Just an Empty Joy

Why? Xiang Qian had no answer to that question.

If he had to give one, the only thing Xiang Qian could think of was: "Heaven and earth are unkind; they treat all things as straw dogs." The infinite timelines of the multiverse were merely products of the universe's own rules. They did not bend to human will, much less bestow a protagonist's halo upon any one person.

Tony asked again, "Tell me, how did you stay calm?"

"What?" Xiang Qian did not understand what Tony meant at first.

"I'm asking you, how did you stay calm?" Tony's expression was blank. "With a machine that can travel through time and space in your hands, how did you keep yourself from going back in time to save your parents?"

Xiang Qian was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice had turned hoarse, as though every word was difficult to force out. "I didn't stay calm."

The answer was far beyond Tony's expectations, and he was speechless with surprise.

Xiang Qian continued, "Over the past day and night, I made one hundred and twenty-seven trips through time and space. I saved my parents one hundred and twenty-seven times. On the longest trip, I lived beside them as a friend all the way until 2013. But every time I came back, everything that had happened in our world remained unchanged—unchanged in the slightest."

Tony stared at Xiang Qian, searching his face for any sign that he was joking. But Xiang Qian's grave expression told him this was no joke.

At last, Tony came back to himself and let out a long breath. "So the hotel with infinite rooms isn't some theoretical deduction. It's the result of your personal experiments?"

"That's right." This utterly disheartening answer left them both silent.

After