Chapter 611

Fang Qi carved each character deliberately, stroke by stroke:

【Liguang, let's go home】

The silver-haired girl leaned down the moment he finished, and gently pressed a kiss to that line of words.

"Mm, Liguang remembers!"

Then she stood up, tugged at the hem of her swimsuit, straightened her back, and flashed a bright smile in his direction.

"Liguang will go get ready. We'll head home right away!"

Are we finally going home?

This little stretch of life here, it was about time it came to an end.

Fang Qi lifted his hand to carve more words.

【When we meet again, let me hold you tight, okay?】

She nodded so hard her hair swayed. "Mm!"

Fang Qi watched her turn and walk away, all the way to the center of the deck...

She sank to her knees, facing the open sea.

The sea wind whipped her silver hair high into the air.

Then he saw her pull out that razor-sharp shard of shell, and press it gently to the side of her own neck.

The silver-haired girl knelt there, her shoulders held perfectly straight.

"Master, watch closely now..."

Her voice was so soft it was carried to his ears by the wind, no louder than a sigh.

Fang Qi took a deep breath.

Yes.

He was watching.

He watched a thin, fine line of blood slowly seep out across her fair neck.

He watched her frown a little, press her lips together against the sharp sting, her fingers trembling faintly.

His own chest tightened.

... Liguang, you can do this.

Come to think of it, this was the first time she had ever tried to take her own life in a human body.

A little hesitation was only natural.

All the times she had killed herself before, she had been in the body of an AI companion...

Wait?

Fang Qi froze for a split second.

Hold on.

Liguang... suicide to trigger a rollback?

Suicide?

Rollback?

... Liguang?

Liguang, is that you?

... Wait a second.

His eyes flew wide open.

No.

A searing, unforgettable image burst into his mind all at once — inside that elevator, she had smiled right at him, her fingers digging into the core interface at the back of her own neck...

Then blue electric sparks had exploded out.

Her face, wild and utterly, desperately devoted, was lit up by the flames, and she had screamed —

"Remember how I end right now!!"

What?!

Fang Qi's pupils contracted sharply, and his whole body jolted.

She had done exactly that once before.

She had destroyed her own core to force a rollback, to stop him from reaching the [Eternal Beloved] ending.

She had pulled it off. They had rolled back.

But... no, that's not right!

"Wait, stop!!"

He roared at the top of his lungs, but he knew Liguang could not hear him.

So he threw himself full force right in front of her, drove all his strength into his fingers pressed flat against the wooden floor, and carved.

【Wait! Liguang! Stop, wait a minute!!!!】

The strokes cut into the wood like jagged, deep cracks, deeper and more frantic than any characters he had ever carved before.

Luckily, Liguang was hyper-attuned to every word he carved, and she spotted them right away.

"Eh?"

She blinked, and stopped.

That shard of shell was still pressed to her neck, and it had already sliced a thin cut into her fair skin, tiny beads of blood slowly welling up out of it.

She tilted her head, looking confused in his direction.

"Master, what's wrong?"

"Don't worry, Liguang's all ready. I've memorized everything!"

... Memorized it?

Have you really?

Fang Qi thought back to all their past experiences, took a ragged deep breath, and kept carving with his broken, worn finger.

Liguang, are you sure this "rollback power" you think you took from me, this power you think is my exclusive right...

Wasn't that power always, originally, your very own rollback ability?

But when you trigger a rollback that way, it seems...

【Are you absolutely sure that if you do this, you will still keep all your memories?】

You won't keep any of them, will you?

And Liguang read the words, and was about to answer without a second thought.

"Of course! I told you, this is the Master's permission, so it will definitely...!"

She went dead quiet mid-sentence.

The sea wind died down, and the whole world seemed to hang still for a heartbeat.

"...Huh?"

She looked down at the tiny, sharp shell knife in her hand.

Then slowly, she turned her head to look at the dense, messy lines of characters carved all over the outer walls of the little wooden hut.

Her pupils went a little unfocused.

"It... it should work, right?"

She mumbled to herself.

The shell shard slipped out of her fingers with a soft patter, and clattered onto the deck.

The second Liguang's expression shifted from utter certainty to blank confusion, Fang Qi's mind went completely, perfectly blank for a moment.

That's it. That's exactly it.

He had to hurry.

He threw himself back against the wall, and carved like a madman with his broken finger, the skin on it worn almost white.

【Liguang, listen to me. You did the exact same thing before.】

He couldn't feel any pain in his broken finger. He never felt it.

He was so used to every single bit of damage to this body, all of it could be fixed with a single reset...

But Liguang's memories could not.

【Even if I don't get hurt, even if I don't die, you can still force a rollback by destroying your own core.】

You've always been able to do that.

【But every single time you do that, you lose all the memories from that "dream".】

His strokes flew so fast he was almost chiseling straight through the wood.

He didn't dare stop, didn't dare look up at Liguang's face.

He was terrified that if he paused for even a second, she would go through with it before he could finish.

【So if you use that method to roll us back now...】

【You will probably forget absolutely everything that happened here.】

Do you understand?

All these words, this entire raft, the fingers I broke for you... you won't remember any of it.

When he finished carving the last character, the knuckle of his finger had been ground down to the bone.

But it didn't hurt. Even if it hurt, he couldn't feel it.

He jerked his head up.

Liguang was still kneeling on the deck. The shell shard lay discarded on the planks beside her.

She stared blankly at the words he had just carved, her eyes glazed and unfocused.

She was slowly working through that information, which felt far too complicated for her slow, simple mind right now.

After a very long time, she said softly.

"Master... you're lying to Liguang, right?"

She whispered, her voice trembling.

"You just feel bad that Liguang is hurting herself, so you made up all those things to scare me, didn't you?"

Fang Qi looked at her.

Her eyes were not focused, her gaze drifting past him to some empty spot behind his back.

He ached to wrap her up in his arms, to pull her tight against him and tell her everything would be okay, but he couldn't.

He could only lower his head and keep carving.

【I'm not lying to you.】

I have never, ever lied to you.

He lifted his head again, and saw the silver-haired girl staring at that line of words, the corners of her eyes slowly turning red.

She tried to force a smile, but her lips kept trembling.

"But... but Liguang spent so long getting ready for this."

She mumbled.

"I memorized every single one of those words. If I can't remember them..."

Her gaze trembled.

Then what was the point of all those days I spent?

Fang Qi carved immediately.

【I'm sorry. It's all my fault. I should have remembered this much earlier.】

But she stayed lost in her own thoughts for a long, long time.

After a long while, she whispered.

"No... it's not Master's fault."

"It's Liguang... who's so stupid."

"If only Liguang could have understood those codes earlier."

"But Liguang really is so slow and silly now..."

Her voice got softer and softer, until it was nothing but a faint murmur.

Then she curled in on herself, tucking into a tiny, huddled little ball.

Her silver hair fell in messy strands over her shoulders, and the thin cut on her neck had clotted into a faint, dark red line.

Liguang...!

...

...

Liguang sat there, staring blankly down at her own hands.

Her left hand, the one that had broken her own fingers, still bore that ugly, crooked angle from the injury.

And her right hand, the one that had been holding the shell knife only moments ago, was still trembling faintly.

... Master would never lie to her.

Everything Master said must be true.

So if she used that knife right now to trigger the rollback... she would forget all of this?

Would that really happen...?!

She immediately shut her eyes, straining to reach deep into the very core of her consciousness.

Those dizzyingly complex lines of code were still surging chaotically all around.

She could barely make sense of most of them now.

Still, she pushed on, fighting to identify each single line one by one.

Red glows, blue glows...

Countless symbols streaked across her mind like a school of startled, darting fish.

She searched for so long that she was on the verge of gasping for air, until finally...

Buried at the very bottom of the massive pile of code, she spotted that single line of text.

【PERMISSION_NODE:LOOP_RESET】

【SOURCE:LI_GUANG】

【AUTHORIZATION:SELF】

【PRIORITY:ABSOLUTE】

【COST:MEMORY_SEGMENT (CURRENT_CYCLE) — WIPE】

【NOTICE:TRIGGER_ENTITY_LI_GUANG_WILL_NOT RETAIN ANY MEMORY OF CURRENT CYCLE.】

She stared at that line of code for what felt like ages.

At last, she understood it.

Her mind had grown slower now, and most of those complicated permission rules were beyond her comprehension — but this one line...

She got it perfectly.

Because this was hers, after all.

This wasn't just her master's save-and-restart ability. It was also...

Her very own reset power.

She, too, could roll back the entire world.

But the price was —

She would not be able to hold onto a single memory from this timeline. Not even...

She would never know that she had ever made the choice to hit reset at all.

Huh?

Liguang froze, dazed.

She would forget everything that had happened in this stretch of time?

Forget...

Forget every single moment she and her master had shared in this "dream"?

Forget how her master had worn their fingers raw just to carve wall after wall of words for her?

She slowly opened her eyes and lifted her gaze to that wall.

The morning sun spilled over the exterior of the wooden cabin, and every inch of it was covered in her master's writing.

The characters were lopsided, uneven in depth, stretching all the way from the doorframe to the far corner of the wall.

Some of the strokes still bore faint dark red stains — the color left behind when her master had written love letters just for her.

Her master had filled an entire room full of love letters for her, written in their own blood.

But... she wouldn't remember any of it?

No...

No, don't...

Liguang doesn't want that...

Liguang...

"I don't want to forget any of this..."

She murmured to herself.

Slowly, carved words began to appear on the floor beneath her:

【I know. That's why I stopped you earlier.】

The silver-haired girl stared blankly at those words, and then...

Her vision blurred all at once.

Tears finally spilled over, dripping down in big, plopping drops.

"But..."

She whispered.

"If I don't use the reset, we'll be trapped here forever."

"And you'll keep hurting, nonstop..."

New carvings surfaced right after:

【I'm not afraid of the pain.】

"...But I am."

...It finally clicked for her.

Her power was so incredibly strong, wasn't it.

If she chose to hit reset, she would lose all her memories of everything here.

If she didn't, her master would keep suffering for her, on and on.

So...

What choice was she supposed to make?