Chapter 557

Alice Thompson walked briskly along the boarding bridge; the plane ahead would take her home. Tomorrow was her 16th birthday, and Tommy would be waiting for her at the airport...

Wenchang. People sat gathered around a roaring bonfire, heads tilted back to gaze at the starry sky. More than ten thousand meters above, the crew of the "Ten Thousand Year Wind and Snow" was re-entering the atmosphere...

Christina and Alice held hands tightly before the Christmas tree, the colorful lights twinkling like stars in the night.

They looked at each other as snowflakes drifted down slowly, silent and still...

Christina stood in a sea of stars. The personal terminal at her side vibrated, emitting a notification sound for a new message. She raised her hand and opened the screen.

It was a message from an unknown source, yet it gave her a sense of nostalgia, as if from an old friend.

[—Data Analysis in Progress—]

[Benchmark Time Tick (Huang Shi): 2,147,483,648]

[Global Surviving Settlements: 1]

[Surviving Population: 8,141,758,233]

[Anchor Tower Online Rate: 100%]

[Time Radiation Decay Rate: NAN%]

[Reality Stability: NAN%]

[Suggested Action: None.]

[Congratulations, my dear Alice, Christina.]

[This is the best ending.]

Having traversed the vastness of time and space, enduring a journey of at least 13.7 billion years, this information, as ancient as the universe itself, finally reached the recipient.

Watching the message on Alice's terminal, the audience felt their hearts swell with a complex mix of emotions.

They were jubilant for the universe's rebirth from nirvana.

Yet, they also felt a deep sense of regret that Alice and Christina would no longer remember their past heroic deeds, their hearts intertwined with a faint melancholy.

Back then, in the previous cosmic epoch, this duo faced the gloom of the apocalypse head-on, embarking together on a heroic journey to save the world. After enduring countless hardships, sacrifices, and partings, they finally restarted the universe, bringing new life to the departed masses.

This achievement was enough for them to rest on their laurels and live out a fairytale life.

But in the world after the rebirth, who would remember this story, or know that the universe had once experienced such an absurd and nonsensical apocalyptic scenario?

The Foundation might deduce this story.

If, in the not-too-distant future, they developed a parallel space-time jump device and began experiments.

Perhaps one day, the space-time-traversing AG-99 could tell humanity that 13.7 billion years ago, in the previous cosmic epoch, two young girls had a final, world-saving journey amidst the apocalypse.

The Foundation might deduce this story, or in the near future, use the AG-99 to reconstruct the full picture of the event.

But that would be, at most, just a story.

Not the apocalypse that once caused all of humanity to suffer, leaving them with visceral pain.

Alice and Christina would not remember those days and nights spent on ice fields, in ruins, and in coniferous forests.

Memory is a precious treasure; it is where self-cognition and self-positioning sprout, the proof that "I" once existed, and the anchor connecting "I" to the world.

It is just that.

In their previous lives, would they truly want their next incarnations to inherit those old memories?

It is hard to say.

Perhaps they would both want to, and not want to.

What they would want is to inherit their understanding of the apocalypse, that spirit, and the friendship developed amidst the end times.

What they would not want is to inherit the memories of suffering in the apocalypse, the insecurity of living day-to-day, and the despair and sorrow buried deep in their hearts.

But how can these two be separated?

They are two sides of the same coin, woven tightly together, ultimately constructing the Alice and Christina who passed through the "Wall of Storms."

One cannot be discarded while leaving the other behind.

Or perhaps.

They wanted this tragic wish, along with the apocalypse, to be forgotten as the universe collapsed and vanished.

And to leave the beautiful blessings and brilliant colors to the new world.

"Moving."

"Restarting the universe is the destiny among thousands of futures, and also a miracle in the journey of the two."

"If there is still time after the end, please do not forget us."

"At the end of all things, at the center of the universe, carrying all the emotions and expectations of the old universe to create the next world... I suddenly thought of a passage: 'When I was young, I felt that things I couldn't understand were suspicious. But now, I understand that no one actually has malicious intent. The universe is like this, and so are we.'"

"We must understand that love is not something invented by humans. It has always existed, and it is powerful; it allows us to perceive its existence beyond the dimensions of time and space. Perhaps we should believe in it, even if we cannot truly understand it yet."

"Heaven is the boundary between life and death, and also the final destination of all happiness. Since heaven is about to fall, let us cross heaven and create new stories."

"Every journey has an end; whether it was the girls' travel in the apocalypse or their journey to save the world, both have reached their respective conclusions."

"Even if the future is already destined, in the present where the future has not yet arrived, every choice made has its unique meaning. No one is a slave to fate; no one is now, and no one will be in the future."

Afterward, the players began to discuss more realistic questions to make their "Foundation Grand Game" experience a bit simpler.

"So, in a situation where time radiation density is uneven, besides the 'Messenger Project,' what other methods are there to break through the barriers of communication?"

"Actually, the Foundation has already put the answer on the table—space teleportation. It's quite amazing, though; the Foundation pointed out this technology but didn't point out super-distance communication technology."

"There are still many things not explained, such as the principle of the Great Fading, the principle of the Great Rain, how space teleportation accelerated the progress of the apocalypse, and why a paradox can stably exist..."

"Since it can't be explained, let's leave it to the omnipotent 'Anomaly'... But conversely, if the Foundation really had a theory to explain these, the apocalypse would have been solved easily."

"Well, the 'Messenger Project' just sounds a bit high-end, and the Foundation was a bit unprofessional. The prototype of this thing appeared in the ancient times of many civilizations—the 'Post Station'."

"Finally, someone thinks like me. 'Post Station'... The Foundation should have started building a rapid transport network the moment they realized there was a difference in the flow of time. Even if time and supplies weren't enough to build a new rail network, they should have at least prepared more off-road vehicles..."

"Are you talking about 'Death Stranding'?"

"Enjoy, very enjoy!"

"Is he a genius?"

"I can't say it's exactly the same, but I can only say there's no difference."

"A 'Death Stranding' with added time radiation, where you don't deliver packages everywhere, but restart the universe with beautiful girls."

Amidst the discussion and reflection, the screen faded, and lines of text emerged.

[Report on the ██th Parallel Space-Time Jump Experiment]

[Experiment Date: ██ Year ██ Month ██ Day]

[In the ██th parallel space-time jump experiment, we accidentally discovered a parallel universe whose historical trajectory is basically consistent with ours, but with extreme deviations in many details.]

[This universe has a Foundation, but its oath is fundamentally different from all known versions. Upon observation, the behavioral patterns of the anomalies in that universe have also changed drastically.]

[It seems that the 'Anomalies' in that universe are special existences with 'Love and Peace' commands engraved into them.]

[And we cannot explain this phenomenon.]

[Through the 'Adita Project,' we exchanged views with our colleagues in the Thaumaturgy parallel universe. They were also curious about our findings and hoped to participate in our research.]

[With the authorization and help of the 'Administrator,' we worked together to build a new observation device and discovered that there are quite serious space-time anomalies in that universe.]

[Clearly, the space-time structure of this universe has been artificially altered.]

[After a series of calculations and inferences, we speculate that in the previous cosmic epoch of that universe, there existed a super-civilization capable of mobilizing the energy of the entire universe.]

[In order to break through the limitations of the universe, this super-civilization conducted some kind of crazy experiment, distorting the space-time structure and indirectly causing the universe to collapse and explode.]

[Based on this inference, we adjusted the jump time point and decided to head to that universe before the Big Bang occurred.]

[To avoid accidents, we carried out large-scale upgrades and modifications to the AG-99.]

[The modified AG-99 can maintain its existence for a short time even if it falls into a singularity, and return safely.]

[Fortunately, we succeeded.]

[But we did not observe the super-civilization, nor did we find any traces that could be interpreted as ruins. Instead, we discovered a series of anomalous phenomena. See Appendix 1.]

[...]

[After a series of observations of the cosmic landscape, we discovered a chilling fact:]

[The universe of the previous cosmic epoch and the universe of the current cosmic epoch have basically the same cosmic microwave background radiation. We discovered a galaxy suspected to be the Milky Way.]

[No theory can explain this phenomenon.]

[Why would the universe reborn after the collapse and Big Bang be basically the same as the universe of the previous cosmic epoch?]

[This is too absurd!]

[...]