This extra chapter is dedicated to IMoney. Thank you for the 5-star review!!!
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Mo Aini and Hu Chuntian spent the days at home being as lovey-dovey as much as possible to make up for the other days. Sometimes they watched TV and leaned on each other on the couch, sometimes they played games, sometimes they draw each other for fun, and sometimes they 'massaged' each other...
But no matter how idle, days spent at home is never boring when with a lover.
Mo Aini suddenly received a chat from the group by Ma Jianyu asking for those available to meet up if they can for the novel the Theater Club is writing. It's not really needed for many to show up, just a few so specific matters and issues can be discussed. They're already halfway through the draft and it's good to just give it a few look-overs before submitting it to Shimeifen.
Since they have nothing else to do than to loaf around, they agreed to come over to the meeting.
"I have to make sure the Good Ending is reached after all. For Ma Jianyu's sake." He said while brushing Hu Chuntian's hair. "Do you think he would lose his sanity on the Bad Ending?"
"Most likely, that's his secret after all. Maybe he'll hallucinate and accidentally kill Mo Jiagei?" Hu Chuntian theorized.
"We definitely can't let that happen. Ma Jianyu's backstory is terrible enough, I know my life sucks but it's also eye-opening to know others suffer just as much too." Mo Aini said.
His Tiger was in deep in thought at this, and he eased his knitted eyebrows by reflex. "What are you thinking again?"
"Have you ever wondered why I'm the only one who remembers as you move to the next parallel universe, Da Ge? Is it just because of my interactions with you that broke past the script of the system?"
"I don't know either." Mo Aini shrugged. "I just..... I never questioned too much, since I know how unreasonable the people behind the system could be. I want to help the Love Interests, but that's only limited to giving them Good Endings because I don't know what could happen if I clash with the evil among us too much."
"I see. I don't really care for Ma Jianyu or any of them either. I just wanted a chance to mess up these bastards that kept on separating us. But...." Hu Chuntian stroked his chin. "What if there's also a way to make them aware of their memories without directly telling them the truth? A 'savepoint' as you said, like the cherry blossom, Hu-Hu, the sketchpad..."
"That sounds believable in theory, but there's no way of doing it without risk." Mo Aini sighed, hugging Hu Chuntian. "A-Tian I fucking admire your fighting spirit, and I know you hate conforming to someone else's rules. But..... I don't want anything bad to happen to you. "
"I know that, Da Ge. But trust me on this. I want to know if the thing we did back on She Haoran's route changed anything. Even if there's a small chance..... It might also be a clue on how we can beat up this system on its ass...." Hu Chuntian touched his face. "And be together without having to worry about anything else."
Mo Aini thought about it, and kissed his forehead, still unsure, but a bit hopeful. "I guess.... Sure. What do you have in mind?"
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They all met up on a noodle soup restaurant, called 'Mian Baobei', with the logo of a smiling doggy happily slurping the noodles. It is quite well-known in this area according to Hu Chuntian.
When they opened the revolving doors, they saw She Haoran, Ma Jianyu, and Mo Jiagei sitting at the far end. Mo Jiagei and Ma Jianyu are sitting beside each other, chatting like a couple, while She Haoran is busy with his laptop rechecking the novel for the 100th time.
Upon seeing the two arrive, he closed it and greeted them. "Oh, you two have arrived. You can sit on the table next to us, just push it closer."
The boyfriends did so, distracted by the lovey-doveyness of the straight couple a bit. Mo Aini felt like puking seeing her sister do some poses while taking a selfie with Ma Jianyu and speaking in a babying tone!!!
"My prince, come closer to me~ Say eggplant!*"
"Eggplant!"
(The hells up with her, Ma Jianyu isn't her type, right????) Mo Aini was really creeped out, more creeped out than when he watched Annabelle with the way his sister was acting. (They look so close now, saying eggplants and using filters. What happened?)
"Are we the only ones in this meeting?" Hu Chuntian asked, more concerned if he and his Da Ge would have to share a seat with someone else.
"There's still others, but they're currently busy. I ordered the dumpling noodle soup special package for everyone already, is that alright?" She Haoran asked.
"Yeah." Hu Chuntian nodded. He waved a hand over his distracted Da Ge. "Hey, Da Ge. Do you want to eat something else besides dumpling soup?"
"Eggplants..."
"Huh?' Hu Chuntian tilted his head to the side. Even She Haoran was baffled.
"Oh, nothing, nothing!" He shook his head. "Dumpling soup is fine!"
"Alright." She Haoran nodded. "Let's just wait for it, along with the others."
He went back to typing on his laptop.
Hu Chuntian couldn't help chuckling. "Da Ge, what's with you wanting to eat eggplants all of a sudden on a noodle shop?" He added mischievously: "Is it the eggplant that I'm thinking off? Because you could definitely have a taste----"
"Shh, just look at them!" Mo Aini wasn't paying attention to his dirty joke. "Don't you see they're acting strange? Did the world suddenly turn upside down while I was sleeping?"
Hu Chuntian watched the couple seriously this time, and was also unnerved. But not by how Mo Jiagei was acting.
How can Ma jIanyu just flirt with a woman right in front of She Haoran!? Was their moment on the cliff of the island nothing to him!???
"This really is troubling, Da Ge." Hu Chuntian said gravely, his matchmaker cogwheels circulating for ideas to get the cowboy back with the president. "What should we do?"
"Let's watch first." Mo Aini said. "A choice bar will come sooner or later....."
And just like he said, a hologram appeared on the screen.
[You're now going to write something about your Weibo post. Ma Jianyu suggested, 'Prince John Hue and Princess Jianna Gay having a grand tea time, enjoying each other's company more than anything in this world'. Would you write this in the post?
>No, it's too weird
>Yes, it's pretty sweet ]
Mo Aini fully expected her to pick the first option.....
[+5 Cupid Points! ]
"You always come up with the sweetest words, my prince! Mwah!" She even kissed him on the cheek even when all she needed was to write the cringey post!
"Urkkk!!!!" Mo Aini almost really coughed up blood.
"Da Ge!" Hu Chuntian patted his back.
"Hu Chuntian..... I... I don't think that's my sister anymore. It's gotta be an evil spirit....." Mo Aini held his stomach, feeling nauseous. "She only likes bad boys that step over her like a doormat! Bad boys!"
"I know, I know...." Hu Chuntian nodded. "But maybe.... she changed?"
"I'd rather believe that she's being held at gunpoint to do this rather than her changing taste."
"Well, it's only her game character after all. Maybe these doting actions aren't really part of her decision, and her picking the Good Ending choice is a coincidence." Hu Chuntian reasoned.
Mo Aini recovered from hearing this, and straightened up. "Right, it's just her avatar. I shouldn't think about it too much."
But later, more hologram choices came and....
[+5 Cupid Points! ]
[+5 Cupid Points! ]
[+5 Cupid Points! ]
She just keeps picking the Good Ending choices! Which is Mo Aini's goal after all, but why???? What changed her heart from going after delinquents to romantic theater boys so fast!?
"Your order's here, Mr. President!"
He looked up to the servers, being amazed that he was still called president even here, but then....
"Gou Manchu? Shu Chuanli?"
"Oh, hi Mo-gongzi! Hu-gongzi! " The jock wearing a waiter uniform with an apron bearing the Mian Baobei logo greeted them. "I didn't expect you two to join us here in our restaurant!"
"Our?" Hu Chuntian raised an eyebrow.
"His family owns this place. His dad has a secret dumpling noodle recipe, that's why it's his favorite, and probably the town's favorite too." Shu Chuanli explained. "You guys didn't know?"
"Hehe, I'm so happy we're all here. I wish Wang Jing-jie and Li Youman-jie were also here, but they're on a trip to eat with Jing-jie's grandma." Gou Manchu set down the tray with piping hot bowls of delicious smelling noodles. "Dig in! I hope you enjoy it, it's on the house!"
"But I already agreed to pay for it." She Haoran said.
"Don't worry about it, Mr. President. You're in our restaurant, so it doesn't feel right to have friends pay." The baby-faced jock sat on the next table beside Hu Chuntian and Mo Aini, and Shu Chuanli sat in front of him, taking off his apron.
"You should really let it be, She-sama. His family is well off, treating friends is nothing." The nerd explained. "He does this all the time."
Mo Aini couldn't help but ask, "You also work here?"
"Yeah, to earn more money for this drawing tablet I have my eyes on for a while." Shu Chuanli said. "I was having a hard time picking any part-time jobs because strangers make me uncomfortable, but when Gou Manchu told me that he helps his dad's noodle shop every summer and asked if I wanted to join him, I knew it's my best shot. Working is much better with a familiar face."
"Yeah, Senpai looks so happy all the time working with me, sometimes he even just stare at me for a long time just smiling!" The dense puppy jock said innocently.
"I.... I wasn't, baka! Shut up!" He retorted like a tsundere. Which he was.
Mo Aini wondered how long will these two boys will see it. Five years? Ten years? It's a very unlucky pair, one too dense to notice anything, the other too bashful to say it. But they seem more plausible at least than She Haoran and Ma Jianyu now that his sister's acting like this.
They all ate, and the meeting proceeded up until sunset. Once the sky seems to be going dark, they parted ways.
Hu Chuntian immediately wrapped an arm around his shoulder when the others left. "What are you thinking, Da Ge?"
"What you said before going here." Mo Aini answered. "Hey, can you give me a smoke?"
"Here." Hu Chuntian pulled two cigarettes and they bring their faces close together to light them. "What about it?"
"When Ma Jianyu and Mo Jiagei was acting sweet and clingy together, it felt so artificial. It doesn't sit right with me." Mo Aini said. "One is just a puppet made of codes, the other is being manipulated too like this soulless puppet. When the route is over, what's next? The Ma Jianyu in this world will be together with the MC's avatar that was just made by Shuaige?"
"That's my point too, Da Ge." Hu Chuntian blew smoke from his mouth, watching the black smoke fly in swirls on the orange sun. "Shuaige just can't get away controlling my world like this. Otherwise, life would just be filled with fallacies, no truths."
"I don't want Ma Jianyu to suffer a Bad End....."Mo Aini thought, inhaling the nicotine to get his brain juice flowing. "But what if we could make it like She Haoran's route? He gets a Good Ending according to the system's standards, but he doesn't fall in love with my sister's avatar?"
"Yeah.... But how would we do that?"
Mo Aini frowned. "The only one who knows how that happened is She Haoran. But because this is a different universe, he had forgotten those memories."
Hu Chuntian grinned. "So? Let's just make him remember it again.
Mo Aini knitted his eyebrows. "Yeah, but HOW?"
The Tiger Emperor wore a wise but crazy look on his face framed by veils of smoke.
"The power of love, I guess. That's how I remembered mine."
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