Chapter 2

Wang Bufe felt dizzy and his consciousness was hazy. However, he heard a young voice—

"Guardian spirit, hear my plea, awaken!"

It seemed someone was trying to wake him up. So he struggled to prop himself up, sat up, and slowly opened his eyes.

He found himself in a civilian household. There were no lavish furnishings, just a typical working-class family's home.

A delicate little girl was squatting beside him, hugging her knees.

Wang Bufe was instantly stunned. He remembered being squeezed in the subway, and then suddenly everything spun, and when he came to, he was here! The laptop he had been carrying was still in his hand.

By the way, where was this place?

Wang Bufe looked at the little girl squatting beside him. What a beautiful girl! She must be around thirteen or fourteen, the age when girls are the most adorable. Despite wearing an old, sporty school uniform, her face was almost perfect, like a fairy!

Suddenly, Wang Bufe panicked. What if the girl started screaming? He was a grown man in a little girl's room. No matter how many mouths he had, he couldn't explain this situation!

The little girl extended her small hand and poked Wang Bufe's cheek with her index finger. Then, with a "ah..." she let out a soft, kitten-like exclamation.

Wang Bufe wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but it seemed the exclamation was more joyful than frightened...

Wang Bufe quickly explained, "Little sister, listen to me. Please don't scream. I'm not a bad person, I really am not. I don't even know how I got here!"

The little girl didn't look scared at all. She tilted her head and sized up Wang Bufe, "Strange, my guardian spirit should be wearing a golden琉璃甲 (glass armor)? Could it be that the energy storm in the channel connecting the Galaxy Spring and the human world was too strong? Hmm, it must be that."

Galaxy Spring? Golden glass armor? Wang Bufe was speechless.

"I am the eldest princess of the Supreme Royal Family, Xia Ci," the little girl extended her pale, bloodless hand, "You are the guardian spirit I summoned with a long-lost magic. From today on, you must protect me and help me defeat all the unspeakable evils."

Wang Bufe's face was blank as he looked around. A chipped desk, a stack of homework books, a pink pillow with Winnie the Pooh on a small bed... Was this a princess's home?

Either she had a middle school second-year syndrome or she was crazy. That's all Wang Bufe could think.

Teenagers often have wild and fanciful ideas at the age of thirteen or fourteen. Some of them get so immersed in their fantasies that they become out of sync with the world around them. This is called middle school second-year syndrome.

But upon closer inspection, Xia Ci didn't show any signs of it. Her skin was as white as porcelain, she hadn't worn makeup, her hair was simply draped behind her back, and her hairstyle was not unusual. She was wearing a very ordinary sporty school uniform. There were no signs of middle school second-year syndrome from her appearance.

Although being here was confusing, Wang Bufe didn't believe he was "summoned" by Xia Ci.

"Xia Ci, little sister, can you tell me where this is? What's the date today?"

"This is the bedroom of the Supreme Royal Family's eldest princess," Xia Ci said matter-of-factly, "As for the date... I haven't torn the calendar for a while. Hmm, I just started school a few weeks ago, so it should be a Friday in mid-March."

"March..." Wang Bufe was stunned, suddenly feeling a cold wind. It was so cold!

Before he came here, it was July 2014, the height of summer, and he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. But here, it was chilly.

No way... Wang Bufe had a bad feeling and asked in a trembling voice, "What year is it?"

"2000," Xia Ci knew the year.

Wang Bufe was completely stunned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.

Last week, a thief had stolen his wallet, and he had to go through a lot of trouble to get a new ID card. He had to check the date, or he would go crazy.

But it was better not to look. When he did, it was even worse. The newly issued second-generation ID card had a completely different appearance, with the issuance date written as "March 17, 2000."

Even the only hundred-yuan bill in his wallet had the same issuance date.

"... No need to pay the mortgage anymore!"

Whether it was the cold or the shock, Wang Bufe's arms were covered in goosebumps.

He used to be very ordinary. He studied IT at a university in the south that didn't rank, and after graduation, he sent out a lot of resumes to get a job at an unreliable mobile game company. Every day, he coded mindlessly, turning his boss's various bizarre ideas into reality.

Even such a Wang Bufe had dreams—he wanted to create a perfect game. Not the generic monster-killing online games, nor the purely graphics-heavy single-player games... something simple and fun, just like the games he used to play for two hours in secret as a child.

But Wang Bufe was just a regular employee. His boss could skip the college entrance exam, spend a few years partying abroad, and then come back to get a ten million investment from his family to start a mobile game company. Wang Bufe couldn't do that; he had no money, no connections, no channels.

Wang Bufe had planned to bury his dreams deep in his heart and wait until he was in his forties or fifties to try to realize them. But he never expected to travel back fourteen years to 2000!

In 2000, with the price of personal computers dropping to a level that ordinary people could afford, the world's game industry entered a period of rapid development. Popular games like "Counter-Strike," "Red Alert 2," and "Diablo 3" were all officially released that year.

And Wang Bufe, with his laptop, could no longer be content with mediocrity!

"Since I've been brought to this era, I will surpass you all!" A surge of determination rose in Wang Bufe's heart.

But determination can't keep you warm. His most urgent task was to avoid freezing to death.

"Xia Ci, little sister, can I borrow your dad's clothes?" Wang Bufe wiped his nose. His nose was running.

"As my guardian spirit, you're afraid of the cold..." Xia Ci was a bit disappointed but still lifted the quilt, jumped to the ground, and dragged a large box from under the bed. Inside were many men's clothes.

The styles were quite old, but they were thick. The cotton was real, unlike the synthetic materials of fourteen years later. Wang Bufe put on three coats and felt warm.

"Do you want to eat something?" Xia Ci asked, "I can make a bowl of egg noodles."

Wang Bufe was actually quite hungry, "That would be great. But when will your parents be back?"

If they saw a grown man with their daughter at night, Wang Bufe feared he wouldn't even have a complete body left.

Xia Ci's face darkened as she walked to the kitchen, "They went to a faraway place. My father went north to seek advice from immortals on how to resolve the war. My mother went south to find the legendary gold tree that never withers. They haven't been home for two years."

Wang Bufe vaguely understood. It seemed the girl's father had run away for some reason, and her mother had gone south to work, leaving Xia Ci alone.

Xia Ci looked like she had been living independently for a long time. She skillfully set the pot on the stove, turned on the gas, and with great effort, poured half a pot of hot water from the kettle. She added salt and waited for the water to boil.

Under the gas stove was a small cabinet, with two doors tightly shut. The cabinet was wrapped in a mess of yellow tape, and a piece of paper was stuck on it, written in neat handwriting: "Here is sealed the ultimate evil, the ultimate corruption, and the ultimate embodiment of unspeakable evil. Opening the seal will cause great calamity to humans and the world."

The note was a bit eerie. Wang Bufe decided to ignore it and smiled, "You're the first girl to make noodles for me, besides my mom."

"..." Xia Ci didn't say anything, slowly leaning back and resting her head on Wang Bufe's chest, murmuring, "Although you're different from what I imagined, you are really my guardian spirit, right?"

This was completely different from being bumped by a girl's head in a crowded subway. It was a strange, unprecedented feeling. Even though Wang Bufe knew it was just a chemical reaction of a microgram of substance in the body, he couldn't resist it.

He smiled, "Of course, I am your guardian spirit."

"Then tonight, you must protect me while I sleep!" Xia Ci pouted, "Those evil things are so annoying, they always appear when I'm sleeping!"

It was just a child's fear of the dark at night. Wang Bufe was amused by Xia Ci's expression.

"Whoosh~"

A gust of wind suddenly blew outside the window, making a loud noise. Xia Ci was startled and looked up at Wang Bufe, "See, those are the things! One of the unspeakable evils, called a Fallen Demon, appears in the hundreds. Even I have to put in a lot of effort to defeat them!"

"With me here, you don't need to be afraid. I'll fight them for three hundred rounds tonight!" Wang Bufe said.

Xia Ci didn't catch the teasing in his words, looking relieved and nodding eagerly.

The water boiled. Xia Ci took out a whole roll of noodles and asked Wang Bufe, "Is this enough?"

"Too much, I can't eat that much!" Wang Bufe quickly stopped her. A roll of noodles weighed about a pound, and he couldn't possibly eat it all. He grabbed a handful and put it in the boiling water.

"It's not as much as I imagined." Xia Ci was disappointed again.

"In your mind, what does your guardian spirit look like? A big, burly guy who doesn't wear clothes in winter?" Wang Bufe couldn't help but ask.

Hearing this, Xia Ci couldn't help but "puh" and laugh. The image Wang Bufe described was indeed hilarious.

While laughing, Xia Ci cracked an egg into the pot, added soy sauce for flavor, and cut a little bit of scallion with scissors. When the egg solidified, it was ready to eat.

Xia Ci then asked quietly, "Guardian spirit, what's your name?"

"Wang Bufe."

"Sure enough, you are my guardian spirit. You will never lose, right?" Finally, something met Xia Ci's expectations.

The name and whether he would lose or not were not really related. Wang Bufe had never won anything, but just as he thought this, he heard a "bang" and was startled.

Xia Ci was scared and took two steps back, pressing her back tightly against Wang Bufe, looking at the "sealed" cabinet under the gas stove in panic.

"Bang!"

The sound came again, clearly from the cabinet.

"Ah!" Xia Ci screamed, turning around and hugging Wang Bufe's waist, trembling uncontrollably.

"What's in there?" Wang Bufe asked.

Xia Ci, trembling, said, "It's an evil spirit trapped by my trap, the embodiment of unspeakable evil, the most terrifying evil spirit in the world!"

"Bang!" Another sound.

It was too loud to be a cockroach. Wang Bufe guessed it was a rat. Old houses couldn't have such pests. He instructed, "Take the noodles out and bring me a broom."

Xia Ci, still pale from fear, took the pot and brought the broom as instructed.

Seeing Xia Ci was still scared, Wang Bufe had her wait outside the kitchen while he closed the door tightly, so the rat would have nowhere to run when released.

After everything was ready, Wang Bufe took a deep breath, tore off the "seal" and the tape, and suddenly opened the cabinet door.

"Whoosh," a small gray rat darted out of the cabinet, probably hungry from being trapped, and ran around the kitchen.

Wang Bufe, holding the broom, quickly hit the thin rat a few times, knocking it out. Then it was easy to deal with. He found a plastic bag, put the rat in it, and stepped on it to kill it, so the rat's blood wouldn't dirty the kitchen.

"See, is this it?" Wang Bufe opened the kitchen door and waved the bag in front of Xia Ci.

Xia Ci's eyes widened, and tears quickly filled her eyes, followed by a low scream.

"Sorry, sorry." Wang Bufe quickly apologized. He had been showing off and forgot that girls generally fear rats. A dead rat with bulging eyes and a protruding tongue was even more terrifying.

He quickly threw the dead rat into the hallway, and Xia Ci calmed down. Still shaken, she pulled Wang Bufe to the bathroom, "Wash your hands, five times!"

"I didn't touch the rat," Wang Bufe protested.

"No! No five washes, no dinner!" Xia Ci insisted.

---

**End of Chapter**