Xyrin Empire
Chapter 745: Playing in the Snow, Strolling, One Topic

Chapter 745: Chapter 745: Playing in the Snow, Strolling, One Topic

When I was a kid, I loved playing in the snow. Or rather, doesn’t everyone enjoy playing in the snow when they’re young—building snowmen, having snowball fights, ice skating. Winter after a snowfall was a paradise for children, and those precious memories are still so much fun to think about even now.

Back then, Qianqian’s family hadn’t moved away yet, and Little Loli and Little Boy Next Door were still childhood sweethearts and neighbors. Every winter after the first snow, it was time for us to go completely wild. Qianqian, who showed unusual talent in her way of thinking from a young age, often dragged me to build snowmen, though considering my own health, I had never dared agree. At school, we also enjoyed having snowball fights. Qianqian was used to packing whatever she collected into snowballs as ammo, which made us the most feared duo in snowball fights among our peers for a long time. However, this honorable title was eventually ended by the head instructor: The head instructor, coming back from the restroom and passing through the playground, was knocked dizzy by one of Qianqian’s snowballs, and I could never figure out where that girl found such heavy objects...

Now that I think about it, that instructor was actually quite lucky. There weren’t any shot puts in elementary school physical education...

The Frozen Continent, frozen over and covered in snow, cold and dry, is hardly a place for a vacation, but for a group of fearless beauties, young and old, it was an excellent playground. Qianqian’s snowman was starting to take shape: a tall and imposing Transformer, its core being a combat puppet that had resigned itself to standby mode. Visca followed Qianqian’s example and started building her own snow "person", a very primitive form of entertainment but it was novel and exciting to our cat-eyed Loli. After plugging away for half a day, her snowman was also taking shape: a huge ball.

"I want to build it into my brother’s shape," Visca said excitedly, pointing at the big round ball, "but then I thought, it would be easier to build Bieberu. Brother, brother, what other fun varieties are there? This is really fun!"

"As a soldier, to indulge in such lowly games," Pandora scoffed, "is truly disgraceful."

"Idiot, you’re not disgraced, so why come over!"

Visca bared her teeth and stood up to her twin sister, revealing the latter’s true desire to join the fun.

"Ha, playing in the snow knows no age or status," I patted both identical Lolis on their heads, "even the President of the United States builds snowmen—let me teach you how to make snow sculptures!"

"Using snow to make sculptures?" Pandora immediately grasped my terminology, "That sounds like fun."

In the city, full of buildings and rarely any snow, there’s hardly ever an opportunity to make snow sculptures, even in winter. No space and no raw materials. But here, Lin’s homeland, where vast open spaces and endless supplies of snow were abundant although it had been many years since we’d played like this, Qianqian and I hadn’t gotten rusty at all, and soon we had built a small model of a house on an open space. It was a rudimentary ice house, fashioned from packed snow, but it was enough to make novelty-loving Visca absolutely thrilled.

I never thought such a crude game would make my precious little sister so happy.

"That’s right, you can actually make anything. The most important part is to use your imagination."

Standing beside our creation, I explained pridefully.

"How amazing, how amazing! I never realized such a simple method could be so much fun!" The cat-eyed Loli’s red eyes sparkled with excitement, then she clapped her small hands, and several mindless combat puppets immediately stepped out of a space fold and appeared on the snowy ground. Visca happily ordered them, "Here’s your task: collect snow! The more, the better!"

"Mission, confirmed, collect snow, the more, the better,"

The combat puppets, which should have been killers on the battlefield, now turned into Visca’s little helpers, beginning to scurry across the snowfield gathering snow. Pandora watched her sister’s outlandish behavior, biting her lip as if she wanted to come forward and teach her a lesson, but she ended up saying nothing and just summoned her own troops, "You go too!"

Me: "..."

Playing in the snow could reach such a high level of sophistication, truly befitting an imperial general.

I took this opportunity to look around and spotted Lilina, who initially had shown an aversion but now seemed fascinated by the vast snowy plain, running around in front of us like a sprite in the snow: disappearing every five minutes as she fell into sudden snow pits.

Following Lin’s guidance, we were quite aware of where the numerous snow pits and the flat areas were near this valley. It was puzzling why Lilina was purposely jumping into these pits; in the end, I could only attribute it to early psychological scars causing a twist in her mentality, just hoping she wouldn’t catch a cold when she returned.

Under the tireless efforts of the Combat Puppets, Visca quickly got what she wanted: a large pile of snow. Despite her small stature and short arms, the little girl was swift in her actions, rapidly constructing her own snow sculpture. Qianqian and I watched with a chuckle as a massive snowball gradually took shape in the little girl’s hands, until she suddenly stopped and pointed at the three-meter radius behemoth, introducing it to us: "Earth!"

Then Visca continued her efforts, having her soldiers ceaselessly transport snow. Moments later, a much smaller snowball appeared. "Visca’s Barrier Star!" the little girl proudly announced.

I was dumbfounded. "Huh?"

"This one is Mars!" Visca rolled out a third snowball, placing it next to Earth. "You guys! Hurry and get more snow! Jupiter is really big!"

It turns out this girl only knew how to roll snowballs!

Discovering that the ultra-powerful Visca was actually a snow-play dunce, I held back my comments and shifted my gaze to Pandora. I was stunned the moment I looked: a mountainous pile of snow had accumulated in front of her, and she was smartly directing her soldiers to continue gathering snow from further away. Pandora wisely involved the Combat Puppets in her task, with about ten of them wielding spraying equipment nearby, seemingly creating a solid ice surface. I was not yet sure how large this ice surface could be. Meanwhile, Pandora herself was patiently and diligently stuffing snow into a rectangular metal box, compressing it tightly. On the ground beside her, hundreds of half-meter-long, three-palm-thick "snow blocks" neatly stacked, their surfaces shimmering and nearly translucent, clearly transformed under immense pressure.

Pandora had just finished another block, plucked it out of the metal box, and casually tossed it beside her, causing me to even feel a tremor under my feet with a "thud."

"What are you doing?"

I curiously approached and asked, Pandora kept mechanically continuing her task without looking up: "Bricks."

"Eh?"

"Building a house." Little Loli added a couple more words finally.

I nudged Qianqian’s arm, "Our childhood snowball fights were really lame."

Just as I finished speaking, the roar of machinery echoed from above. Looking up, two Transporters were slowly descending nearby. Visca rushed over excitedly: "Haha, the ice is here! Where’s my saber?"

"Big Sister! Big Sister!"

Lilina’s voice came from afar, interrupting the shock of possibly facing the strongest snow sculpture scene in history. I followed the sound and saw a one-meter-nine Fake Lolita struggling as she ran toward us, but she vanished midway: fell into a pit again.

Climbing out of the snow pit, the petite girl, covered in snow and slightly flushed, ran up to me breathlessly. As I irritably flicked the snowflakes off her, I asked, "What’s the matter? Making such a fuss."

"This, this!" Lilina, like presenting a treasure, pulled a crystal-clear flower bud from her small close-fitting pouch. "Crystal flowers! They are crystal flowers, not ice, but crystal!"

"Is this a plant?" I asked in surprise as I took the thing from Lilina’s hands and turned to the Dragon God Girl beside me. After carefully examining it, she nodded, "Yes, it’s a plant. It’s Ice Crystal Grass that only grows on the Frozen Continent. It looks like this when it blooms, because this continent is forever icebound; its plants are completely different from those in other places."

"What’s so special about it?"

I turned the budding flower over in my hands, thinking it would make the perfect gift for Little Baobao. Lilina’s eyes were sharp enough to spot this transparent little flower in this icy and snowy land.

Lin nodded, "It’s very special; when you fry it, it turns golden!"

I was baffled. "And what, pray tell, do you usually do with it back home?"

"Fry it!" Lin scratched her head. "What else would you do with it other than eat it?"

So much for thinking I’d discovered some precious and exotic treasure! Feeling a bit deflated, I obediently went to help Visca roll up snowballs while I looked around. "Are there no cities or anything on the Frozen Continent? It seems to be just an icefield wherever I look."

Lin replied, "Because the temples are all hidden in another Concept Layer, and the Divine Race prefers not to keep their homes in one place; they enjoy a free and unattached lifestyle. But for convenience in communication, we do have a few cities—on the other side of Ice Sealed Valley there’s a gathering area for the Dragon God Race. Do you want to go there?"

"No, just asking," I quickly shook my head, "We’re just here to play in the icefields. Going to a city would actually be less fun."

Even as we played in the icefields, I lacked the endless energy of Qianqian and the fresh excitement of the Pandora Sisters. Seeing Pandora had already piled up a mountain of ice blocks and even summoned her soldiers to help build a wall, I decided to take a walk.

The Frozen Continent is sparse in life, so there was no worry about encountering a crazy swarm of beasts like those on the Main Continent. After greeting the others, I took the equally bored Lilina, summoned my own BMW Seven Billion, and set off in a random direction.

The world was beautifully icebound for thousands of miles, but looking at the same scenery for a long time could inevitably become dull. With a bit of adventurous spirit, the dad led his Loli into the frigid journey—Excerpt from Lilina’s Dairy Selection "Days with the Ghost X Daddy—an Innocent Beautiful Girl’s Inner Monologue."

"If it were a normal human, they might have developed snow blindness by now."

Snuggled in the warm seat, Lilina yawned lightly and leaned on my arm. "Say, boss, are we just wandering around like this today?"

I let the Seven Billion drive automatically and smiled as I gently rubbed the Fake Lolita’s hair, now finally settled down: "Relaxing days are rare, and we’ve already had enough troubles these last few days. Today is all about playing."

"Playing in the snow, wandering around, breezing along—a truly boring man."

Lilina assessed me in an old-fashioned way, but her head nestled more comfortably against my arm. "But not too bad. Hey, boss, do you still care about your identity as a Void Creature?"

Impressed by the girl’s sharpness, I still shook my head: "That’s not what I care about, you know, I’m a person with great acceptance. What really matters, actually, you know, Father God had told me some other things too, but I didn’t say them in front of Big Sister and the others."

"Let me guess," Little Loli said, counting on her fingers, "it involves Big Sister, Qianqian, and Lin Xue, right?"

"You always act crazy and foolish, but I know you’re smarter than anyone," I tapped Lilina on the forehead, recalling the phrase that had greatly disturbed me but I hadn’t dared to say out loud, "Father God didn’t tell me why this Void Creature became a human on Earth, but he mentioned that every Void Creature is a huge source of informational interference, which affects many things, but most of all, those things that are closely related to the destiny of the Void Creature... I suspect that I have already distorted the destiny of everyone around me..."

Suddenly, Lilina interjected, "Like making everyone have no morals?"

"Will you die if you talk less?"

"Tch, you’re the one who let me speak, and yet you’re also the one who won’t let me speak. But boss, isn’t this obvious?"

"What do you mean?"

"Destiny and all that, it’s meaningless if it doesn’t happen, and once it happens, it becomes a fact. Everyone is a bearer of their own destiny and also a part of the destinies of those around them. If Father God really meant what he said in such straightforward terms, you’re just a component with a bigger weight. I’ve suspected this for a while and even talked about it with Lin Xue in private... cough cough, it’s not like I usually think about you all the time and can’t find another topic or anything... Ah, being tsundere is really so boring. Let’s continue talking about serious matters. Big Sister, Qianqian, Lin Xue—these were the humans you came into most contact with when your spiritual power first awakened. Then, at the same time, they gained extraordinary powers that, rather than calling superpowers, have already surpassed the scope of superpowers. Isn’t that a strange occurrence?"

I didn’t say anything and waited quietly for the Fake Lolita, who looked goofy but was actually the cleverest of all, to finish her opinion.

"You know actually, I’m someone who likes to think a lot about things... So I talked about these matters with Lin Xue. She can see the future, which may also allow her to see many other things. Unfortunately, what she sees is only the scenery of the future, nothing like the ’destiny’ hidden behind those images which normal eyes can’t see. But combining that with the phrase Father God told you, it seems all of this is indeed because of you, boss."

I suddenly looked troubled.

"But it doesn’t matter," Lilina patted my shoulder like an adult (although she is technically an adult), "Boss, you’re worried that your existence is changing the destinies of the people around you, right? Have you ever thought about whether so-called destiny really exists?"

Despite being just a little dwarf of 1.09 meters, she was acting like a life coach guiding a whole new dad.

"The word ’destiny’ itself is laughable, stuff like preordained paths only matter to those who truly step out of destiny, out from the script, because such beings can already see through destiny. But then again, if there’s really someone who can ’step out of the script,’ isn’t that act itself arranged by destiny? It’s all just boring paradoxes. Destiny doesn’t need attention; it happens, so it has happened. Without you, we would just take another path; with you, you all took this one—it’s just a multiple-choice question. As for me, I think you brought happiness for me, so this multiple-choice question is satisfying. Moreover, I’ll say something extra, something I didn’t want to tell anyone... I’ve been summarizing the events happening around you, boss, so I know about some things earlier and clearer than anyone else. By your side, it seems like a vortex of events happens, changing every minute and second, even changing the whole world. If you’re troubled about changing others’ destinies at will, will you get through that?"

Initially, I just wanted to vent some psychological pressure to Lilina, as she was a perfect confidant being a third-generation human, but I didn’t expect Lilina to really start lecturing me. I even less expected this dark-hearted Priestess, who usually did nothing serious except maliciously acting cute and selling twisted personalities, to have so many secrets.

How flabbergasting each secret was when taken out alone.

"Vortex of events, huh?" I self-deprecatingly pointed at my forehead, "Honestly, I’m just a bit worried if my presence might involve Qianqian and the others in unavoidable dangers, but you’re right, worrying about some things is useless. Since I’ve set them on this path from the beginning, then I might as well protect them all the way... Ha, I am Void Lord Chen, after all, I refuse to believe there’s anything I can’t handle!"

"That’s more like it," Lilina mumbled vaguely, "Stop bringing up topics about you leading the people around you onto dangerous paths. I don’t like hearing it... Living this kind of life by your side, I’m actually very happy..."

"Huh?" I thought I was hearing things, particularly concerned about one topic she just mentioned, "By the way, you mentioned earlier about secretly summarizing the events I’ve been through... You’re not a bit paranoid, are you?"

Even while dozing, Lilina didn’t forget to give me a retort, "Ugh—annoying, annoying, annoying!!" (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to vote with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets at qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation.)