798: Chapter 798 So what she wanted was that simple!

Ziyan saw...

In the courtyard, over a dozen thugs in black were already lying on the ground.

And Ye Chen was completely unscathed; not even a hair on his head was out of place...

Ziyan looked on in disbelief.

Her husband...

When did he become so powerful?

Zhao Shenyuan was also stunned.

"You... you..."

Before he could finish, Ye Chen calmly interrupted, "What 'you'? Didn't you just say you wanted to break my legs? Come on, I'm standing right here, let you hit."

Zhao Shenyuan's legs went weak, and he almost knelt on the ground.

He was arrogant and overbearing, but he wasn't stupid.

Ye Chen could single-handedly take down over a dozen well-trained thugs; this kind of strength was not something he could provoke.

"You... you just wait!"

Zhao Shenyuan left a hollow threat and turned to run.

"Stop."

Zhao Shenyuan shuddered in fear, tripped over his own feet, and fell to the ground.

Immediately after, he turned around stiffly, forcing a smile onto his face that was uglier than crying.

"Gr... Great Master, you are a magnanimous person, please don't lower yourself to my level..."

Ye Chen walked up to him and looked down at him: "Weren't you going to mess with Ziyan right in front of me?"

Zhao Shenyuan's knees went weak, and he knelt directly on the ground, his face full of fear.

"I won't! I won't ever do it again!"

"Great Master, please spare me! I have elderly parents above and young children below, and an eighty-year-old mother at home..."

Ye Chen couldn't help but laugh: "You have parents above and children below? You aren't even married, where did the children come from?"

Zhao Shenyuan: "..."

"Enough talk."

"I will send you to hell immediately and end this endless nightmare."

Ye Chen directly gripped Zhao Shenyuan's neck.

Then, with a forceful twist, he snapped it.

Until his death, Zhao Shenyuan never imagined... that he would actually die by having his neck snapped!

Ziyan, standing by, was also stunned with fear.

Ye Chen carelessly tossed aside Zhao Shenyuan's corpse and turned to look at Ziyan: "Alright, he is dead; no one can disturb us now..."

Before the words had even faded, everything around them rapidly receded.

The next moment, Ye Chen appeared back in that room.

"???"

He was full of questions, completely baffled.

Wait... what's going on?

Hadn't he already eliminated the major threat to Ziyan and the others?

Why was he back at the "starting point"?

"Could it be..."

Ye Chen frowned, "Did I get the 'plot' wrong???"

The first time, he confronted him head-on and killed Zhao Shenyuan.

As a result, the world reset.

What did this mean?

It meant that Ziyan's knot was not Zhao Shenyuan.

Or rather... it couldn't be solved just by killing Zhao Shenyuan.

Then what was it exactly?

"This is getting more and more interesting..."

Ye Chen rubbed his chin.

"Knock, knock, knock."

At this moment, the knocking on the door sounded again.

Ye Chen didn't go to open the door immediately; instead, he stood in place, his eyes narrowing slightly.

He suddenly realized a problem.

The previous time, the first thing Ziyan said when she pushed the door open was to tell him to run...

Then, she desperately pushed him out, telling him to leave through the back door.

Therefore, the husband in her memory must not have stayed behind, but actually ran away.

A flash of inspiration struck Ye Chen.

"I understand."

He took a deep breath, walked to the door, and opened it.

Outside, Ziyan was indeed standing there, her face filled with panic as always.

Just as she was about to speak...

"Run!"

Ye Chen grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the backyard.

Ziyan was completely bewildered.

Had her husband perhaps heard wind of this beforehand?

Otherwise... why would he be pulling her to run?

But she had no time to overthink; they had already passed through the main hall, crossed the moon gate, and sprinted all the way to the backyard.

On the wall of the backyard was a hole for a dog.

Ye Chen didn't hesitate at all; he pulled Ziyan and crawled toward the dog hole.

However, the moment he crawled out of the dog hole...

Everything in front of him suddenly began to twist.

The next second, he was standing at the door of that room again.

His hand was empty.

Ziyan was not there.

The knocking hadn't sounded yet.

The corner of Ye Chen's mouth twitched.

"Damn it, it reset again? Running doesn't work either?"

He took a deep breath and continued to review the situation in his mind.

Both approaches, according to the situation, should have been correct, but neither result was right.

What exactly did the husband in Ziyan's memory do?

Ye Chen leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, lost in thought.

Ziyan's knot was clearly not about whether Zhao Shenyuan lived or died, nor was it about whether they could escape.

Otherwise, him killing Zhao Shenyuan should have counted as the best outcome.

Yet the world still reset.

This meant... the problem wasn't with Zhao Shenyuan, but with the husband.

But the question was, what could be wrong with her husband?

Ye Chen's brow furrowed tighter and tighter.

He suddenly remembered Ziyan's reactions the two previous times she saw him.

The first time, when she shouted for her husband to run, her eyes held anxiety and worry, but also a hint of being accustomed to it?

The second time, before he could even let her speak, he had pulled her to run, and her reaction was bewilderment and shock, but she didn't resist.

What did this mean?

It meant that in her memory, running was the norm.

Her husband had always been running.

Always hiding.

Never once faced Zhao Shenyuan head-on.

A thought suddenly flashed through Ye Chen's mind.

"Could it be..."

He muttered to himself, "Ziyan's knot isn't that Zhao Shenyuan bullied her, but that her husband never protected her?"

"Her greatest regret before she died wasn't Zhao Shenyuan's coercion, but that coward of a husband who never dared to stand up from beginning to end?"

"So she is trapped here, repeating this memory over and over again?"

The more Ye Chen thought about it, the more it made sense.

But the problem was... he clearly didn't run the first time.

He killed Zhao Shenyuan and completely solved their worries.

And yet?

It reset.

"No."

Ye Chen shook his head.

"If she wanted to see the result of her husband not running, then my first approach should have been correct; it shouldn't have reset."

"Unless..."

"What she wants isn't for her husband not to run, but something else."

However, before Ye Chen could figure it out, the knocking came again.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Ye Chen took a deep breath, walked over, and opened the door.

Ziyan was standing outside, about to speak...

"Don't speak yet."

Ye Chen raised his hand to stop her.

Ziyan was stunned, looking at Ye Chen blankly.

Ye Chen grabbed her shoulders and asked: "What exactly do you want?"

Ziyan's expression froze.

"Hu... Husband, what are you saying?"

Ye Chen stared into her eyes and continued to ask.

"I said, what exactly do you want?"

"Do you want me to kill Zhao Shenyuan?"

"Or do you want me to take you and run?"

"Or..."

"Do you want me to do something your husband never did?"

Ziyan's expression finally changed.

It wasn't panic or fear, but the shock of having her heart seen through.

"You..."

"How did you know?"

Ye Chen didn't answer, but reached out and gently wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes.

"Because you have been trapped here for too long."

"So long that you have forgotten what you were waiting for."

Ziyan's eyes turned red instantly.

Ye Chen took a deep breath and said in a deep voice.

"The first time, I killed Zhao Shenyuan, and the world reset."

"The second time, I took you to run, and the world reset too."

"This means that what you want isn't these things."

"What you want is..."

He paused, looking into Ziyan's eyes, "Something your husband never gave you."

Ziyan's tears finally fell.

Ye Chen sighed.

"Alright, stop crying."

"Whatever you want, just say it."

"Whatever I can do, I will do for you."

"As for what I can't..."

He thought for a moment, "There shouldn't be anything I can't do."

Ziyan was amused to the point of laughing through her tears by his last sentence, but after laughing, she cried again.

She wiped her tears, took a deep breath, and finally spoke.

"What I want..."

"I want him to look at me."

"Not looking at me running, not looking at me hiding."

"It's looking at me."

"With only me in his eyes."

"Even if only for a moment."

Ye Chen fell silent.

He finally understood.

Ziyan's knot was not Zhao Shenyuan, not escaping, not life or death.

It was that her husband had never truly looked at her.

That man, in his eyes, had only fear, only running away, only living in cowardly survival.

He had never once looked at her face seriously and told her: "Don't be afraid, I am here."

This was the real reason Ziyan had been trapped here for hundreds of years.

Ye Chen took a deep breath, reached out, and held Ziyan's face.

Ziyan's body stiffened suddenly, and her eyes widened.

Ye Chen looked into her eyes and said, word by word.

"Don't be afraid."

"I am here."

Ziyan's tears fell like beads from a broken string.

She had waited for hundreds of years.

Waited through countless reincarnations.

Finally, she had waited for these words.

The space around them began to twist violently.

The room, the courtyard, the sky... everything was collapsing, shattering like a mirror.

Ziyan's figure began to become transparent, like a candle flame in the wind, swaying unsteadily.

But she smiled.

She smiled beautifully.

"Thank you."

"I have waited for these words, for a very, very long time."

As the words fell, her figure completely dissipated into the air.

Ye Chen stood in place, watching the world collapse before him, and sighed softly.

"So, what she wanted was this simple."