[I will find a way to completely resolve the Third Eruption. This is the only thing I can still do for you.]
[The last thing I want to say is—no, it's not the last thing! We will still spend a long, long time together! I just wanted to say, no matter who you end up with in the future, where you go, or what you become, I will always wait for you. I will always place you at the highest point in my heart.]
[—From the puppy desperate to make up with you, Mei.]
Li Wu held the piece of paper, standing completely still for a long time.
Next to the beautiful, elegant handwriting of the final sentence, there was a cute, minimalist drawing of a puppy's face.
Li Wu set the paper down and looked out toward the balcony.
The Morning Glories bloomed quietly. The gentle wind rustled the flowers and leaves.
Li Wu turned around and walked into the bathroom. He turned on the faucet and splashed freezing cold water on his face, thoroughly waking up his brain.
He stared at his completely expressionless face in the mirror for a while. Then, thinking of something, he decisively picked up his phone.
"It's been over half a month since I transmigrated. I almost forgot about you."
Displayed on the screen was Ruslan's contact information.
In the original manga, the protagonist failed to stop Ruslan from being deceived, leading the mercenary down a path of no return.
But since I've changed that ending, I should prepare a sum of money for him so he can go home and reunite with his family early.
Li Wu sent a message to Ruslan directly, arranging to meet at the exact same place they first met.
---||---
It was the weekend. The streets outside the shopping mall were bustling with a steady stream of pedestrians.
Li Wu stood near the entrance, waiting quietly.
He had arrived half an hour early.
Before long, Ruslan appeared from a nearby intersection. Upon seeing Li Wu, he quickened his pace.
He, too, had arrived half an hour early.
"Long time no see, Li Wu. It's been less than ten days since our last agreed meeting time. What do you need? As long as it's not something completely deranged, I can get it done for you."
Ruslan enthusiastically reiterated his stance.
The moment he finished speaking, Li Wu pulled a bank card from his pocket and unequivocally shoved it into Ruslan's hand.
"This is...?"
"Your payment for helping me."
Li Wu's tone was incredibly flat, as if he didn't care in the slightest. "You've helped me a lot over the past half-month. Thank you. This is your final bonus. The money in there is enough for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life. Take it and go home. Go back to your family and live a good life. Don't get tangled up in these messes anymore."
Ruslan froze. He stared at Li Wu, sheer disbelief written across his face.
He had never encountered an employer this insanely generous.
"Are you... are you sure about this?" Ruslan asked, staring at the bank card in his palm, still somewhat skeptical.
Everything had gone far too smoothly. Truth be told, he didn't really feel like he had helped Li Wu all that much. Compared to the dangerous missions the Far East nobles had arranged for him, the tasks Li Wu assigned were nothing more than gathering basic intel. It wasn't difficult at all.
"Yes. You could have gone home much earlier, but because of my own reasons, it got delayed until now. Consider the money in this card as compensation for keeping you stranded in a foreign country. The mission is over. You can go home now, Ruslan."
"Haha! Well, thank you very much! Making more money than I could spend in a lifetime after just half a month in a foreign country—if word got out, my colleagues would grind their teeth to dust out of jealousy!"
"Don't tell anyone," Li Wu reminded him.
"Don't worry, I definitely won't! Just making a joke," Ruslan laughed. Then, he raised a hand and pointed at his own face. "You look like hell. Your mental state doesn't seem very good right now."
Li Wu remained silent. He didn't answer.
Ruslan wasn't an idiot. Seeing Li Wu's reaction, he instantly realized he had overstepped.
Even though this employer wouldn't punish him for it, how could he bear to make such a kind kid sad?
"Li Wu, I plan to stay in the Far East for two more days," Ruslan announced, changing the subject.
"Why?"
Li Wu asked instinctively. Perhaps out of genuine curiosity, or perhaps driven by an overarching lack of security, feeling an innate need to grasp every detail of his surroundings.
Ruslan didn't hide anything. He laughed boisterously. "To buy gifts!"
"Before this business trip, I told my wife and kids I'd be gone for about a week. It's obviously been way longer than that... Even though I explained it over the phone, well... hey, you know how girls are. They all have their tempers. Little girls have little tempers, big girls have big tempers! As a father and a husband, I obviously don't want them to be upset with me."
"So, I plan to spend the next two days carefully picking out some special gifts with the money I earned."
Ruslan tilted his head up, his gaze drawn to the main entrance of the shopping mall, attracted by the brilliant, luxurious lights within.
His unguarded smile made the wrinkles on his face even more pronounced. He looked weathered, yet the traces of profound happiness etched into his expression were unmistakable.
"That's your decision to make," Li Wu said simply.
"Sigh... We've only known each other for a little over half a month, but I know you're a good kid, Li Wu."
"Mhm. Thank you."
Ruslan felt a massive headache coming on.
Li Wu was acting exactly like those socially stunted nerds from school. Like a sluggish frog—you poke him, he hops once, and then he just sits there completely motionless again.
"Sometimes, you shouldn't force yourself too hard. No matter who we are, we're all human. A person is like a spring. You can compress it, or you can stretch it. But there is always a limit."
"When you surpass the critical point of compression or tension, only two things can happen."
"One is 'bottoming out and rebounding'. For example, an incredibly disciplined person suddenly completely lets loose, or an incredibly conservative person suddenly becomes wild."
"And then there's the other option. The most terrifying option... Snapping."
"You should know what that word implies. I know there are countless powerhouses in this world. Working in this industry for so long, I've seen them, and I've heard the stories. But no matter how transcendent or unfathomably strong someone is, at the end of the day, they are still human."
"Even if their physical body has far surpassed the realm of normal humanity, their inner heart remains unchanged. Just like you, like me, like everyone walking on the street right now. They look tough, but on the inside, they're incredibly fragile."
Ruslan's gaze drifted back to the interwoven crowd in front of the mall. Some were laughing and joking, some were calm, and some wore their sadness openly on their faces.
"Over the past half-month, I've been constantly observing your actions. To be honest, I was completely flabbergasted. You, a supposedly ordinary person, managed to thwart Ryoma Raiden's master plan, purge the Blood Wolf Mercenary Group working with World Serpent, and persuade Schicksal to abandon their surveillance on Raiden Mei..."
"Any single one of those tasks would have been completely impossible for me or any of my colleagues. But you did it. You did all of it. Hell, you even made yourself infinitely stronger. You're completely different from the kid I first met, who actually needed to use a gun to threaten me."
"I have no doubt that if you wanted to, you could kill me right here, right now, without needing any weapons at all."
"I won't do that. You haven't done anything wrong, so I won't impose any punishment on you," Li Wu replied rationally.
Ruslan's tone shifted slightly. As he spoke, he constantly scrutinized Li Wu's micro-expressions, but unfortunately, he found absolutely nothing.
"That is exactly what's so terrifying. You're restraining yourself too harshly... This is absolutely not the state of mind a normal person should have."
"You know that hypothetical question people always ask online? 'If you were given the power to destroy the world, would you become a hero and protect it, or would you become Homelander and immediately start doing whatever the hell you want?'"
Li Wu listened patiently.
"I can guarantee you, out of everyone I know, forget about the power to destroy the world—even if they were just given the power to become a local warlord in a small city, they'd walk around with their noses so high up they'd break their necks! It doesn't matter who you are. Give someone absolute power, and over time, they will change. Even if their original intention was to protect everyone, their methods would definitely be fundamentally different from yours."
"I probably shouldn't be saying this, but... you really need to let loose a little. As long as you aren't endangering anyone else, go ahead and indulge your desires. Think about it carefully. Since the very first day we met... have you done even a single thing purely because you wanted to?"
Ruslan's words struck a chord.
Li Wu began to think.
Half a second later, his thoughts stalled entirely.
His lips parted slightly, but he completely froze. It was as if he had been physically paralyzed, unable to utter a single word for a long, agonizing moment.
Ruslan didn't rush him. He waited with profound patience.
After a while, Li Wu finally managed to piece together a suitable response. "I still have things I absolutely must do. Once I handle all of them, I'll be able to fulfill my own desires however I please."
"Impossible."
Ruslan directly shot down Li Wu's justification, his tone incredibly decisive. "'Things you must do', 'important things', 'things you care about'... they never end. You finish one, and another immediately pops up. It's just like going to school."
"In middle school, everyone tells you that you absolutely must test into a good high school. In high school, they tell you that if you don't get into a top-tier university, your life is over. In university, they say if you can't find a high-paying job, you're a complete failure..."
"And then comes getting married, educating your kids, ensuring your kids have a good head start, worrying about who your kids are dating, trying to get promoted at work... Of course those things are important, but do you really think you can ever finish them all?"
"You're from Shenzhou. You should understand this principle better than anyone. You have to balance work and rest. Even uneducated mercenaries like me know that. How could you not?"
"Don't forget, Li Wu." Ruslan stepped right in front of him. His towering frame stood like a small mountain, completely blocking the harsh sunlight glaring down on Li Wu.
"You are incredibly strong. But at the end of the day, you're only sixteen. You're still just a kid. Raiden Mei, the heiress of the Schariac family, the heiress of the Kaslana family... I've looked into all of them. Making mistakes, feeling pain, feeling fear, hesitating... that is normal."
"Isn't Raiden Mei the perfect example? Her mistakes honestly weren't even that big of a deal. She had power and influence, and she used it to bully some classmates. It's not like she was... extorting people, or committing massive felonies. It sounds terrible, but in the grand scheme of things, the actual impact was minimal."
"Who hasn't been ostracized or bullied in school? When I was in elementary school, I was super scrawny. Some classmates literally threw me off the third-floor balcony into the snow! I broke my bones several times... And in the end, for the sake of so-called 'friendship', I had to force a smile and lie to my parents, saying I fell while playing."
"As for what happened at your school over the past few days... yes, Raiden Mei was wrong. And her actions were completely normal human behavior."
"You. You are the one who is massively abnormal. From what I've seen, you have practically never made a mistake."
"Being too perfect is, in itself, an unhideable flaw. Because it's impossible for a human being to have zero flaws. Looking utterly perfect only proves that the person has hidden their flaws incredibly well. But suppressed emotions don't just disappear. Sooner or later, during your most fragile moment, they will detonate violently. And when that happens..."
"You will be more fragile and more utterly insane than anyone could possibly imagine."
Drawing upon his own life experiences, Ruslan offered Li Wu a genuine, well-meaning warning.
He didn't know if Li Wu had actually absorbed any of it.
Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't.
Years of living as a mercenary had taught Ruslan an ironclad rule: Mind your own damn business. Whether it was offering advice or lending a helping hand, you were fundamentally interfering with someone else's karma. It was incredibly easy to get yourself dragged in and end up covered in scars.
He had broken his own rule today.
But regardless, he felt he had to say it.
He had grown from a boy into a man. He had kids of his own. Of course he understood how kids operated.
Back when they first met, even though Li Wu had acted ruthless and composed, he actually had a lot of flaws in his performance. At least, to an experienced veteran like Ruslan, it was blatantly obvious that the kid was just forcing himself to act calm. The only reason Ruslan had cooperated was because Li Wu mentioned his employer had deceived him and nearly caused an entire bus full of innocent people to be killed.
After that encounter, Ruslan hadn't left immediately. He hid in the shadows and observed Li Wu. Just as he expected, he saw the kid flash a confident, bright smile—exactly the kind of expression a normal teenager should have.
But now... Li Wu's hollow eyes, paired with his borderline self-destructive, apathetic attitude... he looked like a completely different person from the kid he was half a month ago.
Ruslan couldn't just stand by and watch this kid walk step-by-step toward his own annihilation. That was why he had talked so much—probably enough to annoy Li Wu to death.
"I will take it into consideration when the time comes," Li Wu replied smoothly, entirely underplaying Ruslan's passionate speech, as if he hadn't taken it to heart at all.
Ruslan let out a long, helpless sigh.
Clearly, the kid hadn't listened to a word he said.
"I won't say any more about that, then. The last thing I have for you is a piece of exclusive intel. I can't verify if it's 100% accurate, but it might be useful to you."
"What intel?"
At the mention of intel, Li Wu's ears immediately perked up. His gaze instantly sharpened, turning razor-focused.
His intense concentration was the complete opposite of his previously apathetic, half-awake demeanor.
"The Executive Officer of the radical faction in Anti-Entropy... Cocolia. She left Nagazora and headed to a place called 'Deep City'."
Deep City?!
Hearing that name, Li Wu immediately connected it to the storyline of Act III.
In the manga, after sending Ruslan to prison, the protagonist had a complete falling out with Bronya, becoming bitter enemies.
But the female leads were still the female leads. Any of their deaths would force the timeline to reboot.
After Act I (Nagazora) ended, it moved straight into Act II (The St. Freya Undercover Arc), which immediately transitioned into Act III (Deep City).
In Deep City, thanks to Cocolia's pig-headed stupidity, the Emperor-class Honkai Beast Tlaloc was unleashed upon the world. Everyone in Deep City was either slaughtered by it or crushed beneath the collapsing underwater ruins.
"Power of Friendship" awakenings didn't exist in the manga. Bronya suffering a severe rejection reaction with the Core of Reason and eventually becoming the Herrscher of Reason was an event destined for much later in the story.
There were absolutely no S-Rank Anti-Entropy forces stationed in Deep City. They had no way of stopping Tlaloc.
Worse yet, the save point was brutally hard-locked to the exact moment Tlaloc was awakened. As a result, Bronya and everyone else were trapped in an endless loop, dying agonizing deaths over and over again.