After Meng Fei managed five consecutive high scores, Huo Bai settled down. Of course, they couldn't lose the prize now, this score was undefeated! The last song even had the group participate in a lively chorus at the end. Meng Fei sat down to wet his throat, preferring to drink iced tea over alcohol.

"Meng Fei, you only drank a glass of liquor!" He was scolded by one of his classmates.

"How am I supposed to drive back drunk?!"

"It's easier for you to get drunk on so much sugar in that tea!" Huo Bai laughed.

Anyway, Meng Fei already felt dizzy from two glasses of liquor. He wouldn't dare take more. They heard three more men chant, until the girls asked if they wanted to lose Meng Fei's points.

One of them went to sing too, getting higher notes than the three men and they all burst out laughing. They were so drunk. Li Jiong had to admit that they were enjoying themselves, in a completely different way than he was used to. Surely these people were happy and relaxed. Even a slightly drunken Meng Fei no longer had his shoulders as tense as before.

Faced with slightly lower scores, Meng Fei pushed back to karaoke. "Only one more!" They laughed forcing him to the music panel.

"Tomorrow I'll be hoarse!" Meng Fei put The Brightest Start on The Sky [1] to play.

Li Jiong recognized the sound of the piano at first, but the lyrics were what impressed him the most.

That song...was it a farewell? Although they hadn't even come close to activating the matrix! What if he didn't make it back? Panic settled in Li Jiong's chest. If he couldn't get back, how would he live in this world? Would Meng Fei welcome him forever? Would he do that for a stranger? He was a complete stranger! He was only helping him temporarily, but for a lifetime? Impossible!

The group applauded at the end of the song.

"Okay, now nobody takes us out of first place." The group laughed and Meng Fei returned to his seat.

Li Jiong noticed that Meng Fei was a bit downcast at the end and even drank a little more liquor.

They left a little over an hour later, although those people were still going to stay overnight. Meng Fei tried to drive as cautiously as possible, even though he had little to drink.

Li Jiong felt that the liquor was a little too strong for him and he dozed off in the passenger seat.

Snoring lightly, he even looked cute in the other's eyes. Meng Fei! What are you thinking! You are drunk! The driver shook his head nervously. Then he turned his attention back to driving and didn't take his eyes off the steering wheel until he reached the parking lot.

"Li Jiong," he called him softly. Unable to wake him, he carefully shook his arm.

"Oh, I dozed off..." Li Jiong woke up. He was too tired even to fall asleep like that, in front of others, let alone Meng Fei's side. However, if it was the other, he would certainly not be breathing anymore. As the Meng Fei of this world concluded, the other "evil" Meng Fei thought he had sent his body and soul to hell. But contradictorily he was being received with all the honors in the house of a clone of him!

He looked at the environment that had become familiar, the simple decoration in a soft color, the strange metallic boxes, the lights that were turned on without fire... he went to take a shower and immersed himself up to his nose in the hot water. His body was recovering the qi he had lost during the day faster and he relaxed a bit in the scented water.

This Meng Fei seemed to like plum blossoms a lot, almost everything smelled like this. He smiled slowly while remembering the last song he sang. He wanted to engrave that melody forever in his mind, so he would never forget it after he was gone. He heard the muffled sound of the piano next door and decided to quickly get out of the bath to listen closer. Li Jiong put on the first change of clothes he could find.

Huo Bai had quoted the Goldberg Variations, so Meng Fei felt like touching her after bathing. He felt his fingers rattle to touch her all night long! He was so absorbed that he didn't notice the pair of eyes behind him. Li Jiong appreciated the slender figure, but not delicate, standing erect, with his hands running over the piano keys almost as if distributing caresses.

His gaze landed on the nape of her neck, pink from the heat of the freshly showered bath, where the damp strands of hair oozed small drops of water.

Li Jiong was startled. What was going on with him??? Meng Fei finished the song and rested his head on the piano's wood. Li Jiong remembered that he looked sad after he sang the last song and ventured to ask.

"Meng Fei... are you okay? You looked sad at the end of ka...karaoke."

"Ah, I really like that song... although I get a little depressed when I hear it." Meng Fei sighed. He used to always sing this song and thoughtlessly chose it, only then did he pay attention to the lyrics and the possibility of Li Jiong leaving came back to haunt him.

Unlike Li Jiong who only lived for cultivation and didn't know what love was, Meng Fei had much more experience and he knew what that overwhelming feeling in his chest was.

I need to send him back as soon as possible before this gets worse.

"There was a piano in that song, right? Can you play it too?" Li Jiong asked again, interested.

"Would you like to hear it again?"

"You must be tired, maybe tomorrow..."

Meng Fei laughed. "I'm never tired of music. Do you want it just instrumental or with accompanying vocals?"

"Both." Li Jiong replied with a smile and sat down on the side. Meng Fei would sing just for him! He could hardly believe it! His heart was pounding so hard that he thought it would come out of his mouth when the first notes sounded and Meng Fei began to sing.

Li Jiong vaguely remembered the lyrics, but he could feel everything the song said. Ah, it would be so nice if this Meng Fei was from my world and not the other one... we would definitely be friends...

When he finished the song, Meng Fei acquired a thoughtful look. "Tomorrow I'll have to work early, it will be difficult to revise the matrix. So I thought I'd give it a last try that occurred to me just now when I was playing..."

Li Jiong nodded sadly. Was he in a hurry to get rid of him? He must have been such a nuisance.

"I'm sorry." Suddenly Meng Fei said and he looked at him with a surprised expression.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"I promised I'd send you back home, but I've failed every time. You're worried about your mates and the only thing I do is play this piano. I'm really sorry."

Li Jiong looked at him seriously and held the firm by the shoulders. Meng Fei couldn't help but blush at this face-to-face position.

"You don't have to apologize. I can see how committed you are to this! The useless one here has been me, that even though I know a little more about matrices than you, I couldn't do anything on my own."

Meng Fei blushed even more, not knowing what to say. He muttered in a low voice, "Well, let's try again."

They went into the living room and Meng Fei used a pen to draw the matrix on the floor. Li Jiong looked at him anxiously as he took the paper with the last verse arrangement he had made.

"This afternoon, I used a company notebook program to test a possible calculation for this matrix. I told you before that we used the laws of physics here, right?"

"Right. Although I didn't understand any of that."

"Well, it would basically be defining a problem by means of a mathematical expression and obtaining solutions for it. If the matrix were a set of equations, they would only be solved with these solutions."

"You see, this matrix has six rings, one is only activated with one verse. The other rings would correspond to five verses. So I thought there would be a total of six solutions for it, considering a linear system. But the computer's response intrigued me. If this matrix were an equation with six variables there would only be one possible answer."

Li Jiong "..............."

I can't even understand anything, haha...

"So I went to look at the verses again and I think only one of them sets a condition, that Heaven and Earth are aligned. The other verses don't contemplate these conditions."

Meng Fei continued.

"I was always surprised by the fact that you stopped right next to a Meng Fei when there was another one at the starting point. As if two points connected two different places."

Li Jiong noticed some line of reasoning with that tunnel between the worlds.

"The missing condition to activate the matrix was then to connect these two points." He reflected. Did that mean making a connection between the two Meng Fei? Such that?

Meng Fei took a penknife out of his pocket and slashed his hand.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Li Jiong screamed in horror.

"You said before that you hit the other me and that he had spit blood. This blood must have fallen on the matrix. I hadn't thought of that before because I don't consider myself to be him. But for the universes we are the same variable. So his blood connected the matrix to my blood in this world. That can only be it."

With that said, Meng Fei recited the first verse while dripping the drops of blood onto the matrix and mentally chanted another verse later. He felt the same icy sensation run through him and the sudden fainting sensation.

"You mustn't do that! Using blood steals a lot more qi than just reciting the verses!"

But Li Jiong was stunned this time. The matrix has changed from the greenish hue of the first activation to the intense, bluish glow of the second! Was he right! He managed! He looked shocked at the other.

"Why didn't I think about it before?" Meng Fei criticized himself, feeling his body weighed down by faith high in qi, yet the last thing he saw was Li Jiong's panicked look, screaming his name as he tried to push him back.

It was late. He was also inside the blessed matrix design when it opened in a big hole sucking them both in. Meng Fei felt himself falling into a free fall.

Li Jiong cannot understand solving systems of linear equations. Much less me 😅.

Meng Fei: What the fuck did I do this time??

Us: None, dear. Trust.

[1] The Brightest Star on The Sky: song by indie band Escape Plan. The lyrics and melody are beautiful and worth checking out.