Lin Chuan remembered a joke he had once made with Zhou Mingrui:
I have shed my human form and ascended to godhood!
"So," after a moment's thought, he pressed his pen firmly against the last line of his diary and wrote, "am I really not human?"
Lin Chuan had instinctively put the issue of contamination from the cosmos last. That could only mean he either did not care whether he survived, or instinctively did not consider the contamination a threat.
It was like how an ordinary person would never worry about suddenly being crushed to death by the air one day. Atmospheric pressure certainly existed, but people grew accustomed to it because it had little effect on their bodies.
Of course, something of a higher level might have screened out the contamination and connections that should have affected him. That explanation might even have been more plausible.
Yet an almost instinctive premonition told Lin Chuan that perhaps he himself really was what made this situation special.
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After pondering for a moment, Lin Chuan decided to set aside the question of what exactly he was. He capped his fountain pen again and leaned back, unconsciously twirling it in his right hand, around and around.
Exactly what kind of being he was was not the most pressing issue.
The real question was this: since Zhou Mingrui had already completed the Luck Enhancement Ritual and hung himself from a southeastern branch in Sefirah Castle, quietly waiting to land in Tingen during the Fifth Epoch, how much longer would it be before the Original Creator awoke? What should he do?
"Besides..."
Lin Chuan thought of his recent inexplicable trains of thought, his increasingly severe drowsiness, and the tugging sensation he sometimes felt.
"Maybe I don't even need to sit here guessing. The truth might be about to walk right up to me."
He stopped twirling his pen and flipped backward through his notebook. After passing dozens of pages, Lin Chuan found the survival plan he had drawn up back then:
"...Either hitch a ride on a Luck Enhancement Ritual or find a related item to get into Sefirah Castle, then hang myself from a southeastern branch so I can stow away into the future and wait for Klein to release the Light Cocoons..."
He still remembered his thinking at the time. Although he had no idea why he had not died the instant he arrived, Lin Chuan had devised an escape route to stay alive: "Sefirah Castle if possible, the Chaos Sea if all else fails." As long as he could lie low until the later era, the vast amount of information he possessed would give him absolute confidence in reaching Sequence 3. And without compromising his humanity, Sequence 3 was already the best choice.
Of course, the prerequisite was that someone had to become the Lord of the Mysteries, then win the apocalyptic war for Earth before this long funeral began.
At that thought, Lin Chuan glanced at his desk.
The Luck Enhancement Ritual was recorded in the Qin-Han Secret Record of Esoteric Arts beside him. Even without the book, Lin Chuan remembered how to perform it.
As for an item bearing Sefirah Castle's aura, that same Qin-Han Secret Record of Esoteric Arts would serve. Although he was unsure whether its aura had already been exhausted, his current finances would easily allow him to seek out and purchase similar antiques and ancient books.
The missing materials for the ritual were even simpler. The kitchen was outside his bedroom, straight ahead through the living room. There was still some uneaten rice from an earlier purchase in the cupboard, ready to serve as the ritual's staple food at any time.
Lin Chuan silently studied the survival plan in his notebook. The handwriting was not exactly a mess, but it was rather sloppy, enough to reveal the writer's panic and tangled emotions at the time.
If he were still the person he had been when he first transmigrated, perhaps he would already have gone to the kitchen to prepare four bowls of staple food, set them in the four corners of his room, and taken four steps counterclockwise, waiting to be pulled into Sefirah Castle and become Little Zhou's roommate.
"Heh." Lin Chuan suddenly gave a soft laugh.
If this had been right after he transmigrated, he would absolutely have done it without hesitation. What do other people's lives have to do with me? This world might have been Zhou Mingrui's home, or Huang Tao's home, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with him, Lin Chuan.
He could even say that, if he had never felt that faint tugging and calling and consequently begun to question his identity, Lin Chuan would still have immediately chosen the special route through Sefirah Castle.
After all, Zhou Mingrui had already gone up there and hung himself from a southeastern branch. If Zhou Mingrui had not gone up yet, Lin Chuan would have taken Little Zhou along.
"This isn't about saving anyone," Lin Chuan wrote in the blank space at the bottom of the page. "Without Zhou Mingrui becoming the 'Lord of the Mysteries' and taking on that colossal mess, how am I supposed to defeat the Outer Deities and win the apocalyptic war alone?"
After paying that little tribute, Lin Chuan felt he could barely keep a straight face, but his mood had also lightened considerably. Sure enough, after transmigrating into a hellhole like Lord of the Mysteries, he needed to act a little unhinged now and then to stay optimistic.
Still, apart from Zhou Mingrui, no one else-not even Zhou's parents-could have made Lin Chuan hesitate in the slightest over his decision to "go up to Sefirah Castle."
Because he had a reason he had to survive. He had to stay alive, then go home.
Everything in this world had nothing to do with him, and this place had never accepted an outsider like Lin Chuan. Besides, he knew his own limits very well, so he would never entertain any unrealistic notions of being a savior.
But...
All of that rested on the premise that Lin Chuan had only just transmigrated and did not know Zhou Mingrui. Back then, his impression of Zhou Mingrui had extended no further than the protagonist of a novel, while he himself was merely an ordinary person.
After genuinely spending four years as Zhou Mingrui's college roommate, after a full four and a half years, more than sixteen hundred days and nights, Lin Chuan had long since forgotten the stereotype of the "novel protagonist" and abandoned his arrogant perspective as a transmigrator.
That long stretch of time was enough for a young man who had arrived in this cold, hopeless, utterly unfamiliar world to instinctively gravitate toward someone he remembered as a kind, decent person, and ultimately become his true friend.
"And good people shouldn't have to cry..."
Lin Chuan's voice sounded especially clear in the quiet room:
"They should get happy endings."
He recalled a passage he had once written in his diary before transmigrating:
The first person to die was named Zhou Mingrui. He was an ordinary man from the old era who quietly passed away amid his loved ones' grief.
The second to die was Klein. He died at the Blackthorn Security Company when an evil god descended, protecting Tingen with his life. The Moretti Family lost their finest elder and younger brother.
The third to lose his life was named Sherlock. He was an extraordinary detective, filled with passion and a sense of morality. Knowing it was impossible, he still risked his life in an attempt to stop the catastrophe, ultimately perishing amid abnormal meteors.
The fifth farewell belonged to Merlin the Miracle Invoker. He wandered the continent, granting wishes for countless people, yet could never fulfill his own. In the end, he calmly walked toward death.
In the end, only the Fool Above the Gray Fog remained.
He
Might have been a benevolent god, but he would eventually fade away under the relentless erosion, left only to recall his former homeland in futile dreams.
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