Thus Spoke the Buddha: The Quantum Circus | Chapter 13 | The Replicant's Requiem | Novela.app

How does one place suicide, murder, and homicide within the same context? On that rainy night when they were sixteen, after hearing Zhao Meiyou’s answer—"Because you helped me eat my dad"—Diao Chan asked calmly, "Is this some kind of test?" Zhao Meiyou was busy stuffing his face with dumplings. "What kind of test?" "A test of my sociopathy, or something of the sort," Diao Chan said. "To determine if my business is worth taking." "Not really." Zhao Meiyou wolfed down his food. "As long as the money’s right, everything else is negotiable." "Is that so." Diao Chan nodded. "I understand." Then, the youth walked over to the sink, crouched down, and proceeded to vomit until the world turned upside down. "Whoa, seriously? That’s a bit excessive..." Zhao Meiyou wandered over like he was watching a show. Even the sight of vomit didn't stop him from feasting. He clicked his tongue as he ate. "The sewers here lead to the sea, though. Lucky him." As if to explain further to Diao Chan, Zhao Meiyou added helpfully, "I was going to wait until I was full to go use the public toilet outside. The sewers there lead to a compost vat ten floors down. My mom always said she wanted to scatter my dad’s ashes in a septic tank." Whether it was his imagination or not, the boy seemed to vomit even harder. After retching up nothing but stomach acid, Diao Chan finally stopped. He rinsed his mouth and looked at Zhao Meiyou through the dripping strands of his hair. "When should I bring the deposit?" "Whenever. This shop offers various packages: 'Early Reincarnation,' 'Hanging by a Thread,' and 'Wishing for Death,'" Zhao Meiyou said with a sincere smile. "The craftsmanship is exquisite. A century-old establishment. You can rest easy." "You won't back out?" "As long as the money’s right, everything is negotiable." "Good." Diao Chan seemed to find peace in that confirmation. Zhao Meiyou was about to ask for the specifics of the hit, but the kid suddenly rolled up his sleeves and threw a punch. Zhao Meiyou ducked. "Is this a brawl? Or do you need some 'venting' services?" "I just want to fucking hit you," Diao Chan snapped, throwing a kick. It was a rare moment of profanity for him. "Don't hold back." "Fair enough." Zhao Meiyou nodded. He snatched a deboning knife from the counter and slammed it down—using the blunt spine of the blade. Even if a rich kid had learned some self-defense, he was no match for a street rat born and bred in the Lower District. It took Zhao Meiyou only a minute to make the young master realize the dizzying drop from "Client" to "Grandson." Diao Chan returned the next day. Even when hiring a hitman, the young master remained dignified—punctual and well-funded. Zhao Meiyou counted the cash, immediately tore open a pack of good cigarettes for himself, and offered one. "Smoke?" Diao Chan’s response was a fit of earth-shattering coughing. "Fine then." Zhao Meiyou shrugged. "I can probably finish the job within a week. Any special requests for the body?" Diao Chan’s voice was raspy. "...Just don't eat it." "No problem," Zhao Meiyou agreed readily. "Though, in all honesty, as far as destroying evidence goes, it’s a very practical method..." He saw the look in Diao Chan’s eyes and raised his hands in surrender, making a zipping motion across his lips. A week later, Diao Chan returned to the pork shop. The rolling shutter was halfway down, and light spilled onto the tiled floor. He ducked inside and nearly tripped. He looked down. It was a pair of high heels. "You're here?" Zhao Meiyou greeted him, a cigarette dangling from his lips. "I just got back and haven't had time to clean up. Sit wherever." He stood before the butcher's block, removing a wig and peeling off fake eyelashes. Artificial pearls clattered to the floor. Then he unfastened a chest binder and walked barefoot across the floor, nearly slipping. Diao Chan instinctively caught him. "Help me out." Zhao Meiyou handed him the binder and pointed to a nearby freezer. "Put the clothes in there. My feet hurt." "What are you staring for?" Zhao Meiyou lit another cigarette. "This was my mom’s gear. If the pearls oxidize, they're a pain to fix. Get them in the fridge." Ash drifted down. Diao Chan watched him squint through the smoke. "...What exactly were you doing?" "Taking care of your business, obviously," Zhao Meiyou said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Then, as if remembering something, he leaned into Diao Chan’s arms and suggestively rubbed his fingers together. "If you increase the fee, we could do some other kinds of 'business' too." The next second, he was dropped "splat" onto the floor, face-first. "Tsk, you people." Zhao Meiyou wasn't discouraged. He rolled over and lay directly on the floor, watching the smoke curl upward. He heard the freezer door open and close, then the "clack" of leather heels on the tile, followed by heavy, muffled footsteps approaching. Diao Chan had taken off his shoes. Wearing grey cashmere socks, he walked to Zhao Meiyou’s side and sat down, hugging his knees. "So, how was it?" "No issues," Zhao Meiyou said, wiping his lips with a finger. His hand was covered in crimson. "Hey, let me ask you—what are you planning for the funeral?" Diao Chan met him with silence. Zhao Meiyou finished his cigarette and added, "How about this: tell me your story. Spit out the tears like they're saliva; you'll feel better." Diao Chan glanced at him. "That doesn't sound like something you'd say." "You've only known me for how long?" Zhao Meiyou scoffed. "Who knows, maybe we even crossed paths in the Upper District." He used his toe to hook the distant high heels. "Hey, did you know that one of the department heads at your family's company, Diao Corp, is impotent?" The topic was nonsensical, but Zhao Meiyou was on a roll, talking a mile a minute. "A sister of mine was on a long-term lease with him, specifically to be his arm candy at big events. He gave her a beauty allowance every month. Besides being his mistress, she sometimes had to play his mother or his daughter... I heard she went to see a doctor later. Every time she gave her medical history, it was different. The doctor couldn't tell if she was roleplaying a split personality or if she was actually insane..." Zhao Meiyou had a wide network. The business scope of the Lower District truly covered all sentient beings. If you found a decent street and looked at the signs—unlicensed clinics, forged documents, dentists, herbalists, coffin shops—you could basically summarize the entire life of a mortal from birth to burial. By the time Diao Chan finished listening to the "108 Precautions for Postpartum Sow Care," the glazed look in his eyes finally vanished. His features softened; before this, he had been gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached. "...So, at four in the morning that summer, my mom dragged her suitcase out from under the bed, left a note, and vanished. The only inheritance I got was a pile of expired makeup and dance dresses with oversized bust sizes." Zhao Meiyou brought the story to a close. "She said she was going to commit suicide with the Dawn. To this day, I don't know if that was a poetic metaphor or if one of her men was named Dawn." A moment later, Diao Chan’s voice came from above. "Do you miss her?" "I have to say, she saved me a lot of trouble in that regard." Zhao Meiyou exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Before that, she kept telling me to kill her the moment she grew her first crow's foot. Every year before I blew out the birthday candles, I had to announce my creative plan for murdering her that year." This time, Diao Chan actually laughed. "Your mom was a real piece of work." Zhao Meiyou gave a lazy hum, his tone tinged with a hint of pride. The smile lingered on Diao Chan’s face. Zhao Meiyou’s erratic stories were like a mask, coating everything in absurd, vivid colors. The mask never changed; beneath the paint, a safe zone was carved out. When you wore the mask, you could reveal your truest expressions, your truest self. Slowly, Diao Chan told his own story. Parents joined by a family alliance, a lukewarm affection. His mother was a classic cold beauty, always in poor health, always convalescing. The house was too large; Diao Chan rarely saw her. She appeared occasionally in finery during holidays or at the dinner table on nights when the fireplace was lit. But guests always said he inherited her Eastern features—like jade. An ancient mineral that once came from the mountains but now could only be synthesized through technology. Diao Chan was a good student. He had an absurdly large study. Before officially touching family affairs, he had secretly fantasized about becoming a scholar, spending his leisure time playing the piano. When his mother heard this, she told him: Having your own thoughts is a good thing. A scholar is a dignified profession. Of course, there was a second half to that sentence: *Provided your last name isn't Diao.* It was the expected answer. Diao Chan didn't react; most youths of similar birth were the same, possessing a kind of arrogant docility. He thought the matter was settled, but months later, a servant suddenly told him that the Madam wished for him to spend an hour in her room every day. His mother’s room was like a secret chamber. His parents only occasionally spent a night together in the ancestral master bedroom; the rest of the time, they had their own rooms. In this, they showed excellent breeding. As far as Diao Chan knew, neither parent had ever stepped foot into the other’s domain. In another sense, in this house where everything was regulated, his mother’s room meant absolute safety. He arrived on time, knocked, and froze. His mother was sitting at a piano. They didn't exchange much. She demonstrated basic fingering and introductory score reading. The hour passed quickly. After that, he made time every day to go to her room. The change happened when he was sixteen. Due to a minor cold, his mother passed away. Diao Chan couldn't say what he felt. She had always been frail, sick for so long that he had already prepared himself. Perhaps sensing her end was near, a few days before she died, this traditionally minded noblewoman taught Diao Chan her final piece. It was the first time he had studied something non-classical. He played that piece at her funeral. The guests whispered; his father was livid. After that, he was banned from the piano. Like all clichéd stories of youth, he tried to run away. On the road, he encountered strange things—though to someone raised in a manor, many things were strange. He joined a government agency, one of the few places his father’s reach couldn't extend. Months later, he returned home for the first time. He expected his father’s wrath and was prepared for it. Yet, the entire estate acted as if none of it had ever happened. Servants moved in and out; the gardener was pruning the lilies of the valley, his mother’s favorite flower. *Young Master.* The butler saw him and looked slightly surprised. *When did you go out?* Then he added: *You’re going to be late today. Hurry along.* "Late"—in this estate, Diao Chan had the power to be unpunctual about anything. Everyone would accommodate the Diao heir, making excuses for his tardiness. The Young Master was so busy; he must have been delayed by something important. Except for one thing. Diao Chan slammed open the door to the room. His mother was sitting at the piano. She turned her head and spoke in a cool yet affectionate tone—a voice Diao Chan had heard for so many years that it was hauntingly familiar: *You’re late.* ... He went to see psychiatrists and famous psychological clinics in the Metropolis. Yet everyone looked at him with a gentle, probing gaze and told him: *Young Master Diao, there is nothing wrong with your mental state.* It was as if everything had truly been a dream. From the moment he climbed over the estate wall to the moment he returned, those months had been surgically removed. The lilies in the garden never withered; they bloomed with a cold, fierce intensity. He secretly tested many people about his departure, about his mother’s death. The butler would merely raise an eyebrow, his surprise quickly shifting back to a natural calm: *Young Master, you shouldn't think such things.* Diao Chan didn't know if his "secret" inquiries had become a form of suggestion. He once told a servant that it was best not to leave the birdcage in the hallway, as it was easy for the cat to eat the bird. The focus of that sentence could have been "hallway" or "eat." He never saw that bird again. A few months later, his mother caught a cold again. The exact same symptoms. No final words. The exact same death. The funeral was as grand as ever. Well-maintained ladies whispered behind their fans. Diao Chan played that aesthetically offensive piano piece from dawn until dusk. When night fell, he packed his bags and climbed over the wall again. This time he only left for a few days. Standing before the estate gates again, he looked at the lilies and realized the gravity of the situation. His mother was still in her room, waiting for him. The living, twice-dead mother. Before Diao Chan could decide whether to smash the piano, play a requiem, or jump out the window, there was a knock at the door. A voice called out: "Young Master Diao Chan." It was his father’s personal steward. Not the old man of the estate, but the one who served only the head of the house, managing everything from family business to the inner chambers. "My apologies for disturbing you at this time." The man’s tone remained steady and unhurried. "May we speak in private?" They sat in the tea room. The father’s steward would not pour tea for him. Diao Chan twisted open a bottle of water. "What is it?" The steward studied him for a moment. "You really are very much like the Master." "Is that so." Diao Chan’s movements paused. "I always thought I wasn't much like my father at all." "There is no need for modesty," the steward said. "You and the Master possess identical genes." The words flowed past his ears like water. Diao Chan initially thought this was just routine pleasantry before the main point, but then he realized the steward had no reason to be polite. As his father’s right hand, the steward was the one Diao Chan should be trying to please. *Identical genes*—why use such a vague yet suggestive phrase? The steward’s tone was detached and humble, like a servant lifting a silver cloche to reveal a dessert. He revealed the answer: "Or rather, you *are* the Master himself." ... Diao Chan had heard of such things. The Metropolis had locked away many of the peak technologies of the 22nd century. Android technology was one; others circulated secretly among the ruling class, used covertly for various purposes. For instance, the matter of heirs for prestigious families. While bloodlines maintained family stability, they couldn't guarantee the quality of the offspring. Genetic replication—a variant of early cloning technology. Place freeze-dried cells into a cultivation pod for eight months, and you get an identical version of yourself. From there, simply replicate the same upbringing to ensure the heir is absolutely perfect. At least, that was the logic from a standpoint of human narcissism. Fortunately, most family heads were arrogant. "The Master’s physical peak was between the ages of thirty and forty-five. During that time, we cultivated suitable next generations." The steward’s lips moved. "You belong to the sixth generation of heirs." *Belong to*—to ensure the ultimate excellence of the final choice, the pool of potential heirs was a massive group of replicas. "Every Young Master has his own growth plan. While we generally replicate the original’s path, we also conduct various experiments. Sometimes, anomalous data yields incredible results." The steward looked up. "Like you, for instance." "According to the original script, you were supposed to officially take over core operations after your mother’s death. But you violated the standard replicant behavior and ran away. Usually, a replicant that violates the script is terminated immediately. However, the Master was very interested in you. It has been a long time since a replicant ran away from home; only the Original ever had a period of living on the road." "We know you are doing some work for the government. The family will not interfere. We offer you two choices." "First: forget everything. The family will send someone to perform a memory wipe. We will arrange a marginal position for you in the company; you will have a new identity and a life free of material want, serving the family for life while having your own existence. We will list you as a last-resort backup heir. If the final choice meets with an accident, we will awaken this memory." "Second: retain your memory. But the family will present a new trial." Diao Chan listened to his own heartbeat. He was strangely calm now. "What trial?" The steward pushed an envelope across the tea table. He opened it. Inside was a knife. "The family hopes that you will kill your mother." The steward’s voice was flat and stable. "This was the Original’s personal experience; he killed his biological mother with his own hands. When designing the growth plans for the heirs, we discarded this script because there were too many uncontrollable factors. But you are already uncontrollable enough. Therefore, the family wishes to see further results." "Please prove that you are sufficiently similar to the Original." It took a long time for Diao Chan to find his voice. "Do I have a mother in any real sense?" "No. You were born in a cultivation pod," the steward replied. "Every Young Master has an estate. The 'Mother' program is based on the Original’s biological mother, with minor adjustments." As he spoke, the steward pulled a key from his breast pocket and pressed a button on top. The entire tea room—the antique furniture, the wooden floors, the precious paintings and porcelain—all of it dissolved. The two of them sat facing each other in a space of pure white. "Every estate is equipped with a holographic system," the steward said. "Your mother is more of a dominant program." Diao Chan remembered. His mother never seemed to leave the estate, at least never in his company. He had always assumed it was because of her health. "So, you want me to kill a dominant program?" Diao Chan heard himself ask. An android being ordered to kill a holographic program sounded like a piece of absurdist theater. Real humans didn't need to kill programs; they just turned off the server. No, strictly speaking, he wasn't even an android. He was just a replicated sequence of a genetic chain. ... Back in the pork shop, Diao Chan finished his story. Zhao Meiyou had smoked a floor full of cigarettes. He pulled out a new one and held it under Diao Chan’s nose. "Really don't want one?" "No." Diao Chan looked down at him. "You don't seem surprised." "There’s nothing new under the sun. Trust me, things happen in the Lower District that are far more ridiculous than you can imagine." Zhao Meiyou sat up and ruffled Diao Chan’s hair like he was petting a dog. "But knowing this makes me feel better. I thought you still didn't know what your mom was." Diao Chan: "What do you mean?" "Even though the death response was very realistic, once you've actually killed someone, you'll know—that was no living person." Zhao Meiyou held his palm out, closing and opening his fingers. "I 'killed' her several times, but she must have some kind of matching system. If it isn't you doing the deed, it doesn't count. The last time I went in, she just cut the power." Diao Chan froze. "Oh, right. Your mom asked me to give you a message." Zhao Meiyou added, "She said, come home when you have the time." They returned to the estate once more. There was a massive atrium on the first floor. The servants had vanished, leaving it ornate and empty, like a prepared stage waiting for a performance of *The Libation Bearers*. The moment they entered, they heard music. It was a piano—a Requiem Mass. Beneath the atrium sat a grand piano. A woman sat there, her fingers flying across the keys, dressed in black mourning clothes. Zhao Meiyou had to admit, Diao Chan’s electronic mother was indeed a beauty. He had seen this scene before; a few days ago, when he had snuck into the estate, she had been sitting here playing. The melody shifted from fast to slow, and Zhao Meiyou had realized in the darkness that the beat of every measure perfectly matched his own heartbeat. The woman had noticed him long ago. But she had finished the piece before speaking: *Please bring my son home.* Zhao Meiyou had lied to Diao Chan about that part; he hadn't been able to kill her. But he knew this woman was very wrong. She seemed to have neither a heartbeat nor breath. After hearing Diao Chan’s past, Zhao Meiyou thought that perhaps the programmers responsible for the scenario felt it unnecessary to create a perfect holographic mother. Even if the script they arranged for Diao Chan was matricide, whether the mother was "alive" didn't seem to matter. This woman didn't resemble a living person; she was more like a corpse controlled by machinery. The people arranging the script seemed to think such an existence was more suitable to be Diao Chan’s mother—more suitable to be killed. It certainly wasn't out of mercy. So why? For a replicated son, a mother shouldn't be a warm-blooded human. They possessed an electronic sense of morality, so to accommodate the son’s "non-human" nature, the mother had to be more like a "doll." Was that it? *Humans to humans, beasts to beasts, and objects shall take objects as their mothers.* How charming, Zhao Meiyou thought cynically. They could write the 25th-century version of the Gospels. The piece ended. Diao Chan stepped forward. The temperature in the room was freezing; white mist drifted from his lips. "Mother." "My son." The woman’s posture was dignified. She looked at him with a gaze that was soft yet solemn. "Your father has given you your instructions." "Which father are you referring to?" Diao Chan asked. "The holographic projection in this house? Or the fifth-generation head?" The woman adjusted her hair at the temples and said calmly, "He came here once himself. On the night of your tenth birthday." Diao Chan: "I’m not interested. Mother, why did you call me here?" He took a deep breath, his voice like rain falling into a swamp, splashing with the scent of iron. "I cannot kill you. I tried my best, but I cannot do it." The woman watched him for a long time. Finally, she asked, "Why?" "You are my mother," Diao Chan repeated. "You are my mother." "Even if I don't actually exist?" "I believe you exist truly." "This will only make your father think you are too weak, unfit to be the heir." "Then let him kill me," Diao Chan said. "He can kill me, but he cannot command me." A long silence followed. In the deep, cold estate, the mother built of electronic code and the son made of genes stared at each other from across the room. This place was likely filled with hidden cameras. The air was like a blade, cutting at them from all sides. They did not belong to each other; they didn't even belong to themselves. Their personalities were constructed of jade-like rhetoric, memories of uncertain truth, and prestigious but useless identities. And the piano music. The only thing that could prove the continuity between mother and son was perhaps the piano he had learned from her. Moonlight shifted into the room. The white night was like a bonfire. The woman suddenly looked up at him. The movement was so sharp that the image seemed to glitch for a moment, like a soul breaking out of a cocoon. She looked at Diao Chan and suddenly said, "My factory settings did not include a performance program." "You are right—he can kill you, but he cannot command you." The woman pressed the fifty-second white key. "We can make our own choices." The note fell like a switch being flipped. The surrounding scenery dissolved like snowflakes, revealing the whiteboards beneath the holographic images. Diao Chan and Zhao Meiyou simultaneously smelled something scorching—the scent of burning cables. Sparks ignited in unknown corners. The woman’s image began to crackle with static. Fire consumed the cables. She was vanishing. "Mom!" "He demanded that I live to be killed by you, but I can also choose death autonomously." The woman began to play a piece. "My son, my suicide is not merely born of what humans call 'maternal love'; I am seeking my own self within this act of autonomous destruction." The black and white keys were like blades. The woman’s body was sliced into 753 tissue sections, a frozen musical note embedded in every thin neural cross-section. Her fingers trekked across the keys, over black and white mountains, like a dream, like a horse. The ice began to melt. Color spread through the melody—the beginning of a will. "Seeking out piano tutorials on my own was the first time I did something out of my own pure desire, wanting to do something for you." "And now, I can finally do one thing for myself." "My son." The woman played the final eighth note before the climax. Her electromagnetically projected form dissolved in the flames. "Do not let the melody vanish." The next second, Zhao Meiyou was violently shoved aside. Diao Chan lunged forward, catching his mother’s final notes. In the dense staccato of sixteenth notes, his brief sixteen years of life flashed by. Sixteen, dying in an escape. Fifteen, tasting velvet under the covers. Fourteen, counting every visible star in Cygnus. Thirteen, the year he had his first dream—a dream of a silver downpour where tears vanished in the rain. Zhao Meiyou was stunned. Though it was brief, it was the first time he had truly experienced the emotion of "awe." This wasn't just a piece of music. This mother and son were using melody to perform a birth. The mother began with a calm opening, like deep amniotic fluid—cold, painful, dormant. Amidst the anesthesia was a damp, throbbing ache. Then the blade sliced the flesh open. A child with eyes tightly shut was soaked within the womb. She woke him with blood and screams. The newborn let out his first cry, like a clap of thunder. Then the great rain arrived. The melody was like a galloping horse, iron hooves crushing ruins, flesh and blood flying. The birth of one life was paid for by the death of another. The high notes were a flourish celebrating new life; the low notes were a chord mourning death. Struggle and groans tore the maternal body apart. He descended into the world, wailing, roaring, screaming. The final scale. A heavy chord crashed—the umbilical cord was cut. It was her hand, reaching out in a struggle, finally dropping to the floor. The final resonance bled across the ground. She was dead. A difficult birth, entering the good night in the most violent way possible. The woman’s self-destruction seemed to have corrupted the holographic programs of the entire estate. All illusions vanished. A pure white room with a pure white floor. Only a grand piano remained in the empty hall—this piano was actually real, not a projection. Zhao Meiyou suddenly understood something. The woman hadn't been wearing mourning clothes. It was the black formal gown of an orchestral performer. She was welcoming death as if it were a festival. ... It was an absurd homicide, a failed murder, and a grand suicide. For a time, Zhao Meiyou couldn't tell if he was an accomplice or a witness. Surprisingly, the Diao Clan didn't react to the final result. They even tacitly allowed Diao Chan to move to the Lower District; his prestigious status remained valid. After stumbling through his seventeenth year, Diao Chan suddenly asked Zhao Meiyou if he wanted to go to university. Zhao Meiyou said, "Give me a reason." "You dragged me to the wet market before." Diao Chan was referring to something from a year ago. At the time, his mental state had been precarious. Psychiatrists were useless. Finally, Zhao Meiyou couldn't stand his refined treatments and overpriced pills anymore and dragged him to the wet market, making him work as free labor for a month at the busiest stall. The haggling, the noise, the smell of spices, and the blunt, crude insults of the vendors—there was a primal wildness there. After a month, Diao Chan finally snapped and got into an argument with an old lady who stole vegetables every day. He didn't win, but it was the first time in ages he had raised his voice. His veins throbbed; anger had injected him with life. He had been so angry he ate a pile of cucumber sandwiches. Just as he was about to puke, Zhao Meiyou stopped him, tossed the remaining sandwiches into the fridge, and said, "Congrats on the recovery." Since then, Zhao Meiyou had a theory: to treat psychological problems, one should go to the wet market. "You said before that treating psychological problems requires the wet market. A pork shop is just an extension of that," Diao Chan said. "We can go to university to study medicine. With a systematic theoretical foundation combined with practice..." "I get it." Zhao Meiyou was quick to understand. "Then I can be a psychiatrist in a wet market. Holy shit, talk about stacking buffs. That would be legendary." And so, the matter of school was settled. Diao Chan had connections. The University City was in the Upper District. they stayed there for seven years—two of which were spent on Zhao Meiyou repeating grades. ... "Zhao Meiyou." Someone was calling him. "Zhao Meiyou." In the train car, Qian Duoduo’s voice pulled Zhao Meiyou back. The other man looked at him. "Why did you say this was a 'metaphor'?" "That involves some privacy I can't disclose," Zhao Meiyou said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But I can tell you about some of the symbolic imagery in Site S45." This was a magnificent ruin constructed entirely of shadows from the past. Everything had a trail. The escaped human test subject was the "Mother." The ambitious man who was once a comrade but later became a rival, the leader of the Paradise Faction who started the war, was the "Father." "...And I am the friend from afar," Zhao Meiyou said. "That’s why you see us as friends sent from Mars." "As for you—the leader of the Ark Faction who wanted to escape, sinking deeper and deeper into the events of the past, even on the verge of dissolving into the world created by your own subconscious." Zhao Meiyou gave a short laugh. "Adult social distancing really has its drawbacks. I didn't realize you were hiding so much." He finished speaking, raised the gun in his hand, and pulled the trigger. The mirror shattered in the blast. Zhao Meiyou looked at the person behind the mirror. The old man’s image had vanished, revealing a young and extremely familiar face. "You owe me a New Year's Eve dinner this year," Zhao Meiyou said, uttering the name: "Diao Chan."