Tree of Aeons - 278. Remnant Roots

I don’t know why I die, I don’t know why I live.

Divided hunters die of loyalty,

The witch who plays with emotions dies of love,

Cautious fortune-tellers die of trust.

The thief who steals everything has nothing,

The visionary who created everything never existed.

The traveler fell on his way home,

The twilight giants rest before dawn.

Lawyers sacrifice for order,

Judges forget the law.

The sleepless sleeps in the dark,

The corpse collector lay in the coffin.

We are guardians, and a bunch of poor creatures who are constantly fighting against danger and madness.

This journey is life and death.

While drowning was inevitable, they had struggled.

This is the worst of times, this is the best of times.

- Description from novelbuddy

By the time Li Qingran realized she had been transplanted into a book, she had already muddled through seventeen years.Growing up together as childhood sweethearts with the male protagonist Xie Ying’an, their relationship was rather passable.Endowed with the halo of the male lead, Xie Ying’an was like a hacked character from birth: good-looking, from a good family, with good academics...Li Qingran vaguely remembers that she was a female supporting character in the book, whose ending was not good due to constantly making trouble for the female protagonist.Li Qingran shuddered, feeling all too familiar with this plot; getting involved or not could both lead to trouble, so she needed to come up with some strategies to cope...PS: Unrequited love theme, male and female leads are high school students, and they do not engage in early romance.

As the final dragon lay defeated, Aaran stared at the sky while the rest celebrated.[Awaiting the gods’ response...]He clenched his fists, his heart pounding. A shred of hope flickered in his eyes, only to be extinguished like always.[The attained outcome was deemed unsatisfactory.]Aaran had seen the message for the twentieth time. He had become the gods’ plaything in their desire to witness the “perfect ending”.He regressed once again, but this time as a toddler and charm being the only stat he had.But something was amiss. The world he remembered had changed. Powers that did not exist before had taken hold of the world.Tired of following the traditional route, Aaran chose to fight darkness with darkness… as the gods’ chosen necromancer!

This story unfolds during the later stages of World War II, where a man, scarred by the horrors of war, finally grasps the profound and harsh realities of the world. In this world, those at the top laugh and celebrate, while those at the bottom sacrifice their lives in futile conflicts driven by pride and meaningless ambition.A modern soul transmigrates and fuses with the original soul of a body, creating a unique and extraordinary existence. To some, he is a villain; to others, a madman.In a world steeped in cruelty, this man, determined to secure a place among the decision-makers, struggles to break free from the ranks of those powerless to control their fate. To achieve his goal, he resolves to shatter the chains of law, then the chains of morality, and finally the chains of mediocrity.