69 City upon City 03
◎You are not a three-dimensional person! ? ◎
In the Second Level Civilization era, the streets are full of colorful lights and passers-by are constantly coming and going.
A young man with a child sat alone on a bench on the street.
His eyes were fixed on the clock on the billboard on top of the building in front of him, which showed the current time: 866 in the Second Level Civilization Era.
Zhu Heng shifted his gaze to the windows on the building's surface.
His movements were so focused that many passersby were intrigued and followed his gaze into the building - but they could see nothing except the reflective glass curtain wall.
Passersby shook their heads in disappointment and continued on their way.
No one knew that the ordinary scene in their eyes was a completely different scene in Zhu Heng's eyes.
At this moment, the window panes in Zhu Heng's eyes were reflecting the figure of a man in black combat uniform.
Each frame is a scene.
Such as the steamed bun shop by the river, the deep palace, the deserted spice shop in the afternoon, the pagoda temple under the scorching sun, and the fairyland-like gardens of the Han Dynasty...
The events in each scene happen simultaneously, without any particular order.
Zhu Heng looked at the scenes unfolding before his eyes, and a woman's voice inexplicably emerged in his mind. She spoke a familiar phrase, which came from far away and sounded unreal to Zhu Heng:
“…The time of a story is nothing more than a piece of frozen paper. You can skip any process at will and come to any time point.
"You'll see the beginning and end of the story at the same time. You can read the first story picture and see the ending of the last picture directly..."
Zhu Heng recalled the words he had heard in his dream in the "Tokyo Dream" copy, every word and sentence was clear.
He murmured softly, repeating the woman's next words: "This is... the fourth dimension."
Zhu Heng lowered his head, his eyes swept across the "866" on the billboard again, and looked at the baby in his arms.
"I understand," he said.
-
Helan Dao walked through the temple gate and came to the front of the wooden pagoda, but there was no sign of Zhu Heng in his sight.
We must have entered the pagoda, Helan Dao thought as he stared at the dark pagoda gate.
He jumped onto the base of the pagoda and planned to go inside. However, what he didn't know was that at the same moment, Zhu Heng inside the pagoda saw a dark shadow flash outside from the corner of his eye, so he put down the baby on the Sumeru throne and walked out of another door of the wooden pagoda to check.
In and out, in just a blink of an eye, the two passed each other.
Helan Dao stood in the empty tower, feeling a faint chill. He saw the child on the Sumeru throne and frowned slightly - hadn't he left the child in the spice shop in Chang'an City? How could he appear here again?
He looked around but didn't see the person he was looking for.
Helan Dao was filled with doubts. After hesitating for a moment, he walked forward and held the child in his arms.
No matter what, take him away first...
Helandao patted the child on the back, and suddenly, he stopped and looked out the door.
The bright sunlight scorched the bluestone ground outside the tower. Helan Dao took a defensive posture and stood there motionless with the child in his arms.
Why did he feel like... someone was looking at him just now?
There was dead silence outside the tower.
Helan Dao looked for a while but didn't see anything unusual, so he had to look away and return with the child.
However, he didn't know that at the moment he left, Zhu Heng outside the tower hurried back and discovered that the child on the Sumeru throne had disappeared.
Helan Dao stepped out of the pagoda, thinking he would return to the spice shop in Tang Chang'an City, but unexpectedly he came to another new world of the ancient capital.
He stood in front of the Anywhere Door and could see the clear and vast lake from afar. In the center of the lake sat three man-made fairy mountain islands. Rare and exotic plants were planted on the lakeside, and all kinds of ancient rare birds that had never been seen before lived there, making it like a fairyland.
In a flash, Helan Dao seemed to have figured something out.
"Is this the Western Han Dynasty?"
[Yes, the Han Chang'an City.]
"What is the mission this time? You haven't told me yet?"
[The explanation is actually not complicated. Just bring this child back to the era in which he lived.]
He Landao recalled the document with "Western Han Dynasty" written on it that he saw when he entered the Qin Palace. He sat down by the lake, holding the child in his arms. He asked the system, "Now, is my mission complete?"
As he spoke, he observed the changes around him: "Why is there no movement?"
[Explanation... This child is not from the Western Han Dynasty.] System explanation.
"Let me think about it." Helan Dao's eyes paused slightly, staring at the baby boy in his arms in silence.
So far, he has taken the child through the Qin Palace, the Han Garden, Luoyang of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and Chang'an City of the Tang Dynasty, but there has been no movement, which shows that the child does not belong to any of the above eras.
Then the only place left is Bianliang, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty.
"Go back to the Northern Song Dynasty." Helan Dao said. He set off immediately, but the moment he stood up, he heard a familiar voice in the air.
"No, I've already been there."
Helan Dao paused abruptly: "Zhu Heng?"
He turned to look for the source of the voice. "Where are you?"
"Don't bother looking for me, I'm in another time and space." Zhu Heng said.
"What's going on now?"
"We are currently in a four-dimensional space." Zhu Heng's voice sounded very calm. "Normally, the several ancient cities we visited should be on a one-way timeline. In other words, from morning to night, they should be arranged in chronological order without interfering with each other. But now, due to some accident, the time nodes between them have been broken, and space-time has folded.
"So, you and I just traveled between these different cities, and it seemed like there was a difference in time, but in fact, everything happened at the same time."
Helan Dao frowned slightly, then relaxed again: "Do you already know what to do?"
Zhu Heng said: "That's right, now you need to follow my instructions and carry out the next steps."
"How do you say that?"
"Let me think. From the moment I entered the dungeon, I arrived at the palace within the Qin Xianyang City. It was there that I discovered the most important person in this dungeon mission: the baby boy. Then, I carried him to the gardens of the Han Chang'an City. However, due to a time-space fold, I was mistakenly sent back to the Qin Palace. By the time I realized what was happening and wanted to go back to retrieve the child, I ended up in the Wei and Jin Luoyang City."
Zhu Heng paused for a moment and continued, "While I was going through all of this, you were in Bianliang, Northern Song Dynasty. Then, due to the folding of time and space, you heard the cry of a child, and so you also came to the Qin Xianyang City. That was when I left for Wei and Jin Luoyang, and the other me in the loop once again sent the child from the Han Dynasty palace to the Qin Palace. You took the child away and came from the Qin Palace to the Tang Chang'an City."
The more Helan Dao listened, the more he felt something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out where this weird feeling came from, so he could only continue to listen to Zhu Heng's story.
"After bringing the child to the spice shop in Tang Chang'an, you accidentally saw me, freshly departing the Han Dynasty and arriving in Luoyang, Wei and Jin, through the folded four-dimensional space. So you left the child behind and pursued me from Tang Chang'an to Wei and Jin alone. At that time, I had just found the child in the pagoda of Yongning Temple, but because of your arrival, I left the pagoda to investigate. It was then that you entered the pagoda and took the child away again.
"I came back and found the child missing. I followed the crying sound to the Tang Chang'an City and found the child you had left behind in the spice shop."
Helan Dao knew where that abnormality came from.
In this four-dimensional space, the occurrence and development of things are not based on chronological order, but only on causal logic. What happens later may be the cause of what happened earlier.
"And then?" Helan Dao asked.
"Then I brought the child from the Tang Dynasty's Chang'an City to the Northern Song Dynasty's Bianjing. Here, through the space-time connection point, I saw you take the child away from Yongning Temple. I didn't see what happened next, but I guess that after leaving Yongning Temple in the Northern Wei Dynasty, you should have come to the Han Palace Garden, which is where you are now."
"That's exactly right." Helan Dao said, "How about you, are you in the Northern Song Dynasty now?"
"I..." Zhu Heng looked at the scene of the second-level civilization era around him, paused, and said "hmm" vaguely.
The child in her arms stared at Zhu Heng's face, which was red from lying, and suddenly giggled.
Helan Dao had sharp ears and immediately caught the slight movement from the other side: "Is the child with you?"
"Yeah." Zhu Heng's expression returned to normal and he replied, "I know, you have some too."
He Landao said, "Two children at the same time? Which one should we use to complete the mission?"
There can only be one child in the same space-time. If two or more children appear in the same space-time, it must be ensured that they do not see each other.
"Use the one I have." Zhu Heng said.
"Then this..." He Landao looked at the child in his arms, "Is this why you came to me?"
"Well, there's a missing logical link here."
Helan Dao quickly went over Zhu Heng's words in his mind, and then he realized, "Is it the Yongning Temple in the Northern Wei Dynasty?"
"That's right. The child you took away from the Qin Palace was placed there by me. The child I met in Tang Chang'an was also brought out of the Qin Palace by you and placed there. So who placed the child I found in Northern Wei Luoyang there? After much thought, it can only be you."
Helandao understood what he meant: "So you want me to go to Yongning Temple next and leave the child there to complete this logical link. Let me ask you a question, why is it not your child?"
Zhu Heng said calmly, "Because if nothing unexpected happens, I will be the last one here."
"Do you have any idea?"
"Um."
Helan Dao raised his eyebrows. Although he didn't know the specific situation on Zhu Heng's side, he nodded, picked up the child and left the Han Palace Garden, and successfully arrived at the Northern Wei Luoyang City.
He walked into the Yongning Temple pagoda with familiarity and placed the child on the lotus throne. "Alright. So do you know what era the child belongs to?"
Helan Dao said this while casually glancing outside the door.
Zhu Heng did not answer his question, and Helan Dao did not ask any further questions, because he had already seen Zhu Heng at this moment through the connection point of folded time and space.
He was on Earth in the second-level civilization era, and the surrounding environment looked familiar to Helan Dao - he had been to the previous copy of "The Death of Qin Shi Huang", and this was Zhu Heng's hometown.
"Why are you there?" Helan Dao shouted towards the connection point. His heart sank suddenly and he had an ominous premonition.
Zhu Heng turned around, but just glanced at him calmly and said, "He belongs here."
This "he" obviously refers to the child.
Suddenly, a cold chill ran from Helan Dao's spine to his limbs. He wanted to cross the door in front of him and follow Zhu Heng to his second-level civilization era.
However, for some reason, he was unable to break through this connection point, and only went from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Northern Song Dynasty. When he tried again, he went from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty...
"Don't try." Zhu Heng stopped him. "Three-dimensional creatures can't break through the limitations of four-dimensional space-time. You can only passively choose whichever door it opens for you. That's where you go."
"Then how did I get from the Western Han Dynasty to the Northern Wei Dynasty?"
"Because of me."
Helan Dao stopped moving.
"I opened the door for you." Zhu Heng said slowly, word by word, "You can't come to me because I closed the door for you."
"How could that be... You said three-dimensional creatures can't break through the limitations of four-dimensional space-time..." He Landao suddenly realized, "You're not a three-dimensional person!?"
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