There are still five minutes until the hero escapes from marriage. - Chapter 38

 Wen Zhao sat in front of the screen, silent for a long time, before suddenly breaking into uncontrollable laughter.

She wanted to say, “Of course, it’s me.”

“Why is it that when I boarded the cruise ship, I couldn’t kill the female lead, nor could I resist the male lead?” She asked.

[Because that’s the plot. In the plot, the vicious supporting character Wen Zhao, out of resentment, secretly boarded the cruise ship, intending to assassinate Su Mengyao and then take advantage of the chaos to kill Gu Xianting. She had already planned it out—after killing these two, she would jump into the sea and commit suicide. She never intended to survive.]

“I couldn’t kill them because of the so-called power of the plot?” She sneered. “I was supposed to die in the sea, but I didn’t. This means that from this moment on, I am officially breaking free from the plot.”

“The plot no longer has a hold on me, so after returning to Licheng, I successfully killed the male and female leads.” She paused here before asking again, “System, why didn’t I die after falling into the sea?”

The system remained silent.

It didn’t want to speak.

But on second thought, hadn’t she already guessed most of it? It had previously tried to keep her in the dark about how she had killed the male and female leads in her previous life, causing the world to collapse because it feared she would do it again.

Now, if she knew that the butler was actually Gu Xianting, and that she still had a lover and family in this world, wouldn’t that make her hesitate? Maybe she wouldn’t go all out as she did last time when she lost everything and decided to drag everyone down with her.

Once the system shifted its perspective, it felt as if a new world had opened up to it!

Initially, the system had made a deal with Gu Xianting: he had to stay away from the characters in the plot and absolutely couldn’t reveal his identity. In one world, there could only be one Gu Xianting, and the current Gu Xianting was 0733.

So he could only be the nameless butler.

But!

If it could change the outcome and make Wen Zhao put down her vendetta and spare the male and female leads…

The system thought, maybe this agreement wasn’t unbreakable after all.

What? You say that as a system, it should keep its word and not go back on promises?

Forget that! It may be a system, but before that, it is the world consciousness of this small world. When it comes to following rules versus preserving the world, of course, it would choose the latter.

It’s self-preservation!

[Because someone was waiting in that area of the sea to rescue you.]

“Was it Xianting who saved me?” Wen Zhao asked. “I mean the real Gu Xianting.”

[It wasn’t.]

At that time, at that place, the one who rescued her was someone instructed by Gu Xianting five years earlier, on the eve of the plot’s beginning, on that rainy day when everything was frozen in time. He had given his secretary a directive and paid part of the fee upfront; the rest would be paid after she was saved.

After hitting the female lead with his car, Gu Xianting received the plot of the world. He was very clever, very capable. Even though he was extremely angry, he remembered many of the key plot points, including the exact location and approximate time when Wen Zhao would fall into the sea.

When the system made the deal with him, it was puzzled because although it agreed to give him a body, it would only fulfill this promise after Wen Zhao had died in the sea.

She had to die before he could live again, but when he came back to life, how would he turn back time to save her?

Perhaps the system had been so quick to agree to the deal because it thought Gu Xianting couldn’t possibly pull it off.

The system underestimated how much a large sum of money could change things.

He managed to arrange for someone five years in advance to be there to save her. It sounded incredible, but he succeeded.

After she fell into the sea, a rescue diver, who had been waiting there, saved her.

She was brought back to land by another cruise ship.

At first, the system thought Gu Xianting would take her away to live in another country, so it didn’t pay much attention since the male and female leads had finally reached their happy ending.

But unexpectedly, she somehow made her way back to Licheng. On a rainy day, she barged into the male and female leads’ small home with a knife and went on a killing spree!

Even now, the system could still feel that shiver down its spine. What kind of lunatic was she?

At that time, she was covered in blood, her fair face splattered with it as well. In her dark eyes, there was no light, only a deathly stillness. After killing the two, she turned the knife on herself and plunged it into her heart.

Outside, the sound of sirens grew louder and louder.

The system was on the verge of madness, trying to make her let go in a world that was falling apart. But she had no desire to live; for her, letting the world crumble was perhaps even better.

With no other option, the system rewound time to the moment when she was thrown into the sea. At that time, she hadn’t died but was on the brink of death. The system then appeared before her as the “Villainous Supporting Character Redemption System” and brought her to the wedding, just five minutes before the male and female leads were about to elope.

“Something’s not right,” Wen Zhao suddenly said. “If your deal with Gu Xianting was that he would only gain his body after I died in the sea, then why did he become the butler on the island?”

The system instantly panicked!

[Why, why? Of course, because you’re just too difficult to handle!]

[Gu Xianting is your lover, after all. To prevent me from losing control over you, I let him return to your side. Maybe if you were happy, you’d let go of your hatred!]

“Naive,” she sneered coldly. “He couldn’t make me let go of my hatred in the previous life. What makes you think that just by showing up and reuniting with me, I’d obediently give it all up this time?”

[Because who the hell knows why! In the previous life, he never even showed up in front of you!]

In the previous life, after she was rescued, she recuperated in a hospital abroad for half a month. Afterward, a man in a black suit gave her a new passport and a bank card, telling her that an old friend was waiting for her at a vineyard in France. He didn’t say anything more.

He never mentioned that this so-called old friend was Gu Xianting!

In the end, Wen Zhao didn’t go to France. She returned to the country, went to Licheng, and killed the male and female leads.

“So, you thought that in the previous life, I acted the way I did because I didn’t know the real Gu Xianting was waiting for me? And if I knew, I might not have killed them?” She asked.

[Don’t ask me; how would I know?!]

Wen Zhao and Gu Xianting were both lunatics, impossible to understand with normal logic!

You could never predict what they were thinking.

“It wouldn’t have mattered. Even if I knew it was the real Gu Xianting, I still would have done what I did,” her eyes grew colder. “My family was destroyed, and my heart was filled with nothing but hatred. Where would I find room for romance?”

The system might not understand why Gu Xianting didn’t directly tell her his identity in the previous life. Because even if he had, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Once they broke free from the plot, Wen Zhao and Gu Xianting understood each other very well. After all, they had grown up together, childhood sweethearts.

From the beginning, he never intended to just save her and live happily ever after with her. He left the choice to Wen Zhao herself—whether to let go or seek revenge, it was up to her.

What he wanted to do was to help her break free from the plot, to awaken her.

The awakening of a character is like opening Pandora’s box. Once awakened, there’s no going back to ignorance.

If Wen Zhao, after awakening, chose destruction, the system would definitely choose to reset everything. But this time, she is just herself, no longer a villainous supporting character. 

This time, they definitely have other, more perfect choices.

**[System: I know now! Stop talking!]**

The system felt like it was about to shut down. As the world consciousness of this small world, it had never truly understood the people living in it.

Humans are very complex and cannot be defined in a one-sided way. There’s no such thing as purely good or evil people in this world. It thought it could understand a person based on the original plot and character settings.

But in reality, that’s not the case.

The system’s understanding of Wen Zhao was that she was a stubborn romantic who would stop at nothing for the sake of her lover. She was malicious, mean-spirited, a bad woman.

But the real Wen Zhao was different. She had her own arcs. The plot forcefully pushed her into the storyline, erasing all her bright spots, leaving only twisted and extreme malice.

In the end, the feedback she gave the system shattered its illusions, as she destroyed the world right in front of it.

Give up everything for love? Just because there’s love, can harm be forgiven, and can the hatred of a destroyed family be let go? Where does such a good thing exist!

Love isn’t some magical cure that can smooth everything over!

“In the end, you never really treated us like humans,” she guessed the reason why the system, which had been hiding everything from her, was now forced to reveal it all.

It was nothing more than things being out of its control, unable to follow the plot anymore. It was merely trying to save itself.

These arrogant beings, only at this moment, were finally willing to lower their heads.

The system was like this, and so was the thing occupying Gu Xianting.

“In your eyes, people like us are just ants to be trampled on at will. If something doesn’t go your way, you can just trim it down to what you want, or even erase it.”

**[System: Please, stop, master!]**

Indeed, at the beginning, it hadn’t taken them seriously at all. Even when Gu Xianting killed the female lead several times, it thought it was just an accident or that the original owner’s obsession was too strong.

So its solution was very simple and crude: to continuously delete his memories of Wen Zhao.

Until later, when its energy became less and less with each reset, reaching a threshold it finally had to face, it realized that the quick transmigration boss hadn’t actually taken control of that body.

After all, in its view, high-level beings completely crushed the natives of small worlds. It didn’t think the original Gu Xianting had any chance to fight back against the transmigration boss.

It had paid the price for its arrogance.

0733 was the same. When he first awakened his consciousness and realized who he was, he didn’t take Wen Zhao seriously at all, which led him to do many things that she considered foolish. At first, he was just humoring her, pretending to be Gu Xianting as if completing a task.

The truth was, fake pretenses couldn’t fool anyone. The malicious supporting female character he thought he could easily deceive had already seen through his act.

The system even had a bit of a twisted sense of humor thinking about this: If the boss knew that Wen Zhao never believed him, that everything was just her fooling him, watching him think his performance was flawless, wouldn’t he just break down?

**[System: When exactly did you recognize the butler as him?]**

The system used a statement rather than a question.

Wen Zhao’s lips curved slightly. She didn’t answer the system’s question. When did she recognize him?

**[System: You didn’t recognize him at first sight, did you?]**

Of course not.

**[System: Or was it on the day you were leaving the island? It must have been that day, which is why you insisted on taking him with you, and later, no matter what, even at the cost of both of you perishing, you brought him back!]**

It wasn’t that late.

Wen Zhao leaned back against the soft cushion.

When the butler walked in, he happened to see this sentence on the screen.

There was no surprise in his eyes. Clearly, he was well aware that she had already recognized him.

Except—

“Did you recognize me that day?” He walked to her side, bent down, and asked with a smile.

She turned her head, a bit surprised to see him, but after a moment of thought, she understood.

He must have come here at the system’s bidding.

And indeed, that was the case. After pushing 0733 upstairs, the butler, feeling a bit annoyed, was planning what to do next in his room when he received a message from the system: “Come to the audiovisual room, restrictions canceled, previous agreement voided.”

Wen Zhao raised her hand and gently patted his face. “Why don’t you guess for yourself when I recognized you?”

He sat down beside her, “It definitely wasn’t the first meeting.”

“Right,” Wen Zhao said. “In fact, the first time I saw you, I didn’t even notice you.”

At that time, her mind was entirely focused on how to torment Gu Xianting; everyone else was just background noise to her.

“So…was it the day you got drunk?” He thought of that day when he carried her to bed, and she wouldn’t let go of him.

She didn’t let him guess further. “It was the time you dried my hair.”

In this world, besides Gu Xianting, no one else could use the perfect temperature and just the right strength to make her fall asleep while having her hair dried.

Perhaps before that, she only had suspicions, but that moment solidified her belief. Later, perhaps because she recognized him, even though his appearance was completely different, he was, after all, Gu Xianting.

“So, no need to hide your identity anymore?” She asked with a hint of mockery.

**[System: There’s no need anymore, let’s just pretend the previous agreement never existed!]**

The system felt very gloomy about this self-contradictory situation, but it had no choice. Now the situation was like a runaway horse galloping towards an unknown direction.

The system even had an urge to just let everything fall apart—if it all ends, then let it end.

**[System: Now that you know everything, this time your family hasn’t been destroyed, and your loved ones are safe. Can you just let the male and female leads go?]**

The system cautiously made a tentative move…

“Nope.” Wen Zhao cruelly shattered the system’s hope.

**[System: Oh.]**

The system thought coldly; it seemed it had gotten used to this by now.

**[System: Can you tell me why?]**

She stared at the system, which seemed lifeless on the screen, and felt a little amused. “Because I’ve already made enemies of them to the death, so I might as well continue to do so.”

**[System: Huh?]** The system was bewildered, but then it understood the meaning behind her words, and suddenly, the entire system felt disoriented.

**[System: !!!]**

Yes! How could it overlook this point? The boss had already awakened!

He was fully awake, knew who he was, so of course, he would also know that in this world, he had been tortured by Wen Zhao like a dog!

“You didn’t think that now I could just stop everything, right?” She thought this system was rather naive.

The root problem now wasn’t that she wanted to go against the male and female leads, but the conflict between the natives of this small world, who were manipulated at will, and the so-called higher beings, who played with the lives of these small world inhabitants!

The system felt it should just explode on the spot!

This was a death-ending scenario! Even if it somehow managed to deal with the malicious supporting female character and made her give up her vengeance, it wouldn’t make any difference!

After all, the boss is a high-level being. After being suppressed in this small world, his true love was killed by the original Gu Xianting over a thousand times—this was already a mortal enmity. Later, after he finally married the female lead, they were both killed by the malicious supporting female character!

This time, before he regained his consciousness, he had been tortured by Wen Zhao to the point of doubting his own existence, self-denial, and complete breakdown—she even broke both his legs!

The system had actually thought that as long as she let go, the world would be safe.

They were already one foot into the storm of destruction!