After making their wishes, the two of them sat by the roadside, each holding a piece of cake, and chatted idly.
From ti to ti, bursts of laughter from nearby girls drifted over. People ca and went, and their gazes varied, but the two of them paid no mind. They were lost in their own world.
The cream cake was fragrant and sweet, delicious.
The boy wasn't used to eating sweets. After just a small piece, he stopped.
Fortunately, the six-inch cake wasn't very big, and the girl easily finished the rest.
Smudges of cream dotted her fair cheeks, but she didn't notice. She shook her head slightly, a look of contentnt and joy on her face, just like a little tabby cat that had finished a can of tuna.
He took out a tissue and gently wiped her face.
The shy, flustered girl didn't dare look at him. Her ears turned red as she mumbled, "Thank you, big brother."
Suddenly rembering sothing, she lowered her voice, embarrassed.
"…I wanted to save so for my mom."
"It's okay," he replied softly.
The boy gently wiped the remaining cream off the girl's face.
"When you've earned so money, buy a big cake and share it with your mom," he said, encouraging her.
"I bet it'll be even bigger than today's."
Comforted by his words, the girl brushed away her earlier disappointnt and smiled brightly again.
"Mhm!"
She stole a glance at the handso boy with features like carved jade, then quickly lowered her eyes and began to nervously fidget with her fingers.
"Then, when that ti cos, can you co too, big brother?"
The boy paused for a mont.
"If there's a chance," he replied.
He didn't give a definitive answer, only sothing vague and noncommittal.
Sensing that the ti was right, he stood up and brushed the dust off his pants.
Looking at the girl's innocent, pure face, he paused for a mont before offering so advice.
"You silly goose. Don't eat things from strangers so easily. What if I were a bad guy?"
"Bad guy?"
But big brother isn't a bad guy.
The girl looked puzzled, only half understanding.
"It's okay if you don't get it. Just rember what I said."
The boy added one more thing patiently.
"Also, when you're out and about, try to stay in areas with security caras."
The girl didn't fully understand, but she could sense that her big brother was looking out for her.
She nodded seriously.
"Mhm, I'll rember!"
Her obedient and earnest expression showed no trace of pretense.
The boy felt reassured.
He said softly, "I'll be going now. You should head ho soon, too."
With that, he took a few steps forward.
—When a crisp voice called out from behind him.
"Big brother!"
The girl clasped her hands together. Her young face was full of reluctance, and her voice was tinged with hope.
"Will I see you again?"
The boy turned his head, the corners of his lips lifting into a smile as clear as a river.
"Grow up well, silly goose."
He waved his hand as if making a promise.
"We'll et again."
...
As he stepped out of the dim, gray alley, the golden afterglow of the setting sun suddenly spilled across his face.
The blinding light made him raise his hand to shield his eyes. In that mont, it was as if sothing pricked his mind.
A sudden, sharp pain and a wave of dizziness washed over him.
By the ti he recovered, so mories had quietly slipped away, leaving only blank spaces and confusion.
With a strange feeling in his heart, he turned back.
At the intersection, cars stread past in an endless flow. Towering office buildings stood nearby, their glass facades glinting in the twilight.
The boy stood there in a daze for a long ti, unable to co back to himself.
"Why do I rember there being a small alley here?"
A trick of the mind?
...
The world before his eyes began to lose its color, fading into sothing vague and unreal.
His thoughts pierced through layers of fog, and the fragnts of forgotten mories returned like a tide.
Bit by bit, they pieced together the full picture of the past.
Ji Mu finally understood everything.
The seed unintentionally planted at age 13 had borne fruit by age 15.
He had briefly crossed into the world of a novel and t the silly little goose from her childhood.
However, the world's corrective force erased that experience from his mory.
So unseen thread of fate had destined him to return here once more.
In the indistinct, hazy world around him, two paths stretched out at his feet, as if soone had sketched them into existence with a pen. Each path led in a different direction.
One path stretched straight ahead, bathed in golden light and leading back to reality.
The other twisted and turned, shrouded in dim shadows. Withered leaves and decaying trees lay scattered across its path.
At the fork in the road, warmth and coldness occupied their respective sides, each waiting for his choice.
Without hesitation, Ji Mu stepped forward and chose the path that led deep into the girl's inner world.
Everything was ant to end here.
Ruan Qingqing was never just "Ruan Ruan."
She deserved to walk toward a future that truly belonged to her.
At that mont, it was not only for the twenty-five million, but also to fulfill a promise made long ago!
…
A deep gray darkness descended like an invisible curtain.
There was no wind, no birdsong.
All the noise and clamor of the world had been sealed away.
Beneath his feet, he felt as though he were walking on the surface of a mirrored lake.
Each step sent ripples outward.
This was the reflection of the girl's inner world.
Loneliness and helplessness hung thick in the air.
Negative emotions drifted everywhere, nearly solidifying, a sorrow so heavy it pressed against his chest, making it hard to breathe.
In the vast, shadowy expanse, a faint glimr of light flickered not far ahead.
Ji Mu saw a girl curled up on the ground.
Her disheveled hair draped over her shoulders, and cold iron chains bound her ankles and wrists.
She was confined to this tiny space.
Or perhaps she had chosen to imprison herself here.
"Silly goose."
His voice rang out with startling clarity in the silence.
The girl, hugging her knees, slowly lifted her head. Her delicate face was already marred with countless cracks.
Still, she managed to force a weary smile.
"You ca after all, Mu Mu."
Ji Mu walked forward slowly.
But when only two ters remained between them, an invisible barrier stopped him.
He had no choice but to stop.
"Silly goose, I've co to take you ho."
Ruan Qingqing kept smiling. "Ho? But I don't want to go back."
She refused willfully.
"If I disappear from this world, I won't have to experience the pain over and over again."
Her words sounded like a joke, yet they were laced with a resolute will to die.
Ji Mu reached out and patted the invisible wall of air.
"Silly goose, pain can be avoided," he said, his voice slowing. "A person's life isn't only made up of suffering."
"And you have to understand, even when you've given up, the tens of billions of cells in your body are still fighting to keep you alive."
Hearing him respond in the sa joking tone, Ruan Qingqing fell silent for a few seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible.
"That's why... I plan to let them die with ."
She noticed the fleeting stiffness on the boy's face and paused for a mont before eting his gaze.
"Mu Mu, am I being selfish?"
This unexpected question took Ji Mu by surprise.
The girl who now showed such disregard for life and death bore no trace of her forrly shy and introverted self.
At the root of it all was the so-called predetermined ending, wreaking havoc.
Fate had never shown her rcy.
As punishnt for deviating from the plot of the original novel, she had been pushed into a state of madness, neither human nor ghost, two lifetis in a row.
Ji Mu clenched his fists tightly.
But why?
Why should she be forced to suffer just because she wanted to live her own life and refused to beco involved with those five rotten male leads?
An indescribable, suffocating emotion surged through his chest, igniting the fire in his heart uncontrollably.
He categorically refused to allow fate to take control.
"Silly goose."
Ji Mu took a deep breath.
"If you've got the guts, say those words to my face."
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