"Not only that, but currently there is no human god stationed there. As long as I use the power of Right Positioning Heavenly Phenomena to secretly give them a little push from behind the scenes, under external pressure, they will naturally all become Brother Zhuang Cheng’s subordinates..."
I reminded, "Little Bowl, the bad ideas in your mind are about to spill out."
Little Bowl suddenly snapped back to her senses and, as if trying to brush it off, said guiltily, "I, I was just kidding, I’m not really thinking of anything that cunning!..."
"It’s okay, I never thought of you as a very naive little girl from the beginning," I said. "In the future, just tell me whatever’s on your mind directly. If I have any thoughts, I will tell you directly as well."
Perhaps living alone for too long, even when she had someone by her side in the past, it was only someone as slow as Mazao. Naturally, Little Bowl is a bit awkward at disguising herself in this regard.
She seems to care a lot about my opinion of her. From the moment we met up, she cautiously tested my reactions to her and has been working hard to show her abilities and value afterward.
Currently, we are not just "online characters" exchanging in this "virtual reality" Void Realm. We are real people interacting in reality, where all sorts of calculations also appear in our relationship. And Little Bowl behaves like a small animal that has been wandering for too long—though she tries hard to disguise it, you can sense the unease and loneliness in her heart.
I cannot use exquisite language to comfort her, so I can only consistently express my attitude.
Little Bowl seemed a bit at a loss.
About ten minutes later, we finally arrived at the survivor gathering place.
Tan Xiang had recently departed for this very place as well. Calculating purely based on the timing of departure, I might be able to meet Tan Xiang again in this place. Knowing now that Tan Xiang and the wandering soul are the same person, I will no longer treat Tan Xiang as a passerby, and my heart is somewhat eager to meet again.
After parting ways with him who died in the future, then meeting him who had just set off in the past—just imagining this mysterious and bizarre experience felt very novel in my mind.
Regrettably, not to mention meeting Tan Xiang, the survivor gathering place I saw was completely different from what I initially imagined.
The scene here somewhat resembled the desolate towns depicted in cowboy movies I had seen in the past at the cinema, except that all the houses in this town were destroyed, as if overwhelmed by a bombardment of firepower. Most of the buildings were wooden structures. I briefly checked some scattered pieces of wooden materials and found that the wood was severely decayed.
It can be deduced that the time when this survivor gathering place was destroyed was not recently but a long time ago.
"Was this gathering place originally ?" I asked Little Bowl.
"No..." Little Bowl shook her head, "It seems we’ve reached the space we wanted to reach but haven’t reached the time we wanted to reach."
"Can’t you actively return to the timeframe where you last stayed here?" I asked.
Little Bowl looked around at the scenery, thoughtfully, then shook her head helplessly.
It seems, despite being able to freely reach the space she wants, she doesn’t have the same freedom when it comes to time.
Careful consideration reveals this to be reasonable. If Little Bowl could do this, it would mean she could freely traverse the past and future of the Doomsday Era. Then, there would be no need for the wandering soul to pay the price of his life. She could directly traverse to the time before the wandering soul took the Three-Life Stone Powder to meet me, or even wait at my "landing point" before I crossed into the Doomsday Era, so I’d see her face the moment I opened my eyes.
Yet, reality is that she hadn’t done any of that.
Before dying, the reason the wandering soul chose to let Tan Xiang come to this survivor gathering place alone was likely to avoid us entering the timeframe where Little Bowl exists.
The wandering soul could only judge based on his memory that Tan Xiang alone could enter that time but couldn’t determine if it would be still possible when we came together. The mechanism of random transmission operates like a black box, and adding more people might introduce new variables, possibly causing us to miss Little Bowl.
Little Bowl and I checked around this ruined town, then discovered some skeletal remains beneath one of the ruins.
The causes of death were varied—some died from blunt force, others from sharp weapons, some were burned or electrocuted, etc. Although it’s unclear who the assailant was, one thing is certain: the destruction of this survivor gathering place, and the death of these people, were not caused by a monster but by another group of humans.
"These people... some were originally part of the group staying in this survivor gathering place, while others were strangers." Little Bowl made an assessment.
Hearing this, I reexamined the skeletal remains to see if Tan Xiang was among them. Naturally, it was unlikely for Tan Xiang to die in a place . I didn’t find his body.
"What should we do? Although it’s not clear who destroyed this survivor gathering place, we can’t gather information on the Tai Sui Army’s location from the survivors here," I said. "Why not exit this place first, then re-enter, and see if we can randomly enter the timeframe when they were still alive?"
"That’s not possible," Little Bowl shook her head. "It might be feasible for other survivors, but it’s very difficult for us. Take myself as an example; the reason I can choose my destination in the Doomsday Era is because I can use the power of Right Positioning Heavenly Phenomena to gain the shelter of the orderliness remaining from the chaotic space-time.
"Thanks to this, I won’t encounter ’catastrophic selves from other time periods’ out of nowhere, nor will I be randomly transported to places where time-space is shattered to the extent that life cannot exist in them.
"However, this orderliness is both a protection and a constraint. After entering a place, subsequent entries can only lead to its future, not randomly into its past.
"Brother Zhuang Cheng has a similar order inclination. Haven’t you re-established your own timeline? Combined with your gradually recovering Fatian Xiangdi, I can sense you unconsciously suppressing the time-space around you, making it manifest with the order congruent with your subjective consciousness... and the result is the same as with me.
"Soon, you’ll be able to travel within the Doomsday Era to the places you wish to go, just like I can. Conversely, you will be unable to reach ’the places you subconsciously think you can’t reach.’"
It sounds similar to how mana works.
Based on reasoning and intellect to manipulate mana allows for complex and elaborate effects but also binds one to the cause-and-effect logic system they abide by, unable to perform magic beyond their rational range. In contrast, some madmen and monsters who forsake reason can execute miracles that are primitive yet so chaotic that they’re indescribable.
Little Bowl and I have already overcome some of the risks and troubles brought by the Doomsday Era, yet we cannot enjoy some conveniences that arise from it.
Is this where the clues end? Considering that 扫帚 star power is temporarily suppressed by the force of good fortune, perhaps I can’t rely solely on luck to further the situation.
"Brother Zhuang Cheng, didn’t you ask me how I used to gather intelligence?" Little Bowl looked at the skeletal remains on the ground. "Although the opportunity for me to prove myself isn’t quite what I imagined, it fits perfectly here."