The conspiracy theories had gotten out of hand from the very beginning.
Fu Qian had naturally noticed the many suspicious details long ago.
So when he thought about how much outsiders could affect this world, he never minded letting his imagination run wild.
Whether on a mission or off one, Ji Feng, that venerable senior, was simply an excellent subject for observation.
A near-Higher Being, with ties to Bloodline Power and the Mind World... and a mission timeline that was likely far longer than his own.
What kind of butterfly effect could such an existence stir up in the Bookstore World?
It was precisely this question that had led him, after seeing that murky vat in 1-093, to think of something soaking in water, beyond just a Brain in a Vat.
Because the supernatural existed in this world, the will of Higher Beings could influence far too much.
And because the supernatural existed, "concepts" had power.
As if that weren't coincidence enough, despite his wretched state, the place where Ji Feng had ultimately settled could theoretically connect directly to the wills of billions of intelligent beings.
Unless it had the kind of isolation found in the Other Shore, just imagining Old Master Ji giving things a little shake and wondering what condition the entire human world would end up in made for a breathtaking picture.
Fascinating.
Though with something that worked so subtly, proving it would still be far too difficult without Old Master Ji's own testimony.
But once he started imagining things on that basis, there were plenty more interesting questions... for instance, did the Warehouse know?
Was this subtle guidance an unintentional effect of Ji Feng's abilities?
Or was it some sort of mysterious ritual, or one of the old man's little social-reform experiments?
Or perhaps the Warehouse