"My obsession is to help you and Sister Mazao lead a happy life, and I will not give up on this. However, even if this obsession is fulfilled, I probably won’t disappear immediately," Little Bowl said. "Because my original setting is to help Zhu Shi become happy. If helping Sister Mazao is my acquired mission, then helping Zhu Shi is my innate mission. This obsession likely still resides at the core of my soul.
"Otherwise, during the time when I had just met Sister Mazao, before I had the chance to develop the thought of ’wanting to help her,’ I should have vanished without a trace."
"Then..." I followed up with a question, "Are you now willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that innate mission?"
"...I don’t know," Little Bowl said ambiguously. "Although I have completely recovered my memory now, I am neither Zhu Jiu nor Zhu Shi. The evidence is when, in the Void Realm, Brother Zhuang Cheng asked me about these two names, I couldn’t fully identify with or resonate with them...
"However, I don’t plan to sever ties with Zhu Jiu and Zhu Shi. I am a spiritual body born from their—the beautiful dream of mother and daughter, existing to fulfill their dreams, which is undeniable.
"So... I’ll decide specifically after I meet Zhu Shi.
"I have a feeling that once I see her face, touch her body, and converse with her, I will be able to reach a conclusion."
Although she said she would make her decision later, it seemed like she intended to also complete her innate mission.
Ghosts in ancient tales, aware that fulfilling their obsession means their disappearance, would still unhesitatingly achieve their obsession.
They exist with a fundamentally different spiritual logic from humans; fulfilling their mission is their purpose of existence.
At the last moment, hesitation and unease appeared on Little Bowl’s face.
Looking at the gray steps in front of her, she seemed to harbor a fear of them, hence she hadn’t urged me to move forward nor taken any action herself.
I knew precisely what made Little Bowl uneasy. In fact, hearing about her true origins from her, I immediately thought of the massive landmine within.
The spiritual body that is Little Bowl can be explained as an "individual generated from Zhu Jiu as a living sacrifice," or as an "entity living in place of Zhu Jiu." Even though Little Bowl harbors no subjective malice in this, and Zhu Jiu voluntarily surrendered her existence to her daughter’s Dream Avatar, how would Zhu Shi and Mr. Zhu view this? Would they see Little Bowl as an "abnormality occupying Zhu Jiu’s existence"?
Suddenly, I remembered Zhu Jiu’s physical body existing in the real world. Despite Little Bowl’s existence being established, that body showed no signs of death or decay, as if indicating that Zhu Jiu’s roaming soul still lived.
Moreover, there were no cases of unexplained deaths among the soul-loss patients in the real world. Previously, Luo Mountain speculated that the reason these bodies didn’t die from losing their souls was due to a mysterious connection with souls existing elsewhere. However, those souls should have suffered mass extinction in the Post-mortem World, so why was there no confirmation of unexplained body deaths in the real world?
I tried throwing this question to No. 7. Though No. 7 seemed to not fully comprehend our prior discussion, they still responded, "I speculate, this is because the chaos of time in the Post-mortem World causes the physical bodies of soul-loss patients to also experience chaos in their mysterious connections checking the soul’s survival state.
"Even though many souls of soul-loss patients have vanished in the Post-mortem World, from the body’s perspective, the times when the soul has ’already vanished’ and ’still survives’ exist concurrently."
Is it like the Wandering Soul and Tan Xiang then? I attempted to make a conjecture. The Wandering Soul is dead, but Tan Xiang is still alive, and ultimately, the Wandering Soul and Tan Xiang are the same soul-loss patient. If I were this person’s body, I would also find it difficult to assert definitively whether my soul had indeed vanished.
Perhaps those bodies could never comprehend the nature of this "neither alive nor dead" state, and can only judge it as "half-alive and half-dead." At least it’s not truly dead, so the body feels it should continue living—though the reality might involve more specialized details, that’s the only non-specialized explanation I can conceive at the moment.
Consequently, I reached a possible conclusion: "In other words... ’Zhu Jiu’s still existing time’ also exists in the Post-mortem World?"
"Although I don’t know what you were discussing earlier, I must remind you, the Divine Seal Fragment possesses a unique timeline nature, and we bound to the Divine Seal Fragment also trait," No. 7 said. "In the Post-mortem World, we Void Envoys will not encounter ourselves from other timelines, neither past nor future selves, nor any other chaotic possibilities of the self, or as predecessors or prototypes; we won’t encounter them.
"Also, to a certain extent, human gods exceeding time and space possess similar traits.
"So if we hypothetically encounter something ’like another timeline of ourselves,’ it is a creation simulated by some force, similar to the Doomsday Demon."
Following this logic, rescuing Zhu Jiu through the phenomenon of chaotic time in the Post-mortem World would be impossible.
Once Little Bowl opens the wooden cover above to reach the Living World, the physical body of Zhu Jiu situated elsewhere might detect Little Bowl’s soul through mysterious connections, resulting in the judgment of "Zhu Jiu has died," hence completely falling into death.
However, has Zhu Jiu truly died? I noticed this suspicious point. From other perspectives, Zhu Jiu may still have not died. Although she has become material for Little Bowl, her soul’s component hasn’t vanished, and can be viewed as being "active in another structure." This is akin to dismantling and reassembling a building block toy into a different form; though the original toy is no longer visible, can it truly be defined as literally "disappeared"?
If it’s indefinable, and not even Zhu Jiu’s body determines that Zhu Jiu’s soul still lives once Little Bowl reaches the Living World, that might indicate an existing method to reconstruct Zhu Jiu’s soul. Even now, on my knowledge level, I can conceptualize at least two ways to do it.
But doing so would indubitably erase Little Bowl, who occupies Zhu Jiu’s existence now. I would never do that, how would Zhu Shi and Changan view this matter?
This is basically a variant of the trolley dilemma.
No matter the situation, not taking this step would yield no answers. Even if held back by concerns that Zhu Jiu’s physical vessel might die, it’d merely delay an inescapable problem. I looked at Little Bowl, reaching my hand out to her. She seemed still struggling with her hesitation and unease. Anything I could think of, she undoubtedly could too, yet emotional conflict isn’t easily soothed through rationale.
"Let’s go together, Little Bowl," I said. "I’m always beside you."
Little Bowl seemed to be striving to calm her emotions, then raised her hand to hold mine.
"Then, farewell for now," No. 7 said.
Under No. 7’s watchful farewell, we ascended the gray steps, arrived under the wooden cover. I raised my hand, pushed open the wooden cover, and holding Little Bowl’s hand, proceeded step by step to the upper floor.
The bright sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling window, illuminating my body, while lively urban noise reverberated outside.
Little Bowl and I arrived at the fifteen-floor apartment Changan had rented in the past.
We returned to the Living World.
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