Washington Saintton, United States of America, Prince Virtual Athletic Bar, Box 250. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Inside the virtual stealth pod lies a burly blonde man, wearing a short-sleeved bodysuit, his bare left arm is muscular, but the right side of his body is only half of an arm.

The blonde man was asleep and suddenly opened his eyes at a certain moment.

......

When Thomas woke up from the virtual stealth, his stomach immediately felt a sharp hunger pang, his body stiffened, and he twisted his neck slightly and made a "creaking" sound.

Glancing sideways at the schedule on the stealth module, he couldn't help but smile wryly.

"Twenty hours. ”

Even though the one-minute pre-battle preparation time was canceled early on through the homeowner's setup, more than a thousand battles were played, and there was a long period of "reprimanding" the little guy, and it still took a full twenty hours in the end.

This was the first time Thomas had been sneaking in the virtual world for twenty hours, physically and mentally exhausted, but for some reason the power kept coming from his chest.

"Shi Xiaobai, this name, it seems that he is from the Xia Kingdom. ”

Thomas muttered to himself, and crawled out of the stealth pod, the food had been prepared on the table for a long time, and the food was almost cold, but he was not in the mood to be picky after being hungry for twenty hours, so he picked up a fork in his left hand and grabbed a steak and bit it into his mouth, and chewed it quickly.

Putting down the fork, he poured a glass of valuable red wine with his only left hand, and tasted it, the taste was mellow and slightly astringent, but this time he felt a little bitter inexplicably.

"This bottle of red wine is worth a head. ”

Thomas sighed lightly.

The bounty that an F-class bounty convict can get in exchange for is only one bottle of such wine.

Those heroes who claim to be righteous but are unwilling to risk their lives to fight against the Calamity Star Beasts use the monthly hero salary to support their families, so the money to buy wine is naturally exchanged for the heads of these criminals.

Rewarding criminals is evil.

Destroy the evil, exchange a few bottles of red wine to drink, this... Very heroic.

"It turns out that the taste of red wine is bitter. ”

Thomas put down his wine glass, suddenly took out his mobile phone, and after a few clicks on the touch screen, he entered the address book page, and his finger was gently hovering over a name.

After hesitating for a moment, he pressed it hard.

It was a number he hadn't called in twenty years, and he thought he would never try to dial it again in his life.

"Duh... Honk... Duh..."

The regular ringing of the bell was like his heartbeat at the moment.

"Hey, who's that?"

The next second the phone was connected, a magnetic voice that was more mature than before, but still gentle, came into his ears, and Thomas's breathing paused slightly.

"It's me, Thomas. ”

Thomas's voice was suddenly a little dry, and his throat, which had been moistened with red wine, made such an almost hoarse sound.

"Ha, it turned out to be a junior brother, I haven't been in touch for a long time, it's been twenty years, right?"

There was a hint of surprise and joy in the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Well, it's been twenty years, Senior Arris. ”

Thomas said silently in his mind, twenty years, one month, plus seven days to be exact.

......

At one time, he and Ariss attended the same school.

At that time, Arris was just a teasing senior who was ridiculed by his classmates for practicing crab steps, and he was a naïve junior who followed Arris's ass.

One day, he said to Arris, "Senior, one day, I will surpass you." ”

Aris replied with a smile: "Then I have to run faster, I will feel very shameless when I am caught up by my junior brother!"

Thomas thought to himself that if Aerys continued to stubbornly use the crab step, then sooner or later he would be able to surpass Aris.

After graduating, the two of them joined different hero organizations and began their own lives, but their deep friendship kept in touch with each other, often saw each other, compared the current situation, and then chased each other.

However, the two intersecting threads finally separated one day twenty years ago and no longer intersected.

On that day, twenty-five-year-old Thomas lost his right hand in a meteor shower rescue, losing his proud right hand with a gun.

However, the twenty-seven-year-old Aris raised the crab step to the realm of "no other world" in that meteor shower rescue, and was praised as a genius who shocked the world.

After that day, Thomas could no longer catch up with Arris, and soon, he could not even see his back.

.....

"Alright, alright?"

Arris's soft greeting pulled Thomas back from the thoughts of memory, and he couldn't help but smile bitterly, he lost his right hand, in addition to relying on the aftermath of the seventh layer of the Spirit Realm to kill some low-level bounty criminals, he could only experience the false satisfaction of having his right hand in the virtual world, so he lived... Will it be good?

"Well, it's a good time. Thomas replied softly.

There was a deep groan on the other end of the line, and there was silence.

Thomas exhaled lightly and suddenly said, "I called you this time because I met a little guy... He's a lot like you. ”

"Oh? ”

"Well, that's a Xia country man named Shi Xiaobai, he uses the same crab step as you, heh, that funny appearance reminds me... I remember..."

As if choked on a fishbone, Thomas's words froze for a moment before he continued: "He uses the same crab step as you do, and he said the same thing you once said, he said he likes to fail..."

"And then the heroes are unequaled, the senior should have heard of it, well, a... It's just a boring game... I met him in that game..."

"Well, you're right, I was a rookie dog once... Well, I'll admit, when many times..."

"Senior, that's not the point, the point is that little guy was shot in the head by me... Now, I'll admit it's not funny to abuse vegetables, and you don't have to laugh so exaggeratedly, do you..."

"And the point is not that he shot the head, but that he didn't quit the game... What? You call him stupid? yes, he's a fool... Not your average fool, though..."

“......”

Time passed little by little, and before I knew it, the phone call between the two had lasted for more than an hour.

Because of Arris's various troubles, Thomas struggled to tell the story of his encounter in Heroes, and he finally concluded: "All in all, I feel that he is very similar to you, but of course it may just be an illusion caused by 'being as stupid as the world's teasing'." ”

On the other end of the phone, Aris suddenly fell silent after listening to this non-malicious teasing.

"Senior, I've been talking for so long, you always have to feel something, right?"

Thomas complained in a natural tone, obviously he had been sneaking for twenty hours and should be mentally exhausted, but Thomas felt surprisingly sober and inexplicably excited.

"You mean, that little guy named Shi Xiaobai has failed more than a thousand times and is still full of fighting spirit?" said Aris suddenly.

"Hmm!" a smile tipped at Thomas's lips.

"Can you persist after being scolded hundreds of times by your poisonous tongue?" Aris continued.

"Hmm!" Thomas said in a slightly accentuated tone.

"Misled by your pit theory, can you still comprehend the essence of the Divine Crab?" said Arris, with a hint of incredulity in his voice.

"Hmm... What?What is the cheating daddy theory?Okay... I'll admit that my theory doesn't sound quite realistic... But practice is the only criterion for testing the truth, and Shi Xiaobai proved my correctness. Thomas couldn't hide the smile in his voice.

"Hehe... You say it's true that he comprehended the Crab Phantom?"

"Hmm!"

"It's also true that you were forced to use the Ghost Void Gun?"

"Hmm!"

"Is that last arrogant monologue also true?"

"Hmm!"

"Alien Thomas, is 'um' the lingua franca of your planet?"

"Hmm!"

As soon as Thomas finished speaking, he immediately realized that something was wrong, and his head was suddenly full of black lines, and he said speechlessly: "Senior, do you know how old you are now?"

Aris smiled, then fell silent again, and after a moment said, "Thomas, you said that the boy resembled me, didn't you?"

Thomas whispered, "Yes, he reminds me of you I used to be." ”

"You're wrong, Thomas. ”

Thomas was stunned, wrong? It turned out that it was just his wishful thinking?

Arris suddenly said, "Do you know how many times I have failed to challenge the teacher?"

Thomas was stunned, he only remembered many, many, many times, but he didn't know how many times Aaris had been defeated at the hands of his teacher.

"Fifty-one!

Aris himself said the answer.

Is it only fifty-one? Compared to that guy's more than a thousand, it seems...

Wrong!

"No, that's different, every time you challenge the teacher, you will get seriously injured, and that little guy can fail almost once in tens of seconds, and in the virtual world, he doesn't have to suffer physical pain... He..."

Thomas hurriedly tried to analyze the difference between the virtual world and the real world, and he wanted to show that numbers alone do not represent the weight of failure.

"I gave up on my own! Thomas, on the fifty-first time, I chose to give up on my own!"

Arris suddenly interrupted Thomas and said loudly: "I have always regretted that I chose to give up at that time, if I continue to challenge and fail a hundred times, two hundred times, if I can continue to endure failure, then I can cultivate the crab step to 'another world' earlier, and I may be able to do it one day twenty years ago... can protect your right hand... But I didn't... The reality is, I chose to give up when I failed fifty-one times!"

"Arris!"

"Thomas, I said I like to fail... That's not true, I hate failure more than anyone... I was able to tolerate fifty-one failures just because I... More than anyone else wants to succeed. However, my limit is just... It's only fifty-one times!"

"Aris ......"

"Got it? Thomas, that little guy doesn't look like me, he's... It's clearly much better than me. ”

"Ya... Village... Si"

"Thomas, do you hate me?"

"Asian ......"

Thomas was choked up and couldn't say the three words completely, and his left hand trembled as he put his phone over his ear, so that he had no other hand to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

"Thomas, if you have time to come to my house for a meeting, well, tonight, your sister-in-law's cooking skills are really speechless, I asked her to prepare your favorite braised pork." ”

"Hmmm......"

"Hehe, Thomas, you're really a Uh-star from the planet. ”

"Hmm. ”

(ps: Author: "Vote for recommendation", everyone: "Hmm.") ”

Author: "Reward the leader of the alliance", everyone: "Hmm"

Author: "One, two, three, four, one more time." Everyone: "Well, well, you're paralyzed." ”）