There were many theories concerning time travel: spacetime fixed-point theory, Einstein-Rosen bridges, antiparticle retrocausality... Humanity always tried to frame every incomprehensible phenomenon in scientific terms, even if the theoretical system became absurdly bloated through repeated attempts at logical consistency.
It seemed that only "science" could eliminate uncertainty and help humanity reasonably wrest back its fate from divine authority.
Qi Si had once seen his own face in the past illusion belonging to 47—or, more precisely, the face he wore after putting on the human-skin mask.
That made perfect sense, because he had used the human-skin mask to "play" the NPC known as "47."
But in one moment when their gazes met, he suddenly realized that 47 had the same eyes as him. It was... himself.
The infinite recurrence of the universe, based on Liouville's phase-space theory, held that within a finite space, material structures would traverse themselves infinitely many times.
Infinite spacetime, countless timelines—there could be countless versions of him, branching into new parallel worlds with each different choice, becoming myriad threads of fate that intersected and diverged...
And so Qi Si smiled. He thought the Eerie Game truly had a twisted sense of humor, making him, a man who did not believe in gods, devoutly pray to one in some corner of spacetime.
But... why did he need to believe in another god?
Why could he not become an Evil God who received prayers?
Why could he not... pray to himself?
The 47 in the Instance's backstory prayed to an unknown god. Having learned everything, Qi Si decided to take that god's place and answer the self from that unfamiliar spacetime.
At Red Maple Leaf Boarding School, Zhang Yiyu stepped across soft, wet soil and passed through the dense maple grove. By the time she reached the hard