Chapter 69: It’s All Their Fault

Chapter 69: It's All Their Fault

After dying in the flames alongside Mu Ye, they were reborn once more.

Shu Hanqing was still reliving everything from the second life. Before the apocalypse, all was calm and peaceful, so beautiful it felt like a stolen dream.

Until one day, when Mu Ye was about to confess to Shu Hanqing, a "plot guide" suddenly popped up from the depths of his mind, telling him he was living inside a book, and that he wasn't allowed to love Shu Hanqing.

Mu Ye didn't bother to care—it was too absurd. He suspected he might be losing his mind. But the plot guide kept insisting, dead certain, that according to the predetermined trajectory, he was destined to get tangled up with a youth named Rong Hua, and they'd love each other for the rest of their lives.

But Mu Ye thought it was utterly ridiculous. How could he abandon Shu Hanqing for a total stranger he'd never met and shared no connection with?

The plot guide in his mind sounded furious and embarrassed, hurling warning after warning that if he continued down this path, he'd be the one to get Shu Hanqing killed. Mu Ye even went to a shrink.

Not long after, the apocalypse hit.

This time, Mu Ye and Shu Hanqing were both bitten on the way to the base. But when he left the group, the plot guide told him he'd become a natural-born Superpowered Individual.

Mu Ye was half-convinced, yet he still couldn't save the poor grandfather and grandson. This time, Shu Hanqing wasn't bitten by a zombie, and the Superpower that awakened within Mu Ye gave him the courage to take Shu Hanqing and leave.

Time reversed; the world was rewound and reshaped. And this time, a man named Sang Mai quietly appeared beside them.

He was thoughtful, dependable, and well-liked.

Mu Ye had no choice but to believe the plot guide's words, keeping things with Shu Hanqing at "more than friends, less than lovers." He was afraid of losing control one day, so he deliberately kept his distance. It was that hot-and-cold behavior that deepened the suspicion and conflict between Shu Hanqing and Mu Ye, like a chasm that couldn't be bridged.

By a twist of fate, Shu Hanqing was the one who brought back that youth named Rong Hua.

The moment Mu Ye set eyes on Rong Hua, he disliked him instantly and had no intention of keeping him around. He quickly pulled some strings, coldly planning to pack Rong Hua off to another squad at the base, cutting off all ties completely.

He thought that by doing this, he could clear away all obstacles and keep watching over Shu Hanqing forever.

Moreover, to completely avoid the plot guide's prophecy, Mu Ye even considered disbanding the squad and taking Shu Hanqing away from it all, far from everyone.

But fate had other ideas. Shu Hanqing somehow found out he was planning to disband the squad. They got into a fight, and Shu Hanqing left the Shengsu Squad, disappointed.

The apocalypse was nothing like before—finding one person was like looking for a needle in a haystack, especially since Shu Hanqing hadn't told anyone where he was going.

Mu Ye found Rong Hua and asked him where Shu Hanqing had gone.

Rong Hua: "Where did Shu Hanqing go?"

Seeing the same bewildered look on Rong Hua's face, Mu Ye cursed under his breath.

In the days that followed, Mu Ye went from base to base searching for Shu Hanqing, only to find that Shu Hanqing had gone to the Central Base and gotten mixed up with Lei Zheng, someone they had worked with before.

Mu Ye was eaten up by jealousy and rage. He wanted to take Shu Hanqing away, but the words of love stuck in his throat, refusing to come out, and Shu Hanqing no longer trusted him.

Bound by fate, Shu Hanqing ultimately met a tragic end, killed at the hands of Lei Zheng's Superpower.

The world was forced to rewind once again under Yan Shenyun's control.

After this reset, a strikingly beautiful but dangerous woman named Yin Bianyan appeared out of nowhere at Lei Zheng's side.

Everything was linked; every step went wrong.

Until they arrived at this fourth life.

The plot guide, thwarted again and again, finally gave up on controlling the others and went after Shu Hanqing instead, luring him down his own path to survival.

But in this absurd reality, some things—no matter how desperately the hidden hand behind the scenes adjusted and corrected them—kept going wrong, unstoppable.

Those people, forcibly shattered and pieced back together by fate, were locked in a frenzied entanglement across these four long cycles of reincarnation, tearing at each other without mercy.

The unseen rules thought everything could be calculated, but they forgot the most crucial point—

The human heart was never a cold, rigid string of data. It bled, it carried hatred, it held love. No force in this world could truly control a desperate, burning heart.

"From the memories flooding my mind, I slowly saw the love that had been forcibly ripped out and erased."

Mu Ye's voice was hoarse, each word trembling: "I forgot... Hanqing, I actually forgot—this life of mine was always meant for you."

Shu Hanqing looked at him quietly, slowly raising his fingertips to wipe the tears streaming down Mu Ye's cheeks.

Mu Ye's emotions broke down, his voice shattering: "I can't watch you die before me again. Even if I have to die, I'll trade my life for yours..."

Shu Hanqing said nothing. Instead, he reached out with both hands, cupping the face of the frantic man before him. His dark, sunken eyes were cold as ice, and each word carried weight: "Mu Ye, listen to me. I don't need anyone to trade their life for mine."

The usually composed man trembled and lowered his head.

Shu Hanqing said, "...I want to see Yan Shenyun."

Inside the military command room, the raging fury threatened to tear the place apart.

Lei Zheng deployed every soldier and every intelligence network at his disposal, re-examining all the clues, peeling back every thread of suspicion—all pointing directly at Yan Shenyun, the man who usually seemed so aloof from worldly affairs.

Everyone present had suffered devastating high-level psychic trauma and collapsed to the ground, unconscious. By the time Lei Zheng and the others woke up, Yan Shenyun and his crew had vanished without a trace.

Shu Hanqing had been taken away by him too.

Yan Shenyun's psychic ability had grown to such a terrifying, monstrous level.

Lei Zheng led his men to seal off the whole laboratory. No one could figure out what that madman intended to do.

Everyone scrambled frantically to verify intel, trying to find Yan Shenyun's hiding place.

The murderous glint in Lei Zheng's eyes was about to explode: "Yan Shenyun... fine. When I catch you, I'll kill you."

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Yan Shenyun agreed to see Shu Hanqing.

The psychic pressure and memory reconstruction made Shu Hanqing seem eerily calm.

Mu Ye, by contrast, was extremely careful around Shu Hanqing.

"Hanqing... will you leave me?"

Mu Ye was in an utterly terrible state now—fragile, as if he'd shatter at the slightest touch.

Shu Hanqing looked at Mu Ye with complicated feelings: "This isn't the time for that."

Shu Hanqing knew that if Yan Shenyun hadn't exposed himself, Mu Ye would have packed up all the secrets and pain and carried them silently to the grave.

Mu Ye stared intently at Shu Hanqing, murmuring, "...Don't leave me."

"Mu Ye, right now I just want this endless cycle to stop, understand? The memories forced on us weren't my choice. In this world, no one has the right to make choices for us."

Shu Hanqing asked, "It's been hard, hasn't it?"

In the long cycles of reincarnation, no one had ever truly stopped to ask Shu Hanqing and the others whether they were willing to live such a seemingly endless life, with fate's hand clamped around their throats.

In all those chaotic nightmares before, Shu Hanqing had never really understood what purpose the so-called "plot master" lurking in the depths of his mind served by forcibly marching him through the whole ordeal.

He understood even less what they meant by all that talk of doing it "for his own good."

Now he finally understood completely.

Those people had gone to all this trouble, taking such a roundabout path, simply to cut all his ties and keep him away from these men. Because in his erased and rewritten past-life memories, each of his brutal deaths and downfalls was tied, to one degree or another, to these men.

But could Shu Hanqing, adrift and alone without them, really live out a full life in the apocalypse without a hitch?

Once he'd figured out this crucial point, Shu Hanqing could only laugh at the absurdity of it. He didn't understand what he'd done to deserve someone paying such a catastrophic price, orchestrating a colossal scheme spanning lifetimes, all just to force him into what they called a "normal life"?

He thought Yan Shenyun had lost his damn mind.

Completely, hopelessly, certifiably insane.

When Shu Hanqing went to see Yan Shenyun, Yin Bianyan and the others looked at him, mouths opening and closing, as if they wanted to say something but couldn't.

Shu Hanqing looked at them: "...I remember everything now. You all... went along with all this nonsense, aren't you tired?"

Sang Mai: "...We chose to."

Shu Hanqing pushed the door open, stepped in, shut it, and locked it—making sure it was just him and Yan Shenyun.

Yan Shenyun was still sitting at the control console. He turned around, his smoke-gray coat making his face look even paler, thin lips pressed into a slight line, his gaze meeting Shu Hanqing's from across the room.

Time seemed to stand still, until Yan Shenyun broke the silence first: "Does your head still hurt now?"

Shu Hanqing didn't answer his question: "Where is this?"

Yan Shenyun thought Shu Hanqing wouldn't respond, but unexpectedly, he answered candidly: "One of my hideouts, but I can't tell you the exact location."

If Yan Shenyun didn't have the brains to back it up, that face alone could've made him a movie star before the apocalypse. The look he gave Shu Hanqing now could be called tender, or maybe just good acting.

"Sorry for using means you don't approve of, but I'm not going to hurt you."

Shu Hanqing: "That 'plot master' was your handiwork, wasn't it."

Yan Shenyun didn't explain or dodge it: "It was me. It's already been recalled."

Shu Hanqing: "Why?"

Yan Shenyun: "Because it's useless. It failed over and over, and it bled me dry of most of my mental energy."

Yan Shenyun said it in the tone of someone critiquing a failed invention—obsessive, almost unhinged.

Shu Hanqing: "...Yan Shenyun, who the hell do you think you are? What right do you have to mess with my life?"

No response.

Yan Shenyun rose and walked toward Shu Hanqing, step by step, until only a hand's breadth separated them. Yan Shenyun lowered his head, and only after more than ten seconds did he speak: "I never interfered with your life. I just wanted you to be happy, like a normal person. It's them! They're the ones who destroyed your life!"

Shu Hanqing's eyes went red, and his face twisted into a look of pure scorn: "Yan Shenyun, how did I never see what an arrogant bastard you are, acting like you're the lord of everything? Who do you think you are!"

Yan Shenyun just stared fixedly at Shu Hanqing. Suddenly, the screen behind him lit up with a photo: a young couple holding a four- or five-year-old child, all smiling at the camera. The wife had a gentle, lovely appearance—black hair, light-colored eyes, striking elegance. The husband was also refined-looking, wearing a pair of glasses, exuding the air of a scholarly family.

That was Shu Hanqing as a little kid.

A helpless smile tugged at the corner of Yan Shenyun's lips: "...The childhood I arranged for you was so happy—parents who adored you, a bright and open personality, a solid education so you'd never struggle socially. Even when the apocalypse hit, you'd have what it takes to protect yourself. This was the best apocalypse scenario I calculated from the vast models. Originally, everything could have gone smoothly for you."

Shu Hanqing's head was splitting: "That's what you think!"

Yan Shenyun stared at him from close range, an invisible bowstring in the air slowly pulling taut: "It's all their fault. I once thought that if they all died, you might end up following the path I'd laid out..."

Shu Hanqing: "Never! Never in a million years."