Wish Granted

"System self-check... passed."

"Failure rate: 43%. Repair time: cannot be estimated."

Lin Qing slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was filled with red error-message remnants. Above her was a wooden suspended ceiling, with dim yellow light spilling in from the edges, not glaring in the least.

She had rarely seen this kind of refined, easily destroyed interior decor.

I'm actually still alive...

She found it unbelievable. The last image in her memory was of herself being thrown into the silent, freezing void of space. Everything after that was a blur.

Wait... Crystal Palace has already fallen!?

The instant that thought surfaced, Lin Qing could not help but shudder! She abruptly sprang upright, only for the agonizing pain in her abdomen to seize her throat, nearly leaving her unable to catch her breath.

Has the pain suppressor been damaged too?

She nearly bit through her lip before barely enduring the pain without crying out.

The moment she sat up, she also got a clear look at her surroundings—she was lying on a sofa in a semi-open space, covered by a thin blanket. Someone had clearly been taking care of her. The room was a complete mess. Plenty of furniture had been smashed to pieces, and the walls were riddled with holes. Lin Qing was familiar with this sort of scene. Anywhere nanobugs were active looked like a war zone, with most buildings left in ruins. The destruction came not only from nanobugs, but also from bandits and gangs after order had collapsed.

But Earth should no longer exist!

"Checking gravity."

"Gravity measured at 9.821."

At the sight of that figure, Lin Qing felt her nose sting, and her eyes grew moist. Crystal Palace had simulated gravity, set permanently at a neat 10, while other space stations practically had no gravity at all.

The waveform scan had not issued an alarm either. There was no invasive deviation.

This had to be Earth!

Everyone's efforts and sacrifices had not been in vain!

But was all this real? Could she be dreaming?

Even as she thought that, a trace of doubt remained lodged in her heart, impossible to shake. She had watched Crystal Palace fall with her own eyes, and in the end, she had failed to reach the control room.

What had happened after N43 was torn apart?

The very thought made Lin Qing's head feel as though it were splitting apart.

You really get what you pay for. If I'd known, I would've bought a more expensive memory storage device!

Suddenly, she heard a string of light footsteps.

Following the sound, Lin Qing saw a woman in white walking down the stairs. When their gazes met, the woman paused in slight surprise before turning and calling out, "Shopkeeper, your guest is awake."

Guest?

Was she talking about me?

Then she saw a man come down after her.

"You've been unconscious for two days, so I asked a specialist to take a look at you." He walked over to the sofa and said with concern, "Oh, right. My name is Chen Xuan. I'm the shopkeeper here. Welcome to my establishment."

Shopkeeper...

Welcome... to my establishment...

"Pull yourself together. I'm here to save you!"

"Since you're already in despair, why not give it a try?"

The hazy memories suddenly became clear. A series of images flashed through Lin Qing's mind. In the cold, silent expanse of space, someone had caught her and told her that everything could still be saved!

And that person was the man before her!

"It was you!" She grabbed Chen Xuan's hand.

"Hm?"

"How did you do it!?" Lin Qing asked excitedly. "Did Crystal Palace not fall after all, or was it destroyed midway?"

"Calm down first. We can talk about what happened up there later." Chen Xuan turned to Liu Shuyue. "Does this mean she's out of danger?"

"Mm. Her pulse and everything else are normal. She shouldn't suddenly worsen again." Liu Shuyue checked her pulse. "I'll leave you another Heart-Protecting Pill. If her heart suddenly stops, place it beneath her tongue. But..."

"But what?"

"But this is the first time I've seen someone mutilate themselves so thoroughly." Liu Shuyue lowered her voice and shook her head. "The Mechanism Arts on her body are indeed exquisitely ingenious, but they have also disrupted the balance of her circulating Qi. Not a single one of her three souls and seven spirits is whole. She has completely lost any possibility of cultivation, and medicine can only sustain her for the time being."

"Well... she probably had no choice." Chen Xuan coughed twice. "In any case, you've done me a huge favor. Without those life-saving pills, this guest probably wouldn't have woken up."

"Don't mention it. Seeing how well you care for your guests makes me glad as well." Liu Shuyue smiled. "Besides, compared to all the things you've done to help me, this little favor is nothing. And this is the first case like this I've ever encountered, so it's been quite eye-opening."

"Are you heading back to Mala Village?"

"Time waits for no one. I can't feel at ease leaving the door open all the time."

Chen Xuan nodded. "All right. Contact me when you're ready to set out."

"Mm. Even once I reach Yun Prefecture, I'll need to look into the situation before deciding what to do." Liu Shuyue waved and headed toward the second floor. "If you run into any difficult problems, just call for me."

What... were they talking about?

Lin Qing found it hard to understand. There was no language barrier—she understood every word, and neither of them seemed to be avoiding the subject because of her. Yet every sentence sounded strange.

That woman seemed to be a doctor, but why was she doing things like taking pulses and refining pills? What were circulating Qi and the three souls and seven spirits supposed to mean? Even for a con artist, that rhetoric was far too outdated.

But Lin Qing knew her own condition. With so many prosthetic systems malfunctioning, she did not feel nearly as much pain as she should have, and her mental state was far better than expected. There was no way a mere con artist could achieve that.

After Liu Shuyue left, Chen Xuan brought the new guest a cup of coffee before sitting down and asking, "What is your name?"

"Lin Qing. Lin as in forest, Qing as in clear skies," Lin Qing answered truthfully.

"I have two pieces of bad news to tell you. I hope you're prepared for them."

"Please," she said, taking a deep breath.

"First, you may not be able to go back." Chen Xuan sighed inwardly as he said this. This guest satisfaction rating was probably doomed. He had not spent the past two days doing nothing. Aside from asking Liu Shuyue for medicine, he had registered Lin Qing as a VIP guest and used her room card to open the door, hoping to see what her world was like. Yet, to his surprise, the back door of Room 202 would not open at all. It was completely sealed shut.

The only thing he could think of was that some enormous disaster had occurred in that world, and the shop had shut down the back-door passage for safety.

If her wish was to save her world from destruction, then his current stock would be woefully inadequate.

Lin Qing showed no reaction, as though she were still waiting for his second piece of news.

"Second, I never reached the control room. The Space City you mentioned is called Crystal Palace, right? It really did fall—at least, it had when I took you away. So when you ask how I did it, the answer is that I didn't do anything."

"Then where is this place?"

"Earth, though it may be somewhat different from yours." Chen Xuan deliberately gave a conservative answer so as not to shock her too badly.

"Different... How different could it be?" She frowned.

"The River of Time never stops flowing. Every splash differs from the last. It's fine if you don't understand. Once you become familiar with this world..."

Lin Qing suddenly widened her eyes. "You mean—time? I truly hadn't considered that possibility, but... how could that be possible?"

Chen Xuan sighed softly. Are you about to say that time may have reversed, but that reversing time is impossible?

Sure enough, she asked, "May I ask what year it is now?"

"Here... it's 2025." Chen Xuan spread his hands. "But that may not be a useful reference, because the two worlds aren't—"

Before he could finish, the girl seemed to have confirmed something. She spread her arms and threw them around him.

Even though the sudden movement made her suck in a sharp breath from the pain.

"Uh... Miss Guest?"

"It really is a century in the past. Now everything makes sense!" Not only did Lin Qing not let go, her arms tightened around him. Her voice was incomparably excited, even tinged with a sob. "Thank you... I don't know how you did it, but without a doubt, you've given me an opportunity I wouldn't have dared dream of... If this world can be saved because of it, then you are the most crucial savior!"

"...Have you misunderstood something?" Chen Xuan looked utterly baffled.

He ran a legitimate business. He was not running some world-saving pyramid scheme!

"No." Her answer was resolute. "My mistake was having deeply doubted you before, but now the facts have proven that you have fulfilled all my expectations!"