The sun gradually spread its wings across the sky, casting golden light upon the earth, making the clouds appear crowned with a golden layer.
Bai Yi and Xia Jiajia had enjoyed a pleasant time gossiping together. After all, gossip is sweeter when shared with someone else – it would be quite unfriendly to gossip enthusiasts to have juicy stories but no one to tell them to.
After satisfying her desire to share gossip, Xia Jiajia suddenly remembered to ask, “Oh right, it’s not even a school day, why did you leave home so early? Do you have something urgent? I hope I’m not taking up your time?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I have an appointment to meet an elder. Sort of like a grandmother who watched me grow up,” Bai Yi answered with a light smile while stroking Bai Xiaoxi in his arms. “…But it’s still early before the appointed time, so there’s no rush.”
“Besides, today’s date is somewhat special.”
“Special date? Is it some holiday I don’t know about?” Xia Jiajia curiously checked her calendar, “June 16th… I don’t see anything special…” she muttered to herself, then suddenly remembered something, “Ah, I just recalled, tomorrow is Teacher Gu’s death anniversary.”
Bai Yi paused slightly when she mentioned “Teacher Gu.”
Thinking he didn’t remember, Xia Jiajia explained, “You know, Teacher Gu who died in that car accident last year. I only realized his death anniversary was coming up because I ran into his parents at a nearby flower shop yesterday evening. Seeing the elderly couple buying flowers for the memorial made me remember…”
“What a coincidence,” Bai Yi responded casually.
“I thought so too,” Xia Jiajia sighed, her tone becoming melancholic. “Mr. and Mrs. Gu have changed so much. Having lost their only son, and for some reason cutting ties with Tian Yin, it breaks my heart just seeing them like that…”Even someone as carefree as her couldn’t help but feel the impermanence of life.
“I had almost forgotten about that incident. Has it really been a year…” Bai Yi responded without any emotional fluctuation internally.
He felt no guilt about the consequences of removing what he considered garbage. Just as he had always been clear that since he single-handedly initiated the spiritual awakening, many people’s fates had changed because of him. While not all changes were necessarily positive, he, being rather self-centered in a sense, wouldn’t feel any moral disturbance about it.
‘Should the first person who discovered fire and shared it with others be responsible for whether people use it to cook meat or burn down forests?’ he thought to himself.
“Yes, a year has passed without us even noticing,” Xia Jiajia, unaware of the truth, couldn’t help but sigh.
“A year ago, no one could have imagined how much the world would change in such a short time. The spiritual awakening, the spread of martial arts, the emergence of extraordinaries, the appearance of mystical objects – I feel like this single year has been more exciting than my entire twenty-one years of life! Who knows what changes are still to come, whether that mysterious extraordinary Joey who appeared a few days ago will make another big move, or about the legendary Flower Speaker and the generous Hanguang Sword Master…”
She couldn’t help but put her hands behind her head, looking up at the sun-dyed sky, dreamily contemplating. “…Thinking about it this way, the future suddenly seems full of unknowns.”
“Indeed.” The young man beside her suddenly stood up from his crouching position on the steps, putting on a profound expression.
Facing Xia Jiajia, he began performing, speaking not in Yao language but in the Chenxing Empire’s language, which was particularly suitable for opera and dialogue. The words weren’t obscure, at least not for these two.
“This is the most chaotic era, where the old order has yet to collapse, and the path of the new era has yet to take shape. To those strivers about to emerge, the dice of fate have been cast, the future destiny lies in your hands…”
A breeze passed by, lifting the hem of his coat and his fluffy, slightly curly black hair, brushing past his pale yet deeply smiling eyes. The young man seemed to be on a stage, emanating an inexplicable charisma, appearing not at all awkward.
In a deep, theatrical narrative tone, he recited:
“As for the mediocre ones who merely drift with the tide of the times…”
Bai Yi suddenly raised the cat in his arms high, like lifting a scepter of victory, or crowning a young king, and exclaimed, “Hail the coronation of the new era’s king!”
“—Meow!”
The cat, lifted high, showed no fear or panic, but instead cooperated perfectly with a well-timed meow. Xia Jiajia could even sense the same arrogance on the cat’s face as the young man’s, making the synchronization between the two cats even more apparent.
Xia Jiajia: “…” Amazing!
…Both were incredible – Bai Yi for being able to improvise such fitting lines without any awkwardness, and Bai Xiaoxi for being so perfectly in sync with its master.
Xia Jiajia’s expression gradually changed from confusion to astonishment to complete amazement. After being speechless and stunned for a few seconds, she could only express her emotions through applause.
Clap clap clap clap clap!
With this distraction, she indeed forgot to ask why today’s date was special. The reason was actually quite simple.
—June 16th was Bai Yi’s birthday.
A year ago, the Nightmare Game system had descended upon him the day after his 17th birthday. On that same day, someone had lost their life in a car accident not far from his home, which was also related to him.
While that person’s parents and family were plunged into tremendous grief and despair over their death, Bai Yi’s life, which had been haunted by nightmares for years, had just encountered a turning point and hope.
Hope and despair had arrived so precisely at the same time.
And behind it all, the orchestrator was surprisingly the same person.
Reflecting on it now, Bai Yi still had an indescribable feeling, as if fate had been determined from the moment of his birth, and “that person” who deployed the system seemed to have deliberately chosen this day. Thus, everything that happened to him wasn’t coincidental.
This feeling became even more apparent after meeting the old director.
Because he received something from the old director.
“What’s this?” Bai Yi accepted the gift from the old director, along with another item that appeared to be a locked, worn notebook. He suddenly had a guess.
“These are things your mother left for you—a diary she wrote while pregnant with you, before you were born. She always wanted you to read it when you grew up,” the old director’s words confirmed his guess. “Because of her mental health issues, I wasn’t sure what she wrote, and I worried it might affect you if you read it when you were too young and your values weren’t fully formed, so I kept it until now to give to you.”
The old director gazed tenderly at the young man before her.
“Happy birthday, Xiao Yi!”
“—From today on, you’re an adult!”
The old director continued speaking, but Bai Yi wasn’t really listening.
His gaze was fixed on the air, seemingly focused on a point where distorted text visible only to him appeared.
Only after bidding farewell to the old director did he have a chance to look closely.
[Special prerequisite item obtained.]
[Nightmare Game version update countdown: 60 days.]
[After the version update, the system will complete a comprehensive upgrade, and the host will have the opportunity to unlock creator privileges.]
“What’s this…”
After a moment of silence, the young man suddenly laughed.
“So all that talk about completing special reality tasks to get the chance to obtain special prerequisite items, and needing special prerequisite items and so many points to trigger a version update… it was all lies!”
His smile grew wider, as if he had realized some shocking truth. “No matter how many times time repeats, as long as I reach my eighteenth birthday, I would always receive the diary from the director.”
“And before this, no matter how many tasks I completed or how many points I accumulated, it would have been impossible to get the special prerequisite item… So the version update timing was fixed from the beginning, completely unaffected by anything I did!”
He fell into thought, “…Then what was the point of the system constantly mentioning conditions for the version update? It couldn’t have been just to toy with me. Rather, it feels more like repeatedly emphasizing and hinting at how crucial the version update is, to prevent me from being caught off guard in the future?”
Though he received no answer, Bai Yi seemed to already know the truth. He looked straight ahead, speaking with certainty:
“—Because the version update isn’t actually under your control. It’s a destined fate that must arrive at this time.”
“…Just like how the coming of the Returning to the Void isn’t under your control either, but rather the inevitable end this universe must face.”
—So, what’s the connection between these two?
The answer was actually quite obvious already.
“Hahahahaha!” Bai Yi suddenly burst into laughter.
Countless people on the street looked at him with bewildered expressions.
But this didn’t affect the youth’s neurotic laughter at all.
Sometimes he seemed very concerned with maintaining his ordinary high school student persona, but other times he would suddenly act completely out of character, like his earlier impromptu performance in front of Xia Jiajia.
It seemed maintaining this persona was just a little game to amuse himself during his boring life of constantly listening to the rhythm of all things, which he could stop at any time.
“…How very interesting, creator of the system!”
He no longer referred to the system’s creator as his future self.
“Not revealing the truth beforehand, were you worried I’d be traumatized and give up? Could another Bai Yi have actually fallen because he couldn’t adapt to the sudden arrival of the nightmare game’s new version? If so, I think we should revoke his Bai Yi membership first—yeah, I’m already embarrassed for him.”
As his laughter subsided, he began talking to himself, completely lost in thought.
“…In any case, that definitely wasn’t my future self!”
[Your existence itself contains countless possibilities.]
The system, which had been silent and playing dead, finally reappeared, probably because Bai Yi’s words touched on key points.
“…I see!” Bai Yi completely understood.
Since the Returning to the Void was the inevitable end of all things, even if the balance of the Heavenly Way would grant a glimmer of hope, this hope would necessarily be infinitesimally close to zero. Even if Bai Yi was born as the source and hope of countless worlds, it didn’t mean he would definitely succeed.
—That thread of hope he possessed was still extremely weak, while the possibility of stepping into destruction was infinitely high.
But regardless, this thread of hope truly existed.
If one were to project this world’s fate onto infinite timelines, then among the countless timelines, the results would inevitably all be destruction, destruction, destruction, destruction… But no matter what, there must be one timeline leading to rebirth.
—And this completely extraordinary system perhaps came from those infinite timelines, from the fundamental power left behind by countless failed Bai Yis, ultimately converging into this system.
“System, your essence is actually a special Principle of All Things, right? Able to cross timelines, able to materialize special real power from dead nightmare worlds… You are the Principle of All Things that Bai Yi masters? Or rather, the Principle of All Things that I will comprehend someday?”
…However, to reach that level, to master the Principle of All Things, ‘I’ would probably be considered a god.
[The system’s essence is the Principle of All Things.]
[The core rule is to forge truth from falsehood.]
[Even if the host fails in the future and cannot prevent the arrival of the Returning to the Void, the system will be further strengthened on this timeline. After integrating with the Principle of All Things that the host will comprehend in the future, the new system will provide greater help to the host of the next timeline, until ultimate success is achieved.]
“That’s what I’m saying—I’m not that psychologically fragile, nor are other versions of me. Always using gaming terminology to disguise the purpose, calling the arrival of the Returning to the Void a version update—it turns out it wasn’t worry about me being traumatized by discovering the Returning to the Void’s approach, but to hide that #I’m just one of infinite possibilities#. Rather than being the incarnation of hope to save everything, it’s more likely I’m just a stepping stone for the birth of true hope?”
“…Actually, saying it’s hiding isn’t quite right either. It’s more like wanting me to discover this truth on my own, what a twisted sense of humor.”
Bai Yi mercilessly criticized other versions of himself.
But his face showed no dejection at realizing the truth. Instead, he revealed an extremely excited and motivated smile.
“Ha, I’m completely fired up! Indeed, only I understand myself. Simply saving the world is really boring!”
“Rather, now…”
“I have no interest in being a cheat code for other Bai Yis.” Bai Yi suddenly smiled, “System, at your current level, who knows how many timeline possibilities you’ve merged with?”
“Becoming the most special one among so many Bai Yis—just thinking about it is super interesting!”
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