God's Gift

Lu Keming raised his hand and placed it on Youyou's cheek. The warmth from his palm felt so real, and the touch of her skin made him feel a fragile, ethereal sensation. He caressed the soft flesh beneath his hand with affection, his voice low and slow:

"You told me to wait for you."

Her warm breath fell on Lu Keming's iron gloves. Lu Keming's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty, his teeth clenched so hard they ached, and his breathing gradually became heavier.

"But I waited for tomorrow after tomorrow."

"I'm always waiting for tomorrow."

"I only found out later." Lu Keming's voice trembled, his eyes stained crimson with hatred, yet warm tears slid down his cheeks.

"I am just someone trapped in today, and I will never reach your tomorrow."

He was tired of waiting day after day, tired of watching the moon set and the sun rise, tired of the faint hope in his heart being extinguished time and time again, until even his heart became empty.

Yu Youyou stared blankly at Lu Keming. She reached out and caught the tears dripping from Lu Keming's face. The tears splashed in her palm and scattered into the mud.

Lu Keming stared blankly at the tears that had disappeared from Yu Youyou's palm.

He thought his tears had long since dried up.

"You said the past can't be changed." Lu Keming withdrew his gaze, looked up into Yu Youyou's eyes, and said softly:

"But I'm standing here now, standing in the past."

"I will kill him with my own hands." He withdrew his hand from Yu Youyou's face, and with a desperate resolve, raised the dagger in his hand again: "End it all."

Before his dagger fell, Yu Youyou finally spoke:

"Ke Ming, do you really think you've changed the past?"

Lu Keming stopped moving, looked up at Yu Youyou, a look of confusion flashing across his face, quickly replaced by stubbornness. He said firmly:

"Of course I changed the past. If it weren't for your interference, I would have killed him long ago."

Yu Youyou nodded, confirming his statement: "Yes, you almost killed yourself many times."

But the next second, Yu Youyou's words exploded in Lu Keming's ears like a thunderclap, making him tremble and stand there dumbfounded.

"Just like you in the past, you almost got killed many times."

"In the Cave of Ten Thousand Buddhas, in the City That Never Sleeps, in the Birdsong Academy... Do you remember, Ke Ming?"

"You clearly destroyed the Thousand-Faced Buddha, so why has it reappeared?"

"Why would Fang Ziang tell you that a man in black gave him a dagger and told him to kill you?"

"In the City That Never Sleeps, who exactly wanted to kill you among the hundreds of assassination attempts you faced?"

Yu Youyou lifted her foot and moved closer to Lu Keming, her voice entering Lu Keming's mind unmistakably:

"It is precisely because you want to kill your past self that your past self encountered those dangers."

Lu Keming's pupils dilated, and a chill ran up his spine, pinning him firmly to the spot.

Those dangers... all came from him?

A buzzing sound filled Lu Keming's ears, his head felt unusually heavy, his brain was spinning, the sky and the earth were spinning in front of him, and his body was swaying as if he was about to fall.

Yu Youyou's voice continued, each word drilling into his ears, relentlessly grinding against his eardrums.

"If you really are changing the past, why do you have those memories of danger now?"

"Shouldn't these things be something that never happened to you?"

Yu Youyou stepped forward, looked up at Lu Keming, and spoke softly, yet her voice sent a chill down his spine:

"Everything you do to change the past has already happened in the past."

"From the moment you enter the past, you have become a part of the past."

"Everything you are doing now is something you are destined to do, and everything you have experienced in the past is something you are destined to experience."

Lu Keming stared blankly at Yu Youyou, then turned to look at himself on the ground.

If he has never changed the past.

If everything he did followed the trajectory of fate, and if he didn't change fate at all, then it means—

He was destined to fail.