“Bored.”
As the word left Ye Weibai’s mouth, the first syllable sounded like any high school girl. The next rang clear, like ice cubes knocking in glass.
Because he—Ye Weibai, or rather she—Suzhiaoyao—is being molded.
Molded into what?
Molded into one of the so‑called heroines.
Molded by what?
By—
Ye Weibai’s gaze slid past the window. He caught the boy outside, feigning casual, yet stealing glances this way.
If this World really was a romcom written by some nameless novelist, then that boy right now was without doubt its protagonist—Yexiaobai.
Ye Weibai remembered this scene.
It was Suzhiaoyao’s first appearance in the plot.
“So—Suzhiaoyao is shaped by the protagonist?”
That invisible force in Yexiaobai’s eyes still pressed on her, slimming her figure, making it luminous, while the rest of the class stayed unmoved.
Ye Weibai tried to splice his identity into Suzhiaoyao.
“This explains why only ‘my’ entrances feel so stiff in every scene. Like a harem piece—love without cause, plots flipping on suddenly. But if it’s a novel, who’s holding the pen?” She flicked open the compact on her desk. The mirror showed a clear, pretty face: straight bridge of nose, wet‑glossed lips, and eyes with a faint edge.
The face in the glass kept shifting, minutely. For a heartbeat, parts went blurry. It felt like a 3D character creator; Ye Weibai was the avatar on a virtual platform, features tugged by an unseen mouse.
It wasn’t a pleasant process.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with being molded.
It happened in the last Hero King World. In his duel with Aerin, people thrust hope onto him. In a blink, he flipped from Demon King to Hero King. The force that shaped him then was the World’s atmosphere.
He looked stronger then, but he was only a puppet of mood, filled through with powerlessness.
The deja vu made him uneasy now.
—What’s molding him this time?
Yexiaobai? Or something higher?
He lifted his eyes. A ceiling fan spun endlessly overhead.
Its blades blurred into a circle with speed, flashing in and out as she blinked. An endless Cycle.
Suddenly, a crucial question split his mind like lightning—
“Who was I, originally?”
It hit like winter water from a bucket, drenching him. He went cold all over.
He thought a moment and reached a not‑answer—no idea.
Besides knowing that “he” isn’t Suzhiaoyao, the girl’s original imprint had been completely covered in everyone’s mind by Suzhiaoyao’s polished surface. Even real‑world traces were being altered by an unseen hand.
The handwriting on the notebook before him was changing, soundless as dust.
A person’s imprint was disappearing.
In this World, that person no longer existed.
This girl had “died” in everyone else’s mind.
In the White World, Ye Weibai could still feel detached, outside the page. Now that he had stepped into the World—heat, taste, sound, and the living thrum of a heartbeat—he couldn’t treat it like a game.
His soul clung to a girl already “dead,” so he felt it more plainly—
This sense of being swallowed whole by the World made Ye Weibai feel—
“—nauseous.”
He shot to his feet. He chose the blade‑straight path, to face his other “self”—Yexiaobai. He wanted to see what warped thing hid in that body to wield such sickening force.
Erasing someone’s existence, slotting another in their place—how cruel is that.
The next instant, his body froze.
Crack—
Glass went to shards. Black fissures veined his vision, spidering fast. In a breath they flooded the classroom and raced outward.
He recognized them at once: the cracks on the World Fragments he and Lina had seen in the White World. But now, inside the World, he saw deeper. In the black seams lay a vivid slash of crimson.
Only a starpoint, yet dangerously lush.
Memory leapt; his pupils cinched.
That red blazed too bright to forget. The force it stood for was so vast, one glimpse branded you for life.
It was the War Deity’s crimson.
Ye Weibai held his breath and shut his eyes on instinct.
He remembered Little Ash covering his eyes when that crimson unfurled, and saying—
“Don’t look. You’ll go blind.”
Now, with the Demon King’s power in his veins, he felt the truth behind Little Ash’s breezy tone—backed by a force none could resist.
Because the next heartbeat, the World collapsed.
And because Ye Weibai’s eyes were closed, he didn’t see it when blue threads flashed as the black‑red cracks neared him. The azure lines unspooled, dissolved every fracture, and wrapped him softly. Before the World shattered to dust, they carried Ye Weibai away.
...
...
Eyes shut, he felt himself fall again, into a Void woven of blue light.
Shards of Worlds slipped past his sides.
“Back again,” Ye Weibai thought. “So, what’s the next scene?”
A flicker, a crackle, sounded in his ear—
“Here’s a short bulletin: Recently, a series of malicious assaults occurred in Qinghai City’s Puya District. The assailant remains at large... Police say they have solid evidence and will soon... Citizens are advised not to go out at night... Travel in groups... Lock your doors and windows...”
Ye Weibai remembered that news.
Yexiaobai watched it at home after a fight with Mu Xiaowei. Because Mu didn’t return his calls, he linked the two and feared for her.
“So that’s it. These nodes are the plot’s turning points,” Ye realized. “Which means next, I’ll become—”
...
...
“—that... criminal?”
He opened his eyes and stared flatly at the mirror.
Tall frame, crisp suit, slicked‑back hair. If not for the plastic‑gloved right hand clenched around a hammerhead, he’d think he’d landed in an ordinary office drone.
The gloves keep fingerprints off.
The hammer kills.
Night ran deep; clouds veiled the moon.
An abandoned factory, barren and alone. Someone had left a massive mirror here; it lay smashed across the floor.
Ye Weibai remembered this scene.
Soon, a high school girl would pass by.
After clashing with Yexiaobai, Mu Xiaowei tried to take a shortcut home alone.
In the White World, he had watched the later scenes. He knew Yexiaobai’s fear was a false alarm; Mu Xiaowei got home safe.
But right now, Ye Weibai couldn’t predict how she would dodge this blade.
Because in Yexiaobai’s imagination, “I” am a vicious serial offender, already guilty of multiple major assaults. Cruel and meticulous, hitting random passersby. Even with heavy police patrols, they still can’t catch “me.”
How could a lone, unguarded schoolgirl escape in pitch‑black, derelict buildings?
Unless—
“Unless the criminal doesn’t move.”
He weighed the hammer. The iron stank faintly of old blood—trace from prior cases. Washed many times, the stain clung; dark red had seeped in. It spoke of the offender’s mania: suited up, the same hammer, pedestrians as prey. A mind looped into its rut.
“Someone like that doesn’t stop. Unless—‘I’ stop.” He whispered. “I stop.”
“Right. The only answer. My arrival cut the massacre short. Does that mean even my crossing is molded by Yexiaobai?”
“Then—” light flowed in his eyes—“what if I don’t stop?”
If I keep the bloodshed going, how will the plot bend?
Will it snap the protagonist’s molding force?
...
...
