Chapter 79 The System Behind the Collapse of Two Worlds
"Grandpa Qiao really treasures that Buddhist prayer beads that much..." Su Anlan gave Ye Chuying a thumbs up, her face full of gossip, "How did you know Grandpa Qiao was looking for those prayer beads?"
Ye Chuying proudly raised her head, "It's alright, it's alright. The belongings of the deceased are certainly important."
"Could it be..." Su Anlan covered her mouth and exclaimed, "...that it's his younger brother's belongings..."
Ye Chuying nodded excitedly, flattering her, "Auntie, you're amazing."
Su Anlan proudly wagged her tail, eager to let everyone know about her shocking discovery.
But she soon had a worry: "If Grandpa Qiao knows that we deliberately gave him the Buddhist beads, will he be wary of us...?"
Ye Chuying stroked her chin, narrowed her eyes, and said in a pretentious tone, "Who said that the string of Buddhist beads was given to him in our name..."
oh……
Su Anlan nodded as if she understood, and a vague candidate came to mind.
Seeing that her aunt seemed to have guessed, Ye Chuying stopped being mysterious and began to explain her plan step by step: "Aunt, that string of Buddhist beads has always been in the Fu family. You asked Fu Rongzhen for it, and he readily gave it to you, but you didn't actually take it with you."
Su Anlan nodded. Yes, although she had asked for the Buddhist prayer beads, she did not take them away as Ye Chuying had instructed. Instead, she put them in a beautiful box and placed it in the most conspicuous place in the storage room.
Could it be...?
Su Anlan's heart skipped a beat, and she slowly opened her mouth, her eyes widening in surprise.
So... that day, Ye Qingdai accompanied her to see Old Master Fu, actually to remind Old Master Fu of the past, find that string of Buddhist beads, and facilitate cooperation with Old Master Qiao.
Is Ye Chuying really only sixteen years old?
"Does your sister know about these things?" Su Anlan's voice was dry, and her eyes welled up with tears. "Your sister would be very happy to know that you are so smart."
Ye Chuying always reminded her of her older sister.
Ye Chuying is her older sister's daughter, so it's only natural that she's just as beautiful and intelligent.
She had never seen what her older sister looked like as a child or a teenager, but when she saw Ye Chuying, she always felt that her older sister was just as beautiful and outstanding in the time she couldn't be a part of.
Fu Yanli also perfectly inherited the advantages of his older sister.
Intelligent, soft-hearted, and with an unparalleled emphasis on emotions.
Unbeknownst to her, her sister's son had disappeared into another world, where he continued to be entangled and in love with Xu Wenci.
“Xu Wenci,” Fu Yanli put down his chopsticks without even taking a few bites of rice, “do you know why we came into this world after being stabbed?”
His voice was calm, a stark contrast to the deep, husky tone and melancholic persona he had used when discussing Fu Yanli's preferences. It was as if he were discussing an insignificant contract clause or a trivial piece of news.
Xu Wenci paused almost imperceptibly while chewing, then resumed his normal chewing motion.
He didn't look up, his gaze fixed on the glistening grains of rice in his bowl. His voice, coming through the food, sounded somewhat muffled: "A loophole in the world's script? Or do you, President Fu, understand this world better than you understand me..."
The irony was palpable.
Fu Yanli ignored his sarcasm, his deep purple eyes revealing an unfathomable coldness. "Neither."
He leaned back slightly in his chair, his gaze fixed on the already dark sky outside the window, and murmured softly, "It is that world itself that is rejecting us."
Xu Wenci finally raised his eyes, his amber eyes scrutinizing him.
“Or rather, it’s rejecting us who have complete memories,” Fu Yanli continued, his fingertips unconsciously tracing something on the clean tabletop before looking up. “We’ve returned with too many memories that don’t belong to that world. We’re unwilling to admit defeat, so that world can only let us return to this world when we’re about to die, so that we can settle our true karma ourselves.”
He paused, then refocused his gaze on Xu Wenci's face, a look of almost cruel helplessness on his face.
"You think throwing away the photos and denying the past will sever this connection? Xu Wenci, it's useless. The more we try to deny each other's existence, the harder the world will bind us together in order to correct us. Until..."
"Until what?" Xu Wenci interrupted him, and the cold, hard shell in his voice finally cracked like shattered ice.
Fu Yanli smiled softly, but there was no warmth in his smile, only endless exhaustion and an almost prophetic certainty.
“Until one of us completely resigns himself to his fate, becoming that thin shadow that should truly exist without any later memories. Or…” He paused, his gaze sharp as a needle, piercing straight into Xu Wenci’s eyes, “until we break it down again, just like you killed me last time.”
“But…” Xu Wenci’s hand holding the chopsticks paused, and the chopsticks fell onto the plate with a crisp “thud.” The last glimmer of light in his eyes finally disappeared, and he murmured softly, “Haven’t we already broken free from the script’s control? Gu Pei himself admitted that he could no longer control the plot, so how could we still be trapped in these worlds…”
"Is that so?" Fu Yanli closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and his trembling fingertips shook so much that he could barely hold his chopsticks, which he had to hide under the table. "Gu Pei said he couldn't control the plot, but wasn't that because the script had already been written and he had already lost it? He has no right to modify it, yet he lies to us that the plot can be modified. We have the right to modify the plot, but the operating system of this world has already been established and cannot be modified. Have we ever successfully modified the plot about the two of us even once?"
The restaurant fell silent once again.
Xu Wenci felt a deep sense of desolation.
No, really no.
They never actually managed to revise the plot about the two of them; his and Fu Yanli's experiences remained similar to the script Gu Pei had actually written.
They simply jumped from the plagiarist's script to the one written by Gu Pei, a script that wasn't so melodramatic.
Moreover, since Gu Pei is no longer able to modify the script, this operating system will replace Gu Pei as the author and correct each world.
The steam from the bowls and chopsticks had long since dissipated, and a cold standoff lingered in the air.
Fu Yanli's words were like an invisible scalpel, dissecting the seemingly gentle surface to reveal the cold and cruel operating rules beneath. They were no longer simply returnees, but a virus in this world, objects to be eradicated.
Xu Wenci's fingers tightened slightly as he gripped the chopsticks, his knuckles turning bluish-white.
It turns out that even Fu Yanli's obsessive understanding and possessiveness have become an anchor point for resisting annihilation.
"So," Xu Wenci finally spoke, his voice dry, "what are you trying to say by telling me all this?"
Fu Yanli looked at him, his eyes swirling with complex emotions, which eventually settled into a deep calm.
"I want to say, Xu Wenci, we may not have time to argue about the past anymore."
"Either we work together to find a way out, or..."
He didn't say anything more, but the unspoken words hung like a sword over his head.
Either wait to have all your personality, all your memories, and everything you want completely erased by the world or by each other.
“Actually,” Xu Wenci licked his lips, not looking up, as if he couldn’t accept this fact, or rather, he was excited that he had finally found a loophole in Fu Yanli’s words: “What you said isn’t entirely correct… You must be thinking that it’s safe for you and me to stay in this world, while in that world, you’ve already planned everything, and your plan will inevitably cause that world to collapse, forcing this world to accept you, accept me, accept the two of us outsiders…”
This is Fu Yanli's complete plan.
However, Xu Wenci's plan can perfectly make up for the things that Fu Yanli cannot take care of.
"After that world collapsed, this world forcibly accepted us, but this world was created by the plagiarist, not by Gu Pei."
Living in a world created by plagiarists, not our real world, are we still ourselves?
Xu Wenci's pupils contracted slightly.
Fu Yanli finally put his hand back on the table, his knuckles white from the force, but his posture was a naked analysis, a shed of pretense: "If it were completely independent, how could we viruses, bearing the deep imprint of the original world, be so smoothly loaded into this world?"
He leaned forward slightly, his gaze fixed on Xu Wenci, staring at the stubborn light in Xu Wenci's eyes that had not yet been extinguished.
He knew that Xu Wenci would never give up easily.
Xu Wenci always wanted to live.
“Gu Pei lost his script, and the plagiarist stole his core. So, the place we are in now is more like… a pirated product with its settings arbitrarily altered but its core still retained.” He used words from their shared memories that Xu Wenci could instantly understand, his eyes sharp. “The administrator of this world is the plagiarist, but the underlying logic is still what Gu Pei originally wrote.”
Xu Wenci remained silent.
He couldn't refute it.
The sense of déjà vu in the details of this world, the rules that subtly correspond to those of that world, and even the memories they can easily recall that should have been "formatted," all point to this chilling possibility.
He paused to make sure he heard every word Xu Wenci said.
He and Xu Wenci must have complete trust in each other in this matter.
"Are you crazy?" Xu Wenci's breath caught in his throat. "Destroy two worlds at the same time? We'll do the same..."
“We won’t.” Fu Yanli interrupted him, his eyes burning with a deep purple flame that simultaneously conveyed both calmness and madness.
Author's Note: Waaaaaah [crying emoji]
My head hurts, it just keeps hurting. [heartbroken]
I hope I can successfully finish the main story by November 22nd.
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