CHAPTER 551: CHAPTER 549: ILLUSION

Luo Siyuan swallowed hard and slowly said, "The results show that if the observation machine is activated, then the light particles behave like particles, and interference fringes are not produced. If the observation machine is turned off, however, the interference fringes will reappear. That is to say, the result of the observation becomes the cause of the event; the future has determined the past."

For the first time, a look of what could only be called fear appeared on Luo Siyuan’s face, while a look of confusion was evident on the other cultivators’ faces.

"The ultimate version of the experiment itself is delayed-choice quantum erasure—it even suggests that the outcome can occur countless years before the cause. Time is not real, space is not real; everything on the microscopic scale is challenging the inherent thinking of the macroscopic world. This intense feeling of being torn apart, of despair, even led my master to give up in frustration and start hoping for divine assistance—if there really were Gods and Buddhas, then with their great freedom, great wandering, and great wisdom, they would surely be able to answer this question."

Luo Siyuan said softly, "As an apprentice, I accompanied my master to every corner of the world that might hold a trace of Gods or Buddhas. We went to Tianzhu to see the Bodhi Tree where the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment. It was quite ordinary, with nothing divine about it. We dug beneath the earth, down to the netherworld, in search of traces of the Yama, but found nothing. We even found the sacred ground of the White Lotus Sect. We sneaked in while the White Lotus Sect Leader was asleep and urinated on the White Lotus Sacred Seat where he sat during the day. HEH, my master then took me on a long sea voyage, away from land. We drifted farther and farther into the windless zone, where there was only seawater and no living creatures. After loitering for months, we finally saw the legendary Beiming Ruins—it was a sea cliff where, every moment, billions of gallons of seawater poured in, falling thousands of feet off the cliff, disappearing without a trace. Beyond the ruins, there was an expanse of chaos so murky it couldn’t be dispelled."

Luo Siyuan said indifferently, "We sailed along the Beiming Ruins all the way back to land, confirming that this world is shaped like a flat disc, like a lonely island floating on the surface of the sea. This did not match my master’s observed phenomenon that the world is a sphere. I think that from that moment on, my master began to doubt whether the world truly exists."

He shook his head and sighed, "After returning to the Central Plains, my master stayed alone for a long time and eventually decided to try ascending, to take a look. Not by transcending through a heavenly tribulation to become an immortal, but by building a device himself, carrying him up into the sky to see what was beyond the firmament. I watched him sit in the iron cylinder, watched him fly up into the sky and become a tiny speck of light. I sat waiting in the same spot for several days until he returned. He landed, opened the hatch, and smiled at me, ’Damn it, it’s really fucking cold up there.’ After that, my master started to drink heavily."

Luo Siyuan shook his head. "Once, when he was drunk, he grabbed me by the collar excitedly, his eyes red as he told me, ’It’s all fake! All fake! Everything is fake! The sun and moon in the sky are just two sheets of paper hanging there; the so-called vast starry sky never existed—there is an indestructible transparent barrier surrounding the firmament, and at night, the barrier emits starlight, deceiving all living beings.’"

"Absurd!" The middle-aged Taoist’s face turned purple with anger. "That’s nonsense! That’s heresy!"

"That’s the reality." Luo Siyuan let out a long sigh, his eyes filled with weariness. "Our world is just a tiny existence enclosed within a hollow glass sphere. There are no Ninety-nine Heavens, and no Heavenly Court either."

"Zhang Tianshi!" As if grasping at straws, the middle-aged Taoist growled, "Zhang Tianshi took the Jade Imperial Seal and the Dual Evil-Slaying Swords, demolished mountains and temples, and finally ascended to immortality. You can’t deny that, can you?!"

"I acknowledge it." Luo Siyuan nodded. "My master himself was an elder from Longhu Mountain, familiar with the sect’s secrets. But he was puzzled. If some God Immortals with great power created the world, where are they now? Where have all those cultivators who ascended to immortality throughout the ages gone? To answer this, the only way before his lifespan ran out was to ascend to the Fairy World in person, to find someone and ask. Even if it meant dying, he wanted to know why the creator gods designed the world this way."

Lightning flashed, illuminating Luo Siyuan’s indifferent face. He said, "He failed in his tribulation. Half of his body was completely charred. He lay paralyzed in bed, only able to move his head. He no longer possessed the God Immortal’s bearing of the past, but his eyes were brighter than ever before. He smiled proudly and whispered to me that in the instant of the thunder tribulation, he saw the truth: he saw a god in slumber, gestating within a dense soup. Our world is but a dream of a god. The true history of this dream is much shorter than we believe. All those who ascend to immortality become nourishment to hasten the god’s awakening. All other Immortals and Buddhas are false, except for the Creator God. Or to put it another way, they are ideas that the Creator God made us conceive."

"Impossible..." The middle-aged Taoist protested weakly, "You are lying..."

"When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Luo Siyuan said expressionlessly, "I was born to a poor farming family in Haozhou. As a child, Haozhou experienced a drought, and then a plague of locusts and an epidemic the following year. In less than half a month, my father, elder brother, younger sister, and mother passed away one after another from famine and disease. They died without money for coffins or land. It was I who begged my neighbors for a burial plot and wrapped my deceased family members in rags for a barely proper burial. Before I could even grieve, I had to flee the chaos of war. I witnessed unspeakable horrors along the way. Whenever I recall them, I feel a tightness in my throat and a suffocation in my chest, as though from another lifetime. I want to know, if there truly is a Creator God, why does He not protect innocent beings? Why let righteousness fade and evil grow, allowing the mortal world to turn into hell? Are our pain and despair, our joy and delight, just mere playthings to Him, diversions to pass His time? I am not content."

The middle-aged Taoist said bitterly, "So you deceived the Sect Master."

"You could say that." Luo Siyuan said indifferently, "I followed my master’s last wish and turned part of his Taiyin-refined body into a Fish Demon. The tadpole-like creatures inside the Fish Demon’s belly are a combination of the aged Demonic Qi from the Demon Refining Cave and soul fragments from the Ling Water River Basin. According to the formation I designed, these Human-faced Tadpoles will go downstream. They will flood cities like Chenzhou in the lower reaches and devour the souls therein, using countless souls as energy to forcefully awaken the slumbering Creator God. All this was set up over a decade ago. Even if you kill me and seal the Fish Demon, what is meant to happen will still happen. It will just make the act of awakening the Creator God slightly less intense."

"If what you’re saying is all true," Scholar Zhu looked at Luo Siyuan with the same expressionless face and calmly said, "and the world itself is a dream, then what would happen to the dream if you disturb the Creator God’s slumber?"

"I don’t know." Luo Siyuan shook his head. "Perhaps it will directly collapse? Perhaps the Creator God will enter another beautiful dream in the blink of an eye, and we will be completely obliterated, as if we never existed? Who can be certain. If the Creator God does not directly recreate the world, and the final answer He gives about the purpose of the world’s existence does not satisfy me, then perhaps, I will draw my sword and strike at the god. I will let the high and mighty Creator God taste the wrath of mortals."

Scholar Zhu said indifferently, "Then what about those who were harmed by Huang Silang? Those who were tormented and eventually filled into the belly of the fish as sacrifices? Those neighbors and acquaintances you interacted with daily in the streets of Chenzhou? Do they deserve to die? Having seen the ugliness of the world, why would you let it go unchecked, even adding fuel to the flames?"

Luo Siyuan fell into a long silence. After a while, he sighed and said, "If existence is meaningless, then suffering is also meaningless. I simply wish to know the answer. Well, the time has come. The flood has reached Chenzhou."