BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The sound was an assault.
A cheap, plastic, and aggressively mundane sound.
Li Wei's eyes snapped open.
He was in his bed.
His lumpy, uncomfortable, and distinctly non-cosmic bed.
The morning sun, a normal, non-sentient sun, was streaming through his window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
He saw his messy desk, piled high with overdue library books.
He saw his closet, with the door that never quite closed properly.
He saw the sad potato water stain on the ceiling.
It was all real.
It was all painfully, beautifully, normal.
**
But the memories were still there.
A phantom echo of cosmic battles and bureaucratic hellscapes.
The taste of a kiss that broke reality.
The feeling of his soul shattering into four pieces and then, somehow, becoming whole again.
He remembered everything.
The programmer. The final debug. The flash of white light.
Was that it?
Was it all just a dream? A long, insane, and ridiculously elaborate stress-dream induced by finals week and a bad batch of instant noodles?
He sat up, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs.
It felt too real to be a dream.
But this... this felt too normal to be real.
**
A knock on his door.
A soft, hesitant, and completely normal knock.
Not the sound of a god demanding entry.
Not the sound of a demon trying to serve him a subpoena.
Just... a knock.
He stumbled out of bed, his heart in his throat.
He opened the door.
And she was there.
Feng Yue.
She was wearing a simple, slightly-too-large university hoodie and a pair of jeans.
Her hair, usually a perfect, fiery cascade, was tied back in a simple, messy ponytail.
She looked... like a student.
A normal, beautiful, and slightly nervous transfer student.
She offered him a polite, shy smile. A stranger's smile.
"Hi," she said, her voice soft and unfamiliar. "I'm your new neighbor. I just moved in across the hall. I think I'm a little lost. Can you tell me where the history building is?"
He stared at her.
His mind was a complete blank.
It was a dream.
It had to be.
This perfect, normal, beautiful girl was not his Feng Yue.
His Feng Yue was a terrifying, proud, and secretly soft goddess who set things on fire when she was embarrassed.
This girl was just... a girl.
His heart, which had soared with a moment of impossible hope, crashed into his shoes.
He had lost her.
The final debug had reset everything.
And then, she winked.
A tiny, almost imperceptible wink.
But it was a wink that held the memory of phoenix fire.
A wink that had seen him trip over his own feet a thousand times.
A wink that had watched him save the universe with a stick figure drawing.
And in her eyes, behind the polite, stranger's smile, was a mischievous, familiar, and utterly beautiful sparkle that said:
Ready for round two, idiot?
**
The relief was so powerful it almost knocked him off his feet.
"Yeah," he breathed, a slow, goofy grin spreading across his face. "Yeah, I can show you."
They walked out into the hallway, the silence between them comfortable, familiar.
"So," he said, his voice low. "New Game Plus, huh?"
"It would appear so," she replied, her voice still a polite whisper, though her eyes were dancing with amusement. "A fresh start. A chance to do it all again, but... better this time."
"You mean with less accidental apocalypses?"
"One can hope," she said.
They walked out into the campus courtyard. It was just a normal university again. No portals. No demons.
Just students, rushing to class, complaining about their homework.
"So, everyone remembers?" he asked.
"Everyone," she confirmed. "But we're all playing our parts. A new beginning requires a new script."
As if on cue, they passed the campus's only bubble tea shop.
Behind the counter, wearing a "World's Best Barista" apron, was Zhurong.
He was humming a cheerful tune, his flaming hair tied back in a sensible hairnet.
He saw them and waved, his smile bright and friendly.
"Welcome!" he boomed. "Can I get you two lovebirds a 'Spontaneous Combustion Special'? It's 50% off for couples who have previously saved reality together!"
They kept walking.
**
When Li Wei got back to his dorm room, he found his new roommate moving in.
It was Dean Wang.
The former Perfect God was struggling to assemble a cheap, flat-pack bookshelf.
He had the instructions upside down.
He looked up as Li Wei entered, his face a mask of pure, human frustration.
"This... is illogical," the Dean mumbled, staring at a handful of leftover screws. "The design is fundamentally flawed."
He looked at Li Wei, a flicker of his old, perfect self warring with his new, beautifully broken humanity.
"Help me?" he asked, his voice small.
Li Wei just smiled. "Sure, roomie."
**
Later that day, he tried to text Feng Yue.
He wanted to ask her out.
On a real date this time. No cosmic trials. No life-or-death stakes. Just... coffee.
He typed out the message.
"Hey, wanna get coffee? The non-shoe-based kind?"
He was about to hit send.
And then, his phone's autocorrect changed the message.
"Hey, [Inefficient Emotional Catalyst], wanna engage in a suboptimal social ritual involving caffeinated bean water?"
Li Wei stared at the text.
A small, smoky pipe icon appeared next to the corrected text.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
Old Master Q was his autocorrect.
**
That night, he met Feng Yue on the roof of the history building.
Their spot.
They sat in comfortable silence, watching the normal, non-magical city lights twinkle below.
"So," he said finally. "This is it. Our second chance."
"Yes," she said, her voice soft.
He looked at her. At the girl who had been programmed to love him, who had broken through her own code to choose him, who had been given a fresh start and had chosen him all over again.
He thought of all the chaos. The pain. The cosmic, soul-shattering absurdity of their story.
And he realized, with a clarity that was brighter than any divine light, that it had all been worth it.
The final debug hadn't just reset their world.
It had reset their love.
It had wiped away the stain of manipulation, of prophecy, of programming.
What was left was just... a choice.
Their choice.
"I was so scared," he confessed, his voice a raw whisper. "That none of it was real. That you, me... that we were just a line of code."
She reached out and took his hand.
Her hand was warm.
His was, for once, not clammy.
"The joy was real," she said, her voice a perfect echo of the thought he'd had in that final, terrifying moment.
"And that," she said, her phoenix-fire eyes shining with a love that was entirely, beautifully, her own, "is enough."
He looked out at the quiet, peaceful campus.
"Well," he said, a slow, happy grin spreading across his face. "At least sophomore year can't possibly be weirder than freshman year."
And as he said it, across the campus, a hundred different figures, all disguised as normal students and faculty, all looked up at the rooftop.
Zhurong gave them a thumbs-up from the bubble tea shop.
Dean Wang, who had finally assembled his bookshelf (it was crooked), waved from their dorm room window.
Xuanwu, the turtle god, who was now just a normal, tired old Dean, smiled a slow, ancient smile.
Gods, demons, spirits, and one very sarcastic, newly-digitized primordial artifact.
All of them, his friends, his enemies, his cosmic, dysfunctional family.
All watching.
All waiting.
For the adventure to begin again.
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