Talking About the Future

"Hey." Ye Fan chuckled and followed Lu Mingfei's lead. "You weren't among the first batch to join the group, so you don't know."

"He's a transmigrator too."

Everyone paused with their chopsticks in hand and looked at Su Lin in surprise. They had assumed Su Lin was a native of Ben's world, but then again, how could a world with virtually no supernatural power have such a massive floating mountain?

"Could it be that the world Su Lin came from before transmigrating was a cultivation world?" Lu Mingfei immediately became interested. "Did you transmigrate physically, or did your soul transmigrate?"

"Soul transmigration." Su Lin had nothing to hide about such matters. He had mentioned it long ago.

"So this isn't your original body, then?"

"It can still be considered my own body." Su Lin explained, "I transmigrated into myself in a parallel world. Before transmigrating, I was almost thirty. Afterward, I returned to when I was twenty-three."

"Then isn't that just reincarnation?"

"No, it was transmigration."

There were some differences between Su Lin's memories from before and after transmigrating.

"In this world, I studied civil engineering in college. After graduating, I worked for only a short while before quitting and leaving."

Lu Mingfei nodded. None of the people in the group had simple experiences.

"I heard you used a watch to take Luffy back two years ago. Can I take a look?" Xiao Yan asked.

Su Lin took [Zochet's Linear Pocket Watch] from his system inventory and handed it to Xiao Yan. Everyone curiously examined this item connected to time travel.

"It's just an ordinary watch." Xiao Yan turned it over and over in his hands, unable to make out anything special, then passed it to the others.

"A single-use item."

"This thing doesn't really fit the style of your sect." Ye Fan said meaningfully.

"Heh heh." Su Lin smiled and shook his head.

"Just think of these as the benefits I got from transmigrating. Xiao Yan has an old grandpa in his ring, Han Li has a Little Green Bottle, and Klein has Sefirah Castle."

"Doesn't Lu Mingfei also have a good little brother who grants wishes?"

"Good grief, your transmigration benefits are a little too complicated." The meat in Lu Mingfei's mouth suddenly seemed less tasty. He abruptly wanted to transmigrate once himself. Maybe he would get some kind of beginner's gift pack.

"Speaking of which, Lu Mingfei." Su Lin changed the subject and redirected everyone's attention. If a newcomer ever uploaded a work related to him, the others would naturally find out.

For now, there was no rush.

"Have you decided? What plans do you have for the future?"

Over the past month or so, Lu Mingfei had spent every day either cultivating or thinking about what he should do in the future. It was not that he had never considered cultivating to the Nascent Soul stage before returning, then wandering through the myriad worlds and traveling across each group member's world first.

But that idea was clearly unrealistic.

"After I return, I plan to come clean with that lousy little brother of mine first. After all, I don't think he'd harm me." Lu Mingfei ran a hand through his hair. "Then... I'll find a way to save Erii first."

Right, so that was basically no plan at all.

"Matters decreed by fate should be cherished all the more once one knows the future. Seize the opportunities before you and leave no regrets." Zhongli spoke slowly. He picked up a flower petal from the table between his fingers. Many years ago, he and those comrades who had fought alongside him across the world had gathered like this as well, drinking fine wine and sharing good food.

"The Great Dao has fifty, Heaven's workings have forty-nine, and one escapes. In all things, there is a sliver of hope. There is no need to rush."

Shirou Emiya nodded and offered Lu Mingfei some comfort. "Now that we have the chat group's help and know the general course of the future, there's no reason our lives should turn out worse than the story in the book."

Shirou Emiya had long made up his mind that he would bring about an ending where everyone could be happy.

He had no ability to save Type-Moon's countless different timelines, but at least in the timeline where he was...

"I'll protect everything in this worldline!"

Illya applauded from the side.

Ye Fan nodded in approval and smiled confidently. "I shall suppress every enemy in the world. This time, there will absolutely be no Dark Turmoil!"

"Well said!" Xiao Yan strongly agreed. In Ben's original timeline, he had become the Flame Emperor. Now that he knew the future in advance, he should set his sights on the more distant Great Thousand World.

"Every moment of mine is spent preparing to revive my teacher and cleanse my sect. I will quell the Soul Clan's chaos and battle through the heavens!"

Klein thought about it. The logic was sound, but would putting it into practice really make the future worse? Originally, Ben could have become the Sequence 0 Fool, taken down Amon, and gathered the Uniquenesses. What if some of his actions led to him suddenly putting on a monocle one day?

"Surviving the Apocalypse will count as success."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Ahem."

The atmosphere suddenly fell silent. Su Lin coughed and took over the conversation.

"Anyway, Lu Mingfei, work hard. First, strive to reach Foundation Establishment as soon as possible."

Su Lin clinked his cup of drink against Lu Mingfei's. "I'm looking forward to the live broadcast of Tokyo Love Story."

"Stop messing with me..." Lu Mingfei forced out a smile uglier than crying. "You know better than anyone that it's all that bastard little brother's twisted sense of humor."

"Besides Herzog, there are also those old schemers like Mr. McCannon. It's too hard."

"If only our group had a Doraemon. I'd borrow an If Phone Booth from him." Lu Mingfei drank his cola and muttered to himself.

"Doraemon? If Phone Booth? What are those?" Zhongli asked curiously.

"A cartoon character from many children's childhoods in this era..." Most of those present knew about it.

There was no need to mention Shirou Emiya. It was one of their island nation's pillar industries.

Ye Fan, Xiao Yan, Su Lin, Lu Mingfei, and Zhou Mingrui had all been born in the eighties or nineties. They had watched this cartoon on television when they were children.

"Hmm..." Han Li and Zhongli felt that humanity's imagination was truly remarkable.

"But across the myriad worlds, who can say whether a Doraemon might truly join one day? Just like us, aren't we also beings of fantasy to people from other worlds?" Zhongli said slowly.

"Indeed. To the universe, planets are like countless grains of sand in a river. Perhaps the many worlds are the same." Han Li sighed somewhat. Yet now, he was merely a late Golden Core cultivator.

"Who wouldn't want a Doraemon?" Su Lin wanted one too. When he made birthday wishes in elementary school, he had wished for one.

"Nom nom, time machine." Luffy gnawed down several pieces of meat. The Sea King meat roasted with Heavenly Flames was charred outside and tender within, and the blended spices gave it a distinctive flavor.

"Come to think of it, isn't Su Lin a Doraemon?"

"He took me back to the past before."

Su Lin said speechlessly, "Yeah, except it was single-use."

Thanks to "Yuandao Star" for the 300-point donation!

(End of Ben's chapter)