Initial save file
The news of Shixu protecting Yunxi in the competition class spread like wildfire throughout the grade. Any lingering discussions that had initially surfaced completely ceased. Shixu, in his unique way, declared Yunxi's "inviolability" to everyone. This wasn't youthful impulsiveness, but a necessary step to eliminate threats and ensure the main mission (protecting her) remained undisturbed.
The troubles of the rumors temporarily subsided, and Yunxi devoted all her energy to competition preparation and daily studies. Her relationship with Shixu also became more stable and intimate in this atmosphere of fighting side-by-side. He remained the same taciturn Shixu, but his gaze always followed her, his attention was diverted because of her, and his world clearly reserved the most important place for her. This "place" was determined after he repeatedly calibrated the coordinates through fifty-three cycles; it was the only "safe zone" and "anchor of meaning" in his entire system of despair.
One Saturday afternoon, Yunxi was at home sorting through the last few boxes she had brought from her hometown. Most of the items had already been sorted and put away, except for an old cardboard box labeled "Little Cloud," which sat in a corner collecting dust.
On a whim, she found some scissors and opened the box. Inside were some old toys, yellowed drawings, and a few diaries from her elementary school days. She sat on the floor, flipping through them with great interest, a nostalgic smile on her lips.
Suddenly, her fingers touched a hard corner. It was a dark blue velvet box hidden under several old comic books, and it looked quite old.
She was a little confused, not remembering having such a box. She gently opened it, and inside there were no jewelry pieces, only a few small, oddly shaped items: a mini music box that had stopped turning, a few glass marbles with peeling paint, and... a folded photograph with worn edges.
Yunxi's heart inexplicably quickened. She carefully picked up the photograph and slowly unfolded it.
The photo is slightly yellowed; it's set in summer, with a shimmering stream in the background and a large, leafy locust tree by the river. Two children stand beneath the tree.
The girl with two pigtails and wearing a little skirt smiled brightly; it was herself, about seven or eight years old. Standing next to her was a little boy, half a head taller, wearing a tank top and shorts, with a slightly awkward expression…
The breathing in the gap in the clouds suddenly stopped.
Despite his youthful appearance, his clear eyebrows and eyes, his pursed lips, and... the small, light brown mole on his exposed wrist!
It's about timing!
It’s really him!
On the back of the photo, there was a line of crooked, illegible writing in pencil. The writing was somewhat blurred, but she could still vaguely make it out:
[I was with the young man by the river; he saved me.]
With a "boom," it was as if something exploded in her mind. All the guesses, all the familiarity, at this moment had the most irrefutable evidence! This "anchor point" that she had forgotten was the origin of all of Shi Xu's actions, and also the starting point of his tragic cycle.
The vague words "riverside," "little brother," and "drowning" from Grandma's phone call, the mole on Shixu's wrist that haunted her, his seemingly coincidental familiarity... all the clues were connected by this photo!
A profound shock and an indescribable sorrow gripped her. She clutched the photograph, her fingertips trembling slightly. So, what he meant by "losing it for a long time" wasn't just a childhood friend, but someone he had once protected yet lost contact with? She had touched the very source code of all his obsessions.
So his obsession and his "premeditation" all stemmed from a bond that started so early and ran so deep.
Just then, her phone rang; it was a message from Shi Xu.
"What are you doing?"
Yunxi stared at the three words on the screen, then at the photograph in her hand, a photograph carrying the weight of a past, her heart filled with a complex and turbulent emotion. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her churning emotions. Instead of answering his question directly, she took a picture of the photograph and sent it to him. What she had dropped was a bombshell powerful enough to devastate his entire world.
She didn't add any words.
A long silence fell on the other end of the phone. The message "The other party is typing..." appeared repeatedly above the chat window, then disappeared, finally fading into silence. That end was a battlefield where digital logic and real emotions clashed fiercely; it was a brief downtime of the defense system he had built with fifty-three lifetimes in the face of a fundamental shock.
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang at Yunxi's house.
She walked to the door and looked through the peephole. She saw Shi Xu standing outside, his face almost transparently pale, his lips tightly pressed together, his eyes filled with a look she had never seen before—a mixture of panic, tension, and a desperate, almost reckless resolve. He had come. Not as a seasoned guardian, but as a returning soul, about to be judged, having traversed the torrents of time.
She opened the door.
Shi Xu stood at the door, not immediately coming in. His gaze passed over her, landing on the open old box on the floor behind her and the photograph she was clutching. That box, that photograph—the "initial archive" he had deliberately blurred and sealed in his memory—was loaded into reality without warning.
His Adam's apple bobbed violently, and his voice was so hoarse it was almost unrecognizable, as if every word was rusty:
"You...remember everything?" This question wasn't asking whether she remembered her childhood, but rather whether she had touched upon the entirety of the cruel truth he had experienced afterward. This was the last and most vulnerable gate of all his defenses.
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