Chapter 3158: The Universe Does Not Acknowledge
The woman turned around, deftly mixed the juice, and grabbed a few snacks to bring to Xu Huo. "Please enjoy."
"Care to sit and chat?" Xu Huo called out to her.
The woman turned back and smiled at him. "We don't have a chat service here."
"Doesn't look like there are any other customers anyway." Xu Huo pulled out a few White Notes and placed them on the table.
The woman gracefully spun around and walked back, placing her hand on the White Notes on the table. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Let's talk about this little town." Xu Huo took a sip of the juice. "There are people coming and going here, a bit noisy."
"Liveliness is good, brings customers and business," the woman said. "It's too hot at noon right now. Once it cools down a bit, there will be more customers."
"Customers are from the outer zone, right? Why come to see the sea at noon? Everyone finds it too sunny at this hour."
"Looking for someone," Xu Huo said.
The woman put on a playful smile. "We have plenty of beauties here. Romantic love stories happen almost every day. You've come to the right place."
Xu Huo shook his head with a smile. "Not looking for a lover. Looking for an acquaintance."
"I see," the woman said, finally sitting down. "What does your friend look like? Maybe I've seen them."
"A young woman. An ordinary person no one would pay much attention to in a crowd. She can paint, but her works are rather pessimistic and not very popular." Xu Huo said.
The woman's expression shifted subtly. "If you're looking for someone, just look. Why are you badmouthing them? Is she your enemy?"
"Not really. Just a casual acquaintance." Xu Huo said. "I need to find her for something."
The woman's eyes flickered, and she laughed again. "I actually do know someone like that. How much are you willing to pay me?"
"If she's indeed the person I'm looking for, how about ten thousand White Notes?" Xu Huo stared at her.
The woman's expression changed slightly. After a moment, she said, "My information has its own price. I won't do anything to ruin my reputation. Give me two thousand White Notes."
Xu Huo nodded, gave her two thousand White Notes, and the woman was straightforward enough to give him an address in the rental district. "I've seen her twice on the beach. She lives in that area. A lot of out-of-towners stay there."
Xu Huo didn't leave. Instead, he looked at the woman with a half-smile. "If you tricked me out of two thousand White Notes with false information, would you die?"
The woman's face changed color. She forced herself to stay calm and argued a couple of points, but Xu Huo ignored her and continued, "I wonder if a predicted death outcome can change after it's been foreseen."
"Whether it can change or not, isn't that up to you?" The woman who had been washing dishes in the back of the shop took off her gloves and stood up, looking at Xu Huo. "If I say she will die, and you let her go, she won't die. If I say she won't die, and you kill her, then she's dead for sure. Either way, a predicted future can be changed."
The boss immediately stood up to block the doorway, urging the dishwashing woman to leave quickly while shouting at Xu Huo, "I won't let you hurt her!"
The dishwashing woman patted her arm and shook her head slightly. After the woman nervously stepped aside, she walked over and sat down next to Xu Huo, saying calmly, "I didn't foresee her death. And you won't kill her."
"That's the wonderful part."
"You are the only person who would deliberately seek me out to verify whether a prediction must come true. Yet you are also someone who wouldn't kill someone arbitrarily just to test a prediction."
"Without knowing it, you have become a part of the prediction, perhaps even a crucial link, perfecting the unreasonable aspects of this predictive loop."
"So sure?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.
The dishwashing woman, Liu Yi, smiled and added, "Maybe this is cause and effect."
"Ten days ago, I predicted the deaths of two thugs who had been lurking nearby spying. They died with blood oozing from their seven orifices in Dai Si's shop. Only their deaths indicated that Dai Si was safe. And death by bleeding from seven orifices isn't my method of killing; it could only come from an accident."
"Accidents don't happen out of nowhere. There are always countless connections. So you appeared here."
Xu Huo had no prior connection to Dai Si at all. If not for her, he wouldn't have appeared here.
"Are you saying that predicting the future might actually become the cause that brings about the future?" Xu Huo said.
Liu Yi shook her head slightly. "Cause and effect aren't necessarily connected."
"You've probably heard of the concept of collective karma. It's a religious idea."
"For example, if someone starts a war and innocent people bleed, the innocent bear a karma that seemingly doesn't belong to them. But on the other hand, technological development has driven larger-scale wars, yet the benefits of technology are shared by all of humanity."
"So whether it's cause and effect or karma, they are just a very small part of this world. They might be connected, but they might not be. They could also be two completely unrelated things."
Xu Huo's expression was calm. "So no matter how I try to change the future, there might still be other completely unexpected factors that contribute to the final outcome. I can only change the factors connected to me. Any factor other than me is beyond my interference."
In the early days of his Temporal Evolution, he had accidentally foreseen the scene of Xiao Yuan and Tan Qi getting injured. Because of the yellow flowers, he thought the incident would happen in Rose Castle, so he sent the two to Platinum Eye. Unexpectedly, the incident happened right there at Platinum Eye. He saw the future, tried to change it, but ended up causing it.
If he hadn't sent Xiao Yuan and the other away from Rose Castle back then, would the incident still have happened?
He didn't know.
He made his decision after the prediction. He had already become a link in the chain. As Liu Yi said, his becoming a link that contributed to the final outcome wasn't necessarily essential; it was most likely just an accidental factor.
What about Curved Time, then?
Curved Time could change the future. He had verified this multiple times with his own death.
"Did Curved Time really change the future?" Liu Yi said. "How do you know it isn't just another link contributing to the final outcome?"
"Are you saying that people who come back to life through Curved Time were never meant to die in the first place?" Xu Huo's gaze darkened slightly.
"That's not it," Liu Yi said, her expression calm, yet with a hint of melancholy. "What I mean is, the factors that determine a person's fate are countless. Leveraging one or two of them has a negligible effect. The life and death altered by Curved Time is a variable, but this variable isn't necessarily fixed. It can exist, it can not exist. People interfered with by Curved Time can die, or they can not die."
"The destiny, outcomes, and futures that humanity defines—the vast universe does not care about them, nor does it acknowledge them."
Xu Huo looked at her. "And what do you think will ultimately be the reason I kill you?"
Liu Yi smiled again. "Who knows? Maybe to verify whether my predictions can really come true."