Chapter 182: Chapter 180: Lost Heart
Old Xu watched the young man talking with the Little Elf, his hand over his heart clenching uncontrollably.
He gasped for breath, eyes wide. The impact of the scene before him was simply too great.
’This is my wish?’ Old Xu couldn’t help but ask himself. ’How could I have had such a childish wish?’
In that moment, he looked at the young man with a complicated expression, but he was powerless to do anything.
That was who he once was.
However naive, it was still him.
Old Xu watched the golden Little Elf fly before the young man and tap his heart with its hand.
"There! Your wish will slowly come true!"
"The keepsake I leave you with is a heart..."
Once the Little Elf granted the young man’s wish, the image of it in the golden stream vanished.
At that point, he had already forgotten his original wish.
The young man also clutched his heart, a look of emptiness on his face, as if he sensed he had lost something.
A vacant expression appeared on his face.
The two Old Xus, from two different eras, both stood there vacantly, clutching their hearts. But their thoughts could not have been more different.
’Heartless. So it wasn’t just my heart that I lost.’
Old Xu watched the bewildered young man, his gaze filled with pity.
"These things can’t be changed." Seeing that Old Xu was devastated, Li Luo stepped forward to console him.
Old Xu shook his head. "It’s nothing. There’s no use regretting these things. I just never expected that I brought all of this on myself."
"For many years now, I’ve been prepared to bear the consequences. I’m not hurt or sick, and I haven’t become warped in any way. Isn’t that good enough?" Old Xu said with a bitter smile.
He looked at his naive younger self and shook his head in resignation.
’What can you do?’
Old Xu slowly walked forward and placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder, as if to pat him, but his hand passed right through, patting nothing but air.
The Little Elf watched the young man, then manipulated the current, which coiled around him and carried him outside.
And so, Old Xu watched his former self leave this place of heartbreak.
Golden droplets passed through Old Xu’s body. He reached out, as if trying to grasp something he couldn’t name.
"Your wish has been fulfilled. Are you satisfied?"
The Little Elf flew to Old Xu’s side and said calmly.
When Old Xu heard this, he froze, as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
He stiffly turned his head to look at the Little Elf.
The Little Elf watched Old Xu intently, then repeated its question. "Your wish has been fulfilled. Are you satisfied?"
At this, Old Xu instantly leaped back, retreating to where Li Luo and Li Xiangyi stood.
But the Little Elf’s gaze was still fixed on Old Xu.
"You’re not an illusion?" Old Xu demanded.
"Of course I’m an illusion." The Little Elf actually answered Old Xu’s question.
This Little Elf, existing within a historical mirage, could actually converse with Old Xu from the present!
"What in the world are you?" Old Xu asked, his face a mask of shock.
"I am the Wishing Spring that grants wishes. Isn’t that the definition humans gave me?" the Little Elf tilted its head and asked in return.
"Why can you see me?" Old Xu watched the Little Elf warily.
The Little Elf drifted through the air, summoning another golden current that once again displayed the scene of Old Xu’s wish.
"I’ve always been able to see the future, so of course I can see you."
The Little Elf’s statement was astonishing.
"Isn’t that my wish?" Old Xu stared blankly at the scenes.
"Of course it’s your wish. Once it’s fulfilled, your future is set, of course," the Little Elf said, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"You even sealed the Wishing Spring in the future. I know about that too. But it’s of no concern. My future self will deal with it."
’The Little Elf’s future self?’
Hearing this, a look of pure shock spread across Old Xu’s face.
The Little Elf circled through the watery space, once again asking Old Xu the same question. "Your wish has been fulfilled. Are you satisfied?"
Old Xu did not answer, still watching it warily.
"Even though the task is complete, be sure to drink plenty of warm water from now on, okay?" The Little Elf, unconcerned with Old Xu’s defensiveness, offered this gentle advice before diving into the current.
By now, it wasn’t just Old Xu; all three of them were utterly shocked.
None of them had expected such a bizarre encounter within the mirage.
"We communicated with the past?" Li Xiangyi said with lingering fear.
"Yes," Li Luo affirmed.
Just like the original discoverer of the mirage mentioned in the records, they had entered it and encountered a being that could perceive them across time.
"That Little Elf is so powerful. Will sealing the fountain with a shell really work?" Li Xiangyi asked worriedly.
"Let’s go out and check." Old Xu’s expression was grave. From what the Little Elf just said, it was clear that sealing the fountain wouldn’t affect it much.
"My future self will deal with it."
The phrase echoed in their minds.
Mo Ling, who had been observing from the sidelines, didn’t dare make a reckless move. The Little Elf was simply too bizarre.
’I thought communicating with the past was a low-probability event, but to run into something like this on only our second time inside a mirage...’
Just now, Mo Ling had been observing the internal structures of the Little Elf and the golden current.
’The Little Elf’s interior is like a soft ball of yarn woven from light. It has no organs or core and doesn’t resemble any kind of living organism.’
’The images on the golden currents are merely projections of the light from within the Little Elf’s body; the water itself is perfectly ordinary.’
’Light bores into the currents, either controlling their surging and churning or displaying images. The light is omnipresent, and it seems the Little Elf isn’t even the true entity.’
’Block is in this space as if surrounded by a mass of light. Even if I wanted to activate a teleport, I had no idea where to begin. I could only watch helplessly as the Little Elf interacted with Old Xu.’
’I don’t know what the consequences will be.’
With that thought, Mo Ling controlled Block to follow the group out of the fountain.
The mirage persisted.
Outside the fountain, the young man stood blankly, clutching his heart. He only snapped out of it when his captain shouted at him.
Old Xu’s attention was no longer on his younger self. He turned to Li Luo and Li Xiangyi and said, "This fountain might still be trouble. Be careful."
With that, he fixed his gaze on the ebbing and flowing fountain, his vigilance at its peak.
"Keep the light up. Once the people outside break the dome, the mirage will naturally disperse," Old Xu said to Li Xiangyi.
Li Xiangyi quickly nodded.
Meanwhile, Mo Ling watched the dazed young man, and a curious thought occurred to him:
’Can my teleportation affect history?’
’After the incident with the black tower and Martin, I discovered my teleportation seemed to have a unique property—the ability to penetrate many things.’
’If it can even penetrate dreams, why not history?’
As Mo Ling was thinking, the young man had already started running, seemingly to find an exit from the dome.
Wanting to test his ability, Mo Ling quickly gave chase. But the young man was too fast and was about to disappear from his field of view.
At the same time, Mo Ling didn’t want to stray too far from the others.
In a moment of haste, he selected a rock and threw it at the young man’s feet...
