Fate

Yesterday, the two police officers recorded Qin Luming's basic personal information, and Gu Shuiyun also learned his age and occupation. He was relatively old for a student in his year, so Gu Shuiyun did not address him with more formal terms like "Student Qin," "Second-Year Student Qin," or "Little Handsome Qin."

"Hello." Qin Luming nodded in polite response, then went to scan another shared electric bike.

"I just saw that more than a dozen bikes here were ridden over by a photography crew. They're probably just taking pictures by the river and will leave soon, so all these bikes are occupied." Gu Shuiyun turned her head to glance through the car window at the high-rise apartments across the street, then looked at Qin Luming, who seemed determined to scan a shared electric bike.

"Oh, thanks." Qin Luming gave up and took out his phone to call a cab.

"Mr. Qin, let me give you a ride. Since you were trying to scan an electric bike, you probably aren't going far. If you're heading to your school, I happen to be going that way." Gu Shuiyun tilted her head, indicating that Qin Luming should get in.

Qin Luming was not accustomed to accepting the enthusiasm of beautiful female strangers, but he figured he could take the opportunity to ask about Gu Qing'an. He walked around to the other side and habitually reached for the rear door handle, but after his fingers touched it, he moved forward and opened the front passenger door instead.

"Yesterday, we actually had some misunderstandings at first. We wondered whether my brother's disappearance might have something to do with you." Gu Shuiyun spoke candidly. "I'm truly sorry. This matter has had our whole family on edge lately."

It had their whole family on edge... Qin Luming nodded.

"May I roll the window down a little?" Qin Luming asked. The temperature inside the car was rather high, carrying the same warm fragrance as Gu Shuiyun herself.

"Sure, that's fine." After saying that, Gu Shuiyun started the car.

"How long has Mr. Gu been missing?" Qin Luming asked casually. He wanted to analyze when Zhou Li had appeared in the real world based on the timing of Gu Qing'an's disappearance, and how long it had been before he went looking for Ma Shilong... Of course, the result might not be accurate. Even if they were the male and female leads of the same book, they might not have appeared in the real world at the same time... The timeline in the book might have been synchronized with reality, or it might have lagged behind or run ahead.

"A week." Gu Shuiyun sighed worriedly. "My brother's life has truly been full of misfortune. He suffered an accident in his youth and fell into a coma. He remained in a vegetative state for more than ten years, and now, not long after finally waking up, he has gone missing again."

"My condolences." Qin Luming sighed as well, sharing her feelings.

For an ordinary person, such an experience was indeed tragic... But Qin Luming knew that while this Mr. Gu Qing'an had been unconscious, he had transmigrated into the Kingdom of Zhou world of Ma Shilong's novel, My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou!

Qin Luming was certain that many people would willingly pay the price of losing consciousness in reality for such a soul transmigration.

Looking at it optimistically, it was practically like putting on a gaming helmet, something like what happened to Kirito.

That also explained Qin Luming's confusion yesterday. He had thought Gu Qing'an was constantly traveling between two worlds and thus existed in both at once. In truth, only Gu Qing'an's soul had transmigrated, while his body remained alive in the real world in an unconscious state.

"I hope he's all right... Generally speaking, once someone has remained in a vegetative coma for over twelve months, the odds of waking up are extremely low. Let alone more than ten years—that was already a miracle... After he woke up, he must have needed a long period of rehabilitation, right?" Qin Luming knew that according to common knowledge in the real world, vegetative patients who had been unconscious for more than ten years had usually suffered extremely severe brain damage. Even after treatment to awaken them from the coma, neurological functions such as consciousness, speech, movement, and cognition would still require a long period of rehabilitation, if they could recover at all.

But Gu Qing'an's situation clearly could not be explained by ordinary understanding. Qin Luming pondered that perhaps it was precisely because Gu Qing'an existed in reality, while Ma Shilong had happened to write a novel whose protagonist was also named Gu Qing'an, and Gu Qing'an had fallen into a coma more than ten years ago—the era when My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou had roughly begun serialization... Perhaps this chain of conditions, along with reasons Qin Luming did not yet know, had triggered Gu Qing'an's transmigration.

"The doctors also said it was a miracle. When he woke up, he tried to stand, but he fell... By the next day, he was full of life, completely without any need for rehabilitation or readjustment." At this point, Gu Shuiyun showed an incredulous smile, as though she had seen a monkey performing some lewd and vulgar act. Her expression quickly settled, and she sighed softly. Her tone was full of sorrow and sadness. "But a week later, he disappeared again. Our family reunion lasted only one short week."

That meant it had been half a month ago, exactly matching the date when My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou vanished from its original publication site.

With this kind of unfinished novel, it was not as though every character in every book would transmigrate into the real world. Only books that had been abandoned for a long time and then inexplicably disappeared from their original publication sites indicated that a passage had formed between the world of the book and reality, allowing characters from the book to possibly appear in the real world.

"Fate is unpredictable. Everyone gets toyed with by fate." Qin Luming sighed softly as well. He had no grudge against Gu Qing'an. Though the man's transmigration experience was certainly enviable, after having gone through that and then returning to the real world... the psychological gap would probably be hard to accept.

Then... could it have been because of that gap that Gu Qing'an had gone looking for Zhou Nan on his own? Had Gu Qing'an gone to the Zinc Factory for the same reason as Qin Luming, having noticed that its disappearance was unusual and wanting to see whether there were any clues?

That was possible... It was just that Gu Qing'an might have run into Zhou Nan.

Qin Luming silently counted himself fortunate. He recalled the light that had descended with the girl, dazzling and scorching like summer.

"Let's not talk about this..." Gu Shuiyun curved her lips slightly. Looking at the long line of cars ahead, she said apologetically to Qin Luming, "Now I understand why you don't drive to school, Mr. Qin. Driving this stretch might take even longer than riding a bike."

"That's not the reason... I tend to run into trouble when I drive." Since he was interested in Gu Qing'an, Qin Luming needed to show Gu Shuiyun a little more warmth in their social interaction, lest it become awkward to ask about her family matters later. So he made an effort to talk to Gu Shuiyun a little more.

"Oh? What kind of trouble?" Gu Shuiyun blinked. Perhaps it was a habit left over from her girlhood; her expression carried a slightly deliberate hint of cuteness.

"When I drive, I often get into conflicts with beautiful female traffic cops. I don't know why there are so many female police officers, and every one of them has some title like the police flower of some city. Some used to be criminal investigators or special forces soldiers. Basically, they all have powerful backgrounds—daughters of wealthy families, people with influence and power, that sort of thing..." Qin Luming explained. It was a strange sort of thing that kept happening to him.

It would probably be hard for anyone to believe that a person's reluctance to drive had nothing to do with traffic jams, gas prices, or personality, but stemmed from such a bizarre reason.