But, unlike Feiyu, I was a far more jealous and impulsive person.

  I strode over to where Feiyu was standing until I was face-to-face with my sister, a bright smile on my face. “Qijing is a very pretty name. The ‘qi’ is for ‘jade,’ right? My name has a similar meaning. Cool coincidence, right?”

  Qijing barely peeled her face off of Feiyu’s shoulder. “Your name is Peijin?”

  “Yup. I have to say, your name is still far prettier. Do you like sweets?”

  “Yes, but I’m not allowed to have them. Mom told me they’ll give me cavities.”

  “Well, Qijing, I’m not gonna snitch. Are you gonna snitch?”

  The small girl shook her head, her posture relaxing in Feiyu’s arms.

  “Good. And Feiyu-shushu definitely won’t snitch, either.”

  I opened up the Azure Dragon Store, quickly buying a massive glass jar of flavored lollipops. It was as large as Qijing’s head, and her eyes instantly brightened. I gave it a good shake, popped off the lid, and held it in front of her.

  “Which flavor do you like?” I asked. “Orange?”

  She quickly reacted with disgust, her face scrunching up. “No way. That’s the worst flavor.” Finally feeling more at ease, she lowered herself to the ground and out of Feiyu’s arms. She peeked into the jar, fishing out a blue raspberry lollipop.

  Balancing her rifle against her small body, Qijing peeled off the wrapper, pocketed it, and then popped the candy into her mouth, looking very satisfied.

  Noticing the candy jar, Cheng’s face lit up, and he quickly appeared beside me, eager to take one the moment Qijing finished. “Woah! Peijin-ayi, can I please have one? Feiyu, how come you never do this for us?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do you really need more sweets?”

  “That was mean,” Cheng answered.

  Cheng reached for the jar, but I swiftly pulled it back, leaving it on the ground next to Qijing. “You’ll have to ask the princess. It’s not my candy.”

  The boy proceeded to plead with Qijing, who returned to her aloof stare and quietness. I snorted, shooting Feiyu an entertained look.

  “You better be on the lookout,” I told Feiyu. “Qijing just might end up liking me more than she likes you.”

  “You’re always very confident, Peijin.”

  “I mean it! You should see how Amelia is with me.”

  “Maybe our kids can have a bit of a play date,” Feiyu half-joked.

  “Huh? Qijing hasn’t met Amelia yet?”

  “Qijing was a bit intimidated by your party. None of them have met her yet.”

  I puffed out my chest cockily. So, Qijing must have really liked me if she had exchanged a few words with me. Of course that would be the case—how could my own sister not like me?

  “Well,” I said leisurely, “I’m sure Qijing would fit in perfectly with my party. They’d love her.”

  “It’s a shame she’s not a part of your party, isn’t it?”

  I immediately glared at him, pushing past him and walking to a nearby bench while expecting him to follow. “You said there were five people in your party, right? I’ve only seen four of you.”

  “Our last member works to the beat of his own drum. I’m sure he’ll be back in a moment, though.” As expected, Feiyu followed closely behind and stood before me as I sat down on the bench, slouching over lazily.

  “Hey, why’d you name your party ‘Twenty-Two’ anyway?” I asked, sitting up a bit and tilting my head. “Is it a reference to something?”

  This was something that had been puzzling me ever since I discovered the name of Feiyu’s party. That and the fact there was another disciple stronger than me that wasn’t Feiyu. Not only did it deviate from Feiyu’s party name in Surviving My First Run, but it also coincided with the number of cards in the Major Arcana deck.

  That meant Feiyu must have been involved with the Major Arcana. If the Major Arcana transcended timelines, that would be possible, except Karma’s influence would have theoretically stopped Feiyu discovering the Major Arcana before even I did.

  As far as I was aware, the Feiyu before me wasn’t like the Meihua of the Major Arcana. He wasn’t some magical, ancient, godly version—he was simply the Feiyu I created.

  Feiyu let out a slight chuckle, his eyes glinting with amusement. “I didn’t name the party.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m not the leader of this party.”

  “... Huh?”

  “Huh?” Feiyu mocked my stupid expression. “Song Ruoming is the leader of this party. He just wasn’t interested in meeting you yet, so he’s been sending me to greet you instead.”

  I sat on the bench utterly stupefied, blinking at Feiyu. My entire body felt frozen in place, and for a moment, I couldn’t even form a thought.

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  So… this entire time, Feiyu was never a party leader? He was a casual, boring, good-old member?

  That couldn’t be right. It didn’t even sound like Feiyu to be following orders that some random disciple was barking out. Not only that, but it was a complete upheaval of my understanding of Feiyu’s character this entire time. Not once did I doubt his position as the party leader.

  Song Ruoming. I repeated the name over and over in my head, trying to remember if I had ever written a character with that name. If I hadn’t, then they must have been someone from the real-world.

  Maybe they were an avid reader, and that was why they had been able to take command of Feiyu and his old party members like this? There was no way for a normal person to achieve this big of a feat.

  I fumbled with the sleeves of my blue hoodie. “I’m guessing Ruoming is the best disciple in your party.”

  “That’s right. Extraordinary really.” Feiyu tapped the tip of his sword on the ground again. “Am I a lot less interesting to you now?”

  “I didn’t say anything like that.” I was scratching my tattoo now. It was a bad habit I developed ever since it appeared, and it only became worse after my dungeon room.

  Out of the corner of my eye, a figure was slowly approaching. It was a relatively tall and lean man wearing gray slacks, black suspenders, and a button up shirt. But, the most noticeable feature was his platinum hair, blonde lashes, and pale irises.

  At once, my shoulders fell and eyes widened.

  There wasn’t a universe that I wouldn’t have immediately recognized this man.

  Scathing Reviewer is flickering!

  While Scathing Reviewer normally heightened my emotions, this time, it was trying to dampen them. As the skill flickered, I only felt an even greater tightening in my chest and dryness in my throat. My stomach was flipping wildly, and I could hear the rapid beating of my heart in my head.

  Scathing Reviewer is flickering!

  After running away from home at fourteen, it wasn’t like I could suddenly survive on my own. I pathetically wandered around, pleading with strangers to survive—until I met him. He wasn’t much older than me at the time, but he was the only reason I survived.

  In fact, he was the very man who inspired Qiu Feiyu. He was the very man who inspired all of Surviving My First Run.

  Once, there was a time in my life that I couldn’t imagine a single day in my life without him. That was until he entirely vanished a few months after saving me. I never saw him again.

  Warning! Scathing Reviewer is flickering!

  I stood up from the bench and took a shaky step toward him. Then, I took another step forward. I pushed past Feiyu and practically sprinted toward him, biting down on my quivering lower lip.

  “Zhao Rui!” I exclaimed, the name coming naturally. When I finally reached him, I skied to a stop and ran my hand through my hair, scared to embrace him in case he would suddenly vanish again.

  “Zhao Rui,” I repeated his name. “Rui. Ha! You recognize me, right? It’s Liu Peijin. How many years has it been? I really thought I’d never seen you again. I haven’t thought about you in ages.”

  His pale eyes looked at me for a moment before shooting down to my exposed forearm. He grabbed onto my wrist and pulled me toward him, pushing my sleeve further up my arm.

  “The Tower,” he murmured.

  “Rui?”

  He released my hand. “I don’t know who you could be talking about. My name is Song Ruoming, not Zhao Rui.”

  “Oh.”

  I stared at the man again, my eyes raking his features. No—this was certainly Zhao Rui. I would never have mistaken Rui for anyone else. The mole just to the right side of his nose bridge, the way his lips slightly parted between each word, his naturally long nail beds, the double helix piercing on his left ear…

  I quickly opened the Azure Dragon Store, no longer caring about my star expenditure.

  You have purchased Lie Detector!

  I looked back up at the man. “You don’t recognize me at all?”

  Ruoming looked me dead in the eye, zero emotion in his expression. “No.”

  Disciple Peijin activated Lie Detector!

  Lie Detector has confirmed Disciple Ruoming’s words as truth.

  My face fell and my brow furrowed before a deep frustration burned through me. So, this “Song Ruoming” was the disciple that had been beating me ever since the apocalypse began, was controlling Feiyu like a puppet on strings, knew about the Major Arcana from the start, and was pretending not to know me?

  Fucking bastard.

  Scathing Reviewer has stabilized.

  Ruoming moved past me, completely uninterested and trying to stand beside Feiyu, but I quickly tugged him back, my grip on Zhige tightening.

  “Hey asshat, why’d you name your party Twenty-Two? It’s after the Major Arcana, right?”

  Ruoming paused at the insult and turned to face me. “Shouldn’t the Tower know more than me?”

  I scowled at his snarky reply. “Don’t play stupid with me. Not only did you look for my tattoo as soon as you caught a peak, but you were calling out to the Major Arcana with your party name.”

  “Did I stutter earlier? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Feiyu, you didn’t tell me that the other party leader was delusional.”

  “Keep me out of this one. I don’t even know what either of you are talking about,” Feiyu said, quickly taking a step back as I approached Ruoming.

  “You know I’m not crazy! Deny it all you want. You know exactly what I’m talking about. A normal disciple never could have surpassed Feiyu.”

  “Then are you implying you’re also an anomaly?”

  Ha. At the very least, Ruoming was a reader of Surviving My First Run. Feiyu was engineererd to be the greatest disciple, no contest. The only people who have compared are me, as the writer, and Ruoming, as a must-be reader.

  “You’re thinking the same thing I am, Ruoming,” I answered, keeping my eyes locked on him. “Do you also have a tattoo?”

  “Tattoos don’t fit my aesthetic.”

  I reached for his arm to push up his sleeve, but he reacted with lightning speed, immediately thrusting his sword toward my side. I brought up Zhige to counter, and the moment that Zhige made contact with Ruoming’s blade, its red eye shot open, spinning wildly.

  Ruoming stared at the blade, and for a split second, surprise flickered in his face. Immediately, my gaze hardened, and I swung Ruoming more restlessly while trying to grab a hold of Ruoming anytime the distance closed.

  Despite engaging with Zhige, Ruoming’s movements were wickedly fluid, and he didn’t seem to be expending much energy at all. Growing frustrated, I threw Zhige to the side, completely releasing the blade to attack on its own.

  Ruoming’s gaze followed the sword, leaving mine for just a moment. I resorted to my hands—latching onto him and refusing to relax my grip.

  I kicked my leg under Ruoming and brought us both to the ground, grabbing onto his sleeves and holding on for dear life.

  You have 281,394 cumulative stars.

  85,000 stars used.

  Strength level 35 → 43

  Ruoming’s strength was unbelievable, and he quickly managed to submit me in a tight shoulder lock.

  I let out a sharp cry of pain as Ruoming twisted my shoulder further and further back. But, despite the tears brimming in my eyes, I resisted the pain. With my free hand, I reached over and tore his sleeve off.