"The first ti I noticed sothing was off, it was before your father ran into Li Wufang — the glitch in that red light felt jarringly abrupt.
My curiosity was piqued. I rewound the past and used mory's thods to view every recorded mont at that intersection. And what I found was that the red light hadn't malfunctioned at all.
It had been working normally the entire ti. The only difference was that the red-light duration had been stretched — stretched to an unthinkable length:
220 seconds.
Granted, when setting traffic-light timings, engineers do account for intersection traffic and tilt the green phase toward the heavier lanes. But no red light should ever be this long. Nearly four minutes of standstill would only cripple traffic flow.
Besides, that intersection didn't carry enough volu to justify such a design.
Once I caught that anomaly, I began scrutinizing this mory far more closely.
I'm not particularly sensitive to numbers. Fortunately, this wasn't just a number — it was a span of ti. Since mory and Ti both belong to Existence, inheriting mory's Authority gave
at least so sense of Ti.
And so I discovered that your father's mory is riddled with a recurring duration!
From the mont he flagged down the tour bus at Jia Village to the mont he grabbed the money and bolted — the ti he spent chatting with the tourists was exactly 220 seconds, not one more, not one less.
And when the man in sunglasses sized him up at the village chief's gambling den — the length of the ga little Jia played in was also 220 seconds!"
"!!??"
By now, shock was stamped across Cheng Shi's face. He was almost unnerved.
Li Jingming's eyes glinted. He wasn't done:
"There's more. The length of ti Old Jia stood at the casino entrance, studying Aunt Sun. The length of his conversation with Nangong's grandfather outside the casino. The span from spotting Tao Yi to opening his mouth and speaking to her. The ti he spent crouching in an urban village, waiting for little you to 'run away from ho.' Even the duration of a chat he had one day with An Mingyu's uncle — right before you ca ho...
Every single one — 220 seconds!"
'Wait, wait, wait — An Mingyu's uncle? When did I ever et the Fate Chosen's uncle?'
Cheng Shi's brain could barely keep up.
The Dragon King didn't give him ti to think. "One is an accident. Two is coincidence. When the third, fourth, and fifth appearances stacked up, I knew this duration was anything but random.
At first glance, it looks like one of Deceit's pranks. But even Deceit couldn't possibly hide precise alterations from mory inside His own hall.
In fact, every ti He tampered with a Collection piece, mory selected the alteration itself as a new Collection. That includes the past of a certain Chaos Envoy nad Ultraman."
"..."
On any other day, Cheng Shi would have seized on that remark for a round of banter to mask his embarrassnt. Today, his brain was overloaded. He couldn't care less about trivialities.
He kept turning it over: what could 220 seconds possibly an?
The Dragon King was a sharp mind. Even lacking the full scope of Fixed Destiny's secrets, his limited information was enough to form ideas:
"Ruling out mory and Deceit, the number of deities who could have touched mory's Collections is extrely small."
He glanced aningfully at Cheng Shi, then quickly changed tack. "Setting that aside — Zhen Xin learned from Qin Xin about the future Wei Mu described. When I turned my attention in that direction, I found myself wondering: could this ti asurent be connected to the world's future?
Did Deceit — or any other deity — ever ntion sothing similar to you?"
Cheng Shi racked his brain for a long ti, then shook his head:
"The only thing related to ti that cos to mind is the span of the era itself. From the mont Void descended and Fate fell, the era's length was locked in.
Could this 220 be tied to the era's duration?"
"?"
Li Jingming went blank for a second. "Fate fell? When was this?"
"...A very, very long ti ago." Cheng Shi sighed, a flicker of nostalgia in his eyes. "It no longer matters. The past is past.
If Ti were still here, there'd be soone to consult. But He too...
Wait!"
Cheng Shi froze. A thought struck him: "Ti was ceaselessly busy, never once having ti. I always assud He was synchronizing the Universe's ti so it wouldn't cause an accident inside the Creator's experint.
But before Existence descended, how was the Universe's ti synchronized?"
Li Jingming blinked, then quickly offered: "I've viewed mories from previous eras. Back then, They may not have known the Universe was an experint."
Cheng Shi nodded, then shook his head:
"You're right. Ti's constant synchronization may well be because this era has too many gods who stir up trouble. Deceit was never one to sit still — They were all probing outward.
But here's the thing: no matter how 'lively' Deceit was, He couldn't have been jumping in and out of the Real Universe constantly. So why was Ti perpetually without ti?"
"..." The question stumped Li Jingming. The Collection Hall held no mories of Ti. He had no idea what Ti had been doing all along.
And at that mont, Cheng Shi's gaze sharpened: "Before He left, He summoned the Doctor."
"The Doctor?!" Li Jingming's brow furrowed. He, too, couldn't understand it. The Doctor had essentially no connection to Ti.
"Exactly!
The Doctor represents Truth. He's our candidate for Truth's Divine Throne.
Could Ti's summoning of the Doctor be a ssage to us — that whatever He had been doing was related to Truth?
But that scope is far too broad. Truth has done countless things. Which aspect could it be?"
"Experints?" Li Jingming offered. "Isn't Truth most famous for experints?
What experint would be both connected to Ti and also the most representative?"
The Dragon King's words jolted Cheng Shi awake. His pupils contracted:
"The Faith Resonance Experint!
Truth once used that very thod to reconstruct the world — searching the Real Universe for a slice identical to Himself!"
"???"
Li Jingming was lost:
"When did this happen?
Why isn't it in mory's Collection Hall?
No — wait. There might be sothing. There's one piece in the Hall that's been heavily tampered with by Ti. Could that be it?"
Cheng Shi nodded firmly:
"Exactly — that was it. The reason mory lost His mory of it was because Deceit used Origin's power to reset the world. So apart from the Fear Faction mbers He handpicked to retain their mories, no other deity knew.
Truth conducted that experint in pursuit of truth. If Ti's hidden ssage really points to this, can we conclude that Ti never had ti because He had been conducting a secret experint the Universe knew nothing about?
And the purpose of that experint was also the pursuit of truth?"
Hearing this, Li Jingming's brow arched: "The only truth worthy of Ti's pursuit would be... the road to the future?"
Cheng Shi nodded rapidly:
"Exactly. A perfectly reasonable deduction.
Ever since Wei Mu spoke of that future, I've been wondering: even if I can replace Origin's gaze, how could They deceive Origin?
Those are two entirely different directions — and presumably, their division of labor.
What Deceit needed to accomplish was completing my impersonation of Origin. That's why He culled the non-Fear Faction gods, consolidated voting rights, cooperated with Justice, and ensured I inherited the Pact's Proxy.
anwhile, Ti must have been ceaselessly running His 'experint' — searching for a thod to deceive Origin.
He must have found it. Otherwise He wouldn't have left.
So what is this thod He discovered?
Was it He who altered the tistamps inside the Collection Hall? Between mory's departure and your succession, you controlled the Hall but hadn't yet beco a deity. If He tampered with the Collections during that window, is it possible?
It seems so. But wouldn't such thods still count as contaminating will?
And could those 220 seconds be the clue He left behind?"
Watching Cheng Shi sink into contemplation once more, Li Jingming pondered briefly, then offered a suggestion:
"After inheriting mory, I gained many insights that are unique to the divine dinsion. So perhaps if soone succeeds to Ti's Divine Throne, we could find more precise hints and clues from Ti's insights?
Cheng Shi — have you thought about who should ascend to Ti's Throne?"
Cheng Shi paused. A na flashed through his mind — no, a figure:
'Under the gaze of every god, a Singer stepped forward.'
"Nice to see you again, old friends..."
Cheng Shi's eyelid twitched violently. He hurried to shut down the mory.
'That mad genius...'
'Who knows if old ng has realized that his "old friends" are now all gone.'
...
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