Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

The corridors of the Southern District of New York federal courthouse are always filled with the smell of disinfectant mixed with old carpet.

John Nunez Cruz leaned back in a plastic chair, clutching a white plastic bag in his hand.

The hearing adjourned twenty minutes before the judge requested that both lawyers submit supplementary documents and granted an hour's break.

He retrieved this item from the mailbox on the first floor of the courthouse within that hour.

The third anonymous document.

The first two documents are: Morgan Stanley's internal audit report and a chart showing the cash flow of the shell company; they are all paper documents.

This time is different.

There was a small item wrapped in cotton cloth in the plastic bag. He opened it in the restroom at the end of the corridor, took a look, and then his hand never let go of it.

An ancient Roman bronze coin.

It is about two centimeters in diameter, and the edges are worn down to just rough curves. The relief on the front is almost completely eaten away by the oxide layer, and only the outline of the nose of a profile figure can be vaguely discerned.

But a symbol remains on the back.

That symbol made his scalp twitch all the way from the back of his head to his forehead.

He flipped the dark bronze coin in his pocket with his thumb, and the fine line on the back, which had been added during the second resonance, was clearly visible.

The two symbols are not exactly the same. The one on the ancient Roman bronze coin is rougher, with lines that look like they were carved with a blunt tool, while the one on his own coin is finer, as if the relief grew out of the coin's surface.

But the core geometry remains the same.

The angles of the curves are the same, and the triangular folds at the ends are also the same.

There was also a note stuck to the bottom of the plastic bag; it was handwritten and in English.

"From London, 2nd century AD. Unearthed from the root system of an ancient oak tree."

He took three photos and sent them to Evelyn Chan.

Thirty seconds.

The phone rang.

"Where did you get that?"

Evelyn's voice was almost twice as fast as usual, with the sounds of pages turning and something being pushed onto the table in the background.

"The court mailbox, like the previous two, had no postmark and no signature."

Turn it over so I can see it clearly.

John switched to a video call and held the front of the ancient Roman coin up to the camera.

Evelyn squinted at the screen for two seconds.

"Change to the back side."

He turned over.

Evelyn's expression changed.

"Wait seven minutes."

The call hadn't ended; the receiver was on the table, and he could hear the sound of keyboard typing and the rustling of pages being flipped through rapidly.

John leaned back in his chair, placing the ancient Roman bronze coin and his own coins side by side on his knees.

It was a piece that had been dead for two thousand years, covered in green rust, and so light it looked like it was about to fall apart.

A living, slightly warm, deep bronze surface; the Parthenon reliefs are clearly visible under the corridor lights.

Seven minutes later, Evelyn's voice came back through the microphone.

"Do you remember that oak leaf I mentioned last time?"

"I remember, the Celtic oak has been extinct for hundreds of years, and it is only now regrowing in the Stone of London."

"The note said that this ancient Roman bronze coin was dug out from the root system of an ancient oak tree, from a stratum dating back to the second century AD."

Evelyn's breathing became heavy in the receiver.

"John, I went through the Roman monetary data in the law firm's database, and the symbol on the back of your copper coin and the new pattern on your own coin belong to the same symbol system."

"What do you mean?"

"The same language, different era variations. The one on the ancient Roman bronze coin is more primitive, while the one on the coin is more mature, but the skeletal structure has not changed, and the deviation of the curvature angle is within three degrees."

John looked down at the two coins side by side on his knees.

"One is from two thousand years ago, and the other is from now, both inscribed with the same characters."

"right."

Evelyn paused for a second, and then the sound of pages turning rang out again.

"I found something even more interesting: a Roman law paper published by Oxford University in 1987. The author was a professor who studied ancient Roman customary law, and the paper mentioned a concept."

"What does that mean?"

"Dual Coin Ceremony".

John frowned.

"During the Roman Empire, there existed an unofficial debt settlement ceremony that was not part of the national legal system and belonged to the gray area of ​​customary law."

Evelyn slowed her speech and enunciated more clearly, a habit she had before presenting key arguments in court.

"The rules of the ceremony are as follows: the creditor and the debtor each hold a copper coin, and the two coins are mirror images of the same symbol engraved on their faces. After the debtor has paid off all the debts, the two coins are put together and called the 'settlement charm'."

She paused for a second.

"From this moment on, the two parties are completely decoupled on both legal and divine levels. The debt is extinguished, the relationship is terminated, and neither party may assert rights again based on the debt that has already been paid."

John tightened his grip on the coin.

"you mean……"

"What I mean is, the day you walked into Morgan Stanley's Lower Manhattan branch with that coin, that coin swallowed $640 billion in debt repayments, distributed the money to the bank accounts of 30 million people, and wiped out their student loans, medical bills, car loans, mortgage payments, and credit card debt."

Her voice trailed off.

"The essence of this action may be a conceptual execution of a dual-currency ritual."

John leaned back in his chair, his mouth opening and closing briefly.

"The coin automatically determined the debt relationship, automatically completed the repayment, and automatically distributed the settlement amount. The whole process did not require John Nunez Cruz's signature, seal, or even nod of agreement."

Evelyn's voice came through the receiver with a confidence he had never heard before.

"John, if this logic holds true, then your coin is not legally classified as a 'terrorist weapon'."

Her speech quickened by half a beat.

"It is a supernatural legal enforcement tool, and the object of enforcement is the money that Morgan Stanley owes to 30 million people."

A bailiff pushed a document cart down the corridor, the wheels making a dull thud on the carpet. John waited until the bailiff was far away before speaking.

"You mean they shouldn't sue me for 'financial terrorism'?"

"I mean they should ask themselves why they owe money to 30 million people."

John looked down at the coin in his hand; the lines of the columns on the Parthenon reliefs cast fine shadows under the fluorescent lights.

"Evelyn, what are your chances of winning if you use this argument at the next hearing?"

There was a three-second silence on the other end of the phone.

When Evelyn's voice returned, her tone had dropped by half a octave, a sign that she had switched to truth-telling mode.

"It depends on the judge."

"What do you mean?"

"If the judge is willing to recognize that extraordinary objects have the legal status of legal subjects, this coin can be regarded as an independent executor of legal acts. Then we can turn the litigation logic from 'John manipulated terrorist weapons to attack the financial system' to 'the coin automatically performed a legal repayment act according to its own built-in rules,' and you just happened to be standing by."

She paused for a moment.

"If the judge is unwilling to admit it, you should be prepared to be forced to hand over the coins."

What will happen if we hand it over?