What could Lu Shuyuan say?
She had no explanation at all.
Could she really say that she had traveled through time and space, knew the entire plot, and had deliberately come to this alley to save him?
That would only sound more absurd than saying she was out for a walk.
So after watching her stammer for a long while, Huo Xingchao gave a cold laugh. Once his subordinates arrived, he had her taken straight to an interrogation room.
Lu Shuyuan had seen this scene in the television drama.
A dim torture chamber, a bound prisoner, bloody welts across their face and body. Then a bucket of cold water, and the torture resumed.
The man in charge would simply sit in a chair, watching at his leisure.
When she watched it on television, knowing it was only acting, she had felt nothing. She had even thought it was boring to waste so much time in the torture chamber.
But when she entered the dim interrogation room herself and saw the instruments of torture openly displayed inside, she suddenly began to tremble.
Before anyone had even tied her up, the girl had already collapsed to the floor in terror, tears streaming down her face.
“I’ll tell the truth. Huo Xingchao, don’t torture me. I’ll tell the truth…”
Huo Xingchao leaned against the wall. His left hand had just been bandaged, and he was toying with his gun in his right. His voice was casual.
“Then go ahead.”
“…”
“Liuzi, tie her up.”
“No, no.”
She hurriedly wiped away her tears. “I really will tell you! I will! But could you have them leave first? I can only tell you alone.”
What sort of explanation could she only give him in private?
Huo Xingchao could more or less guess already.
So he straightened and said indifferently,
“Liuzi, cuff her.”
“Huo Xingchao, you can’t do this to me. I really do know so many things. If you won’t listen, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life…”
“Behave yourself. Stop moving!”
With a quick click of the handcuffs, her arms were pulled behind her and she was cuffed to the chair, unable to move.
The man waved a hand. “All right. Leave us.”
His subordinates nodded and went out, closing the interrogation room door behind them.
The room suddenly grew dim. There was not even a window, filling Lu Shuyuan with the terrifying feeling that she would be trapped here for the rest of her life.
Huo Xingchao glanced at the still-shaken woman and said flatly, “Speak.”
“…The reason I went to that alley was that I knew you would be there. That’s why I went looking for you.”
Looking at his cold face, Lu Shuyuan swallowed, her voice trembling.
“Huo Xingchao, I only wanted to save you. I meant you no harm at all. Really!”
“Save me?”
Huo Xingchao raised his eyebrows, his finger resting on the trigger, his voice low and unhurried. “How did you know something would happen to me there? Even if you happened to hear something, you came all alone. How were you going to save me?”
Lu Shuyuan forced herself not to look at the gun in his hand. Though she was trembling slightly, she tried to keep her voice steady. Lowering it, she looked straight at him. “Because I can foresee the future.”
…
“I don’t know how it happened either. Ever since I woke up after falling into the water over half a year ago, I’ve dreamed about things that will happen in the future every night. Tonight was the same. While I was asleep, I suddenly dreamed that you’d been shot near the police station. I panicked and rushed out to save you without thinking. Then, as I was passing the police station, I suddenly heard gunshots… Ah!”
The woman shut her eyes and screamed in terror.
The icy muzzle was pressed against her head again, right at her temple. The man rested his finger on the trigger while the fingers of his left hand tapped lazily on the table.
“Lu Shuyuan, I’ll give you ten seconds. If you still won’t tell the truth, I don’t have the patience to waste any more time here.”
Tap. Tap. Tap…
“It’s true! It really is true! Huo Xingchao, believe me! I dreamed that you were shot and fell unconscious, and a grandfather and grandson rescued you in the alley beside the police station. So I hid behind the stone lion at the entrance to the innermost alley ahead of time. I heard gunshots, but then they stopped. I thought you’d already been shot, so I came out to look for you.”
“I really wanted to save you. Huo Xingchao, I only wanted to save you. Don’t you believe me? I can prove it. Tomorrow morning, the police chief will be assassinated, and the person who kills him will be your eldest brother. It’s true. Just wait until tomorrow and see for yourself…”
Lu Shuyuan was so frightened that tears and mucus streamed down her face. But halfway through her frantic explanation, she realized that at some point, the hard, cold pressure of the gun against her forehead had disappeared.
She opened her eyes to find the man leaning against the table, looking at her impassively, a trace of leisurely mockery in his eyes.
“So you came to take advantage of the situation.”
…
“Tsk. Lu Shuyuan, if everything you’ve said is true, why should I let someone who can foresee the future remain alive in this world?”
“Since you knew to come and save me today, you could save someone else in the future. Tell me, what if you saved someone powerful and then came back to take revenge on me?”
“You know the safest way to protect yourself from an enemy in this world, don’t you?”
The man smiled, his voice as soft as a sigh.
“Kill them.”
…
“No! Huo Xingchao, you can’t kill me! I can foresee the future. I can help you! Don’t you want to know what will happen? I know everything. I even know what happens decades from now! Huo Xingchao, you can’t kill me!”
Lu Shuyuan woke from the nightmare once again.
Although it was early spring and the weather was still cold, she was drenched in sweat and felt utterly miserable.
The sun was rising, and everything looked peaceful and beautiful.
Yet it was as though a thick black veil covered her eyes, turning her once-sunny world pitch-dark.
The man’s words that night still echoed in her ears. Each careless word pierced her heart and lungs, leaving her feeling as though she were suffocating.
“Lu Shuyuan, how about this? I’ll let you go home. In return, you’ll write down what you dream about every day and give it to me.”
“Remember, every day. Miss a day, or get even one thing wrong, and I’ll give you a bullet.”
“But don’t worry. Two hands and two feet. You still have four chances to stay alive.”
…
How much did she remember? She did not know.
But if the first event changed, how could she guarantee that everything afterward would still happen as expected?
She did not know.
Lu Shuyuan huddled in her chair, a sheet of writing paper before her. Looking at the words on the page, she suddenly felt as though her life had entered a terrifying countdown filled with panic.
She even wondered why she had said she saw things in her dreams. There were three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. That meant three hundred and sixty-five events.
Someday, she would die without even an intact body left behind.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
In the middle of her thoughts, someone suddenly began pounding on the door.
Thinking it was another concubine coming to ask her for money, Lu Shuyuan took a deep breath, went to the door, and impatiently opened it.
But the moment she pulled it open, a vicious slap struck her across the face. The blow came so swiftly and fiercely that it knocked her straight to the floor.
“Father, why are you hitting me?”
Clutching her burning cheek in disbelief, Lu Shuyuan looked up to find Master Lu glaring at her, his face dark, as though he might beat her to death the next moment.
She could not help trembling.
“F-Father, what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?”
Master Lu sneered. “I should be asking you that!”
“Lu Shuyuan, I’ve treated you well. I brought you into this world, raised you, and gave you good food and drink. As your father, what have I ever done to wrong you? Why would you hurt me like this?”
“You ungrateful wretch! You actually dared to run to Fourth Young Master Huo and tell tales. What? You’d even use your own father as a stepping stone? Fine. I’ll beat you to death right here today before you get me killed someday!”
“I didn’t, Father! I really didn’t mean to hurt you! Father, believe me! I didn’t! I want to go home… Help, I want to go home…”
…
On the day Huo Xingchao returned to Wancheng, Fourth Concubine had just gently persuaded the Lu family to leave. They stood beside the road with several cases of luggage, complaining endlessly.
But the moment they saw him step out of the car and glance indifferently their way, they fell speechless.
“F-Fourth Young Master, you’re back.”
Huo Xingchao ignored them and went straight into the residence.
Good. They had been thrown out.
That saved him the trouble.
Gu Zhi was walking in the courtyard. Turning her head, she saw him and froze, then immediately broke into a smile, her voice soft and sweet.
“You’re back!”
The man walked over, took off his gloves, and rubbed her head.
“Mm. I’m back.”
Then, a moment later, he saw her delicate brows draw tightly together. Her right hand gripped the hem of his uniform as she leaned against him.
“Qinglin, what should I do? I don’t think this is good.”
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”
“…No, but…”
But the moment you came back, as soon as my son sensed his father, he couldn’t wait to come out.
This really was not good.
“Waa, waa, waa, waa… Waa, waa, waa…”
A baby’s cries came from inside the room.
Someone emerged carrying the child, beaming. “Fourth Young Master, it’s a boy!”
The boy was still crying.
His cries were clear and strong, full of feeling, with pauses in the rhythm that made him sound as though he were reciting poetry.
Well, a son took after his mother. And if he took after her in this particular respect…
This really was not good.
…
“Little Overlord Star, please close your eyes. We’re off to the next place!”
A clear, excited child’s voice rang out in his mind.
“In the next world, you’ll get to talk lots.”
Huo Xingchao in this world was too taciturn for Overlord Xing’s taste, so playing the part had been quite a struggle.
While carrying out the mission, he had therefore found time to send a signal to the Stars of Time and Space, asking them to find him someone a little livelier next time.
For now, however, Overlord Xing frowned and firmly corrected the rude child.
“You should call me Lord Overseer.”
“Lord Ova-seeya.”
The little sensing star’s pronunciation was muddled, but its voice was clear. “It’s time to go!”
…
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