Return of Spring: One Yang Comes Again
On the way to Ginza, FE204863 briefly explained the current situation to Bu Liuxing, including how this higher-dimensional being came to be, why they had to return to the universe of FE33031, some information about the Tindaros Hound, and Jiang Xueming's current condition.
Meteor found this "second brother" quite interesting. Compared to the rigid Jiang Xueming, this guy was much crazier, a rebellious old punk.
After the last harvest season, Meteor had heard more or less about the story of FE204863 from the Arcane Library and the BOSS.
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would have found it hard to believe that such a near-divine being existed, mysteriously deciding everyone's fate.
The power of the "Regret Pill" is truly immense; it's the catalyst in the butterfly effect where flapping wings triggers a storm. That's why, when Meteor learns the cause and effect and meets FE204863, he asks with a wry smile, "You can't be my dad, right?"
This time, Second Brother returned to the universe of FE33031 under the guise of a business trip to help Jiang Xueming overcome her difficulties. The historical mysteries surrounding Shinto City are still shrouded in a thick fog.
What exactly happened at the bottom of the 378,000 square kilometers of the Ryukyu Islands over the past fifty years? It is beyond the reach of a few anonymous people to investigate. The exploration of the [TD Unknown Block] will probably continue for half a century.
In the unknown underground world, there are many unknown plots of land that require VIPs and the task force to explore and repeatedly try to understand them in depth. It may take several years or even decades of investigation before a clear result can be obtained.
At this moment, the second brother is going to take Meteor to Ginza to bring back the nameless man's dog, and then leave this place.
Meteor: "Where's Brother Luo Ping'an?"
Sixty-Three: "The person who went into the city with you wasn't Luo Ping'an, but his spirit."
Meteor asked in surprise, "A spirit?"
Sixty-Three: "That guy is an old fox who has lived for nearly a thousand years. How could such a deity rashly put his fragile body in danger? Immortals who can live for so long must all have some kind of secret skill."
Meteor muttered, "When Brother Ping An and I went into the city, he talked about doing real things, speaking the truth, and being real people! It turns out he just made a fake person to accompany me?"
Sixty-Three patiently explained as he drove.
"At the front-line base, FE33031 met with Luo Ping'an and they talked for a long time about your VIP trial mission. Ping'an believes that the journey to Shinto City is a path that belongs exclusively to you, and he cannot force things or interfere rashly—so he sent your spirit body to Ginza, which is closer to the capital of Kyoto, outside of Kanto City."
"Ginza is the largest prison in Shinto City, holding many out-of-control and crazed Liman models. Just like during the exploration of the Dead Puppet Agency, Professor David Victor went to the Royal Court, while you could only stay in the Ironworks family quarters—Mr. Heian thought so too. His Soul Power can be considered an external avatar, allowing him to go deep into dangerous areas to gather intelligence."
"As for you, kid, you like fighting, so stay in this Kanto region and cause a ruckus."
"Once you awaken your Soul Power, the preliminary investigation will have to come to an end. We'll have to stop our operations and return to our frontline base to make further plans."
"Besides Kanto, this divine kingdom has more than twenty arsenals, and the distribution of troops in cities with different functions is also different. The content of the Extreme Bliss Space alone is enough for the scholars of the Arcane Library to start a major brain science topic and study it for more than ten years."
"We defeated five gods, but that only eliminated their avatars. They will be reborn from the armories of other cities and come back again. It's impossible to wipe out the entire Shinto City in one go."
"You haven't seen the final incarnation of the gods yet. It's the supreme weapon named after the KI-84 fighter jet—[strong wind]. As for its performance, appearance, and handling, I won't spoil it for you."
Meteor glanced at his right arm. Ever since his second brother explained the whole story, Hot Wind hadn't said a word.
The cyber ghost residing in the arm seemed to have come to terms with reality; these few VIPs alone could not change the current state of Shinto City.
If we tell the story according to its original intention and original formula --
--At the critical moment when a periodic crisis occurs in Extreme Bliss Space, Hot Wind will awaken and become the enemy of the entire Shinto City.
The military-industrial complex economy is about to restart, producing large quantities of weapons. The people of Extreme Bliss Space are awakening from their extreme frenzy of decadence and finding meaning in life once again from profound nihilism, and beginning their battle against the Hot Wind.
It can never destroy Shinto City, just like the meteor once said—
How dare you hope to buy weapons from the enemy and then use those weapons to defeat them?
This farce will begin like a business deal and end like a business deal.
Hot Wind will fail repeatedly and revive again and again, becoming the bell ringer time and time again, controlling a certain warrior to challenge the authority of the Six Departments of the Divine Path, and reflecting the fear of death into the hearts of the ghosts in Extreme Bliss Space.
Meteor was well aware of these things, but he didn't know how to comfort his old friend.
The Hot Wind helped him a lot along the way. Without the guidance of the VENOM organization, he couldn't have done anything, not even the most basic problem of eating.
Without Hot Wind, he couldn't defeat Yezhong, nor could he beat Zhong Kui.
Without the Hot Wind, he couldn't swing the sword at the North Wind, and he couldn't even lift his arm.
The gods created Hot Wind, Hot Wind gave the shooting star a little bit of determination.
It was this small bit of determination that ignited the young man's full passion like a spark.
His body and soul finally moved in unison, and his spiritual power responded to the hero.
However, regarding the properties of Hot Wind itself, this fictional teacher has an extremely complex stance and demands that are difficult to describe in a few words.
Even today, Meteor still doesn't understand whether his journey from Stone Hill Town to Kanto City was arranged by the Shinto People and Brother Ping An, or whether it was his own free will.
Is Shimura Chidō a real human being, or a program designed in conjunction with Hot Wind?
Brother Ping An is right.
The most ingenious things in the world are often simple and clear. Anything that becomes complicated tends to go wrong.
Just like a child with a simple mind, when Little Meteor was young, he would hold onto the windowsill railing, waiting for his mother to pick him up, looking pitiful with longing eyes. But the moment Bu Mei's mom appeared, he would immediately become happy.
As she grew up, all she thought about was running away, traveling the world, conquering snow-capped mountains and deserts. She rarely saw her mother, Bu Mei, more than a few times a year, as if she had forgotten something very important.
"Some things can't be answered just by thinking about them." Sixty-Three, having been through it all, kindly advised Meteor. He reached out and gently tapped A Xing's forehead with the back of his fingers, as if teasing a child.
FE204863's true age is unknown; in reality, he will always look like a decrepit old man. In his eyes, Xue Ming and Liuxing are both children.
"Memory is an incredible thing."
You can't remember everything that happened yesterday, but you can clearly recall a certain moment from your childhood.
"These painful or beautiful moments are also slowly fading away—perhaps it is precisely because such experiences only happen once that we consciously keep them in our hearts."
"I used to call it [screening], like sifting out useless junk information and leaving behind valuable problem-solving methods."
"So I was controlled by the [Regret Pill], and under its torment, I lost my humanity and human form."
"I think all the ghosts living in [Extreme Bliss Space] and living in real life are in a very similar state to me before."
"They possess endless time and endless experiences; it is a terrifyingly immense power that the fragile human mind simply cannot withstand—it can only turn into a machine struggling to filter information."
"Memories, layered upon layered, become the person himself."
"I no longer want to become anyone, nor do I want to experience anyone else's life."
"Now living in the body of FE33031, I can clearly feel that we are two completely different people. We are unique individuals who cannot be copied or pasted."
"I want to experience my own life."
The meteor seemed lost in thought, but couldn't utter a single word.
He had always been a talkative, loud-voiced, and impulsive man, but at this moment he could only clench his right arm and silently feel the desolation and sorrow of the Hot Wind.
His Madness Index is very high, largely due to his extremely strong empathy.
This extraordinary talent allowed him to quickly enter the minds of strangers and swiftly discern the true nature of evil—but everything that happened in the TD Unknown Plot transcended the simple binary of good and evil and had nothing to do with humanity itself.
This is a difficult puzzle for meteors.
"Second Brother, if you've already mastered the past and present and understand the ending, why didn't the BOSS care about this place before?"
Sixty-Three immediately replied--
"--It's too late, Ming De doesn't have that ability."
Meteor straightened her scarf, took out her notebook from the car's storage compartment, and began writing in her journal.
The following is a supplementary explanation (Sixty-Three).
"Based on my observations from time travel, around 1975, this godforsaken place was a place of utter misery. Under the control of the Madness Butterfly Sect, people lived like animals."
"Ginza and Kanto are both transportation hubs leading to Nine Realms Station; people inside can't get out, and people outside can't get in."
"More than fifty years ago, that was the weakest and most decadent period for Ming De. The harvest season had not yet arrived. Whether it was the limitation of human and material resources or the decline of its spiritual essence, it had no resources to fight this battle."
"The only ones who can help the Fēngfēng Battle Group are themselves, so Isoragi Meiku and Tom took the lead, with the Fen Feng making the final decision, and placed a heavy bet on the forbidden psionic research of the Original Seed."
"Due to the unique structure of the circum-Pacific strata, it is easy to find the iron-nickel core of Mother Earth in the underground trenches. This research is progressing very quickly, so quickly that the Abyssal Railway and the Madness Butterfly Sect cannot react."
"The warriors of the Fen Feng won in the end, but they also lost everything."
"From 1982 to 1984, this was a peaceful era for the Fen Feng Legion. It was during these two years that Japan in the mortal world and Shinto City had closer exchanges and interactions."
"You can find many traces of the false name and idol of Matsushima Seiko in Stone Hill Town —because the culture and ideas of the secular world have spread underground."
"Corresponding international relations, geopolitics, and ideologies, such as isolationism, have also spread here."
"Fen Feng is a warrior, but he is not a qualified leader. This military-industrial complex economy is unable to establish a sound management system. How are people supposed to live? How are they supposed to reproduce? The division commanders from Beichuan were completely baffled and could not find any solutions."
"In the past thirty-six years, the officials transferred from the Transportation Department have been increasingly corrupt and greedy. They are no match for the Madness Butterfly and have even colluded with cult members—both the public and the divisions have become utterly disillusioned with the Abyssal Railway's branch offices."
"In the mundane world of Japan, the idea was to preserve Shinto City and develop it into a prosperous garden themed around high technology. This led to increased technological support, including forward-looking theories related to nuclear power and the Liman Hypothesis."
"But Shinto City did not respond to Japan at the time, for the same reason as before: people believed that most of the suffering came from the privatization of power, incompetent and weak politicians, or elitists who were willing to sacrifice the majority for their own selfish desires."
"All of this underpinned the ascension program in 1984— the Fen Feng Legion handed over the management of this land to Artificial Intelligence, completely escaping the misery of human rule."
Meteor: "Second Brother, did you personally travel back in time and experience all of this?"
"No, I don't have that authority," Sixty-Three explained. "The situation is different now. I have a job and I have to be responsible for my actions. I can only review this history from an outsider's perspective; I absolutely cannot change it."
"Regarding the events that occurred in the past of the FE33031 universe, without the authorization of the Hound of Tindalos and the review of my superiors, if I were to interfere again and change the past history, then countless parallel universes would be derived from FE33031 as the prototype."
"They may be different branches of FE33031—for example, type A, type B, type ABCDEFG, like branches of a large tree, branching out countless new buds."
"Moreover, this change is uncontrollable and difficult to calculate. As a 3.5-dimensional life form, my brain power is pitifully low, and I don't have much computing power—if it's not handled properly, the chain reaction it triggers might cause FE33031 to disappear."
"It could change in an instant, becoming FE33032, becoming some random cat or dog, becoming something completely different."
"But it shaped me; without FE33031, I wouldn't exist."
"Although I was lazy at work, and every day I would curse my way out of the workers' spirit by yelling at them, cursing the stupid foreman at work and cursing my stupid coworkers after get off work, and the day would just pass by while I was cursing, I still have great respect for this job."
"When I look at these things from a higher perspective, I am filled with awe at the changes caused by tiny factors. Without the permission of the higher-ups, I never want to fall back into that void prison and try to change anything."
"What is this upper-level narrator?" Meteor asked curiously.
Sixty-Three frankly stated.
"Life forms on a higher level than us can observe all of time simultaneously. To my naked eye, their form resembles a spider projected from pure energy."
"My boss is also a time traveler. When he introduced the company's functions to me, he talked about the corporate culture. The function of the hounds is also to simplify complex things—to simplify the ever-expanding information, to maintain the basic model of various parallel universes, and to hire us time catchers to deal with all kinds of time travelers."
"I've been running away all along, escaping from a failed ending, constantly trying to escape with the 'Regret Pill.' The time spent is hard to estimate. On a macro scale, I can escape to a relatively complete, new parallel universe every four hours. The speed at which this information accumulates is also very limited. The hounds haven't detected my existence because the energy level isn't high enough."
"Like a light so faint as to be invisible in the vast universe, the hounds cannot find me."
"But when my 'Regret Pill' evolved, the concept became completely different."
"I can traverse tens of thousands of years in an instant, creating nearly ten million or even hundreds of millions of new universes with different Timeline. This is terrible and unacceptable to the upper-level narrators."
"It's like in a corner of your large warehouse, the videotapes in the audio-visual category suddenly came to life and started endlessly multiplying and replicating, eventually filling the entire warehouse—it's quite interesting, very much like the state of Shinto City. It's like it's been haunted. In supernatural legends, ghosts possess people's bodies and control those living shells to continue living, repeating this cycle until no new life comes into the world."
"The hounds found me immediately and gave me this job, which involves looking for other suspicious videotapes."
Meteor smiled awkwardly, "I didn't quite understand, sorry, Second Brother."
Sixty-Three smiled indifferently and changed to a simple and easy-to-understand example.
"You're a fan of anime and manga, right?"
Meteor: "Yes!"
Sixty-Three. "If you ask me, even in ten or twenty years, our movies, television shows, animations, and comics will still be telling stories from the last century, and the Four Great Classical Novels will have been remade hundreds of times."
Meteor exclaimed in surprise, "How is that possible!"
Sixty-Three: "Because people love watching this, it might offend you—if you were to tell the story, would you rather create a completely new and unfamiliar tale from scratch, or remake Sun Wukong and make some minor innovations to make money faster?"
Meteor stammered and couldn't give a coherent explanation.
Sixty-Three's expression became very interesting, his eyes carrying a hint of playfulness and mischief.
"Money is the token of power, the universal element that most Homo sapiens people in modern society have given religious symbolism to. It seems that there is no problem that money cannot solve—but resources are limited. In order to survive, film companies will consider becoming appendages of ghosts and telling the stories they have already told."
"Now you understand, right? For the upper-level narrators, the resources available are also limited, but these constantly self-generating parallel universes are like junk information, encroaching on public space and killing new life."
"Luo Ping'an also has the potential to become a hunting dog. This guy told you something like this at the beginning of the journey."
"If you could live again, what would you choose?"
"If you ask me, these old foxes who dabble in metaphysics are really cunning. Newspapers and social media will only bring you problems, not help you solve them."
"--It's like life; no matter how many times you live it, no matter what choices you make, it's never as important as the first time."
Silence was like rainwater, muddy and sticky, seeping onto the car window and gradually spreading throughout the carriage.
After a very long time, the Hot Wind finally spoke.
[Bu Liuxing is right. No matter how many times I live, none of them will be as important as this one.]
[For me, I only have this one life.]
[Keep walking forward, as for where the destination is? I don't care anymore.]
Sixty-Three couldn't hear the sound of the Hot Wind, and Bu Liuxing didn't relay these words to his second brother.
He could see the VENOM's synchronization rate rising steadily. Hot Wind seemed to have come to a realization; this cyber ghost had broken free from the entanglement of memories and was looking forward.
"Second Brother, where is my Ming Ge right now?"
Sixty-Three: "In the torture chamber of Extreme Bliss Space."
Meteor vaguely remembered this place. The first time he logged into Extreme Bliss Space, he had to go through a security check and endure the torment of a jester in a room full of televisions.
"Ah?"
Sixty-Three: "He's been arrested and won't be released for the time being."
Meteor: "Huh?"
Sixty-Three: "He has to endure some mental attacks—I can't handle this monster, so I gave him this arduous task."
Meteor asked worriedly, "Won't Ming Ge be in trouble?!"
"I don't know about that," Sixty-Three admitted frankly. "It's impossible for me to be in both the illusion and reality at the same time—as for what happened in Extreme Bliss Space, I have no idea."
Meteor: "What would that jester do to Ming Ge?"
"This guy is ruthless and has special abilities." Sixty-Three recounted what he knew in detail. "He can attack based on the personality weaknesses of the Liman Hypothesis. He tortures people's minds by fabricating stories and using severe interrogation. He is a terrifying opponent."
Meteor: "That sounds awful!"
Sixty-Three cursed viciously, "I faced it directly when I first hacked into the Shinto City's network and suffered a lot—it kept mentioning Bailu's death, forcing me to confront the emptiness in my heart. I had to answer some strange questions correctly to regain some of my ability to move freely. It seemed to be an extremely special kind of soul power attack—this guy made me shut down my computer and smash my keyboard time and time again. I was so angry that my lungs were about to explode."
"I've answered these kinds of questions before! You get an electric shock if you answer wrong!" Meteor's teeth chattered as she recalled the jester monster from her memories, "That thing is so abstract, so terrifying, so twisted!"
At this very moment--
--In the torture chamber of the Extreme Bliss Space, bursts of miserable and shrill screams echoed continuously.
The cage that originally imprisoned Jiang Xueming was now broken into pieces, and the eight-headed, hundred-eyed, hundred-faced snake god was pitifully huddled in a corner of the interrogation room.
The jester's torso was hacked to pieces by the rusty iron, and the artificial blood gushing from his soft prosthetic body almost stained half of the torture chamber white.
It didn't understand, it didn't comprehend why mental attacks couldn't harm the intruder.
Jiang Xueming: "Please move on to the next question."
The jester screamed, yet involuntarily unleashed a soul-power attack.
"Then, then take this move—[Return of Spring], Jiang Xueming!"
"You have come to hell to be tortured; you must take one of your hearts to escape!"
"There are now two people, one good and one bad."
Good people trust you! Bad people betray you!
Whose heart do you want to take away?
Without hesitation, Jiang Xueming replied, "Take both hearts away; hell doesn't accept good people."
On the pale television screen, the jester's face changed drastically, and he wept and begged for mercy.
"Please stop hitting me! Please! Stop hitting me!"
Jiang Xueming lifted the iron bars of the cage and lashed them hard across the jester's twisted snake-like body. Immediately afterward, due to the special spiritual energy of [Return of Spring], the jester froze in place, unable to move. This extremely strong mental control effect was the soul power that Tom once possessed when he was Homo sapiens.
Xue Ming then roared, "Next question!"
The jester continued muttering involuntarily, trembling. Once this battle of wits began, it could not be stopped unless both sides reached a consensus.
If the questioner can stump the respondent, then it's time for the jester's turn.
Conversely, if the person answering the question can suppress the person setting the question, then it's Jiang Xueming's turn.
This is the special ability of [Return Of Spring], the ultimate torment that Meteor experienced when he first arrived in Extreme Bliss Space, and also the basic function of Jester as a classic human educational institution.
"Then listen carefully!"
The basilisk hissed and screamed.
"Humans will enslave others! In every era!"
"Cyborgs liberated humanity! If you had to choose..."
Before the examiner could finish speaking--
--Xue Ming, who had already learned to answer quickly, said, "I want to hire an electronic butler and give it an electric whip to lash out at the electronic slaves."
The jester exclaimed in his native tongue, "Nani?!"
"Stop talking nonsense and continue the torture." Xue Ming picked up the iron cage again, and the rusty stick struck the basilisk on the head, smashing it along with the television set, and breaking the iron bar into several pieces.
Half of the hundred strange eyes on the jester's body were already broken; it's hard to imagine what kind of torture he had suffered before.
Jiang Xueming: "Go on, give me a question!"
Jester: "No, no, no, no."
"If you say no," Jiang Xueming's fingers, which had been frozen in mid-air, suddenly twitched, "I'll take that as you voluntarily giving up this round. I'm going to go pick out new torture instruments for you."
The jester gritted his teeth and immediately asked.
"A person found some money and kindly returned it to its owner, but the owner turned around and falsely accused the good Samaritan of being a thief, even colluding with law enforcement to bully him! This world has no fairness, no justice, and no morals! If you were the one who suffered this injustice, what would you do?!"
Xue Ming answered fluently, "If I am kind, I will end my own life; if I am violent, I will take revenge on society; if I am brave, then the wronged will surely be righted and the debtor punished."
The jester's face twisted in disbelief. "Why have you even learned to apply what you've learned to other situations!?"
Xue Ming calmly walked to a small room next to the interrogation room and broke off the iron bar in front of the door.
"Because saying it this way allows you to answer one more question and gain one more action wheel."
Weak, feeble screams echoed from the torture chamber, along with the deep, resonant sound of blunt instruments striking thick chunks of flesh.
Xue Ming: "Next question."
"I've got it! I've got it!" The jester, delirious with pain, lowered his snake head. "Jiang Xueming."
"If your children were to kill each other, whose side would you take?"
Xue Ming up the iron rod, his eyes lingering for a moment.
The jester immediately perked up, as if he had found the enemy's weakness.
"It's a tough choice, isn't it! It must be a very tough choice! Have I finally hit the Gate of Death?!"
"Hehe! Hehehehe! Hehehehehe!"
"Indeed, family is the hardest thing to let go of, the most difficult to decide on, the most bitter, and the most vulnerable thing!"
"Answer me! What if your children start killing each other! Because of money! Because of power! Because of all sorts of reasons that you find utterly foolish! They start betraying and attacking each other! What will you, as their father, do?!"
"You hesitated? Why? Why are you hesitating?"
"So courageous and brave! So upright and incorruptible! Does an unfair scale exist within you? What are you thinking? Are you going to favor one child? Hehehehe."
Jiang Xueming shook his head--
"--No, that's not why I'm hesitating."
Jester: "Not this one?"
Xue Ming: "I'm thinking about how many kilograms of explosives would be enough to make them leave this world without pain."
"Hiss!" The jester's face turned even uglier.
Xue Ming up the stick; he was about to continue the torture.
"Later, you wanted to raise the stakes again, and I've carefully considered those follow-up questions. Now it's my turn."
"I will bury these children together, and then I will start to feel remorse, because finding their ashes would be my failure as a father."
"I have no scales in my heart, only anger."
"My thinking is simple: even if I beat you until you cry your eyes out, become mentally unstable, and your personality crumbles, I still won't stop."
"Please move on to the next question."
The jester's tone was vicious, and his arrogance returned. "If your wife is poisoned, and her intelligence deteriorates every day, you can only watch helplessly as she becomes more and more foolish, gradually turning into a child. This poison is incurable; it's called time."
Xue Ming his stick and started hitting.
"Great! Based on the sentencing standards for pedophilia, I'm going to jail soon!"
On the other side--
--Sixty-Three and Meteor were still discussing the terrifying demons in Extreme Bliss Space.
"That courtier seems to be a censorship agency derived from the convergence of different versions of the Hayabusa thought model." Sixty-Three licked his lips, still somewhat nervous. "FE33031 is having a very hard time right now. After we find the military dog, I will end his suffering as soon as possible and let him return to the human world."
Meteor quickly chimed in, "That's right! Second Brother! I think we need to hurry. If Ming Ge stays in that state for too long, he's not Superman, his personality will change!"
The jester slumped his head weakly, his mind nearly collapsing under the torment of the War King's spiritual pressure.
It continues to pose questions, even if this body is beaten to a pulp, it cannot resist [Return of Spring]. This is the fundamental basis for its logical thinking model, and it cannot betray its own heart.
"If your wife cheats on you, one day you'll come home..."
The jester muttered to himself, his mind clouded.
"What would you do if you saw her messing around with other people?"
Xue Ming his stick down hard.
"I recommended a psychiatrist to her. This isn't the first time I've played this prank. Every time she feels I'm neglecting her, she brings her best friend home to have sex with me."
The jester, as if struck by lightning, raised his only intact head and continued to ask.
"Your respected Ming De. One day, it distrusts you, believing you to be a cultist of the Madness Butterfly Sect. It issues an arrest warrant for you, and your most trusted teacher Victor, serves as a juror in the Qingjin, sentencing you to death. What would you do?"
"Prepare two wheelchairs for them, one a stroller size for the boss, and the other decorated like a wedding car for Professor Victor. Run around the rooftop terrace twenty times in front of them, showing off my short but strong legs without breaking a sweat—then stand on the moral low ground and point fingers."
Xue Ming stepped on the last head of the jester and hesitated to make a move. He decided to change his batting position and send the match into overtime.
"Life is full of fears; they are invisible and intangible, stemming from all sorts of 'what ifs'."
"Your fear is called 'What if there's a next question?'"