I have a life simulator.

Her name is Nanase Tsubasa.


Take a day off

I have something urgent to attend to and need to take a day off. Sorry.

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Chapter 334: Once you're trapped, you can't run away.

Having decided to accompany Yuki through the entire cultural festival, Kitagawa Ryo, with a great sense of ceremony, took her back to the main gate of Tokyo Advanced Educational Junior High School, preparing to thoroughly experience as many of the activities as possible for each grade and class.

Because the number of guests entering this year was the highest ever, even though more than half an hour had passed since the start of the cultural festival, the area in front of the main gate was still bustling with people. Occasionally, you could see two or three customers who had probably missed the start time and were rushing into the school at this time.

Because the school specifically emphasized in the rules of this cultural festival that open flame cooking was not allowed indoors, most of the food stalls that required on-site cooking were set up outdoors. The dozen or twenty stalls from each grade and class were connected to each other, which gave a wonderful feeling of strolling through a food street.

Since his stunning debut at the sports festival, Kitagawa Ryo has become famous throughout Tokyo Advanced Educational High School. In addition to the first-year students, the second and third-year students, especially those who have gained or lost a lot of personal points from him, have a deep impression of him. Therefore, his appearance here quickly attracted a lot of attention.

"It seems that Liang is quite famous here."

Xue also noticed the many gazes converging on her from all directions, but she didn't feel embarrassed at all. Instead, she generously raised the hand that the two of them were holding tightly a little higher and turned her head slightly to say something.

"I'm alright, Xue, is there anything you'd like to eat?"

Kitagawa Ryo was actually a little worried that the other students from Dongyu might suddenly start another discussion about how many girlfriends he had, but fortunately everyone was busy. After glancing at each other for a while, they either flipped the fried noodles on the teppanyaki grill or started smiling and promoting the roasted marshmallows in their hands, and began to concentrate on their class's cultural festival project.

When Kitagawa Ryo asked her question, Yuki curiously looked around at the various stalls, but she clearly wasn't interested in the usual festival snacks. She quickly looked away, shook her head, and said:

"I just heard that Liang's class has a dessert shop project where Liang is the head chef? I'm not that hungry right now, how about we go eat there after we walk around over there?"

"Okay, I'll follow Xue's lead for this cultural festival. Wherever you say we should go, we'll go."

"It hasn't gotten to that point yet."

Although she said that, Yuki was actually quite satisfied with Kitagawa Ryo's words, and even forgot most of what had just happened with Shiina Hiyori:

"Let's go over there first, it seems like there's more to do there."

Following the direction Xue pointed, Kitagawa Ryo also walked with her into the campus of Tokyo Advanced Educational Junior High School. Unlike the food stalls at the main gate, the stalls here were mostly entertainment facilities. Most of the projects for Class 1-C were in this area, and business seemed pretty good. Not only did it attract a lot of underage children, but it also caught a glimpse of many middle-aged guests who seemed to have their childlike hearts awakened, happily playing ring toss or target shooting games.

"Want to play these games? I feel like we could take home some souvenir prizes."

After experiencing the incident involving Shiina Hiyori and that ring, Kitagawa Ryo himself gained a deeper understanding of the idea that objects are carriers of memories. Therefore, he pointed to a ring toss stall not far away, where a number of dolls, statues, and figurines of various sizes were placed in the center. They looked quite exquisite.

"Yes, I want to play!"

For Yuki, who spent her entire childhood in white rooms, both in simulations and in reality, these festival-style games were clearly more appealing than the snacks. She quickly walked up to the nearest stall, chatted briefly with the students from Tokyo Advanced Educational High School who were working there, and soon returned with a large stack of ring toss games.

Just as Kitagawa Ryo was about to take out his phone to capture this precious experience of the other person's first ring toss, his phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket first. It was a call from Ichinose Honami, the general coordinator of Class 1-A for this year's cultural festival:

"Hey, Honami, what's wrong?"

"Ryo, have you seen Hotaru? It seems to have slipped out of the store. The others and I are looking for her everywhere."

Honami Ichinose's tone revealed obvious anxiety. After all, she knew very well how important this little cat was to Ryo Kitagawa. With so many people and distractions at the cultural festival, she was genuinely worried that something might happen.

"Firefly?"

Compared to Ichinose Honami's panic, Kitagawa Ryo, who knew that the cat was actually his younger sister and a concept god, was quite calm. He even immediately glanced around at the trees by the roadside and quickly locked onto a white figure hiding there:

"I've already found it, don't worry. By the way, how's business at the cat cafe?"

"Oh, that's good. Is everything going well at the cat café? The cats are all very well-behaved, and the advertising has brought in quite a few customers. It's almost full now."

Upon hearing Kitagawa Ryo say that Hotaru had been found, Ichinose Honami breathed a sigh of relief, then told him in a relaxed tone that he didn't need to worry too much about the cat café's operation.

"Liang, why don't you spend some quality time with that girl today? I think her name is Xue?"

"Yes, I understand. I'll hang up now. Bye, Fanbo."

"Bye-Bye."

After ending his call with Honami Ichinose, Kitagawa Ryo waved to a nearby tree under Yuki's somewhat puzzled gaze. Immediately, a kitten leaped over and skillfully slipped into his hood.

"Wow, is that the cat from the cat cafe? It seems so smart and affectionate, no, it should be said that it's so affectionate towards me."

Yuki's attitude towards Hotaru, who suddenly barged into their date, was quite friendly and kind. After all, she wouldn't be jealous of a harmless and cute little cat. She even reached out and patted Hotaru's head, teasing her a bit.

Ying simply maintained a polite smile in response.

After all, one of the two people present could only stay at Tokyo Advanced Educational High School until 5 p.m. today, while the other could continue to stay after today's event. There was really no need to argue with the other party.

Moreover, just like the topic of "how many girlfriends Kitagawa Ryo has" that has become an urban legend in Tokyo Advanced Educational High School, Hotaru herself often thinks about how many cat owners she has. In the past, when there were fewer people, she could mark them with numbers like No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, etc., but now, with the increase in the number of people, she has almost given up.

"Hotaru is definitely a little closer to me."

Because there were many other students and guests around, Kitagawa Ryo couldn't directly say that this was his own cat, so he vaguely mentioned it.

He himself was quite clear about why Hotaru suddenly defected from the cat cafe. Besides the fact that there was no salary for working there (crossed out), and that the other person was not very good at this kind of business and just wanted to stick close to him, it was probably also related to the fact that his shopping trip with Yuki at the cultural festival reminded Hotaru of some things from their past.

Although Ryuen Sho mentioned to Kitagawa Ryo yesterday that he and the adults had made a lot of money using these kinds of entertainment facilities when he was a child, Kitagawa Ryo himself was a regular at these festivals and temple fairs before his rebirth and transmigration, just like Hotaru. He would basically sell the prizes he won on the spot, which could be considered another way to supplement his family income and entertain himself.

While Kitagawa Ryo was still reminiscing about distant memories, Yuki herself was already squinting at the prizes on the stall, calculating the distance and angle, as if she were about to throw the ring toss at any moment.

"Hey--"

After briefly aiming at a prize she wanted, Xue quickly and gently tossed the ring toss into her hand, and it landed perfectly on a colorful bracelet that was probably just made of plastic.

"The customer has a real talent for ring toss."

As soon as Xue successfully tossed the rings, the staff member next to her immediately went over to get her prize, and then replaced it with another bracelet of a similar style.

"How about it?"

Compared to the staff's polite compliments, Xue clearly wanted to hear something similar from Kitagawa Ryo. After taking the bracelet, she immediately raised her chin slightly at him, her pretty face filled with the inner emotion of 'come praise me'.

"This must be Xue's first time playing this; she's really talented."

Kitagawa Ryo, who had just snapped a photo, put down his phone and showed it to Yuki. Thanks to the purple photographer's talent hanging on his body, even though he was only using the camera that came with the school-provided phone, the final image quality was still very good, and Yuki was quite satisfied with it.

"However, taking photos is a bit of a hassle. Xue currently has a special phone issued by the school that can only be used to spend personal points, and I can't find a place to print them right now. If I really want to keep the photos, well... I'll borrow an instant camera from one of the students in my class."

Seeing that Yuki seemed very interested in the photos of the two of them at the cultural festival, Kitagawa Ryo thought for a moment and quickly remembered Tomomura Hideo.

In addition to being responsible for promoting Class 1-A at this cultural festival, the boys in Hideo Sotomura's group also had the extra task of helping to take commemorative photos, so they specially used their points to purchase several instant cameras.

It's true that Class A of the first year had too many extra points and were very wealthy. In fact, the price of an instant camera itself wasn't cheap, and there was also the extra expense of film. Kitagawa Ryo remembered that he had heard Ayanokouji Kiyotaka say that even though their Class D of the first year had a maid cafe project that included a service of taking photos with customers, the class was still struggling to come up with enough money to only have one instant camera and the corresponding number of rolls of film, which was really quite meager.

Although this was also related to the fact that the maid outfits their class rented were ridiculously expensive, there was nothing they could do about it. This was Class 1-D's trump card project for this cultural festival, so naturally they had to use their resources wisely and couldn't cut corners where necessary.

"Instant camera? You mean that camera that takes a picture instantly after you take a shot?"

When Kitagawa Ryo mentioned Polaroid cameras, Yuki seemed thoughtful. In fact, from the day she was 'reborn,' she had thoroughly searched through all of Kitagawa Ryo's social media accounts, looking at his posts about his life or work, and gradually felt a sense of reality about the world, able to settle down and feel at ease again.

In those posts or blogs spanning several years, Xue did see Polaroid photos, or rather, photos taken with Polaroid cameras. To be more precise, they were photos that Kitagawa Ryo specially posted on social media to boost the popularity of Sakura Airi, who had just debuted as an idol at the time. The photos were decorated with cute autographs and signatures by Sakura Airi in various colors of colored pens.

Thinking about this, Xue's feelings became complicated again.

After all, based on her research and knowledge, there are still girls like Sakura Airi and Karuizawa Megumi, who are almost inseparable from Kitagawa Ryo on some internet forums, whom she hasn't met. If everyone did something like Shiina Hiyori this morning, she felt that her date today wouldn't be worth continuing.

So, when Kitagawa Ryo returned with a Polaroid camera borrowed from Sotomura Hideo, he saw Yuki standing there, seemingly thinking, "Don't rush, I'm thinking." A little confused, Kitagawa went up and gently flicked Yuki's smooth, white forehead.

"what happened?"

"It's nothing, let's continue playing the game... Hmm, which one does Ryo want?"

Slightly flustered, Yuki snapped out of her daze and chatted with Kitagawa Ryo while her gaze wandered, but she couldn't help but suddenly start to miss the previous timeline.

After all, back then there were only the so-called White House faction and the East Idol faction. If we exclude Amazawa Ichika, who had not yet fully revealed her inner thoughts at that time, it was essentially a love triangle between her, Sakayanagi Arisu, and Kitagawa Ryo.

just now……

Goodness, there are already so many people and factions. It feels like "Genius Showdown" could just switch to a talent show and let the audience vote and support it.

After making that subtle internal monologue, Yuki felt a strange mix of bitterness and embarrassment. But Kitagawa Ryo didn't answer her question immediately. Instead, he took the ring from her hand and suddenly slammed it over Yuki's head.

"Yes—this is what I want most."

Chapter 335: Do you know my birthday wish?

As it turns out, like Amaze Ichika, who also came from the White Room, Yuki is a girl who is quite easy to coax.

Although Kitagawa Ryo and Sakayanagi Arisu had exchanged dozens, even hundreds, of similar lines on variety shows in the simulated world line, suddenly, from the audience's perspective, she became the person being confessed to so close to her. Yuki herself instantly forgot all her previous complaints about scripted plots, cheesy pick-up lines, and promotional couples. Her thoughts expanded and she imaginatively used the circle Kitagawa Ryo had put on her to quickly connect it to the scene where a ring, which was also a circle but much smaller, was gently placed on her finger by him.

Even though it was already mid-November, late autumn, the girl could still clearly feel a noticeable increase in temperature on her cheeks and neck, and her earlobes were also a little hot. Even if she couldn't see it clearly, they must have been quite red. The series of events made the stall worker next to her twitch her lips involuntarily. She glanced at the hundred or so rings hanging on her arm for sale to customers and inexplicably felt like she was being fed dog food, looking around blankly with a sword drawn.

"Hmm... this one is cold even without a condom, so let's choose another one."

After a long while, Xue finally came to her senses and pointed to the prizes on the stall again.

To be honest, Kitagawa Ryo's room is now completely full in every sense of the word. After all, Hotaru has her own little nest, plus all sorts of gifts that the girls give him every day, especially during the summer cruise when almost everyone bought things for him from the specialty shops on board. His bedside, desk, and cabinets were all covered with gifts.

However, this reason is obviously not something that can be said to Xue now. All that can be said is that the school only opened the teaching area to the public during this cultural festival, and the student dormitory area is not included, so there is no need to worry about Xue suddenly checking up on him.

However, just as Kitagawa Ryo was considering which little trinket to choose, Hotaru, who was lying in his hood, suddenly sat up, climbed onto his shoulder, pointed with her front paws at a prize in the stall, and meowed twice.

"Hmm? Ying likes that doll? Okay, let me get it for you."

Ying's actions naturally attracted Xue's attention. Seeing that the other party seemed very interested in a certain doll that was placed in the middle of the stall, which was obviously the top prize and much more exquisite than the other dolls or toys next to it, she confidently narrowed one of her left eyes, and after grasping the angle and force, she threw the ring in her hand out in a whoosh.

However, unlike her first attempt which yielded a result, Xue's second attempt unfortunately failed. The ring she threw landed with a thud between a doll and another plush toy, and was quickly retrieved by the staff.

After this failed attempt, Xue, unwilling to give up, threw the ring several more times, successfully tossing all sorts of small objects around the ring, but the doll in the center remained unmoved.

However, the repeated failures also aroused her competitive spirit. After squatting and standing up with great focus, and muttering to herself for a while, before running out of rings, the last one she threw hit the target with perfect accuracy, making Yingdu clap twice involuntarily.

"I've got it, but I still don't know what Ryo wants. And Ryo hasn't even thrown one yet, right? Hmm... Should I go over there and buy ten more rings?"

After finally getting the doll from the somewhat reluctant staff member, Yuki hesitated for a moment before asking Kitagawa Ryo a question.

"It's okay. What Hotaru wants is what I want, and as long as Yuki is having fun, that's all that matters."

Kitagawa Ryo, who had been intently taking photos with the borrowed Polaroid camera since the beginning, replied casually without a care in the world, then waved a few photos with good image quality, angles, and expressions at the snow:

"Just leave me a few photos."

"Sure, but should I stick it to the headboard?"

As soon as she uttered those words unconsciously, Xue already regretted it a little. Perhaps it was because her initial emotional flutter towards Kitagawa Ryo was forcibly imprinted in her mind by the White Room in an almost brainwashing way. She still retained the same methods or habits as the White Room back then. Although she didn't go so far as to cover the ceiling and walls with these images and immerse herself in a world with only his image, she was still keen on collecting all kinds of photos related to Kitagawa Ryo. In a sense, the reason why she had gone through all of Kitagawa Ryo's social media posts in the past few months was also for this reason.

However, Kitagawa Ryo didn't notice Yuki's guilty conscience. He's always been incredibly insensitive in these matters, otherwise he wouldn't still be unaware of how many limited-edition support outfits or stage outfits Sakura Airi had stolen from him over the past few years. So he just took it as a joke from Yuki.

"No problem, actually, it can even be used as a screensaver."

"Uh-huh--"

Feeling that continuing on this topic would expose some of her fetishes, Yuki nodded quickly, then, as if she had thought of something, she waved the doll she had just received as a prize from the staff at Hotaru, who was perched on Kitagawa Ryo's shoulder, and said in a persuasive manner, as if offering a bribe:

"Could you please have Hotaru assist me for a moment? Just a little while, then I'll give this to you—"

As she spoke, Xue turned back and briefly negotiated with the staff at the ring toss booth. Then she handed over the Polaroid camera she had obtained from Kitagawa Ryo. With a click, a photo of the two people and the cat was quickly printed out, as the Dongyu student, who was now convinced that he was part of the couple's play and was holding the Polaroid camera with a miserable expression, was taken.

"Thank you."

After politely thanking the student from Tokyo Advanced Education School, Xue finally picked up the small group photo, which bore the same pose as the giant promotional photo that still floats in the sky and can be seen throughout most of Tokyo Advanced Education School, and held it up in front of her eyes.

It's clearly just a simple principle of perspective, but you have to admit, she still likes to fill her entire field of vision with this type of photo. Looking at the world through this lens, every blade of grass and every tree seems a bit more lush and verdant.

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Just as Kitagawa Ryo and Yuki left the ring toss stall and were about to browse other game stalls in the vicinity, a commotion suddenly broke out not far ahead. Accompanied by the sound of items falling, they soon heard a man cursing angrily.

As it turns out, people are never willing to miss out on something exciting to watch.

Before long, many guests from the vicinity, including Kitagawa Ryo and Yuki, as well as students from Dongyu who were free at the time, crowded over.

Thanks to their early arrival, they were positioned in the front row, allowing them a clear view of the scene and the two opposing sides.

After seeing everything clearly, Kitagawa Ryo subconsciously frowned slightly, because this was the same shooting range he had just visited yesterday, the one used by Class 1-C. However, one of the five cork guns that had been properly placed on the table for customers to practice with yesterday was now broken on the ground, and the scene was a complete mess.

The two sides facing off were a group of boys from Class C of the first year, led by Long Yuanxiang, and another burly man with brownish skin who looked fierce and menacing, like a thug.

Seemingly noticing that the number of people gathered here was increasing, the burly man spoke up loudly:

"The games at these booths have all been rigged; there's no way you can win the grand prize."

As if to prove this point, the man directly pulled a deflated cigarette case from his pocket, placed it on the shelf where the cork guns were placed, and then ignored the curses of several boys from Class 1-C. He picked up another cork gun and fired a shot at the cigarette case at close range.

The bullet fired from the gun flew straight ahead as if by magic, hitting the target perfectly.

Surprisingly, the seemingly flimsy cigarette box, despite shaking violently twice, did not fall over completely, causing an uproar among the onlookers nearby.

The man seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the process, grinning widely at Long Yuanxiang as he spoke:

"Long Yuan, I didn't expect that even after coming to Dongyu, you still only know such petty tricks?"

“I can play these little tricks here, but some people might not even be qualified to come in. When you actually come to this school next year, Baoquan, it won’t be too late for me to teach you a lesson like before.”