Chaotic Decree (Second Update Revised)

"I said... how did you end up here?"

At the entrance of the nursing home, Chloe's expression, which clearly read "Are you here to cause trouble?", made the corner of Dilos's mouth twitch.

The latter gritted his teeth, then struck with lightning speed, ruthlessly ruffling Chloe's beautiful golden hair.

"Stop, stop, stop! Don't mess it up! If you keep doing that, it'll turn into a bird's nest!" Chloe immediately begged for mercy, looking at Dilos with a pair of pitiful eyes in an attempt to elicit some sympathy.

"Heh." Dilos let out a cold laugh, ignoring Chloe's act, and instead raised his hand, attempting to land another 'hair-ruffling' finishing move.

Seeing this, Chloe quickly put on a mournful face and said, "Alright, Dilos, I was wrong, I won't do it again. But can you really bear to let your dear cousin go see people with a bird's nest on her head?"

"Hmph." Dilos snorted and pulled his hand back. He glared at the now-pitiful-looking Chloe. "Fine, fine, let's go. If we don't hurry, your Clark will be gone."

He walked inside first, his pace very brisk; in less than two seconds, he was already seven or eight meters away.

"No way?!! Dilos, slow down, wait for me!" By the time Chloe reacted, Dilos's figure was about to disappear, so she shouted and chased after him.

Thinking about the main reason his cousin had come to this nursing home to volunteer, Dilos found a front-desk nurse and asked directly.

"Excuse me for the interruption, miss. Do you happen to know which room Clark Kent is volunteering in? I'm a friend of his and have something to discuss with him."

The nurse Dilos asked was a woman in her twenties. She looked puzzled when she first saw him, hesitating for a moment as if wondering something, before her head snapped up and she said excitedly:

"You're that Dilos Sullivan! The author of Harry Potter!" She said, somewhat incoherently, "I'm Susan, Susan Hall, your fan. I really love your novels..."

"Right, right, thank you, really, thank you. I'm very happy. But could you please answer my question first?"

Seeing that this woman named Susan looked like she was going to keep talking forever, Dilos interrupted her quickly. If he let her continue, who knew how long it would take? Dilos really hadn't expected that even with the thick-rimmed glasses he wore to influence how others perceived his appearance, someone would still recognize him.

Chloe, standing to the side, covered her mouth and chuckled. After receiving a glare from Dilos, she immediately pretended that nothing had happened.

Susan finally stopped. Even so, her face was flushed red. Hearing Dilos repeat his question, she asked, somewhat dazed, "What?"

Dilos was speechless, so he smiled and repeated the question again: "It's like this, could you please tell me which room a person named Clark Kent is volunteering in? I'm his friend, and I have some urgent business with him."

"Oh, right, of course, no problem." Susan, clearly not yet recovered from her shock, hurriedly grabbed a roster from the desk and flipped through it anxiously, taking a while before she found Clark's name.

"The person you're looking for is right here," Susan said, pointing to a spot on the roster. "Room 412."

"Alright, thank you. We have some urgent business with him, so we'll be going now." After exchanging pleasantries with Susan, Dilos saw that she still wanted to say something, so he quickly grabbed Chloe and left.

On the way, Chloe stared at Dilos's poker face and teased, "Dilos, it's obvious she's interested in you. Even though she's a few years older than you, she's still very pretty and cute. Why don't you just go for it~"

Dilos: "Save that talk for when you can replace Lana in Clark's heart."

Struck in a sore spot, Chloe instantly turned to stone.

Dilos VS Chloe, Chloe was killed in one hit.

Not long after, the two arrived at Room 412. The door was open, so they easily saw Clark chatting with an elderly person inside.

Because of the angle, Clark also happened to see them arrive.

"Dilos, Chloe. Why are you here?"

Dilos smiled. "To volunteer, of course."

Chloe: "That's right, we're here to volunteer."

Upon seeing Clark, Chloe's expression became somewhat unnatural, and her smile turned stiff. "Clark, so you're volunteering here too? What a coincidence."

Clark: "Yes, what a coincidence. I only started volunteering today as well."

A mischievous thought suddenly rose in Dilos's mind. He wore a somewhat strange smile and whispered to Chloe, "Yeah, what a coincidence."

Hearing this, Chloe's fist tightened instinctively. However, Clark didn't notice and smiled, pointing to a chair nearby. "Come over and sit."

While Clark wasn't looking, Chloe gave Dilos a sharp elbow to the stomach. Unfortunately, ever since Dilos began practicing traditional martial arts, his physical fitness had improved significantly; this attack didn't even count as a tickle to him. Instead, Chloe felt her elbow go numb. There was no need to guess—this was definitely Dilos's doing!

"This is Cassandra. I'm here reading to her." Not noticing the flash of frustration on Chloe's face, Clark smiled and pointed to the woman over eighty sitting beside him. Her eyes were different from a normal person's; they had turned completely silver-white, looking extremely frightening. She was clearly a poor, blind old woman.

But for some reason, this blind old woman seemed to have seen something interesting, as she pursed her lips and smiled.

"Hello, ma'am, I'm Dilos." Dilos smiled, but unexpectedly, the old woman named Cassandra reached out a hand toward him.

"Hello, I am Cassandra."

Seeing this, Dilos reached out to shake her hand, but after the handshake, Cassandra's expression suddenly changed. Dilos couldn't tell if it was good or bad, and he didn't think too much of it; he certainly wouldn't release his abilities to sense her emotions over such a small matter.

After a long while, Cassandra said, "Child... you, you are very peculiar." She said this with a strange look on her face.

Dilos didn't pay much attention to it, but Clark asked nervously, "Did you see something?"

Cassandra didn't say anything, remaining silent and lost in thought, as still as a stone statue. If Dilos hadn't been able to feel the old woman breathing, he would have thought she had passed away.

Clark looked at the puzzled Dilos and Chloe, pursed his lips, and finally spoke: "Ms. Cassandra went blind during the meteor shower twelve years ago, but she gained a superpower because of it." Clark paused for a moment, then continued under their curious gazes: "She can see a person's future through physical contact."

"Predict the future?" Dilos and Chloe exclaimed, though they reacted differently. Chloe had a "you've got to be kidding me" expression, while Dilos's expression was quite serious.

Dilos thought of the tropes that the Marvel and DC worlds loved to play with in his past life: fatalism. In these worlds, there were always people who could prophesy, and what they predicted was often not good. No matter how hard one tried to avoid it, it was all in vain.

This was the trope Americans loved most, and it was also the one that disgusted him the most. He had once ranted that he wanted to send blades to these screenwriters and directors, asking why they had to play with this bullshit fatalism. If the plot was good, fine, but they always insisted on playing with angst-ridden dramas—had they lost their minds?

Thinking that he might be caught in the vortex of some terrible fatalism, Dilos's face turned ugly.

"Pete and I arrived on the same day. Cassandra told him he would walk home today, and then Pete realized he didn't have his car keys..." Clark said from the side.

Knowing that Clark wouldn't lie, Dilos felt his heart descend into chaos. Looking at Cassandra, although there was no expression on his face, a stormy sea was already surging within his heart.

Dilos was in a state of utter confusion. In his past life, the reason he found this theory of fate so disgusting—aside from the fact that such plots were always heartbreaking, moronic, idiotic, and brainless—was that if these things were true, he suspected that this so-called unchangeable fate was more like a script manipulated by some powerful entity behind the scenes. These prophets were more likely puppets or messengers controlled by that power.

Otherwise, how could one explain why so many powerful characters in the plot always acted in such a cliché manner according to fate? Why else would the results always be the same as the prophecies? Dilos knew he might be being too sensitive, but how could he not overthink such a situation?

He took the initiative to release his abilities to perceive Cassandra, but unexpectedly, he didn't sense anything at all!

What should I do? Dilos's mind began to spiral into chaos. For the first time, he felt such intense fear toward something as unknown as fate and prophecy.

Suddenly, a soft, delicate hand gripped Dilos's. Dilos turned his head sharply to see Chloe's worried face before him.

It was as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over Dilos's head, and he gradually regained his reason. Was worrying blindly like this useful? He asked himself. The answer was no. Rather than worrying about groundless fears, it was better to rely on himself to find a way out! His state just now was clearly one of mental instability; if not for Chloe, he might very well have done something even worse.

As for Cassandra...

Dilos looked at Cassandra; he still had many questions he needed to ask. If the answer was truly as he imagined, he would need to accelerate the pace of his plans.

However, given that Cassandra had no intention of speaking now, he decided to wait until nightfall when there were fewer people around to come back.

In the end, Dilos left with a visibly worried Chloe.

After the two of them left, Cassandra's eyes finally moved.

"Cassandra, what's wrong? Why didn't you say anything just now? Was it because you foresaw something bad?" Clark looked at Cassandra with some nervousness, because before meeting Dilos and Chloe, Cassandra had already told him a part of his own prophecy.

"Someone close to you will die in a few days."

Hearing this, Clark was instantly unsettled. If it weren't for Cassandra saying there was still time, he would have probably copied down the schedules of every friend for the next few days and guarded them around the clock.

That was why Clark wanted to ask her what exactly she had seen, but for some reason, Cassandra said nothing this time, her face remained expressionless, and she insisted that Clark leave first.

There was no other way; seeing Cassandra so insistent, Clark had no choice but to leave despite being completely confused. After Clark left, Cassandra, sitting in her chair, sighed faintly, a look of sorrow on her face as she said:

"To see two people with such chaotic fates in a single day... the first one aside, the fate of this latter one is even more of a mess, with no signs of being fixed at all... It's as if he has taken fate..."