"Were you frightened?"
Seeing the cold sweat oozing from Fang Qiu's fair forehead and her slightly trembling body, Ganyu couldn't help but feel somewhat puzzled.
Seeing Ganyu's confusion, and feeling helpless, Fang Qiu recounted everything that had happened earlier to her.
After all, being scared by a dog suddenly rushing out from the darkness after listening to a horror story was surely better than simply being scared into trembling just because a dog rushed out, right?
"So that is the case. Sometimes, when I listen to the secretaries chat during work breaks, I seem to have heard them mention it. After deep night falls, the storytellers in the city will sometimes tell legends of spirits and demons, which are quite popular among some young people."
Ganyu spoke thoughtfully.
After speaking, Ganyu smiled faintly again, extended her hand toward Fang Qiu, and said, "Miss Fang Qiu, if you don't mind, you can hold my hand. That way, you shouldn't be so afraid."
Eh?
Hold hands?
Looking at the faint smile hanging on Ganyu's face and her clear, gentle eyes, Fang Qiu was slightly stunned. Then, a faint rosy blush rose on her pretty face, and she gently placed her hand into Ganyu's palm.
Between girls, holding hands was very normal.
Moreover, at a time like this, there was no need for her to pretend to be strong.
Scared means scared!
What was there to be ashamed of admitting?
Being scared didn't violate Liyue's laws.
Holding Ganyu's hand would provide a sense of security.
In some horror clips she had watched in her previous life, there were scenes like this.
Deep at night, two people walk along the corridor of an eerie school building. As the person in front walks, they discover that there is only the sound of their own footsteps in the corridor.
Upon turning back, their companion is long gone.
As for the ending of that vanished companion, it goes without saying.
So, holding hands can effectively avoid this situation.
Of course, there are exceptions...
The person in front turns back, only to find their companion is left with just a hand...
But generally speaking, holding hands is safer than not holding hands.
"Then let's go. We're almost there."
Ganyu gently held Fang Qiu's hand and spoke softly.
"Mhm."
Fang Qiu nodded and lifted her foot to follow behind Ganyu.
Miss Ganyu's hand is so soft.
Not knowing if she was worried Fang Qiu would be afraid, Ganyu kept making conversation with her for the rest of the journey.
Chatting sentence by sentence with Ganyu, her originally palpitating heart gradually calmed down. The pitch-black alleys around them didn't seem so terrifying anymore.
After walking for a good while, they arrived at a spacious and tranquil small hill.
"It is here. During leisure time at work, I sometimes come here to rest."
Ganyu said with a faint smile.
Fang Qiu scanned the surroundings.
There were few households around.
On the small hill was a patch of lush green grass, and the verdant grassland was full of small, pale yellow flowers.
The air was permeated with a faint fragrance.
Seeing Fang Qiu cast her gaze toward the yellow flowers in the grass, Ganyu spoke gently, "This flower is called a Sweet Flower. It is a flower with very high sugar content. Although it isn't very healthy as food, looking at flowers can calm one's mood. That is why I like coming here."
The cool breeze of the night brushed past, blowing up the beautiful hair at Ganyu's temples.
"I see. It seems Miss Ganyu really likes flowers."
Fang Qiu gave a shallow smile and said.
Although the atmosphere was comfortable and peaceful.
But Fang Qiu, completely inappropriately, thought of a dish.
Sweet Madame.
Damn it.
Just thinking about it made her crave it.
Wait until after singing the song, then find a place to have a late-night snack.
Speaking of which, having been reborn for so long, she hadn't gone out to eat a late-night snack yet.
She wondered if Liyue Harbor actually had such a thing as late-night snacks.
How could Ganyu know what Fang Qiu was thinking? Seeing Fang Qiu staring intently at the Sweet Flowers, she couldn't help but smile faintly. She found a patch of grass to sit down gently, then hugged her legs, cast her gaze toward Fang Qiu, and said:
"Then, Miss Fang Qiu, can we begin?"
"Eh? Let me prepare my emotions for a moment."
Hearing Ganyu's words, Fang Qiu finally snapped out of her contemplation on what to eat for a late-night snack.
"Mhm, no problem."
Ganyu nodded gently.
"Phew."
Fang Qiu looked up slightly at the vast, boundless sea of stars and that bright, full moon.
It wasn't that she wanted to be melodramatic, but since this was a request from Ganyu, to whom she owed a debt of gratitude...
Moreover, to listen to the song, Ganyu had specially brought her to the outskirts. She didn't want to just phone it in casually.
So, preparing her emotions was necessary.
Thus, she gently closed her eyes and exhaled softly.
The surroundings were completely silent.
Only the soft chirping of insects and frogs sounded occasionally. Scenes from Sword and Fairy 3 constantly replayed in her mind.
When a gust of wind blew past, fluttering her hair.
Fang Qiu gently opened her eyes. Entering her view was Ganyu's quiet, pretty face, waiting silently without arrogance or impatience.
Then, Fang Qiu gently began to sing.
"Time cannot be severed... Even if another ten thousand years pass, this deep affection will not change; love spreads like a raging fire..."
The tactful and melodious singing voice echoed constantly through the spacious and quiet wilderness.
"Deep affection that won't change even in ten thousand years?"
Gazing at the white-haired woman before her, who was bathed in moonlight and singing as if weeping and complaining, Ganyu murmured softly.
She had been in Liyue for a thousand years.
A thousand years is a long time. Long enough for the Glaze Lilies that once bloomed all over Dihua Marsh to go extinct after the floods.
Long enough for the bustling market towns of Guili Plains to turn into broken walls and ruins after the war.
So it was hard to imagine just what kind of love could remain unchanged after ten thousand years.
Soon, the song came to a close.
Fang Qiu gently exhaled a breath, expelling all the depression in her chest out of her body.
She had played the Sword and Fairy 3 game a full three times, and every time it was the worst ending.
At that time, she didn't quite understand games yet, nor did she know how to achieve the perfect ending, because her computer wasn't connected to the internet and she didn't have a mobile phone.
Just hearing that a classmate had achieved the perfect ending, she replayed it day after day, only to get the Hua Ying ending three times in a row.
Xuejian died, Long Kui left, leaving only Jing Tian alone.
When she planned to play it a fourth time, the computer broke.
That left her feeling unreconciled for a long time during that period.
It wasn't until later, after she had her own computer, that she no longer had the impulse to play games.
Perhaps this is what is meant by 'things change with the passage of time'.
Fang Qiu walked up to Ganyu, smiled shallowly, and said, "I apologize for my poor performance."
Of course, although she said this, she was actually quite satisfied with her performance just now.
The tunes she couldn't hit in her previous life, she could hit easily in this life.
"Although the singing style and song are ones I have never heard before, Miss Fang Qiu sang very beautifully."
Ganyu snapped back to reality and praised softly, "Beautiful things are indeed universal."
"Thank you for the compliment."
Fang Qiu smiled shallowly, walked to Ganyu's side, stretched her body slightly, and sat down gently next to Ganyu, saying:
"These days, I've been writing books at home. I haven't come out of the city to relax for a long time. I remember the last time I left the city was to go fishing with Hu Tao and the others."
"That time, I also didn't expect to meet you, Miss Fang Qiu, on Captain Beidou's ship."
Ganyu said with a smile.
...
The moon moved and flower shadows shifted; the shadows of the night were mottled.
Fang Qiu and Ganyu sat on the hillside chatting for a long time. The constraint in Fang Qiu's heart dissipated quite a bit due to the casual chat with Ganyu.
It was just that, wondering if Ganyu was too tired from work, as they chatted, Ganyu's voice gradually became fuzzy. Her eyes also gradually became drowsy, and she would yawn gently from time to time.
"Miss Ganyu, it's so late. How about we call it a day?"
Fang Qiu said.
"Mhm."
Ganyu rubbed her eyes and nodded gently.
Fang Qiu stood up and extended her hand to Ganyu.
"Thank you."
Ganyu responded softly, placing her hand in Fang Qiu's, allowing Fang Qiu to gently pull her up.
The road home was smooth all the way.
However, while walking on the road, Ganyu almost fell asleep several times.
While supporting Ganyu, Fang Qiu roasted the situation in her heart.
She thought her daily typing was already tiring enough, but she didn't expect the secretaries of Yujing Terrace to be this tired.
To almost fall asleep while walking, just how many days of overtime was this?
Yujing Terrace is grinding way too hard.
Thinking about the two secretaries who said they would accompany Ganyu to drink fruit juice earlier—leaving aside that they had to go back to work overtime for doing a report wrong, even their normal off-work time was already very late.
Thinking about it this way, it's still better to write novels.
It makes money, and one can allocate time freely.
Sleep whenever you want, wake up whenever you want.
Of course, in her previous life, she wasn't this comfortable.
The website had daily word count requirements for updates, so she had to write every day.
Coupled with an irregular schedule, leading to extremely poor sleep, her condition would slide accordingly.
She often encountered situations where she sat in front of the computer for three hours without being able to squeeze out five hundred words.
Earning a manuscript fee of two or three thousand a month...
Hair falling out every day...
Then the pressure would increase accordingly. After the pressure increased, it led to poor sleep every day, and her condition worsened further.
Then came the vicious cycle.
Thinking of it that way, the treatment seems about the same...
Fortunately.
Although it was already deep into the night, the street lights of Liyue were still bright.
"Then I'll leave first. I will look forward to your new book, Miss Fang Qiu."
Ganyu forced herself to perk up, exhaled gently, and said.
"Mhm, then thank you for your deep love, Miss Ganyu."
Fang Qiu smiled slightly and said, "Then I'm leaving first. Next time you're free, let's go try other flavors of fruit juice at that shop together."
"Mhm, see you next time."
Ganyu nodded. Watching Fang Qiu walk toward her own door, she couldn't help but smile shallowly.
She hadn't expected that Miss Fang Qiu would actually be afraid of stories about mountain spirits and ghosts. She felt she understood her a little more again.
She smiled shallowly and murmured softly.
Soon, her bright eyes were once again enveloped by deep weariness.
"So sleepy..."
...
After bidding farewell to Ganyu, Fang Qiu dragged her slightly exhausted body all the way home.
Her room was on the second floor.
She had to pass through an external wooden staircase.
Halfway up the stairs, hearing the sound of her shoes landing on the wooden steps, Fang Qiu suddenly remembered the ghost story told by that storyteller.
Her back went cold abruptly.
The sounds imitated by the person beside the storyteller rang out constantly in her mind.
"Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump."
Fang Qiu's face turned pale instantly.
Thus, not daring to even look back, she hurriedly scrambled up the entrance, opened the door, and with a snap, locked the door.
She leaned her whole body against the door. Just as she breathed a slight sigh of relief, she discovered that it was pitch black before her eyes. Her home was completely dark.
Gulp.
Fang Qiu subconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
DANGER!
Fang Qiu felt as if she could see a giant, blood-red character for "DANGER" hovering over her head.
Although generally speaking, this kind of situation was just her worrying unnecessarily, even knowing this, Fang Qiu, who had just finished listening to a horror story, couldn't stop the fear from spreading wildly in her heart.
It was as if in the darkness, a murderer holding a knife was smiling sinisterly at her right now.
Sometimes, she really couldn't be blamed for coveting other Visions.
If she had a Pyro Vision, she could just rub out a fireball right now and illuminate the whole room.
Cryo skills could only emit a faint blue glow.
Sighing gently, she fumbled her way to the desk and lit a candle.
The bright lamplight immediately illuminated the entire room.
Seeing that there was no one in the room, Fang Qiu finally breathed a sigh of relief.
For safety's sake, she even condensed a few ice swords and checked the entire room, including behind the kitchen door, the wardrobe, and under the bed.
Seeing no abnormalities, Fang Qiu finally dispelled the ice swords and lay on the bed as if collapsed.
"Phew, simply a disaster from nowhere."
Fang Qiu let out a long breath, staring quietly at the ceiling.
She could finally understand why Miko, the female lead in that Mieruko-chan she watched in her previous life, would be scared to the point of wetting herself...
In the situation just now, if she had lit the lamp and found a person sitting in the room, she estimated she would have been scared to the point of wetting herself too...
That would be too shameful.
This was the trouble of living alone...
Fang Qiu sighed slightly. In just that short moment, her forehead was covered in cold sweat.
She had intended to get up and open the window to get some fresh air, but then she thought of the novel she wrote in her previous life.
The female lead also opened the window, only to see a ghost head with a bitten-off neck floating outside the window.
Thinking of this, Fang Qiu silently sat back down.
Tonight, she's sleeping with the lights on.
Go to the bathhouse to take a bath tomorrow.
________________________________________
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