Welcome to Rewind World Game-Chapter 1624: Final - · Crossing the Seas Arc [76] · "The Most Holy Yang Mermaid and the Innocent Association of People (9)

Chapter 1624: Final Chapter · Crossing the Seas Arc [76] · "The Most Holy Yang Mermaid and the Innocent Association of People (9)

"I’ve read some science books; the sunfish feeds on jellyfish, so whenever I see a sunfish, I must avoid it." Su Liujin said, "A destined link in the food chain... destined hunters and prey, destined enemies."

"But, mom read me a fairy tale."

"Once upon a time, there was a jellyfish that befriended a sunfish. The jellyfish was very simple-minded and didn’t know there was a dangerous food chain between them. The sunfish was a very ambitious fish; it always wished to fly into the sky, but how could a fish become a bird?"

"The jellyfish kept comforting the sunfish and encouraged it to work hard because it believed where there is a will, there’s a way, and sooner or later the sunfish could fly up, yet in Luowasha, the deeply-rooted food chain is the only law, fish can never become birds."

"One day, the sunfish said it was going to fly. The jellyfish knew the sunfish’s future was vast, while it was just a small jellyfish. It could only reluctantly bid farewell to its friend. Later, the jellyfish lived alone for a long time and only learned from companions’ words — it turns out the only way the sunfish could fly into the sky and leap over the dragon gate... was to devour a jellyfish that fully believed in and loved it."

"Love is the most delicious poison."

"The sunfish gave up the chance to eat the jellyfish, gave up its long-held dream."

Su Liujin paused here but smiled. The sugar frost melted softer in the warm breeze, making his side profile appear gentle:

"But later, mom told me the ending of this story."

"It turns out the jellyfish was not ordinary, it was special and wouldn’t die from being eaten, which was great. It went to find the sunfish, hoping the sunfish would eat it and fly into the sky."

"However, the sunfish said: ’Even if you won’t die, I won’t go to the sky. Even if you won’t die, I don’t want to eat you even once.’ Like this, the jellyfish and the sunfish became friends peacefully and happily, living together forever..."

This is a warm fairy tale.

Yet it vaguely made Su Ming’an understand, this is a fairy tale, yet also part of Su Liujin’s past experience.

"See, there’s a flying sunfish; I don’t like it because it devoured a jellyfish that wholly loved it." Su Liujin raised his finger, "Want to try? What I just taught you."

Su Liujin raised his right hand, his index and thumb straight, the other three fingers swiftly closing in, forming a simple and sharp angle, steadily aiming in the direction where the bird’s shadow passed.

"Raise your hand, steady it." His voice was light and clear.

Su Ming’an raised his right hand. Su Liujin gently pinched his wrist, adjusted his posture, thumb secured, leading Su Ming’an’s ’gun barrel’, chasing that streak of golden flying shadow.

"Like this." Su Liujin whispered, "It’s almost like shadow puppetry, shadows walking in the light, we behind the curtain steadily aiming at it."

The enormous candy tree cast dense shade, enveloping everything in soft twilight, with only two pairs of bright golden eyes tightly chasing the daylight.

"Bang." Su Liujin spoke softly.

The sunfish continued flying, without falling, nothing happened.

The gentle finger gun couldn’t cause any harm, nor make a fish fall.

"Let it keep flying then." Su Liujin lowered his hand.

"Don’t you dislike it for deceiving the jellyfish?" Su Ming’an glanced sideways.

"I’m not an ordinary jellyfish; I am the Jellyfish Emperor, and you are the Lighthouse Sect Leader." Su Liujin raised his hand, palm filled with the sunset’s blood red, "We will overturn those food chains sooner or later, and make such stories cease to happen. Then all jellyfish and sunfish can live wonderfully... This time, I won’t punish it."

"I live here as a carefree Little King, my identity noble and unfettered, yet I always have a voice in my heart speaking — it says, you’re waiting, waiting to escape."

"I am a noble Little King, yet also a jellyfish; I’ve always been waiting for the sunfish, like a Prince waiting for a Princess... waiting for the wonder-working sunfish to come, to devour my flesh, let the wingless fish grow feathers, and take me flying away..."

"Everyone seems to say to me: Don’t wait anymore, the sunfish will not come. Be content as a Little King who doesn’t need to think, stay here forever, everyone likes you."

"Don’t wait anymore, the sunfish will not come."

"Yes, the sunfish will not come because..."

The white-haired teenager slightly bowed, reaching his hand toward Su Ming’an.

Behind him, the last competitors made a shining entrance — it was the Holy Envoy Phoenix and Summoner Bairan. Phoenix’s pair of Phoenix wings raised high, glowing gold, radiant, perfectly overlapping with the angle of Su Ming’an looking up at Su Liujin — it looked as if Su Liujin had a pair of golden wings growing from his back.

The white-haired teenager’s gaze lifted, directly staring into Su Ming’an’s eyes, piercing the dimming twilight. The golden light-fire seemed ready to ignite this dusk.

That high sign quietly lay on the eaves, cinnabar script like a tiny heartbeat under the falling evening glow.

"Because."

"I can become a sunfish."

His brow and eyes bowed softly, smiling tenderly.

The evening breeze suddenly swept across the candy house eaves, blowing a few stray hairs from Su Liujin’s forehead, tiny sugar grains floating around them like golden sand.

That hand tightly grasped Su Ming’an’s palm, seeming like an agreement between "rebels."

"Let’s go."

"We’re leaving."

...

If leaving really were so easy, Su Liujin wouldn’t have stayed here all this time.

Just like a butterfly raised in a greenhouse from its youth, suddenly releasing it... would it soar with wings, or fall hurriedly, dying an incomplete death?

Su Ming’an observed for a long time but couldn’t recognize — is he ultimately a tool white stone coerced by endless malice and world morality, a champion No. 001 of the first Disciple Game chasing truth only to be killed, a lonely boy at sea waiting with a wooden box, a cheerful and bright War God Dragon King Narration by the ears, a loveless Observer traversing the world, or a Little King surrounded by countless love?

So many versions of him, like a shattered mirror, splitting into countless fragments.

Which one is the true him?

...

"Swoosh—!"

White tentacles bloom like flowers, stabbing into the burning Phoenix’s body.

Phoenix was extremely brave, head held high, unleashing its last ounce of strength to leave a wound on Su Ming’an, yet pierced through by the Sword of Yarman.

"Child of Destiny... cannot win..." Phoenix murmured, unwilling, yet still laughing wildly, "Today, I, Phoenix, didn’t lose to you! Didn’t lose to the King and Deity! But lost to this world! This world that only favors you, only loves you, only makes you happy! Su Liujin!!!"

Suddenly, its form vanished, turning into an egg. Phoenixes do not die, only reborn as eggs.

Bairan truly unable to counter, helplessly raised both hands to concede defeat.

Su Liujin held Su Ming’an’s hand, as the champion, he should go to greet the Radiant Mother God and fulfill a wish.

When they stepped onto the palace’s highest rooftop, overlooking all, subjects knelt down, their blessings echoing like mountains and rivers, united in voice.

"Please make a wish, let these beautiful days continue endlessly!" Hui Chi — no, the paper man with a mask of golden hair and red eyes shouted, his shape flat and dull.

"Please make a wish, let the candy house expand wider and wider, let people enjoy prosperity without labor!" Hui Bei — no, the paper man with a mask of golden hair and green eyes shouted.

"Please make a wish, let the whole world continue loving you!"

"Please make a wish, let everything in the mortal world align with your desires!"

The love and admiration from all living beings lifted the Little King, adorning him with golden garments, engraving him with gemstones, crowning him.

Yet—

"Swish!"

The Little King turned back, decisively threw away his crown, shattered the gemstone, tore off the red silk from his body, and gripped Su Ming’an’s hand, leaping down from the highest roof!

The radiant stairs leading to the deity’s abode were near at hand, but he chose descent.

He laughed loudly, like a sunfish voluntarily severing its wings, tightly clenching Su Ming’an as they rolled downwards.

...

[My gaze once hung suspended in emptiness, life and death like the constant tides. Stars flowed, all things withered and thrived, the mortal world is but a speck of dust.]

[—Until that day, that person arrived, unwittingly I peeled back the curtain of the world.]

[Just a glance down, I saw.]

[I saw the sobbing of the wind overshadowing a child’s cries, the groans beneath the dirt covering the sprouting spring buds, I saw brave soldiers reduced to money bags, non-believers forced to believe for survival, I saw in this world, jellyfish can only be jellyfish, sunfish can only be sunfish.]

["So many Liujin, which one is truly me? Why do I appear in this kingdom, why become a king?"]

[I don’t understand, I only understand why a dancer knowing full well the night and day are unchangeable, life and death inevitable, yet still dances fervently for the world, braving fire and water.]

[In a daze, I saw many versions of "me"—I saw Xi Li and Qi Zhou transforming into War God Dragon King Narration, raising me high; I saw Hui Bei holding a wooden box, drowning for me in the sea; I saw Shi Ying pierced through by steel, yet desperately throwing me skyward; I saw why Icarus perished, Lin Qinghuan, Li Qingyu, Little Monk, storyteller, old man by the cliff, Chen Ping, Rocksha, Qianqin, Great Saint... one by one coming to me, lifting me into the heavens.]

[Who am I?]

[This is probably a question that can only be known upon awakening.]

[Yet more voices are flooding in, heavy enough to crush into oblivion. "Son, son, where have you gone? Since you went to the battlefield, there’s been no news, your mother has been waiting for you..." "Mom, where did dad go? Why did he become a photograph?" "Grandma, why don’t you open your eyes, it took me ages to bring back these loaves of bread..." "What is true and false in this world... when will there be freedom from manipulation and observation..." "Save us, save us..." These complex voices split open the cocoon, letting me see for the first time, that outside the immortal kingdom, there’s a vast thing called loss.]

[In that instant, my throne fell—people’s cries grasped hold of me. The emperor’s body like a wandering dragon, felt "heavy" for the first time. The voice which should have been ignored like dust, converged into a ceaselessly rushing river, overwhelming my imperial seat surveying the heavens and earth.]

[It turns out the War God Dragon King can also fall, turns out the Great Emperor—also has an unbearable weight.]

[When my body crashes onto the scorched earth, my palms touch the charred soil, an unprecedented stirring spreads along my fingertips, I hear a heartbeat beating deep within the land, I see numerous sunfish unwilling to grow wings.]

[—Oh distant "eyes", my friends and I declare war on you, one day soon, you’ll no longer be able to spy on the Great Emperor’s radiant kingdom, nor glimpse the Lighthouse nation’s glory of my friends.]

[I leap into the abyss, no longer succumbing to this blissful kingdom. After awakening, where will I and my friends be, who will I become, what label will be affixed?]

[Is Liujin’s dream of fish or? Is the fish’s dream of Liujin or? Am I becoming a butterfly in a dream, or is the butterfly dreaming of the Great Emperor?]

[Let it be decided upon waking, at least, I must open my eyes.]

[So-called Great Emperor’s downfall, not the emperor dying, is waking. On this expansive hot soil, needing to measure suffering and hope—I open my awe-inspiring golden eyes.]

[I step forward, red silk brushes past scorched soil and new shoots, walking towards the depths where voices gather—not the realm of gods, but the mortal world where all beings crawl.]

[In the mortal world.]

[Sunfish will not come, because I am the one and only jellyfish in the world. I will let everyone know, sunfish never needs to devour jellyfish to grow wings.]

[What of wings? Ha! I possess fins more beautiful than wings.]

...

Su Ming’an awoke from the dream.

He instantly sat up but found himself still not returned to the Princely Heir’s room; before him was a cold, pale room, the bed small and full of technological ambiance.

He looked outwards, discovered outside the window was a velvet-like pure black curtain, nebulae splashed like fluorescent paint, dark purple and cobalt blue intertwined into vast vortexes, adorned with countless stars.

The porthole reflected Su Ming’an’s pupils suddenly contracting.

—Outside the window, was the universe!

He was aboard a massive ark traveling through the universe!

He pinched himself hard, suspecting it was still a dream—this should be where Su Liujin awakens, he might find the awakened Su Liujin if he searches around.

"Here is still a dream, Su Liujin is stuck in circle after circle of dreams..." Su Ming’an understood, he looked at the mirror nearby.

—In the mirror, was his own face.

He rummaged the small cabinet, found an identity card:

...

[Name: Su Qing]

[Identity: Su Ming’an Cloning]

[Authority: S-level]

[Position: One of the Twelve Seats of the Ark.]

...

Ark? What ark?

Speaking of which, Luowasha cannot possibly have sights of the universe, what truly is this place...

Su Ming’an pushed the door open and saw the clock on the wall—

...

[September 22, 2021, 14:24]

[27 days since leaving Zhai Xing (ark time flow differs from original Zhai Xing, travelers take note)]

...

Tick, tick.

The bright red numbers shift every second, small rest rooms span across the icy white corridor, names written at each door.

As if his heart were suddenly clenched tight, Su Ming’an knew, he knew the time it was—

"Su Qing." Came a surprised voice beside him, "You’re not asleep, today’s routine is good. We’ve newly discovered a habitable planet, spectacularly colorful, especially beautiful, do you want to come to the observation room and see?"

A girl with scattered blonde hair came into view, with a refined appearance, as though a bright pearl.

—the second ranked player, Antetolia.

And Su Ming’an sensed Su Liujin’s presence nearby. A jellyfish born to grow up in Luowasha, unexpectedly here nearby.

Behind her, the enormous glass porthole reflected the vast and boundless dark universe.

—A luminously colorful planet quietly situated in the distance, like a dazzling gemstone.

The ark was approaching it.

...