From the end of the world

Chapter 530 The Fault in the World 1
Xiaowan and I traveled through one area after another, and the scenes around us changed frequently.

If we were just going to a far place, I could lead Xiaowan forward, but since the location of the survivors' gathering place and us was uncertain, we had to rely on Xiaowan's guidance, so I had to follow Xiaowan's pace. The only way to move was by normal walking.

A powerful bodyguard who can travel tens of thousands of miles with a somersault, and a leader who is weak but has a transcendent stance... This wonderful relationship makes me feel like the Monkey King in the legend, and Xiaowan has become the Tang Monk Xuanzang.

Although we don't have the white dragon horse, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing around us, the monsters and demons on the road are still a must-see. If it were an ordinary doomsday survivor, it would be no less difficult to reach a designated destination while surrounded by monsters.

I don’t hate this inefficient way of moving on foot; it’s fun in its own way, and the ever-changing and dangerous scenes never make me bored.

And there seems to be a certain regularity in the changes of these scenes.

I don’t know if it’s accidental or not, but we always seem to enter places where there are human activities… or where “there have been human activities in the past.”

Not to mention cities and towns, even in the wild, you can see traces of human civilization if you walk a few steps. Occasionally, you can see overgrown steps and trails in the mountains. The same is true for the area where the abandoned Gospel House is located. At first glance, it looks like a wilderness, but in fact, there are human facilities such as the abandoned Gospel House. Although there are pure natural areas that have not been developed by humans, they are rare.

As far as I know, in modern society, although the surface world is basically regarded as "the world dominated by humans", the coverage of land by civilization is not as huge as many people imagine. Counting all the built-up areas such as cities, towns, etc., the coverage of land is only about 2 to 3 percentage points, which is no doubt compared with natural areas. If agricultural land is also included, there is still a comparison, but even so, the total area is still larger than that of natural areas.

This only calculates the land area, and does not include the ocean area, which occupies more than 70% of the earth's surface.

If the chaotic space-time of the doomsday era really teleported us randomly on the surface of the planet, the current situation is somewhat confusing. Normally, it would be normal to teleport us to the center of the Pacific Ocean... No, it is a bit strange that the teleportation area is limited to the surface of the planet.

The mantle occupies more than 80% of the Earth's total volume, and its mass accounts for nearly 70% of the total volume. It is reasonable that the random teleportation phenomenon teleports us into the mantle, right?

Or is it that just like some people with spatial abilities cannot teleport to a location that overlaps with other solid matter, the random teleportation phenomenon cannot bury us underground? But if this phenomenon can only teleport above the surface, why can't it teleport us directly to high altitudes?
Because Xiaowan seems to have a much better brain than me, I would occasionally throw any questions I had to him on the way.

Xiao Wan sighed, then said, "Brother Zhuang Cheng, you are definitely the kind of person who has a lot of inexplicable extracurricular knowledge, but never pays attention in class, and even daydreams about the rationality of the settings in fantasy novels. As a result, you fail most of the exams..."

“I have good grades, and I attend Xianshui University, which is also a famous and prestigious university in the city.” I said seriously.

"...You didn't deny any of the previous parts."

Xiaowan complained first, then responded to my question: "I have asked these questions to Sister Ma Zao before, and she couldn't answer them. After hearing about the afterlife from you, I also tried to investigate in my own way, wanting to know whether the doomsday era is the afterlife...

“Although we still haven’t found out whether the time and space we are in is the ‘future world’, to be honest, the more I investigate, the more I feel a sense of disharmony.

"First of all, in this doomsday era, there seems to be no 'newborns', and the phenomenon of 'growth' is also rare."

I read: "'Newborn'... and 'growing'?"

Xiaowan stopped by the roadside. Now we were on a rural dirt road again, and Xiaowan picked a dry berry from a small bush that was almost completely withered.

"It's an over-absolute statement that there are no animals or plants in the apocalypse. In fact, as long as you have enough luck and observation skills, you can still collect these berries. Because these plants are in the 'time period just after the apocalypse', they haven't had time to wither and decay." Xiaowan said, "It's just that they can't reproduce the next generation, not because the soil lacks nutrients, nor because of lack of light... I don't know why they can't reproduce.

“This is the same for humans. Although some evil doomsday survivors will imprison the opposite sex and use them as slaves to vent their desires, such behavior can only produce pleasure and pain at most, and cannot produce newborns.

"The same is true for 'growth'... In the past, I suspected that the reason why I couldn't grow up no matter how much time passed was because Sister Mazao would occasionally use the power of return to reset my hunger, which in turn reset my physical growth progress... But after careful investigation, I found that the phenomenon of 'failure to grow' is actually very common in the apocalyptic era.

"Children are always children, young people are always young people, and I have never heard of an old person dying simply from old age...

"Of course, before that, the elderly living in this era basically had no chance to die of old age. It is also a fact that there are huge gaps in the statistical samples in this regard." I thought of sandalwood and wandering souls.

Although Youhun said that he had experienced a very long time in the apocalyptic era, his appearance was not obviously older than Tan Xiang, but his temperament became more vicissitudes. Even if his skin became rough and there were more scars on his face, as long as he washed his face and shaved, I could still tell in an instant that he was Tan Xiang.

"However, unlike the fact that newborns will not appear, the cessation of growth is not absolute." Xiaowan added, "I heard that sometimes boys and girls who are in a period of rapid growth will experience physical growth, but their growth seems to have nothing to do with the time they have passed.

"Some people grow up overnight, while others feel like many years have passed but only show slight growth... It's as if their growth is not based on their own time, but on some other time system."

Her words seemed suggestive, and I immediately made an association: "Assuming that they are patients with amnesia who traveled here from the modern world, then their growth and changes may be calculated based on the sleeping bodies in the modern world... Because their bodies in the modern world have grown, so they in the doomsday era have changed based on the mysterious linkage phenomenon?"

"Maybe." Xiaowan said conservatively.

"The earliest case of a patient with amnesia was four years ago... If this speculation is correct, even if someone shows growth, the extent will not exceed four years." I speculated.

"It's... hard to say." Xiao Wan thought for a moment and said, "Although many cases are similar to what Brother Zhuang Cheng said, there are also some different cases. According to my investigation, it seems that there are also children around my age who have gradually grown into adults..."

This is beyond my previous speculation. Maybe I made a mistake somewhere? If I have to use my original speculation to make this case compatible, I can only assume that the other party is a very precocious individual in the modern world.

Then, I asked curiously, "I've wanted to ask this before... How do you investigate intelligence? With your appearance and the fact that you're wanted by the Gospel Institute, it would be a very difficult and dangerous task to collect intelligence or even to find other survivors to find out about things, right?"

In particular, Xiaowan actually collected the birth rate data and growth case data of the doomsday survivor group.

If she hadn't collected a considerable number of samples, she would never have come to the above conclusions. I also don't think that she just said those based on "statistics around her". Not to mention that it goes against her cautious character, after all, she doesn't have many people around her to consult.

"How I investigated... I'll keep it secret for now." Xiao Wan said, "Don't worry, we'll show it to Brother Zhuang Cheng soon after we get to the gathering place of the survivors."

I asked, "Can't you tell me now?"

"No." Xiao Wan smiled, "It's not impossible to tell you now, but I want to whet Brother Zhuang Cheng's appetite."

As she spoke, she blinked her single eye at me cutely and said with a smile, "Brother Zhuang Cheng likes it better this way, right?"

I really can't deny this.

"Back to the original topic, although it is not possible to find out whether this doomsday era is the future of the world where Brother Zhuang Cheng lives, I believe that a huge mistake has occurred in our world. This is the conclusion I have drawn from my observations based on my ability to understand the heavens and the earth." Xiao Wan said seriously, "I don't know if what I said is correct... Our world is like an extremely large and complex machine. In the process of its operation, it has accumulated too many faults...

"No... it's not that gentle. This machine was damaged by an unimaginable external force, and all the errors were caused by it. And all the weird things are probably born from the errors.

“So the more errors the world accumulates, the greater the number of anomalies.”

Is the source of the weirdness a malfunction or error that occurred in the process of the world's operation?
Did I hear some incredible information?
Judging from Xiaowan's tone, she is not only describing the time and space of the doomsday era, but also bundling the modern world I lived in in the past into her description.

I swallowed my surprise and then asked, "When you say 'external force'... do you mean this apocalypse?"

Xiaowan glanced at the empty night sky and shook his head.

(End of this chapter)