The Unfortunate Reversal

The moment Li Chunsheng forcefully flung open the door and spoke, an eerie silence descended upon the living room.

Liuxia and Dongyi whipped their heads around, their expressions a mixture of shock and disbelief, as if they had just witnessed a ghost.

Li Chunsheng, sensing the strange atmosphere, scratched his head in confusion, a puzzled frown on his face.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I was just trying to apologize to her.”

Li Chunsheng genuinely believed his intentions were sincere.

Yet, at the very instant his words faded, a violently trembling voice, thick with extreme shock, erupted from the phone Dongyi held pressed to her ear. It was her wife, Bai Jie.

–Dongyi! That Liao person…! You! You! You!–

Each of the three ‘You’s was laden with intense disgust and utter disbelief.

“Bai Jie! Wait! Let me explain…! It’s not what you think!” Dongyi’s cool, enigmatic face instantly drained of all color. She desperately tried to clarify the situation through the phone.

However, all that came from the other end of the line was a final, cold, and resolute—

–*Beep!*–

The call was disconnected.

Dongyi’s hand, still clutching her phone, froze mid-air, turning into a statue of ice.

But in a flash, that ice statue transformed into a blizzard.

“Li. Chun. Sheng—!” she hissed, her voice a guttural roar, each syllable bitten out with venom. “You goddamn…! Today, I will make you pay!”

“Huh?” Li Chunsheng was momentarily stunned by her sudden outburst of rage, but then his own anger flared. “I came out here with good intentions to apologize, and you’re cursing at me in return?!”

“You’ll make me pay? That’s hilarious!” He puffed out his chest, his peak Bronze-tier aura radiating without restraint. “With you? You can’t even harm a single hair on my head right now!”

Li Chunsheng’s words were an undeniable truth.

Dongyi trembled with fury, her chest heaving violently. She abruptly turned, redirecting her wrath towards Liuxia, who stood nearby, looking utterly bewildered.

“I can’t hit you, but can’t I hit your little lover?”

Before her words fully registered, she violently swung her hand, a gust of powerful wind accompanying the motion, aiming a forceful slap straight at Liuxia’s exquisite face!

“How dare you?!”

Li Chunsheng’s eyes widened in fury, and with a roar, he shot forward like lightning, attempting to restrain Dongyi.

However, though Dongyi couldn’t actively harm Li Chunsheng, she was still a Bronze-tier Wild Knight who had undergone systematic combat training. With a swift shift of her body, she deftly evaded Li Chunsheng’s grasp from an incredibly tricky angle.

From the moment Li Chunsheng burst into the living room, to the phone call being cut, and then to the full-blown conflict between the two, everything unfolded in a flash, barely lasting a minute.

Chaos.

Everything had completely spiraled out of control. How could things have devolved to this point?

Witnessing the tumultuous scene before her, Liuxia felt a splitting headache. She pressed a hand to her forehead, sighing deeply, her mind racing at an astonishing speed.

‘Miss Dongyi has been misunderstood by her wife and is on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Her anger is completely understandable. As for Chunsheng… he simply doesn’t grasp the situation. His anger stems from his good intentions being taken for granted.’

‘I can’t let them continue this conflict, or the consequences will be unimaginable!’

‘I must… I must restart immediately! But there’s only one chance.’

After their previous battle, Liuxia had worked with Li Chunsheng to thoroughly test her ‘Time Reversal’ Authority. She discovered that her ability seemed to have undergone a significant weakening, or rather, this weakened state was now its normal condition.

Currently, as a Black Iron-tier, she could only reverse time by a maximum of thirty seconds with each use of her Authority. Moreover, after each activation, it required a lengthy eight-hour cooldown before it could be used again.

‘No time to think! Thirty seconds is too short. I must start immediately, or even a reversal won’t change anything!’

With that thought, Liuxia no longer hesitated, instantly activating her Authority!

‘World… reverse!’

In that instant, the entire world began to rapidly flow backward, like a videotape being rewound.

She immediately shouted towards the two entangled in conflict: “Chunsheng! Miss Dongyi! Stop at once…”

However, before she could finish her sentence, a surprised exclamation suddenly came from Li Chunsheng’s direction: “Senior! You did well!”

It turned out that at the very moment time reversal began, Dongyi, completely unprepared and lacking any memory of the previous timeline, experienced an unavoidable moment of stiffness and bewilderment in her movements and thoughts.

This fleeting instant, quick as lightning, was keenly seized by the battle-hardened Li Chunsheng!

He grabbed the enigmatic beauty’s slender wrist and yanked her backward with force!

Dongyi cried out in pain as the phone, tightly gripped in her hand, flew out and crashed to the floor with a *smack*. Then, with an irresistible force, she was pulled off balance and, in one smooth motion, Li Chunsheng pinned her firmly to the cold floor.

“Dongyi! You said you’d make me pay, didn’t you?” Li Chunsheng said with a hint of a mocking smile. “It seems you don’t know your place!”

With that, he raised his hand and, with measured force, lightly struck her posterior a few times.

The force was less like a punishment and more akin to the playful roughhousing between lovers. Li Chunsheng had already figured things out in his room, he felt…

Li Chunsheng, however, acted as if nothing had happened. He casually put on his slippers and left the room, leaving Dongyi alone on the cold floor, gasping for breath.

The very light force, for her current “weak” body, might have been an unbearable blow. His previous apology also stemmed from this.

However, for Dongyi, pinned to the ground, these few strikes brought extreme humiliation far surpassing physical pain. Her eyes turned scarlet, she struggled madly, uttering incoherent curses.

“Wait, Chunsheng! Stop at once! There’s a misunderstanding!” Seeing this, Liuxia explained rapidly. “Miss Dongyi was on the phone with her wife just now. The words you burst in and said made her wife misunderstand that she was cheating!”

“That’s why she’s so angry! We must change something!”

Thirty seconds was truly too short. While it might be more than enough for simple actions, it was only enough for these few core sentences to explain a complex misunderstanding.

“In any case! Chunsheng, don’t worry about anything now. Go back to your room immediately! Get under your covers, and absolutely do not come out again!”

‘As long as I eliminate the past where Chunsheng came out of his room and said those words from the timeline, Miss Dongyi’s wife shouldn’t misunderstand, right?’

“Huh? Is that so?” Although Li Chunsheng was still a bit bewildered, he had always trusted Liuxia’s words unconditionally. For a Senior to even use such a precious Authority, the matter must be extremely serious.

So, he made a decisive move, immediately got off Dongyi, and turned to rush back to his bedroom.

However, the person most confused on the scene at that moment was actually Dongyi. She had no idea that the strange events unfolding around her were due to Liuxia activating time reversal solely to help her.

She only knew that just now, that bastard Li Chunsheng had once again struck her posterior in front of Liuxia! And she couldn’t even retaliate in the slightest—how could she extinguish the raging inferno of hatred within her?

Therefore, the instant Li Chunsheng got up, she lunged at Liuxia, her eyes blazing red, as if to attack the very person who had just spoken up for her!

“You goddamn ungrateful wretch!”

Fortunately, Li Chunsheng reacted incredibly fast. With a swift turn, he intercepted Dongyi, who was mid-lunge, and pinned her back to the ground once more.

But this single interruption completely ruined Li Chunsheng’s last chance to return to his bedroom.

Time was up.

The reversal ended, and the timeline converged once more, returning to the exact moment Li Chunsheng had first opened his bedroom door.

In the living room, everyone’s eyes held a momentary blankness. Immediately afterward, a new memory, ‘rationalized’ by the world, was forcibly implanted into their minds.

Dongyi was holding her phone, explaining to her wife on the other end of the line. The expression on her face had gradually shifted from initial panic to a sense of relief, for she could hear her wife’s tone softening, seemingly having fully believed her explanation.

Just a few more words, and once the call ended, this evening’s biggest family crisis would have been safely navigated.

It was precisely at this moment, however, that Li Chunsheng’s bedroom door suddenly burst open with a loud *bang*.

He emerged clad in clean loungewear, his face etched with a strange expression, a mix of guilt and determination. Without a word, he charged towards Dongyi like a tiger descending from a mountain, seizing her and pinning her to the ground!

Caught entirely off guard, Dongyi’s phone flew from her hand, landing with a *clatter* on the floor a short distance away.

“Dongyi… Dongyi, what’s wrong?!” Bai Jie’s panicked voice instantly rang out from the phone.

Bai Jie, on the other end, had first heard a loud crash from the phone, followed by her husband’s voice disappearing.

‘What… what… what happened to him? Was he attacked?’ Just as she was burning with anxiety, a strange young man’s voice suddenly came through the phone. The voice seemed slightly breathless (due to the exertion during the time reversal) and was speaking directly to her husband:

–Dongyi! I just thought about it carefully—your posterior… was it because of me that it was struck?–

–I’m sorry! It’s because I was too reckless when I was outside… It’s all my fault!–

At the same time, her husband’s voice, now shrill and unfamiliar due to sheer terror, also rang out:

–You goddamn! Li Chunsheng, what the hell are you doing?!–

–Let go of me! Ah… my posterior hurts! Stop moving!–

The young man’s voice immediately filled with renewed apologies:

–I’m sorry! Really sorry, it’s all my fault! Don’t worry! This time I definitely won’t make you suffer anymore!–

–Li Chunsheng—! No! It hurts so much! Please, please stop moving like that!–

–Wait…! Li Chunsheng! Where are you taking me?!–

–Come, to my room.–

The voices on the phone grew fainter and fainter. Gradually, only muffled sounds of struggle and the rustle of clothes could be heard, until finally, everything fell completely silent.

Bai Jie’s phone slipped from her limp hand, landing softly on the carpeted floor. She sat on the sofa, utterly distraught, her eyes vacant as she stared at the ceiling. At this moment, only one utterly absurd thought remained in her mind.

‘My husband… he… was bullied by a man?’

‘No! Don’t bully my husband!’