The wind lifted No. 07498’s fringe like cold fingers; her pale face steadied, and eyes that had shivered from the fight finally stilled.
She looked at her hands; red marks on slender fingers, proof like wax seals of how hard she’d pinched.
A thought flashed clean and sharp—she had killed someone, had killed the her from the future.
She’d shoved her off the rooftop like dropping a watermelon, white and red and other colors bursting wide.
The [World] refreshed it away, and it vanished into thin air.
She drew back her hand and saw the scratches on her arm—No. 0844’s nails had carved long, twisted tracks.
Blood still trickled from the wrist, threading under the wide sleeve of her uniform.
No. 07498 had thought she’d be terrified; she’d pictured sobbing, or screaming.
But calm spread through her like winter water, for no reason at all.
She could even coolly judge this: No. 0844’s nails likely still held bits of her flesh.
Good that the corpse had been refreshed away.
Gone, then—?
No. 07498 Zhaomingming suddenly recalled No. 0844’s eyes before the fall.
Her own face had been reflected there, clear as a mirror on ice; the image wouldn’t leave.
“Is that so.”
She murmured, “You didn’t want to die either, did you. So I didn’t do anything wrong, did I.”
As if to convince someone, the girl gave a quiet nod.
“Yes, I’m not wrong.”
“I only want to live. To live as No. 07498. I did nothing wrong.”
“And… it wasn’t even hard, was it.”
She nodded again; daze and blur flickered across her face like mist over water.
Yet streams of information rose and collided in her mind as if by instinct.
She quickly set her next steps.
She didn’t know why, this time, the “preset” hadn’t shackled her.
She had resisted her future self and, in the end, killed her.
In every prior run, experience had taught her this: struggle never mattered.
An unseen force bound every limb, draining her strength like sand.
She would only die, again and again, by her future self’s hands.
This time, it had reversed.
No. 0844 had struggled hard, then suddenly let go.
At the instant of the final push, behind those trembling pupils, something leaked out.
What emotion was that?
That uncanny look made her skin crawl like a wind through reeds.
No. 07498 quickly shook her head, letting the past fall away like shed leaves.
More important things waited.
This counterkill was an exception; she couldn’t trust luck.
The safest path was to keep the worldline moving.
Prevent the [Update Save] event from triggering.
Then her future self wouldn’t reappear.
“Whatever it takes. I have to bring Yexiaobai and Mu Xiaowei to their final ending.”
Under the blazing sun, No. 07498 spoke to herself, fingers slowly curling into fists.
Her eyes stared past the rooftops into the pale sky like empty glass.
“Whatever blocks me, I’ll clear it. I will live, and keep living—”
“as the one and only Zhaomingming.”
She dropped her sleeve to veil the wound, smoothed the creases, tied her ponytail.
Methodically, she put herself in order, then opened the rooftop stairwell door.
The instant she stepped across, she changed from No. 07498 back into Zhaomingming, from the inside out.
...
...
This was the moment—the [World] buckled—and it happened that afternoon.
The prep bell had already rung; the corridor lay empty like a dried riverbed.
Yexiaobai followed a scent and a trace his mind had conjured.
He “saw” the girl he’d pined for three years—his imagined Yuhan.
Black hair like silk, a slender frame, and skin almost translucent.
Yexiaobai froze; the girl in his eyes seemed unreal.
She looked ready to melt into the line of light and shadow on the stairs.
The next instant, everything wrenched his focus back.
A familiar figure dropped from above like a falling star.
It slashed through his vision with a shock that rattled bone, then smashed onto the stairwell’s base.
That was—Zhaomingming!
It lasted only a frozen heartbeat.
A ponytail with a slight curl, a pale face, an oversized jacket, a petite body—no doubt, Zhaomingming.
“Wh—”
The boy nearly collapsed, then clawed himself upright like a swimmer breaking surface.
He looked down the stairwell, but saw nothing.
The gore and the body he expected weren’t there.
“Xiaobai?” A voice cut through Yexiaobai’s thoughts like a bell.
He lifted his head.
Then he turned, and there she was—pale-faced, walking down from the rooftop.
Zhaomingming.
“So—it was a hallucination.”
Relief rushed him like cool rain; a smile eased onto his face.
Thank god, he thought.
“What’s wrong?” The girl’s face was as blank as ever, like a calm mask.
“I—” Yexiaobai opened his mouth, then found no words.
At last he gave a wry shake of his head.
“It’s nothing.”
Zhaomingming tilted her head, then looked at him long.
She didn’t press; she only pointed at her watch.
“Aren’t you going to class?”
“Hoo.” The boy studied her, as if to confirm something, then let out a long breath.
“Of course.”
“Then let’s go.” With that, the girl turned first and headed upstairs.
Yexiaobai followed, his eyes tracing her back like a tether.
His gaze showed relief.
But he didn’t see the girl’s face ahead of him.
It was an expression he had never seen.
So much pain and despair, as if drowned beneath boundless [Misfortune].
“Why—”
“Why has it changed again. Why.”
She ground her teeth; a thread of hatred slipped into her look.
Her right hand tightened into a fist.
Her left pressed her abdomen.
Blood was seeping through from within, dot by dot, staining even the thick autumn‑winter uniform.
The wound must be terrifying, to break through cloth like that.
Worse, it had struck without warning.
Pain, huge and wordless, almost tore a cry from her throat.
As if a one‑inch iron nail and a hammer had opened a hole in her belly.
It was also the sign of a [Worldline] error.
As the [Save], whenever the worldline rippled beyond plan, a mark got nailed onto her “body.”
No matter how many times, the pain never eased by a hair.
Zhaomingming’s black pupils trembled; the smooth rim of the round iris began to ripple.
Without her knowing, black taint crept across the whites of her eyes, breath by breath.
“Eliminate. I have to eliminate it. Whatever it takes.”
...
...
