Boundless – Chapter 17

2333: “What’s going on!”

By the time Wen Qianshu got home and was ready for bed, 2333 was still pressing her: “What on earth is going on?”

Wen Qianshu snuggled into her quilt, closed her eyes, and said, “I told you, I’ve been repairing the world line all along.”

2333 suddenly understood. “You did it on purpose?”

“From the very beginning, you never wanted them to be together?” 2333 grew anxious. “Why would you do that?”

“There’s no why.” Wen Qianshu opened her eyes and said slowly, “Aren’t I supposed to repair the world line?”

The room was steeped in the night’s darkness, with only a single desk lamp lit. The light was a cold white, making the color of Wen Qianshu’s pupils seem even deeper. “Then as long as it’s repaired, that’s all that matters, right? Regardless of the means.”

2333: “You—but—”

“But for you to forcefully stop them—”

“Forcefully stop them?” Wen Qianshu laughed, tilting her head. She said, both innocently and coldly, “When did you ever see me forcefully stop them?”

2333 was speechless.

Wen Qianshu indeed hadn’t forcefully stopped them. Most of the time, she seemed to be slacking off, acting unreliably. If she hadn’t asked Shen Ting today, 2333 probably wouldn’t have even noticed.

2333: “What on earth are you thinking? A World Line Repairer’s greatest advantage is the ability to foresee the future! Now that you’ve done this, you won’t be able to control what happens next!”

The more 2333 thought about it, the more it felt like it was going crazy. “You don’t know how Shen Ting will do in her new class, you don’t know who she’ll fall for, you don’t know how to make sure she stays with the person she likes forever—everything is uncontrollable now!”

“That’s right, 2333. Everything is uncontrollable now.” Wen Qianshu smiled. “But isn’t uncontrollability the only thing in the world that can truly be controlled?”

“I could indeed get Shen Ting and Fang Wenyuan together right now, and I have ways to prevent Fang Wenyuan from breaking up with her. And then what?”

Wen Qianshu lowered her eyelids and asked calmly and coolly, “What if Shen Ting falls for someone else and wants to break up with Fang Wenyuan? Would the next person not cause Shen Ting to break down?”

“She won’t!” 2333 said decisively. “The female protagonist is so devoted. Besides, with us watching over her, she definitely won’t—won’t fall for anyone else.”

Wen Qianshu scoffed. She looked up, pillowing her head with her arms, her eyes on the ceiling above. “Then let’s take a huge step back and assume they’ll be together for a lifetime. How do you know that Fang Wenyuan’s love wouldn’t cause Shen Ting to break down?”

2333: “What are you talking about? How is that possible?”

“If they love each other, how could they possibly hurt each other?”

“Love each other?”

Wen Qianshu repeated, “You think love can’t hurt people?”

Romantic love, friendship, family affection—they are all pleasant-sounding words, but they can also become sharp knives.

Her mother and her, they loved each other for a lifetime and tormented each other for a lifetime. One tried to control everything, suffering and driven to madness; the other retreated again and again, until she fell into eternal silence. Between them stood a transparent wall named family affection, named love. Words couldn’t pass through, nor could tears.

On either side of the wall were isolated islands that even the sea could not connect.

How can love not hurt people?

Sometimes, it’s clearly love that hurts the most.

Because of love, you can’t escape, can’t fight back. It’s like layers upon layers of shackles, each one engraved with “it’s for your own good.”

“2333, have you observed Shen Ting?” Wen Qianshu smiled. “She gets shy easily, but once she promised me, she would steel herself to perform on New Year’s Day, even if she had to sing the whole song with a blushing face. She was clearly chosen by lot to run the 800-meter race, but she pushed herself to finish first even if it meant ending up in the infirmary. Ever since she started worrying about her bike being stolen, she would carry it up to the seventh floor no matter how tired she was…”

“She has a gentle temperament and likes to stay within her familiar circle, but she’s also very stubborn and hardworking. Once she starts something, she insists on seeing it through to the end.”

“So, to be honest, I don’t care if Shen Ting gets together with Fang Wenyuan or not. I don’t even care who she gets together with, or how many people she gets together with.” Wen Qianshu changed the subject, saying word by word, “I want to push her, during these three years of high school, before she enters society, to form a complete and thorough comfort zone, a comfort zone filled with a lot of beautiful love. I want her, before she falls in love with someone else, to first know what she wants, to first know what kind of love truly makes her happy.”

This way, Shen Ting won’t give up on herself just because she falls in love with someone or loses someone. She might even learn to seek what’s good for her and avoid what’s not, pursuing the love that makes her happy.

When the tide receded and her purpose was known, all her actions seemed to have an explanation again.

Looking back, 2333 suddenly realized that indeed, Wen Qianshu had always been casual and let nature take its course when it came to Fang Wenyuan. But in other aspects, she was always observing Shen Ting, pushing Shen Ting to do things she wanted to do but hesitated over. She knew what Shen Ting liked, understood her personality, and was always listening to what Shen Ting had to say. She encouraged Shen Ting to play the guitar, encouraged her to perform on stage, encouraged her to join the Reading Club, and encouraged her to communicate with and get to know people she admired.

She was forging a suit of armor for Shen Ting, quietly, even nonchalantly. The armor was inlaid with gems that the Wen Qianshu of her past life could never obtain—friendship, confidants, teachers, freedom, dreams.

2333: “Wait, Shen Ting met Wen Xue through Luo Qing’s introduction. Originally, who did you want to become her confidant—”

Looking at the book, who else had the time to always be with Shen Ting?

And who had Wen Qianshu said was very similar to Shen Ting deep down?

2333 said in disbelief, “Jiang Mingyue?”

A damn “besieging Wei to rescue Zhao” strategy.

It really was a “besieging Wei to rescue Zhao” strategy?

That day, Wen Qianshu really was deliberately approaching Jiang Mingyue, forcing herself to start a conversation to get close, and after they became familiar, she slowly introduced the two of them—

2333 wanted to curse. “Did you also pretend to be bad at Chinese on purpose? Just to create a contrast with Shen Ting?”

The more 2333 thought about it, the more it seemed to be the case. “To make Shen Ting seem exceptionally good at Chinese, so that even if she didn’t join the Reading Club, in contrast to you, the Chinese teacher of Class 7 would still treasure her?”

It knew it! How could someone possibly choose different answers from the entire class on multiple-choice questions and be the only one to get them wrong?

This was too obvious!

Hearing this, Wen Qianshu was taken aback. She withdrew her gaze and said strangely, “What are you thinking?”

2333: “What?”

Wen Qianshu: “I’m really not good at Chinese.”

She said with rare seriousness, “To be frank, why would I make things difficult for my own grades? I want to get into a good university too.”

2333: “…”

2333: “You—”

2333 was so angry it was almost speechless.

So you really are here just for a free education?

So you really can get such strange answers wrong in Chinese?

But Wen Qianshu seemed to know what it was thinking. She shrugged and said, “Aiya, don’t worry about these details.”

“Are you done asking questions?” Wen Qianshu asked 2333. “Can I go to sleep now?”

2333 wanted to cry but had no tears. It raised a white flag in surrender. “Go to sleep, go to sleep.”

Wen Qianshu burrowed into her quilt and closed her eyes.

2333 decided that while Wen Qianshu was sleeping, it would return to the main system to ask its colleagues if any of them had ever encountered a World Line Repairer like this, so they could pass on some experience.

But before it left, 2333 suddenly felt something was wrong. It muttered to itself, “But since Wen Qianshu believes everything is uncontrollable, then even if Shen Ting has all of this, isn’t it still possible for her to break down?”

Wen Qianshu: “That’s right.”

2333: “How are you not asleep yet?”

Wen Qianshu didn’t answer directly. She just closed her eyes and said, “The rest is up to her.”

No one can help another person for a lifetime.

Except for themselves.

As it turned out, Wen Qianshu was right.

The next day, when it was time to turn in the subject selection forms, Shen Ting chose history and politics, but Jiang Mingyue had changed her choice to physics and chemistry. After turning in her form, she did her homework and memorized her texts as usual, as calm as if nothing had happened.

If 2333 hadn’t heard her conversation with Wen Qianshu yesterday, it would never have guessed that she had originally planned to choose physics and biology.

2333: “Is Jiang Mingyue okay?”

Wen Qianshu didn’t answer. She just propped up her head, using a test paper to cover a folded English newspaper, and was scribbling on it, doing a cloze test.

It was early spring, but the weather was still cold. The sun was just like the light inside a refrigerator, bright but with no warmth.

The next class was P.E.

For many students, even though the time hadn’t come, their feet were already moving. Their whole bodies squirmed in their seats, making one suspect that rockets were tied to the chair legs, ready to launch them to the sports field in the next second.

The English teacher was explaining a very strange reading comprehension passage, so strange that she didn’t even know where to begin explaining. “Why is the answer to this question A? Let’s use the process of elimination. We can see that B is wrong, C is wrong, and D is also wrong.”

2333: “…”

A god-tier process of elimination.

But 2333 was quickly shocked again. Wen Qianshu was secretly doing her homework, so why had it started listening to the lecture so attentively?

2333 felt that Wen Qianshu was a bad influence.

Finally, the class ended. The English teacher dismissed them, and the “rockets” immediately took off, leaving the wreckage of their chairs to stand guard, symbolizing that these people had once been here.

Wen Qianshu finished writing the last option and put down her pen.

Behind her, Shen Ting was leaning on her desk. She leaned over to ask Wen Qianshu and Jiang Mingyue, “Want to play badminton? Our P.E. class is with Wen Xue’s class this semester.”

Wen Qianshu turned her head to the side and said with a smile, “Why don’t you go grab a few rackets first, while I put my things away?”

Shen Ting: “Okay.”

After saying that, she went to pull Zhang Zisheng, who was tearing open a chocolate wrapper. “Let’s go, let’s go. We have to run over there, or there won’t be any good rackets left.”

Zhang Zisheng, like Wen Qianshu, belonged to the junk food alliance and also believed that “the meaning of life is to laze around.” Hearing that she had to run, she was miserable. “Don’t, don’t, spare me—”

But Shen Ting was strong. Zhang Zisheng, despite her weight, couldn’t break free. She could only put her chocolate back with tears in her eyes, be pulled to her feet, and start running, wailing into the wind, “Ah, I raised all this fat for nothing! You’re useless—”

The people in the classroom gradually left, until only Jiang Mingyue and Wen Qianshu remained. Wen Qianshu pursed her lips and finally spoke. “You—”

Strangely enough, Wen Qianshu had guessed this would happen. But when it actually did, Wen Qianshu found herself at a loss for words. In the end, she gave up on any roundabout approaches and asked directly, “Are you okay?”

Jiang Mingyue: “What?”

Wen Qianshu: “Your subject selection.”

“I’m okay.”

Jiang Mingyue said, “Let’s go to P.E.”

Jiang Mingyue stood up. Her light-colored pupils shimmered in the sunlight, astonishingly beautiful. Her long hair was tied up, with a touch of blue in it—Wen Qianshu remembered that hair tie; she was the one who had given it to Jiang Mingyue.

Jiang Mingyue was too calm, so calm it was as if she didn’t care.

Just like the wish she made on the first day of the Lunar New Year. After she made it, it was as if nothing had happened, leaving Wen Qianshu suspicious for the entire winter break.

Wen Qianshu suddenly asked, “You’re sad, aren’t you?”

“I am sad.” However, this time Jiang Mingyue answered directly. She said, “But it doesn’t matter. It’s only for two years.”

“Studying physics and chemistry can still get me into the major I want.”

Wen Qianshu was startled and looked at her.

Jiang Mingyue: “It’s okay to compromise now, as long as I can get into the university and major I want in two years. That is my most important goal.”

Wen Qianshu subconsciously retorted, “What if your parents still don’t agree then?”

Jiang Mingyue: “By then, I’ll be an adult. I’ll be able to get scholarships, and I can also apply for student loans.”

“They’re my parents, and I know they love me. I can give in most of the time,” Jiang Mingyue said. “But this is also my own life, and I won’t give up on the things I must insist on.”

Jiang Mingyue’s gaze shifted, then returned, fixing on Wen Qianshu’s eyes. “I don’t mind waiting, and I don’t mind taking a detour.”

“As long as it’s something I want very much, I will definitely get it.”

That sharp edge was like an unsheathed sword, but it was quickly withdrawn and hidden back in its scabbard.

The winter sun finally revealed a bit of its original warmth, the accumulated heat showing the vibrant energy of early spring.

Wen Qianshu suddenly realized that Jiang Mingyue was similar to Shen Ting, yet different.

She was clear-headed and calm, steady and had a plan.

She didn’t need anyone’s help.

She could walk any path on her own.

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Author’s Notes:

I want to state here that the characters in the book each have their own thoughts, and their respective experiences have shaped their views on family. Everyone, please remain calm and just read.

But to insert a little of my own opinion, I feel that before loving others, you must first know what you want and never lose yourself. This is what’s most important~