Possibility

“You really have a twisted sense of humor.”

The familiar space filled with gray mist came into view.

Ning Yu stood once again on the azure lake, calmly gazing at Moon Princess, who looked exactly like her.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

Moon Princess wore a puzzled expression as she looked at Ning Yu, who had just questioned her.

“Is it fun to manipulate and alter someone else’s memories like this?”

Ning Yu continued to press her.

“No, I think you’ve misunderstood.”

Moon Princess suddenly understood and let out a soft laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. She then extended her arm and gently waved it through the air.

A line was drawn with her finger, and like a branch, it began to split, continuing to expand further.

Soon, it formed a vast pattern stretching from left to right, with countless branches in between.

Ning Yu was utterly confused.

Moon Princess pointed to a spot on the pattern and said,

“You returned from here.”

There was a green light flickering at that spot, which disappeared the moment Ning Yu glanced at it.

“What is this?”

She didn’t understand Moon Princess’s meaning.

“It’s infinite possibilities.”

Moon Princess floated up, her pure white dress swaying with the movement. The golden spiral pattern on her forehead began to glow.

In an instant, Ning Yu saw the light point magnified infinitely before her eyes:

In this possibility, she had grown up in a happy family, well taken care of, with healthy parents and a grandmother who didn’t have to scavenge for a living.

In this timeline, she hadn’t become a cold-blooded killing machine but had instead lived an ordinary life, reaching the end of her days.

It was a complete and fulfilling life.

“You see, humans are bound by language, creatures locked onto a timeline.”

Moon Princess began to explain.

“What does this have to do with language?”

Ning Yu was still puzzled.

“All your language, including the words I’m speaking to you now, carries a linear relationship.”

Moon Princess plucked a straight, unbranched line from the pattern and showed it to Ning Yu.

“Linear relationship?”

Ning Yu stared at the line in her hand, seeking more details.

“Cause and effect.”

“When light shines from the surface into the water, it refracts.”

“In your language, this implies a cause-and-effect relationship.”

“You can only comprehend linear thinking, so to you, light has a temporal quality—it hits the water, the medium changes, and thus it refracts.”

“This is the shackle of language and time on you—you can’t escape cause and effect, you can’t escape linearity.”

“But to higher beings, it’s like a painting, neither left to right nor right to left, neither cause to effect nor effect to cause.”

Moon Princess twisted the line representing possibility into a circle.

“It has no direction; it’s simply a fact.”

“Light always chooses the shortest path, or the most beautiful path, to manifest.”

“In this way of thinking, the past and the future coexist, and causality ceases to exist.”

The line composed of the past and future began to stretch again in Moon Princess’s hand, branching out into many directions.

Ning Yu was completely lost, throwing up her hands in defeat.

“Can’t you explain it in a way I can understand?”

“Fine.”

Moon Princess gently shook her head.

“In this universe, there are countless parallel worlds. You’ve just returned from one of them.”

“If you hadn’t come back on your own, I would have gone to retrieve you.”

Ning Yu raised an eyebrow, finally understanding.

“So I’m that important? I had no idea.”

“You’ve surprised me. I’m curious about the force that drove you to return here from that state.”

Moon Princess scrutinized Ning Yu, making her feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Ning Yu chuckled and shrugged, saying,

“So there are things even you don’t know.”

“Theoretically, no, but to communicate with you, I must have limitations. You must understand: omniscience and free will are always in conflict.”

Moon Princess began speaking in terms that were hard to grasp again.

“Have you seen *Interstellar*?”

Ning Yu brought up the name of a movie.

“I’m not interested in your artistic creations. That’s your freedom.”

Moon Princess shook her head without hesitation, clearly uninterested.

“Then you’ll never understand.”

Ning Yu pursed her lips, then took a deep breath and straightened up.

“Let’s get back to business.”

She pointed at herself and asked,

“Do I still have a chance?”

Hearing Ning Yu’s stiff tone, Moon Princess suddenly laughed softly:

“You’re already mimicking lines so quickly?”

Ning Yu narrowed her eyes at Moon Princess, feeling like she was starting to act a bit cheeky:

“You said you don’t watch human art, didn’t you?”

Moon Princess ignored Ning Yu’s question and raised her hand to enlarge a section of the branching pattern.

This enlarged section was strange—one branch split into countless sub-branches, arranged parallel to each other, but none of them had any continuation.

It seemed like it would keep expanding endlessly.

“What’s going on here?”

Ning Yu noticed that this part of the pattern was clearly different from the rest.

If this truly represented different possibilities of the future, then the possibilities starting from this branch seemed overwhelmingly numerous.

“This is the problem.”

“Originally, this was where I needed to intervene.”

Moon Princess flipped through all the parallel branches, and what Ning Yu had seen was just a small section.

As Moon Princess’s fingers kept scrolling, the number of branches far exceeded what was visible on the surface.

“Now, a little troublemaker has caused some issues.”

It seemed there were too many branches, and Moon Princess grew tired of scrolling.

“Based on what you just said, if the past and future are all within your knowledge, why would you need me? Couldn’t you just wave your hand and fix it?”

Ning Yu seemed to have found a logical flaw.

“Yes and no. To me, this is a painting that must be completed.”

Moon Princess placed the countless branches in front of Ning Yu.

“Now, this painting has a small problem, and you are the brush necessary to complete it.”

“I can’t directly paint it myself. It’s a bit hard to explain.”

“In a way, you were created by the restraining force. Only you can become this brush. I’m merely an observer at best.”

Moon Princess tapped on the topmost branch and placed it in front of Ning Yu.

“Rather than listening to my ramblings, I think you might be more interested in this.”

The golden spiral on her forehead glowed, and the first of all the parallel branches unfolded like a scroll before Ning Yu.

The moment Ning Yu saw the image, she froze:

The entire Ark Base was submerged in a sea of corpses. The towering Wrath was destroying buildings, while The Glutton leapt around, harvesting survivors.

In the sky sat the familiar, loathsome face—Chen Xing.

Both she and Shen Qianqian lay in pools of blood, while Shen Yiyue knelt helplessly between them.