Chapter 654: Chapter 299: Major Family Events III: Night of the Witch (Part 14)_4

Ke Mingye watched the scene until the screen went black before shifting his gaze away.

“What are you trying to convey?” he asked.

“You’ve tried many times before, each time you attempted to fulfill the demands of the spark, but failed… every single time, you were unable to eradicate the Superhuman, and every time, right before the final countdown ended, you would hold the spark and travel back to where the story began,” the boy in the hospital gown said slowly, a smile on the face of the girl behind him.

The spark?

Ke Mingye suddenly recalled the boy he saw on the subway window that day, who also murmured “the spark.”

He said hoarsely: “I don’t understand…”

Disregarding his capacity for comprehension, the boy in the hospital gown continued, “Every time you time travel with the spark, you enter a new world line. And with each jump, certain people quietly disappear in this world line, erased from history… rather, they never existed to begin with. Ever heard of ‘the butterfly effect’? Sometimes, just being one step late, one breath late, can alter a tiny course of development, and it’s not them who appear in this world, it’s someone else.”

After a pause, he continued: “Just like Lan Ou, due to various reasons, was not able to become a Superhero, or… Magical Girl Xiaohongmao had always stayed in that mountain village; she died there, buried in the soil, rather than by chance being taken by Xizi Yue back to the Alliance.

“And, at the very end, those who disappear during the fluctuations of the world lines… can only exist in your memory. You are in utter despair, but you cannot defy the adjustments and changes to the world lines, merely watching as those familiar to you vanish, and accepting this fact.”

Ke Mingye’s brain nearly crashed.

Gathering his thoughts and after a long silence, he started speaking with a voice filled with skepticism, “So… what you mean is, Lan Ou and Xiaohongmao, they are actually people who truly existed in some world line I’ve experienced before?”

“Exactly.”

At this point, the boy in the hospital gown paused briefly and flipped open the book in his hands.

“The first time you time travelled, you found your best friend–the Superhero ‘Lan Ou’ disappeared from the world, he and his parents died in a car accident… In the original world, he should have survived that accident, awakened the ability to swap places, but due to the shift in the world line, the operation failed and he was buried in the soil, and thus there was never a ‘Lan Ou’ in the world;”

“The second time you time travelled, you found Magical Girl Xiaohongmao, also known as You Minglu, had already died of illness in that damp and dark mountain village before Xizi Yue could chance upon her talent; she never took a step out of there and so her dream of becoming a magical girl remained unfulfilled;”

“The third time jump, you found the weak villain who was close to you, who often provided you with information, and even infiltrated the Clock Customer Alliance for you–‘Dice Monster’ was gone. You missed this slightly love-starved monster, but he never showed up in Huanjing again, never bothered you with fun information. Later you discovered that Dice Monster had already died; in this timeline, he was abused by his parents and hung himself. Thus, he never became ‘Dice Monster’, just a corpse forgotten in the old times.”

At this point, the voice of the boy in the hospital gown stopped, and instead, the thought sketch displayed an image.

[In the live stream of a blogger called ‘Timekeeper’, a shadowy figure streaming with dim light rays lies on the hospital bed, awaiting dissection. Timekeeper starts the stream and says to the screen that he wants someone named ‘Ke Mingye’ to watch this so that he might spare Dice Monster.]

[Ke Mingye connected to the live stream of Timekeeper, his face revealed to all netizens.]

[Timekeeper said, “Perfect… I just want to see your expression.” With that, he pressed on the clock, and half a second later, Dice Monster’s two arms were already hanging on the floor, with blood spurting in all directions, messily staining the whole operation room.]

[Before the final dissection, Dice Monster was lying weakly on the hospital bed, and since both arms had fallen to the floor, he could only lift the corners of his blood-stained mouth, giving a weak smile to the screen, a smile as always.]

[“Isn’t this our Mr. Ke Mingye… Why the sad face, oh… are you mourning the death of a minor villain? What’s that… you say I’ve never done anything bad, that’s really embarrassing.”]

[“Maybe you need… a new source of information. Someone will collaborate with you; you have a knack for this. It was just my failure this time; you shouldn’t have answered this call… I’m a bit tired, just a bit tired.”]

[“Good night… Mr. Ke Mingye, oh, let’s not be so serious, give us a smile, the monster loves to see others smile.”]

The thought sketch froze on the monster’s grinning face, its hollow eyes reflecting a sad, pale countenance.

Looking at this, Ke Mingye was already unable to speak.