The Clown's Probe

Right—if time's "Cencha" was enough to let players cross the barriers between different times and spaces to reach the other side, then if it was possible in the present, why not in the past?

Li Wufang could come from another timeline, so why couldn't Jiang Chi from before?

That would also explain why Jiang Chi was so mysterious. He simply didn't belong to this time and space—he was an outsider who had stolen the identity of the Jiang Chi from the current timeline!

But this speculation still left one contradiction unexplained: why didn't Jiang Chi know himself? No, more precisely, why didn't he recognize the "Cheng Shi" who should have belonged to the same organization as him on his original timeline?

Cheng Shi's impression of this Time Walker was extremely deep. Although the other man had called out his name, that had all been because of that farce involving Zhen Yi impersonating herself. At the time, the Time Walker hadn't shown the slightest expression or reaction suggesting that the two of them had known each other before. Moreover, Cheng Shi was certain the man hadn't been pretending. He genuinely didn't know him.

But how could that be explained?

Were they aftereffects of crossing time and space? Or had the Cheng Shi from the other timeline joined after something had happened to Jiang Chi?

"..."

No, he couldn't keep letting his thoughts run wild like this!

Up to now, this entire chain of conjectures was still rootless and baseless. It was just that the blocks atop that duckweed kept piling higher and higher, making Cheng Shi increasingly uneasy. He desperately needed a solid foundation to support all of this. Otherwise, if fear mixed with wild imaginings and continued to spread, the "tower" he had imagined would crush him completely beneath it.