Jiu’s choice.
But after listening to their filtered descriptions, the Old Lady said thoughtfully, “So who gave me the pile of resources in my email and package, as well as the lordship of this Gobi Territory? Don’t tell me I created it myself in the past but accidentally died and got amnesia. If I had made it, I wouldn’t have chosen the name Gobi. Go on, which good Samaritan gave it to me?”
Good Samaritan, she was not.
Everyone: “…”
To have just come back from the dead, found her daughter, and still maintain such a calm and sharp state of mind—fooling her would be too difficult!
Everyone was momentarily speechless, but then they saw the Old Lady’s eyes turn somber. “And the warship. You don’t look like people who could produce such a trans-spacetime resource. I just checked the information on the social network. There’s only one person… Wang Jiu, is it? Looking at this photo, the young lady doesn’t seem like someone to be trifled with. Hmm, Lao Wang from next door?”
Wang Shu and the others, who were being scanned by the Old Lady’s peculiar gaze: “…”
Holy shit! We didn’t come up with that name, we didn’t!
She’s the good girl you raised!
“Is she dead? How did she die? Was it to save me and Jiong Jiong? Otherwise, your micro-expressions wouldn’t be so strange.”
“Tell me everything, properly.”
She spoke unhurriedly, wiping the dust from the sleeping Jiong Jiong’s cheek. Her gaze swept over everyone.
“Trust me, even if you don’t tell me, I can find out. But as you can see, time is precious right now. I don’t want to be muddle-headed when the Eternal Night apocalypse arrives.”
She turned her head, her eyes lowered as she said softly, “My intuition tells me Jiong Jiong is back, but I’ve lost someone most important.”
“Little friends, can you help this old woman out?”
Qing He and the others: “…”
An hour later, the Old Lady returned to the room. After a thorough examination confirming that Jiong Jiong had truly returned and was physically fine, her emotions were complex. There was an infinite, surging excitement, yet also a sense of bewildered loss.
Logically, to lose something and then regain it should bring an extreme, overflowing sense of happiness. But it didn’t. She felt an extreme sense of loss, an emptiness.
In fact, when she had first revived, she was quite dazed. She had already seen Jiong Jiong while observing her surroundings.
In that instant, after the shock came immense joy, but she also keenly sensed that the situation was far more complicated than she had imagined.
The environment was wrong, the world was wrong, and the people were wrong.
Something her past self could never have imagined must have happened. Otherwise, her colleagues wouldn’t have shed their usual composure for such unease.
The changes were too great. She had to digest the external situation before dealing with her and Jiong Jiong’s internal one.
So, even with Jiong Jiong’s return and Song Yuanqiao’s death—two pieces of news landing on her heart in succession—she remained steady. She began to question everyone for information and seized on the oddities to directly point out Wang Jiu’s existence.
If she didn’t ask now, even if she could find out later, certain details would be lost, because the people present would have had enough time to weave a perfect web of lies.
It had to be fast, ruthless, and precise.
Honestly, even though Xie Lu and the others had cautiously simplified the facts, Lin Zi was still stunned for a long while… She used the excuse of returning to her room to look after Jiong Jiong to let her composure slip.
Wang Jiu… Ah Jiu?
She walked out onto the balcony, leaning against the railing and looking at the devastated landscape in the distance. Suddenly, the private chat of a friend she had just added pinged.
She glanced at it. It was someone she didn’t recognize.
It was a friend request, and the system noted that it was a private chat method left behind through a spacetime medium.
The reason for the private chat was that she had the other party’s medium in her package. Because the medium was given to her as an inheritance, the other party’s contact information was also transferred to her.
The other party’s identity was even noted.
The Old Lady glanced at it and mused, “Future father-in-law?”
A eunuch is a eunuch. What’s with the future tense?
What kind of note was that child using?
Lin Zi, slightly disdainful, accepted. The other party’s voice came through: “Wang Jiu, I think you’re still alive. If you are, for the sake of your future husband, who is my son, and for the future of our family, let’s discuss another collaboration. How about it?”
The Old Lady processed this and replied, “Hello, I am an elder in Wang Jiu’s family.”
Xing Yao: “???”
The great emperor, contacting someone across spacetime for the first time, was a bit baffled.
Is this a mobile phone? Can someone else answer it? Or is this a new trick from that treacherous woman, Wang Jiu?
Xing Yao maintained his imperial dignity and calmly said, “Is that so? Then do you expect me to call you Mom? Wang Jiu, I’m here to talk business.”
He assumed this was one of Wang Jiu’s jokes.
The Old Lady frowned, recalling the sniveling fatty’s trembling description of some of Wang Jiu’s social connections.
The Old Lady maintained her smile. “Apologies, my child just turned her husband into an ex-husband a while ago. You, or your son, will have to sign up to get in line. But if you want to call me Mom in advance, that’s fine too. It’s no skin off my back, but I won’t acknowledge it. I suggest you talk business first.”
Xing Yao: “…”
When the Old Lady mentioned signing up, she had pulled him into it as well. The emperor wanted to explain something, but ultimately held his tongue.
Because they had all received a system announcement.
An announcement received by all players.
The Undead Race expansion had ended.
A new expansion was beginning.
The name of this expansion was—Eternal Night.
Yes, the Fourth Spacetime and the Third Spacetime received the announcement simultaneously.
Evidently, the Fourth Spacetime was struggling to withstand the swift operations of the Eternal Night Race. A spacetime crisis was imminent, but the Third Spacetime was in the worst position.
The apocalypse had only just begun, and the game’s progress was shooting up like a rocket, again and again.
And now it had directly entered the stage where the Eternal Night Race was about to descend on a massive scale?
This was simply dreadful news!
Faced with such dreadful news, the Old Lady chatted with her “future in-law” or “future son-in-law” for a while. Just before ending the call, Xing Yao finally asked, “Where is she?”
The Old Lady fell silent for a moment. Her voice was soft, but devoid of emotion. “They all say she’s dead.”
Xing Yao: “Is that a fact?”
The Old Lady: “I’ve died before, too.”
Xing Yao understood. She was the person Wang Jiu had to save.
“Is there anything you need help with?” Xing Yao knew full well that to cooperate with the Third Spacetime and form an alliance, he had to offer something.
If she asked for technology, they might not necessarily give it. The important leaders of the two spacetimes would naturally bring it up during future negotiations; she didn’t need to overstep her bounds.
The Old Lady thought for a moment, then something occurred to her. “Not for now. If I had to say something, it would be to please raise your son well.”
Xing Yao: “…”
They really were one family.
Cut from the same cloth.
After ending the communication, Xing Yao stood atop the warship, looking at the battlefield where a fierce fight had just concluded, his expression grave.
He wondered if Wang Jiu would be resurrected by the time the people of the two spacetimes met face to face.
At that moment, the Old Lady returned to her room and sat by the bed, repeatedly playing the video she had recorded while listening to Wang Shu and the others. She listened and watched.
She committed every detail to memory, mulling it over. Her original intention was to learn more about this child and to capture more information, but unexpectedly, it felt as if she naturally understood this child.
Without much thought, it flowed like water; she felt that the other’s thoughts were exactly as they should be.
1. Erasing her own memory was because she was certain she would die and was afraid of her own grief. Furthermore, she couldn’t face herself because Jiong Jiong had been implicated and tortured by the Black Witch Organization on her account, so she simply erased her memories.
2. Transferring the inheritance and lordship to her contradicted the intention of point 1. Did she not know she would become suspicious and investigate? Whose intelligence was she looking down on? And with her intelligence, if she really wanted to transfer resources, there were other channels. The best way would have been through Number One and Xie Lu. She must have known her very well. Given this contradiction, she would definitely see through it. So, why did she still do it?
She was laying the groundwork, and also hinting at something.
Combining these two points, the person’s character became clear.
Calm, decisive, extreme, yet unwilling to give up. She was unwilling to die, and… she couldn’t bear to part with her.
She really couldn’t bear it.
Because she couldn’t bear it, such a decisive person still had lingering attachments, and was so cautious.
For some reason, Lin Zi’s eyes stung terribly, and her heart felt as if it were being hammered, a dull, aching pain. She couldn’t help but bring up her light-brain, which displayed a picture.
There were so few pictures. Xie Lu had secretly given it to her, saying that Roy had posted it on her social network before… Good heavens. She then went back and found the original post based on her social network memories. So much gossip.
She got angry as she went through them, but the person was already gone.
Lin Zi pressed her palm over the picture on the light-brain, gently pressing it under her and Jiong Jiong’s overlapping hands.
She didn’t cry, but she suppressed the hoarseness in her voice, speaking in a gentle tone to the sleeping Jiong Jiong.
“Today, we both came back, but we both lost something too.”
“We have to work hard, Jiong Jiong.”
“We must both be brave for the hard-won brilliance of this mortal sun.”
The emotions came quickly and faded slowly, but in the process, Lin Zi also began to ponder a crucial question—if Wang Jiu left behind this contradictory action, she must have had a way to save her own life, just without certainty.
So, assuming it was feasible, what method would it be?
This was very important.
It was related to what method she would have to use to see this child.
Luoyang, Gobi.
Many people thought that with Wang Jiu gone, Gobi would fall apart.
Instead, it grew stronger, developing at a pace far exceeding its past.
Why?
Lao Wang didn’t care and didn’t manage it; everything was propped up by the power of money and resources.
The Old Lady was different.
Many people thought that even if Lao Wang hadn’t died and her Old Lady had taken over, Gobi would have continued to develop rapidly and become the second most powerful city in the ninth district, but Qing He’s group would have left.
But they didn’t.
Before, they were just helping Wang Jiu manage things. Now, they had moved in directly. It was said that their relationship with the Old Lady was excellent, even better than with Wang Jiu.
After all, in terms of personal morals, Wang Jiu was flawed in every way, whereas the Old Lady was the opposite.
It was said…
Anyway, many things were said, and many people saw it.
Lao Wang was fierce, but the Old Lady was difficult to deal with. In any case, neither was to be trifled with.
But now, no one dared to provoke Gobi. Firstly, Gobi was too strong, having received Wang Jiu’s inheritance from the Fourth Spacetime. Secondly, as soon as the Old Lady took over Gobi, it was tantamount to an infinite alliance with the central government.
Wang Jiu had too many hidden dangers, so the central government didn’t fully trust her, keeping a distance. But with the Old Lady in charge, it was different.
So, attacking Gobi was equivalent to attacking the central government. Others would do the math.
And there was the most important third point.
They all knew about the existence of Yan Hui’s group. They struck with lightning speed and bloody ruthlessness, and after succeeding, they all entered Gobi.
The leaders of many organizations (including Cai Market) had complicated feelings: it wasn’t as bad as eating shit, but it was definitely like eating surströmming or blue cheese…
They really wanted to retaliate, but they couldn’t win. Forget it, forget it. After all, the Eternal Night expansion had arrived.
Forty-six days after the Red Copper Ritual.
On the 46th day of the Eternal Night expansion, the arrival time of the Eternal Night Race was moved up from after 6 PM to 3 PM, and their duration was extended to half an hour.
This squeezed the players’ time for running dungeons. No one dared to linger in the wilderness after 3 PM. It also slowed down the players’ development speed. After all, if you had to be back in the city before three, you couldn’t really wait until three to return. It was like catching a flight; you had to be there at least an hour early. What could you accomplish in those two afternoon hours?
A day that used to allow for two or three dungeons was now limited to one.
This situation made the players of the Third Spacetime miserable, but extreme pressure led to extreme development.
When humans got smart, they came up with all sorts of tricks.
Internally, they formed various alliances to strengthen themselves. Externally, they coaxed other races into joining their alliance.
The Gun Gun clan was their own, a local specialty. But for the people of Sichuan, it had been abducted to Gobi. To this day, the elites from Liu Wuren’s side were still engaging in verbal sparring with Wang Shu and the others at every national meeting.
Wang Shu single-handedly fought a war of words against the crowd.
But it wasn’t necessarily the same for other races. Various countries and factions struck first, employing a myriad of methods and tricks, using all sorts of schemes on plants and animals. In the end, they managed to perfect the ecosystem.
Of course, the most valuable prize to contend for was the powerful individuals returning from the Second Spacetime.
After these powerhouses returned, they were scattered like a goddess scattering flowers (not like the time on Lotus Road), with no discernible pattern. But eventually, they congregated in some of the strongest regions and territories.
In terms of power structure, although the people returning from the Second Spacetime were far fewer than those from this spacetime, their overall strength was the greatest. Initially, they were in a weakened state due to their return, but after a month, the weakness disappeared. Some of the Second Spacetime powerhouses, who had only sought temporary refuge in local territories due to the rules, developed ulterior motives after a month. They either secretly killed the original lords to seize resources or surreptitiously contacted other returning kings to plot a usurpation.
Of course, they weren’t trying to usurp some tiny territory. A person had to have some vision. They wanted the entire ruling power of this spacetime. As long as they joined forces, the locals were no match. From the beginning, there were great king-level individuals among the returnees. Due to their weakened state, they were reduced to small kings, but now that they had recovered, their ambitions flared. They felt they could crush the powerhouses of this world… except, of course, for that dead Wang Jiu.
It had to be said, they were truly shocked and then relieved. But they also discovered that the Third Spacetime had good feng shui. Talents emerged in succession, and their progress was terrifyingly fast, which was abnormal.
Have you ever seen a spacetime that produced kings in just two or three months?
Probably even the Fourth Spacetime rarely saw such a thing. But in the Third Spacetime, they sprouted like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Gobi, a single large territory, had produced several small kings.
If they were given more time…
These returnees also acted fast, ruthlessly, and precisely. Naturally, some contacted Qing He.
In fact, her private messages were extremely busy.
But Qing He didn’t accept any of them. She found it to be a rather unscrupulous but very satisfying thing to do.
No wonder Wang Jiu was so unrepentant.
Today, the weather was clear. In the Gobi Territory, at Wang Jiu’s manor, Number One, Liu Wuren, Qin Feikong, Shen Wan, and others who had come for a meeting glanced several times at the permanent CP trio of Pan Jinlian, Wu Dalang, and Ximen Qing working in the courtyard. They were well-mannered and restrained themselves from commenting.
The Old Lady glanced at them. “It wasn’t me.”
Number One smiled elegantly. “I know.”
The Old Lady snorted softly, wiped the table, and after a moment said, “They’re here.”
She placed the item Xing Yao had traded, which guided the arrival of their images.
At first glance, it looked as if the other party had also sat down, rather than just being a simple voice or text meeting.
Two people arrived: Xing Yao and Saling.
Heh heh, this skin, this aura.
Wang Shu felt a pang of jealousy at the sight, secretly griping in their small group chat: No wonder Master didn’t come back for so long.
Lin Guiwan: But she did come back in the end, which means we are still important.
Qiao Xuejing: Not necessarily. The captain’s personality is usually to lose interest once she’s gotten what she wants. Whether it’s an informal social relationship or a partnership, she can withdraw at any time, so…
Lin Guiwan: Uh, about that.
Qing He: …
She felt vaguely implicated, thank you very much.
But Qiao Xuejing’s guess was pretty much on the mark.
In Wang Jiu’s eyes, Saling and Xing Yao were indeed considered partners who had already been conquered or fully utilized.
Originally, the Old Lady was a bit disdainful and critical when she learned that Wang Jiu had opened a small pond in the Fourth Spacetime to raise a crown prince fish, but she was also a little curious.
She had clearly forgotten many things, but she couldn’t suppress the essential motherly instinct deep in her soul. She was looking forward to it.
But after one look, the Old Lady was surprised. “Your Young Prince is a girl?”
She sized up Saling for a moment, looking thoughtful.
Not young, but outstanding.
Saling: “?”
Xing Yao: “…”
“My humble son has his studies. Plus, he would be of no use in today’s meeting, so I didn’t call him.”
The Old Lady: “Is that so.”
Saling: “Yes, he failed his exams. He’s retaking them.”
Xing Yao glanced at Saling.
The Old Lady was quite open-minded and said elegantly, “That’s fine. Grades don’t define everything. By the way, which subject did he fail?”
Xing Yao: “Um…”
Saling: “He failed several of them.”
The Old Lady: “…”
Xing Yao glanced at Saling again. Saling picked up her water cup, her expression natural.
If this were a blind date, Saling would be the shit-stirrer, the kind who’d get beaten to death with a stick.
You want to hook up with my daughter with a slacker like that?
The Old Lady gave the great emperor a deep look. “What you’re lacking isn’t a daughter-in-law, it’s a master-level tutor.”
Xing Yao: “…”
Having ruled the empire for many years and overthrown several rebellious dogs, this was the first time in his life he had been mocked to his very soul.
The guests were visitors, and he was a great emperor, after all. Number One was afraid that the parents of a top student and a slacker would start tearing into each other before the meeting even began, so he changed the subject. “Has Jiong Jiong gone to class? By the time she gets back, we should be done with our business.”
As someone seriously dedicated to national affairs, he was eager to start the meeting now.
But Xing Yao was taken aback. Not understanding Wang Jiu’s family structure, he quickly connected it to some stories about Lao Wang’s marriage and divorce. If there was a school-aged child, it must be hers, right?
Xing Yao: “A child? How old…”
Saling: “Is it a girl? How are her studies? Is she here?”
Are you guys here for cross-spacetime business or to chitchat?
Number One glanced at the Old Lady. The Old Lady had never been interested in politics; she had just set up the meeting today and had no intention of joining in. So Number One could only tactfully pick up the thread. “The child is still young, very cute, and does well in her studies.”
Then, as they chatted… somehow, he also started talking about his own grandson.
Actually… he was also a super slacker, constantly kept after class by the system. When he came out, he’d fail his tutoring at home and have to be held back again, crying every day.
What joy.
Number One and Xing Yao exchanged a look. The elegant politician and the iron-blooded emperor found a bit of common ground.
As they chatted on, Liu Wuren and the others were speechless.
A cross-spacetime slacker parent-teacher conference?
Fortunately, after ten minutes, they finally got to the main topic.
Saling was the one who spoke. “The Eternal Night Race has developed a technology to implant their mechanical genes into the native creatures of our Earth’s various spacetimes. Originally, we were protected by the game’s rules, and the Eternal Night Race was incompatible with our world. But now, their genes can linger, like breaking through a wall. The mutual rule protection has been greatly reduced. The stalemate our Fourth Spacetime has maintained for so many years has finally changed.”
“When we discovered the existence of this technology, we also found that cockroaches were their targets. Although troublesome, it was manageable. But we soon discovered that their technology was advancing extremely rapidly. Each descent gave birth to new mechanical gene bodies.”
Saling’s words, except for the Old Lady who already knew, struck the others like a bolt from the blue.
Even the powerful Fourth Spacetime couldn’t withstand this technology?
Then their Third Spacetime stood even less of a chance.
However, they also had an absolute advantage, an advantage that made the Second Spacetime choose to return and made the Fourth Spacetime come to cooperate before its own destruction.
Rule protection. Because it was a newly born apocalyptic world, loaded only a few months ago, the power of its rules was still strong.
“I imagine this technology has little effect on the Third Spacetime for now. You want to return ahead of schedule?”
Number One proactively pointed out their advantage. This was a prelude to a transaction.
The attitude had to be made clear.
Xing Yao naturally understood. “Not return, but fusion.”
Fusion!!
Even though they had considered many possibilities beforehand, everyone was still shocked by the concept he proposed.
Spacetimes could be fused?
If such an operation were possible, the Second Spacetime wouldn’t have been destroyed.
Qing He looked at Xing Yao, who also looked back at her. “The Second Spacetime couldn’t do it, but the Fourth Spacetime can.”
Just as Saling was about to explain the principle of the operation, she suddenly saw the expressions on Wang Shu and the others change drastically, seemingly in anger.
“Did something happen?” Saling asked.
Wang Shu gritted his teeth. “Someone has declared war on our Gobi. The battle begins in three days.”
These bastards, taking advantage of Master’s absence to…
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