An Authentic Wish / Compromise

They heard the bells ringing.

The bell didn't come from outside the carriage, nor was it in their ears; it appeared directly in their minds.

Judging from their eye contact, they both understood that the other had heard them too.

They immediately thought of the clock on the clock tower; such a deep, resonant sound could only come from a clock of that size.

"How many hours have passed now?"

"Twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes."

Lin rolled up his sleeve and glanced at his watch, something he had prepared to accurately record the time.

At this moment, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 44 seconds have passed since they arrived in the World Bubble, with an error margin of approximately three seconds.

"Twenty-four hours?"

Twenty-four hours is a very special time. What happens after a whole natural day has passed?

Or is it them, or the world?

"Ding-dong."

After the clock struck for the second time, exactly twenty-four hours had passed on the watch.

"No matter how you look at it, he deserves it."

Mobius coldly handed down her verdict, arms crossed, her pretty face utterly ruthless.

"Wait a minute, aren't I a victim?" Lin protested, his face swollen on one side. "Wasn't this a case of being violently treated? Can't you at least offer me some comfort?"

"Hehe..."

When Mobius chuckled, it usually meant "you stupid idiot."

"That's too much! If you treat me like this, I'll die alone."

Are you even still a creature of Earth?

Lin smiled and said to Prometheus, who was staring at him with murderous eyes, "Um... Prometheus, aren't you going to apologize to me?"

After Prometheus threw that punch, he kept his distance from him like a cat that had seen something dirty, staring at him with hostile eyes.

"'If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek also.'" She explained the thought in her mechanical mind in the simplest language.

Lin immediately put on a wronged expression and turned to Sakura, who was still confused about what had happened. "Sakura, can you understand me?"

"Huh? Uh... yeah."

Sakura didn't actually know what was wrong with Lin, but her intuition told her to stay away from him a little. Although she could sense some familiarity, she felt a sense of danger that made the hairs on her ears stand on end.

"Great! May I touch your ear?"

"Cannot."

Sakura immediately jumped to the side, protecting the animal ears on her head. These ears have many nerves and are very sensitive; letting anyone else touch them would definitely give her a strange feeling.

Moreover, it's Lin...

At this moment, Mobius, Vill-V, Sakura, and Prometheus gathered together. Elysia went to inform Kevin, Kosma, Mei, Hen, and Dessidobia to discuss the issue of the forest together.

Before that, they had to keep a close eye on Lin, preventing him from running around and flirting with people at headquarters.

"Although you handled it well, it's a pity that the guy doesn't care about women as much as you do, so I suggest you be honest as soon as possible, so we don't have to do things to you that you definitely don't want to do." Mobius squinted at Lin, who was smiling like a spring breeze, and uttered each word carefully.

"Not caring about women? Who said that?" Lin looked at Mobius with a meaningful smile. "Is it because I didn't care about you before that you think I'm like that with all girls?"

Immediately, several gazes focused on Mobius, and after a few seconds of stunned silence, her face darkened, and she was about to speak.

"I also think you're cute. You're supposed to be an older sister, but you have the temper of a little girl. You dress up secretly, wanting people to see you but not wanting everyone to notice. When I point it out, you're happy inside but you still have to show your dissatisfaction on your face."

"You often peek at me, but when we make eye contact, you pretend to be impatient and disgusted. If you need to contact me during a mission, you'll be happy, but when it's business, you become cold and indifferent."

"I often observe you too, and I really think you're very beautiful, especially your legs—"

"Bang!"

A delicate fist slammed into the face of the incessantly talking man, sending him flying like a cannonball, smashing through a wooden table and crashing headfirst into the wall.

Chapter Fifty-One: The True Desire

"This World Bubble is really strange. It's the strangest kind of World Bubble I've ever seen."

The brain was split open, cooked, crushed, and flushed down the drain... This is what Lin felt after waking up.

The fragmented vision pieced together to form a complete shape, and Lin heard Yan Luo's murmured words. He grabbed something to lean on and waited for his headache to subside.

After the pain subsided, he realized that he was holding onto Yan Luo's shoulder, and when he looked up, he made eye contact with Yan Luo was less than five centimeters away from him.

Yan Luo's eye color and her hair color are two extremes. Her hair is pure silver-white without a trace of impurity, while her eye color is a completely different pure black, a dark tone that can even swallow light.

"Want a kiss?" she asked coldly.

"..."

They were indeed too close. Lin let go of her, and she only glanced at him again without pursuing the matter, taking it as compensation for sleeping with her head on his lap earlier.

After they separated, he noticed that his body seemed to have returned to its original state... or so he thought.

His vision had indeed improved considerably, and his previously frail body had regained the strength of an adult. However, he could sense that this was not his original age, but rather a more youthful point in time, around seventeen or eighteen.

Yan Luo looked exactly the same as when Lin first saw her; perhaps her appearance stopped aging at a relatively young age.

The surrounding environment had also changed. Previously, they had been escorted to a certain place inside the carriage, but now they were standing in a familiar place from a long time ago.

Chienyu Academy.

The vibrant, youthful high school campus, teeming with students, was a turning point in Lin's life. His transformation and his entry into another world both began there.

"After 24 hours, the World Bubble will shift time forward by about ten years..." Yan Luo pinched a part of his body, as if confirming something. "This is probably the original rule of the World Bubble."

Lin looked into the distance and saw the towering clock tower. It seemed that even after ten years, it still existed and had even been "moved" to Changkong City.

"Ten years have passed. During this time, we don't know what happened to us, how our relationships changed... but..."

Lin saw Yan Luo standing in the crowd, reaching out her hand and clenching her fist in the sunlight. Immediately afterward, an armored mechanical arm appeared above her arm, lasting for half a second before disappearing. No one except Lin noticed it.

Her rigid expression relaxed slightly. "The Herrscher Authority have returned somewhat."

"..."

This is not good news for Lin. The return of her Herrscher Authority means that she has the ability to break through the World Bubble. If she can leave on her own, the cooperative relationship will break instantly, and she will keep her promise and kill Lin without hesitation.

Fortunately, Yan Luo didn't have any plans in that direction yet. She adjusted her shoulder bag and walked towards the classroom.

Lin was about to follow when he suddenly stopped and stared at Yan Luo's resolute back.

Why...

"Hey! Lin! Good morning! Did you see the recipes I sent you yesterday? Can you recreate them?"

A strong arm hooked around Lin's neck, and he turned his head to see a cheerful, almost silly face leaning towards him.

"Kevin..."

"Why do you look like you haven't slept? Did you play games all night? Catch up on some sleep during history class later. I'm coming to your house tonight, and you, as the host, can't be so listless."

Kevin's smiling face was no different from Lin's memory of his high school days; he hadn't yet turned into that human-shaped cooling machine.

"By the way, what are your parents' tempers like? Should I try to act more politely?"

"... I have no parents."

"Hahaha, are you still half asleep? You and Yan Luo's parents came to the last parent-teacher conference, right? Although you only stayed for a short while before leaving, how could that be..."

Yan Luo stopped and turned to meet Lin's gaze. They both saw a slight difference in each other's eyes.

At that moment, Yan Luo felt her bag bulging as if there was something inside. She opened the bag and saw the thing inside.

Compared to before, it had grown more downy hair, which was more twisted and dark, making it look less like a monkey's paw and more like...

The devil's arm.

"My dearest friend, Kevin, do you remember that one night when we were in school, we stayed out too late at the internet cafe and couldn't get a taxi, so we had to go to a hotel to sleep?"

"..."

"That day, the hotel only had one single double room left, and you suggested using pillows and blankets in the middle to form an anti-gay device. I didn't say anything at the time, but I was actually wondering if you were a deeply hidden gay man."

"..."

"After all, think about it, you actually need to use an anti-gay device to prevent you from getting up in the middle of the night to fuck me. What does that mean? If it were me, if I saw my good buddy sleeping next to me in the middle of the night, I would just think about going back to sleep instead of fucking your rectum. But you got up in the middle of the night and thought about fucking me, only because of the anti-gay device that you didn't cross the line... and the excretory opening."

Lin shrugged. "Isn't this terrifying? So much so that before you actually won Mei over, I was wondering if you were just using chasing girls as an excuse to get close to me."

Everyone present, except Kevin remained expressionless, looked as if they had seen a ghost.

"Um... Captain Lin, what's wrong with you...?" Dessidobia chuckled dryly and poked Kosma's waist, "Have you gone mad with qi deviation?"

Kosma looked at Lin, then at Dessidobia, seemingly wanting to say something, but ultimately chose to remain silent.

They were all still mentally preparing for the Hypervariable Surgery in half a month when they received information that Lin might be experiencing side effects from the Hypervariable Surgery.

"Um... my friend, what's wrong?"

Even the usually composed Eden stared at the smiling Lin with suspicion. Lin's change was so great that she almost didn't recognize him. Of course, it wasn't just his appearance. She thought Lin was a very calm and profound person. How could he suddenly become like this?

"I feel great, my friend. Do you have time tonight so I can invite you for a drink?" Lin Chong smiled slightly. "Then we can discuss the true meaning of art and philosophy, such as Andro Marx and Nietzsche, and incidentally enhance our friendly bilateral relations."

After staring in disbelief at Lin's smooth and effortless flirting, Hen walked over to Lin and patted him on the shoulder.

"Lin, you're finally..."

"Yes, I finally..." Lin Ye patted his shoulder with emotion.

"I think he is Brother Lin."

Pardo, who had been stuffed with a bunch of snacks by Lin, raised her hand to express her opinion while chewing on a chicken leg.

Mobius pushed her away expressionlessly. "That's bullshit."

Chapter Fifty-Two: Compromise

After discussion, everyone agreed that this Lin was not the original Lin, but he was still Lin.

This statement is somewhat abstract, but it is the truth. They felt that this Lin was completely different from the previous Lin in many ways, such as his eloquent mouth, his eyes that could measure a person's measurements, and his unrestrained smile. He was the other extreme compared to the previous Lin.

But he was still Lin. Besides being able to match their statements no matter what they said, they also vaguely sensed the connection and common ground between him and Lin.

For example, although he was very effusive in his speech, he did not make any physical contact with the girls present, and kept himself within the bounds of politeness.

Ultimately, they decided to send two representatives to negotiate with him.

Elysia and Kevin.

"We cannot determine who you really are. The long-term accumulated pressure led to a split personality, the consciousness disorder after entering the core, the latent aftereffects of the Hypervariable Surgery... We wonder if you are another consciousness with Lin's memories, yet completely different from Lin." Elysia said solemnly to Lin, who was smiling gently. "So I hope you can tell us the truth."

"The truth..." Lin's smile was meaningful. "What's the use of information I tell you unilaterally? Those who don't believe it still won't believe it; you have no means to verify it. Or... do you think you'll accept it if I just pretend like this?"

Lin's tone suddenly changed in the second half of the sentence, and the cold, distant, and rational tone returned to his voice, which startled Elysia. But then Kevin grabbed Lin's collar and pressed him against the wall.

"Bang!"

"Kevin!" Elysia called out, but Kevin stared intently at Lin, who had a playful smile on his face, without turning his head.

A chilling aura emanated from his hands, causing ice crystals to form on Lin's clothes, and his face instantly paled and lost all color.

Of them, only Kevin believed that this Lin was not the original Lin, and his thoughts beneath his cold exterior were unknown to the others.

"Where is Lin?" Kevin's voice was colder than the temperature around him, striking straight to the soul, and his killing intent rose steadily.

Lin looked directly into Kevin's eyes without any fear. "So I'm telling you... even if I said I am Lin, you wouldn't believe me, would you?"

"..."

"Then just pretend I'm not Lin."

Kevin was stunned by Lin's change of words. He let go of Lin's hand, landed on the ground, straightened his collar, and muttered, "My clothes are frozen solid." He then tore apart the knotted clothes and smiled at the two of them, "I am not Lin. I am a transmigrator who accidentally took over his body. Do you understand soul transmigration? It means that I have all his memories, but the consciousness is not the same person."

"Where did Lin go?" Kevin stared intently at the casually smiling Lin and demanded.

"Yeah, where did he go... Hehe, don't make that face, relax." Lin snapped his fingers with a relaxed expression. "Just Herrscherification right now. My 'Herrscher consciousness' has taken over his consciousness, but his consciousness hasn't been devoured by me. It still exists somewhere. As long as you fulfill one of my requests, I will return it to you."

Don't lie to me.