Mist (Web Novel CN)

Chapter 25: 25

Ouroboros

Chapter 25

Half an hour later.

There was a total of 176 control panels.

It was exactly the same as the Golden Crow No.1 base.

Ji Yushi frowned. This was much more difficult than he thought.

Every two control panel corresponded to two energy transmitters. They continuously transmitted energy from both ends of PU-31, providing an energy source while at the same time preventing it from being sucked away by the crevice in the universe.

If too many energy transmitters were turned off at the same time at a certain place, PU-31 would then lose its balance and the world and everything would be overturned. Disasters like landslides and tsunamis would be trivial events in comparison to what would happen as a result.

And so, according to the coordinates of PU-31 on the real-time holographic projection, whether it was Golden Crow No.1 or Golden Crow No.2, Ji Yushi must turn off the panels in an accurate sequence to ensure that the balance is maintained.

He knew that after the mission was completed, PU-31 would no longer exist.

Therefore, before the task is completed, they must have someone stay behind to perform the final operation and also plan a route out to allow others to return to their initial starting point while avoiding all the ‘black walls’ so that they can enter their capsules to return to their own time.

Ji Yushi already knew why their future selves continued to choose to extend this point where Teams A and B coexisted.

It wasn’t just because they had more people and was the most promising in finding a breakthough point, it was also because the birth of the parallel timeline ensured that there would be people who can stay behind to complete the final operation whilst also ensuring that all the team members could return.

Choosing them must’ve been the conclusion their future selves reached after going through countless cycles.

Now then, there was a problem—-

The ‘me’ on the two parallel timelines are both the true ‘me’ and both are the ‘main body’, so who should stay behind to complete the task?

The control panel was just a few steps away. The battle was fierce.

The teammates fought a bloody battle. No one considered the option of retreating.

Team A and Team B.

They were fighting side by side.

“Bang!”

Ji Yushi raised his purple right arm and killed a zombie. Under his dark eyelashes, his emotions were unclear, “Have you discussed this issue?”

The other Ji Yushi said, “No.”

Ji Yushi was not surprised.

Because he himself also never thought of making his teammates make the choice.

For one to compete against themselves, it was too cruel.

“There are two possible outcomes.” He asked, “Aren’t you afraid of getting it wrong?”

“I am.” The other Ji Yushi said calmly, “And you?”

“Boom——-”

A loud explosion interrupted their conversation.

Song Qinglan’s last energy cannon exploded, the shockwave sending everyone to the ground.

The giant spiders body flew across the room, bursting open when it hit one of the ventilation pipes. Amidst the earth-shattering noise, the mutated species hiding in the pipe that had fallen to the ground finally revealed itself.

A mass of flesh consisting of a mixture of an unknown number of species and covered in mucous squirmed across the ground. Countless ‘tongue’-like tentacles searched around the ground like it was very much afraid of coming into contact with light.

The mass of flesh was very sticky and had no ability to walk independently so it could only hide in the pipes and slide around.

As it squirmed around, human limbs and faces appeared on its back. It was as if they were all alive and each still had their own movements —- It had absorbed the people in the base that had not yet mutated and merged with them into one body.

Li Chun saw this scene and, combining it with the thought of the residual mucous on his body, he started vomiting on the spot.

Although the other Li Chun was unaware of what happened, when he saw himself reacting like this, he naturally guessed a few things and similarly knelt onto the ground and started to vomit.

Everyone: “…….”

At the same time, they shot at the mass of flesh. It didn’t take long for it to turn into mincemeat.

Two or three severely wounded giant spiders descended from the sky. They dragged the pile of mincemeat away from the gunfire and ran.

The rest of the zombies weren’t much of a threat. Everyone was panting with exhaustion and would shoot at them from time to time to prevent them from approaching. They no longer wanted to move.

“Advisor Ji.” Two Song Qinglan’s stepped into the control room, “How are the calculations?”

They spoke in no particular order, but they were surprisingly in sync.

The Ji Yushi in black said, “I have already followed the order and closed a part of the energy transmitters at Golden Crow No.1. We just need to leave a safe return route to the starting point.”

The Ji Yushi in white looked a little paler. As the same person, he looked a lot weaker, “That’s right. I will turn off the energy transmitters in order until the very end.”

“You want to stay?” Song Qinglan on the left looked at him. The one on the right also frowned.

Two Song Qinglan’s. No one here could tell the difference.

Of course, it was the same for the others too.

The Li Chun covered with mucous and the Li Chun without mucous.

The sitting silent and small eyed Zhou Mingxuan and the standing Zhou Mingxuan.

Duan Wen who a little more blood on his face and Duan Wen with not so much blood onhis face.

Tang Qi with an arm injury and Tang Qi with a leg injury.

There was also Tang Le who was alone. As if he realised something, he stood aggrievedly between the two Tang Qi’s.

“The task is completed when the last energy transmitter is turned off. When everything is restarted, we have to safely get in the capsule and return to our own original time and space coordinate or everything would be in vain.” The Ji Yushi in the black combat uniform explained, “So someone must stay.”

The expression of the Ji Yushi in a white shirt was very calm. He seamlessly continued his other self’s words, “According to the plan, we who stay here will return to the time anchor point after being swallowed by the darkness and at that time, there will already be another ‘us’ at that anchor point, so we will become one.”

Zhou Mingxuan asked, “But the people who return to the starting point after being swallowed by the darkness will be a few hours earlier than us who hurry back to the anchor point…..”

That is correct.

The time they returned to the anchor point after total group annihilation was always at 4:41 in the morning.

It was however already four in the afternoon. The time when the group returns to the starting point and the anchored point was completely out of sync and it was even nearly twelve hours apart.

Ji Yushi wearing a white T-shirt said, “On a normal timeline, there cannot be two of the same individual and memories will be superimposed when the two become one.”

Ji Yushi in the black combat uniform continued, “That is to say, the moment the mission is completed, we may suffer a wave of memories being injected into our minds. It doesn’t matter who is the one from the ‘parallel timeline’, we will eventually become one anyway.”

Ji Yushi wearing a white T-shirt said, “So it’s the same whoever stays behind. I just believe that it would be more beneficial to have my uninjured self go back to the starting point.”

The sight of the two Ji Yushi’s fighting side by side just now was too dazzling. Right now in everyone’s eyes, they were the only focus.

Following everything they went through in this mission, everyone now believed everything Ji Yushi said.

Very quickly, Li Chun who was covered in mucous chose to stay, “Then I will stay.”

Following that was the Duan Wen who felt more tired and the Tang Qi whose leg was hurt.

There was only one Tang Le so he would need to follow the main group back, “I don’t have a second self…..So I’ll have to leave, isn’t that right?”

Tang Qi rubbed his head, “Yes.”

Finally, only Song Qinglan remained.

“I’ll stay.”

The tall man took off the red magazine that had long dimmed back down from Shen Mian and changed it to a new blue magazine.

He glanced at his other self and said, “I’m tired from all the fighting. You can do the running this time.”

The other Song Qinglan raised his eyelids, “No problem.”

After that, he looked around at the teammates who had decided to leave and said in a deep voice, “Don’t be so down, these are all choices you and your other selves have made. Isn’t it the same after you go back to the anchor point? It’s no different to saying goodbye to yourself who has not yet completely woken up.”

The inexplicably sad atmosphere faded. Everyone seemed to have become more spirited.

As the captain, Song Qinglan always had the ability to make his teammates think clearly and become more enthusiastic.

“The spacecar from Golden Crow No.1 is outside. We should return to the starting point as soon as possible.” Ji Yushi in the black combat uniform explained slowly, “We will contact you through the public channel. Please be careful, we still don’t know what other mutants may be in the base.”

“Okay.” The other Ji Yushi agreed.

Without needing to say too much, they all wanted to end this nightmare as soon as possible.

Song Qinglan gave out an order and the seven of them very quickly departed.

The people remaining seemed to be the ‘weaker’ self.

From the moment Teams A and B met up, it was already evident that they would need to part ways very soon.

Was this the end?

They wondered.

They clearly couldn’t continue any longer. Having finally reached the moment of liberation, they suddenly felt that everything seemed unreal.

Was this……..really the end?

Facing the piles of severed limbs and zombie corpses, no one dared to relax their vigilance.

They had advanced all this way from the first cycle until now.

Was this really over now?

The originally bustling base had suddenly turned very quiet. There would be occasionally giant spiders crawling past, but because it was too quiet, they couldn’t feel any vibrations and crawled away along the walls.

Li Chun and Duan Wen froze in place, not knowing what to do. Tang Qi was helping Zhou Mingxuan and supporting him over to the side to sit down.

A zombie covered in blood crawled over and was very quickly killed by Zhou Mingxuan with a dagger.

In front of the control panel, Ji Yushi started to turn off the energy transmitters according to the sequence he had calculated beforehand.

176 control panels, 88 pairs of energy transmitters. Every time one was turned off, a disordered energy field would appear outside, turning that part of the world into nothingness. That was the so-called “black wall”.

PU-31 was gradually disappearing. Only one route was left for them to escape along. They knew that at this very moment, there was a spacecar outside, racing through the world where zombies were gathered and black walls continued to appear.

Ji Yushi heard someone behind him say in a low voice, “Advisor Ji, you lied again.”

Ji Yushi’s actions paused for a moment. He turned back, “Why do you say that?”

Song Qinglan’s face was stained with zombie blood but his pair of eyes were very bright.

He revealed a rare smile at Ji Yushi. For a moment, Ji Yushi couldn’t tell which Song Qinglan had stayed behind.

But soon, he knew.

Because the other party said, “The way you brainwashed everyone just now was exactly the same as that time when you said that I was your boyfriend when you were being kidnapped.”

Ji Yushi: “……”

This was the Song Qinglan of Team A who had been with him throughout this entire timeline.

Song Qinglan held Shen Mian with one hand and his entire body relaxed completely, revealing a bit of laziness that wasn’t there earlier during the battle. It made people remember that he was also just an ordinary person, and he can also feel tired.

He said, “You’re actually not completely certain about whether all our selves from the parallel timelines will merge into one, are you? Just like that lump of flesh formed by various human bodies just now —- It wasn’t just a mutation but also the consequence of more than one of the same entities, which had appeared in the same world due to parallel timelines, all combining together into one.”

That’s right.

If their selves at the anchor point and their selves who had returned to the starting point after completing the mission failed to merge into one, it was very likely that something similar to that plump of flesh would happen to them; they would become a deformity or die.

As the experienced captain, Song Qinglan’s theoretical knowledge of time and the universe wasn’t necessarily worse than Ji Yushi’s.

“That is the worst outcome, it won’t necessarily happen.” Song Qinglan acted like he was talking about something unimportant, “But it is very likely that the moment the mission is completed is the moment we disappear.”

Ji Yushi lowered his purple arm and stood there quietly, “Then why did you stay?”

Song Qinglan said, “Because I believe you have already prepared a backup plan.”

Ji Yushi’s heartbeat was slightly erratic.

Only the other Ji Yushi knew this. Since he was originally himself, it wasn’t surprising.

The feeling of having his thoughts guessed by another person was very strange. He almost never had such an experience before.

Song Qinglan said, “Regarding the black wall, I remember it first appeared when we arrived at the park management office, around 5:30am, but regardless of whether it was Golden Crow No.1 or Golden Crow No.2, it is impossible for us to turn off the energy transmitter during that time frame. I would like to make a bold guess. There may actually be more than one anchor point set by Tianqiong. After we were swallowed by the darkness, we entered a new cycle, reached a different anchor point and managed to turn off the first energy transmitter at 5:30am.”

“It’s like a bigger circle fitting into this smaller circle……but we don’t know and cannot be certain.” Song Qinglan then said, “So they are actually the only ones who escaped from this cycle. We must have someone stay behind to complete the new cycle and let the ‘us’ who just reached the park management office after returning to the starting point see the arrival of the black wall. Only then will it become a complete circle and only then will everything ‘we’ encounter afterwards actually happen.”

Ji Yushi: “……”

To return to a certain moment and complete a certain event so that everything in the future may happen.

Song Qinglan had guessed it.

Ouroboros mode.

They created darkness.

And they also became the chaser of darkness.

In a sense, this was the real way to clear through this.

This was also another way to answer the mission objective: They will become the actual chaser of darkness themselves.

“Two possible ways to think of it, two kinds of preparations to complete the task.” Song Qinglan said, “If you guessed wrong, this task is in fact not as complicated as you think and staying behind to do all this is actually unnecessary. After we die, our other selves can smoothly return to the starting point and return to our time.”

“If you were not wrong, then soon we will enter a new cycle after being swallowed by the darkness and go to turn off the first energy transmitter at 5:30am to complete the initial trigger event — Only then will the mission be considered as complete. We will then similarly return to the anchor point from the very beginning and it would be like we had never left the forest in the first place.”

Ji Yishi was stunned.

Song Qinglan raised the corners of his lips and said nonchalantly, “But you have forgotten. Even if you’re wrong, we were the ones who chose to stay. Sacrificing for ourself is not considered a sacrifice. You don’t need to carry the burden all by yourself.”

Ji Yushi was just an ordinary person.

Even if he had superhuman memory and superhuman observation ability, he couldn’t guarantee that everyone in the parallel timeline could return to their world safely and could only choose to do it like this.

But how could Song Qinglan guess all the things he couldn’t bring himself to say?

If that was the case, the other Song Qinglan must have also guessed it.

Recalling the words the other party said before he left, it all matched with Song Qinglan’s current attitude.

Song Qinglan threw something to him, “Did you really think that those people really didn’t know anything and only know to play games in class like you?”

The other teammates all looked in their direction and waved at Ji Yushi to tell him not to worry and that they are fine.

Ji Yushi caught the object and looked at it. It turned out to be his black-and-white handheld game console.

He was stunned, “This?”

“The other you gave it.” Song Qinglan said, “If there really is a new cycle, it will go on for a while. You sure you don’t want to use it to distract yourself a little?”

Ji Yushi rubbed the console.

He heard Song Qinglan ask, “Gift from a family member?”

Ji Yushi nodded.

Song Qinglan was silent for a couple of seconds. He then said, “Let’s make a bet.”

Ji Yushi, “Bet what?”

Song Qinglan, “Bet that the second method is the right way to complete the task and the outcome is even better than you imagined. If I win, you stay in the seventh squad.”

Song Qinglan looked very serious and the look in his eyes was deep.

It was probably the look a captain who highly regards talent would have.

Ji Yushi asked, “And if you lose?”

Song Qinglan had already found the last control panel.

At this moment, the other Song Qinglan’s voice sounded through the public channel. Everyone heard him clearly, “We have all entered the capsules. Everything is ready.”

“If I lose….”

Song Qinglan spoke in a low voice like he was talking to himself.

But in the end, he didn’t say anything and directly pulled the valve straight down.

The last two energy transmitters corresponding to the starting point and the Golden Crow No.2 base was shut down.

Amidst the bloody battlefield in front of the control panel, inside the large Golden Crow No.2 base, the entire team disappeared into the darkness along with PU-31.

Ji Yushi’s last impression of the world was the game console in his hand which still carried some warmth.

As well as Song Qinglan’s broad back in front of him….

KK has something to say:

And that’s the end of this arc! It’s pretty confusing isn’t it? I did my best with trying to keep everything clear but I found that there were times where even I got confused while doing the translation ><

I did a rough diagram based off one that is shared on Weibo to help you guys with understanding what happened in this first arc. The link is down below. (If anyone has a better diagram or something, feel free to share it too!)

CLICK HERE FOR DIAGRAM FOR MIST ARC 1