As things progressed, the time loops grew ever longer. By the time they exceeded fifty years, Zhao Yunlan was no longer a bystander in these pocket dimensions. He found he was starting to get involved: always playing a certain role and following the pocket dimension’s plot.
Not every dimension came straight from his memories. Some seemed like memories from a past life, but with subtle differences. Some were of bizarre worlds with just a few familiar segments flashing through them.
Zhao Yunlan rather liked the latter sort because in the course of the five thousand years he’d spent in the Reincarnation Cycle, he had very few memories of Shen Wei. When Zhao Yunlan occasionally managed to catch him, it was inevitably only a brief glimpse before Shen Wei disappeared again.
But in the fake worlds, Shen Wei was always right there at his side, playing different roles in his life. In those worlds, they spent a whole lifetime together until they both found their own connection items and broke out of the cycle… Meanwhile, the real Shen Wei’s Soul-Executing Blade was indeed stuck in one of the worlds. But having the blade didn’t mean Shen Wei dared use it; if he destroyed a pocket dimension from the outside, whatever had been copied would be trapped in that cycle forever, just like that Record of Ancient Secrets.
All in all, Zhao Yunlan escaped from eighty pocket dimensions. With each escape, the time would reset to 8:35 p.m.
It was as though he had experienced the lives of all living beings in an instant.
Fortunately, Kunlun-jun had already spent thousands of years in the Reincarnation Cycle, and despite living out lives in all these pocket dimensions, he still held his original mission firmly in mind.
At last, he arrived at the eighty-first dimension.
Eighty-one: a multiple of the auspicious number nine.
Zhao Yunlan had a feeling that this dimension was the last, but he could’ve hardly expected that this one would last ten thousand years. The endless passage of time made it impossibly close to the real world. He grew attached to it. Finally, after a series of ups and downs, he reached its end…but Zhao Yunlan still hadn’t managed to identify the connection point.
Everything he had on him, right down to his spine and his heart’s blood, had been shattered within different pocket dimensions. What could this one possibly be?
What was left…?
6
OH RIGHT. There was still himself.
People existed to serve the world around them.
The heart existed to serve its body.
7
WHEN ZHAO YUNLAN ESCAPED from the last pocket dimension, all ten thousand mountains exulted. Great waves seemed to descend from the very Heavens, and they parted before him as if imbued with consciousness, allowing him to rise through their midst.
He registered the shrill sound of a blade descending just before the Soul-Executing Blade manifested out of nowhere, seeming ready to carve the entire South Sea in two. Zhao Yunlan’s eyes shot open. He reached down into the seething waves and grabbed the hand wielding the blade. “Shen Wei!”
The huge wave crashed down to reveal Shen Wei underneath. He looked even more bedraggled than Zhao Yunlan, and he didn’t seem to have recovered from the endless time loops yet. For a while, he was completely motionless and silent.
“It’s okay,” Zhao Yunlan told him gently. “We’re back.”
A shudder tore through Shen Wei’s body, and he fell into Zhao Yunlan’s arms. The Soul-Executing Blade dropped from his exhausted hand and landed on the back of a large snake floating nearby.
Zhao Yunlan let out the breath he was holding. Thankfully, Fourth Uncle’s lamp of life was still burning. The old bug was still alive. Zhu Hong could keep right on fooling around at the Special Investigations Bureau with no need to return to her tribe to succeed her uncle as chief.
8
“HUH? AH… AH! O-okay.”
Bright and early back at 9 University Road, Guo Changcheng answered a call. His tone fluctuated
dramatically, ranging from shock to utter confusion and finally to embarrassment. Now he was awkwardly saying, “There isn’t anything I want, but thank you, boss. R-really, it’s okay… N-no, not even from duty-free stores. Please don’t worry about it, as long as you’re happy… All right. Have fun. Have a good vacation…”
Before he’d even finished offering his well-wishes, Chu Shuzhi and Lin Jing both stood up, slapping the table. Daqing’s fur erupted into a pom-pom.
“Was that lao-Zhao?” Chu Shuzhi demanded. “What’s the meaning of this? What do you mean, ‘Have a good vacation’?! What’s his problem?”
“He ran off? He just ran off like that? Is there no justice in this world?” bawled Lin Jing.
Daqing jumped over from the couch. “The shameless bastard! Give me the phone!”
Guo Changcheng hesitantly set the receiver down. “H-he already hung up.”
“Call him back!” Daqing roared. “If you can’t reach him, call Shen-laoshi!”
To no one’s surprise, Zhao Yunlan’s phone was turned off with well-practiced ease.
But next, something unexpected happened…
Shen-laoshi stood barefoot on the beach. He had one hand on his collar and the other on his belt, and his face was red from the struggle. He’d rather die than “do as the Romans do” and change into swim trunks!
What was this abomination?! Such an insult to elegance!
Zhao Yunlan chased after him. “Just try it on once…! How can you know you don’t like it if you don’t give it a try? I think you’ll like it! Shen Wei, xiao-Wei, babe… You always wear black. Don’t you get tired? Maybe a whole new world will open up in front of you…! Hey! Okay, okay, you don’t have to wear it! Don’t jump into the sea!”
Shen Wei had been pursued right to the water’s edge. As he stepped into the surf, his phone fell out of his pocket…at the precise moment that a call came through. It rang once as it plunged to its death, making the ultimate sacrifice.
The screen went black.
At 9 University Road, Guo Changcheng innocently announced, “Shen-laoshi hung up.”
Daqing completely lost it. Utterly outraged, he yowled, “How could Shen-laoshi, with his beautiful face, betray us?!”