Act17: My Body Is a Cage

Foreword:

Everything is light.

--Nikola Tesla

The wind was biting cold, and the chill was intense.

The mountain monster was completely dead. Jiang Xueming stayed by DB's corpse, watching it slowly turn to stone before he felt at ease—this was a gunsmith's habit.

However, the harsh natural environment also took away his little remaining body heat. The weather was just too cold. He was only a few dozen meters away from the sentry post building, but those hundred or so steps almost became the distance between life and death.

The continuous mental stress and strenuous exercise were about to break him.

My stomach was empty, and my right arm had suffered a backlash from the Pankrasin combat technique. Even after receiving an injection of the Universal Elixir, my condition did not improve. In this temperature, the medicine would also take away some of my body heat when it entered my body.

He forced himself to stay awake, almost too tired to keep his eyes open, and silently strode toward the warm room, gritting his teeth. Halfway there, he began to feel dizzy—this godforsaken place was much colder than Niflheim, so cold that he shivered all over, so cold that he almost lost consciousness.

At this very moment, a strange "heat" was gradually eroding the skin of his neck, and burning his chest through the gaps in his winter clothes.

Jiang Xueming thought to himself--

--The rumor that people on the verge of freezing to death will feel this scalding heat before they die is an illusion.

Am I going to freeze to death? Die here?

Xue Ming involuntarily shook his head; his will to survive was terrifyingly strong, and he would never surrender to nature.

But his body had already betrayed him. This journey was far too difficult. His body was dehydrated and hypothermic, barely better off than DB, who had frozen to dust.

Apart from sleeping for two hours at the front-line settlement, Xue Ming had not closed his eyes for thirty-six hours.

He had walked halfway down the road when he involuntarily knelt down. He tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn't obey him. They tried to regain control of his body, but it was too late.

Several times, the spirit went out of control. Fragrant Dream emerged from the dying body, looking at the pale-faced original body with a terrifying expression, and then was pulled back into the body due to mental collapse.

Under the chilling wind, Xue Ming was completely plunged into the Gate of Death.

At this time--

--The Golden Eagle Gryphon, on the contrary, seemed eager to make a move.

It knew that the powerful Homo sapiens before it was about to die.

It also knew that this guy could subdue and kill it with just his two arms.

It knew all too well how important this primordial essence was, and that perhaps swallowing this Homo sapiens would bring it extraordinary fortune.

So it waited quietly, completely forgetting their [story] – after all, nature doesn't expect a wild beast to follow the morality and ethics of human society.

When Jiang Xueming knelt down, the eagle began to stir restlessly, so it hid in a sheltered spot on the porch. Its eyes were bloodshot with hunger, and its wounds constantly reminded it of its own suffering, which it was threatened with death.

When the breathing became weak, the great griffin finally began to move. It darted into the cold wind, grabbed Jiang Xueming's arm, and slowly dragged its prey into the room, hoping to find a warmer environment to eat.

Halfway there, as they passed the meat drying rack, Berloberg's light finally reached the gunsmith. The warm, intense light, like the blazing sun, shone on Xue Ming, warming him up a little and making his heart beat faster.

The great griffin was terrified and hid elsewhere, then greedily turned back.

A very long time passed, about a minute.

Its eyes gradually cleared, and it struggled repeatedly with its inner turmoil.

Our world is made up of many kinds of emotions --

--In the diverse range of stories, there is usually a celebration of love and courage, a comedy of justice prevailing, a discussion of pure friendship, and a talk of unconditional trust and sincerity.

That's because real life is full of lies, and negative emotions become tools.

The lives of most people are driven by shame, fear, and desire and anger. These emotional tools are everywhere; they are whips that turn people into animals.

Parents use whips to scold their children, teachers use whips to educate their students, and bosses use whips to reform their workers.

At this moment, this silly big yellow chicken no longer wanted to be a slave, no longer wanted to be a slave to its bloodline, no longer wanted to be a slave to its fate.

It opened its eyes, bravely staring straight into the bright light, blinding the White God's blade, yet still heading towards the warmth.

It grabbed Jiang Xueming by the scruff of his neck, dragged the Homo sapiens to the activity room, pulled him to the warm stove, and then snuggled up to Wolf Brother to sleep.

Xue Ming had a very, very long dream.

In his dream, he came to another world.

It has nothing to do with myths or legends; it's a very, very strange place.

Against the backdrop of pristine cosmic space, a simple six-wheeled chariot transported him to a uniquely shaped palace.

The palace looked like an office building covered in black and white barcodes.

FE204863, timing itself, saw FE33031 arrive and immediately waved to greet it.

"This way, please!"

Jiang Xueming was very puzzled. He looked down at his clothes, which were a set of office uniforms. The waist of the suit was too well-tailored, making it hard to breathe—all of this made him feel confused.

Sixty-Three led the way. "Come and sit down! It's rare for us to meet. You'll wake up in twelve minutes."

As Jiang Xueming stepped out of the porch, he looked up and saw a sign that read:

--Time and Space Administration Bureau, Carbon-based Life Forms, Primates, Centaur Cantilever Office

"I've told you about this before. I work here now." Sixty-Three, carrying a leather suitcase and wearing a dark blue Zhongshan suit, said, "I'm very busy, working over three hundred hours a week—you might ask where I get so much time in a week, because our position requires us to have some special psychic abilities to manipulate time."

As I passed the general council counter, a bespectacled woman with tattooed arms immediately held out her hand. "Sixty-Three! Alpha 101121 from the parallel world."

Before he could finish speaking, Sixty-Three placed the suitcase on the table, seemingly giving instructions.

The woman with the tattooed arms paused for a moment, then said, "You shouldn't be doing the paperwork at this time."

"Twelve minutes early, right?" Sixty-Three asked.

The woman with the tattooed arms. "Indeed."

Sixty-Three: "That's right. My friend is currently in a state of suspended animation in the material plane—I've already planned out the time to chat with him for a bit. Can you grant me leave? Just for a little while?"

The woman with the tattooed arms said, "The big boss needs to talk to you. Remember to reply."

"No problem." After finishing his official business, Sixty-Three led Xue Ming to the reception room.

After passing through the narrow passageway of the exhibition hall, Xue Ming saw many strange and unusual exhibits.

Those are artifacts from various time periods, different worlds, or native to Earth.

It is worth noting

"The moon landing was fake?" Xue Ming asked.

Sixty-Three pointed to the platform and the illustrated description of the lunar soil. "That's right, a time traveler returned to our Earth and brought back a batch of photos and fake lunar soil to America."

Xue Ming then pointed to the pyramids and temples in Mexico: "Did someone travel from modern times to live in prehistoric times?"

"To be specific, it should be November 13th, 3313 AD," Sixty-Three explained. "At that time, technology was advanced, resources were abundant, and the Fourth World War had already ended, but there was still no UN (United Nations of Humanity), no absolute order, only an overabundance of goods and a spiritual wasteland."

"There was a boy named Madsen Lee. He uploaded his spirit as a stream of information to the internet, and it turned into a giant virus that connected directly to Mother Earth through the circuitry of heavy water resource equipment and deep-hole oil and gas drilling rigs around the world."

"Little Horse was very disappointed with the world and longed to go to a pure utopia. His prayers were answered, and he was sent to Mexico ten thousand years ago to live as a caveman."

Jiang Xueming looked at the mural documents--

There's always a strange, absurd feeling about it.

"And this too."

Another picture shows an ancient general leading his army to meet the enemy, only to be struck by a massive meteorite disaster. The meteorite's flash illuminates the general's face, and the overall composition evokes a sense of tragic inevitability that human strength cannot overcome fate.

Sixty-Three waved his hand, feeling utterly bored. "This is practically an urban legend from your generation. These are all time travelers I personally arrested. Let's not talk about these pointless things for now."

After saying that, Sixty-Three led Xue Ming to the reception room, a room with a black and white checkered floor. There were only two sets of tables and chairs and some small toys for testing intelligence, such as Rubik's Cube and crossword puzzles.

Sixty-Three: "You must be very curious as to why I suddenly brought you here."

Jiang Xueming: "No, I'm not curious at all."

To be honest, he's already reached the age of thirty and doesn't have as much curiosity anymore. It seems that anything can happen in this mysterious and magnificent universe.

Visiting FE204863's workplace this time was a pleasant surprise.

Sixty-Three: "Actually, I didn't really need anything from you. I just wanted to take advantage of this time when you're on the verge of death, when your soul can be far away from your body, so we can talk about some nonsense up close, face to face. Compared to the high-pressure environment in Shinto City last time, this is much more relaxed—life can't just be about work, right?"

Jiang Xueming smiled and said, "Indeed."

Before he could finish speaking, Sixty-Three's watch rang.

He turned on the projector and immediately saw a notification to work overtime.

"Oh, damn it, some guy just raked in 220 million in the jackpot with a single bet multiplier. Did he travel from the future to the past and buy 100,000 yuan worth of lottery tickets? I need to investigate him."

"Maybe they have too much money to spend? It's the lottery, after all," Jiang Xueming comforted her.

"No, no, no," Sixty-Three felt that this matter was not simple. "The total prize pool is exactly 220 million, not a penny more or less."

Jiang Xueming: "Then why don't you start working?"

"No rush." Sixty-Three poured tea for Xue Ming. "We'll talk about it once we officially start work."

When facing his other self, Xue Ming felt inexplicably embarrassed and awkward. He didn't know what to talk about. All worldly concepts were shattered in this endless space-time gap.

After thinking for a while, Xue Ming finally asked, "Uh, are you married?"

"Occasionally." Sixty-Three uttered a startling statement.

Xue Ming: "Occasionally?"

Sixty-Three: "I live in the past, present, and future. If I could occasionally return to the parallel universe FE204863, I could experience life again. I am no longer the Homo sapiens you imagine—time has gripped me tightly. As I said before, the extension and growth of parallel universes is like a tree, which needs to be pruned regularly. If I have some free time, I can relinquish my divine duties and occasionally become a husband, a father, or even a child."

Xue Ming: "How are you feeling?"

Sixty-Three: "It's exhausting, there's no salary, and frankly, this job has no future. I'm considering changing jobs, but I can't find any other suitable livelihood besides this one—the upheavals of time and space are like natural disasters, and in the face of disaster, only responsibility matters."

Xue Ming: "Then let's not talk about this anymore, let's talk about something else?"

Sixty-Three: "Did a puppy come to your house?"

Xue Ming: "Yes, Xiao Qi picked him up, his name is Charlie."

Sixty-Three: "I also like raising dogs."

Xue Ming: "We all like it."

Sixty-Three: "How do you feed it?"

Xue Ming: "Red Sister is taking care of it; it eats leftovers and is very healthy."

Sixty-Three: "Yeah, if they can eat solid food, don't feed them dog food."

Xue Ming: "Do the Tindaros Hounds (the name of the Time and Space Administration) also have military dogs?"

Sixty-Three: "No, but there is a writer here. Wait a minute. I'll call him over."

With that, Sixty-Three got up to go find someone, and soon returned with a cat-headed, human-bodied half-orc.

"This is our archive's archivist. He usually does data classification and quantum communication. His hobby is writing, which he then uploads to various timelines to find like-minded people," Sixty-Three introduced the cat-faced strange man beside him.

Xue Ming, holding one of the pages of the crossword board, looked up and replied, "Hello, what's your surname?"

The administrator seemed very shy and didn't talk much. Instead, he tugged at Sixty-Three's sleeve and muttered to himself.

"What are you going to write next chapter? FE204863? Give me back tomorrow's update! It seems we've arrived at the Elf Holy Land."

Before the Sixty-Three reply could be received...

Xue Ming woke up.

He finally returned to the world from his state of apparent death, covered in sweat and feeling nauseous and vomiting.

His eyes were swollen and painful, and when he got up he felt like his spine was about to break. His muscles ached and his blood sugar was extremely low.

"Come on, have a bite." Wolf Brother had been awake for a while and brought over a bowl of steaming hot, unidentified stuff.

There were two slices of meat floating in the bowl, and the rest was all green rice porridge.

Jiang Xueming: "How long have I been asleep?"

Oscar: "More than six hours, eating one bite at a time."

Jiang Xueming asked, "What's this?"

Wolf replied with a chuckle.

"Our little guy found some green rice, and after I cured it, it went out to find food. I don't know where it got it from, but Saladin used this grain to brew alcohol in the old days. It has a slight toxicity, so eating it once or twice occasionally is fine. These two pieces of meat are also from Kukuka. That big yellow chicken is quite something, catching moles to serve us."

After Xue Ming finished eating and regained her strength, she remembered the strange dream.

"Oscar, do you know the Tindalos Hound? Does the world have a Time and Space Administration?"

Oscar retorted, "Are you talking about the Cthulhu Mythos?"

Xue Ming: "No, I had a dream."

"You're rambling on and on. I even had a dream! In my dream, both my kids could solve calculus! It made me so happy." Oscar replied, "Isn't that the Hound of Tindalos from the Cthulhu Mythos? Is there really some department that manages time travelers?"

"Then let's pretend I didn't ask." Xue Ming muttered to himself, "Sixty-Three."

"What do you want from me? Is it just to chat?"

As he was thinking this, he noticed a slip of paper in his palm.

It was torn from the word page of a crossword puzzle, and it just happened to fit together to form a sentence.

"Is my body a cage?"

This involuntarily reminded him of [Purgatory: The Pure Realm].

During the expedition, the constant high-pressure environment caused him to have nightmares. The opponents he had killed in the past would not die completely, but would be trapped in a strange space, according to the descriptions given by Thumb and other psionicists with special soul power by the researchers in the Arcane Library.

The gunsmith's spiritual qualities are closely related to "doors".

Whether it's FE204863's [Regret Pill] or FE33031's [Fragrant Dream]...

The keyholes on their chests all have strong symbolic meaning.

After unlocking the door, the [Sixty-Three Regret Pill] granted the user the ability to travel between multiple parallel universes.

The gunsmith's spirit had always been out of control. Even after learning Pankrasin combat techniques, he only blocked the keyhole cavity that hindered sound wave resonance and did not execute the opening procedure.

In the dream world, Fragrant Dream reigns supreme. If we consider this small world as a hardware server, the existence of [Pure Realm] is more like a public server that Mother Earth created specifically for the Gunsmith—granting him some administrative privileges. Many sinners' souls suffer torture here.

The Arcane Library and Ming De had discussed this issue repeatedly: if Jiang Xueming to die peacefully one day, would the souls of these sinners become an invisible bomb, or become demons capable of being summoned by mortals?

Sixty-Three seems to be using this phrase to remind the self of another dimension—

--It seems you can't die so easily.

Unfortunately, Xue Ming's brain didn't think that far ahead. He was starving and only thought the mole porridge was delicious. He was busy stroking the golden eagle's head and started imitating a chicken's crow, managing to exchange a few words with the silly bird.

After resting until after 3 a. m., Xue Ming felt sleepy again; his body was extremely weak.

Before going to sleep, he saw Oscar tinkering with electrical appliances in the hunting party's office again.

Soon, a makeshift radio began to emit a cacophony of human voices.

"--This actually works?"

Xue Ming didn't know much about electronic devices, but the moment he could still receive a signal in this godforsaken place and reconnect with the civilized world, he almost cried.

Previously, their signal was blocked by DB, so neither of them could turn on their phones, and they couldn't even see photos of their families. Xue Ming couldn't just go up and yell at DB like Meteor did, spouting slogans about family, friendship, faith, and courage.

He opened his phone, looked at the photos of his wife and children, and felt a surge of relief, as if he had escaped death. He wasn't made of steel; he was a husband and father with deep emotions. Just like mentioned earlier—

--Emotions are a tremendous energy; they control and transform everyone.

News of the ACE League, the largest competitive martial arts tournament in the underworld besides the Moon God Cup, came over the radio.

"Hey! Hehehe! Isn't your Wolf Brother awesome? Heh!"

Gunsmith, with his knees tucked in, squeezed next to Wolf Brother, giving him a goofy look. "What's this?"

Wolf Brother: "You don't know? How could you not know?"

Gunsmith: "I'm the referee for the Moon God Cup, I don't watch this shoddy competition."

"The Ace Cup in both spring and autumn," Wolf explained. "I'm a fan of your students! Last winter transfer window, two of your students, as rookies, one went to the Magath Lions in the tenth division to play point guard, and the other stayed in the Fairy Tale Kingdom as the cornerstone of the team."

The gunsmith was quite surprised. "A Hao ran off somewhere else?"

Oscar scoffed. "A rogue ninja! I thought he was Naruto, but he's actually Sasuke! He even said in a media interview that he'd return to Daniel's side in a stronger form."

Gunsmith: "Hahahaha."

Oscar: "Hahahaha!"

Gunsmith: "Hahahaha, cough cough cough"

As he laughed, Xue Ming coughed up two clumps of blood. It seemed that his lungs had been damaged by the cold air and that he had inhaled too much cold air, resulting in some blood clots in his lower respiratory tract. During the brief moment when his blood and qi were flowing smoothly, he laughed and expelled the blood, which made him feel much more refreshed.

Sweet words from Wang Xiaomei, the counter manager of the Council of Five Kings, came through the radio.

"Listeners, after last year's winter transfer window adjustments, the Ace Cup is about to begin."

"Nikola Tesla said that everything is made of light. Like the messenger who brought light to many cities in the underground world, the gunsmith who brought the Berloberg sword."

"This spring, Shao Jinghao and Daniel parted ways and chose different paths. Although Xiao Mei thinks that the two of them didn't take a job at Wretch after graduation, but instead went to sports events through talent shows to make a fortune, Gunsmith would be furious if he knew in the afterlife."

"However, there's something he said that..."

"If one day, my children and my students still have to go to the front lines to shed blood and fight to the death against the Madness Butterfly, then it means all my efforts have been in vain, and many soldiers have died in vain."

"We also wish both players the best of luck in achieving great results for their respective clubs in the new season!"

"This is Wang Xiaomei! See you in the next ACE Express segment!"