Wan Jie Hospice Care Company

"Brother Xiang!" An Ling called out to Xiang Yu's retreating figure.

"Although killing An Ling directly would complete the mission, and this world would be peacefully destroyed, everything returning to nothingness and back to normal..."

"But that's the mindset of a loser!"

Xiang Yu smiled at the red ghostly figure: "How can we not have a boss battle when we're almost done?"

Looking at Xiang Yu's retreating figure, Ji Zhuo first breathed a sigh of relief. Sure enough, he hadn't misjudged Section Chief Xiang.

Immediately afterwards, he returned to his post and began directing the evacuation of the crowd.

Although he couldn't be of much help in this situation, he still tried his best to prepare a suitable space for Xiang Yu to fight.

"Anling, if I get hurt by the supernatural force, immediately go back to before the war!" Xiang Yu decided to play it safe. If they waited until he was killed before going back to the beginning, it might be too late.

An Ling nodded vigorously immediately: "Okay!"

But just then, Xiangyu suddenly received a message.

Are you sure you want to do this?

It was the masked man's voice.

"What do you mean?" Xiang Yu raised an eyebrow. "Your ultimate goal in destroying this world is to prevent it from becoming food for some being... Isn't that being the ghostly figure in front of you?"

[That's right, if that anomaly truly devours this world, then it will continue to grow and then proceed to devour other worlds.]

The only option now is to temporarily destroy this world, halting its growth, so that the company will have a chance to contain this anomaly.

"...What if I just eliminate this anomaly directly?"

You can't do that, sir.

Why?

【because……】

The masked man's voice suddenly stopped.

Just as Xiang Yu was wondering what the masked man was hiding, a voice that sounded very familiar to him came.

"Don't try anymore. Destroying the world is much easier than killing that monster."

A semi-transparent, twisted figure appeared beside Xiang Yu.

Upon hearing that voice, Xiang Yu instantly recognized the other person's identity.

It was the female ghost who sang "The Day Is Short," who is... Anling, who has experienced countless cycles.

"You are... An Ling?" Xiang Yu asked tentatively.

"Perhaps so. At least I used to be. But after countless cycles, I've almost forgotten who I am." The female ghost's voice was intermittent. "I'm no longer human; I'm just an object possessed by a strange entity."

"Is that item a diary?"

"……yes."

"As expected... since all the supernatural phenomena are contained within objects, then you naturally need to use objects as your physical form as well." Xiang Yu paused for a moment. "Then, as a diary, wouldn't you remember all the cyclical experiences?"

The female ghost nodded.

"Have we ever succeeded?" Xiang Yu thought for a moment and then quickly continued, "Don't be like Doctor Strange, holding up one finger and saying it only happened once."

"No, not even once," the female ghost said emotionlessly. "What is Doctor Strange?"

"It doesn't matter." Xiang Yu looked at the crowd behind him, whose faces were now filled with hope.

They all felt that Xiang Yu was the one who could save them.

Xiang Yu glanced again at the blood-red ghostly figure so close at hand; the tangled threads seemed to be tearing the world into countless pieces.

Xiang Yu tried to grab the stretcher next to him and throw it. The stretcher, which was empowered by energy, was like a cannonball, but it had no effect on the thing.

The blood-red ghost seemed not to belong to this world, as if it were merely a shadow cast upon this world by some other being.

It seems that physical attacks are completely ineffective.

So Xiangyu began to retreat, maintaining a subtle distance from the advancing ghostly figure.

The female ghost beside her then said, "This world is not actually a complete world..."

"It's a world created from An Ling's memories," Xiang Yu said preemptively. "An Ling was born around 1982 and turned eighteen in 2000, which corresponds to December 12th to December 30th, exactly eighteen days."

"On December 31st, the juncture between turning eighteen and the end of the year, something important happened... causing a time reversal, and then this world came into being?"

Xiang Yu asked in return.

"...Yes, but this world itself is not only made up of Anling's memories, but also of the feelings of countless people in the future who miss the past." The female ghost's voice was unwavering. "It's just that Anling's memories happen to carry the longing of many humans. Some of these longings are distorted and exaggerated, and a twisted world is born as a result."

"Twisted..." Xiang Yu suddenly realized, "The ceramic doll is an ornament on her dean's desk. It must be because she once received a confession, but she rejected it all because she was afraid of the school rules and her family's prohibition against early dating... In her eyes, early dating is almost a capital offense."

The female ghost neither confirmed nor denied it, implicitly acknowledging the dubious guess.

"As for the dolls, it probably stems from the fact that Anling had no other playmates during her childhood, so she had to rely on dolls to keep her company while playing games?"

"The kid at the children's amusement park must have been ostracized by a small group of children when Anling was a child, which caused her psychological trauma. After all, children's malice doesn't need any reason, and it's more pure than the evil of adults."

"The mall ghost is probably a reflection of future people's anxieties about the society of that era when they look back... If we go back a little further in time, we might see something like the melamine ghost."

"These are all distorted rules..."

Xiang Yu then asked, "So what about the real, living An Ling? Did she live through 2000 years?"

"She's dead."

"What?"

"She died at 00:00:00 on January 1, 2000. The date is so coincidental, so coincidental that it happens to be the day she carries the memories of all mankind." The female ghost recounted the truth, as if "Anling" and she were two separate beings. "But because of mankind's remembrance, she came back to life in another world."

Xiang Yu remained silent for a while, then frowned.

"Let me ask you one more question: in the previous cycles, were all the things I did the same?"

"There is no such thing as a previous cycle." The female ghost shook her head. "All cycles are happening simultaneously. Countless versions of you are performing the same action at the same time... but they are largely the same."

As soon as the female ghost finished speaking, Xiang Yu shook his head: "No, absolutely not."

"You just said you don't know what Doctor Strange is?" Xiang Yu chuckled. "Of all the people like me, not one of them could explain to you what it is?"

"Ah...no." The female ghost didn't know what "turning a corner" meant.

"Alright, now I'll explain. It's a mage who wields the Time Stone and can travel through different times, just like you." Xiang Yu narrowed his eyes. "Now, do you remember?"

"..." The female ghost was clearly stunned; she hadn't expected Xiang Yu to say such a thing.

"Phew...you almost led me astray..." Xiang Yu grinned. "The 'me' you encountered in that so-called cycle wasn't me at all!"

"I have never participated in a single cycle of this world!" Xiang Yu concluded from the conversation, "The real me has only ever appeared here!"