A faint sandalwood fragrance permeated the air.
Jiang Nanshu stood at the entrance, locked in a gaze with the gilded Buddha statue.
“Why stand at the door? Come on in.”
Without a word, Jiang Nanshu glanced at Zhou Yanxu and walked in.
First, she opened her umbrella and set it in the corridor, waiting for the rainwater to dry.
The house was lit with incandescent bulbs.
It was only then that Jiang Nanshu took a serious look at Zhou Yanxu’s face—thin, sickly pale, wearing a grey monk’s robe, with Buddha beads dangling from his right hand.
She surveyed the surroundings, especially focusing on the lights, “I thought temples only used candles.”
“Times change, and so should temples. Wouldn’t you like to see our bathhouse? It even has cozy air conditioning.”
Jiang Nanshu: “…”
She choked on her words, meeting Zhou Yanxu’s sincere eyes, and said with a cold tone, “I’d rather not.”
“All right then.” He seemed unfazed by Jiang Nanshu’s unpleasant attitude and continued, “There’s a private bathroom behind my room. You can take a shower and have a good sleep. We don’t have clothes for ladies here in the temple, so I got a new set of monk’s robes for you to make do with.”
The monk’s robe he offered was coffee-colored, slightly different from his own.
Jiang Nanshu couldn’t understand how he could still speak so kindly to her when he clearly saw her dreadful attitude. If it had been the old Zhou Yanxu, even with his gentleness, he would have sternly reprimanded her, “Don’t be ridiculous,” when she was too much.
But the man in front of her continued to indulge her, seemingly without any temper, like a pushover, malleable to anyone’s whim.
“I don’t want this set; the color is too ugly. Get me another one,” Jiang Nanshu stated bluntly, staring intently at Zhou Yanxu’s face.
He silently glanced at the robe, then nodded, “Okay, is grey alright? Those are the only colors we have.”
Jiang Nanshu’s gaze retracted with some disappointment.
So that’s it.
She didn’t want to look for Zhou Yanxu.
Fearful that the person she would find would be different from her imagination, not the Zhou Yanxu she held in her mind.
“Forget it, I hate grey,” Jiang Nanshu said, not wanting him to go through the trouble again, and snatched the coffee-colored robe from his hands.
“Close the door when you leave,” she said, moving further inside.
Zhou Yanxu stood at the entrance, silent for a few seconds before slowly saying, “After you descend the mountain, don’t tell the Zhou Family you’ve seen me. Pretend like you haven’t. The old Zhou Yanxu is dead; I am now Gui Yuan.”
The strength in Jiang Nanshu’s hands, clutching at her clothes, intensified, creating a deep wrinkle in the fabric.
“Don’t tell me so much; I’m not interested in your affairs. Who cares if you’re fated or not.”
Her figure vanished.
After a while.
Zhou Yanxu turned to look at the eaves dripping with rainwater.
“It’s Gui Yuan, idiot.”
[Lord Main God?] Da Shachun’s tentative voice broke the silence nonetheless.
Their system sounds could only be heard by the Host and Lord Main God who oversaw them.
Zhou Yanxu closed the door and walked to the adjacent meditation room, lit three sticks of incense, and then responded slowly, “0168, it’s been a long time.”
Da Shachun: […]
It had been rejoicing in Zhou Yanxu’s disregard for it, thinking its feeling had been wrong.
But it was indeed him!
And he had accurately called out its code number.
[Sob sob sob, Lord Main God, when can I leave? The Host I’m bound with doesn’t play by the rules at all. I suspect the Disgust Value hasn’t increased at all. Her family is becoming nicer to her, but she has no feelings for them. She is so well-treated yet devoid of emotions; could her mind be abnormal? I don’t quite understand a lunatic’s world.]
Da Shachun continued to complain, completely oblivious to Zhou Yanxu’s increasingly cold expression. The incense smoke before the Buddha drifted softly, casting his brows and eyes in wintry shades, and he gripped the Buddha beads in his right hand tightly.
In an instant, they crumbled apart, and the beads scattered on the floor with a “clatter.”
Da Shachun also finally realized the emotion of his superior.
Gods show neither joy nor anger, only compassion that laments humanity.
It immediately silenced itself, its innate fear of the Lord Main God preventing it from speaking another unnecessary word.
It didn’t even have the courage to ask why he would be in this world.
After a long time.
Zhou Yanxu’s lips curled into a gentle smile again, “She’s not crazy; she’s the little girl I’ve cherished like a pearl for seven years. When I entrusted her to you, it wasn’t to let you ignore her crimes. 0168, I don’t mind replacing you with another system to guide her.”
Even without seeing Da Shachun, one could imagine it now kneeling and begging for mercy, “Wuwuwu, I’m sorry, wasn’t the task to increase the Disgust Value? The Host is bent on leaving; suicide is no different from capital punishment for criminal offenses… I just thought I’d take the opportunity, I’m sorry, I won’t dare next time.”
Zhou Yanxu didn’t want to appear.
But he couldn’t just watch Jiang Nanshu ruin herself right before his eyes.
He could only attribute all this to the selfishness that played upon him.
He had raised her for so long, listening to her call him “brother,” then “Xu Xu.”
Her dependence on him grew day by day.
She would care for her classmates, friends, flowers, cats, and dogs.
She was the good child spoken of by teachers, a role model in the eyes of her classmates.
Even after someone switched her fate, Zhou Yanxu felt that as long as she lived happily in this life, where did it matter?
But at the moment of her death,
he felt like he might have been wrong. He didn’t want her to harbor feelings that weren’t meant to be, so he chose to leave her when she turned fifteen.
The path he paved for her, the vast inheritance he left behind, became the very thing that hastened her death. He had only wanted to ensure she had a carefree life in her subsequent lives, but the world’s injustices and hardships ultimately overwhelmed her.
The little girl he had nurtured and protected until now was covered in thorns.
She probably hated him.
Hated that he could have escaped but instead died right before her eyes.
“The difference between suicide and the death penalty isn’t big, you say? She’d be cursed by the world, forever unable to escape the torment of being labeled a murderer. That’s not what I want to see,” Zhou Yanxu sighed softly.
Actually, Da Shachun didn’t understand Lord Main God’s thoughts either.
He reversed time and space, allowing his Host to return to her own world, then extracted the Time Traveler, making way for the real Jiang Nanshu. All these actions sounded good, like he was setting order out of chaos, but the price he had to pay far exceeded what it could currently see.
Even gods are not omnipotent.
His existence will eventually dissipate in this world.
Sooner or later.
…
Jiang Nanshu didn’t sleep well that night.
She kept dreaming of the past.
Various faces fluttered before her, making her want to slap them away.
Seeing Zhou Yanxu, that surging resentment hid itself once again.
She was obedient and docile, but still, Zhou Yanxu waved his hand and left her behind.
After waking up.
Jiang Nanshu noticed her eyes were somewhat moist; she wiped them dry and the next second, her phone screen lit up.
It showed 99+ calls from Lu Qingyan.
The messages were also 99+.
Jiang Nanshu suddenly remembered the promise to Lu Qingyan. Confused and groggy, she didn’t know how to explain to him, so she simply turned off the phone and ignored it.
“Knock, knock.”
A knocking sound arose.
Then came Zhou Yanxu’s clear voice, “Are you awake? It’s time for you to come down from the mountain.”