2333 suddenly popped up and spoke: “You saw it too. It’s all because you’re too smart and guessed too much that I had to delete your memories.”
Wen Qianshu wasn’t the least bit startled; she didn’t even bat an eyelid. She drew out her words, saying slowly, “So I should thank you for that?”
2333: “…”
2333 immediately backed down: “No, no need, no need.”
It couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. The teenage Wen Qianshu was much cuter, so soft and easily coaxed with a few pieces of candy. But the teenage Wen Qianshu was nowhere near as capable as the current one and probably couldn’t have repaired the world line.
Truly, you can’t have the best of both worlds.
They stood together, watching the next ten-plus years unfold.
Jiang Mingyue continued to be a doctor. She would just frequently ask Doctor Wu about Wen Qianshu’s whereabouts and occasionally borrow Doctor Wu’s identity to send letters to Wen Qianshu—nothing more than some chicken soup for the soul, who knows where she copied it from.
“Study, go to school, leave your home. Don’t be trapped in a small space. Go meet more people, see a bigger world…”
Outside the memory, Wen Qianshu watched her write without a word. She thought to herself how strange fate was. The words Jiang Mingyue had used to persuade her back then, she later returned to Jiang Mingyue, word for word.
Inside the memory, Wen Qianshu was completely unaware, becoming more and more carefree. Later, when she could make friends, she chose not to. When teachers and elders appreciated her, she didn’t want to pursue further studies—
This person had forgotten everything except how to have fun. Her mother bought medicine and prayed to Buddha, and later believed in health supplements, accumulating a lot of debt. Wen Qianshu tried to limit her spending while being scolded. But perhaps from being scolded too much, she surprisingly didn’t care. She just worked part-time to pay off the debt while teaching herself languages, planning to travel.
She slowly paid off the debts and gradually traveled to many countries. It was said she was doing quite well.
The pianist married her fiancé, and her parents left a large inheritance. Her life was also quite good, yet she continued to tell everyone she met about her hand and how unhappy she was. So, Jiang Mingyue had to keep watching over her, constantly preventing any accidents.
Perhaps this is the mortal world, where everyone has their own joys and sorrows.
Wen Qianshu and Jiang Mingyue.
They were like two lines on the same plane; their one meeting had used up all the chances for this lifetime.
Sometimes, Wen Qianshu would come to see Doctor Wu for a check-up and get some medicine, chatting and laughing with her. Most of the time, Jiang Mingyue would “happen” to pass by. She often stood by the door, silently watching Wen Qianshu, watching her smile and say goodbye to Doctor Wu, a bag of medicine in her hand, as she walked out of the hospital gate and gradually disappeared into the distance.
Farther and farther away.
Outside the memory, 2333 was still chattering about something. Wen Qianshu responded intermittently, but she was actually focused on watching Jiang Mingyue, not processing a single word 2333 said. She suspected she still remembered something; otherwise, she would never have studied computer science, nor would she have become so engrossed in landscapes.
Perhaps in her subconscious, she still remembered that scene, remembered the sky full of sunset clouds, remembered the light-eyed doctor amidst those clouds, and remembered that she was an artificial intelligence.
What on earth was I thinking? Did I think that by studying computer science, I could write a Jiang Mingyue into existence?
2333: “Do you want to keep watching, or should we skip straight to the end?”
Wen Qianshu was blatantly distracted, her reply completely off-topic: “So, what exactly happened in the first world?”
2333 sighed.
It conjured a button out of thin air and said to Wen Qianshu, “Give it a tap.”
Wen Qianshu: “…”
She raised her hand and pressed it.
A powerful suction force suddenly appeared, nearly pulling Wen Qianshu out of shape. She lost her footing, like a small boat in a monstrous tsunami, feeling dizzy and disoriented.
When the dizziness finally subsided, the surrounding scene had changed.
She saw Jiang Mingyue standing in the hospital, covered in blood.
Wen Qianshu’s heart skipped a beat, only to realize it wasn’t Jiang Mingyue’s blood.
Wen Qianshu: “…”
2333 is so unreliable.
Really.
Beside Jiang Mingyue was the pianist’s husband. He was holding his head, his face streaked with tears. “I didn’t expect this. I thought she would be happy seeing our son play the piano—I didn’t expect—”
Jiang Mingyue said nothing. She sat down on a long bench, her gaze vacant, waiting for the Main God to announce the end of this world line.
But just then, she seemed to sense something. She looked up and saw Li Huai’ai running past, stumbling. The pianist’s fiancé was still crying, but Jiang Mingyue stood up and followed Li Huai’ai.
Li Huai’ai was in a complete panic and didn’t notice Jiang Mingyue at all, just kept running forward. She had aged a lot, no longer as vigorous as she once was, and was now panting heavily as she ran.
Jiang Mingyue followed Li Huai’ai through the corridor, across some unknown path, and saw her throw herself onto a bed where a person was covered with a white sheet. “Qianshu, my Qianshu!”
Jiang Mingyue froze on the spot.
For some reason, her heart suddenly clenched, followed by a dull ache.
She heard people around her discussing that this person had a sudden illness. They could have been saved, but unfortunately, they lived alone and were discovered too late.
Li Huai’ai was wailing loudly. Wen Zhengde stood to the side, his hands trembling as he tried to light a cigarette, but he couldn’t manage to.
Smoking wasn’t allowed in the hospital, and a nurse quickly came to stop him. But the man’s mouth twisted, and he just cried, biting down on the unlit cigarette. As he cried, he couldn’t help but start scolding Li Huai’ai: “It’s all your fault, you jinx! You’re the reason our daughter wouldn’t come home!”
They started arguing.
They started arguing again.
Only this time, Wen Qianshu could finally no longer hear them.
Jiang Mingyue heard the Main God’s notification: “World line repair failed. Evacuation channel opening.”
The next world line was waiting for her, and this world was about to completely collapse. The candy that little girl liked, the notebooks she liked, the landscapes and mortal world she liked—all of it would disappear.
Their fate together ended here.
No one would ever again rest obediently on her shoulder and say she was the moon in the sky.
And no one would ever again look at her with shining eyes, focused and smiling, telling her not to be sad.
All that sorrow and pain, those heavy partings of life and death.
Would continue to fill her past and future.
Without Wen Qianshu—
Why?
She thought to herself, why am I in so much pain?
Is this what sadness is? Then I’m truly so sad—
Can you comfort me just one more time—
Jiang Mingyue suddenly felt so tired.
It was a weariness that stemmed from the deepest part of her heart, from her very bones, making even breathing difficult.
So tired.
Main God’s notification: “Repairer, please begin evacuation.”
Jiang Mingyue was so tired she couldn’t even control her movements. Her limbs seemed to have a will of their own, pulling her straight forward.
She forced her way past Li Huai’ai and, under everyone’s astonished gazes, yanked off the white sheet.
Wen Qianshu was lying there, eyes closed, motionless.
Her expression was so peaceful. What was she thinking before she died?
Could she become the wind in her next life?
She couldn’t see her, couldn’t hold onto her.
Main God: “Repairer, please evacuate immediately—”
Li Huai’ai screamed and tried to push her. But Jiang Mingyue just kept her head down, looking at the person lying there.
2333 also sensed something was wrong: “Senior—”
Main God: “Warning, Repairer, please hurry—”
Jiang Mingyue: “2333, I’m sorry.”
2333: “What—”
She leaned down and, amidst Li Huai’ai’s screams, embraced Wen Qianshu, refusing to let go no matter how Li Huai’ai tore at her. Countless streams of code flew out, silvery-white characters cracking and swaying wildly in the space. The sky and earth tore apart, buildings shook, but with them at the center, line after line of code wove a silvery-white circle, rising and falling like ocean waves.
The world line was collapsing, and all things were dissolving.
Birds fell to the ground, a thousand forests withered.
High-rises collapsed, all living beings wept in sorrow.
But Jiang Mingyue just held Wen Qianshu like that, letting the code wrap them layer by layer. Li Huai’ai and Wen Zhengde tried to pull her away but were also enveloped by the code and swallowed up along with them.
Wen Qianshu: “She’s—”
“Haven’t you always found the first world strange?” said 2333. “Because the first world wasn’t a mission world for System No. 0.”
2333: “It was my novice world.”
2333: “System No. 0 can read and write to the root directory. She forcibly hacked into my code, read my next novice world, and rewrote it. She rewrote it into an environment you were familiar with, and projected you and your parents into it, arranging new identities for you all.”
That’s why Wen Qianshu didn’t go through any assessment and became a “Repairer” just by casually filling out an application form.
That’s why in that world, no one felt that Wen Qianshu had changed, and even those parents were so similar to her biological parents.
Because those were the identities arranged for them.
That was the life Wen Qianshu had wanted.
If she had never gotten sick—
If she had grown up safely—
Wen Qianshu stood frozen in place. She saw the code disperse, saw herself open her eyes, and heard a voice say, “Hello, welcome to the Main God’s space—”
Wen Qianshu: “Then, the you from that world—”
2333: “Because she wanted to avoid being discovered by the Main God, she violently destroyed the channel between me and the Main God. So, the me from that world couldn’t access the memory data stored with the Main God—”
So it wasn’t that 2333 was imitating the “2333” from the first world—they were the same system all along. But in the first world, 2333’s core code was rewritten by Lou Jiu, which is why it behaved differently from later on.
Wen Qianshu: “Then the ‘Main God System’ you were accessing at that time—”
2333 got a headache just thinking about it, and said in a complicated tone, “It was simulated by System No. 0.”
That’s why it didn’t have the authority to look up Wen Qianshu’s private information, and why it was always worried about Wen Qianshu falling for this person or that person—it wasn’t worried at all, it was No. 0 who was worried!
Senior, you’ve made my life miserable!
2333 sighed and said faintly, “But she gave up her core system to maintain that world’s operation, and thus lost her own memories.”
Good grief. So in the first world, all three of them had amnesia.
What was this, a conference for amnesiacs?
The memory continued, the scenes moving forward. Wen Qianshu still had impressions of what happened next. She saw herself being stunned by Jiang Mingyue’s beauty, saw herself approaching Jiang Mingyue to talk, saw herself hugging Jiang Mingyue’s cloak, saw herself handing Jiang Mingyue a hair tie—
One familiar face after another, one familiar memory after another.
The language teacher who was always infuriated by her but still made her practice dictation; Teacher Gu, who was strict with everyone but indulged her climbing; the neighbor Grandma Shen, who gave her eggs and mung bean cakes and told her to study hard; Shen Ting, who spoke softly but was as stubborn as an ox, always contacting her and dragging her to look at wedding dresses; Zhang Zisheng, who grumbled about her snacks but still shared them with her…
And more, so much more—her mother, who sought talismans for her and obsessed over her grades and posture; her father, who asked if she wanted to watch soccer matches with him; her cousin, who comforted her and bickered with her…
And Jiang Mingyue, who met her in youth and stayed with her in old age, always waiting for her in the same place.
The Jiang Mingyue who prayed before the Buddha statue for her lifelong happiness.
Her lover, her moon.
In the first world, she had told 2333 that she wanted to give Shen Ting a comfort zone, one filled with a great deal of beautiful love. She wanted to forge a suit of armor for Shen Ting, inlaid with gems—friendship, family, freedom, dreams.
But she had never thought that in that world, she also had such a suit of armor.
Someone was loving her.
In places she didn’t know, someone wanted to give her everything.
If the world refuses to treat you gently, I will create a brand new world for you, a world where all your regrets are mended.
In this world, everyone, in different ways, more or less—
Loves you.
Author’s Notes:
2333—a system that is never on the same wavelength as Wen Qianshu.
