He recognized it.
That voice was slightly older than his current self, with less of the sharp, boyish edge.
It was calmer.
There was none of that habitual sneering tone used to keep people at arm's length—it was simply the voice of a composed, gentle man.
Shen Sixing's skin crawled.
Especially the way the person in the recording let his words trail off slightly, and the rhythm of those pauses mid-sentence.
It was the exact speaking tempo he'd had since childhood.
His eyes widened in slow, stunned disbelief.
Shen Sixing wanted to scream.
No, no, impossible.
In the face of extreme shock, the first reaction is always doubt.
Synthesized?
Had someone deliberately made this thing to mess with him?
He turned the black box over and over, replaying the recording again and again, trying to find any unnatural splice or seam, so he could mock the maker's clumsiness.
He even tried imitating the voice in the recording.
—And found it matched perfectly.
That broke him even more.
Shen Sixing switched back to the simple button above, and the screen returned to the first photo.
A man holding a girl.
The face was still blurred.
But this time, Shen Sixing stared at it for a long, long time.
Suddenly, the vague outline of those features felt strangely familiar.
The curve of the shoulders, the way the body leaned slightly forward while holding the child, the angle of the fingers resting on the child's back.
It was him.
…That man might really be himself.
Shen Sixing slumped against the bathroom door, dazed.
He stayed there for a full hour.
Even Shen Yi couldn't help but knock.
"Are you okay? Dad!"
Shen Sixing had no strength to answer her.
He stumbled to the sink and splashed water on his face.
Stared at himself in the mirror.
His looks weren't remarkable; his face was pale, his lips chapped from repeated biting, and the whole of him gave off a frail, undernourished air.
The eyes in the mirror were glaring back at him now, carrying a despair that said, "You're done for. You're in for a world of pain."
Shen Sixing closed his eyes, and the voice of his future self from the recording echoed through his mind on a loop.
Staring at his reflection, he couldn't help but try mimicking that tone, murmuring softly:
"I love her very much."
The moment the words left his mouth, he shuddered, and the tips of his ears burned hot.
"Disgusting," he whispered to the mirror.
The information from that little black box was so overwhelming
that Shen Sixing's mind went completely foggy.
He had no idea how to deal with the person outside.
Shen Yi was still knocking: "Are you okay?"
Shen Sixing wanted to pretend he wasn't there, but the kid outside clearly wasn't giving up, so he wiped his face and opened the bathroom door to step out.
Shen Yi stood at the door, looking at him. "I was worried about you. What were you doing?"
In the past, he'd have brushed off a random comment like that from a kid—he'd heard plenty of sweet talk.
But now that her identity had been defined as his daughter, Shen Sixing felt like he'd been zapped, and he shot her a glare out of nowhere.
Shen Yi: "???"
What's wrong with him now?
She was baffled.
Shen Yi had long noticed that her dad, in his youth, was a moody lunatic—like someone with multiple personality disorder.
No one could ever guess what went on in that bizarre brain of his.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I'm fine," he said, rapidly pulling himself together, trying to dismiss her. "Go back to taking apart your gun."
Shen Yi: "…"
She hadn't expected him to notice she'd been disassembling the gun.
"Oh," the girl mumbled.
"That gun—I can't put it back together," Shen Yi said, pinching a half-broken spring between her fingers, sneaking a guilty glance at him.
Shen Sixing spoke on instinct, and a fatherly tone slipped out that he himself hadn't even realized:
"I think people shouldn't do things they aren't sure they can handle."
"Without solid certainty, have you thought about the consequences?" He frowned slightly as he spoke.
In major matters, Shen Sixing liked to think three steps ahead.
He felt that Shen Yi's reckless, devil-may-care attitude wasn't great.
—She needed to be disciplined.
Shen Yi: "Consequences…" She twisted her fingers and guessed casually: "You throw me out, or give me a beating?"
She could accept either outcome.
Shen Sixing hadn't expected her to know him that well.
If he got angry enough, tossing her out or strangling her wasn't out of the question.
But right now, he still hadn't recovered from the shock of that recording, and he really wasn't in the mood to worry about some gun.
He said coldly, "Go to sleep!!"
Shen Yi was wide awake and had no intention of sleeping: "It's still early, Dad. Can I watch TV?"
"Do you have to keep pushing your luck with me, Shen Yi?"
Shen Sixing pressed his lips together, face blank, suppressing a rising agitation. "I currently don't have the money to buy a TV."
Shen Yi: "Oh…"
She decided not to poke at this volatile, teenage Shen Sixing, so she plopped down on the floor, turned her back to him, and went back to her pointless gun disassembly.
Shen Sixing looked down, saw she'd settled down, and let out a silent sigh of relief. He dazedly sat on the bed and pulled the blanket over his head.
He was good at solving problems by avoiding them.
When he wanted to get rid of her, he'd just wait for her to leave on her own, pretending she'd never existed.
When he didn't want to face the future, he thought about killing her, end of story, nothing to think about.
Now that he was sure she really was his daughter, Shen Sixing wanted to selectively ignore her existence.
As long as he didn't see, didn't hear, didn't acknowledge, then it didn't count.
As if that could solve the problem.
He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind.
Beside him, not far away, came the clattering sounds of the girl disassembling the gun.
Before long, the noise went quiet.
She might have finished taking it apart, or gotten stuck on some part and was studying it, but either way, she stopped making sounds.
The moment silence fell, Shen Sixing's overactive imagination flooded with a thousand disasters at once.
Like… the kid accidentally falling into the toilet.
Her getting hit by a pot while rummaging in the kitchen?
Or maybe playing with the pistol and accidentally firing it—there was still a bullet in the chamber she hadn't noticed, and she pulled the trigger while taking it apart?
All kinds of accidents played out in his head one after another, fast like a slideshow.
Had he put the kettle away properly? It was on the table corner—could she reach it?
The gun was a dangerous object, and the house was full of flammable things.
Alcohol, cleaning supplies, the batteries mixed in with those electronic parts.
If she accidentally touched them, she'd be electrocuted or burned to death.
If she died in this timeline by accident…
His future self would absolutely lose his wife, his child, and his home, wouldn't he?
"…"
Shen Sixing bolted upright.
The blanket slid off his head and pooled on his shoulders, and the expression on his face was caught somewhere between panic and fury.
"Shen Yi!!" His voice came out louder than he intended, the last syllable cracking.
