Chapter 191 The Sky Falls (26) (1st update + 2nd update + 0.5 update) [VIP]
There should be nothing special about the painting itself.
When they got closer, they didn't find anything wrong. The key point was probably the bowl of water held by Ren Zhiling's mother, or the pattern.
"How to do it?" Song Jirou crossed her arms beside him, "Let's make it clear in advance. If the painting doesn't work, you guys go kill Xi Enze and lure out Liu Yi. I can't get involved."
Her fixed attributes prevent her from performing actions related to malfeasance.
"No need for you," Bai Jinshu thought for a moment, "Xu Zichen, did you take a picture of the painting on the installation just now?"
"I took it." Xu Zichen lowered his head and searched for a long time before pulling out a photo for him.
"Find a piece of paper and pen and try to copy it," Bai Jinshu took the photo. "This pattern is not complicated. Just find a piece of white paper and place it on the screen and trace it. It will be copied quickly."
In order to disguise it as a decorative painting, the patterns and lines on it have been simplified a lot. Although it is still a bit difficult to replicate it one-to-one next to it, it is very easy to trace it on the screen.
"Let me see." Yin Liantao took the screen and the paper handed to him by Fu Yandong, found a stone bench or table used for playing chess in the park, and began to trace it stroke by stroke.
The rest of the exploration team members waited beside her. After a few minutes, Yin Liantao suddenly raised her head with sweat all over her forehead: "No."
"What's wrong?" Everyone looked over quickly.
"I can't put pen to paper..." Yin Liantao's forehead was covered with sweat. "After drawing to a certain extent, the hand holding the pen will become very heavy. If I continue to draw under the pressure, then at the end, no matter how hard I try, I can't draw any further."
Everyone's eyes fell on the paper in her hand.
As expected, Yin Liantao's handwriting stopped at one position and could not move any further. All the ink spread out at that position and gathered into a very abrupt black spot.
There's something wrong with this thing.
[Is the non-materialistic part coming? ]
[Fuck, I almost forgot this part of the world existed.]
[I remember Ye Dian said at the beginning that he was a mage, so he entered here, right? ]
[Is this painting a magical creation? ]
So it can’t be replicated?
"Let me try." Fu Yandong nodded at Yin Liantao and changed positions with her.
After a few minutes, as expected, Fu Yandong's hand holding the pen also stayed in a certain place, and no matter how hard he tried, he could hardly push it forward any further.
No wonder Ren Zhiling's mother wasn't worried at all about them touching the painting. Now it seems that in order to copy this thing, some very special conditions or environment are required.
They lacked key information and naturally could not depict this thing again.
"I can't draw it. It seems that this thing should be a magical creation." Xu Zichen touched his chin thoughtfully. "Didn't you say before that this world contains some non-material elements? Could it be that this thing has cast some spells that cannot be replicated a second time?"
That's not the case.
If this thing was the clue left for him by Huai Jiamu, then the information he wanted to convey to him could definitely be obtained after seeing the painting. He would not design such a restriction to slow down their process of finding key clues.
Anyone who sees a symbol that cannot be taken away somewhere else would first react to leaving an image and trying to copy it. Either the direction is wrong, so Huai Jiamu directly blocked their way in the wrong direction, or the restriction was not actually made by Huai Jiamu.
Therefore, compared to a certain evil god, Bai Jinshu suspected that the fundamental reason why this mark could not be reproduced at will was the intellectual property protection of [Qingshuang].
As a special organization that makes profits from the talisman business, what would they do if their talismans were copied by others? Even if the process of making talismans requires the injection of spiritual power or something like that, no one says that the entire foundation can only have one immortal cultivation plane, right?
Besides, their spells are expensive, so someone must be trying to save points by copying them. In this case, when selling spells designed independently by their own organization, it is normal to add some measures to prevent piracy, right?
Since making an effective talisman requires injecting something like spiritual power into the drawing process, all we need to do is restrict people outside the organization from drawing it.
However, they just need to replicate the shape, not its function. If they want to solve this problem, the solution is very simple...
"We still have to get the original copy from her home..." Song Jirou also sat down and tried it, shaking her palm which was swollen and painful from using too much force, and said, "Why don't we just go there?"
At this point, there must be something wrong with the painting. Since it is a key clue and cannot be obtained through normal means, violent means are the only option.
They were all planning to kill Xi Enze, so knocking out Ren Zhiling's mother was nothing.
Just knock on the door, knock her out and take the painting.
"That's not necessary," Bai Jinshu held his chin and thought for a while, "Is there a printing shop nearby?"
"You may not understand this very well," Bai Jinshu said calmly, facing the blank looks in everyone's eyes. "In the magic world, the way to prevent the duplication of some key books or scrolls is to prohibit copying and duplication. Once someone tries to copy these materials, they will find that they can't write any more after a certain point. Even if one person takes out a part, it is impossible to record all the parts completely on the same paper. Only those who have obtained permission or used special methods can fully reproduce these protected texts and patterns."
"Although this method is complicated, it is very useful for preventing the leakage of protected data," he blinked. "But the person who invented this method probably didn't expect that thousands of years later, modern industrial society would invent something like a photocopier."
Cold electronic machinery, unaffected by the restrictions of magic applied to humans.
As for talismans that need to be injected with other elements during the drawing process, [Qingshuang] probably doesn't mind other people taking this thing to the copier.
After all, photocopies are of no use.
With all the exploration team members looking blank on the face, Ye Dian, who was familiar with the magical world, walked into a modern copy shop. After adding friends and forwarding pictures, the pattern that no one had tried to draw, suddenly appeared on the paper, as if torturing the hearts of every modern human being.
Their thoughts were aptly expressed on the barrage:
【Grass. 】
[Who is the modern man and who is the mage? 】
[Magic world, you guys... why are you so lame? 】
【My Lord, times have changed.】
…
"So what should we do after we copy it..." Since this thing is a magical creation, the only person present who understands it is Ye Dian. Song Jirou was halfway through her words when she watched Ye Dian experimentally break his index finger and press on it with blood.
"Try it," he rubbed it, making sure all the blood on his finger was stained, and waited for a long time, but there was no reaction on the copy paper, "It seems that it won't work."
"Then there is only another way that is more suicidal." His expression did not look like he was going to commit suicide. He still looked down on everyone. "Let's do what Ren Zhiling's mother did."
"Last night, Ren Zhiling's mother held a bowl of unknown liquid in her hand," Xu Zichen squatted beside her and suggested, "Should we try holding a bowl as well?"
"But I don't know what the liquid is?" Lu Changfeng touched his chin.
Everything in the night vision goggles appears green, and it’s pitch black. Who can tell what the liquid is?
Bai Jinshu said in a gloomy tone: "First, eliminate the boiled water."
"What else could it be?" He stood up and looked around at everyone's faces. "When it comes to this kind of thing, the first thing that comes to mind is the most obvious special liquid. Blood."
"After all, those dark spots under the painting can't be motor oil, right?" He rubbed his fingers.
"Who should bleed then?" Song Jirou asked. "In order not to affect the effect, can only one person's blood be used? In this case, we have to choose a smaller bowl. Otherwise, excessive blood loss will affect the body's functions."
"I'll do it," Fu Yandong volunteered and rolled up his sleeves. "I donate blood frequently, so it's okay to just put in a small bowl."
Lu Changfeng looked like he was ready to die bravely: "I'm ready."
The only mage among them glanced at him silently: "...Is it useful?"
He glanced at everyone silently, the confusion in his eyes didn't seem fake: "There were no hospitals in your time, and there were no blood bags in the hospitals?"
"Get a blood bag," he twisted the edge of the spell, "any blood type will do."
The entry threshold for this thing should be very low, otherwise Huai Jiamu cannot guarantee that all of them can enter.
If we rely on the blood owner to select the candidates who can "see", we can't have everyone put a bowl of blood.
Although the Evil God has the word "evil" in his name, Bai Jinshu did not feel much of his subjective malice. In addition, as he later dissolved into the copy, Bai Jinshu suspected that the Evil God was also a part of him that dissolved into the copy and had nothing to do with his original body, but that identity had the greatest impact on him.
Song Jirou was very fast and in a short while, the exploration team members got a blood bag.
In order to avoid causing social panic, of course, no one could pour a bowl of blood in broad daylight. In the end, after a lot of twists and turns, they returned to the hotel. A group of people gathered together and watched the scarlet liquid being poured into the porcelain bowl, shining brightly under the light of the hotel room.
When the last drop of blood in the blood bag dripped into the bowl, causing ripples on the surface of the liquid, everyone felt a flash before their eyes.
The world seemed to be covered with a thin layer of water film, blurry and hazy. Behind the water film were layers of blurry shadows, and the space suddenly became extremely deep and far away.
Everything in the hotel room slowly faded out of sight. All the members of the exploration team were standing together at the beginning, but suddenly they felt that they were the only ones in the entire space.
Behind the water curtain, tiny stars of various colors are flickering. The stars gather into pieces and then connect into lines, like countless criss-crossing galaxies.
In the hazy and blurred vision, his sense of space and balance seemed to be deprived. The fuzzy picture led his brain to be filled with chaos as if he was carsick or drunk. Xu Zichen swayed and subconsciously reached to the side, trying to grab something to support his body.
"Brother Xu?" Lu Changfeng's voice rang out.
Then, another hand reached over.
"Song Jirou?" Yin Liantao seemed to be looking for teammates as well.
"Here!" Song Jirou's voice.
The exploration team members gradually found the people around them, and then they found that their current position was no different from when they first entered here.
The distance between each person is very close, and basically one can touch the teammates around him by stretching out his hands. But for some reason, when they just entered this space, everyone subconsciously felt that they were the only one in this space.
Only after actually touching another person's limbs do they realize that there is someone around them.
"Where is Brother Ye?" Lu Changfeng came to his senses the fastest, looked around, and soon found that Ye Dian was not there.
"Where is this place? Has Brother Ye come in?" Ning Xiao also recovered from the feeling of motion sickness.
"Ye Dian?" Song Jirou held her forehead and called out, "Stretch your hands around and see if you can touch us?"
Although the remaining members of the exploration team had not yet reacted, they subconsciously knew that Ye Dian had not been found yet, and they started shouting in twos and threes.
"Stop making noise." A familiar voice came from a distance.
"Brother Ye?" Lu Changfeng looked up.
A person suddenly walked over from behind the blurry water curtain.
Ye Dian’s face appeared in front of everyone: “Come and see when you wake up.”
The exploration team members, still in a daze, followed him forward, crossing a water curtain.
"Ren Zhiling?" Yin Liantao exclaimed.
"Look up." Ye Dian said speechlessly.
Everyone looked up subconsciously, and a sky full of stars appeared in front of them.
But no one would recognize them as star clusters that can exist or be observed on Earth, because the arrangement of these stars is extremely regular.
They first gather into small pieces with a certain star as the center, and then connect with each other to form lines. Then the lines are connected in series and intersect with each other to form a forked tree-like arrangement like branches. These branches are arranged front and back with a strong sense of space. From this angle, they are intertwined with each other like a chessboard.
"This is..." Xu Zichen raised his eyes.
"World line," Bai Jin said, "Look carefully at those star points."
Xu Zichen narrowed his eyes and looked towards the star closest to him.
As his attention shifted, countless images flashed by in front of the star point like a kaleidoscope of light. It was like a film with key frames extracted. Each image stayed for a very short time. The images could not be connected to form a movement, but they could make people realize what was in the image.
This picture seems to be Ren Zhiling at work.
"That was the world where Ren Zhiling worked as an ordinary clerk," Bai Jinshu glanced in Ren Zhiling's direction, "The reason why she became a clerk was that Ren Zhiling did not study biology."
"The reason why she didn't study biology is..." Bai Jinshu's eyes left the star and looked at the star cluster it was in, then traced it upwards, "I found it. In this world line, Liu Yi and others deliberately changed her admission major and forced her career to change direction."
"Is this... Ren Zhiling's different world line?" Xu Zichen rubbed his forehead and looked around again.
"To be precise, these are different world lines split out by Liu Yi." Bai Jin said.
In the live broadcast room, silently, the level of this world had already jumped to [A+] when entering here, but before all the investors in the live broadcast room had time to get excited, they were hit by the nebula in front of them.
[Hiss… The same people, the same background, doing the same things over and over again. No matter how many times I watch it, this perspective is shocking.]
[There is a huge feeling of horror when thinking about it carefully. 】
[Is this the world that Ren Zhiling's mother sees? ]
[Ren Zhiling's mother shouldn't be able to see such details, right? Otherwise, she should know that Liu Yi will affect her daughter's future or something...]
[So, in fact, what Ren Zhiling's mother could see was only the small branch she was in. ]
…
"Different world lines..."
The remaining members of the exploration team simultaneously turned their attention to this special starry sky.
Each star point is like a world, and each world will branch out according to different choices to form a new tributary. Roughly speaking, there are at least tens of thousands of star points appearing in this starry sky.
In other words, Liu Yi and others have split out at least tens of thousands of parallel worlds.
Countless Ren Zhilings flashed back in the starry sky. Her body seemed to be like countless ripples formed by halos, spreading out in the world. Every new choice she made would lead to a new choice with this as a turning point.
The ripples around her never stop, and each ripple will spread outward to form a new world.
Liu Yi and his companions shuttled through these ripples again and again.
They are nested within themselves in a loop, created by themselves in other worlds, and then go on to create more worlds.
At first glance, the sky is full of similar Liu Yi running back and forth, repeating the same actions in different worlds, day after day.
【Blame it on San.】
[From this perspective, Liu Yi didn't seem to have accomplished anything, and only created more tragedies.]
[No, they at least created a bunch of parallel worlds, otherwise where did this ceiling world come from. ]
"Why is this world..." Lu Changfeng turned his gaze away from one of the stars and said in a difficult tone, "Why does this starry world only flash back those few scenes?"
"That's because that world only has those few days," Bai Jinshu turned his head and took a look, "that parallel world only has three days."
Three days later, the time of this world will be reset, and these three days will be spent all over again.
"Is that the world we exist in?" Yin Liantao's voice rang out.
Everyone looked in the direction her finger was pointing. What she was pointing at was a dim nebula at the edge. There were only a few scattered stars in the center of those stars. The picture flashed back every choice Ren Zhiling had made in the past few days. In the picture, Ren Zhiling was like a large luminous jellyfish, her body was surrounded by tentacles made up of halo ripples, pulling in every scattered world.
And they were in that picture too.
Liu Yi and others shuttled through the nebula. With every change of Ren Zhiling, a new star would appear at the edge of the nebula.
"Our world is a world that branched out from Ren Zhiling's career choice," Xu Zichen looked up along the branches, "So... this world can only exist for twenty days?"
The Foundation's exploration time is exactly twenty days.
"It should be," Song Jirou's eyes shuttled among the stars, "The center of the nebula we are in is just a small part of this starry sky."
In each of these worlds, Ren Zhiling, who split the parallel worlds, Liu Yi, who shuttled around, and Xi Enze, who created the disaster, will appear...
These three people seem to be a fixed configuration in all worlds, just like...
"It's like a loop." Ren Zhiling's voice rang out.
When the world is about to reset, countless Ren Zhilings are running in the gaps of time. When it is about to be destroyed, they see a real corner of the world and try to find a way to break this cycle. However, her existence is the key to supporting the emergence of this cycle.
"I know why I became the trigger for the emergence of a parallel world," Ren Zhiling was silent for a moment, "because in the beginning, my appearance was due to the triggering of a parallel world."
"What do you mean?" Song Jirou looked over.
"Ren Zhiling's mother," Xu Zichen bit his tongue, "If Ren Zhiling's mother could see the choices for the future, she would intentionally want to create a better future. Ren Zhiling might just be one of the futures she chose."
The newborn baby who appears by spying on parallel worlds will have her life trajectory constantly spied on in the rest of her life. As she grows up, she will become more and more connected with those worlds. One day, all her choices will induce and trigger new parallel worlds.
Ren Zhiling's result is the cause of her appearance.
It was precisely because she triggered more parallel worlds that Ren Zhiling's mother in the past observed more parallel worlds.
"And Liu Yi," Ren Zhiling paused, "They repeatedly tried to create more parallel worlds by getting close to me in each world."
"Then how did you get here?" Yin Liantao was bewildered. "You also poured a bowl of blood and stood in front of that painting?"
"No," Bai Jinshu shook his head. "She came here because the world is about to be destroyed, or it is about to be restarted. So she came here as a connection point for the parallel world and waited for the restart to be completed before going back."
"I guess she won't have any relevant memories after she returns, right?" He thought for a moment, "It's hard to say how many times the world we exist in has been restarted."
Ren Zhiling let out a breath slowly.
"But this time something is obviously wrong. The time in our world has been deliberately accelerated," Bai Jinshu touched his chin, "Don't you think it's too early for Xi Enze to successfully create the element? According to this cycle, the watershed of each Liu Yi's future world ending has nothing to do with Ren Zhiling. It is determined by whether Xi Enze can create this element."
Before Xienze created the element, if he was killed, at least one world could be split out to save the future. But once Xienze created this element, all worlds would be doomed.
Therefore, the cycle time of each world should be from the appearance of the first choice that split the world to the complete creation of the changed elements by Xienze in this world, which is a small cycle.
Above the small loop, there is a higher-level choice that generates this small branch. Countless choices are nested in each other, generating such a tree-like network step by step.
Therefore, in this world, if the exploration time detected by the Foundation at the beginning was twenty days, it means that this world should exist for at least twenty days.
How did Xi Enze create this element on the seventh day?
"If Xi Enze's elemental creation time is the world's existence time, then looking at all the worlds..." Xu Zichen twitched his mouth, "Liu Yi and others failed to kill Xi Enze."
In all the worlds, most of the Liu Yis choose to torment Ren Zhiling. Occasionally, some who want to create a new world will be killed by other Liu Yis who want to die together.
Now if no one kills Xienze, then the world will just restart indefinitely, causing them to repeat the same thing indefinitely without knowing anything, repeating the same actions over and over again in each restart period.
She hit the point.
If any Xienze is successfully killed, or the organization creates such elements, then the world will not start the cycle and fall into this endless restart.
Bai Jinshu touched his chin. If the clues were to lead them to this place to see the whole picture of the entire space, coupled with the method used by Ren Zhiling's mother to see the world line, and the person who was secretly speeding up the research process of Xi Enze in this world, and intentionally hinting at them that something was wrong through Liu Yi's communication...
This time, Huai Jiamu might have turned into a very explosive initiator who could not appear in front of them directly due to some restrictions.
"Honestly speaking," Song Jirou looked at the starry sky and was speechless. "If Liu Yi and the others hadn't tormented Ren Zhiling, this starry sky map wouldn't have been drawn so large... and if they had killed Xi Enze from one of the worlds, the problem might not have been so big."
"Because this is a carefully designed cycle." A voice came from a distance, overlapping with Bai Jinshu's voice.
Everyone looked up.
"The first time travelers, after traveling back to the past, discovered that the future cannot be changed, and the only way to split the parallel world is to split it into two," Bai Jinshu did not raise his head, but continued to squinted his eyes in contemplation, "But it is very difficult to form a parallel world by changing the past without a key person."
“The future will not change because of the choices of some small people, but those big people and big decisions that can change the future are not so easy to approach and influence.”
It takes a lot of energy to complete each space that is large enough to branch out in the future and split into parallel worlds. However, history often has inertia, and even the biggest changes will be corrected after five hundred years.
"So he had an idea," the voice continued, "as long as he could create a person whose every move could cause the world to split. From then on, he could just use the authority to spy on parallel worlds to create a person who is related to this person and let him influence this person's choice. By using two variables to collide with more variables, he could split more worlds more easily and quickly."
"So, Ren Zhiling became the person who was chosen from birth, and Liu Yi became the variable that would collide with her," Bai Jinshu said thoughtfully, "Her appearance made it extremely easy to split the world. All we need to do is interfere with her choice, and countless parallel worlds can be created. This way, we can ensure that more Liu Yis will appear, and more futures will appear."
"And then there will be another problem," he blinked, "that is, how to ensure that disasters will occur in every world. Once there are more worlds where disasters will not occur, there will be fewer worlds where disasters will occur, and there will be more Liu Yis who will not travel back, so there will be fewer worlds where disasters can be delayed."
"So, it doesn't matter what caused the disaster in the first place. Liu Yi brought the substance that caused the disaster from the future and deliberately chose a person, just like training Ren Zhiling. After training him for a certain period of time, he will be able to research the existence of this substance." The voice was getting closer and closer. "No matter who caused the disaster in the first place, now, that person is Xi Enze."
At the beginning of the formation of this cycle, Liu Yi, who designed the cycle, was still needed to guide it. When the wheel slowly rolled, countless Liu Yis would only choose to follow this law after discovering the meaning of this cycle.
It's like developing downlines. As downlines developed to extend the world's disaster, if they want their world to continue to exist, they can only develop more downlines and pull more Liu Yi into this cycle.
The more downlines there are, the less they need to do.
Of course, there will be some people who are unwilling to develop these downlines, but they will soon be killed by other Liu Yi who try to continue this development.
Because Liu Yi and others had already been endowed with enough bad qualities at the beginning of their creation. The artificial humans who lacked kinship and social circles and were matured through growth elements would not have any emotions such as truth, goodness and beauty.
As a living being, our greatest instinct is to survive.
Survive at all costs.
What's more, this kind of sacrifice at all costs does not include oneself, and sacrificing others is always easier and more convenient.
"You are the first Liu Yi who created all this." Song Jirou frowned and looked seriously in the direction of the person who came.
A man in a suit came over.
"You can say that," the man said, "but Liu Yi is not my name. Liu Yi is just the name of the artificial people."
Under everyone's wary gaze, Bai Jinshu suddenly walked towards him.
"But don't be on guard, I'm not an enemy. On the contrary, I'm an old acquaintance of those people around you," in his sight, Huai Jiamu showed an expression of an experienced person who was obviously influenced by this identity.
"I wasn't talking about you," he added after seeing Ren Zhiling's incredulous expression, "I was just talking about [0106]."
【ah? 】
【What's going on? 】
[Ah? Ah? Ah? ]
Amid the sudden explosion of comments, he said, "Didn't anyone tell you? [0106] This time we brought in a secret agent."
Xu Zichen's eyes suddenly widened: "I..."
His eyelids were twitching.
"I am the eighth member of the exploration team of Skyfall," shrugged the hidden stake in their organization whose presence in the previous space was almost zero, "I can only appear here, and I don't want to."
The author has something to say:
The limited cover of Jiamu brother's appearance is the main body! The big picture is on wb @月渡寒塘含糖, because the permanent cover of this copy is the current vest used in the copy, so Jiamu brother's cover will be released from time to time by me for a few days and then changed back to the vest, not the cover draw
Okay, I swear there is no more secret line. Brother Jiamu is Liu YiX’s last secret line. This copy will be finished tomorrow!
The first 20+ random 20 red envelopes. I wanted to finish writing it all in one go today, but found that there are still too many lines and I can’t finish it.
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