Late at night.
The moonlight hung in the sky like a tear refusing to fall, casting a false gentleness across Li Qi's window.
She sat at her desk, flipping through the notebook Su Ying had left behind before her disappearance. The pages were densely filled with numbers, symbols, and code models she couldn't decipher—like a secret language.
But what made her heart race weren't the symbols.
It was the torn-out pages.
Someone was covering up the plot.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" she murmured, staring at the line scrawled on the last visible page:
[Timeline C · Failed Ending]: Protagonist dies by self-immolation.
She didn't know what "Timeline C" was, or even whether she was the protagonist.
But she knew one thing for certain—That was not the ending she wanted.
Then, her vision suddenly blurred.
Like something was pulling her into a vortex.
The lights went out.
A cold system voice broke the silence—
[Script anomaly detected at coordinate 001. Application for Fate Rewrite Permission: APPROVED.]
Her mind rang like a struck bell.
Some kind of invisible switch had been flipped.
Rows of unfamiliar interface windows appeared before her.
[Script Node: April 17 – Su Ying fails awakening. Executor: Lin Yao][Outcome: Su Ying jumps to her death. Plot sealed.]
[Reverse-write permission activated: Do you wish to modify this node?]
She didn't hesitate.
Choice: Modify.
Her finger hovered, then tapped. She typed in a single, short line of alteration:
[Just before jumping, Su Ying sees Li Qi. She hesitates. Plot interrupted. Death averted.]
The system paused for two seconds—calculating. Then:
[Node successfully rewritten. Alternate ending unlocked.][Current cost: 0.03% memory fragmentation, 0.7% logical deduction capacity.]
Li Qi jolted awake—Only to find herself back in the scene from that very night.
She was standing beneath the dormitory building.
And on the rooftop—That frail silhouette had one foot already over the edge.
The world around them was empty.Cleared out.
She had never gotten close to the death site before.
But now—she walked toward it.
"Su Ying," she called softly.
The figure flinched. Turned around.
Tears streaked down her face.Fear. Confusion.And... the faintest hesitation to die.
The script was changing.
"You remember, don't you?" Li Qi said, her voice steady. "You're not just some NPC in this world. You woke up once. You said it yourself—'I don't want to die like this, for nothing.'"
She took another step forward.
Pain twisted across Su Ying's face.
A second.Two seconds.
Then, sobbing, Su Ying collapsed to the ground, hugging her head.
"I... I dreamed we died. Over and over..." her voice cracked through the darkness."You died. I died. It kept getting worse..."
Li Qi's eyes flashed coldly.
Those weren't dreams.
They were fragments of failed timelines.
"As long as you remember me," Li Qi murmured, kneeling to take her freezing hand.
[Branch plotline regenerating...][System Alert: Interference detected.][Eliminator 'Lin Yao' has been activated.]
A chill shot down her spine.
This was the price.
By rewriting a fated death, she had triggered the system's purge response.
The next morning.
Campus life resumed its usual rhythm.
But Li Qi knew—Something had changed.
She was now a glitch, a bug in the eyes of the system.
"You weren't in the dorm last night," a gentle voice said.
Lin Yao stood before her, smiling politely.
Elegant. Calm.But his presence made her instinctively tense.
"Where did you go?" he asked, eyes locked onto hers.
Li Qi smiled faintly. "You really want to know?"
He stepped a little closer. A warning in the guise of curiosity.
"Don't forget," he said softly."There are rules in this world."
"I remember," Li Qi nodded. "But I never planned on following them."
She turned and walked away without another word.
Behind her, Lin Yao's expression went ice-cold.
She had deviated from her original character role.She had to be eliminated.
Meanwhile, in the System Core.
[Observer B-17]: Script ID [Variant-Λ] is generating node interference. Report to Prime Consciousness?[Data feedback: Unauthorized rewrite detected from variable L-000. Access level increasing abnormally. Recommend immediate containment.]
At the end of a long row of screens—
A figure slowly opened his eyes.
He was the first prototype character ever written.
The system's original protagonist variable.
And he had been waiting—Waiting for someone like him.
Someone who could finally break the script.
And now... she had arrived.
4o