My Mobile Wife Found Me, Section 3

"Thank you, Commander!" Laffey was delighted. "If it's okay, could you take Laffey to buy a new wedding dress?"

"Huh?"

PS: Ah, this—suddenly realizing this book, only five thousand words long, has gotten so many votes—surprising! How did everyone find this book?

PS2: A newbie on the road, please take care of me (＾-＾)

Chapter 4: Chance Encounter

"Commander, wedding dress."

After going downstairs and finishing dinner, Laffey was still fixated on her wedding dress.

"Yeah, it's too late today; the wedding dress shops are all closed. Let's talk about it when there's a chance later—next time! Next time for sure!"

Ye Ming vowed solemnly.

In the game, giving a ring and wearing a wedding dress was no problem at all, but in reality, taking a little girl like Laffey to buy a wedding dress would definitely get him reported as a pervert and arrested by the store staff, right?

Especially since Laffey was such a dazed and adorable little girl who stirred up a protective instinct.

Actually, destroyer lolis like Laffey and submarine little girls, aside from a rare few who matured early, mostly didn't understand the meaning of marriage. For Laffey, since it was her favorite Commander's ring, of course she wouldn't refuse. As for what to do after marriage, in little Laffey's understanding, it just meant they could sleep together.

Just sleeping.

"Mm, Commander, don't forget, okay?"

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

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

When coming downstairs, Ye Ming had tried to persuade Laffey to take off the ring, but the obedient and considerate little girl was stubborn on this point. No matter what, she refused to remove it. If pushed too hard, she would look at Ye Ming with tearful eyes and say, "Commander, are you trying to break off the engagement and abandon Laffey?" Ye Ming could only retreat in defeat.

Luckily, Laffey was still young. The image of a white-haired little loli like Laffey naturally attracted a lot of attention on the streets of China, and many people noticed the ring on her hand, but no one would take a diamond ring on a little girl's finger as a wedding ring.

Holding Laffey's hand, Ye Ming strolled along the sidewalk on the way to the supermarket. He pulled out his phone and took a look.

Azure Lane had finished downloading. Ye Ming tapped the game icon, and with the long-missed "Azurlane," he selected the previously bound Bilibili account. After entering the game, instead of a secretary ship's greeting, he was met with an account creation screen.

Ye Ming's account had mysteriously vanished.

Ye Ming also asked customer service, and the answer he got was that his Bilibili account had never logged into Azure Lane. When he checked his past spending records, he found that all the purchase records had been converted into equivalent amounts for other expenses.

Compared to some games that forced spending, Azure Lane was relatively fair. The actual drop rate for Ship-Girls was much higher than the mere few percent shown on the surface. Even free-to-play players who only accumulated Wisdom Cubes through daily tasks could build all the event Ship-Girls as long as they weren't too unlucky. Equipment could be obtained through events, salvaging, opening boxes, and other means, and skins could be acquired for free.

The real places where the game required spending money, aside from expanding the dock, were buying skins and wedding rings for the Ship-Girl wives.

Ye Ming wasn't a big spender, but he had bought quite a few skins and rings. Before quitting, he was around level 120, with a full collection. His Oath Ships were neither too many nor too few—Ye Ming hadn't counted carefully, but it definitely hadn't reached a hundred, probably around sixty to eighty ships. Aside from the meta ships, most were cute destroyer lolis and submarine little girls.

But now, all of it was gone.

The only thing left was Laffey by his side.

"Laffey," Ye Ming said with mixed feelings, "do you think Ayanami, no, Enterprise—could Enterprise and the others come to this world like you did?"

"Laffey isn't sure, but it should be possible." Though she used a somewhat uncertain phrasing, Laffey's tone was quite firm.

"That sure?"

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

At this point, Laffey paused, looked at Ye Ming seriously, and said, "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 otherworld, girls wandering all over the world searching for the figure of someone important—it sounded romantic, but as the one being sought, Ye Ming's mood was a bit heavy.

Would there really be a day of reunion?

If that day came, how should he treat the girls?

So many girls coming to the real world—just thinking about it was overwhelming. Especially since there were many Oath Ships. Enterprise and Bismarck were fine, but Oath Ships with personalities like Roon or Chapayev—would they lock him in a cage? Or cut him into pieces and store them in the fridge for everyone to have a piece?

Thinking of this, Ye Ming felt both anticipation and anxiety.

Luckily, he had worked on a construction site before and had decent stamina.

For some reason, this thought suddenly popped into Ye Ming's mind. After realizing it, he let out a wry laugh.

No matter how good a normal human's stamina was, it couldn't compare to a Ship-Girl.

"Ouch!"

Ye Ming, lost in thought and not paying much attention, bumped into a girl walking toward him while looking down at her phone. Ye Ming only felt a sting on his chin, but the girl let out a cry of pain, crouched down holding her head, and her phone flew far away.

"Sorry, I'm really sorry. I was thinking about something and wasn't paying attention. Are you okay?"

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

"Ugh~ It hurts, it hurts!" The girl winced in pain. "Honestly, watch where you're walking."

She muttered softly, rubbing her head as she stood up. "I'm fine. Next time, pay attention... Huh? It's you?"

After standing up and seeing Ye Ming's face clearly, the girl seemed a bit surprised, her eyes widening.

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

Ye Ming was also surprised. The girl before him was the one he had seen during the day—the one with long pink hair, wearing what looked like either donkey ears or fox ears, cosplaying as Yae Sakura.

Unlike during the day, the conspicuous animal ears atop the girl's head were now gone.

"Those ears were cosplay props. I took them off after the convention."

Noticing Ye Ming's gaze, the girl offered an explanation.

"Oh, ears that big must have been inconvenient to wear."

Ye Ming responded, then paused as a thought struck him as odd.

The girl's cosplay of Yae Sakura 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 vividly. But Ye Ming himself was just an ordinary face in the crowd—how had she 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 head.

But then again, Yae Sakura's ears in the game were real ears. There's no way she could take them off, right?

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

Ye Ming had long passed the age where being stared at by a pretty girl made him shy. He spoke up directly to probe, and as he talked, he casually handed his phone to the girl.

"Subway entrance?" The girl blinked, surprised. "Did we meet at the subway entrance? I saw you on the subway. You were discussing Genshin Impact with your girlfriend at the time. Since I play miHoYo games too, I took a couple extra looks at you two—left quite an impression. Don't you remember? But I was wearing a cotton jacket on the subway and didn't have the fox ears on, so it's normal that you don't recall."

"Girlfriend?"

Ye Ming was taken aback, then remembered that there had indeed been a girl on the subway who played Genshin Impact chatting with him. She seemed to be a cosplayer too.

Because he'd been talking to her, he'd been a bit slow getting off the subway. After exiting, he'd been distracted by the cosplayer dressed as Okita Souji. It made perfect sense that the girl in front of him had gotten ahead of him.

Thinking it over, most of Ye Ming's suspicion faded.

"She's not my girlfriend. We just happened to sit together and chat about games for a bit." After explaining, Ye Ming said apologetically, "I'm really sorry about earlier. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." The girl waved her hand generously, then glanced at Laffey, who had been quietly obedient the whole time. Curious, she asked, "This little sister is so cute. Is she a relative of yours?"

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

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

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

"So she's your little sister. How adorable!" The girl complimented, then said her goodbyes. "I should head home now. See you."

"See you."

Ye Ming replied, watching from where he stood with Laffey as the girl walked farther and farther away, until she disappeared from sight.

From start to finish, neither of them even asked each other's names. It truly seemed like just a chance encounter.

But... was it really just a chance encounter?

Ye Ming couldn't shake the feeling that it was all too coincidental. Besides, the girl was unnaturally beautiful—her skin, her eyes, her demeanor—none of it seemed ordinary.

He thought for a moment, then pulled out his phone again, searched for Honkai Impact 3rd, and downloaded it.

He and the girl were merely strangers who had crossed paths briefly. Naturally, he couldn't chase after her and bombard her with questions. But that didn't mean he had no other way to ease his doubts.

If he logged into his Honkai Impact 3rd account and the same thing happened as with Azure Lane, it would naturally prove something.

If the account showed nothing unusual, then it meant he was probably overthinking things.

If the Honkai Gakuen account was the same as Azure Lane, then...

What about the other mobile games he'd played?

Chapter 5: Feeling Sad? That Was Me

Once out of Ye Ming's sight, the pink-haired girl quickened her pace, swiftly entered the residential complex where Ye Ming rented his apartment, navigated to a certain building with practiced ease, took the elevator to the eighth floor, opened a door, and stepped inside.

If Ye Ming had witnessed this, he would have been shocked to discover that the girl lived in the same building as him, and was right on the floor below his.