NOVEL NEXT Chapter 106.1: “So He Can Smile!” (1)
I feel like I have much more free time ever since returning to this world.
Ji Fanyin had already had half a foot in retirement. She had more than enough money to spend for a lifetime, not to mention, she had a life outside of work anyway, so she decided to just take a step back and live her life easy.
Even though she had spent almost an entire year in the other world, she realized that it had only been a few days in her current world. It was almost as if it was just a dream. No one realized that she had traversed into a different world and returned.
That being said, she still felt the mental exhaustion from having to socialize with so many people during her time as ‘Ji Fanyin’.
She had gotten into a car accident prior to her transmigration to the other world, so understandably, she woke up in a hospital ward. There was a moment there where she hated herself for reaching her goal too quickly. If only she had stayed unconscious a few days longer, she could have been spared from the painful phase of the recovery process.
Is the 10 billion I have painstakingly earned not enough to fast forward me a few days into the future?
Her original plan was to head home and gobble up all of the movies that had been released over her past year of absence, but the time contraction between the two worlds robbed her of her opportunity to binge on movies.
In fact, the movie that she had been anticipating on the silver screen all this while hadn’t even been released yet!
So, she spent three days lazing around in the hospital ward till the test results reflected that she was fine and could be discharged. When she returned home, she spent another three days immersed in games. It was only on the seventh day that she finally recovered from her lazy streak and started accepting calls from her friends.
There had actually been many calls from friends and associates to check if she was fine, but she heartlessly dumped them all in her work studio.
Just returning all of these calls took her an entire day. There were even a few over-concerned friends who wanted to pay her visit to check on her, but she turned all of them down.
Another call suddenly came in. Ji Fanyin looked at the caller id, and realization slowly struck her. It just so happened that she was particularly trusting of her intuition right now. So, she picked up the phone and naturally called out, “Shen Qi.”
The person on the other end of the phone naturally answered, “Mm.”
Then, he realized that something was amiss and fell silent.
“Shen Qi, huh?” Ji Fanyin murmured with raised eyebrows. “You sure are good at coming up with aliases. Why didn’t you tell me your true identity? We have known each other for more than a decade now, but I’m only realizing now that you aren’t human.”
“… I can explain.”
“You don’t need to explain. It doesn’t matter to me, who or what you are. All I need to know is that you’re a friend of mine,” Ji Fanyin interjected. “This works fine with me too. There are a few things I want to ask you about that other world. Will you answer them?”
“Of course.”
The first question Ji Fanyin thought of was: “Is the other ‘Ji Fanyin’ fine?”
“Why wouldn’t she be fine?” asked Shen Qi.
“With that meek personality of hers, I can imagine everybody taking advantage of her again.”
Ji Fanyin couldn’t help but worry about the other ‘Ji Fanyin’. Even though she had already cleared all of the obstacles in her path for her, it was still possible for the other ‘Ji Fanyin’ to tread down the same path again, if she couldn’t pull herself together.
“She’s doing fine.” Shen Qi paused for a moment before adding, “You prepared a way out for her.”
Ji Fanyin spent a moment in contemplation.
There’s Cheng Lin, Li Mingyue, and Zhang Ning. None of them are to be trifled with. Besides, I also gave her all of the money I have earned, so it’s unlikely that anything would happen to her.
“Rather, it is…”
Shen Qi suddenly stopped halfway through his words.
“What is it?” Ji Fanyin asked lazily.
“No, it’s nothing,” replied Shen Qi. He was particularly inept at lying. “You’ll know in a few months’ time if it happens.”
Ji Fanyin couldn’t be bothered to probe into it, so she replied with a nonchalant “Oh” before hanging up the call. The grinding she had done in the other world had made her feel more lethargic than ever. She felt like she had expended a year’s worth of exercise.
She laid down on her sofa and began scrolling through webtoons on her phone.
She would still think about the other world from time to time, but she had already ba farewell to everyone she needed to. She didn’t have much regrets, if any at all.
To her, this was no different from a long work trip to another world.