The first thing Shen Xun did when he came out was to kill the little girl named Song Yee.
This was incredibly easy for him.
The so-called world restrictions only targeted people belonging to this world.
Shen Xun's arrival here was an accident.
By the time he made his lethal move and the world consciousness of this place finally, sluggishly reacted, Song Yee's body was already cold.
In an instant, countless threads of consciousness exploded simultaneously.
They intertwined into a chaotic wave of sound.
[Oh no, the female lead is dead. What do we do?]
[What else can we do? She's dead. Can she be resurrected? Let's just swap in another one before the plot begins.]
[Hurry up and send this outsider away first.]
The faint discussions quickly vanished from his ears.
Shen Xun had to speed up.
All the people close to Song Yee were swiftly eliminated by him within a single day.
This wasn't difficult for him at all.
Those people were completely unguarded against his arrival, even stupid enough not to think of running away.
Whether those children tried to beg for mercy or reason with him, he turned a deaf ear.
Shen Xun couldn't stay in this place for long.
He could feel the repulsive force growing stronger; the world's consciousness had awakened, and it was driving him away.
Shen Xun quickened his pace, went to find Shen Yi to carefully verify things, and got rid of those who stood in the way.
Overnight, drastic changes occurred around the Song family.
After finishing all this before his departure, Shen Xun hurried to see her one last time.
He still had dirty bloodstains on him, and he thought she would be evasive like before.
However, this time, when the girl saw him coming, she took the initiative to step forward, reached out, and tightly hugged his waist.
Shen Xun hesitantly and gently patted her head, saying softly, "I came to say goodbye."
"Is that so?" Song Yi showed a hint of a smile, very quiet. "Like a fairy godmother or an elf in a fairy tale, leaving after fulfilling a child's wish?"
Shen Xun admitted, "...Yes."
"Alright." She had always been precocious, and her tone carried a kind of understanding that didn't belong to her age. "Although I think you might not be any kind of elf, and might even be a terribly bad person."
"But I like you."
The girl stuffed a doll into his hands. "This is my and Little Sijun's baby, I'm giving it to you."
Shen Xun looked down at the doll in Shen Yi's arms, his fingers slowly tightening.
He had seen this doll before.
No.
He had owned it.
It was exactly the same as the one he gave to Shen Yi when he was seven years old.
It was truly magical.
A single encounter could bring about countless miracles.
Before leaving, Shen Xun gently held her tight.
Her body was small, and she was incredibly quiet in his embrace.
"I wish you sweet dreams."
This time, there would be no bad guys in the dream.
...
The system on this side flipped through countless storylines.
It discovered that the timeline the awakened Shen Xun went to actually counted as one of Shen Yi's few good endings.
It clicked its tongue.
Indeed, it takes a villain to deal with a villain.
On the other side, Shen Yi returned home, quietly picked up the coat from the sofa, and carefully wrapped it around her bloodstained clothes underneath.
She quickened her pace and ran upstairs to find the brother she had left behind.
Shen Xun seemed to have had a long and unpleasant dream, and hadn't fully woken up yet.
His gaze fell on a certain point in the void, his pupils unfocused.
The sound of Shen Yi running over brought him back to his senses.
He looked up, and the first second he saw her, his hand had already reached out.
His fingertips gently landed on her face, touching it, confirming something.
No rewinding.
No restarting.
"I succeeded, brother." Shen Yi knew what he was thinking. Her voice trembled a little, finally able to pour out the words she had accumulated for a very, very long time.
"Do you know, Shen Xun?"
She couldn't wait to tell him:
"Today, I must be the most amazing and bravest child in the family."
"Not just today," Shen Xun inevitably thought of that Little Shen Yi, and subsequently, everything she had suffered.
His throat felt slightly dry, and he murmured, "You have always been the bravest."
"How did you suddenly become so good with words?" Having experienced repetition after repetition, Shen Yi always felt that chatting with him felt like half a lifetime had passed.
"..."
Shen Xun looked away. "You are so silly."
He spoke faster, saying a lot of things at once:
"Compared to pain, death is actually more about psychological fear, the mental torment when life slips away. Xiao Yi, if you had given up earlier, you wouldn't have been in pain."
Shen Xun felt that all of this was too cruel for both of them.
Rather than watching Shen Yi die over and over again, it would be more satisfying if she killed him instead.
Anyway, he would never blame her for anything.
"This has nothing to do with being silly or not," Shen Yi was straightforward. "I love you, so I am willing to accept whatever the consequences are."
"You love me too, right?"
Shen Xun was silent.
What is love?
This proposition was too complex.
Poets have written sonnets for centuries but have failed to provide a definition that convinces everyone.
Psychologists even dismantle it into dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin, breaking it down until only cold chemical equations remain.
He couldn't give a certain answer to this.
But.
"Xiao Yi," Shen Xun reached out, his fingertips gently resting on the side of her face.
Gazing at her, he answered in a low voice:
"I am learning to love you."
From the very first time we met.
I have been learning to love you.
...
Love is not an innate instinct.
At least not for him.
He needed to learn and explore.
A genius like Shen Xun was a true beginner on this topic.
He didn't know if he was doing it right.
But he really had been learning all along.
From the first moment he saw her.
Shen Yi was moved to the point of wanting to shed tears again by this answer. She silently hugged him tighter, the corners of her mouth turning down. "Brother, aren't you going to ask me anything else about myself?"
Her matters and experiences were too bizarre; wasn't he curious about anything?
Shen Xun paused.
He really wanted to know how much she had endured, and what the price was for her restarting every time.
Shen Xun tentatively started with unscientific questions: "Are you some kind of elf? Or a magician?"
Shen Yi shook her head.
She was a cheat code.
"Then, your repeating over and over again," Shen Xun gently grasped her shoulders, his fingertips tightening slightly, his tone carrying a bit of inquiry, "doesn't it really hurt?"
Or are there any side effects?
He didn't believe such a thing came without a price.
Shen Yi shook her head.
The system was already warning her.
She opened her mouth but couldn't make a sound.
"You can't talk about it, right?" Shen Xun murmured.
Shen Yi nodded again.
She couldn't talk about it; even hinting at it was not allowed.
This matter could only be known to the two of them.
Or rather, originally it could only be known to Shen Yi alone.
Shen Xun was an exception.
But there probably wouldn't be any more exceptions.
"..."
"Alright, let's not talk about this anymore. Have a good dream tonight, brother." Shen Yi tried to comfort him, her voice becoming a bit more cheerful. "It's over."
Shen Xun could see that she was very tired.
An exhaustion that seeped out from her very bones.
"Can I stand guard at your door tonight?"
Shen Xun asked from behind her.
Shen Xun was not someone who was good at expressing himself. The best solution he could come up with was to guard her door, ensuring she wouldn't sneak away again in the dead of night.
Shen Yi: "..."
"Of course you can't do that!!"
Why did every single one of her brothers want to guard her door right after she reloaded her save?
Was this some bizarre, unspoken tradition of the Shen family?
"A smart person like you should think things through on your own when you encounter a problem, rather than just guarding my door." She turned around and told him sternly, "This is pointless. I won't run away again."
Shen Xun remained crouching on the ground.
He denied it: "I am not smart."
Looking at the youth's peaceful expression, no one would ever guess that not too long ago, in another timeline, he had killed a lot of people.
Looking up at her, he spoke in a tone that could only be described as obedient, his voice completely calm:
"I am just the cat at your door."
Shen Yi: "..."
