Ye Cang shook his head, casting aside distracting thoughts.
Instead of imagining the tragedy that might be unfolding on the space station, he turned his mind back to the useful information conveyed in Asta’s distress communication.
“It’s not just the Antimatter Legion…
The station has been contaminated…
It’s…
an unknown…
meme…”
“Everything…
started when…
Lady Herta…
had an audience…
with Nous…”
“…Everyone…”
Wait.
Herta had an audience with Nous?
That meant the voice he heard after replying was Herta’s?
[Omniscient existence, I ask you—]
[What is divinity?]
So, just because he heard Herta’s voice, he was contaminated by the meme?
Or was the contamination the “question” itself?
Why did Herta have an audience with Nous at this time?
And why pose such a slightly offensive and transgressive question?
Ye Cang didn’t know the answers to these questions, nor could he deduce the specific working principle of the meme contamination, unless he courted death a few more times.
That feeling was not pleasant.
A flash of insight struck him.
His gaze turned to the only object with color in this gray world: a black leather diary lying open on the table.
The Death Diary.
Ye Cang’s eyes lit up.
Could it be that in the “dimensional ascension” state, I can modify the diary on the spot?
Then how is that different from cheating?
Whatever.
If I don’t get banned, I haven’t cheated!
He quickly went to the low table, crouched down, one hand flipping through the Death Diary, the other reaching for the pen beside it.
But he soon froze in place.
Although he could flip through the Death Diary, the pen was another matter.
His palm passed through the pen’s body without any obstruction, even sinking directly into the low table beneath him.
Right.
He was a “soul” now.
He couldn’t touch any physical object, except this diary that didn’t exist in the real world.
Ye Cang’s gaze dimmed.
He smiled bitterly and murmured, “So it was all for nothing after all?”
He stood up, somewhat disheartened, but quickly rallied again, his gaze firm.
Everything that exists in this world has its reason.
To exist is to be reasonable!
Since the Death Diary can exist in the “dimensional ascension” state, it means I must be able to rewrite the diary’s contents in this state!
He slowly paced, gazing at every person, every object in the train car…
including his own corpse.
Suddenly, Ye Cang stopped.
He crouched down, quietly studying March’s tear-streaked, lovely face.
A strange ache rose in his heart.
Instinctively, he raised his palm and gently wiped the tears from the girl’s cheeks.
“Alright, alright, don’t cry.
I’m not really dead.”
“Growing up, aside from my mom, no girl has ever cried for me like this.”
“After all, we’ve only known each other for a day.
We’re not that close yet…”
He suddenly froze.
He looked down at the teardrop suspended on his fingertip, as if he understood something.
He quickly pulled out the Death Diary and dipped his finger in some of the blood from his own corpse.
At the end of that day’s diary entry, he wrote 8 words:
–+–
Death
Dimensional Ascension
Blood Tears
Do Not Answer
–+–
After doing all this, he suddenly found his body beginning to rise uncontrollably at extreme speed, directly leaving the Astral Express car and entering a dead, silent universe.
His speed grew faster and faster, until the entire galaxy, the entire universe, and even the entire Imaginary Tree appeared beneath him, presented in his vision like a boundless, enormous sandbox.
Then it suddenly blurred!
Everything seemed to fall into eternal silence and darkness.
Until the first ray of light in the universe tore through the curtain of dead silence.
Countless shattered images poured in with that light like snowflakes, or streaked past him like meteors, sweeping toward the earth.
He saw the monster walking through the train car, the contaminated Aeon of Elation, the refining of the Abundance Potion, the gaze of the Merciful Medicine King, the fall of the Herta Space Station…
But all those images were too blurry.
At their worst, he could only make out vaguely distinguishable color blocks.
These must be the images the previous owner, Cang, had seen in life.
Ye Cang remained silent.
It wasn’t that he was cold or indifferent to his predecessor’s suffering.
It was that those images faded too quickly, like a life flashing before his eyes.
He couldn’t even see or understand their contents before they brushed past him and vanished into eternal darkness.
He was overwhelmed just trying to keep up, let alone think about their connections.
He had no attention to spare for anything else.
Perhaps all the memories devoured by the Death Diary were stored in this dark void.
Did that mean…
One day, he might be able to recover all the lost memories here?
Ye Cang’s pupils contracted to pinpoints.
The light, as if from the birthplace of the universe, grew brighter and brighter, until it completely filled his vision, rendering the infinite [black] into a boundless [white].
Then, he saw…
a dazzling shadowless lamp.
Beep…
beep…
beep…
Beeeeeep
“Patient has gone into cardiac arrest!
Begin electric defibrillation immediately!”
“Do not stop oxygen!
Set energy to 360J!”
“Three, two, one!”
Bang
Ye Cang was slightly stunned.
He felt a powerful electric current pass through his body.
His whole body convulsed and arched high, then slammed heavily back onto the bed.
His vision, which had just recovered its brightness, once again fell into darkness.
He could only faintly hear a woman’s sobbing:
“Sob…
Doctor, please, save my son!
He’s still just a child…”
“His life hasn’t even begun yet…
sob sob…”
“Ma’am, please don’t get agitated.
We’re doing everything we can.
No matter the outcome, all the emergency staff will fight to the very last moment.”
“Mom, brother he…
sob sob…”
“It’s okay, Qiong…
Your brother…
he will definitely pull through…”
“…”
The sound cut off abruptly.
Ye Cang opened his eyes again.
His hands waved weakly, trying to grab something, but it was only futile and silent.
His mouth opened wide, suppressing the emotions surging out from within.
He was back on the Astral Express again.
This time, however, he was not in his own room, but on the soft sofa of the observation car.
And the youth’s handsome face was, at some point, already streaked with tears.
Mr.
Moon’s meaningful words suddenly surfaced in his mind.
“As long as you want, you can actually go back at any time…
Of course, that will be after you understand what the ‘eldritch calamity’ is.”