A certain theory posits that from the moment of the universe’s inception, everything was predetermined. The endless eons that followed were merely the unfolding of an intricate chain of cause and effect, with even the act of ‘unfolding’ itself being a pre-scripted line in a cosmic play.
This irresistible current, deeply rooted in the fundamental laws of causality, possessed a name that every civilization and every intelligent life form would instinctively perceive and tremble before: Destiny.
And Lin Xiao, more than anyone else, experienced its power and profound weight earlier and more intensely.
From an unwitting moment in his childhood, he discovered an extraordinary ability: through his eyes, he could glimpse a certain vague ‘premonition’ of others’ future destinies.
This was not a simple foresight of specific events, but rather a highly abstract visual manifestation of the target’s future essence.
This ‘essence’ often mirrored the individual’s future psychological state or form of existence, with the clarity and duration of the premonition directly proportional to the intensity of his gaze.
The earliest manifestation occurred in elementary school. One day, he was casually chatting with a classmate who was quite popular in class, especially among the girls, and seemed to get along well with everyone.
As his gaze inadvertently focused, he saw a blurry figure emerge behind the classmate—identical to the student themselves, yet countless fine threads extended from it, ensnaring and binding several other figures like a puppeteer’s strings.
In the eyes of those bound shadows, a distinct resentment burned.
At the time, he paid it no mind, dismissing it as a trick of the light. It wasn’t until junior high, upon hearing that the classmate had been severely beaten and hospitalized by several people after a romantic dispute came to light, that the eerie scene from his childhood abruptly resurfaced in his mind, sending a chill down his spine.
On another occasion, he saw a pair of sisters laughing and playing on the street, accompanied by their seemingly harmonious parents.
Yet, in his vision, the family background transformed into a dilapidated castle riddled with cracks.
One of the girls’ figures futilely attempted to seal the cracks with tape, while the other, clutching a massive shield, steadfastly defended a mistaken path.
These bizarre premonitions, some concrete, others abstract, plagued him for years, like inescapable shadows cast by the world itself.
Ordinarily, they were merely indistinct halos at the periphery of his vision; however, the moment he concentrated, the tangible manifestations of destiny would inevitably sharpen into clarity.
Over the years, he gradually discerned patterns within these phantoms: each shadow, identical in appearance to the individual, represented a certain ‘fixed destiny’ for their future.
Most people’s shadows would gradually blur and dissipate with the passage of time or changes in their choices; some, however, would first undergo violent distortion before settling into stillness.
From his initial fear, even a reluctance to meet others’ gazes for too long, he eventually learned to interpret the metaphors behind most shadows, allowing him to navigate nearly all social interactions with effortless ease.
Yet, amidst the myriad shifting lights and shadows of destiny, one existence stood as an absolute exception: the boy named Qi An.
More than a boy, he was a chaotic amalgamation.
Qi An’s ‘shadow’ was remarkably solid; with less than a second’s gaze, it would obscure his true form, blocking Lin Xiao’s vision and making it difficult to discern his actual appearance.
Moreover, his shadow was not a singular image, but a tapestry of interwoven phantoms.
Two were most distinct:
The first, and initially dominant, was a young woman with long, half-black, half-white hair.
Her delicate features were streaked with tears and etched with boundless despair, as she opened her arms towards him.
Whenever Lin Xiao spoke with Qi An or looked at him for more than a second, this visage would overlay his true appearance, making it impossible for him to even distinguish his gender at first.
The second, also the same young woman, stood silently beside a solitary grave, wreathed in ominous purple flames.
Her back was to him, yet she eerily turned her head to glance back, a mysterious, inscrutable smile gracing her lips.
Furthermore, beyond these two dominant phantoms, countless indistinct, yet vaguely similar, shadows overlapped behind ‘her,’ visually akin to a multi-headed monster that made one’s skin crawl.
It was precisely because of this overly anomalous and unsettling sight that Lin Xiao, for a considerable period at first, consciously and unconsciously avoided Qi An.
However, by a twist of fate, they eventually met.
That day, he scaled the school wall and saw that lonely figure weeping on a concrete pipe in an abandoned wasteland.
Perhaps the sight of the ‘young woman’ weeping stirred pity in his heart, or perhaps it was curiosity; he began to speak to him, gradually growing familiar.
After truly interacting, Lin Xiao was surprised by Qi An’s introverted yet gentle nature, which was utterly unlike the ominous premonitions.
In his vision, unless he caught a fleeting glimpse with extreme speed, he found it difficult to discern Qi An’s true appearance as a child, as his sight was perpetually obscured by the young woman’s figure.
Though Qi An usually appeared taciturn, he always had a plethora of eccentric ideas to share—from small novels and fantastical stories he devised himself, to grand topics of philosophy and international affairs, he could speak eloquently on them all.
At other times, he would become engrossed for extended periods by a beautiful stone or an intriguing pattern.
These actions, which Lin Xiao would ordinarily deem quite childish, became exceptionally captivating when overlaid with that lovely face, sometimes forcing him to consciously divert his attention and remind himself of his true appearance.
Gradually, he became his sole friend, and he, in turn, became the only person he didn’t need to consciously categorize based on the shadows he saw.
Thus, that day, when Qi An very earnestly declared, ‘Let’s be best friends for life,’ he solemnly agreed.
Though… among all the people he had observed, such ‘forever’ was terrifyingly rare.
For those he had witnessed, be it friendship or love, all bonds seemed invariably to be shattered by time and destiny; even the closest relationships would inevitably fade once people parted for various reasons.
Yet, he could not deny that the figure treading the abyss still occupied an indelible place in his heart.
Such a destiny soon arrived. One day, his family arranged for him to study abroad in England.
He had initially thought that even in a foreign land, they could maintain contact via phone. However, beneath London’s great clock, he encountered—or rather, a terrifying entity sought him out.
From that point, he was severed from all normal human connections, struggling to survive in a foreign country.
It wasn’t until years later that he finally returned to his homeland and reunited with her at university.
He was astonished to find that the shadow behind Qi An, which had once opened its arms to him with an abyss at its feet, had inexplicably vanished.
In its place stood the shadow by the grave, wreathed in purple flames and glancing back with a smile.
It had become incredibly clear, and… it completely merged with the real Qi An’s appearance, assimilating its identity and true form. Concurrently, all other chaotic shadows faded into obscurity.
After that, everything changed. Countless monsters roamed the Earth, and the old order crumbled.
They were once again brought together by destiny, journeying side by side through the ruins.
He had believed that such a life, tinged with a degree of estrangement, would continue indefinitely. However, at a certain juncture, Lin Xiao saw all shadows behind Qi An vanish, replaced instead by a scene of immense grandeur and cruelty:
Upon a broken, planet-like remnant, her slender figure stood, nourishing a precarious barrier with her own blood, staunchly fending off countless twisted claws attempting to invade from beyond it.
Behind her, a faint ember was forcefully connected and entwined around her by countless threads of destiny, barely, yet seemingly eternally, sustaining its last glimmer of light.
It was precisely at that moment of ultimate demise, when all prophecies came to pass, that Lin Xiao, for the first time—but not the last—clearly saw his own shadow:
A figure whose heart had been replaced by an intricate clock and an endlessly flowing hourglass.
He stood at the pinnacle like a demon king, yet his heart was usurped by the hourglass, and his face bore an expression of indifference and numbness.
In that moment, he became utterly convinced: destiny was absolute predestination, unchangeable.
Struggles, efforts, emotions… all were merely a slide along a predetermined track.
—Until.
Until, after everything had ended multiple times, in a new cycle, a new timeline, he once again encountered ‘her’—still naive and oblivious to everything…
The shadow of the despairing young woman, who had been destined to vanish at the beginning of each cycle, embracing him with an abyss at her feet, had miraculously not perished; she still existed.
****
The chimes of eleven o’clock at night rang out from a distant place.
Lin Xiao, holding Qi Yue’an’s hand, guided her step by step up the apartment building’s staircase, ascending towards the sixth floor.
In his hands, he held an ancient hourglass and a pure white rose.
Qi Yue’an, walking beside him, held a small, golden crown etched with purple flame patterns.
Her silver eyes, under the dim light, appeared remarkably submissive.
He led the young woman up the stairs, where another young woman with sky-blue long hair had been waiting for a long time.
“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Star… oh, I suppose I should call you Miss Hero now.”
He bowed to her, smiling as he gazed at the figure behind her, who, like a hero, held a long spear that shone like starlight.
“An An, get behind me. He’s dangerous.”
Xiyin spoke with caution, yet not a trace of concern registered on Lin Xiao’s face.
“Don’t be so angry. Let’s open the door together. We can discuss everything else later.”
Li Yan had, at some unknown point, emerged from the shadows.
This immediately sent Xiyin’s alarm bells ringing.
His face now bore the relief of a completed mission, and he held a jet-black feather as he looked at the others.
“I have nothing to say to a traitor like you.”
Xiyin frowned, looking at him, the cup in her hand gleaming with brilliant light.
“Xi, I brought him back… He says he has the hourglass and the flower, and the feather is here too… Once we open this door, we can leave.
Then we’ll call Bai Jin and Bai Zhi… and we’ll be together forever like this…”
To Xiyin’s surprise, Qi Yue’an’s face now held an unprecedented anticipation for the future.
“So, please don’t argue, alright?”
Her eyes held a certain longing and hope.
“Don’t gloss over it, ‘Demon Lord.’ Your purpose in coming here is surely not this simple, is it?
And if I’m not mistaken, there are another person’s memories inside, and she’s very important to you, isn’t she?”
Qi Yue’an was somewhat stunned.
She watched the two important people argue, both speaking words she couldn’t understand.
However, regarding the crown, it had been bound to her ever since she conversed with the young woman who looked exactly like her.
Every time she touched the crown, she could feel the dormant personality named Qi Yue, deep within her heart, begin to stir.
“You want her to replace An An, and then use its power to collect souls and achieve your goal, don’t you?”
Xiyin’s words struck Qi Yue’an’s heart like a bombshell.
The vague, unsettling suspicion that had begun to rise within her after reuniting with Lin Xiao here now completely overwhelmed her.
The young woman tightly clutched Lin Xiao’s arm, forcing a hopeful smile onto her face as she looked up at his profile.
“She’s just guessing. That’s not how it is, right?”
Her smile was incredibly bright, like a tender sprout breaking through the earth to greet a warm spring, yet it was laced with cracks on the verge of shattering.
She had long harbored a vague awareness, whether from the other residents describing ‘Miss Moon’s’ personality or from the guardian she had seen in the graveyard; their temperaments differed too vastly from her own.
They seemed less like her current self and more like a different, more perfect version of herself that had emerged when she first became a magical girl that day, yet she had always refused to believe it.
Qi Yue’an longed for him to refute Xiyin, then open the door with the five keys, after which the six of them would become friends, ultimately overcoming all hardships to live a life filled with fantasy and beauty.
“You won’t betray me again, will you?”
She even voluntarily offered the golden crown with both hands, as if in sacrifice.
Her posture suggested she was not merely surrendering an object, but her entire trust, her future, even her very soul.
The dress she had changed into appeared soft and harmless in the dim light, as if speaking silently.
Lin Xiao’s gaze fell upon the crown, its dancing purple flame patterns overlapping with the scene of the end times in his memory.
He saw the lonely figure standing upon the shattered planet, the ‘young woman’ with whom he had spent his childhood… and he also saw his own heart, replaced by a cold hourglass.
After a brief, suffocating silence, he no longer met Qi Yue’an’s eyes.
Instead, he slowly, and with extreme solemnity, accepted the crown.
Hopes instantly flared in Qi Yue’an’s eyes, almost causing her to cheer.
However, Lin Xiao, holding the crown, raised his head, his gaze sweeping past Qi Yue’an to land on Xiyin.
The gentle pretense in his eyes was gone, replaced only by a bottomless weariness.
“Replace?”
He repeated the word softly, a bitter, extreme curve to his lips, as if mocking Xiyin, and perhaps himself.
“No, you’re mistaken, Miss Hero.”
His voice was not loud, yet it echoed clearly in the silent corridor, each word like an ice pick striking Qi Yue’an’s heart.
“There was never any replacement.”
He paused, as if the words that followed were impossibly heavy.
“What I’ve wanted… from beginning to end, is to complete the true her, the whole her.”
He turned to Qi Yue’an, his gaze, for the first time, falling so directly, so undisguisedly, upon her pale face.
That look was complex enough to be heartbreaking, filled with deep affection, bone-deep guilt, and an almost insane obsession.
“Complete?”
Qi Yue’an murmured, her mind a blank.
“What… complete?”
Lin Xiao’s voice carried an undeniable certainty.
“The more complete, more powerful Qi Yue’an.”
“This crown is both a key and a vessel. It carries ‘her’ power and memories, and only by continuously passing it down through cycles can all of this truly be saved.”
His gaze swept over the cup in Xiyin’s hand, the black feather between Li Yan’s fingers, and the hourglass and white flower he himself held.
“And you, the miracle who alone preserved her earliest personality, are the final piece of the puzzle to complete all of this.”
He said no more, but in Qi Yue’an’s eyes, his meaning was already painfully clear: he wished to erase the ‘incomplete’ Qi Yue’an, the one with her fragility and dependence, and awaken the ‘her’ who had experienced the end, who was more mature, and perhaps more aligned with his expectations.
Emotions, like a tsunami, engulfed Qi Yue’an.
She stumbled back a step, looking at Lin Xiao with disbelief, at the man who had only recently offered her warmth and promises.
“So… in your eyes…”
Her voice trembled uncontrollably.
“Have I always… just been an… imperfect… defective product? A mistake that needs to be ‘corrected’?”
Lin Xiao’s lips moved, as if to argue, but Xiyin interjected.
She stepped forward, shielding the unresponsive Qi Yue’an behind her, her long spear pointed directly at Lin Xiao.
Li Yan, standing to the side, sighed, toying with the black feather in his hand, his tone tinged with helplessness.
The truth peeled back like a rotten fruit, revealing the grotesque maggots within.
Qi Yue’an looked at Lin Xiao, at his familiar yet foreign face, at the crown in his hand, and at the door behind him that seemed to lead to a ‘correct future.’
Her long-suppressed, unexamined suspicions were confirmed.
Those gentle embraces, thoughtful words, patient companionship… all of it was false.
All of it was to make her willingly surrender herself, to make this ‘wrong’ version of her quietly, completely, be submerged.
A feeling deeper than loneliness, more fervent than love, exploded from the depths of her heart, instantly shattering the sanity she had so desperately maintained.
“…Heh heh…”
She raised her head, the forced, crumbling smile on her face finally vanishing completely.
In its place was an emptiness so profound it was terrifying, as if all emotions had been drained in an instant.
Only in the depths of her silver eyes did a faint, ominous spark of purple flame quietly ignite.
“I understand.”
She said softly, her voice frighteningly calm.
“So… from beginning to end, I was truly the only one who yearned for such a luxury as ‘forever’.”
The moment her words fell, a furious, destructive dark purple jealousy, accompanied by the horrified gazes of those around her, erupted from her petite frame like a wild beast unleashed from all restraints.
The flames shot skyward, not only engulfing her figure but also beginning to scorch the surrounding air and walls, emitting terrifying sizzling sounds, as if space itself was wailing in agony from this extreme negative emotion.
She extended her hand, and five items floated into place, finally opening the door.
She stood before the door, clutching the sword wreathed in jealous flames, futilely blocking the path of a person whose strength vastly outmatched hers.
“Actually, someone told me before that I could also pursue my own happiness and future.
She told me I could think for myself.”
The young woman’s face held a rare hope, just as it had long ago.
“Lin Xiao, I’m sorry, but my companions are waiting for me, so I cannot accept death.”
Her eyes no longer held their usual confusion and self-pity; instead, they held the clarity of one who saw the truth.
“So, even if this is selfish, even if it’s despicable, even if it goes against your long-held wishes and the hope of saving the world, I still want to live.
I cannot let someone else replace me.”
“If I lose, I will completely belong to you, but as long as I have my will, ‘this me’ cannot agree.”
Lin Xiao saw her fully turn against him, pointing her sword at him, and the weariness in his eyes deepened again.
He also drew his weapon, looking at the two standing together.
“An…”
“Forget it. When everything is over, you will naturally understand everything, understand how cruel it all is.”
He took a step forward, his feet seeming to weigh a thousand pounds.