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Chapter 654 The Clever Seventh World

“That’s an illusion,” the fortune teller said, clenching his fists tightly. “It’s an illusion that the world has created for us…”

“No,” Chu Changge looked at the dim sky, “I had heard that Ragnarok was on the verge of collapse, but I never expected that the world would prevent its destruction in this way.”

"What are you saying?" The fortune teller looked at Chu Changge, somewhat confused.

At this moment, Xiao Qiao suddenly spoke up: "Our world has come to an end. All life will face its twilight, and all history will turn to dust..."

I'm very familiar with this section of Chu Changge.

Xiao Qiao once said this to them while chewing on some roasted meat.

This passage definitely wasn't something Xiao Qiao came up with herself; she couldn't possibly have come up with something like this. She must have heard it from someone back in this world.

Xiao Qiao has always had a habit of repeating what others say.

They especially love repeating those seemingly profound and mysterious phrases.

This passage also implies that the world of Ragnarok is about to be destroyed.

When Xiao Qiao left for Earth, this world was already nearing its "end".

But it has persevered for so long without collapsing.

Chu Changge already knew why this world had managed to endure this long.

“Reincarnation.” He looked at the chaotic, indistinct sky. “This world has prevented its own destruction through reincarnation.”

It's like a person who knows he's going to die tomorrow.

So he forcibly started the cycle, keeping himself stuck in today forever. Whenever the time reached 23:59, time would forcibly jump back to the beginning of today.

Knowing that it was about to be destroyed, the world forcibly started a time loop.

This also led them to see their dead selves here.

The fortune teller understood something too, and her eyes widened: "So what we're seeing is ourselves from a previous point in time who died?"

They entered this place precisely during a period of reincarnation.

“We enter this world, then we all perish, then time jumps back to before we entered this world, and then a new batch of us enters this world… This cycle keeps repeating, right?” 007 thought of certain horror movies, never expecting that he would have such a bizarre experience today.

“Yes,” Chu Changge said, bowing his head, “all of us who entered this world before are dead.”

Chu Changge's words plunged the diviner into fear: "So, we are actually repeating the cycle of death? We will all die eventually, and a new version of ourselves will come to this world after our death... No, what if someone is still alive? What if someone from the previous point in time survived? Wouldn't they encounter us now?"

“Xiao Qiao once said that an alarm sounds every once in a while in this world. I think that shouldn’t be an alarm, but the sound of the world starting to collapse,” Chu Changge looked at the diviner. “After that sound, the evil spirits go crazy, the world starts to collapse, and we can’t survive under such circumstances.”

"And if I do live to the next reincarnation, what do you think I'm most likely to do?"

Upon hearing Chu Changge's question, 007 took a slight step back: "If you really live to that point in time, I think you'll probably seize the opportunity to kill Chu Changge at the next point in time and take his place."

“That’s right,” Chu Changge pushed up his glasses, “I will use every means to replace the other me, because I want to live.”

“So,” 007 recalled the distorted face that peeked out from the dense forest, “that ghost in the woods, it was you, wasn’t it?”

Chu Changge nodded: "I think at every point in time, we discovered the cycle of the world, and they are also trying to survive."
"That version of me probably risked great danger to return to our birth point after discovering reincarnation, intending to kill the next version of myself there and take my place."

But he eventually died and became a ghost wandering in the cycle of reincarnation.

"You really want to survive, don't you?" 007 thought of Chu Changge, who had almost turned into a monster.

She could imagine the dangers Chu Changge had faced to return to their birthplace. Perhaps everyone else was already dead, leaving only him. He had escaped the rampaging ghosts and returned to the forest with the hope of survival. But he ultimately died there, taking his hope with him to the end.

The fortune teller, recalling the message she heard on the radio, leaned against the wall beside her: "So that was a message from the me who died in this world..."

As she spoke, she looked up at Chu Changge: "This time, can we break this cycle?"

Because Gu Mian also came to this world.

She thought that Gu Mian was such a special person that he could definitely help them break this cycle.

“No,” Chu Changge saw through the diviner’s thoughts and lowered his eyes, “I don’t know, because we don’t know whether previous cycles of retrograde sleep were also involved.”

If Gu Mian had also come to this world in those previous reincarnations, that would be true despair.

Because in those cycles of reincarnation, Gu Mian was unable to prevent their deaths, and even witnessed their deaths firsthand.

007 looked into the distance: "Those of us who died must have made countless efforts, you can tell from those fingers scattered everywhere. Chu Changge, those are your fingers, aren't they?"

Chu Changge nodded silently: "This world is constantly in a cycle, and each time we enter this world, we make different choices."

When those of us struggling to survive find that we no longer have a chance to live, we leave hope to ourselves in the next cycle of reincarnation.

"As their lives were drawing to a close, they explored the world with great effort, hoping to leave a legacy of hope for their future selves."

"As you have also noticed, this world corrodes many things. After we become ghosts, our clothes are corroded beyond recognition, and even special items have not escaped the fate of being corroded."
"The world will cycle, and even if you leave your mark somewhere, it will disappear after the world cycles."

"The only thing that will not be eroded by the world is ourselves."

Chu Changge looked at the fingers in 007's hand.

"So 'I' used a part of my body to try to convey a message to my next reincarnation;
“I cut off my finger and explored the world before my life came to an end, leaving warnings in dangerous places to tell my next reincarnation not to come here, to tell them it is dangerous.”

The "warning" was naturally Chu Changge's finger.

“I think you are also passing on information to your next reincarnation in your own way, but most of that information has been eroded.”

"In some of our reincarnations, we may have found a way to send messages to Gu Mian's radio, so we left our last words there, and may have also left some clues about this world."

"But the radio signal was very jerky, so only your last words came through."

Chu Changge turned his head slightly: "The severed fingers and the last words in the radio are signals that we passed on to those who came after us. When they were desperate and in dire straits, they could only pass on their hope to those who came after them."
"They desperately explore this world, just to give themselves a little more hope of survival later on."
"They died in this world in despair, but hoped that their descendants could live on. They were probably also afraid that people outside would be saddened by their deaths, so they tried to leave a warning in this world."

"They died with the thought, 'What I cannot do, let my future self do for me.'"

The fortune teller felt his vision blurring, as if tears were welling up.

"Those signals that were passed down are our past selves pleading with us in the present; they are begging us..."

Chu Changge paused at this point, then looked up at the others: "Survive."

I was so captivated by my reflection in the mirror today that I'm updating a little late.
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(End of this chapter)