Chapter 430: The Source
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"..." Outside the band camp, everyone stared at Lin Qing with serious expressions, creating an awkward atmosphere for a moment.
"Uh, well... what I said is all true, I’ve definitely not lied to everyone." Lin Qing reiterated.
However, her response was still silence.
Obviously, none of the band members believed her.
She couldn’t help but sigh.
If I’d known it would be this awkward, I should have just talked to Uncle Li alone.
"Ahem..." Uncle Li cleared his throat, stepped out from the crowd, and said, "The band isn’t against people leaving. Yuyan, you know, last year Guai got his leg injured by an explosion, and I was the one who advised him to leave. But... but..."
He hesitated on how to phrase it, but Liu Yi had already seized the conversation, "Tell us, are you being threatened by someone? Or is there some other hidden truth? Feel free to tell us; we’ll help you sort it out!"
"Yeah! Just say it!"
"I don’t believe Yuyan would say she wants to stay at the subway station!"
The group was getting agitated.
Lin Qing scratched her head awkwardly. She knew "retreating" would meet some resistance, but she hadn’t expected the topic to veer off so wildly.
It was all her fault for being too diligent in the past, always out in the wild. Now suddenly saying she didn’t want to do it anymore, and no one could easily accept it.
"Yuyan, someone’s looking for you." At this moment, a young team member ran over and shouted.
But soon, another familiar figure appeared in her view.
"Hey, how did you just come in..." That person hurriedly tried to stop him, but the latter pushed him aside.
"Chen Xuan?" Lin Qing was stunned.
Wasn’t it said that he didn’t suit showing up in such occasions?
"Come with me." Chen Xuan, however, grabbed her hand without saying a word and turned to walk out of the camp.
"Oh—!" Immediately, a burst of consternation erupted behind her.
"No, actually..." Lin Qing still wanted to explain, but seeing everyone’s expressions of sudden realization, she suddenly choked up.
"Disperse, disperse, this is unsolvable." Uncle Li waved his hand, shooing away the members who had come to watch the drama, "After all, this is her personal decision."
"No choice, after wandering for so long, one would eventually want a home."
"Damn, why isn’t that person me!"
"Though we’re reluctant, we can only wish them well..."
"Can’t they manage both feelings and career?"
"What nonsense are you spouting, kid? Yuyan is willing to take risks, but the other person might not necessarily be!"
Such discussions didn’t stop until they walked out of the camp.
"What’s going on?" Lin Qing frowned slightly. She knew Chen Xuan wasn’t someone who acted recklessly, "Did you fall out with Lin?"
Chen Xuan released her hand only after making sure no one was around, "I killed her."
"Turns out you killed—huh?" Her eyes widened in an instant, "She’s dead!?"
Seeing Chen Xuan nodding, she quickly adjusted her thinking, "Hmm... could it be that she found out when you infiltrated her thoughts? Or did you overhear some crucial information..."
"You really understand the mechanism." Chen Xuan pressed his forehead and said, "I learned that the mechanism is plotting a war against the Celestial Patrol, which is initially a good thing, but it will also destroy Jiang City and all the refugees living there."
Lin Qing was not surprised but instead showed an expression of certainty, "I knew it. Since you think this team is the executor of the plan, and the Arbitration Court’s agents are the core of the core, you thought it best to act first?"
As expected of old partners, even without saying anything, the other had already pieced it together, "That’s one aspect, the other is I urgently needed more intel. Asking too much would arouse suspicion, so I acted."
"Completely the right choice!" Lin Qing patted his shoulder in praise, "The only risk was facing the Arbitration Court Ability User alone, I didn’t expect you actually won against her unscathed. The rebel army even if dispatching an entire elite team, might not return alive in the face of such an enemy... you’re really amazing now!"
"But I was still a step late." There was no joy on Chen Xuan’s face, "The coin on the spaceship was not the mechanism’s real target; they intended to retrieve the key to the root!"
"The root?" Lin Qing repeated, "What root?"
"The reason why nano-worms became nano-living bodies."
He obtained vast amounts of information from Lin... or rather, the secrets Lin as an Arbitration Court Ability User knew, he now knew all of it. Although this information can’t be said to be perfectly complete—it was more like terminal messages obtained by an executor, and the true full picture of the plan was grasped by the mechanism’s upper echelon, but it was still shocking to outsiders.
For instance, Lin didn’t know the principle behind this transformation.
But she knew that the mechanism determined the cause of the change began in Jiang City in 2025.
More specifically, it was the day Liu Shuyue slashed the sky with a sword.
"What? It’s related to Shuyue?" Lin Qing was stunned, "Really?"
"Whether it’s correct or not, the soul doesn’t lie. The Dimensional Limit Mechanism harvested the Dragon’s Blood from this incident, using it to artificially activate Ability Users. However, they believed something else also entered this world and was fortuitously obtained by the Evangelical Association. Concurrently, a researcher named ’Deimos’ from the mechanism’s headquarters fled overseas with nano-worm samples, and the combination gave rise to today’s nano-living body."
"..." She was silent for a while, then shook her head, "I’ve never heard of these things in the future."
"It’s normal not to have heard of them." Chen Xuan mused, "In the world line you know, the mechanism is incredibly powerful, nearly unifying all Ability User organizations. Perhaps this technology ultimately returned to their hands."
"So... the mechanism holds the nano-living body technology, but in the end it still caused the apocalypse of the Crystal Palace’s fall?"
"Yes, but also no."
"What do you mean?" Lin Qing was puzzled.
Chen Xuan leaned closer to the dilapidated building by the street, blending himself into the shadows, as if speaking this way could be more discreet. "According to the mechanism’s research results, no matter what they choose to do, doomsday will arrive around the same time—not this kind of doomsday, then that kind of doomsday, as if humanity’s end was approaching, unavoidable."
"The mechanism calls this phenomenon the Ascension Limit."
"In other words, this timer began long ago, humans can’t extend it indefinitely, nor can they wait until they have fully prepared for ascension before commencing it."
Chen Xuan paused, then continued slowly, "Ascension is a race against time, every minute and every second we experience now is constantly pushing us towards that finish line."
"This is... too absurd." Lin Qing muttered.
"This conclusion comes from the mechanism’s research institute. It’s said to be drawn after observing many worlds and conducting numerous calculations. At least on the current Moon base, the upper echelon has regarded this conclusion as the guideline for all actions."
"So in that case... Jiang City in 2108 is..."
Chen Xuan nodded, "Already quite close to that moment."
A feeling of gravity enveloped the two.
Lin Qing seemed like she was slightly struggling to breathe.
After half a minute, she bit her lip lightly and said, "This is just the Dimensional Limit Mechanism’s research result, right?"
"Correct, it could also be a misconception of the world’s operating principles—if that thing really exists." Chen Xuan did not deny this possibility.
"By the way, I met you should have been after Liu Shuyue cut the dragon!" Lin Qing mused for a long time, suddenly finding a flaw, raising her voice two notches higher.
"Right."
"Then it doesn’t add up! If you didn’t go looking for Liu Shuyue, she wouldn’t have cut the dragon, and naturally, the Evangelical Association wouldn’t obtain the root for the birth of the nano-living body!" She analyzed torrents of words, "The issue is if you weren’t the Ability Store manager, how did we meet? The mechanism taking this event as the source is clearly a big mistake!"
She spoke rather convolutedly, but Chen Xuan understood her point: Liu Shuyue’s sky-splitting was history for her. Since it was history, it would surely be recorded in the database, just like ’The New Century Nuclear Cloud’ in Maogang, retrievable no matter how much time passed. But this event wasn’t in Lin Qing’s memory, thus proving that in her original world line, Chen Xuan had not yet become the Ability Store manager.
Since he wasn’t the manager, naturally, there wouldn’t be the incident of the Evangelical Association coincidently obtaining the root of the nano-living body with Liu Shuyue’s sky-cutting sword.
The theoretical foundation was wrong, so the skyscraper built on it would undoubtedly collapse as well.