Chapter 111 Reunion with Chen Xingzhi Perhaps, the Great Cataclysm never came...
After that, Linqi fell back into that inexplicable melancholy, as if immersed in another world, and ignored Du Yu's questions.
Du Yu had no choice but to figure it out himself.
Is the approaching date also a proponent of doomsday theory?
Whether in the past or here, doomsday theories have a large following. After all, no matter how prosperous the City of the Sun is, or how the opponents argue, the unexplained catastrophe is an insurmountable hurdle.
The mainstream view of doomsday theory is that the great catastrophe has not actually ended. The seemingly peaceful environment now is just a buffer period before an even greater disaster. In the face of unpredictable disasters, all human efforts are nothing but a mirage.
Of course, for the people of this world, the cataclysm has been over for too long. Although the gray fog is so close, the citizens of every city are oblivious to it. The Lower City, which is closest to the gray fog, has even given the work of scavenging in the gray fog a nickname: "Gray Fog Hunters".
The audience for doomsday theories is naturally shrinking, and even when ordinary citizens encounter them, they mostly treat them as a joke. If someone manages to get themselves into this situation at the last minute, it's either because they said something they shouldn't have, or they did something they shouldn't have, or more likely, both.
Linqi stopped paying attention to her and the two followed the android, soon arriving at a familiar place after many twists and turns.
—A clock tower topped with a metal cross.
The clock tower is long and narrow, with a sharp four-sided pyramid at the top, and a metal cross hangs precisely on the tip of the pyramid.
Beneath the pyramid, on the east, north, and south sides of the rectangular building, there is a huge clock face, with the hands pointing in different directions.
The west side of the clock tower is filled with all sorts of chaotic lines, making it impossible to see the details. Only the lines can be vaguely seen to converge into a circle.
Du Yu brought up the system panel and glanced at it. On the clock on the east side of the clock tower, the hour and minute hands were exactly in the current time of the City of the Sun. On the clock on the north side, the hour and minute hands were in the opposite positions to those on the east side.
Aside from the strange circle on the west side of the clock tower, what made Du Yu most uncomfortable was the clock on the south side of the clock tower.
On a dial also adorned with colorful gemstones, two, or perhaps countless, hands are wildly twitching. The hands barely pause at one position before transforming into countless afterimages, erratically swaying across the dial, causing inexplicable irritation.
What time did you see?
Linqi pointed to the south side of the clock tower and suddenly spoke.
The other party's sudden softening of attitude might be a breakthrough, but after thinking for a moment, Du Yu decided to tell the truth:
"There is no time... or rather, the time on the dial is eternal?"
"You saw it?!"
Linqi's neck remained raised in the same arc, but her face instantly turned towards Du Yu, almost 180 degrees, and her usually listless eyes throbbed with fervor.
Today was her first time meeting Linqi, but for some reason, Du Yu felt that the other person's expression was somewhat familiar—You Shi.
A name unexpectedly popped into Du Yu's mind. Although the two looked completely different and had drastically different expressions, their eyes had flashed with a similar fervor at different times.
It was the joy of a long-cherished wish finally fulfilled, and the panic of fearing that everything would fall through, that mixed together to create a cautious madness that had appeared in both of their eyes.
"Feel free to ask me anything."
After pointing out the confusion on the dial, Linqi's attitude can be described as a complete 180-degree turn. Everyone has a lot of questions to ask, but now is not a good time.
As the two were talking, the android raised its head, and a small opening appeared between the eyebrows of a normal person. A red ray shot straight onto the clock face on the east side of the clock tower. The red light refracted continuously on the surface of the gemstone, skipping over the hour hand, minute hand, and second hand in turn.
"Click click".
A moment later, the smooth surface of the clock tower, which looked like it had been cast in black metal, caved in and revealed a long, spiraling staircase that extended straight down to the feet of the two people.
The sudden shift in the android's dangerous aura was a silent urging.
Du Yu clicked her tongue and had no choice but to stop talking and follow Lin Qi up the long staircase. Every time she tried to speak, she was interrupted by the android behind her, so she had to give up her plan to ask on the spot.
It's not that Du Yu lacks self-control, it's just that since transmigrating, she has only encountered all sorts of riddle-solving people, and this is the first time she has met such a kind person who allows her to "ask whatever she wants"!
"Beep beep".
After passing the iris scan, the two waited for a moment at the entrance at the end of the long staircase. A person completely wrapped in a white protective suit poked their head out, pulled out a card, and slid it across the android's chest.
"Come with me."
The androids didn't follow. Du Yu awkwardly lowered his head and passed through the door, startled by the sight before him.
From the outside, the clock tower appears narrow and long, with a base area of no more than 100 square meters as in the previous life. However, the interior is a completely different world. If it weren't for the ceiling still being there, it would be as spacious as being in the wilderness.
"When science can't solve something, we turn to the mysticism."
Linqi still remembered her promise. As soon as she could speak, she explained to Du Yu: "This is a misty rift that was stabilized by a super-large-scale ritual through the cooperation of the Dog Shit Conglomerate and the [Pure Sea Lord] Church."
Mist Rift? Aren't those things only found in gray fog?
In the original owner's memories, the mist rift was created by the erosion of the gray mist, which caused the originally distinct material world and the spirit world to be squeezed together, resulting in the chaos of spacetime rules and the creation of the "rift".
In a broad sense, the deep dream realm that Cat Beard and the others accidentally entered, and the "Tai Sui" instance that Du Yu once entered, are all types of misty rifts.
But doesn't that mean the City of the Sun has mastered a method to isolate itself from the gray fog? The urban areas, especially the upper urban areas controlled by the tycoons, are absolutely immune to the gray fog, right? How come there's a fog rift here?
"You know a lot."
A muffled sound came from under the protective suit. Compared to the rigid android, the researcher who brought the two in seemed to not mind the prisoners' idle chatter. While engrossed in frantically clicking on the quantum computer, he even affirmed the statement about the impending expiration date with surprise.
"It's incredible, isn't it? Something that the Mist Hunters of the Lower City would avoid at all costs, the big shots of the Upper City went to great lengths to create in the city center."
"The gray fog is dangerous, but it also contains endless treasures. If it weren't for the fact that getting too close can easily corrupt the mind and cause people to lose their rationality, the lower city would never have been occupied by the current group of people."
After finishing his sentence, Linqi shrugged, then pondered for a moment, looking around. "What is the purpose of the conglomerate's elaborate scheme? Is it to have ample space in the Upper City for conducting experiments?"
No, no, no.
The shackles were fastened around his neck, and his shaking motion froze. He could only turn his eyes slightly. "Capturing this rift isn't for conducting experiments. To be more precise, this 'stable' rift is a product of an experiment. The small experiments being conducted inside are just an add-on."
"That's right."
The researcher nodded, not angry at being told the experiment was "small," but her voice carried a hint of melancholy: "We succeeded, but we also failed."
Du Yu noticed that everyone she met today seemed eager to confide in her. Since information was scarce, she figured she might as well ask. Following up on their conversation, she asked, "Where did you fail?"
Do you know what the purpose of this experiment is?
The other party ignored Du Yu, gave an irrelevant answer, and pressed a few buttons on the personal terminal. With a few clicks, all the restraint rings fastened to Du Yu's joints fell off. Du Yu subconsciously raised his hand and moved it, still somewhat dazed.
Even though the Cross Prison is filled with ritual arrays that suppress supernatural abilities, she and Linqi are both A-level supernatural beings. They could easily crush ordinary people with their physical strength alone, otherwise they wouldn't have to wear so many restraint rings on each of them.
Is this researcher so confident in the lab's safety measures?
"How are we supposed to know about the affairs of the big shots in the Upper District?"
Equally surprised, Linqi moved his limbs and scoffed, "However, among the top Mist Hunters, there has always been a rumor—the lords of the Upper City are tired of their lives as superior beings and want to become gods."
"No, that happened later."
The researcher led the two into a side path, followed by a robot carrying a fallen restraint ring.
"You should have seen the three clocks on the clock tower. Everyone says that the Paradox Cross, which is of the [Lamp] level, is the most valuable item in Cross Prison, but in fact, the three mechanical clocks embedded in the clock tower beneath the Paradox Cross are the foundation that has allowed Cross Prison to survive until now."
"Sizzle".
The metal door closed gently behind her, and the heavy protective suit fell to her feet. The woman bit a green hair tie, loosened her hair which had been pressed down, and tied it into a loose low ponytail at the back of her head. During this time, she raised her chin toward the corner and mumbled, "Sit."
This was a small room that resembled a lounge. At the far end were two soft and comfortable beanbag chairs, and in the middle was a low coffee table with several white porcelain plates filled with rare natural fruits. The woman bent down and picked up two green apples, tossing one to each of them.
Behind her was a door, to her left a full-length mirror, and to her right a long, narrow wardrobe. The wardrobe door swung open, and she roughly kicked her protective suit inside. Her pale, thin face turned, nearly causing Du Yu to crush the apple in his hand.
Although her features were much younger and her expression was quite different, Yu would never mistake that face—
Chen Xingzhi looks much younger, only in her early twenties. How did she end up here?
For a moment, Du Yu almost wanted to jump up, but what the woman who seemed to be Chen Xingzhi said next made her freeze in place.
"The clock on the clock tower originally had only one side... Before the Great Cataclysm, that clock was at least a [Lamp] level sealed artifact."
"impossible!"
Lin Qi slammed her hand on the table and stood up, the green apple rolling around in the plate. As a proponent of doomsday theory, her reaction was much stronger than Du Yu's: "Even the illiterate hunters in the lower city know that before the Great Cataclysm, there were no superpowers, no Fallen Ones, and no extraordinary elements in the world! How could there be a sealed artifact, let alone a [Lamp] level one?"
"Oh."
The woman in her twenties, "Chen Xingzhi," chuckled. The inexplicable emotion surging in her eyes at that moment completely overlapped with the last glimpse of the fifty-something "Chen Xingzhi" she saw in the Tai Sui instance before her fall. Du Yu almost instantly came to a conclusion—no matter how she did it, the woman in front of him was undoubtedly Chen Xingzhi herself.
"A group of prisoners were chained in a dark cave, unable to turn around or look back. Behind them was a flame, through which things outside the cave cast bizarre shadows on the cave walls—this was the only thing these prisoners could see, and therefore believed to be the whole picture of the world—the strange shadows in the firelight."
"Until one day, a prisoner accidentally broke free of her shackles, stepped out of the cave, and saw the real world. Excitedly, she returned to the cave and told her companions about light, warmth, color, and sound, describing the real world—do you think these prisoners, born and shackled in the cave, would believe her companions? If one day they were to unexpectedly see the real world, would they be overjoyed or terrified?"
Without giving the two a chance to answer, Chen Xingzhi finally stuffed the bulky protective suit into the wardrobe. A metal part hit the wall of the wardrobe with a crisp sound. Her words were still flat, but they inexplicably sent a chill down one's spine and made one feel cold all over.
"—Perhaps, the great catastrophe never came, but rather we ignorant mortals finally opened our eyes and saw the 'true face' of the world?"
"It wasn't that a cataclysmic event befell our world; it was that our world finally 'saw' the cataclysmic event?"
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Author's Note: Beginning to introduce the main storyline of this volume.
*The theory about the cave is adapted from Plato's "allegory of the cave" in "The Republic," with personal modifications added. For entertainment purposes only.
——
Sorry I'm late, this chapter was a bit of a struggle to write, so I'll give everyone a little red envelope as compensation.
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