"Alright! Take care, little miss."
Only after Ling Feng left did Old Wang scratch his head in confusion.
"Huh? This little girl looks kind of familiar..."
The scene shifted. By the time Ling Feng had undone his transformation and returned home, he still felt somewhat uneasy.
"Xiaofeng, where did you run off to last night?"
Before Ling Feng could open the door, it had already been opened for him, startling him badly.
"I..."
"Forget it. Come in."
Ling Xiaoyu did not seem inclined to make a big deal out of it either. If it had been before, she probably would have given him a proper lecture.
She always felt that Ling Feng had changed a little, though she could not put her finger on exactly how.
"Oh? You brat still remembered to come home?"
In the living room, Fang Lin suddenly put on a rather imposing air when she saw Ling Feng, like a wife waiting for her husband to return home in the dead of night, smiling with a knife hidden behind it~
The moment Ling Feng saw Fang Lin, he could not help letting out a low murmur.
"Mom..."
"Who are you calling Mom?! Call me Sister!!"
The Dream That Refused to End
After saying that, Fang Lin did not give Ling Feng a chance to react before pulling him straight into her arms.
"Hey~ Let me get a good look at my precious son first. Haven't seen you in two years, and you brat got even more handsome!"
"Mom, you're already an adult. How are you still the same as before?"
Ling Feng felt too embarrassed to handle it, because Fang Lin looked like a twenty-five-year-old female college graduate who had only just left school.
Could anyone keep a straight face and stay calm while receiving this kind of face-washing treatment from such a beautiful older sister?
Father Ling sat on the sofa. After seeing Ling Feng, he merely nodded at him before continuing to read his newspaper, as though it had nothing to do with him.
But he was actually very happy. When he lowered his head again, Father Ling smiled. "Good boy."
In Ling Feng's memories, his father had always seemed to be like this, so he did not think much of it.
"Dad..." Ling Feng greeted him.
"Ah, don't mind him. He's always like that. What do you want to eat? Have Xiaoyu make it for you."
Fang Lin beamed with joy. It was rare for the whole family to be together—shouldn't they be happy?
When Ling Feng said that word, he himself felt a little empty inside. Thinking of how he had been adopted, he did not know how to say what was on his mind.
More importantly, he had a biological younger sister he had never met. Where was she now? Could he really continue living so peacefully and without guilt?
Seeing Ling Feng's absent-minded look, Fang Lin could also sense that he had changed somewhat. He seemed more mature now, no longer as rash and careless as before...
Without pressure or restraints, when people did things as they pleased, they would not think too deeply about many problems. Just as the saying went: "Walk your own path and let others talk."
Sitting in the living room, Ling Feng patiently answered whatever Fang Lin asked him.
Even Fang Lin had not expected him to sit there so obediently and answer her questions.
Now that Ling Xiaoyu was cooking in the kitchen, Ling Feng even took the initiative to help, making Ling Xiaoyu wonder whether he was sick.
"Xiaofeng, are you short on money? You can just tell me."
"No. I just wanted to help Sister Xiaoyu."
Ling Feng smiled and shook his head. Even his tone was much gentler than usual.
Ling Xiaoyu was deeply touched by Ling Feng's words, but she was also somewhat unaccustomed to them. She even wondered whether Ling Feng had learned something.
For no reason, she felt a little nervous and did not know how to respond.
But the two of them tacitly chose not to say anything more and began preparing the ingredients.
Life taught people this: since they could not change their surroundings, they had to change themselves to adapt to them.
Yet no matter what kind of changes came, the journey of life would always bring countless things people could neither choose nor avoid.
All living beings could only experience the warmth and coldness of the human world through such changes, building deep bonds and understanding the transformations of life amid the intertwining of prosperity and hardship, joy and sorrow.
Time slipped away unnoticed. Opening old notes, one would find every line filled with intertwined emotions and lingering sentiments.
As for everything he had now, Ling Feng sometimes truly wanted to believe in those movies about turning back time. But fantasy was ultimately fantasy, and reality was just this helpless.
Cherishing the present was the only choice for now.
By lunchtime, Ling Wanqing had only just come downstairs, still bleary-eyed. She had woken up, but not fully.
Yet when she saw Ling Feng, her watery eyes immediately lit up with the expectation of reassurance he gave her.
The family was happily gathered together, looking at one another. Perhaps this was what people hoped for.
That afternoon, Ling Feng, Zhao Ping, Yuwen, Su Xiaoxiao, and Su Yun were still at the Imperial Internet Café.
In the evening, they went out together to watch a movie and stroll around, seemingly bringing that day's training to an end.
Whenever he received messages from Qiu Yun'er or Tang Ling, Ling Feng would generally reply. He heard from Tang Ling that Lan Yuxin was still thinking of inviting him to that Phoenix Ancient City place.
Ling Feng was a little confused.
"Isn't that basically just a tourist attraction? Running across water with qinggong? Hell, I can fly too~"
Ling Feng did not pay much attention to it. After three straight days, they finally reached the time just before the Winter Tournament.
There was still a huge gap between rookies like them and those professional players. Professional players had all undergone systematic training.
Ling Feng and the others, meanwhile, placed more emphasis on teamwork and tactics.
Silent and Wordless
Why had SK Chronicles of Time and Space become so explosively popular, even surpassing major games like Deadly Pesticide, Tiger Hero League, and Duck Battlefield for a time?
The biggest reason was its exquisite graphics and dreamlike art style.
However, SK was incredibly difficult to control. It practically used all twenty-six letters on the keyboard, along with the spacebar, numbers, symbols, and other keys, with every different letter having its own mechanics.
Pressing several different letters in succession would make the character perform different actions. Just three letters already had six possible combinations.
For example, the three numbers 1, 2, and 3 had six permutations.
First, determine the hundreds digit. The number in the hundreds place could be 1, 2, or 3, giving three possibilities.
Then determine the tens digit. It had to exclude the number already chosen for the hundreds place, so there were only two choices.
Finally came the ones digit. It had to exclude the numbers used in both the tens and hundreds places, leaving only one choice. Therefore, the total number of possibilities was 3 × 2 × 1 = 6.
By the same logic, the possible control combinations for twenty-six letters reached as many as 456,976. What a terrifying number.
Its controls were detailed down to finger joints and tiny movements, though in normal play people mainly focused on only a few key inputs. Nobody had that much free time to study them one by one.
Of course, some utterly deranged people even figured out how to lift characters' skirts and the like. Who knew what those people were thinking, or how they even came up with it? Every one of them was a genius. In any case, most of those features had already been banned~
SK also had extremely high standards for character models. Anything too crudely made would not pass.
In short, perhaps such high-difficulty controls were the charm of the game. As the saying went, the worse you were, the more you loved playing~
On the night before the competition, everyone was actively preparing, while Ling Feng used one of the internet café's computers to start streaming again.
What Ling Feng valued most was mentality. His mindset had to remain steady, so he usually looked as though he did not care about anything, though that was not actually the case.
He was simply steady. Steady as hell.
When Zhao Ping and the others saw Ling Feng open a stream, they curiously leaned over.
Although they knew Ling Feng's skills were solid, they did not know the extent of his control techniques.
Ling Feng could control his character almost entirely as he wished, as though the character inside the game were himself, able to do whatever he wanted.
That was right. He had researched all of it bit by bit.
"Huh? I just noticed that your character looks a lot like Xiao Xiao's."
Zhao Ping voiced his surprise. Hearing that, Yuwen also came over. "It really does look a little similar."
"See? I told you. You can't even call it similar—it's practically identical." The more Zhao Ping looked, the more something seemed off.
"Oh?" Su Yun had naturally seen it too. When she saw Zhao Ping and the others gathered together, she came over to take a look as well.
But she only smiled lightly and gave Ling Feng a meaningful glance. Who knew what she was thinking?
"Of course it is, because I made that for the master myself back then." Hearing them discuss it, Su Xiaoxiao looked proud.
That character had quite a few records in the SK Era and was rather famous, alright? She had to get at least a little credit for that, right?
"Tsk tsk, I never would've guessed it, Xiaofeng." After learning a little about the situation, Zhao Ping gave Ling Feng a teasing smile.
Yuwen also let out a soft sound of surprise. "That character model must have cost quite a bit, right?"
"Heh, do you think he's short on that little bit of money? And didn't you hear Su Xiaoxiao say she personally made it for Ling Feng? One look tells you she's his female fan!"
Zhao Ping whispered to Yuwen with mixed envy and resentment. Only then did Yuwen suddenly understand. "So that's how it is!"
"Tsk tsk~"
"What are you tsking for? No lip-smacking! You need to break that bad habit!"
"Isn't it because I'm so jealous of you?"
"Damn." Ling Feng felt speechless, but he was left with nothing to say.
"Hey! You two, I heard that just now."
Su Xiaoxiao pouted, placed both hands on her hips, and showed off her tiny dimples. Her little mouth was full of expressive little movements, making her look completely adorable.
On top of that, she looked like nothing more than a little loli, making her exceptionally cute. Zhao Ping and Yuwen were instantly melted.
"Th-this... sorry, we were wrong!"
"Sorry, we were wrong!"
Zhao Ping and Yuwen spoke at the same time. Their reaction instead made Ling Feng and Su Yun laugh.
Ling Feng was too embarrassed to say anything. He could only say that they were both true talents.
They had all received the same nine years of compulsory education, so why were these two so outstanding?
Calm and Composed?
As a competitive activity based on electronic equipment and measuring intellectual contests between people, esports had now evolved from a niche subculture into one of the mainstream lifestyles of modern young people.
From a broader perspective, the industry encompassed many sectors, including the internet, gaming, sports, and media.
Moreover, in this era of mass entertainment, esports had leapt from being a small dream hidden in people's hearts into a dream-making industry that went hand in hand with dreams.
Today, the Winter Tournament for SK Chronicles of Time and Space had become the hottest topic in the scene.
Countless die-hard gamers, fans, and players had come after hearing of it, entering the venue early with tickets in hand.
At this moment, a slightly overweight middle-aged man wearing glasses was temporarily hosting the venue and giving an impassioned speech.
"Are you still troubled by not having a place to watch matches? Are you still annoyed because you don't have machines to play with your friends? Are you still sad because you can't find like-minded companions?"
"Linzhuo District's SK Esports Arena welcomes you! An enormous LED display, a perfect esports stage, and over a hundred computers to fulfill your esports dream!"
"Uncle, please stop shouting already. We came to watch the competition, not you. Can you save the advertisements until after the match?"
At last, a young man could not help speaking up.
The requirements to participate in this competition were to be at least sixteen years old, have a full team of five members, and have all reached the strongest peak rank before registering.
So the entry barrier was fairly high. Combined with regional restrictions, naturally fewer people could take part.
Before you continue