The normal Gao Ming didn’t let down the other Gao Mings and reached the end of the path. The tunnel with Gao Ming’s corpses collapsed in the dark. The normal Gao Ming gained many new memories. Different experiences weaved on his soul. He was indeed the most normal one and didn’t have the talent or personality to be the main character. He had no special power. However, the determination garnered from each death percolated on him. His will was stronger than anyone at Han Hai. He had gathered the absolute faith that shouldn’t exist at Han Hai.
At Han Hai Private School, Yan Xizhi relied on the staff and students of the whole school to reach her breakthrough. The old headmistress sacrificed her life to love and care for them. In return, they voluntarily turned into human bricks to build her altar.
Gao Ming was the complete opposite. He was destined to be alone. No one was willing to accompany him. No one trusted him. It was purely impossible for him to gain faith from other people like Yan Xizhi did. Even fate didn’t believe Gao Ming could do it, which led to this accident. No matter what happened, no matter how many deaths he had experienced, Gao Ming was never shaken. His belief was in himself. The sacrifice he placed before the altar was the many times he died horribly. All the anxiety and resentment became power. He believed that he ultimately could change fate!
He didn’t need rationality to think. He didn’t need logic to prove anything. He would take one step after another. He would not waver. That was faith, Gao Ming’s faith. As he absorbed the souls, the normal Gao Ming’s eyes changed. He turned back to look down the path. Many Gao Mings were murdered by despair. They were formed from the death memories in Gao Ming’s heart. He was formerly tortured by these pains. Whenever he thought of the past, the deaths would cut his heart. However, behind this door, through the bus of the Past, the different Gao Mings reached an understanding. The death memories hidden in Gao Ming’s heart stopped hurting him. His deaths became his most loyal disciples.
“I need to bring them out of here with me.”
Outside the tunnel, there was a brand new present box placed at the end of the Past. However, this box wasn’t wrapped in red. Instead, the wrapping paper was the cheapest kind you could find by the side of the road.
“Another present? Whose is it?”
The normal Gao Ming could confirm that all the summons came from this box. He unwrapped it carefully. He frowned instantly when he opened the box. Inside the cheap box was the dry corpse of a baby. Its desiccated hands hugged a heart that was very familiar to Gao Ming. Whenever the heart pounded, the baby would recover a little. Part of its skin was slowly returning to normal.
“Is the dry corpse regaining life through this heart?”
“I have no time to waste!” The normal Gao Ming grabbed the heart. When he touched the heart, the baby opened its eyes, and it screeched. Pain assaulted his brain. The memories of the past turned into a rope to bind Gao Ming’s neck.
The Gao Ming of the past would have been defeated instantly. However, after he inherited the will of the other Gao Mings, he was no longer the same. His fingers closed around the heart. The normal Gao Ming snatched the heart away from the baby.
The bloodred heart slowly united with his body. The ghost tattoo of the bloodred city appeared on his skin. At a different station, the flesh Gao Ming howled. The prayers that covered his body tore his skin apart. Meat fragrance wafted away.
After the baby lost the heart, its body started to crack. Its screams never stopped as if it was sending some messages. Unfortunately, even when it disintegrated, nothing came to save it. The dry skin flaked with a light touch. The baby glared at Gao Ming viciously before it turned into ashes. The broken pieces of a mud figurine and an aged celebratory card remained in the cheap box.
“Was the dry baby the God of the Past?”
The world behind the door started to crumble. The normal Gao Ming took out the card.
The words on the card seemed to be Gao Ming’s mother’s handwriting. He looked at the empty box and was confused. “Is this my present? Being swapped by the Past? It stole the things that belonged to me and placed its own corpse here as a replacement?”
In this anomaly, everyone would receive a present. However, Gao Ming had obtained two different presents. They seemed to possess different meanings. His hands closed the card. The world collapsed, and a strange energy surged into Gao Ming’s left eye.
The reasons were multiple. It could be his many trips to the past, or it could be that he had destroyed the body of the Past. Gao Ming realised that he had inherited a bit of the Past’s power. His left eye could now see other people’s past and even edit them to a certain degree.
The sound of the door cracking appeared beside his ears. The normal Gao Ming was assaulted by pain. When he opened his eyes, his body careened to the side, and his body landed heavily on the ground. The door known as Past exploded. The wall was bleeding. The giant cracks spread to the other door.
“You have succeeded?!” The leader of Team One widened his eyes in disbelief. He placed his hope in the kind Gao Ming and not the normal Gao Ming.
The normal Gao Ming nodded. After he got up, he quickly looked for the kind Gao Ming. His anxious eyes met the kind Gao Ming’s eyes. The kind Gao Ming, who had just woken up from his coma, quickly gestured at the normal Gao Ming. They both remembered everything that happened behind the door. The normal Gao Ming couldn’t reach the end on his own. Each despairing choice represented one Gao Ming who was abandoned at the stations.
Since they acquired the heart and after they left the door of the Past, all the Gao Mings could hear each other’s heartbeat. The same flame burned in their chests.
“Tell me. What is at the end of the Past?” The leader of Team One was more agitated than most. He had been inside the door. He didn’t think a living person could reach the end.
“What about my uncle? Have you seen him?” The young man who gave his present to Gao Ming ran over to grab the normal Gao Ming by his shoulders.