Chapter 16: The Girl Who Would Never Grow Up Died in the Future
Jiang Mo had imagined it would be beautiful, but he could never have imagined just how beautiful.
On the screen, mist swirled, filling the frame with a hazy glow. Only a vague outline was visible: two jade-white feet perched on the edge of the bathtub, glowing pale calves, smooth and shapely calves... and then nothing more could be seen.
It must have been the angle. Should he ask her to flip the camera around?
Wait—first, take a screenshot.
“Are you done?”
After a long pause, Li Qingran’s cool, icy voice came through, silencing Jiang Mo once again.
Done? The screenshot was done, but everything else...
Ran-chan, if I say I’m ready, will you be happy?
Just looking won’t do. When I come over tomorrow, don’t forget to let me touch them.
“Saliva,” Li Qingran reminded him before shutting off the camera.
“Slurp.” Only then did Jiang Mo realize he’d drooled, the saliva dripping onto his phone screen. The class monitor had just seen his expression...
Roughly translated, he’d just betrayed his own lust.
No way—that was a loss. He really should have asked her to flip the camera.
Is it still possible to change his QQ space now? Actually, it wasn’t just the legs he liked; he also preferred something a bit rounder.
“Class monitor... what are you thinking?” Jiang Mo asked, slightly stiff.
“Splash!” The sound of water suddenly heightened, as if a maiden had emerged from the lotus pond.
It was so pleasant to hear, it could make one eat three bowls of rice.
“I like to play.”
After some gentle rustling, Li Qingran’s voice came back through the phone.
“You like legs.”
“I’ll show you.”
“Play with me.”
A fair exchange, huh? Interesting.
Well, I don’t mind taking a little loss.
“Class monitor, you don’t have to do anything. I’m happy to accompany you... after all, I promised before.”
Jiang Mo was appropriately polite. But silence followed on the other end.
After a few wet footsteps, the girl’s doubtful voice came through:
“You don’t like it?”
No... that’s not what I meant! Damn it!
I declare: Ran-chan’s thought process is the most confusing in the world!
Then who’s the most clueless?
Straight to Qingmei’s room.
“Um... I like it, I really like it,” Jiang Mo quickly answered, afraid that if he didn’t say he liked it, he would never see the class monitor’s perks again.
At the age of pure love, only pure awkwardness remained.
“Good.”
Seconds after Li Qingran’s words, Jiang Mo’s QQ messages received a photo.
Pale, flawless legs.
After quickly saving it, Jiang Mo began to reflect:
“Class monitor, you know I don’t want our friendship to be bound by material things...”
“Besides, as a normal high school boy with proper values, I actually admire some noble spiritual pursuits more...”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes,” Jiang Mo answered instantly.
“Mm.”
He had been instantly defeated by the class monitor.
“Start the game, dry your hair.”
Jiang Mo could already read between the lines; Li Qingran meant, “You start the game first, I’m going to dry my hair, wait for me.”
Okay, baby, waiting for you.
As the noise of the hairdryer ceased, the game started just right.
This time, Jiang Mo added some mods to the game,
like better lighting effects, the ability for characters to marry and have children...
Besides companionship, Jiang Mo wanted to learn everything about the girl.
He figured he could subtly probe through the game.
At first, the girl spoke little while playing, barely saying a word.
Every time she killed a monster, she would hold her breath.
After a while, she said she didn’t want to fight monsters anymore.
“Mr. Zombie, Mr. Skeleton,” Li Qingran called them, “they were once people.”
“Rotten flesh can cause poisoning.”
“Bone meal is fertilizer.”
“Steve is very lonely.”
“Skeletons and zombies are Steve’s friends.”
“Eating friends’ flesh causes poisoning; Steve doesn’t eat it.”
“Bone meal fertilizer is a gift from friends to Steve.”
The girl gave an unusually emotional explanation of the game, as if she had woven special feelings into it.
“Does the class monitor have good friends?” Jiang Mo asked.
“Steve doesn’t either,” Li Qingran replied gently.
Gradually, Li Qingran became thoroughly familiar with the game and began focusing on building, planting, and animal husbandry.
Originally a crude house was renovated by her into something quite decent.
Jiang Mo was responsible for going out to gather materials—catching pigs, cows, and chickens.
The home was filled with glowing fluorite, torches were stuck to the walls, making the small house brightly lit.
There was a farm, a ranch, work at sunrise, rest at sunset.
Villagers were carefully led closer to their home, step by step.
The girl would build each villager a house, placing a small flower at each doorstep.
She even built shelters for zombies exposed to sunlight.
According to Li Qingran, “Zombies have just forgotten Steve; choosing to leave under sunlight is to avoid hurting Steve.”
Seeing she liked flowers, Jiang Mo asked why she didn’t create a flower garden.
“Flowers should bloom in a free place,” she answered. “Friends should be the same.”
The girl would stare blankly at the chicks, waiting until they laid eggs, happily going to collect them. She chased pigs and cows with wheat and carrots to feed them.
When there was nothing to do, she would quietly watch the wheat in the field grow slowly.
When the wheat ripened and the animals grew up, she would quietly stay on the rooftop, watching the clouds roll by.
“Jiang Mo,” Li Qingran called his name suddenly as she admired the sunset in the game.
“The sky here is more beautiful than reality.”
“Ah, yes, yes,” Jiang Mo thought. That was because he had installed the lighting mod, but obviously he shouldn’t burst the girl’s romantic bubble.
“This is a good game,” Li Qingran said. “You’re a good person too.”
It was the second time she gave him the “good person” card; Jiang Mo smiled wryly.
“Can’t we be good friends?” he asked instinctively.
As soon as the words fell, Jiang Mo vaguely heard the girl’s unusually deep breath through the phone.
Suddenly, the class monitor’s character in the game turned to look at him.
Jiang Mo felt as if he saw Li Qingran’s pale, cold face—the melancholic eyes that always seemed broken.
The next moment, his phone buzzed rapidly.
[Qingran]: pictures.pictures.pictures.pictures.pictures.
Looking down, it was another breathtaking leg photo. Lick, lick, lick—damn it, lick, lick, lick. Save, save.
What a cyber bodhisattva.
“If it’s friendship, then it’s possible,” Li Qingran murmured after a while.
The AI dialogue translation failed.
Possible what? Speak clearly!
Jiang Mo’s lips never stopped twitching. He thought: Could the class monitor be a woman even more skilled at nonsense than Hu Yuen?
So what?
I definitely have to worship these legs!
Already close to midnight, Li Qingran’s words became more frequent and dense, a stark contrast to her earlier quietness.
It seemed she had no accurate sense of time in reality but treated the brief days in the game as more real life.
She grew fond of fishing, loved pulling Jiang Mo onto the rooftop to watch stars, raised more and more animals but couldn’t bear to kill them for food.
When encountering Endermen, she would bury herself in a pit like a shy turtle, and when going to the Nether, she’d ask how to bring Pigmen back.
Jiang Mo led her to avoid the most vicious monsters, but she still saw the evil spirits as crying clouds and the Blaze as an old man selling malt sugar.
It was as if her world was incredibly simple and pure.
Why would such a girl walk toward a tragic future?
Close to 2 a.m.
“Jiang Mo, are you asleep?”
“No.”
A few minutes later, the girl asked again:
“Jiang Mo, are you asleep?”
And again a few minutes later, once more, and again, repeatedly—
Like a child afraid to sleep alone when their parents suddenly leave, asking over and over.
After too many times,
“Class monitor, I’m not going to fall asleep,” Jiang Mo said as he downed a bottle of energy drink to stay awake.
“Mm,” the class monitor’s voice steadied.
“Jiang Mo, does this world have no end?”
“Yes.”
“Then friends can be together forever.”
“Uh, that’s not wrong.”
“I want to see snow.” Li Qingran’s topics jumped swiftly.
Jiang Mo didn’t think much and changed the game’s weather to snow.
Snowflakes drifted down—though not very realistic, it still made the girl on the other end hold her breath.
Shi’an was a southern city; snow was a rare sight.
Li Qingran’s character sat on the rooftop watching quietly. Jiang Mo had nothing better to do and started scrolling short videos, only to find the black silk stockings girls in those videos were nothing like the class monitor—no longer appealing.
He decided to appreciate Li Qingran’s beautiful photos instead... a true gem.
“Jiang Mo, will you come tomorrow?” Li Qingran’s voice sounded drowsy, her nasal tone heavier.
“Slurp, slurp... oh, I’ll come.”
“Mm... will you definitely come?”
“Definitely.”
[Your life trajectory has changed, Li Qingran IF route has shifted.]
[A year later, due to differences in academic performance, you go separate ways, far apart. You lose your phone and past contact. Distance and trivialities gradually make you forget her...]
[Ten years later, you have a family and career but life is unfulfilled. After a failed startup, your family quickly falls apart, divorce and debt leaving you frustrated.]
[When you’re destitute, a girl in a white dress, just as she once was, finds you, helps pay off your debts, supports you to start again...]
[You succeed but also fail. Wealth and materialism inflate your ego. You thrive in business but are lethargic at home, your temper changes...]
[The girl hopes you’ll accompany her, recover past memories, but you keep evading.]
[You start to look down on her childish imagination, telling her life is complicated and she shouldn’t be stuck in the past...]
[“People need to grow up, be mature!” you say.]
[“Are you asleep?” she asks softly.]
[You find her absurd to the point of fury.]
[You never rekindle your relationship.]
[Years later, you learn of her death, a game save file is sent to your email.]
[The save file shows endless snow, cozy little houses, fields of blooming flowers, a gentle, warm world.]
[This world she cultivated for over ten years, tirelessly day and night.]
[You finally realize you never understood her heart... too late for regrets.]
[Critical life event task, target: Li Qingran.]
[Primary task: Protect her innocence, understand her past.]
[Side task: Accompany! Her! To play!]
The system’s subtitles slowly faded from Jiang Mo’s mind, leaving him flushed with anger.
Is this really me? Damn it, this isn’t me!
Damn this stupid system! How could my future be like this? Who the hell is this idiot? Damn it, who’s this Jiang Mo jerk?
Born!
Jiang Mo panicked, opened QQ chat to say something, but heard the girl’s even breathing...
Ran-bao was asleep.
Checking the time again, it was 3 a.m.
He had no mood to look at legs anymore; this damn future was killing him.
The pure-hearted warrior answered to the end.
Leaving the game running idle, Jiang Mo lay on his bed, deep in thought, angry for a long time.
Listening to Li Qingran’s breathing, he gradually calmed down.
According to the system, the class monitor’s birth family had problems; she grew up in an orphanage but now lived alone in a large house... clearly not lacking money.
A rich illegitimate daughter?
From these days’ interactions, the class monitor wasn’t merely obsessed with the game.
Rather, her concept of “fun” was stuck in childhood.
Jiang Mo opened Li Qingran’s QQ page; her avatar had changed from the original “Fruit Baby Commando” to Steve.
He remembered how the class monitor had stalked his QQ space...
He checked his own QQ space and found Li Qingran had liked two of his posts.
One was: “Hehe, pretty girl’s legs are so nice, slurp slurp...”
That purely lustful post was from when he was cohabiting with Jiang Wanfeng; Biyang’s childhood friend went around without underwear, which had aroused him, though he’d since grown numb...
Mistake—he hadn’t blocked the class monitor.
The other was a chūnibyo-era comment:
“Friends are the best setup in a game.”
Jiang Mo suddenly understood.
At that moment, the girl’s murmuring came through the phone in her sleep...
“Play with me... please...”
...
“Jiang Mo! What are you doing in the bathroom?!!”
Outside, Jiang Wanfeng was crossing her legs, her face red.
“Hurry up! I need to pee!!”
“What exactly are you doing?! Get out now!”
Jiang Mo thought he couldn’t control it.
He’d gotten up early, found the class monitor’s call still open with the camera on—definitely on purpose. The class monitor was trying to bait him, and he was willing to take the bait.
It had been a feast for the eyes; how could Jiang Mo hold back early in the morning? He lost control completely.
To avoid being seen by Jiang Wanfeng, he thought to cool off by washing in the bathroom.
But no sooner had he entered than Jiang Wanfeng started banging on the door demanding to use it.
He couldn’t just imitate the childhood friend and reward himself, right?
“Hey! You said it yourself, are you sure you want me to come out? Don’t regret it!”
“No regrets! Stop talking, hurry up!” Jiang Wanfeng kicked the door.
Jiang Mo opened the door looking miserable and bent over.
Seeing a strange bulge, the girl’s face instantly turned pale; she almost kicked but stopped just in time.
“You... pervert!” Jiang Wanfeng said, embarrassed and angry. “Hurry up and get out!”
“Bang!” The door shut, and the girl slipped inside, covering her flushed cheeks, her mind full of the scene just now.
So close to kicking him... she thought.
Maybe she’d need to use it again someday; it couldn’t be broken.
But it was only a maybe, not a certainty... she added silently, her face burning, swallowing saliva quietly.
[Jiang Wanfeng main quest progress: 3%]
Jiang Mo sighed, the girl was so annoying; who knew what dirty thoughts she was having.
He was running laps outside when suddenly the system notified him, his expression that of an old man squinting at his phone.
Class monitor still better.
He needed to bring gifts when he visited this afternoon. What to bring?
Running, Jiang Mo reached the outskirts and spotted an old-fashioned convenience store, full of all sorts of items.
Got it.