On the top of a ten thousand-meter mountain peak, in the huge square in front of the Dragon Palace at dusk, Cheng Lin held the hilt of the He sword, hearing the other party's greetings in his ears, but his eyes suddenly tightened.
Shi Shengcun!
No, to be precise, it should be the white-haired "Shi Shengcun" he saw from a distance in the last deduction!
Why is he here?
At this moment, many thoughts came to Cheng Lin's mind.
Even, for a moment, he began to suspect that he was still in a deduction world, not reality.
However, in a flash, he realized that this was an illusion - this place was indeed in reality, and the white-haired guy in front of him was not an illusion.
"You don't have to be nervous. I have no ill intentions, and even if I did, I can't directly hurt you due to the rules of time and space." White-haired Shi Shengcun was not surprised when he saw his reaction.
A sincere smile appeared on that plain, particularly weathered face.
He is indeed very similar to "Shi Shengcun", even the dressing style is similar, the same clothes, shoes, glasses, even hairstyle, oh, and the pen in his pocket.
It's just that his face is more weathered, his hair is grayer, and his temperament is more ethereal.
"Are you...waiting for me?" Cheng Lin squinted his eyes and took a breath, trying to calm down. He understood that no matter what, it was always right to stay calm.
"I thought you would ask me who I am." Shi Shengcun smiled and said.
Cheng Lin pursed his lips. This was indeed the question he almost blurted out instinctively, but after calming down, he temporarily changed the question.
When he didn't answer, Shi Shengcun nodded:
"Indeed, I am indeed waiting for you here. Well, I'm sorry, I can only choose to meet you here, and I can only stay here for a short period of time, so I prefer to keep the story short.
"
Cheng Lin frowned slightly, chewing on the meaning of the other person's words, and asked: "What do you want to tell me?"
He still didn't choose to ask the other party's identity.
When Shi Shengcun heard the words, he suddenly turned around, turned his back towards him without reservation, and cast his eyes to the west, the direction of the sun. He did not answer directly, but said:
"What do you think...what is fate?"
destiny?
Cheng Lin frowned again and looked at the shadow cast by the other party on the square in the sun. He was sure that he did not feel any hostility, so he hesitated and removed his defensive posture, but still held the He sword:
"Want to hear the details."
As he said that, he slowly walked forward, came to the edge of the huge square, and turned his gaze to the west - he was a little curious and wanted to know what the other person was looking at.
This mountain is too high. If you stand higher, you can see farther.
It was autumn, and the world was all yellow. Looking down from such a high place, countless mountains and rivers appeared in the field of vision. Between the mountains and rivers, there was a river coming from the west.
I don’t know where the river originated from, but based on the earth’s topography, there is a high probability that it also originated from the snow-capped mountains in the far west. It is extremely wide, hanging down like a giant’s belt on the earth, branching out into countless tributaries, criss-crossing like the veins of leaves, extending to the infinity
The boundless land nourishes this fertile soil.
Under the sunlight, the countless rivers look extremely dazzling.
"In my opinion, destiny is like this river," Shi Shengcun did not turn his head, still looking down at the earth intently, with a little emotion in his low voice, "I don't know where it originated, and I don't know where it is going.
Just running with concentration, in the journey of time, it will encounter countless boulders and forks in the road, so it will be forced to branch off into countless tributaries.
Each tributary will repeat similar encounters and branch off again...
Oh, do you think they look like a huge tree lying on the ground? The trunk, branches... or the blood vessels in our bodies...
They have an astonishing similarity, as if they are somehow unified..."
Shi Shengcun said some strange words in a leisurely manner. If ordinary people heard it, they would probably just laugh. Even Cheng Lin a day ago would probably only think that it was chaotic gibberish.
It's just... At this moment, Cheng Lin suddenly recalled the scene in the memory fragments of Adelaide's exploration last night, and recalled the epic starry sky that once stood on the banks of the Dragon City River and gazed quietly at the tributaries of the water veins shown in the fragments.
dragon……
So, he fell into deep thought. After a moment, he frowned and repeated:
"Rivers, branches, blood vessels..."
"Of course, this is just a metaphor and cannot intuitively reflect the fundamentals of destiny," Shi Shengcun explained, "but this does not prevent us from using this 'model' to think about problems."
"Thinking about fate?"
"To be precise, it is the fate of the world." Shi Shengcun turned around and looked at him, as if he was organizing his words, "Do you still remember the sentence you saw every time you deduced it?"
He really knew about the existence of deduction!
Cheng Lin thought in his heart, his expression slightly stern, and then he remembered the words:
At every moment, there are a million possibilities for the direction of civilization.
Then he thought for a few seconds and said, "Possibility?"
His intuition told him that the core of this sentence lies in "possibility".
"Yes," Shi Shengcun affirmed, and then pointed forward to the spiderweb-like complex water veins on the boundless land, "If the world you live in is compared to that river, then every second, due to various changes,
It branches into countless tributaries.
Well, to use a more popular concept, it is similar to parallel universes, except that each universe is slightly different. After that, in the next second, it branches into countless branches again... and the factors that affect differentiation can be called
'possibility'."
This concept is not difficult to understand. Just like Cheng Lin walking at a crossroads, he may go left or right.
Therefore, the moment he made his choice, two different universes were differentiated.
In one of them, he chose to go left, which triggered a story. In another universe, he chose to go right, so... that was a different story.
And since such choices happen countless times every second, it can be inferred that countless worlds appear every second, just like tributaries separated from the main trunk.
This concept is not new, but it has never been proven.
"You mean, every time I start a deduction, it's equivalent to opening up a 'tributary'? It's like creating a new world?" Cheng Lin asked.
Shi Shengcun shook his head gently:
"It's not entirely accurate. In fact, the changes in destiny are never controlled by any life. At least, they are not controlled by us. Every time you deduce, you are not creating a new world, but just entering the world that has already happened.
It’s just a hit.”
"I don't quite understand." Cheng Lin expressed his confusion frankly.
Shi Shengcun thought for a while and explained:
"Possibilities exist objectively and are not subject to our will. Just like the river below, you and I are all drops of water in it. In every second of your life, the world changes differently, so
Countless worlds were born.
Most of these worlds have not undergone any fundamental changes, but there are a few that will undergo dramatic changes.
Such as suffering from various disasters.
As a result, they will become completely different from the main trunk...
The deduction only allows you to pass through the barrier between universes and enter the parallel world after the great changes."
"Like when I entered this world?" Cheng Lin asked.
"That's probably it."
The huge square fell into silence for a while.
Cheng Lin's eyes changed slightly. After a while, he said: "So, the deductions I experienced are all real?"
"Of course. The only difference is that the disaster is not caused by you pressing the button, but it already exists."
"What about projections? Why do projections appear in the world I am in after I finish the deduction?"
Cheng Lin asked.
"Do you remember the thirteenth deduction? The world after the catastrophe is just next to the dragon world. There are occasional intersections between different universes, just like different rivers occasionally meet somewhere, and then they meet again.
There is naturally some chance of being separated again, but there is also room for maneuver."
"The brief overlap of the two worlds is the fundamental factor in the formation of the projection." At this point, he pushed up his glasses slightly, and then said with complex eyes, "I must admit that their appearance has a great influence on me.
Relevance.”
"So, you are the creator of this program?" Cheng Lin looked at the other person without moving his eyes.
"It's not a program," Shi Shengcun shook his head and emphasized, "I have never understood programming. The so-called program is just a... well, a small mental trick. You can understand it as some form of illusion. I am here for you.
Such an illusion is projected in your mind, so when you look at the screen, it will appear."
Although Cheng Lin had made some guesses after learning the truth about the deduction just now, when he actually heard the answer, he was still in a daze.
Hallucinations...psychological hallucinations...
He instantly remembered the "mental control" power he had just obtained, and accurately understood its principles.
And he suddenly realized that as early as that day half a year ago, he had been invisibly influenced mentally by the person in front of him.
The so-called programs, the so-called "narration", and the so-called buttons are just illusions on the spiritual level.
At this moment, countless complex emotions emerged in Cheng Lin's heart.
I want to laugh, but I can't. I want to be angry, but I find that I don't have it either.
"I must admit that this is by no means a bright method. I have always wanted to explain it in person, but the time has not come yet." Shi Shengcun lowered his eyes slightly with a solemn and regretful expression, "However, even though it may be a little late, but