Images of the Past

On the verdant hillside.

Dr. House's clinic stood quietly. The huge clock on the clinic, its second hand seemingly ticking normally, actually represented two seconds of time passing with each tick.

The blond man, who was looking down at the medical records, frowned slightly, then slowly raised his head. "I've clearly adjusted the surrounding hypnotic field; the clinic is currently closed to the public, yet someone still came up the hillside."

Dr. House stood quietly with his hands behind his head. "Looks like a real expert has arrived. We'll have to work overtime again tonight."

And in that very moment...

Through the window in front of me, I could see ripples suddenly appearing on the lush green lawn, as if a giant aircraft was about to land.

"Can it even pilot an aircraft to land?"

Dr. House couldn't help but chuckle, slowly rising and pushing open the pristine white wooden door of the clinic.

Before him stood a massive, white, spherical building, complete with its own courtyard.

Under the sunlight, the surface of the white spherical building reflects a brilliant light.

Dr. House squinted.

Although the scene before him was stunning, he was a man who had seen many storms, so he stood still and quietly observed.

But then the building's doors slowly opened.

A beautiful figure appeared in the halo of light.

She was backlit, so her face was not visible.

She began to run, as if she were descending from the sky, leaving a trail of graceful silhouettes. When she arrived in front of Dr. House, she opened her arms and pressed her warm, red lips directly onto Dr. House.

Dr. House slightly opened his eyes, looking at the features before him—the features of his dreams, the face he had longed for.

This moment.

Dr. House's eyes welled up with tears.

Hold your loved one tightly in your arms.

'bite.'

The Virtual Ring Research Institute incident is complete.

'100% Fusion Rate.'

' Separation Rate +12%.'

Walking alone in the desolation, feeling somewhat tired and wanting to log off and rest, Qin Yiguan paused slightly.

Separation Rate.

This is the data Dr. House is referring to, representing an individual who, after perfectly merging with the Metaverse, began a perverse process of stripping away.

Qin Yiguan never quite understood why a mechanism like "Separation Rate" was necessary.

What do the Gemini Superbrain really want?

And in that very moment...

The body of the "Higher Self" Boundless One reappeared.

Unlike Shitian, it is a clone within the Metaverse; in other words, it is a digital life form, residing in Qin Yiguan's mind, just like the Starvation Corpse.

Unlike other "Higher Self," the Boundless One seem to have their own thoughts.

But then it slowly spoke, "With the increased Separation Rate, I can give you a welcoming gift. Under the 12% Separation Rate limit, I can't let you travel freely between different points in time after returning to reality, as I can in the Metaverse. But I can achieve an effect called ' Consciousness Flashback '."

Qin Yiguan's eyes flickered.

Just as Dr. House said, once the Separation Rate is achieved, the abilities in the Metaverse can infiltrate into reality.

"Consciousness Flashback allow your current thoughts to travel to a specific point in your past."

The Boundless One, with eyes closed and facing the sky like a god, said, "The 'past' I just mentioned refers to the real world."

Qin Yiguan slightly opened his eyes.

The Boundless One then asked, "Where do you want to go?"

After a moment's hesitation, Qin Yiguan slowly spoke, "The night my mother died."

then.

Qin Yiguan's body transformed into code, and just like the usual 'logout', his body vanished without a trace.

But in that instant, Qin Yiguan also noticed that another piece of the Boundless One's body had shattered.

From my perspective, it's a pitch-black jungle.

Qin Yiguan was running, but at that moment, he was not his 18-year-old self, but that 6-year-old child.

This was the night Black Calamity's personality took shape.

He had just 'escaped' from the Ring Research Institute in the physical world, and filled with fear and anxiety, he thought of hiding deep in the dense forest.

The consciousness of the adult Qin Yiguan was currently residing in the child's mind.

In his peripheral vision, Qin Yiguan saw a truth.

The one who drowned his mother was not Bo You in the physical world, but two figures, a man and a woman.

The man and woman looked exactly like their adoptive parents.

A surge of rage welled up in Qin Yiguan's heart. "The murderers of my adoptive mother are those 'fake parents' cloned by my Bo You!"

The woman in white was frail and pitiful, struggling helplessly.

But the clones had no emotion in their eyes; they just held her neck tightly!

The woman in the white dress struggled less and less; she grew weaker and weaker.

And in that very moment...

The world before my eyes vanished with a crash.

Qin Yiguan returned to the Metaverse once again.

The enormous figure of the Boundless One still floated in the sky, but on his shoulder, a palm-sized area had shattered into a small cube, which was evaporating and dissipating in the air.

The Boundless One slowly said, "The Separation Rate 12%, that's all I can sustain for."

Qin Yiguan was quite clear.

Each time the Boundless One travels through time, it will dissipate a little due to the ' Truth Erosion,' and perhaps one day it will completely disappear from this world.

That perspective came from my peripheral vision when I was six years old. At that time, I was running away in a panic and didn't notice this scene at all. The Boundless One explained it very clearly: it was a kind of ' Consciousness Flashback ', which means that my current consciousness returned to my body in my childhood.

Can I go again?

But Qin Yiguan gritted his teeth slightly, "I want to know, what was ultimately done with my adoptive mother's body?"

The Boundless One paused for a moment, then said, "Alright."

Qin Yiguan's body vanished once more.

It was still that dark, dense forest.

In the corner of his eye when he was young, Qin Yiguan saw a man deep in the forest digging in the soil with a shovel. He carefully buried the body of his foster mother, who was wearing a white dress, and erected a stone tablet for her.

The figure digging in the soil looked very much like his adoptive father.

Just as Qin Yiguan was straining to see the words on the stone tablet...

Another pair of figures appeared in his field of vision. These were his kind-looking 'adoptive parents'. They reached out their hands to young Qin Yiguan and said with smiles, "Don't be afraid, we've come to take you home."