The battle in the garden raged on. Hong Lin and Eposka clashed furiously, and under the giant bear's relentless assault, Eposka's wounds multiplied. Pale blue luminescent blood had been splattered across nearly every patch of soil in the garden, nourishing the "flowers of rot" planted upside-down like fertilizer.
Beyond the battlefield, Cheng Shi was still deep in thought.
He was thinking about what this so-called "future" actually was, and why it involved him.
Honestly, he'd considered the possibility that the "future" Zhen Yi had been so relentlessly pursuing might be his future self. It was the most obvious and easiest conclusion to reach. But the problem was that rely thinking it wasn't enough—this theory needed evidence.
Cheng Shi needed to find definitive proof that "future Cheng Dashi" was the one the prophecy pointed to. Yet after prolonged deliberation, no clues erged. So he decided to try a different angle.
Start by assuming Cheng Dashi had already been here.
Though he couldn't determine which future or what kind of future Cheng Dashi hailed from, nor how similar their experiences might be, he could at least adopt his own perspective for the most intuitive guess: If this was a Cheng Dashi whose experiences closely mirrored his own and whose personality hadn't changed, then at least a small part of his current situation could be explained.
At the very least, if he himself traveled back to the past, he wouldn't make it easy for his past self to detect his presence.
Cheng Shi had once mused that if he went back in ti, he'd probably just watch his past self's amusing monts and do nothing. But that premise assud accidentally stumbling upon the chance to travel back!
If he connected this to the Su Yida incident, the truth was likely far from "just watching"!
So if Cheng Dashi had a specific purpose, he would definitely have left a few breadcrumbs for himself after arriving—because in this current [Ti], the only person he could trust was himself!
And the most critical point was... he also needed to hide it from the Gods!
If future Cheng Dashi wanted to do sothing in the past but would be completely exposed under the Gods' watchful eyes anyway, he wouldn't have bothered acting so secretly. That would an he was using "traveling to the past" as a decoy to deceive others—aning none of this had anything to do with Cheng Shi at all, and perhaps he was simply playing a ga of [Ti] against Them.
But since he'd been so covert, it ant he needed to evade the Gods' notice. The question was: what kind of clue could be noticed by a Cheng Shi who couldn't possibly hide anything from the Gods, while simultaneously escaping Their detection?
Cheng Shi sifted through his mories for a long ti without results. But as he thought, a question suddenly struck him.
mories!
Was the very act of combing through mories to unravel all of this, in itself, a clue?
Then why rember? Rember what?
'Rember... wait, wait!'
[mory]!
Cheng Shi's eyes went wide. He'd just thought of an utterly inconceivable thod of passing information—one that "could be noticed by himself while being hidden from the Gods":
Getting Them to unwittingly speak the hint aloud Themselves!
Cheng Shi finally recalled a crucial piece of information he'd overlooked. When [mory] had summoned him for an audience, He had said:
"However, this farce still hasn't reached its conclusion. That restless Benefactor of yours added another stroke to a Collection that hasn't even been fully repaired yet.
Though that stroke erased itself on its own, this repeated provocation is quite embarrassing for ."
Cheng Shi's pupils contracted. He'd finally found the "answer"!
'That stroke—erased itself on its own!'
'Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha!'
'What a "future." What a "self." Truly identical to —arriving without a sound, departing without a trace!'
'No—he's far more formidable than . Because he even predicted [mory]'s temperant. He used [mory]'s complaint to leave
the perfect hint: My future self had already been here!'
A keen light blazed in Cheng Shi's eyes. So that deadly sche from the future—that was your doing, Cheng Dashi?
You sent Su Yida back to kill ?
'Fine, fine, fine. So that's how it is. Absolutely certain I wouldn't die, huh? Just had to crank up the difficulty?'
'Great. You're really sothing!'
At this point, though no concrete evidence supported the theory, having found a logical anchor that explained every surface-level phenonon, at least all the threads in Cheng Shi's mind were finally untangled.
Future Cheng Dashi hadn't simply slipped back for a quiet visit. He'd orchestrated an elaborate sche from the future aid at the present!
His actions matched Cheng Shi's own temperant. His behavioral logic was virtually identical. Thinking about it that way, he probably hadn't co back to sabotage himself.
But the question remained—what was he trying to do?
The sa principle applied: if this Cheng Dashi was truly identical to him, he would never make contact with his past self. Just as Cheng Shi himself, in the dreamscape cetery monts earlier, wouldn't have shown himself to comfort the younger version of himself no matter how hard that boy had sobbed.
Because that was their fate. A lonely fate.
So why had Cheng Dashi broken this principle and co back to set up a sche?
Cheng Shi couldn't figure it out—he didn't know what specifically had happened in the future. But he could guess, by putting himself in those shoes.
If he were that future Cheng Shi, what circumstances could possibly compel him to secretly return to the past and personally arrange a sche for his past self?
Given the unknowability of the future, he couldn't fully imrse himself in the perspective. So Cheng Shi began reasoning backward from the present.
If last night's dream hadn't dissipated, under what circumstances would he intervene in the past—influencing the version of himself still in school?
He couldn't think of any. Not even Old Jia's death had made him consider warning young Cheng Shi to prepare in advance. So what could possibly make him change?
Cheng Shi pondered for a mont, then steered his thoughts toward the worst-case scenario.
If soday he was about to forget Old Jia entirely, would he choose to go back and, through so small act, tell young Cheng Shi to prepare—to engrave those mories deeper?
Probably. But Cheng Shi didn't believe he'd ever forget Old Jia. Even if the Gods threw everything They had at him, he was confident he'd rember.
Because the path he walked, the things he did, the person he did them for—all carried Old Jia's will. He was raised by Old Jia's own hand. As long as he was alive, that was the greatest tribute to Old Jia.
But what if... he died?
Then he died. Nothing grand about it. Death was simply another form of reunion.
But what if—at a ti when he still had the chance to continue rembering the past, to continue missing Old Jia—he was forced to die because of events beyond his ability to handle? Would he want to give his past self a chance?
Just like now—if external forces were about to shatter the dream, and the dream could never be replayed in the years to co—would he want to give the Cheng Shi inside the dream a chance to keep dreaming, even if it ant a nightmare born of Misfortune?
At this thought, Cheng Shi hesitated.
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