Chapter 268
Wei Wenyu's parents divorced in the year her eldest sister passed away.
Her father, Mr. Wei Xuanming, was a highly influential and powerful figure in the overseas Chinese community. However, he hadn't always been so successful.
It was incredibly challenging for Chinese people to establish themselves abroad. The struggle began with her great-grandfather's generation, and it wasn't until her father's time that they truly achieved prominence.
Being prominent came with both advantages and disadvantages.
From childhood, they had to endure countless assassination attempts, kidnappings, and deceptions...
That's how her eldest brother and sister died.
Unable to bear such a life, her mother left for Jiang City. As the youngest daughter, Wei Wenyu would take turns with Wei Wenqing visiting their mother there.
Later, when their mother's health deteriorated, Wei Wenyu visited more frequently, sometimes staying in Jiang City for extended periods.
Her mother's new husband also held a prestigious position in Jiang City.
The local youth, vaguely aware of Wei Wenyu's background, tried to curry favor with her. But having seen such pretense before, she was naturally immune to it.
After a while, she found it unbearable.
One day, wearing heavy makeup and without her bodyguards, she walked alone through the streets of Jiang City while complaining to Wei Wenqing on the phone.
Before she could finish the call, a motorcycle thief darted out from the side, snatched her phone, and even dared to touch her face.
Wei Wenyu stood frozen for a full ten seconds, not because she hadn't processed what happened, but because she was shocked. She had faced assassination attempts and kidnappings before, but this was the first time someone dared to steal her phone and touch her face!
If this had happened overseas, her father would have cut off all the thief's fingers and made him chew them.
However, someone else acted faster than her.
A young man from the nearby overpass vaulted over several flights of stairs, racing after the thief.
Just as the punk was turning back to flash them his middle finger.
The man kicked both him and his motorcycle to the ground.
Wei Wenyu rushed forward and stomped on the thief's face twice.
She cursed at him: "Idiot! How dare you touch my face! Idiot!"
The man restrained her from behind, saying calmly, "Your heel might go into his eye, and he could counter-sue you for assault."
Wei Wenyu stopped, turning to look at the man.
She wanted to say, how could this lowlife possibly sue her?
But she never spoke those words.
The man was dressed neatly, carried himself with dignity, and had handsome features. When silent, he exuded an inexplicable sense of calm reliability.
When his brows and eyes tensed, he displayed a kind of righteous aura.
He was the type of person Wei Wenyu could never encounter in her usual social circle.
The man picked up the phone from the ground and handed it to her, asking if she was alone or if she had family with her.
She said yes, she was alone.
The man checked his watch, seeming like he had somewhere to be. But in the end, he accompanied her to the police station.
Before they went, he crouched down and calmly grabbed the thief's hand, asking her, "Was it this hand?"
She said yes.
The man broke each of the thief's fingers one by one.
She asked in bewilderment, "Didn't you say he could sue for assault?"
"There are degrees of severity," he said. "I know what I'm doing."
He maintained this principle consistently.
He was a man who always minded the boundaries, even when falling in love he remained restrained.
He never made promises he couldn't keep.
The more he was like this, the more Wei Wenyu couldn't help but tease him, and the more she liked him.
She wanted to see what he would look like when he broke those boundaries.
Later, she lied to him, saying she had come to Jiang City to visit relatives but found they had moved away, leaving her with nowhere to stay, making her quite pitiful.
He calmly exposed her lie, saying, "Your clothes are not inexpensive, and you're always changing your accessories..."
She couldn't continue her lie.
So she went on the offensive, asking him, "Do you know why I always change my accessories?"
He asked, "Why?"
She said, "It's because I want to dress up carefully every time I see you. Can you guess why?"
He was speechless, his face slightly reddening.
Later, she learned that not only was his family background good, but his professional credentials were also impressive.
He was like a jewel destined to shine in the darkness.
Wei Wenyu began to worry about her family background.
She worried to the point where she thought perhaps she could only be a passing wind in the man's life.
She would stir up his life into chaos, leave a mark, and then run away, never to meet again.
She thought she should leave a deeper mark.
So she slept with him.
What she never expected was that he would propose to her the next day.
This time she had to lie again.
She said her mother was sick and her father was in prison. Well, the truth was actually more horrifying than prison.
In short, she said she didn't want to get married without their blessings.
The man saw through her panicked evasion.
But this time, he didn't expose her lie.
He said, "Then we'll wait."
His usual restraint completely broke down when it came to her.
But that "wait" never ended.
***
That year, Zhang Xinian planned to get married, though he was rejected.
That year, Zhang Xinian also met a strange person.
The person was a spotter assigned to work with snipers. When he came before Zhang Xinian, he was covered in cold sweat and excitedly said, "Great, great! Finally caught up!"
He asked Zhang Xinian, "Can we withdraw from this mission?"
Zhang Xinian found him bizarre and told him, "Of course not. If we all had thoughts of deserting, how could ordinary people feel safe?"
The man anxiously pulled at his hair, "No good, no good again. Alright, alright, listen to me..."
"Your girlfriend is pregnant, you have a daughter, she will be born, your girlfriend will name her Li Shengxi, and her nickname will be Little Duck..." The man paused before continuing, "She's very smart, very lovely, perfectly inheriting both of your excellent genes. She'll grow up to be very happy because many people love her."
He rambled on about many things.
Others thought he was crazy.
As he was being dragged away, he could see the surprise in Zhang Xinian's eyes.
Was it successful?
Did it work?
In his ears, he could still hear that young man's voice.
"What year is this now, don't you want to leave the game?"
"This game of yours isn't very humane, actually preventing pain reduction for the sake of immersion."
"Do you want to leave the game?"
"I'll give you a chance—"
"Re-enter the game, reach the right moment, let Mr. Zhang Xinian know his love continues on, he has a daughter, her mother named her Li Shengxi..."
"Are you thinking that once you leave the game, you won't care who I am, you don't have to do what I say? Then you'd better pray there isn't a second challenger."
"If that person gets caught and is tortured worse, I'll tell them when I let them go that it was all because of you."
"Don't look at me like that, will you take this deal?"
"If possible, create a perfect ending for Mr. Zhang Xinian and Ms. Wei Wenyu. You're not so useless that you can't manage that, right?"
He heard himself asking tremblingly, "Sheng Yuxiao, aren't you afraid that if the storyline changes, everything will start over?"
"It doesn't matter. Li Qingqing proved with herself that no matter how many times we start over, I'll still meet Little Duck."
"...Madman." He closed his eyes, thinking there wasn't a single normal person in this world!
There wasn't a single normal person in this world!
He thought this again as he was being dragged away.
Why didn't they believe my words, why did they still go on the mission? Why did they still rush towards death?
But this time.
Zhang Xinian did genuinely smile at that news, whether true or false.
Yes.
Little Duck is a cute name, he thought.
He thought this even as he was dying.
But he also thought: Better not, after all. If he died, raising the child would be too hard for her.
*
Edward really had no choice anymore, with Sheng Yuxiao looming over him like a shadow.
Finally, he came up with a simple solution.
He wrote down this story, which spread widely on the game forum, touching more and more people who learned about it.
"Shall we try again? Surely we can create a perfect ending at least once?"
Another player clicked "Reload." And they simply wanted to change the ending for Wei Wenyu and Zhang Xinian.