Chapter 1417: Foreseeing the Future? |
'The Universe has no answer...'
Indeed. From Cheng Shi's perspective, the Universe simply didn't have one.
After all he had endured, after all the truths he had uncovered, after all the conjectures he had spun... if the Cheng Shi before inheriting the Pact's Proxy had still wavered over his final hypothesis, now he could all but confirm he had seen through to the very essence of the cosmos.
Not just the essence of the slice universe — but the essence of the Real Universe as well.
Yet none of this he dared share with anyone, because he never forgot what Time had told him: "Faith is born of trust."
He was afraid that once the hypothesis became public, he would lose the foundation of others' trust.
That was why he hadn't even dared to look at Wei Mu before — lest a single glance betray something. But now, knowing Wei Mu was Folly's Authority, that meant the little puppet of the old gods would not accompany them into the next era — if a next era existed.
And so, today, Cheng Shi had finally found someone who could "see" the world clearly, someone he could actually speak to.
The secret he had bottled up for so long finally had a place to be poured out.
Then he exhaled a long, long breath. His shoulders dropped as if an infinite burden had slid off. He lowered his head and said, half laughing at himself:
"In the beginning, I just wanted to find a sliver of possibility for this world.
That was right after the False Curtain Call. I told you about all that — you should remember."
Wei Mu of course remembered. Not only did he remember, but after recovering his true "self," he had also retrieved countless details from that False Curtain Call.
It turned out that Deceit had deduced Wei Mu's identity at that very moment — and, through that memory, conveyed to Wei Mu that in the game of searching for Folly's Authority, He had not lost.
But that wasn't the crux. The crux was that Wei Mu now recalled the pair of eyes that had flickered for an instant at the very end of that Change!
And that was precisely why he'd said Deceit had handed in the best exam paper His ability allowed.
But at this moment, Wei Mu said nothing. He simply watched Cheng Shi's eyes in silence.
He knew the Lord Yu Xi, who was dragging the world forward, was under too much pressure. He needed to talk. He needed to vent. Besides himself, perhaps no one in the entire Universe was suited for the role.
To put it coldly and practically, only a fellow traveler who was destined to fall with the old era — and whose bond with Fixed Destiny wasn't overly intimate — could fill this position.
Death, Silence, and the other pillars of the Fear Faction were not appropriate listeners for Fixed Destiny's grievances. Nor would Cheng Shi burden those who silently supported him with his own turmoil.
So an absolutely neutral, absolutely calm, absolutely rational puppet who "knew everything" about Folly became the ideal confidant.
Wei Mu was undeniably wise. He understood that in this confession, he could only listen — not comment — because he had accepted his identity as Folly's Authority and must therefore avoid contaminating Fixed Destiny with his own will.
And so, Folly once again walked toward Silence.
"I felt hopelessly lost about the road ahead. Nobody knew what Deceit was doing. He never told me. Time didn't have the time to deal with me either.
The uncertainty of the future made moving forward unbearable. Left with no other option, I could only figure things out on my own. And that was when a thought took root:
Conduct an experiment — an experiment to foresee the future!
And the inspiration actually came from you."
Cheng Shi lifted his head, expression complex. He seemed to be looking at Wei Mu — yet his slightly hollow gaze appeared to pass straight through the puppet and into the infinite depths of Void.
"Remember the experiment you left for Aph Ros in Dolgod — the one simulating the Stars Dagger?
Using a time knot as a foundation to stretch the length of time within the experiment, crossing time in that way to measure truth.
It struck me deeply. So I wanted to construct a similar experiment, except the content wouldn't be that little Far Dusk Town where only two deities played tug-of-war. It would be...
A real world where sixteen gods looked down from on high, bestowing a Faith Game upon mortals!
That's right. I wanted to transplant everything before me into an experiment. Simulate the crisis I was facing. Let the me inside the experiment exhaust every possibility I didn't have time to pursue.
I'd even worked out the experimental plan:
The Ritual of Truth was still in my hands. Given enough raw materials, I could use it to reconstruct the current world — and I had already obtained 'enough' materials.
Memory had been succeeded by the Dragon King. I would simply have him extract my memories and anchor them as the world's backdrop. Then the Cheng Shi inside the experiment would face the same crisis I did.
After that, I'd only need to have my friends play the roles of the gods who still existed. They were close enough to Them — some had already become Them — so they could portray Them convincingly, giving the experimental me vague, uncertain guidance.
That would be sufficient, because the guidance I'd received was never clear in the first place.
Then I could stand outside the Experiment Ground, stretch time as far as possible, and observe — over and over — how another me searched for his future.
I know that for the Cheng Shi inside the experiment, this is cruel. But I had no other way.
I had no time. The world had no time.
I would reconstruct that world countless times, awakening him again and again after each failure. His struggle would be my struggle. His defiance would be my defiance.
I wanted to foresee the so-called future in this way..."
By now, Cheng Shi's voice had gone hoarse. The smile had faded entirely from Wei Mu's face.
Cheng Shi stumbled backward a few steps, and the self-deprecating grin on his face stretched wider and wider.
He laughed and wept at the same time:
"Funny, isn't it? This experiment to foresee the future hasn't even started yet — and yet I feel like I've already seen the future.
When I returned from the Real Universe for the third time, when Deceit hurled me into that terrifying spacetime storm, when I watched that pitiless Creator obliterate yet another world — I kept asking myself: who would be so callous toward the living beings inside an experiment? Why was He so desperate to spawn world after world after world...?
Countless questions hounded me. Countless doubts dragged at me. Lost and bewildered, I could only exhaust every faculty I had trying to understand.
And in that instant, I suddenly thought of myself.
In that future-foreseeing experiment I was about to launch, my treatment of the Cheng Shi inside the experiment... was just as heartless. Just as desperate.
In that moment, an enormous terror swallowed me whole."
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