Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

With everything settled here, all that remained was to await the moment when the plan would finally unfold. She silently approached the surface of the gray moon, gazing at Pluto, its silhouette faintly visible in the far distance. Once Earth reached that point, everything here would be over.

[Chu Xuan is truly formidable. Indeed, after all, he's capable of wielding the Eastern Emperor Bell and the Investiture of the Gods, a powerhouse even saints fear at the early stages of his cultivation. Anything is possible for him. He's just a mere fourth-tier larva; after all, according to the prediction records, even in the final battle, he was able to mass-produce fourth-tier CX viruses—hmm?]

Her thoughts suddenly froze.

Something unseen tried to interfere with her thinking, but when it detected the keyword 'prediction record', it retreated like a startled rabbit.

[Wait, something seems off. Chu Xuan is indeed incredibly powerful, but even according to the prediction records, his creation of mass-produced fourth-tier lifeforms was only possible after acquiring the vast cultivation knowledge inherited from a sage, and after he himself had reached the fourth stage of the gene lock. But right now, he's clearly still stuck at the very end of the third stage!]

Where did he get so much information to analyze, enabling him to create such an outrageous thing with the wisdom of a mere mortal?!

Alice's gaze sharpened. She slowly turned her head to look at the deep blue Earth beneath her feet.

However, just as she was about to rush down to investigate regardless of the consequences, a communication from Bai Yue reached her ears.

"Should I go there now... Patchouli?"

......................................................

—The last page of "The Death of the Honest Man".

A useless person is ultimately just a useless person. At the end of the ritual, the mediocre girl revealed the inherent indecisiveness and hesitation of someone of inferior quality. When everything reached its most crucial moment, just one step away, the fear of eternal silence led the girl's final, fragmented consciousness to choose escape.

The flawless divine child was halted at the very last moment before his birth. The progress was stuck at ninety-nine percent, just one percent away. However, this crucial one percent was the difference between heaven and earth.

The flawless divine child was not born; instead, an inferior being tainted by worldly desires was created. Its extraordinary talents were bound by the girl's inferior self-perception. Even if she could actually achieve ten thousand, she believed her talents would be severely limited to even reaching ten.

It fell, and the fallen, fragmented divine child, carrying chaotic memories, left the ritual site. The girl's final fear led to the loss of both sides. And she may never remember her true nature.

However, God did not care.

The ritual of welcoming new life through death was neither completed nor a failure. Perhaps in the distant future, this one percent difference will eventually come to an end. Perhaps the ordinary girl's escapism and the divine child's corruption were all part of God's plan.

God doesn't care.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Sirin and Norrell

The surface, the seaside of Meilan.

"What you're doing makes me feel uncomfortable, very uncomfortable." A smile played on Celine's lips as she gestured for Theresa, who was playing on the beach, to have fun. The words that came from her throat were sharper and more serious than ever before, a stark contrast to her usual demeanor. She didn't look at Luo Ye, but her spirit and will were unmistakably fixed on this outwardly unremarkable woman.

"I can't be bothered with your affairs. As for the Zhongzhou team, I can't be bothered with their affairs as long as they don't affect the team's overall interests. But Theresa... I don't want anyone to touch her, and I don't like anyone paying extra attention to her."

"You should know that her appearance must be related to Chang'e. In the realm of the extraordinary, there is no such thing as chance."

“So what if I am? I don’t care.” Sirin continued to smile as she looked at the sea. “The recruitment rules of the Supreme God state that reincarnators cannot recruit plot characters of a higher level than themselves. I will find a way to bring her back to the Supreme God's space later—if she really is a derivative of Chang'e, then my attempt is destined to fail. If she carries Chang'e's backup plan, then the Supreme God will help me clean it up. Besides, the methods you gave me earlier for verifying the idealistic magic have already greatly increased my confidence. Or perhaps…”

Her tone turned dangerous. "You've concocted something to fool me?"

“You should know this is impossible.” Luo Ye raised an eyebrow slightly. “The essence of power cannot be faked. I am merely giving you the principles of idealism. It is you who must discern, analyze, and develop unique verification methods based on them. If what I give you is false, then everything in this world is also false.”

"Is it really not fake?" A cold smile suddenly appeared on Celine's lips.

The air suddenly became heavy. Even though the beach where the two...three of them were located was unaffected, the sea a kilometer away was immediately enveloped by a chilling wind. The once bright sunlight seemed to instantly transform into a terrifying shadow from the underworld. Even the color of the sky seemed to darken by at least three percentage points.

In the far distance, the storm that should have arrived long ago, but was restrained by Sirin's will to be a hundred kilometers away, began to move.

"You..." Luo Ye's eyes narrowed slightly. "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean? You mean everything here is shrouded in lies?" Sirin shook her head slightly. "It started to get suspicious a long time ago, after we'd been in this world for several years and hadn't received a single mission from the Main God. After all, the Main God is a chatterbox who'd even give a 'escort Leon to the lab, reward ten... or twenty reward points' kind of talkative thing. And we've been in this world for seven years, and not a single person has received a single mission from the Main God. Don't you think that's very abnormal?"

Sirin's fingers tapped an unnamed rhythm lightly on the armrest of her chair. "With the initial questions, discovering the subsequent anomalies was only natural. After all, we've arrived in a world labeled 'The Wandering Earth' by the Supreme God. So, at least in the Supreme God's eyes, 'The Wandering Earth' is the theme of this world—or at least part of it. But when did the theme shift to 'The Three-Body Problem'?"

She gave her conclusion without waiting for Luo Ye's reply.

“It’s Xiao Honglu’s deduction, right? At least that’s what it seems on the surface.” She paused slightly. “But considering everything that happened in the Resident Evil world, it was inevitable that Xiao Honglu would speak up at that time—Alice had always longed for change, and the team members had finally made progress in social experimentation. She would never discourage them at that time, so she wouldn’t speak up. Patchouli would follow her lead and wouldn’t speak up either.”

"Xiao Honglu's statement was inevitable, and from the perspective of anticipating the enemy's moves, it was also inevitable that he would connect the Wandering Earth to The Three-Body Problem. Of course, this is not important. Xiao Honglu has not yet grown to the point where he can play a major role in the overall calculation. At that time, I didn't really care much. I only noticed the anomalies in this world a few years ago and recalled that after Xiao Honglu's speech, someone did something that they wouldn't normally do."

She said calmly, "Chu Xuan spoke up, echoing Xiao Honglu's mention of the existence of the Tower of Babel world when Xiao Honglu brought up the artificial universe. His words did not shift the focus of the conversation, but in essence, they endorsed Xiao Honglu's speculation. Sure enough, after he spoke, the meeting skipped the 'whether the Trisolaran world exists' part and went straight to the 'how to deal with the Trisolaran worldview' part."

"He did something inconspicuous and unremarkable, but it was definitely not in line with one of his principles. And using this as a springboard, I found even more discrepancies."

"The Supreme God gave us the mission of wandering the Earth, but instead gave us a desolate, dead planet. Chang'e acted as if she had already finished and left, but she left behind voodoo dolls with Cheng Xin's name on them in every base. Of course, none of that really matters. What matters is that she emphasized 'I don't kill people' too many times."

Xilin tilted her head slightly, her smile shifting from a cold sneer to a malicious sweetness. "On the surface, she's using the 'no killing' rule to emphasize the importance of her role as 'Cheng Xin.' But if we think about it from another angle... what if she's hiding something? What if she really can't, or has agreed not to, kill reincarnators?"

"In this way, the subsequent act of destroying the Great Library becomes a kind of cover-up intimidation. And besides these points, I have even stronger evidence—that I was able to observe and deduce so much, yet Alice, Patchouli, and Chu Xuan seemed completely unaware. Combining this conclusion with Chu Xuan's abnormal behavior and the fact that he failed to receive the main god's mission, the conclusion appears before my eyes."

"Chu Xuan and Chang'e have been working together for a long time. They had already reached an agreement before this story world even began. And you, Luo Ye, are a member who joined their plan later. This explains everything. The reason there are no missions is because all missions could not be triggered due to Chang'e's early arrival. Although I can't figure out what Chang'e is planning, it shouldn't actually harm the interests of our Zhongzhou team. On the contrary, she has to give something in exchange for the Zhongzhou team's actions. And these actions must be kept secret from certain people in the team."

"Because of your appearance, Alice is definitely being kept in the dark. No one is targeting me, which means that others are likely the focus of attention—mainly to keep it from Alice and Zheng Zha. And what they have in common is that they have already reached the boundary of the middle stage of the fourth tier. So, this deal must be related to inner demons?"

Luo Ye stared at her quietly for five seconds.

It wasn't until Theresa, completely oblivious, became interested in a seashell in the distance that she picked up a cup filled with disinfectant. She gouged out her left eye, then her right, washed them thoroughly in the cup, and then put them back in their sockets.

“I really should take back everything I said about you before. I was so blind before.” Luo Ye paused, then added, “Alice was blind too, and so are many others.”

“There’s no need. What you saw before was the real me.” Celine waved her hand. “The reason I don’t think is because no matter how much I thought before, any decision I made would inevitably lead to a tragic ending. On the contrary, if I abandon all reason and recklessly rush in without even trusting my intuition and instinct, I can achieve a slightly better result. This is my choice, and also the curse I bear. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I’m actually unwilling to think about anything that requires effort until my inner light is restored.”

A bitter smile appeared on her lips: "After all, I've wandered in the Abyss of Death for countless years, observing countless cycles of reincarnation that I myself can't even remember. I still have some insight and experience to begin with."

"Alright, now I know at least most of the truth. You don't need to keep me in suspense anymore. Oh, and don't mind my questioning of that idealistic method of discernment earlier. That was just a rhetorical device I used to steer the conversation. So, can you tell me what I want to know now?"

"..." Luo Ye flicked her fingers, watching the swarm of nanobots that had coalesced into a cup quietly dissipate. She glanced at the white moon in the distant sky, and after several seconds, she gave her answer: "Chang'e's true purpose should be to disrupt the script, or rather... she wants to break through, or utilize, the principles of civilization in this world. But breaking through the principles of civilization is something that only the Reincarnation Team below the level of a Sage can do without being directly devoured to death. And that is the premise of her cooperation with Chu Xuan."

“But this should just be her tactic, not her goal. Although her true purpose doesn’t really have much to do with our Zhongzhou team, I can sense that she and I are, to some extent, the same kind of people… So I want to know her true purpose. And the true identity of this ‘Theresa Apocalypse’ that you met is an important means for me to verify her true purpose.”

“If she is the Theresa you know, then I will be able to get the final result. If she is not, I will still be able to get some conclusions... I want to know the answer.”

Celine stopped tapping her fingers on the railing. She waved to Theresa, who was playing on the beach, and the latter ran towards her happily, holding up her small swimsuit.

“I won’t ask you about the similarities between you and her, but I will tell you an answer.” Sirin opened her arms and caught little Theresa, who had thrown herself into her embrace. Her and Luo Ye’s words seemed to be on another channel in the world, and neither Theresa nor someone who was inevitably watching here heard them.

"And besides that, I need you to promise me one thing."

....................................

"What is it?" After the teleportation ended, Alice landed lightly in the center of White Moon's main control room. She looked around the empty space with some confusion. At the edge of her vision, she sensed a large number of defensive shield barriers around the 30-kilometer-long hollow cube.

She glanced at Patchouli, who was hovering quietly not far away, clutching a thick grimoire she hadn't seen in a long time. A puzzled expression appeared on her face. "Is there something urgent that requires us to come here immediately, Patchouli? I've just discovered a very important secret, and perhaps we should go to Earth to verify it now."

“Alice,” Patchouli interrupted her with a single word. “The last battle on the moon wasn’t satisfying, and now that we’re back on the moon, let’s have another magical battle.”

“What are you doing, Patchouli…” Alice shook her head, a vague sense of unease creeping into her heart, but she refused to acknowledge it. “Time is running out. Earth will soon reach Pluto, and I have a feeling I have to figure everything out before then.”

"Alice, let's have a magical battle."

“We’ll talk about that later. I have more important things to do now.” Alice shook her head and suddenly tore open space to teleport. However, when she reappeared, the coordinates weren’t on the Earth’s surface, but in the same place she had been before!

Her teleportation sent her back into the hollow cube!

“Dimensional disruption… This is beyond your capabilities, Patchouli. It’s the work of an information mage far more skilled and powerful than either of us… Your cognition hasn’t been interfered with, Patchouli. Are you standing here of your own volition?”

“Indeed, I stand here of my own will and stand. No one can leave this isolated space until I am defeated.” Patchouli gently closed her eyes, then opened them. A light shone in her pale purple eyes, and the closed grimoire opened with a rustling sound of pages turning. “Come and fight, Alice. Choose whichever kind of war you prefer.”

"It seems I've discovered something I shouldn't have. It seems my mind has been bound by chains I couldn't and didn't want to think about for the past seven years. And now, has it reached the final, crucial moment?" Alice sighed softly and deeply, and the energy around her began to fluctuate violently.

“You are a determined person, Patchouli. Even if I try to persuade you now, you won’t change your mind about what you believe is right. Perhaps you think everything you’re doing now is for my own good, or perhaps you think everything that happened before and after was a worthwhile price to pay… Oh well, whatever.”

"Come and fight, Patchouli Knowledge."

Chapter Forty: My Beloved's Monologue

I know.

I've always known that.

Alice is not just Alice; there was another Alice hidden inside her—I've known this for a long time.

Ah… Alice always thought my meeting with her was a pure coincidence. Actually, while it was a coincidence, it wasn't entirely pure. My escape from the Forbidden City when Constantinople fell, and my choice to hide on the empty ship where she was, wasn't simply a matter of chance.

Because I knew her. I knew her, that girl named Luo Ye, from the time I first became a court sorceress in Rome. She was mediocre in talent, lacked confidence, yet possessed a deep yearning for something. And she might never know that when she, still Luo Ye, came to my celestial school with an anonymous letter of introduction from the alchemy school, seeking knowledge of interdimensional exploration from the then-Princess of Knowledge, it was I who wrote "reject" on her entrance examination form.

Because I smelled blood on that letter of introduction. It wasn't her letter; it was a stepping stone she had obtained through arduous means, even at the cost of her life. And in my understanding at that time, the noble celestial school inherited from Hypatia didn't need an apprentice who would stain the pages with blood.

So, my school of celestial physics closed its doors to her. I heard from the guards at the time that she lingered outside the door, pleading for ten days before finally leaving in despair—I didn't think much of it then. But two years later, I did indeed learn from my pen pals in the alchemy school that they had recruited a new apprentice from the menial laborers.

Did I do something wrong? I don't know, but at least at that time, I didn't think I did anything wrong. As the next generation of the secret-keeping princess who hadn't yet assumed the heavy responsibility, I had to ensure that all knowledge within my sight was entrusted to people worthy of it. Perhaps this conservative strategy was the reason for the later decline of the astrophysical school, but at that time, I couldn't go against a tradition that was more beneficial than harmful to me.

Anyway, that's how it happened. It was then that I learned the blonde, blue-eyed girl had a name that seemed completely out of place with her lineage. Perhaps it was for this reason that I paid more attention to the girl than a stranger, and jokingly told my pen pal about her having studied in Constantinople.

I don't know if this will cause her any trouble, but I think it probably will. Because just two years later, my pen pal told me, in a somewhat boastful tone, at the end of one of her regular letters that she had been kicked out of the alchemy school. I don't believe my pen pal didn't do something about it... And I can't imagine how an apprentice who rose from the ranks of menial labor could endure the hostility of at least one full-fledged wizard for two years.

I truly cannot imagine it, for knowledge is a priceless treasure. The more precious the knowledge, the greater the price required to acquire it. At the bottom of the celestial school, I have seen more than once apprentices sell their wives and daughters to obtain a book on the principles of magic. I have also seen more than once those who, in an attempt to gain knowledge, willingly become experimental subjects for low-level wizards, thus turning themselves into menial, inhuman creatures.

No, I didn't even think about it at the time. Because it was just a small matter, as insignificant as a moth flying into the living room getting burned by a candle flame. Perhaps I would sigh for a couple of seconds when I saw its remains, or perhaps I would angrily burn the unsightly remains to ashes along with the candle flame. But in any case, it was a trivial matter that would at most take me a few seconds to think about.

I quickly forgot about this insignificant anecdote. After all, knowledge is precious and expensive, and in the years since I became a formal wizard, I've seen at least eight or ten thousand fools and inferior beings die on the path of seeking knowledge. Gradually, time passed, and the world changed. My pen pal soon perished in a wizarding war. But when my mourning spell, guided by my senses, arrived at her farewell ceremony, I saw her there.

No longer Luo Ye, but Alice Margotrovid.

Then, thinking I had seen through the whole story, I cast a curse on her from thousands of kilometers away.

Ah, that's right. The reason Alice Margotrovd, despite being an alchemist, ended up on the path of curses was entirely my doing. Because at the time, it was a dead end, and while the Celestial School was already showing signs of decline with the fall of Rome, as the next Princess of the Secrets, the curses I cast wouldn't be easily dispelled by the high-ranking alchemists.

They pretended not to see it, and indeed they did. Later, I heard that a new witch had emerged in the alchemical school, using curses as a medium for casting spells and traversing paths that ordinary people could not take. But I simply laughed it off, because at that time I had more important things to do and no extra energy to waste on such trivial matters.

Gradually, the long years passed. Ten years, twenty years, fifty years, nearly a hundred years... When Constantinople fell, I fled in panic from the Purple Palace. Then, in the airspace above the open sea, I sensed the lingering traces of the curse from that year.

Alice always believed our first meeting was a romantic encounter. But only I knew it was actually a sinister scheme to divert her attention. I deliberately infiltrated her airship to share the risk of being hunted by Ottoman wizards. The foolish girl, however, was completely oblivious; she had long forgotten her visit to Constantinople, and the suffering and hardship she endured in the city before she was even born.

There is a truth I have always believed in: there is no hatred without a cause, nor is there love without a cause. My hatred, or rather, my malice towards her, stemmed from a one-sided meeting nearly a century ago. And soon, as my malice transformed into self-reproach and guilt with each of her selfless acts of help, the seed of love was born.

She should have hated me. If she had, perhaps this ill-fated relationship would have ended from the very beginning. But she didn't, not at all. Even when I later vaguely brought up some things that happened in Constantinople, she just laughed it off.

How could she do this? How could she do this?

I don't know the answer; I only know that I fell in love with her, in the countless times we faced the entanglements of the Ottoman wizards together. I, Patchouli Knowledge, fell in love with her, Alice Margotrovid. At first, it might have been just a combination of guilt and the suspension bridge effect. However, after she risked her life to bring me, still recovering from my severe injuries, to the safety of Western Europe, I knew I couldn't escape.

I couldn't escape, nor did I want to. For a woman to pursue another woman in that era wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I was intoxicated by it, drunk in the fine wine brewed by my heart and the years. And when I finally won her over in a brilliant offensive, even the most precious academic breakthroughs of the past couldn't compare to the elation I felt at that moment.

We finally became a unified whole. My future was finally defined in a way completely different from all the previous guardian princesses—if my duty was to protect the secret scriptures, then she was the most precious book engraved in my heart. If my destiny was to preserve knowledge, then she was the most valuable record in my mind.

From that day on, the centuries that followed were the happiest time of my life. Even as the world of magic vanished in the flames of war, even as mysterious fate gradually led me to the grave dug by machines, even as my old friends and acquaintances perished like autumn leaves, I still believed that those centuries were more important than anything else in my life.

Yes, that's what I thought. Until Alice and I went to some unspeakable place, met that unspeakable woman, and learned that Luo Ye hadn't completely withered away, that's what I thought.

I owe Alice nothing, for I have given everything to her. So whatever happened between us in the past, I owe her nothing. She can take whatever she wants from me, and I will give her everything I can. We are one, and even if we do owe something… let it remain unpaid.

But I owe Luo Ye so much. I owe her an apology, I owe her justice, I owe her... a dream of returning home.

If Luo Ye were just a stranger of any kind, then owing her wouldn't be so bad. But Luo Ye and Alice are truly an overlapping entity. So this debt, which was as light as paper to me, has become as heavy as a mountain of steel.