Jin Xueli's altered history

The wound on her neck barely hurt anymore. Her toughness and ability to recover had truly exceeded her own expectations.

Yet Jin Xueli's irritation only grew, as if weeds had overrun her heart and could never be cleared away.

Who knew history could be so resilient? Changing one small detail still hadn't altered its course. Didn't people always say that sometimes taking a different turn at an intersection could change your destiny? What a load of crap.

A stalker, putting on the airs of her destined soulmate. Just thinking about it made her uncomfortable.

Jin Xueli glanced at the corpse.

This was her first time killing one of the supposedly unkillable residents, and she had only managed it by fooling it with words. Naturally, she couldn't quite stop worrying that it would stagger to its feet again the moment she looked away, so she had to check on it every so often.

But she was worrying needlessly. Death had already soaked through the corpse like cold water, leaving it utterly frozen.

Only after watching the corpse for a while did she relax a little and open the fire trough again.

She would try once more. This time, Jin Xueli intended to eliminate any chance of the two of them meeting at its root.

She melted the candle for the same period of time, watching the transparent Candle Tears hang in midair and turn into a pool once again.

Within the lake-like Candle Tears, a tiny Jin Xueli and a tiny Amber got out of a miniature taxi together and entered the bar, chatting and laughing. Jin Xueli watched them go through the front entrance, then turned her attention back to scan the road.

She clearly remembered something the stalker Anthony had said when he struck up a conversation with her that night: "You must have gotten to the bar before me. Otherwise, there's no way I wouldn't have noticed a girl like you walking in."

Although a pickup line couldn't be taken seriously, thinking back on it, Anthony did seem to have arrived a little later than her.

Suppressing her irritation, Jin Xueli stared at the bar's front entrance, not daring to look away for even a moment.

A lot of people had gone to the bar that day. In just twenty or thirty minutes, four or five groups of strangers emerged from several cars in succession. She had never seen so many miniature living people before, and with them walking in twos and threes beneath the darkness and lights, they were even harder to distinguish. She stared until her vision nearly blurred before finally spotting Anthony rounding a street corner.

According to the description, "suicide" through Candle Tears seemed possible, but it hadn't said whether she could kill anyone else.

Jin Xueli intended to find out.

What could settle things more thoroughly than turning him into a dead man outright?

She hadn't originally been willing to kill people lightly. In fact, although she had seen plenty of dead people since becoming a hunter, not a single one had actually died at her hands.

But tonight, it felt as if a shell had cracked inside her, and something rather different was about to crawl out.

Thinking about it, that made sense. She had even killed "herself." What was the big deal about trying to kill someone from the past-a stalker-too?

If she couldn't kill him, she would think of something else. Whatever happened, at least she would learn more about how Candle Tears worked.

Jin Xueli's finger hovered above Anthony's head like a massive celestial body about to crash into Earth and crush the dinosaurs out of existence.

He remained oblivious, his hands in his pockets. Tall and casually stylish, he looked very much like a decent man.

...She would have to wash her hands if she squashed him.

Jin Xueli bent her finger and slammed her knuckle down on that carefully styled head.

She had expected it to feel much like squashing a large insect, but instead it felt as though she had pressed down on a ball that could slide away. The stalker stumbled, yet her forceful blow only shoved him half a step aside. He quickly steadied himself. Not only was he still alive, he didn't even seem to be in pain.

Anthony looked down, swore, and kicked a pebble away.

...Could it be that she couldn't reach straight inside and kill someone else? Could she only kill herself?

What a joke.

Despite her resentment, the results of her next two attempts seemed to support this theory. She tried pushing little Anthony into the road, but an approaching car swerved in time, and all he got was a tongue-lashing from the driver. She finally managed to pull down an illuminated sign and time its fall, only for it to veer through the air and crash to the ground just past Anthony's nose.

The stalker really was no ordinary person, either. After several brushes with danger in a row, he still entered the bar as though nothing had happened.

So much for "one of the most powerful Phantasms." The broadcast had exaggerated far too much. It couldn't kill anyone or stop them from meeting. Even if this lousy candle contained the past, what was the point?

In the end, wasn't everything still the same, with nothing changed?

Holding back her irritation and resentment, Jin Xueli stirred the Candle Tears, searching for herself.

She had already gotten quite a feel for operating Candle Tears and soon found the moment they met. Little Anthony pushed open the dark red back door, spotted little Jin Xueli, then walked over and struck up a conversation.

"I didn't have the courage to ask for your number at first. I'm not the sort of person who chats girls up, either," Anthony said, sounding reflective. "But you know what? On my way here, an illuminated sign suddenly fell right in front of me. This close... If I'd been half a step faster, I would've died. When I think about how unpredictable life is, I'm even more afraid of missing my chance..."

Had she actually helped him upgrade his lines?

As a child, Jin Xueli had played a computer game called The Sims. Watching the two of them talk within Candle Tears now gave her a hazy sense of familiarity, leaving her unsure whether to laugh or cry.

But this wasn't a computer game.

Watching that tiny, oblivious version of herself exchange numbers with Anthony just as expected, Jin Xueli could only sigh inwardly in irritation and close the fire trough. First, she had to let Candle Tears cool and solidify, allowing this stretch of history in which they met to "set," then melt it again before she could change history once more.

For who knew which time, little Jin Xueli pushed open the back door, left the room where music and the smell of alcohol mingled murkily, and stood outside for some air.

A convoy of pitch-black Mercedes SUVs emerged silently from the night. Each vehicle, fitted with anti-terror and bulletproof modifications, maintained an equal distance from the next as they drove past the bar's back entrance in succession.

Just as the last vehicle was about to pass, Jin Xueli reached out and shoved it toward the back door. Lifted by that force, the matchbox-sized SUV involuntarily twisted its nose, hurtled off the road, and, amid the piercing shriek of tires, slammed nose-first into the bar's back entrance.

The bar's back door, which hadn't been fully closed, was left with a dented panel and twisted hinges. It hung crookedly, visibly unable to close.

Little Jin Xueli stared at the SUV only two paces away, her face pale.

Oh, she had forgotten to protect her past self... Whatever. She hadn't been hit by the car. As long as she wasn't dead, that was enough.

If she hadn't insisted on getting close to a stalker, would her present self be suffering so much now? She deserved a scare.

With an indifference tinged with faint distaste, Jin Xueli watched her tiny self hurry back a few steps and call out to someone, "Help! Someone's crashed!"

If the bar temporarily shut down because of this, perhaps it could disrupt their meeting-

Before Jin Xueli could finish that thought, someone shoved open the SUV's driver-side door. A man in a black suit clambered unsteadily out, quickly circled behind the open door, and crouched. A gash had opened on his left temple, leaving blood, curly hair, and an over-the-ear radio earpiece tangled and stuck together.

But the most conspicuous thing was the 9mm pistol held in both his hands.

Beside him, little Jin Xueli pressed her lips together the instant her gaze fell on that black pistol.

After the car was attacked and rendered immobile, he had immediately jumped out to avoid becoming a sitting duck. He hid behind the door to use it as cover against potential snipers. Even though he appeared to have taken a considerable impact, he still held the 9mm steadily in a position from which he could return fire at any moment, his slightly bent elbows not trembling at all...

Both the Jin Xueli inside Candle Tears and the one outside could tell: this was a highly trained professional bodyguard.

Then the other vehicles-

Jin Xueli immediately turned her head. Sure enough, the convoy hadn't wasted even a breath and had already scattered. In the blink of an eye, the other four SUVs had each changed lanes, turned in different directions, and accelerated into the depths of the night and lights.

That's a very high level of professionalism... she thought.

At the very moment the rear vehicle was attacked and lost control, the convoy had immediately abandoned it, broken formation, turned off in separate directions, and rapidly widened the distances between them... Clearly, this was a contingency plan prepared well in advance.

Generally speaking, a plan like this had only one purpose: to protect one vehicle in the convoy carrying an important person, keeping potential enemies from knowing which vehicle that person was in.

"...No, we can't currently determine exactly how the vehicle was tampered with. Yes, there have been no attacks for the moment."

Crouching behind the car door, the man in the black suit spoke quietly into his headset. "Although the problem with the car is strange, I haven't found any signs of a Phantasm being used nearby... Yes, there's a bar here, and there are witnesses in the vicinity. They've probably called the police already."

A Phantasm? Had he just said Phantasm?

Instantly interested, Jin Xueli leaned closer. Fortunately, the man in the black suit was only a tiny figure within Candle Tears and couldn't see the enormous human ear floating between heaven and earth above the car, catching every word he said.

"...Understood," the man in the black suit answered quietly after a few seconds. "I won't mention Mr. Wei's name during the negotiations and handling of the matter."

Mr. Wei?

Jin Xueli paused.

An important person, and his surname was Wei... Could the person under the convoy's tight protection be Wei Xilai, whose wealth and status ranked first in Blackmoor City?

Wei Xilai did hold a prominent position, but he wasn't a head of government, after all. Clearly, the security around him was this tight because he knew he was in danger...

Could his death in the near future have been caused by someone rather than natural causes?

Had he realized months in advance that someone wanted to assassinate him, and adopted such tight, cautious security measures because of it?

Curious though she was, Jin Xueli hadn't forgotten her original goal and glanced back at the rear entrance.

The crash had drawn the bar patrons outside. Some were watching the commotion, some were making calls, and others were taking pictures to post on Twitter. Sensitive to the situation, the man in the black suit had already put the 9mm back in the holster beneath his jacket to avoid causing panic, but he kept one hand under his clothing, still ready to draw at any moment.

Among the onlookers, little Jin Xueli and Amber were talking quietly. A few paces away, little Anthony kept glancing at them.

Within a few seconds, he walked over and greeted little Jin Xueli with a smile.

Damn it, was there really no way to stop herself from meeting Anthony?

Jin Xueli swore inwardly, but after briefly weighing things up, she decided to set the stalker aside for now.

Wei Xilai's appearance in her history within Candle Tears meant that some connection must have formed between his fate and hers... That was what made it interesting: what connection could she possibly have to Blackmoor City's richest man, who was about to die?

Leaving little Jin Xueli and the stalker aside, she traced backward from the time Wei Xilai's convoy appeared. Once she estimated she had found roughly the right point, she lit a new fire trough.

If she could keep an eye on Wei Xilai's history, she would surely uncover plenty of information...

The more she waited for something, the slower it came.

Jin Xueli alternated between touching the melting candle and adjusting the heat, impatient and agitated, her thoughts restless and scattered. Her gaze swept back and forth, but only after quite some time did she suddenly realize two things.

First, the stretch of Candle Tears in which she and Anthony met because of the car crash had solidified again, becoming the latest version of history.

Second, the corpse on the exhibition hall floor had disappeared at some point.

I finally recovered a little today! But when I checked the date, it was already the fifth. I close my eyes, open them, then close them again, and I have to fucking go to Shanghai again...

After those seven Calabash Brothers from a while back, I don't even know how many Minions I owe everyone now. Let me check...

Okay, I'm back from checking. I owe too many to fit in the author's note. I'll put up a separate post tonight and start by thanking you verbally (.

Thank you for your enthusiasm, grannies. I've already bought a home in the obstetrics and gynecology department of Shenzhen Second People's Hospital. I'll be living there permanently from now on. You're all welcome to visit with cakes and gifts.

Why is it always Shenzhen Second People's Hospital? Because I was born there. We believe in bringing things full circle.

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(End of chapter)