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Chapter 700 - 697: "Initials and Finals.

Chapter 700: Chapter 697: "Initials and Finals.

Noel had once been deeply entangled in a contradiction.

He gave children hope, transformed them, endowed them with the ability to fight, and let them confront a world that was cruel and dangerous. But at the same time, he felt hesitant about his actions of bartering with the children—after all, it was behavior not approved by the masses.

"Humans should have enough enlightenment before facing an Apocalypse capable of destroying them." Yet, most people still clung to their original ideas, believing that children should live in a greenhouse, away from sin and wars, safe and sound until the year’s end.

Noel, however, had glimpsed the darkness hidden behind this viewpoint—if not afflicted by sin, it meant that the children would not grow at all throughout the year. Once the year was over, what likely awaited the children was death from the engulfing flames of war, which spared no child.

Only with sufficient intellect could one empathize with the powerless plight of the children. Noel had always been seeking a psychological balance, maintaining this bottom line while also saving himself, preventing his fall into the abyss.

Noel knew well that regardless of his intentions, it was he who had proactively stained the children’s blank slate with cruelty. Should his experimental actions become public, there would certainly be a mass of people condemning him—these people wouldn’t care if the children would die after a year; they believed children should not be dragged into this.

This ideological contradiction and pain tormented him continually, and in his midnight reveries, he would ask himself whether he was a demon wielding a scalpel. Until finally, he couldn’t bear the agony any longer, and his vision turned black and white.

He had hesitated about whether to confess this "experimental project" to Su Ming’an—they had not trusted each other in the beginning.

—Until the Seventh World Pulaya, where Noel guessed Su Ming’an’s Time Retrospection ability.

—Until Su Ming’an’s birthday, when they made wishes together in a hot spring.

—Until the Ninth World City of Measurement, when Noel further deduced Su Ming’an’s Death Retrospection ability, and the Solitary Island finally connected.

Noel wanted humanity to win, to ensure the survival of the children—and Su Ming’an’s godlike Time Authority gave humans a tremendous chance of victory, something no one else could achieve.

So, he would do everything in his power to help Su Ming’an win.

Whether that rewinding ability was a gift from higher dimensions, or a self-rescue of Zhai Xing’s consciousness, Su Ming’an must be a "chosen one," and this reason was enough.

—He would do his utmost to help him.

"..." He hugged Su Ming’an tight in the blizzard, brilliant golden strands mingling with fluttering black hair in the air, numerous mechanical guns pointed at them from the corridor, yet restrained by orders not to harm Su Ming’an and thus unable to fire.

"...Let’s go," Su Ming’an’s voice came.

In the blizzard, his voice sounded fragile.

Noel could feel Su Ming’an’s body trembling, stiff as an icicle... He didn’t know how many times Su Ming’an had died to reach this point; the ’Death Retrospection’ ability was a hundredfold more painful and difficult than abilities like ’Fixed Point Retrospection’ or ’Free Save and Load’—death is a fear beyond human control, and the pain it brings is beyond the upper limits of what normal people can endure.

—How much pain must the Number One Player have gone through to get this far?

Suffering compounded dozens of times is enough to crush a person, not to mention the malice of the instance plots, targeting from villains like Edward, the numbness and indifference of the audience, and the prying and leading of the large group organizations...

A person is considered normal because they are in a normal environment, not because they are inherently normal.

Noel asked himself if he could endure if the Death Retrospection ability were given to him. After much consideration, the answer was "no."

He couldn’t manage to die dozens of times in extreme despair, just to save one person. He would only bury the departed in his heart; his mental state was already poor, and he wouldn’t repeatedly torture himself until hallucinations appeared.

Perhaps only someone like Su Ming’an, a "madman" who didn’t care about himself at all, would regard death and pain as cost-free and manage to this extent.

He would only ever harm himself, treating himself as a trigger machine for time resets, or a piece of flesh without pain. Noel couldn’t be as cruel to himself as he was.

"Okay, let’s go," Noel let go of Su Ming’an, and with a flap of the black crow’s wings, they took off into the night from the 107th floor.

Their figures became more and more distant, like two stars, one black and one golden, disappearing between the dense snowstorm.

"Su Ming’an, you..." Inside the corridor, Yamada Machiichi was dumbfounded. He hadn’t expected that upon the appearance of the red-eyed Noel, Su Ming’an’s first reaction would be to embrace him, and then they both just ran off!

Yamada stood amongst the light-reflecting glass shards, with only the cold mechanical beings around him, clenching his fists.

It was he who had helped Su Ming’an first, whether it was killing Deity faction players, or delivering a wheelchair, or protecting Su Ming’an in front of Lin Guang. Why, why did Su Ming’an leave with Noel, who had been invaded... Why had things turned out this way...

He stared blankly as Su Ming’an and Noel rode away on the black crow.

He realized that something had happened that he couldn’t touch. No matter how much he guessed, he couldn’t peek into that secret — as if there was an invisible barrier separating them.

...

Once they ascended into the sky, Su Ming’an started to coordinate with Noel.

Noel took out a Mandarin phonetics booklet — "Dragon Country Mandarin Phonetics Learning · 4-Year-Old Infant Edition" and wrote markers on it.

"Consonants like ’b’ are indicated by a slightly bent thumb gesture. Vowels like ’ang’ are replaced with a short poem. I have also thought of corresponding gestures and poems for the other 23 consonants and 24 vowels..." Noel held the pen.

Su Ming’an watched as Noel wrote the characters down.

Mandarin phonetics in Dragon Country total 63 sounds. Among them, there are 23 initial consonants, 24 vowels, and 16 overall syllables.

Among the vowels, there are 6 single vowels, 8 compound vowels, 1 special vowel, 5 front nasal vowels, and 4 back nasal vowels.

Noel marked the corresponding secret code for all 23 initial consonants and 24 vowels, not worrying about the overall syllables since even those syllables like zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si, yi, wu, yu, ye, yin, yun, ying could be indicated by a combination of consonants and vowels. For the remaining syllables yuan and yue, he chose to use short poems.

Initial consonants were mainly indicated by actions, such as bending fingers, making fists, waving hands, hugging, etc., each corresponding to 23 different consonants. Vowels mainly relied on speech and poetry, like "saying hello," "discussing the Organizers," "talking about instance bosses," "talking about Noel himself," and so on, each corresponding to 24 different vowels.

All 49 corresponding relationships, Noel wrote down in the phonetic booklet, and Su Ming’an memorized them.

During this cycle, Su Ming’an used it for learning these secret codes. By the next cycle, it would be time for him and Noel to communicate with these secret codes that only the two of them understood.

Before meeting Su Ming’an, Noel had already thought up the correspondence between the phonetics and the secret codes in his mind. If Su Ming’an spoke in secret codes during the next cycle, Noel would instantly understand — they had already synchronized with the codes.

If Su Ming’an wanted to say "Last cycle, I already knew the clue about Beili Sier," he just needed to indicate the phonetic structure of "North" — the consonant code for "b" was a hand raising gesture. The vowel code for "ei" was the topic of saying "hello."

Su Ming’an just needed to raise his hand and say "Good evening" when he saw Noel. Noel would instantly know that Su Ming’an already knew the clue about Beili Sier from the last cycle.

If Su Ming’an wanted to say "Last cycle, I went to the valley and obtained the Dawn System clue," he just needed to indicate the phonetic structure of "Dawn" — the consonant code for "l" was a bent right middle finger, and the vowel code for "i" was "Lighthouse Theory." Su Ming’an would just have to bend his right middle finger and talk about the Lighthouse Theory. Noel would understand that Su Ming’an had been to the valley.

The relationships between these secret codes and the phonetics had been silently constructed in Noel’s mind for a long time. During that period, he couldn’t write a single word or phrase, couldn’t utter it aloud, couldn’t recite it, otherwise, the Organizers would discover he was creating secret codes. He could only repeatedly mull over them in his mind, continuously deepening his memory.

He had learned all the phonetics in just a few days and recognized most of the characters of Dragon Country. He pretended to be interested in Dragon Country culture during fragmented times so that he could glance at a dictionary, slowly committing the characters to memory.

And now, in this cycle, they matched the information between them, and Noel poured out these corresponding relationships from his mind, informing Su Ming’an, so he could memorize them.

...So that they could match information more succinctly in the next cycle.

"Have you memorized it?" Noel asked.

"I remember," Su Ming’an said, closing the phonetic handbook.

— Noel was a genius.

A genius of nearly demonic intelligence, with human peak wisdom.

Before his arrival, Noel had set multiple layers of psychological suggestion on himself, each deeper than the last, making one layer trigger another. Only by doing this could he deduce more and more information through the ever-repeating loops.

The information exchange between the two of them, with each loop, would become more concise, more cryptic.

— This was the wisdom of mere mortals.

Crossing eighteen deaths, deceits, and lies, spanning the long river of looped time, he wrestled free from his own strings.

... until he finally compiled a language known only to the two of them.

Noel would continue to update these secret codes, making them increasingly esoteric, to the point where later they could align their information in everyday conversations without special gestures or hugs.

He had crossed the inverse river of time, and as a human, had matched wits with a death resetter.

This was the building of a bridge between solitary islands.

Moreover, Noel’s actions were nearly impossible to replicate — only one completely relying on his intuition could infer Su Ming’an’s time retrospection ability and instill in himself a strong psychological suggestion to match information with Su Ming’an. Otherwise, if Su Ming’an divulged the information to someone else and then reset, in the next loop, that person would still be clueless.

Only Noel had achieved this.

"Is the Dragon Country script interesting?" Su Ming’an asked.

Noel lifted his lips, smiling.

"Interesting," he replied cheerfully. "It’s been a long time since I’ve learned something with such joy."

"Thank you," Su Ming’an closed his eyes.

Before the reset, in a hazy moment, he heard Noel’s voice:

"... Su Ming’an, even though it’s fun now, I hope you understand we are your companions, not burdens. If we truly can’t be saved, it’s better to let us go to lighten your load. You are not obligated to save everyone..."

"You need to cherish yourself first before you can care for others."

...

The next loop.

Su Ming’an opened his eyes and got up.

Like every loop before, he sent away Lin Guang, took over the wheelchair from Yamada Machiichi, and then waited for Red-eyed Noel to arrive.

At the sight of the magician in a white robe through the broken glass, Su Ming’an raised his hand and smiled:

"Good evening, Noel."

...

[Lifting the hand corresponds to the initial consonant "b," and the greeting corresponds to the rhyme "ei."]

...

In a moment, understanding dawned on them both. Light and shadow flickered in Noel’s crimson eyes as the corner of his mouth curled slightly.

He turned and flew in another direction — he knew Su Ming’an had already exchanged their secret code, and since he hadn’t exposed his Puppet Master identity, he could still seek information from the invading deity.

Su Ming’an pulled aside Yamada Machiichi and, using the effect of "Daisy’s Song" to teleport, instantly left the circle of mechanical beings.

"Alright, Yamada, go do what you want," Su Ming’an said and pulled out the teleportation pocket watch, summoning the name of the teleport destination: "Beili Sier."

In an instant, the crimson pocket watch burst into a blood-like hue, reflecting Su Ming’an’s expression — upon seeing it, Yamada Machiichi thought it looked eased, relieved, like the relaxation after running a thousand miles.

"Su Ming’an..." Yamada Machiichi called out softly.

"Yes?"

"... Good luck." Yamada Machiichi didn’t know why, but he said it.

"Yes."

Su Ming’an responded.

It was almost over.

The clues about the Dawn System would come from Beili Sier, then he would save Yuanyuan, end the Dawn War, finish the Caius Tower... it was almost over.

The final conclusion of the Ninth World... after learning the truth about the three-dimensional flow of time, that conclusion was no longer far from him.

Importantly, he was not alone anymore.

The teleportation light flared, and he landed in a valley that was a veritable paradise, with the warm breeze of spring brushing through his frost-laden black hair.

"Whush—"

Around him, the bamboo was lush and towering, with wooden pavilions, streams, and grape trellises scattered throughout the valley; doves and butterflies flew alongside in a setting that was discordant with the apocalyptic world outside.

With a "click," Su Ming’an closed the pocket watch, his eyes bright.

At that moment, he recalled a line from Yu Country’s poet, Rene Charles.

[The more you understand, the more pain you feel. The more you know, the more you are torn.

But he had a clarity that matched the pain, a resilience balanced against the despair.]

He thought of the golden-haired youth whom he had embraced in the snowstorm.

Perhaps, both he and Noel possessed that clarity, that resilience, symmetrical to pain and balanced against despair.