Mutated Tao

“Here, take a look at this.”

After spending quite a while on her laptop, Zhao Shuangdian showed the screen to Li Huowang.

Li Huowang felt his head swimming when he saw a complex mathematical formula. “What is this? I don’t understand any of it.”

Zhao Shuangdian frowned and looked at Li Huowang. “Then, are you willing to learn from scratch? I can teach you. If what you’re saying is real, there are only three explanations.”

“Why should I adapt to your world? Is your world the truth? Why can’t you adapt to mine? What if your world is fake?”

Zhao Shuangdian replied, “Our world is in conflict. My world is healed, but your world has many inconsistencies and contradictions. Shouldn’t we start from your world?”

“I don’t want to learn! This is the truth, and I’ve told you about the contradictions. Whether or not you trust me is up to you.”

Ba Nanxu scoffed from the side. “You want us to adapt to your world? Are you trying to turn us all into crazy bastards?”

“Shut up.” Zhao Shuangdian glared at Ba Nanxu, who shrugged and sat on the sofa to watch TV.

Zhao Shuangdian quickly opened a new notepad on her laptop. “Alright, Li Huowang, I trust you. Now, please tell me about your world in as much detail as possible.”

Li Huowang sighed in relief after seeing that Zhao Shuangdian trusted him. He calmed down and started telling his story. “Alright. I’ll have to talk about the Zephyr Temple first. Back then, I was still being treated in the hospital and thought it was fake…”

Li Huowang spent the next few hours telling her about everything he had experienced in the bizarre world. By the time he finished, it was already nighttime.

“Eat something before you continue. Your dishes are cold, but I saved you a portion,” Ba Nanxu said, taking out a couple of beer bottles for Zhao Shuangdian.

“Shh, be quiet. I need time to think and sort this out.”

Zhao Shuangdian was busy scrolling through Li Huowang’s statement.

“Hey, did you leave food for me too? I’m hungry.” Li Huowang stood up. He had calmed down now that a few hours had passed.

Ba Nanxu scoffed and wrinkled her nose when she looked at Li Huowang. “Hoh? The crazy bastard knows when it’s time to eat?”

Ba Nanxu turned to leave, but Wu Qi gestured for Li Huowang instead. “Sit here. We left you a portion too.”

“Li Huowang, I’ve sorted through your statement. While I trust you, I still find that your world has a lot of contradictions. In fact, it’s even worse than the others. I also found a lot of instances where it’s too idealistic.”

Li Huowang replied as he munched on some chicken, “You still don’t understand? That world is bizarre, and anything could happen. Also, is your so-called ‘healed world’ the truth? Maybe my world is real too. It’s just that we haven’t realized it yet.”

Zhao Shuangdian paused to think carefully as she typed, appearing to perform a series of calculations.

Li Huowang was almost done with his meal when she stopped. “Alright. You’ve convinced me.”

“Hm?!” Li Huowang was shocked. She’s so easily convinced? That’s out of my expectations. She’s the first to believe me this easily ever since I left the Zephyr Temple.

Li Huowang had made preparations to refute her if she still didn’t believe him.

“Uh… What do you mean? Does my world convince you? Is our world also the ideal world?”

“We don’t have a macro world, but we have a lot of micro ones.”

Zhao Shuangdian proceeded to shut down her laptop.

“Ideal?” Li Huowang stared at the chandelier above him. He looked at the leather sofa before staring at Zhao Shuangdian’s pretty face. Nothing had changed.

“Don’t worry. Even if it’s ideal, we can still bravely develop a hypothesis. We just need to be careful when we gather evidence. Thank you for your help. It will help me a lot with my research.”

Li Huowang continued eating his meal. “Don’t worry about it. My main concern is the possibility of the timeline resetting again if we kill the Siming on the sixth of February. If that does happen, I would have to explain everything to you again.”

“Don’t worry. If that happens, you can just align with my other self again.”

“Alright, as long as you are convinced later on.”

Li Huowang put down his plate and thought carefully. “Since my world is real, we need to reconsider certain things, including your hypothesis about the elephant. Maybe the elephant isn’t divided into separate parts but rather drawn on a single piece of paper.

“The tusk, legs, and nose could all exist on this one sheet along a single timeline. This would explain why we can resolve our crisis by jumping to another elephant’s tusk. And if we want to deal with a problem on the nose of the elephant, we need to reset the timeline by going back to the original elephant.”

“This is plausible and a reasonable hypothesis.”

“But… is the elephant still alive by this point?” Li Huowang asked, shoving the rest of his meal into his mouth.

“It’s still early to say that. We need more evidence, but no matter what, I have to thank you for your story,” Zhao Shuangdian said and turned to leave.

However, Li Huowang stopped her again. “I don’t care how many hypotheses there are. Just how much longer do we have to continue this? I’m exhausted.”

“I can’t answer that. We now have a new variable. If you want to end it quickly, you need to find a way to help us.”

She turned to leave once more. This time, Li Huowang did not stop her.

Li Huowang had finished his meal, yet he remained seated at the table, his empty plate before him. He was lost in thought.

Although he understood that part of the world was real, it didn’t help him. His situation was still as troublesome as ever. If Zhao Shuangdian was right, it meant that the Simings on the other elephant were still lurking around and staring at them.

If he couldn’t deal with them once and for all, he would forever be labeled as a patient with a mental illness.

He didn’t want that. He had finally learned more about the world, and he wanted to live normally.

THIS CHAPTER UPLOAD FIRST AT NOVELBIN.COM