The dust had settled.
There were just a few things that had not yet been fully laid bare.
Everyone had dreamed the same dream.
From the perspective of a third party, they had witnessed the entire story—from its beginning to its end.
When Shen Sixing awoke, the lingering resentment and hatred still circled within his chest, twisting his organs with pain.
His gaze was unfocused, his pupils unable to settle on anything. His fingers were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.
He remembered the final scene from the dream.
The bullet had pierced an artery, and blood had gushed forth.
His last thought had been: I never even got a clear look at what that child looked like.
At the time, right up until his death, he had still not known what his future would be.
From Shen Sixing’s perspective, he had somehow given up everything for a girl he had never even met.
His life, the logic by which the entire world operated—he had staked it all on a gambling table where he did not even know what the wager looked like.
Even the ending had been absurd and utterly illogical, like the fate of some villain at the end of a story: he had been shot dead by a man who had inexplicably barged into his life.
This was unquestionably the worst deal he had ever made, and the most undeserved price he had ever paid.
He had gambled everything and wagered it all, only to reach the end without even getting a proper look at that child’s face.
How could there be such an unfair bargain in this world?
But after waking, all his memories came rushing back.
Scene after scene flooded into his mind, playing as quickly as if someone had pressed fast-forward.
Their first meeting.
The time he had carried Shen Yi through the street on their way home.
The girl had clung to the back of his neck and softly called him “Daddy.”
The instant that image surfaced, all the resentment and hatred were gently soothed away.
Like wind passing over water, leaving the ripples to fade.
At last, he had gotten his child back.
Suddenly, Shen Sixing felt something digging into his hand.
He lowered his head.
That familiar black box had somehow appeared in his hand.
He reached out and touched its surface. His fingertips met the cold metal, and the sensation was exactly the same as he remembered.
Shen Sixing smiled faintly.
Now that he thought about it…
In his previous life, he had clearly won the gamble.
At that moment, the door was suddenly shoved open, slamming into the wall with a dull thud.
Wen Ya stood in the doorway, her hair still loose. She stared at him, her lips moving soundlessly for a long while before she finally managed to speak.
“Shen Sixing.”
“I had a dream.”
Shen Sixing looked up at her. After a moment of silence, he picked up the black box and held it out to her.
Her fingers trembled when Wen Ya took it. She had obviously remembered where the box had originally come from.
“You gave this to Xiao Yi.”
Her voice was hoarse.
“Mm.”
Wen Ya said, “Does it contain a record of a lot of things?”
She remembered the videos they had filmed in the dream, recording the life of their family of three.
“A lot.” Shen Sixing’s gaze fell on the box. “Our past.”
The corner of his mouth pulled into a faint, strained curve that hardly resembled a smile.
“In my previous life, after watching what was inside, I made a lot of mistakes too. I indirectly destroyed the entire world.”
“So,” Wen Ya said softly, “you never told me what happened in your previous life.”
The days of her previous life had been ordinary and filled with trivial details, yet together they had formed her entire definition of happiness.
Until Shen Sixing suddenly left her and returned to the Shen family.
From that day onward, he became increasingly strange.
She had asked him what had happened, but he always said that everything was fine.
Yet she had clearly seen the bloodshot veins in his eyes. She had watched him grow thinner by the day, becoming steadily more taciturn.
Then the world was destroyed. Everything began again, and the Möbius loop completed the circle of their story.
She had dreamed a dream.
The memories within it had allowed her to vaguely understand that all of this might have something to do with the Shen Sixing standing before her.
The reason he had become so strange in his previous life was that he had hidden everything from her and staked his life on a gamble of which Wen Ya knew nothing.
“Shen Sixing, Shen Sixing…” Wen Ya tightened her grip on the box and called his name twice in succession. Only afterward did disbelief dawn on her.
“Someone as timid as a mouse as you are actually managed to hide all this from me and do it alone?”
“After all, I’m just a mouse. Unlike you, who are a cat with unmatched martial prowess.” Shen Sixing looked at her, a faint smile appearing on his pale face as he tried to make light of things. “Isn’t it perfectly normal for a mouse to act alone?”
Wen Ya nearly broke at his usual flippant way of speaking.
“That’s your reason for keeping it from me?” She took a step forward, her knee touching the edge of the bed. Bending down, she looked at him. “I don’t actually care what you did. Even if the world had been destroyed, it wouldn’t have mattered. But you should have told me—”
Her voice caught in her throat for an instant before she continued, driving the words firmly into his ears.
“I could have helped you.”
Shen Sixing remembered the final period of his previous life. Wen Ya had looked at him in exactly the same way then, her eyes filled with confusion and hurt. She had wanted to question him, but in the end, she had said nothing.
His face instantly went pale, like a child caught red-handed after doing something wrong. He smoothly slid off the edge of the bed, crouched down, lowered his head, and carefully leaned into her arms.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“I was wrong.”
Shen Sixing had always possessed a strange kind of machismo.
He stubbornly told her, his voice growing softer and gentler, “I just thought… it was my problem. A man ought to shoulder something. I couldn’t drag you into it. I—I couldn’t…”
He couldn’t do that.
There was once a saying on the internet:
I can take a bullet for you, but I won’t buy you breakfast.
It sounded unreasonable and absurd.
After all, in real life, no one would actually need someone else to take a bullet for them, but people really did need breakfast.
Shen Sixing, however, was one of the rare men who could genuinely live by those words.
He could give everything for his wife and child.
Himself, even the survival of the entire world—
Yet most of the time, he was so stingy with the word love that he could hardly bring himself to say it aloud.
As though revealing his feelings and expressing his love would be more difficult than killing him.
Wen Ya understood his awkward nature better than anyone. She bent down slightly as well and cupped his face in both hands.
Her palms were warm against his icy cheeks. Her thumbs gently brushed the dark circles beneath his eyes as she rested her forehead against his.
“Shen Sixing.”
“Mm…?” he answered obediently.
Looking at him like this, Wen Ya suddenly smiled.
“You really are,” she said softly, “just as foolish as ever.”
