SES Chapter 227 Part 1

Chapter 227

After returning to the passageway once more, Mu Dai felt that something was wrong.

Shouldn’t those moments from her real life have unfolded naturally? Why did they now all feel as though she had stepped in and patched them up herself?

Little Seven walked along beside her, chattering nonstop. “I told you not to interfere if you could help it. You just couldn’t keep yourself in check. Still—luckily, luckily—you were adopted by Huo Zihong in the end. The overall direction didn’t change.”

Suspicion stirred in Mu Dai’s mind. “If I didn’t interfere, Aunt Hong wouldn’t have adopted me. I would never have been dragged into the matter of the vicious slips, and I wouldn’t have met Luo Ren or my friends. You’re lying to me, aren’t you? If I don’t interfere, my life would have ten thousand possibilities. Only by interfering at every turn can I find the single way out.”

“How can you not trust me?” Little Seven said. “I’m a good guy.”

Its thin arms stretched upward, growing longer and thinner, like tendrils. They hooked onto the sun’s shadow on the surface of the sundial—and suddenly dragged it down by one notch.

How could a shadow be dragged?

Mu Dai didn’t have time to think. She shouted, “What are you doing?!”

What right did it have to speed up her time?

Little Seven’s voice no longer sounded childlike. It was cold and deliberate. “I told you not to interfere. You insisted that interfering was the right choice. So now tell me—are you interfering, or not?”

Before she could answer, its two arms shoved hard against her shoulders. Caught off guard, Mu Dai stumbled and fell straight into the rippling scene.

It was night. No moon. The abandoned construction site loomed like the city’s shadow—black, lightless.

Mu Dai shivered.

This was eight years ago. The night she and Shen Wen had been attacked.

Faint screams drifted through the night wind. Mu Dai’s scalp tightened; her calves spasmed uncontrollably as she bolted toward the sound.

Little Seven ran with her—or rather, floated like a black specter, circling her again and again, speaking nonstop.

—Do you want to save her?

—Have you thought this through? If you save her, she won’t die. Huo Zihong won’t take you away. There won’t be a bar in Lijiang called Parting and Reunion Are Fated. Thirteen Thousand won’t go there to work. Everything that follows will change.

Mu Dai stopped short.

Little Seven was right. What she wanted was for all five of them to come together again. If Wenwen survived, everything afterward would change.

She stared up at the abandoned building. On the unfinished balcony above, several blurred black figures swayed violently.

If nothing went wrong, young Mu Dai would fall from the third floor soon. And Wenwen would suffer the most horrific nightmare a teenage girl could endure.

Little Seven was pleased. “That’s more like it. The bigger picture comes first. Don’t you want to get out?”

Mu Dai turned to look at it, then back up at the building. Suddenly, she said, “Go to hell.”

She sprinted toward the building and shot up along the outer wall like lightning.

Behind her, Little Seven screamed itself hoarse. “You’ll regret this! You’re done! You’ll never get out!”

Would she regret it?

The instant she merged with her younger self, Mu Dai’s mind cleared completely. As long as she still remembered Luo Ren, it didn’t matter whether Huo Zihong later moved to Lijiang—she could go find him. There were many points where their paths crossed: the fog-shrouded Yangtze River cable car, the fruit stand near Jiefangbei.

Back when she’d studied under Madam Plum Blossom Nine, she had once said, “Master, if only time could turn back. If I’d had kung fu back then, I would’ve risked my life to save Wenwen. If only I could do it all over again.”

Wasn’t this exactly the “do it over again” she’d always wished for?

Gritting her teeth, she kicked away the punk in front of her, grabbed Wenwen, and shoved her outward. “Wenwen, go! Don’t worry about me!”

Shen Wen cried and refused.

A brick swung toward her, slamming into her shoulder. There were too many of them. Fighting one against many while dragging Wenwen along would only make things worse. Mu Dai shoved her again. “Go!”

Wenwen sobbed and finally turned and ran.

Good. Mu Dai smiled. These bastards—she’d wanted to deal with them properly for a long time.

Hatred she’d bottled up for years surged out like a tidal wave. Knee strikes, open-handed slaps, knife-hand chops—every move was merciless. But somehow, with every strike, her body grew heavier, weaker.

She kicked another punk flying and looked up—Little Seven was hanging from the window like a hanged ghost, its arms dangling as it swayed.

“I warned you,” it said. “You weren’t supposed to stop for long. And now you’re fighting. Fighting drains your energy even faster. Do you know that?”

“Are you still going to fight? Why aren’t you retreating? If you collapse in the end, you might get out—but everything that happened to Wenwen before will happen to you instead.”

That bastard. It had never mentioned this before. Now it hung there, grotesque, telling her all this.

Mu Dai didn’t want to believe it—but she didn’t dare ignore it either. Gritting her teeth, she gathered her last bit of strength, kicked away the person blocking her path, and flipped down from the wall.

As she dropped, she caught sight of someone rushing in from the stairwell, holding a construction shovel and shouting.

That was—

She hit the ground and realized.

It was Wenwen. She had come back. She hadn’t left. She’d found a weapon and returned to help her.

Tears surged up instantly. Mu Dai looked up just in time to see several people hurl a black figure downward.

Without thinking, she lunged forward, trying to catch her.

Shen Wen slammed into her. The impact nearly killed her. The back of her head smashed into the ground; her whole body felt like it shattered. She saw Wenwen struggle up, crying as she shook her—then saw the figures pouring down from above, saw Wenwen screaming as she was dragged away…