"Why did you come here? I remember you were at Shenhua asking for that wine, weren’t you?"
Luo Enlaita frowned in confusion, looking at Gitalien. Gitalien pouted and said discontentedly,
"How can you even say that? What on earth is going on here? What are you all trying to do?"
Luo Enlaita looked at Gitalien somewhat puzzled, his hands behind his back. Gitalien, with his back to Luo Enlaita, said discontentedly,
"Forget it, do whatever you want to do, just get me out of here first."
"It’s not possible for the time being."
"How is that possible!"
Gitalien turned around, looking at Luo Enlaita in disbelief. Locking eyes with Gitalien, Luo Enlaita said unflinchingly,
"This place is under the influence of a special artifact, and..."
Seeing Luo Enlaita surveying her with those deep blue radiant eyes, the woman tightened her clothes and took out a strange device, saying warily,
"What are you trying to do?!"
"It seems to be related to Li En, but it’s currently impossible to confirm if it’s due to the influence of a false World Clock shard. I need your help."
Understanding that Luo Enlaita was referring to herself, Gitalien asked somewhat strangely,
"Li En? Who is that? A human? When have you ever been so kind? Wait a minute... I seem to have heard that name somewhere..."
"A person who had long since perished in the river of time? But... something feels off."
Feng Yuan rubbed his chin, puzzled, while Dou Yanlan looked towards him and asked,
"His appearance here, did the shard bring him? Or..."
"The false World Clock shard probably doesn’t have that ability. It’s not easy to approach the true present; the power that guards the present is the strongest, but..."
Feng Yuan looked at Gladys with an indescribable expression. At this time, she wasn’t doing those somewhat odd actions but was deep in thought, seemingly pondering something.
Qi Chen sneakily glanced at Granny Mianlan and then whispered in Feng Yuan’s ear,
"Is there really no way to find him?"
"It’s not that it’s entirely impossible, just..."
"That requires not just a great deal of effort but also a bit of luck, otherwise, it is indeed hopeless. After all, it’s not like the real world where there are various powers at your disposal; it’s nearly impossible to use powers other than time on the river of time."
"Is it that difficult..."
"It’s not impossible, just..."
Shaking his head, Feng Yuan didn’t say much more. Granny Mianlan had finally convinced Shen Mingxin to pick up her courage again, and looking to Feng Yuan, she asked earnestly,
"Feng Yuan... Granny wants to ask you, is there really... not a single way?"
Sighing, Feng Yuan said helplessly,
"There are ways to enter the river of time, but it’s not guaranteed to find a person. The river of time doesn’t just have points from the past to the present; it also includes countless abandoned possibilities."
"Although we will not get lost within, to find a person in a short time is almost very difficult, and we can’t let someone stay in the river of time for too long."
"Since Fate’s Guidance has led us to meet here, perhaps we will have a chance~"
Pinching a card, Gladys said with a smile. However, a shadow flitted through her eyes; the reply from fate didn’t seem very positive... She suddenly had a bad premonition. If they really pursued the matter, it might very well..."
"Use the method of space-time tracking."
Upon hearing the voice, Feng Yuan turned his head to look at Luo Enlaita with surprise and said,
"You brought Gitalien here?"
With her arms crossed in front of her, Gitalien looked upset. The woman had not noticed Feng Yuan’s reference but was completely captivated by Shen Mingxin. Li Gui turned in surprise at the newcomer and said,
"Sister?! How did you come here?!"
"You still have the nerve to bring that up! Didn’t you say you’d notify me immediately if there was relevant information? If I hadn’t been here doing the experiment myself, were you planning to act as if nothing happened?!"
Covering his ears, Li Gui looked at the woman with a grievance and said,
"Sis! How could I notify you? This all happened suddenly, and right now I can’t contact the outside world."
"You didn’t cause this?"
The woman glared at Li Gui, took out a device, and started fiddling with it nonchalantly. Feng Yuan looked at the woman somewhat bemusedly at Lorraine Tower and said,
"What’s happening here? How did it bring a person inside?"
"What do you mean ’I brought a person inside’? I didn’t want any part of these nonsensical events, all this babble! I was dragged in by her! If she hadn’t insisted on barging in here, how could I have been pulled in by that suddenly spreading wave?!"
Gitalien complained with resentment. Feng Yuan, still somewhat puzzled, said,
"Yes! The peripheral boundary is still expanding and fluttering, I had set up a Spatial Barrier, but I never imagined its power could still pull in beings at the edge of the barrier’s rollback!"
"It’s still expanding... Eclipse, go outside and check the situation, if necessary, restrict the spread of the chaotic time flow, take care not to harm anyone."
Feng Yuan, grasping the dark Ancient Book and looking somewhat puzzled, instructed Eclipse in the air, and with an eerie dragon’s roar, Eclipse flew toward the perimeter. Seeing this, Gitalien said discontentedly,
"Can’t you let it take me out with it?"
"You stay here, I need your help with something."
Lorraine Tower glanced at Gitalien and said calmly, and with a pout, Gitalien said somewhat dissatisfied,
"Always needing my help with something..."
"You work on space localization, I’ll handle the time aspect, let’s find him quickly so we can go back to rest sooner."
Lorraine Tower glanced at Gitalien and continued, looking around Gitalien said with irritation,
"What space are you asking me to localize? There are so many layers of space here, just in the reality alone there are more than two, how am I supposed to locate it?"
"Which layer of space did Li En appear in?"
Lorraine Tower said, stretching out her right hand with the palm facing upward where a sky-blue flame burned quietly, an image of a man leading Shen Mingxin at the front door of a large residence appeared. In the image, Shen Mingxin looked so happy, leaning against the man and pointing at the residence, seemingly talking about something.
"This is... the first time he brought me here... back then, I was looking forward to our future life together... he..."
Shen Mingxin spoke softly, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably. Seeing the man assisting a younger Shen Mingxin, Dou Yanlan said with some confusion,
"Is this an image from the past? How is it useful?"
"To continuously obtain the target’s relevant information and use their connection to locate the entity involved? Though it’s not impossible, it seems inefficient..."
"You know about this?"
Agunas looked at Feng Yuan with surprise. Nodding, Feng Yuan said,
"This method truly can find someone in the river of time, but there’s a problem—you don’t know if the image is the present or just one of countless possibilities."
Agunas fell silent. It was a means of the river of time to protect itself, incorporating countless possible futures. Those who brazenly stormed into the river of time could easily be deceived by those countless false possibilities, mistaking them for true history. But those possibilities had no actual past or future connected to them and regardless of any alterations, they would not affect the present.
The fake World Clock had a rather special ability, it could intuitively discern which was false and which was real. Hence, Feng Yuan surmised that the shard could indeed be a piece of the fake World Clock. Since there weren’t many devices with a similar capability. And the only one that had surfaced in this world thus far was that one.
"Once a false history is mixed in, the entire tracking will fail. The process of tracking requires continuous analysis and elimination. Any slight suspicion must be addressed and dealt with; otherwise, that lead must be abandoned."
"This is exhausting, and currently, I am incapable of doing this. Just like what they are doing now, it requires the joint authority of time and space from both aspects to verify. Even so, I don’t know if false leads will ultimately slip through."
Shrugging, Feng Yuan explained helplessly. It was too tiring and not worth it—any false lead could taint the truth found earlier, rendering the final tracking result incorrect, placing tremendous pressure on the user.