Warmth at the Fingertips

It seemed that the quest those players mentioned was referring to this item.

Having snatched the quest reward halfway, Chen Zixuan instantly felt a bit guilty, afraid that the team of players would notice him. He quickly tossed the badge back into his inventory, planning to head to the royal city for the reward exchange when he had more time later.

After cleaning up the battlefield, Chen Zixuan was about to make his escape. He took a final glance at his experience bar—he still needed 2,456 experience points to reach level 11.

With his current level, there was no suitable map for him anymore. If he wanted to maintain this leveling speed, he would probably have to go back to the [Mutant Jungle].

The Sawtooth Crocodiles there were tough to deal with, but they indeed gave a lot of experience—about 300 points per kill.

It just so happened that his weapon needed repairs. As Chen Zixuan was getting ready to return to the Main City, a gray icon on his friend list suddenly lit up.

“Gu Yanxi…? Why did she decide to play today?”

Chen Zixuan paused for a moment, hesitating. Suddenly, he recalled the incident when Gu Yanxi was approached by a stranger last time. He still felt uneasy, so he opened the floating keyboard and sent her a private message.

[Cecilia: Where are you?]

……

On the other side, the bustling Main City square.

Gu Yanxi, dressed in a novice priest’s robe, sat at the edge of the fountain, quietly gazing at a few white doves on the open ground, emotions surging in her heart.

At first, she hadn’t known Cecilia’s real identity and just thought of her as a rather friendly player.

However, when she couldn’t resist her curiosity today and logged onto the Legend of Kaloran forum, she had been frightened by thousands of private messages popping up. Only then did she realize that the three people she had teamed up with at that time were probably not ordinary nobodies.

The captains of two gaming teams, and the current number one on the Legend of Kaloran world player level ranking.

She’d thought that apart from Cecilia, the other two in the “slacker trio” were noobs—who would have expected that the real clown was herself.

Letting out a faint sigh, Gu Yanxi opened the main game interface and searched through several options to find the player level rankings. As expected, the familiar ID was solidly in first place.

[Cecilia] (Lv.10)

It had only been two days, but she’d already reached level 10…

Looking further down, the second-ranked player in the world was only level 7, a difference of full three levels.

“As I thought, I really need to return this weapon to her. It’s too valuable…”

While Gu Yanxi was thinking about this, a private message suddenly popped up on the bottom right corner of the interface.

Just as she feared, Cecilia had sent her a new message.

The message was short, only two words囷祁ling把五罒⑥爸琦霓.

Where are you?

“Ugh…”

After a difficult ten-second struggle in her heart, Gu Yanxi honestly typed her reply.

“At the square, watching the doves.”

With a nervous heart, she closed the message. A few seconds later, another message came in.

[Cecilia: Stay where you are and wait for me.]

[Cecilia: Oh, and, don’t talk to strangers.]

Looking at the last message from Cecilia, a question mark slowly popped up above Gu Yanxi’s head.

?

……

Six kilometers south of the Main City, nightshade Forest.

After closing the message interface, Chen Zixuan turned around and hurried back toward the Main City.

He’d planned to return to the Main City to repair all his equipment anyway. After all, the next area he would be heading to was a level 15 wild map. Even as strong as Cecilia was now, she would have to give her all against the Sawtooth Crocodiles there.

Ever since the rumors about a D-rank world boss in the [Mutant Jungle] had spread, the number of players wandering in Nightshade Forest had decreased significantly.

He barely encountered any teams along the way. A dozen minutes later, Chen Zixuan smoothly returned to the Main City. After searching the square for a while, he finally spotted Gu Yanxi.

The girl was sitting upright next to the fountain at the corner of the square, her soft body tensed, her expression slightly worried, looking pitiful.

Clearly, she was the person he was most familiar with in this city, but because of his current appearance and gender, he couldn’t reveal his true identity to her.

Suppressing his normally bold, aggressive stride, Chen Zixuan switched to a more feminine, smaller pace and walked over to Gu Yanxi’s side. After hesitating for a moment, he said softly:

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“It’s… it’s nothing!”

Startled by Cecilia’s sudden, ghostly appearance, Gu Yanxi’s body jolted, and she reflexively leaned backward.

Fortunately, Chen Zixuan’s reaction was quick. He shot out a hand like lightning, grabbing Gu Yanxi’s arm and saving her from falling into the fountain.

“Th-thank you, um, sorry…”

After the crisis passed, Gu Yanxi originally wanted to apologize to Cecilia properly, but for some reason, her words petered out until her voice was barely above a whisper.

Hearing this, a slight wry smile appeared on the silver-haired girl’s face under the hood.

When did things between him and Gu Yanxi become so awkward and distant?

Besides, this was just a game anyway. In a few days, when he really looked like this in the real world, would Gu Yanxi still recognize him?

Feeling a slight constriction in his chest, for a moment, Chen Zixuan felt the impulse to pour everything out to Gu Yanxi.

However, reason prevailed, and after a few seconds, he forcibly suppressed the urge.

Curling his lips into the warmest smile he could muster, Chen Zixuan reached out and gently ruffled Gu Yanxi’s smooth black hair.

After all, it was just a game—the chance might never come again.

And besides, in the real world, he’d wanted to do this for a long time.

Feeling the touch on her head, Gu Yanxi was at a loss. Clearly, this sudden ambiguous gesture from Cecilia was completely unexpected for her.

Her heartbeat sped up. After staring blankly for a while, she suddenly came around and quickly raised her hand to grab Cecilia’s right hand atop her head.

They were both girls—why was the other one patting her head?

Gu Yanxi originally meant to stop Cecilia, but as her palm closed around Cecilia’s soft, fair hand, she involuntarily froze.

She neither pushed it away nor let go.

Gu Yanxi was stunned. Chen Zixuan was stunned as well.

Their hands remained tightly clasped together, frozen in a rather awkward position atop Gu Yanxi’s head. After a few seconds, Chen Zixuan asked a bit awkwardly:

“I’ll stop patting. Could you… let go of my hand?”

………

An unexpected event—the clothes arrived early.

But I’m a bit strapped for cash these days and can only afford a hotel once a week. I just stayed last night, so… can I wait until next week to take the nine-photo grid? (Whispering…)

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep