The convenience store was unnervingly normal.
It smelled like stale coffee, sugary slushies, and existential despair.
Meng Po, the Goddess of Forgetting and proprietor of this fine establishment, leaned on the counter, looking bored.
She had the weary, seen-it-all expression of someone who had worked cosmic retail for ten thousand years.
"So," she said, her voice a calm, gentle drone that cut through Li Wei's panic. "Rough day?"
Li Wei, who had just discovered his entire life was a lie in a secret ghost classroom, could only nod.
"Yeah," she said, nodding sagely. "We get a lot of that in here."
She gestured to the other customers.
A disgraced thunder god was stress-eating a bag of spicy chips in the corner.
A heartbroken nymph was crying into a pint of ice cream.
Even the hologram of the First Chaos Cultivator had followed them in and was now staring blankly at the selection of instant noodles, a look of profound regret on his face.
This wasn't just a convenience store.
It was a support group for the supernaturally screwed.
**
Meng Po reached under the counter and pulled out a bottle.
It was a simple, glass bottle filled with a clear, shimmering liquid that looked like iced tea.
"On the house," she said, sliding it across the counter to Li Wei. "Special blend."
Li Wei looked at the bottle.
A small, handwritten label was tied to its neck.
It read: "NORMAL."
"What... what is this?" he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"It's what you want, isn't it?" Meng Po said, her ancient eyes seeing right through him. "An escape. A reset."
"One sip," she explained, "and it's all gone. The memories. The trauma. The voices in your head. The annoying math god. The terrified idiot."
"It won't kill you. It will just... make you normal. You'll wake up in your dorm room. Your biggest problem will be that history paper you haven't started. You'll be just another kid. No gods. No monsters. No destiny."
"You'll be free."
**
The bottle felt heavy in his hands.
A simple, easy way out.
One sip, and the crushing weight of his existence would just... vanish.
He could be normal.
He could have a normal life.
Go to normal classes.
Have a normal, non-life-threatening crush on a normal girl.
It was everything he had ever wanted.
Do it, Yin Mode's voice whispered in his head, tired and broken. Please. I can't take any more of this. I just want it to be quiet.
The other voice, the cold, logical one, was silent for once.
It was calculating.
Running the numbers on a life without pain.
**
His friends watched, their faces a mixture of hope and fear.
Xiao Qian, the fox spirit, looked at the rows of memory-erasing drinks behind the counter.
There was one labeled "FORGET YOUR FIRST HEARTBREAK."
She looked away, a flicker of pain in her eyes.
Long Bo, the dragon of order, saw a bottle labeled "EMBRACE IMPERFECTION."
He shuddered and went back to meticulously straightening the candy bars.
Even Feng Yue...
She stared at a dusty bottle on the top shelf.
"ERASE THE MEMORY OF DUTY."
What would it be like?
To live a life not bound by prophecy?
To be just a girl, not a princess, not a weapon, not a queen?
To be free.
But then she looked at Li Wei.
At the broken, beautiful, impossible boy holding his own potential erasure in his hands.
If he drank that, the boy she knew would be gone.
The clumsy idiot who made her laugh.
The terrifying genius who made her feel safe.
The whole, chaotic, infuriating package.
He would be replaced by a stranger.
A happy, healthy, normal stranger.
And the thought of it, the thought of losing him, was a pain worse than any duty.
**
Li Wei uncapped the bottle.
The liquid inside smelled like sweet tea and oblivion.
This was it.
His last choice.
He could feel Yang Mode running the final calculation.
Probability of increased happiness post-consumption: 92.7%.
Probability of a life free from cosmic, life-threatening bullshit: 99.9%.
The logical choice is clear.
He raised the bottle to his lips.
He saw Feng Yue's face, her expression a mask of heartbreak and terror.
He saw the memory of her blushing with literal fire.
He saw her standing between him and an army of monsters, ready to die for him.
He saw her smile.
He saw her.
And he realized something.
A life without the pain, without the chaos, without the fear...
Would also be a life without her.
Without the memory of her.
Without the feeling of her hand in his.
Without the stupid, illogical, inefficient, and utterly wonderful variable that she had become in the equation of his life.
And a normal life, a happy life, a perfect life...
Wasn't worth it.
Not without her.
**
He lowered the bottle.
He put the cap back on.
And he slid it back across the counter to Meng Po.
"No, thank you," he said, his voice quiet, but for the first time, it was entirely his own.
"I think... I think I'll keep the pain."
He looked at Feng Yue, a small, genuine smile on his face.
"It's a part of the story," he said. "And I kind of want to see how it ends."
**
Feng Yue let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, a single, fiery tear of pure relief rolling down her cheek.
Meng Po just smiled, a real, genuine smile this time.
It was ancient and wise and beautiful.
"Congratulations," she said, her voice filled with a warmth that hadn't been there before.
"You've passed the test."
"Test?" Li Wei asked, confused.
"The test of self-acceptance," Meng Po explained. "The choice to embrace your whole, broken, beautiful self, rather than erasing the parts that hurt."
"It's the one test most people fail."
She snapped her fingers.
The convenience store flickered.
The bright, fluorescent lights died.
The aisles of snacks and drinks dissolved into dust.
The walls of the 7-Eleven melted away like a dream.
And were replaced by cold, hard, ancient stone.
**
They were standing in the center of a massive, circular arena.
The air was thick with the smell of old blood and despair.
Torches burned with a cold, ghostly light, revealing row upon row of stone tiers rising up into an oppressive darkness.
And in those tiers... were people.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
All dressed in the robes of different eras, from ancient dynasties to modern times.
They were all chained to the stone, their faces gaunt, their eyes empty and hollow.
They were the ones who had failed the test.
The ones who had chosen to forget.
The previous Chaos Cultivator candidates.
An army of the lost.
And they were all staring right at Li Wei.
📣 [SYSTEM NOTICE: AUTHOR SUPPORT INTERFACE]
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