QT: Don't fall in love with the Male Lead

Xi Zirui stares at his grandmother, trying not to let his panic show.

He has a million questions. His mind is foggy and slow with the whirlwind of new information swimming around in it.

His grandmother must notice some of his distress because she shoots him a pitying glance. "Child, I know this is a lot for you to take in, but you need to understand that I had to do what I did."

She sighs, her gaze growing distant and faraway. "I didn't notice it immediately when you were born. It's not like I saw Xi Ming often. Despite my brother's pleas I only conceded to meet with them once. I didn't want him to think I condoned the foolishness they were embarking into, you understand?"

Xi Zirui doesn't, but he still nods, if only to keep his grandmother talking.

"The more you grew into a young man the more you resembled him. You looked like Xi Ming's spitting image, with some differences of course, reincarnation is not perfect replication." 

Xi Zirui remembers seeing Xi Ming, and how odd it was to look into such a similar face. 

"There was also your unruly behaviour. Such a surly child, so hard to get you to do anything, so hard to make you understand the importance of your role as a god." His grandmother smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Maybe if I had noticed sooner I could have prevented what happened later." 

"Unlike Xi Ming, Huan Xuan couldn't reincarnate, but when I found him terribly wounded, on death's door, I sealed what remained of his essence in his pearl, and kept him in suspended meditation in a secret location, in the hope that after sufficient years passed he might recover from his injuries."

He can tell by the deep set of her features that that didn't happen.

"I went back there but the only thing I found was the dried up husk of his corpse." Her hatred is palpable, almost cloying. "Human cultivators, greedy as all humans are, heard that there was the tomb of an ancient dragon nearby, and that his immortality pearl was still there."

She shakes her head. "I always forget how fast time goes by in the human realm. How days to us are entire decades there. How easy it is for the most mundane things to become legends in the mortal world."

Xi Zirui lowers his head, feeling oddly responsible for the events she's describing. "I'm sorry for grandmother's loss."

She smiles at him, and it's a genuine smile. She reaches across the distance separating them and pats his knee. "Silly child, it wasn't your fault."

"But I knew that it wasn't a coincidence that you were so similar to Xi Ming, and that not soon after Huan Xuan would die."

"You tried to find his immortal pearl?" Xi Zirui asks, still trying to keep his grandmother talking so he can gather has much information as possible.

"I did, and I learned that in the time since Huan Xuan's death, it had been going around from cultivation sect to cultivation sect, passed around as a priceless artifact to be won in competitions." She pauses. "Until finally someone decided to use it. A sect leader decided to feed it to his sickly child, in the hopes of curing his terminal illness."

"Han Yu," Xi Zirui whispers.

His grandmother nods. "Yes, I had to monitor the situation. In the blink of an eye, the sickly boy had grown into a young man." Her dark eyes hold Xi Zirui's gaze, compelling him to understand her. "I had to make sure the past didn't repeat itself."

She reaches for Xi Zirui's hand and grips it between her knotted fingers. "Grandmother-" Xi Zirui starts, but she cuts him off.

"I loved my brother, and Fate made it so I would also love you, my grandchild with the face of the man who destroyed him." Her smile is immensely sad, all the lines in her face standing in stark relief, making the weight of every century she lived through apparent. "I couldn't let you meet the same destiny."

"Then why send me to a tribulation there?" Xi Zirui asks. "Why make us meet?"

It seems to him impossibly cruel that his grandmother had put them in each other's path, only to try and keep them apart afterwards.

"I hoped that the context of the tribulation would make the two of you fulfill whatever dark desire keeps bringing you together."

Xi Zirui tries to free his hand from her grip, but she keeps him there, unnmoving.

She sighs deeply. "I could see from the events in Han Yu's book that things didn't work out exactly how I expected them to."

Xi Zirui says nothing. 

"That's fine, that's exactly why I wanted to the two of you to meet for the first time in a tribulation -- the kind of situation I could control." Her eyes soften. "I prepared for the eventually of that. Echoes are everywhere, always trying to reach back to us. The heavenly realm is where time and space converge. Time talks to you, if you know what to ask it."

He wants to ask her what she did, pry for details.

But he realizes his grandmother is keeping things vague on purpose. 

Xi Zirui has a theory, though.

From what he understands as soon as his grandmother knew about Han Yu, she devised to have Xi Zirui meet him in the mortal realm. Which according to the way the heavenly realm is positioned -- both outside of time and space, and at the center of it -- means that somewhere, it had already happened.

Effectively, the idea created an alternate reality where the events she set in motion played out, and which his grandma could explore for her own benefit from her vantage point in the past.

Somehow, she could easily see into that reality -- the reality of the Transmigrator 4000, where Xi Zirui ended up after the tribulation --, and influence it from there.

Xi Zirui being back in the past, before all of that took place isn't a coincidence. His conscience is replacing the original's, just as it did for all those other Xi Zirui's in the Transmigrator 4000's worlds.

Which can only mean one thing:

"I'm not going to meet Han Yu in the tribulation, this time around, am I?" Xi Zirui asks, his throat closing up painfully.

She shakes her head. "It clearly didn't work the way I hoped it would," she sighs. "I'm sorry to hurt you like this, but it's the only way to save you. You've seen it yourself, there's no reality in which the two of you can be together."

"Maybe if someone didn't intervene..." Xi Zirui says, his voice filled with recrimination.

His grandmother lets out a throaty laugh. "Child, it's not me trying to keep you apart, it's Fate. You and him are simply not meant to be."

Xi Zirui closes his eyes and sucks on a steadying breath. There's no point in arguing with her. 

He needs to find his way back to Han Yu, ensure they meet and stop his grandmother's attempt to erase everything they have lived together.

Erase his children from his memory.

"You have no right to decide that."

She smiles, and gets up to her feet. "This is a lot for you to digest. I'm going to let you go back to your room and rest, you'll be leaving on your tribulation soon, after all." 

Xi Zirui follows after her, trying to keep his fury bottled up under a natural expression.

---

Xi Zirui does return to his rooms, and briefly considers ripping everything to shreds in a fit of anger. 

"Ni Ni, what do you have to say about this fucking mess!" he asks aloud. Slumping onto his bed with a tired sigh.

"Host... Ni Ni doesn't know either. Ni Ni hand the, the...Shopkeeper were recruited to bring everyone back, at the request of the Jade Emperor. Who was furious and concerned about the possible implications for the stability of all three realms that so many gods were stuck hopping around time and space."

Raging at her any longer probably won't do him any good, so Xi Zirui gives up. Feeling crushed down under the weight of his helplessness. 

What is he going to do?

His grandmother holds all the cards.

Xi Zirui doesn't know how he can change his destination for the tribulation.

He thought having his memories back would give him an advantage into figuring out how to be together with Han Yu, but he didn't take into account that there would be someone with even more information than him working from the sidelines.

He just knows he won't give up.

In the middle of it all, learning he's the reincarnation of Xi Ming is the least surprising thing he has learned.

It changes nothing about who he is, and how he feels.

If anything, it cements in him the importance of avoiding Xi Ming's tragic end.

Xi Zirui doesn't fall asleep as much as he crashes from exhausting into the messy sheets.

When morning comes, he has an action plan for what he's going to do.