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ITVCFITB CHAPTER 120
Chapter 120 — The End of a Transmigrator
Reborn.
Luo Shuyu was reborn.
Shen Mingyun had always assumed Luo Shuyu was a fellow transmigrator; the truth rattled him. A reborn man knows how the story plays out. A reborn man returns with regrets or with grievances. Which kind was Luo Shuyu?
“Why?” Shen Mingyun rasped, shaking. “What did I do so wrong that you’d treat me like this?”
“It isn’t me treating you any way,” Luo Shuyu said evenly. “You made choices and walked yourself here. And one more thing, before you leave this world. You used the system. You’ll pay the system’s price.”
“Leave this world”… he heard the verdict in the phrasing. He would die.
They sent him back to the outlying villa. He returned a punctured wineskin, collapsed in a chair, hollow-eyed.
He had believed himself untouchable. With a system, the transmigrator could bend plots, do anything. But a reborn man knew everything, knew what Shen had done before the rebirth, knew what he would do after. If not for Luo Shuyu’s rebirth, would the Fourth have ascended? Shen would never know.
Had the system simply cut and run after failing?
What had it truly wanted? What did the Fourth’s enthronement mean to it? Who stood behind it?
Only now did Shen realize how comfortably he’d floated along. A system that only gave and never punished should have screamed danger, when had life ever dropped meat pies from the sky? He’d known that much, once. The system’s patter had dulled his judgment.
Who else to blame? His bargain-hunter’s greed? His shallow thinking?
He hadn’t been wronged. This ending fit his choices.
And now the “price.” What would it be?
The Fourth Prince took the children down to the stream to catch minnows. Their nursemaids had just changed their clothes. He kept his own voice calm; if the end was set, he’d spend what time remained making memories. The wild talk of systems and plots, he chose to forget it.
They would leave tomorrow.
Seeing Shen drifting, the Fourth sat beside him. “What did you and the Empress talk about?”
Empress. Right, Lou Shuyu now stood a single step beneath the Son of Heaven.
“Punishment,” Shen said dully. “My mistakes. It’s not supposed to end like this. It’s not—”
“What isn’t?”
“Our ending. It wasn’t supposed to be this. Because of Luo Shuyu, the ending changed.”
The Fourth squeezed his shoulder. “However it changed, it’s still ours.”
If Luo Shuyu hadn’t returned, the other world, his first life, had likely crowned Shen and the Fourth, and killed Third Brother and Luo Shuyu… maybe their child as well.
Child.
Shen lurched upright. “Your Majesty, what you said two days ago. About the children being… tools. Is it true?”
“The Emperor told me so.”
Shen’s face drained. His fingers trembled. “Then the system’s price… it’s them. Find them now. Hide them. Don’t let them be reclaimed!”
The Fourth, seeing his panic, bolted with him.
Elsewhere, Luo Shuyu faced the tiny red “system” in its sealed jar. He’d wrung it nearly dry these past days, only texts now, no objects; it hadn’t the energy for more.
“It feels like my main system will recall me soon,” it said.
“Then go,” Luo Shuyu replied. “And don’t come back to stir our world.”
“…” The system had rarely felt so unpopular.
Li Mingjin entered, stood at Luo Shuyu’s side, and watched a pinprick of red pulse atop the creature’s shell. That hadn’t been there before. “A sign?”
“Yes,” said the system. “It’ll be quick. I’m about to go. I wish you happiness. I did no good here.”
“Then go,” Luo Shuyu said.
“Go,” Li Mingjin echoed.
“…”
A flash outside the window, there and gone. They blinked. The jar sat empty.
Li Mingjin checked the floor. Nothing. “Truly gone?”
“Seems so,” Luo Shuyu said.
“Could be a trick.”
“Maybe. But we can’t kill it anyway. Let it leave.”
“Fair enough. Come on, let’s check on Chongchong. The little rascal kicked me in the face last night.”
Luo Shuyu pinched his chin. “No footprint. Liar.”
“…”
At that moment, Shen and the Fourth burst into the rear quarters. The children stood in the doorway in fresh clothes, about to run out to them.
“Father! Papa!” Li Chengyi waved. Li Chengtian copied him with a solemn little wiggle of her hand.
Relief lasted a breath, then both children’s feet began to blur.
Shen stared. “Your Highness, am I seeing things? Their… their feet—”
The Fourth sprinted, reaching for them. “No! Yi’er! Tian’er!”
Perplexed by the adults’ panic, the boy asked, “What’s wrong?”
Shen and the Fourth crushed them into their arms. “You’ll be all right!”
But an embrace couldn’t stop a recall. Their bodies thinned, turned transparent.
Shen fell to his knees. “Don’t, don’t go!”
“Father. Papa.” Two clear voices, small and trusting.
Yi’er’s throat vanished, then his mouth, then the crown of his head. Both children faded cleanly from the world before their eyes.
“No!” Shen howled. “Bring them back! System, give my children back!”
The Fourth went numb. He had thought Third Brother was only twisting the knife. It was true. His children had been reclaimed.
“How? How can this be?” he whispered. “Where did they go? Heaven? How do children just… disappear?”
Shen finally blacked out. The Fourth laughed and cried until his voice broke.
His children had been false. His children were gone. Watching them dissolve was worse than death.
What had he done wrong? What had they done wrong?
No answer. Only a pit in the sky.
When Shen woke, he was on a carriage floor. The Fourth sat opposite, eyes ringed in black.
“Where are we going?” Shen croaked.
“The imperial mausoleum.”
“…Truly?”
A nod. He had nothing left to say.
Outside, ranks of guards moved like a wall. There would be no running. Only an end.
They weren’t taken inside the tomb, but to a side hall. Chen Rong, Li Mingjin’s iron hand, waited.
“Your Highness. Fourth Prince Consort.” He gestured to a table: a bowl of poison and a length of white silk.
Only one prince could remain living in this tale.
In that moment, Shen understood despair. His transmigration would end in an ugly death.
He chose the poison.
The Fourth chose the silk.
Chen Rong returned with the news. Luo Shuyu and Li Mingjin knew the chapter had closed.
A transmigrator and a story’s designated villain reached their period.
Lives ended; life went on. Duty pressed heavier than ever.
The next evening, Luo Shuyu cooked an entire table of Li Mingjin’s favorites, twice-braised pork among them.
“What’s the occasion?” Li Mingjin asked, amused.
Pouring him wine, Luo Shuyu said, “Do you remember what the system said that we live in a tale, we are characters in a book?”
“I remember,” he said, savoring the aroma. “But it said little of you, as though you weren’t in the book at all.” He hadn’t asked why. A life is lived, not written.
“Then do you know why I could foresee things?” Luo Shuyu asked.
“Why?”
He drew a slow breath, the weight of a previous lifetime passing behind his eyes. “Because I’ve lived one more life than you.”
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