To Wang Qi, "memes" were necessary things.
With only a tiny amount of information, they could evoke a shared cultural experience among specific groups.
In many everyday interactions, tossing out a meme and catching one could serve as a probing gesture, quickly confirming whether two different people shared similar cultural experiences.
Two shut-ins who had never met could swiftly become friends through a single meme.
It was like two devout believers in the same religion rapidly accepting each other—at least until their interpretations of doctrine diverged.
For nerds, it became: "That guy can't even catch my beloved meme anymore."
Religion, fetish worship, and idol worship had always possessed similar cores.
For Wang Qi, who possessed a single "unique objective past," this sort of cultural experience was enormously helpful.
One could even say that the existence of such empathy was what ensured the continuation of the Wang Qi Collective.
The Retrograde Committee had once even suspected that they remembered the memetic complexes within that "unique objective memory" so firmly, and had joyfully played with them for years despite having no one to catch their memes.
But was it because "Wang Qi liked it" that "the Wang Qi Collective existed," or was it the other way around—because "the Wang Qi Collective had to exist," Wang Qi could only become what he was now?
In a universe where true time machines existed, there had never been absolute causality to begin with.
"The existence of the 'Future Immortal Alliance' is definitely not what Wang Qi would have wanted," The End Messenger said. "If there were no other path, then allowing the Future Immortal Alliance to emerge in pursuit of the Dao would be understandable. But when other paths exist, choosing the road of dystopia is wrong."
The protagonist Wang Qi said, "Since you call