Li Jiehao stayed at the hotel to pack his things, while Isaac and Carlo left first.
Isaac remained silent for a while, pondering the information he had just received. At an intersection, he spoke up, "Why does that thing that hunts down time travelers only target them?"
"You're not a time traveler, why do you care about this?"
"Yeah, I'm just a little curious."
Carlo shrugged. "I didn't sit down and talk to it about its family background, so how would I know why it's targeting time travelers? Maybe time travelers are like lanterns suddenly lit in the darkness, very conspicuous to it. Maybe it's some kind of mechanism specifically designed to eliminate anomalies; time travelers don't belong to this world, so to it they're just foreign objects that need to be removed."
"Boss, you seem to know a lot about that thing. Have you fought it before?"
"I guess so. I'm confident I can banish it back when it appears, so I know it exists and I'm still alive. But it gets annoying after a while, so it's best to be cautious and play it safe."
How did you do that?
"It's a secret. Everyone has their own trump card. Mine is just a little bigger than that thing, maybe this much." Carlo gestured with his thumb and forefinger, indicating a very small gap.
Looking at the distance he was gesturing, Isaac felt that this "little bit" was probably not so simple.
Carlo didn't continue discussing how strong his trump card was, but changed the subject. "What do you think of that Li Jiehao?"
"From what I can see, he doesn't seem like a bad person, but he's not exactly a good one either. Last night, he genuinely fired a gun to threaten someone over that ring. Even if, according to his own account, he didn't shoot at anyone, if he had actually injured someone, the consequences wouldn't be something that can be brushed aside with 'I didn't mean to hurt anyone.'"
Carlo nodded. "At that stage, he thought time travel was some kind of adventure game, believing himself to be the chosen protagonist who could easily reach the pinnacle of life with just a few mishaps. But in reality, very few of them survive and make a name for themselves."
"So, boss, why would someone travel through time?" Isaac asked, finally voicing the question that had been puzzling him.
If time travelers come from another world, how did they get there? Was it a coincidence, or was there some force pulling the strings behind the scenes?
Carlo shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe something in this world is calling them, or maybe it's some kind of natural phenomenon, like the world itself has a gravitational pull that attracts the souls of those who travel through it."
The two walked for a while longer, with the railcar passing overhead. Carlo said, "However, some time travelers have indeed brought about huge changes. Vista's current appearance is also influenced by a time traveler."
"Um?"
"That person arrived about fifty years ago. He wasn't some invincible powerhouse, nor did he possess any extraordinary wisdom; in terms of aptitude, he was just an ordinary person with relatively good qualities."
Isaac was somewhat surprised. In his imagination, the person who could transform Vista should at least be someone with extraordinary skills and intelligence.
"But he was very lucky," Carlo said, "Lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, in an era that needed change, to meet the then young and ambitious Grand Duke Ogway, and to present him with a vision of the world that was unimaginable to ordinary people."
"He didn't speculate on how the future would develop based on existing conditions, but rather described it from the perspective of a future vision. He described to the Grand Duke what Vista should be like decades later: the Industrial Revolution, rail networks, elected parliaments, new policing... These things were a luxury for the people of Vista at that time, even to imagine them."
"Simply put, that person is like a historian who studies the future."
Isaac pondered this idea: historians study the past, but if someone could recount future events as if they had already happened, it would require more than just predictive ability; it would require having witnessed that future firsthand.
"Therefore, Vista's current appearance is largely based on the description given by that time traveler."
"That's fair to say. The time traveler himself wasn't directly involved. After all, he didn't understand interpersonal relationships or the exchange of benefits, nor could he develop machines or plan cities. All he could offer was advice. The ones who truly turned the blueprint into reality were those who were attracted by the blueprint he described."
"Where is that time traveler now?"
You should already know his fate.
Isaac paused, Carlo stopped in his tracks. "Did Lessing ever tell you where he's from?"
Isaac paused, the meaning behind those words taking him a moment to process.
He knew that his adoptive father Edward Lessing, was not from Palmer; he came from elsewhere, from Vista, and often spoke of his homeland, but...
Edward never told Isaac that Vista was his hometown.
" Lessing is that time traveler." Carlo continued walking.
Isaac was at a loss for words. Upon reflection, he realized that Lessing did indeed have many qualities that set him apart from the other professors, especially his unique interpretation of history. Those traits that had once made him think of Lessing as merely a knowledgeable old scholar now seemed to have new meaning.
He was filled with complex emotions. He had always thought he understood Lessing, but when he arrived in Vista, he discovered that the old man's life was far more complicated than he had ever known.
"It's normal that you can't tell; he adapted very well," Carlo said. "When you met him, Lessing was already in his later years. Any time traveler would find it difficult to see any trace of his compatriot in Lessing at that stage."
He has lived here for far longer than he has in his hometown; he has learned the rules of this world and integrated into its soil.
"In a way, Vista could be considered one of his legacies, but he wasn't satisfied with Vista. His departure from here in his later years was partly due to the church, and probably also partly because of this."
Isaac suppressed his emotions. "He thinks there's something wrong with Vista's development direction?"
"It is indeed quite different from what he envisioned. He described an ideal city, but what actually came to be was the product of the interplay and compromise among various parties' interests."
"The railcars did start running, but their purpose was to bring more workers to the factories; the council did have elected seats, but the real power still lay with the nobles and wealthy businessmen; the Joint Investigation Bureau was established, but the City Police Force remained Byrne's territory..."
"What he wanted was a tree pruned according to the blueprints, but the pruners each had their own agendas. They cut off some branches they thought were important, leaving behind other rotten wood that should have been pruned, turning it into a crooked tree that Lessing couldn't stand?"