"Xiao Kai, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."
A woman, a woman so beautiful she took your breath away, was kneeling on the ground, crying tearfully at Zhou Kai.
Zhou Kai was still dazed.
His mind was like a pot of boiling porridge. The last thing he remembered was the steam from instant noodles in his rented room, and the next thing he knew, he was thrust into this bare, dilapidated body named "Zhou Kai." The only piece of information that had suddenly appeared in his mind was that the woman in front of him was his sister.
In her hand, she held a knife gleaming with a cold light.
"…This dialogue is way too cliché," Zhou Kai thought instinctively.
According to the classic plot, he should have tensed his muscles, charged forward to disarm her with his bare hands, then embraced the beauty and said deeply, "What nonsense are you talking about!"
He understood the script; watch him perform!
Zhou Kai took a deep breath, pushed off with his heels, and prepared to stage a textbook-perfect heroic rescue.
However—
Pfft.
The faint sound of a sharp object slicing through flesh echoed eerily in the silent, dilapidated hut.
The world seemed to have been silenced.
Warm, iron-rust-scented liquid sprayed like a high-pressure water gun, covering Zhou Kai's face.
Red, viscous, it trickled down his cheeks and dripped into his slightly parted lips, stunned by the shock.
...Salty.
Zhou Kai froze in place, maintaining an extremely awkward posture as if he were about to charge forward. He watched helplessly as his sister collapsed, her beautiful eyes losing focus, finally settling on him.
...No way?
Did this happen too fast?!
Zhou Kai mechanically raised his hand, wiped his face, and looked at the crimson on his hand.
After his brain froze for three seconds, a thought finally broke through the chaos.
Holy shit, someone's dead!
Immediately afterward, a second thought sent a chill down his spine.
Wait, this dilapidated house… this unfamiliar sister… so I've… time-traveled?!
After confirming his identity as a time traveler, Zhou Kai's thoughts immediately followed a standard procedure.
He cleared his throat and cautiously whispered:
"System?"
"System Brother? System Sister?"
"Golden Finger? Old Man? Come out, someone!"
As soon as the words left his mouth—
Bang—!!!
A loud bang came from the roof, followed by a shower of wood shavings, dust, and tiles falling down.
A sleek figure landed in a standard headfirst position, precisely piercing through the already flimsy roof of his house, then landed face-first on the ground with a thud.
She was wearing a beautiful dress, but the skirt had flipped up due to the awkward position, revealing the underwear with small strawberry patterns underneath.
Immediately afterward, a muffled but clearly annoyed mutter came from the ground.
"Damn it… I missed again."
Zhou Kai's gaze moved slowly, like a rusty robot.
First, the motionless, stunningly beautiful woman on the ground and the glaring pool of red.
Then, the strawberry-patterned underwear-clad girl beside her, lying face-down in a prone position, still muttering to herself.
Finally, himself—a so-called "younger brother" with blood all over his face, staring blankly.
Zhou Kai took a deep breath and silently screamed.
Everyone else's system makes a "ding" sound. Why did mine come crashing down from the sky, landing face-first?! Is this even acceptable customer service?!
The girl on the ground wriggled for a while, her legs thrashing like a fish pulled ashore.
"Hey... hey... hey, you over there!" She finally gave up trying to save herself and shouted in a muffled voice, "Can you help me? I can't pull myself out."
Zhou Kai silently looked at her, then at her sister on the ground, and finally walked over, knelt down, and poked her with a finger.
Hmm, she's alive.
"Before I pull you out, answer me first," Zhou Kai said in a tone that seemed to have seen through the hardships of life, "Are you my system?"
"I'm a deity, okay?!" The muffled voice suddenly rose an octave.
After speaking, she seemed to want to prove her divine authority, adding in a muffled voice, "You, wait a moment! This deity will be done shortly!"
Immediately after, Zhou Kai saw those two legs start flailing around like a whirlwind again, accompanied by the sound of, "Hey… hey… come out, come out!"
After flailing around for a while, aside from kicking up more dust, she remained completely still.
Finally, the flapping stopped. After an awkward silence, the muffled voice sounded again, this time with obvious flattery and a hint of almost inaudible resentment.
"That... that handsome guy with blood all over his face..."
She stumbled, the word "brother" seemed to burn her lips, and she couldn't bring herself to say it. After a two-second pause, she gave up and changed her words:
"...that human! Can you help me? My face seems stuck... could you... um... push from under my stomach?"
Zhou Kai looked down at her.
The girl was lying on the ground in a standard five-point position, her head and shoulders indeed stuck in a hole in the floor. From a mechanical perspective, if her body were considered a lever with the fulcrum at her stuck neck, applying force from her abdomen upward would indeed be the most efficient way to free her.
This request... was actually pretty reasonable?
Reasonable my ass!
Zhou Kai felt his worldview being repeatedly shattered in just a few minutes. He stared expressionlessly at the strawberry-patterned underwear trembling slightly due to her owner's exertion and firmly refused, "I'll go find a crowbar."
"Huh? A crowbar?" The girl's voice betrayed a hint of fear. "Will it hurt?"
Zhou Kai ignored her, picked up a firewood stick, knelt down beside her, and said succinctly, "Don't move."
"Oh..." A weak response came from the ground, "Then be gentle, okay?"
With a soft "pop," like pulling out a large champagne cork, her head finally emerged from the floor.
"Oh my gosh, finally seeing the light again!"
She quickly cleared her throat, as if trying to cough out all the awkwardness from earlier.
She took a deep breath, puffed out her little chest, lifted her chin sharply, and tried to look as mysterious as possible, speaking slowly and deliberately, "Mortals, you must really want to save your sister, right? I can bring her back to life. What do you say?"
After speaking, she crossed her arms over her chest, raised her chin even higher, and wore an expression that screamed, "Beg me, I'm so powerful!" But her darting eyes betrayed her inner tension.
Zhou Kai interrupted her performance with a blank expression: "Enough, enough. Skip the formalities. Just say it—how do I save her? What's the cost?"
The divine maiden's arrogant expression froze on her face.
She seemed caught off guard by the unexpected turn of events, staring blankly for several seconds before hurriedly lifting her wrist to glance at the childish pink strawberry-themed smartwatch.
Then she let out a small, frustrated sigh.
"Oh no! I'm too early!"
Too early? Does saving someone require clocking in for work?!
Zhou Kai was about to complain, but the girl had already made her decision. A resolute expression flashed across her face, like a programmer who had pressed the wrong button and decided to restart the computer.
"Sorry, operator error!" she said, flashing a nervous yet professional smile. "Let's try again."
"Wait, what do you mean 'try again'—"
Zhou Kai couldn't finish his sentence.
The girl's figure moved like a ghost, and her delicate white hand swiftly tapped his neck.
"Go to sleep!"
Everything went black, and Zhou Kai lost consciousness completely.
When he woke up again, Zhou Kai found himself lying on a soft, warm surface.
When he opened his eyes, he saw his sister's stunningly beautiful face, tear-streaked like a pear blossom. She was still alive, her neck as smooth as ever, without a single scar.
But Zhou Kai's heart sank.
"I'm sorry, Xiao Kai... I shouldn't have..."
The same scene, the same lines, like a cursed tape recorder, played back in his ears at the exact same moment.
That strawberry panties deity had truly turned back time.
Zhou Kai watched as his sister's hand slowly raised again, holding the knife, a flash of determination in his eyes.
This time, he was prepared!
Just as the blade was about to touch her neck, Zhou Kai suddenly sat up from her lap, grabbing her wrist tightly!
"Stop!"
His sister was startled by his outburst, forgetting to shed tears.
"Sis, don't rush to die!" Zhou Kai gripped her hand tightly, looking into her eyes with an unprecedented seriousness. "No matter what happened, we can talk it out! Put the knife down first!"
However, the urgency in his eyes took on a different meaning to his sister. The sorrow and resolve in her eyes grew even more intense.
"Xiao Kai… you don't need to persuade me! I know I've brought shame upon you! You must live on well in the future!"
Speaking, she used her other hand with an unstoppable force to violently snatch the knife from Zhou Kai's grasp!
Plop.
The familiar sound, the familiar formula, the familiar taste.
Warm liquid once again splattered Zhou Kai's face with precision.
He froze in place, his entire body numb.
Was this the "Final Destination" timeline? Was suicide a fixed plot point, unchangeable?
Zhou Kai collapsed to the ground. This time, he didn't stare blankly. He silently pulled up the hem of his shirt, expressionless, mechanically wiping the blood from his face with a familiarity that was heartbreaking.
He had already begun to think about covering his face with a cloth next time.
He calmly stared at his sister, whose body was growing cold on the ground, waiting for that unreliable deity.
Now, he had only one thought—
Can this newbie village get any better?