"God and the devil played a game. In the end, God was sent to hell. Then I played a game with the devil, and in the end, I sent the devil to meet God."
"Strange, why haven't I hit the ground yet?"
The Splitter kept falling through the sky, yet he did not hit the ground for a long time.
Puzzled, the Splitter took out his phone and dialed a number.
"Hello, Boss, it's me."
"I'm in the sky right now. Yeah, the wind's a little strong, and the signal isn't great either. Boss, can you hear what I'm saying?"
"What?"
The wind howled, and the voice over the phone was indistinct.
Only after Chen Ye took a deep breath did he slowly utter a single word.
"Roll."
Roll?
"'Roll' has the water radical, which means I'm going to fall into..."
Splash!
Before he could finish, Sequence 009's Splitter plunged headfirst into the sea.
After a while, the Splitter poked his head out of the boundless ocean. "As expected of Boss. He actually foresaw that I'd fall into the sea."
The Splitter brushed back his hair. "This definitely isn't a coincidence. After all, the character for 'roll' can also be split into the character for 'clothes.' Clothes get wet. Isn't that hint obvious enough?"
"Then how should the upper part of the character be interpreted?"
"One horizontal stroke and one dot, with 'public' beneath them. Wait, could it be..."
"The horizontal stroke and dot are actually an image, telling me how I should get back?"
With that thought, the Splitter immediately took out the Black Arrow and hurled it fiercely in a certain direction.
The Black Arrow shot out. The Splitter grabbed it in one motion and sat directly atop it.
Reasonable. Far too reasonable!
"As expected of Boss! He actually thought of using the Black Arrow's Absolute Hit trait to get me back to the mainland!"
The Splitter set the Black Arrow's target on a building in North Ridge City, then rode the arrow back with it. It was simply too reasonable!
"Since even the way back was within Boss's expectations, then the character for 'public' beneath the horizontal stroke and dot must mean that after I return, I should continue carrying out official duties!"
"Don't worry, Boss. I'll be right back!"
North Ridge City.
Inside a coffee shop.
Chen Ye sat in the shop, leisurely drinking coffee. "It's rare to have such nice weather and such peace and quiet. Too bad there aren't many customers."
Hm?
As Chen Ye pondered this, he suddenly turned to look outside, where a black-haired young man stood before the coffee shop entrance.
The moment he saw the young man, Chen Ye's gaze abruptly grew fervent.
Well, if it isn't a rare guest.
I was just wondering whether I should go looking for him. I didn't expect him to come on his own.
The man standing before Chen Ye's shop was none other than Chu Yang.
Chu Yang pushed open the door and entered the coffee shop. His gaze went straight to Chen Ye, and after entering, he sat directly across from him.
Seeing Chu Yang, Chen Ye smiled. "And you are?"
"You should have seen me, and I should have seen you." Chu Yang immediately cut Chen Ye off.
Upon hearing Chu Yang's words, Chen Ye's smile suddenly faded.
He's here with hostile intent.
If he remembered correctly, the first time they had met should have been before South Weir's gates.
Though they had merely passed each other by, Chen Ye had remembered Chu Yang deeply.
Because there was something about Chu Yang that deeply attracted Chen Ye. The feeling was especially strange.
It was like a mosquito seeing a blood-drawing room, a rat entering a granary, or a blond punk encountering another man's wife.
But Chu Yang should not have known Chen Ye.
Today, he had clearly come specifically for Chen Ye.
Recalling the earlier theory about hypothetical enemies, Chen Ye could not help falling into hesitation.
Chu Yang might belong to some organization. If he recognized Chen Ye and had even managed to find him, then the only possibility...
Was that Chen Ye had been exposed.
But Chen Ye could not understand how he had been exposed.
And if he had been exposed, how much did Chu Yang know about him?
When Chen Ye remained silent, Chu Yang suddenly reached out and took off his coat.
Seeing this, Chen Ye licked his lips. "You came prepared."
Chu Yang's body was covered in bombs wired with all kinds of mechanical circuits, and there were a great many of them.
He spread his arms, as though offering himself up for the taking. "You can try cutting them with your Silk Thread. As long as you get one wire wrong, every bomb will explode in an instant."
"Don't let the small amount fool you. This is all highly concentrated stuff. Just this much is enough to blow up an entire building in an instant."
"Besides, these bombs have three activation methods."
"One is remote control by people outside. One is my vital signs disappearing. The last is cutting the wrong wire."
Without changing expression, Chen Ye tugged on his Silk Thread. Invisible puppets began rapidly closing in on Chu Yang one after another!
Yet strangely, Chu Yang suddenly pointed to his ear. "I'd advise you not to do that. I can hear them."
"I came to discuss terms, Weaver of Fate."
Hearing this, Chen Ye propped up his head with one hand and glanced sideways at Chu Yang. "I dislike being threatened."
Chu Yang shook his head. "This isn't a threat. It's simply a means of self-protection."
"If I didn't do this, then coming to see you would be nothing more than delivering myself to my death."
Tch!
Chen Ye clicked his tongue.
If everything Chu Yang said was true, then bombs of this level truly might be able to kill Chen Ye once they exploded.
If Chen Ye controlled Chu Yang's body without harming him and made him run out of here himself, that would indeed be one solution.
But Chu Yang had just said there was another detonation method: remote activation by people outside.
That meant Chu Yang was far from alone this time.
In the worst-case scenario, the place might already be surrounded, and their conversation could be under surveillance by the people outside.
At the slightest misstep, those people outside would press the detonation button.
As for whether they dared to do that, Chen Ye could not be certain. In any case, he did not like gambling.
But whether Chu Yang could truly kill him here was another matter. At the very least, Chen Ye had made many preparations for such unforeseen circumstances.
"Then let's talk. But before that, I'd like to ask how you learned my identity. Why don't you tell me?" Chen Ye said.
How Chu Yang had learned Chen Ye's identity stemmed from a diary.
Who knew whether anyone still remembered? At the very beginning, someone had posted a novel online, and that novel had predicted a nine-person dismemberment case.
The culprit was a Fishman.
The author of that novel possessed a diary, one capable of foretelling the future.
After the Guardian Bee attack last time, Chu Yang and the others had stumbled upon this person and learned fragments of the future from him.
Especially about the greatest villain, the monster maker, Sequence 006.
His true identity was merely the owner of a coffee shop.
They had held a discussion over this. In the end, everyone unanimously agreed that if that person was telling the truth, then Sequence 006 had to die!
Because as long as Sequence 006 remained alive, one day Earth would become the monsters' Earth!
Hearing that, Chu Yang took a deep breath. "I don't want to discuss this. I said I came to negotiate. Before that..."
"We want to ask you, what is your purpose in doing all this?"
Purpose?
Chen Ye fell into deep thought upon hearing that.
Long ago, before Chen Ye had obtained the Double-eared Pot, he had been reading a book about humans and gods.
Human strength had its limits, while divine strength had none.
"What was the biggest gamble you've ever made?" Chen Ye suddenly asked.
Chu Yang frowned.
"Coming to see you with my head on the line was my biggest gamble."
Heh.
Chen Ye laughed. "Is that so? The biggest gamble I ever made was three hundred and thirty thousand, betting on my mother's life."
"I lost."
"I gave the money to the hospital. I entrusted my hopes to others, and they repaid me with a death notice."
"Isn't that both tragic and laughable?"
Yet people simply could not control this so-called fate. An accident could easily take the life of someone dearest to you.
Just imagine it: when an accident struck, all we could do was watch helplessly as the Grim Reaper passed by our side and took away our loved ones.
That was what humans were.
Humans meekly accepted what came their way and surrendered to fate. Those who said, "My fate is in my own hands, not Heaven's," had already stepped into a link fate had designed for them the moment they uttered those words.
If humans could not defeat fate and could only meekly submit to its manipulation, then what was the point of being human?
"Humans can't change anything."
But gods could.
When the Grim Reaper swung its scythe to claim the life of someone dear to you, chop off the Grim Reaper's head first and send it rolling into hell.
The way to defeat the Grim Reaper was to become the Grim Reaper.
The way to shatter fate was to become fate.
"Is that reason sufficient enough?"