Chapter 689: Back Again?!

The carriage was quiet again.

The system stood there, its violet‑red inverted‑cross pupils flickering dimly on the screen's cold light a few times.

After a few breaths of silence, the doll raised its hand.

A new Light Screen unfolded under the system's fingertip.

Dual-Aspect Paradise—loading (Chang Ye Yue kindly provides support).

Qingque opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was the sky.

It was a sky she had never seen before.

A Nihong-colored halo floated over a deep‑purple background, as if someone had splashed both sunset and deep night onto the same canvas.

A moon hung on the horizon.

Qingque stared at the moon for about three seconds.

Then she sprang up with a carp‑like thrust.

What came into view was a narrow alley.

The walls were blue bricks; the graffiti on them moved, a pixel‑style orange cat walked two steps across the wall, turned its head to glance at her, then leapt from one side of the wall to the other, disappearing into the brick cracks.

The ground was made of stone slabs, and faint colored light particles drifted out of the gaps between them, floating upward one by one.

Qingque lowered her head to look at herself.

Her ash‑white hair, waist‑length, fell from her shoulders, spreading across the stone floor, the tips stained with a few of the light particles emerging from the cracks.

She was still wearing that asymmetrical general's robe: the left side had a loose, wide sleeve draping over the shoulder, the right side was sleeveless with a cut‑away shoulder, and fine silver chains crossed at the shoulder line.

The left side of the skirt hem was cut to mid‑thigh, while the right side was layered with three sheets of sheer gauze.

A mist‑gray over‑knee sock covered her left leg, its gilded tiny ring at the cuff still faintly glowing.

"Not—back again?!"

Qingque's voice echoed through the alley, and the pixel orange cat on the wall stuck its head out again for a glance, apparently finding the white‑haired girl too noisy, it flicked its Tail and retreated.

Without a word, Qingque raised her hand and slapped herself.

Clap.

It bounced back and forth several times in the empty alley.

It didn't hurt.

"Fine. Dreaming again, huh?"

How long was the interval?

She hadn't even gotten off the Star Chariot yet; she closed and opened her eyes and was back inside.

Qingque lowered her hand, rubbing her chin.

The seriousness of the problem had changed; dreaming once was a coincidence.

Dreaming twice, that's no longer a coincidence.

Qingque patted the light particles off her skirt and stood up from the ground.

Her ash‑white hair swayed with the motion of standing, the tips sweeping across the stone floor and picking up a few more light particles.

She was too lazy to bother.

Since she was dreaming again, she decided to follow the dreaming procedure: first figure out where she was, then find a way to wake up.

She brushed the ash off her sleeve while frowning.

The last time she woke up was because that scene automatically flashed in her mind.

Fu Xuan. A luxurious big bed. A face drawing nearer. That sensation on the lips.

Qingque's face flushed instantly, the ash‑white strands unable to conceal the redness.

"No way."

She scratched the back of her head hard, her fingers threading through the ash‑white hair, "Could it be that only a kiss can wake me?! How could that be—who came up with such a ridiculous premise!"

Qingque vehemently denied it in her mind, but the other side of her brain began to analyze calmly: if the switch of this dream truly was Fu Xuan's kiss, it meant she had to find Fu Xuan to wake up.

The question was, where was Fu Xuan?

At Luofu.

She might not even be at Luofu now.

Moreover, whoever could craft a dream of this magnitude was either someone from the Flowing Light Memory Garden or some other destined being.

The problem was that Qingque seriously recalled her contacts list; as a Tai Bu Si Diviner who idles, the most prominent person she knows is Fu Xuan, and above him is General Jingyuan, but she has spoken to General Jingyuan no more than ten times, so there's no chance she offended any big figure.

Memory Keeper?

Even less likely.

She has never even seen what a Memory Keeper looks like, let alone how to provoke one.

Qingque massaged her temples, setting aside the tangled mess in her mind for the moment.

Regardless of who threw her in here, the immediate priority was to figure out exactly where she was.

Since it's a dream, there must be a setting.

Last time it was Shen Ce Fu plus a bedroom; what place is this time?

She patted her skirt; she still wasn't used to its material, the feel completely different from what she wore in Tai Bu Si, and she stood up and headed toward the alley's exit.

The ground beneath her feet was hard, but every few steps a fleeting, ultra‑short soft, spongy sensation tingled under her soles; looking down, the floor tiles were morphing from normal pavement texture back into pixel blocks, then reverting the instant she lifted her foot.

On both sides of the alley, a few Nihong signs hung, but the characters on them were reversed—not mirrored, but the strokes broken into stray lines, with faint pixel particles floating between, looking like a malfunctioning display.

The air was filled with an indescribable sweet scent, like—

In the distance, faint music played, interspersed with tinkling game sound effects.

Qingque walked out of the alley and stood in the middle of the street.

Then she froze completely.

Above her head was a dazzling, almost violent Nihong sky.

A gigantic LED Ping hung on the side of every building, its screen looping footage of competitions she couldn't understand and blinding advertisements—Phantom Moon game tournament, Manwan TV live broadcast, @Entertainment Plaza new arrivals!

The light pollution was so severe it reached an artistic level; red, blue, purple and green lights struck her face from all directions, turning her ash‑gray long hair into a riot of colors.

A creature made entirely of pixel blocks, whose nature—human or fabricated—was unclear, walked past her, a small glowing wish‑energy particle floating above its head.

She locked eyes with it for a second; it politely nodded and slipped past her.

On the outer wall of a massive building in the distance, the entire glass curtain wall suddenly switched display mode; a huge countdown number flickered, accompanied by scrolling comments across the screen, while a crowd of onlookers gathered below, craning their necks at the display.

Qingque stood at this bizarre crossroads, eyes wide and round, mouth opening and closing, her internal language system hopping back and forth between Xianzhou official speech and slang for a while, before she finally muttered in utter bewilderment:

"Where the heck am I?"

Qingque took a deep breath and decided to find someone to ask what this place actually was.

She stood at the alley entrance for a moment, scanning the street, and Lock onto a relatively normal passerby.

It was a middle‑aged man in a dark‑blue coat, standing under a streetlamp, looking at a glowing transparent tablet.

Qingque adjusted her expression, tucked her ash‑gray long hair behind her ears, and stepped forward.

"Um, may I ask—"

Before she could finish, the middle‑aged man's head snapped up.

Qingque was startled by those eyes.

The man's mouth corner lifted into a curve no normal person could produce, and his whole face in that instant seemed to wear an ill‑fitting Mask.

"I have uncovered the truth of the world!"

He shouted that, then flung the transparent tablet into the air and sprinted toward the opposite end of the street at a hundred‑meter dash speed, yelling "Happiness! Happiness!" as he ran.

Qingque's hand remained raised in mid‑air, still in the pose ready to pat his shoulder.

Her mouth opened, her lips moved twice, but nothing came out.

What the heck.

She withdrew her hand, scratched the back of her head, and ash‑gray strands slipped through her fingers.

Forget it, let's ask someone else.

She turned around and looked at an older woman walking a dog by the roadside.

The woman wore a coat as brightly colored as if painted with a highlighter, holding a small pet dog whose body was square, its four legs like pillars, and its Tail's wagging trace formed a jagged line as it walked.

"Hello, I'd like to ask about this—"