Chapter 108: Film Emperor (28)

Zaiye picked up a call, his face darkened as he shut his laptop, then drove straight from the company to Tong Jianxu’s townhouse.

The moment he parked, he got out of the car in big strides and started pounding on the door like he was collecting a debt. The loud knocking startled the assistant, A Yan, who came to open the door.

Zaiye walked in and headed straight to the third floor.

As he stepped onto the third floor with a stormy air about him, Tong Jianxu was still sitting there with a grave face, seriously discussing with Qian why she would die if she grew up.

“Qian, tell Daddy—why did you say you’re going to die?”

“But I just will die.”

“Is it because of that blue orb near you that we can’t see?”

“…,” the child gave a low hum.

“What exactly is that thing?”

“…”

“It’s the one that brought you to me, isn’t it? Will it hurt you?”

“…mm…”

Although Tong Jianxu had tried his best to stay calm, the urgency in his voice still made the child uneasy. At first, she gave short answers, but then fell silent and tried to run away.

But before she could jump off the sofa, Tong Jianxu scooped her back up.

She started to fuss, whining in frustration. That was when Zaiye walked in.

The moment she saw his dark, furious face, Qian’s little animal instincts kicked in. She sensed danger and immediately darted behind Tong Jianxu.

After hearing what Tong had said on the phone about the things Qian had claimed, Zaiye had been holding back his emotions. Now, with a face as black as thunder, he looked every bit like the former schoolyard tyrant who used to lead a gang into fights.

“Move,” he said bluntly, pushing Tong Jianxu aside. Then with one hand, he grabbed the chubby child hiding behind him and set her down standing on the sofa.

Qian tried to hide her hands behind her back and retreat, but Zaiye shouted sternly, “Stand right there. Don’t move!”

She didn’t dare move. She stood obediently on the sofa, not daring to act cute and stall the way she had with Tong Jianxu.

Children really do have an animal-like instinct—they know exactly which parent will cave and which one will actually lay down the law.

Zaiye stared at her for a moment, his cold face finally twitching.

“You said you’re going to die. Do you know when?” he asked.

Qian quickly shook her head.

【Unless there’s an accident, when the target completely escapes their fated death, Host, you’ll die. Right now, he’s already halfway through avoiding it, so Host, your time is almost up.】

“It’s almost time,” Qian repeated, as if answering a teacher’s question in class.

Zaiye took a sharp breath. “Why will you die? Last time, in that car crash, I survived and you died. But that was just an accident. Will there be another accident this time?”

“I don’t know.” This “I don’t know” didn’t sound nearly as confident as when she had spoken to Tong Jianxu—after all, Daddy Tong had never yelled at her before.

“I died last time because I was sick,” she added softly.

“Sick… last time?” Zaiye blinked in confusion. Wasn’t it a car crash?

Tong Jianxu, who had been listening in silence, guessed, “You weren’t just our daughter, were you? When you say ‘last time,’ do you mean in another place?”

Qian looked between the two of them, twisted her fingers, and nodded.

With both dads now stern and serious, the child didn’t dare throw tantrums or act out. She answered every question honestly.

Tong Jianxu’s breathing was a bit unsteady as he asked again, “Do you remember how many times this has happened?”

Qian took a moment to understand what he meant, then held up four fingers.

“Four times!”

“…And each time, you didn’t grow up?”

“Uh-huh!”

Zaiye clenched his fists. “You said before you had a little elf. Is it that thing that brought you here? Why did it bring you to us, and why does it want to take you away?”

His tone was frightening. Qian didn’t dare answer. She shrank back against the sofa.

“That thing is here now, isn’t it?”

Not waiting for a reply, Zaiye turned to the air near the child and said, “I don’t know what you are or what you want. But if you need something, tell me—I’m willing to give it to you. Just don’t torment a child!”

“Do you hear me? Show yourself!”

【Host, you see? The target is very willing to give you his fortune. As long as you agree, life will get a lot easier.】

“That’s enough, Zaiye. We still don’t know what it is. What’s the point of yelling? Keep your voice down, don’t scare her!” Tong Jianxu rubbed his forehead and scolded, his tone less than pleasant.

Between the two fathers arguing and the system whispering incessantly in her head, the noise and tension overwhelmed Qian. She slumped against the back of the sofa, and suddenly burst into loud, wailing sobs.

A crying child is louder than a public square’s sound system—especially one like Qian, who had been raised well and now had quite the powerful lungs. Her crying was so loud it made their heads ache.

Her sobs instantly forced the two dads to calm down. They sat on either side of her on the sofa.

Tong Jianxu took a wet wipe and gently cleaned her nose, speaking softly again. “Okay, don’t cry. Daddy isn’t mad at you.”

As soon as he said that, Qian cried even harder, sounding utterly wronged.

“Let her cry,” Zaiye said from the side. “Don’t coddle her. The more you coddle her, the louder she gets.”

Qian promptly raised her volume, showing Zaiye just how loud she could cry.

When she finally stopped crying, Tong Jianxu stroked the sweaty back of her head and spoke in a low voice.

“Qian, you asked Daddy not to like you too much. Was that also because of that thing? Because when Daddy loves you, you have to leave?”

Tears still clung to the child’s lashes, and she nodded while sobbing quietly.

【Host, even if the target has no feelings for you, once your time runs out, and the mission fails, you still have to leave.】

Truthfully, the system wasn’t afraid of the host failing. If she failed, it would just reclaim her and send out the next one. What it feared was the host succeeding—going on to the next world—but gaining no fortune from the current one. That would make all the hopping pointless.

That was exactly the deadlock it had now run into with this host.

Qian turned her head away and buried her face in Tong Jianxu’s chest, refusing to say another word.

After all, she was still just a child. She had lived through several worlds, and many of her chaotic memories weren’t all that clear anymore. The system’s voice, the words of her two dads, and the intensity of their emotions were too much for her to handle all at once.

After she fell asleep, Zaiye and Tong Jianxu sat in silence in the living room. A Yan brought them each a glass of water, remembering how terribly the child had cried upstairs earlier, but didn’t dare ask what had happened.

She just thought their expressions looked far too familiar—like the faces of parents she’d seen at the hospital when their children had been diagnosed with something terminal.

“Next time, don’t be so harsh with her. Don’t you know she’s scared of you?” Tong Jianxu took a sip of water and said.

Zaiye leaned back against the sofa, his voice hoarse. “What do you want me to do—just watch her die again?”

“She said she’s died many times… Did she have a home before? Does she miss it?” Tong Jianxu suddenly asked.

“She’s appeared in this world twice. Doesn’t that mean she must’ve lived somewhere here before? If we can find that version of her, maybe…” What he said gave Zaiye a glimmer of hope.

The loss of the child he loved had devastated him. But if he could believe she was alive somewhere else, the pain felt a little more bearable.

“If we can find her next time too, maybe one day we’ll find a way to keep her alive longer,” Tong Jianxu reasoned.

Neither of them slept that night. They stayed up talking about Qian, speculating endlessly. But the next morning, when they caught the kid sneaking yogurt from the fridge and started asking about her past life, both men were completely dumbfounded.

Because what came out of her mouth were things like “Demon Lord,” “Bad Big Brother who can turn into a big red dog,” and “Guardian Elder, Killer of Demon Clans.”

Zaiye and Tong Jianxu stared at each other in stunned silence.

What even was this? Just hearing it, they knew these things didn’t belong to their world.

As if coming to terms with their daughter possibly not being human—or at least being accompanied by something that wasn’t—they now had to accept that their world might not even be the only one.

Thankfully, neither dad was in a yelling mood today. The two of them remained calm, and Qian, sipping her yogurt, was emotionally stable.

Tong Jianxu gently led the questioning, coaxing out more bits and pieces of information from her.

Qian took the colored pens her dad handed her and drew from memory the red-haired, golden-eyed dad from her last life. Next to him, she drew a big red dog, and put an arrow between them to show he could transform.

Tong Jianxu and Zaiye examined the picture together.

“Red hair, gold eyes, turns into a dog… a monster?” Zaiye frowned.

“He looks pretty fierce,” Tong Jianxu said, also frowning.

Qian, drawing the palace she used to live in and the guardian elders, piped up, “He was fierce! He bit me! And he eats people too!”

Zaiye and Tong Jianxu: “!”

As they slowly pieced together the story from Qian’s words, they realized her last world followed a fantasy setting—demons, cultivators, and a Demon Lord for a dad, one who killed without batting an eye.

Even with just bits and pieces, both men started to worry about the kind of environment she had lived in.

“A world like that is way too dangerous. And in such a cruel place, could she even get a proper education?” Tong Jianxu said, thankful. “Good thing she didn’t turn out bad.”

Zaiye’s face was grim. “Do you think she’ll go back to places like that again?”

Nothing worries a parent more than knowing their child might be suffering somewhere they can’t see.

Tong Jianxu continued his gentle probing and learned about yet another world she had lived in.

White. Enormous. A dragon.

Looking at the childishly drawn pictures, both fathers froze.

A dragon?! A Western fantasy setting?! There really are other worlds?!

Qian didn’t remember all the details clearly—she was still just a child—but as her dad gently questioned her, she recalled a few more fragments and happily drew a little blue dragon, holding it up proudly.

“This is me!”

Zaiye and Tong Jianxu: “…”

Their daughter had also been… a dragon?

Qian twirled around on the living room floor holding the drawing, singing, “I’m a little blue dragon, little blue dragon!”

The stiff smiles and forcibly calm expressions on her dads’ faces stood in stark contrast to her carefree, even cheerful demeanor.

This was the best part about children—they forget their troubles quickly.

At that moment, Tong Jianxu didn’t know whether to feel heartache over her being unable to grow up in every world, or relief that she could always remain so innocent.

He gently touched her little braid and pointed at the drawings, asking softly, “Qian, do you miss them?”

Qian glanced at the white dragon on the paper and said brightly, “I miss him.”

Then she wrinkled her nose at the red-haired dog and said reluctantly, “…A little bit.”

Tong Jianxu stroked her head. “If one day, Qian leaves us too, will you miss your dads?”

This time, Qian looked up at him, then suddenly got up and hugged his leg tightly, burying her face against him.

Tong Jianxu felt a sting in his eyes and hugged her back. “If you really leave… can you still come back and see your dads?”