Chapter 76: The Original Ending
Suddenly woke up, my head immediately cleared. Perhaps it was because the events before losing consciousness were too shocking, I didn’t even have a dream this time.
I remembered that before losing consciousness, the person who appeared behind me, the voice that echoed in my ear, it was indeed her.
No doubt, I wouldn’t mistake her, it was definitely…
“Ara, Juncheng~ You’re awake~”
The moment I opened my eyes, I saw that familiar face. She looked down at me, her face beaming with a happy smile.
Unlike Lan’s usual style, she was wearing a black Lolita dress.
The fallen leaves around had all scattered, and it had started to snow lightly. In the midst of the silent white, that incongruous black looked like mourning attire, giving off an ominous feeling.
But I wouldn’t care about such things. It was so good to see Lan again.
“Hehe, you slept for a long time. You haven’t been resting well lately, have you?”
I felt a sense of reassurance. It wasn’t an illusion. I was resting on her lap, and that sensation was enough to prove that Lan was real.
I had always believed that one day I would see the disappeared Lan again. I had been working hard to find her, to bring happiness to everyone, to usher in a complete ending. Therefore, even if I felt empty or sad, I kept moving forward.
“You always surprise me.”
“Hehe. To be able to see you again, Juncheng, I put in a lot of effort, you know.”
“So, it wasn’t just me looking for you; you were looking for me too. You’ve worked hard.”
“No, I’ve always been by your side. It’s just that you didn’t notice, or rather, you couldn’t notice me.”
“Hm? Couldn’t notice? Speaking of which, no one remembers you. What’s going on? I thought your existence had been erased. That’s why I undertook so many troublesome missions to save you. I didn’t expect Lan, you to just appear directly.”
I originally thought I was heading towards a perfect ending where everyone was present, but in the end, I found someone missing, which was unacceptable to me.
“My existence wasn’t erased; it was the traces of my existence that were erased.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Hehe, there’s a difference. I myself didn’t disappear, but I couldn’t leave any trace in this world. No one would notice me, they’d treat me like air. Hmm, if I had to say, it’s like you, Juncheng, used to be, becoming an invisible transparent person with no sense of presence. But for me, it’s a conceptual transparency.”
I think I understand. In other words, Lan herself didn’t disappear, but everything she did and had done became non-existent. Because of that, everyone would forget her.
“Then why did this happen?”
“I inherited memories from Zihua but unlike you, Juncheng, I didn’t prove my existence with a ‘Brain in a vat’. As an entity left over from the previous world, my existence couldn’t be proven, so I was simply ‘isolated’.”
“Uh, it’s a bit complicated.”
“Hehe, I knew you, Juncheng, you little idiot. I knew that such a conceptual explanation wouldn’t make you understand.”
Lan chuckled and tapped my nose with her index finger, explaining in a cheerful tone.
“Let’s imagine the entire world as a computer system. Your death, Juncheng, is like accidentally deleting a file. So, my future self, Zihua, and Zi’ai, wanted to restore this file, but found that no matter what method they used, they couldn’t restore it. At this point, what would you do, Juncheng?”
“System restore?”
“If it can’t be recovered no matter what, then the only option is to restore it! I see, I understand! So does that mean it would ‘restore’ to five years ago?”
“Yes, we did exactly that. And after the system restore, your file, Juncheng, was recovered. We even managed to overwrite the new file with the original one. So your ‘content’ wasn’t changed, but I was treated as a virus and ‘isolated’. Just like a hidden file, I became invisible.”
“I see, a good analogy. I understand what’s going on.”
“But with all these messy operations, the entire system ended up with errors.”
“Eh? Eh?!”
The system has errors?! That means the world has errors!
But it would be strange if such a mess wouldn’t cause problems. Speaking of which, if it even appeared before me and said it would lead to errors, then it truly would lead to errors.
“We all knew what the price of doing this would be, and we knew it would ‘injure’ the world. But for Juncheng—no, for our own selfish desires, we did it anyway. We planned and executed all of this, deviating the world’s fate from its original course.”
This Light Novel.
Those crazy women. They really would do anything.
It felt similar to a yandere girl who reincarnated to kill herself for the sake of her beloved.
So I’m quite curious. I’ve been wondering what they went through to come up with such a desperate and insane plan out of despair.
“Anyway~ Let’s not dwell on complicated topics. The important thing is that you, Juncheng, are alive now~ And you don’t have to worry about things returning to the way they were~”
“I’m more curious about what happened to me in the original world that made you, Lan, and the others fall into such despair that you had to change the world. You have Zihua’s memories now, so you should know about this.”
At that time, Zihua didn’t tell me, possibly fearing it would affect the plan. But now that the plan is complete, it should be alright to let me know what happened in the future of the previous world line.
After all, such a thing wouldn’t happen again.
“Yes. In the original world, you, Juncheng, died.”
“After that, you were revived, but it wasn’t a complete revival. It was like being a living dead? In short, it was a pseudo-revival. Therefore, Juncheng, you still completed the self-sacrifice of the Four Calamities.”
“Hmm, I remember Zihua saying I would complete the Four Calamities. And then?”
“Then, Juncheng, as always, you continued to encounter various dangerous things. The F Witches around you awakened one by one. You gathered the Four Calamities and the Three Difficulties, a total of nine F entities, thus successfully establishing a harem.”
“Eh, it doesn’t sound that bad.”
Isn’t this a HE ending? A harem was established, and nine destinies were gathered. Wouldn’t that mean I could change the world to my liking?
This is simply a perfect ending with both wealth and beauties.
But looking at Lan’s expression, it wasn’t like that.
She lowered her head, staring straight at me, her eyes wide open. My reflection was not visible in her dark pupils.
“Yes…”
She still had a smile on her face, but that smile was no longer warm. A chilling smile. Novel
“We were abandoned.”
The future they didn’t want to mention was finally revealed for the first time.
The cruelest truth for the girls.
Abandoned.
“Yes. We wouldn’t have any complaints if we were betrayed or killed. If it was to die for you, Juncheng, any of us would have accepted it. But the thing we feared most was ‘not being needed,’ or you abandoning us to our faces and never looking back at us again.”
I abandoned them—but why would I do such a thing?
They are the most important people to me. I willingly went through those hardships for them. So why would I abandon them?
Because I was no longer myself.
“Because at that time, Juncheng, you had completed the Four Calamities: sacrificing your heart, your emotions, your body, and your nature. You had lost your ‘self,’ leaving only your soul, reverting to your original, purest state, devoid of any impurities. We were no longer needed by you.”
As expected, this is why Zihua insisted on my revival with a physical body at all costs.
To prevent me from completing the Four Calamities, because once the Four Calamities were completed, I would lose my self and abandon them.
And for them, this was a more unacceptable outcome than death.
“With this, Juncheng, you achieved ‘Three Nothings’ by abandoning us: no disasters, no calamities, no difficulties. You then went through ‘Two Tribulations’: the tribulation of killing the self and the tribulation of falling into demonic ways. Four Calamities, Three Nothings, Two Tribulations—these are also nine. Juncheng, just as the organization hoped, you became the savior, an omnipotent wish-granting machine.”
“Yes, without a self, capable of anything, and since calamities and tribulations had been removed, there would be no pollution or errors. You could fulfill everyone’s wishes and bring everyone to complete liberation.”
“Juncheng, you became ‘God’.”
So, this was the ending. Just as Zihua said, it wasn’t a bad ending. For everyone else, it was a perfect ending.
What could be better than everyone achieving happiness?
OFF Light Novel
But for them, it was not so. It wasn’t a perfect ending because only they were abandoned.
“We couldn’t bring back the Juncheng who had become like that. We were helpless, so we conceived the idea of returning to the past and changing everything from the beginning.”
“I see.”
This was the cause of the series of events before.
After saying all this, Lan looked at me anxiously and asked.
“Juncheng, will you blame us?”
“Me? Why would I blame you?”
“Because the original world wasn’t as bad as imagined. It wasn’t the end of the world at all. Rather, it had welcomed the salvation of all humanity. But we, for our own selfish desires, destroyed that future.”
“Hehe—Salvation of all humanity? I wouldn’t say so. Weren’t you not saved? And the ‘me’ who became like that was no longer me. It was you who saved ‘me’.”
I reached out and caressed Lan’s cheek, saying with unwavering determination.
“How could I bear to abandon you? I will definitely hold you tightly in my grasp and cherish you until death.”
Lan smiled again, covering my hand with her own. She kissed my palm, leaving a kiss mark, and then buried my hand in her soft chest.
“Juncheng, you’ve become much more forthright. Hehe, I love you to death too~”
Excited blushes appeared on her cheeks, a sign of Lan’s love.
“Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever, I will love you!”
An overwhelming, heavy love that made it hard to breathe.
Hehehe.
Now, I suddenly feel that this somewhat pathological Lan is also cute.
Ah, I guess I’ve gone bad too.
