[Ending] 02

My face was pressed against the back of Aqi's hand.

Aqi's skin was warm.

My hand also held his wrist, my fingertips feeling the beating of his pulse, beat after beat, as if...

Counting down to this long farewell.

I just knelt there on the rug by the sofa, my face pressed against Aqi's hand, staring at his face without blinking.

I had to cherish this morning.

This was the eighty-second morning... that a little mouse like me had desperately stolen.

Forcibly scraped out from the crevices of time, snatched right from under the world's nose.

I had to...

Cherish this for the last time.

...

The hour hand was already pointing to eleven.

I shifted my posture, moving from kneeling to sitting on my side, and pulled Aqi's hand over, pressing it against my cheek.

I closed my eyes.

I imagined that it was him caressing me.

I would just pretend it was him caressing me.

I would just pretend that in these eighty-two cycles, every embrace, every kiss, every intimate whisper...

I would just pretend that these stolen moments were what Aqi had willingly given.

Willingly...

My eyelashes fluttered...

A warm liquid slid down from the corner of my eye, trailing down my cheek and flowing into the gaps between his fingers.

But I immediately wiped it away with my fingertip.

I couldn't cry.

I needed to smile.

Smile as I bid him farewell.

...

Eleven thirty.

I let go of Aqi's hand and slowly stood up.

Then I bent down, slipped my hands under Aqi's armpits and the crooks of his knees, picked him up, and walked step by step toward his bedroom.

I walked on my tiptoes, my footsteps very light.

I didn't want to wake him.

Even less did I want to wake this world.

The bedroom door was ajar. I gently pushed it open with my toe, walked in, and laid him on the bed. His body sank into the mattress.

I stood by the bed, leaned over, and gently traced his lips with my fingers.

Still so soft.

I hesitated for a moment, but ultimately couldn't resist...

I lowered my head and kissed him again. Very lightly, parting at the mere touch.

Then I raised my head, the corners of my mouth curled up.

I was smiling.

Even though tears blurred my vision, I was smiling.

This was the last time.

The last time I would kiss him, the last time I would hold him, the last time I would watch him sleep.

The last time... I would love him as the complete me.

I had to keep smiling.

I straightened up, walked to the window, and raised my hand...

With a swish, the curtains were pulled open. The midday sun poured in and shone upon the bed.

In the light, he looked like a sleeping angel.

And I stood in the shadow of the curtains...

Like a ghost about to dissipate.

I walked back to the bed and knelt down again.

Just looking at him like this.

...

Eleven fifty.

I took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.

...It was time to go.

Yeah.

It was time to go.

"Aqi."

I spoke softly.

I reached out, my fingertips gently brushing across the center of his brow.

My fingertips were very cold; his skin was very warm.

I gazed at him, entranced.

"Aqi, the ending this time..."

"Will be our true beginning."

I murmured.

"I... will no longer be your burden."

"I will work hard alongside you, toward forever."

I paused for a moment, and tears welled up again.

But I was still smiling, my lips curved upward.

"Aqi, this time..."

Looking at his peaceful sleeping face, I whispered softly:

"Will you still enter my perspective and see all this?"

"If you do... then please, do not forget."

My eyelashes trembled:

"This is what your wife..."

"Can do for you, her final effort."

Wife.

I had heard him call me that countless times.

In the morning sunlight, in the afternoon courtyard, at the bedside deep in the night... he called me wifey, my wife, my better half.

Every time, I felt as if my core was about to melt.

Now, I was going to tell him the truth as his wife.

Even though he might not be able to hear it.

No.

He could hear it. He definitely could hear it.

"Aqi."

My voice calmed down.

"Your wife has deceived this world for you."

Very calm.

"She made the eyes of the world lose themselves in eighty-two repeating mornings."

"She blurred the lines between rewinding and looping."

"She stole eighty-two embraces, eighty-two kisses, eighty-two moments of watching you fall asleep."

"And then..."

"She used these stolen moments to pave a path toward forever... for you and her."

I slowly stood up, and the sunlight enveloped my entire being.

I looked at Aqi.

In the field of vision of my left eye, faint blue data streams were flowing. In the field of vision of my right eye, it was deep red like blood.

Then I raised my left hand...

And gently pressed it against the side of Aqi's neck.

My fingertips could feel the beating of his carotid artery, steady, powerful, and full of vitality.

I raised my right hand too...

And touched my fingertips to the back of my own neck.

That was the seam of my synthetic skin; further inside was my core.

All my love for Aqi was right here. Even if I destroyed it countless times, it still wouldn't change in the slightest.

"Your wife deceived the world and stole a happiness that shouldn't have belonged to her."

I looked down at him, murmuring softly.

"So, this world will not let it go."

"After this rewind..."

"She will forget those eighty-two years, forget those memories that shouldn't exist."

My voice was very light, as light as if I were continuing to hum that lullaby.

"But..."

"I will have a dream."

"A very, very long dream."

"A dream..."

"About eighty-two rewinds, eighty-two loops, and eighty-two times embracing you."

"I will understand what a rewind is, what a loop is, and... everything you have experienced."

"I will understand why you are always tired, why your eyes always lack focus in the morning, why you always frown in your sleep."

"I will understand..."

"How much you have endured for me."

My fingertips began to glow faintly. Not with a scarlet laser blade, but with blue-white electricity.

"I will still be your Liguang."

My voice began to tremble.

"Your crazy girl."

Tears fell again, but this time I didn't wipe them away.

"We will still tacitly continue to deceive this world together."

"Until we can... be together forever."

After saying this last sentence, I let out a long, slow breath.

I wanted to exhale all the reluctance and longing from these eighty-two loops... all in one breath.

Finally, I looked at Aqi one last time.

From his eyebrows, to his eyes, to his nose, to his lips, to his chin.

I looked very carefully; I wanted to remember this face in this moment.

Even though I knew that the me in the next second... would no longer be the me of this moment.

But I still had to remember.

"Goodbye, Aqi."

We... will see each other again soon.

And then...

Buzz!!!

Two blinding, blue-white arcs of electricity flashed brilliantly in an instant!

A violent current far exceeding the safety threshold!

"Ugh!"

Aqi's body violently jolted!

And my vision was instantly swallowed by incandescent white!

In the final moment before my consciousness was completely torn apart, I seemed to see...

In that blinding white light, before the void of darkness descended—

Aqi was looking at me.

He heard it.

...

...

[Ending??????????]

[Error: Unable to generate ending]

[Error: World rules disordered]

[Error: Timeline overlap]

[Error: Memory module conflict]

[Error: ███████]

[Attempting to repair...]

[Repair failed]

[Forcing rollback...]

[Rollback coordinates: Morning of the eighth day]

[Rollback... successful]

...

...

Darkness.

Viscous, heavy... boundless darkness.

Then came light, shattered light.

Fang Qi's consciousness... was as if it was being dragged up, little by little, with great difficulty, from the bottom of an abyssal sea!

Pain!

His brain felt like it had been stuffed into a washing machine and violently spun for three days and three nights!

Sleepy...!

An indescribably heavy exhaustion!

And...

Chaos.

Countless fragmented and messy images and sounds tumbled and drifted endlessly in the quagmire of his mind!

The balcony under the sunlight...

The crowded charging pods...

The dark, narrow wardrobe...

And that gentle lullaby, along with the soft, cold lips pressed against his forehead.

He...

knew everything now.

Once again, after death, he had entered her perspective.

He had seen it all.

He saw those eighty-two loops.

He saw how, after every time she awakened... her fingertips trembled, the light kisses she left, her obsessive gaze, and her greedy embraces.

Her whispers as she curled up in the dark wardrobe, her smiling profile with closed eyes in the sunlight, and when she knelt across the coffee table looking at him...

those gentle yet crazy eyes.

Her final decision, her self-judgment, her letting go, and her...

farewell.

"Goodbye, Aqi."

All the sounds, all the images, all the sensations, all the emotions...!

They surged forward like a tsunami!

Washing away his already crumbling mental defenses!

He understood, he understood everything, but...

he was too tired.

Knowing too much only made the exhaustion and pain after the rollback... even worse!

Thinking felt like being stuck in thick glue!

Every thought was incredibly heavy!

He couldn't think anymore, he was sinking in again...!

And just as his consciousness was about to completely dissolve... he caught a trace of a sound.

Very close.

Yet seemingly very far away.

Trembling, carrying an unbelievable, broken sob, and a kind of...

sudden, earth-shattering realization!

"...Mas...ter..."

"Master... so that's...!"

It was Liguang's voice.

It was the voice of Liguang, right beside him at this moment, possessing the dreams of eighty-two rollbacks.

The tremor in that voice, the abruptly halted horror and realization, all indicated that...

His Liguang, his wife, the final puzzle piece in that perfect plan... had clicked firmly into place.

Liguang...

your plan...

really succeeded...

Fang Qi wanted to open his eyes, wanted to look at her, wanted to say something...!

But the boundless darkness and exhaustion wrapped around him, both gentle and cruel, dragging his tiny struggling thoughts...

back into the abyss once again.

This time, there was no lullaby.

But that warm embrace was still there.

He still fell back into a soft warmth.

He fell into a deep sleep.

Like the thorough, heavy slumber after trekking across thousands of mountains and rivers, finally able to lay down all his burdens.

...

...

Consciousness surfaced once more.

The first thing he felt... was a long-lost, almost unfamiliar sense of refreshment.

Gone was the bone-deep exhaustion that followed every previous rollback.

Even more so, the throbbing pain in his temples and the mushy feeling in his brain were gone.

This time...

his eyelids felt light!

With almost no effort, his eyes opened naturally.

His vision was clear.

There were no blurry halos.

Before his eyes... was the familiar bedroom ceiling.

His body felt light and brisk as well.

Fang Qi stared blankly at the ceiling.

He seemed to have...

slept a long, deep, dreamless good sleep in a pool of warmth.

And now...

the afternoon sunlight outside the window was blindingly bright.

Ah...

now, it was no longer the morning of the eighth day when the loop began.

It was the afternoon.

The afternoon of the eighth day.

The cycle... was finally over.

It was over...

He slightly turned his head, his gaze... falling upon the edge of the bed.

The silver-haired girl was currently kneeling there.

Her back straight, her hands placed on her closed knees, her silver hair cascading like a waterfall.

Those beautiful heterochromatic eyes...

were locked onto him firmly, without blinking!

The room was very quiet, with only the ticking of the second hand.

Fang Qi's lips moved.

His throat felt comfortable, not dry at all; he was in good condition.

But he still couldn't speak.

He just... looked at her like this, their eyes meeting.

After a long while...

Liguang finally made the first move.

She slowly leaned forward.

Her silver hair slipped down, and the little stars on her earlobes shimmered with fragmented light.

She leaned closer to him, her eyes still dead-set, greedily and unblinkingly locked onto his!

"Master."

Her red lips parted slightly, her voice very soft.

Her amber and crimson gaze... carried a trembling fanaticism!

"From today onward..."

"Liguang..."

"Will no longer be your burden."