Chapter 82 His memories run as a clone of the system within his cufflink.
“System, tell me, why did you choose me to be this stupid white moonlight? I am the real author of this book, I definitely don’t want to…” Gu Pei sighed softly and touched the glowing ball, which was rare for him.
[Host, I am an avatar of the system that ran in the previous tampered world.]
The ball of light bounced and landed on Gu Pei's shoulder.
Gu Pei froze, his fingers hanging in mid-air, almost thinking he was hallucinating.
"What...did you say?" His voice was hoarse, his shoulders were taut and trembling in disbelief.
The ball of light bounced slightly, its radiance softening as it flickered, just like the hateful look in Xu Wenci's eyes when he looked at him that day.
Gu Pei suddenly took a step back, his back hitting the cold wall before he regained a sense of reality.
He always thought that this system, which appeared out of nowhere and forced him to perform tasks, did not belong to his world, nor to the world of this novel. Or perhaps, this system might be an accomplice of the plagiarist.
Unexpectedly, it turned out to be a wisp of something from his own world, a world he had lost and wantonly altered.
"So... you found me not to make me play the role of some white moonlight, but..." Gu Pei's heart pounded violently as a bold guess that almost made him tremble with fear surfaced in his mind.
The light from the orb stabilized, but the voice remained mechanical, carrying an detached indifference.
It's for repair, and also for... self-rescue.
[Host, you were not forced to participate. You are the creator, and no one knows this story better than you. The story must get back on track.]
Gu Pei stared blankly at the ball of light on his shoulder. In that instant, all his confusion, anger, and resentment seemed to find an outlet.
He is not a pawn of the system.
It was the operating system he created, and his final, all-out effort, that allowed him to travel to this world.
He is...
“Tell me,” he took a deep breath, his dark brown pupils flickered, and finally he spoke, “what should I do?”
[Host, do you know where the protagonist of this world is?]
Gu Pei raised his eyes. "Of course."
Fu Yanli, Xu Wenci, we will meet again soon.
Does the host know how to get there?
The system asked in a very formal and methodical manner, which was completely different from how it had acted when it was arguing with Gu Pei before.
Gu Pei closed his eyes, took out a folding knife from his pocket, and took a deep breath.
The blade gleamed coldly in the dim light. Without hesitation, Gu Pei swiftly sliced his left palm with the tip of the blade.
Blood gushed out instantly, dripping down his palm lines, but he didn't even flinch.
“I know.” He looked at the blood bead in his palm, his voice unusually calm. “Using my blood, mixed with the most primal understanding of this story, I can temporarily open a passage, right? This is… the last authority I reserved for myself in my original plan.”
Even without the original manuscript, he couldn't possibly lose complete control over the story.
He looked up at the orb of light on his shoulder and squinted.
"You guided me, even forced me to become familiar with this altered plot, and to get close to Fu Yanli and Xu Wenci, not only to find loopholes, but also to reconnect me to the previous world, to return to the previous world, and to bring the story back on track, right?"
The light sphere flickered rapidly a few times, as if its core had been hit.
[Yes, host. I need your blood to return to the previous world. But this is extremely risky; it might be detected by the tampered main system, or it might... trigger unknown spatial disturbances.]
"Disorder?" Gu Pei smirked, revealing an almost maniacal smile. "Could things get any worse than this?"
He said no more, slowly pressing his blood-dripping hand against the cold wall. He closed his eyes, concentrated all his energy, and sketched out the images of Fu Yanli and Xu Wenci in his mind—the world he had created but which had become unrecognizable.
The blood did not leave stains on the wall; instead, it rippled outwards like drops of water, creating dark red ripples with a faint glow.
The walls began to blur and distort, as if melting away, revealing a chaotic, discolored void behind them.
Just before Gu Pei was about to step inside, a heart-wrenching cry, seemingly from the depths of his soul, pierced through the chaos and clearly reached his ears:
"It's easy to know..."
Gu Pei stopped abruptly, his blood almost freezing instantly.
That voice... is it Yi Lou?!
He suddenly turned his head and saw a semi-transparent, almost disappearing figure struggling to run towards him at the edge of that chaotic void.
No, I'm not running towards him.
It is moving towards what is easily known.
That was Yi Lou. His face was as pale as paper, his eyes unfocused, as if he were enduring immense pain. His lips moved, stubbornly repeating the name he had misremembered for twenty-five years before finally finding it again:
"It's easy to know...my...it's easy to know..."
His figure flickered, like a holographic projection with a poor signal, as if he would be completely swallowed by chaos in the next second.
The system's light sphere emitted a rapid alarm, its light flashing erratically.
“Yi Lou…” Gu Pei murmured subconsciously.
Yi Lou seemed to hear his call, his unfocused gaze straining to focus for a moment before landing on Gu Pei. His eyes were filled with pain, confusion, and a faint glimmer of hope... as if he had found a lifeline.
He reached out, as if trying to grasp something, but his transparent fingertips passed straight through the boundary of chaos.
However, Yi Lou has no need to go to that world.
Yi Lou from that world has always existed, always filled with regret.
In that world, Yi Zhi also died.
"Go!" Gu Pei gritted his teeth, no longer hesitating, and whispered. Then, he turned around abruptly and stepped into the chaos.
He cannot stay.
The emergence of Yi Lou could be a huge variable, and could very likely raise the main system's level of alert.
Yi Lou cannot appear in that world.
The sphere of light followed closely behind, disappearing into the passage just before it was about to completely close amidst violent fluctuations at the entrance.
The very next second after they disappeared, an even more piercing alarm suddenly blared through the room, its cold, electronic voice carrying a furious rage at being utterly challenged:
Abnormal data access has occurred; the cleanup process has been initiated.
The entrance to chaos vanished as quickly as a healed wound, and the walls returned to their original state.
Yi Lou's translucent figure calling out to his younger brother vanished completely into the air, like ashes scattered by the wind, as if it had never existed.
Only a faint, lingering smell of blood remained in the air, along with the cold, unyielding wall that seemed as if nothing had happened.
“You’ve come…” Xu Wenci sat quietly on the sofa, opened his eyes, and said softly.
Gu Pei, feeling dizzy from the distorted scene before him, shook his head and looked down to see a glass of orange juice in front of him.
“You’ve come…” Xu Wenci sat quietly on the sofa, opened his eyes, and said softly.
Gu Pei, feeling dizzy from the distorted scene before him, shook his head and looked down to see a glass of orange juice in front of him.
The clear yellow liquid swayed slightly in the transparent glass, refracting the cold light from the overhead lamp, like a frozen eye flowing with warm blood.
He looked around and saw the living room of the villa that belonged exclusively to Fu Yanli and Xu Wenci in this world.
Everything was as it was before.
Just like the furnishings he described.
Xu Wenci sat there, like the most perfect work in this empty exhibition hall.
Indeed, Gu Pei lowered his eyes, seeing Xu Wenci's most perfect work.
Xu Wenci was too calm, so calm that it seemed he had expected Gu Pei to come, so calm that the wound on Gu Pei's palm that had just healed began to ache again.
“You knew I would come.” Gu Pei’s statement was not a question, but a statement.
He licked his slightly chapped lips but didn't touch the glass of orange juice.
Xu Wenci tilted his head slightly, his amber eyes finally focusing on Gu Pei's face. There was no hatred, no anger, not even curiosity in his eyes, only a bottomless, almost empty calm.
"With the system alarms going off so loudly, it's hard not to notice," he said calmly, as if commenting on the weather. "Besides, you smell of blood."
Gu Pei subconsciously curled up his injured hand.
“Yi Lou…” Gu Pei took a deep breath, trying to make sense of the sudden interruption. “I think I just saw Yi Lou. He was acting very strangely…”
He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands crossed and pressed against his chin, his gaze as precise as a sharp scalpel as he looked at Gu Pei.
Where exactly are Fu Yanli's lost memories?
Gu Pei squinted and tilted his head. "I don't know."
"In the cufflink, is that right?" Xu Wenci was not angry when he received a negative answer. He just smiled slightly, spread his fingers, and revealed the cufflink that he had been holding in his palm.
Under the cold white crystal chandelier, the deep blue cufflinks appeared somewhat eerie, as if a dark, flowing light swirled within them. They didn't resemble gemstones, but rather a slightly gleaming, blinking eye.
Gu Pei's breathing paused almost imperceptibly, and his pupils contracted slightly.
Xu Wenci didn't miss that moment of stiffness. The curve of his lips deepened slightly, his fingertips tracing the cool surface of his cufflinks. His tone remained calm, yet carried a chilling edge that seemed to see right through him:
"Looks like I guessed right. He sealed his memories in this little gadget like trash. Did he think these memories were unimportant, or..."
Or is it that Fu Yanli simply doesn't want to recall it?
Author's Note: Some people may wonder why Gu Pei dislikes Yi Lou so much and provokes him every time they meet. That's because Gu Pei, this imperfect and pessimistic creator, hates it when the plot he has set goes wrong, and Yi Lou always manages to step on Gu Pei's landmines.
As for Yi Zhi, he has no chance of being resurrected, and the timeline will not return to the point where he did not die, which is a tragedy in itself.
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