Chapter 296: Neither Is A Pushover
The sole audience member of the dream suddenly realized that he could speak.
The surrounding world turned blank again, with no people or objects, only that voice: “As you can see, this is now the 147th playthrough.”
Wang Heng scratched his head, feeling it was very real.
He suddenly asked: “Can you directly alter my memory?”
“I can’t alter it directly; that would be too much workload. But when restarting a new playthrough, I can select the memories from the entire previous playthrough and package them for you. The first playthrough in your memory is actually the 146th time, and I’ve always been there. It’s just that because I go back and redo it, I disappear from your memory.”
Wang Heng: “Is the future me still there?”
“That guy is lying around enjoying retirement. In fact, I constantly observe the future more than fifty years from now to evaluate the impact of your every action right now.”
Wang Heng scratched his head again: “So this is the so-called time-space administrator? An artificial intelligence from more than fifty years in the future, jumping back and forth repeatedly in a short time span…”
“If you just gave me less trouble, I wouldn’t have to jump this many times.”
Wang Heng: “So what exactly are you? A copy of my future consciousness? Digitalized consciousness?”
“Language has its limits; define it however you want, I’m just me anyway. Alright, with that said, you should be waking up soon.”
Wang Heng asked again: “So, the worldline correction mechanism you mentioned before is actually the self-protection of causality?”
“Yes, the future framework is already set, especially the existence of the historical intervention plan cannot be changed, so the direction of the world you’re in must adapt to the future. The riverbed is there, and the river always flows to low ground, and what we need to do is gradually dig out a historical river that fits our intention.”
After carefully thinking through the logic, Wang Heng realized some more issues.
He said: “But the premise of the historical intervention plan is that I want to alter history, right? So if they didn’t die, I wouldn’t want to alter history at all…”
“This might be one of the reasons we always fail. But you have no choice; you can only continue. At least, theoretically, we have a chance of success. Besides, even if you save them, you can still start the historical intervention plan, just treat it as a scientific research exploration experiment. And at this point, even if you regret it, you can’t back out.”
Wang Heng: “What do you mean?”
“Although I return to the starting point every time we fail, the altered time-space will still have ripples, residual effects. After 146 attempts, your fate and theirs four are already tightly entangled, impossible to untangle…”
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When Wang Heng woke up, he found it was already bright outside, with brilliant sunlight outside the window.
The mobile phone that had been playing hypnosis music before sleep had long run out of battery. He plugged in the charging cable, turned it on, and saw it was already 10:30 a.m.
“This dream was really long…” Wang Heng muttered to himself.
He got out of bed, put on clothes, opened the door, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and tidied up briefly. Then, he walked to the cage in the bedroom and squatted down.
The hamster had just woken up too, lying in the wheel, stretching.
Wang Heng suddenly asked: “Will something happen in the next couple of days?”
The hamster glanced at him and asked back: “What do you want to do?”
“I want to take a walk alone,” Wang Heng rubbed his temple, “There’s a lot of information in this dream, and for the future… how to proceed, I need to calm down and think it through.”
Hamster: “So you’re going into seclusion?”
“Yeah, let me go offline alone for a bit.”
With that, Wang Heng pocketed his wallet and key, and went out.
He didn’t bring his mobile phone.
Leaving this residential area, walking past two streets, he saw a bus platform and stood there waiting for a few minutes.
He got on the first bus that came.
Having been in Rongdu for over a year, he had rarely taken the bus. Perhaps because there were always all sorts of matters, most of the time he chose the most time-saving transportation, either taxi or subway.
He didn’t remember any bus routes, so naturally he didn’t know where this bus was headed. But anywhere was fine, as long as there was a window seat to watch the street view along the way.
Peak period for work was over, and there were plenty of empty seats on the bus. Wang Heng found an empty seat in the back, sat down, and looked outside the window.
Suddenly, he muttered: “How to keep balance with four seesaws connected together? They’re not the type of people who can be brushed off with money, so in that case…”
The more he thought, the greater the pressure felt.
So he began recalling the contents he saw in the dream. But a few minutes later, he shook his head, trying to throw those scenes out of his mind.
The segments specifically selected by the hamster were mostly not very pleasant for him… In comparison, the previous cycle in his own memory was more bearable. Although it was also a cleaver ending, at least before that he had truly enjoyed quite a bit.
His first love with Han Yixuan, his romance with Ye Xun, the painful yet pleasurable experiences under Lu Qi, and the little games with Pei Ningle… Thinking about these, he suddenly had a feeling.
“Tch, thinking about it, it’s not a loss at all.”
He suddenly felt a bit hungry. Just then, there was a noodle shop next to the platform where the bus was stopping ahead.
So he stood up, preparing to get off and grab something to eat.
At that moment, he noticed the advertisement on the platform.
“4G promotion, huh… Right on time, Honor of Kings should be about to start its beta test, right?”
————
“This kid, why isn’t he picking up the phone?”
Lu Qi put down her mobile phone, slightly irritated. She really wanted to tell him that the game project she was participating in had finished its final adjustments and was about to open its first public beta. And before that, she could take a few days of compensatory leave holiday.
As for who to spend the holiday with, did that even need saying?
After spacing out for a bit, Lu Qi sighed lightly, picked up her mobile phone again, and ordered takeout.
Then she opened a webpage and casually browsed recent news…
“Pei Ningle?”
Lu Qi suddenly noticed a small title on the page, clicked in, and saw that Pei Ningle had made another guest appearance on a variety show, singing a song on the program, earning rave online reviews. And at the same time, her first physical album sales had broken thirty thousand copies.
In this era where physical music album sales were increasingly dismal, such grades were already quite impressive. For an original newcomer not yet twenty, it was especially rare, enough to shock countless seniors in the industry.
Lu Qi closed the webpage, picked up her water cup, and took a sip.
“One by one, none of them are easy to handle…”
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