Chapter 99: Time Forest

Chapter 99: The Forest of Time

"Confirmed that two-thirds of forum users are now under control."

The system was still dutifully reporting to Shen Ji, "The remaining third have also been identified as targets and are being processed."

After speaking, the system sighed, "Thirty years was only enough for the Prophecy Book to recover to this state, but it was sufficient for the Pollutant to accumulate another S-class worth of pollution."

Shen Ji released his hand, and the shattered phone fell onto the conference table, fragments scattering across its surface, making Shen Ji seem even more unnatural.

At this moment, Shen Ji was radiating an inhuman aura of a Pollutant.

Anyone who walked in and saw him would believe: Shen Ji truly was a terrifying Pollutant.

Li Zhiyan knew something about the ending Shen Ji mentioned; Shen Ji had briefly explained it to him before.

An apocalypse-themed novel, with Li Zhiyan as the protagonist and the Pollutant as the final villain. The novel was abruptly truncated when the protagonist killed the villain, ending amidst devastation.

The Pollution Forum must have updated with something new, and it was this content that caused Shen Ji's sudden outburst, prompting him to handle the Prophecy Book right away.

Li Zhiyan was sure: the updated content was related to him.

Unfortunately, all the forum users' phones had exploded, and the Pollution Forum was malfunctioning, making it impossible to view normally. So, Li Zhiyan had no idea what the updated content was.

He also didn't have time to ask Jiang Ying or others.

Li Zhiyan looked at Shen Ji and, after a few seconds, sighed softly.

"When can we finally get married?"

He lamented, "I'm already getting desperate to get married. Maybe I should just marry you directly, though if I do, my parents might break my legs."

The system wondered, "If you marry a man, won't your parents break your legs anyway?"

Shen Ji: ...

That was actually possible.

Their city, Donglin, was open-minded. Though they liked urging young people to marry, bringing home a same-sex partner wasn't a problem—as long as you're not the bottom!

Both open-minded and old-fashioned.

Of course, Donglin City was gone now, so there was no one left to object.

"Our little tiger will have your last name too," Li Zhiyan said, holding Shen Ji's hand. "So let's get married."

"No," Shen Ji refused coldly. "I'm not having any little tigers, and I'm not marrying you."

Li Zhiyan accused, "You got what you wanted and now you don't care. This is truly a classic hit-it-and-quit-it situation!"

Shen Ji thought expressionlessly: Who's the one who took advantage of who here?

This guy really had the nerve to shout about being abandoned.

"We're not young anymore. It's time to talk about marriage."

"I'm a modern, responsible adult. I don't marry, don't have children, and don't buy real estate," Shen Ji said righteously. "Look, I still haven't bought a house to this day."

Li Zhiyan was both shocked and impressed.

Really, Shen Ji had been living in dormitories all this time and had never bought a house.

That's impressive.

Li Zhiyan slumped over the table, his tone disappointed. "So we really can't get married?"

Seeing Li Zhiyan's expression, Shen Ji reached out and ran a hand through his white hair. "No. Marriage is the most sincere promise, a contract that truly binds you for the rest of your life."

"Until things are settled, I don't want to make promises with anyone."

Shen Ji was a rational person, both professionally and in life, and even in love.

He never easily gave others hope until he was sure he was prepared for change.

He kept Li Zhiyan waiting until he was certain he truly loved this person before saying, "Be my boyfriend." Reverse psychology didn't work on Shen Ji. He could see the future and the dangers. He needed to be sure happiness outweighed the risks, to see that both he and the person he chose would be happy.

So he couldn't lightly agree to marry Li Zhiyan at this time.

The future was uncertain, dangers still lurked, and the Prophecy Book contained a prophecy of their shared death.

Only after eliminating this danger would Shen Ji be willing to talk about the future with Li Zhiyan.

Li Zhiyan met Shen Ji's gaze seriously, his light blue eyes reflecting Shen Ji's figure, as if they could hold nothing but Shen Ji.

"Wait here for me," Li Zhiyan stood up from his chair. "Don't go anywhere. Wait right here for me!"

With that, Li Zhiyan turned and rushed out of the conference room.

Shen Ji was confused but simply said, "Remember to buy me a new phone."

Li Zhiyan waved in acknowledgment.

"..."

"Is the phone really that important?"

"Of course," Shen Ji looked at the shattered phone on the table. "Do you have any idea what a phone means to a modern person? It's their literal lifeline!"

"Bored or not, scrolling on your phone is the top priority!"

The omnipotent system didn't understand. The omnipotent system responded it had nothing in common with humans.

"Two-thirds of the forum users have been controlled. Your pollution has completely replaced the Prophecy Book," the system continued reporting to Shen Ji. "The Pollution Prevention Center has activated an S-class danger alert."

Shen Ji looked up. "That high?"

"What did you expect?"

The system said, "Don't you understand your own polluting power as the strongest Pollutant? Forum users are spread across the entire world, and in such a short time, you've disabled every forum user's connection to the pollution and wrapped up all the infected people like cocoons."

"With such high pollution levels and such a vast range, the Pollution Prevention Center is scared shitless."

"I still haven't located the Forest of Time," Shen Ji stroked his chin. "I'll pull back the pollution once I find it."

"No need to rush."

The system said, "The Prophecy Book has a self-preservation instinct. When critically damaged, it will open a passage to the Forest of Time. That passage shouldn't be hard to find."

"Does it have distinguishing features?"

"That's right, time distortions will appear around the passageway."

Shen Ji nodded.

While waiting for Li Zhiyan, Shen Ji found a few books in the conference room to browse. Perhaps because Li Zhiyan had given prior instructions, no one came into the conference room. Occasionally, Shen Ji could see people anxiously running back and forth outside through the glass, and a few pollution doctors in asylum uniforms also passed by.

He waited like this until the sky grew dark, and little mushrooms climbed up the legs of the table.

The mushrooms kept Shen Ji company as they looked toward the door.

When will the big butterfly return?

It’s been so long, why isn’t he back yet?

Should we just stop waiting?

Dinnertime! Food! Food!

Shen Ji reached out and gently patted a small mushroom at the edge of the table. Just as he was about to go find Zhou Ye to contact Li Zhiyan, the conference room door finally swung open.

Li Zhiyan had finally returned.

He burst in, out of breath, his bright pale blue eyes shining.

"I'm back!"

Li Zhiyan carefully held a box and placed it in front of Shen Ji. The box had a label stating its contents—a new phone.

"You took this long just to buy a phone?"

"Picking a phone is a science. I picked the same model as mine for you."

Li Zhiyan took out his own phone and placed it on the table, looking quite pleased with it. "Same model and grade—this is what you call a couple’s phone!"

Shen Ji thought Li Zhiyan was someone who truly loved a sense of ritual.

A free-spirited romantic, he even wanted matching phones. If possible, he’d probably want to wear matching outfits every day and flaunt it everywhere, proclaiming they were the most intimate lovers in the world.

That night, he really shouldn’t have let Li Zhiyan leave wearing clothes.

Unwrapping the phone’s packaging, Shen Ji took out the new device. Though it was truly unexpected, when he saw the box beneath the phone, Shen Ji had a sense of "of course it’s here" déjà vu.

How could Li Zhiyan not have a surprise?

The little black box was sleek and elegant, clearly not something cheap.

Li Zhiyan kept watching him without saying a word.

So Shen Ji reached out, opened the box, and inside were two silver rings—or rather... rings?

The silvery-white rings carried a faint, delicate fragrance. They seemed to be made of a special tainted material. Shen Ji remembered this—he had seen plenty of it back in the Zero Abyss.

Who would have thought those white stones could be crafted into such exquisite rings?

Shen Ji looked at Li Zhiyan in surprise.

Giving rings?

"Sorry, I’m a romantic to the core, a new-age youth."

Li Zhiyan’s voice was laced with amusement. "Actually, I had someone working on these a while ago. Since they’re custom-made, it took a long time. They just reached the finishing stage."

"But this isn’t a promise."

Li Zhiyan said seriously, "There’s no name engraved on them—not yours, not mine. These are just ordinary rings, accessories."

"After winter, the New Year will come." Li Zhiyan added, "Consider it a New Year’s gift."

Listening to Li Zhiyan, Shen Ji couldn’t help but laugh.

Yes, the rings indeed didn’t bear their names, but they were engraved with tiny mushrooms and butterflies. The space was so small that they looked small and crowded, as if someone had initially reserved space for names but changed their mind for some reason, forcefully turning the names into pictures.

A small mushroom peered out from around Shen Ji’s wrist to look at the rings.

Wow, little circles! They smell nice!

There’s a little mushroom on it!

Little mushroom! So cool!

"Let me emphasize again, this isn’t a promise, nor is it a proposal." Li Zhiyan looked into Shen Ji’s dark eyes. "This is just a gift from me to you."

Shen Ji teased him, "Just because you emphasize it’s not a promise doesn’t mean it isn’t one."

"Because the real promise comes later."

Shen Ji was taken aback.

Li Zhiyan’s voice was soft, filled with tenderness. "Winter is here, and soon it will be the New Year. After the New Year, a new spring will arrive."

"When spring comes, all the flowers I planted will bloom, and the peach saplings I bought will blossom too."

"I’ll propose to you in a sea of flowers, and you can’t refuse."

Li Zhiyan said, "That is the real promise."

Shen Ji was rational and restrained; Li Zhiyan was romantic and unrestrained. They seemed to have nothing in common, as if their lives had no overlap at all.

And indeed, how would a rigorous journalist and an extreme sports enthusiast ever meet?

But right now, Shen Ji thought: anything is possible.

They had the chance to meet, the chance to fall in love, and the chance to change for each other.

Shen Ji, who never made promises lightly, found himself inexplicably wanting to agree at this moment.

It wasn’t in a beautiful sea of flowers, nor were there vows of undying loyalty. There weren’t even any friends or family as witnesses. It was just an empty conference room, with only mindless small mushrooms and an invisible system present.

They slipped the "not-a-promise" rings onto each other’s fingers.

The rings on their ring fingers clinked together, emitting a crisp sound.

Shen Ji thought: love really is something that blinds people.

The Pollution Prevention Center was in an uproar, one wave after another.

/

First, the Pollution Forum restarted and released a pollution risk level list, then they spread rumors accusing Shen Ji and Li Zhiyan of being pollutants. As if that wasn’t enough, while they were still organizing the forum user list, all the forum users came under attack.

There are so many observers you can't even count them all; there's even surveillance.

Before each person is attacked, their phone suddenly explodes, and a bunch of black, shadowy hands spill out. Those hands seem to be fleeing frantically, but the next moment, a bunch of strange, filament-like strands catch up to these black hands.

The black threads shred and consume the black hands, then attack the forum users, wrapping them into black cocoons.

The pollution level here is so damn high it's even more exaggerated than Abyss Zero!

Who wouldn't be freaked out?!

They brought in leading experts from the Academy of Sciences to test it, and finally the experts uttered in confusion, "It's mushrooms?"

"These are mycelium."

Holy shit, such terrifying things are actually mushrooms!

Zhou Ye squatted on the steps, grabbing his hair, feeling his head was going to explode.

"I don't know where the captain went either. If the captain had something going on, how would he possibly let me know?"

"Don't make it hard for me, I'm just a small team member. Even if I'm in the same place as the captain right now, can't you try an indirect approach and go to a fortune teller instead?"

"Besides, I'm from the Special Operations Team; I don't need to take orders from you."

The person on the other end said something more, and Zhou Ye finally got fed up. Just as he was about to hang up the phone directly, a hand reached over from the side and grabbed his phone.

Zhou Ye froze for a second. When he turned and saw Li Zhiyan, he immediately let go.

"Hello," Li Zhiyan stood next to Zhou Ye. "This is Li Zhiyan."

On the other end of the phone was a higher-up from the Pollution Prevention Center. After raising the danger level to S-Class, they had been trying to contact all existing S-Class Mutants, but they couldn’t reach Shen Ji or Li Zhiyan. The Pollution Prevention Center had no choice but to call Zhou Ye and Jiang Ying, trying to track these two down.

You should know, even though Li Zhiyan likes to go AWOL, he never disappears during dangerous times. How come this time he’s been out of touch for so long?

The more anxious they got, the more they focused on the message previously released by the Pollution Forum.

Li Zhiyan had a final showdown with the filth, then went missing, and at the same time, pollution erupted in Moth Valley.

Even though they couldn’t imagine Li Zhiyan and Shen Ji fighting—they’re inseparable, they’ve gone through several rounds of on-again-off-again drama, and are even rumored to be getting married—how could they suddenly fight to the death? Besides, Doctor Shen is a gentle Healing-type mutant, no match for Li Zhiyan.

"They’re not in any life-threatening danger."

Li Zhiyan said, "The mycelium can ensure they aren’t controlled. You should try to keep ordinary people away from these things; just steer clear of the pollution source."

"Yes, according to Shen Ji. Shen Ji went to check it out."

Zhou Ye was still sitting on the steps, watching Li Zhiyan. Finally, he blinked and noticed a ring on Li Zhiyan’s ring finger.

The ring was silver, gleaming with a metallic shine under the lamp.

It looked quite nice.

Huh?

After hanging up, Li Zhiyan threw the phone back to Zhou Ye.

Zhou Ye casually stuffed the phone into his pocket, then spoke up, "Boss, where’s Doctor Shen?"

"He has other things to attend to."

Li Zhiyan glanced at him. "It's not easy treating contaminated patients, especially with so many of them. So he’s going to look for a special medicine. When he comes back, these patients will be cured."

"I see."

Zhou Ye nodded, then added, "Boss, did you and Doctor Shen get married?"

"I wish, but Doctor Shen isn’t willing." Li Zhiyan admired the ring on his finger. "This isn’t a wedding ring, it’s an accessory, understand? An accessory!"

"But Shen Ji put it on me himself!"

"Might as well call it an engagement ring."

Zhou Ye was shocked. He quietly opened his phone screen to share the fresh intel.

"I’m Not a Cat: Big news! Did you know?! The boss proposed to Doctor Shen and got rejected, so he got himself a fake ring to wear."

"I’m Not a Cat: He even said it was an engagement ring that Doctor Shen put on him personally!"

"My Fate is Mine, Not Heaven’s: Is the captain spreading rumors again? How pathetic."

"Falling Blossoms: Qin Changye, can you do another reading?"

"My Fate is Mine, Not Heaven’s: Alright, let me do a reading."

"My Fate is Mine, Not Heaven’s: Winter snow melts, spring peach blossoms bloom, faces and blossoms reflect each other red, transcending time... holy crap, this isn’t a rumor!"

"My Fate is Mine, Not Heaven’s: They’re really engaged!"

"I’m Not a Cat: ???"

"Falling Blossoms: …"

Zhou Ye suddenly felt a chill. He mechanically looked up and saw Li Zhiyan standing next to him, staring at him and his phone screen.

"B-boss…"

"Where exactly did I give you the impression that I’m always spreading rumors?" Li Zhiyan asked him.

Everywhere!

But Zhou Ye didn’t dare say that. He could only cough lightly. "Congratulations, boss, for winning over your beauty."

"You and Doctor Shen are a match made in heaven!"

"Now that’s well said, I love to hear that." Li Zhiyan was immediately satisfied.

Just as Zhou Ye breathed a sigh of relief, Li Zhiyan added, "Don’t think that just because you praised us as a match made in heaven, what just happened is over."

"One month’s bonus deducted."

Zhou Ye: …

Doctor Shen! Reject him hard! Give him another round of on-again-off-again!

At this moment, Shen Ji had no idea that Zhou Ye had his bonus docked by Li Zhiyan again. He was following the pollution to pinpoint the location of the Temporal Forest.

The Prophecy Book has a physical form, but its main body isn’t here. When pushed to its limit, the Prophecy Book returns to the Temporal Forest. Only there does it possess the ability to alter timelines.

This is also Shen Ji’s only chance to find the main body of the Prophecy Book.

"Turn left ahead, I've detected traces of time distortion."

Shen Ji entered the area and found it completely deserted with no signs of human habitation, though a few contaminants were active.

The contaminants looked human and instinctively tried to attack Shen Ji upon seeing him, only to be immediately bound, entangled, and swallowed up by little black mushrooms.

Having finished its snack, the small mushroom pulled back, satisfied.

"This time the opening didn't open in a human city, probably because the Prophecy Book is trying to avoid you."

The system said: "In the previous timeline, the opening to the Temporal Forest opened in a human district. Residents immediately experienced memory confusion and time reversal problems. The surrounding area became so temporally disordered that children suddenly turned into elders, and adults reverted to helpless infants."

Shen Ji walked into this temporally disturbed area with his hands in his pockets.

"Why only me? Can't Li Zhiyan enter?"

"Li Zhiyan would need tremendous effort to enter, but you don't."

The system explained, "First, you've absorbed a ton of corruption from the Prophecy Book, so to some extent, you're actually part of it. Moreover, you yourself are a contaminant from the Temporal Forest."

"Contaminated within the Temporal Forest, having devoured vision-inducing mushrooms, and eaten half of the Prophecy Book—no one has a stronger connection than you."

"You're a child of the Temporal Forest, so of course it won't reject you."

"You say that like I wasn't even born human."

Shen Ji frowned and sighed, "No need to assign human emotions to a consciousness-free contaminated zone, right?"

"That's just weird."

"System, if you wrote novels like this, readers would give you bad reviews."

"..."

Seriously, what gives!

It was clearly imitating Li Zhiyan's way of speaking—why does he like it when Li Zhiyan says these things but gets sarcastic when the system says them!

Total double standard! Doctor Xiao Ji has double standards!

"Don't think I won't download cheesy CEO romance novels onto Li Zhiyan's phone and have you surrounded by cringey bossy quotes every day."

Shen Ji couldn't care less, "At his age, if he still falls for domineering CEO novels, it means there's something wrong with his brain."

"People with brain problems should know when to quit and break up immediately."

"Tsk tsk, like you'd actually go through with that."

Shen Ji:...

He rolled his eyes without a word, Shen Ji stopped being sarcastic with the system. He could feel himself crossing into some other space.

Perhaps the system was right—he truly was a child of the Temporal Forest. He felt no resistance at all; entering the Temporal Forest felt as ordinary and simple as coming home.

His vision went dark, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw white walls.

Shen Ji found himself lying on a bed.

The white ceiling, walls painted blue and white, a mess of instruments and tubes all around covered in emerald moss. Shen Ji got off the bed, his feet stepping on wet plants. The hot, humid air had made the vegetation lush.

Leaving the room, Shen Ji turned back and saw the rotting door plaque.

"ICU"

"System?" Shen Ji called, "Is this the Temporal Forest?"

There was no response from the system. Just like before, when entering a new strange place, the system would be blocked and would find a way in after some time.

Shen Ji tsked and decided to explore on his own first.

Feeling his way to the stairs, just as he prepared to descend, he noticed a clock on the wall before the steps.

The second Shen Ji noticed it, countless clocks of various sizes began popping up everywhere. They hung scattered all around, some lying in water like wet paper.

All clocks showed the same time, their second hands ticking in perfect sync without missing a beat.

"What?"

Shen Ji descended the stairs, looking at the clock on the wall before realizing it displayed not just the time but also the year and month.

It was the exact time when Shen Ji had entered.

He stared at the clock, then after a moment went to touch it.

He felt: he could control the movement of these clocks.

But before Shen Ji could place his hand on it, the clocks suddenly began rapidly moving backward. This sudden change made Shen Ji instinctively back away.

As the clocks reversed, the scenery under his feet changed along with them. The vegetation receded, and soon the hospital went back to how it was before being taken over by plants.

And Shen Ji saw the time showing on the clocks.

It was exactly thirty years ago, when the Red Mist incident first erupted.