# 1722
Chapter 1722
【Distance from Eastern Emperor Bell Ringing: 620 years】
Ming Dynasty, the fourth year of the Yongle Era. Winter.
Heavy snow.
A gray figure walked slowly through the endless white snow of the Kunlun Mountains, the raging wind swirling up fragments of snow, swallowing the two clear lines of footprints in moments.
The figure passed through the mountains and finally stopped before an ancient dilapidated temple.
This temple seemed to be a relic from a thousand years ago, its outer walls almost entirely collapsed, heavy snow covering the ruins to the point where the outline of the building was barely visible. A single half-door hung lonely before the debris, producing a sharp creaking sound as the howling wind battered it.
"It's been nearly fourteen hundred years already..." The gray figure gazed at the temple ruins and murmured to himself, "Longer than I imagined."
He reached out to push the old half-door open. With a crisp snap, the door broke off directly into the snow, the irritating creaking sounds vanishing entirely, leaving only the endless wind and snow howling through the air.
He sighed and stepped into the temple's ruins.
Following his memory, he arrived before a snow-covered mound. With a light tap of his foot, the accumulated snow before him shattered and fell away in a cascade, revealing a clay Buddha statue beneath.
Over fourteen hundred years had passed—even the outer walls had crumbled to decay, yet this clay Buddha statue still maintained its original appearance!
On the abdomen of this clay Buddha statue, a crack had spread, nearly splitting the front of the Buddha into two halves. As the snow collapsed, this crack widened further, as if something was about to burst out from within!
The gray-clothed figure simply stood quietly in the ruins, gazing at this scene without any intention of intervening.
CRACK—!!
With a dull crash, the clay Buddha statue split open from the center crack. A figure, maintaining the same posture as the original Buddha, sat quietly cross-legged on the stone platform.
He was a young monk in his early twenties, with refined and handsome features, wearing a muddy cassock, yet his skin was fair and translucent, like a sacred Buddha born from the mud.
His face was actually identical to the gray figure's!
"You're a bit late coming out." Lin Qiye, wrapped in gray robes, looked at the face that was completely identical to his own and said calmly.
The monk's eyes opened slowly, like a deep and tranquil pool of autumn water. Although his features were exactly the same as Lin Qiye's, his temperament was entirely different—every movement contained a sense of Zen.
"It's not easy shaping this physical body, and besides, I had to prevent being discovered by the [Key to the Gate]."
He rose from the ruins, brushing the mud from his cassock, standing face to face with Lin Qiye in the wind and snow.
"What should I call you? Fruit of Destiny? Fate Buddha? Or... Lin Qiye?" Lin Qiye asked.
The monk pressed his palms together and bowed slightly toward Lin Qiye.
"Just call me... [Destiny]."
"Destiny?" Lin Qiye studied the monk before him. "Is that your dharma name?"
"Names, dharma names, posthumous titles... they're all illusory. Not Buddha, not Dao, not god, not human—I am simply myself."
Lin Qiye's brow rose slightly. "You're quite perceptive."
"Humans always like to complicate simple matters through so-called 'personality,' 'emotions,' 'love and hate.' I'm simply doing the opposite."
Fate Monk pressed his palms together, speaking calmly without the slightest fluctuation in tone. He did not sound like a living person at all, but rather a cold machine.
This did not surprise Lin Qiye in the slightest. A consciousness born from pure causality would not possess human emotions, but would have extremely terrifying computational power—this was precisely what he wanted.
"How is this game of chess progressing?" Lin Qiye asked the question he cared about most.
"Within one thousand five hundred and twenty-five years, I have performed six thousand four hundred trillion calculations. Based on our current pieces on the board, the probability of victory is less than two-tenths of one percent."
"Two-tenths of one percent..."
Lin Qiye had anticipated the odds for humanity would be low, but he hadn't expected that even with him returning to the Western Han to set up this secret game of chess, the odds of victory would still be so slim... It seemed the [Key to the Gate] hadn't been joking when it said humanity had not a shred of chance throughout the long river of history.
The Cthulhu Faction was far more terrifying than they knew.
Lin Qiye frowned. "So, how many more pieces do we need?"
"The improvement of victory probability is not determined by the number of pieces, but by their quality and the role they can play in causality." Fate Monk paused. "Even if we had three more Jade Emperors, their role in this game of chess might not equal that of a single Li Yifei."
"I understand." Lin Qiye nodded. "As for the pieces, I'll handle that... Now that you have a physical body, what are your plans?"
"For me, having or not having a physical body makes no significant difference... I formed this body only to complete a strand of causality for you."
"...Zhou Ping?"
"We need Zhou Ping, and Zhou Ping needs a [Life-Transfer Pearl] refined from this body of mine. Only then can we complete this causal paradox and completely conceal Zhou Ping's existence."
"Since you've already thought everything through, go ahead... If anything comes up, contact me directly through the strands of causality."
Lin Qiye had come here simply to meet this [Fruit of Destiny] and see if he was, as expected, qualified to become a chess player... And Fate Monk's performance exceeded his expectations.
"Don't forget, there's one more person's causality that you haven't concealed." Fate Monk spoke up to remind him.
"That era is too close to the era I came from. To avoid the entanglement of our two causalities, I will seal my own causality fifty years early and fall into slumber... Him, I'll leave to you."
"Alright." Fate Monk nodded slightly. "After I leave this body to Zhou Ping, I'll simply refine another one."
Seeing Lin Qiye turn to leave, Fate Monk hesitated briefly before speaking slowly:
"Because."
Lin Qiye stopped and looked back.
"This game of chess for humanity... it cannot be lost, can it?" Fate Monk pressed his palms together and asked in the wind and snow.
"That goes without saying." Lin Qiye said matter-of-factly. "If humanity itself were to cease existing, what point would there be in continuing this game?"
Fate Monk gazed at Lin Qiye for a long moment, then nodded slightly:
"Good enough."
With those words, he turned and walked toward the other side of the mountain, his mud-stained cassock disappearing into the wind and snow.
Lin Qiye was somewhat puzzled by Fate Monk's sudden question, but he shook his head regardless and descended the mountain from the other side...