Chapter 125: Chapter 125: Ghost House
The house before me gave off a distinctly discordant feeling.
I believed it wasn’t just me, others seemed to share my sentiment, as Qianqian and Lin Xue both frowned, Sandora stared solemnly at the residence before her, and Pandora appeared calm, yet her eyes had turned into that pupil-less purplish-red typical of her combat mode, indicating she had activated all her battle analysis modules. Among us, Little Baobao was the only one without any battle experience, but being a high-order Xyrin Apostle, the talent buried deep within her soul still instinctively alerted her to danger, prompting her to run to my side, clutching my sleeve tightly while pointing at the mansion in front of us and babbling something quickly which I couldn’t understand. However, I could clearly feel the little one’s fear.
This certainly wasn’t due to our nerves being on edge. Everyone present possessed terrifying strength, and a slightly eerie atmosphere wouldn’t cause us to have false intuitions. Feeling that there was something odd about this house meant there indeed was something abnormal here—and potentially dangerous.
I suddenly regretted bringing Little Baobao along. Initially thinking this would be an adventure of a playful nature, I hadn’t expected to actually encounter such a bizarre house filled with oddities. Maybe we could face any risk without fear, but Little Baobao wasn’t that powerful. The Xyrin Host wasn’t a combat-oriented envoy to begin with, and Little Baobao was still but a toddler. Apart from constructing some immature mechanical contraptions, she was no stronger than an ordinary person right now.
Should we just leave then?
As reluctant as I was, if there was something in this mansion that could endanger Little Baobao, we would turn around and leave without hesitation. Concerning ourselves with saving face in such a situation would be utterly foolish.
“Lin Xue, is there any danger?” In times like these, even Pandora’s full-spectrum radar wasn’t reliable. The only one among us who could indicate the situation under such circumstances was Lin Xue, the superpower user with prophetic abilities.
Lin Xue also sensed that something was not quite right here. Forgoing her usual banter with me, she closed her eyes slightly. A series of chaotic images rapidly flashed through her mind, while at the same time, clear data about the various types of energy on the island surfaced in her consciousness.
“There’s no danger,” Lin Xue said with a furrowed brow, her voice sounding somewhat puzzled, “I don’t foresee any incidents that could pose a threat to us, but it’s strange… I don’t understand…”
“Strange?” I was perplexed. Lin Xue might behave whimsically on a normal day, but once her superpower was in action, she was a competent Prophet who always radiated confidence in her command of the future. This was the first time I’d seen her so puzzled after knowing something about the future.
“I can see future scenarios, but they are chaotic fragments filled with many large shadows and strange messages that I can’t make sense of. What’s even more bizarre is that I observed two different futures within the same time frame, and these two future visions were overlapping!”
My first reaction was—what on earth is she talking about?
Seeing my confusion, Lin Xue explained, “The future can change, but it also has a sense of uniqueness. Once a point in time is fixed, the future scenario is supposed to present a stable state. Even if the future changes and yields two different scenarios, they should be independent of each other and exist in separate parallel timelines. They can never overlap. It’s like having a duplicate you in two identical parallel spaces. In the same moment, one version of you is alive while another has died. That’s possible, but it’s absolutely impossible for the same you at the same time and the same space to be both dead and alive—even Schrodinger’s cat can only maintain such a state in theory.”
Okay, I understood her point, but in the midst of such a serious and high-level explanation, did she need to torment me with such a comparison? Could she not survive without making a dig at me, that cheeky girl!
Despite the biting sarcasm in Lin Xue’s example, we grasped her point. That meant she saw two distinct future visions for this area, existing in the same place and time. Although her instincts told her that regardless of the future, there was nothing here that could pose a threat to us, such an abnormal occurrence still left her feeling uneasy.
“Could it be some strong energy disturbance nearby?” I wondered, considering that possibility. Superpowers, after all, weren’t like machines that could malfunction. Such phenomena, more reliable than any technology, had to have a reasonable cause for their abnormality. Lin Xue’s situation looked a lot like she was being disrupted by some external energy source.
“No,” Lin Xue shook her head, “There are strange energy flows nearby, but the overall energy intensity of the island is very low and insufficient to disrupt my prediction ability. Besides, if my power was interfered with, the future scenarios should blur, not produce incorrect results .”
According to Lin Xue’s description, this house was incredibly eerie. If it had just been a few of us, there would be no need to worry about these oddities, and a good ghost-house adventure would be fine. However, with Little Baobao accompanying us, I wasn’t sure if she might get hurt. Despite Lin Xue’s repeated assurances that the future held no dangers, I still felt slightly uneasy, especially since the reason for the malfunction in her superpower was unclear.
“It’s a good thing I decisively left this place when I was young,” Lin Xue said with some retrospect fear at that moment, “Could it be that my prediction ability was already that powerful back then?”
“Let’s not talk about that for now. Do we go inside now or head back?” Looking at the big house in front of me, filled with a mysterious aura, I was already itching with curiosity. If we turned back now, I’d really hate to let go!
“How interesting…” Suddenly, Sandora spoke up, then reached out her left hand. Immediately, we saw something resembling ripples appear near the house. “It seems there’s a space-time anomaly here…”
Why do the girls around me always manage to utter such high-level vocabulary effortlessly, making me feel utterly inadequate? Was I just born to be a hapless guy, forever destined to ask ignorant questions?
The only consolation was that Sandora was firmly on my side, not like Lin Xue, who seemed to take every opportunity to mock me as her ultimate life goal. Seeing the blank look on my face, she explained in the simplest terms she could, “It’s a phenomenon of space-time mutation.”
“Under normal circumstances, space is smooth and intact, and everything has a unique position, meaning at one space-time point there can only be one fixed item, and only one unique space. But nothing is absolute. Occasionally, the space can collapse or even fold multiple times. You can think of it like a sheet of paper. When laid flat, a needle will only make one hole. But if we crumple the paper into a ball, the same needle will make a series of holes, and from the perspective of the needle’s trajectory, all those holes are overlapping, with just minor details being off. That’s the situation with this house right now.”
Qianqian nodded, indicating she understood.
Lin Xue nodded, indicating she understood.
Pandora nodded, indicating she already knew this theory.
Little Baobao nodded, because she saw her big sisters all nodding.
I was on the verge of tears… Could it be that at this moment, my intelligence was on the same level as Little Baobao’s?
It took me quite a while, but I finally grasped Sandora’s explanation. Looking at the big house in front of us with a curious gaze, I asked, “So, does that mean the space around this house has folded in on itself, and we are only seeing one house, but in reality there could be many houses or even many spaces compressed into this small area? And that’s why Lin Xue saw multiple future scenes on the same space-time line?”
“You finally got it…” everyone said simultaneously…
“…” I expressed my silence.
Knowing the odd reason behind this anomaly only made us more determined to venture inside. For ordinary people and even for the average superpower user, a chaotic space was undoubtedly a Jedi from which there was no return. But we weren’t worried about that at all. With the omnipotent loli, Pandora, even if we fell into another world, it could be considered a sightseeing tour.
As for the possibility of accidents, now that I knew the issue wasn’t with Lin Xue’s superpower being inaccurate, I no longer doubted her statement of “no danger.” With that settled, what were we waiting for?
Let’s begin our ghost house adventure!