Doomsday Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 467: Chapter 84: I Come from the Past to Change the Future

Bai Wu, through his eyes, knew that the chances were high he had died at the hands of Jing Si. This development was very strange.

Why would he die at the hands of Jing Si?

The recent transformation of Sheng Country’s people into monsters, the arrival of the Distortion Correction Team to eradicate the distortions, and the dialogue they had initiated, as well as the nature of this event itself—all made Bai Wu feel very odd.

He was eager to understand it all.

Bai Wu believed that this future was unlikely to come to pass; it was a warning, a revelation.

But deep within, an unknown emotion was also being born.

If he had the capacity for fear, he would be afraid of this future.

This future looked utterly absurd, yet Bai Wu felt... perhaps it really could turn out this way.

If he wasn’t careful, if he didn’t change something, the future might really become just so.

The original master of the Magic Tower area, maybe also a Hei Wu patient! A Hei Wu patient who could observe the past and the future!

And that person of immense powers, who communicated with him through Lu En, had further modified this place.

To let him see more of... the visions of the future.

But all this was just Bai Wu’s speculation.

If this place was real, then now that he had encountered Yan Zizai, he could finally ask in detail.

Yan Zizai’s reaction, from being on guard, to astonishment, and back to guard... took only a few seconds.

Yan Zizai didn’t even give Bai Wu a chance to speak. His figure disappeared in an instant, appearing behind Bai Wu. freeweɓnovel.cøm

If he chose to experience the story mode, Bai Wu could certainly have defeated Yan Zizai, but now he only possessed strength greater than an ordinary person.

With a chop of the hand, Bai Wu passed out.

This scene frightened Lu En into revealing his true form.

"No... don’t kill me!"

Lu En looked at Yan Zizai, who had picked up Bai Wu, with a face filled with panic.

Yan Zizai was slightly taken aback.

How could his own eyes fail to detect this child? The child seemed to appear out of thin air...

He suddenly remembered that something similar had happened on the third floor of the High Tower.

Yan Zhao had a top-tier intelligence agent, Yan Ying.

Back then, it was Bai Wu who told him about it. The two of them teamed up and killed Yan Ying in an instant.

From the moment he appeared, Yan Zizai was filled with intense killing intent.

But it seemed that as he remembered those distant past events, his killing intent lessened a bit.

"Hospital clothes, you are a subject of experiments, come with me."

"You... you hurt him. Aren’t you a bad person?" Lu En looked at Yan Zizai, astonished.

Yan Zizai’s tone carried a hint of melancholy:

"The world has changed, many people are no longer friends, I must be more cautious. Whether he and I are enemies is not yet clear, but I am not your enemy. Knocking him out was just a precaution, we should go."

Yan Zizai turned and left.

Although he had not yet sensed a certain powerful presence, he knew very well how fast that person was; once realized, it meant that he was already within the other’s striking range.

He didn’t pay any attention to Lu En either.

After thinking it over, Lu En ultimately decided to follow.

...

...

When Bai Wu woke up, he found himself back on the third floor of the High Tower.

Inside that Asylum.

Doctor Zheng Duoxi and the mad nurse looked at him, he was bound tightly.

Despite being able to break free, Bai Wu did not do so.

Because behind Zheng Duoxi, there was also Yan Zizai.

Bai Wu looked around, the grinning fool still grinned, and those who were reading continued to read.

The two old men playing chess were thoroughly engrossed in their game.

Everything seemed just like the past, just like the Asylum when Yan Jiu felt most at home.

But Bai Wu was well aware that since his engagement to Qin Zong, the Yan Family had "cleared out" many of the fools in the Asylum.

All of this was fake.

"An illusion world? A memory world?" Bai Wu directly asked.

"Memory World," Yan Zizai didn’t beat around the bush:

"Explain to me, just who are you, and why do you look exactly like my friend? Are you from the Distortion Correction Team’s special branch? Planning to infiltrate us?"

Looking at Yan Zizai’s serious expression, Bai Wu realized that the problem might be quite serious.

And at this moment, a choice descended upon him.

[You can’t tell if this Yan Zizai is good or bad; you also can’t discern whether the captain of the Distortion Correction Team you heard about is good or bad. Faced with the question from Yan Zizai—you decide:]

[A: Conceal the truth, continue reminiscing, and respond with silence.]

[B: Reveal the truth.]

[C: Call for help.]

[D: Counter the other party with a question.]

[E: Take independent action. (Once this option is chosen, it will not be triggered later.)]

Bai Wu was speechless.

If he had never been to the Memory World, he probably would have chosen A, to reminisce while asking the other party.

But having been to the Memory World, he knew that all of this was unnecessary, as the creator of the Memory World would soon be aware of his identity.

And Bai Wu had always been curious—

how would a game character react upon learning that the world they lived in was just a game?

Therefore, Bai Wu said:

"Yan Zizai, I come from the past. To be exact, you are not real. The world you’re in is a revelation. In a certain area, I learned about future events in advance, and you all are part of that vision."

"I also only found out not long ago that I’ve died in this timeline, killed by Jing Si... If this future really occurs, perhaps everything I’m seeing now is a fulfillment."

"Are you all hiding on the Ark? As far as I know... the Memory World only exists within the Ark."

Yan Zizai’s face became strange:

"What are you talking about? You want to tell me the world is fake? That all of us, living with the heavy burden of doomsday, are fake? What kind of joke is this!"

"You just need to answer if you are on the Ark. Even though I don’t know how you freely move between the Ark and the city, as long as it’s on the Ark... Find Dong Yugan, and you’ll know I’m telling the truth."

When Bai Wu deduced that it was the Memory World, he guessed that this place was the Ark, and he was in a scenario from the Memory World.

Interrogating a prisoner, the Memory World was also the most suitable place.

Apart from the owner of the Ten Thousand Phantasmal Bodies, who also mastered the rules of the Memory World, Xiaoyugan could observe anyone’s memory in this world.

This also meant... Xiaoyugan had survived into the future.

The Ark... truly became the Ark.

If what Yan Zizai said about "living with the heavy burden of doomsday" was true, then this place—

indeed was the last Ark preserving the seed of humanity.

Though the Meinan People are also human, they don’t possess the ability to correspond with distortions; they just live in the lie that "there are no distortions in our world; our world is safe."

Yan Zizai, upon hearing Bai Wu mention Dong Yugan... was even more astonished, yet also felt a strange sensation.

"This is indeed the Ark, you... you really are Bai Wu?"

"Genuine article, Yan Zizai, you owe me a life. I went to jail for a few days just to save your ass."

Yan Zizai couldn’t believe it:

"But you died... Ever since your death, everything has been changing..."

"The future me did die, but I come from the past, which means there’s a chance to change this future."

"From the past?"

"It’s difficult to explain the reason, but some crucial person I intuitively feel is important, through a virtual scene generated in a red zone, is revealing future information to me..."

"Red zone... Now that you mention it, Tang Jing did say that before you left alone, you went to a..."

"A Magic Tower." Bai Wu helped Yan Zizai complete the sentence.

Hope flickered in Yan Zizai’s eyes, but all that was happening was too bizarre:

"So you’re saying, what you’re experiencing now, including me and this world... are all scenes from the Magic Tower?"

"I know it’s hard for you to accept, but sometimes we need to have absurd imaginations for the future, and for the present too."

Yan Zizai still remembered that phrase from back in Zao Lake Village, once said by Wu Jiu.

"Is it you... really you?" Yan Zizai’s hands began to tremble.

Actually, one could just ask Dong Yugan, the owner of the Memory World, and all would become clear.

But deep inside, due to a natural trust in Bai Wu, Yan Zizai already believed him by seventy or eighty percent.

"It’s really me. Remember when we both dealt with that judge in Baichuan City?"

"Later, your sister was getting married, and because of that and the special Sequence on your body, you caught the damn attention of that bastard Yan Zhao."

"I went to Shudu Prison to save you. The doctor’s ’Spiritual Bed Experiment’ sure tortured you, didn’t it? But you’re a tough guy, you held on."

"After that, we, all of us together, established a shelter..."

"Enough." Yan Zizai cut off Bai Wu.

His expression was more complex than ever, as if he wanted to smile yet also seemed deeply sorrowful.

Bai Wu knew that if this scene were the future, then probably the future Yan Zizai would have the same expression upon seeing his deceased self resurrected.

"So... all this is fake... I’m fake, this damned world is fake too."

Bai Wu nodded. Making someone realize they’re just "data" is actually quite cruel. He planned to offer some comfort.

But Yan Zizai suddenly burst out laughing, his laughter filled with joy, exhilaration, and also sorrow.

He said something that shocked Bai Wu deeply.

"I don’t know if I’m fake, but even if I knew, I’d still choose to live, to properly correct this world."

"I just hope all this is fake. I hope you are the real Bai Wu... Hope that you really come from the past and can change this future!"

Looking at Yan Zizai’s hopeful eyes, Bai Wu nodded.

Even though all of it could just be a story, a false future, he still felt the promise was tremendously weighty.

"Tell me... what exactly happened? Why did I die? What has the world turned into now? How’s the Baichuan City shelter doing..."

Yan Zizai nodded and untied the ropes binding Bai Wu. And soon, he received an even more shocking confirmation from Xiaoyugan.

Xiaoyugan, through the transfer of memories, let Yan Zizai learn everything she had seen.

In that moment, Yan Zizai finally confirmed that the person in front of him was Bai Wu.

The real deal, Bai Wu.

The Bai Wu from a time when everything still had hope.

So everything was fake... fake. Joy and confusion surged together, a profound sense of disorder emerged. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

Yan Zizai took several deep breaths to calm down:

"We have to start from when Jing Liu got hold of Cube K."

"Block K... Dong Nianyu?"

"Yes."

Yan Zizai said,

"After you left, Xie and I have been in charge of High Tower, and High Tower has become better than ever. It’s almost as if those departed heroes are guiding it to become even more splendid."

"Back then, who would have thought... that High Tower would reappear in the real world and reveal its true form?"

Bai Wu did not interrupt Yan Zizai, allowing him to continue,

"The areas beyond the fog that you were responsible for became the main battlefields for Jing Yi and Jing Liu."

"But Jing Liu, in order to find a way to keep Jing Si awake forever, did not truly fulfill the promise made to Dong Nianyu after obtaining her. It seems to be... related to your father?"

Bai Wu was taken aback, unsure what expression to make.

Scumbag ruins the country! In a sense, if this future were true, Bai Yuan could be said to have physically contributed to the destruction of the world.

"Dong Nianyu actually became a double agent. On one hand, she worked for the farm, and on the other, she agreed to Jing Liu to ignite humanity’s negative emotions."

"In a way, she could determine when High Tower appeared, and you should be clear about the mechanism of its appearance."

Bai Wu nodded; the appearance of High Tower was related to the degree of distortion.

Now he understood just how powerful this contemporary of Bai Yuan and The First Generation, Block K, really was...

He and Zero easily defeated the four Qs, but the truly powerful one... was actually this mother figure No. 2.

As soon as she made a move, she immediately made Jing Liu want to poach her.

"At that time, you went to Denglin City... apparently to find two weapons..."

Bai Wu sensed something was off.

Going to Denglin City to find two weapons was something he knew only after learning of Lu En’s revelation.

Logically, knowing this revelation should have changed his future trajectory. So why had things still ended up this way?

"It was after going to Denglin City... that you completely disappeared."

"The next time we received news of you, it was from Zero... about your death. You were killed by Jing Si..."

"Where did I die? In Denglin City?"

"We don’t know, and neither does Zero."

Yan Zizai, knowing Bai Wu was confused here, explained,

"Zero was not in constant contact with you. He shifted his attention to you only after the Angel Envoy sensed a strong danger. At that time, Zero also had significant trouble; Huangquan Island and Black Gold Island together attacked Mechanical City."

"When Zero learned of your danger, he couldn’t make it in time to rescue you, plus... going there was pointless, because the opponent was Jing Si, an existence that simply couldn’t be defeated."

"But why you fought with Jing Si and specifically where you died is unclear because everything around was pitch-black... And by the time Zero learned all this, the Angel Envoy had been completely destroyed."

Bai Wu guessed that he probably died in Denglin City.

If Jing Liu had restored Jing Si’s sanity, Jing Si would likely have gone to Denglin City to fulfill his obsession.

But why would I fight with Jing Si?

Bai Wu thought of Jing Liu...

In a sense, he and Jing Si were not enemies, but his relationship with Jing Liu was more complicated.

Bai Yuan’s assessment of Jing Liu was also complex.

"So I can’t go to Denglin... I need to avoid this scenario."

Quietly noting this, Bai Wu couldn’t help but ask another question,

"The appearance of High Tower, it stemmed from Dong Nianyu triggering an explosion of negative emotions... thus greatly raising the world’s distortion density?"

"That’s right."

"Then after High Tower appeared, who ultimately got hold of it, Jing Yi or Jing Si?"