To escape the loop, the protagonist was forced to carry Bronya through the collapsing Deep City, evading the relentless pursuit of the Emperor-class Honkai Beast, Tlaloc, over and over again. Ultimately, amidst countless agonizing deaths, he managed to find the critical path to survival.
The manga didn't explicitly state the exact number of deaths. However, as the author, Li Wu vividly remembered intentionally setting the number to thirty million times. He did this purely to emphasize the protagonist's horrific suffering and attract more traffic.
And that thirty million wasn't the final number; it was merely a mid-point statistic. The total number of deaths was definitely much higher. But looking back at it now, it seemed absurdly fake.
Thirty million.
Thirty thousand deaths would have been more than enough to memorize every single viable escape route in Deep City. Thirty million was utterly inconceivable.
As for the Emperor-class Honkai Beast, Tlaloc?
Li Wu looked down at his clean hands. For a moment, he could almost vividly hallucinate the purplish-black blood of a Honkai Beast dripping from his knuckles to his fingertips...
Nothing to worry about.
Li Wu clenched his fists. Now that he possessed S-Rank combat strength, he could guarantee that such a tragedy would not occur. Even if Cocolia awakened Tlaloc, the moment it dared to show its face, he would send it straight back to hell.
But... at this point in time, Act I hasn't even finished yet, and Cocolia is already making her move?
Li Wu felt slightly confused.
"She hasn't given up on the Herrscher of Thunder, so you'd better be careful," Ruslan warned. "I've heard things about that woman in Siberia. She never stops until she achieves her goals. Her personal combat strength isn't particularly high, but she wins by being completely ruthless and utterly unscrupulous. She's exactly like that number one lapdog of Schicksal."
Li Wu nodded. "I'll keep that in mind. Do you have any other intel?"
"Nope."
"Alright then, let's part ways here. You go do what you want to do, and I'll go do what I must do."
After exchanging farewells, Ruslan gradually disappeared into the sea of people.
Li Wu remained standing in place. He looked left, right, forward, and backward, searching for an interesting path to 'leave' by.
He didn't find one.
Li Wu just stood quietly in front of the bustling shopping mall. Even though it wasn't raining, he felt the air around him was a bit cold.
Perhaps it was just the air conditioning from the mall blowing outwards.
"System. At a time like this... what would the 'me' from the past have done?"
[You actually have absolutely no need to imitate your past self. Because you and your past self are no longer the same person.]
What do you mean?
[A person cannot step into the same river twice. Even if you haven't changed, and the river hasn't changed, time has changed. Your experiences have changed. The result is that everything is fundamentally different.]
[The 'you' from the past did not experience the things you have experienced. If he had, he would become the 'you' sitting here right now. Therefore, whatever you want to do right now, is exactly what the 'you' from the past would do if he had reached this point.]
[You have absolutely no need to deliberately act according to the mold of your memories.]
"I understand. I want to go to Nene Books and take a look."
Li Wu turned around. Walking against the noisy, bustling crowd, he headed in the direction of the familiar, desolate outskirts of the city.
While in his dissociative state, Li Wu lacked the habit of lying. Besides, there was no point lying to the System; his lies would be instantly exposed anyway.
Was he going to the bookstore to read?
No.
If his only goal was to read a book, he had countless better options.
Li Wu couldn't explain why he suddenly wanted to go to Nene Books. It was like how sometimes people can't explain why they suddenly lose interest in a game, or why they suddenly get obsessed with a specific song.
He just wanted to. So he did.
The distance from the city center to the outskirts was quite long.
Li Wu didn't take a taxi. He walked quietly from the heart of the city all the way to the familiar, rundown alleyway. The surrounding buildings were exactly the same as yesterday—dilapidated and aging, the walls covered in spiderweb-like cracks.
The neon signboard of Nene Books was just as dim as before.
The bookstore was open. Li Wu lingered at the entrance for several minutes. Finally, he abruptly took a step forward and walked inside.
He didn't see Kiana at the front desk. Instead, he saw the old man who had been so entirely absorbed in his book yesterday.
The man was sitting cheerfully in a rocking chair, leisurely fanning himself. He was staring blankly at the ceiling, so spaced out he didn't even notice Li Wu walking in.
"Manager."
Li Wu's voice pulled the dazed old man out of his hazy memories.
"Oh, a customer! I apologize, I was lost in thought for a moment. Is there a specific book you're having trouble finding?" the old man asked swiftly, turning his head with an apologetic smile.
But the moment he got a clear look at Li Wu's face, his apologetic expression instantly morphed into a profound, kindly smile. His tone became much warmer. "Oh, it's you, young man! I remember you. You're Kiana's classmate."
"Mhm. I used to be. Now, we can only be considered alumni," Li Wu stated truthfully.
Kiana had already transferred schools. Right now, they couldn't even be considered classmates.
The old man's smile remained unchanged. He looked as benevolent as ever, entirely unbothered by Li Wu's correction. In fact, he seemed to have seen right through him. "Young man, you seem very resistant to establishing intimate relationships with others. This old bag of bones might be useless now, but my eyes are still sharp when it comes to reading people. Your relationship definitely doesn't seem like just 'alumni'."
"How could you tell?"
"Pfft!"
Hearing Li Wu's incredibly naive question, the old man couldn't help but burst into laughter.
He may be old, but his worldly experience and ability to read people were sharper than ever.
Therefore, when Li Wu asked a question like that, he couldn't help but laugh. It was a question only someone completely blank in the realm of emotions would ask.
"Are you asking how I could tell you're resistant to establishing intimate relationships, or how I could tell your relationship isn't simple?"
"The latter," Li Wu said.
The old man turned his head back, looking up at the ceiling. Decades of memories seemed to flash before his eyes.
"Because when you care about someone, you can't hide it."
"No matter how well you try to cover it up, it will always slip out in the unintentional details..."
"Did you know? When Kiana first came to work at this store, a lot of old fogeys tried to strike up a conversation with her. Not long after, several well-dressed young men started coming in, pretending to read seriously. As for their true motives... well, I think you understand."
Li Wu instantly made the deduction. "They were the sons or grandsons of those old men, trying to approach her."
"Correct."
The fan waved back and forth like a fluttering moth.
The old man closed his eyes, his tone laced with amusement. "What kind of young people would actually come to a store like this to read? I've lived in this neighborhood for decades, and I practically never see young people anymore."
"They all ran off to the city center a long time ago. The only time you see them here is when they're dragged along by their parents. You rarely see them wandering the streets alone, let alone walking into a dusty old bookstore to read."
"What they wanted was obvious at a glance. Even with my failing eyes, I know that a girl like Kiana is definitely considered 'school idol' material among you youngsters... A girl like that will naturally attract boys wherever she goes."
"That's why I said your relationship isn't simple. Because whenever any other boy tried to strike up a conversation with her, she would shut it down as quickly as humanly possible."
"For example, a boy might walk up and say, 'Are you reading this book too? I'm reading it as well! The author is amazing, I heard the story is based on real-life experiences...' "
"And she would just reply: 'Oh.' "
"If the boy kept pressing, she would say: 'I don't like being disturbed while reading.' She wouldn't even add the polite 'Could you please stop talking to me?' that most people would use. She just straight-up murdered the conversation! Haha... quite a personality."
"To be honest, I dated at least five or six girls when I was young. Most girls will maintain some level of superficial social etiquette. Some girls will even eagerly accept a boy's advances, but whenever he tries to push further, they'll step back. It's called 'stringing them along'."
"A girl like Kiana—who absolutely refuses to accept any flattery from boys, and whose sense of personal boundaries is so overwhelming it makes people feel hopeless just looking at her—is incredibly rare."
"I've talked with her quite a bit. That child loves reading. She knows her boundaries, she sees the big picture, and she's remarkably calm and composed. She's dabbled in all sorts of global cultures and philosophies. In some aspects, she knows even more than an old man like me who's lived for more than half a century!"
"I originally thought that an outstanding girl like her would probably never find a partner that fully satisfies her in this lifetime. I mean, how outstanding would someone have to be to be worthy of her? Among people her age, I genuinely couldn't find a single boy who could catch her eye—"
"Until you showed up yesterday."
The old man's voice was deep and resonant, like a tolling bell. He spoke softly, yet his words were deafening.
Using the most mundane, ordinary language, he revealed a highly unusual detail.
"She stared at her book for twenty minutes without turning a single page."
Hearing this, Li Wu abruptly froze. His brain failed to process it for a moment.
For Kiana, whose mind was incredibly sharp and agile, this was an almost impossible occurrence. When a normal person reads a book—no matter how deeply lost in thought they are—it's impossible for them not to turn the page for twenty whole minutes.
Unless... her mind was completely elsewhere.
"It's exactly what you're thinking. Kiana reads faster than any of us, and she has a photographic memory. Perhaps you didn't notice it at the time, but the time between when I first walked in and when I went to the front desk to grab my things was exactly twenty minutes. And in all that time, she was still staring at the exact same page."
"I love reading, so there's a saying I'd like to share with you..."
"A restless heart cannot settle on a page."
"Alright, since you've heard what you needed to hear, hurry up and leave. She'll be coming out of the storage room any second now, and you wouldn't want her to catch you here, would you? I'll be staying home tomorrow, so the two of you can take your time and chat when no one else is around."
Having said his piece, the old man smiled to himself and continued fanning, offering no further explanation.
As someone who had been through it all, he understood the minds of young people perfectly.
"Mhm. Please don't tell her I was here for now."
Leaving those words behind, Li Wu walked out of Nene Books. He walked quickly, much faster than when he had arrived.
He didn't understand why he had bothered to ask the old man not to say anything, but leaving without saying it just made him feel oddly uncomfortable.
As he stepped out onto the street, a taxi with its yellow light on pulled over not far away. The driver looked at Li Wu, and their eyes met.
Ultimately, Li Wu chose not to walk home. He took the taxi back to his apartment complex.
Pushing open the car door, a food cart decorated with a cute octopus face immediately entered his line of sight. The owner was chewing on one of his own takoyaki, his expression filled with deep, satisfied relish.
Upon spotting Li Wu, the corners of the owner's mouth curled upward. Like a Maneki-neko, he waved frantically, gesturing for Li Wu to come closer.
"Come here, young man! I've got a brand-new product today! Wanna give it a try? If you like it, you can buy some to take back to your beautiful girlfriend!~"
The cart owner grinned broadly, forcibly shoving a box of takoyaki into Li Wu's hands.
Opening the box, a green sauce oozed from the octopus balls, emitting a crisp, delicate fragrance.
"She is not my girlfriend," Li Wu replied calmly.
"Pfft, come on, you're talking to a fellow man! It's only a matter of time! If a girl is willing to eat street food with you, she's definitely set her heart on you!"
"As long as you work hard, strive for success, find a good job, and shoulder the responsibilities of being the head of the household... a happy life is waving right at you! Getting a girl that pretty... you're in for a blessed life, kid!~"
The owner was in an exceptionally good mood.
No, ever since the holiday started, Li Wu realized that everyone he encountered seemed to be in a good mood.
The manager of Nene Books. Ruslan, who was about to go home. The owner of the takoyaki cart...
"She's not my girlfriend. And I'm not hungry right now."
Seeing that Li Wu was still stubbornly denying it, the owner dropped the topic of the girlfriend.
"Don't worry, this matcha-flavored takoyaki is a prototype. Just consider it a taste test. I won't charge you."
A prototype, huh...
Those words dragged up unpleasant memories for Li Wu.
Fortunately, those memories were entirely in the past. He had become immensely powerful. The number of people in this world who could defeat him in a straight fight could be counted on one hand. He no longer had to worry about suffering the fate of an experimental subject.
As for Kiana's tragic fate in adulthood, he would deal with it according to the actual situation once he cleared Kallen's storyline in Act IV.
Looking back at it, his success in convincing World Serpent and Schicksal wasn't because an awakened Herrscher retaining her humanity was inherently vital to World Serpent. It was entirely because of him.
And if he could do it once, he could do it again.
Li Wu was fully confident he could help Kiana evade her tragic destiny.
As a transmigrator, and as someone possessing infinite possibilities, he was more qualified than anyone else to undertake the task of 'saving' someone.
Besides, 'saving' Kiana actually didn't seem all that difficult—at least compared to saving Raiden Mei.
Saving Raiden Mei was entirely built upon a massive asymmetry of information, and the fact that he was incredibly weak back then. He had been so weak that without relying on firearms, any random mercenary could have killed him multiple times over.
"Alright."
Li Wu accepted the takoyaki owner's request. He popped a matcha-filled ball into his mouth and chewed slowly.
The pungent, savory spices of the barbecue seasoning clashed with the crisp, delicate sweetness of the matcha.
They seemed completely incompatible, yet they perfectly covered for each other's shortcomings, resulting in an entirely unprecedented culinary experience: intensely spicy, yet bizarrely sweet.
"Boss."
"Well? How is it? Is it good?! I came up with it on a whim! I bet there isn't a single person in the entire Far East doing this! I'm the only place selling matcha-flavored takoyaki!"
The takoyaki owner rubbed his nose excitedly, puffing his chest out with intense pride.
"Do you want to make money?" Li Wu asked.
"What do you mean?" The owner tilted his head.
"It's very unique, but you probably won't make any money selling this."
"So it tastes terrible?" The owner scratched the back of his head, looking utterly crestfallen. "But I thought it tasted pretty good when I ate it... Is my palate really that niche? Sigh... forget it. I'll just treat it as charity. Anyone who buys matcha takoyaki today gets a 50% discount!"
"Mhm. Wishing you a prosperous business."