The charm of reverse chronological storytelling is that, as memories are traced backward, many earlier questions are answered one after another.
Zhong Yi had just been wondering why Lin Xi and Gu Yun were riding horses on the grassland.
Then, in the very next memory, the question was resolved.
This memory was located at the Spirit Medicine Sect.
It was in this memory that Gu Yun learned Lin Xi bore the Ice Heart Bloodline.
Riding horses was one of the ways to alleviate Lin Xi’s heart-devouring symptoms.
That explained why the previous memory had them galloping across the prairie.
“So it seems Old Master Gu really does cherish Lin Xi… If riding helps, he just takes her straight to the grasslands,” Zhong Yi remarked with emotion.
The visit to the Spirit Medicine Sect also answered another question that had puzzled Zhong Yi for a long time.
Lin Xi’s reticence and unusual behavior all stemmed from her Ice Heart Bloodline.
In the ancient era, when spiritual energy was abundant, the Ice Heart Bloodline was a top-tier cultivation physique, characterized by emotional detachment and single-minded pursuit of the Dao.
But now, with spiritual energy so scarce, not only had the bloodline's cultivation advantages vanished, but the lack of any compatible inherited techniques had caused all sorts of problems.
The biggest problem was this:
Lin Xi could not express her inner thoughts.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to—it was that she couldn’t.
Even attempting to express herself would cause her to suffer excruciating heart-devouring pain.
…
…
The memory moved further back.
This time, the memory was set in a dim, shadowy theater.
On a huge white screen, a shadow play of Havoc in Heaven was being performed.
The theater seats were scattered, not fully occupied.
Zhong Yi immediately spotted a young Gu Yun, still just a boy.
The boy sat alone in the back row on the right side, looking around as if expecting someone.
After a long wait, he walked out of the theater dejectedly, slumping to the ground in disappointment.
What Zhong Yi didn't expect was that, shortly after Gu Yun rushed out, a long-haired girl slipped out from another back door of the theater.
Her slightly melancholy aura was distinctive—it was clearly a young Lin Xi.
Before the young Gu Yun could speak, Lin Xi beat him to it and demanded to know why, since they had agreed to watch the play together, he had left early.
This left Zhong Yi stunned.
At that moment, the saying "the guilty party files the lawsuit first" became all too real.
"We weren’t watching it together at all… I never even saw you! If you knew I was here, why didn’t you come find me?"
"What difference does it make? We were in the same theater, watching the same play… Isn’t that just like watching a movie together?"
Hearing this answer, Zhong Yi was momentarily taken aback.
But then, thinking of Lin Xi’s constitution, he understood.
It seemed she was destined to be such a strange girl.
"Hahaha…"
Instead of getting angry, Gu Yun burst into laughter.
"What are you laughing at?" the girl asked, confused.
"You’re so strange… You really are, very special!"
Gu Yun laughed until tears welled up in his eyes.
Perplexed, she pressed a hand to her chest: "Then… would you still be willing to watch it with me?"
Gu Yun nodded eagerly: "Yes!"
…
…
The memory skipped forward again.
Still in their youth.
On the campus full of youthful energy.
A shy Gu Yun, spurred on by his good friend Zhang Peng, mustered the courage to invite Lin Xi out.
Lin Xi sat by the stairs, quietly reading a book about lighthouses, with a neatly washed platypus plushie beside her.
"This plushie must mean a lot to her? It’s been with her for so long…" Zhong Yi mused.
Throughout the memory river spanning seventy years, the platypus plushie had appeared as a memory fragment more than once, showing how important it was to the two of them.
"Shhh—"
Qin Li'en shot Zhong Yi a glare and made a hushing gesture.
The youthful romance, tender and innocent, was the most endearing to witness.
Even Qin Li'en took pleasure in seeing these scenes.
"May I… ask you to watch a shadow play with me?"
The boy’s blush spoke louder than words.
Lin Xi put down her book, glanced at him, then quickly covered her face with the book again.
"I don’t know."
"Don’t worry, I can wait for you to think it over."
"I can’t go."
"Why?"
The boy’s face was full of disappointment.
"Because you didn’t say the time, nor the place."
The girl kept her head down, reading, and stated it as if it were the most natural thing.
This meant she agreed.
"Huh??"
Gu Yun was stunned for a moment, then quickly realized and said:
"Three days from now, at ten in the morning, at Wanfeng Theater—does that work?"
Gu Yun looked at her with hopeful anticipation.
She looked back at him with equal depth.
They gazed at each other in silence, as if time itself had frozen.
"Senior Sister, did you secretly freeze the memory space…"
Just as Zhong Yi was about to ask, the girl’s answer came:
"Okay."
One word, but it was enough to make the boy overjoyed.
The entire campus echoed with Gu Yun’s ecstatic shouts.
…
Elsewhere.
In the cafeteria.
Zhang Peng and Gu Yun were talking about Lin Xi.
Zhang Peng couldn't understand why Gu Yun would like a girl who was so reclusive, peculiar, and completely outside the social circle.
Gu Yun said he thought she was special.
"Special? Special in being boring?"
Zhang Peng laughed in exasperation.
"Look, I think you just want to use her to show you’re different, that you’re the only sober one while everyone else is drunk—right?"
"I don’t know."
Gu Yun shook his head.
He wasn’t even sure himself what exactly he liked about Lin Xi.
"Maybe you’re right, but she…"
Gu Yun gazed tenderly at the solitary girl sitting a few tables away, having lunch with her platypus plushie.
"…she’s just special."
The memory stopped abruptly.
The space froze.
"So that’s it! So that’s what ‘that thing’ they mentioned is all about!"
Zhong Yi suddenly understood.
Having gone through so many memories, many of the earlier puzzles were finally unraveling one by one.
Lin Xi’s drastic change in temperament occurred after Gu Yun confessed his reason for approaching her at the lighthouse.
In the beginning, Gu Yun got close to Lin Xi because being with her made him feel different from others.
Clearly, this shallow and naive reason had hurt Lin Xi.
So she increasingly closed herself off, growing more reclusive day by day, and her relationship with Gu Yun was no longer as close.
After listening to Zhong Yi’s explanation, the barrage comments immediately erupted into debate.
[So that’s the reason… No wonder things got so weird afterwards]
[Looking at it this way, Lin Xi finally let someone in, and his original intention hurt her?]
[But what about the paper rabbits, the sandbag, and the platypus plushie? How do you explain those?]
[And the lighthouse! Why is the lighthouse so important? I don’t see anything special about it]
…
Seeing the conflicting comments, Zhong Yi frowned.
Indeed.
Even though the reasoning seemed so logical, there were still too many doubts that couldn’t be explained.
For example…
Why did Lin Xi cut off her own hair?
Why did she keep folding paper rabbits?
Why was that platypus plushie always with her?
Why was the lighthouse so important?
…
"What a mess—is this a love illusion or a mystery illusion…"
Zhong Yi shook his head with a wry smile.
Full of anticipation, he entered the next memory.
I couldn't wait to unravel all the mysteries.
...
...
Time flew backward rapidly.
Zhong Yi and Qin Li'en appeared in front of a house they had never seen before.
"Where is this?"
Zhong Yi was curious, but an answer came quickly.
A young-faced Gu Yun was cheerfully pushing open the door and walking inside.
This time, he looked only about seven or eight years old.
Obviously, this was his childhood home.
"It seems we're close to completing the mission,"
Qin Li'en murmured.
"But we're also getting further from the truth..."
Zhong Yi shook his head regretfully.
He had hoped to see more clues about Lin Xi.
"Let's go,"
Qin Li'en said, following little Gu Yun inside.
Just as Zhong Yi was about to enter, he suddenly noticed an item emitting a faint glow.
It was a massive animal skull placed in the courtyard of Gu's home, with a giant horn on top.
Beneath the horn's base, there were three inconspicuous holes.
"What is this?"
Zhong Yi approached curiously and received a piece of information.
[Earth Dragon Skull: The remains of a dead earth dragon.]
It had no dream power generated, nor was it a memory fragment—just an object with a descriptive note.
"Well, just a decoration..."
Zhong Yi shrugged dismissively and followed Qin Li'en into the house.
This memory was nothing special.
Little Gu Yun came home, greeted his mother, and she cooked him dinner.
That was all.
Before long, Zhong Yi and Qin Li'en gathered enough dream power.
This time, the memory fragment was a cuju ball.
"It looks like our mission is finally complete,"
Zhong Yi muttered to himself.
With the injection of dream power, the two traveled through time and space again.
This time, what appeared before them was a pitch-black, fragmented memory space that couldn't be entered.
Qin Li'en gave Zhong Yi a sidelong glare:
"Junior Brother Zhong, care to tell me which one of us is really the jinx?"
[Three consecutive days of bonus chapters, language has been streamlined as much as possible; only content with key information remains.]
[The flashback section is finally finished; tomorrow begins the twist. After the original plot concludes, a new major twist will be added!]
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ng to die together with you." Lin Xuan is dead, his body thrown into the river by his scumbag lover and her accomplice. She, the president of the Su Group, is decisive, ruthless, and ice-cold. For three days and three nights, she had his body fished out of the river, and without hesitation, she kissed the bloated corpse of Lin Xuan. She laid down beside him in a cold coffin, their fingers intertwined, a smile lingering on her lips as she closed her eyes. The noble and cold-hearted woman, only bending for one man—Lin Xuan. Lin Xuan, with his golden finger, is reborn and returns to the day of his wedding to the treacherous woman. Su Qiang comes to steal the bride. Lin Xuan's eyes light up, eager to pledge his loyalty on the spot, but instead, her kiss transfers a glass of drugged wine into his mouth, causing him to pass out... 【Male Protagonist with Single Female Lead】【Yandere Tycoon】【Action-Packed】【True vs. Fake Heir】
