Villain Rescue System (Thirteen)

Long Aotian...

By the way, we are now at the part mentioned in 031, where Long Aotian falls into the water and attains enlightenment.

Shang Li thought to himself after hearing this.

No, wait.

The old-timer who showed "I know it all" at the beginning is obviously not like a rookie protagonist.

Shang Li's mind moved, and he quickly pulled his thoughts back to reality. He raised his eyelids and asked, "Are you the central authority?"

Long Aotian obviously didn't expect this person's first question to be this. He was stunned for a moment and then stretched out his index finger and shook it, "Hey, not yet."

"But it will be some time later."

"Once the energy is accumulated, I will merge my body into this thing," he said.

"I'm sorry, I can't leave here to find you, so I have to trouble you to pass through so many layers of barriers to find me."

Shang Li opened his mouth to ask another question, but was interrupted by Long Aotian, "I guess you must have eight hundred questions in your mind right now, but this is not a good place to chat."

"Let's find a place to sit and talk slowly. Time is frozen here, so there's no rush."

He looked around, waved to the people and said, "Follow me."

“…”

Shang Li followed in silence.

They arrived at a small courtyard built of crude stones.

Long Aotian tapped the stones with his finger, and the gray stone pile instantly turned into a colorful and exquisite little restaurant.

Shang Li was very familiar with this restaurant—it was the one where Kululu took his guests for "breakfast".

No wonder the buildings in the town are all human-sized. It turns out that they are essentially serving this family. He suddenly realized.

Noticing that Long Aotian's eyes were on him, Shang Li immediately pulled the corners of his mouth upwards and praised: "Awesome."

"It's just a little trick."

Long Aotian said modestly: "At my level, I can just sprinkle some water."

He performed another magic trick and placed a jug of beer and a cup of fragrant coffee on the table.

The liquid in the cup did not diffuse into the sea water, but was safely condensed inside, as if isolated from the surrounding environment.

“You young people will probably like this more.”

Long Aotian pushed the coffee in front of Shang Li and asked, "Or do you want to drink more?"

“…No, coffee will do.”

Shang Li held up the cup with both hands, "Thank you."

"You are welcome."

Long Aotian leaned lazily on the back of his chair and waved his hands, his posture like a retired old man who fanned himself all day long downstairs in an old residential area.

"Aren't you surprised to find out that the Long Aotian mentioned by the system is actually someone as sloppy as me?" he said in a familiar tone.

"It's not bad."

Shang Li responded calmly.

He picked up the small spoon in the cup and messed up the latte art on the surface of the coffee. "I don't really believe what the system says."

“That’s a good thing.”

Long Aotian raised his glass and sipped the foam on the beer. "These systems are the most harmful."

“…”

Shang Li did not comment.

He fixed his red eyes on the ordinary-looking man in front of him, "Why did you choose me to come to your audience?"

It was Cui Lan who touched the sun.

"Because you are a bit of a wimp and easier to talk to."

Long Aotian put his left foot on his right thigh and said, "I can smile even when I am so angry."

Shang Li: “…”

"Still too young."

Long Aotian shook his head and sighed, then quickly denied himself, "No, it's not that I'm too young, it's that I'm protected too well, so I don't look like that 'villain' at all."

"You are now just a little white flower who was 'saved' by the system mission."

He glanced at Shang Li and changed his words: "Little red flower."

"It's quite a feat to be able to raise you into such a good kid." Long Aotian commented.

I don't know whether it is exaggeration or defamation.

"...If there is nothing important, please let me and my companions leave this rift."

As if he had lost patience with Long Aotian's casual attitude, Shang Li tilted his head and said calmly: "We came here by accident and have no purpose in meeting you."

"I'm not very curious and I'm not interested in the truth of the seabed. If you really don't want to..."

"Don't be in a hurry. This is not something you need to talk about slowly."

Long Aotian took a sip of beer and said, "I asked the prophet to call you over."

"The prophet Lu Yao should be considered your... uh, relative."

He paused, finding the right word.

"Did you plan the cruise?" Shang Li turned his head back.

“Not really.”

Long Aotian put the empty wine glass back on the table. "I can't directly predict what's going on outside, but as the name suggests, my predictions can still have some influence."

"I need to ask you to do something, but no matter what, I have to explain everything clearly before letting you make a decision, so that I don't look like a kid lying to you."

Shang Li responded word by word: "I am already thirty-two this year."

"Age does not count after death."

“…”

"So, what do you want me to do?" Shang Li was too lazy to argue and directly brought the topic back to the main track.

Long Aotian laughed.

“I was an average college student.”

He did not directly answer Shang Li's question, but began to tell his own story. "On the day my family broke up, I was betrayed by my best friend, and my girlfriend broke up with me, I got the system and awakened my supernatural powers."

"Although I was thrown into the sea by you because of my weak abilities, I still managed to survive with the help of the system and came to this rift, and I have subdued countless monsters."

According to this statement, the plot given by the system is actually what happened?

Shang Li frowned.

"Don't get excited, just listen to me first."

Long Aotian raised his hand to signal the young man to suppress his emotions, and continued: "Then, I used the energy flowing out of the cracks... uh, how do you say that?"

"Oh yes, I reshaped my meridians, cleansed my talents, and gained powerful supernatural powers."

He refilled his glass of wine. "After that, I absorbed the energy here and leveled up all the way. I was invincible. Finally, with the help of the God-Becoming System 001, I broke through the world barrier."

"It should be considered...successful ascension to godhood."

"Normally, the novel would end here."

At this point, Long Aotian slowed down his speech and became serious, "But my life hasn't started yet."

"After breaking through the barrier, what I saw was not a divine realm, but a giant mechanical claw."

"It holds me firmly in its grasp, endlessly drawing power from my connection to this rift."

"Main system."

"001 calls it that."

"From that moment on, I understood that no matter how fancy the system's words were, what they wanted to collect was actually the energy of this world."

Long Aotian tapped the wall of the cup lightly, and the beer in the cup immediately turned into light yellow energy particles and scattered in the sea water. "So I used all my strength to escape from the main system and come back here, and built it as quickly as possible."

He stretched out his arm and pointed to the sun on the sea floor. "It will continuously absorb the energy overflowing from the cracks in the ground."

"After accumulating enough energy, I restarted the world and returned time to the 'beginning'."

After hearing these words, it took a long time for Shang Li's stiff body to slowly relax.

Well, at least the speculation was confirmed, he thought.

Shang Li received the entire story given by 031 on the cruise ship, but at that time his attention was mostly focused on his wrong identity and he did not notice the details.

According to the original work, the protagonist Long Aotian, who had just joined the Superpower Bureau, disguised himself and boarded a cruise ship full of criminals, trying to make a contribution. However, he was discovered by the leader of the "Undercurrent" Lu Yao on the way. Lu Yao temporarily changed the organization's selection and asked everyone to catch him.

Long Aotian fought back all the way, and the "villain Shang Li", one of the many lawless criminals, took advantage of his inattention and pushed him into the sea.

When 031 reminded him in the cave, the seabed rift was the place where the protagonist could attain enlightenment. Shang Li also wondered why Long Aotian was not there, and whether he was accidentally killed on the cruise ship by Luo Qinglian as one of the criminals.

Now that I think about it, Long Aotian, who lost his system after the reboot, probably did not board the cruise ship because of the butterfly effect.

Luo Qinglian took over his undercover identity and became the one being chased.

As for Cui Lan...

Why does he never appear in the plot?

How should the plot of 568 be explained?

The information that Long Aotian gave in a short moment led to more unresolved questions, like a tangled ball of thread tightly entangled together.

Shang Li held the warm coffee cup, but his palms still felt cold.

He let out a long sigh and continued, "So, this crack hidden in the seabed has become a place independent of the changes in time in the outside world."

"To be precise, it is here after passing through two layers of barriers."

Long Aotian spread his hands and said, "My existence has formed a paradox. If a person from the past interferes with the present 'plot', it will cause the world to collapse."

"But the time inside this world has gone back to the past, but the time outside this world has not. The energy we have obtained has disappeared, and the main system will certainly not let it go."

After saying this, he couldn't help laughing, perhaps mocking the main system.

"When it failed to control the local residents, it kidnapped souls from other worlds that were easier to control, tied them up with small systems and dropped them here."

"The 'wisdom' of the strange residents is actually a system." Shang Li speculated.

"nice."

Long Aotian snapped his fingers and said, "The first thing I did when I came back here was to throw 001, whose memory data had been erased, onto an octopus monster."

"Gululu?"

“That’s the new name I gave it.”

Long Aotian said: "No matter how bad it is, it's better than a string of numbers, right?"

"While accumulating energy, I have been hunting the systems that have already descended into this world. There are ten in total."

"Alas, it's a pity that the tenth one really ran away after the restart. I don't know where he went." He stroked his hair helplessly.

"What about those time travelers?"

"I pulled out the soul and threw it into these pits as supplementary materials."

Shang Li was silent.

Seeing his reaction, Long Aotian couldn't help but be a little surprised, "It's strange that you would pity these outsiders who occupied your body."

"Calling you Little Red Flower shows that you are a good student."

"As a victim who has been controlled by time travelers for ten years, shouldn't you hate them the most?"

Hearing this, Shang Li suddenly laughed, "Maybe I am actually a time traveler, it's normal to sympathize with my partner."

"After all, only guests from 'outside the world' can communicate with them, right?"

“…”

Long Aotian raised his eyebrows.

He couldn't help but point and say, "You are quite contradictory. You refuse to believe that you are a time traveler, but you still like to take the initiative to put on this identity."

"I'm not happy when others think you're a time traveler."

"What are you struggling with?" Long Aotian pressed his elbows on the table.

"Or do you mean that you have finally come to a positive answer in your heart and can no longer deceive yourself?"

"will not."

Shang Li narrowed his eyes.

"It doesn't matter who I am."