Defeat the system! Kiss my little monster!

Shen Yu noticed the cowardly little movement. He lowered his hand and sighed, "You want to save it? It beat you half to death before."

"...It actually showed me mercy." The garbled characters on the data board, which was barely surviving, flickered and the undulating lines intertwined, revealing its uncertain state of mind.

It looked up at Shen Yu: "When you confronted Xuan Lin, it also stopped."

Shen Yu lifted his eyelids: "So?"

When Shen Yu stabbed Xuan Lin with the phoenix hairpin, the coal ball broke the black thread. Shen Yu's phoenix hairpin pierced Xuan Lin's cheek. All of this, was the coal ball helping Shen Yu, or helping itself?

Is it helping Shen Yu get revenge, or is it helping itself get revenge?

Shen Yu lowered his eyes and saw Gouqie Toushi frozen in mid-air, silent. He helplessly rubbed its head: "Gouqie Toushi, you... you're still too soft-hearted. What will you do if other creatures bully you in the future? Will you hide like this again?"

Clutching its data card, it silently snorted and said unhappily, "I won't let myself be bullied!"

Shen Yu chuckled, glanced behind him, and after a long while spoke, "You can go back. But if you're just trying to survive, you need to be sure you can control the coal ball. Otherwise... let it die."

The creature, clinging to life, looked up at Shen Yu and nodded after a few seconds of silence.

Shen Yu said nothing more. He turned back and, along with Gouqie, returned to the vicinity of the palace.

Xuan Lin went mad and went to Kunning Palace again. The palace maids and eunuchs who served her dared not go far and followed Xuan Lin around. Shen Yu observed from the shadows for a long time until the shift change at dawn, when he went in with the palace maids to clean.

The coal briquette was still buried in the floor tiles, the ground was full of cracks, and all the light on it had gone out, leaving only a tiny bit of energy to breathe.

Shen Yu approached the coal ball silently under cover. The coal ball had already stopped working, so he simply used one hand to pry it out of the brick.

After finishing, Shen Yu picked up the wooden bucket filled with sewage from the side, walked outside, and went straight to the washing area.

There were fewer palace servants on the road during this time, so Shen Yu put down the water bucket as soon as he entered and hid in another secluded corner.

"If you're just trying to survive, then you're in charge."

The creature, barely daring to survive, grunted in response. It then drew a solid chain of energy from its own body and tied it into a knot through the broken body of the coal ball.

The coal ball remained motionless. After checking its condition and ensuring that it wouldn't escape, Gouqietousheng transferred a little yang energy to it.

Coal Ball had previously given Gouqie one million Yang Qi points, and although a lot of them had been burned away, the remaining ones were barely enough for Coal Ball to restart the system.

After about a minute or two, the light on the coal gradually brightened. The cracks on its body slowly repaired themselves, but the process was slow. It was only trying to survive by repairing the most severely damaged parts, while ignoring the rest.

"To live a life of...extraordinary...live..."

The coal ball made a mechanical sound; it lay stiffly on the ground, its alarm ringing briefly before going silent again.

Having managed to survive and recharge its energy, it immediately slammed the coal ball over its head, saying irritably, "Thanks for remembering me!"

The coal ball almost got crushed again; it tilted its body slightly, and the data took a long time to return to normal.

The coal ball hesitated for a moment, then turned to look to the side. Upon seeing Shen Yu's face, it suddenly stopped moving.

"It's you...it's you...the protagonist...Lan Yu..." the coal ball murmured to itself, as if it had remembered something, and other emotions slowly filled its mechanical voice.

Shen Yu stood to the side without moving. He looked at Coal Ball and said, "Coal Ball, we've actually met before, haven't we? In our past lives, we were here too."

The coal ball did not answer; the data on its body fluctuated slowly, as if it were speechless.

Shen Yu had already guessed some of the reasoning. He curled his lips into a sneer and said, "You don't need to hide anything. Even now, you're still unwilling to tell the truth?"

The coal briquette emitted a hissing sound that was almost like rotting and rusting. It lowered its body and said, "I don't know why this happened... I don't know... I just had to leave... I didn't mean to..."

The coal ball is a system that controls time travel. Its primary task is to facilitate the passage of souls, enabling salvation and the continuation of life, thereby... benefiting all living beings.

The world Shen Yu lived in had a flaw: the untimely death of Xuan Lin. The early demise of a wise ruler led to political instability, the rise of eunuchs, and frequent wars.

The primary purpose of coal briquettes is to compensate for this deficiency, thereby enabling the world to avoid disasters and develop steadily.

Therefore, Coal Ball brought over the soul of another person who had also died unexpectedly from another world, and taught him to learn so that he could continue Xuan Lin's life and continue to develop.

"Look what kind of monster you brought over! He's a psychopath who wants to kill us all!" someone spat.

Coal Ball trembled. Having been in contact with too many hosts, it was difficult for it to recall the original personality traits of this transmigrator.

“…My host was also carefully selected; he is not a tyrannical person,” Coal Ball said.

"Get out of here! He almost beat you to death! He's an abusive man!"

Shen Yu: "..."

He glanced at Gouqiechoing and asked, "You said you left? What do you mean?"

Coal Ball searched its database, retrieved its surveillance records from many years ago, and replied, "Shortly after I extradited him, the main system malfunctioned. At that time, all systems performing missions outside received a crisis order, requiring us to return to assemble, and that's when I left this world."

Shen Yu was used to this kind of behavior from the coal ball; it had abandoned him before and must have done many such despicable things.

"So? You never came back after that?" Shen Yu asked.

"...There were too many things to do, I forgot. After completing the mission on the main system, I took on the next mission and went to another world. It wasn't until now... that I've returned."

The coal ball's body was still trembling uncontrollably: "When I left, I told him about the original development of the world and gave him a golden book to study. But I never expected... I never expected him to turn out like this!"

Shen Yu stared at the coal briquette in silence.

How should he talk to Coal Ball? The golden book that Coal Ball gave to Xuan Lin recorded the original characters, trajectories, developments... and even the ending of this world.

He told everything to the time traveler, who then used all the clues in the book to drag Shen Yu into a quagmire and ultimately torture him to death.

Of so many people, why did Xuan Lin specifically know that Shen Yu could be turned into a medicine man? Why did he refuse to let Shen Yu go even at the cost of his life, and try every means to keep Shen Yu by his side?

Perhaps he was lustful, but that's only a very small part of the reason. The most fundamental factor... is that he knows Shen Yu is the protagonist.

The protagonist is protected by the heavens, and even though he suffers all kinds of setbacks, he is still able to break through dangerous situations and live from the brink of death.

Xuan Lin knew that Shen Yu wouldn't be killed so easily, so he fed Shen Yu poison, made him drink his blood, and drove him insane and even to the brink of despair, constantly pushing him to the limit.

Heaven will protect Shen Yu.

Xuan Lin's kidnapping of Shen Yu also, to some extent, hijacked the Heavenly Dao, making it protect him as well.

However, the protagonist's luck is not endless. On the day Shen Yu went completely mad, his luck also completely dissipated.

He finally died.