Chapter 375: Destruction of the World, the Birth of Restricted Level 1001 (7,000 words, please give me a monthly ticket)
Looking around, the movie theater was dark at this time, and the darkness was filled with a smell mixed with lemon slices and disinfectant.
The auditorium was empty, with only Ji Minghuan and the Prophet sitting there. The dim light from the screen blew towards them, illuminating their faces.
The two sat in the middle of the second row. They looked similar, and their sitting positions were similar, except Ji Minghuan had a bowl of popcorn and a Coke in his hands. The Coke was even iced, like a solace gift from a prophet.
Ji Minghuan raised the popcorn bucket and plastic cup in his hands, looked at them speechlessly, and then turned his head away.
He leaned on the armrest and looked at the prophet silently.
The prophet didn't turn around, but stared at the screen quietly. His eyes were dim and unfocused from beginning to end, like a silent, lonely lake.
Ji Minghuan was silent for a long moment, then withdrew his gaze and gently shook the plastic cup in his hand. After confirming that there was water in it, he leaned over the cup and took a sip of Coke. Then he raised his head and silently looked at the huge movie screen.
At this moment, a corner of Lao Jingmai is shown on the screen, and a map of Lao Jingmai Street is drawn on the signboard on the roadside.
On a corner of the street, the Puppet Father and the straitjacketed youth known as "Star Caller" stood side by side in the sea of fire. The former wore an oversized black windbreaker, his face covered in dense bandages.
The boy in the straitjacket lowered his head, his pupils filled with a terrifying light.
He suddenly raised his hand, and at that moment, a bright and dazzling beam of light shot up into the sky, passing over the telephone poles, billboards, and rooftops of high-rise buildings in the Laojingmai district.
Finally, it rose to the top of the sky, and in an instant it split into countless meteor-like beams of light, which fell down with a loud bang.
One of these beams of light landed squarely on a three-story residential building. That was the residence of Gu Qiye's family. The movie suddenly paused at that moment, frozen in time as the meteor plunged into the eaves of the building. The roar of the meteor tearing through the sky abruptly ceased, and the vast theater was once again enveloped in silence.
Ji Minghuan remained silent.
The prophet also remained silent.
The light spreading from above the huge screen illuminated the faces of Ji Minghuan and the prophet in the darkness, and their dark pupils reflected the same picture.
"First of all, is this the scene you predicted?" After a moment of silence, Ji Minghuan spoke.
"If I remember correctly... I've already denied it, but you can think of it this way," the prophet said slowly, "there's not much difference in essence."
Ji Minghuan put the Coke in the groove of the armrest, lowered his head and looked at the popcorn in the bucket.
He asked casually, "Then in the scene you predicted, Kong Youling and I were adopted by Gu Zhuoan and Su Ying?"
"Yes, Su Ying adopted you."
"Then, the destruction of the old Jingmai district was delayed for six years and happened in 2021?"
"Yes, that is one year from the time we are in now." The prophet whispered.
"In the Laojingmai Street incident that you predicted, the person who died in this family was not Su Ying, but someone else?" Ji Minghuan asked casually.
"That's right... someone else died." The prophet was silent for a moment and said in a low voice.
Ji Minghuan lowered his head and picked up the popcorn from the bucket and put it into his mouth.
"Who is the dead person?" he asked.
"Don't you understand yet?"
"What do you want to say?"
"Why was the planet destroyed... and why was it destroyed in your restraints?" The Prophet clasped his hands together and spoke slowly. "With your abilities, it shouldn't be difficult to think of this possibility. There's no need to run away. No matter what happens, only by facing it can you accept it and change it."
Ji Minghuan scratched his nose, took a deep breath, and placed the popcorn bucket on the groove of the other armrest.
Then he held his chin and slowly turned his head. "Just say it directly, there's no need to beat around the bush." He stared at the prophet and spoke almost word by word.
The prophet crosses his hands and places them together in front of his abdomen.
"The name in your mind is the answer." He lowered his voice and spoke slowly.
"Kong Youling."
Hearing the name, the prophet remained silent for a moment. He didn't respond, but simply looked up at the movie screen. At that moment, the movie began to play, but the camera suddenly shifted to the interior of the three-story residential building.
At the same time, the prophet spoke:
"That day, it wasn't 'Gu Wenyu' and Gu Zhuo'an who went shopping at the supermarket. Because in this timeline, Gu Wenyu wasn't even born; he simply doesn't exist," the prophet said. "That evening, Su Ying and Gu Zhuo'an went to the supermarket to buy groceries, while their four children stayed home... that is, you, Kong Youling, Gu Qiye, and Su Zimai."
While listening to the prophet's whispers, Ji Minghuan silently looked up at the movie screen.
If the prophet said, the time on the screen is really 2021, which is one year after the current time node, then Ji Minghuan will be 13 years old at this time, Kong Youling will be 12 years old, Su Zimai will be 17 years old, and Gu Qiye will be 20 years old.
The camera was focused on the living room on the first floor of a three-story residential building. Gu Qiye was wearing a beige casual shirt and sitting on the right side of the sofa. He rested the end of a ballpoint pen on his chin, contemplating the advanced math problem book in his hand.
Ji Minghuan and Su Zimai were squeezed on the left side of the sofa at the time, both of them looked unhappy.
The brother and sister bickered while watching the old-fashioned TV, which was playing the cartoon "Cowboy Bebop."
After a while, Su Zimai snatched his remote control, pushed his head away, changed the channel, and started watching "Shugo Chara" on Star TV.
At this moment, Kong Youling was alone in the bathroom on the second floor. Her body was soaking in the bathtub filled with bath water, with the lower half of her face buried in the bathtub, and her exposed red eyes were looking at a comic book.
She often saw Su Ying doing this while taking a bath, and over time she began to imitate her.
At this moment, the afterglow of the evening shone through the bathroom window onto Kong Youling's face. Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and her snow-white hair was dyed into flowing gold.
Not long after, the Star Caller activated his powers, and a deafening roar echoed from the sky outside. In the living room, Gu Qiye froze for a moment. Then, he looked up from his study materials and caught a glimpse of a meteor, trailing a crimson trail, plummeting from the sky.
At that moment, Gu Qiye's pupils contracted to the extreme. He immediately yelled, stood up, pulled Ji Minghuan and Su Zimai from the sofa, rushed out of the living room, quickly passed through the entrance, and almost ran out of the house immediately.
But at this time, Gu Qinye heard the name that Ji Minghuan had been calling, and he remembered that the white-haired girl was alone in the bathroom on the second floor.
Gu Qiye was about to turn around when he saw a beam of light descending from the sky. At that moment, the entire residential building was enveloped in a meteor-like light, and the world was completely silent.
The camera cuts back to the bathtub. Kong Youling is tired of reading, so she puts the comic book aside, closes her eyes and soaks in the bath. A moment later, when she opens her eyes, a meteor has arrived outside the window.
In an instant, fiery red and snow-white light intertwined and filled her pupils.
"So beautiful..." the white-haired girl whispered silently, her lips moving. The next moment, the figure in the bathroom turned into a bloody mist, and the entire building disappeared in the light.
Although he was mentally prepared, Ji Minghuan's pupils still shrank slightly when he saw this scene, and then his drooping hair covered his eyes.
"You really have one... Do you have to show it to me?" he asked.
"What else?" Restricted 1001 asked calmly.
Ji Minghuan took a deep breath and quickly regained his composure. He asked softly, "If you hadn't interfered with the future, would this prophecy have happened?"
"right."
"Then I should thank you for sending Kong Youling and me to the Salvation Society?" Ji Minghuan sneered softly, "Stop talking nonsense... How can you prove that what you say is true? You've been talking nonsense from beginning to end. Why should I believe you?"
"Because you will soon find out that I have no need to lie to you," the prophet said calmly. "I am about to die. As a dead person, everything about me is naked."
Ji Minghuan remained silent.
After a while, he asked, "Why did you die? What was the reason?"
"Let's not discuss this for now. I will tell you later," said the prophet.
Ji Minghuan rolled his eyes and looked up at the movie screen. "So what happened next? Riddler, what happened after this?"
"She died before you, and your powers awakened. Without a limiter, from the moment you awakened, filled with hatred and rage, you became an unstoppable monster," the prophet said. "And after that... you lost control. Many people died, many, many people died... Everyone you know now, whether you considered them family, friends, or anything else, was killed by your own hands."
As the words fell, the image on the movie screen began to play slowly. However, this time it was in black and white, like a vintage film, without even any sound, making it even more depressing and dull than a silent film.
Ji Minghuan leaned his elbows on the armrest, supported his chin with one hand, and watched the movie in silence.
At this moment, the images that appeared on the screen were mostly fragmented and incoherent. But just as the prophet had predicted, most of the people appearing in the images were people Ji Minghuan was familiar with.
He understood these people's backgrounds, personalities, and experiences. Because of this, he could naturally infer what they were doing and even what they were thinking from these intermittent and incoherent pictures.
This movie tells the story of the Hakoniwa Prince César, who killed his brother and mother, obtained the White King's Scepter from the old king, and inherited the throne of the Hakoniwa King. He then led the Royal Court Team headed by Li Qingping and Lucy.
In order to fight against the restricted-level mutants who were almost out of control and killing, Xizel led the Royal Court team to the Eastern Kingdom and joined forces with Lin Xingshi, the leader of the Lake Hunters.
At the same time, they contacted the United Nations, and at the tripartite meeting, they reached a cooperative relationship with the twelve people from Hongyi.
So far, the Royal Court Team, Lake Hunt, and Rainbow Wings, respectively representing the three most representative organizations of the Wonder Messenger, Exorcist, and Psychic, have united together as never before.
At the same time, the Salvation Society dispatched children who possessed fragments of mythical wonders.
Sun Changkong, Shang Xiaochi, Wu Qingjie were included in it, and even the figures of Mario, Julius and others flashed across the screen. This was a battle of unprecedented scale.
But these people, without exception, all failed. Unsurprisingly, it was a one-sided slaughter.
The young man on the screen was sitting on the glacier playing Minesweeper on his mobile phone. Even though he was facing a group of the world's top people with extraordinary abilities, he never raised his head from beginning to end.
It's like God, standing high above and mocking everyone.
In the end, the restricted-level psychic only released one body. That body moved forward alone, with a black and white halo flowing around its body, turning into an unprecedentedly large chessboard.
The chessboard was filled with countless troops, like a vast kingdom. Kings, knights, soldiers, queens, each figure was as majestic as a giant from ancient Greek mythology. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the clouds, and in the distance, they looked like towering mountains.
On the opposite side of this magnificent shadow, above the sky, there was a figure wearing golden armor and with a pointed face and monkey cheeks, stepping on colorful auspicious clouds; there was another person whose whole body was shrouded in thunder, with wings of light spread out on his back.
Above the glacier stands a giant tree that reaches the sky, with endless branches spreading out and pouring into the sky.
At this moment, a white-haired boy was riding a sled across the ice dome. Beside him was a soaring red dragon with its wings spread. On top of the dragon's shadow stood the figures of the Royal Court Team. The leader was wearing a suit and had a pigtail on his head.
In the sky on the other side, a huge dragon boat was flying over, and under the dragon boat was hanging a blue and white metal human figure that was fifty meters tall.
At this moment, ten figures stood on the dragon boat. Some of them wore red robes and sat cross-legged on the shoulders of a golden six-armed Buddha statue. Some of them stood gracefully on top of a small moon...
And underground, some people were wearing scarlet lion shadows and breaking through the ice, some were wearing Nuo masks and transforming into strange beasts, some were holding a compass and summoning a giant tripod, and some were waving a folding fan and summoning strange celestial phenomena.
Even though the chessboard had become a battlefield for ancient demons, it was all in vain. They struggled, barely surviving, but the giant chess figure still swept away everything in the world with supreme power, crushing everything with ease.
After a while, all the challengers on the chessboard disappeared.
The machine with black and white light all over its body took back the chessboard, leaving only their heads for fun.
At this point, the restricted-level psychic finally looked up from his phone.
He looked at the scene on the glacier out of boredom. At this moment, there were dozens of neatly cut heads placed on the glacier, like fish heads on a chopping board.
In the auditorium of the cinema, Ji Minghuan took a deep breath, his right hand supporting his cheek trembled slightly, and the image on the screen was reflected in his pupils.
Dozens of heads fluttered in the falling snow, appearing and disappearing, and the red color from their necks merged into a bloody storm. The scene was so cruel that it was outrageous, but it was also pleasing to the eye.
Then, the restricted-level psychic withdrew his gaze and summoned another of his bodies, a shadowy figure wrapped in black bandages. The black restraints danced in the wind, pulling the heads above the glacier upwards towards the sky.
It's like a grand sacrifice.
In the screening room, the movie screen stopped at this moment. Ji Minghuan, who was sitting in the audience, fell silent. The prophet also did not speak, but just turned his head to glance at his expression.
After a moment, Ji Minghuan asked, "If what you said is true, then in that timeline, the black pupa didn't exist? Why would something like a restraint belt appear?"
"The Black Pupa doesn't cease to exist, it's just that the background of the machine has changed. He's no longer Gu Wenyu, nor a member of that family," the prophet said slowly. "As a restricted-level psychic, every machine he creates is also restricted. At the same time, the moment each machine is created is endowed with unique significance—you used the Black Pupa to steal all the superpowers in the world, used Agubaru to devour all the fragments of strange stories, and used the Chessman to destroy all the Sky Drives in the world. At the same time... you turned all the demons and exorcists into your own chess pieces."
He paused and said, "And all of this is to find a way to save Kong Youling."
Ji Minghuan remained silent. This indeed seemed like something he would do.
After a moment's silence, the prophet lowered his voice and said, "In the end, even if you searched the entire world for supernatural powers and killed all those with supernatural powers, until only ordinary people were left in the world, you still wouldn't have found a way to bring the dead back to life."
He looked up at the screen. "Because the only person who could pull souls out of Hell was killed by you at the very beginning...so you couldn't steal his ability. At the same time, that was the only ability you missed."
Missing abilities? People killed at the beginning?
Ji Minghuan lowered his head, thought for a moment, then he took a long breath and gave the answer, "The Father of Puppetry?"
Restricted 1001 nodded.
"Yes, his ability is to turn the dead into puppets, giving them consciousness and memories. But because he killed Kong Youling, you killed him at the beginning of his awakening of his superpowers, instead of letting Black Pupa reclaim his superpowers."
Ji Minghuan was silent for a long time.
"And then...what happened next?"
"It's obvious what happened after this. The final outcome was just like what we just saw," the prophet whispered. "The Earth disappeared... and you sat alone on the moon, watching everything fall apart. Your restraints will fly to other celestial bodies in the universe, helping you continue to search for a way to save Kong Youling, but it will all be in vain."
He looked up at the movie screen. It was an empty, dead white planet. The boy was sitting alone on the moon, playing with his fingernails out of boredom.
Sometimes he tilted his head and drew circles on the surface of the moon with his hands, sometimes he looked at the scarred blue star with empty eyes, and sometimes he collapsed on the ground, looking at the stars shining in the universe and the meteors passing by with their brilliant tails of light.
Everything is so beautiful, yet so empty, so dazed that it makes people want to strangle themselves.
Finally, as if growing tired, the young man stood up and slowly raised his hand towards the blue planet. Then, he clenched his fingers. At that moment, thousands of restraints flew out from his sleeves, enveloping the entire planet.
In the cinema, Ji Minghuan was too lazy to watch this scene. Instead, he lowered his head, and his drooping hair covered his eyes.
The prophet whispered, "A long time after the destruction of Earth, you began to create your fourth machine. The fourth machine you chose in that timeline was different from the one you choose now... You should still remember it."
Unit 4? Ji Minghuan lowered his head and suddenly raised his eyebrows.
He recalled the template he had encountered a few days ago when he was creating his fourth game console. At that time, the first character template available was named "Immortal Man" and its ability was "Immortality".
Restricted 1001 glanced at him and continued, "As a restricted-level esper, if you weren't under the influence of the restrictor, you could deregister your machine and use the abilities of every game machine for yourself."
He paused, "And this... is the so-called 'Unit Zero'—using the restricted-level esper's own body as the final game unit, thereby recycling the abilities of the first four units."
Hearing this, a series of horrifying conjectures suddenly exploded in Ji Minghuan's mind, like an unstoppable flood, almost drowning his thoughts.
The possibilities he had long considered but tried to avoid became reality in that instant. After a moment's silence, Ji Minghuan spoke almost hoarsely:
"So... on the moon, my future self became Unit-0 and absorbed Unit-4's 'Immortal' traits. And thus gained the power of immortality."
"Yes." The prophet nodded. "And many years later, you drifted aimlessly in the universe, always maintaining the appearance of a 13-year-old. In order to find Kong Youling, one day you suddenly came up with a plan."
"Back in time."
Ji Minghuan lowered his voice and his lips moved slightly.
The prophet was silent for a moment.
"Yes... going back to the past," he said slowly, "but this is a feat that can almost change the entire universe. Even if you are restricted, you will have to pay an incalculable price to do this, and you can't even decide to which point in the past you will return to."
"The price you paid was nearly every supernatural power, celestial drive, and anecdote fragment in your body—an entire planet's worth of it," the prophet said. "Finally, to protect yourself, you left two mythical fragments within you: the 'Monkey King' and the 'Zeus'... You also retained the ability to achieve immortality..."
Ji Minghuan curled his lips.
The prophet continued, "Since you can't decide when you return, it wouldn't be strange if you traveled back to the beginning of the world."
"But I know that I am immortal." Ji Minghuan said, "No matter where in the past you travel to, you will live until the year when Kong Youling appears."
The prophet nodded silently and lowered his eyes.
He said, "Finally, when you opened your eyes, you were already in 1910. You had lost all your memories and forgot your name. That's when the Salvation Society found you... and they gave you a new name."
Ji Minghuan lowered his head, remained silent, and his face twitched slightly.
"Speaking of this, don't you still understand...what is this name?" Having said that, the prophet slowly turned his head and looked at his face expressionlessly.
"Restricted 1001, this is the name the Savior Society gave me."
Ji Minghuan's lips moved as he spoke without raising his head, his eyes moving slightly.
The prophet was silent for a long time, and then said, "Yes, this is the correct answer."
"So, everything you just said wasn't a prophecy, but something that actually happened. And your identity is..." Ji Minghuan paused, "I'm from the future, the restricted-level psychic who destroyed the world once."
After saying that, he looked up at the prophet, or to put it another way, in this situation, it would be more appropriate to call the other party "Restricted Level 1001".
"Yes, that's the truth," Restricted 1001 said. "In fact, we are already two people. Everything you've experienced has made you who you are. Similarly, everything I've experienced has made me who I am today. I don't think it's necessary to equate us as one individual."
After saying that, he slowly stood up from his seat in the screening room. At this moment, the surrounding scene suddenly changed, and the bizarre corridor appeared before the two of them again.
The corridor stretched as far as the eye could see, and on the walls on both sides were blurred images like old film reels. But each image seemed to record a memory of the restricted level 1001.
"I know you have a lot of questions right now," Restricted Level 1001 said slowly, "I'll tell you what I've done over the past hundred years..."
After saying that, he turned his head and glanced at Ji Minghuan who was still sitting in his original seat, "Aren't you coming with me?"
"Why did you send me to the Salvation Society?" Ji Minghuan didn't bother to look at him and whispered, "I hope your reasons can convince me. Otherwise, I will still doubt your words. Even if you die in front of me, I won't listen."
"Okay, I'll try my best."
"Okay, then I'm all ears."
After he finished speaking, Ji Minghuan slowly stood up from the red chair and walked forward following Restricted Level 1001.
(End of this chapter)
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