I looked at the old-fashioned kerosene lamp.
It seed to be just a well-cleaned iron lantern, but the fla inside was unusual. It emitted a pure white glow. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t even a fla but rather a white light condensed to look like one.
Before this, even when unscrewing nearby steel pipes, the cartographer never put the lantern down. At most, he hung it on his cloak—always keeping it close. It was obvious how much he valued this lantern.
I could sense a strange yet faint fluctuation emanating from the lantern. Different from the mana fluctuations of a demon hunter, it was more like a natural rhythm. It was rare to feel such a fluctuation on this land where nature was already dead.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It’s the ’blessing,’" the cartographer said.
"Blessing," I said. "Is it the ’blessing’ of a Blessed Monk?"
Was this white-glowing lantern related to the power source of the Blessed Monks?
"I don’t know, I only rember it’s called a blessing, and others call it that too," the cartographer said. "The blessing refers to the white light inside this lantern. I also have it in the lamps at my safety house.
"Blessings attract each other. That is to say, as long as we hold this lantern, even if we don’t know the way back, we can fortunately return to the safety house. It’s our only way back.
"Once we lose this blessing, we’ll be lost in chaotic space."
"Then... what about ti?" I asked. "From my unclear mory, ti should also be chaotic after Doomsday. It’s possible you walked outside for a few hours, and when you go back, years have passed in the safety house..."
With that, I glanced at his back. He carried a large, deep yellow backpack, now flat and seemingly not holding much.
"You left the safety house to gather supplies, right?" I continued. "No matter how quickly you gather supplies, your partners waiting in the safety house might not see your return. When you et again, they might have starved to death or turned into skeletons... That’s also a possible outco, right?
"The ti you ntioned when we reach the safety house having no relation to the ti we travel, does it refer to this?"
"Partially correct. Chaotic ti is also a major enemy for us survivors," the cartographer patiently explained. "Sotis, the person you t not long ago might be elderly the next ti you see them; or a person you’re eting for the first ti might act very familiar with you.
"If you’re separated from a partner, the next ti you et, they might not recognize you. This might not be because they’ve forgotten you, but because you encountered them before you knew each other.
"In rare cases, you might even et your past or future self... though I don’t recall such an experience, I’ve heard that others have."
I had only followed my understanding of the Doomsday Era and casually ntioned it but didn’t expect the cartographer to reveal so many unexpected possibilities, each sounding so unbelievable.
In other words, even if I find Little Bowl in the Doomsday Era, they might not recognize as "No. 3"... and I might even et the Little Bowl teaming up with Mazao?
Is it possible that even when Mazao has crossed over to the modern world, I could still encounter Mazao during the Doomsday Era?
Thinking negatively, finding Little Bowl before her death might not depend on how quickly I act, but rather on luck and fate... However, if it’s about luck and fate, neither Little Bowl nor I lack them, under these circumstances, perhaps there’s no need to worry too much...
All kinds of possibilities blood in my mind, giving a new understanding of the wonders of the Doomsday Era.
"If you see a living person who looks exactly like you, I suggest not getting too close. It might be an uncanny entity mimicking you, and even if it’s a version of you from a different ti, it might not interact with you amicably," the cartographer cautioned. "Doomsday drives everything towards madness and destruction, even the determined past becos uncertain, twisted into a pathological shape under its influence, let alone the countless possible futures.
"Versions of you from different tis might try to destroy everything you possess now, or pretend to cooperate while actually intending to lead you into destruction, twisting you into a similarly pathological personality... It’s better to treat it as so kind of uncanny existence."
As soone partially transcending ti and space like Impermanence, could I also be twisted into a pathological and crazy form at different tis? Although not easy to imagine, I reserve judgnt on this for now, keeping it as a ntal warning.
"No need to be so tense. As long as we have the guidance of the blessing, we won’t get lost in chaotic ti, and it’s relatively unlikely to encounter such absurd ti disturbances," the cartographer said, holding the lantern, "The questions you raised can also be solved with the blessing’s light. As long as we have this lantern, we can return to the safety house at the right ti."
I thought for a mont and asked, "You an... the blessing of this lantern can establish a connection with the blessing in the safety house to stabilize and synchronize the flow of ti between both places?"
"The flow of ti... isn’t like that," the cartographer seed to deliberate his words. "No matter how much ti we spend outside, when we return to the safety house, our partners inside will never be at the point of starving."
"Sounds like a virtual ga," I tried to understand this temporal narrative in my own way.
"A virtual ga?" The cartographer was puzzled.
In most virtual gas, when a player takes on a main quest like "rescue the hostages from kidnappers," no matter how much ti is wasted on the way or on side quests, the kidnappers won’t kill the hostages. Only when the player advances the main quest to the next stage does the ti enter the phase where the kidnappers plan to kill the hostages, and by then, the player usually has ample opportunity to rescue them.
I used to think the ti flow speed in the Doomsday Era varied by region, but actually, perhaps ti doesn’t "flow" at all and has beco fragnted and isolated.
Survivors can move from one ti fragnt to another, randomly and uncontrollably. This results in the chaotic occurrences of entering the past or future.
Only with the guidance of a blessing, connecting through the ties between blessings, can one leap to the right islet in the endless sea of ti fragnts.
However, these are just my subjective speculations, and the chaos of the Doomsday Era might surpass my improvised "ti islets theory."
The more I thought about it, the more my spirits were lifted. I felt as if I had entered a truly unpredictable magical realm, transcending everything in the past.
While conversing, the cartographer also led the way deeper into the abandoned amusent park.
He seed able to determine which direction to move by observing the flickering trends of the blessing’s light, much like how a Taoist uses a compass to determine Feng Shui. Along the way, we passed by so restaurants inside the abandoned amusent park. At these monts, the cartographer would go in to scavenge supplies, looking for unexpired food and canned goods.
Food and water are matters of life and death for survivors, so it wasn’t unreasonable to let him take this ti. Although I didn’t need food or water, I helped gather supplies too. The cartographer hadn’t completely dropped his scrutiny and suspicion of , so I tacitly kept a basic safe distance from him and used this ti to exchange information about the Doomsday Era. It was quite a aningful ti.
Collecting supplies while moving, after a while we arrived at the pirate ship amusent facility. Like I had done previously, the cartographer also noticed fresh blood mixed within the surrounding bloodstains and found the shoe print.
"A living person passed by here not long ago?" the cartographer pondered.
"Are you planning to find another person to join the team?" I asked.
"Of course, even with your addition, we only have four people in the safety house. A healthy team ideally has five," the cartographer said.
I was just hoping to gather clues about Little Bowl from his partners, not really planning to join their team.
"Can you track the owner of the shoe print? To , it seems like the print has disappeared," I said.
"I’ll need to rely on luck," the cartographer murmured to himself. "In this direction..."
His voice lowered, and his eyes slowly closed as if entering a ditative state.
At the sa ti, he raised the lantern, holding it close to his face. It seed as though he was trying to let the blessing’s white light penetrate his eyelids and enter into his ditation.
I didn’t disturb him. Monts later, the cartographer opened his eyes, his voice now firm: "We’ll head this direction."
He stepped forward, and I followed closely behind. As we moved, the surrounding scenery once again transford in strange and mysterious ways.
Reviews
All reviews (0)