EP.ZERO·[WEWE]

Foreword:

Live life well, because those who deserve to die will all die anyway.

[ --Sixty-Three]

Jiang Xueming boarded the plane with trepidation.

He sat next to Train Conductor Wood, squeezed into the economy class seats.

"Mr. Wood, I have a feeling this scene has already happened!"

"Gunsmith, don't be nervous. Is this your first time flying?"

"Teacher Wood, why do you call me the gunsmith?"

"."

"."

The silence lasted for a full thirty seconds.

"We've definitely been attacked by Soul Might!" Wood Plark said. "I don't remember it either. Why did I call you Gunsmith? Why? Is the enemy's Soul Might ability meant to make us lose our memories?"

Jiang Xueming nervously bit her nails, thinking hard, "No, Professor Wood, it's not like that. I remember very clearly everything from when I met you outside the airport until I boarded the plane. I remember almost everything clearly. I definitely haven't lost my memory."

"If only one of us suddenly had this strange sense of déjà vu, that would be one thing, but why do we both simultaneously feel that this has already happened?" Wood Plark unconsciously pulled on Xue Ming's arm. "You and me? Are we on the same wavelength?"

"No, no, no." Jiang Xueming's eyes flickered, disgusted by such exaggerated homosexual remarks. "Teacher, wake up! I believe the enemy possesses the superpower of implanting memories!"

"You mean, our brains have been implanted with a memory that doesn't even exist?" Wood's eyes widened in surprise.

"I'm not sure," Jiang Xueming's inner answer was already incredibly close to reality, but there was still one final step to the truth. "I don't know, it's like this—"

Xue Ming reached out and grabbed the vomit bag under the seat.

Pull out a notebook from beside the vomit bag, and then pull out a pencil from the notebook.

Xue Ming: "Red side up."

Wood: "Red up."

The two gave the correct answer almost simultaneously.

Furthermore, the pencil, with its red lead facing upwards, was pulled out by Xue Ming.

Wood finally realized. "Can we predict the future?"

Xue Ming, however, did not see it that way; he felt only more unease.

Such flashes of inspiration only occur occasionally when the physical body performs concrete actions.

Simply thinking and trying to figure things out won't yield any results.

But when I get up and walk, pick up the water glass, reach out to open the door, and perform these specific actions, I can clearly feel a strange sense of familiarity.

When a thought arises in your mind, you must transform that thought into spoken words. Only by vibrating your vocal cords and using the different intonations of your words can you recognize this feeling of déjà vu.

"Professor Wood, I'm afraid this isn't the first time we've experienced something like this." Jiang Xueming sensed the seriousness of the situation. "Be careful! The enemy's soul power is extremely strong! I really don't understand where these memories came from."

The plane has begun its climb.

--In the distance through the observation window, the furry [Yin Yang Demon Realm] had just climbed onto the engine and onto the wing, and the mischievous cat Butch had just begun his search for prey.

"Wait." Wood immediately stood up and headed straight for the customer service room.

Jiang Xueming: "Professor Wood, what are you trying to do?"

Mr. Plark followed the inexplicable pull of fate, and with each step he took, a sense of déjà vu welled up in his heart.

Next, he will push open the curtain of the passenger service department and see the fierce expression on Butch the bad cat's face as he drives Soulforce.

He would see the woman's expression change in the blink of an eye, followed by a forced, insincere smile, and she would say—

"--Hello! What's up?"

At the same time--

Miss Duran clutched her head, finally waking up from her dazed state.

She felt like she was on a roller coaster, completely unable to understand what this important figure in front of her was thinking. In the chaotic space-time, she was repeatedly overwhelmed by the surging torrent of information, her mouth and nose filled with blood.

"Wood Plark would leave the customer service room in five seconds. If the temperature on the plane was sixteen degrees Celsius, he would feel particularly tense because he hadn't eaten those dumplings—this heightened alertness caused a change in his facial expression that made Flavia grin and look equally menacing."

"They'll fight, and in that instant, Wood will kill this suspicious flight attendant he's met sixteen times."

"Is it sixteen times? Or seventeen times?"

Duran grabbed the snake's neck, letting the terrifying White Snake bite into his flesh, trying to awaken the memories deep within his soul.

Sixteen times! A full sixteen times!

She screamed in terror, and shouted back at Sixty-Three.

"You actually reversed time sixteen times?! Why? With my help, getting the Red Mountain Stone back should have been a piece of cake!"

Sixty-Three: "I'm not interested in that rotten rock."

Duran exclaimed in surprise, "What?!"

Sixty-Three: "Your ability to research history also has its limits. It seems that once you exceed a certain threshold, your brain will start to break down. Every time I reverse time, the mental damage you suffer will become more and more severe."

"Big shot! What exactly do you want?" Duran was completely baffled. "Don't you want to go back to your youth? Don't you want to live again? Don't you have even the slightest interest in this lucky, happy, young body?"

"Isn't it possible?" Sixty-Three pursed his lips, stroking his smooth chin, "That I've already had my fill countless times?"

Duran was speechless.

--Immediately afterwards, a cold sweat broke out all over my body.

Sixty-Three shrugged indifferently and shook his head, feeling rather bored.

"I am very old, Ms. Duran, very, very old—unlike this young man whose vitality seems to overflow from his skin, full of energy. Even if you turned me back to my twenties, you couldn't hide the rust on my soul. I don't know what the point of telling you these things is. Can you really remember them? Can you really carry these messages into the next cycle of reincarnation?"

There were no sounds of fighting coming from the customer service room.

--It seems Duran's deduction was wrong; Wood Plark did not argue with Flavia because of the comfortable temperature.

Sixty-Three continued, "My soul power is called [Regret Pill], which can reverse time, specifically four hours, thirty-one minutes, and sixteen seconds—the time can be longer or shorter, but it cannot exceed this amount of time."

Duran swallowed hard, his eyes bloodshot.

Sixty-Three: "The total duration of all of Bailu's last words and all the telephone recordings is four hours, thirty-one minutes, and sixteen seconds."

Duran: "Big shots can't be brought back to life. You can't take your anger out on me. I have no intention of provoking you."

"No, no, no, she has come back to life and is doing very well." Sixty-Three rubbed his rough hands, bent down, and asked Ms. Duran to bow her head as well and listen carefully to what he had to say.

"When I obtained the Red Mountain Stone, Ming De's divine power transported me to the distant past, to the year 2006 AD. Do you know what that means?"

Duran speculated, "You've been reborn? You've truly arrived in the eternal, everlasting paradise? After all, your soul power is so strong."

"No, it sent me to hell." Sixty-Three confessed. "I fell back to the Royal Hall of the Nine Realms Station. Nobody knows me, nobody remembers me. On this deserted island, everything has to start all over again."

"Miss Duran, your soul power and mine are of the same type; you are gods living in the fifth dimension. After awakening our soul power, we gain such immense strength, but we must pay a price far exceeding that of ordinary people. What price did you pay?"

Duran, glancing at his female companion in the customer service room—

--The bad cat Butch, Ms. Flavia is the one she loves deeply.

They were a typical lesbian couple, but Flavia was a womanizer; she liked not only women but also men.

Often, Duran can gain information from her [Timeline] ability; she can spy on Flavia's other male companions. This cuckolding makes her feel deeply humiliated, yet she can't bring herself to kill her lover.

But Duran still clung to a sliver of hope. She couldn't even predict what would happen in the next twenty or thirty minutes; perhaps tomorrow—tomorrow Flavia would change her mind and become completely devoted to Duran alone?

"That's why I say, ignorance is bliss." Sixty-Three put his arm around Miss Duran's shoulder, and the two time-manipulation superpowered individuals revealed their wounds to each other at this moment.

Among the Sixty-Three people, a more complex story unfolds.

"I've had countless enjoyable moments on this journey. Back in 2006, I had no intention of continuing the trip. Instead, I simply completed the missing persons registration form and returned to the surface world."

"At first, I was very cautious, afraid that going back to the past would cause some kind of time paradox. I bought lottery tickets and invested in real estate, and soon I had a huge amount of wealth."

"Moreover, I discovered that this physical body doesn't age at all; it seems I'm forever stuck at the moment I obtained the Red Mountain Stone."

"The whole world became my playground. I started to experience different lives over and over again. I had many, many wives and children, but this game has an end."

Duran guessed, "It's harvest season."

"That's right," Sixty-Three replied, "It's harvest season."

Between 2025 and 2026, BOSS will usher in the first harvest season of Jiang Xueming's life.

The years that followed, from 2067 to 2068, marked the second harvest season for Jiang Xueming's BOSS.

The time when Sixty-Three seized the Red Mountain Stone was in 2068.

No matter how exciting this part of his life is, Sixty-Three must find a way to seize the Red Mountain Stone again and return to the starting point to enjoy it all once more.

"Every time I return to where I started, I have a sense of déjà vu, which helps me to start afresh. I remember a girl who looked a lot like Xiao Qi. I spent six lives with her, almost two hundred years, and had six children. Each time there was a different surprise. But as this cycle repeats, I find myself getting old rapidly."

Duran: "Didn't you say you wouldn't get old?"

"Its soul has aged, like a wormhole riddled with holes," Sixty-Three described. "It's been gnawed open by White Lady, leaving it with countless sores, like a walking corpse."

The language gradually became extreme and malicious.

--Became cold and indifferent.

"When I get along with new people, I feel that things are not as good as before, and it is difficult to replicate the wonderful life of my previous life. It's like the waves surging on a turbulent sea. I want to grasp the most beautiful part, but I always watch it slip through my fingers."

"My physical age is stuck at sixty-six. I don't look old, but I have to go to great lengths to buy love and friendship with money and power. I think these are all fake, counterfeit products that break at the slightest touch."

"At this moment, I am reminded of where my journey began."

"After Bailu died, it took me four years to awaken my Soul Might. After learning the true name of Soul Might and possessing this divine power to reverse time, I can handle anything. As long as I have time and can try repeatedly, I can cast the [Regret Pill] divine power again at a certain point, and everything can start over. It seems like I am the luckiest person in the world, right?"

"But my deceased loved ones, the lovers I abandoned, they will never come back."

When Sixty-Three was talking about these things, he suddenly became calm.

"Every time I unleash my Soul Might, it's like a resounding slap across my face, making me grimace and reveal my fierce expression."

"The lover you abandoned?" Ms. Duran didn't understand. According to the investigation of the [Timeline], it was clearly Sixty-Three who killed Bai Ziqing with his own hands and took away the Steel Heart.

"No, no, no, no, not this section." Sixty-Three shook his head. "Your ability to access historical documents has its limits; those are memories from countless times ago."

"Initially, I only wanted Ming De to pay the price, to kill all the members of the Hand of Omnipotence. I had no intention of harming the innocent, especially my lover—"

"I explained all this to her, and we had to go our separate ways. After all, she still had her father to take care of and a bright future ahead of her. I took the wedding ring, slept with her, and in the end, even love was lost."

Duran: "And what I saw was..."

"The loss of love I'm referring to is on a material level, a loss of love concerning the physical essence," said Sixty-Three. "Bai Ziqing is an extremely greedy woman. She demanded that I make a vow to rehearse this wedding ten thousand times before this cycle of happiness and sweetness can end."

Duran was so surprised his jaw almost dropped to the floor.

What level of mental torture is this?

This is almost like a hellish torture for a human being.

"We've married ten thousand times, kissed over three hundred thousand times, and slept countless times. There were also countless arguments, endless arguments, and over three thousand different weddings," Sixty-Three murmured, unable to describe this sweet torture. "Later, when I saw her, it was like seeing a plague; I'd avoid her. Then, I obtained the Red Mountain Stone and found her again in 2024. On our first meeting, to obtain more Radiant Stones and more Steel Heart, I could kill her without hesitation—my heart has almost lost all warmth. My Soul Power is the most terrifying handcuff in the world; it binds me here, gradually rotting and numbing me, turning me into a walking corpse, clinging to life, afraid of death, yet yearning for the warmth of the sun."

Duran: "You want to end all of this? I can sense it, big man, there's a strong self-destructive urge in you when you talk about these things."

"No, if I just wanted to end it all, I have countless ways to kill myself." Sixty-Three shook his head and denied it outright. "It's just that in the long river of time, I believe that the Red Mountain Stone sent me back to 2006 for a reason. It is the original essence of the Ming De spirit, and it would never deceive me, never let me down. The eternal paradise I seek must exist! I want to find the answer!"

Duran immediately said, "You were only four years old that year! Just the age when you get separated from your parents! If you hadn't been kidnapped by those human traffickers..."

"That's what I think too, Duran."

Before Duran could finish speaking, Sixty-Three immediately interrupted him.

"That's what I thought too. Almost the first time I returned to 2006, I had a strong sense of crisis—if I changed the past, and Jiang Xueming died in an accident in this era, or if her life was changed by my interference, would it cause a series of spacetime disturbances, create paradoxes, and thus kill me, Jiang Xueming from the future?"

"Initially, what I was looking for was myself. I was determined to connect with another version of myself, driven by intense curiosity, and I explored little by little, trying to change my life."

"I began to speculate that perhaps the answer Red Mountain Stone gave me was to intervene in my own life, to reverse cause and effect, to turn the world upside down, to fix all the tragedies into what I wanted, and to create my own paradise."

"But—but!"

At Sixty-Three, he poured himself some water and drank it by himself.

"But whether I kill this Xue Ming, raise him to adulthood and let him live a happy and healthy life, or interfere with his life and make him a completely different person—none of it will have any effect on me, this ghost hiding in the river of time."

"He and I are almost two completely independent beings."

A deep sense of powerlessness enveloped Sixty-Three.

"I have no way to reverse cause and effect. I am an outsider, only able to watch him grow up, watch him grow old, get sick and die. But it has no effect on me. It's like I'm locked up in a prison. If I don't go and steal the Red Mountain Stone, I will die completely—I'm not reconciled! I'm not reconciled!"

Duran: "You already have so much."

"No, Duran, it's not what you think." Sixty-Three interrupted, "What I care about is only the beginning, only my 9527, only my Jiang Bailu. If these people cannot find happiness, if I cannot start over with them—then everyone else or everything else is just fleeting smoke."

"If I can accept my new family and new lover with equanimity."

"What about those who have shared hundreds of years of reincarnation with me? I've almost forgotten them."

"No matter how strong my spiritual essence is, it cannot withstand the passage of time."

"Only emotions sealed within my spirit, from even earlier times, can remain in my heart."

Duran: "What are you going to do?"

"I've discovered something very strange and terrifying," Sixty-Three murmured. "No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I try to change Jiang Xueming's life, he always seems to awaken [Soul Power]."

Duran: "Is this due to parallel universes influencing each other?"

"I don't know, I can't understand." Sixty-Three explained, "I can't be like a sophisticated computer, making all the decisions for Xue Ming. I'm not a machine, and I can't use the power of the [Regret Pill] to design a perfect life for him through long-term calculations. So there will be many unpredictable and uncontrollable directions in his life. Even drinking milk or plain water in the morning will lead to two completely different results."

"I can't do things that precisely; I can only roughly plan out nearly three hundred different endings for Jiang Xueming's life."

"But without exception—no matter what I do, he will eventually awaken his soul power. Even in the most comfortable, smoothest, and most peaceful life, in his fifties, when he occasionally catches a cold and goes for an injection, Inspiration will strike him, and he will embark on a path of transformation."

"Moreover, once the transformation is complete, Jiang Xueming will inevitably obtain the [Regret Pill]—the handcuffs of fate!"

"I began to feel fear. This strange convergence phenomenon seemed to affect my dominance in this spacetime. If he also realized that the Red Mountain Stone was a crucial tool, and if I lost Red Mountain Stone, I fear I would never be able to fulfill my wish."

"What drives me crazy is that these little guys completely change their personalities the moment they get the [Regret Pill]!"

Sixty-Three was described with a fierce expression.

"I don't know how many times they used the [Regret Pill] or how many times they activated their soul power to change their fate in that instant—I couldn't detect their influence on time and space at all, and even killing them became extremely difficult!"

"Many complex problems were solved with divine help through their repeated attempts. What's even more puzzling and pessimistic is that these little guys, like me, are getting old rapidly."

"They lose interest in almost everything, don't want to say a word to their wives or children, friends or colleagues, and become taciturn, as if they've heard these things before and are tired of them."

"I killed them with my own hands, one after another, in countless duels that traversed time and space, completely annihilating and defeating them, learning from them in the duels how to manipulate soul power and how to disintegrate physical bodies—these individuals are like marks of shame, a mockery of fate against me."

"I finally understand--"

Sixty-Three people clasp their hands together in prayer.

"--[Regret Pill] is not a blessing, it's a curse."

Miss Duran opened her mouth, speechless.

"Well, I didn't eat dinner today, so my blood sugar is a little low. If you suddenly tell me this, I'm afraid I'll forget about it later."

"Until recently, I did something very insignificant, Duran." Sixty-Three tilted his head, composed himself, and became cold and ruthless again. "Until I returned to 2006, back to the Southern District of Hong Kong."

Duran: "Okay, please go on, I'll try to remember."

"I don't want to die, but I don't want to live a pathetic life either. I want to find passion again in this chaotic world." Sixty-Three spoke of these regrettable things without a care in the world, "I thought, I should live well. Anyway, those who are destined to die will all die. So I jumped into Victoria Harbour and into the sea, intending to take a bath to clear my head."

Duran: "Oh, that's terrible."

"Then there was Bu Mei, the woman who pulled me onto her boat," said Sixty-Three.

Duran's expression immediately changed. "Oh! Oh oh. Oh! Wow, wow!"

Sixty-Three had a shameless grin on his face, with an expression that said, "Are you fucking serious?"

Duran explained hesitantly, "I've thought of a possibility."

"Wake up, things aren't as smooth and natural as you think." Sixty-Three continued, "I have absolutely no interest in this vain little girl. She ordered the crew to pull me ashore, did such a good deed, and then went off to have fun on her big yacht."

The story takes an irreversible turn here--

"--I thought I absolutely couldn't leave this favor unpaid, even if it was a favor I didn't need, I had to return it. This habit of dealing with people has accompanied me almost my entire life, so I asked a waiter to give me two thousand yuan and tell him to pass on a message to this little princess: 'You are beautiful as you are, you don't need anyone else to prove anything.' -- But this waiter had received too much money and had to put on a show. He added some scenes for himself, changed the lines, and even rehearsed in the kitchen for a while. In just ten seconds, the snack on the plate changed from lemon slices to roasted milk."

Duran said in surprise--

"--Oh! That sentence Bu Liuxing!"

Sixty-Three: "That's right."

Duran: "He"

Sixty-Three: "He almost changed Jiang Xueming's entire life, overturning everything."

Duran: "What kind of power is this?!"

"I don't know, I really don't know." Sixty-Three back in the darkness. "Perhaps the birth of new life has changed everything—it's this powerful vitality that has given me hope once again."

"I want to rewrite Jiang Xueming's ending and lift the curse from him."

"At this moment, he possesses the Red Mountain Stone and is about to emerge from his cocoon like a butterfly."

He absolutely cannot swallow the Regret Pill.

"I can feel it. Whenever I see him and experience his life, an indescribable joy and peace wells up in my soul. I can't bear to disturb this tranquility, but I also absolutely do not want to see his tragic end after he emerges from his cocoon. Our soul power is a form of extreme punishment for individual humans. It's like having a cheat code, a shortcut directly to the end."

"Perhaps this time, I really can reach heaven."