Chapter 128: Chapter 46: Observatory
"When they met, my master immediately unleashed his Great Divine Techniques and began a fierce battle with my ’mother.’"
"The Magical Artifacts and talismans he used... I couldn’t clearly see them, even now. The final result of that battle was that my master, at the cost of a leg and an arm, succeeded in stripping away that monster’s human shell."
"But the very instant my ’mother’ died, time began to flow backward for all living and non-living things in and around Longshu Temple. It reset to the exact moment I’d returned to Longshu Temple, distraught from the graveyard, and saw my ’mother’ for the first time."
"A wish made upon a star isn’t so easily erased. I think, deep down, I must have added a line: a hope to live a happy, complete life with my family forever. In this way, my ’mother’ ’fulfilled’ my wish."
"After re-entering the cycle, everyone—whether they were the living, or the ghosts of the martial brothers who had died in the first cycle—had their memories erased. I repeated the exact same script over and over, completely dazed and oblivious."
"The ending of every cycle was always the same: my master would rush in, engage my ’mother’ in a fierce battle, and defeat her."
"At that moment, I’d have an extremely brief window, maybe just a few seconds, where I would remember everything. But that window was too short. When the next cycle began, my memories would be completely erased again, and I would be thrown into a new loop."
And just like that, time began its aimless reset.
How many years passed? Ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand... Time had lost all meaning here.
From the outside world’s perspective, a crimson meteor merely streaked across the sky, and all the Monks of Longshu Temple vanished overnight.
Later, Longshu Temple was rebuilt several times. Through wars, changes of dynasties, and into the modern era, the Monks who cultivated at Longshu Temple had long since lost any connection to Master Jingming’s generation.
People in the present day have forgotten the strange incident that occurred back then. Even if, on the rarest of occasions, someone did remember, they could never imagine that some of the vanished Monks were still alive, trapped in a spacetime that should not exist.
"There were occasional, minor variations within the time loop, but they didn’t affect the overall process."
"During one battle with my ’mother,’ my master made a mistake. He was killed by her instead and turned into a ghost."
"But it didn’t matter. The time loop continued. In the next cycle, the one who rushed over was my master, now a ghost. His obsession from when he was alive was just too strong—to avenge Longshu Temple, to save me. Over thousands, tens of thousands of cycles, this obsession accumulated to an unimaginable degree. So much so that even after death, he continued to participate in the crusade against my ’mother’ as a ghost."
"Gao Tian, you and your group are really lucky to be able to retain memories from the previous spacetime. Because of that, you managed to break through the time restriction after only three cycles."
"Without a special item like that, it would be impossible to break this eternal cycle, even after a thousand years."
Gao Tian couldn’t help but ask:
"So, how did you, after a thousand years, finally escape?"
It was a mystery.
After all, Yu Sheng only retained his memories for a few seconds before the loop reset. What could he possibly do in those few seconds?
Yu Sheng:
"Because of the Observatory."
"I don’t know which cycle it was, but one version of me, in the few seconds before the reset, used a stone shard to carve a few small words on the stone wall beneath the Observatory, as a reminder for the me of the next spacetime."
"The Observatory, as the vessel for the start and end of the time loop, was itself unaffected by the reset. Every small word left on it would be passed on to the next spacetime."
"It was extremely difficult at first."
"Each time, there was only enough time to leave one or two words. I wanted to write the full sentence on the Observatory: ’I am trapped in a time loop. Find a way out quickly. Left by Yu Sheng.’"
"Many versions of me from different spacetimes would come here, see the single word ’I,’ and most of them wouldn’t think much of it, assuming some naughty kid from nearby had scrawled it."
"Only a rare few would continue carving the rest of the sentence in those last few seconds."
"And just like that, through countless cycles, day after day, year after year, I finally carved the first complete sentence."
"That was the dividing line. From then on, every Yu Sheng who came here saw the words on the Observatory and knew he was in a loop. This greatly accelerated the carving that followed."
"The me from every spacetime would carve the unexpected events of that cycle onto the Observatory to warn the me of the next cycle."
"My master died in this cycle. My master became a ghost in this cycle. The ghost of my master still appeared, right on schedule."
"Until one spacetime."
"After I arrived at the Observatory and confirmed my identity as a looper, I saw a new line of text on the very bottom, the most recent row—"
"My master didn’t show up."
"He didn’t fight my mother."
"My master has vanished."
"My timeline, after countless cycles, had changed for the first time."
"In my master’s place was a group of strangely dressed people holding matchlocks. I don’t know how they did it, but they had entered this time loop to hunt an indescribable monster."
"Later, after I escaped the time loop and entered modern society, I learned that Xia Country had already entered its modern history. Emperors and dynasties were things of the past. Those Ghost Hunters were probably from the Republic period."
"In the time loop, if someone left, others—people or ghosts—would occasionally join and take their place to move the story forward."
"In the original spacetime, the cycle ended with my master returning to Longshu Temple, discovering all the Monks were dead, and then chasing down and suppressing my ’mother.’ Now, it was this squad from the Republic era who had entered the loop. They would come to Longshu Temple, find it littered with corpses, follow the trail to the Observatory, and end the cycle by fighting and defeating my ’mother.’"
"Watching this squad from the Republic, seeing them overjoyed after sealing my ’mother’ each time, thinking they could finally return to their normal spacetime... I would be at the Observatory, looking at my own inscriptions, knowing the full truth, and I’d just feel a profound sadness for them. Then I would quickly record the changes in this spacetime as best I could."
"Even though I knew I was in a time loop, I still had no way to escape. If I chose to kill myself, the time loop would reset early, returning to the starting point. Trying to escape the bounds of the Longshu Temple loop was even worse. My ’mother’ would appear without a word, drag me back by force, or even kill me directly, and continue playing her part in the loop I’d already participated in tens of thousands of times."
"Because I am the center of the entire time loop, even if I died, I wouldn’t become a ghost in the next cycle."
"You don’t need to ask me what those extra stars wanted. Because to this day, even after escaping the endless time loop, I still don’t know."
This point was corroborated by his room in the ’apartment for the living.’
It was clear that after entering the modern era, he had crammed a massive amount of modern scientific knowledge, studying many concepts related to astronomy and time.
But unfortunately, the cognitive abilities of humanity in this era were still insufficient to solve the mystery of Longshu Temple.
Gao Tian:
"So, after a thousand years, how did you escape?"
Yu Sheng seemed uninterested. He clearly didn’t want to talk about this matter and just glossed over it with a few words:
"After several cycles, that squad from the Republic started losing members due to bad luck on a few runs. These dead members, like the other ghosts in the time loop, still perceived themselves as living. They continued to set out with the team, faithfully carrying out their duties, continuing to end my ’mother’ for generations and start a new time loop."
The "mother" who dominated the entire time loop system had forgotten one thing.
When a living person dies and becomes a ghost, they are destined to gain a killing rule.
Yu Sheng:
"Or perhaps it was the will of heaven, deciding to end this thousand-year-long farce."
"After the entire squad from the Republic had died and become ghosts, even though they were completely unaware of their deaths, they still looked forward to defeating the final enemy of this ’dungeon’ and returning to their own time..."
"But the killing rules they acquired, when combined, just so happened to produce a wondrous effect."
"The first ghost’s rule: if someone near it does the same thing multiple times, it will leave a mark of ’Resentment’ on them. For example, if you chose to use the bathroom twice in a row in front of the ghost, you would generate two marks of ’Resentment.’ When the ’Resentment’ reaches a certain level, you can slightly distort reality."
In the time loop system of Longshu Temple, everything you did from the moment you opened your eyes each day was identical.
After cycling through year after year, the accumulated "Resentment" reached an unknown level.
"The second ghost’s rule: inside its stomach was a separate dimension, eternally cut off from the outside world. Anyone it killed or any ghost it suppressed would be imprisoned in its stomach forever."
"Each cycle, by killing my ’mother’ once, even though it couldn’t imprison her directly, it did indeed weaken a portion of her power."
"Because the space in the ghost’s stomach is isolated from the outside world, they don’t share the same time system. Thus, the time loop could not prevent its devouring."
"After a few hundred cycles, my ’mother’ grew weaker and weaker."
"The third ghost was an observer."
"She had no ability to actively kill anyone, but when the surrounding time and space became distorted to a certain degree, she would directly kill all living things nearby and force all powerful ghosts, Supernatural Artifacts, and various abilities into a dormant state. Everything would be reset to zero."
The rest of the story, naturally, didn’t need to be told.
The second ghost, in the endless loop, weakened the "mother’s" power time and time again.
The first ghost continuously accumulated "Resentment," distorting the surrounding reality.
Longshu Temple was already a system where time was twisted into a closed loop. When space was also distorted to a certain degree, it finally triggered the third ghost’s bomb, directly leveling the entire area around Longshu Temple and forcing the "mother’s" time loop system to a halt.
Yu Sheng:
"That was the moment I had been waiting desperately for."
"I activated a Supernatural Artifact to block the third ghost’s instant-death effect. At the same time, the thousand-year time loop at Longshu Temple finally came to a pause."
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