Don't mess with that Miao boy, he's sickly and perverted.

Chai Xiaomi turned her head, but before she could speak, she heard him repeat in a low voice, "You're not happy either."

"Mimi, are you hiding some kind of secret?"

Wu Li stared at her, his voice carrying a chilling undertone, like the eerie atmosphere of ghosts parading through the streets during the Ghost Festival. It wasn't anger, but a restrained questioning, as if he feared the answer but had no choice but to ask.

Chai Xiaomi remained silent for a moment.

She didn't know when, but his hand had reached out and tightly gripped her waist.

He could wrap his arms around her waist with just one arm.

With a sudden pull, she involuntarily fell into his arms.

Chai Xiaomi lay on Wu Li's chest, listening to his strong heartbeats, which felt like they were hitting her heart.

Feeling her clothes were a little tight, she looked down and realized that the hem of her skirt had been tied in a knot with the hem of his clothes again.

It was as if they were afraid she would secretly run away.

But she...

It seems like it's time to go home.

According to the original plot, everything that follows has already been written:

In a panic over the escalating war, Song Hu consumed large quantities of elixirs of immortality, which backfired, depleting his health and causing him to die suddenly soon after.

After Song Yueyao's great victory over the barbarians, her fame spread far and wide, and the people of Liangya Prefecture were united in their support, hailing her as Empress.

After Jiang Zhiyu's repeated insistence, Jiang Runchuan finally relented and allowed him to take control of the marriage.

Thus, the two nations formed a marriage alliance, and together they vied for supremacy in the Central Plains, eventually pacifying the world.

This is a happy ending for the male and female protagonists, but not for her and Wu Li.

Due to the system's restrictions, she was unable to tell him her true identity and origin.

She couldn't tell him that she really missed home.

She loves him.

But her love was divided into many parts: besides him, there was her family and her friends.

But he only had her.

Even though thinking about this makes her heart ache for him.

But in another distant time and space, there are also people she cherishes and who cherish her...

Dad always gets tricked by pop-up ads into downloading a bunch of useless apps, and she has to clean them up for him regularly.

Mom is trendy and loves to dress up, but Dad has practically no sense of style. Mom often laments that she's lucky to have a daughter as her best friend, otherwise she wouldn't even have anyone to go shopping with.

By the way, before she transmigrated into the book, after the plane landed in Guizhou, her tourist destination, her grandmother called her.

"My dear," Grandma's voice came softly from the other end of the phone, with the gentle, sweet quality unique to the Wu dialect, "the loquats in the yard are ripe and sweet! When are you coming back from your trip? Come pick some!"

The loquat tree was planted the year she was born. Her grandfather loved to joke and said he would compare whether Xiaomi or the sapling would grow taller in the future.

She naturally lost; she lost before she was even two years old.

When she was five years old, she thought about it seriously for a long time and felt that the competition was unfair and that the tree was cheating. So, while her grandfather was taking a nap, she secretly took her little sand shovel and ran to loosen the soil around the tree roots, or more accurately, she wanted to dig it down.

When Grandpa woke up and couldn't find anyone, he finally grabbed a little dumpling covered in mud under a tree.

As the tree grew taller, she also grew up and stopped competing with it.

Every year at the end of May, my grandfather would climb up a ladder to pick them, while my grandmother would stand below holding a basket to catch them. She would hold onto the ladder beside her, looking up to wait for the biggest one.

Once, my grandfather lost his balance and almost fell.

From then on, she ordered the two old men to just hold up the baskets below, while she was responsible for climbing the ladder.

The loquats should be ripe again this year.

But the person who picked the loquats was nowhere to be found.

And there's her eldest daughter, Qiuqiu.

Qiuqiu always appears cheerful and carefree in public, but only she knows her deepest secret. Qiuqiu's stepfather always finds various excuses to enter her room, and her mother often works the night shift. Many nights, Qiuqiu escapes from home, treating this place as her only safe haven.

If she's gone, where can Qiuqiu hide?

As Chai Xiaomi thought about it, a wave of bitterness surged through her heart. Her throat tightened, and she had countless words of advice and instructions to give.

But when the words reached his lips, he couldn't utter a single one.

Suddenly, the sound of rapid and chaotic hoofbeats came from below the roof.

This broke the awkward silence between the two.

An empty horse, covered in blood, came to a stop in front of Song Yueyao.

Chai Xiaomi's expression suddenly changed. She had been secretly observing the horse for some time and remembered it clearly: the horse belonged to that Deputy General Xiao because it had a tuft of white hair on its tail.

But wasn't he sent out by Sister Yao to patrol outside the city? He even brought a thousand iron cavalry with him, so how come he only came back with one horse?

The same question was also swirling in Song Yueyao's mind.

Song Yueyao walked around the horse a few steps and asked her soldiers, "Where did this horse come from to run back to the city?"

"Reporting to the commander, the northwest is the direction the barbarians retreated from earlier."

Things got a little strange; this scene wasn't in the original story at all.

Chai Xiaomi craned her neck to look around, but unexpectedly stepped on a broken tile, slipped, and fell downstairs.

This was probably the first time in Wu Li's life that he questioned his own stupidity. He could have jumped down to save her in time, but before he could leap up, he realized that the corners of their clothes were still tied together.

In an instant, they became a pair of star-crossed lovers, falling together.

Fortunately, just before they hit the ground, he suddenly spun around while holding her, his back barely hitting the ground, while the girl in his arms was safely protected by him.

The surrounding soldiers reacted quickly, gripping their spears and swiftly surrounding and attacking from all sides.

Song Yueyao instinctively drew her crescent blade, and upon seeing the two people lying on the ground, she froze, stunned: "Xiao Mi? Wu Li? How come it's you two?"

She waved her hand and ordered her subordinates in a deep voice, "All of you, step back."

She took a few steps forward, not asking a single unnecessary question, and the next second she launched into a tirade: "This is outrageous! Who gave you permission to come along? This is a battlefield! Do you know how dangerous a battlefield is?!"

"Xiaomi, you're the one who wanted to come, aren't you!"

This was the first time Song Yueyao had spoken to her in such a tone, and Chai Xiaomi pouted, "Sister Yao, I..."

She guessed that Song Yueyao would be angry if she knew they had followed, which is why she had been hiding in the shadows with Wu Li.

Song Yueyao's eyes burned fiercely, yet her eye sockets were red. She twirled the crescent-shaped blade in her hand, then pointed the hilt at Chai Xiaomi. "Go back to where you came from! Don't follow me!"

"Feed".

Wu Li had already gotten up carrying the person. When he saw the hilt of the knife pressed against Chai Xiaomi's brow, his eyes suddenly turned cold. He placed his knuckles on the hilt and gently flicked it.

The hilt of the sword then tilted towards the horse.

"Are you blind?" he said in a cold, indifferent tone, pulling the person in his arms tighter. "There's a letter hanging on the reins, and the horse is almost out of breath. Can't you tell it's coming back to deliver something? If you don't need your eyes, you can give them to someone who does."

Seeing Chai Xiaomi's obedient and submissive appearance after doing something wrong, Wu Li's anger flared up even more.

He wouldn't even say a harsh word to his wife, so when did it become Song Yueyao's place to be fierce?

He only calmed down a bit when he felt a soft hand gently tugging at his arm.

Only after Wu Liyi reminded her did Song Yueyao notice that a thin bamboo tube was tied to the inside of the reins, stained with blood, the color of which was mixed in with the horse's mane, which she had not noticed before.

She was secretly surprised that Wu Li's eyes were so sharp; he had noticed her in just one glance.

Ignoring his barbed words, Song Yueyao quickly stepped forward and pulled out the letter from the bamboo tube.

It was a letter written in blood, the handwriting messy yet powerful.

Seeing Song Yueyao's suddenly pale face, Chai Xiaomi quickly untied the knot Wu Li had tied and ran forward to ask, "Sister Yao, I'm sorry, don't be angry. We only followed you secretly because we were worried about you. But what happened?"

Wasn't the war over? Has something else happened?

Despite her fierce demeanor, Song Yueyao's heart softened when she saw the worry in Xiao Mi's eyes as she approached. Partly to frighten her, and partly to maintain morale, she took a deep breath and tried to make her voice sound calm: "The thousand cavalry that Deputy General Xiao led out, including himself, were all killed by the demonic beasts. This was the last message he sent back before his death—"

Upon hearing this, the surrounding soldiers all changed color.

Song Yueyao's next words left everyone present frozen in place:

"The barbarians haven't retreated at all; they're heading towards Deer City."

She raised her eyes, her gaze slowly sweeping across the faces of everyone present, taking in the expressions of astonishment, unease, and disbelief.

"This time, it's not just cavalry and infantry, but also thousands of demonic beasts, who are attacking alongside them."

As soon as he finished speaking, all around was so quiet that only the mournful sound of the wind could be heard.

Chai Xiaomi's pupils trembled, and she opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything.

"No, this isn't right!"

"Youtiao, what's going on? Didn't the story end after one battle?"

Under her urgent questioning, You Tiao remained silent for a moment.

Then, he slowly uttered four words: "The butterfly effect."

What?

"Host, according to the original plot, after the massacre, the High Priest and Wu Li were supposed to have a duel. The High Priest would die at Wu Li's hands, and Wu Li would also die from the backlash of his own Gu poison and evil energy. But now, the plot has progressed to the final chapter, and these two characters who should have been eliminated are still alive."

You Tiao's voice deepened: "According to the system's preliminary assessment, the plot... is developing in an uncontrollable direction."