Yu Hua stared at his phone for a while. There were no waves in his heart. 

Like before, he put You Zhengping’s tableware in the place where his husband usually sat, as though You Zhengping were there across from him, calmly enjoying this dinner. 

After eating his own meal, Yu Hua got up and went to You Zhengping’s seat and ate all of his husband’s food as well. 

After eating two people’s food on his own, Yu Hua sat in You Zhengping’s seat, recalling his long thousands of years of loneliness. 

Eating his own food just now, Yu Hua had looked at the empty seat across from him and felt very lonely. He’d come over to You Zhengping’s seat wanting to create the illusion that both of them were there, but in the moment he’d sat in that chair, he had felt even more alone, because Yu Hua had found that even his own seat was empty. 

He had turned on the TV. The voice of the news anchor and the sound of chopsticks lightly touching the bowl had reverberated inside the room. Under the lively background noise, the room had seemed to be empty. 

Now the news broadcast ended and the sound of the weather forecast’s Fishermen’s Song began, following a gurgle of flowing water. Yu Hua calmly washed the dishes. 

Yu Hua liked the weather forecast’s background music. This tune gave him a kind of feeling of calm contentment. He liked to wash dishes to the sound of the Fishermen’s Song, from time to time looking at You Zhengping sprawled on the couch enjoying the memory of dinner. Or he would look out the window at the setting sun. These comfortable, languid scenes made Yu Hua feel that he was truly living. 

Yu Hua had lived for thousands of years, striving each day to clear. He had known countless varied and grotesque worlds, experienced unnumbered dangers. He’d once had teammates. These people had either died in cruel survival games, or they had had different ideas from him and had gradually drifted away. 

He’d wanted to defeat the System, to possess supreme power. He had walked forward on the great road to freedom, losing countless friends, getting himself battered and bloody. He had looked up at the starry sky, struggling for the sake of one goal. When he had at last succeeded and become the first clearer, able to possess endless life and power, Yu Hua had turned his head, looked at the road he had walked, and found that there was only loneliness at the end of this road. 

As soon as he had thought that there would be countless more days like this, that he would have to endure unending loneliness, Yu Hua had been afraid. 

Strange. When he had been weak and faced undefeatable enemies, he had been able to summon boundless courage. But when he had become so strong that no one could oppose him, Yu Hua had been frightened. 

Frightened of the endless life ahead, and frightened of himself, on the point of becoming emotionless. 

While struggling towards a difficult goal, he had always shirked life, shirked an ordinary person’s trivial reality. 

So Yu Hua had made his final wish. He wanted to become an ordinary person, going briefly but peacefully and truthfully through one last life. That was the end he had chosen for himself. 

When the dishes had been washed, the weather forecast ended. Yu Hua turned off the TV. In the quiet room, he picked up his phone once more. 

There were two choices before him. Choice one was to listen to the System’s command, rescue or kill that leveler, and be controlled by the System from then on, gradually leaving his current life, sooner or later changing back into what he had been at the beginning. Choice two was to ignore the System and let it reveal his identity; when the time came, could he still live a peaceful life with You Zhengping like before? 

Yu Hua didn’t want either of these. 

Yu Hua immediately eliminated choice one and considered what method the System would use to publicize his identity after he refused. 

This was an unopened world. Yu Hua had originally chosen this world because he knew the System had no way to control it entirely. So the System had no way to broadcast information openly in this world; even if it did broadcast the information, it wasn’t certain that anyone would believe it. 

The only thing the System could do was to use the leveler’s mouth to reveal his identity. 

Yu Hua had had dealings with the System for so many years. He knew that the System couldn’t turn an unopened world’s people into levelers. All levelers were randomly collected by the System from the worlds it controlled completely. The System was dedicated to making the levelers open new worlds for the sake of expanding its sphere of influence. 

Therefore, the only person who could expose his identity was the leveler, the one who had apparently been captured by the locals. 

The only way to make the leveler keep his mouth shut seemed to be to kill him, but that was precisely what the System wanted. Yu Hua didn’t want that. 

It seemed that at the moment there was only one thing to do. 

Yu Hua pressed on the newly downloaded System app. The app had no option to uninstall it. The option also didn’t appear in the phone’s user settings. 

The wily System had shut off the phone’s uninstall function and was constantly reminding Yu Hua that he had an uncompleted mission. 

Yu Hua bit through his right-hand index finger and dripped fresh blood onto the phone’s screen. The drop of blood fell on the app. 

When he pressed on the app this time, the option to uninstall finally appeared. Yu Hua clicked “uninstall.” The System warned him: If the mission is not completed within 24 hours, Clearer 001’s identity will be exposed. Clearer 001 is requested to carefully consider whether to uninstall this System. 

“I won’t consider,” Yu Hua said firmly. 

After uninstalling the System, Yu Hua clearly felt his own power strengthening again. In order to uninstall the app, he had forced an ability to unlock. This made the power he had managed to get accustomed to soar again. 

Yu Hua stood in front of a mirror and reached out his injured index finger. There was still blood on the finger. Pressing hard, Yu Hua smeared the blood on the mirror. 

—

Zhen Li was being grilled by the Protectors. He had just carelessly revealed his identity and told them about the final big boss in this world. He thought he was a goner for sure this time. 

The System didn’t permit clearers to reveal things concerning itself. As soon as they let it out, the clearers would self-destruct. 

After letting out the fact about the final big boss, Zhen Li hugged his own arms in fear and tearfully said, “Stop asking, I’m going to self-destruct.” 

Director Xiao and the rest of the older generation of Protectors had experience. They knew that the force of a Destroyer self-destructing would be very strong. Hearing Zhen Li say this, everyone quickly retreated from the sturdy room and watched Zhen Li over the surveillance feed. 

One minute, two minutes…half an hour passed, and Zhen Li hadn’t self-destructed. He was curled up and hugging himself as though he was dying, looking pitiful. 

Cen Xiao couldn’t resist saying, “Is he really a Destroyer? Maybe he’s just an idiot? Have we got the wrong person?” 

All their studies had taught them that Destroyers were frightening and extremely dangerous, but this one seemed pathetic. 

“I’m not very certain, either. He seems different from previous Destroyers.” Even Director Xiao was doubtful. “He just revealed the fact that there’s a frightening Destroyer hiding in this world, but he didn’t self-destruct like before… Could he really be just an ordinary person with delusional disorder?” 

“How could that be!” You Zhengping raised his damaged hand. “My hand was so seriously injured when I captured him with the space. Did he do this with his teeth?” 

“It looks kind of like cigarette burns,” Cen Xiao said, looking closely. 

“Abilities trapped in my spaces are reduced to a tenth of their power. If you multiply this power by ten, you get a firearm,” You Zhengping said, pointing to his hand. 

Seeing that a long time had passed and Zhen Li hadn’t self-destructed, the Protectors carefully returned to the room. Zhen Li saw that they had returned and he hadn’t died. He thought that he was about to suffer an unknown amount of torture. He was scared. 

Just as You Zhengping and the others came in, Zhen Li looked up and suddenly saw a mirror floating in midair in front of him. These words were written on the mirror in blood: “If you listen to my instructions, you’ll live.” 

Zhen Li thought he was hallucinating. He rubbed his eyes and saw the words change. “Pretend you can’t see the mirror and act according to my instructions, or else I’ll kill you.” 

There was also a bloody dagger at the end of these words. The point of the dagger was aimed at Zhen Li. 

Zhen Li sucked in a breath, faced the Protectors questioning him, wiped away his tears, and said according to the instructions, “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything.” 

Director Xiao and the other old Protectors exchanged looks. This was their first time seeing such a cooperative Destroyer. Their vigilance rose. 

You couldn’t write too many words on the mirror. Yu Hua only wrote the general idea and left Zhen Li to make up the rest himself. 

Luckily, Zhen Li knew how to make up a story. He combined his own real situation with the mirror’s prompting and obediently related: “About seven days ago, a new program appeared on my phone. I couldn’t uninstall it. It told me I had to fulfill a mission, and if I failed, I would be wiped out.”

At this point, Zhen Li quaked internally. Saying this amounted to revealing the System’s secrets. He would self-destruct after saying it. 

But the bloody words on the mirror had told him to set his mind at ease, so Zhen Li did his best to keep calm. He hadn’t thought that he really wouldn’t die. 

Director Xiao picked up Zhen Li’s phone and used Zhen Li’s face to unlock it with facial recognition. He searched through the phone and said, “I don’t see the app you told us about.” 

“I tried before, other people can’t see it, as though it’s my secret,” Zhen Li said. “This week, I’ve been hiding at home investigating the phone. I discovered that what the System says is true. This morning I equipped an alternate dimension stomach, and I could eat a lot without gaining weight.” 

The bloody words had instructed him to tell some of his true experiences concerning the System. He could mix truth and lies. Zhen Li thought that he had been captured at the mall, so he talked about himself using the System at the mall. “I also used the System to equip a basketball throwing technique, though there was a time limit on it. It lost effect after an hour. And when you caught me, I used the laser gun ability to try to escape. But I failed.” 

This matched perfectly with the results of You Zhengping and the others’ investigation. 

Director Xiao nodded and said, “What did the System tell you to do?” 

“It said that there was a big boss hidden in this world, and to protect the world, protect the ordinary people, I had to kill the big boss.” Zhen Li looked at all of them. “The System also said that I would die if I failed the mission. If I revealed its secrets, I would also die. Are you the big boss’s subordinates? Are you going to kill me?” 

Director Xiao and the others: “…” 

No, this Destroyer’s style was completely different from what they were familiar with! 

---

Author's Note

Zhen Li: Huh? Why didn’t I die?

Yu Hua: Because I’m holding down the System for you. Please start your performance.