“Jiang Ruoxue… you…”

I stared at her blankly. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time, and I never imagined I would reunite with Jiang Ruoxue under these circumstances.

Before I could say my next sentence to Jiang Ruoxue, Old Sun spoke up again: “Sister, since you two have both spoken, from now on I’m part of ‘Extreme Path.’ If there’s anything you need, just let me know.”

At this moment my mind was a bit chaotic, and I didn’t hear what Old Sun was saying at all. After staring at me and Jiang Ruoxue for quite a while, he said with some tact: “Alright then, I’ll go take a stroll. You two chat.”

Only after Old Sun walked far away did Jiang Ruoxue burst out laughing.

Five years had passed, yet she was exactly the same as before, without even the slightest change.

This was the strange thing about the “Land of Terminus.” No matter how long you were separated from someone, as long as you still remembered them, you would find they were always wearing the same clothes, styling the same hairstyle, carrying the same expression. Aside from going completely insane, it was very difficult for anyone to change here.

“I thought you were dead,” I said.

“What kind of talk is that! Are you asking for a beating again?” Jiang Ruoxue rushed up and tried to get handsy with me, but I nimbly dodged.

The two of us were just like when we first met—she was excessively affectionate, I looked disgusted, but neither of us actually disliked the other.

I really liked Jiang Ruoxue.

After some playful scuffling, she and I sat back down. With a face full of smiles, she said to me: “You’ve been doing well these past few years.”

“Hm?”

“Lately I keep running into ‘Extreme Path’ members everywhere, but the problem is I’ve never known any of those people.” Jiang Ruoxue said. “I suppose that’s all thanks to your efforts, right?”

“Although I’ve persuaded many people, it’s still not enough.” I shook my head. “The ‘Land of Terminus’ has its own rules after all. These people could forget about ‘Extreme Path’ at any time. To keep ‘Extreme Path’ continuously active, I can only keep moving forward.”

She was indeed exactly the same as before. No matter how long we were separated, we would instantly become familiar again when we met.

“By the way, why did you suddenly come here?” I asked.

“This… it’s a long story.” Jiang Ruoxue smiled somewhat embarrassedly. “I discovered a girl so beautiful she could shake heaven and earth haunting this area. I wanted to make her my wife. Also, I missed you a bit, so I came to see you. The journey was really too far—it took me over five hours. You haven’t seen that girl… she must be about five-foot-ten, looks like a celebrity.”

Truly worthy of being Jiang Ruoxue, always leaving me speechless with a single sentence.

“You… came to find a beautiful woman?”

I almost forgot that Jiang Ruoxue was this kind of person… It was fortunate she wasn’t a boy.

“Eh?” She stared at me with a puzzled expression. “Are you jealous? Then let me rephrase—I actually came to find you.”

“Alright, alright…” I shook my head and then sighed.

After thinking for a few seconds, I asked again: “Ruoxue… do you really like girls?”

“Me?” She raised an eyebrow. “Did you forget? I said before that you and I are the same kind of person. I only love myself.”

“But your behavior seems…” I didn’t know how to phrase it without being aggressive, so I could only stop halfway through my sentence.

“It seems like I like many people, but I truly only love myself.” Jiang Ruoxue said. “I like being with you because you have a good personality. Being with you makes me feel beautiful, so I stick to you. This is likewise a manifestation of loving myself.”

“Then… what about that girl who’s ‘so beautiful she could shake heaven and earth’?” I asked again.

“She really is very good-looking, probably the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. So being with her also gives me a kind of pleasant, happy feeling.” Jiang Ruoxue answered. “If I discover our personalities don’t match or our values don’t align, it might just stop there.”

I seemed to understand what Jiang Ruoxue was saying. Indeed, ever since I started socializing with other people, I discovered that everyone in this world had their own way of living, perfectly self-consistent within their own behavioral logic. This was knowledge that could never be learned from books, no matter what.

“So for me, whether it’s boys or girls doesn’t matter.” Jiang Ruoxue said. “If I’m happy, I’ll chat a bit more. If I’m not happy, I’ll turn around and leave. Someday in the future you might discover I’ve made friends with a celebrity, or you might find some bleached-hair bad boy standing beside me. All of this is just a small ‘effect,’ and the ’cause’ is simply to make myself a bit happier.”

After listening, I nodded. To be honest, I wasn’t jealous—I even felt happy for Jiang Ruoxue.

“What have you been doing lately?” Jiang Ruoxue asked again. “Just recruiting ‘Extreme Path’ members? Have there been any other interesting things?”

“I…” I paused, then said: “I don’t know if this counts as interesting, but that Baiyang has returned.”

“Baiyang?” After hearing this, Jiang Ruoxue nodded. “Isn’t he the ’cause’ of everything? Have you two reconnected?”

“Yes.” I thought for a while. “Right now there are two things I’m very concerned about… Since you’ve come at just the right time, can you help me figure things out?”

“Go ahead.”

I first told Jiang Ruoxue about what just happened with Old Sun, and also explained the answer derived from “Karma.”

I said I suspected that Baiyang would eventually break away from the “Zodiac” and become a higher-level existence. It was also possible that someday in the future, the person who would change this place wouldn’t be Baiyang at all. After all, this was a result I obtained after many instances of “probing the future.”

“Ah… you shameless wretch…” Before I finished speaking, Jiang Ruoxue blurted this out, which stunned me for a moment.

“Wh-what’s wrong?”

“How dare you… I was wondering why these past few years I’ve been walking along and suddenly getting dizzy…” Jiang Ruoxue said with a disgusted expression. “You’ve been using my ‘Karma’ to probe what future… This project was already huge to begin with! Already so mentally taxing! Are you trying to exhaust me to death?”

“I…”

Looking all huffy, she crossed her arms in front of her chest: “I’m telling you, Yan, this is only because it’s you… If it were someone else, I would have run away long ago.”

I understood Jiang Ruoxue far too well. As long as she could say something out loud, it meant she wasn’t truly angry. When she was truly angry, she would only maintain an expressionless silence.

“This matter is indeed my fault…” I said somewhat guiltily. “I didn’t think about this aspect… I’m sorry.”

“Sorry my ass…” Jiang Ruoxue curled her lip. “Come here and kiss me, then we’ll call it even.”

“Fine, then you can just stay angry.”