The next day.
Early morning.
"Kid, I have such confidence in your future that I might fall in love with you, tease you, love you, and protect you faithfully until death. But first, you need to get up!!!"
"Just ten more minutes, let me sleep another ten minutes..."
The familiar alarm rang, and Long Qian, still deep in sleep, muttered in his dreams.
Perhaps he had gone through too much the previous night and exhausted himself mentally. Coupled with the soft bed and the pleasantly scented room, he slept even more deeply.
"Work... I really want to go to work!!!"
Though he said he wanted another ten minutes of sleep, he had to get up. His alarm was set for eight, and he had to be at the company by nine-thirty. He could not keep sleeping.
Because of a long-established habit, he never turned off his phone when he slept. He always knew where it was just by listening to the sound.
Even though experts said that keeping radiation-emitting objects like phones by one's pillow for extended periods could affect sleep and harm the body, he had always dismissed their advice.
Still groggy and yawning, he stretched one hand out from the warm covers and felt around for the phone beside him.
His mind was still stuck in the time before he had crossed over. He had not taken yesterday's events seriously at all, believing them to be a dream. He was still that carefree office worker.
But then an unusual warmth touched his palm. Something had grabbed his hand. It was warm—definitely a human hand—and he hurriedly pulled his hand back.
At that moment, he suddenly woke up completely. His muddled mind instantly snapped awake.
Had he brought a girl home last night? But after work, he had gone straight home to play games.
He had even gotten a pentakill. Right, a pentakill. He had forgotten to post it on social media.
Even now, Long Qian had not realized that something was wrong.
But there was someone else in the room. That hand had definitely belonged to a woman. What man had hands that soft?
All he could do now was play dead. It was not that he did not want to take responsibility; he simply had not been prepared. He had been unconscious and had no idea what he had done last night—unless he had consciously enjoyed it.
Besides, he noticed that the blanket covering him looked rather like one from a hotel.
He was not that casual a person. He even suspected that he had gotten too happy, gone out drinking, gotten drunk, and then been picked up by someone.
The more he thought about it, the worse he felt.
"Kid, pretending to sleep like this is wrong. Pretending to sleep won't solve the problem."
"Huh??? Did I record that line?"
Hearing that familiar voice, Long Qian was utterly confused. He did not remember having that line on his phone.
But just as he was about to think carefully, strange fragments suddenly surfaced in his mind: crossing over, war, alien mech warriors, a system, angels, Taotie, death...
Then there was the fact that his home was gone!!!
"Whew... Good thing it was a dream... That scared me to death. I thought my home was gone."
But as he muttered to himself, the more he muttered, the more wrong it felt. Damn it, this did not seem to be a dream.
Long Qian instantly became alert. He abruptly threw back the covers and saw a hotel room. Then he slowly turned his head and saw Angel Yan lying beside him with a smile on her face.
"Y-you-you... I-I... A-Angel Yan... Why are you..."
Even now, Long Qian had not accepted that he had crossed over. He still thought Angel Yan had crossed into reality.
"So you really do know me... Tell me, then. Who exactly are you, and where did you come from!!!"
Seeing Long Qian's shock, Angel Yan's smile vanished completely. She asked with a stern expression.
She was one hundred percent certain that she had never been to Earth. This Divine River Body human before her could not possibly know her. Even if Angel Sisters protected him, he should not know her.
"I... N-no... Impossible... I..."
Long Qian stared at Angel Yan, who was only a pillow's distance away, and his whole mind went blank. What had happened yesterday had already convinced him that this was not a dream. He really had crossed over.
Then he clutched his head in agony. Who the hell wanted to cross over? He was just an ordinary person. Why the hell had he been made to cross over?
"Avoiding the question won't answer it. If your answer satisfies me, perhaps I can ask the Queen to match you with an angel—Qing Qing or Zhi Xin..."
Seeing Long Qian clutch his head in silence, Angel Yan's voice became gentler. She desperately wanted to know his origins. After all, she could not use the Eye of Insight to scan him, nor could she read any of his data or memories.
"You won't do???"
Long Qian had no idea what possessed him to say that. The moment the words left his mouth, he decisively shut up.
"Hehe, kid, you're still too young."
Angel Yan felt absolutely nothing for Long Qian in that regard and had no such thoughts. She was simply intensely curious about him—curious to the point that she could not stop herself.
"I'm not young. I'm already twenty-six. Though, yeah, compared to you and your seven thousand years, you're older than all of Huaxia's known history. But age isn't a problem."
Though Long Qian still could not accept reality for the moment, when he heard Angel Yan call him young, he stubbornly argued back.
Honestly, Angel Yan before him was far prettier than she had been in the anime, and far more real. Even as a seasoned connoisseur of countless anime goddesses, he could not help taking a few extra looks. In domestic animation, Angel Yan's looks were definitely among the best.
"Don't change the subject. Please continue answering my question. Where did you come from!!!"
Seeing that Long Qian seemed to be intentionally or unintentionally changing the subject, Angel Yan brought the conversation back to the point with a single sentence. What he was called was not important; where he came from was.
"I... I don't know how to explain it. Where do you think I came from?"
For a moment, Long Qian did not know how to answer Angel Yan's question, nor did he want to. Since crossing between worlds was possible and even his house had crossed over with him, it was probably some kind of spacetime distortion or spatial distortion in physics. What if either of those was reversible?
Until he knew whether crossing over could be reversed, he did not dare answer carelessly.
The dark forest law of the universe—or perhaps some mysterious law: never reveal your origins to the strong unless she or he truly bore you no hostility.
Long Qian: "System, quit playing dead. Can I still go back?"
System: "Uh... Host, well... this... this..."
Long Qian: "Don't tell me it was you, you damn bastard, who made me cross over. Fuck, come out here! I'm going to strangle you, strangle you, aaah!!!"
System: "Host, I can make you very bold. I can make the Three Kings take maternity leave. I can make you stronger."
Long Qian: "乀(ˉεˉ乀) Get lost. I'm not that kind of pervert."
System: "You're not? Then forget it..."
Long Qian: "..."
After receiving the System's answer, Long Qian became fairly certain that the damned System's functions had been restricted. It must have been because she had randomly dragged someone across worlds.
When Angel Yan saw that Long Qian had paused without continuing his answer, she slowly said:
"Oh, answering a question with a question. Are you from the Void, or an unknown universe? I sense something real about you!!!"
She felt that Long Qian should be from an unknown universe, or perhaps an unknown primary biological world. She still needed to figure out who exactly that Angel Sisters was.
Angel Yan was full of doubts. She felt that when she was with this kid, her heartbeat accelerated and a sense of reality filled her.
Last night, she had used the ID card in Long Qian's wallet to search Huaxia's household registration records, but she had not found any information about him. Even the city listed on that ID card did not exist.
Of course, she did not think it was fake identification.
And the currency Long Qian used was somehow universally accepted, which utterly baffled her. After all, she had been following him the whole time, and no one had given him any currency.
His identity information was fake. His city and country were fake.
Suddenly, Angel Yan froze. She seemed to have forgotten a word: crossing over.
A few seconds later, she found the relevant information in Earth's data archives: crossing over, parallel worlds, novels.
"Looks like I guessed wrong. I remember a kid saying something last night about crossing over. It really is fucking ridiculous—especially crossing over into Super Seminary. Could you be from..."
Angel Yan gave a sly smile. She thought she should bluff the little brat in front of her, and she immediately copied Long Qian's tone from last night.
"Gah..."
Long Qian, who had still been thinking about how to answer Angel Yan's question, was instantly stumped. He opened his mouth, unsure how to speak, then cautiously asked, "Did you show up last night, or did you come this morning?"
"Oh, you guess!!!"
"I..."
Long Qian immediately deflated. Serves you right for having a loose mouth. Serves you right. Of course he remembered what he had said in bed last night. Since Angel Yan already knew, what was the point of hiding it? Besides, she had that Eye of Insight thing, right? She had not used it, had she?
What he could be sure of was that Angel Yan had definitely heard every word he muttered to himself last night.
Before you continue