A crooked calendar hung on the wall. A heap of toppled building blocks lay scattered across the coffee table. On the sofa sprawled a scruffy, bearded young draconic man in his twenties, a pair of dragon horns growing from his head.
"Where am I...?"
Chen Zhaoming groggily opened his eyes. The vicious headache of a post-drunken stupor felt like his skull was splitting apart, and a flood of memories surged into his mind.
The first belonged to an utterly ordinary office worker.
There had been nothing worth mentioning about his life from childhood to adulthood: ordinary schooling, an ordinary graduation, an ordinary job after graduation, and, once he reached the right age, the usual pressure from his parents to get married.
Then, on the way to a blind date, he was sent off from this world with a bang by a cargo truck.
The second belonged to the son of a distinguished family, a youth of some small reputation.
At three, he could already read a thousand characters. At five, he could recite poetry and prose. By seven, he was already a child prodigy renowned throughout the capital.
He had once thought that, after growing up and entering officialdom, he would be able to serve as an upright official and bring prosperity to the people.
Who would have thought that he would suddenly be chosen to become the prince consort of Great Yan, cutting off his political future on the spot?
If that had been all, it would not have been so bad. The princess of Great Yan was beautiful and gifted; strictly speaking, being favored by her should have counted as his good fortune.
But on the day of the wedding, the princess stood there with a swollen belly, looking at him as though she wanted to slice him into a thousand pieces.
And in that instant, he understood everything.
The princess had conceived a child out of wedlock. To cover up the scandal, the imperial family of Great Yan had selected a young man of suitable age from among the major clans. In the end, they had chosen him, because the Chen family had produced court historians for generations—little power, little influence. Even if he had to marry a "used" bride, he could only swallow the humiliation in silence.
And that was where the problem began.
Even after marrying him, the princess's heart still belonged to her lover. But to keep others from talking, the princess's elder brother demanded that he must also have children with her.
How was the son of an ordinary noble house supposed to resist a behemoth like the imperial family of Great Yan? If he dared refuse, his clan could be destroyed in an instant.
So he accepted his fate.
So what if the child the princess bore belonged to another man? He would simply raise it as his own.
Later, he and the princess did have a child of their own. Even if the princess looked down on him, what prince consort was ever spared a princess's temper? If he muddled through, life could still go on.
But the conflict between the princess and her elder brother only grew more intense, and even the two children were dragged into it. Left with no choice, whenever the princess quarreled with her brother, he would take the two children and hide outside.
What he never expected was that the children would see this and mistake it for cowardice. They came to believe that their father did not care about their mother, that he simply allowed her to be bullied by their uncle.
He wanted to intervene.
But how could he? What could he possibly do?
A year ago, the princess had died in depression. Outsiders, ignorant of the truth, blamed the Chen family for mistreating her. The entire capital no longer had room for them, and he was forced to bring the two children to the city governed by the princess's elder brother.
Lungmen.
The princess's brother disliked him. The children hated him. Even his own family blamed him. All of those memories tangled together and flooded Chen Zhaoming's mind.
"Urgh..."
A painful groan escaped his lips.
When he opened his eyes again, they were much clearer—and much more complicated.
"Was Meng Po's soup watered down or something?"
Whether it was the ordinary wage slave from his previous life, or this frustrated noble son in his current one, both were him. The office worker had died, been reincarnated as a noble son, and now, only now, had recovered the memories of his former life.
"I'd rather have stayed an office worker..."
Chen Zhaoming let out a sigh.
As the memories of both lives fused, he realized that he was no longer merely the son of a noble family. Putting together everything he had experienced over the past twenty-some years, he now knew that he had actually been reincarnated into the world of Arknights—and had somehow become the biological father of one of the future three main heroines, Ch'en Hui-chieh.
And yet, even twenty years later, when the main story began, Ch'en Hui-chieh would still believe that he had wronged her mother and their family. Not only would she refuse to acknowledge him as her father, she would hate him with all her heart.
This was just absurd.
If he did not know how his daughter would treat him in the future, Chen Zhaoming might have tried to let go of all the mental exhaustion and do his best to raise the two children alone.
After all, if you raised even two dogs for that many years, you ought to grow attached.
But once he knew what his daughter's attitude would be in the future, his heart went cold. If they had never regarded him as a father, then why should he continue to think of them as daughters?
Without him, didn't the two of them still have that "wonderful" uncle of theirs?
Run.
He had to run immediately.
Even before recovering the memories of his past life, Chen Zhaoming had already planned to use "going home to visit family" as an excuse, then hide away in his hometown and shut out the world.
But after recovering those memories, he immediately realized that would not work.
Unless he truly followed the fate he remembered from his previous life and wasted away in his hometown, dying in gloom and frustration, then the longer he stayed there...
...the little girls' uncle would drag him right back.
So if he wanted to run, he could not go home.
He had to go to Ursus. Or Victoria.
But how could that be easy?
Thinking of his brother-in-law's power in Lungmen, Chen Zhaoming could only sigh helplessly.
Using a family visit as an excuse was one thing.
But the moment he tried to flee somewhere else, that would be far beyond what his brother-in-law could tolerate.
Just as Chen Zhaoming was at a total loss, he suddenly discovered that there was an illusory book in his mind.
[Chronicle of Time]
Wait.
Was this that Chronicle of Time?
Chen Zhaoming quickly got his answer.
The Chronicle of Time in his mind really was the one he was thinking of. It just was not nearly as powerful as the true one. The only history it could rewrite was his own, and it came with a deviation value mechanic.
Every time he altered his personal history, it would cause a deviation in the world's history. The greater the change, the larger the deviation. Although the world could correct that deviation on its own, the larger it was, the longer the correction would take.
And only once the correction was complete could he use the Chronicle of Time again.
Even so, the things it could do were still far beyond what ordinary people could imagine.
Chen Zhaoming smiled.
He had been a court historian in Great Yan before becoming the prince consort, so wasn't it perfectly reasonable for a historian to possess a Chronicle of Time?
As for what he wanted to change, he already had a draft in mind.
At that moment, he suddenly heard two light tap-tap sounds, followed by the hushed voices of two young children.
"Daddy's back."
"He definitely went out drinking again!"
"It's cold. Let's put a blanket over Daddy, or he'll catch a chill."
"I'm not taking care of him! He's the one who killed Mom!"
"Mom wasn't killed by him. Mom was... no matter what, he's still our father."
"I don't want him to be my father!"
"..."
The people of Terra were generally strong, and Chen Zhaoming's race was even more unusual. Perhaps his bloodline was somehow tied to Yan's imperial house. In any case, he could see perfectly clearly even in the dark.
He saw two little girls of roughly the same height standing together about seven or eight meters away in the living room. The silver-haired girl was the one who wanted to cover him with a blanket. The blue-haired girl was the one who said she hated him.
Seeing this, Chen Zhaoming shook his head and smiled bitterly.
The adopted daughter wanted to tuck him in.
The biological daughter, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with him.
How had he failed this badly as a father?
His gaze gradually calmed.
Even though he now possessed the Chronicle of Time, which allowed him to rewrite his own history, Chen Zhaoming had still been hesitating. He had been wavering over whether to leave, whether to make these two children—who had already lost their mother—lose their father as well.
But Ch'en Hui-chieh's words struck into his chest like a blade.
No blood.
Yet the pain cut all the way to the bone.
"I'm sorry, little Talulah. You're a good child. But I can't be your father anymore. Hui-chieh—since you don't want me as your father, then I'll leave."
Chen Zhaoming admitted that he was not a qualified father. Perhaps in some other world, someone else might be able to do better than he ever could.
May you find happiness in a world without me.
Resolve hardened in his eyes. No longer hesitating, he used his thoughts to write a single sentence into the Chronicle of Time in his mind:
[I am not Ch'en Hui-chieh's father!]
In the very next instant, the sound of quarrelling in the living room abruptly vanished.
The silver-haired little girl stood there in confusion, unable to understand why she—who had just been about to go to bed—was now standing in the living room.
Looking at the younger girl before her, Talulah said:
"Little Ch'en, let's go back to sleep."
Ch'en Hui-chieh remained where she was, unable to understand why her older sister's attitude had changed so completely in an instant.
"Then... aren't we going to take care of Dad?"
"Dad?"
Talulah looked at her younger sister strangely.
Hadn't their father, just like their mother, died a long time ago?
-------
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