Reality Programming Association

Chapter 92: Chapter 38: ”Celestial Killer Lone Star

”Shao Yiyi, you’ve misunderstood.” Yu Xian felt his face flush hot.

”I’m here to... ask Wen Xiao to fix my computer. I got water in it, and I need some files from it urgently.”

The excuse was so bad, even he didn’t believe it.

”Fix your computer? Oh~ so that’s what this is about!” Shao Yiyi’s mouth fell open, a look of mock realization spreading across her face.

”Brother Cos, then how come the only computer on this table is my Xiaoxiao’s? Where’s yours?”

Only then did Yu Xian remember that he had rushed out to find Senior Sister Yang Yiyi after getting her text and hadn’t brought his computer with him at all.

He sighed and simply chose to remain silent.

Wen Xiao buried her head even lower, her fingers flying across the keyboard, even though the computer screen was still asleep.

Seeing that neither of them was talking, Shao Yiyi seemed to find her surrendered prey a bit boring. She crossed her legs, shrinking into her dinosaur onesie, her expression turning somewhat serious.

”Alright, alright, I’ll stop teasing you. I’ve actually been looking for you lately, Brother Cos.”

”Looking for me?” Yu Xian paused. ”What for?”

”It’s about the fortunes I read for you and Senior Shi Zuozhou last time! Remember? At that...”

As she spoke, Shao Yiyi used the ”claws” of her dinosaur onesie to strike a kitten-like pose.

”I remember. Did you figure it out?”

Yu Xian was taken aback, not expecting it to be about this. Wen Xiao had even asked him for his birth date and time again at the coffee shop last time.

”Ever since I did that reading for you, I’ve had deep doubts about that whole set of algorithms. I don’t even trust the AI model Xiaoxiao wrote for me using those same rules.”

Shao Yiyi looked like she was about to cry.

”After that, nothing I calculated felt accurate. It was like... what do you call it again?” She looked toward Wen Xiao.

”A shattered Dao heart,” Wen Xiao prompted.

”Right! It totally shattered my Dao heart! Brother Cos, WAAAH!”

Shao Yiyi fake-cried for a moment, but seeing that no one was trying to console her, she lost interest and dropped the exaggerated expression.

Her tone became serious as she stared into Yu Xian’s eyes.

”Brother Cos, before I tell you the result, can you first tell me if your childhood, or rather, your upbringing, was... very happy? Or, let’s say, relatively smooth?”

Yu Xian’s fingers tapped gently on his knee twice.

’Happy?’

’Smooth?’

Memories surged forth at these two words.

That endlessly rainy afternoon, that shattered highway, the hesitant look in his homeroom teacher’s eyes, the little boy kicked around by relatives like a rubber ball.

”Not particularly smooth,” he answered honestly, his voice a little low.

But then, another thought surfaced, and the image of a short-haired girl appeared in his mind.

The girl who always smiled until her eyes curved into crescents, who always cooked him all sorts of delicious food, who always listened intently to his boring, harebrained ideas.

Because Xia Li was there, even those gray days seemed to be painted in a layer of warm color.

Yu Xian’s gaze softened a little as he added,

”But it was okay.”

Shao Yiyi frowned, clearly dissatisfied with this ambiguous answer. She leaned forward, her dinosaur-claw hands resting on her knees.

”So was it good or not good? Just one answer, no in-betweens!”

Yu Xian fell silent.

He thought of the vanished ninth floor, of the contact that couldn’t be found, of the girl no one remembered but him.

That layer of warmth was instantly stripped away, leaving only cold, hard reality.

”Not good.”

Yu Xian looked at the downpour outside the window, his voice turning cold.

”Very not good.”

The common room fell silent for a few seconds.

Wen Xiao’s hands stopped their pretense of typing. She looked up and met Shao Yiyi’s gaze.

Shao Yiyi took a deep breath, seeming to weigh her words carefully. Her usual zany energy was completely gone.

”Brother Cos, I know this is your personal business...”

She glanced cautiously at Yu Xian’s expression and asked tentatively,

”But can you tell me specifically how it was ’not good’? Or rather...”

She paused, as if gathering her courage.

”Have the people around you, especially those close to you, ever experienced anything... abnormal? For instance, have they encountered any... disasters or anything like that?”

Yu Xian whipped his head around.

’Abnormal? Disasters?’

The words were like a key, precisely unlocking the Pandora’s Box in his heart that he had never dared to touch.

’Does my parents’ accident count as abnormal?’

’Does Xia Li, a living person, vanishing into thin air along with an entire floor count as abnormal?’

’Shao Yiyi... did she really figure something out?’

’Those few iron plates, that AI fortune-telling model, that so-called result that ’shattered her Dao heart’—what was it?’

Yu Xian sat up straight. He looked at the girl in front of him, dressed in a dinosaur onesie, who seemed unreliable and a bit kooky.

”Yes.”

Yu Xian stared at Shao Yiyi. ’Maybe,’ he thought, ’the only way to find answers is to speak of these things.’

”When I was very young, in the fourth grade, my parents were in an... accident.”

His voice was calm, as if he were telling someone else’s story.

”A car crash. Since then, I’ve been living on my own.”

Wen Xiao covered her mouth, staring intently at Yu Xian. Shao Yiyi also sat bolt upright, listening seriously.

Yu Xian didn’t stop. He looked into Shao Yiyi’s eyes and continued,

”And, not long ago... my best... friend from when I was growing up.”

His throat tightened as he spoke.

”She just... ’disappeared.’”

”So... it’s true.”

Wen Xiao gasped, covering her mouth as she looked at Shao Yiyi.

Yu Xian felt his heart lurch. That feeling of being throttled by fate washed over him once more.

”What’s true?” he asked, turning his head to look at Shao Yiyi.

”What exactly did your reading say?”

Shao Yiyi uncrossed her legs from the sofa, her face unusually pale and grave.

She lowered her head, tightly clutching the hem of her dinosaur onesie, as if making a difficult decision.

After a long moment, she finally looked up, her gaze complex, and spoke slowly.

”Brother Cos, I didn’t dare tell you before because this reading is really... not good.”

She took out her phone and found a photo of a thread-bound book.

Yu Xian leaned in, deciphering the characters on the page, and read them out, word by word:

”A bane to kith and kin, separation from flesh and blood. Born under the Celestial Killer Lone Star, destined to be utterly alone. A solitary life, disaster at the door. Those who draw near find peril; those you love find pain.”

Every word was like a nail driven viciously into his heart.

He felt as if the blood in his veins had frozen solid.

As a physics student, his rational mind told him that so-called fortune-telling proclamations were nothing more than probabilistic tricks, a psychological suggestion of the Barnum effect.

Usually, they were just vague nonsense that could apply to anyone, like ”a youth full of struggles” or ”a peaceful later life.”

But these lines... they were too specific.

So specific it sent a chill down his spine.

It felt less like a fortune and more like a verdict.

A terrifyingly accurate verdict on his twenty years of life.

’A bane to kith and kin, separation from flesh and blood.’

That was the endlessly rainy afternoon ten years ago, the scene of his parents’ devastating car crash on the highway.

’A solitary life, destined to be utterly alone.’

All these years, his path through life and school had been a solitary one, where fleeting moments of warmth always vanished too quickly.

’Those who draw near find peril; those you love find pain.’

Yu Xian’s fingers dug into the edge of the sofa so hard that his fingertips ached, but he didn’t let go.

He thought of Xia Li.

And even...

Yu Xian’s gaze fell on Wen Xiao beside him. He thought of Shi Zuozhou, who had listened to the ”Midnight Bus” audio; of Yang Yiyi, hiding from pursuit in her rental apartment; and of his cousin, who fought the unknown on the front lines day in and day out.

’Were they also in danger just because they were close to him?’

’Could it... could it really be because of me?’

’Am I really the legendary ”Celestial Killer Lone Star”?’

’Was it some kind of ”curse” on me that killed my parents and made Xia Li disappear? And was it now going to harm the few friends I have left?’

A sense of despair and guilt unlike anything he had ever felt washed over him, more suffocating than reciting the protocol ten thousand times in that white room.

If all of this was destined, then what was the point of his struggles, his resistance, his efforts to investigate the truth of his parents’ death and save Xia Li?

He was just a cursed person, a walking source of disaster.

”Does this mean...” Yu Xian swallowed hard, his throat feeling hoarse. ”...everyone around me... will be dragged down by me?”

”No! Definitely not!”

A sharp retort cut him off. Wen Xiao shot to her feet, the sudden movement knocking over a bag of chips on the table. The chips scattered across the floor, but she paid them no mind.