PGVCW 7

 

Playing God in Various Catastrophic Worlds

By

siofra

Chapter 7: The Immortal’s Reunion

[The first world hasn’t changed at all.]

Unfamiliar with this plane, 007 chimed in with a digital tone of curiosity: [Host, what kind of world is this?]

[An ancient setting called Ming County,] Xia Wang’an explained mentally. [Two centuries ago, botanical mutations began here. All vegetation underwent frenzied growth while actively hunting humans. Because the plant life expanded so aggressively, humanity was squeezed out of habitable living space.]

007 immediately homed in on the vital priority: [Frenzied botanical growth? Doesn’t that mean there’s an endless bounty of food?!]

[Edible resources are everywhere, but this world never spawned ability awakeners. Anyone wanting to harvest food has to risk their lives against the flora.]

Xia Wang’an patted her sleeve: [My golden brick is still here.]

It appeared that anything tucked within the folds of her apparel crossed the interdimensional barrier successfully. Had she known beforehand, she would have stuffed her toothbrush and toothpaste inside as well.

Perched atop a soaring branch, she plucked and devoured a fresh peach while casually wrapping her fingers around a twisting, barbed vine that lunged viciously toward her face.

“Found you again.”

The young girl’s gaze turned cold as she stared down at the long, thorny vine thrashing like a living creature right in her grasp.

Xia Wang’an’s memory retention was notoriously fickle; after managing over a thousand distinct personas and hopping across thirty-one unique worlds—not to mention various unrecorded planes—she encountered an overwhelming multitude of faces and events. Had her brain retained every trivial detail, cognitive overload would have driven her insane long ago.

However, her memory operated under an entirely different set of rules when it came to holding grudges.

Case in point: without even glancing down at the vine, she could vividly recall its exact predatory striking vectors. Her mind instantly conjured a visceral snapshot from her first arrival in this world a decade ago, when this exact monstrosity had nearly throttled her to death.

Though Great Xia incorporated rigorous combat curricula in its academies, a society devoid of mutated killer flora naturally omitted defensive protocols against colossal, multi-tentacled mutant peach trees. Back then, a younger Xia Wang’an had come within a hair’s breadth of perishing as arboreal fertilizer.

[To think the host was once bullied by such a weak mutant plant!]

007 registered genuine astonishment. By the time it was manufactured, Xia Wang’an had already mastered her powers; though not yet a demigod, low-tier botanical anomalies no longer posed a threat. Furthermore, Xia Wang’an was legendary for her pettiness—anyone who crossed her was permanently etched onto her mental hit-list. Once she accumulated sufficient strength in subsequent realms, she would inevitably march back to settle scores with a vengeance. Because temporal dilation varied across dimensions, she had occasionally returned after prolonged leveling only to discover her ancient adversaries had already rotted away centuries prior—prompting her to spend over an hour excavating their burial mounds in a black robe with her 2.8-meter broadsword just to stomp on their skulls.

That legendary episode was precisely how the urban legend of the “Ghoul of the Wilderness” had originated in that sector.

Naturally, like master, like system. Manufactured entirely by Xia Wang’an’s own hands, 007 enthusiastically endorsed the core philosophy of [repay every grievance tenfold; if you’re too weak right now, grind in secret until power peaks, then charge back to crush them]. Consequently, seeing Xia Wang’an casually yank the writhing vine forward and subject it to a merciless, deadpan beatdown, the system not only raised zero objections but actively functioned as a hype-man:

[That’s it, host! Step on it!]

[Swing it! Toss that trash aside!]

[Wait, host, don’t bite it with your teeth! That’s filthy!!]

Cutting off its anxious outburst, Xia Wang’an reluctantly closed her mouth, tossed the fractured segment of vine aside, and turned her attention back to the aggressive canopy.

With the vine neutralized, her vengeance was far from complete.

The ethereal, black-haired maiden turned gracefully, fixing her gaze upon the thrashing branches of the mutant tree. In that precise moment, an ancient idiom from her pre-apocalyptic school days surfaced effortlessly in her mind.

Her hand drifted slowly toward the hilt of her ceremonial weapon resting at her waist—the mastercrafted longsword commissioned specifically for her immortal persona.

“To cut weeds…”

“…one must eradicate the roots.”

Five minutes later—

Aside from its stunning visual aesthetics and its ability to bypass dimensional filters as standard apparel, the “Immortal Cultivator’s Ceremonial Sword” forged by the weapons division was terrifyingly sharp and practical.

Down on the earth, the towering mutant peach tree lay completely felled, its split trunk revealing embedded human skeletal remains while its severed branches twitched feebly in defeat.

Plucking a small longevity lock talisman from the decaying heartwood, Xia Wang’an wore an expression of profound spiritual fulfillment: [Avenging a grudge is truly therapeutic.]

Only after securing her retribution did she remember that she was no longer wearing her disposable black robes, but rather a pristine, custom-crafted celestial garment assembled through the joint efforts of numerous specialists.

Instantly dropping her gaze, she inspected herself from top to bottom, letting out a visible sigh of relief when she confirmed that the luminous white fabric remained immaculate, devoid of a single smudge.

Even so, she patted down the robes with tender reverence: [This is my very first brand-new outfit in ten years; I cannot let it get ruined.]

Just as she was meticulously dusting off her hemline, a hidden vine along the shattered trunk uncoiled, lunging toward her unguarded back with a blood-red maw baring razor-sharp fangs.

Spotting the ambush from a distance, two local hunters shouted out in unison:

“Watch out!”

Simultaneously, the seemingly defenseless young girl raised a hand with effortless casualness, delivering a light pinch that instantly withered and softened the aggressive vine. Even as she executed this maneuver, her left hand continued rhythmically dusting her skirt.

The onlookers stared in absolute disbelief; seasoned veterans like themselves required a coordinated group effort to bring down a “Blood-Sucking Peach Vine,” yet the young maiden had casually flicked it away as though swatting an annoying gnat.

A singular word flashed instantly into both hunters’ minds: Danger!

Recognizing that anyone capable of crushing the vine so effortlessly could snap their necks with equal ease, the pair instinctively tightened their muscles, preparing to execute an immediate tactical retreat.

Before they could move, the slender maiden atop the trunk pivoted to face them.

With fair skin, an upright posture, and robes fashioned from an unidentifiable, feather-light fabric that radiated understated luxury, she looked ethereal in the breeze. Her flowing silk ribbons drifted gently, casting an aura of transcendent mystery, while her dark, silken hair caught the dappled sunlight.

The two men froze in their tracks, momentarily paralyzed by the suspicion that they had stumbled upon a legendary mountain spirit.

Then, the “spirit” spoke.

“Ga Dayu, you are Ga Dayu.”

With an air of absolute certainty, one of the hunters—Ga Dayu—responded reflexively before stumbling backward in sudden terror: “Wh-Who are you? How do you know my name?”

He couldn’t afford to die here; he still needed to earn silver for his father’s medicine.

Surveying the rugged, sun-browned hunter, Xia Wang’an introduced herself: “I am Xia Wang’an.”

“You must address me as Great-Auntie.”

Ga Dayu—whose mind had just been racing with desperate thoughts of mountain ghouls demanding his soul—stared blankly: “H-Huh? Gr-Great-Auntie?”

Xia Wang’an maintained an unblinking deadpan: “Indeed. Greetings, grand-nephew.”

Ga Dayu: “……” His companion: “……”

Recovering from his initial shock, Ga Dayu’s confusion eclipsed his terror: “Wait a minute, why are you trying to take advantage of me? You look barely younger than me, you’re clearly just a kid!”

Xia Wang’an: “Was your father Ga He?”

Ga Dayu nodded blankly: “Yeah.”

Xia Wang’an: “And your grandfather Ga Changming?”

Ga Dayu scratched his head: “Right.”

Xia Wang’an pressed on: “And your great-grandfather was Ga Cheng.”

Ga Dayu had never met his great-grandfather, who had reportedly been swept away by a sudden grain-tide disaster shortly after his grandfather married, leaving behind no recovered remains despite extensive village search parties. Though he had never laid eyes on him, the ancestral spirit tablet sat firmly in their household altar, cementing the name in his memory.

Yet how could this impossibly young girl standing before him possess knowledge of an ancestor who had perished decades prior?

Voicing his bewilderment aloud, Ga Dayu stared at her suspiciously.

Xia Wang’an tapped her chest: “Because your great-grandfather was my father.”

Ga Dayu: “What??”

Xia Wang’an rattled off the fabricated narrative seamlessly: “He was swept out to sea by the grain-tide and rescued by my mother, who lived on a distant island. Because the island was too remote, he could never return to Ming County. Before he passed away, he instructed me to return and reunite with our lineage. I made inquiries along the way, which makes you my grand-nephew.”

Though it sounded like a rehearsed script, it was a rehearsed script.

Flashback to one week prior—

“Though we cannot guarantee you will land in your original timeline’s baseline world, we must prepare contingencies,” the chief senior analyst had told Xia Wang’an, adjusting her spectacles. “According to your debriefs, your initial landing zone was a small ancient mountain settlement.” “In communities of that scale, social trust relies heavily on blood kinship and generational seniority. Establishing yourself within the clan hierarchy is the safest and most efficient diplomatic wedge.” “Think back: within that village, whose senior relative would grant you maximum operational leverage? Give us a name and a background sketch, and our intelligence division will construct the airtight cover story.”

Xia Wang’an had blinked, instantly supplying a name without a moment of hesitation: “Ga Dayu.”

Return to the present—

Ga Dayu remained entirely trapped in a cognitive loop until his companion elbowed him sharply in the ribs, jolting him back to reality.

“Hold on a second—if he’s your father, why do your surnames differ?”

Xia Wang’an: “My father was impoverished and married into my mother’s family as an uxorrilocal groom.”

Ga Dayu: ……That checks out entirely.

Uxorrilocal marriages were common enough in their impoverished border settlement that nobody batted an eye; when survival was a daily struggle, ancestral pride took a back seat to basic subsistence.

Still, scrutinizing Xia Wang’an’s polished, flawless complexion and comparing it against his own calloused, darkened forearms, he remained skeptical.

“You’re only fifteen or sixteen—how could you possibly be my great-grandfather’s child??”

Xia Wang’an: “He sired me at age sixty-two as a late-in-life blessing.”

Ga Dayu blinked: “Sixty-two is an old man, how could he father a child?”

Xia Wang’an’s eyes remained clear and untroubled: “He maintained exceptional physical vitality.”

Ga Dayu: “……”

He had indeed heard village elders recount that his great-grandfather had been the tallest and sturdiest hunter in the settlement’s history—a trait his own grandfather frequently cited when explaining Ga Dayu’s towering stature. Yet something still felt profoundly irregular…

Sensing his lingering doubt, Xia Wang’an deployed her ultimate diplomatic asset.

She extended her palm, revealing the small longevity lock resting quietly in her hand.

“Y-Yes… that day, my father went straight to the county market specifically to purchase this exact longevity lock!”

An elderly man covered in patchwork garments trembled as he cupped the metallic token in his weathered palms, tears carving tracks through his wrinkled cheeks: “I remember it clearly—I was nineteen that year, newly wed, and your grandmother was just beginning to show with your father. Your great-grandfather was overjoyed. We went to the county town together, and he pointed directly at this lock, vowing to gift it to his newborn child…”

“On our journey back, the grain-tide struck. He shoved me aside and let himself be dragged into the abyss…”

Overcome by grief, Ga Changming broke down completely, his weeping prompting his elderly brothers gathered around to join in open sorrow.

“I remember him—father was towering and robust. Though mother passed early, whenever he was home, we ate meat with every single meal. I can still vividly recall being hoisted into the air by a single hand…”

To the gathered villagers who had crowded around the Ga household to witness the commotion, the scene of gray-haired patriarchs weeping like toddlers carried an odd poignancy.

The village elder wiped his own eyes, patting shoulders left and right: “It’s a blessing nonetheless. Though Cheng never made it home alive, knowing he survived to establish a second family and send his daughter back to us is a joyous occasion.”

The surrounding spectators murmured in agreement.

“Indeed, Uncle Changming, dry your tears.”

“To think Uncle Cheng possessed such robust constitution to sire a child at that age. The girl looks barely in her mid-teens.”

“Naturally! My grandfather always said Uncle Cheng was our village’s legendary hunter. Back during harvest seasons when neighboring settlements suffered massive casualties from mutant migrations, our village survived unscathed under his protection.”

“Wait… if that’s true, why is their household so destitute? Dayu’s father has been bedridden for months without funds for medicine.”

“That was after Uncle Cheng vanished. With Grandma Cheng gone long ago and Cheng himself missing, the household naturally declined.”

“Still, this young girl possesses extraordinary nerve, traversing the mountain forests alone during a grain-tide active season without fear of the fiends.”

Though they whispered among themselves, none dared direct their inquiries straight to Xia Wang’an. Primarily, her generational seniority placed her above virtually everyone under sixty in the settlement. Secondary, despite her youthful appearance, her apparel displayed an exotic, high-grade craftsmanship completely alien to rural standards—most notably the lustrous jade pendant swinging from her waist, which radiated undeniable material value. Most importantly, she openly carried a drawn sword; pristine and dust-free though she appeared, the villagers weren’t fools—anyone capable of wandering solo through mountain domains during a migration surge commanded cautious respect.

“Little auntie, please come inside,” Ga Changming choked out, wiping his eyes. “You’ve traveled thousands of miles on our father’s behalf to find us…”

Before he could finish, a heavy thud landed in his hands as Xia Wang’an deposited a solid block of gold directly into his palms.

Gold… a solid brick of gold??

The elder’s hands trembled violently.

Xia Wang’an regarded him impassively: “Father instructed me to distribute this among you equally.”

Flashback to one week prior—

“To establish your immortal persona, you must treat wealth like dirt, because true immortals harbor zero attachment to mortal currency,” the chief designer had instructed. “Mankind naturally gravitates toward reverence for the powerful. Exhibiting absolute financial indifference while wielding overwhelming martial supremacy will compel their instinctive awe and trust. Of course, the baseline prerequisite is that you can physically overpower them.”

Xia Wang’an had nodded earnestly: “Understood. Money is dirt.”

The chief designer nodded with professional satisfaction, holding out a gold brick: “Here, practice the motion.”

Xia Wang’an had instantly jerked her hands away, stepping back with a deadpan glare: “Why are you trying to hand me dirt? Are you attempting to provoke me?”

Chief Designer: [……That was a metaphor! I didn’t literally mean physical mud!]

Return to the present—

The moment Xia Wang’an confirmed that the gold brick was designated explicitly for the three Ga brothers, absolute pandemonium erupted among the onlookers.

Who could have anticipated that the long-lost fifth uncle, Ga Cheng, had not only survived but re-established a prosperous lineage, dispatching his daughter back with a literal brick of solid gold?!

Ga Changming’s hands shook uncontrollably, uncertain whether the weight stemmed from the gold or the emotional shock: ” Father… father told you to give us this??”

“Mhm.”

Observing the old man weeping anew over the bullion, Xia Wang’an hesitated briefly before stepping forward to offer a gentle pat on his shoulder as a gesture of comfort.

Unfortunately, the physical contact merely catalyzed a fresh deluge of tears.

“Father!! I knew you never forgot about us!!”

He wailed with unrestrained abandon, echoing the vulnerability of a small child.

Xia Wang’an stared down at him: [007, based on your analysis, is he crying out of joy or sorrow?]

007 reviewed diagnostic metrics cautiously: [It’s pure joy!]

Her tense shoulders visibly relaxed. 007 chimed in with fresh curiosity: [Host, did you actually know him?] [Mhm, I know him.]

Xia Wang’an had previously assumed her cognitive fragments regarding the first world had eroded completely, as mental sanitation routines regularly forced the purging of redundant memories. Yet confronted with state inquiry boards, she realized every single detail remained indelibly preserved.

In the unaltered original timeline, an inexperienced Xia Wang’an had possessed zero awareness of the Blood-Sucking Peach Vine’s vulnerabilities, falling victim to its arboreal snare almost immediately. It had been Ga Dayu and his hunting party who deployed sacrificial blood-baits to lure the monster away and cut her down from the branches.

Traumatized and disoriented by her abrupt dimensional displacement, she had been sheltered within the Ga household. When Ga Dayu’s father fell grievously ill, Xia Wang’an—drawing upon fundamental medical modules from her academy days—had successfully stabilized his condition, earning the family’s eternal gratitude.

She had resided alongside them for an extended season.

Ga Dayu had graduated into her primary local companion, teaching her how to hunt mutant fowl and outmaneuver feral flora, while Ga’s mother mended her tattered modern garments with sturdy patches. The taciturn patriarch had even carved her a replacement hair-tie from county materials when her original one broke.

The elderly patriarch—Ga Changming’s father—had spent his final years basking on the doorstep, endlessly recounting tales of his own legendary father’s prowess while lamenting the fatal trip to purchase a longevity lock. Yet he maintained a hopeful counter-narrative: “Perhaps my father didn’t perish; perhaps the current swept him to distant lands too far for return.”

Back then, a naive Xia Wang’an had believed her predicament was merely a conventional geographical displacement, perpetually scheming ways to retrace her steps home.

Then the grain-tide swept across the region.

The parents vanished into the chaos; during the rout, Ga Dayu shoved her to safety before being swallowed by the surging horde. Rushing back to the homestead, Xia Wang’an attempted to drag the elderly patriarch away from the threshold, only to be met with a gentle wave:

“Run along, Wang’an. I am sixty years old; my legs no longer carry me far.”

Even now, Xia Wang’an could visualize him sitting at the doorway in dusty, patched garments, smiling as he flicked a tearful farewell:

“I wish to see my father once more. It is time I went to meet him.”

“Do not fear, Wang’an. I shall watch over you from the heavens; you shall surely find your way home.”

And with those words, Xia Wang’an had slipped involuntarily into her second world transmigrational loop.

During subsequent unauthorized returns—

The narrow rural pathways she had once navigated with cautious footsteps had long since been leveled and submerged beneath sprawling paddy fields. The homestead had vanished without a trace of broken tile or timber.

She had excavated the soil deep within the coordinates of the former courtyard, desperately hunting for physical mementos, yielding only sterile earth.

Unstable, unmoored from 007’s stabilizing architectures, her psychological volatility had peaked during those dark years; one second she was clawing at the mud, the next she materialized atop the blood-soaked slopes of the peach mountain.

Flattening the entire ridge into a barren wasteland, she had stomped across the colossal trunk of the mutant tree.

Peering inside its decaying hollows back then, she had uncovered skeletal remains tangled alongside a tiny longevity lock.

Ga Cheng had never found safe harbor in distant lands as his son optimistically dreamed.

He had died.

Devoured and integrated into the living tissue of a blood-drinking peach tree near his home settlement.

Reduced to bleached bones and a rusted talisman symbolizing unfulfilled parental blessing.

Recovering the lock, Xia Wang’an had buried it deep beneath the terrain where the Ga homestead once stood.

“I am going home,” the young girl had whispered into the soil. “Watch over me from above; I shall return to my people.”

Following that pilgrimage, Xia Wang’an had severed her temporal ties, refusing to revisit the coordinates—until today.

“Um… Great-Auntie?”

Ga Dayu’s cautious baritone punctured the veil of her memories.

Blinking, she refocused her eyes upon the robust, soot-stained young man scratching his head awkwardly.

Xia Wang’an offered her customary polite diplomatic acknowledgement: “Grand-nephew.”

Eyeballing the seemingly sixteen-year-old deity standing before him, Ga Dayu surrendered to reality: “……Perhaps you should just call me Dayu.”

He lowered his voice: “My grandfather asked me to clarify one detail on his behalf—you mentioned my great-grandfather passed away at seventy-eight of natural causes. What were the specific circumstances?”

Xia Wang’an replied without missing a beat: “Seventy-eight. Peaceful expiration in his bed.”

Visible tension evaporated from Ga Dayu’s posture: “As long as he passed peacefully, grandfather will sleep soundly tonight.”

Observing Xia Wang’an—who bore zero physical indication of arduous wilderness trekking—he succumbed to lingering curiosity:

“Great-Auntie, did you take a merchant vessel from the coastal islands? I’ve heard rumors of ocean monsters out there—did you encounter any?”

Xia Wang’an blinked with pristine innocence: “Did I forget to mention?”

“I flew here.”