Gao Ming blinked. Through a long recovery, he had gradually found himself again, returning to the moment the Lord of Time Blood City had chosen, returning to a time without Fate.
The light in the tunnel seemed like ocean waves, alternating between light and darkness as the bus drove onward.
It took Gao Ming a long time to adjust. He wanted to figure out which timeline he was in, but then he suddenly realized that this scene existed in every one of his timelines.
"This day again?"
He instinctively looked up at the tunnel ceiling. Neither he nor any corpses were there.
He hugged the work bag holding his laptop, his body swaying with the jolting bus.
The bus drove safely out of the tunnel. Gao Ming turned his head out of habit. Outside the window, beneath a streetlamp, white light shone on gray concrete. Someone should have been there. Someone had always been there before, waiting for him.
Gao Ming watched the streetlamp recede without moving, afraid he might miss something.
"After being reborn and remade so many times, I finally found a moment without Fate. But if we hadn't been fighting Fate, we probably wouldn't have met again and again."
A light rain began falling from the night sky as the bus traveled along a road on the distant outskirts. There were no monsters, nothing uncanny. For the first time, he watched the city at night in such silence, quietly hugging his laptop bag. All the Fate Threads had been severed. No one was connected to him anymore. He did not know where his home was, nor what his true name was. He was the third perspective left after both forms of Fate disappeared. He had carved the world into shape, but lost his original self. The bus