Ordinary Chapter 105: Butterfly

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

“Can’t we leave any memories?” Xia LeYu spoke, he forced himself to laugh out loud, “Like leaving a little trace that can remind himself or something?”

“Of course not, time regression is not that superficial. For us he completely stripped time from before to now, and only Shen Si, the one with the time ability can have memories and traces in this excised history.” He Xin shook his head, “We can’t leave a message to our past selves, let alone help Shen Si. Don’t mention it again, Shen Si doesn’t have to go that far.”

Xia LeYu let go of his hand, and he didn’t continue to speak. The whole person looked exceptionally silent; as the Special Unit’s Deputy Team Leader, he rarely had such a depressed time. He was Ning Yangze’s specially selected Deputy Team Leader, with a resolute heart and inexhaustible optimism, and he was the most suitable person to be the Special Unit’s Deputy Team Leader.

“Xia LeYu?” Ning Yangze reached out and patted him on the shoulder, “What’s wrong?”

Xia LeYu looked up at Ning Yangze, and only after a moment did he speak, “Shen Si hates plants, especially flowers.”

“What?” Ning Yangze froze for a moment, and then he suddenly remembered that Xia LeYu had called him before, and asked him whether Shen Si really liked plants that much, and if so, why had he created such a large batch of herbicides that were almost destructive to plants.

Ning Yangze didn’t think deeply about it at the time, but now he suddenly caught something in his mind.

Xia LeYu said Shen Si hated plants. Xia LeYu just proposed to set Shen Si back a decade or two, and Xia LeYu was very depressed.

A sudden and absurd idea came into Ning Yangze’s mind. Ning Yangze’s eyes kept rolling, as he stood up somewhat bewildered, and then he spoke, “Xia LeYu, are you politely telling us that Shen Si had reversed time? A decade or two backwards?”

“If that’s really the case, then that’s the result of your question just now.” He Xin spoke calmly, “It looks like none of us can help Shen Si, and the world is still the way it is. Shen Si often said a phrase that went: the past cannot be changed, and you see, he is right. Even if you rewind time, the history that has already happened continues to move forward in this way under the operation of time.”

Xia LeYu put his hands over his eyes as he tried to suppress the despair inside him, “What now? We can’t keep forcing Shen Si, we have to find another way.”

But there was no other way; the flowers were still blooming, the herbicide was being made, and one day they would use the herbicide to eliminate all the flowers in the world. But what about the playfield? What about the world that was assimilating?

They even relied on Shen Si to get the herbicide.

Very powerless, even desperate, this feeling of weakness washed over everyone’s heart.

There were still three days left until the world assimilated.

… 

Those flowering vines weren’t moving, neither those skeletons and the white figure had disappeared. Jian Nian step by step, pulled off the flowering vines on the ground, the miscellaneous petunias and rosebuds, and the rosebuds with spikes pierced Jian Nian’s hand.

But he didn’t care.

After pushing out the skeleton, which was no longer moving, Jian Nian kept looking for Shen Si in the pile of things that were stacked like a mountain.

“Shen Si,” Jian Nian shouted Shen Si’s name, the dark earth was tumbling, as if dripping with black water. There was something flowing on the walls, and if you looked carefully, you would find that it was a shadow of white ghosts. No one else could be seen, unknown if they were hiding or dead. 

“I’ve always believed that Shen Si was doing the right thing, and I’ve always understood that I can’t stop you from doing what you want to do.” Jian Nian threw the rose vine out of his hand, “You said you get lonely once in a while, and that’s okay. I’ll always be here.”

The spikes stabbed Jian Nian’s hand bloody, but because it was a dream, even devouring it was useless. Because the person dreaming was not him, but Shen Si.

After clearing about a meter out of his surroundings, Jian Nian suddenly heard a sound. He pushed back two steps, and the next instant a figure rushed out of the graveyard buried by skeletons and flowers.

He was white, all white from head to toe. Inside the blurred figure belonging to Shen Si was a skeleton. The white skeleton twisted his arm, his fingers were full of spikes, and his arm was wrapped with a bright red petunia flower.

Inside the skeleton’s chest was a beating red heart.

“Shen Si?”

The skeleton turned his head to look at Jian Nian, and the moment he waved his hand, spikes were flung straight out. Jian Nian dodged to avoid them, but even so he was still pierced with a row of small spikes on his arm, as if something had appeared out of nowhere from the air.

Jian Nian looked at the thorns on his arm, and the next moment he suddenly understood that there had been a time pause, and he had been stabbed by the thorns thrown by the skeleton during the time pause.

Because it was Shen Si’s dream, even the monster that devoured Shen Si had the ability of time?

This was really hard to deal with.

The skeleton needed to be avoided, so Jian Nian tried to distance himself from the skeleton, but it didn’t look like it intended to keep watching Jian Nian. After Jian Nian moved away from it, it turned and flew in another direction. Jian Nian sat on the ground, and pulled the thorns one by one from his arm, and with them being long and hard, pulling them out wasn’t difficult.

An unspeakable fear suddenly rushed into Jian Nian’s heart. Jian Nian understood that the fear of spikes had worked, so he bit his lips hard, then waved his hand. The devouring beast separated from his arm, and then swallowed the spikes on the ground.

With the sharp sense of fear remaining, it was followed by unspeakable disgust, and Jian Nian, affected by this disgust, couldn’t help but show a bored expression.

At this point, a picture slowly emerged in Jian Nian’s mind.

Jian Nian could devour anything and turn it into his own power. The images he saw were because Shen Si had the ability of time, and after he devoured what Shen Si’s dreams shaped, he also vaguely contacted Shen Si’s ability and viewed a little bit of the content of the dreams.

No longer a hand rooted with thorns, instead, it was a picture of a person standing high above the ground looking down.

The owner of the sight should be standing relatively high, and as he looked at his feet breathing heavily, it was a world full of flowers. Jian Nian was able to recognize one of the flowers as a spiritual playfield flower, and another flower clusters in constant bloom, from a point to a circle quickly spread.

He hit the wall next to him hard, and because the force was too great Jian Nian even heard the sound of the wall cracking.

A few moments later, the line of sight shifted and Jian Nian saw his hand, which was dripping with blood, and the figure on the clear glass next to him.

White hair, gray jacket, black pupils overflowing with anger. It was Shen Si!

Hastily opening his eyes, Jian Nian stood up from the ground. The fear from the spikes hadn’t yet disappeared, but Jian Nian could not stay here, now that he was completely sure that Shen Si had rewinded time. He faced the sea of flowers that couldn’t be eradicated and made up his mind to rewind time.

Jian Nian quickly ran forward, the direction of where the white figure just left.

After running some distance Jian Nian heard the sound of screaming, so he hurriedly shifted his direction and ran towards the location of the sound, and soon saw the white figure floating in the air and the person who kept retreating, and on the other side there was a person who kept screaming and tumbling, and that person was stabbed with a row of needles in his arm.

Within a few moments, the man’s screams grew tinier and tinier as a bunch of petunias burst out of the ground and covered his body directly.

“Don’t come over!” Xin Tianxiang sat backwards on the ground, and stared closely at the white figure in the air, not daring to move his eyes away at all.

The white figure stretched out his hand, covered with petunias fingertips have blood dripping down, red eye-catching.

“Stop it!” Jian Nian pounced on the white figure and pinned it underneath him when he couldn’t react.

Xin Tian Xiang froze for a moment, then he hurriedly rose from the ground, wanting to escape but felt that wasn’t a good idea, so he finally could only rush out of here to a safe place not far to watch.

The white figure let out a howl, the heart inside the skeleton was beating, and the petunia on the wrist was getting redder and redder.

The needles kept shooting out of its hands, all sticking in Jian Nian’s body, those feelings of fear and pain hit Jian Nian, but he didn’t let go. He pressed the white figure hard and didn’t let it leave a single inch.

“Won’t let you attack anyone else.” Jian Nian spoke while shaking. “Come to your senses, Shen Si!”

“Shen Si?” Xin Tianxiang who was not far away froze for a moment, he cautiously came over, looked around and then looked at the white figure under Jian Nian, “The dreamer is Shen Si? It’s the second stage of the playfield now? Is that the case?”

Jian Nian ignored Xin Tianxiang and ignored his question, just pressed hard on the white figure.

In the last dream playfield, Jian Nian as the dream master suppressed the dream and finally managed to leave from it, as the dream master he was also influencing the dream, at least even in the dream he wasn’t willing to hurt Shen Si, the rain that hurt everyone didn’t hurt Shen Si in the slightest.

This time it was the same.

The needles that strike fear into others and even scare people to death alive have minimal effect on Jian Nian, and no pink petunia vines grow out to wrap around Jian Nian’s feet.

Because deep inside Shen Si’s heart, he also didn’t want to hurt Jian Nian.

“Wake up!” Jian Nian stared at the red heart beating in the white figure’s chest, tears dripping down on it, “…Shen Si!”

Jian Nian was always the one who followed Shen Si’s lead, and only in front of Shen Si was he the clingy crybaby because only Shen Si cared why he cried since he was a child.

He was always the one who tried to protect others.

…  

“Shen Si.”

Shen Si suddenly raised his head as he looked around, and in that moment just now, he seemed to hear Jian Nian’s voice calling out to him.

The almost hallucinatory voice quickly disappeared, and even when Shen Si tried to desperately fight the spirit he could no longer hear, his ears were still full of malicious yelling, and that self-proclaimed unlimited flow world rules of the disgusting voice was still present. Shen Si struggled hard, but unfortunately the harder he tried, the more tightly those flower vines wrapped.

Shen Si even felt that if he used more force his body would be strangled.

“Hiss…” Shen Si sucked in a breath of cold air, as he frowned and relaxed his muscles, trying to let the force of the flower vines relax.

The skeletons alone couldn’t make Shen Si give up, his memory was still incomplete and he didn’t know why he chose to use this method to get rid of his fate, but Shen Si knew very well that once he gave up here, then the world would be over.

【Just as I thought. Every time I’m here, you say the same things and ask the same questions, and of course you give me the same answers.】

Before disappearing, that unlimited flow world rule said these words.

【Then, let’s see if you can continue to bear it this time.】

After that the voice disappeared, as if it had never existed, and Shen Si was still bound in place. He was surrounded by emptiness, and the playfield’s malice floating around him, as if it was eating away at his memories and obsessions, looking for something to break him.

So Shen Si saw it ripping spikes out of his chest, ripping out skulls, ripping out flowers, and ripping out a butterfly.

A beautiful blue butterfly.

The butterfly flew to Shen Si’s finger, and he looked at the butterfly as if a signal was turned on, and those closed memories instantly flooded into Shen Si’s mind.

A huge amount of information poured in, and with an unbearable sense of oppression, the butterfly shattered between Shen Si’s and merged into the air.

“No!”

Shen Si tried to grab the butterfly, but couldn’t even reach out.

“Butterfly, butterfly!” The white figure shouted maliciously, countless butterflies appeared in front of Shen Si as they fluttered their wings and hovered around him.

Inside the playfield, Jian Nian was kicked straight out, the skeleton-covered shadow refloated in the air, and opened his hands, as a pair of butterfly wings unfolded directly from his back. Through its transparent skin, Jian Nian was able to see the pair of butterfly wings rooted in his spine, with silk threads connected to the beating heart.

Countless blue butterflies floated on this scorched earth and Jian Nian stood up from the ground, not far from Xin Tianxiang who stood blankly in place. This was the first change after the dream playfield entered the second stage.

Countless butterflies were flying in the air, but Jian Nian felt that, for example, those hovering around, the figure in the middle was more like a butterfly.

Jian Nian, who had been chosen as the dream master before, knew of course that the white figure was actually Shen Si’s incarnation, formed only by the dream master’s memories and obsessions, and could possess only malice, skulls, spikes, flowers, and finally, butterflies.

What exactly had Shen Si experienced?

The butterflies circled around Shen Si, who no longer cared about the vines tightening around his wrists, choosing instead to grab those butterflies harder, as Shen Si’s eyes were glowing with the obsession he had grown accustomed to.

“Change!” The white figure shouted again, and under his shout, the playfield changed again.

Those butterflies floated down countless fine powder, and when the fine powder fell, the whole playfield scene was changing, as if time flew backwards, and as if the extension of time, in the distorted picture Jian Nian could see the figure of people who have died, and could also see someone caught in those gaps shouting for help.

But it must be said that with the interference of these butterflies, Jian Nian couldn’t find who he was looking for.

“Destiny!” The white figure’s cries continued.

“Shut up!” Shen Si struggled as he raised his head to stare at the white figure, “Shut up!”

The flower vine on his arm was broken directly, and he grabbed a blue butterfly. But because he was too forceful, the butterfly was crushed directly, and the powder from the blue wings stuck to Shen Si’s hand. The white figure no longer drifted, but floated to Shen Si, staring at him with the same face as Shen Si.

“The one who dreams is you, the one who obsesses is also you. What I’m telling is your story, so why do you ask me to stop? Are you in denial?”

He directly punched out, but Shen Si hit only air. This was a dream, and the white figure was just a malicious incarnation of the dream, Shen Si simply couldn’t hit him.

The butterfly wings fell from Shen Si’s hands and fluttered to the ground. Shen Si looked at the butterfly wings on the ground and his dark eyes were hollow.

“Suffer, despair! Your obsession is the playfield’s sustenance!” The white figure maliciously murmured in Shen Si’s ear, “This is your end.”

Shen Si let go of his hand and the already dead blue butterfly fell without the slightest sound.

…Failure?

Shen Si’s fear of the sharp thorns was because as a child he once accidentally rolled down the mountain, fell right on the thorns, and a lot of black and long thorns were stuck in his palms and arms, which almost became his begging psychological shadow, so he rarely went to the mountain again, and his most disliked sport in life was hiking.

Shen Si hated plants, especially flowers, because at the end of time, he saw the spiritual system playfield flowers occupying the whole world, and those showy to the extreme flowers brought endless destruction. They were like the seeds of hell to induce malice until the whole world was dying.

There were skeletons in Shen Si’s world, because in the reversed world, the dead who should be sleeping in peace were woken up again and again because he reversed time and died again after spending this period. This behavior brought Shen Si a certain sense of guilt, as the skeletons represented the dead, in other words, those who died and were awakened by him.

And those butterflies were the fondest wish of Shen Si’s heart.

In the first timeline, Shen Si was a Survivor. He didn’t break up with Jian Nian, and he wasn’t indifferent at that time. The death of his parents didn’t affect him too much, and he was willing to continue to accompany Jian Nian, hoping that Jian Nian could change those obsessions that shouldn’t exist. Immediately after the appearance of the world of unlimited flow, they were called into that world at the same time.

Death or survival, trust or doubt, Shen Si didn’t change anything in it, because he had a time ability, and was one of the most powerful Survivors, not to mention that the person beside him was Jian Nian. When they were together, it was enough to live.

All the way to… the world’s end.

The flowers of the spiritual playfield blossomed all over the land, and the real world was assimilated by the unlimited flow world. There were crying people everywhere, and Shen Si and Jian Nian had no place to go back to.

No one could stop it, so they desperately watched the world’s demise, which was a predetermined fate.

So Shen Si went backwards in time, all the way to twenty years, and he began to look for ways to change the established future.

History and the future was a line, and the past couldn’t be changed, because changing the past would inevitably change the future. Shen Si began his action to change the past in order to influence the future. As long as history changed, the established future may therefore find a silver lining.

As if a butterfly stirring its wings to create a storm, as long as the butterfly was found, the future could be expected.

The first time in reversed time, Shen Si took Jian Nian out of this place, in order to modify Jian Nian’s fate and influence the future for this reason, but it failed, and Jian Nian still entered the world of unlimited flow with him.

The second time, Shen Si saved a man who was destined to die, but the man died immediately for other reasons.

The third time, Shen Si tried to destroy some playfields after entering the unlimited flow world, but the playfields were still intact… 

Until the seventh time, Shen Si stood on the top of a high building, and looked at the world that had been completely covered with flowers, he decided: let himself become that butterfly.

When the loathsome plants and flowers became his favorites; when the least favorite sport became work; when indifference became the main tone of Shen Si as a person, the past, finally changed.

Shen Si didn’t enter the world of unlimited flow. Shen Si and Jian Nian broke up. And Shen Si became a sensible, indifferent person.

Although he still went in because of the aversion to the flowers of the spiritual system playfield, after studying about plants in the subconscious to create some of the potions that could eliminate those flowers, it didn’t matter. For him, it was just something he made unconsciously, and it was an opportunity to develop the herbicide.

However, history was still being repaired.

Shen Si, who had no memory, went to dye his hair white, and at exactly the time when Shen Si’s ability evolved to a certain stage causing his hair to go all white, the world of unlimited flow collapsed and the playfields appeared in the real world.

Shen Si had reason to believe that the world of unlimited flow collapsed because time was repairing history.

Because so far he had entered the playfield, and all of them were in the same order as the playfields he once entered in the unlimited flow world, which was the ultimate reason Shen Si kept entering the playfields.

He still awakened the ability, time still lapsed into the present, and the flowers still bloom all over the real world.

History… did not change.

The flowering vines crumbled in the air, and those skeletons were fading. After the bindings disappeared Shen Si fell straight to the ground. He stared at the dead butterfly on the ground, his eyes were hollow.

“Butterfly! Change! Destiny!” The white figure was still yelling, its shrill laughter ringing in Shen Si’s ears.

Shen Si clenched his hands tightly, his nails sinking into the flesh, but Shen Si couldn’t feel the pain at all. This was the closest to victory, and the most unbearable defeat.

It’s okay, let’s try again, next time we can definitely do it.

He consoled himself silently in his heart.

As if that would fill all of it up.

In the playfield, Jian Nian stood in place. Those distorted spaces finally disappeared, and during that period it was unknown how many people died. At least Xin Tianxiang had fallen, lying motionless on the ground, unclear whether he was dead or alive. Jian Nian looked up at the white figure floating in the air, as the white figure’s heart in the chest cavity was dripping blood down a little.

With every drop of blood, the ground grew a flower. The flowers quickly spread, and in just a few seconds, the whole playfield had become a sea of flowers.

Those flowers were the flowers of the spiritual playfield; the flowers that were currently blooming in the real world.

It was also Shen Si’s most hated flower.