Chapter 59: “I think this should be better than air conditioning.” Part 2

Both the original story An Luo wrote and the character bio described Meieruita’s deepest childhood memory.

An extremely cold snowy night.

That experience left a mark: his naturally low body temperature.

This had to be for himself!

An Luo reached to remove the pendant. “You should wear it. I’m fine—just a short way to the city lord’s mansion, and it’ll be warm there.”

He fumbled for a while but found no clasp or seam.

The chain seemed a seamless whole.

An Luo gave up. “I don’t know how to undo it. You do it.”

“No, I don’t need it.” Meieruita didn’t move, saying flatly, “Its function isn’t just warmth—it’s automatic temperature regulation based on the environment.”

He lowered his eyes to the book page. “I think this should be better than air conditioning.”

“No need to turn on a machine, no electricity consumed.”

His words stunned An Luo.

Truthfully, how could he not be moved? He’d casually mentioned to Meieruita, “Winter’s fine, but summer without AC—don’t know how we’ll survive,” and Meieruita remembered, specially preparing this self-regulating pendant.

However…

He never forgot: he’d written a dark protagonist.

The gentler and more considerate Meieruita acted, the harder it was for An Luo to shake his wariness.

It all boiled down to the same question: Why?

An Luo knew that he wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t outstanding either. He had always been average—not someone to worry about, rule-abiding, without any particular charm. Though he was decent-looking, his attractiveness wasn’t at the level that would make someone fall head over heels at first sight. At best, it earned him a bit of initial goodwill.

The most arrogant he had ever felt in his life was the moment he received the contract offer. At that time, he truly believed he might become the kind of person he had always admired, so he fantasized a lot, convinced that his future held great promise.

However, fantasy and reality didn’t align. An Luo’s book didn’t perform well, and a fellow author friend who knew him suggested he drop it quickly.

“Listen to me—this book has no future. Cut it and start the next one. Who knows, the next one might blow up?”

But An Luo had already given up on the idea of becoming a god with a single book. He wanted to take it steady, book by book, and perhaps accumulate enough over time to break through.

The dismal results did shake him a bit, though. An Luo considered his friend’s advice and thought about dropping the book to start a new one.

He just looked at his latest chapters. Meieruita had just finished a long experiment and was about to level up.

[He leaned against the wall. The nearly three months of sleepless experimentation had finally yielded preliminary results. This brought a smile even to Meieruita, who rarely showed emotion. He looked at his conclusions and thought that becoming a Fifth-Tier Wizard was already within reach.]

An Luo couldn’t quite remember what he had been thinking back then, but in the end, he decided to keep writing.

The outcome was just as his author friend had predicted—Supreme Wizard truly had no prospects (for money).

The facts proved that An Luo wasn’t one of those naturally gifted authors. Getting the contract in one go had probably just been luck.

By then, An Luo had already started working, with pretty good pay and benefits, so he didn’t care as much anymore.

Indeed, he was the author of this book, which seemed to make him somewhat special and worthy of such serious treatment. But Meieruita wasn’t the type to care about An Luo’s status as the author. Oh… no, actually, Meieruita did care—just in the complete opposite way. He definitely cared whether the author’s existence posed a threat to him, and he would eliminate that risk promptly.

An Luo was past the age of wild fantasies. He had accepted his own mediocrity.

Back in school, he had attended an anti-fraud lecture given by a police officer who had seen countless scam cases. The officer warned all the students present:

“Girls, think carefully: Why would a handsome, rich, and devoted man want to date you? What can you offer him? And boys, don’t laugh—you think about it too. Why would a gentle, beautiful girl who obeys your every whim fall for you? What could she possibly want from you?”

“In short, there’s no such thing as a pie falling from the sky in this world. If gods or goddesses approach you, they’re only after your money. Kids, don’t let your heads get hot—protect your wallets and don’t fall for scams!”

The officer’s warning suddenly resurfaced in his mind. An Luo glanced at Meieruita and felt that he perfectly fit the image of a scammer the officer had described:

Handsome and beautiful—extremely high attractiveness, a hard-edged handsomeness that didn’t need any atmosphere to shine.

Rich—As the protagonist of this world, there was no need to elaborate on that.

Devoted, gentle, obedient to every whim—That was exactly how he treated An Luo: gentle and attentive, completely unlike his dark protagonist persona.

The more An Luo thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed. The officer’s words looped in his head:

“…Handsome, rich, and devoted… gentle, beautiful, and obedient to every whim… Don’t fall for the scam!”

An Luo: “…”

Yes, sir!

“What’s wrong?” Meieruita’s voice sounded in An Luo’s ear, interrupting his thoughts.

An Luo didn’t dare let Meieruita know he thought he resembled a scammer, so he replied dryly, “I just remembered the past.”

“The past?” Meieruita’s gray-green eyes turned to him, his tone a bit inscrutable. “Was your world really that good, that worth reminiscing about?”

An Luo thought for a moment, worried that Meieruita might take an unnecessary interest in Earth, so he answered vaguely, “It was okay. Mainly because I lived there for over twenty years, so of course I’d miss it.”

“That’s true.” Meieruita said calmly, “It did occupy most of your life’s span so far, but that’s about to end.”

Meieruita opened the window. A cold wind blew in, tousling the stray hairs on his forehead. A few snowflakes landed on his eyelashes, melting quickly into water droplets that trailed down wetly, as if he were crying.

He closed the window and turned to An Luo. “You’ll spend much longer here—centuries, millennia. Those twenty years will take up an ever-smaller portion of your life until they’re completely negligible.”

The water droplet slid slowly down, brushing past his lips and leaving a long wet trail.

Meieruita’s words would normally have sparked a desire in An Luo to argue back, but with the icy snowmelt dripping from his cheek and another droplet precariously hanging from his jaw, he looked somewhat vulnerable.

That appearance made An Luo want to go along with him instead. His urge to retort vanished, and he said peacefully, “I hope it turns out that way.”

Meieruita casually wiped the water from his face and smiled. “Of course it will. I guarantee it.”

An Luo suddenly felt like he’d been tricked. He glanced at Meieruita, who met his gaze without evasion. There wasn’t a trace of guilt or avoidance in those gray-green eyes. His frankness made An Luo feel like he’d been overthinking it.

Of course—why would Meieruita need to put on such a show?

It was An Luo who had read too much into it.

It had probably just been a coincidence.

He looked at the fireball burning in mid-air. The carriage rocked and swayed, and soon, they arrived at their destination.

The city was called Falguabu City, an ordinary small town.

When the city lord saw the Ice Elemental Humanoid driving the carriage, he grew extremely cautious in his heart.

—In previous years, the Wizard Apprentices who came were usually driven by a human coachman. Never had there been such an obvious non-human entity.

This meant the Wizard Apprentice inside was definitely exceptionally powerful.

He had to be careful not to offend them, or it would be over for him.

With that in mind, the smile on his face grew even brighter.

The carriage door opened, and a wizard in black robes with a pale face and an intimidating aura stepped out.

His features were exceptionally superior, but he was icy cold, looking less like a person and more like a stone sculpture—intimidating at first glance. His gray-green eyes were like inlaid gems, cold and inorganic.

He perfectly matched the image of a powerful Wizard Apprentice in the city lord’s imagination.

Just as the Falguabu City Lord was about to speak, he saw this Wizard Apprentice turn back and help another Wizard Apprentice down from the carriage.

“Let’s go inside.”

The one with softer features, who inspired a desire to get close, spoke up: “It’s awfully cold outside.”

“Mm.” The icy Wizard Apprentice responded gently, then turned to the welcoming crowd and said in a flat, emotionless tone, “Let’s go inside.”

The Falguabu City Lord endlessly speculated about which of the two was stronger but didn’t dare neglect them. He said with an accompanying smile, “Yes, yes, please come in, sirs.”

Similar to the Solson City Lord’s residence, Falguabu City had a dedicated resting room for Wizard Apprentices.

It was already late, so An Luo and Meieruita declined the Falguabu City Lord’s dinner invitation and went to the resting room alone.

Snow fell heavily outside. An Luo thought the weather was perfect for hotpot, and he had all the ingredients he needed.

As the two were setting up the pot stand, there was a sudden knock at the door.

Meieruita stood and went to open it. Several beautiful servant girls stood there, smiling timidly: “Sirs…”

Meieruita’s already expressionless face grew even colder: “Leave. We don’t need you here.”

The servant girls were already afraid of him. Hearing this, they first breathed a sigh of relief, then showed expressions of immense gratitude. They curtsied and fled as if granted amnesty.

Meieruita closed the door, locked it, and casually placed a small witch array on it.

“What was that?”

An Luo was a distance away, and the bubbling soup in the pot had drowned out the conversation at the door.

Meieruita sat down beside him and said indifferently, “Nothing.”

He gave An Luo a deep look. “Let’s finish this mission quickly and head back. I want to study that wizard’s corpse.”