After eating and talking for a while, Lin Wei felt a wave of drowsiness and fell into a deep sleep again. People who are overly fatigued are always prone to sleepiness, and Lin Wei was no exception.
He had no psychological burden about it. What needed to be done, what could be done, was already done. What else was there to do but sleep?
Although in this time where a loop could restart at any moment, his habit of falling asleep at the drop of a hat seemed a bit out of place compared to the other worried girls, he was, after all, a weak patient. No one would blame him for it, at most they would just think he was too carefree.
Schrödinger, on the other hand, was happy to see it.
After all, sufficient sleep was conducive to recovery. And unlike the worrying coma before, if it was just ordinary sleep, even if the loop restarted again, he could be woken up at any time.
So, let him sleep...
Schrödinger had been observing him for a while. For some reason, she felt that this extremely weak Lin Wei looked more pleasing to the eye than ever before.
Perhaps it was at this time that she suddenly realized a problem she had overlooked: Lin Wei, in essence, was just this frail.
That such a fragile body, which could be knocked over with a single push, could create a miracle like the one in Manila and stand up to someone like Otto, made it hard to tell whether he was more like Welt or more like Otto.
This in itself was an unimaginable thing.
Thus, she felt that her previous standards of judgment had been a bit too harsh.
Perhaps, in my subconscious, I still hope he can be more like Welt, so I'm repulsed by the side of him that is similar to Otto, Schrödinger thought to herself.
Or perhaps, she desperately hoped that this person's talents could be used for good, and was too worried that one day, he would transform into another Otto Apocalypse.
"What a complicated guy..."
Schrödinger thought lazily. Perhaps E, and that Tesla, also felt as complicated as I do when they saw him...
As for Joachim, who had inherited the name of Welt?
She really didn't know him. After all, when Schrödinger fell into the Sea of Quanta, he was still literally a child.
Even the fact that "Joachim inherited the authority of the Herrscher of Reason" was something she had only recently heard from Lin Wei. When she was with Bianka and Rita before, she had only learned from that outstanding girl that "the name of Welt has a successor," which was a comforting thing.
After all, at that time, Rita was just an A-rank Valkyrie with some talent, a far cry from the adjutant of the Immortal Blades who had access to much classified information.
---||---
Time passed, second by second. Seele, Bronya, and Sin sat together anxiously, looking at each other and waiting for fate's judgment—especially the latter.
"Tch, this is such an annoying feeling..."
Sin exclaimed in frustration. She hated this feeling of powerlessness.
She desperately wanted all of this to be just a story Seele had imagined. After all, that crybaby had always had all sorts of unrealistic fantasies. But this time, no matter how unwilling she was to admit it, she knew it was obviously real. Otherwise, Seele wouldn't have really found this man named Lin Wei, and that half-human, half-ghost creature named Schrödinger, in this deserted snowy plain...
"Damn it!"
She couldn't take it anymore and stood up, glaring at the unconscious Lin Wei, then snorted coldly, kicked open the "door curtain," and walked out.
Seele wanted to stop her, but Bronya gently stopped her.
"Let her go and vent, Seele. With Sin's personality, the atmosphere here is too oppressive for her."
Then, she also seemed to think they should change the subject. She put on a comforting smile and looked at Seele with expectant eyes. "Seele, can you tell me the story of what happened in the other world? With the other me, and... Sin."
"...Okay."
Although Seele was feeling anxious, she couldn't refuse Bronya Oneechan's sincere, expectant gaze. So she told her all the stories she could remember, from the first time they met, when she was so scared she hid behind Mother Cocolia, to when she saw Bronya Oneechan covered in blood for her sake after being kidnapped, to Sin's surprise attack, the X-10 experiment, and the gift she had recently received from Bronya Oneechan...
"I really want to show you that video, to share this story with you, Bronya Oneechan. But, I can't take it out..." Seele said, clutching her chest. "It's just a video, it exists in my heart, in my memory, but I..."
She was so anxious she was on the verge of tears.
"It's okay, Seele..."
Bronya had been listening quietly. Some of the content brought back similar memories, and the parts that weren't in her memory didn't stop her from picturing the scenes in her mind. Seeing Seele so anxious, she just gently pulled her into her arms and comforted her. "I'm already very happy to hear this story from you. Whether I really see it or not isn't important."
"Okay..."
"When you go back to your own world, you can also tell the Bronya there the story of what happened today, no, every 'today' here. I think she will be very happy too..."
"...Okay!"
"Stories" are a silent and great bridge. Children use them to understand the world, and adults use them to understand themselves.
Humans use stories to record history and pass on civilization. They also use stories to remember themselves and convey their thoughts—just like now, Bronya entrusted her today to this short story, for Seele, the messenger, to remember everything, to tell another self, to tell the next self.
If in the next second, all of this will be annihilated, but at this moment, "I" did exist...
Time passed, second by second. It seemed as if Seele and Bronya had endless things to talk about. Lin Wei slept soundly, sometimes even snoring softly. Sin went out and came in, came in and went out, but the irritable and violent aura surrounding her gradually faded with her comings and goings.
"Hmph, you made me give in for a whole night. It's almost dawn... move over!"
Sin kicked Seele grumpily, snatched a spot from her, and leaned against the rock wall with her arms crossed, closing her eyes to sleep. She mumbled irritably, "I've had enough. I don't know why I'm going crazy with you all here!"
"..."
Seele and Bronya exchanged a look, only then realizing that they had been chatting so much they had forgotten the time. As if relieved, they smiled at each other knowingly, took a sip of the long-cold boiled snow water to moisten their dry mouths, and also lay down to sleep in their clothes.
That's right, it's almost dawn. Maybe the tomorrow of this "today" will really come?
Time passed, second by second, and the sky gradually brightened.
There were no insects or birds in the Siberian winter, no noisy alarm clocks in the wilderness far from human civilization. Everything seemed to have returned to its primitive state.
"Ugh... hmm..."
His long-cultivated biological clock woke Lin Wei up. He opened his still-heavy eyes, looked at the familiar low "ceiling" above his head, and then closed his eyes again with a blank expression. Since there was no loop, he wanted to sleep a little longer.
Several hours later, after the other girls who were also "holed up" in this narrow cave woke up one after another and made some noise, Lin Wei slowly woke up again. The first thing he said was, "Is there anything to eat? I'm hungry."
Unlike the last time, this time he gave off a very... punchable vibe.
"Hah? Hungry?"
Sin directly moved a frozen, stiff wolf carcass from outside and threw it at Lin Wei. "Here, eat!"
Acting like a king, are you?
Lin Wei raised his hand to block it, then grimaced, clutching his wrist—it was really hard.
"It seems you've recovered quite well, at least on a mental level," Schrödinger, who had been invisible all this time, commented.
"It seems the loop didn't happen," Lin Wei said lightly, not minding Sin's "little rudeness."
"Hmm, maybe your previous 'experiment' was correct. Another possibility is that the trigger for this loop is a random number, and we were just lucky to have pushed it to the second day."
Schrödinger's flat, calm tone even sounded a little discouraging. "In any case, I don't recommend you jump to conclusions now, and I certainly don't recommend you take any action."
Having known Lin Wei for so long, how could she not know that this guy, who now looked so lazy it was infuriating, could at any moment pull a big, unexpected stunt?
The more he can get away with, the more he'll get away with. I'd better be on guard...
"Look at me now. Besides eating, sleeping, and being disliked, what else can I do?"
Lin Wei chuckled as he watched the irritable Sin being coaxed outside by Bronya. "Even if I wanted to do something, I wouldn't have the strength..."
"I have a very tactful suggestion, Mr. Lin Wei—"
Schrödinger said with a blank expression.
"Speak properly."
"That's not tactful at all..."
"Alright—actually, to put it bluntly, it doesn't make much difference, does it? After all, regardless of whether there's a loop or not, I still need to rest here for a while."
Lin Wei spread his hands, expressing his innocence. "Since we haven't returned to our respective starting points, what can we do but continue to wait here and observe?"
As time went on, it would become self-evident which of the two possibilities had a higher weight.
"You may be very proud of your achievement right now, but I must remind you, respected Mr. Lin Wei..."
Schrödinger still didn't give him any face. "Even if it's as you say, indefinitely freezing the X-10 experiment doesn't really break the mechanism of this loop. It just expands this cage made of time indefinitely."
Just like how she often didn't give Einstein or Tesla face in the past, and even often made Tesla furious...
Although for the inhabitants of this world, it didn't make much of a difference. As long as that damn experiment never started again, they could continue to move toward the future day by day.
But for outsiders like Lin Wei and Seele, the essence of the cage remained unchanged. As Schrödinger said, it just became a little bigger. After all, as long as that mechanism was still intact, there was a possibility of it being triggered. This essence hadn't changed in the slightest.
"Is... is that so?"
Seele, who had been elated at seeing a new day, also became dejected, feeling a little disappointed and even a little uneasy...
"Hmm... should we try to have a showdown with Cocolia?"
Lin Wei said as if unintentionally. Seeing Seele shiver, he added nonchalantly, "Probably not. Even without Cocolia, someone else could replace her and continue the experiment. The essence would still be the same."
"..."
For some reason, hearing Lin Wei say this, Seele felt a quiet sense of relief.
Even Seele is like this. Do these children have such deep feelings for Cocolia? Lin Wei thought to himself.
"So, if we can confirm that the core of the world's loop is the X-10 experiment, then what we should do next is not to let it remain stagnant, but to push it forward."
Lin Wei thought for a moment. "If the reason this world keeps looping is because of the repeated failures of this experiment, then if we can make it successful, the loop will naturally end."
This was an obvious guess. But the question was, how could they ensure success?
"Of course, there is another possibility: the starting point of this world's time loop is always anchored to the moment Seele and I arrived in this world. Does this mean..."
Lin Wei glanced at Seele. "That one of us needs to be lying on the operating table of that experiment to complete the loop?"
Seele shivered, a chill running through her body.
"Damn it, he wants Seele to go through that again?"
Veliona almost jumped out and cut him down on the spot.
"Get to the point."
Schrödinger's tone sounded like that of an emotionless thesis defense advisor.
"In short, if I participate in that X-10 experiment and let it be completed successfully, thus completing the final step of this loop, won't everything be resolved?"
Lin Wei smiled as he explained his plan. Then his expression turned serious, and he said, word by word, "And I can also take this opportunity to get my... no, Sakura's Stigmata back..."
This was his most fundamental motive and his core reason.
Experiment? Loop?
Lin Wei cared, but... not that much.