"Good. Very good. So good that I'm genuinely jealous of you.
But I'm not jealous that other versions of us corrected your trajectory. I'm only jealous that your friends are all still alive.
Being alive is wonderful. Being alive ans there's still hope.
Ha — how strange. It's only been a day since we parted, and I already miss them.
Forget it. Enough useless talk. Let
move on. Third...
Always trust [Ti]!
[Ti] is the only key to finding the answer. These aren't my words, and they're not my guess — the Fun God said them.
The fact that you've made it here ans you already know that [Ti] is the linchpin keeping every experint synchronized. Only while it exists can our slice universe remain normal and stable under the Observer's gaze.
That's the absolute prerequisite for preventing the world's destruction. As for how to find a way out of that desperate annihilation... the Fun God probably knows, but He won't say.
All I can infer is that this path of survival runs contrary to His will. And the only thing that runs contrary to [Void] is [Existence].
[mory] concerns the past — but the past is a wrong turn already taken; naturally there's no hope there. The only thing left is [Ti]!
Get to know [Ti]. Understand It anew. You still have a chance. We...
Forget it, I said I wouldn't go there."
Scarred Cheng Shi forced a bitter smile and pulled out another can of cola, chugging it down.
Cheng Shi watched him and furrowed his brow in thought.
This was the second ti his counterpart had called Origin "the Observer." The term wasn't wrong per se, but compared to "Experint Master," "Observer" seed to carry far fewer connotations.
But Cheng Shi wasn't about to fixate on minor details. He could feel Ti Deduction's duration depleting faster now — this eting was about to end.
He'd barely opened his mouth to say sothing when the other him, clearly anticipating this, waved him off and continued:
"Fourth!
This is my conjecture and may not apply to your world.
[Folly]'s authority may not be lost at all — It simply hid it."
"What!?"
Cheng Shi was stunned, but in the very next instant he realized the idea wasn't far-fetched.
This was supposedly the wisest god in the universe. If It had foreseen that Its authority would be lost, how could It have possibly risked exploring the so-called truth in person?
With mortal wisdom, Cheng Shi couldn't calculate as far ahead as a true god. But with hindsight, it was easy to see — [Folly] had far too many thods to verify the universe's truth, none of which required going in person.
Yes — Wei Mu had said that even if it was a foolish act, [Folly] insisted on being the first god to attempt it. But once It lost Its authority, how could It guarantee It'd be the "first" in all the foolish acts that followed?
A strange light flickered in Cheng Shi's eyes.
"You want
to find [Folly]'s authority?"
Scarred Cheng Shi nodded, his voice tinged with emotion:
"It's the stupidest approach — but also the one with the most hope.
Getting [Folly]'s authority would let you see through everything in this universe just as It does. You'd understand the Fun God's strategy, uncover the experint's flaws, and find that one and only path to survival.
Of course, that path certainly doesn't exist in my world. But your world still has hope.
The crucial thing is — in [Folly]'s eyes, searching for Its authority absolutely qualifies as a foolish act. And since it's a foolish act, It would have no inclination to stop you.
So Its authority is, theoretically, the 'easiest' among all the gods' authorities to obtain.
But actually finding it might be the hardest thing in the world...
By my knowledge, even [Folly] Itself doesn't rember where Its authority is. So isn't that, too, a foolish act in its own right?
Tch—"
"..."
Indeed.
If a mortal managed to find [Folly]'s authority, then [Folly]'s act of hiding it would qualify as a grand-scale foolish act. It probably wouldn't want to beco the universe's laughingstock — so this task might not be any easier than finding the one path to survival itself.
But they had to try, didn't they? For the sake of staying alive.
After saying all this, Scarred Cheng Shi's figure was already beginning to blur. Seeing his other self about to return alone to face that desperate world, Cheng Shi's heart clenched. Once more, he spoke:
"What else can I do for you?"
Scarred Cheng Shi looked at his own dissolving limbs and burst out laughing:
"Don't help . Help yourself.
I am you, so I understand you. I know your confusion cos from locking yourself inside the emotional prison of Old Jia's departure — not knowing how to accept other people's kindness.
But you need to understand: friendship is never a shackle for people like us. It's the key that frees prisoners like you and .
It's not just the world that needs saving. We do too.
Staying vigilant is right. But opening your heart from ti to ti yields different rewards — and on that point, we're both liars enough that I needn't belabor it.
If you want to be stubborn about it — fine, we don't have to care about the other people in this world. This world's fate has nothing to do with us. But we do have to find a way to keep the friends who've helped us alive.
It's just that in the process, the world happens to benefit from our friends' good fortune and gets to survive.
Think of it that way — doesn't the pressure feel a bit lighter?"
Cheng Shi's expression grew animated. He had the distinct feeling that another version of himself was using [Deceit]'s talent on him. But he couldn't deny it — deceiving yourself was, in fact, an acceptable attitude toward the road ahead.
"Did you catch that from Big Cat?" He seed to accept the idea, and laughed. But the laughter died almost instantly — because in that world, Big Cat might already be...
"More or less.
Big Cat was right. Her philosophy toward friends was simple and ahead of its ti. Only friendship is worth going this far for. Worth her...
Forget her. Never mind.
Ha — I finally understand how Qin Xin felt when he shouted those words.
Sparks fade, but the fla passes on... What a rallying cry — the fla passes on!
In this desperate experint, soone has to survive!
Soone has to shatter fixed destiny, break free of the ga's shackles, and breathe a single breath of fresh air outside this experint!
Even if only for an instant.
So... I can die. But this bullshit slice-universe experint dies with .
Since we're 'one of our own' — rember to cheer when I die. Because it won't be humiliation, and it won't be surrender. It'll be mockery drawn in blood. I will laugh in the face of that Observer — watched by billions of lives across billions of worlds — and tell It: Your experint will never produce an answer!"
The words faded. The figure vanished.
Cheng Shi, deeply moved, dropped back into the experint's reality. He stared blankly at the variable version of himself and found that the variable Cheng Shi was also staring blankly back at him.
"You're not Qin Xin. Who are you, really?"
Cheng Shi's heart was a churning ss of emotions. He looked into the variable Cheng Shi's eyes with a thousand feelings warring inside him: "I'm the future you."
And then, silently, he added in his mind:
If...
You still have a future.
...
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