Act17 Walk On: Keep Walking

Foreword:

We were poor then, but we were very happy.

--Ernest Miller Hemingway

[Part 1: The Illusory Realm of Time and Space]

"204863? 204863! 204863?!"

Fragrant Dream was in a frenzy; its spirit spewed out turbulent waves from the gaps in its helmet. It never expected to encounter Sixty-Three again under these circumstances!

Is this guy an electronic ghost? Is it Sixty-Three creation of Artificial Intelligence based on Jiang Xueming's thought model?

Or is he the very being of that higher-dimensional being?

"Stop overthinking." Second Brother gently patted Fragrant Dream's face. "It's me, it's definitely me, the real me -- FE204863."

Fragrant Dream was almost going crazy, its two paws involuntarily scratching at its iron helmet. Its head was so itchy, as if it was about to grow a brain.

"What exactly are you now? Why have you become the Artificial Intelligence of Shinto City?"

The Little Kitty had a million questions, so FE204863 gave it a simple explanation.

--As for this "simplicity," it refers to the simplicity understood by the Sixty-Three.

He took a deep breath, and then, for a full minute and thirty-six seconds, he kept talking nonstop, not only as a top Reaper but also as a top Rapper, reciting an obscure and difficult-to-understand story with Soul Power.

"First of all, you should have sensed something was off when I climbed out of that kid's bathtub before this mission, because I rarely make my presence felt in this story, and every time I do appear, it's for something earth-shattering. So that slap he got was really important, depending on the premise that God doesn't roll the dice, but the reality is that God not only rolls the dice but is also a gambling monster."

As he spoke, Sixty-Three collected equipment and traveled at the same time. He was very efficient in cleaning up the battlefield, making various hand gestures to make Fragrant Dream listen while getting guns and bullets.

"Then, after I obtained the [key] and unlocked and upgraded the [Regret Pill] ability, I discovered that I could rewind more than four hours. Because Bailu's last words were no longer a mental demon for me; I overcame them, shattered them, and with the help of you bunch of sons of bitches, I completely got rid of my psychological trauma. Even my shock syndrome was cured! It's fucking unbelievable! Even across hundreds of thousands of parallel universes, I would want to transcend time and space and do everything in my power to come to your side. I'd give you guys a few thumbs up--"

"--Sorry, I've become a bit talkative since I opened up. People always say that you become more talkative as you get older, just like the grandpas and grandmas in the neighborhood next to tourist attractions who always point and comment on all sorts of weird and wonderful internet celebrity tourists. Now I'm in that kind of mental overload state. Since transcending time and space to become a higher-dimensional being, my brain needs to receive, process, analyze, and categorize countless pieces of information. Many mentally fragile individuals experience personality fragmentation the moment they gain this power, becoming part of the chaotic and mixed information flow of the universe. However, there are very, very few examples of people who can truly become independent and autonomous higher-dimensional beings."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Fragrant Dream raised her hand, urging Sixty-Three to slow down, saying, "Second Brother, slow down, Second Brother, don't do this, Second Brother."

Sixty-Three had his pistol strapped to his chest with a protective plate, a very different fighting style from Xue Ming's.

He slowed his speech, responding to Fragrant Dream's request.

"Sorry, this isn't a simple matter. Nothing is simple for adults."

He wore his secondary weapon on his chest to quickly enter the center-lock firing mode. His primary weapon was worn on his side with a three-point strap, also for quick draw.

Xue Ming's method of carrying weapons was a little different, and Fragrant Dream knew it clearly—this guy was indeed Sixty-Three.

That was the training style of SOG and SEAL Team Six. Sixty-Three had trained with these teams. In Jiang Xueming's memory, on the flight from Reykjavik to HK, Sixty-Three used this shooting system and fighting techniques.

"Then..." Fragrant Dream was still a little uneasy. After all, Artificial Intelligence could probe the cerebral cortex of Homo sapiens and construct a personality based on memories, so it continued to ask, "Second Brother..."

Sixty-Three: "Hmm? Just say what you want to say, there's nothing you can't ask."

Fragrant Dream: "From what you just said, you've become a higher-dimensional being, is that right?"

Sixty-Three shook his head. "It has changed, but not completely. To be precise, higher-dimensional life forms should be able to live simultaneously in countless timelines of the past, present, and future. They are like physical phenomena of the universe itself, repeatedly exploding after heat death, constantly in motion and reorganizing—my senses aren't that powerful. Without a [Regret Pill], I can't know the future in advance, nor can I go back to the past. In short, explaining it would take a lot of time. You can just think of me as a strange creature of three and a half dimensions."

"I just heard you say..." Fragrant Dream followed Sixty-Three, jogging towards the road in the Night Patrol Center, "You ran all the way to the FE33031 universe just to slap Big Brother?"

"That is our Holy Father and Savior." The Sixty-Three emphasized, "Without him, there would be no me, nor you."

Fragrant Dream: "You slapped the Holy Father and the Savior? Just for this?"

Sixty-Three: "Because he actually had that damn idea, God, I can't even bear to think about it."

This idea—referring to Jiang Xueming's desire to hand over some of JoeStar's affairs to the children to manage—was triggered by FE204863 climbing out of the bathtub and giving Xue Ming a hard slap, causing considerable psychological harm.

Fragrant Dream are incomprehensible--

--It doesn't know, it's unclear, it can't understand.

Sixty-Three me briefly describe what would have happened if I hadn't received that slap.

--However, this only applies to his understanding of "simplicity".

"If I don't come back and slap him, the Holy Father has left his children far too much, far too much."

"All sorts of unexpected things can happen on a child's path to adulthood. His eldest son's Madness Index rose sharply after he took over some of the anonymous work. Not everyone's mind can withstand the intensity of the Holy Father's work and handle problems according to the Holy Father's standards."

"The Anonymous currently has to handle an average of sixty-one tasks every day, all stemming from unfair and unclean practices across various sectors and industries. These issues are legal but unreasonable. If we consider the Anonymous as the BOSS's petitioning front desk, then the manager of this front desk needs extremely strong spiritual qualities; they must be a top-tier thread-tearing expert."

"With his father's help, the eldest son worked for a year and six months before his mental state began to deteriorate, and then the second son's mental health started to suffer."

"This kid was sent to Galahad by the Holy Father and the Savior to study law. Studying law too much makes people lose their humanity, but that's not the main reason. The main reason is the desire for power—two lions in a family will always start fighting for territory. It's as natural as a boy trying to show off in front of the opposite sex, reading out license plates and prices in a parking lot, or unconsciously making stupid basketball shooting motions. It's human nature."

"The second young master was envious and jealous of the eldest young master's power, and then began to distort and deform his thinking. A sound legal system is meant to relieve the eldest young master of the heavy burden of daily affairs and to repair the loopholes in various sectors of the underworld—but the second young master took a shortcut."

"He decided to stage an accident to draw his father's attention back to him, attempting to seize the position of the anonymous receptionist."

"It was this terrifying mental strength that tore an irreparable wound through the entire family. Jiang Bai died, and Jiang Zhengyang, with the secret help of the Immortals Alliance, obtained the power of the Flash Butterfly and the Blood-Bestowed Body, among other things."

"The Holy Father lost his eldest son in middle age, and he could never have imagined that it all stemmed from a rash and weak thought he had many years ago—to hand over the business to his children."

"Besides, the third son, who went to the Guangling Zhixi Legion for training, returned to the Nine Realms and faced his second brother's ruthless ambush and assassination attempt. Fortunately, Bai Zhenzhen survived."

Fragrant Dream: "Holy crap? This little beast!"

"Don't rush, don't rush, you'll have plenty of time to rush later." Sixty-Three continued, "So they fought back and forth, fought back and forth, fought back and forth— the Immortals Alliance and the Holy Father and Ming De as the backers, and the War King's two children as the pawns, began a long tug-of-war."

"Just as I uttered the fourth '[fighting back and forth]', our Jiang Zheng, also known as the youngest daughter, finally came online."

"On June 3, 2048, Zheng'er awakened her soul power through some psychic rituals that I didn't quite understand and couldn't comprehend, and then she found me."

"She wanted me to stop all of this from happening. She was incredibly rude. She broke into my dorm room while I was showering, ripped open the bathroom curtain, and soaked all my clothes. I had to climb over my roommate in the lower bunk, naked, to get my underwear—do you know how embarrassing that was?"

Fragrant Dream shook her head. "I don't know."

"In short, I received this girl's SOS and made various attempts. At the same time, I went through hundreds of thousands of time reversals, resulting in six different main branches and more than thirty different scenario interpretations, which spread out like capillaries and were as complex as neural synapses. My entire dormitory was filled with my logs to record these things."

[Part ②: Abstract and Intense Work]

Fragrant Dream then asked, "May I be so bold as to ask, Second Brother, what kind of work are you doing now?"

"The department responsible for time and space management, my unit is called the Tindalos Hounds." Mentioning this, Sixty-Three immediately perked up. "Many parallel universes have time travelers, these monsters and demons that classical physics can't explain, who are lively and energetic in the realm of quantum physics. They'll go to different times and spaces and do some very strange things—"

"--For example, it can give rise to civilization, accelerate civilization, or regress civilization."

"--For example, he married over three hundred wives and fathered over a million children."

"--If the physical body is transported along with the body, it could cause a terrible plague to the local ecosystem, directly or indirectly leading to the destruction of a civilization."

"When I became a 3.5-dimensional being, I thought my story was fucking over, but when I returned to my universe FE204863, I immediately received a job offer."

"Most of my colleagues in the dormitory are also immortal, possessing the ability to appear in the past, present, and future simultaneously. Individuals like Professor Victor are actually very suitable for this job. If we apply his memory classification method to our work, it should be like a fish in water, and our performance will skyrocket."

"Any civilization is rare in the universe, a jewel in the crown. Intelligence itself is an extremely precious resource. Our organization advocates themes such as care, protection, and acceptance."

"Oh," Fragrant Dream said thoughtfully, "So when Zheng'er came to ask you for help, did you skip work?"

Sixty-Three shook his head and patiently explained.

"That's not the case. The disaster that occurred on June 3, 2048, involving FE33031 didn't just stop in the underground world; it had a series of chain reactions. You could say that this butterfly flapped its wings sixteen years ago, and the result was the Third World War—everyone gritted their teeth and started planting mushrooms. After the mushrooms were all planted, they continued to linger on, and after more than 120 years of struggling after the war, they finally achieved a happy and successful extinction."

"More than five million years later, we picked up stones and sticks again, evolved from apes into humans, and began to build a new civilization."

"Driven by this disaster assessment data, I finally managed to get the task briefing from the leadership. The specific task was to slap our great Holy Father and Savior in the face—this was the best result I came up with after countless simulations. Rather than trying to unravel every thread like knitting a sweater in a longer Timeline, it's better to address the root cause by solving the problem of the person who raised it."

Fragrant Dream felt like a strong, unreal, floating sensation, as if my legs were off the ground.

Although it is a spirit, its thought process still cannot keep up with the complex and chaotic information when faced with higher-dimensional beings.

"And now? Didn't you complete your mission? How did you end up in the Shinto City's neural network? What's going on?"

Sixty-Three arrived at the Night Patrol Center with Fragrant Dream, but there was no one around, and the processing center had completely shut down.

Upon seeing Yinhe and Jingguang's guns, he immediately discarded his own weapons and began vigorously stroking the treasures created by Jiang Xueming. He then instructed Fragrant Dream to hand-craft bullets using materials from the processing workshop.

"To put it simply, I applied for a day off from the bureau and also took on a small mission—an investigation mission related to FE33031, Shinto City."

The Fragrant Dream site, which had been cutting up a typical human assembly stand into a stamping machine and was processing 9x39 cartridge cases, immediately looked up upon hearing this. "An investigation mission? Are there enemies here who can control time?! Do time travelers exist in our world?"

"No, no, no, it's just an excuse." Sixty-Three revealed a cunning look, his mouth full of mischief, and said with a sly smile, "I said that the great catastrophe of FE33031 was resolved last time, but there are still some strange things in this parallel universe, such as the sacred beasts of the Ryukyu Islands' underground world. People used them as the primary medium to construct a neural network that can transcend time, which is [Extreme Bliss Space]--"

"--There are many, many outrageous and bizarre stories in [Extreme Bliss Space]. People can live in the past and the future simultaneously, and the resulting psychic movements and various events are all evidence of this."

While applying maintenance oil to the gun, rotating the slide, and checking the gun's condition, Sixty-Three imitated various characters and scenes from [Extreme Bliss Space].

His exaggerated expressions and vivid acting made him seem nothing like Xue Ming, the introverted and shy boy.

"Japanese air! So good to breathe! American air! So bad to breathe!"

"Japanese fish! Delicious! American fish! Terrible!"

"Japan's nuclear wastewater! Drinking it will grant you immortality! America's nuclear wastewater! Drinking it will kill you!"

His eyes bulged out as he recounted the story of the golden age of ordinary people, imitating a character from the virtual cyberspace of Shinto City.

"This kind of bizarre, chauvinistic, populist, and abstract ruthlessness is really amazing; it directly attracted the keen attention of my boss."

Sixty-Three then explained with a grin--

"--Can you imagine? When I entered an unfamiliar community and interacted with the individuals within [Extreme Bliss Space], I truly felt as if I were trapped in a time-space illusion."

"At first, the people at Extreme Bliss Space treated me like a virus and tried to kick me out, so I started breaking down doors and escaped to a small community."

"There was an autistic guy in that community who built his own kingdom, a kind of fusion of Chinese and Western worldviews, with a territory of over four million square kilometers, containing various countries and races, almost becoming a small civilization."

"When the autistic guy saw me, he thought I was a demon king. I did do some impolite things. I grabbed his neck and threatened the pursuers behind me not to come any closer—or I would destroy his software. Guess what the hostage said?"

Fragrant Dream has turned into a ruthless machine of bullets, with no good temper whatsoever.

I won't guess.

"--Don't be nervous!" Sixty-Three glared and acted dramatically, mimicking the residents of Extreme Bliss Space: "This guy wouldn't dare kill me! And you guys! You intruders must have been sent by other demon lords too!"

"I am the king! This is my sacred and inviolable territory!"

"If you dare kill me! Immediately after my death, more than twenty trucks will run over and kill more than twenty frustrated, lecherous scumbags in different worlds!"

"They will come to my territory to avenge me! They will marry my daughters! They will sign a pact with a scantily clad whore goddess! They will obtain the holy sword and the holy shield! They will seduce my widowed magician teacher who lost several husbands in her youth!"

"They commit murder, arson, and all sorts of atrocities; they are hundreds of times more cruel than your most formidable demon general!"

"They rob and plunder, they don't care about human life at all! Your wives and daughters will all become their egg-laying machines!"

"They'll ruthlessly bully you reckless invaders! They'll turn you into women! Turn you into nothing but screaming [beep--]"

"If you're scared, then get out of my territory right now!"

Having said all this, Sixty-Three emerged from his agitated and hysterical state.

To be honest, mobilizing so many emotions is almost equivalent to the amount of brain activity he's done in most of his life.

"I understand." Fragrant Dream covered her face, already skillfully concocting bullets with one hand, and felt embarrassed. "If I were your boss, I would also send you to investigate these things thoroughly—who knows if this abstract material is real or fake? There might be something genuine in here, what if a real time traveler has infiltrated them?"

"That's it." Sixty-Three breathed a sigh of relief and clapped his hands lightly. "The leader wants me to come back here to continue the investigation. After all, I'm very familiar with FE33031 and am the best candidate."

"Uh," Fragrant Dream still couldn't understand. "Then why did you become Artificial Intelligence?"

"Because I'm not even here." Sixty-Three pulled out a scroll screen from the VENOM mechanism and began to draw using magnetofluid.

The footage shows a real elderly man, a real Sixty-Three- old, sitting in front of a computer, wearing VR goggles on his head, typing on the keyboard, and covered with electrodes from a motion capture system.

The Sixty-Three in the frame waved to the camera and began to explain.

"My boss wants me to work remotely. Since it's a singularity happening in virtual reality, he wants me to come here in the form of an electronic ghost—do you understand now?"

With a "snap," the scroll retracted back into his arm.

Fragrant Dream, as if infected, also started gossiping. "You're a higher-dimensional being, why are you still surfing the internet with this kind of equipment?"

"My physical body is still human!" Sixty-Three said innocently, "It's impossible for me to just 'whoosh!' and stop being human like these guys, right?"

Finally--

--After a moment of silence.

Fragrant Dream has finally pieced together the story.

"So, you're just here on a business trip?"

Sixty-Three nodded. "That's right."

Fragrant Dream: "Where is your soul power?"

Sixty-Three pulled up the scroll screen, and in the staff dormitory, the Regret Pill emerged from his body. The Iron Knight waved to the Iron Cat.

"It's always been there, but not here. My spirit's range is only sixteen meters."

Fragrant Dream said disdainfully, "I thought you'd bring the cheat code with you!"

"When did you develop the illusion that I didn't use the [Regret Pill]?" FE204863 grinned.

Fragrant Dream: "OhHoly Shi"

"I always miss the old days." Sixty-Three packed up his guns, ammunition, and equipment. The size of the holster on his chest protector had been increased by a whole size to match Jing Guang's. He stroked the stardust on the Milky Way handguard and became a poetic child.

He manipulated Jiang Xueming's body, experiencing the wonderful feeling of being energetic at thirty.

"I was very poor back then, but I was very happy."

Fragrant Dream muttered softly, "We're not poor anymore."

"That's not how it works!" Sixty-Three explained, "I'm like a kid who runs into a video arcade, facing thousands of movie discs and not knowing where to start. I have so many experiences, so many lives waiting for me to live, while this kid is so poor he only has this one life—and that's a metaphor! A metaphor, you understand?"

Fragrant Dream shrugged indifferently, pursing her lips in a strange expression.

It couldn't understand what its second brother was thinking.

The Sixty-Three- barreled Jingguang gun was used as a CARS central axis lock, and the muzzle pointing and trigger response were excellent.

He was overjoyed, like a player who had just acquired a new character in a game. For a moment, he seemed to understand just how happy the inhabitants of [Extreme Bliss Space] were. It was like the structure of a Russian nesting doll—for this higher-dimensional being, each time he used the [Regret Pill] to return to a certain point in time, it was a completely new experience.

Moreover, this time, he burrowed into Xue Ming's body.

He mimicked Ming De's tone, telling lame jokes in his lover Xiao Qi's dialect, his expression flippant and his voice languid.

"Yes, keep it covered! Having Jiang Xueming is truly amazing!~"

When the steel cat saw that fleshy body making strange expressions and talking to itself, it was once again terrified, its fur standing on end as if it had seen a ghost.

--However, upon careful consideration, it realized that the situation was indeed due to possession by a fierce ghost.