Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 622 Taking Back a Move
"So he still died?" Sun Hang asked tentatively.

Zuo Jun nodded: "I waited for almost a minute before the van that should have gone out of control came into my view, but it slowly stopped at the red light, showing no signs of brake malfunction. I could see clearly through the half-lowered window that the driver was perfectly lucid... and in the timeline of the van going out of control, the driver was clearly drunk."

"How did he die?"

“He broke free of my hand, walked forward, crossed the road safely, and walked all the way to the other side of the street,” Zuo Jun said calmly. “Then he was hit on the head by a flowerpot falling from a height and died on the spot.”

"Murder?" Professor Cao narrowed his eyes. "Someone wanted this guy dead, but your earlier pull caused the van to miss its best opportunity to commit the crime, and then another assassin used a precisely placed flowerpot from a high-rise building to 'remedy' the situation?"

“That flowerpot was knocked over by a stray cat, and it had been there for several months. I recalled my past memories, and every time I passed that street corner, that flowerpot was there... Therefore, this person's death can only be attributed to an ‘accident’,” Zuo Jun said.

“I don’t know why, but I thought of an old saying, ‘It’s hard to persuade a damned ghost with kind words’—if this guy hadn’t broken free from you, he wouldn’t have been killed by the flowerpot,” Sun Hang said.

"No, I tried to save him again later, but this time it wasn't the flowerpot that fell."

"What is it?"

"The cat that was supposed to knock over the flowerpot."

"So, no matter how hard you try, you can't change the fact that guy is destined to die?" Sun Hang pondered. "Doesn't this sound a bit like a scene from a horror movie called 'Final Destination'..."

"Why have I never heard you mention this before?" Professor Cao asked, frowning.

“I talked to Pei Zongjun, and he said it might just be a coincidence.”

“I also think it should just be a coincidence.” Professor Cao nodded thoughtfully. “If, and I mean if, the world automatically corrects the course of events you changed through time travel, then you wouldn’t have been able to undo those 197 high-risk experiments… Any one of those experiments would have been enough to destroy the entire Tian Shu Tower. It’s impossible that all 197 times were just a coincidence, right?”

"What if... these experiments were going to succeed anyway?" Zuo Jun looked into Professor Cao's eyes, which seemed like two bottomless black holes.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!" Professor Cao waved his hand dismissively. "If that were the case, I'd rather believe that humanity is protected by gods... You should know, I'm a staunch atheist!"

"What if the so-called 'gods' really exist?" Zuo Jun asked again.

“Then I think you might be the means by which this so-called god protects humanity.” Sun Hang glanced at Zuo Jun. “The crazy people in the Tian Shu Tower are committing a heinous act that could lead to the destruction of human civilization, so that higher-dimensional god needs you to resolve these crises… As for that guy who should have been hit by a car, his life or death is insignificant, and he shouldn’t need this ‘precious’ means of protection. Or to put it another way, he doesn’t deserve to be protected… How about that, does it sound much more reasonable?”

"He doesn't deserve protection, so there's nothing I can do to save him?"

“You probably have a limited number of times you can change the timeline, so you can’t waste them on ordinary human individuals,” Sun Hang said. “As long as that person’s death doesn’t change, your remaining attempts shouldn’t decrease… Of course, I’m just guessing, pure speculation, without any factual basis.”

"What is all this nonsense..." Professor Cao was speechless. "If there really is a 'god,' wouldn't it be a matter of a single thought for Him to change anything? Why make it so complicated? Don't tell me that even gods are subject to rules... If that's the case, then in my opinion, this thing can't be called a god... It can't even be omnipotent, yet it dares to be called a god?" "Then let's put it another way, instead of calling it a god, how about calling it a chess player?" Sun Hang said.

"Chess player?"

“Imagine the world is a giant chessboard, and Zuo Jun is a tool used to ‘take back’ moves.” Sun Hang put it another way: “For players outside the game, although they can make moves at will, the number of times they can ‘take back’ moves is limited. At this time, the tool used to take back moves wants to use the limited number of times to take back moves in some places that are not important to the overall situation, so the players will naturally intervene in these actions.”

"If it's a tool, why give me self-awareness and the ability to think independently?" Zuo Jun questioned.

“I don’t know,” Sun Hang shrugged. “But there’s something I’d like to ask you.”

"You ask."

"Have you ever doubted... the reality of this world?" Sun Hang pointed to the ground, "the 'material world' we live in."

"You feel the same way?" Zuo Jun's eyes widened slightly, and his tone was completely different from before.

“No, I’m just having doubts,” Sun Hang said. “I have so many sources of my sense of reality: the taste and texture of food, the feel and scent of the opposite sex’s body, my brain’s perception of mass, space, and time… even the feeling of feces being squeezed out of my rectum when I poop, I find it all incredibly real. Although I know that these senses can be simulated in my brain, as far as I can remember, I have never doubted the reality of this world.”

"Then why are you asking me this?"

“Because someone—I don’t even know if that thing was human—asked me this question,” Sun Hang said in a low voice.

"Who?"

"If I knew who it was, I wouldn't be so conflicted." Sun Hang sighed. He couldn't very well say that he saw a strange cursor in his dream and typed out the question, could he?
Zuo Jun: "..."

"Let's talk about what happened to you," Sun Hang said, interlacing his fingers. "Why did you start to doubt the reality of this world?"

“It’s hard for me to explain. I had a psychological test done by the mainframe, and the mainframe believes that this illusion is caused by my repeated time reversals and modifications to the world’s timeline,” Zuo Jun said.

"I think the mastermind is right, it must be an illusion." Professor Cao, who hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise for a while, finally seized the opportunity to speak. "Why do I feel like your conversation is getting more and more off-topic?"

“Okay, then let’s just assume it’s an illusion.” Sun Hang nodded. “There’s another question: have you ever seen any images or objects with three monkeys in them, especially when you use Time Rewind?”

(End of this chapter)