Free Web NovelChapter 433: Chapter 50: The Simplest Way to Walk Through a Maze
Bai Wu certainly didn’t lack the "imagination" to take a matter in an extravagant direction.
He had considered that this woman might really have a child, but comparatively speaking, the probability was too low.
Yet now, Bai Wu discovered that the first memory scene he experienced was this far-fetched?
"This compass, you said it was given to you in a dream by your daughter?" Bai Wu asked for confirmation again.
"Yes, it wasn’t there before I went to sleep, but when I woke up, I dreamed of my daughter... she told me... she dislikes her new mom and wants me to find her quickly!" Zhang Xian had said these words to many people.
Official organizations had concluded that Zhang Xian was mentally ill.
So Zhang Xian had no choice but to seek help from some unreliable organizations.
This memory was of a woman being deceived again. The real members of the Bizarre Inspection Team were still in a meeting, investigating Zhang Xian’s background and past, contemplating how to use empathy to swindle Zhang Xian’s money.
That was the reality.
But in the Memory World, Bai Wu intercepted the situation. So things took a new turn.
"It seems that all proof of your daughter’s existence has disappeared? No photos either?"
"There are photos..."
This was different from what Bai Wu knew. Zhang Xian quickly produced a photo, indeed of a girl about three years old.
Although she was a toddler, she seemed rather intelligent, with a discerning gaze that normal children did not possess.
There were many more photos.
Bai Wu said:
"It seems... no one believes that your photos are real?"
"Yes, afterward I said that the girl in the photo had gone missing... they even agreed to help deal with it, but it wasn’t long before they seemed to forget everything."
Zhang Xian painfully clutched her hair: free𝑤ebnovel.com
"They don’t even remember that I’ve sought their help before... no matter how many times I go to find them, it’s as if it’s the first time. I am indeed a bit muddled, and sometimes my emotions run high... but it’s all because they forced me... I even feel like this world is preventing me from finding my daughter!"
It wasn’t that there were never traces of existence... rather, they kept being forgotten. Even though people’s memories could temporarily change their opinions because Zhang Xian presented evidence, they soon either forgot or had their memories erased, causing Zhang Xian’s situation to reset.
No wonder this memory was stored in the Memory Museum, because perhaps only such a place... wouldn’t be affected by some mysterious power erasing memories.
Suddenly, Bai Wu remembered something.
Why did Jing Liu initially give that box containing information from the World Beyond the Mist to Zero? Could it be because... as a half-mechanical life form, Zero can save memories as data and won’t be disturbed by certain forces?
Seven hundred years ago, many people from Sheng Country who were abroad fled and became citizens of other countries.
There was skepticism about why so many Sheng people within the borders of Sheng Country didn’t flee.
Is it because... they simply lacked the memory-based logic to support their desire to flee?
The erasure of memories, in Bai Wu’s view, was on a much larger scale than Zhang Xian’s case.
But the nature was the same.
"I will help you find your child, but it will take a very long time."
"Really? Are you... just patronizing me to swindle my money?" Zhang Xian’s eyes were filled with hope.
Bai Wu believed that even if the woman said this, if he asked for money, she would still give it for her daughter’s sake.
So Bai Wu shook his head:
"I’m actually not from the Bizarre Inspection Team, I just intercepted their information."
"If someone from the Bizarre Inspection Team comes looking for you later, don’t believe them. They’re no different from the Ghost Execution Assembly and Spirit Exploration Team you’ve encountered before."
"To everyone, you’re a lunatic, a woman who imagines having a daughter she doesn’t have."
"The force you’re up against is very strong, unprecedentedly so, and some things can’t be changed simply with persistence."
"So please, live well, cherish life – you’re still young, and there are other opportunities for you. But rest assured, I’m not asking you to give up on your daughter. I will keep searching for her."
"Just stop spending money on this, wait for me to find your daughter."
Zhang Xian looked into Bai Wu’s eyes. Bai Wu’s words were very sincere, but Zhang Xian felt distressed:
"Are you... lying to me? You actually don’t know where my daughter is!"
"Did your daughter describe her new mother to you?"
"Yes."
"And she has a new father, surrounded by a bunch of kids, and you’ve probably seen tattoos on your daughter’s hand, right? The dad is a doctor, and the mom is a nurse."
With every additional word she spoke, the woman’s eyes became more astonished, and finally, she trembled and asked:
"You know where my daughter has gone! You know where my daughter has gone! You’ve been there, haven’t you!"
Zhang Xian grasped Bai Wu’s shoulders, her voice hysterical. She had finally found someone who truly believed her.
Because the information coming out of Bai Wu’s mouth was indeed something she knew.
Bai Wu knew that Zhang Xian had come to believe that he truly had seen that place.
He was like trying to persuade someone who was about to commit suicide, but first, he had to "empathize" with the person.
Only, Bai Wu was also very clear about one thing in his heart—her daughter wasn’t going to be saved.
The greatest gain from this memory exploration was probably this compass.
Zhang Xian’s daughter seemed to possess some sort of powerful teleporting object’s ability.
Her daughter had stolen a compass, a compass which was certainly very important, and the daughter was obviously very smart, with a talent that was definitely not low.
"Do you still remember the tattoo on your daughter’s wrist?"
"I do! I do! It was a tattoo like a playing card, the diamond Jack."
Sequence cards.
Below Q in rank, but above the other numbers, not a minor character.
No, if she was from the same era as Bai Yuan and Lin Rui, one could say she was a very formidable and ruthless character.
Bai Wu had already clashed with two Qs.
In his view, the Sequence cards from this batch of children were far inferior to the batch of Bai Yuan and Lin Rui.
It was like heaven and earth.
"But they may not be from the same era, maybe Bai Yuan and Lin Rui are from an even earlier era, but not far off," thought Bai Wu, forming some judgements about this diamond Jack in his mind.
Then he seriously said:
"I will pay attention. I would like to take this compass with me, is that okay? It can locate your daughter’s position, but that place is too dangerous, you can’t go there, only I can."
Zhang Xian nodded, the compass was her emotional crutch, but to find her daughter, she was willing to give up anything.
Bai Wu admonished her again:
"This isn’t something that can be finished quickly, Zhang Xian, you have to live your life well."
"I... I just want to find my daughter."
"I will find her, but I’m not certain about the time it will take, and during this process, she wouldn’t want you to suffer either. Imagine, when she comes back and you have ruined your health because of all the stress, how are you going to live together then?"
Bai Wu didn’t insist further, this was only a memory, not the Causal Phone Booth where one could change history.
His eyes also affirmed that point.
He could take some things from the memory, and even change his physical state, but the influence was limited only to himself, and the memory entities inside the Memory Museum.
There was no effect on the actual past.
The creator of the Memory Museum had used a very strong rule force to create a small world based on human memories.
But it had no significant connection to the real world. This was just entering the Memory World, not going back to the past.
Otherwise, saving the world wouldn’t have required Lin Rui’s Temporal Power. If there were a place where one could continuously change the history of the larger world from within this small world, then this world would have no crisis to speak of.
The six Wells would be nothing to fear.
Naturally, the Memory Museum couldn’t do these things; Well Six did manage it once, but at a great cost.
Just as the eyes said, this was a museum and nothing more.
Bai Wu treated this world as an independent one, so although it was not necessary, it had significance.
He hoped Zhang Xian would live well, and gradually, due to the joy of resuming her life, she would forget her daughter.
Bai Wu quickly left the room.
Logically, he could choose to enter the vortex-shaped "door" above Zhang Xian’s head.
But Bai Wu didn’t do so.
Behind the door lay Zhang Xian’s daughter, and he might have been able to enter another door through her daughter and find out how the farm had targeted her.
But to do so would deviate from his original intent.
As for the farm, who knew it better than Bai Yuan? Especially since he had obtained the compass.
Bai Wu was not reckless; he was very clear that with every door he didn’t enter, he would have to give up some memories.
For him, memories were precious.
...
...
In 2094, Food City was still thriving.
After leaving the apartment where Zhang Xian resided, Bai Wu searched for the next suitable door in this memory world.
He naturally went to an internet café first. On the way there, Bai Wu saw many people, each with numerous notes on normal people.
Some of these people later died, some became Evil Fallen. Bai Wu even wondered if in this world he might encounter Lin Rui’s parents?
It was a pity that he couldn’t influence the real-world Lin Rui, otherwise, he could’ve foresaw and broken the closed loop in advance.
Aside from the many pedestrians, there were many entrances to the next scene—the doors.
The vortex-shaped doors floated above each person’s head.
Bai Wu thought that if someone who didn’t understand the rules and was very curious entered this world, they would quickly become lost, and perhaps exchange some very important memories of their own for the memories of irrelevant people.
This further solidified Bai Wu’s decision to be cautious when choosing.
He resolved not to open doors rashly but to find the one who built the Ark with the fewest "entries" and clarify everything.
Unfortunately, just like entering the High Tower, Angel Envoys couldn’t establish contact with Zero in the memory world.
Fortunately, aside from combat, the Angel Envoy also possessed some simple functions that Bai Wu could control.
Although he couldn’t perform the miraculous feats of Zero, hacking into an internet café in Sheng Country from seven hundred years ago was easy for Bai Wu.
He sat on a bench outside the internet café, holding a phone styled after the High Tower, pretending to look at the phone while actually using the Angel Envoy’s link to the world information network to search for messages he wanted.
The summer heat in Food City was intense. The internet café was cool, but the bench outside was hot.
So much so that Bai Wu looked like... a madman.
However, Bai Wu thought that forty-two degrees was quite comfortable. After all, his first outing beyond the Tower was in an extreme temperature zone.
He ignored what others might think and began to search.
Ships. Cruises. Arks.
Bai Wu tried all these terms, and a lot of information popped up. Even after the Angel Envoy filtered it, he couldn’t find any useful information.
In the end, Bai Wu was certain that none of these terms were the key.
Next, Bai Wu searched for Jing San, farm, and even tried keywords like High Tower, Bai Yuan, Sequence, and the like.
But it was pointless, although these words triggered some related searches, they were all irrelevant to what Bai Wu wanted to understand.
However, Bai Wu did not give up, he began searching extensively for information related to giant vessels, directing the Angel Envoy to analyze the manufacturing locations of the largest giant vessels in human history.
This was a lengthy process. Even a tool like the Angel Envoy, when calculating such massive amounts of information, needed a long time to filter and sift through it.
During this time, Bai Wu prepared to comb through various timelines:
"The High Tower closed in 2128; now it’s 2094, thirty-two years before the start of the Era of the High Tower."
"The Ark is huge, and there are two of them. Especially when I met Wen Hao—the Ark was already built. So for mankind’s current civilization to make such a colossal vessel, it cannot be done in silence. But I need to think—"
"What other information have I missed?"
Bai Wu pondered seriously.
"I know now that Jing Liu and Jing Si haven’t been born yet at this time... They should exist in the form of ’eggs’ within the ’Wells’."
"Just like the scientists in Denglin City, in the eyes of Jing Si, this is a safe state."
"And the High Tower has already been born, the Tower Monsters sealed within it. The Tower Monsters can’t sense the outside world from within the High Tower and naturally cannot create six Wells."
"So I can reasonably assume... at the time the Wells were born, which is also when the Tower Monsters were born, it had already discovered a threat—the High Tower Creator."
"Right, it said, they were originally of the same origin..."
"As if one is a Well, the other an Inverted Well. The Guardian wanted to kill the monster in the High Tower, but couldn’t, only managing to seal it with the High Tower."
"But the monster also left a last resort, which are the six Well Level monsters. Yes, this makes a lot more sense."
"The Well Level monsters are all in the eggs, ranked from Jing Yi to Jing Liu according to the order of hatching."
"Bai Yuan said he has seen the Guardian of the High Tower. Since Bai Yuan comes from the farm, it’s impossible for him to have appeared earlier than Jing Yi."
"That means... the Guardian of the High Tower is still alive..."
"Then with his power, why didn’t he... deal with a few Wells that were still in their shells?"
"He created the Sequence, built the High Tower—he can be said to be the definitive god of the twisted era, probably much more powerful than Jing Si I saw in Baichuan City, truly an ’Origin’."
"Such an existence, if it sealed the monster with the High Tower, would surely know that outside the High Tower, there are six Well Level minions."
After sorting through his thoughts, Bai Wu gradually began to see a clear picture.
"Unless he... can’t do anything, the cost of sealing monster is quite severe, to the point that he had to wait until the distortion density reached a certain level to make a bet on people like Bai Yuan and Lin Rui, who had awakened to the consciousness of rebellion and possessed rare powers, with ideology?"
Bai Wu’s speculation was already close to the truth; he really hoped Bai Yuan would come out and explain.
But Bai Yuan did not appear. Before entering this scene, Bai Wu felt that Bai Yuan should show up, then smugly flaunt his knowledge.
But there was nothing; this time Bai Yuan was quiet.
Just as Bai Wu wondered if there were some limitations in this area, the Angel Envoy provided intelligence—
[Suspected unknown giant human project underway on Black Gold Island...]
Black Gold Island?
Bai Wu clicked in to check; it was news from seven months ago. Black Gold Island is a deserted island.
Almost no development had taken place on the island. The journalist who published the report was also improvising.
However, what was interesting was that this report was obtained from the dark web by the Angel Envoy. In other words, it’s a report not available to the general public.
Bai Wu thought that if Jing Si hadn’t been born, naturally, neither had Jing Wu nor Jing Liu—or rather, they hadn’t hatched.
The Era of the High Tower more than thirty years ago on Black Gold Island might indeed have been a secret base.
All of a sudden, the range for exploration has narrowed down a lot; a project can’t possibly exist without staff.
The staff certainly had families.
Through the "doors" of families, they could find the related staff.
And through the staff’s "doors," they could find their superiors, and by finding the staff’s superiors, they could eventually find the project leader through the doors.
This project leader must definitely know the Ark Creators.
"There’s some clue now, but this is just a direction. Under this premise, I need to find the shortest route, which is through the fewest doors... to suffer the least memory loss to find him."
Bai Wu furrowed his brow:
"There must be more clues, something that I have overlooked. I can’t rely solely on these memories; I must also combine them with what I’ve explored previously..."
Bai Wu’s brain was churning rapidly, and ten seconds later, he opened his eyes:
"Wait... I’ve overlooked a key point... something that I’ve been thinking about incorrectly all along!"
"Even though the First Generation Mask first appeared in the timeline before the High Tower was closed, by that time, he already looked very world-weary..."
"When he handed over the mask to Lin Rui, the words he spoke seemed as if he had been fighting the distortion for ages..."
Bai Wu suddenly became excited.
That’s right, there’s no mistake.
The active time of the Masked Strange Person gave him a misleading impression!
In fact, the First Generation Mask and Bai Yuan may have emerged very early.
Bai Yuan also mentioned... he had gone to other countries with Lin Rui and therefore met a certain wealthy Zhao family member.
"If I follow the plan to search for the giant project on Black Gold Island, I might truly find the Ark Creator. But there are too many doors to pass through, and my memory simply can’t endure the loss..."
"Every person in the Memory World, although they follow the trajectory of memory, I’ve proved just now that they are not NPCs; they are real human beings existing in this world..."
"If I disrupt the memory, they have their own logic of behavior... forming a new segment of memory..."
Bai Wu took out the mask from his storage bag.
His eyes shone:
"Change the perspective, why should I look for others, instead of having them look for me? When he sees this mask... he will definitely come! In this way, I don’t need to pass through any doors... so this maze, there is an optimal solution!"
Bai Wu really had never conversed with the farm version of the Masked Strange Person.
He had only seen the conversation between Jiang Yimi and the First Generation Mask in Jiang Yimi’s notes.
And to let the mask in his possession be known was too simple.
With his current ability, creating one or two sensational news events was not difficult.
Soon, Bai Wu had formulated a plan in his mind.
Holding the mask, Bai Wu murmured to himself:
"I hope that in this era, you... already have a mask. And I hope that in this era, you know the truth about all this."
In the real world, he could no longer meet Lin Rui, but at least in the world of memory...
Heroes never die.
(There might be another update tonight, Schrödinger’s update. Don’t expect it. Because most likely, it won’t happen.)
