Cannon Fodder Counterattack System (Thirteen)

“A-choo!”

The baby sneezed a little.

The two looked at each other, and Cui Lan spoke first, "Let's go home first. We can't let Xiao Jiang freeze in the snow."

"Xiao Jiang's future fate will change because of this."

Shang Li objected to this.

Cui Lan frowned when he heard this. "If we just adopt the child a few years earlier, maybe it won't have a big impact."

When Xiao Jiang was picked up by Shang Li and brought home, he told them that he was an orphan who grew up in an orphanage.

Because he was soft-hearted, the other children in the orphanage liked to gang up on him and bully him. He couldn't stand it anymore and ran away secretly.

As a result, he ran far away and became scared. He couldn't find the way back, so he sat on the side of the road crying. He was taken back by Shang Li who was out buying snacks.

“…”

Shang Li was silent for a moment and then compromised.

After a brief discussion, the two decided that Cui Lan would carry the baby and go to the old house first, while Shang Li would leave his clone in the snow to continue observing.

If anything happens in the forest, the clone will immediately give an alarm and locate the location, allowing Cui Lan to cut through space and reach the destination directly.

On the way back, it was getting darker and Cui Lan was walking on the snow with one foot deep and one foot shallow.

After passing the giant tree, he saw a short figure holding a fairy wand as a lighting tool from a distance.

It was Shang Li that year.

The six-year-old Shang Li was wearing a thick down jacket and carrying a quiver that was half the length of his body. The quiver was filled with fairy wands that looked like arrows.

There was a bulging bag on her waist, with the zipper half open, revealing a fireworks box inside.

[Wow! It’s the little host! ]

031 said excitedly.

[Host, why did you come here alone with fireworks on your back? 】

568 couldn't help but stick his head out.

"These are fireworks prepared for the New Year."

Shang Li followed Cui Lan's gaze and said, "But I couldn't help it, so I ran to the wild and set it off secretly while my grandma was asleep."

"You are really brave. You are not afraid of being eaten by wild beasts."

Cui Lan said to the pixelated figure on his shoulder.

"That won't happen. There are no creatures on this mountain that can eat children." Shang Li said.

“…”

When Xiao Shangli approached, Cui Lan stopped silently and watched the child, who was not even as tall as his waist, walking past him.

The child's eyes were still a dark color, almost like obsidian, and he was staring straight at the fairy wand.

A beautiful light exploded from the tip of the thin stick, coating most of his face and hair in a warm orange color.

After lighting this one, Xiao Shangli quickly raised his hand and took out a new fairy wand from behind his back and lit it.

"How is it?"

Cui Lan suddenly said.

His eyes were fixed on Xiao Shangli, who had just briefly met him and was gradually moving away, but he was actually asking the one on his shoulder.

"The world is preventing me from connecting with him."

The pixel man answered obediently.

Just now he was secretly trying to use his supernatural powers to communicate with his younger self.

Not showing the figure directly, but in the most obscure way.

But obviously, he failed.

The moment the supernatural power was activated, Shang Li immediately had the same feeling as when he was in the dark room.

This is a warning before data corruption recurs.

Shang Li was sure that if he had really influenced his past self just now, the result that awaited him would definitely not be as simple as the previous error report, which could be roughly solved by integrating the alien system.

Xiao Shangli, who hadn't noticed anything, took two more steps and then suddenly fell with a thud, his whole body buried in the snow.

Cui Lan subconsciously wanted to pull the man up, but was stopped by Shang Li, "Don't move, he is pretending."

Just as he said, not long after, Xiao Shangli got up by himself.

The little head under the flannel cap looked around, then suddenly turned back to look in their direction.

Nothing was found.

Of course, it was impossible for a six-year-old child to see through Shang Li's shielding.

"How could there be no one here? How could I have seen it wrong?"

Xiao Shangli muttered to himself and ran away in the direction where he had picked up the person that year. "Hmph, I will definitely find you."

Cui Lan: “…”

He looked at the little figure that was gradually disappearing and couldn't help but let out a short laugh, "What a drama."

When the flashing fireworks could no longer be seen, Cui Lan turned around and continued forward.

However, when he saw the collapsed house and the baby in his arms gradually came back to life and cried for the first time, an accident happened.

The ghost sitting quietly on his shoulder broke down again.

“Bang!!”

The pixelated man, who was originally only the length of a palm, changed instantly, and his swollen shape suddenly blocked Cui Lan's sight.

The ghost quickly moved away from the people around it, struggling to escape in a certain direction, but the body that had been cohered with great difficulty seemed to be pierced by some sudden force, and huge cracks appeared, like the reflection in the pool that was constantly shattered by hands, and it was distorted beyond human form.

The overlapping pop-up windows popped up again, wrapping him and Cui Lan who was chasing after him.

[Susususu, host, how can I%*#￥...hiss—]

This time, 031 also had a malfunction.

The words were only half said before they turned into complete random noise.

"Shang Li!"

Cui Lan subconsciously stretched out his hand to catch the escaping data, but he could only feel the cold air.

"Why did something go wrong all of a sudden?!"

It was clearly winter, but he was so anxious that a thin layer of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"It's okay."

While the ghost was constantly repairing his body data, he said calmly: "I don't feel any pain, so I won't feel uncomfortable."

“Is this the point?!”

Cui Lan gritted his teeth.

"…It's because of Xiao Jiang."

Shang Li changed the direction of his answer from Smooth Flow, "If we took Xiao Jiang away and saved her as an infant, it would result in 031 not being able to land smoothly."

"1031, who was in the past, failed to come, so now that I am one with 031, I naturally have problems."

His speech gradually began to stutter, like a machine about to break down.

“…”

"So, I have to put Xiao Jiang back into the snow now."

Cui Lan looked down at the baby wrapped in a scarf, pursed her lips, and finally chose to run back.

"Why didn't you say it then?!"

He approached the snowy field as fast as he could, angrily speaking to the ghost behind him that was struggling to catch up.

"I, I don't know if 031 will land on this timeline." Shang Li replied.

As a foreign object, the system is not affected by restart.

"From the perspective of the main system outside the world, the time in our world is always a straight line moving forward." Long Aotian said this at the time on the seabed.

This was also the reason why Shang Li chose to integrate the system and break away from the rules of the world.

System 031 does not belong to Long Aotian's timeline, otherwise it would have already become a part of the ocean residents.

Therefore, Shang Li has always regarded 031 as a system that has descended on the "present" timeline after the restart, just like 568.

There is no need to elaborate on its so-called "guidance from the unknown", because this was the location where it was located when it descended.

It was not until it collapsed again that Shang Li was sure—

They are in a third timeline...besides Long Aotian and the "present".

Most likely, 031 had been dormant in this timeline until it was awakened in the "present" timeline.

Soon, Cui Lan returned to the snowy field.

Xiao Shangli was sitting alone on a protruding stone not far away, with a thin man who had fainted at his feet.

The fireworks that filled his body were all set off in just a short moment. The boy seemed to have completely ignored the person lying next to him. He looked up at the night sky with neither stars nor moon, and shouted in a long voice: "Why is there no one here? It's so boring——"

Tsk, if you’re bored just go home.

Cui Lan hid behind a thick tree and poked out one eye.

Seeing that Xiao Shangli had no intention of going back anytime soon, he simply squatted down, found a finger-sized stone on the ground, and threw it precisely at the idle child who was wandering around.

“Boom!”

With a crisp sound, Xiao Shangli fell neatly on the thin man.

Cui Lan glanced behind him subconsciously.

Shang Li stopped at a place about three or four meters away.

He closed his eyes tightly, trapped by the overlapping crimson bullet frames, as if they were about to be entangled again.

Cui Lan let out a long breath of white air, walked forward and put the baby into Xiao Shangli's arms.

Then he returned to Shang Li and drew the long sword from his waist.

But after cutting through the cracks that led to the dark narrow space, Cui Lan suddenly remembered:

I can't take away Shang Li who has lost his physical body.

Just as he was racking his brains to think of a way to take the person away, he caught a glimpse of a red meteor streaking across the sky.

"bite--"

The meteor, with a long, bright tail, was heading towards them.

At the same time, the red coils behind Cui Lan also began to move.

The entire red coil, along with the ghost inside, disintegrated into a crimson data stream, and then flew upwards at a speed that was invisible to the naked eye, as if they wanted to collide directly in the night sky.

“Shua!”

The silver light flickered like a crescent moon, neatly separating the two that were about to merge.

Cui Lan activated his supernatural power in time. But the next second, he suddenly let go of the long sword.

“Ahem, ahem—”

The man standing on the ground knelt on one knee in the snow with a "thump".

The moment the two were separated, Cui Lan felt as if all the strength in his body had been drained away by something.

Not a coincidence?

It turns out that my past is also related to 031.

He raised his head weakly and saw with his own eyes that they finally merged, but because of the blow, they did not merge completely together and became a gourd-like red light carrying huge energy and slowly falling down, floating in front of the baby not far away.

The red gourd moved twice, and then Cui Lan heard two voices in his mind.

One is a standard mechanical voice, and the other is a slightly cold adult male voice.

At the same time, Shang Li found that he seemed to have fallen into a dream again.

[Host, host, this is the goal of our journey! ]

He seemed to have become a real system, and was happily speaking to someone.

"He was so businesslike just now, how come he suddenly changed into a different person?"

A strange male voice followed closely, his tone indifferent, "It's too late to be friendly now. I have no interest in time travel. Put me back now."

[No, that’s not possible——]

He shook his head along with the system he played in his dream, [Host, your body in the original world has died. ]

[If you go back now, you will die violently. ]

"Um."

The male voice was indifferent, "I just want to go back and die."

[Host——Please just agree to my request! ]

The system started to whine, "What's wrong with starting a new life in a different world?!"

The baby held by Xiao Shangli appeared in front of him. [Look! Although I don’t know why the original owner was picked up by the villain in advance, this is a good opportunity to complete the mission! ]

"Get lost! This is your mission, not mine." The male voice said decisively.

"I will never spend my whole life following a man just to complete a so-called rescue mission."