"The System," Shen Yuan says with a miserable snarl. He turns off the memory box, but continues to hold it in his hands, rotating it and tapping the sides as he says, "Binghe existed in my native world as a character in a book. The protagonist. It was the last thing I read before I died." He grimaces again. "Actually I technically died cursing the author out for giving him such a shitty ending...I was really sick at the time, in my defense."

"But then I died," he continues, "and I woke up in what I can only call the world of the book, in the body of one of the characters, and a voice in my head calling itself the System told me I had to pretend to *be* that character, or I'd be sent back to my original world. You know, where I was dead. I had to help Binghe pass certain plot milestones, or I'd be sent back to my original world, where I was dead. I had to," he chokes up again, voice cracking, but rallies and says, "I had to betray that sweet child, and throw him into the Endless Abyss, or I'd be sent back to my original world, where I was dead."

Switching to holding the box in one hand, he bunches up his sleeve with the other and uses it to scrub the falling tears from his face. "I know it's terrible," he mumbles into his sleeve. "You're going to say I should have let the System kill me rather than betray a disciple, right? That's what a real shizun would have done."