Infinite Terror: Infinite Reversal

Chapter 62 Drinking Together
After seeing Chu Xuan off, Mu Xiang asked Zheng Zha to sit down first, and then walked to the refrigerator: "Would you like something to drink?"

Zheng Zha scratched his head: "Uh, how about some beer?"

Mu Xiang took out a few cans of beer and put them on the coffee table: "I didn't expect you to come tonight, so I didn't prepare the good beer from the main god's place... Just use these to tide you over, they're considered good beer outside."

Zheng Zha opened a jar for himself and asked in surprise, "You knew I was coming?"

"I know, I think Chu Xuan guessed it too... I've already talked to Chu Xuan, and I'm just waiting for you." Mu Xiang sat down, opened a can, and then looked at Zheng Zha with a smile: "You came to my place so late at night... Doesn't your wife mind?"

Zheng Zha blushed: "What? She was worried all day in the Main God Space, and I just went through a lot of trouble to coax her back..."

“Okay,” Mu Xiang clinked jars with Zheng Zha, “You want to talk to me about what I did in Alien?”

Zheng Zha hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"Hmm... you can decide where to start asking yourself." Mu Xiang sighed.

Zheng Zha thought for a moment: "Starting from when you were dealing with those thugs? Uh, I didn't mean to ask about your plan again... I don't really understand what you guys are doing, I'm just wondering if this is appropriate."

Mu Xiang remained silent for a while, then took a sip and said, "I still want to tell you about partners and teammates... Zheng Zha, are we partners?"

Zheng Zha nodded: "Of course, our partners who fight side by side and live and die together... including Zhan Lan, Zhang Jie, and Chu Xuan, they are all partners."

"So... were Chu Xuan, Zero Point, and Overlord already partners when they first arrived in 'Alien'?" Mu Xiang pushed up his glasses. "Furthermore, were we partners from the very first time we met?"

Zheng Zha was a little stumped by the question, then shook his head.

“If we were partners, then if anyone were forced into the laser tunnel, our partners wouldn’t just stand by and watch them walk into a dead end… Although we both survived, we were forced into it.” Mu Xiang sighed. “But I don’t blame Zhan Lan and Zhang Jie, and I don’t blame you for shouting back then… because we were just passersby brought together by the God, not partners who would depend on each other for life.”

“Tell me, Zheng Zha… if another dead end arises, and Zhan Lan or Zhang Jie are about to step into it,” Mu Xiang stared at Zheng Zha, “what would you do if I stood by, saying nothing and taking no action?”

Zheng Zha remained silent, then took a sip of wine.

"You'll definitely blame me for abandoning my partner to their death! Your compassion is far stronger than mine. You can't even bear to watch a character in the story die, so how could you possibly bear to see your own partner walk towards death alone and helpless?!" Mu Xiang's voice rose a notch. "If it were me, I couldn't stand seeing you like this either! I would beat you up! Because someone who does this abandons their partner and is an untrustworthy bastard!"

He slammed his beer down on the coffee table: "That's the difference between a partner and a stranger! I don't actually like to talk about teammates because it's something the gods have forced upon us... How many so-called teammates have died? But what about our partners?"

Zheng Zha sighed, "But there's no need to be so ruthless towards those teammates... or even strangers."

Mu Xiang also let out a long sigh of relief. He clinked glasses with Zheng Zha again: "Because we were too weak. It was a choice I had to make as the strongest and most decisive person in the team. If I were strong enough to annihilate demons and monsters with a single slap, or send them flying or sinking with a single kick, I wouldn't have done this to the newcomers. I would have let them choose whether to believe or not..."

“But now, the word ‘choice’ is a luxury for us… We have no choice, let alone the power to give others a choice.” Mu Xiang turned to look at the bookshelf in the living room. “I can only prioritize the safety of myself and you partners. In the last horror movie where everyone was wiped out, I could only make use of the waste and let them die in this way.”

Zheng Zha looked up at Mu Xiang: "But even if we weren't partners at first, isn't it still possible for us to become partners? Just like us."

“Yes, but we’re in a horror movie loop, not at a ballroom dance…” Mu Xiang shook his head and laughed self-deprecatingly. “I can’t ignore the threats others pose to us and risk our own safety to gain their trust. In a horror movie, we don’t have that kind of luxury, do we?”

“Normal people are all selfish, it’s just a matter of how much their selfishness extends…” He sighed. “My selfishness only extends to the safety of myself and my partners. I can’t extend it any further. At least I’m not at that level right now, and my strength and the difficulty of horror movies don’t allow me to reach that level.”

Zheng Zha took a sip of beer, looking up at the ceiling wearily: "Is that so... Is this how you survive? I've enhanced so many strange and wonderful attributes, and I usually feel like a superman, but what you're saying... makes me feel so powerless."

“Actually, it’s really lucky to have partners who fight alongside you and trust each other…” Mu Xiang echoed him, then sighed, “After experiencing distrust, then a certain level of trust, and finally defeating the Queen… we and Chu Xuan and the others aren’t complete strangers anymore, are we? Becoming true partners isn’t too far off. But some people are different… Have you forgotten Li Xiaoyi? Someone who has abandoned his teammates countless times and is never honest, at least in my eyes, could never be a partner with him.”

Zheng Zha remained silent, saying nothing. "Actually, if it weren't for the 1000 reward points deducted for killing a teammate, I should have taken him down long ago, hehe." Mu Xiang shook his head with a smile.

“But there’s still something I don’t understand… Why are you so wary of Chu Xuan? I feel like he’s not at all pretentious. Even though he’s a senior colonel, he seems quite kind.” Zheng Zha sat up abruptly and asked, puzzled.

【kind……】

Seeing Mu Xiang's stunned expression, Zheng Zha quickly added, "You are also very kind."

"Uh... I can't really say. I already told you all about my understanding of Chu Xuan back then, and of course, there's also a guess I have about him." Mu Xiang was a little amused and exasperated. "I just finalized a cooperation agreement with Chu Xuan, so I won't talk bad about him behind his back... You'll see for yourself what kind of person he is later."

Zheng Zha looked at Mu Xiang's expression with a puzzled expression, and could only keep Mu Xiang's words to himself. Then he asked, "What guess?"

"What year were you born? Don't misunderstand, I'm not asking your birth year, I'm asking what year you were in before you entered the Main God Space?" Mu Xiang took a sip of wine and looked at Zheng Zha with a smile.

Zheng Zha was puzzled by the question: "2007? What's wrong?"

“Sure enough,” Mu Xiang chuckled, “would you believe me if I said I watched the 08 Olympics?”

"What do you mean? You're not from 2007?" Zheng Zha was taken aback. "You're from the future?"

Mu Xiang clinked glasses with him and laughed, "That's not entirely accurate. We might not be from the same world... The year I was born was already 2021, and the Chu Xuan I know isn't the same person as the Chu Xuan we know." He then briefly explained this to Zheng Zha, leaving Zheng Zha stunned.

“We’ll try it out later. Don’t tell anyone about this yet. I’m planning to send you back to the real world to check my information—of course, Chu Xuan will have his own plans too.” Mu Xiang pushed up his glasses. “Besides, you really want to take your sister-in-law back to the real world to confirm things, right?”

Upon hearing this, Zheng Zha's expression also became serious: "Yes... just like I told you... actually, I'm also a bit conflicted."

Mu Xiang patted his leg reassuringly: "Don't take this too seriously. Overthinking will only hurt yourself and others... What you need to do now is try your best to live, always protect yourself, and always protect her... Your feelings for each other are real, and no one will interfere, but if you waver..."

[The substitute literature is really tough...]

Zheng Zha finished all his wine, then opened two more cans, handing one to Mu Xiang: "You're right, cheers!"

Mu Xiang and Zheng Zha each downed their drinks in one gulp, then simultaneously crushed the jars into small cakes, looked at each other, and burst into laughter.

“By the way, Zheng Zha…” At the end of the conversation, Mu Xiang looked at Zheng Zha solemnly once again, “All my explanations tonight were not to prove to you that what I did was right… but to prove that it was useful—useful at the moment.”

“If we don’t want our team to fall into ruin, it’s necessary to have your thoughts… We need you to feel that these things are wrong, and then we can consider whether there are better solutions. If not, or if it’s not worth it, then I’ll decide to do these wrong things.” Mu Xiang saw Zheng Zha to the door and smiled. “If even you can turn a blind eye to this kind of thing, it only shows that we have all been crushed by these horrors.”

"For the sake of the future, I can accept getting my hands dirty..." Mu Xiang said, "but I don't want us to taint our hearts... because having a relatively pure heart is part of a bright future."

At the end of the conversation, Mu Xiang took Zheng Zha's power armor, saying he'd ask Chu Xuan to see if he could repair the external damage. He didn't know which room Chu Xuan was staying in, so he'd have to wait until tomorrow morning to give it to him.

[Chu Xuan should have gotten up pretty early... Maybe he'll stay up all night checking the main god's exchange options? But why isn't he outside now? Has he discovered something more interesting?]

There's probably about a day's worth of material left in the intermission. Let me explain again why there are these dialogues in the intermission... I don't like empty talk either, but whether it's revealing information to Chu Xuan or discussing moral issues with Zheng Zha, these are things the protagonist of a fanfiction has to do. The drinking session with Zheng Zha is actually a discussion about "the Way," and I've also written out the protagonist's personal moral values. Further friction with Zheng Zha is inevitable; it's unavoidable.

The interlude content is naturally less compelling than the main story, so I can only try to include content relevant to the book's future direction. There will be echoes of Chu Xuan's revelation (in fact, to avoid criticism, the ending of Chapter 2, where Chu Xuan opens his own door and encounters Mu Xiang again, was already a clear hint! Yet I still got criticized; people asked if I saw that, and the answer was no, so I got criticized for nothing, haha). There will also be responses to Zheng Zha's conversation on the level of Dao (from Zheng Zha's many subtle actions in *Alien*, you can probably tell they will have a conversation about this, and because he is Zheng Zha, there will be more clashes of ideas later). If you think the interlude is filler, then I can't help it; after all, glossing over everything is also filler…

Personally, I always explain and respond to opinions about the plot, which involves analyzing character logic and the original work's settings. For example, if someone says that even with a protagonist, the aliens still suffered such a devastating defeat, only one less character, the Overlord, dies, I'll cite the original text to show them that in the original, everyone is seriously injured or worse, while here, the rest of the characters are almost unharmed as they are in the back row. Or if someone says that Chu Xuan has a script, and whether Chu Xuan believes it or not, I'll analyze the dialogue logic and examples of Chu Xuan's thought processes in the original work. This is about reasoning.

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(End of this chapter)