The Mysterious Source Who Was Invited (5,200 Words)

Is this the Night's End City, or rather, the Matrix?

As the girl stared intently at him, Xiao Xiao was also looking at her.

He cherished this opportunity, so he focused his attention and looked at her very carefully, not wanting to miss a single detail.

But as a result, Xiao Xiao felt somewhat lost.

Can't read.

It's hard to describe the feeling at this moment. Under Xiao Xiao's observation, she looked like a real person, sitting there in a real way, no different from the people he knew and usually saw... But if she were someone he usually saw, Xiao Xiao could see through her at a glance. The ability of the Insightful One allowed Xiao Xiao to see through anyone.

But this is something I can't see through.

Even though Xiao Xiao had pushed the power of the Insightful One to its limit, with his three Eye of the Seer wide open, he still couldn't sense any deep emotions from the quietly sitting girl. She seemed to exist independently of the entire world, which confirmed the natives' guess that this life form was from elsewhere and had no connection with this world...

...wrong.

Xiao Xiao had just come up with an answer, but then suddenly rejected it.

He looked at the girl more intently, then suddenly realized he had actually misjudged her.

She is not completely independent of this world; on the contrary, she is closely connected to every part of it.

I can't describe the bewilderment I feel at this moment.

Even though Xiao Xiao had made ample preparations, he still couldn't define her.

And as he observed the results with the Eye of the Seer at this moment, the things he had wanted to verify suddenly fell into deep chaos. The answer that he had been inclined to believe suddenly became extremely fragile...

If she is the Night's End City itself, then it is inevitable that she is connected to everything.

If she is merely an external mother, then it is inevitable that she exists independently of this world.

But she has both.

This left Xiao Xiao bewildered and confused the moment he saw her.

It wasn't until Xiao Xiao, in a state of Mind Burst, experienced countless thoughts arising, clashing, and tearing apart, that he suddenly awoke:

Yes, she is neither the city itself, nor simply the mother.

She is the Mysterious Source!

Xiao Xiao forgot from whom he first heard these four words, but he had never had any special feelings about them before.

Only now, seeing this girl with my own eyes and feeling the complex understanding she conveys to me, do I suddenly realize that defining her by the City Will or by the mother is inaccurate; only the Mysterious Source is the most appropriate.

Because she is the source of all fantasies in this vast, Night's End City.

She is the root of all the strangeness and pollution, the source of all surreal phenomena, and the origin of all irrationality.

The final verification was successful.

The moment Xiao Xiao saw the girl, he felt an indescribable heaviness and oppression in his heart.

After talking with Bai Cheng of Night's End City, he was curious whether the City Will could really appear in front of strangers.

That's why he started to investigate this matter on the train to Night's End City. He had a final goal in mind. No matter how much he thought about it, nothing was more reassuring than seeing the source. Anyway, although he was powerless to explain this kind of life right now, since she had appeared, he should be able to see her. Otherwise... otherwise she would look down on him.

Emmmm

In the end, she was still very accommodating.

With various useful or useless, logical or chaotic thoughts flashing through his mind, Xiao Xiao mustered all his energy.

He struggled to control his trembling emotions, maintaining a gentle and composed demeanor as he subtly adjusted the muscles in his face, intending to convey a friendly and harmless signal to the unknown, mysterious, and unfathomable life form before him...

Then he heard the girl's expressionless voice after she put down her coffee cup:

"You guys are really going too far!"

"..."

"?"

The smile that Xiao Xiao had just managed to put on froze on his face.

What direction is this heading?

The girl who had put down her coffee cup, after uttering those words, gradually showed more resentment on her otherwise indifferent expression, and one could even see the grievance in her slightly reddened eyes. "I was always the weakest one, always feeling afraid, not knowing when I would be eaten by those big guys, so I always hid..."

"I hid in the deepest part of the night out of fear, keeping quiet and not bothering anyone..."

"And yet you all target me, severing my tentacles, eliminating my influence, and even threatening to destroy my anchor..."

"..."

She seemed to get angrier the more she spoke, and suddenly looked up at Xiao Xiao, leaning her little head forward:

"You might as well just kill me..."

"..."

"Holy crap!"

The way things unfolded was completely unexpected for Xiao Xiao. Even with his Mind Burst ability, he almost lost control of his expression.

Why did things turn out so differently than I expected?

Looking at the girl's aggrieved expression, he wanted to pinch himself to see if he was still dreaming.

In his Mind Burst, a considerable amount of time actually passed. Xiao Xiao tried to compose himself, pondering what he should Xiao Xiao, but from a practical standpoint, it seemed as if he only paused slightly before suddenly staring directly at the girl and saying:

"What exactly are you?"

"..."

The girl paused for a moment, then became both angry and anxious. "You're still swearing at me now?"

"No..."

Xiao Xiao immediately shook his head, but the seriousness and doubt on his face intensified. He asked earnestly, "I'm genuinely curious, what exactly are you? Demons from hell? Or gods from heaven? Are you outsiders, or natives born into this world? What is your relationship with this city? What are you pursuing here? Pain Substance?"

As he asked a series of questions, the girl seemed to fall silent.

Xiao Xiao couldn't sense any change in her, but he intuitively felt that she was thinking rapidly.

Xiao Xiao didn't know how fast she thought, but she had clearly been thinking for a long time.

As if some issues had been resolved, or as if she had simply made some decisions, the smile on her face subtly changed.

Looking at Xiao Xiao, she said softly, "You already know how to threaten me, yet you still ask me these questions?"

"You don't need to know you to threaten you."

Xiao Xiao knew that what he said was important, but facing this unfathomable girl, he decided to tell the truth. He knew that his knowledge and experience were too shallow in the face of the Mysterious Source, and he believed that his lies would not have the desired effect. Therefore, he decided to use the most honest words to complete his communication with this first Mysterious Source.

So he slowly replied, "I merely deduced some of your operating logic based on certain theories, and then used the threat of severing this logic to force you... to request that you appear before me. But I am still curious, what do you belong to?"

Hearing Xiao Xiao's words, the girl seemed somewhat taken aback.

But in Xiao Xiao's somewhat blurred vision, this astonishment seemed to be an illusion in itself.

The girl just smiled and looked at herself, "Tell me your understanding."

"I know you have some suspicion in your mind, otherwise there would be no point in you seeing me."

"..."

Xiao Xiao nodded. As an observer, he felt like he was being watched by the observer when he faced this girl.

He took a deep breath and whispered, "You are like the city itself, yet also like beings from outside the city. You descended from the sky and landed in everyone's heads. I know you don't actually exist; you should... exist only in the spiritual world. You influence some people, making them see everything you want them to see..."

"But there are some people you can't control, you can only control them through pollution... or by purchasing them..."

"I can be sure of one thing: you can interfere with the operation of this city and control its own power, but this control is not unbreakable. If you kill those you have corrupted, the city can refuse your domination. I can also see that the strangers... or rather, the city's messengers, are your final anchors. Only if they exist in this city can you exist."

"What will happen to you if you kill these strangers?"

"Will they simply disappear, or will they lose their last connection with this city and be forced to wander the Mist Sea?"

"..."

As he spoke, the atmosphere in the coffee shop became somewhat heavy. Time and space seemed to stand still. Xiao Xiao noticed that the clerk behind the counter had been in the same position for a long time, while the mysterious girl in front of him stared at him with an empty gaze. Her eyes were so deep that he could not see the end of them.

"You are too powerful, capable of doing so many things we cannot even imagine. However, at times, you don't seem to be omnipotent. You possess all the power we understand, yet you seem to be pursuing something..."

"So, I don't quite understand..."

He paused for a moment before slowly asking the final question, "Are you gods born from the spiritual world...?"

"Or is he a devil who has come to conquer the world?"

"..."

"..."

Only after saying all this did Xiao Xiao take a deep breath, stop, and quietly wait for the other party's reply.

He wasn't sure what the other person was willing to tell him, but he was certain of one thing: whatever the other person answered, even if it was just a lie, it would be significant evidence and progress for the study of indigenous people and the understanding of the Mysterious Source.

"It's really remarkable that you can say all this."

Unexpectedly, when the girl spoke, she actually praised herself, "Humans are creatures imprisoned by cognition, so when the answer exists outside of cognition, few people even think to doubt anything. Perhaps you are fundamentally different from others, or perhaps other factors are deliberately driving you to see these things that are close to the answer..."

"But the fact that you can ask these questions means that you have begun to try to break free from the prison of your cognition."

"And it's reasonable for you to feel lost..."

She suddenly smiled and said, "Because your level of life has not changed yet, you cannot understand things in higher dimensions."

"Perhaps I truly cannot understand."

Xiao Xiao answered immediately, even seeming somewhat anxious. "But I want to know an answer."

"Which is the truth: what do the indigenous people see, or what do outsiders see?"

"Are the indigenous people really just figments of your imagination? Or have the outsiders always lived in a fantasy you created?"

"..."

"That's the problem..."

Seeing his somewhat anxious expression, the girl suddenly laughed and said, "Why can't they all be true?"

"..."

Xiao Xiao suddenly paused, and after a long while, he replied, "This is not an answer."

"I don't know if you've ever played games before..."

The girl smiled and looked at Xiao Xiao, saying, "Those games have exquisite graphics and backgrounds, some even have complete histories and origins. Some people place their hopes for life in this game world, believing that everything in the game is real. Others modify the game in the background, and in their view, the game is just a bunch of chaotic code..."

"... Then which one do you think is real?"

"..."

Xiao Xiao seemed to be touched by something, but he pursed his lips and remained silent.

He was worried that if he interrupted, the other person would refuse to say anything more.

"You don't need to be so careful..."

The girl suddenly let out a long sigh of relief, her voice carrying a hint of resentment. "Anyone who didn't know better would think you were the one being bullied... I don't know if you're Anomalies in this world, or if some despicable person is using you to teach me a lesson, but I'm angry. I've been hiding so hard, and yet I've still been singled out, so I feel very insecure right now..."

"In that case, I am indeed willing to tell you some things."

She looked at Xiao Xiao, her face seemingly calm. "Go ahead and make a scene, anyway, I'm already the most miserable one."

Xiao Xiao suddenly became agitated, forcibly maintaining his silence, and asked, "Tell me what?"

The girl said, "The answer you most want to know..."

Xiao Xiao's heart trembled slightly. "Who exactly are you...?"

"I've already said it, your current level of existence is too low; you wouldn't understand if I just told you the answer..."

The girl smiled, as if she had thought of something, and whispered, "But perhaps there is a way to make you understand something. I know everything you've done since you came to Night's End City, including the person you met who was reborn by downloading their consciousness into a completely new body through my power. So why can't you understand that we are also downloading our own consciousness?"

"This..."

Xiao Xiao was startled awake; even his Mind Burst ability couldn't calm him down.

On the contrary, precisely because of his Mind Burst ability, the more he thought, the more terrifying it became.

Is the awareness of downloading?

If the Mysterious Source is merely a consciousness that is being downloaded, then who is the body waiting for that consciousness to inhabit?

City?

If a city begins to be occupied by downloaded consciousness, then where has the city's original consciousness gone?

"It's just a metaphor..."

Seeing the shock in Xiao Xiao's heart, the girl's expression brightened even more. "But this analogy really helped you understand a lot, didn't it? Of course, you don't need to be so quick to be afraid. I need to clarify beforehand that even if we are the consciousness being downloaded into this world, we didn't actively invade this body and take over..."

"Us..."

She looked into Xiao Xiao's eyes and said in a deep voice, "I was invited here!"

In that instant, as if struck by lightning, a force struck Xiao Xiao's mind. He stared blankly at the girl. For a moment, he felt that she was becoming unusually tall, much taller than the city itself. Then, he suddenly felt that she was ethereal and elusive, as if she did not exist at all. He seemed to hear a deep and painful wail in his ears, the despair of something being swallowed up.

Since leaving his bedroom, his mind has rarely felt out of control.

But at this moment, that feeling of being out of control suddenly reappeared.

Countless images, both real and imagined, flashed through his mind in an instant. He thought of the cold, sinister gazes at his class reunion, the Rat-Man in the subway station, the man suffocated to death by life, the rotting street, the city transformed into endless flesh and blood, and the unusually cold gaze of Black Gate City. All these extremely bizarre images flashed by rapidly.

Finally, it suddenly turned into a pair of eyes.

Fear, despair, flickering light—all contain endless pain.

That was the woman in the videotape I saw when I was enhancing my Insightful Path.

"See? I told you you shouldn't have sought that kind of answer..."

The girl seemed to sense the repression in Xiao Xiao's heart and laughed excitedly, "I find it hard to understand. Who would be willing to hand over such power to you? You only needed to obey orders, just like my messengers... The distribution of power is necessary, but if the wrong power is handed over to certain people, it is easy to suffer a backlash."

Xiao Xiao was unable to answer these questions; his mind was in turmoil as he kept pondering them.

He initially verified these things without any ulterior motive.

Verification itself is the goal.

Because he saw too many research reports on the mother body by the indigenous people in the Old Chairman's small building, he also began to doubt his own self-awareness. So he subconsciously searched for answers, but when he finally got close to the answers, he found that he was powerless to understand them.

He had witnessed the Mysterious Source of the Night's End City, and the other party was even so candid about it.

But what good would it do to know?

"Now that we've started, let's not stop..."

Amidst Xiao Xiao's confusion, the girl in the Lolita dress suddenly leaned over with a mysterious smile, gently patted Xiao Xiao's shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Actually, I noticed something different about you compared to others, but don't worry, I'll keep this a secret. The fact that you found me does make me feel insecure, but think about it again..."

"Perhaps this is the only chance I have to avoid being eaten?"

"..."

With a mysterious smile on her face, she gently cupped Xiao Xiao's face. "So, shall we form an alliance?"

"To show my sincerity, I'm giving you this gift!"

"..."

The shop assistant then took out an exquisite gift box from the shelf behind the counter and handed it over.

The girl solemnly placed the gift box in front of Xiao Xiao, her voice mysterious and alluring:

"Make good use of it..."

"... Poor World Mr.!"