Operator #12 · [One Day · One Day]

Flight ICI77074, an Airbus Boeing 737 commercial aircraft.

At this moment, Wood Plark was fast asleep, almost standing up, leaning against the wall of the first row, sleeping very peacefully, like a baby.

Jiang Xueming was completely unaware of the special nature of his own soul power. Following the seating arrangement on his ticket stub, he found a dimly lit corner in first class and discovered the trembling Ms. Duran.

Faced with this pitiful woman, Xue Ming dared not lower his guard and was ready to fight to the death at any moment.

"Hey," Jiang Xueming asked tentatively, "Are you a member of the Madness Butterfly Sect?"

"No, no, no, no! Don't kill me! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" After experiencing so many reincarnations, Ms. Duran's mental energy was completely exhausted, and her eyes were bloodshot. "Please, I beg you."

Her spiritual power had reached its highest alert level; the pheromones emanating from Xue Ming were simply too terrifying.

--Just like a tiger marking its territory, the information revealed by the powerful elemental energy is constantly interfering with the [Timeline].

The images that flashed through her eyes were bloody and terrifying. In just a few seconds, she had been killed by the seemingly cold yet sweet man in front of her using different methods and tools. He had already killed her several times!

Jiang Xueming finally noticed something amiss.

As Mr. Wood said, pheromones don't lie.

The woman's anxiety seemed genuine; the bloodshot eyes were yellowish. She needed sleep, and high-quality sleep at that. If this continued, this young Latina woman might suffer a heart attack and die suddenly, like a hermit who had been staying up for days and nights.

"You need to rest for a while, ma'am. I won't hurt you."

Jiang Xueming raised his hand, and Duran shrank back into his seat.

"Don't be afraid, relax, and feel at ease—I only kill criminals, I only kill bad guys."

Upon hearing this, Duran felt as if she were hearing a death knell; her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Jiang Xueming continued, "You haven't done anything wrong, have you?"

Duran was no longer able to think, answering almost every question with "I...

Jiang Xueming: "Have you ever done this?"

Duran then added, "I cheated people out of money."

Jiang Xueming seized on the key question and asked, "Have you ever killed anyone?"

Duran stammered, "Does using Soul Power to lure others to their deaths count?"

Jiang Xueming: "How exactly was it done?"

Duran pursed his lips, looking utterly aggrieved. "During the Little Brotherhood's initiation ceremony, there was a senior among the grey-robed monks who was our introducer. He wanted me to have sex with Flavia, so I used the [Timeline] to kill him—framing him for the Little Brotherhood's missing money and drugs, fabricating false evidence through various coincidences. I made him..."

Jiang Xueming: "Okay, I understand."

Duran then asked expectantly, "Does this count as murder? Does this count as murder?"

Jiang Xueming glanced at the boarding pass. "You need to rest, Claudia Ars Duran. You don't even know what you're saying, and I can't understand you either—recover some mental energy before talking to me about these things."

"You and him," Duran glanced at Jiang Xueming, then stared intently at the isolation door of the first-class cabin. "You're different from him. You're different from that guy."

Jiang Xueming: "With whom?"

"You are not the same as Jiang Xueming. You are a completely different person from Jiang Xueming in FE204863." Duran saw Jiang Xueming's meticulous manner as he went to the dining car to fetch a warm kettle and brought out the hot water, and the fear in her heart slowly subsided.

Jiang Xueming: "What are you talking about? I don't understand at all."

Duran took the water glass and quickly drank it down—the warm water flowed into her dry throat, and she felt as if she had barely come back to life. Her dry, sore eyes and dull, aching brain gradually improved, and the ringing in her ears also subsided.

"FE33031, Jiang Xueming! You are Jiang Xueming from FE33031!" Duran finished drinking the hot water and immediately grabbed Xue Ming's hand. "The one sleeping outside is you from another parallel universe!"

"What does 'parallel universe' mean?" Jiang Xueming didn't understand; he had never heard of such a term before.

To be honest, Xue Ming hasn't watched many movies and isn't interested in internet culture.

He has only a high school diploma, hasn't had much formal education, and dislikes meaningless social interactions.

I don't discuss philosophy with friends, nor do I enjoy exploring impractical things like the universe or spacetime.

I have only a superficial understanding of time travel and have never intended to delve into it further.

On this day, people seem to live in every single moment, locked in the present by a powerful gravitational pull, making it difficult to look into the distance.

"Hey," Jiang Xueming asked, completely bewildered, "What does 'parallel universe' mean?"

Ms. Duran suddenly became agitated. "Oh! I can't explain it! Anyway, it's just... it's just another you! Jiang Xueming, the old geezer you saw! He's another you!"

Xue Ming immediately sat down and began scratching his head.

What does "the other me" mean? Is he my father?

Duran: "No, no, no!"

Xue Ming: "That's true. My biological father should be someone else. When I saw this guy using an ID card with the same name as mine, I felt a nameless anger, and that face, for some reason, just made me angry."

Duran: "This has nothing to do with your father! Jiang Xueming, this person is you from another time and space!"

Xue Ming: "Another timeline? What do you mean?"

Duran was nearly driven mad. "Don't you have any concept of time? Don't you have any imagination about time and space?"

Xue Ming: "I don't understand. I'm sorry."

Duran was both amused and annoyed. "Don't apologize to me! You're such a weirdo!"

Xue Ming tilted her head. "Shouldn't I apologize? If it makes you feel troubled, anxious, or impatient—I think apologizing first might give you more patience to explain to me what really happened."

"Uh..." Duran was at a loss for words. The young man in front of him was earnest and persistent, like a humble student eager to learn. He let Duran grab his arm but did not resist at all. He simply pulled out his journal with one hand, bit the pen with his teeth, and began to make notes.

You seem to

Jiang Xueming frowned. "What's wrong with me?"

Ms. Duran: "You seem kind of cute."

Jiang Xueming: "I have a lover."

Duran then shook his head. "No, no, no. I meant, you look like a girl."

Jiang Xueming: "I have a female character, oh no, I have a sister, almost the same age as me, we grew up together, and I probably picked up some of her habits from her upbringing."

"No wonder Flavia's soul was stolen by you," Duran muttered to himself, his eyes full of mockery. "Let me explain."

This opening--

Half an hour passed.

Jiang Xueming first wrote and drew in the book, then found some chocolate milk and performed a cesarean section on Billy the Kid. Suddenly, he realized that Teacher Ke was also asleep, so he took the time to put an eye mask on him.

After treating Billy the Kid's wounds with the Universal Elixir, retrieving the package containing the gun and hallucinogens, they finally returned to Ms. Duran's side.

"You mean, in 2006..." Jiang Xueming rubbed his temples, trying to piece together this chaotic story, after all, it contained too much information. "A Xing was able to be born smoothly because of a single sentence from FE204863? Because of another me? Because of a casually mentioned extra sentence?"

Duran nodded.

"That won't do." Jiang Xueming pursed her lips, looking troubled and embarrassed. "I can't be his father."

"No! That's not it." Duran tapped the table lightly. "It's not what you think. Bu Mei did go straight to VIP room number fourteen and then had physical contact with the guests in the cabin—that's the end of the party. She's pregnant with Bu Liuxing."

"Aunt Bu Mei told me this." Jiang Xueming carefully recalled A Xing's mother's boastful and arrogant demeanor, "She said that when she was young, she was fair-skinned and beautiful, and many people liked her. She also liked many people, so that night she drank a lot and played very hard, and she doesn't remember anything at all."

Ms. Duran said expressionlessly, "She's lying."

Jiang Xueming didn't understand. "Why did you lie to me?"

Duran rolled his eyes. "Put yourself in their shoes—most men say they can last forty minutes, but the forty minutes they're talking about starts from when they drive into the neighborhood and park in the underground garage."

Jiang Xueming still didn't understand. "What does this have to do with the underground parking garage?"

Duran: "It's a metaphor! Do you understand? A metaphor!"

Jiang Xueming: "Is there any connection between the two?"

Duran took a deep breath. "If you treat Bu Mei's mother as a man, you'll probably understand."

"Oh! Oh!" Xue Ming suddenly realized, "She's showing off her spoils to me!"

Duran snapped his fingers, "That's exactly it! In 2006, this little princess came from a wealthy and powerful family, and almost everyone revolved around her—she needed to feel recognized; she was a woman. She needed many, many men to fawn over her like stars around the moon, to be her wings."

"Then she didn't need to start as a fourteen-winged archangel, did she?" Jiang Xueming's face scrunched up like an old man's. "This is too much like a web game."

Duran continued, "In the universe FE204863, no one handed Bu Mei that piece of toasted butter—she was absolutely ecstatic, and it directly caused her to miscarry."

"That's terrifying." Jiang Xueming covered her mouth and nose. "I can't imagine."

Duran added, "In this parallel universe, you didn't meet Bu Liuxing, and a series of changes directly led to Jiang Bailu's death."

Jiang Xueming: "Hmm"

Duran: "You just hummed in response?"

Jiang Xueming thought for a moment, then became even more determined. "Yes."

"Do you know that this FE204863, because of Bailu's death, has become almost a completely different person from you?" Duran said solemnly and menacingly, "He opposed the Hand of Omnipotence, opposed the Madness Butterfly Sect, opposed the station, and even directly injured Ming De, stole the Red Mountain Stone, and ran into your world."

"He is not me." Jiang Xueming thought for a moment, then said, "He is definitely not me."

Duran waved his hand, his expression excited. "Whether he is you or not, now you understand, right?"

"I don't understand." Jiang Xueming continued, "Why is he so obsessed with changing the past? Like you said, the Jiang Xueming in other universes has nothing to do with him at all—what benefit would it bring him to change me, or change [us]? His Bailu and his Xiao Qi can't come back. His journey has come to an end, and there's no turning back."

Duran huddled timidly in his seat and spoke cautiously, as if afraid of being overheard by the sleeping Sixty-Three outside.

"He's gone mad, driven insane by his own soul power."

Jiang Xueming: "Is it that [Regret Pill]?"

Duran's expression was very serious. "Yes, from what this important person said, at first I thought he didn't want Jiang Xueming in other universes to repeat the tragedy that happened to him—but later I realized that he's just a complete madman, always acting crazy."

Jiang Xueming: "Controlled by Soul Power?"

"He's become a puppet of the 'Regret Pill,' his thought patterns, the synaptic structure of his brain, and his specific behavioral expressions—all of this is shaped around activating the 'Regret Pill,' all of this is just a reason to 'have one more time.'" Ms. Duran recalled with unease the ferocious and arrogant expression on Sixty-Three's Sixty-Three, and the indifference and numbness with which he used her and Flavia as tools. "Whether it's to change your life or to seek a sense of security—drug addicts only know lies. You can't believe anything they say. Everything is just to inject drugs into their bodies. They're hopeless lunatics!"

"Will I awaken this soul power?" Jiang Xueming's mind was calm; he was neither afraid nor filled with any anticipation.

Duran, on the contrary, became anxious. "You absolutely cannot possess such terrifying soul power! Young man! Once you become addicted, you will definitely fall into this hallucinatory pleasure of controlling everything, just like Sixty-Three!"

Jiang Xueming: "No, I... I don't care."

Duran asked in surprise, "You don't care?"

Jiang Xueming wrote and talked in his diary.

"Even without it, nothing seems to change; having it makes no difference—my understanding of time should be different from that of Sixty-Three."

Duran stared, bewildered, "I don't understand what you're saying!"

"It's hard to explain. But I think your soul power often transcends classical physics, often observing the future world from a divine perspective, is that right?" Jiang Xueming drew an example chart on his logbook and finally understood Duran and Sixty-Three's soul power. "Unlike you, for me, the gravity of reality is too cruel, too strong, too immense."

Jiang Xueming then used a metaphor.

"Many things for me can't necessarily be done again--"

"--I've asked myself countless times, if I could do it all over again, could I really defeat the same opponent?"

"Before the land of the dead in Niflheim, countless vengeful spirits crawled back from hell, wanting to fight me another three hundred rounds, but I truly had no confidence, not even a shred of courage to say that I could defeat my opponent one hundred percent— the Regret Pill was a torment for me."

"Even if I could go back to when I was seventeen and left my hometown with Bailu, I would have mentally prepared myself for a very long time. There aren't many good people like Brother Ye Bei in the world anymore. If I just left like that, I would not only have to escape my comfortable life and say goodbye to my familiar local accent, but also have to listen to unfamiliar Cantonese and adapt to the dangerous big city. If I had to choose again, could I really do all these things well?"

Duran paused for a moment, then continued.

"You've reversed someone else's time! Jiang Xueming, it's not what you think. You can retain your memories."

"No!" Jiang Xueming raised her index finger. "No, no, no, absolutely not! It's not as simple as you say. If he really could recover all his physical injuries, his physical constitution would affect his mental constitution. This was my first lesson at the Nine Realms Station —a person's mentality can change because of a weak and powerless body, just like how one's temper will inevitably be bad when hungry or sick. If I were to face my vicious adoptive parents with my frail seventeen-year-old body, I might really waver, even though I've grown up and grown old."

Duran finally understood--

--Why is Jiang Xueming of FE33031 so much better than FE204863?

Because from beginning to end, Jiang Xueming only lived once.

"Even if I had a way to Regret Pill, I would only use it as a trial-and-error tool for forging weapons," Jiang Xueming said calmly. "Humans are incredibly complex creatures. I can't even handle my own emotional problems. I'm afraid I would never dare to use this kind of soul power to deal with the inherent problems of humanity. Whether it's for others or for myself, I really won't use it, and I absolutely won't."

"Duran, I've already killed Jiang Xueming, the one who broke his promise—the one who said, 'I'm sorry, I promised you something I couldn't do.' If you want me to do it all over again, I'm afraid I'll go crazy too, but for a different reason than Sixty-Three."

"Many people believe that the world is made up of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,"

Jiang Xueming grabbed Duran's hand. Although this action could raise Xiao Qi and Flavia's blood pressure by 300%, Xiao Qi wasn't there, and Flavia was sleeping.

"I only deserve one day of this, only today."

Duran's spirit was severely impacted.

"--Let's not talk about that now! Your soul power."

She suddenly looked at the claw marks on the back of her hand; they were the marks left by [Fragrant Dream].

"I'm fucking pissed off! What's wrong with you, kid? Can't you just talk the talk instead of walking the walk?"

Jiang Xueming is as usual.

Nothing changed; he simply released his grip and quietly observed Duran.

"I'm sorry, I offended you."

Duran didn't waste any more words.

She knew she had been struck by the soul-powerful attack of [Fragrant Dream], and that everything in the dream was an illusion.

When was that? Just now?

Jiang Xueming probably didn't realize that Soul Power's abilities were so terrifying, capable of sending people into a dream without their knowledge, and revealing their vulnerable Gate of Death in the instant of battle.

Ignoring the hallucinations beside her, she quickly got up to find a window shovel for the fire door, preparing to perform a decapitation on herself.

"Ms. Duran, what are you doing?" Jiang Xueming, still in the illusion, quickly stood up.

"Don't talk to me! I don't have time for you!" Duran was in a bad mood. She found a window breaker and smashed it against the window. A gust of wind immediately rushed into the cabin, and the alarm went off.

Jiang Xueming: "This is very dangerous, Ms. Duran."

Duran did not reply, but glanced at Xue Ming's illusory form out of the corner of his eye, and immediately saw the [Fragrant Dream] spirit glowing with tiny points of light.

It was a large cat with pointed ears, a steel body made of gold and silver, and a keyhole on its chest. It seemed to realize that the dream's owner was about to wake up, and [Fragrant Dream] could no longer maintain the dream, so it was about to reveal its true form.

"Woman!" the big iron cat spoke, its voice like that of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old brat who hadn't yet gone through puberty. "You want to escape from my world?"

"The feeling of weightlessness helps me stay awake," Duran roared at Xue Ming's soul power. "I never expected you could actually speak."

Fragrant Dream embraced each other, looking on with amusement.

"Do you think that beheading, jumping off a building, or falling from a height of ten thousand meters will wake you up? I advise you to give up these thoughts. I will weave another dreamcatcher for you—discarding all nightmares and keeping only beautiful dreams, so that you will never wake up again. Isn't it better to live in this world?"

Duran squinted and immediately summoned his Soul Power [Timeline] --

Based on the calculations, she will freefall for a period of time, and what happens after she hits the ground and dies is beyond our control.

What would you do, SD (Sweet Dreams)?

"I don't know either, scripts have to be written on the fly—a spontaneous idea is what makes it interesting!" Big Iron Cat chuckled, his expression strikingly similar to Ming De: "Maybe sixteen years later? You wake up in a hospital surrounded by people, all talking about the terrible plane crash. Your lover, Flavia, stayed by your side, cleaning you up and taking care of your bodily needs, becoming a well-educated and virtuous woman. From then on, you two lived happily ever after."

"Sweet dreams!" Ms. Duran clapped lightly, then kicked open the security door. "Keep making things up, SD!"

"It seems like you look down on me, how awful!" Big Iron Cat sneered, his eyes narrowed.

Duran leaned out of the door and called to the iron cat.

The hurricane nearly blew her mouth into a large, bloated bag, making it difficult for her to speak clearly.

"You want that silly girl? To take care of me for sixteen years?! Wake up! Who's dreaming here?!"

After saying this--

--Duran took the plunge.

"Call--"

She woke up shortly afterward.

Jiang Xueming looked on in surprise. "Ms. Duran? You just fell asleep?"

Duran looked around and immediately tried to snatch Jiang Xueming's gun.

But how could she possibly be a match for Xue Ming!

In the blink of an eye, the cold muzzle of a gun was pointed at Duran's forehead, with the carrying safety unlocked, ready to take her life at any moment.

"How long have I been asleep?" Duran raised his hands, finally convinced that he wasn't dreaming.

Jiang Xueming's face turned extremely pale. "About... twenty minutes?"

Duran was still uneasy, so this tough guy took out a product made by White Lady and threw the scalding hot liquid towards the ceiling.

She gripped Xue Ming's gun-wielding hand, and Xue Ming instinctively pulled the trigger.

"Bang--"

Gunfire illuminated the entire first-class cabin, eliciting screams from the passengers.

Duran's brain was half-shattered, but under the guidance of the Universal Elixir, his mathematical logic blocks slowly grew back.

Jiang Xueming was also taken aback; he never imagined this woman could be so ruthless to him.

--Perhaps this is the defining characteristic of the Madness Butterfly Sect; when they get into a life-or-death struggle, it's like playing cat's cradle.

"It really wasn't a dream. I'm relieved. I'm relieved." Duran was absolutely certain. "Kid! Your soul power ability is what makes people dream!"

Jiang Xueming: "So, I slept with all those people, including Teacher Wood?"

"It was influenced by your soul power that made it fall asleep, not that you slept with it." Duran wanted Xue Ming to change his way of describing it, "That sounds weird."

Jiang Xueming: "It is indeed quite strange."

Duran scratched her head, feeling an unbearable itch in her skull. The self-destructive behavior of her spiritual essence made her dizzy and lightheaded.

"But—it has a weakness, I've found it! It will never give people nightmares, like being shot in the head or jumping out of a plane. It will definitely avoid these terrifying scenarios as much as possible and try its best to downplay people's self-destructive desires."

Jiang Xueming thought for a long time and then combined this strange ability with its fists that could open doors and break through paths, and crush vampires' brains.

"It's so gentle."