Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"Wenwen! Breakfast is ready!"

"Oh!" Zhu Wen responded, quickly putting down the book in her hand. For a moment, she thought she had put down a blanket, but she immediately realized what she was doing and dismissed the thought.

"Am I still half asleep? What are you doing in the study so early in the morning?" She shook her head and left the study. When she returned to the living room, she saw that her mother had already prepared a sumptuous breakfast on three plates.

She quickly washed her hands and ran over to sit down—but as she sat down, her body tilted unnaturally, as if she should lean to the side.

"This child, so reckless," the gentle mother gently tapped her forehead. "We should have had a younger brother or sister back then. That way, you could have learned what it means to be a role model."

"Hehe." Zhu Wen chuckled foolishly—younger siblings? She hadn't planned on having any younger siblings for herself; the kind of development her mother wanted was something she could only dream about.

She quickly finished her meal, then, amidst her mother's soft snort of "not ladylike enough," she picked up her schoolbag and left home.

She had felt something was off for a while. But that feeling vanished the moment she stepped out the door; perhaps it was just a perceptual illusion caused by poor air circulation. Or maybe she had simply been overthinking some unnecessary nonsense.

"Younger brother and sister... sister." She murmured the two words, then shook her head.

She walked forward.

This morning seemed much quieter than usual. There were very few people and even fewer cars. Occasionally, I saw a few elderly men doing their morning exercise, slowly practicing Tai Chi on the grass by the roadside. But then—

Wait, what is Tai Chi?

What is Tai Chi?

A sense of confusion suddenly arose in her mind, but it vanished when she turned her head to look at the lawn a second time. The old man on the lawn was still as vigorous as ever, and this vigorous old man was already dancing in the park early in the morning with his music playing.

"Why are you doing square dancing so early in the morning?" she muttered, a strange sense of irritation prompting her to use her superpowers. With a sudden burst of invisible static electricity, the innocent influence abruptly stopped working and began to smoke.

Great, no more annoying square dancing.

She continued forward, and several elderly women approached, holding prayer beads in their hands—in a flash, the beads transformed into holy images and crosses. Upon seeing her, the elderly women gave her warm, missionary smiles and quickly approached her, saying—

"Child, Hallelu—"

The world seemed to break again, and the crucifixes and icons in the hands of the old ladies vanished in the next moment. In their place were trendy sunglasses and headphones. These old ladies, who had suddenly changed their style to be fashionable, ignored Zhu Wen, who was on her way to school, and walked past her to the back.

Zhu Wen patted her head.

Her memories were continuous—in her mind, the three events of going out, seeing the elderly men dancing in the square, and the trendy elderly women were linked together without any extraneous elements in between—she repeated them repeatedly, no, she didn't even know why she was checking her memories. But she just felt something was off.

Something is wrong.

A strange anomaly.

The feeling of unease reached its peak when she walked to the edge of the school and saw a Greek-style temple standing next to it.

what the hell!

Why are there Greek temples everywhere in the East, even next to schools—isn't that normal?

Zhu Wen scratched her head. She suddenly remembered that Greece was the source of world mythology, and that almost all civilizations on Earth, except for some uncivilized tribes, were influenced by Greek customs. Building temples next to schools, so that every schoolchild could pray there, was a national policy established thousands of years ago and never changed.

—She even contributed to this more than sixty years ago.

She shook her head.

Well, as an ordinary high school girl, it's not good to go to school without praying properly. It's a responsibility that every child in this era should fulfill. It's said that such prayers can reach the kingdom of the gods and provide them with the strength to fight against the evil in the void.

—Although no book has ever explained what the so-called evil in the void actually is.

She sighed… For some reason, she felt like she had sighed many times today. Then, she walked past the other students who had come to pray that morning. She entered the center of the temple and subconsciously looked around.

A row of statues of deities sat quietly behind the altar in the temple.

She recognized those gods. Everyone recognized them—in the center was Zeus, the god of thunder and lightning; beside him was Hera, the goddess of marriage and family; and further out were Apollo, Aphrodite, Artemis…

Arte what?

A sense of doubt arose in her mind. The next moment, the tall, majestic, and solemn statues before her trembled violently, as if they were alive!

what happened?

She instinctively wanted to back away, but couldn't move. In her terrified vision, she saw the trembling statues reaching out to her, their sculpted mouths wide open, like abyssal voids!

They saw her. They watched her. They needed her.

They pounced on her, growling at her from the hole—

—"Remember me!"

—"Remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me, remember me—"

And the largest, most muscular hand had already grabbed her collar—

Everything came to a standstill.

"The dead shouldn't interfere with the living world. Can't you be a little more dignified at a time like this?"

Accompanied by a sound, followed by a silent wail, the animated stone statue vanished like dust. What followed was the elegant form of a blonde girl.

“Alice…” Zhu Wen said the name subconsciously. She didn’t know when she had met her.

"You still remember me?" The girl glanced at her with slight surprise. Then she chuckled and touched her forehead. "But now isn't the time. There will be plenty of opportunities to catch up later. But until then—"

Her vision was completely dark.

"—You should seal this memory away and enjoy the perks of being a member of the Central Continent Team a little longer."

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

Zhu Wen has a secret.

She is actually a reincarnated person who has lived many lifetimes.

In this life, she wants—

"Sister! Wake up! The sun's already high in the sky!"

With a soft cry from the young girl, Zhu Wen slowly opened her eyes. Her younger sister, Wan'er, was looking at her with a reproachful expression, just like many younger sisters look at their older sisters.

What happened before?

No, nothing happened.

Urged by her sister, she got up, washed up, and subconsciously looked out the window.

Outside the window, the wind was calm and the sun was shining brightly.

"Today is another beautiful, sunny day."

Section Twenty-Eight: The Poison of Ideology

—All the holy are dead.

—Almost all of them.

In the realm of war, Zheng Zha, seated atop his bronze throne, gazes upon the star cluster beneath his feet, increasingly shrouded in the flames of conflict. He feels the surging power of war in the universe while recalling the past.

Pangu separated heaven and earth, Hongjun governed the heavens, Houtu transformed into reincarnation—and then, that was it. No gods, no saints, no stories, no legends.

Vast stretches of memories vanished at a visible speed, leaving no room for redemption.

He remembered seeing many temples and Taoist monasteries when he was a child. But now, all those temples and monasteries have turned into empty spaces. The statues of gods enshrined inside have lost their faces, and their names have vanished into nothingness. All the classic doctrines have also disappeared with the wind, leaving not a single fragment.

Memories remain memories, and the past remains the past.

But many people, many things, and many landscapes from the past are no longer what they used to be.

He left the throne and returned to the past. He returned to the source of his own origin world line. Then, starting from the moment 'Zheng Zha' was born, he traveled backward along the flow of time, arriving at the present of his original source world.

If he hadn't entered the cycle of reincarnation, and if the time spent in the main god's space is only counted within the cycle of reincarnation, then he would be around thirty years old now.

Perhaps more, perhaps less.

But he'll still be an ordinary office worker, continuing to toil and struggle to make ends meet or advance his career. Occasionally, he'll indulge himself in nightclubs or bars.

That must be the case.

That's the only way.

When he arrived at that point in time, 'now,' he saw a city that was still in the early 21st century, a place still bustling with activity, filled with brightly lit skyscrapers. People were still coming and going on the streets as before, their conversations invariably revolving around business and career. Seeking land and houses, nothing out of the ordinary.

Zheng Zha gently landed on a street.

He did not change anything, nor did he distort anything, nor did he declare his existence, nor did he create any unusual phenomena.

Because that's meaningless.

—It's meaningless.

“Both Margot Lloyd and Sirin have advised me that if my kindness is too great, I should place it on my home planet,” he murmured to himself, looking at the bustling street.

"I can't understand that sentence now."

“But in the past, I wholeheartedly believed this.” — Zheng Zha lifted his foot and took a small step forward.

He visited his original world once before the final battle began. He split his past into parts and chose one to spend a mortal life with Lori and his biological parents. After that, that timeline was solidified and sealed, never to change again—unless he died or in a life-or-death battle.

Now he is neither dead nor in a life-or-death battle.

Therefore, the place he is currently in is not the original world line that he cherishes and values. The planet he is standing on still bears the name Earth, but it is not the Earth he values.

This isn't his Earth—then whose Earth is it?

Zheng Zha slightly turned his head, and on the poster beside him, he saw a face from the distant past—familiar yet quite unfamiliar—a face, a head, a half-body portrait, enormous and meticulously edited—it was a huge electronic advertisement. And the content of the advertisement was—

—'Li Xiaoyi, a genius young scientist, recounts his journey of growth'

Ah… this is Li Xiaoyi's origin world. This is Li Xiaoyi's Earth. The high school student Zheng Zha met in the first horror movie he participated in, and whom he considered a partner before he realized his mistakes—he died in the alien, a silent death. And when Zheng Zha regained his senses and picked up the Golden Book of the Sun, his unremarkable talent led Alice to exclude him from the resurrection pool.

Of course, Zheng Zha later resurrected him. After resurrecting him, he erased his identity as a reincarnator, gave him luck, and a gorilla-style auxiliary system that would definitely make him a winner in life before sending him back to Earth.

Unlike Zhu Wen, who was reincarnated in the story world, Li Xiaoyi experienced resurrection.

However, whether it's Zhu Wen or Li Xiaoyi, even if they were stripped of their status as reincarnators and returned to the mortal realm, they still belong to the Central Continent Team's decision-makers or members who know them.

They are members of the Central Continent Team—at least Zheng Zha believes they are.

With this understanding in mind, Zheng Zha continued on his journey.

Forward.

Strictly speaking, he himself didn't know why he was here—an event that would be impossible for a transcendent being. So he simply didn't know 'at the moment'. All he knew was that his 'future' had seen some things, which was why he took action 'in the present'. But what exactly happened in the 'future'? He decided to leave that a mystery for now.

He's not very bright, or rather, he doesn't want to think too much.

Therefore, he will not directly share his future memories now.