At dusk, the roads during rush hour were filled with cars. The setting sun hung on the horizon, and the clouds at the edge of the sky burned red. Every car radio was broadcasting news about the city’s recent vicious murder case.
The wealthy serial killer and his strange wife had become the common topic among the endless lines of vehicles.
Inside Mo Cheng’s villa.
Jiang Yan, the “killer’s wife,” and Jian Hou, who had just become the “killer,” sat on one end of the sofa. The “innocent bystander,” Mo Cheng, sat on the other.
Jiang Yan quietly turned to look at Jian Hou. Jian Hou thought for a long time but did not know where to start.
In the end, Mo Cheng spoke first. “You two… are players from Jian, right?”
Jian Hou said, “I’m a player. Yan Yan is a real NPC, but not long ago the game announced that in this dungeon, everyone is a player. Everyone is a real NPC.”
Jiang Yan nodded and added, “That’s right. We are in a dungeon now. It’s called…”
“‘The Stainted Murderer’s Lover’ Unfortunately, I am in it too.” Mo Cheng’s expression became serious. “What happened to you? Why were you dragged into this game? What wish did you trade with Him?”
From what he knew about the two people before him, they should not have a desire strong enough to trade everything for it.
“An accident,” Jiang Yan said briefly. “What about you?”
“Me?” Mo Cheng smiled. “Because of Xie Zhe.”
Jiang Yan and Jian Hou were both stunned.
“Xie Zhe?”
“Who is that?”
They spoke at the same time.
This time, Jian Hou and Mo Cheng were stunned and looked at Jiang Yan together.
“Mo Cheng’s boyfriend! He even attended your wedding. He sent you birthday wishes every year, but he has been studying abroad for the past two years, so you haven’t seen him much,” Jian Hou said.
Mo Cheng became alert. “Do you mean this person doesn’t exist in your memory in this timeline, or…”
“Oh,” Jiang Yan said suddenly. “Is that the one with the tangerine-colored hair?”
Mo Cheng’s face darkened. “It’s called bright and lively orange.”
“Orange,” Jiang Yan said perfunctorily, then looked at Mo Cheng in shock. “You two are actually a couple? I always thought you were straight.”
Jian Hou: “…”
Mo Cheng: “…Alright, that’s not important.”
Xie Zhe was his lover, gentle and shy. Although they often spent time together, he did not interact much with Jiang Yan. Given Jiang Yan’s personality, it was normal that he did not remember.
Xie Zhe’s impression of Jiang Yan was only “that very beautiful man with blue eyes.”
The reason Mo Cheng entered the game was simple. Xie Zhe had been diagnosed with an incurable rare disease. Even now, Mo Cheng could not accurately say the name of that disease, perhaps because he instinctively did not want to remember it.
At that moment, he understood what it meant that everyone is equal in the face of death.
All his wealth and power were useless in front of a disease that humans could not conquer.
People around him told him to stay with Xie Zhe, to let him be happy, to let him leave peacefully and without regret.
Without regret?
How could there be no regret?
Xie Zhe was not yet nineteen. He had a bright future, family, and friends who loved him. They had just confirmed their relationship, and now he was told he was going to die. How could there be no regret?
All of his calmness was only a disguise to keep others from worrying.
When Mo Cheng saw Xie Zhe crying under the blanket, he reached out without hesitation to the “God” who had been tempting him.
Mo Cheng smiled lightly and shrugged. “But that was when I was young.”
“When you were young?” Jian Hou teased.
Mo Cheng had been their classmate, so they were the same age. Although they often joked about being half-fifty-year-old men, they were only twenty-five, and some were still in school.
“Yes. Twenty-five years ago. Isn’t that young enough?”
At his words, Jian Hou and Jiang Yan’s expressions turned serious.
Seeing this, Mo Cheng gave a bitter smile. “You’re not asking why twenty-five years ago?”
Jiang Yan’s eyelashes trembled slightly.
Mo Cheng said, “I thought you had just entered the game, but it seems you already know.”
“We didn’t enter recently,” Jiang Yan said. “But we know an old player. He looks like a teenager, but he said he has been trapped in the game for twenty-five years. His time seems to have stopped with the game, twenty-five years ago.”
Mo Cheng nodded. “Then he’s not the same as me.”
He stood up and went upstairs while Jiang Yan and Jian Hou watched. When he returned to the living room, he was holding a photograph.
“I thought this would be my secret for life.”
He came back to the sofa and pushed the photo onto the coffee table in front of them.
When Jiang Yan and Jian Hou saw it clearly, their pupils shrank sharply.
It was a group photo from their high school graduation, taken at their coming-of-age party.
By the pool of Jian Hou’s villa, golden liquor, glittering makeup, wet dollar bills, and a group of half-naked young men were laughing and playing in the water.
It was a photo full of drunken youth and extravagance.
Jiang Yan and Jian Hou both had the same photo at home.
In the photo, Jian Hou stood in the center holding a water gun, laughing brightly. Jiang Yan sat at the side holding a glass of champagne with a straw in it, drinking calmly, his expression indifferent.
But what was different about Mo Cheng’s version was that Jiang Yan in this photo had black eyes.
“You… did you add a filter? Or…” Jian Hou asked in confusion.
“No filter, no lighting issue, and no special effects,” Mo Cheng said.
“That’s impossible,” Jian Hou said.
Jiang Yan’s blue eyes were always the most striking feature. No matter how low-key he was, people’s eyes would always be drawn to him.
Even in the photo at his own house, although Jiang Yan was only sitting quietly by the pool, anyone who saw the photo would notice him first.
Even when he sat there silently, he looked like a sacred statue in a cathedral, cold and pure.
But in Mo Cheng’s version, Jiang Yan was just a good-looking young man, nothing more.
“Maybe this is what the photo originally looked like,” Mo Cheng said slowly. “The way Jiang Yan looked twenty-five years ago.”
Jiang Yan’s long eyelashes trembled slightly. Mo Cheng began to tell what he remembered.
In his memory, Jiang Yan was just a well-born, shy, handsome boy. He did not have blue eyes, no special aura, nothing that made him stand out.
He was not special in any way.
His life was ordinary too, with an ordinary school and an ordinary university.
Unlike the current Jiang Yan, who met his first love in college and got married after graduation, the Jiang Yan from twenty-five years ago had only one brief relationship that ended quietly like all his past ones.
After that, Jiang Yan went abroad to study.
Yes, in Mo Cheng’s timeline twenty-five years ago, Jiang Yan was not as calm and detached as now. Mo Cheng’s impression of him was shallow, just as Jian Hou’s good friend.
However, one event made him truly notice Jiang Yan, the friend who grew up with them.
Jiang Yan’s grandfather’s ceramic factory exploded. As the only heir, Jiang Yan was kidnapped by the victims’ families.
Unlike the current timeline, in Mo Cheng’s memory, the explosion did not happen twenty-five years ago but happened now.
The cause of the explosion was that the deputy manager and some underground workers secretly produced incense for temples. During production, a large amount of dust accumulated, and due to lack of safety awareness, a middle-aged worker lit a cigarette.
The accident happened. Even Jiang Yan’s grandfather knew nothing, let alone Jiang Yan, who rarely visited his grandparents.
But he was his grandparents’ only grandson
So when Jiang Yan returned home for vacation and just left the airport, he was kidnapped by the victims’ families.
His parents were frantic and called the police, but since the kidnappers were not after money and left no clues, the investigation went nowhere.
Desperate, Jiang Yan’s parents turned to Mo Cheng’s family, hoping to use their underground influence to bring him back safely.
At that time, Mo Cheng had just escaped from Jian dungeons and had enough points to trade for Xie Zhe’s life. He made the wish and ended the game.
But just after he came out, his friend met this disaster.
Although his relationship with Jiang Yan was not close, they had grown up together, and he could not stand by and do nothing. So he used his family’s power to search for him.
In the end, they found a body buried inside a large ancient incense ash urn in a temple in the suburbs.
“After attending Jiang Yan’s funeral, I was very guilty. In the game, I heard from other players that points alone cannot satisfy God’s desire. After granting a wish, He always takes something from your life as a price.”
“Sometimes it is an important or unimportant object. Sometimes, it is the life of someone close to you.”
“So I often wonder if saving Xie Zhe caused Jiang Yan’s death. But even so, I do not regret it. I can only say I am very sorry to him.”
“Later, Jiang Yan’s parents held a grand funeral for him.”
“After the funeral, I drank for three days. When I woke up, I realized my memory had been completely changed.”
Mo Cheng paused and looked at Jiang Yan, his eyes dark.
“Or rather, a part was added, about Jiang Yan.”
“This Jiang Yan had eyes so blue and clear they seemed unreal, impossible by genetics. Ordinary yet captivating, dull yet eye-catching. Everyone said he was ordinary, but no one could ignore him.”
“No matter how distant he was, like a statue in a temple, everyone who came close to him could not help but feel strong emotions, love or hate, including me.”
“The old Jiang Yan, in my memory, was only a friend I had known for years. But the Jiang Yan in the added memory became the one we all cared about the most, the one everyone wanted to protect.”
Jian Hou’s mouth was wide open, and Jiang Yan was silent, his expression complicated.
Mo Cheng gave a bitter smile. “Twenty-five years, my entire twenty-five years of memory and emotion were replaced.”
“He was not afraid that I would notice the wrong timeline. Erasing my original memory would have been easy for Him, but He did not bother.”
“Or maybe, that was part of the price, to make me remember what I had given up.”
Next