Li Wu suddenly felt a sour lump form in his throat. Realizing something was wrong, he rapidly suppressed the feeling, refusing to let the bitterness show on his face.
Reality was reality. The more stunning and extraordinary a person was, the deeper and more profound the stories buried in their heart tended to be.
Wasn't there a saying?
If you keep waiting until you're 'better' to do something, or to pursue someone...
By the time you finally become better, and you clumsily push open the door to romance, you'll find that everyone's heart is already occupied by someone they love deeply.
"I see. Hahaha... That's nice. That friend of yours must be a really, really good person."
The corners of Li Wu's mouth twitched. He forced a smile, but it was incredibly stiff, and the words that came out of his mouth were utterly meaningless.
The moment he said it, he regretted it.
Because Kiana absolutely despised this kind of empty, meaningless small talk. She sought perfect spiritual resonance. If a conversation wasn't engaging, and the other person just offered perfunctory, wooden responses or completely missed the point, Kiana would instantly become disappointed and lose all interest.
It was like if you told someone you didn't like apples, and they responded by listing a bunch of reasons why apples were supposedly great. That kind of conversation was purely meaningless and completely killed any desire to continue talking.
"I—"
"Yes."
Li Wu tried to salvage the conversation, but Kiana cut him off.
Then, Kiana slowly raised her head, looking out at the empty street beyond the door. Reflected in her clear, gemstone-like eyes was a familiar silhouette.
Li Wu wanted to add something, but Kiana preemptively answered, "He is a really, really good person. I met him when I was eight years old. I think... in this lifetime, I will probably never meet anyone as flawless as him ever again."
"Flawless?" Li Wu asked.
Kiana nodded. She lowered her head and closed her eyes. Even she herself didn't realize it, but a smile actually bloomed on her usually icy, indifferent face. It was very faint, and incredibly sweet.
"Mhm. Flawless."
"I told you before, under Schicksal's training, I was far stronger than any child my age. At that time, I believed my talent in every single field was absolute top-tier. I couldn't find any friends, much less companions who could walk shoulder-to-shoulder with me."
"It wasn't until I met him that I realized there was actually someone my age who was vastly superior to me. Perhaps he still had flaws... like he said himself, he was actually a very, very stupid person, and he only got to where he was by constantly making mistakes and constantly falling down. But I don't consider that a flaw."
"Acknowledging one's own flaws is the final puzzle piece required to complete flawlessness."
Kiana opened her eyes and looked at Li Wu. Her gaze was as gentle as melting snow welcoming the arrival of spring.
"Helping you was also born from that exact reason. I hope you can grasp your own happiness. But you have always been so agonizingly conflicted, lost, and trapped—just like I was when I was a child. So, I will help you. Just like that friend reached out his hand to help me when I was young."
"I will learn from his strengths, and strive to do everything within my power to the absolute best of my ability. So that both myself and the people I care about can attain happiness."
Two gentle, radiant dimples formed on Kiana's fair face.
She smiled softly, pure and innocent, like an exalted deity.
Li Wu pursed his lips. The light in his eyes grew incredibly dim.
He heard a faint, almost imperceptible "Mhm" escape his throat. Then, he stopped talking altogether.
That's nice.
He thought to himself.
Yes.
It was nice.
There was no better explanation than this.
"That's nice," Li Wu said, his voice incredibly soft.
"Mhm." Kiana wanted to stand up, but after thinking for a moment, she remained seated inside the front desk. Her tone was incredibly light.
However, to Li Wu, that impossibly light tone was a symbol of absolute apathy.
Because it's not important, she doesn't care.
"How is that friend of yours doing now?" Li Wu asked.
"I don't know. We only spent one month together. I've completely forgotten what he looks like. And... he must have been hiding something. He never told me his real name."
Time seemed to freeze.
The air seemed to solidify.
All that remained was an old front desk, separating two people sitting on opposite sides, each lost in their own heavy thoughts.
There was no passive-aggressive snark, no arguing, no careful probing.
There was only a mutual, unspoken silence.
And then—
They stopped looking at each other, and the silence remained.
"I still have things to do. I'm leaving."
Li Wu stood up and placed the book back in its original spot on the shelf, making sure not to cause Kiana any trouble.
"Goodbye," Kiana said.
"Goodbye," Li Wu replied.
It was the most ordinary farewell imaginable, yet it made the surrounding air feel several degrees colder.
Li Wu walked out of Nene Books. He walked very fast, his steps chaotic and devoid of their previous calm confidence. He walked in the light, but his shadow was immeasurably deep. His departure was clumsy and stiff, like a wild dog whose spine had been ripped out, fleeing in complete disarray.
The sun had already set in the west. Only a residual, dying glimmer remained, barely illuminating the dilapidated old street.
[What? Are you jealous? Just because Kiana Kaslana mentioned a friend from her past, your mood plummeted from the joy of rebirth straight down to the absolute bottom of the valley? She hasn't even specified the person's gender yet. What are you getting so worked up about?]
"...I'm not worked up."
[It's a male.]
Li Wu's pupils involuntarily contracted. He suddenly stopped walking, pausing several hundred meters away from the bus stop.
It was rush hour. The old street had finally hit its peak pedestrian traffic. A few elderly people carrying grocery baskets gathered noisily, waiting for the bus to arrive.
Li Wu stood under a distant tree. The cicadas chirped aggressively. He inhaled the uniquely heavy, suffocating air of summer into his lungs. He wanted to cough violently, but instinctively suppressed the undignified action.
After several dissociative episodes...
Restraint was something Li Wu had become exceptionally good at.
"I'm not."
[Looking at it this way, it seems you were much cuter during your 'dissociative' state, because you couldn't lie.]
[You just lied. I am monitoring all your physiological data. A lie of this magnitude is fundamentally impossible to hide from me.]
"Fine! The girl I have a crush on casually brought up the 'white moonlight' first love in her heart. How the hell could I not be depressed?! This is completely normal!"
Li Wu decided to just outright admit his immense displeasure.
The towering banyan tree blocked the dying twilight, casting deep shadows across his face. That face, usually as calm as cold iron, finally shifted, looking as if he had just been brutally punched in the gut.
"Eight years old... to sixteen. A full eight years. Heh. System, do you know what that means?"
"Before I transmigrated, forget about eight years. After one year of middle school, I lost contact with almost all my elementary school friends. After one year of high school, I lost contact with almost all my middle school friends. Forget eight years, making it through a single semester is a miracle! Let alone eight years."
"A time span like that absolutely means it was far more than just a simple friendship..."
Li Wu lowered his head, his voice painfully dry.
"No one remembers a one-sided interaction for that long. That guy must have done something huge when Kiana was a kid to make it absolutely impossible for her to forget him."
"System." Li Wu's voice raised slightly, carrying a hint of tentative caution. "Is that boy... the future me?"
The System remained silent for a long while before finally responding.
[I cannot reveal developments outside the script to you. He is a massive anomaly, completely outside the script's control.]
[The vast majority of Kiana Kaslana's personality and habits stem directly from him. Whether it's loving life; doing everything in her power to help the weak; valuing her own promises above all else while permitting others to break theirs; striving for absolute perfection in every single field... It was all just to catch up to his footsteps. Just as Kiana Kaslana said—]
[That person possessed absolute mastery in nearly every conceivable field. Academics, athletics, culinary arts, fine arts... Almost every domain you can think of, he vastly surpassed ordinary humans.]
[Kiana Kaslana and he made a promise named 'Endless Klingsor's Summer'. They agreed—]
[When the flowers eventually wither, and people scatter. She must continue to live strong and brave, and love life just as fiercely as he did.]
[When the sunlight is warm, the summer breeze is soft, and Kiana Kaslana can use light footsteps to stride past all the heavy burdens in her life...]
[He will appear. He will return to her side, fulfill the promise of their reunion, and spend the next summer with her. And the summer after that. And every single summer for the rest of their lives.]
[Hence the name, 'Endless Klingsor's Summer'.]
[That is everything I can tell you. The rest requires you to personally witness, experience, and comprehend.]
"...Heh. Whatever."
Li Wu tilted his head back, a bitterly wry smile curling his lips. "It would be terrible to intrude. They're childhood sweethearts, after all. Why should an outsider like me stick my nose in where it doesn't belong? I'm nothing to Kiana. I'm just a classmate."
"So that's why Kiana helped me before. An ally of justice, feeling genuine, heartfelt sorrow when witnessing injustice."
Li Wu suddenly understood. He understood why Kiana, despite her own life being so incredibly difficult, was willing to risk Schicksal capturing her early, just to help him at all costs.
From the very beginning, Kiana had warned him that Raiden Mei wasn't a good girl, telling him to be careful.
Then she helped suppress the vicious rumors in his class. Then she stopped him on the rooftop, preventing him from walking down the horrific path of a wanted criminal.
Then she acted as the proxy manager of the bookstore, tolerating the utterly annoying owner, enduring endless trivial tasks, using all her spare time to read books on healthy communication just for him...
It turned out...
It was all just for a promise to a friend.
He was not that person. Because absolute mastery in all fields was something he could achieve using [Return by Death], but there was absolutely no way he could have done it when he was eight years old. That guy probably had a system too, one infinitely more overpowered than his, directly granting him mastery in all domains without the need for endless deaths.
The true protagonist of the manga?
Li Wu suddenly felt the air become suffocatingly thick. His breathing grew rapid and shallow, as if something was lodged tightly in his throat, making him feel like he was suffocating.
"She didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who was wrong. I actually thought... Heh. Hahaha!"
Li Wu covered his face. His self-deprecating laughter was far clearer and sharper than any laugh of genuine joy he had ever produced.
He remembered yesterday. He remembered the words Kiana had said to wake him from his dissociative state.
If you ever truly hit a dead end, and the pain makes you want to give up completely... come find me.
Once. Twice. A thousand times. Ten thousand times. Millions of times...
I will help you.
Thinking back on it now, it was nothing more than an ally of justice extending a hand to a victim.
It had absolutely no deeper meaning whatsoever.
It was him. He was the idiot who foolishly believed it was a girl's subtle confession.
"Thank God I realized this now. If I had actually tried to confess, or something equally stupid... I'd be the biggest fucking clown on the planet."
"Meeting someone that extraordinary when you're young... It really is impossible to forget."
Li Wu's tone returned to its usual absolute calm.
It was just... the surroundings felt a little bit colder.
He was inherently an introverted person. He never dared to reveal his true inner thoughts to others. It was Kiana's continuous actions that had misled him into believing they could become the closest of friends.
After all, no one in this world understood Kiana better than he did.
He thought things would just continue like this, naturally progressing. He never expected this to be the underlying truth. He had almost reduced himself to a complete laughingstock.
[In Raiden Mei's heart, you are just as flawless as that person is to Kiana Kaslana.]
"Maybe."
After a brief silence, Li Wu gave a perfunctory reply. He had absolutely zero mental energy to think about Raiden Mei right now.
He had seen this exact plotline countless times before transmigrating.
The protagonist in those stories always appeared right by the female leads' sides at the perfect time during their childhood, offering them warmth and care when they were at their absolute lowest.
After he disappeared, the female leads spent the rest of their lives chasing his shadow. Every single day, every single year, enduring an agonizingly long wait, desperately searching for the light that had illuminated their humble souls.
How beautiful, isn't it?
It was so beautiful that even though this trope had been used over and over again, people never got tired of it.
Li Wu walked out from under the shade of the tree.
The twilight was still sickly and dim, illuminating a few gray birds circling in the sky.
He arrived at the bus stop. The elderly folks were gathered in groups, chatting about mundane family matters.
Whose kid got into what prestigious university; whose kid got a job at a globally renowned corporation; whose kid made a name for themselves in society.
Li Wu stood in the crowd. He heard everything clearly, but not a single word actually registered.
Every single sound felt like harsh, grating noise, automatically filtered out by his brain.
At this exact moment.
His superhuman S-Rank senses clearly captured every single movement in his surroundings.
The roar of the bus engine. The hoarse, low murmurs of gossip. The aggressive, endless droning of the cicadas...
When Li Wu looked up, the bus had already pulled into the stop. The chassis was covered in advertisements.
The elderly folks had all boarded. He was the only one left standing at the front door, staring blankly ahead.
"Kid, you getting on?"
A familiar middle-aged voice drifted down from above.
Li Wu's pupils focused. He clearly saw the face of the man in the driver's seat. It was the manga character he had met right after he transmigrated—the bus driver.