If I could tell you

Chen Yingsheng woke up in the laboratory.

Three bodies of white-haired girls were displayed in the laboratory, one was suspended in the air; one was soaked in a capsule; and another had a dagger stuck in her chest and her hand was placed in the groove of the detection machine.

Chen Yingsheng ignored the corpse. She pushed open the door and ran directly to another laboratory, where the swordsman was killing himself.

The half-lying swordsman immediately straightened up and asked himself, who was holding the dagger: "You got the time wrong."

"No..." muttered another swordsman.

He figured it all out in an instant, and suddenly looked up at Chen Yingsheng: "This is your kaleidoscope."

"It was your kaleidoscope." Chen Yingsheng replied, "I killed you in the kaleidoscope."

"Then you put my body on the detector and found the remnants of your super powers."

The two swordsmen froze, fear, anger, and pain flashing across their faces, a mixture of several emotions.

The swordsman asked in disbelief: "The thing is ineffective"

The other swordsman was shocked: "It's ineffective!"

Chen Yingsheng didn't understand: "What?"

"In Liu Tianyi's strange story, I put something on you, and you——"

The swordsman's body began to become deformed, as if it was some kind of irreversible degeneration. With his left eye as the center, he grew another half of his cheek, three eyes were neatly arranged on his face, and his mouth was stretched by the skin.

The dagger fell to the ground with a clang. He covered his face in pain, his words becoming unclear: "Your superpower is taking effect!"

Chen Yingsheng looked at him in astonishment. She had never imagined that it would be the swordsman who prevented the extinction of mankind on January 4, 99 of the new calendar.

The swordsman in Ren Shanshan's kaleidoscope secretly left memetic suppression on Chen Yingsheng to prevent her newly awakened superpowers from taking effect.

She asks: "My superpowers are a form of memetic pollution"

"Kill-me"

The swordsman held on to his last bit of sanity and begged.

Chen Yingsheng picked up the dagger with trembling hands and gritted his teeth to kill the increasingly deformed swordsman in front of him.

The swordsman suddenly became quiet. Chen Yingsheng slowly raised his head and saw a pair of eyes as calm as a lake.

It was the Patriarch, who said, "It is really difficult to take over the body of a child you raised with your own hands."

She looked down and saw the dagger on her chest, and smiled softly: "I'll wait for you in my ghost story."

Chen Yingsheng let go of the dagger, took a step back and leaned against the wall. She even had a slight tinnitus in her ears.

The detection machine next to him made a soft "beep" sound, and Chen Yingsheng lay on the chair like a puppet.

......

Chen Yingsheng woke up on the bed in the detective agency.

She swiped her phone screen and saw that it was now ten o'clock in the morning. Professor Lin replied to her message, happily agreeing to her visit and inviting her to stay for lunch.

Chen Yingsheng covered his temples.

Is it the sequelae of the kaleidoscope? Everything that happened after coming out of He Kang's kaleidoscope, the death of He Cuifeng, the lover who broke into the office, the deformed person in Yingzhou, the truth told by the mentor, and the subsequent kaleidoscope were all false.

Chen Yingsheng opened the curtains, and sunlight shone into the bedroom. The light shone on the flowers on the bedside, and she froze.

There were no flowers in her house.

No, to put it another way, after Wenyuan died, flowers disappeared from the family. Neither Chen Tu nor she liked flowers, and they were too lazy to put the flowers they bought into the vase one by one.

She opened the door barefoot, stepped on the carpet at the door, and jumped up like a frightened cat.

One of Wenyuan's hobbies was collecting small carpets. After Wenyuan's death, no one cleaned the carpets and they were all put into a warehouse.

Chen Yingsheng ran downstairs and stared blankly at the living room on the first floor.

There was no one at home, no Chen Tu, no Wen Yuan, no Chen Fanfan, not even the pooping puppet.

Wen Yuan is clearly not here, but this place is full of her traces.

There is also a vase of flowers on the coffee table in the living room, and the table is covered with an expensive and beautiful tablecloth. These exquisite decorations that require a lot of energy to maintain are what Wenyuan once insisted on.

When Wenyuan was alive, Chen Tu and Chen Yingsheng didn’t understand. It was not until Wenyuan died that they suddenly realized that this was home.

There was a piece of perfumed letter on the tablecloth. Chen Yingsheng picked it up like a madman. On it was Wen Yuan's handwriting:

【Time will not tell you anything and I tell you this,

Time only knows that we have to pay the price,

If I could tell you, I would let you know.

If we should cry when clowns come on stage,

If the musicians start playing we should dance. 】

Tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes. On the letter was Auden's "If I Could Tell You". Wen Yuan read the poem to Chen Yingsheng as a bedtime story the night before he committed suicide by jumping off the building.

Chen Yingsheng was drowsy at the time and didn't listen carefully, or didn't understand even if she did. She didn't even understand the meaning of the bedtime story segment, as she had always fallen asleep as soon as she touched the pillow since she was a child.

Now, Chen Yingsheng understands that poetry is a specimen of old friends, and old friends live forever in poetry.

She had to cover her mouth to stop herself from sobbing. At this moment, all her persistence seemed meaningless.

Whether it is Chen Yingsheng or the Memory Master, they are chasing after the truth and longing for the truth, and their original purpose is for their younger self.

They abandoned their emotions and kept rehearsing the truth, just for an imaginary truth - Wenyuan did not commit suicide because he wanted to abandon her, Wenyuan must have died for some grand truth that required him to give up his daughter.

The left arm connected to the heart felt severe pain. Chen Yingsheng grabbed his arm and slowly knelt on the carpet, tears flowing uncontrollably.

Her mind was extremely clear: This is reality, and everything before was just my fantasy. I imagined that there must be a huge conspiracy behind Wen Yuan's death, and I imagined that my mentor and other people told me the bizarre truth.

I just - I just don’t want Wenyuan to abandon me.

Chen Yingsheng burst into tears.

She forced herself to stand up and ran to the kitchen. On the stove was a small note written by Wenyuan, "Remember to turn off the fire." She found what she wanted, a piece of letterhead fixed with a refrigerator magnet:

If I could tell you, I would let you know.

When the wind blows they must come from somewhere,

There must be a reason why the leaves fall.

Maybe the roses really do want to grow.

This scene really wants to stay. 】

Do leaves need a reason to fall?

Tears blurred Chen Yingsheng's eyes.

Does Wenyuan's death need a reason?

Like every case she solved, she was determined to find a reason for her mother's death.

If there is no reason, create one. She has lived for this illusory reason in her short life since she could remember. Her nerves have been tense and never relaxed. She always keeps her mind clear and is fully prepared to face the difficulties before the truth.

Is the truth that important?

Chen Yingsheng asked himself over and over again.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and walked out of the kitchen, and saw someone on the sofa in the living room.

It’s Wenyuan.

I'm still in the kaleidoscope—her reason told her.

Is the truth so important? The voice in her heart kept asking herself.

Chen Yingsheng's feet seemed to be out of her control. When she came to her senses, she was already standing in front of the sofa, looking at Wen Yuan greedily.

Wenyuan smiled and she sat down next to him.

Chen Yingsheng stopped crying. She stared at the vase and didn't want to say a word, as if the sound would shatter Wen Yuan's image.

Wen Yuan patted his knees gently, and Chen Yingsheng lay on them sideways.

"Do you hate me?" Wen Yuan asked, her eyes like lake water.

Chen Yingsheng didn't answer.

After a long time, Chen Yingsheng asked: "If there is a next life, we are not mother and daughter, and I may not be a human, but just a cockroach in the kitchen. When you meet me, can you give me some steamed bread crumbs?"

Wen Yuan was stunned. She asked softly: "Why do you ask? Is life tiring?"

"No." Chen Yingsheng covered her eyes, tears streaming down her fingers. "If you turned into a cockroach, I would definitely give you steamed bread crumbs."

A ripple appeared on the calm lake water.

Chen Yingsheng rolled over and lay flat on Wenyuan's knees. She took her hands off her eyes and said, "But you are not her."

Wen Yuan, or should I call her Mu Shou, she smiled softly: "Never."

"Never."

"From the moment Chen Tu made the wish."

"From the moment you were born."

Chen Yingsheng's eyes plunged straight into the lake, tears streaming down her eyes. She repeated: "But you are not her."

The Patriarch also repeated: "It has never been like that. I was the one who raised you, and I was the one who jumped off the building and committed suicide in front of you."

Chen Yingsheng finally asked the question that had troubled her for 22 years: "Why?"

"So that you can get what I have to die to get." The Patriarch smiled. She was facing the light, as quiet as a sunflower in autumn.

"I once started a war out of burning hatred, but they all said I was righteous and the savior of all superpowered people, and they worshipped me as a god."

"No, it's not like that. When people's hatred reaches a certain level, they can't tolerate anything else, let alone the so-called justice."

Chen Yingsheng asked: "Wasn't the original wish to protect humanity and prevent it from becoming extinct?"

"How is that possible?" the Patriarch sneered, "I wish for the extinction of mankind."

Chen Yingsheng is aphasic.

"The original superpowers were not considered human, and I don't think of myself as human either."

"Even if my wish is granted and I am exterminated as a member of the human race, I don't care."

“I just need to vent my hatred,” the Patriarch said.

"But nothing happened. I thought the sacrificed souls were not enough, so I just killed my own body to make up the number."

"Still nothing happened."

"It was only then that I discovered the truth about superpowers, and the truth turned out to be the lie that I had always hated. Superpowers are really not a good thing, and people with superpowers deserve to be discriminated against and deserve to be killed."

She lowered her head slightly and looked at Chen Yingsheng gently: "So I changed my wish. I want there to be no super powers in the world."

Chen Yingsheng calmed down a lot: "So you are not the savior."

"That's what the mentor told you," the Patriarch was a little surprised, "There is no savior in the world, and we don't need a savior."

The Patriarch leaned in and looked into Chen Yingsheng's eyes: "When I first heard the Saint's prophecy, I was so shocked that I almost lost my composure."

The gods born from super powers will grant super powers to all mankind on January 4, 99 of the new calendar, and mankind will become extinct on the same day.

"I can't imagine how many lives must be sacrificed to make a wish to obtain a god."

"But Chen Tu doesn't need to make a sacrifice." The Patriarch lowered his voice, "He has received all the love from Wen Yuan, and Wen Yuan is willing to use her life to fulfill his wish."

"The funniest thing is that Chen Tu himself didn't think it was a wish. He just mentioned it casually, but Wen Yuan thought a lot about it. She lost herself in the anxiety of gain and loss, and was unwilling to confess her deformity to Chen Tu, and finally promised to fulfill the wish with her life."

Chen Yingsheng was unmoved: "Then you took over Wenyuan's body."

"No." The Patriarch smiled slightly, "It was Wenyuan who asked me to possess her body."