The World-Destroying Goddess Brings the Child to My Door and Demands Responsibility - Chapter 7

Qing Shi raised her eyes to look at the sky with a somewhat dazed expression, before finally letting out a soft sigh.

“It feels like I’ve forgotten so many things.” Qing Shi propped her head up with one hand, simply hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything particularly important.

Yet that seemed hardly possible; if everything she had forgotten was unimportant to begin with, there would have been no reason to forget it at all.

However, the fact that the game world could connect both the world where Lu Fengmian currently resided and the world where Qing Shi currently resided allowing Lu Fengmian and the players to travel back and forth freely between the two realmsstill brought Qing Shi a profound sense of joy.

Though she couldn’t quite articulate at present what direction everything would develop toward.

At this moment, Qing Shi only hoped her Mianmian would continue coming back to find her.

The pale blue figure atop the peak of the divine mountain looked exceptionally lonely and desolate, as though waiting for someone to return.

She drank wine, while up on the Demon (Slaying Platform) of the divine mountain, several individuals were bound precisely those who had colluded to drug Lu Fengmian. The primary mastermind had already been reduced to ashes, and naturally Qing Shi would not let these accomplices go either.

Acting in her capacity as the warden, she inflicted the most severe punishments upon these individuals: their souls would remain undestroyed while enduring endless torment.

This served as a warning to all the other criminals: “No one is permitted to harm those outsiders; violators shall suffer the exact same fate as them.”

Qing Shi could not forgive herself for finally managing to reunite with her, only to fail to protect her properly.

The words she had spoken to Lu Fengmian were not entirely lies, after all, she genuinely did not remember.

When Lu Fengmian created Qing Shi once again, Qing Shi awakened, and the moment the game world was fully completed, all the game’s plotlines flooded into Qing Shi’s mind.

The moment she learned of all the storylines, Qing Shi realized that she was originally a criminal, yet her creator had designated her to become a deity her identity as a goddess had been entirely bestowed upon her by Lu Fengmian.

At that very moment, Qing Shi felt her heart swell with an inexplicable sour ache, accompanied by an indescribable discomfort and delight all at once a sensation of stark contradiction.

Therefore, she had resolved not to follow Lu Fengmian’s script; she was utterly impatient to go meet Lu Fengmian.

Yet after that brief moment of joy, Lu Fengmian had left once again.

Qing Shi didn’t understand why Lu Fengmian and those players had suddenly vanished, though she understood with a high degree of probability that Lu Fengmian wouldn’t disappear for long either.

Even so, watching Lu Fengmian vanish still left her feeling supremely distressed.

“She’ll come back, right?” Qing Shi let out a sigh, her tone still involuntarily carrying a sense of uncertainty as she questioned the void.

Yet no one answered her. Having lost those players, the world left with only these criminals and souls of unstable entities grew considerably quieter, losing its vitality and sinking into an utterly dead, lifeless state.

Qing Shi disliked this; she eagerly anticipated the swift return of Lu Fengmian and those fellows though primarily Lu Fengmian, of course, as the others weren’t all that important.

Meanwhile, back in the other world, Lu Fengmian had swiftly purchased a house, moved in with bags in hand, and tidied things up simply. Fortunately, she had been extremely poor previously and didn’t own many belongings anyway; her old possessions were truly too dilapidated, and Lu Fengmian didn’t want them anymore.

Without mountains of luggage, moving houses was still quite effortless.

After finishing tidying up, Lu Fengmian went over to the governmental agency of this tier to re-register her identity information, and after re-applying for StarNet access, she was finally able to surf the internet for extended periods.

Upon returning home, Lu Fengmian logged onto StarNet in a flash and found the discussion forum for Quest for the Dao.

She saw that the online reviews for the game remained exceedingly high:

“[This game is truly, truly different, you could even say it’s completely unlike any civilization we’ve known. Inside, there really is an extremely complete cultural system belonging to the game world from the language to the clothing, cultural customs, and interpersonal interactions, it is entirely different from our current world!]”

“[I can actually plant things myself inside the game world and then eat them, it’s genuinely so magical!]”

“[Ahhhh, I just love farming! It feels exceptionally relaxing and extremely joyful, and the atmosphere in the small village is also genuinely, wonderfully good.]”

“[Wuwuwu, clearly it’s a completely unfamiliar world to me, and even a completely unfamiliar civilization, but following the storyline always makes me tear up; it’s so easy to get moved, which has never happened in other games.]”

Because the closed beta participants had basically all run live streams, many people who had played shared their feelings and experiences on StarNet.

And those who watched the live streams were also raring to go, all of them clamoring for an early open beta.

However, right when the game’s promotional campaign first launched, Lu Fengmian had covertly dropped hints that the development team was extremely poor, consisting of only a few people, so progress would be relatively slow, hoping players would be understanding.

Initially, she wasn’t even certain whether playing the pity card would work, but later events proved that it certainly did.

Look at that before the closed beta had even concluded, they had thrown one hundred million Star coins her way.

Naturally, in terms of purchasing power, it was roughly equivalent to the purchasing power of fifty million in her past life.

Yet for Lu Fengmian right now, that was genuinely more than enough!

Lying on her own bed, looking at the discussions on StarNet, that long-lost feeling flooded back to her.

She was a game designer, and now she alone constituted an entire team. Seeing the game she created being discussed by others, with such high popularity, that kind of joy was difficult to capture in words.

Having come to this world for so long, she finally felt as though she were truly alive.

That feeling of striving for more than just mere survival was genuinely wonderful—whether it was praise or skepticism, having people discuss the game she created was an exceptionally good feeling.

Lu Fengmian gathered some of the suggestions provided by those players; some of them were actually quite sensible.

She wanted to showcase the civilization that originally belonged to them through the game, but she couldn’t completely disregard the habits and preferences of contemporary humans either.

Otherwise, it would end up like an old fossil, sticking rigidly to convention and unwilling to make any changes, which was hardly a good thing.

Civilization always had to develop alongside the progression of the eras. Although this world had experienced a cultural fault line, it wasn’t entirely impossible to incorporate some modern elements.

It was just slightly troublesome, that’s all.

Lu Fengmian spent another full day finishing up this update.

This was only thanks to the existence of the system, which boosted her work progress by several dozen times over, allowing a single person to match the output of an entire team.

The next day, after finishing the update, Lu Fengmian once again opened the servers at six in the afternoon. Those closed beta players seemed to have been lying in wait the entire time, logging into the game within less than a second of the servers opening.

Fortunately, the system’s processing speed was formidable enough that it didn’t force Lu Fengmian, as the developer, to wait in line—that truly would have been humiliating.

After logging into the game, Lu Fengmian instantly felt that something was amiss. She had woken up inside the inn from the storyline, opening her eyes to look at the antique-style room. There were no other abnormalities around, and the inn NPCs were all acting completely normally.

[System?] Lu Fengmian tried calling out to the system, but the system still gave no response.

The moment she entered the game, she lost all connection with the system.

This left Lu Fengmian feeling somewhat giving her a headache.

[What is a system?] Qing Shi’s voice echoed directly inside Lu Fengmian’s mind.

Lu Fengmian was instantly rendered speechless and astonished.

[You can hear me calling out to the system?]

[You and I share a soul contract. When you communicate with someone in your mind, isn’t that communicating with me? There shouldn’t be anyone else capable of engaging in direct soul-to-soul dialogue with Mianmian; you don’t have any other soul contracts on you.]

Lu Fengmian: ……

Is there any possibility that you’re simply not powerful enough yet, not advanced enough, and therefore failed to detect it?

[This is a game world, and there is a game system, which is equivalent to an assistant inside the game. Other players have them too, can’t you perceive it?] Lu Fengmian bullshitted with a straight face.

Qing Shi pondered for a moment; it seemed something like that did exist.

[However, I don’t pay much attention to them either. After all, dividing my consciousness outward would weaken my main body’s spiritual power. Last time it was also because of that reason that I didn’t sense in time when you encountered danger, but it won’t happen again. Right now, those players following alongside you are merely data; they aren’t important to me.] Qing Shi told Lu Fengmian truthfully.

For a moment, Lu Fengmian’s mood grew somewhat complicated, unsure of how to put it, it carried a warm yet heavy weight.