Oh no! I'm surrounded by female ghosts!

The living room remained quiet.

After listening, Chen Zhiwei did not express any opinion, but continued to bury himself in flipping through the notebook.

Tang Tang wasn't listening very attentively; she spent most of her time stealing glances at Su Ming, her cheeks flushed.

Xu Qinghe was only eight years old. Although she was very talented, due to her age, she listened to the stories as if they were magical tales.

Lin Jiajia remained huddled in the shadows, making it impossible to see her expression.

Yu Mengnian had already heard about it, so she remained calm and composed.

Zhou Zhengyang bit the pen, sometimes frowning, sometimes scratching his hair.

Shen Wanyu looked around at everyone's reactions.

She knew that everyone was waiting for her to speak.

2012 was Shen Wanyu's year, just like 2003 was Wen Qi's year.

After a moment's hesitation, she broke the silence and spoke first: "I don't know what the 2012 doomsday line has to do with me."

"But I did book a cruise ticket for the Ovation of the Deep Sea a few days ago."

"That ship is a luxury cruise ship owned by Sino-Ocean Group."

"The main focus is on tourism, with the main routes being Yanlang City, the North Pole, Lingbing Island, and Slva, and the entire trip lasting 14 days."

"Departure date." Shen Wanyu took out her phone and looked at it: "December 21st."

She took a breath and continued.

"This date has been trending online recently."

"Because that was the exact date predicted by the Mayan civilization as their day of destruction."

"I'm actually quite curious about the end of the world."

"So, I even looked up relevant information online beforehand."

"Throughout history, there have been at least two hundred clearly documented doomsday prophecies worldwide."

Shen Wanyu directly presented the most convincing and real data.

"Let's leave aside the pre-Christian era for now."

"In the modern 20th century, there were several prophecies of the Last Judgment in 1914, 1925, and 1975."

"Around 1999 to 2000, there were at least 27 doomsday rumors, such as the King of Terror descending from the sky, the Heaven's Gate anomaly, the rumors of the Sun Temple Church, the Y2K crisis, and the five planets aligning as a calamity."

"May 21 and October 21, 2011, were also mentioned as doomsday scenarios, with theories including planetary impacts and the extinction of the sun."

This is all solid data, and you can verify it online.

"The doomsday that the Mayan civilization referred to was not, in essence, a day of destruction."

"That is the time cycle of the Long Count calendar of the Mayan civilization."

"A complete Long Count calendar cycle lasts approximately 5125 years."

"December 21, 2012, marks the end of the current calendar cycle."

"The principle is the same as when we tear off the old calendar and welcome the new year; it's just a normal change of time."

"In the ancient Mayan understanding, this day marked the end of the old era and the beginning of a new one, which was quite normal."

"The so-called end of the world is just an over-interpretation and hype by people with ulterior motives."

Shen Wanyu's words were reasonable and logically sound, and everyone present nodded in agreement.

Only Su Ming frowned, as if he understood the unspoken meaning behind Shen Wanyu's words.

really.

Shen Wanyu's next words shattered the silence in the room, sending chills down everyone's spines.

"This Su..."

She corrected him: "Su Ming, the fact that you were able to come to 2012 itself proves that this doomsday prophecy is probably true."

"December 21, 2012, may really be the end of the world."

"The reason why later generations called it a rumor is because Su Ming was able to sever the timeline of the apocalypse."

"The apocalypse is over, but its rumors remain."

"Furthermore, the doomsday scenario I just mentioned includes the idea of ​​the sun going out."

"In 2003, which Su Ming experienced, the sun really went out."

"Therefore, I suspect that not all doomsday theories are rumors."

"However, we cannot verify it."

The air froze instantly.

No one can prove how many times the world has been destroyed, and there will never be an answer.

A chill that seeped into the bone quietly enveloped the entire living room.

In the silence, Chen Zhiwei slowly raised her head and took over the conversation: "Su Ming came to 2012 mainly to understand the source of pollution and cut off the doomsday line."

"Our current understanding of pollution sources is still very limited and superficial."

"What Shen Wanyu just said is indeed possible, but it's not very significant because Su Ming's era is 2026."

"This means that, between 1996 and 2026, no matter how many doomsday scenarios occurred, they were all forcibly interrupted and erased."

"So, I have a question now."

She looked at Su Ming with a serious expression, her eyes sharp as an unsheathed sword: "Don't you feel that time in 2026 has sped up?"

Su Ming was slightly taken aback upon hearing this, and subconsciously turned his head to fall into deep thought.

It does seem to have gotten faster.

Even he felt that the day went by very quickly.

I remember when I was a child, the days were long and plentiful, and I could do many things.

But in 2026.

Although everyone says that times are progressing and the emergence of too many new things has led to a variety of ways for people to kill time, people have the illusion that time is getting faster.

"It'll be soon, right?"

Chen Zhiwei got the answer she wanted from Su Ming's pensive expression.

Her tone grew increasingly heavy: "Wen Qi once said that time and space are a whole, and the world is like a dying person."

"Every time a doomsday timeline is severed, something will disappear forever, and the overall weight will be lighter."

"I think her description is very accurate."

"What disappears is not just people and things, but also space and time."

"For example," Chen Zhiwei said, drawing a line on the paper with a pen, "this line only represents the timeline."

"This is the timeline from 2003."

「它的末日区间在2003年5月14日至6月10日。」

「2003年的末日线，你切除的只可能是5月14日至6月10日这段时间。」

"Taking necrotic organs as an example, this is a local excision and will not affect other months."

She looked up, her gaze fixed on Su Ming, and posed a chilling question.

"Then let me ask you, where did you go during the nearly one month from May 14th to June 10th?"

Om-!

Su Ming's mind went completely blank for a moment, and his blood almost froze completely.

Not only Su Ming, but everyone present who understood the message had their pupils shrink, their bodies stiffen, and their hair stand on end.

"Gone...gone." Su Ming's Adam's apple bobbed violently.

Chen Zhiwei nodded, his words icy: "That's right, the nearly one month from May 14th to June 10th has disappeared."

"This means that in 2003, the number of months changed from a full 12 to 11."

"The world line begins to regrow, but it cannot fill the gap of the lost month, so it can only be compressed."

"Instead of compressing the entire year of 2003 into 11 months, we spread that missing month evenly across all the timelines of the entire world."

"It is known that the first year of the catastrophe was 1996."

"30 years, totaling 360 months."

"The apocalyptic cut in 2003 alone caused a loss of one-three-hundred-and-sixtieth of the overall timeline."

"You appeared in 2012, 28 days before the end of the world. How many days will last after the end of the world is currently unknown."

"Calculated on a monthly basis."

"When you leave 2012, the total timeline will be one month shorter."

"Two months has already taken up one hundred and eighty percent of the total timeline."

Chen Zhiwei's tone was as heavy as a thousand-pound boulder: "Time really is getting shorter. It's not an illusion; it's a fact."

"The scariest thing is..."

"One day, what was originally a full 24 hours will become 20 hours, 16 hours, 8 hours, and finally shrink to 1 hour, 1 minute, 1 second, until it is completely reduced to zero."

"What were we back then?"

Is a world where time has disappeared alive, or dead?

"As for the space, I cannot make a judgment at the moment."

Su Ming quickly added, "The space shouldn't be like that, right?"

"In 2026, after the world is updated, the surface area of ​​Earth will also increase."

Chen Zhiwei gave Su Ming a deep look: "Does the enlarged area belong to Blue Star?"

Su Ming was speechless, all his words stuck in his throat.

"Therefore, the space must have disappeared, but it is undetectable and incomparable."

"final."

She drew a dot on the paper: "Collapse".

Then erase it with an eraser: "Completely disappeared, no longer exists."

and this.

That will be the ultimate end of the world.

It is Su Ming's ultimate destination, where he repeatedly retraces the path of the apocalypse and forcibly extends the life of the world.

An overwhelming sense of panic and helplessness swept over them.

Even Su Ming's voice trembled slightly.

"Is...is there a way to make up for this lost time?"

Chen Zhiwei's eyes reddened, her rationality nearly crumbling: "What is time?"

She suddenly lost control of her emotions, grabbed Su Ming by the collar, her grip tightening, and screamed, "Su Ming, tell me, what is time?"

"Is it a line or a surface? Is it invisible or tangible? Is it our illusion, or... a source of pollution?"

The last three words were almost uttered in a broken voice, lingering in the deathly silent living room for a long time.

Chen Zhiwei's emotions truly collapsed.

She slumped to the ground, repeating over and over in a voice filled with confusion and despair: "What exactly is time?"

"Humans define it as time. Did humans invent it, or did they discover it?"

"What exactly is it?"

No one answered, and no one could answer.

Everyone present knew the root cause of her breakdown.

Chen Zhiwei is an extremely rigorous researcher.

Throughout his life, he believed in axioms and relied on systems; all his knowledge, cognition, and logic were rooted in the edifice of knowledge accumulated by humankind over thousands of years.

But time will pass, directly undermining the cognitive system upon which she depended for survival.

This means that the edifice of knowledge that humanity built from the very beginning was flawed.

Since it is wrong, no matter how much research is conducted, it will lose all meaning.

The definition of life, the laws of mathematics, the logic of physics.

Everything collapsed.

It's like an exam paper filled with all the answers you've written.

I carefully considered every word, poured my heart and soul into it, and endured countless hardships and days and nights, believing that I had delivered a perfect answer.

But in the end, fate dealt a harsh blow at the top of the exam paper, giving a bright red and glaring zero.

All perseverance, all research, all the civilization and exploration that humanity is proud of.

From beginning to end, it was all a self-deceiving... joke.

Meaningless.

Everything has lost its meaning.

Su Ming silently watched Chen Zhiwei break down.

In 2003, they were able to sit together and calmly discuss the end of the world.

That's because they know nothing about the source of the pollution, so they can think freely, speculate boldly, and be fearless.

In 2012, they gained some understanding of the sources of pollution and glimpsed a glimpse of the truth.

Instead, what followed was utter collapse and despair.

There's a saying...

Ignorance breeds fearlessness; true knowledge is always accompanied by despair.