Chapter 43: Xiao Mu: Transmigration Is Very Common…

043

The next second after Su Ximu sent the message, he heard two ding-dong sounds from his dorm door.

He looked up and discovered that Blue 242 Leader had already stood there at some point.

Blue 242 Leader looked up and smiled at him before lowering his head to check his phone.

Seeing Blue 242 Leader’s actions, Su Ximu couldn’t help but clasp his hands behind his back and let out a light cough.

Although he was the one who had sent the message, it was still inevitably a little awkward to watch the person he was borrowing from read the borrowing request right in front of him.

He had originally thought that after Blue 242 Leader read the message, he would at least ask a few questions or say whether he would lend the money. But unexpectedly, the next second, Su Ximu’s phone dinged as well.

Su Ximu lowered his head and saw it was a transfer notification from Blue 242 Leader—twenty thousand yuan.

“T-Too much.” The youth stammered upon seeing the amount.

Given his spending habits, he had never planned to borrow more than a thousand yuan from Blue 242 Leader to begin with.

He even felt like a thousand was a bit too much. Money went a long way in this world.

He glanced at his phone screen again, then at Blue 242 Leader who had already walked over to his side. He even started to suspect that Blue 242 Leader had entered the wrong number.

“No mistake. Xiao Xi, you can use it first. If you don’t use it all, you can just pay me back when I need money.” Blue 242’s tone was gentle and full of understanding. “Borrowing money from someone is a hard thing for some people. Since it’s already so hard to open your mouth once, you might as well borrow more to save having to do it again next time.”

He had actually wanted to send more, but Xiao Xi was already hesitating over twenty thousand.

“Right, Xiao Xi, your gift.” Blue 242 opened his palm again, revealing a small bottle just like last time. Inside were many red little stones.

A rough glance showed there were far more than last time.

He said, “I picked these up yesterday.”

At that moment, Su Ximu’s heart felt a bit fragile.

After all, he wasn’t even twenty yet. Growing up, the only close family he had were his grandma and his cousin.

His grandma had passed away a few years ago, and his cousin had apparently gotten into a highly classified military academy. They hadn’t been in touch for a long time.

These past few days, facing the care from ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Third Brother,’ it wasn’t that he didn’t want it…

Looking at the hand Blue 242 Leader extended toward him, Su Ximu slowly took the small bottle from it and gripped it tightly in his palm. He really couldn’t hold back and pursed his lips. His eyes uncontrollably reddened.

That familiar sour feeling in his eyes—he quickly lowered his head and rubbed them hard with the back of his hand, finally suppressing the sensation.

Seeing this, Blue 242 felt even more at a loss.

He gently cupped the youth’s face with both hands and made him lift his head.

When he saw the two red marks the youth had roughly rubbed onto his own fair skin, he couldn’t help but reach out and touch them.

“No crying.” As the red marks faded under his touch, Su Wuzi coaxed again, gently: “Xiao Xi, be good. No crying.”

“Why did you suddenly want to cry? Why did you suddenly feel like you were about to be kicked out of the house?”

When he had been human, he hadn’t been normal. Later, he had been a weird for many years.

During these days spent with Xiao Xi, he wasn’t always confident. He carefully observed and thought, working hard to understand the reasoning behind Xiao Xi’s every action.

They had been apart for too long. No one would stand still forever.

They had grown up. Xiao Xi had grown up too.

He knew he couldn’t just apply his old impressions directly onto the now-grown Xiao Xi.

So if there were doubts, he had to ask.

With Blue 242 Leader holding his cheeks like some rare treasure, Su Ximu suddenly felt embarrassed. The urge to cry faded quite a bit.

Fortunately, Blue 242 Leader soon let go of his hands. Su Ximu couldn’t help but glance his eyes to the side, avoiding direct eye contact as he emphasized to save face, “It’s because I was moved, so I wanted to cry.”

“But I didn’t cry!”

He hadn’t cried in a long time.

He hadn’t cried even on his first day in this world.

After answering the first question and seeing that Blue 242 Leader seemed to believe he really hadn’t cried, Su Ximu started thinking about how to answer the second one.

This question wasn’t easy to answer.

Fortunately, the most intense emotions had already passed. He could only give Blue 242 Leader a vague metaphor: “It’s like, there’s this one person who now has a whole bunch of things, but none of them are really his. He really likes those things, but he can’t have them. If he tells all his family about this, they’ll probably get really angry, and then he might get kicked out.”

Su Ximu felt like he had explained it all mistily, but Su Wuzi understood.

He digested Xiao Xi’s words in his mind for a few seconds, then showed a guilty expression on his face.

He hadn’t expected that even though he had been so careful with Xiao Xi, there were still oversights.

He had thought Xiao Xi wasn’t close to Big Brother or Jianglou because they hadn’t had much contact, and Xiao Xi had a somewhat shy personality.

But there might be his own reasons in there too. Big Brother and Jianglou had held back from approaching Xiao Xi rashly because of what he had said.

He hadn’t expected that what Xiao Xi actually cared about was something they had never even considered from start to finish.

Xiao Xi cared about that ‘Su Ximu’ who only existed in the Jianglou Instance story.

Su Wuzi couldn’t help but think: If this had happened to him, or Big Brother, or Jianglou—if it had been any one of the three of them—and it wasn’t Xiao Xi who had come to their world, but one of them who had gone to Xiao Xi’s world and taken the place of the people close to Xiao Xi…

Then, they probably wouldn’t care about these issues at all. In fact, to preserve their current happy life, they would have to ensure that the so-called ‘original host’ whose identity they had taken never appeared again for the rest of their life…

“So, is this person now going to tell all his family about it?” Blue 242 asked.

Su Ximu went silent for one or two seconds, then nodded. “Mm!”

“Then I wish him good luck.” Blue 242’s tone was firm. “I think that in the end, the result might not be bad at all. It might even be good.”

“Because honest kids will definitely get what they want.”

Hearing this, Su Ximu couldn’t help but look up. He wanted to ask Blue 242 Leader where he had gotten that line from.

Even kids a bit younger than him knew that ‘honest kids will definitely get rewards’ came from fairy tales.

Wealth Avenue, Su Family villa.

Su Xuanxiao’s expression wasn’t good after making some remote contact with Wuzi. His eyes dark, he glanced at Su Jianglou, who was still sitting on the opposite sofa.

Su Jianglou, who had also joined the remote conversation earlier, now wore a face full of regret.

He had just been guessing that Xibao was calling such a solemn family meeting because of the video tape—that he didn’t want to keep hiding anymore and was ready to face Second Brother’s anger head-on.

Although he had made the whole thing up.

The result? An even more serious aftereffect!

Xibao still felt like an outsider in this home!

Su Jianglou had almost forgotten that the author weird who had helped him build the instance at the very beginning had even made up an ‘original host.’

Just like Second Brother, Su Jianglou couldn’t help but put himself in the scenario. His final conclusion was: As long as he got what he wanted, he didn’t care if the others were weirds or dead or alive.

After giving his little brother a deep look, Su Xuanxiao took the initiative to admit fault. “This is my mistake. You didn’t think of this point, and neither did I.”

It was rare for Big Brother to bow his head like this.

But that wasn’t the most important thing right now. The most important was: “Second Brother said Xibao will be home soon. After Xibao ‘confesses,’ how do we explain it to him?”

A full confession didn’t seem feasible.

Second Brother had said Xibao’s situation was special right now. He couldn’t accept things that were too abnormal.

But on the flip side, wasn’t transmigration something Xibao saw as perfectly normal?

Just how exactly did Xibao define ‘normal’?

Su Xuanxiao had clearly thought of this key point too.

If he could accept transmigration, could he accept going back and forth?

Su Xuanxiao figured he probably could.

As he pondered, his gaze fell on the thing Jianglou was fiddling with in his hand. His brows furrowed sharply again. “What are you doing with Wuzi’s dungeon key?”

“Going in, obviously.” Su Jianglou’s answer came smoothly. “If Xibao hadn’t called the family meeting today, I would’ve gone in yesterday.”

He looked at the rusty, weathered old key in his hand, his tone carrying both anticipation and anger. “I can’t keep living like this forever—having to time it perfectly just to appear openly in front of Xibao.”

When resisting the gray mist invasion, he could only recall his past happy memories over and over.

And all his happy memories involved Xibao.

The clearer the memories, the more excited he got when recalling them, and the slower the gray mist eroded him.

So he had let his emotions run out of control.

But things were different now. He could now resist the Weird World’s gray mist invasion with his own power.

The near-loss-of-control emotions that hit every time he got close to Xibao instead felt like a hindrance now.

He didn’t want any desensitization therapy anymore. It was too slow.

He just wanted to stand in front of Xibao at the fastest possible speed—always, always.

“So I’m going. I’m going to Second Brother’s instance.”

Su Jianglou gripped the key tightly in his hand, not giving Big Brother a chance to snatch it.

The atmosphere between the two brothers grew tense.

Until the sound of footsteps—not too light, not too heavy—came from the widely opened door.

Su Xuanxiao immediately straightened up and put away his stern patriarch dictator face.

Su Jianglou took a deep breath, picked up the fruit plate from the coffee table, and put on a smile. “Xibao, you’re back?”

“Work must’ve been tough. Look, Third Brother cut fruit for you.”

The moment Su Ximu stepped through the door, ‘Third Brother’ stuffed a piece of fruit into his mouth. He chewed subconsciously. It was very sweet.

Sigh. But it couldn’t mask the bitterness in his heart.

Not wanting to accept any more of ‘Third Brother’s’ care, during the dozen or so seconds it took him to change shoes, Su Ximu kept his lips pursed tight. He didn’t let ‘Third Brother’ feed him any more fruit.

After changing shoes, he turned around cautiously and closed the front door. He also drew the curtains over the large floor-to-ceiling windows.

Once that was done, the room darkened by several degrees.

He declined ‘Third Brother’s’ invitation to sit together and instead sat alone on a single-seater sofa. He looked around but didn’t spot ‘Second Brother.’

It didn’t matter. ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Third Brother’ were both here. They would relay this to ‘Second Brother’ later.

After organizing his words in his mind, he got straight to the point, serious and solemn. “Big Brother, Third Brother, there’s something I need to confess to you.”

Su Xuanxiao nodded, organizing his own words in his mind for what came next.

Su Jianglou silently put one hand behind his back.

Just like last time, that hand had fully turned to mist.

Before confessing to ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Third Brother,’ Su Ximu felt he should first give them some common knowledge. “Perhaps, Big Brother, Third Brother—you know about transmigration? What about transmigrating into a book?”

He knew that for a living, breathing person, making them accept that they were actually living inside a book was a pretty cruel thing.

But to put it one way: I think, therefore I am. As long as he believed he was truly alive, then the world he was in was real.

After being here for so long, Su Ximu himself felt like this really was a real world.

The content in the book had naturally changed ever since he transmigrated over.

Therefore, the book could be changed, and the book wasn’t that important either.

Something that even he could figure out—’Big Brother’, who was so smart, definitely could as well.

“I am someone who transmigrated here! In my world, I was also called Su Ximu. But I am not your little brother.”

After saying that, he quickly patched it up. “But don’t be afraid, you guys. Transmigration is a very common thing. In my world, transmigrators often sought help online, and many netizens gave them advice on how to live better after transmigrating. It’s just that my luck was bad, and I had no way to contact my original world.”

“But who knows, maybe one day your little brother will come back.”