Timeline Player

revenge?

revenge!

We must take our revenge!

Everyone's voices rang out at the same time.

But he was already dead.

A voice rang out, extinguishing the anger.

Yes, that lord is dead.

fraud!

Everyone's consciousness was directed towards Chi Que.

He showed no surprise, but simply took out the brand-new Chekhov rifle and weighed it in his pocket.

"This gun," he said, "has a guaranteed hit."

In the darkness, the sounds fell silent for a moment.

"Of course, it can't travel through time. That lord should have been dead for over a hundred years. The bullets couldn't hit him."

Chi Que raised the gun, aimed it at the ceiling, and then lowered it.

"But—are you willing to believe in miracles?"

silence.

"Do you believe that bullet can travel through time and kill someone who is already dead?"

A voice rang out from the darkness, no longer the almost instinctive reaction, but a girl's voice: "...Is it possible?"

"I don't know," Chi Que said. "But you are trapped here, repeating the same pain over and over again, praying to a non-existent god, yearning for a non-existent paradise, and you have nothing left."

He placed the gun on the ground and pushed it forward.

"So, what do you have to be afraid of?"

silence.

A long silence followed.

Then, all those sounds rang out at the same time.

It was laughter.

"it is good."

"We believe."

"Give this bullet to that bastard."

Chi Que picked up the gun, loaded it with bullets, and aimed it at the ceiling.

He did not pull the trigger.

"Come here," he said.

In the darkness, something surged forth—resentment, pain, fear, despair, and unwillingness to accept defeat...

They clung to the cold gun barrel.

It's cold.

Chi Que did not back down.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Chi Que pulled out the bullet.

That real Chekhov bullet.

He loaded it into the chamber, and the Chekhov's gun made a soft click, as if it had finally received what it was waiting for.

"First shot," Chi Que said.

He pulled the trigger.

The bullet whistled through the air, struck the rock wall, shattered a shower of rocks, flashed a spark, and then fell to the ground.

silence.

The resentful spirits remained silent, watching the bullet wound leave a crater and a plume of smoke on the rock face.

There was no time travel, no killing of the lord, just an ordinary bullet hitting a stone.

"...It's no use." A voice drifted out from the darkness, but the previous anger was gone.

Chi Que took out a second bullet from his pocket.

Wenlu's bullet, a dramatic bullet.

"These are gamblers' bullets," he said. "There's a one in ten chance they'll hit."

He held the bullet up so that the resentment could see it, and said, "Two sure-hit bullets stacked together might increase the probability."

Although it's unclear whether the probability of stacking is possible, theoretically it's 100%.

He loaded the bullets.

Second shot.

A shot rang out, the bullet struck the rock face, right next to the first one, causing rocks to crumble and dust to billow and fall to the ground.

There was nothing there.

The pool is missing a third one.

The third shot, from the side.

There was nothing there.

The fourth one.

The fifth one.

The sixth one.

A row of bullet holes appeared on the rock wall, neatly arranged in a line, like a string of ellipses.

The resentment fell silent, and Chi Que could sense it retreating, shrinking into the darkness, and giving up.

He looked down at the gun in his hand.

There's only one left.

He took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled.

"I'll try other methods," he said.

No one answered him. The puppy lay on the ground, chin resting on its front paws, blinking at him.

Chi Que closed his eyes.

He was recalling how he had returned to twenty years ago.

He loaded the last bullet; the sound of the chamber closing was very soft, but he heard it.

The puppy stood up and barked at the gun barrel.

Chi Que looked at it.

"Do you think it'll work?" he asked.

The puppy tilted its head, then bared its teeth at the gun barrel. It didn't know what Chi Que was doing, but it knew he was doing something important, so it was helping, even though all it could do was bar its teeth.

Chi Que smiled and said, "Okay."

He raised his gun and aimed it at the ceiling.

He closed his eyes, sank his consciousness into the darkness, and aimed at that "feeling".

That feeling of traveling through time.

His finger rested on the trigger.

Something is moving in the darkness.

It's time.

He pulled the trigger.

A shot rang out.

Then--

A silver glint flashed on the bullet.

Chi Que saw those resentful spirits—men's, women's, and children's—standing in the darkness, staring at the bullet.

A burst of silver light erupted.

Then the bullet disappeared.

It didn't hit the rock face.

It was shot out of the gun barrel, flew a short distance, and then disappeared, as if it had never existed.

Chi Que stood there, gun in hand, stunned.

The puppy stopped barking, its tail wagging gently, the tip shimmering like scattered silver.

"...Did you hit him?" A voice came from the darkness.

Chi Que put down his gun and walked to the front of the rock wall.

No new bullet holes were found.

The bullet didn't hit here.

It went where it was supposed to go.

"You hit it," Chi Que said.

In the darkness, something was moving; the shapes of those people were becoming fainter and fainter, as if they were retreating, as if they were leaving.

"Thank you," a voice said.

"Thank you." Another voice said.

"Thanks."

"Thanks."

......

The sounds grew louder and louder, but Chi Que stood there, listening to them without saying a word.

The last sound was that of the girl.

"Goodbye," she said.

Chi Que picked up the puppy.

"Thank you," he replied.

The puppy wagged its tail, not understanding.

Chi Que smiled and patted its head.

The scene before my eyes shattered like glass.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the warehouse twenty years in the future.

The girl stood in front of him.

“I have three different memories in my mind,” she said. “One is that the lord killed us, another is that he was killed in his study and then we were released, and the last is that you helped us to avenge the lord.”

She looked at Chi Que: "Was that part true?"

"It's all true," he said.

That bullet that traveled through time gave him a deeper understanding of the nature of time.

Chi Que gave an analogy: "You can think of time as the movement of celestial bodies. The relationship between the present and the past is like that between the Earth and the Sun. The Earth doesn't revolve around the Sun, but around the gravitational center of both, except that the center is inside the Sun. Time is the same."

"Small changes mean the gravitational center remains within the historical context and will eventually be contained; large changes mean the center will escape, causing gravitational imbalance. Before equilibrium is reached, both histories will coexist."

He looked at the girl: "So all three of your memories are real. Once the balance is achieved, the older one will disappear."

"I don't understand," the girl said.

"It's okay if you don't understand, I was just guessing," Chi Que said.

"But I think it's not so bad," the girl said. "If you save us, it seems like nothing has changed, and no one remembers anything."

She looked at Chi Que: "That's so unfair to you."

Chi Que was stunned for a moment.

Then he shook his head: "I'm leaving."

"Wait," the girl called out to him.

"What's wrong?" Chi Que turned around.

"We have something else to give you," she said. "It's underground; we exist because of it."