Everyone Has a Weakness

The waning moon hung in the sky, obscured by ominous black clouds, causing the remaining traces of moonlight between the treetops to grow increasingly faint.

A grand mansion stood resolutely at the base of the mountain, surrounded by European-style wrought iron fences and architectural elements. However, the house seemed eerily quiet, as though everything had been concealed in the embrace of the night.

Qiao Qiao and Soo Soo stood silently at the crossroads.

Qiao Qiao was frozen in place, casting a glance behind her, but there was no sign of the cave entrance. She instinctively tightened her grip on young Will in her arms and reached out to hold Soo Soo’s hand.

Unexpectedly, when she reached out, her grasp came up empty.

“Soo Soo?”

Qiao Qiao looked at Soo Soo, who appeared to be lost in a daze, slowly stepping towards the grand gate of the mansion. The hem of the little girl’s dress fluttered in the nighttime breeze.

“Soo Soo?”

Still, there was no response.

Qiao Qiao began to sense that something was amiss. She hurriedly caught up with Soo Soo, taking hold of her hand. But as she stood before her sister and gazed into Soo Soo’s face, Qiao Qiao was taken aback!

In Soo Soo’s eyes, there seemed to be no trace of emotion, just a fixed, unwavering stare directed at the mansion!

“Soo Soo? What’s wrong, Soo Soo?” Qiao Qiao reached out and waved her hand in front of Soo Soo’s eyes, but Soo Soo remained cold and unresponsive. Her large eyes seemed to completely ignore Qiao Qiao. Then, the little girl suddenly let out a piercing scream, sprinting forward. She stumbled and reached the mansion’s gate, colliding with it, not minding that her forehead had turned red from the impact.

And at that moment, Soo Soo suddenly spoke, emitting a strange and haunting wail from her throat!

It was a sound that hardly seemed human!

This voice was filled with sorrow, anger, despair, and fear!

Soo Soo’s body struggled desperately, her hands gripping the iron fence, shaking it vigorously, as she emitted these sharp, wounded-animal-like screams!

“Soo Soo!!” Qiao Qiao panicked, grabbing Soo Soo, only to be forcefully pushed away by her.

In that instant, Qiao Qiao noticed the rage and ferocity in Soo Soo’s eyes!

And at that very moment, a faint glimmer of light appeared in the house!

This light seemed to have suddenly appeared in one of the windows on the second floor, and then… a loud crash!

Glass shattered, and a massive fire erupted simultaneously from several windows, engulfing the entire house in an instant!

The roaring flames blazed high into the sky!

“Help, save them! Help! Help!” Soo Soo vigorously shook the fence, as if she had gone completely insane. She continued to scream, but now, instead of speaking in Chinese, she shouted in long segments of Korean.

“Soo Soo!”

Qiao Qiao, seeing the house on fire, instinctively tried to grab Soo Soo and pull her away, but she was forcefully pushed aside by Soo Soo.

In the next moment, flames erupted from Soo Soo’s hands!

The iron fence in front of her quickly melted into molten metal under Soo Soo’s touch. With a sharp cry, Soo Soo passed through it and rushed towards the burning house.

“Dad! Mom!! Dad!!” Soo Soo’s voice trembled as she screamed, “Help! Help! Please save them!!”

Hearing these words, Qiao Qiao’s body shook violently!

She looked up in astonishment at the burning house and suddenly realized… where they were.

This was Soo Soo’s home!

Her former home!

Soo Soo’s background was something that Qiao Qiao understood better than anyone else in the team.

This Korean girl’s father had been friends and business partners with Old Qiao, and in one tragic year, a sudden fire had taken the lives of Soo Soo’s parents, while she miraculously survived. She was then adopted by Old Qiao and brought to their country.

This event had cast a shadow on Soo Soo’s heart and was one of the reasons for her fractured personality.

And at this moment…

Scene replay?

Qiao Qiao suddenly looked around.

This… a mirage?

With Soo Soo already running into the fire, Qiao Qiao didn’t have time to think and hurriedly followed…

…

Roddy gazed at the broken ruins on the street, his brow furrowing tightly.

Carefully holding a gun, he walked step by step on the street, adopting a cautious shooting stance.

This street looked… so familiar.

Soon, the sight of a partially collapsed convenience store with remnants of Japanese signage on it made Roddy’s heart race.

This was… Japan…

Tokyo!

Pockmarked ground, scattered rubble, collapsed buildings—everything resembled a post-apocalyptic scene.

But Roddy knew very well that this wasn’t the apocalypse. Everything in front of him was just like the moment when Tokyo was turned into a battlefield ruins during the final battle in the Tokyo scenario, a perfect replica.

Snap!

A sound came from behind Roddy, and he tensed, swiftly turning around, only to catch a glimpse of a silver blur!

Bang!

Roddy was sent flying by a tremendous force, his back colliding with a mostly collapsed wall before crashing into a pile of rubble.

When he scrambled to his feet, his first instinct was to check on young Will!

Young Will had fallen by the roadside, but as Roddy looked a second time, he froze in place!

In the middle of the road, a pair of eyes coldly stared at him.

These eyes, Roddy had dreamed of them many times before.

The silver streamlined floating angelic armor, the near-glorious wings in battle form, and the radiant flames trailing behind the angelic figure like stars…

“N-Nicole?”

…

Lun Tai stood blankly at the entrance of a dilapidated auto repair shop. The rusty sign, on the verge of falling off, the scent of cheap liquor in the air, and… the worn-out large Lun Tai placed on the ground to the left of the entrance—this used to be their toy when he and his brother were kids.

The appearance of such a familiar scene in front of Lun Tai left the burly man utterly stunned.

And then, just as he stood there in shock, a child’s scream suddenly echoed from inside!

The voice had the standard tone of a boy about to go through puberty, filled with fear and terror!

There was no doubt that Lun Tai was incredibly familiar with this voice.

He rushed into the auto repair shop like a madman.

Entering through the gate, he witnessed a nightmarish scene!

Beneath a car repair table, a middle-aged man in dirty work clothes was brutally beating a frail teenager with a stick.

The teenager was covered in wounds, his face bloodied, and he tried desperately to dodge the blows. However, one of his legs seemed to be injured, so he couldn’t avoid the falling blows. Eventually, he could only hold his head with both hands, crying loudly with a hoarse voice, screaming, “Dad! Dad! Why are you hitting me! Dad!!! Dad!!! I’m your son!!!”

“You bastard!! Worthless piece of trash!! All of you are the bastard offspring that bitch gave birth to!! She cuckolded me and gave birth to you two bastards!! She ran away! Now everyone is mocking me! Mocking me!!”

“Dad! Dad…”

“Worthless piece of trash!!!”

Lun Tai suddenly dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face!

He saw a calendar on a rundown desk in a nearby break room, which had fallen to the floor.

June 19, 1993.

This year, this day, here… the events that took place…

Was everything going to start over again?!

Lun Tai remembered this day deeply because it was the day he escaped from that home with his younger brother.

A week before this, their father had suddenly come home with a paternity test, dragging their mother out of the kitchen where she was cooking. They had a violent altercation, smashing almost everything in the house.

The next day, their mother packed her bags and left, never to return.

What followed in the next few days was a period of time that Lun Tai had spent his entire life trying not to remember.

The father, who had once carried him and his brother on his shoulders to fly kites when they were children, had turned into a different person. He drank every day, and after getting drunk, he would shout and scream at Lun Tai and his brother. When he got really drunk, he would grab whatever was at hand and violently hurl it at them.

It was the first time Lun Tai had been beaten by his father when he had grown that big. Then came the second time, the third…

Lun Tai remembered the day he had run away crying after being beaten by his father. He had run far away, but worried about his brother, he had eventually sneaked back home.

And it was at the auto repair shop that he had witnessed the scene of his brother being brutally beaten by their father.

What did I do on that day?

Lun Tai’s eyes were blank.

He saw a wrench on the ground.

Ah, yes…

I picked up the wrench, went behind that man, hit him once, and he passed out. Then I… I went over and picked up my brother… and then… I took him and ran away, escaped from that place… went to the train station… somehow got into a coal-carrying train. When I woke up, I had no idea where I was…

Watching his young brother being beaten, rolling on the ground, and crawling under a scaffold, crying like a terrified puppy.

Lun Tai’s chest tightened, and he shouted loudly, “Stop!!! Don’t hit him anymore!!!”

He rushed forward, attempting to grab the stick from his father’s hand, but when he reached out, he grabbed nothing!

Lun Tai was startled, he tried again, several times, and then he realized…

Everything was like a phantom. No matter what he did, he couldn’t touch them. They couldn’t see him or feel him.

The man had already rushed under the scaffolding, forcefully driving his wailing brother out with the stick. As he watched his brother rolling on the ground, Lun Tai screamed in anger and roared!

“Why! Why!! What did we do wrong?! Even if you were deceived by that woman! But is over a decade of family bond all fake? Is it?!”

Lun Tai, a big, iron-like man, suddenly burst into tears.

“Brother! Just wait a little longer! Just a little longer, I’ll come back to save you! Hold on a little longer!!! Ah!!!!”

Lun Tai weakly extended his hand, trying to block the stick, but every time, the stick passed through his body and struck his brother’s frail form.

“Why isn’t he coming yet! Why isn’t he coming!!”

According to the time back then… he should have returned by now!

Time! Time had passed!

Lun Tai desperately stared at the clock on the wall.

If this continued… his brother would be beaten to death by this drunken man!

And at that moment, Lun Tai’s heart suddenly trembled!

He received a message.

“System prompt: If you had to choose between saving one of them, who would you choose?”

“What? What!!”

“So now, you have a choice. You can choose to make your father die immediately, and your brother will be freed. Or, you do nothing, and your father will kill your brother.”

“No! No no no no!! What about me? I should be there! I should be there to stop this! Where am I? Where am I?!!”

After a few seconds of silence, the system gave a response:

“You are right here, right now.”