His innermost thoughts were revealed, and he ventured into a fictional dynasty with the system.

If one were to accidentally stir up a "leaf" in time and space and make a mess of things, this close friend would always have a way to cover for them.

The feeling of having someone take responsibility for you is like holding a warm copper brazier just taken out of the stove; it's warm to the touch, and the warmth slowly spreads through your heart.

The warmth spread through her veins to every part of her body, even her fingertips felt a lazy comfort, making her want to be even more "unrestrained".

For example, she could secretly repair a tile on Du Fu's thatched hut, or deliver a warning to Yue Fei before he went to war: "Beware of treacherous officials." With Xin Zimo around, there would always be someone to hold up the sky if it fell.

Looking at her "well-behaved" appearance, Xin Zimo secretly ground her back teeth, and even the light pink downy hair behind her ears stood on end.

Like a irritated little animal, the white fur at the tip of its tail stood taut.

Well, her heartfelt words just now went from "time and space are too precious to be touched" to "the destiny of history should not be changed arbitrarily."

From the "butterfly effect creating huge waves" to the "spirit fruit seeds turning into poison ivy," it seems they've all fallen into the wind and been fed to the lark!

This person looks as elegant as a white lotus on a pond, dressed in flowing white clothes, and even the way they walk exudes an ethereal aura.

Deep down, he's full of the skill of "paying lip service while acting against it," and when he gets clever, he's even more cunning than the little fox who steals the spirit fruit.

Last time I advised her not to provoke demons in the human world, but the next day she started chatting with a painted-skin ghost about "The Peony Pavilion" and even praised the ghost's makeup, saying it was "more beautiful than the female lead in the opera troupe."

Despite agreeing not to interfere in mortal affairs, she gave the old flower seller a jade pendant that could ward off evil spirits.

This made the old lady think she had met a deity, and she set up an incense table at the alley entrance every day to make offerings, almost alarming the county government.

Even just a few days ago, when she saw a scholar on the street who was late for the exam, she secretly blew on his horse, making it run incredibly fast.

Although she didn't miss the exam, the horse got so tired that it lost weight. Xin Zimo had to sneak into the stable in the middle of the night to feed the horse a magic herb to make up for it.

The thought of having to run around with her and clean up her messes—and maybe even "correcting" the altered timeline—was incredibly daunting.

For example, he could secretly exchange the grain she had given to Du Fu for it, so as not to affect his mood of "how I wish I had thousands of mansions".

Or they might try to deceive the disturbed local deities like the Earth God and the City God, fabricating lies about "heavenly trials" or "celestial coincidences."

After she appeased the local earth god by the river last time, she was scolded by those old guys for "misusing seductive arts".

She might even have to deal with the old man from Heaven's Dao's questioning and smooth things over for her.

Last time, when the old man of the Heavenly Dao asked about the protective jade during the tribulation, she managed to make up a story that "Qianluo and the Nine-Tailed Immortal Fox have a past connection" to get away with it.

Her temples throbbed, and even her nine fox tails drooped listlessly, the white fur at the tips of the tails losing its usual fluffiness, resembling wild grass that had been hit by frost.

"Never mind," she sighed inwardly, her fingers unconsciously scratching the hem of her clothes.

I only hope that Su Jinyun will return after she passes away, that she will be gentle and quiet, speaking softly, and seem like someone who won't do anything reckless.

The last time I saw her was in an ancient painting. She was wearing a ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress), holding a calligraphy brush in her hand, and her eyebrows and eyes were as gentle as spring water. Perhaps that could tame her unruly nature.

This way, she won't have to worry about me as much, and I won't have to be constantly on edge for fear that she'll cause trouble. It will also allow me to keep a few more tufts of downy fur on my fox tail.

Little did she know that Su Jinyun was actually a classic "black sesame dumpling"—her outer skin looked clean and white, as soft and gentle as a glutinous rice ball from Jiangnan.

She always speaks with the soft tone of a woman from Jiangnan, with a slight upward inflection at the end of her sentences. When she smiles, she has two shallow dimples, making her seem like a well-behaved and sensible girl to anyone who sees her.

She has even more clever ideas than Qin Qianluo, a whole basketful of quirky schemes, like a sweet filling of sesame candy, yet exuding a cleverness.

Later, Su Jinyun followed Qin Qianluo through the long river of time. On the surface, she was a quiet, scholarly girl, carrying a copy of the Book of Songs behind her.

Every now and then, she would gently remind him, "Qianluo, walk slowly, don't fall."

In reality, she secretly followed Qin Qianluo into Li Bai's tavern to watch him compose hundreds of poems while drinking.

He secretly took out some peach blossom wine from his sleeve and added half a flask to Li Bai's wine pot, saying, "This wine is sweeter than the rice wine you drink, want to try it?"

She was even more excited than Qin Qianluo when she heard Li Qingzhao compose new lyrics.

She leaned closer and said, "Sister, you wrote 'Thinner than a yellow flower' so well. Why not add two more lines: 'The west wind rolls up the curtain, the moon is full over the west tower'?"

Li Qingzhao couldn't help but laugh at this; she even encouraged Qin Qianluo to touch Zhang Heng's seismograph, wondering, "Can this bronze ball really predict earthquakes? Will it make a sound if I touch it?"

If Xin Ziming hadn't stopped her in time, the seismograph might have actually "manifested" ahead of schedule.

But thanks to Qin Qianluo's influence, she hid her cunning very well. Every time she got into trouble, she would first blink her innocent big eyes and look at Xin Zimo.

She said softly, "Zimo, I didn't mean to, I was just too curious."

Then, she tugged at Qin Qianluo's sleeve and acted coquettishly, asking Qin Qianluo to plead for her. Seeing the two of them singing in unison, Xin Ziming couldn't bring herself to scold them.

Even Xin Ziming, with her discerning eyes that can identify demons and ghosts and see through people's hearts, was fooled by her several times.

It wasn't until later that they caught the two secretly giving silver to an old man selling sugar paintings on Chang'an Street—the old man had already closed his stall, but the two insisted that he draw one more little rabbit.

He even slipped in a piece of silver with magical properties, which caused the old man's sugar painting stall to be packed with people the next day, all saying that his sugar paintings could bring good luck.

Only then did I realize that my two best friends were "troublemakers," one openly causing trouble and the other secretly being cowardly, their partnership was "perfect."

He turned her life upside down, yet somehow it was impossible to hate him.

Xin Ziming, who was still helplessly following behind Qin Qianluo, was pondering how to give this girl another nudge.

One moment she was thinking, "Next time she manipulates time and space again, I'll confiscate her protective jade and let her deal with the Heavenly Dao old man herself."

Then she thought, "Why not find an opportunity for her to experience what it's like to clean up a mess, like having her appease the alarmed City God?"

He was thinking, "I need to go to the heavens and get more spiritual fruits so that I won't be short of things to use when I need to help mortals next time."

Little did they know that most of their future tasks would be thanks to this perfect pair of lively and mischievous people.

They needed to cover up the traces of disturbing the ancients, for example, explaining to Li Bai that "that peach blossom wine is celestial wine, and drinking it can inspire creativity."

They need to clean up the messed-up fragments of time and space, such as restoring the seismograph that was touched to its original state, and also send Zhang Heng a dream so that he thinks he is seeing things.

They also have to smooth things over with the old man of Heaven after they cause trouble, saying, "They were just curious and had no ill intentions. They will definitely change next time." But there will always be a next time.

The wind carried her low complaints as it caught up with her: "If you do that again, I won't care... let's see how you deal with that old man Tiandao then!"

"When the lightning strikes, I won't be giving you the protective jade anymore!"

But it was shattered by the silver bell tied in Qin Qian's hair. The silver bell jingled "ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling" with her footsteps, like a string of cheerful notes.

The complaints were transformed into light, fleeting laughter, drifting into the long road ahead, following the figures of the two as they floated off in the next direction.

I don't know how many times time has slipped through my fingers; I only feel the clouds in the sky gathering and dispersing, dispersing and gathering again.

The sunset glow has been dyed the crimson of the Tang Dynasty, the orange of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the purplish-red of the Qing Dynasty.

Stars rise and fall, rise and fall again, and the light dust scattered in the gaps of time and space changes its fragmented appearance several times.

Xin Zimo stood on the cloud steps beside the path of reincarnation, watching the two figures that shattered the flowing light as they approached.

Qin Qianluo's plain white skirt was still covered with peach petals from the Qujiang Pool in Chang'an during the Tang Dynasty. They were pink and tender, as if they had just been brushed off the branches, and even her clothes were filled with the faint fragrance of peach blossom wine.

Su Jinyun's hair was tinged with the fragrance of a painted boat on the Bian River in Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, mixed with the refreshing scent of Longjing tea before the rain.

It was the tea smoke she accidentally picked up when she secretly drank the innkeeper's treasured tea on the pleasure boat last time.

Some glittering fragments of time still clung to the hems of their clothes, like embers that hadn't been extinguished, swaying with their footsteps.

Xin Ziming's teeth were practically grinding to dust between her lips and teeth, her molars grinding together with a "crunching" sound.

The anger in his chest surged up and burned through his veins to his limbs and bones, even making the light pink downy hair behind his ears stand up straight, making him look like a fox whose tail had been stepped on.

She wished she could rush up right now, grab these two troublemakers by the collar, pack them up, and throw them into the deepest, coldest pool of the Samsara Pool.

Let them experience what it's like to "learn the rules from scratch"—after all, I've followed them through thousands of years, spending most of my time cleaning up their messes.

In Chang'an, he coaxed a musician who had been driven mad by modern folk tunes by making up a lie about "celestial music entering a dream" and stuffing him with spiritual fruit to shut him up.

He stole back the glass mirror that was being worshipped as a divine object in Bianjing, transformed into a Taoist priest and chanted the "Heart-Cleansing Mantra" for half the night before convincing the owner of the pleasure boat that "the divine mirror must return to heaven."

In a teahouse in Jiangnan during the Qing Dynasty, I compensated the gentlemen who had quarreled over "Zhuge Liang's roasted chicken wings" with two catties of pre-Qingming Longjing tea, and secretly replaced the storyteller's original script...

Because of all these things, she lost several tufts of fur from her fox tail, and even the old folks joked that she was "almost a bald-tailed fox."

However, Qin Qianluo and Su Jinyun seemed to have nails in their feet, standing steadily in the light mist in front of the Cycle of Reincarnation, showing no sign of "guilt for causing trouble".

Qin Qianluo gazed absently at the drifting clouds in the sky, her plain white dress fluttering gently in the wind, revealing a half-fallen peach petal still clinging to her ankle.

Her fingertips unconsciously twirled the lotus embroidery pattern on her skirt—a pattern she had painstakingly learned from an old embroiderer at a Suzhou embroidery workshop, a pattern she had spent ages learning before she finally mastered it.

The stitches are crooked and uneven, but I cherish it dearly.

Her gaze drifted far away, perhaps thinking of the Hu women dancing in the taverns of Chang'an, or the old man selling sugar paintings on the Rainbow Bridge of the Bian River.

Su Jinyun stared blankly at the light spots spinning around her feet. The light spots were reflected from fragments of spacetime, flickering on and off.

It was just like the lantern shadows flickering outside the window when they were secretly exchanging storybooks in a Qing Dynasty teahouse.

She twirled a white jade pendant between her fingers, the character "安" (peace) carved on it gleaming from being rubbed, its edges patina forming.

This jade pendant was obtained by the two of them from a jade shop in Bianjing (Kaifeng) during the Northern Song Dynasty, after they had pestered the owner.

The shopkeeper called it "Peace Jade," so Su Jinyun always carried it with her, even when she got into trouble, saying it "could calm her guilty conscience."