Chapter 730: Ah... This

Xi Lian grew more irritated as she listened; the stray pink hairs on her shoulder‑length hair stood up, her cheeks puffed out like two little buns, and even her small ears flushed with excited pink.

"What do you call tactical maneuvering! If you loop for ten seconds and all teammates die, is that maneuvering? That's just a stroll, damn!"

She paused for a moment, listening to the other side.

"What do you mean at least I made it to the end— you only survived because you kept crouching at the back and never entered the arena, damn! Your score hasn't even dropped the opponent's AI high! The AI still throws grenades! You don't even toss a grenade—are you afraid it'll blow yourself up!"

Another pause.

"Which button is the grenade key— you've been playing for three days!! Three days and you still don't know the grenade key!! Are you rolling the controller with your face!!" Another pause.

Xi Lian's entire facial expression shifted from anger to an even deeper shock.

"…What do you mean, I've actually been wanting to ask why you didn't enable voice chat— I turned it on!! I have had it on since the first match!! Did you block the voice reception in your settings as if it were a virus firewall!!"

Silence.

A long pause.

Heimu could see Xi Lian's shoulders trembling slightly.

It wasn't anger, but the pure bewilderment after a teammate's actions pierced the lower bound of human cognition.

"Fine. I won't say anything. I'm exhausted. Damn."

She slapped the controller onto the mat, grabbed the headset with both hands, and yanked it off her head.

The pink strands were caught by the headset, pulling out a few that curled even more sharply.

She huffed, turned around, and reached for the half‑drunk bottle beside her.

Then she saw Heimu standing in the doorway.

Xi Lian froze instantly.

Her outstretched hand hung in mid‑air, fingers still in the grip‑for‑the‑bottle pose.

In those clear blue eyes, the rhombus‑shaped pupils suddenly contracted.

She opened her mouth, but the words she hadn't finished cursing were stuck on the tip of her tongue, unable to rise or fall.

That flushed little face, reddened from losing the game, now shifted at a visible speed from excited pink to a rigid pallor.

Heimu stood in the doorway, his violet‑black eyes meeting those blue rhombus pupils directly.

Her expression was extremely complex; her brows were smooth, her mouth corners unmoved, yet every feature silently conveyed a deep‑seated shock and bewilderment.

Her ash‑white long hair fell quietly over her shoulders; the brim of the Witch Hat cast a straight shadow under the glow of the phosphor screen, covering most of the upper half of her face, leaving only slightly open lips visible.

Silence.

A silence that lasted several seconds.

In the room, only the phosphor screen had switched to the results screen, its upbeat background music playing cheerfully, the lively electronic melody sounding absurd in the almost‑frozen, awkward air.

An empty soda bottle rolled down from the top of the piled‑up packaging bags, clattering to Xi Lian's feet and lightly bumping her ankle.

Xi Lian kept the pose of reaching for the drink, not moving a muscle.

Her bare little feet still perched on the mat, the hem of her white short skirt fluttered, and the few stray hairs on her head remained upright.

Her lips moved, forcing out two dry syllables from her throat.

"Ah, this…"

The atmosphere was so silent that the birdsong from the lemon tree outside could be heard.

Heimu still leaned against the doorframe, his expression gradually shifting from complex to an even more intricate one.

Her lips twitched as if to speak, but she realized she didn't know where to start, and swallowed the words back.

In the room, only that phosphor screen continued to play the game's result standby music.

The lively electronic melody.

Tap tap tap tap tap, I really want to play.......

Very untimely.

Xi Lian's toes curled subtly on the mat.

Ten smooth toes retracted one by one, the motion so slow it was almost invisible, like a cat trying to hide a shattered cup before its owner notices.

That futile motion finally made Heimu's eye twitch.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and compressed the thousand words stuck in her throat into three characters.

"…Xi Lian."

His tone was calm.

Too calm.

So calm that even her stray hairs trembled.

The pink‑haired girl remained petrified, her mouth corner pulling into a stiff upward curve, trying—and failing—to convey "it's all a misunderstanding."

Her toes were fully tucked into the folds of the mat.

"…Hi. Long time no see?"

Perspective shift.

Amid this inverted world, where the ocean hangs above and the sky lies below, Qingque still stands on the back of that teal‑blue fish.

One hand rests behind her, while the fingertips of the other still hold the faint glow that spilled when she traced that astonishing Light Arc.

Wind rose from an unknown source, sweeping over the inverted sea, carrying the abundant sweet‑brine and the crisp vapor left by bursting Bubbles, flooding her senses.

The asymmetrical outfit on her swished in the wind; the left oversized sleeve, filled with air, lifted backward, while the delicate silver chain at the right shoulder‑cut clinked softly in the breeze. Three layers of sheer gauze peeled from the right side of her short skirt, revealing her left leg clad in mist‑gray over‑knee stockings and her right ankle encircled only by a Silver Feather Pattern Anklet.

Her ash‑white hair, reaching her waist, was ruffled by the wind into a fluttering banner; the fringe at her forehead was blown aside, revealing emerald eyes whose pupils contained specks of teal light that pulsed with each breath.

A faint, almost imperceptible curve lingered at the corner of her mouth.

The teal fish beneath her hovered silently amid a cluster of Bubbles; its tail fin swayed gently, sending concentric teal ripples outward.

The waves churned beneath her feet.

The azure water region that was once the sea and is now the sky hangs overhead, its surface reflecting the blue moon still asleep deep beneath the feet; the glimmering light pours down from above, dyeing everything in lapis hue.

The true sea, however, surrounds Qingque, with billions of Bubbles floating and rolling; when they collide they emit a delicate "pup‑pup" sound, and their gathering and dispersing resembles a living ocean, except this ocean is lapis‑colored, and each Bubble carries an extremely fine light pattern.

The Golden Giant Tree before me stands silently.

Its canopy tops the highest point of the sky—no, it should be said the deepest part of the earth at this moment.

After heaven and earth invert, the canopy faces downward; the golden Branches spread like an inverted umbrella, supporting the collapsed firmament, each Branch slowly writhing, its surface studded with blood‑red eyes that gaze upward from below.

The roots of the tree embed upward, where the former seabed is now the new sky; the root network spreads across the entire heavens, layered thickly and airtight, each root bearing an incompletely formed human face, lips parting, emitting a deep resonance from deep within the throat.