[Dear host, congratulations on completing this world’s conquest. You are now returning to the system space. Please wait patiently…]
[Main mission: Please reform yourself and start over as a new person. At the very least, have a job of your own. Complete the stepfather’s guardianship task. Whitewash the villain image. Completed.]
[Side mission: Gain Gu Panpan’s approval. Completed.]
[Side mission: The protagonist shou Feng Yuan’s favorability reaches 100%. Completed.]
[Side mission: The protagonist gong’s favorability reaches 80%. Completed.]
[Please change the book’s ending and achieve an HE ending. Completed.]
[…]
[…]
Gong Ze’s body sank again. His limbs sank into the pitch-black deep water. His half-closed eyes’ pupils dilated. In his vision, strings of bubbles spilled from his mouth and nose. His black hair drifted and swayed like seaweed.
System…
Gong Ze subconsciously called out, then in the next second remembered: System, you’re so big, had already separated from him.
Its mission was over.
It should go find its next host…
‘Sang You… Lu Youling… Feng Yuan…’
Why was a person’s life so long, yet so brief.
One after another, the appearances and shadows of youths, young men, adults flashed before his eyes, until like a book blown open by wind to the last page, Gong Ze saw the person hidden deep in his heart.
The dazzling sunlight made it impossible for him to see that person’s face clearly. He could only see the lips speaking and the thin, frail figure.
That person held a familiar notebook in his hand. When he flipped through page after page of a youth’s blazing, hidden, green yet immoral love for him, that person’s whole body was trembling.
“A-Ze…”
Gong Ze watched his fingers touching the notebook twitch back as if bitten by something, as if not daring to look again, struggling to close his eyes.
That person was ashamed and shy.
Because a student seventeen years younger than him, just barely an adult, had secretly fallen in love with him.
In the notebook he had written down his youthful love, madness.
In the notebook, the proud genius youth had indulged all his dark, unspeakable, crazed desires for a same-sex teacher!
He wrote how he fantasized about kissing him. He fantasized about breaking into his room at night.
He fantasized about covering his mouth, and in his awakening struggle and crying, pulling down his pants, like a club stabbing into tofu, violating his revered teacher…
He even fantasized about what that experience would be like.
Body temperature, touch, feelings.
The strokes were fierce, deep, sloppy, pressing through the paper. Just looking at it made that person so ashamed his toes curled.
Like being doused in gasoline, then set on fire.
“Xiao Ze…”
That person hugged himself, trembling.
Gong Ze now stood to the side, watching with complexity and calm as his teacher flipped through the notebook.
He knew this was a dream.
This scene happened before he became a transmigrator. He had fallen in love with his teacher.
Because he could not stand his own filthy thoughts, and could not endure his increasingly demonic desire for men as his body matured, self-blame, shame—he left that person, fled like a piece of trash.
That was practically an unforgivable vile act.
How serious was it?
To describe it this way—Gong Ze sighed—that person was one of the few negotiation experts in the entire world. The country had put in effort and selected Gong Ze among many geniuses.
From then on, the Gong family soared. The whole family, under national support, enjoyed the special treatment of family members of high-level special talents.
And Gong Ze also stepped from commoner status into a broader, another-class big world.
That person’s identity was important and received the best protection. Countless people and connections protected him.
But in that person’s best years, he had taken only one disciple—Gong Ze. He and the country had painstakingly cultivated Gong Ze for eight years, but Gong Ze betrayed them.
He enjoyed the country’s preferential treatment, resources, attention, enjoyed that person’s cultivation, yet ran away…
He abandoned his own originally bright future.
Even that person was dragged down by him, only because Gong Ze fell in love with someone he should not have loved, causing eight years of everyone’s time and investment to go down the drain.
“This is my fault. I am undoubtedly deserving of death.”
Gong Ze did not even dare imagine what he had done.
He really was garbage!
A bastard!
A cowardly piece of trash!
But facing the harsh criticism and anger from above for being implicated, and being urged to take another disciple, preferably one who could be quickly trained—
That person had not resented or been angry at Gong Ze in the slightest. Gong Ze had run away and ruined everything, yet he firmly believed his beloved disciple absolutely had a reason.
Bearing the pressure, he investigated the truth. When that person discovered his beloved disciple’s notebook and learned of his disciple’s filthy, unbearable love for him, besides shame, what he felt more was self-blame…
“Xiao Ze… it’s Teacher’s fault… If Teacher had discovered it earlier…”
No, it’s not, Teacher.
It’s not.
Gong Ze watched him arch his body, hug his arms, his thin frame in pain as if forcibly bent like a dead branch, hot tears rolling down.
Gong Ze’s heart felt as if a knife had been stabbed into it, churned into a bloody mess!
His eye rims reddened slightly, the pain so intense his voice was weak and inaudible: “It’s precisely because I know you won’t blame me, precisely because I know that even if I become like this, you will still sympathize with me, that I suffer even more, that I can never let go…”
The one I hate for refusing to forgive will always be myself.
That is why I destroyed everything of mine!
The future, a good prospect, you… Someone like me does not deserve to have these, so I went and became that wastrel who frittered away time and was despised by others.
I deserved it…
But in dreams—or rather, memories—these were all things that had already happened and could not be changed.
Gong Ze still watched helplessly as that person quickly packed his bags, persuaded the higher-ups, and secretly went abroad to find him.
Then in a small tribe in Africa, that person collapsed from exhaustion. His weak body was infected by a virus, and in the end he died of illness.
In his final moments, weak with high fever and nearing death, he was still thinking of his beloved disciple.
Gong Ze watched this scene, his heart in tearing, agonizing pain. His face turned pale, cold and piercing.
He could no longer bear it. He threw himself forward, covering that person’s body lying on the crude wire-mesh bed. Tears stung his eyes, burning like lava as they flowed down his cheeks.
He roared, not knowing how to stop that person’s life from dissipating, watching in terror as that person closed his eyes.
“No… no… Teacher!!!!”
Weng!!!
Gong Ze heard a humming sound in his mind like that of a machine starting up.
Like an aged giant beast awakening.
His body, which had been endlessly sinking in the water, suddenly struggled violently. His peaceful face and gaze turned sharp. In the pitch darkness he desperately swam toward the bright water surface!
As the light grew larger and larger, Gong Ze furrowed his brows, raised both hands upward, and broke through the water’s surface.
“Pff, hah—”
A person emerged from the water, breathing in large gulps.
Gong Ze wiped the cold water from his face, floated on the surface, frowned, and looked around.
The dim space was like a hemisphere covering the ground. There were no lamps or light sources, yet the water surface and the distance glowed faintly, allowing Gong Ze to vaguely see his surroundings.
As Gong Ze observed, a faint, ethereal voice sounded: “You’ve come.”
Golden light suddenly descended dazzlingly.
A ball of light one size larger than the system landed beside Gong Ze. It had three pairs of wings, and on the feathers of its wings grew several of its eyes.
Now they were all fixed on Gong Ze.
Gong Ze’s mood calmed. He raised an eyebrow and looked at it: “Main God?”
The Main God gave an “mm”: “My power cannot fully descend here. I can only send in a part of my avatar.”
Hearing this, Gong Ze’s thoughts instantly turned several corners.
“Where is this place?”
“The River of Styx.”
“…”
Gong Ze squinted at it and suddenly sneered coldly: “What, kicking down the ladder after the work is done? Seeing I’ve completed the mission, you want to just kill me so you can go back on your promise?”
The Main God had been retorted by him more than once. To be honest, it was used to it.
It could not even be bothered to get angry.
Its voice was ethereal as it said to itself: “No matter how many small worlds there are in this world, how many branches, how many Main Gods and transmigrator protagonists, as long as they exist, their end must be here.”
“I said that as long as you complete a few mission worlds for me, I would give you your teacher’s soul, and give you two a perfect ending.”
“…” Gong Ze paused.
The ball of light narrated: “You woke from the bottom of the river, which means you indeed died. But don’t worry. This is the first step of me fulfilling my promise. The River of Styx is unchanging and the endpoint of all things, and also the anchor point of transmigration. From its tail back to its head, one can travel back to the past.”
“…”
“The calculations involved exceed your dimension. You don’t need to understand. You only need to know that I intend to take you and your teacher’s soul, by going upstream, to send you and him back to your original world, to the timeline before his death.”
“…”
After a moment of silence, Gong Ze said: “You can do it?”
Although he tried to keep his tone calm, his hands had already clenched into fists. How could he not want to go back?
In the days after his teacher died, he went mad with regret, longing for time to flow backward!
“I can.”
The Main God said affirmatively.
Gong Ze: “…”
Gong Ze took a deep breath, suppressed his agitation, and said: “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
“Mm.”
The Main God flew in front while Gong Ze swam behind it. Gradually the water level grew shallower, until it reached only his waist. Gong Ze could already stand and wade through the water.
The light on the Main God was like a big lightbulb, illuminating the road ahead.
Suddenly Gong Ze thought of something and hurriedly asked: “By the way, Feng Yuan… no, my teacher’s soul?”
“Look at your palm.”
Gong Ze’s left hand, submerged in the water, subconsciously lifted. He opened his fist, and a thread of pure white light leaked out. Seeing the light in his fist, Gong Ze’s gaze went dazed.
“It…”
“It is your teacher’s soul.”
The Main God looked at the Styx, so silent there was no sound at all, making one suspect they had lost their hearing, and suddenly felt much melancholy.
“Continue.”
“…”
They walked for a long time, but Gong Ze did not feel his strength disappear. It was as if he would never tire again.
He asked the Main God: “I only transmigrated through a few worlds. Is that enough for you?” He had thought it would be harder.
The Main God was silent for a moment, then said: “I originally collected power to resist my own kind, to survive in battle against other Main Gods, and to devour their power.”
After hearing it out, Gong Ze curved his lips and looked at the vast Styx scenery.
This kind of large expanse of water surface in darkness—probably anyone else would develop phobia, but he still had the mood to teasingly say to the Main God with a little yin-yang: “Seems your kind aren’t very friendly with each other.”
The Main God did not refute.
Gong Ze: “So at first you wanted more power, but something happened that made you no longer need power—or rather, no longer need to fear being killed by that kind that wanted to devour you, right?”
The Main God gave an “mm.”
It did not deny it.
“Why? What happened?”
“It was killed by one of its hosts, and replaced.”
Gong Ze: “…”
After Gong Ze’s shock, he laughed with a “heh.” “Not bad. There’s even this kind of operation?”
The Main God glanced at him, its tone unexpectedly subtly resentful: “There is. Actually, you also have that quality, but you never work properly.”
“That person, however, did very well. He transmigrated through countless worlds. He was the strongest host. He counter-killed the Main God that wanted to fuse with him and obtain his power, then became the new Main God. Toward me, and toward devouring other Main Gods, he has no interest.”
“Speaking of it, he’s also an Earthling, and from the same country as you. However, not the Earth of the same plane.”
“Oh?” Gong Ze finally felt a tiny bit of curiosity. “What’s his name?”
“He’s called Longchuan.”
The system asked casually: “What, do you know him?”
Gong Ze stroked his teacher’s soul and smiled: “Strange name. Never heard of him.”
“Figured…”
After walking for a long time more, the Main God stopped and said quietly to Gong Ze: “We’ve arrived.”
…
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