Chapter 60 Unraveling the Threads
This really is not the Jia family home...
Wu Xian was holding a photograph in his hand.
The photograph showed a family of five. Standing right in the middle was a doctor wearing a white lab coat—a doctor Wu Xian had laid eyes on just this morning.
Doctor Wei...
Wu Xian stood frozen in place, his brain racing at lightning speed. A moment later, he lowered the photograph, his gaze becoming much clearer.
I understand everything now...
Triggered by the sight of these corpses, Wu Xian finally grasped the crucial pivot of this blessed land, seeing straight through its true essence.
It was a cycle.
As early as his encounter with Jia, Wu Xian had already realized that something was wrong with his memory, suspecting that this blessed land operated on a cyclical model.
Back then, however, Wu Xian had guessed it to be a time loop.
That is, upon entering the blessed land, one would suffer continuous memory loss, and once the memory was completely wiped, wake up anew as a doctor.
Yet, looking at it now, things were far from that simple!
The truth of this blessed land.
It was a dual cycle of identities and karma shared by three people: Xu Ming, Jia, and Wei Hao.
In terms of identity.
All three had to progress from doctor to chief detective, from chief detective to criminal, and upon the criminal's death, awaken once more at the doctor's desk.
In terms of karma.
The doctor's verdict that there was no mental illness necessitated the prisoner being escorted out of the city for imprisonment, which provided the chief detective with the opportunity to murder the prisoner.
The chief detective's slaughter of the doctor's entire family resulted in him becoming the criminal, while simultaneously leaving the position of chief detective vacant—and this vacancy was precisely what caused the doctor to become the chief detective in turn.
The criminal's death, compounded by the consumption of the corpse, increased the malevolent entity's power within the chief detective, thus blinding him and driving him to slaughter the doctor's entire family...
To sustain this cycle.
That was why this world was so monotonous and tedious, and why it was riddled with so many baffling bugs.
Because the scene of the psychiatric evaluation had to take place, the prisoner had to be captured, which prompted the malevolent entity to point the way, which in turn explained why those four detectives possessed such absurdly formidable combat power.
Because the doctor had to become a police detective, the world possessed such distorted laws.
Preventing Wu Xian from contacting the prisoner, withholding the prisoner's information from the doctor...
Every single anomaly existed solely to make Wu Xian overlook the existence of the cycle.
But now, Wu Xian had figured it out.
A smile crept up the corners of his mouth as he felt that victory was already beckoning to him.
What somewhat frustrated him, however, was this.
Even though he had seen through the cyclical core of the blessed land, until he found a method to break the cycle, he still had to follow the script arranged by the loop.
Before proceeding to the next phase of the plot, though...
Wu Xian found two syringes in Doctor Wei Hao's home, and once again located the large black dog that was barking frantically outside the door.
Brother Dog, thank you for reminding me.
It's a bit embarrassing to ask, but could you lend me some more of your blood?
The frantically barking large black dog suddenly froze.
Awoos...
After drawing the blood.
Wu Xian meticulously cleaned up all traces of his presence in the doctor's home, then grabbed a raincoat and vanished into the boundless night.
That very night.
Wu Xian transitioned once again from chief detective to criminal.
...
This violent storm had made Wu Xian the target of a scheme.
Yet it was precisely this storm that washed away numerous pieces of evidence, delaying those detectives in picking up his trail.
Wu Xian, draped in his raincoat.
Did not run for long; he quickly found an uninhabited house, easily forced open the door, and unceremoniously utilized the household's kitchen to whip up a plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes.
Since he had seen through the essence of the cycle, what he needed to consider now was how to break the game.
Wu Xian now needed to sort out four distinct questions.
The first was the issue of memory.
The second was the true identities of Jia and Wei Hao.
The third was the curse of the malevolent entity residing within his body.
And the fourth was how to break the cycle.
First, the memory problem.
Wu Xian had already seen through the blessed land's cyclical essence and knew that memories would gradually slip away, but the real question was how to retain them.
After pondering for a short while, Wu Xian recalled the calligraphy scroll hanging in the doctor's office.
Never forget...
Perhaps this phrase wasn't merely reminding me that my memory was compromised, but also pointing out the method to preserve it!
Frequent acts of recollection might just prolong the onset of amnesia!
This hypothesis should be correct, but I cannot rely on it alone!
Wu Xian wanted to leave behind some prompts to prevent himself from forgetting vital matters, yet no matter where he carved his marks, some mysterious force would erase them—the doctor's office was proof of that.
Then... write them on my body?
No, that won't work either. The burn scars on my body were likely left behind by my past self.
There has to be a way to preserve memories. What could it be...
Wu Xian sat with his eyes closed in deep contemplation for a long time.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes and hurriedly rummaged through the folds of his clothes, eventually pulling out a crumpled bundle of cloth.
This was a fragment of the Ten-Soul Banner!
Once shattered, this item could no longer function as a god-worshipping artifact, rendering it useless to Wu Xian, yet he had kept it with him all along.
When he first woke up in the hospital, this Ten-Soul Banner fragment was already there, which meant that within the cycle, this was the only object consistently carried on Wu Xian's person. Consequently, any information recorded on it should be immune to tampering!
Wu Xian unfolded the fragment of the Ten-Soul Banner. His furrowed brow gradually relaxed, and a smile surfaced on his face.
Sure enough, written in white ink along the inner side of the Ten-Soul Banner was a line of compact text.
'This world is fake. What you see is not the truth. Memories are fading. I am at Xu Ming...'
The sentence ended abruptly and was left unfinished.
The message on the Ten-Soul Banner proved two things.
First, the Ten-Soul Banner could indeed be used to record information.
Second, the version of himself who had written those words back then was not nearly as composed as he was now—meaning that the present Wu Xian had progressed further than any of his previous iterations!
Thus, Wu Xian fetched a white pen and filled in the unfinished sentence on the Ten-Soul Banner.
'I am cycling through Xu Ming. Figuring out a way to preserve memories and break the cycle is the key to cracking this blessed land.'
Having finished writing this passage.
Wu Xian began to ponder the second question.
Just what background did Jia and Wei Hao possess?
Could they also be Envoy-holders?
No, absolutely not.
This blessed land was a single-player trial, and Wu Xian must be the sole person who entered it from the real world.
Yet these two individuals were indeed caught within the cycle, and they also wielded Lord Cui's Flying Blade Spell...
After pondering for a while.
Wu Xian unfolded the Ten-Soul Banner fragment once more and read the opening sentence inscribed upon it.
'This world is fake.'
'It's fake...'
A flash of light crossed Wu Xian's eyes. If it was all fake, then everything finally made sense.
Xianwei City is not a blessed land, but rather a special scenario within a blessed land—perhaps a mental realm, an illusionary world, or some kind of ghost domain.
Within Xianwei City, only the three of us are actual humans, and we form this cyclical loop of identity and karma.
I am an Envoy-holder... while they are the survivors of this blessed land!