“Gao Ming, I used to admire you. I saw a lot of myself in you.” The corpse puppet’s lips moved. “However, I realised I had overestimated you after knowing all of your secrets. You have to die so many times to reach me and use such a weak method to imprison me.”
Gao Ming didn’t interrupt the corpse and allowed him to continue. He was trying to discern one thing: Who was controlling the puppet? Was it the God of the Future, or was it the real Situ An?
“From many aspects, you are too banal. Do you know why Lu Zang chose you in the end?” The corpse somehow forced a smile. “It’s because he believes you are easy to control. He can have a smooth time stealing everything from you.
“In the death portrait of the bloodred city under the black lake, there are thirteen candidates. Each of them has a reason to become the new ruler of the city, but you are an exception. Your appearance is to obfuscate fate’s gaze. You are a pitiable bug that doesn’t even know his own name.
“Even now, you treat this strange title as your name. Don’t you worry that one day, people will only remember the codename, Gao Ming, and no one will remember the actual you?”
It was unknown whether Situ An was too resentful for being trapped for so long or the God of the Future had gone overboard. The puppet revealed so many things. Gao Ming derived a lot of information from it. The information might not be true, but as long as parts of it were close enough to the truth, it was worth it for Gao Ming.
“It doesn’t matter if Gao Ming is my name or not. It’s enough that I am still me.” Back in Li San Hospital, Gao Ming already knew certain things through his interaction with Lu Zang… But did that change anything?
“Does it really not matter? Then, why don’t we play a game with your parents as the bet?” The corpse puppet taunted. “Don’t you want to know what your parents are doing? Who are they, and where are they now?” The puppet smiled gleefully. He was ready to unleash chaos upon the world. “Lu Zang must have told you that Han Hai is a giant prison. Humans are ghosts, and ghosts are humans. All your memories about everything outside of Han Hai are fake. They are fabricated by fate. In that case, are your parents really your parents in your memory?”
Gao Ming narrowed his eyes. He had to admit the puppet’s words moved him. Even though he had died so many times and lost so many things, the only thing he hadn’t abandoned was his relationship with his parents.
“As my investigation deepened, I understood one hidden truth. It is something that Lu Zang will never tell you.” The puppet sounded so happy even though its face was cracking in places.
“Have you met my parents? They should be normal people. There’s nothing special about them.”
“No!” The corpse puppet denied it firmly. “Your parents are trapped somewhere special. They can’t leave. They have to attempt their escapes again and again to be met with endless failures. It is a vicious cycle.”
Gao Ming’s face darkened. This was the first time his expression shifted ever since he entered the worst future.
“It’s not easy to trick fate. Lu Zang has set up one after another cycle to do so. They are interconnected but independent. Once a single cycle crumbles, the rest will follow.” The corpse’s voice tinged with madness. “You are a cycle. Gao Yun is a cycle. The shadow world’s lingering consciousness is a cycle. However, every cycle has to start somewhere. Where do you think that is?”
Gao Ming thought back to his memory. Everything seemed to start with the bus. “The bus?”
“If it’s that simple, fate would have seen through it already. The real start must have been hidden. The fewer people who know about it, the better. Their existence is a key, and they bring about the first change in you.” The voice was scratching and uncomfortable to the ears. “Can’t you remember? Every time you have a new start, they will appear at a fixed time in your many lives.”
This sentence was like a flash of lightning in Gao Ming’s mind. Every time he left the tunnel, there was one thing that would always happen. His parents would always come back home on the first night!
They would appear to deliver cakes and say some strange things. In the past, Gao Ming thought nothing of it. However, after he gained part of the power of the God of the Past, he noticed something strange about it. In the memories of the Gao Mings who died at the beginning, there were not that many mothers and fathers. With each of Gao Ming’s death, there would be one additional pair of parents. They knocked on his door stubbornly to celebrate Gao Ming’s birth.
“At first, there was only one pair of parents. Even after many deaths, I am still me, but there are more and more parents… Did the parents of each of my itinerations enter the shadow world and congregate on the same line because they have been continuously searching for something?”
The corpse of each Gao Ming in the past had been embedded in the walls of the tunnel and froze in time. However, the parents of these Gao Mings didn’t give up on him. They had been looking for them until they entered the shadow world and found him at home. ɽΆΝọʙĚṤ
Time kept repeating. Behind the death of each Gao Ming, there was a pair of despairing parents who sunk into the shadow world. They were not stuck in a spot where time was frozen. Where was this time?
The gift of the God of the Past was someone’s most important thing in their lives. It was a memory that even God had trouble disgusting.
Gao Ming’s present was very simple. It was the birthday death portrait he obtained at the start. All his parents were by his side. They surrounded him.
Have they always been with me?
These thoughts were maddening. Ever since he left the tunnel a few months ago, everything was pierced through by a trail. Gao Ming felt like he was finally approaching an answer.