I will harm you

The words in the clouds, "It's a little more than you think," brushed against my heart like a feather, leaving me feeling uneasy all night.

He found himself losing control of the situation. Yunxi was no longer the fawn he led by the nose; she stopped and began to calmly examine him, the "hunter," and even... began to try to approach him from the opposite direction.

This feeling was unfamiliar, like unresolved gibberish suddenly appearing in meticulously running code. It gave him a slight sense of unease, as if he were losing control, but deep down, an even stronger, bewitching tremor surged within him. This was a change he had never experienced in his previous fifty reincarnations.

The next morning, he waited for Aunt Li downstairs with the sandwiches she had made, feeling even more nervous than when he was preparing for the most important competition back then. He was like someone holding the only key, standing in front of a door that had never been opened before, both anticipating the light behind it and fearing the emptiness that lay beyond.

A gap in the clouds appeared. She was wearing a clean school uniform and had her hair tied in a simple ponytail. When she saw him, her eyes crinkled into a smile: "Good morning."

"Good morning." He handed over the sandwich, trying to keep his voice steady.

Yunxi took the box, opened it, but didn't eat it immediately. She looked down at the exquisitely arranged ingredients inside, then suddenly looked up and asked, seemingly casually, "Aunt Li's cooking is really good. This way of making apple slices and chicken floss seems unusual? I think I had a similar taste at a... um, a relative's house when I was little."

When she spoke, her eyes were clear, with a hint of pure curiosity, as if she were just mentioning it casually.

But the heart of time suddenly clenched. It's here. The probe into the "past," though late, has arrived. This flavor was the "optimal solution" he and Aunt Li had worked countless times to find in his seventeenth reincarnation, in order to coax her appetite when she was sick and had lost it.

His throat was a little dry, but he remained expressionless: "Really? Aunt Li is from the South, so her methods might be a bit unique."

"I see." Yunxi nodded, not asking any further questions. She lowered her head, took a small bite of the sandwich, chewed slowly, and then squinted her eyes in satisfaction. "It's delicious, thank you."

She stopped talking and quietly ate her breakfast. But Shi Xu felt as if the air around him had turned into fine needles, and every chew of hers felt like it was pounding on his taut nerves. She was using the "weapons" he had carefully prepared to silently dismantle the fortress he had built with lies.

On his way to school, he was more silent than usual. He was quickly reviewing his actions, trying to figure out where he had slipped up. This feeling was more unsettling than dealing with a clear point of death, because the enemy was invisible, the "evidence" he had planted himself with overly gentle tactics.

He found that his pride in his composure and shrewdness were crumbling little by little in the face of this seemingly docile girl.

During recess, the crowd was dense. Yunxi felt someone bump into her hard from behind, and she stumbled, almost falling.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see it." A girl apologized perfunctorily. It was Liu Na, and her face showed undisguised sarcasm.

Yunxi steadied himself, dusted off his clothes, and before he could speak, a cold voice interrupted.

"If you don't need your eyes, you can donate them to someone who does."

Time had somehow arrived, standing before Yunxi, his gaze like an icy blade, piercing directly at Liu Na. The oppressive aura emanating from him caused the onlookers to instinctively step back. It was the same again. Each time, these insignificant acts of malice would appear like a program bug, disrupting his main process. His patience was wearing thin.

Liu Na's face turned pale instantly, her lips trembling as she stammered, "Shi Xu, I... I didn't mean to..."

"Is that so?" Shixu's voice was devoid of any warmth. "I thought I had made my stance very clear last time."

He stepped forward, closing in on Liu Na, and said, word by word, in a voice only they could hear, "Stay away from her. This is the last warning."

Liu Na trembled at the fierce look in his eyes and could no longer speak. She led her people and slunk into the crowd.

Shi Xu turned around and looked at the gap in the clouds. The frost in his eyes melted instantly, replaced by worry: "Are you alright?"

"It's nothing." Yunxi shook her head. She looked at the boy in front of her, who had lost his composure because of her words and instantly became violent because she had been pushed, and felt a mix of emotions.

(Yunxi's inner monologue: He's protecting me, in the most direct and clumsy way. But this protection also confirms the trouble I've gotten into because of him. He feels guilty, so he's even more anxious.)

She suddenly reached out and gently tugged at his sleeve, and under his surprised gaze, whispered, "Shixu, there's no need for that."

"What?"

“You don’t have to treat everyone as an enemy.” She raised her head, her gaze calm and gentle. “I know how to handle things. You… don’t have to stand in front of me every time.”

Shi Xu was stunned. He had anticipated that she might be afraid, feel wronged, or even depend on him. But he never imagined that she would tell him, in such a comforting way, that he "didn't have to do this." In the cycles of the past, he had always been the guardian who stood alone against the world, and no one had ever told him that he didn't have to do this.

She wasn't just putting on a brave face. She genuinely felt she could handle it.

This feeling left him feeling inexplicably empty, followed by a deeper, almost overwhelming, longing—what he longed for was never her dependence, but rather, in this endless cycle of darkness, to have a hand to hold his.

"Okay." He heard his own hoarse voice.

After school, Yunxi suggested, "Let's not go to the library today, let's go for a walk on the playground instead?"

There is no objection to the chronological order.

In the evening, the playground was filled with students exercising on the track, brimming with youthful energy. They walked side by side on the synthetic track, their shadows stretched long by the setting sun.

“Time sequence,” Yunxi suddenly spoke.

"Um?"

"Did you have a very hard time before..." she carefully chose her words.

The passage of time abruptly halted, and she turned to look at him with a start, her eyes filled with shock and a hint of helplessness at being seen through. Hardship? That was an understatement. It was fifty times watching hope shatter, fifty times being pushed back to square one, fifty times alone enduring the cycle of despair.

Yunxi didn't look at him, her gaze fixed on the students playing football in the distance. Her voice was soft: "You scheme so much, taking every step with such caution, because... you've lost something very important before, and you're afraid of losing it again, right?"

She didn't ask about the specific past; she asked about the motivations behind all his actions.

At this moment, Shi Xu felt as if his outer shell had been completely peeled away, revealing his softest and most vulnerable core. All his pretense, all his scheming, seemed so ridiculous and... utterly exposed before her clear, quiet eyes. What she saw was not his cunning, but the desolate ruins beneath it.

He opened his mouth, wanting to deny it, wanting to continue to arm himself with indifference, but found that his throat was blocked by something, and he couldn't say a word.

Seeing his suddenly pale face and slightly trembling fingertips, Yunxi's heart also clenched.

She stopped, turned around, and faced him.

“Time,” she looked at him, her eyes devoid of pity, only a gentle yet powerful understanding, “I am not something you might lose.”

The evening breeze ruffled her hair, and her voice reached his ears clearly.

"I won't leave."

"So, you don't have to go through all that trouble... scheming against me anymore."

Shi Xu stared blankly at her, at the golden halo of the setting sun bathing her, at the unwavering tenderness in her eyes. His heart felt as if it were being tightly gripped by a warm hand, aching and throbbing, yet filled with an unprecedented warmth. These words were more devastating than any accusation or question. They precisely shattered the very logic upon which he depended for survival—the logic of "protection."

The ice wall he had painstakingly constructed collapsed at that moment.

He suddenly reached out and pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly with all his might. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, and his body was even trembling slightly, like a dying man grasping at the last piece of driftwood. This time, he was not embracing a phantom that would eventually fade away, but a reality that promised "not to leave."

Yunxi froze for a moment, then relaxed, hesitantly and slowly raised her hand to gently hug his trembling back.

"I'm sorry..." He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his voice muffled, tinged with a barely perceptible sob, "Yunxi... I'm sorry..."

I'm sorry for getting close to you through scheming.

I'm sorry for getting you involved in these rumors.

I'm sorry... In all the cycles of despair I've experienced, only this time have you seen all my unbearable pain.

Yunxi didn't speak, but gently patted his back.

At this moment, no words are needed.

The game between hunter and prey seemed to have come to an end at this moment.

But a completely new game, about struggling to find a way out of a predetermined tragedy, has only just begun.

He held her for a long time, until it grew dark, before slowly letting go. His ears were red, and he didn't dare look into her eyes. He just lowered his head and said in a hoarse voice, "...Let's go home."

"Okay." Yunxi nodded and took his hand that was hanging by his side.

Shi Xu shuddered, instinctively tightening his fingers to hold her slightly cool hand tightly in his palm. This hand held the warmth he had finally grasped after surviving fifty-two deaths.

The two walked hand in hand in silence down the street as the streetlights began to illuminate the night.

The shadows were still stretched long, but this time, they clung tightly together, inseparable.