Chapter 102
The man’s features were clear, his expression gentle, even more vivid than the image he had left in the video.
The chains wrapping around him added a broken, tragic beauty.
Seeing him in this place was even more shocking than learning that Shu Ci’s biological parents were Lu Wei and Song Zhiyuan. It inexplicably gave one the urge to kneel and call him ‘Dad’.
“You… you’re not dead?” Shu Ci raised his hand to touch him, but the chains suddenly tightened, obstructing his approach.
Lu Wanqing pulled him back worriedly, looking Shu Changze up and down, an absurd guess forming in his heart—
“Are you, like Zhao Qinfeng, also not human?”
Shu Changze’s eyelashes fluttered in the golden light, and he rolled his eyes distinctly, saying to Shu Ci, “What kind of partner did you find? He even curses his father-in-law.”
Shu Ci couldn’t stand to hear that. Who fit his image of the perfect partner better than Lu Wanqing?
He walked a circle around the chaotic golden light. “So, are you human or not?”
Shu Changze: “…”
The man slowly stood up from the chaos, his hands resting casually on the chains. The contact surface emitted crackling sounds.
Both of them keenly sensed that the berserk unidentified creatures outside the cave seemed to have quieted down.
After the shaking subsided, Shu Changze finally focused his gaze on the two of them. “If you’re talking about raising you—I mean the father of this shell of yours, he can tentatively count as human. I… indeed am not.”
Shu Ci and Lu Wanqing exchanged glances.
Shu Changze actually knew he was just a soul residing in this body and didn’t belong to this world.
“No need to be surprised. I said I picked you. You came to this world because of me, so of course I know.”
Shu Changze laughed briskly. Golden fragments trembled around him, falling with a rustle.
“I am a consciousness born from the origin of this world. I have no image, no torso. I am the wind and rain, the mountains and rivers, the rivers and seas. I am the fluctuation of air when pheromones are released, and the wisp of green smoke after death dissipates.”
Shu Ci was stunned, then excitement leaped into his eyes.
“So, just as I thought, this world was originally a real existence, not some book world created by humans, right?”
Shu Changze’s expression softened. “Correct. This world was originally complete and independent, with its unique gender classification and corresponding social and natural laws.”
“But in a certain instant, our world was spied upon by someone from another world.”
That person thought she had a dream. The dream was seen as a source of inspiration. After waking up, she wrote down the contents of the dream furiously.
Little did she know, from the moment she put pen to paper, everyone in this world lost their autonomy.
“It was the book I read,” Shu Ci said. “In other words, your world was recorded in the form of text in another dimension, my world.”
“And so it—”
Shu Changze shook the iron chains weighing down his hand, looking disgusted. “The guy you call the Plot Consciousness was born.”
Golden light wound around him, reflecting the deep resentment in his eyes.
“It placed itself above me, attempting to seal the operation of the entire world. Everything happened too fast; I didn’t even have time to react.”
The world that originally ran autonomously was reduced to a world-building background in a dimension of another world.
All characters became “wind-up dolls.” They served the plot, and logic served the “sadomasochistic deep love” between “Gu Lanzhu” and “Shu Ci.”
“…” The corners of Shu Ci’s mouth twitched inappropriately.
Perhaps he should blame that serialized author for being too hardworking; besides the fixed updates, there were irregular bonus chapters every day.
The richer and fuller the plot, the more the Plot Consciousness expanded, enough to imprison the world’s Original Consciousness.
“It thinks itself the ruler of this world, enjoying everything dominated by it. It doesn’t know that from the moment it was born, this world no longer had a future!”
Shu Changze looked at Lu Wanqing and said earnestly, “No one understands that feeling better than you.”
This world had long since lost time and a future. At the end of the story, the hands of the clock would be dialed back to the original position.
“You knew?” Lu Wanqing asked in surprise.
“I have always known. My child, you are the corner it missed, not completely reset. The moment you developed self-awareness, both the World Origin and I could sense it.”
The world was him, and he was the world.
All living things were his children. He could see every smile and hear every cry.
Ever since his children turned into marionettes, he could no longer feel any laughter or joy.
“I wanted to do something, but its suppression was too strong. I could only use a tiny amount of power to probe when it wasn’t paying attention.”
This world had no future, but at least he could reach the past.
“Shu Changze” was his attempt.
Just like Zhao Qinfeng, Shu Changze was merely an identity he borrowed, an avatar molded for this World Origin Consciousness.
“But having a fixed identity meant giving up a part of the omniscience and omnipotence of the World Consciousness, just as it couldn’t know your movements like the back of its hand when acting as Zhao Qinfeng.”
Even so, Shu Changze’s mind retained a fixed command: to explore the weakness of the Plot Consciousness.
“Pheromone Disorder Syndrome,” Shu Ci followed up. “That was the direction you found.”
“Correct. Dragon Spine Island was the last message I left.”
Shu Ci hurriedly said, “They have already dissected according to the research materials you left behind and found some unstable structure in the glands.”
“The unstable structure is the proof of the Plot Consciousness’s existence,” Shu Changze sighed lightly. “I was very close to the answer back then, but I accidentally exposed myself.”
Discovered by it and driven to extinction, he didn’t dare easily publish the investigation results and provoke it to bring any more misfortune to the world, so he had to give up this body.
If not for that, he could have accompanied this child for a few more years. Meeting them in this form now was partly to make up for his regrets.
As the consciousness of the World Origin, he loved every child and had too many regrets, but it was hard for him to selfishly resolve regrets for himself.
The World Consciousness shouldn’t have any biased emotions, so today was a rare opportunity for him to speak his mind.
Lu Wanqing listened silently, nodding slightly.
He had made no progress regarding Shu Changze’s bizarre death; it turned out it was all due to the forceful cover-up by the Plot Consciousness.
“Pheromones are a characteristic of humans in our world. As an alien Plot Consciousness, it doesn’t possess enough physiological knowledge to understand the structure and function within.”
Shu Changze shifted to a comfortable position leaning on the chains, speaking slowly and methodically, though the chains cut red marks into his palms.
“For the sake of the plot, settings regarding the absolute dominance of Alphas were forcibly added. Many glands that should have been in an evolving and active state were forcibly suppressed.”
A golden figure rose from his palm, looking like a model used by a teacher in biology class.
“I’ve been watching the research progress of your two junior fellow students. Honestly, I’m very gratified that they could reach this step without any preconceived hints. They are really great.
“Before Li Yi was expelled, he had indeed touched the edge. He said the subjective consciousness of patients with Disorder Syndrome was resisting the instinct to reproduce. Not entirely correct—they were resisting the settings reinforced by the Plot Consciousness.
“The pheromone match rate created by those Alphas to consolidate their bloodlines suited its wishes perfectly. It could be said that the two-way effect of their ambition and the plot influenced the ideology of the entire world together.”
“Yi Xingshui used the research materials I left behind to conduct patient interviews, right? What do you think that sense of déjà vu felt by those patients is?”
Shu Changze pointed a finger, and the golden figure in his palm drifted leisurely in front of Shu Ci.
Shu Ci was silent for a moment, then said, “The plot.”
“They are also experiencing Lu Wanqing’s resets, only they don’t have his clear cognition, thinking they are dreaming.”
The figure exploded into a firework in front of him, as if congratulating him on the correct answer.
“In fact, children with Disorder Syndrome are all on the verge of awakening self-awareness. But just like imprisoning me, it uses a structural segment to inhibit their awakening. The glands are affected, and trying to break through the imprisonment results in various symptom expressions.”
In other words, Disorder Syndrome was the product of this world, and the children of this world, saving themselves.
Shu Ci raised his hand and touched his gland.
He suddenly remembered the plot in the original book where the original host willingly exchanged glands with the white moonlight for Gu Lanzhu.
Bai Yue didn’t follow the plot this time and went offline very early.
Yu Xingxing didn’t aid the tyrant anymore either.
But was that gland exchange really to demonstrate a great sadomasochistic love? Wasn’t it because the plot feared the protagonist’s self-awareness awakening and wanted to strangle all possibilities in the cradle?
Unlike Lu Wanqing, a Disorder Syndrome patient participating in the main plot at close range, it might be hard for others to realize their own awakening.
His cyan irises reflected Lu Wanqing’s sculpturesque, upright profile as he asked softly, “Lu Wanqing has no pheromone scent. Did he dodge the unstable structure planted in the gland by the Disorder Syndrome, and that’s why he could awaken self-awareness?”
Shu Changze looked fixedly at Lu Wanqing’s gland.
The keen gaze from the World Origin seemed able to see through to the deepest structure. Then, he nodded slowly.
More accurately, he didn’t “dodge” it, but his powerful will and vitality allowed his gland to constantly evolve within the confinement of the plot.
Among tens of thousands of people, there was only one Lu Wanqing.
“Li Yi.” Lu Wanqing met Shu Changze’s gaze and suddenly spoke. “He achieved breakthrough results but was expelled from the research center, and later his home was burglarized. Was that also the Plot Consciousness’s doing?”
“Because that is the secret of its existence; it cannot be discovered.”
Lu Wanqing looked grave. The Plot Consciousness wanted to silence them. Fortunately, he and Shu Ci had sent Li Yi and his junior sister to the island in advance.
“Ah, speaking of this.”
Shu Changze snapped his fingers, and two black crystals condensed in the golden chaos.
Shu Ci hurriedly tugged at Lu Wanqing.
Wasn’t this the invaluable crystal extract Lu Wanqing had mentioned? Li Yi had received an anonymous letter telling him to bring this to find Shu Ci!
“It was you guiding us all along!” He realized.
Lu Wanqing’s eyelid twitched. He rubbed his forehead in thought for a moment before speaking. “I investigated those two crystals of unknown origin. The clues were mixed with truth and falsehoods, making it hard to trace the source.”
So that was it.
As the origin of the world, how could the traces it wanted to hide be easily discovered by them?
The one used as a positioning marker when inheriting Dragon Spine Island was to ensure the person he chose could land smoothly and get the materials he left behind.
The one given to Li Yi was to save an innocent researcher who was approaching the truth and about to be persecuted by the plot.
“After leaving Shu Changze’s body, its suppression of me became more severe. I couldn’t do anything else but wait here, waiting for a certain fruit I planted in the past to sprout.”
Shu Changze looked at Shu Ci. “The shipwreck that year was originally your destined ending, but as you sank into the sea, I saw another world.”
The seawater submerged the infant, but his breathing didn’t stop immediately.
The World Consciousness, incarnated as seawater, felt the link to another world during his fall.
Different from the fierce confinement of being directly written into the text, it was like watching a movie; amidst the shimmering waves, he saw a child from another world.
He was abandoned in the torrential rain, walking forward all alone.
His body was so fragile, yet his will was incredibly tenacious.
Live… live…
The boy shivered in the rain, teeth chattering, but the cry in his heart was so loud.
He couldn’t influence the laws of birth and death in this world, yet the infant named Shu Ci miraculously survived in the waves.
Perhaps that infant had already passed away.
What kept this body alive was actually the life force from another world.
“At that time, Shu Changze’s identity had already been detected by the institute. During the escape, I let the waves send you to Dragon Spine Island, where… I adopted you.”
Shu Changze raised his hand, seeming to want to pat his head through the chaos.
“You might have long forgotten the dreams of your youth. In fact, every time you dreamed, you were experiencing a period of life in this world.”
Shu Ci moved his lips. “Like logging in and out of a game?”
No wonder…
No wonder Shen Ti said he hadn’t changed much from when he was a child.
“Your arrival was not accidental. Only you can break the game, change the trajectory. And I have been calling for help to you all along.”
This world had been crying for help within its confinement.
Wind, frost, rain, snow, joys, and sorrows. All the stagnant time, the future that no longer existed—the moment he opened that book, they welcomed their dawn.
