The North American Gourmet Demon Handbook

"Am I saying that besides me, Charlie is also not at risk?"

"Yes, dear, there will be no risk to you or your little lover."

Li Shanze frowned: "Is it that simple?"

The smile on Alessia's face was still charming: "Yes, it's that simple."

Li Shanze snorted lightly, sneering at Alessia's words: "So, what's the price? What's the price?"

"There is no price. If there is any, it is that the Paradox Clock Tower will never be found again. It probably means nothing to you, my dear."

Alessia put it lightly.

But even an eight-year-old child can see that this statement is an attempt to cover up the truth.

"Why can't we find it? Since we can find the Paradox Clock Tower once by following the power of the Liberty Bell, we can naturally find a way to find it a second time." Before Li Shanze could speak, Xia Li couldn't help but retort.

"Of course you can't find something that doesn't exist. The Paradox Clock Tower will be erased, that's all." Alessia still had a smile on her face.

"Erassed?" Li Shanze noticed Alessia's wording.

The female devil used words like erased, rather than destroyed or ruined.

A smile flickered in Alessia's orange-red eyes. "Yes, it was erased. Honey, do you know the fire-breathing dragon in the garage?"

"Carl Sagan, 'The Demon-Haunted World'?" Li Shanze looked at his devilish wife in disbelief and asked.

"Yes, dear, I didn't expect you to be interested in this book." Alessia's tone was full of joy.

"The fire-breathing dragon in Carl Sagan's garage is invisible, floating in the air, breathing heatless fire and cannot be detected by any means. Our best bet is to assume it doesn't exist."

Li Shanze found this scene very funny.

A female devil appeared in front of him, quoting a famous saying by the famous science writer Carl Sagan.

This sentence also comes from Carl Sagan's famous book criticizing pseudoscience called "The Demon-Haunted World".

This sense of absurdity made Li Shanze not even know what expression to make.

Seeing that Li Shanze remained silent, Xia Li coldly continued, "It's like the logical principle proposed by William of Ockham, a Franciscan monk in the 14th century: do not multiply entities unless necessary. But what exactly do you want to say? The devil."

Alessia chuckled and shook her head. "Ah, alas, little girls these days are so impatient. What I'm saying is that the Paradox Clock Tower is about to become a fire-breathing dragon in this garage."

"It's about to be unobservable, unreachable, and unperceivable? So you used the word erased?" Li Shanze asked.

"Yes, that's right." Alessia said with a smile.

Li Shanze quickly figured out the whole story and shook his head. "It seems our good friend, Calvin Hope, wants to do something big."

In Li Shanze's view, Calvin Hope, who has gathered a lot of willpower, also wants to erase the history of black slavery, which is exactly the same as erasing the paradox clock tower.

It seems that doing this requires sacrificing the holy land of the Time Corpse Brotherhood.

"Now, tell me, Alessia, what exactly is the Paradox Clock Tower? Why has it become the holy place of the Time Skeleton Brotherhood?" Li Shanze couldn't help but ask.

"I think you can guess it, dear." Alessia smiled. "It is essentially an anchor point of history, a beacon that allows every time wizard to find the true historical timeline in the long river of time and not get lost."

"It's a faithful recorder of history. Whether good or bad, it only records history as it was. So you can see Thomas Jefferson working tirelessly on the Declaration of Independence, and you can also see him working tirelessly on the lives of black women slaves."

Li Shanze nodded: "So, Calvin Hope wants to erase the true anchor of history and make the history of the persecution of black people no longer exist?"

"Yes, that's right, dear."

"Then why hasn't he done anything yet? Why are we just standing here chatting and not stopping him?"

"Because as long as you stand here, all time-related magic will naturally become ineffective, my dear. Your standing here is the best protection for history."

Li Shanze did not feel any sense of destiny like a savior.

There is no such thing as the pride of God bestowing a great responsibility on this person.

He only found it ironic.

The history of the other world has to be maintained by me, a person who traveled through time. Isn't this ironic?

Then Li Shanze suddenly realized something.

He asked seriously, "Wait, Alessia, are the so-called End of History theory and the Holy Spirit Era—and this damn trademark era, what the hell is this Quaker Year now?—related to the Paradox Clock Tower?"

The female devil looked at Li Shanze seriously with her orange-red eyes.

Li Shanze looked back without hesitation.

Their eyes met, and their sharp gazes collided.

After staring at each other for a long time, Alessia finally looked away.

Finally, she nodded. "Yes, this is a massive, quite grand, cognitive spell that rewrites the entirety of 'human society.' It was cast by nine great wizards, led by the Chief Grand Wizard of the Federation."

"I heard you emphasize the word 'human society'. It seems that this human society is closely related to my identity as an ogre."

Alessia sighed. "I knew you would figure that out on your own, dear. You really did."

"So if I want to visit my homeland in this world, the so-called 'Land of Ogres'—"

"Then you'd better stop your good friend Calvin Hope." The female devil interrupted Li Shanze with a smile.

"To reverse this massive spell, the Paradox Clock Tower, a historical anchor, is essential."

"So, you said all this just to get me to stop Calvin, right? Alessia." Li Shanze shook his head. "What a waste of words! I was planning to do this anyway."

"No, no, no, of course I'm thinking of you, my dear husband."

Alessia giggled.

"However, I am a partner of Yongsheng Technology after all. In theory, this is also a valuable asset of Yongsheng Technology. For the sake of Yongsheng Technology's stock price, I can't let it disappear like this."

175 Name

Many of the things Alessia said made Li Shanze feel difficult to tell whether they were true or false.

However, Li Shanze knew at a glance that she was talking nonsense when she saw the paradox that the clock tower was an important asset of Eternal Life Technology.

But no matter what, she successfully fooled Li Shanze by talking nonsense like this. No matter how Li Shanze asked, she refused to reveal more about her real purpose.

She just kept emphasizing that she was just defending the stock price.

Until once more the murmur rose from the gears of the clock tower: "Defend the purity of the white race with blood!"

Alessia seemed to have suddenly found a way out. She smiled at Li Shanze and said, "Ah, it's the infamous KKK slogan. Well, it's time for me to take my leave. I look forward to hearing good news from you, my dear."

The devilish wife looked at Li Shanze with eyes full of love and reluctance, just like a newlywed couple who were about to part.

Although the female devil is used to pretending, Li Shanze is no longer surprised.

But it was the first time that she behaved so exaggeratedly, which made Li Shanze frown subconsciously. He didn't understand what Alessia was trying to do.

Fortunately, he understood immediately.

Because after Alessia said goodbye to Li Shanze "reluctantly", Xia Li couldn't help but make sarcastic remarks.

"Oh, you are such a good wife. You choose to run away at this moment?"

When Alessia turned to Charlie, the tenderness on her face immediately and naturally turned into a polite and perfunctory smile.

Although Alessia seemed to remain polite.

However, if you compare her different expressions when facing Li Shanze and Xia Li, the subtle changes created a huge gap.

Anyone could read the perfunctory and boredom on her face.

"Oh, isn't that because I trust my dear? Oh hehe."

Alessia's "oh hehe" pronunciation is similar to the mechanical tone of early AI. Even the electronic synthesized voice of the virtual saint Vivian is more emotional than hers.

"I'll be waiting for you in New York, Miss Butner."

There wasn't even a hint of enthusiasm in the devil woman's words; the politeness and alienation contained in them were simply beyond words.

Anyone could hear that her subtext was actually "Don't come, I don't have the patience to entertain you."

Li Shanze couldn't help but scold, "Have you made enough trouble, Alessia? Since you don't want to stay and help, you can leave now."

Alessia's smile seemed much more genuine this time: "Alas, if I really wanted to stay and help, you would probably be even more worried, right?"

This is absolutely true. After Alessia appeared, Li Shanze has been on alert.

He kept thinking about the contract he had signed, considering what clauses he could use to deal with various situations.

Alessia obviously saw what Li Shanze was thinking, and her tone was rarely mischievous.

But she quickly returned to her old ways: "It's okay, men need space, I understand. I won't disturb your tryst with your lover here, dear. Just remember to go home to eat and sleep at night."

Alessia said with a half-smile.

Then she snapped her fingers.

There was a gust of sulfur, and Alessia and her high-backed chair disappeared in the flames.

Until the female devil ran away, Li Shanze still didn't understand what she was doing there.

It looked as if she had just said something, revealed some information, and then ran away, seemingly doing nothing.

However, now is not a good time to think about what Alessia's purpose is. Li Shanze feels that what he should do now is to comfort Xia Li.

I guess Charlie must be very angry with the female devil?

However, when Li Shanze turned to Xia Li, he unexpectedly saw a Xia Li in deep thought. Her eyes were bright and she seemed not to take Alessia's words to heart at all.

Seeing Li Shanze's gaze, Xia Li asked first, "Aletheia, do you think this is the real name of this devil? Or is she deliberately using this alias?"

"A pseudonym? What does that mean?" Li Shanze was puzzled.

"Aletheia means 'veiled truth' in ancient Greek."

Ancient Greek? Who would understand that?

Li Shanze had the expression of an old man on the subway looking at his phone.

"a is a negative prefix. Lethe corresponds to the River Lethe in the underworld in Greek mythology, and usually means obscuring or forgetting."

"The word Aletheia refers to the state of being uncovered. Heraclitus saw Aletheia as the eternal law (Logos) that manifests itself in the flow of all things..."

"In his long poem On Nature, Parmenides presents Aletheia as the path of truth, as opposed to Doxa, the path of opinion..."

"Plato..."

"Aristotle..."

Suddenly, Charlie started giving a philosophy lecture abruptly.

After reading some Western philosophy, Li Shanze has always been resistant to it.

It is because he feels that Western philosophy is too fond of picking out sentences and chewing on the roots of words, always quoting the ancients, looking for the "most fundamental meaning" of a word.

It seems that the wisdom of ancient sages is the real wisdom, as if only those ancient sages who could not even keep up with their protein supply have mastered the truth.

What is the difference between this and the Confucian scholars' admiration for the Three Dynasties' rule?

In Li Shanze's view, the world is constantly progressing, and people today are ultimately better than those in the past.

This kind of morbid and nitpicking worship of the past was really unconvincing to Li Shanze.

Xia Li continued to speak non-stop: "In Being and Time, Heidegger criticizes the traditional view of truth, arguing that Aletheia is the 'unconcealment of beings'...Truth is not a static proposition, but a process of existence revealing itself..."

Master, please stop reciting. Please stop reciting.

Li Shanze's head is as big as a bucket.

Before, Xia Li had never shown herself to be a philosophy fanatic. Apart from mentioning Kant when discussing anchor points, she had never talked about anything related to philosophy in her daily conversations.

Moreover, Li Shanze didn't believe that Xia Li couldn't see that he was already in a trance.

This made Li Shanze suspect that this was Xia Li's way of expressing her anger in disguise.

Li Shanze originally wanted to let Xia Li vent her anger.

But Xia Li continued to talk incessantly, and Li Shanze even doubted that she could talk until the end of time.

However, it must be said that this is indeed a very important discovery for Li Shanze.

Especially when Li Shanze thought about the fact that China in this world was obscured of information and the name of Alessia.

He couldn't help but wonder, as soon as he crossed over, Alessia came to him. Could this be related to her name?

"In Heidegger's view, simply understanding Aletheia as 'truth' easily loses its dimension of 'dynamic revelation'. Heidegger insisted on using 'Unverborgenheit' (unconcealment) to translate it, in contrast to the Latinized 'veritas' (static truth)..."