Chapter 317

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Chapter 317: Fate in the Darkness

"Will this really be twenty years later?"

On the way down the mountain, Hokusinn Kichyō curiously blurted out this question.

Bai Wei is not completely sure, "I’m also not sure, we’ll have to go down the mountain to see and understand. The changes in the timeline should be discernible, the shrine doesn’t have preserved calendars, but the village should have retained some, to some extent."

Hokusinn Kichyō asked again, "Do you wish this to be twenty years later?"

"Is it important whether it’s true or not?" Bai Wei asked.

"It’s not important, but I would be very curious," Hokusinn Kichyō expressed her thoughts, "If this is really twenty years later, and if we are destined to go back twenty years in time, can we go back to Edo and see how things are now?"

Bai Wei glanced at Hokusinn Kichyō and said, "It would be best not to."

"Why?"

Bai Wei pondered how to explain and asked, "Have you read any science fiction books?"

Hokusinn Kichyō shook her head.

Bai Wei thought for a moment and slowly began to tell a science fiction story.

"I will tell you a story."

"There was a person, regardless of his name, gender, or physical appearance."

"In short, this person arrived in the world ten years later. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw another version of himself in the room, and he recognized him at first glance. Overjoyed, he realized that he had traveled to the future. He shouted at the other version of himself in the room, but all he heard was the sound of someone falling to the ground. When he tried to enter the room, he discovered that he had been murdered."

"This outcome made the person extremely worried. He tried every possible way to eliminate the possibility of being murdered. He moved away from this city and distanced himself from the place where he had previously died. He decided to endure until that day and then figure out a way to return to a normal life."

"He did indeed do this and never returned to his original city. With information from the future, he gained a large amount of income, bought a house, and out of fear of being killed, chose to live alone. In this waiting, he waited for the day of destiny."

"He locked the doors and windows, and all the security measures were in place! It would take at least twenty minutes for anyone to break in, and he had plenty of time to seek help."

"He waited until there was only one minute left before his death, but there was no evidence of anyone entering the room. His heart gradually relaxed, and he became ecstatic, thinking that he had overcome fate. There were only ten seconds left, but nothing came."

"He casually opened the jar in front of him, scooped a spoonful of peanut butter, when suddenly, he heard a call from outside the window."

"The sound called his name, which shocked him like thunder. He thought it was the Grim Reaper coming for him, and fear instantly made him lose his judgment. As a result, he accidentally swallowed a metal spoon covered in peanut butter."

"He didn’t die immediately. He wanted to save himself, trying to use a sword to cut his throat, to dig out the spoon and open his airway. But he was in so much pain that he couldn’t get up. If he hadn’t sealed all the doors and windows, maybe someone outside could have come in and saved him."

"He passed away due to his caution and timidity."

"Twenty minutes later, a young man struggled to open the door and walked in. He saw the middle-aged man lying dead on the ground. He grabbed his hair, trembled in fear, and ran out of the house, screaming."

Clap! Bai Wei excitedly exclaimed, "The story comes to an end."

Hokusinn Kichyō snapped back to reality and pondered, "So, he passed away due to fright?"

"Or one could say, he perished due to his own fears, but let us not overlook the cause and effect, for the appearance of his past self led to his demise in the present. It is a never-ending cycle of consequences," Bai Wei mused. "And it is an endless loop," he added.

"Are you implying that by surveilling me, attempting to glimpse into the future, there will inevitably be risks?" Hokusinn asked.

"It’s not always a certainty, but those who often manipulate time are often manipulated by time itself. And the story I just mentioned is just one of them."

Bai Wei explained slowly, "The future and the past, they never follow a simple straight line. They consist of multiple branches, like a sprawling tree with abundant leaves. The lives of ordinary people are like one-way highways, where turning back is not possible."

"Once you turn back, you will face a car accident. Even though there are no traffic police here, the threat of death is everywhere. When you make a U-turn on the highway, it means you are heading towards a collision with another person or with your own life. Nobody knows what the consequences will be."

"Once you travel to twenty years in the future and start observing the traces of your own or familiar people’s existence, the mystery begins to unfold. The uncertain future gradually becomes materialized, and usually, two situations can occur."

"The first kind is the future where "you disappeared for twenty years" – In this future, you have been gone for a whole twenty years, so there is no trace of you here. The twenty years in between are all blank. If you could go back twenty years ago, then this current reality would immediately collapse and disappear."

"The second option is the future of ‘Your Twenty Years of Existence’ – in this future, you don’t disappear and continue to exist. However, it is assumed that the past version of you also has the ability to travel through time. You exist both twenty years ago and at the end point of twenty years in the future. There is a high probability that you may change some things, but certain predetermined outcomes become reality the moment you see them and cannot be rewritten."

Bai Wei hesitated slightly.

"The first kind of future, even if you observe it, doesn’t have any practical meaning, because we are destined to return to twenty years ago."

"As for the second kind… I don’t think anyone would want to see a future that cannot be rewritten, right?"

Hokusinn Kichyō was persuaded and said, "You’re right. Okay, I give up."

She had merely mentioned it casually, and under the current circumstances, it was uncertain whether she could leave Shikoku Town.

Bai Wei, too, would simply chat and pass the boring time while descending the mountain.

These were thoughts that Hokusinn had also considered, but he didn’t contemplate peering into the future until he had regained enough strength.

The timeline was not so strict and flawless, and if you couldn’t rewrite history, it simply meant that you weren’t strong enough.

If, right now, Bai Wei were to come face to face with a future version of himself, blabbering on and on with a bunch of nonsense, he would most likely roll up his sleeves and engage in a fight with the other version of himself. "After I beat you up," Bai Wei would say, "you’ll see that your words hold no weight. If I can’t defeat you, then where will you go?"

"Was analyzing timelines your past interest, or did you study it as a last-minute lesson?" Hokusinn Kichyō curiously asked.

"Maybe," Bai Wei replied, "especially after the last time loop, I realized the need to brush up on this knowledge, so as not to fall into an endless cycle."

"This time, probably not," Hokusinn Kichyō paused for a moment, "but you never know. I have a feeling that some force is interfering with our actions."

"Let’s take it one step at a time," Bai Wei said calmly. "It’s definitely not boring being with you. Time travel has already happened twice. The first time was a rewind, and this time it involves the future and the past. I wonder if the next time will involve deletion, fast-forwarding, or time stopping."

Kichyō didn’t mind the seemingly teasing remark, "You can look forward to it."

Bai Wei sighed, "Please go easy on me."

…

Shikoku Town was situated at a distance from Edo. It was considered remote, but not completely isolated from the rest of the world. At least there was electricity here.

In the impression of Bai Wei and Hokusinn Kichyō, this town actually had considerable tourism potential. It retained the atmosphere of the Taisho era while incorporating some modern buildings in the form of small Western-style houses. The town also had some interesting thatched-roof houses preserved on its outskirts, which can be described as quite authentic in style. With the construction of several concrete roads and improvement of the transportation infrastructure, hosting an annual festival could attract a large number of tourists and generate more income than farming.

However, twenty years later, the level of civilization here had not progressed, but rather regressed dramatically.

The sky was gloomy and the land appeared lifeless. When the weather was bad, the filtering effect of this gloomy atmosphere made the garden look like a wreath.

Hokusinn Kichyō couldn’t believe her eyes and asked, "Is this truly Shikoku Town?"

Bai Wei’s memories were very clear. He thought to himself, "The layout here hasn’t changed much, but there is a large residential area missing."

He said and went around to take a look. The two of them walked into the town, which was still deserted in the winter. There was nobody working in the fields.

But every household stayed indoors, and hardly anyone could be seen outside. There were no hooligans that the village was known for, nor were there any patrolling police officers.

Bai Wei noticed that the missing residential area was not actually gone, but buried. Half of a mountain peak had collapsed, and a large amount of debris had permanently covered this place.

But here, there were no traces of excavation to be seen, as if it were a chaotic burial ground in the wilderness.

Only a few elderly people knelt down in front of the collapsed half of the mountain peak, bowing to it and whispering softly.

Bai Wei tried to start a conversation, but their faces remained expressionless upon seeing a stranger, continuing to kneel and pray for something.

"Look at this ground here."

"It’s very dry," Bai Wei also noticed, not only the ground, but even the townspeople had physical features indicating water scarcity.

"I remember that the water resources here used to be abundant, but when I just came down the mountain, both the mountain springs and riverbeds were completely dried up," Hokusinn Kichyō said. "It’s really strange, previously it was a flood that submerged everything, and now, twenty years later in Shikoku Town, it’s a barren and water-deficient place?"

"It’s all related to water," Bai Wei asked, "What have you thought of?"

"Hmm… Kamitsumiwoikirihime is the water goddess," Hokusinn Kichyō speculated. "There is clearly a living god up in the mountains."

"Perhaps it was the work of that living god?" Bai Wei responded, asking, "Something must have happened twenty years ago."

…but it shouldn’t be the Feast of Hundred Demons, if it were, there would be no living beings here, right?

Bai Wei wanted to find out the situation clearly, searching for someone to communicate with. However, he faced many closed doors. In the end, some people even chased them away with pitchforks, urging the outsiders to leave quickly. Helpless, the two of them had no choice but to return to the outskirts of the village.

Just as they walked by, Bai Wei suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. He approached quickly and saw a figure sitting in front of a dilapidated house. The figure was dried up, with a lifeless gaze, resembling a walking dead.

"…Rokuro Shimura?"