A Chance Encounter / Sad? I Did That

"Thank you, Commander!" Laffey was delighted. "If possible, take Laffey to buy another Wedding Dress."

"Ah?"

P.S.: Ah, I just realized this book only has five thousand words, yet it's already gotten so many votes. I'm shocked! How did everyone find this book?

P.S. 2: Newbie author here, please go easy on me. (*＾-＾*)

Chance Encounter

"Commander, Wedding Dress."

After going downstairs for dinner, Laffey still couldn't stop thinking about her Wedding Dress.

"Mm, it's too late today. All the bridal shops are closed. We'll talk about it when there's another chance. Next time! Definitely next time!"

Ye Ming made the promise solemnly.

Handing out wedding rings and wearing Wedding Dresses in a game was one thing, but taking a little girl like Laffey to buy a Wedding Dress in real life would definitely get him reported to the police as a pervert by the shop staff, wouldn't it?

Especially when Laffey was such a dazed yet adorable little girl who made people want to protect her.

In truth, most destroyer lolis like Laffey and the Submarine Lolis, apart from a very few precocious ones, didn't really understand the meaning of marriage. Take Laffey, for example. Since it was a ring from her beloved Commander, of course she wouldn't refuse it. As for what married people did afterward, little Laffey only understood that they could sleep together.

Just sleep.

"Mm, Commander, don't forget."

The innocent Laffey believed Ye Ming's nonsense. She obediently closed her little mouth, held Ye Ming's hand, and curiously watched the passing cars and pedestrians.

Ye Ming glanced at Laffey. The diamond ring on the little girl's right ring finger was rather conspicuous.

On the way downstairs, Ye Ming had tried to persuade Laffey to take the ring off. However, the sweet and considerate little girl was unusually stubborn about this. No matter what, she refused to remove it. If he pushed too hard, she would look at him with tearful eyes and ask, "Commander, do you want to break off the engagement and abandon Laffey?" Ye Ming could only surrender.

Fortunately, Laffey was still young. Although the white-haired little loli naturally attracted plenty of attention while walking the streets of China, and quite a few people noticed the ring on her hand, no one would mistake a little girl's diamond ring for a wedding ring.

Holding Laffey's hand as they strolled along the sidewalk toward the supermarket, Ye Ming took out his phone and checked it.

Azure Lane had finished downloading. Ye Ming tapped the game icon, and accompanied by the long-familiar "azurlane," selected the Bilibili account he had linked before. Yet after entering the game, instead of being greeted by his secretary ship, he was met with the account creation screen.

Ye Ming's account had mysteriously vanished.

He had also contacted customer service, only to be told that his Bilibili account had never logged into Azure Lane. When he checked his old top-up records, he discovered that every one of them had been changed into other purchases of equal value.

Compared with certain games that practically forced players to spend money, Azure Lane had always been fairly generous. The actual drop rates for Ship-Girls were much higher than the publicly listed figures of only a few percent. Even free-to-play players who relied on daily missions to save Wisdom Cubes could build every event Ship-Girl as long as they weren't too unlucky. Weapons and equipment could also be obtained through events, farming drops, opening boxes, and other methods, while skins could even be acquired for free.

The only things in the game that truly required spending money, aside from expanding the dockyard, were buying skins and wedding rings for the Ship-Girl wives.

Ye Ming wasn't some massive spender, but he had bought quite a few skins and rings. Before quitting, he had been around level 120, with a full collection. He didn't have too many Oath Ships, but he had never counted them carefully. Certainly fewer than a hundred, probably sixty, seventy, or eighty. Aside from strong ships, most were cute destroyer lolis and Submarine Lolis.

But now, they were all gone.

The only one left was Laffey by his side.

"Laffey, do you think Ayanami—no, Enterprise. Do you think Enterprise and the others might have come to this world like you did?" Ye Ming's feelings were complicated.

"Laffey doesn't know either, but... they probably can." Though her words were uncertain, Laffey's tone was quite firm.

"You're that sure?"

"Mm. Everyone in the Port District was awakened by the Commander. The Commander gave everyone life. As Ship-Girls, we were born with an unbreakable bond with the Commander. Just like when the Commander disappeared before—even though we couldn't feel the Commander's presence, everyone knew the Commander had to still be alive. Laffey believes that even if our former companions left the Port District and scattered across the world, they must all be trying their best to find the Commander."

At this point, Laffey paused. Looking at Ye Ming, she said seriously, "Before long, everyone will definitely reunite, stay by the Commander's side, and rebuild the Port District."

Ye Ming was shaken by Laffey's earnest gaze.

An unknown other world, girls wandering across the globe in search of someone important—it sounded romantic. Yet as the person being searched for, Ye Ming felt somewhat burdened.

Would there really be a day when they all gathered together?

And if that day came, how was he supposed to treat the girls?

So many girls coming to the real world was already enough to give him a headache just thinking about it. Especially since there were many Oath Ships. Enterprise and Bismarck would be fine, but Oath Ships with personalities like Roon and Chapayev... would they lock him in a cage? Would he end up chopped into many pieces and stuffed into a refrigerator, with everyone getting a piece?

Thinking about it made Ye Ming both expectant and uneasy.

Fortunately, he had worked construction before, so his stamina was pretty good.

For some reason, that thought suddenly surfaced in Ye Ming's mind. Once he realized it, he could only laugh at himself.

No matter how good an ordinary human's stamina was, there was no way it could compare to a Ship-Girl's.

"Ow!"

Lost in thought, Ye Ming wasn't paying much attention and bumped into a girl walking toward him with her head lowered over her phone. Ye Ming only felt a sharp pain in his chin, but the girl cried out in pain, clutched her head, and squatted down. Her phone flew a long distance away.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I was thinking about something and didn't pay attention. Are you okay?"

Ye Ming hurriedly picked up the girl's phone, walked over to her, and apologized repeatedly.

"Oww, that hurts!" The girl sucked in a breath. "Seriously, watch where you're going."

Muttering a quiet complaint, the girl rubbed her head and stood up. "I'm fine. Next ti—Huh? It's you?"

Once she got a clear look at Ye Ming's face, the girl seemed somewhat surprised and widened her eyes.

"You're... the cosplayer from the subway?"

Ye Ming was surprised too. The girl before him was the same pink-haired girl he had seen during the day, the one wearing what he couldn't tell were donkey ears or fox ears while cosplaying Yae Sakura.

The difference was that the conspicuous animal ears on top of her head were now gone.

"The ears were cosplay props. I took them off after the Comic Convention."

Noticing Ye Ming's gaze, the girl explained.

"Oh. They were pretty big. They must have been inconvenient to wear."

Ye Ming answered, then suddenly felt that something was off.

The girl's Yae Sakura cosplay during the day had been incredibly accurate, which was why Ye Ming had spotted her at a glance in the crowd and remembered her so clearly. But Ye Ming himself had merely been one ordinary person among many in the crowd. How had the girl recognized him?

Could this girl be the real Yae Sakura from the game?

Ye Ming was startled by the sudden guess that popped into his mind.

But Yae Sakura's ears in the game were real ears. She probably couldn't just take them off, could she?

"I didn't expect you to remember me. We only met once at the subway entrance, right?"

Ye Ming was long past the age of becoming too embarrassed to speak when a pretty girl stared at him. He directly tested the waters as he handed her phone over.

"The subway entrance?" The girl froze, then said in surprise, "Did we meet at the subway entrance? I saw you on the subway. You and your girlfriend were talking about Genshin Impact. Since I also play miHoYo games, I looked at you two a few extra times and remembered you clearly. Don't you remember? But I was wearing a padded coat on the subway and wasn't wearing fox ears, so it's normal if you don't remember."

"Girlfriend?"

Ye Ming was stunned. Only then did he remember that a girl who played Genshin Impact had indeed chatted with him on the subway. That girl had apparently been a cosplayer too.

Because he had been talking to her, he had gotten off the subway a little late. Afterward, his attention had been drawn away by the cosplayer dressed as Okita Souji. It was perfectly normal for the girl in front of him to have gotten outside ahead of him.

With that thought, more than half of Ye Ming's suspicion faded.

"She wasn't my girlfriend. We just happened to sit together and talked about games for a while." After explaining, Ye Ming apologized again. "I'm really sorry about earlier. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." The girl waved it off magnanimously. She glanced at Laffey, who had been quietly obedient the whole time, and asked curiously, "This little sister is so cute. Is she your relative?"

"Uh, yeah. You could say she's my... little sister."

Ye Ming answered vaguely, with no intention of introducing Laffey.

The girl seemed to have only asked casually. Seeing that Ye Ming didn't want to say more, she didn't press further.

"So she's your little sister. She's so cute!" The girl praised Laffey, then said goodbye. "I should head home. See you."

"See you."

Ye Ming replied. Holding Laffey's hand, he watched as the girl walked farther and farther away until she disappeared from sight.

From beginning to end, neither of them had even asked the other's name. It really seemed like nothing more than a chance encounter.

But was it really a chance encounter?

Ye Ming still felt that it was too much of a coincidence. Besides, the girl was excessively beautiful. Her skin, eyes, and bearing were nothing like those of an ordinary girl.

After thinking for a while, he took out his phone again, searched for Honkai Impact 3rd, and started downloading it.

They were merely strangers who had met by chance, so naturally it wouldn't be appropriate for him to chase after her and interrogate her. But that didn't mean he had no other way to clear up his doubts.

If he logged into his Honkai Impact 3rd account and found the same situation as Azure Lane, then certain things would naturally be proven.

If there was nothing wrong with the account, then perhaps he had been overthinking it.

If his Honkai Gakuen account was also like Azure Lane, then...

What about the other mobile games he had played?

Heartbroken? I Did It

After leaving Ye Ming's sight, the pink-haired girl quickened her pace and quickly entered the residential complex where Ye Ming rented his apartment. Familiar with the way, she entered one of the residential buildings, took the elevator to the eighth floor, unlocked the door, and entered the room.

If Ye Ming had seen this, he would have been shocked to discover that the girl lived in the same building as him—directly downstairs from his apartment.