The weight of the world lies beyond the door.
I step over the icy white ground, crossing one block of light after another.
Tower Master Lü Shu leads to a door, gives a brief reminder, and leaves here.
The dense chanical door stands before , so heavy as if it’s separating two worlds.
Inside the door, it’s not an ordinary patient — it’s the Savior who once wielded the heavens and manipulated the destinies of countless people, and also a soul struggling in agony. He refuses my therapeutic entry, only saying he’s not ill.
I’m used to dealing with patients who are unwilling to speak, who often insist they’re normal, while their hearts have already corroded like worm-eaten tree hollows.
So I begin the conversation, my voice steady and practiced, piercing through the door panel: "When a soul takes on the duty of guiding the world, every decision he makes, the complex situations he faces, and the imnse responsibilities he bears, all far exceed the realm covered by ordinary human experience."
I deliberately emphasize the complexity of decision-making scenarios, trying to separate his choices from the simple dinsions of right and wrong.
The psychological issues accumulated over a long period have already exceeded limits, but he’s too adept at hiding them, not even realizing there’s a problem. He should have sought therapy just after finishing the World Ga, but he never did.
If I weren’t one of the world’s top psychologists, I wouldn’t be seeing this Savior today. His inner world is like a fragnted flower with countless holes; even a hundred doctors gathered in research would be hard-pressed to heal him.
I know he faced a choice unbearable to ordinary people — personally killing tens of thousands of brethren.
"A high-rank decision is never a fairy tale of benefiting so without harming others. There are inevitably unavoidable ’zero-sum’ dilemmas. You chose a path where the majority can continue to survive — that choice itself carries pain and loss." I don’t use those gentle techniques, just plain and direct, for him, reason is more useful than any flowery rhetoric:
"You are not a deity and cannot foresee how every seed of betrayal will sprout. Based on all the information you had at the ti, you made the optimal judgnt with limited rationality — you have done your utmost to protect the lives that must be protected. Those who later turned to betrayal are not proof of your ’wrong’ choice, but proof of the uncontrollable fate of human free will."
"When guiding the destiny of human groups on a macro level, a high-rank inevitably becos a diator of so sort of tragic force. You scrutinize your actions and feel this sorrow — this distinguishes you from a tyrant. True numbness is not even feeling this pain."
The silence behind the door is long and stagnant, as if ti has stopped. I wait patiently.
I clearly understand that it is undoubtedly the struggle between survivor’s guilt and existential anxiety — he is torn between the lives he has protected and the betrayals he’s cut off with his own hands. There is a fundantal collapse in the future direction of the world and the foundation of his own choices.
If this collapse is not promptly repaired, it will be fatal.
But I also feel that my visit today is unnecessary. If I hadn’t co, he might have been able to repair these confused wounds himself.
But if he fails to repair them... are we over-relying, over-believing in him?
"Click."
At last, a barely noticeable sound cos — the door has been pushed open a crack. A silhouette, deeply ensconced in shadow and bent like an ancient sculpture under the weight of the world, can be faintly seen.
He just sits there, in the dim room, draped in white, like a piece of paper without any color.
I speak solemnly towards the blurry outline in the doorway:
"The answer you seek is not inside nor outside the door. It lies in each future choice you make — the strength to write the final Chapter is always in your hands. You are not a prisoner locked by yesterday, but a person with clear free will."
The silence inside remains, and I hear his call:
"... Yi Song?"
He recognizes who I am.
The world’s best psychologist, it’s only .
I lost a good patient, Isabelle. However, I didn’t expect him to beco one. He’s always appeared firm, steady, and invincible, and I even thought of learning ’friendship’ techniques from him.
But now, it seems, he really has no techniques.
Just standing there, he’s perfect as he is.
True friendship doesn’t need techniques; just by seeing this person, you can feel his true heart.
"It’s ." I say, "If you feel sad in the future, you can talk to . At any point in ti, I am always a great psychologist."
The door slowly closes, and I hear his smiling voice:
"I’m very normal. I understand everything you’ve said."
"I’m fine, really."
...
Su Ming’an initiates the fourth jump.
He arrives at the ’fourth month’ ti node.
Learning from last ti’s lesson, he instructs Su Mianbao to keep a close watch on those radicals, to relax player control, to prioritize support, and not to openly show differential treatnt.
As long as the players believe they remain heroes, and the surveillance is seen not as a precaution but as praise and attention, they won’t beco psychologically unbalanced.
After this decision, Su Ming’an can’t help but sigh that not only Lü Shu but he himself is becoming more adept at these things.
The future radical leader Yuriklu is left baffled. As soon as a radical thought forms in his mind, he’s captured and detained on unfounded charges, watched like a prisoner even though he hasn’t committed a cri.
Upon seeing Su Ming’an, Yuriklu can’t help but roar:
"—Are you going to convict for things I haven’t done yet?"
"Your actions are no different from the Dawn System. Simulating our future behavior, calculating our persona scores, and convicting us in advance!"
"Do you want to beco the next Acto? Do you want Lü Shu to beco the next Lin Guang!?"
Su Ming’an looks back calmly.
If Yuriklu isn’t controlled, and he uses the ’Wireless Communication’ skill to gather a huge radical faction, how many lives would be lost?
Among those captured along with Yuriklu are those who committed grueso cris in the last incident. Each one has killed and been detected with a strong antisocial psyche. If left unchecked, a terrorist event is bound to happen sooner or later. To prevent is better than to cure. And those who just went with the flow last ti, Su Ming’an didn’t capture.
"Bang!"
Across the glass, a glass candy is thrown, hitting it.
A little boy shouts behind the glass at Su Ming’an, his voice full of blood and hatred.
His body is so small, it’s hard to imagine how terrifying his future actions could be, his face so young, like a child in kindergarten.
"Go die! Die—!" The boy glares hatefully at Su Ming’an on the other side of the glass:
"I would never kill! What right do you have to capture ! I hate you! I hate you! You’re no Savior at all—!"
His angry little face reflects in Su Ming’an’s indifferent pupils.
Last ti, this boy detonated himself in the bustling downtown, where ordinary people gather, causing a hundred casualties with his body as explosives.
Suddenly, due to over- excitetion, the iron ring on the boy’s neck releases a large amount of electricity, knocking him to the ground.
In his eyes, large teardrops fall, and Su Ming’an turns to leave.
...
[After opening a chanical door, Su Ming’an’s wheelchair stops.]
[These are people locked in glass rooms, cowering in corners like monkeys in a zoo, with beeping iron rings around their necks.]
[The Dawn System judged them to have "potentially criminal" personas, hence they were preemptively detained.]
["Acto... you truly deserve to die..." Su Ming’an mutters.]
...
"Once their emotions have cald, proceed with guidance and education." Su Ming’an instructs the Ming’an System as he leaves.
The electric currents from the iron rings aren’t deadly, and after people are detained, they receive guidance, which is the best he can do.
For a mont, he suddenly understood Acto’s actions, because Dawn indeed "observed" that so people would commit cris in the future, and Su Ming’an indeed "saw" that so people would commit cris in the future.
"When guiding the destiny of the human group on a macro level, high-rank inevitably becos an interdiary of so kind of tragic force..." He supported himself against the wall, murmured silently, and slowly moved forward.
This ti, the world’s developnt was good, he decided not to return, jump again backward to see the developnt further.
He arrived at the ti node of the "fifth month," the world remained peaceful, with no large-scale loopholes apart from small-scale conflicts.
Then, he jumped backward again to the ti node of the "seventh month," and the world remained peaceful.
This finally gave him so relief, proving his coordination was effective, and he wasn’t just Sisyphus endlessly pushing a boulder.
Just as he wanted to jump backward again, Yamada Machiichi and others stopped him.
"Did you forget?" Yamada Machiichi, who had long beco the Tower Master, had shed so immaturity and gained so maturity; seven months of honing had made him more stable. He showed a bright smile, looking at Su Ming’an with sparkling eyes:
...
"——Today is your twentieth birthday, Su Ming’an."
"Happy birthday, our Savior."
...
For a mont, Su Ming’an felt as if he drank a bottle of strong liquor.
A heavy mix of sourness, joy, astonishnt, and intoxication filled his body, bursting in his pupils and nostrils, and his heart seed like a punctured balloon, continually leaking out. His mind suddenly grew dizzy, as if falling into a silent river.
Twenty.
Already twenty.
It turns out, he really did... reach this day.
"Nineteen" almost beca his imprint, people everywhere said "the nineteen-year-old young Savior," as if everyone thought he would stop at this number, until this day, most unexpectedly, for himself.
Only now did he realize, the end date of the World Ga was May 31st, seven months later, it was exactly December 31st.
Companions brought in the birthday cake, candles, floral headbands... Everything seed unchanged, everything looked as if it returned to the past. It seed like back to that nineteenth birthday right after the seventh instance, just an increase of one in the number.
Su Ming’an felt guilty, he had been jumping through ti, ignoring his companions’ birthdays, yet they uniformly rembered his birthday.
"Once things settle down, you can make up for us when you have ti." Yamada Machiichi was very "ticulous," but everyone knew his focus was on the first half of the sentence.
On this day, all forum tops changed appearance, as if swept by a crimson tide, hopage turned into a whole page of red——
[2025, Happy Twentieth Birthday to the Number One Player——!]
Thousands of blessing videos, official speeches from the Union Governnt, long article shares, World Ga reviews, major forum sections, and various chat rooms, even small circles... All were filled with blessings.
Mo Yan, Xiao Xiao, i Yani, Lin Jiang, Anthony, Yang Changxu, Aishikel, Ma Qiaoli... Compared to last year, the number of people blessing had multiplied six or seven tis, and various "Su Ming’an’s neighbors," "Su Ming’an’s high school teachers" erged one after another.
But unlike last year, no one ntioned the Savior’s past, no one talked about the Savior’s childhood embarrassnts, no one sought relationship with the Savior, they respected him, thanked him, admired him, dared not offend him. They viewed him as God, as World Master, as the greatest person, no one regarded him as an equal. Even Su Ming’an’s high school teacher, only called him "Master World," dared not call his na.
These subtle changes, did not influence the companions’ moods.
They once again ca to the villa, that was modeled after Su Ming’an’s villa in the Main God World. Every corner remained identical to how it was during the New Year.
Once again, they wore similar clothes, as if nothing had changed. Lü Shu wore shorts embroidered with pine and bamboo, Yamada Machiichi wore an animated pain shirt, Bei Wang put on an ice-blue robe, Eni wore a color-blocked oil-paint long shirt, removed the silly tiger head hat.
Once again, they went to similar places, Su Ming’an drew the [Great Luck] slip, this ti he knew these people must have changed all the slips to [Great Luck], but he didn’t expose it. They hid identities observing electronic festivals, watched "The Cat and Her" esports matches, visited the "World Ga Annual Culture Exhibition," saw each instance’s large scene pictures, clearance routes, npc introductions, saw rows of their livestream edits and achievent introductions...
"Ah, Zhai Xing, my Zhai Xing, I love you..."
Since Su Ming’an no longer claid to love the Lighthouse, those awkward stage plays kept up with tis and changed titles, no longer "The Number One Player and His Ford Lighthouse Lover," but "The Number One Player and His Ford Zhai Xing Lover"...
Gazing at the dancer atop the stage, with a head that looked like a blue planet, Su Ming’an left hiding his face.
Initially intending to cover his face due to awkwardness, when the palm touched his face, tears suddenly stread down.
Tears uncontrollably fell, soaked his palm, also soaked more than half a year of bitterness and sorrow.
"Hahaha, these awkward shows are really evergreen! I’m a country dog, I just love watching! Haha!" Soone pointed at the stage and laughed wildly.
"Zhai Xing and Ming’an 99, I support forever."
"What Ming’an, call him the World Master!"
"I recall last year there was a pre-battle speech at Pulaya, a group passionately spoke, suddenly jumped to dance awkwardly with Sea Monsters, cracked up."
"Hey look, there’s even a simulated visual system built over there... Looks like technology is improving, even things like this have been brought over. To play a virtual reality ga within a lifeti, is within reach."
"It’s great, no more pain, no more death, just like experiencing that ga."
"The world is gradually stable, truly hope not to have sorrow anymore..."
In the river of people coming and going, Su Ming’an covered his face, laughing and crying.
Amidst all the hustle, he seed still alone.
He laughed wildly, sincerely grateful for this outco, and for a mont felt inexpressible pain and anxiety.
Smiles of n, won, young and old, passed by him. So were fresh students, so gray-haired seniors, so fathers carrying children, so daughters holding mothers...
He wanted to see more of these smiles.
He wished to see these tenderness and happiness.
...God, I never believed in God, neither do I wish to beco one.
But if it’s just to fulfill this birthday wish, this once I wish to speak naïve words... God, I beg you, on my birthday beg you, with my birthday wish beg you, just this once beg you——
Can I continue seeing such happiness?
Can people’s smiles keep blossoming?
Can this scarred world no longer have sorrow?
"Tap."
A footstep sounded from behind him.
A hand fell gently in front of Su Ming’an, seemingly deliberately obstructing his view of the stage play, probably a product of upgrade called "Hailan House" awkward show.
Su Ming’an turned, saw a pair of golden pupils.
The young man dressed in a dark blue coat, leaning crookedly against the wall.
"...I went to observe the course, ca back a bit late." Su Rin took out a slip of paper, handed it to Su Ming’an: "Happy twentieth birthday, your gift, it has both sides."
Su Ming’an quickly closed his eyes and reopened them, silently concealed his tears.
...This person won’t give a redemption ticket again, already have one...
He took the paper, saw a line of coordinates written on it; short numbers, yet profoundly strong.
His pupils suddenly contracted, instantly aware of sothing, his breathing beca heavy.
Finger involuntarily shook, he curled the corner of his lips, revealing sincere joy.
"We discovered a new habitable planet." The Cloud City God smiled:
"There is a certain chance it is your Zhai Xing."
...
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