Chapter 346: Drunken Confessions
The lights in the bar flickered, shifting between brightness and darkness.
Tu Ran took small sips of the sweet liquid, lost in thought as she gazed at the center of the dance floor. Without realizing it, she finished the drink that Xi Chunzhi had handed her.
“Why do you look so troubled?”
Xi Chunzhi had one hand resting on the back of her chair, while the other idly played with her glass on the table. Her long eyebrows raised slightly as she looked at Tu Ran in confusion.
In her mind, Tu Ran should have been happy after killing the father and son of the Xie family.
Tu Ran placed the glass in the center of the table.
“Do I?” she asked, touching her face, which felt a little warm. She wasn’t very good at drinking and realized she might have had too much.
It didn’t matter; right now, looking at Xi Chunzhi, she had so many things she wanted to say.
“First of all, thank you for still considering me a friend. For the first twenty years of my life, I had no one I could truly call a friend. It’s only now that I realize how fortunate it is to have someone who is willing to stand by my side forever.”
As she spoke, Tu Ran held Xi Chunzhi’s hand and reverently placed it on her forehead.
Xi Chunzhi: “…”
She glanced at the empty glass Tu Ran had just drained and then at the bottle next to her, which still had half of it remaining. The label on the bottle was intact…
This alcohol… it tasted like a drink, but its alcohol content was no less than that of regular liquor.
Tu Ran had that tendency to get drunk with even the slightest amount of alcohol.
Xi Chunzhi rubbed her temples. She had forgotten.
Tu Ran was drunk.
And now, drunk, she started to babble.
Holding Xi Chunzhi’s hand with both hands as if it were a microphone, she began to pour out her heart.
“I’m leaving, I’m going to find the ruler… I need to restore the Order Cube… hic!” Tu Ran burped loudly, completely unbothered.
She didn’t stop there and kept mumbling, “The final level in the game, the biggest boss, they must be really powerful. It’s so dangerous for me to go alone… so scary… what if I die…?”
Xi Chunzhi didn’t understand some of the key phrases she mentioned, like “ruler” and “Order Cube.”
But she could guess she was heading somewhere to do something big, and it sounded dangerous—like people could die.
Xi Chunzhi gripped Tu Ran’s hand tightly. “Did Xie Xu send you?” Although phrased as a question, her tone already carried 90% certainty.
To Xi Chunzhi, only someone like Xie Xu could make Tu Ran follow orders without hesitation—whether it was heading east or west.
Tu Ran, her mind clouded by alcohol, wiped her nose, which was about to drip onto Xi Chunzhi’s hand. “Yes, it’s him!”
Xi Chunzhi ground his teeth, fury rising in her like a burst of flame.
“Again, it’s him! Tu Ran, wake up! You have the power now, why are you listening to him? We could cut off his head and see if he dares tell you what to do next.”
Still not satisfied with just talking, Xi Chunzhi acted swiftly, standing up and pulling Tu Ran by the arm. “You need to go back and sleep. I’ll bring you some sobering liquid. Once the alcohol wears off, I’ll go with you to find Xie Xu. Let’s kill him too, and send him to join his father and brothers.”
Tu Ran, however, clung to Xi Chunzhi’s arm, refusing to budge. She was strong, and no matter how hard he tried, Xi Chunzhi couldn’t pull her up.
Still lost in her own world, Tu Ran didn’t hear Xi Chunzhi’s words. Her face was pressed against his arm as she sighed, “I don’t have such big ambitions. My ideal life is to make enough money, lie at home every day, sleep from day to night, and have someone bring me food when I’m hungry and water when I’m thirsty.”
“But I can’t just watch as this universe becomes more and more chaotic.” Tu Ran sobbed, her nose running as she wiped her face. Xi Chunzhi stopped trying to drag her and looked at her with pity.
“Every world has its own order and rules, its own unique qualities. But that ruler, or whatever they are, wants to merge the entire universe into one! They want to destroy the diversity of all the worlds! This race is just… just…”
“Just what?” Xi Chunzhi gently patted her head, continuing her sentence.
“Deserving a beating.”
Xi Chunzhi: “…”
“I’m destined to be the one who deals with them.” The drunken Tu Ran started to get self-absorbed, her smile arrogant with a hint of vulgarity.
Xi Chunzhi, momentarily speechless from her shift in mood, pulled her hand free from hers, and returned to her seat.
“Alas,” Tu Ran sighed, her eyes and face as red as a tomato. She looked pitiful, but her words were dripping with sarcasm. “Xie Xu has worked so hard for so many years, and now that he’s on the verge of realizing his life’s goal, he finds that he doesn’t have anyone reliable to use. He still has to put all his chips on me. That Li Wenchuan, he’s completely useless. Even though we’re from the same world, he has no sense of responsibility. A mere deputy commander position is enough to trap him.”
As she spoke, Tu Ran shook her head with exaggerated “tsk tsk” sounds, her expression one of extreme annoyance.
Xi Chunzhi: …Xie Xu, I’ve wronged you.
After silently apologizing to Xie Xu in her mind, Xi Chunzhi finally spoke in disbelief. “Li Wenchuan is also from Blue Star?”
“Yeah,” Tu Ran, at some point, had clung to Xi Chunzhi’s arm again, carefully inspecting her hand, and even felt it like a p*rvert, “Chunzhi, your hands are really beautiful.”
Xi Chunzhi: “…”
She was getting a headache. Talking to a drunken Tu Ran was emotionally exhausting.
She fiddled with the communicator on her wrist, pressing a couple of buttons. “Aliu, bring over the sobering liquid.”
As soon as Xi Chunzhi ended the call, Tu Ran looked at her expectantly. “Chunzhi, I don’t need the sobering liquid. Didn’t you forget? I’m immune to everything. This little bit of alcohol will be metabolized in no time.”
Xi Chunzhi: “Then hurry up and metabolize it.” She crossed her legs and leaned lazily back in her chair, as if to say, “Let’s see how quickly you can metabolize it.”
True to her word, Tu Ran dropped her head onto the table and closed her eyes.
She muttered, “Diamond body, diamond body, diamond body…”
The sobering liquid arrived, and Xi Chunzhi raised a finger. The bartender, multitasking, was holding the drink and standing next to them, but didn’t move any closer.
One minute later.
“Xi Chunzhi, you actually gave me alcohol!”
Tu Ran woke up, and Xi Chunzhi waved her hand, signaling the bartender to leave.
“Who told you to have no judgment? You drink whatever is given to you and still have the nerve to blame me.”
The two acted like children bickering for five minutes.
Tu Ran, with a quick “I’m leaving soon,” managed to win the argument, and the bickering ended.
“Can you handle it alone?” Xi Chunzhi asked seriously.
“I don’t know what the situation is like in the ruler’s world yet, but I’m more flexible on my own. If there’s danger, it’ll be easier to escape.”
Xi Chunzhi, holding her drink, looked troubled. She wanted to accompany Tu Ran, but life or death didn’t matter to her; reason told her that her strength wasn’t enough and would only drag Tu Ran down, possibly even getting both of them killed.
“After all these years of Xie Xu sneaking around, setting up all those laboratories, didn’t he give you anything to protect yourself?”
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