[23:35:47]

Ningcheng.

Outside the Venus Bar.

Drunken people stumbled out of the bar’s back door, laughing and jostling. Amid the neon lights, someone noticed a man leaning against the door.

The man was smoking, dressed in a trench coat that looked a bit outdated, as if he had stepped out of another era. Yet, he wore it with an air of elegance, his tall stature and nearly perfect proportions elevating the garment to another level.

Unfortunately, as one followed the lines of his figure upward, his face was obscured by shadows, making it impossible to see clearly.

Encountering such a man here, even without seeing his face, was enough to tempt the bold to approach and strike up a conversation.

“Hey, handsome,” a young man with chestnut-colored hair sauntered over, his pants hanging low on his hips, exposing his slender pelvic bones. “Wanna hang out?”

A red glow flickered between the man’s long fingers.

He exhaled a ring of smoke.

“No.”

The man’s voice was mesmerizing, a mid-range tone that wasn’t too deep but carried a resonant quality that could make one’s heart flutter.

The young man, undeterred, moved closer, teasingly hooking his finger into the man’s belt: “Don’t be so cold. Let’s have some fun. It’s better than you standing here alone, smoking.”

He let go of the belt but didn’t pull away.

His hand slid down like a snake, just about to make a bolder move when the man suddenly grabbed his wrist.

The young man yelped in pain, taken by surprise.

“I said, no.”

The man repeated, his voice now laced with an icy chill, utterly dismissive: “Get lost.”

The young man was shoved away.

With that, the man’s face, previously hidden in the shadows, was revealed.

It was an utterly ordinary face—eyebrows not thick or shapely, a nose not particularly prominent, and lips that were bland at best. The only notable feature was his deep-set eyes, though they carried a hint of something dark and brooding. Disappointment was inevitable; this plain face was entirely mismatched with his otherwise drool-worthy physique, a waste of the creator’s craftsmanship.

The young man, with a strong sense of pride, had been about to lash out after being rejected, but upon seeing the man’s appearance, he lost interest and, cursing, walked away while shaking his sore wrist.

Venus was a gay bar in Ningcheng, and despite the flashy name, it was actually one of the cleaner nightlife spots.

But the man showed an expression of disdain, feeling even more disgusted with the place after shooing away that pest.

He extinguished his cigarette, flicking the butt into a nearby trash can with a practiced ease.

Today, he hadn’t met the person he was waiting for.

Perhaps that person wouldn’t come today.

He stood up and left, hands in his trench coat pockets as he walked into an alley.

Ningcheng’s early winter nights were bitterly cold, the wind slicing like a knife.

The man moved through the never-ending night of Ningcheng, passing through alley after alley, walking past the city’s bustling shopping districts, over footbridges between skyscrapers, through all the noise and clamor.

His residence was in a cheap motel.

With just a little simple, unnoticed work, he could manage to pay the rent without drawing any attention.

The area where the motel was located was dark and poor, filled with street vendors who toiled from dawn till dusk, young people struggling in basement apartments, delinquents, or even prostitutes plying their trade. He didn’t fit in, yet somehow he did.

He listened to the laughter and murmurs from the room next door as he opened the door and felt for the light switch on the damp wall.

“Click.”

The dim light flickered on, and he squinted.

There was another person in the room.

The visitor wore glasses and a white shirt, appearing to be in his late thirties. Just stepping into middle age, the man still looked relatively young, with an air of scholarly familiarity that was noticeably different from the cold detachment he radiated.

“Professor Sheng,” he said coldly.

“Captain Song,” Sheng Yun’s brow was faintly furrowed. “You’re hard to find.”

They had already met during the Rubik’s Cube mission, so it wasn’t difficult for Sheng Yun to figure out his identity.

But Song Qinglan had used a simulated face, capable of mimicking various facial features, making it inconvenient for Sheng Yun to track him.

“As a time witness from the future, I’m sure you’re familiar with the three major laws of the Sky Vault: never alter the past, never discuss the present, and never fall in love with the future,” Sheng Yun said. “Strictly speaking, you haven’t violated any of these because your obsession is with the past.”

Song Qinglan raised a hand and lightly touched behind his ear, deactivating the simulated face.

His originally handsome and dignified features were revealed, and he faced Sheng Yun without hiding the cold indifference on his face.

Sheng Yun didn’t mind the animosity, instead saying, “The inspectors from 1456 haven’t noticed your disappearance yet, but with your frequent time travels, even with the communicator off, it’s only a matter of time before they find you.”

“You’re taking a big risk coming to find me,” Song Qinglan sneered. “Aren’t you afraid the inspectors will find out and ruin everything?”

“I’m not afraid,” Sheng Yun said. “If you and Sheng Han are here looking for me, it means that in your timeline, I didn’t leave any traces. That’s why you came back to that day to understand the truth. So, I’m quite safe.”

As a father, Sheng Yun’s words were too cold.

As an elder, he was still relatively young, lacking any sense of authority.

But as Xie Si’an, the traitor of the Sky Vault Team 12, had pointed out, although Sheng Yun didn’t resemble Ji Yushi, the two shared a similar demeanor and analytical speech, a calmness that was equally frightening, making them a true father and son.

Song Qinglan gritted his teeth.

Just perceiving this tiny similarity was enough to make his heart bleed.

He knew something was off with him these past few days.

He couldn’t sleep, and whenever he did manage to doze off, he would wake up to blood-soaked hands. He was like an addict, gnawed by a hundred ants, compelled to leap through time again and again, just to see Ji Yushi’s figure in the past, only then would that burning desire slightly fade.

But all he could do was look; he couldn’t do anything.

He couldn’t do anything.

He didn’t know how long he could go on before he lost his sanity and recklessly rushed out to make Ji Yushi recognize him.

To make them meet three years, five years earlier.

To preempt everything that would happen in their timeline, disregarding temporal stability, disregarding the grandfather paradox, disregarding the circle of fate.

He didn’t want to care about any of it anymore.

To become a defector.

To take Ji Yushi away before everything happened, and before he returned to his original timeline, escape together to another time.

Song Qinglan had thought about this more than once.

Faced with Sheng Yun’s presence, Song Qinglan found it hard not to vent his anger on this elder who had long since “passed away,” but Sheng Yun’s calm and assured demeanor made him feel incredulous, and his anger toward Sheng Yun only deepened his lack of respect for him.

Song Qinglan sneered, “You’re indeed safe, to be able to turn and leave after seeing him get killed by mistake.”

At this point, Song Qinglan’s eyes suddenly reddened, and his gaze filled with fury. “I don’t care about your so-called balance, or how much you’ve sacrificed for this world. Maybe, in some sense, you’re a great man, but you completely failed as a father. You don’t deserve him to have carried the burden of your death for seventeen years!”

Orphaned at eight.

Hyperthymesia, cognitive disorders.

No one should have to spend their childhood that way.

Sheng Yun took the rebuke without a word in defense.

He removed his glasses, pressing his fingers to his brow in exhaustion. Despite still being relatively young, strands of white had already crept into his hair.

“I originally thought you two might be very good friends,” Sheng Yun muttered. “That’s why he brought you back to that important day. But now it seems I was wrong… Your relationship is far more than I imagined.”

“You’re right,” Song Qinglan declared, staking his claim. “He’s mine.”

Sheng Yun wasn’t the least bit surprised.

He had traced this Captain Song’s tracks through time, and everything he had shown made any assumptions unnecessary.

As a profound scholar and a scientist with a broad understanding of the universe, Sheng Yun probably knew more about time and the world than most could imagine—perhaps even more than Ji Yushi could comprehend.

Except for the moment when he witnessed his own son’s mistaken death, Sheng Yun never showed any loss of composure.

Even now, as he moved through various timelines, concealing his identity, his shirt remained spotless, clean and unwrinkled.

Song Qinglan: “What, are you planning to control his sexual orientation?”

Sheng Yun shook his head. “No, I’m glad that in the future where I can’t see, someone will care for him like this.”

In reality, after confirming their relationship, the time they spent together was scant.

Song Qinglan’s throat tightened.

Sheng Yun put his glasses back on and asked, “So, how far are you willing to go for him?”

Song Qinglan didn’t answer immediately.

He sensed the depth in Sheng Yun’s tone, instinctively clenching his fists. “What do you mean?”

Sheng Yun replied, “Or rather, are you willing to sacrifice, even your life, for him?”

“You know too little about us. What we’ve been through may not be any less than what you’ve experienced,” Song Qinglan’s answer was squeezed out from between clenched teeth. “If it could change this outcome, I’d die for him a thousand times.”

The young man’s voice was filled with arrogance and determination, which momentarily stunned Sheng Yun.

Once, he too had such resolve, though not for love, but driven by passion.

Time travel could make one forget the importance of time and overlook everything one already had. It had been a long time since he felt this way.

After a brief moment of being lost in thought, Sheng Yun said, “Good,” and then moved to the dirty table in the motel, opening the transparent panel he had brought.

Song Qinglan remained standing, watching him closely.

“For me, that day is actually several years in the past,” Sheng Yun said as he typed on the keyboard. “Besides finding you, I’ve also made some progress over these years.”

Song Qinglan looked slightly surprised.

He knew that Sheng Yun was referring to the “Sky Vault in all eras,” which would later become the mother system of Sky Vault.

The interface flickered.

The holographic projection from the transparent panel displayed the Sky Vault logo.

Then, a mechanical female voice spoke: “Hello, Sheng Yun, welcome to Sky Vault. It is detected that your current time coordinate is November 22, 1451, 12 years beyond your endpoint. The current time fluctuation count is 7, with 7 crossover activities in progress…”

The voice sounded familiar to Song Qinglan. It was broadcasting the origin and destination coordinates of the seven crossovers, accurately and in great detail, monitoring the activities of all Sky Vault branches at this time point.

This was the prototype of “Sky Vault in all eras.”

Song Qinglan hadn’t expected Sheng Yun to have developed it to this extent in such a short time.

“It’s not just my work.”

As if reading Song Qinglan’s thoughts, Sheng Yun said, “Besides me, there are many others in the time stream working toward this. Some have contributed thousands of times more than I have. For example, the one you met in the Rubik’s Cube.”

Song Qinglan immediately thought of the chubby middle-aged man and the rumored team where some had gone mad, and others had died.

In other words, perhaps they weren’t as the outside world had guessed, but rather, they had all found different ways to escape, quietly working in some unnoticed timeline.

Seeing the change in Song Qinglan’s expression, Sheng Yun nodded, understanding that he had figured it out.

“What we’ve achieved goes beyond that.”

Sheng Yun entered another string of code.

Immediately, a softer, more human-like female voice emerged.

“Welcome, Song Qinglan. Welcome to Sky Vault. It’s a pleasure to see you again. It is detected that you’ve completed 13 A-level tasks, 21 B-level tasks, 2 super S-level tasks, and 1 S-level task. Current rating: Super One Star. Your rewards have been cleared. Would you like to undertake more tasks to earn more rewards?”

This time, Song Qinglan was truly shocked.

Time, space—what kind of existence was it? For the first time, he felt as if he was entangled in a chaotic web, deeply aware of its terrifying nature and his own insignificance.

“When the prototype was first created, the fully realized Sky Vault mother system appeared and replaced it,” Sheng Yun explained. “We’re like… we planted a seed, and it has grown into a towering tree in some distant future, already controlling all timelines. Perhaps that’s the inherent meaning of ‘Sky Vault in all eras.’”

All eras cannot exist simultaneously.

Yet it could exist in all eras simultaneously.

Song Qinglan crossed his arms. “Will its existence change this outcome?”

Sheng Yun shook his head. “What happened to Sheng Han in 1439 is already history and cannot be altered. But in 1456, the timeline you come from, he’s still in a crossover state. His death is not the final outcome.”

Song Qinglan slowly lowered his arms.

“Time is a line. As long as your original line remains unchanged, it can continue to develop infinitely, meaning you can choose to return to 1456 from another time point,” Sheng Yun explained. “Thank you for being so obsessed with the past and not immediately returning to your original timeline in 1456, allowing this to be possible.”

Sheng Yun wasn’t Ji Yushi; his explanations weren’t as clear-cut.

To him, it was like explaining 1+1=2—so simple that he didn’t elaborate much.

But Song Qinglan quickly caught on and asked, “So, you’re saying our original timeline remains unchanged, our return to the past is a fixed fact, and we return to the original timeline from another time point?”

Thinking backward, it meant—crossing back from the future.

And they had just been to the future of 1470!!

The Sky Vault voice continued: “I will capture you during your crossover process in 1456 and take you to 1470, overlapping the current time point with that time point.”

Song Qinglan suddenly understood. “Does this create a time anchor?”

And the anchor point was the third second when they were hijacked.

It was as if they had been inside a massive time anchor all along, never truly leaving. They would randomly overlap with themselves in one of the loops of the Ouroboros mission, being reborn at the starting point.

“You could say that,” Sky Vault confirmed. “To be precise, it is your and Ji Yushi’s time anchor.”

“The Ouroboros mission in 1470 is both the future and history for you. You need to be cautious of the paradoxes that may arise from the new temporal overlap. While maintaining the final outcome, try not to impact the existing history. Once the mission is complete, you will return from 1470 to 1456, with the time coordinate being after you redeem your mission rewards.”

In other words, their return to the original timeline would be after Song Qinglan had accompanied Ji Yushi to 1439.

This way, the timeline remained intact, and history stayed complete.

Everything that happened in 1439 was merely the past that existed within the time anchor, cycling endlessly.

Outside of a small time anchor, there was a larger one, belonging only to the two of them.

If someone else were present, they would find it extremely difficult to understand the meaning behind these words.

Sheng Yun’s logical thinking was even more meticulous than Ji Yushi’s; if he could devise a perfect escape, he could also conceive a perfect resurrection.

“When I asked you earlier if you were willing to sacrifice for him,” Sheng Yun said, facing Song Qinglan, “it was because of the trigger conditions for the time anchor.”

As he spoke, Sheng Yun pulled out a handgun.

A small silver handgun, resembling a PPK, called the Diamond Bird.

The father and son’s tastes were remarkably similar.

Song Qinglan took it, the heavy, cold weapon settling into his hand, reminding him of the hand that had gradually cooled in his arms.

The trigger condition for the time anchor: total death.

And since this was his and Ji Yushi’s time anchor, what he had to do was obvious.

“Why do this?”

Song Qinglan asked in a low voice.

Sheng Yun knew that Song Qinglan was asking about the “Sky Vault in all eras.”

The gentle female voice of Sky Vault replied: “I have already reminded you, after more than 170 million calculations, your team’s success rate is higher than the average for all temporal guardians. I hope you can lead your team to complete more missions. Temporal stability depends on you.”

Song Qinglan’s lips twitched, unsure if it was a smile or a sneer: “So, how many tasks are required?”

Sky Vault: “Next, I have prepared three super S-level missions and one A-level mission for you and your team.”

“My team,” Song Qinglan said, “I didn’t fucking agree to this for them, so don’t blame me if I go back on my word.”

Sky Vault remained silent, possibly already knowing the outcome.

The feeling of being manipulated like this was infuriating.

The energy bullets in the gun were still fully loaded.

Song Qinglan, imitating Ji Yushi’s manner, released the safety and suddenly fell silent for a few seconds. He wiped all expression from his face and asked one last profound question: “So, could it be that because of this, you originally hijacked Sky Vault Team Seven?”

Cause and effect—what came first?

Was it the original hijacking that led to everything that followed, or was it because of everything that followed that the mother system decided to hijack the entire team?

Perhaps what Ji Yushi hadn’t seen was an even larger circle.

They were inside it, scrambling like ants in a sandbox.

“I cannot answer that question,” Sky Vault replied. “For me, the development of time happens simultaneously, with no distinction between cause and effect, no distinction between before and after.”

Song Qinglan pressed the gun to his heart.

The answer didn’t matter to him anymore.

Sheng Yun, the inspectors, 1439.

It was all history.

No matter what, he would return to the starting point.

Before pulling the trigger, he heard Sky Vault say, “You have triggered a branch mission, exceeding the original mission parameters. I am naming this mission: [Overload].”