Chapter 189
How fast can human thoughts travel?
Scientifically speaking, the speed of nerve impulse transmission in consciousness is 120 miles per hour, while the speed of transmission in the subconscious can be as high as 100,000 miles per hour.
Before the bizarre event occurred, the level of technology was already capable of interpreting the brainwave consciousness of patients with language disorders with a latency of only 80 milliseconds.
According to relevant concepts in the field of neuroscience, the communication of consciousness between natural beings without mechanical assistance would be even smoother.
To give a classic example, in cultivation novels, powerful ancestors often send a single, intelligent glance that instantly teaches their direct disciples a magical technique, leaving viewers in awe even through the screen.
"Hey boss, take a look at me too!"
"Please cram all the study materials for my CET-4/6, IELTS, TOEFL, final exams, civil service exams, national civil service exams, and exams in Zone 1 and Zone 2 into my head!"
That is the ideal goal of this research.
However, that is an extremely idealized model. To discuss it further is not science, but theology.
In fact, after the strange event occurred, even the two advanced players who specialized in mental power could only communicate and converse in real time within their minds. They were unable to compress a large amount of information for mental transmission in a short period of time. Otherwise, they could have mass-produced data emperors and theoretical scientists in no time.
Therefore, it is simply incredible that the couple could transmit their thoughts containing memory information to Xie Xubai within the extremely limited time of one or two seconds of clear conscious contact.
Yan Shuo and the little tentacles can easily shape memories into balls and show them to Xie Xubai anytime, anywhere because they are gods. The many rules of this world are always insignificant in the face of powerful forces.
However, these strange obsessions, lacking divine power and in some ways even weak, allow the living to access large fragments of their memories from their previous lives and to feel their thoughts and feelings.
What is it that they rely on?
Xie Xubai didn't know.
The moment the cloaked man spoke to him provoking him was also the moment the woman, with tears streaming down her face, touched the edge of his wound with strands of her hair, and the man gently touched his shoulder with his forehead.
At that moment, a flood of memories rushed into my mind like a tidal wave.
Xie Xubai's consciousness followed the memory slide built by the couple, sliding all the way to that rainy night with thunder.
Hearing familiar footsteps, the woman eagerly opened the door with a smile. Instead of her beloved husband, she saw a masked stranger with a fierce look in his eyes. She opened her mouth in panic to scream, but the assailant covered her mouth and pushed her forcefully inside, while his other hand revealed a small knife hidden in his pocket.
The thunder was deafening, and Xie Xubai, who was still a baby, was not sleeping soundly. He was awakened almost as soon as the door was opened.
He was extremely uneasy and instinctively cried out for his mother. He turned over, sobbing, his teary eyes looking towards the open bedroom door.
The blade reflected a fleeting, chilling silver light under the lightning. A faint scream, the splattering of blood, and the glaring red patches spreading outwards from the woman's chest all became, amidst the rumbling thunder, the nightmare that Xie Xubai could never overcome in his first life, a nightmare he had no memory of.
Just like now, as the woman walked towards the door, Xie Xubai's heart clenched with fear, his breath stopped, cold sweat instantly poured down his forehead, and his mind screamed anxiously: No, don't open it! Don't open it!!!
The door opened anyway, and the murderer rushed in.
The instant he saw the silvery-white blade, Xie Xubai felt as if he were trapped in an endless nightmare, his nerves flaring up and his mind going completely blank once again.
But the nightmarish scene did not appear.
In the blink of an eye, with a soft crack, the murderer's hand, which was wielding the knife, was forcefully clamped down by a hand that appeared out of nowhere. At the same time, another hand pressed down on the murderer's head and slammed it onto the floor like cracking a walnut, causing the floor tiles to shatter with a loud bang!
Before the assailant could even react in shock, he was struck so violently that his head was bleeding profusely, and he immediately lost consciousness.
The newcomer immediately raised his hand, and energy fluctuations gathered above his fingertips, instantly condensing into a sturdy chain that bound the murderer tightly.
The newcomer was wearing a tattered cloak over a training uniform and a mask.
She removed her mask, revealing a delicate face. She was a woman in her forties, who seemed to have experienced unimaginable vicissitudes, with fine lines around her eyes and gray hair.
She was panting heavily, as if she had rushed here from somewhere, utterly exhausted. Looking at the unharmed woman, her weary brows relaxed considerably, and she smiled with immense relief, saying, "Thank goodness! Thank goodness! I made it in time..."
Upon seeing that familiar face, Xie Xubai was inevitably shocked.
The reason is that the person who suddenly stepped in to save the woman was none other than Xie Yuchun!
If the appearance of the murderer is like a legal program, then this person's actions are like a supernatural world.
The woman's worldview was shattered; all the blood rushed to her head, and her weak legs trembled uncontrollably.
Just then, a sob came from the bedroom, and Xie Yuchun subconsciously looked over.
The woman followed her gaze, nearly scared out of her wits. Finding strength from somewhere, she ran desperately into the bedroom, grabbed her child, and pressed herself against the wall in terror: "Who are you? A ghost? A mutant? We're broke! Don't come any closer, or I'll call for help! Aaaaaaah!"
Xie Yuchun: "Wait, Ms. Zhao, I'm not—"
First it was the murderer, then the mutant. The woman wasn't very bold, and Xie Yuchun wanted to stop it, but it was too late. She quickly built a soundproof barrier.
A period of chaos ensued.
About half an hour later, the man returned home. As soon as he opened the door, his wife, looking terrified and completely lost, bumped into him with the baby in her arms, almost knocking his stomach out.
"Husband! Husband! Something's happened! She, she, me... there was someone just now... our baby..."
He grimaced as he steadied himself, and seeing his wife's utterly incoherent state, he disregarded his pain and hurriedly asked anxiously, "Calm down, Fen'er, I'm here, I'm here. Don't panic, tell me slowly, what happened?"
Before his wife could speak, the man had already seen the unconscious murderer lying on the ground with blood dripping from his head through the open door, and Xie Yuchun sitting on the sofa holding a hot water bottle.
In an instant, the man's mind went blank.
—Holy crap, holy crap, who is this guy and why is he lying on my floor?! He's injured, and with that much bleeding, we need to call an ambulance right away! Is he going to die? Wait, why does he look so much like a suspect from TV?
—Who is this woman? Why is she sitting calmly on our sofa in such a strange situation? Wait a minute! The cup in her hand… Calm down, stay composed. Fen'er washed her treasured five-year-old keepsake cup and poured water for this person. She should probably be a good person.
With this internal struggle, the man managed to coax his wife into calming down.
Five minutes later, the couple, their reason and values faltering, managed to resist the urge to call the police. They sat together on the sofa with their child, listening to Xie Yuchun explain the situation and her purpose.
Xie Yuchun said she came from the future, or more accurately, the future of the previous timeline.
In the previous timeline, the Infinite Game launched a full-scale invasion, and humanity once again lost to the game, leading to the tragic end of the world.
But no one knew that humanity had experienced at least three failures before this. Each failure resulted in countless people being randomly executed and their souls being imprisoned, becoming "hostages" used to blackmail surviving players at the start of the game.
Why the repeated failures? Because the level design is insanely flawed!
The tutorial level is an interstellar war dominated by high-dimensional technology. Humanity unleashes its most powerful existing thermal weapons, creating a raging inferno that fails to even scorch a bit of the mech's protective coating.
The mid-game levels start with alien gods capable of destroying planets at will. With those insurmountable, concept-level abilities, the level bosses can simply breathe, and humanity is annihilated from the level of basic particle structure. How are they supposed to fight them?!
At that moment, amidst unspeakable fear and despair, people finally saw through the system's so-called "fairness" and realized its intention to destroy humanity.
With nearly 8 billion players initially participating, the unreasonable level values have reduced the number of players to only 3 billion.
The number of surviving players is like a countdown to some kind of disaster. It gradually decreases, silently and subtly placing humanity into ever-heating water, while most of humanity remains unaware of it.
Xie Yuchun is one of the very few people in the know because she has awakened the skill of the [Prophet] and can detect the repetition of timelines.
But when faced with those conceptual-level monsters, she and her companions fighting on the front lines felt only despair, finding absolutely no hope of winning the game.
It was at this time that a young man named Xie Xubai approached the base.
At that time, the war was at its most intense. As one of the top decision-makers, Xie Yuchun had to deal with politicians with different thoughts and ulterior motives, while also working with his comrades to change the hopeless future of mankind. He had to meet with so many people every day.
Unsurprisingly, Xie Xubai, who had no official status and no secret organization to recommend him, was rejected.
His visit application only stayed in the sorting room for a short while before being classified as harassing fan mail and thrown into the garbage plant for shredding and recycling.
Naturally, no one informed Xie Xubai of the outcome of his application.
Perhaps after being ignored and without any notification for a few days, Xie Xubai realized the outcome on his own. He submitted his application again, and the application report was once again thrown into the pile of "meaningless letters to be processed" during the screening process.
This process was repeated repeatedly, with unwavering perseverance, rain or shine, until finally, two months later, the sorting staff remembered his name.
The sorting clerk felt that given their long-term persistence and the fact that they shared the surname "Xie," Xie Xubai and Xie Yuchun might be related by blood. So he handed the letter to his supervisor.
The leader consulted with higher authorities, and after a thorough investigation by the highest security department, it was discovered that Xie Xubai only happened to share the same surname as Xie Yuchun. The report was once again rejected and destroyed.
It wasn't until two years later that Xie Xubai finally met Xie Yuchun.
At that time, humanity, through infiltrating enemy territory, disguising itself as an inside agent, learning from others, and sacrificing lives, finally managed to overcome the initial hurdles of being a novice.
If nothing unexpected happens, they will soon face an Outer God-level BOSS in the next intermediate level and suffer another annihilation.
But then, in that moment of despair, Xie Yuchun painstakingly searched through the threads of fate and, overjoyed, found a miraculous glimmer of "uncertainty."
This "uncertainty" is Xie Xubai.
Without wasting even a second, Xie Yuchun immediately sent someone to find Xie Xubai.
When Xie Yuchun first met the young man, his first reaction was that he was "ordinary". His stats were average, his talents and skills were average, and there was nothing outstanding about him except for his face.
Why are good-looking people considered average? Because in the game, you can use items to change your appearance, achieving painless plastic surgery. In the early days when players didn't know the value of points, the live stream was full of handsome men and beautiful women who had undergone plastic surgery.
Xie Yuchun has an ordinary appearance, but she has never thought about changing her appearance. If turning into a monster could give humanity a glimmer of hope for survival, she would do it without hesitation. Unfortunately, the eyes of the Outer Gods are different; they do not rely on a single-dimensional vision to examine living beings.
Xie Yuchun did not look down on Xie Xubai because of his suspected plastic surgery, after all, this was an "uncertainty" that they had finally found.
The news Xie Xubai brought did not disappoint her; in fact, it far exceeded her expectations! The news was revolutionary and groundbreaking, almost becoming humanity's ultimate weapon against the Infinite Game.
Xie Yuchun said to the couple, "Your son told me with certainty that even if memories are erased in the cycle, and the scarred body is restored to its original state countless times, the soul will ultimately leave its mark."
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