The sequel to OE that “we” are looking forward to (Twenty-one)
The gods pride themselves on being merciful.
However, the young high school student objected to this. He thought that they could just try to balance the wishes and grudges, so why did they have to kill each other? The other gods did not get angry this time, but only lamented the naivety of the young god.
To make the relationship between vows and resentment a check and balance means that they will have to continue to worship the two big Buddhas in the future. The balance requires maintenance and funds. However, if both parties perish and everything returns to zero, the cost will be much smaller. This time, only tens of billions of vows will be lost, and they can still earn more in the future. As long as the resentment is controlled and eliminated in time, then the Book Bureau will only have vows.
It was simply a matter of subsequent investment, coupled with the fact that those old-timers wanted to eliminate the threat of resentment. However, 404 asked a crucial question: "Since you said that any resentment that appears in the future will be eliminated immediately, so that only the power of will remains, then I am curious, how did the current powerful Z01 come to be?"
The long-bearded man readily agreed: "The current resentment has existed since ancient times, and has lived even longer than our gods. It's a legacy of evil. Look, aren't we solving it this time? We've accumulated so many years of vows just for this moment, so we can't miss this opportunity."
404 wanted to speak but was interrupted by the bearded god. A001, the first generation of main god except for the real gods, directly started the vote in the meeting on whether to destroy each other or maintain balance. The speed was so fast that it was unexpected. There was only one vote for balance from 404, and the former Black Hood abstained from voting. Apart from that, everyone else agreed to destroy each other.
At this moment, it seemed as if 404 was the villain. The other silent guys finally stood on the side of the senior predecessors. 404 didn't say anything else. A001 with a long beard flashed a satisfied smile on his face, and then he comforted the young 404 with regret.
The final word.
Jiang Yuanshi and Z01 were doomed to die. After the man with a long beard leisurely left, stroking his beard, the unwillingness on the young man's face faded away. He just looked at the backs of the "winners" leaving, raised his eyebrows expressionlessly, and tapped the table lightly with his fingers from time to time.
“Knock, knock, knock—”
Who is it today? Jiang Yuanshi, who had just been awakened by the alarm-like prompt sound, impatiently sat up from the half-pile of gold coins. Before he had time to check the red dot in the attribute column, the knocking sound outside the door continued incessantly and rhythmically.
Jiang Yuanshi patted his face, regained his composure, flapped his wings and flew to look at Cat's Eye. It was the village chief again. Judging from his appearance, he should be an NPC.
The door slowly opened, and the village chief looked at a palm-sized object flying out of the door and asked, "Hello, what can I do for you today?"
The village chief paused stroking his beard and replied, "Good morning, Sasa. Is the hero not home today?"
Xiaolong nodded: "Yes."
While saying it was a pity, the village chief took out a blue earring that looked so familiar, exactly the same as the one Z01 was wearing. Jiang Yuanshi said, "Isn't this the earring of the brave?"
The village chief said, "Yes, he came to me yesterday and asked me to bless these earrings. He was supposed to pick them up the next day, but I didn't see him, so I came over. Coincidentally, I made some honey cookies at home and brought them along."
Xiaolong thanked him and took the package. The village chief asked where the hero had been and when he would be back. Xiaolong replied, "He's on a long trip on some commission. I guess he'll be away for a few days. So, won't these cookies go bad after today?"
The little dragon held the biscuit and swung his tail, with stars in his eyes. The village chief stroked his beard and said with a smile: "Hahaha, yes, it's a pity that the hero can't eat it. We can only let Sasa do it for you."
Sasalong wagged its tail even more happily. It didn't feel lonely at all because the hero was not at home. It was just happy to eat alone. Xiaolong's family didn't have much food today, so Xiaolong gave the village chief a few gold coins. After exchanging gifts, the two waved goodbye to each other.
The village chief slowly left. When he turned around, his benevolent gaze vanished. He stroked his beard and sneered disdainfully, "You good-for-nothing human being."
Jiang Yuanshi watched the village chief disappear from his sight, closed the door, his smile faded, his tail stilled, and his face drooped. "What a waste of my expression! You have the nerve to come so early after acting like this."
He is stroking his beard, but what are those few hairs stroking?
Jiang Yuanshi opened the package, put the biscuits aside, picked up the blue earring and looked at it for a while. He couldn't see anything unusual. Looking at the bite marks on it, it was indeed from Z01. They were all Jiang Yuanshi's masterpieces when he was making dragons.
But how did the earrings end up in the hands of those systems? Had Z01 already been in trouble? Jiang Yuanshi had no way of knowing.
Now that things have come to this, he can only do what he can, such as looking at the culprit who woke him up early in the morning. He clicked on the attribute bar and saw that his personal attributes such as health and combat power were all 100, which he had achieved through hard work these days.
There was nothing special, but at this moment Jiang Yuanshi's attention was attracted by the upper right corner. It seemed like there was a bug. The number of gold coins turned into many zeros, and even those zeros broke through the bars and rushed out of the light screen. Before Jiang Yuanshi had time to complain about the new bug, he found something wrong.
Wait, it seems that the beginning is not 0, but 1.
If it is 000…1, it can be considered a bug, but 100…000, it is most likely money.
Jiang Yuanshi had never counted so many zeros in his life, and he was dazzled by it.
Tens, hundreds, thousands, and millions of each... ten billion, trillion, and hundred billion.
Ten billion in total, a perfectly accurate number. Was this also a bug? Jiang Yuanshi had a strange premonition, and for no apparent reason, he suddenly remembered Z01's promise to hand over his salary.
But... what a perfect number, not even a decimal point.
Jiang Yuanshi flew into the bedroom and picked up a gold coin. The 10 billion in the amount column turned into 10.1 billion, but in the next second, the gold coin in his hand disappeared and the amount turned back to 10 billion. Jiang Yuanshi lost a gold coin inexplicably.
Then, he lost five gold coins again. When he wanted to continue, a voice interrupted him:
"Don't try, it's useless. Force the correction. You're just wasting money."
After saying that, Jiang Yuanshi smoothly put the gold coin into his mouth and chewed it, saying, "Hello, but why didn't you knock?"
"...Is that the point?" Ysl404 sat speechlessly on the chair at the living room dining table. "By the way, I was wondering why you weren't surprised by my sudden appearance? Aren't you startled?"
Jiang Yuanshi swallowed the gold coin. "No, it's not like Z01 came here out of nowhere. Besides, the system already warned me. Z01 isn't here, and he's still looking for me. It must be bad news. The possibility of you coming is quite high."
"Is that why you think I'll show up?"
Jiang Yuanshi flew to the chair across from 404, sprinkled a handful of gold coins on the table, and began to eat the buffet himself, showing no intention of entertaining the Lord God. The Lord God somewhat speechlessly mocked his hospitality. Jiang Yuanshi casually took out a plate of twisted food from his backpack and placed it in front of 404, saying, "Apart from gold coins, there are only these dishes in my house. Nothing else."
404 looked at the plate of twisting, darkly crawling octopus with an awkward expression. He looked at Jiang Yuan sympathetically and said, "He usually gives you this, right? You can actually eat it. It must be true love."
Jiang Yuanshi: "Ah, no, I finished the food he cooked last night, so I had to cook for myself. This is what I made. It's not that I don't want to treat you, but I think it's better not to treat you. You might as well take some money and leave. At least you can go to the village to buy some food."
Ysl404 was speechless. Even with his powerful system, he couldn't help but sympathize with Z01. He silently changed the subject, "Let's get back to the point. The situation is a bit dangerous right now, so I'm here to help you resolve your concerns."
"So you still haven't beaten those old antiques?"
"Well, for now."
Jiang Yuanshi didn't say anything, just said: "Okay, let's get started. First question, where is Z01 now?"
Ysl404 continued smoothly, "He's in this world, but his location is unknown. Even the higher-ups can't find his exact location. It's said he returned after collecting the email and quest rewards, but his whereabouts remain unknown. Otherwise, the god wouldn't have come looking for you personally. He's determined Z01 will come looking for you, and even if he can't find you, he'll have other options."
Jiang Yuanshi chewed on a gold coin and said, "That guy stroking his beard is actually the Lord God? Is the Lord God's hair so sparse? He has much less hair than the village chief."
404 uttered an "uh," then laughed and said, "Yes, after all, the current main gods weren't born gods. They all became gods by ascending to higher positions and gaining some divine power from the true gods. If you become a system, you can become a god if you perform well."
"If that's the case, why kill Z01? And why are you so afraid of him? Besides being a system, what else is Z01?" Jiang Yuanshi's question hit the nail on the head. 404 hissed, lamenting that chatting with smart people was much easier. He then replied, "Good question. Unfortunately, that person wasn't even a system originally. He was suppressed and his memory was tampered with to become a system. His true form is resentment, the resentment of resentment."
"Grudge?"
"Yes, the Book Transmigration Bureau relies on the willpower of living things to operate, but living things can't be all good, so resentment is generated. The speed at which resentment accumulates is much faster than willpower. Every world is not absolutely fair. Where there is light, there is darkness, and beauty is accompanied by resentment. When resentment reaches a certain level, 'Resentment' is born. It is the combination of resentment and its essence, powerful and difficult to erase. The Book Transmigration Bureau spent many years trying every possible means to weaken Resentment, but resentment is difficult to eliminate, so the main gods simply took the opportunity to transform it into their subordinates, letting 'Resentment' work for them, and then use their accumulated willpower to kill them. However, they didn't expect that the resentment was too much, and they had to accumulate tens of billions of willpower points before they could start the elimination plan."
After Jiang Yuanshi heard Z01's origins, his brows furrowed in frustration. "But you also said that wishes and resentment are intertwined. Even if Z01 is killed, as long as the bookstore requires wishes, the resentment will always exist."
404 sighed and said helplessly, "Yes, it's something that anyone with a brain knows, but those gods believe they are omnipotent and vow to create a utopia based solely on willpower."
People really laugh when they're speechless. Several gods combined haven't been able to destroy Z01 yet, and yet they still brazenly express such a foolish fantasy. They're still confident. "I can tell right away that this is a leader who hasn't descended to earth in too long. There's no hope, unless he's actually dragged down."
404 gave an "hmm" in agreement. Jiang Yuanshi wiped his mouth, knocked out the octopus crawling towards him with a gold coin, and asked, "So now those guys want Z01 and I to kill each other? After all, it seems like the power of willpower is with me?"
He then clicked on the attribute column to show 404: "Can you see it? This should be the 10 billion subsidy you mentioned, right?"
404 held his chin in his hand and picked up the gold coins to throw at the octopus, forcing it to turn around and crawl towards Jiang Yuanshi. "Yeah, that guy produced some kind of marriage certificate and Lord God certificate and directly transferred the assets to you. But you can guess everything. Who of us is the prophet?"
The octopus crawled towards Jiang Yuanshi's dark place. Although there was no slime on the table, there was residual vegetable juice, which became more concentrated as it moved back and forth. Jiang Yuanshi was too lazy to take action, so he simply pulled the octopus that was stretched out to him and took a bite. It was quite chewy. It looked ugly but tasted okay. Jiang Yuanshi reluctantly spurted flames from his mouth and cooked the octopus.
Another bite, now it's okay.
"Would you like to try it? Now it's possible. I can bake one for you."
"...That's not necessary. Just eat it yourself."
"Oh well."
"You haven't answered my question yet?"
Jiang Yuanshi said casually, "It's very simple, because this is what Z01 and I planned. However, the success rate is only 6%, but we're going to die anyway, so we might as well give it a try."
404 paused fiddling with the gold coins, then looked up at Jiang Yuanshi, who was eating, with interest: "You... planned this? What do you know? You knew Z01 was resentful, so you asked him to give you the power of will, right?"
Jiang Yuanshi: "I don't know. I just felt it was a waste to give the money to my boss, so I let Z01 take it back for himself. It was expected that he would transfer it to me. After all, he is capable of doing such a thing now. But I just learned about what you said. What Z01 and I planned was just to give some bugs to Chuanshuju."
"...Bug? What bug?"
"It's just a bug virus. Anyway, we know the Lord God is really going to kill Z01. I definitely won't be able to survive like this. I'm going to die anyway, so I might as well cause some trouble for the Transmigration Book Bureau. After all, there are bugs everywhere when I'm doing missions. What exactly are the bugs... well... just insignificant little things like signal delays, inability to receive messages, garbled text, etc."
404 took a deep breath. This was no small matter. He remembered the news of the delay in the meeting. It turned out that it was because they sent the virus, which led to the situation where the Lord God started the elimination plan. If there was no delay, the application would only be rejected, and Z01 was destined to die on the same day. Everything changed because of this small bug.
Ysl404 laughed. In Jiang Yuanshi's eyes, he looked like a crazy worker at work. Jiang Yuanshi didn't dare to disturb him. He just held the octopus's head and started to gnaw on it, making a "crunching" sound.
404 laughed enough, took a deep breath, and said, "Amazing! The turning point really is on you." Facing Jiang Yuanshi's puzzled look, 404 said, "So now you know. The willpower is in you. Those old guys intend to use you as a temporary carrier, a collection of willpower. Once you and Z01 meet, the elimination plan will be automatically triggered. You are destined to become enemies. Under the Lord God's urging, you will definitely be destroyed."
Jiang Yuanshi asked a question: "So, Z01 is born with resentment, and I am just a container? Can't a container become a wish?"
404: "A container can become a wish, but the prerequisite is that the container is compatible enough and can hold so many wishes. Honestly, even if you don't meet Z01 now, you will self-destruct after today because you can't hold so many wishes. At that time, this world will be completely destroyed, including Z01 in this world. Because this world has been sealed off, I can only send a trace of my divine consciousness here."
Jiang Yuanshi had already finished chewing the octopus. He wiped his mouth, looked at the increasing personal values on the attribute bar, and said, "So your divine consciousness will also be blown away? By the way, does divine consciousness contain divine power?"
404: "You'll be blown up. Divine thoughts are created by divine power, which is equivalent to a thousand-mile voice transmission plus 3D video. What do you want to do?"
Jiang Yuanshi: "I don't believe you're here just to answer questions. After all, aren't you a prophet? Your little bit of divine power will disappear anyway, so why not lend it to me?"
404 said with some regret, "I would like to, but I can't lend out the power of God. However... I did bring some things with me, but I'm only a semi-outsider, so there's not much I can do for you."
As he said this, 404 spread out his palm, and a blue substance floated in his palm, gradually decomposing from a ball into ten small things. That was... Jiang Yuanshi's finger, the soul that had been sacrificed.
"The soul you sacrifice won't disappear after you're blown up, so you might be able to survive. But it's also a matter of probability. It's like gambling because there's no precedent."
Jiang Yuanshi was least afraid of death and risk, but it sounded like Z01 would eventually die. 404 nodded, and even he couldn't change that. Jiang Yuanshi glanced at the blue, then turned to the translucent blue beneath the gold coins on the table. He stepped forward and took out the blue earring, asking, "What did that bearded god do with it?"
404 took it, glanced at it, and returned it. "It's like a prison. Once it's placed on Z01, Z01 will be imprisoned, creating a space that will facilitate a small-scale explosion. This way, this world will be preserved."
"In other words, after Z01 and I met, we were effectively trapped in this space."
"Yes."
"Are the spaces connected?"
"I understand what you mean, but this space is restricted. You and Z01 will be isolated once you enter. This space will also be destroyed."
Jiang Yuanshi continued to ask, "Can't I become the true collective of Yuan? Z01 has a physical body and consciousness, why doesn't Yuan have one?"
Speaking of this 404, he was also puzzled. As far as he knew, the wish itself could be transformed, but the formed wish would disappear after a while and could not be retained at all. The possible reason was that the wish was constantly being consumed, and the flow of funds made it impossible to accumulate the wish.
It's not like creatures haven't been tried before, but they've all exploded due to the effort. The main reason is that wishes need to be fulfilled, and those creatures don't have that ability. 404 held his head and said, "Simply put, if you don't have the ability to fulfill other people's wishes, you naturally won't receive their faith and offerings. Without offerings, you'll explode. Of course, even with offerings, that doesn't guarantee it. I'm not sure about that. After all, we main gods haven't been worshipped. We all became gods through our share of divine power. If we have enough faith, we should become gods, right? It's just like in novels, right?"
After all, they are all legends and empty words. There is nothing we can do at the moment. Jiang Yuanshi took off the earring and hung it around his neck. The blue earring and the red earring collided with each other, making a crisp sound.
He checked the time. It was 9 a.m. He had to set out early to find Z01. If he couldn't find it today, the world would explode. Jiang Yuanshi didn't want that to happen. Before leaving, he said to 404, who was left behind to look after the house, "Didn't I have a wish that I didn't tell you?"
"Hmm? Yeah, but what are you going to do? I can't help you with an excessive wish."
Jiang Yuanshi shook his head and said, "But, my real-life USB drive is in the urn I pre-ordered. Please help me create an ending for this world. The scripts for different endings are also in that USB drive. I died before I could decide whether to put them in. Now that I think about it, a happy ending wouldn't be bad either. Sorry for the trouble."
"That's it? Your wish seems too simple."
"It's very important to me, but I can't do it even if I'm dead. Please, I have to go find Z01 now. He's still waiting for me."
"Do you know where he is?"
Jiang Yuanshi shook his head: "I don't know, but I guess I can find it."
404 looked at the palm-sized little dragon standing at the door and sighed, "Forget it, it's up to you. I can't help you, so I can only give you some gifts."
After a snap of his fingers, Xiaolong turned into a human form.
Jiang Yuanshi looked at his intact yet barely visible fingertips and said, "Thank you."
Jiang Yuanshi set off.
Embark on a one-day journey in search of the Z01.
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