Chapter 100: Time Forest

Chapter 100: The Temporal Forest

The clocks stopped reversing and began moving forward second by second like ordinary timepieces.

Shen Ji braced himself against the wall with one hand, completely disoriented by everything before him.

"At times like this, I reflect on how poorly I’ve treated the system," Shen Ji said with self-reproach. "An all-powerful system's indispensable—it saves me from having to think."

"System, come back."

But the system did not return. Shen Ji sighed regretfully.

Outside the window, crimson mist hung thick, thick as blood splashed across the sky. Shen Ji casually pulled open the hospital window, and the red fog swarmed into the hallway like living insects. He quickly shut the window, but tiny red bugs clung to the transparent glass.

"Looks like going outside's not happening," Shen Ji observed, watching the insects. *But there's no smell?*

Shen Ji could always smell contaminants and had grown accustomed to the different smells in contaminated zones.

The Red Mist Incident, historically recorded as the beginning of the apocalypse, shouldn't be completely lacking the smell of pollution.

Puzzled, Shen Ji pressed his hand against the windowpane, intending to send out the Small Mushroom to investigate. But the next moment, he realized…

Not only was the system gone, but the Small Mushroom had disappeared as well.

Shen Ji stared blankly at his wrist in confusion. His skin was no longer pale and glass-like; his reflection in the window showed his eyes were still black, and his hair was just regular short hair.

Without the system or the Mushroom, he now resembled an ordinary human—the overworked, bespectacled corporate drone, Reporter Shen, from way back.

"...Is that why the system is gone?"

Shen Ji turned to look at the clock nearby, watching the numbers tick by.

"In this timeline, I haven’t been contaminated yet, nor have I devoured the Prophecy Book."

After a moment’s hesitation, he added, "No, it’s more likely that the Prophecy Book rewound time to this point. It prevented my early contamination and stopped the Mushroom's erosion, so I couldn’t become a pollutant."

"But the timing of the Red Mist Incident remains unchanged because the Prophecy Book still doesn’t want Li Zhiyan to become an S-Class Mutant during the early stages of the incident."

"Then, according to this development, I should be an S-Class Mutant now?"

It felt completely alien.

After all, Shen Ji had never actually been an S-Class Mutant.

For thirty years, he had been a pollutant, always secretly pretending to be a mutant by having the Small Mushroom hold a lightbulb for cheap special effects. And now, somehow, he could become a genuine S-Class Mutant.

"Has the real timeline been altered as well?"

Shen Ji thought it over for a few seconds before concluding, "That’s not possible."

Before returning, the Prophecy Book had already been chewed to pieces by Shen Ji. Half of its pollution had been stolen, and all the Contaminated patients influenced by the Pollution Forum had been trapped by Shen Ji. The remaining pollution wasn’t sufficient to power the Prophecy Book opening another timeline.

But because the Temporal Forest was so unique, it was highly likely that the timeline changes were confined solely to it.

This was to prevent Shen Ji from locating the Prophecy Book’s main body through its pollution.

Though this idiot AI was indeed idiotic, its programming instincts remained.

Shen Ji turned and continued downstairs. He needed to leave this hospital and find the correct timeline.

This was the Temporal Forest, a place where time was all messed up. Since the Prophecy Book could trap him in a new timeline, he could find a way to escape it.

The system told me—he was a child of the Temporal Forest.

If the Prophecy Book could exploit it, why couldn’t he?

Following the emergency exit signs, Shen Ji soon found a new staircase. He hurried down and, just one flight later, came across something he recognized.

Tiny white mushrooms were slowly climbing the stairs, rolling their plump little bodies while spewing spores. Soon, the entire stairwell was covered in small white mushrooms.

They treated it like a fun game, happily having the time of their lives.

Shen Ji glanced at his hand again. Blue veins showed through his skin. He was certain that if he cut himself now, his blood would be red, not that thin milky white it used to be.

Just then, spores dusted his finger, and a small jade-white mushroom took root on his fingertip, slowly spreading its cap.

The moment it seemed to notice him, the little mushroom froze in terror. It jerked violently, nearly shook its cap loose.

More little mushrooms all turned together. Though they had no eyes or mouths, Shen Ji could sense the whole bunch was staring at him.

In an instant, white mushrooms rapidly spread, blocking the entire stairway from ceiling to steps.

Shen Ji watched as the little mushrooms knocked into each other. Based on his understanding of them, they were having a conference.

After a brief consultation, the little mushroom on Shen Ji’s finger nudged his fingertip with its cap.

*Are you one of us?*

The little mushroom asked curiously: *You smell like one of us.*

*Where did you come from, big mushroom?*

These little things were quite adorable when they weren’t eating people.

Shen Ji replied, "I’m a big mushroom from the previous timeline."

*Previous timeline?*

The little mushrooms looked at each other, confused. They didn’t understand.

Though the small mushrooms were widespread in the Temporal Forest, they had no control over time. Their talent was concealment—they could make something vanish completely, erasing even the memory of its existence, as if it had never appeared at all.

This was also why the Temporal Forest had remained hidden and undiscovered by anyone.

If the small mushrooms willed it, no one could find them.

The little mushroom on his finger pondered for a long time. With no brain to speak of, it couldn’t make sense of what Shen Ji was saying, so it changed the subject.

*Then, big mushroom, what are you here for?*

"I’m chasing a pollutant that can manipulate time," Shen Ji said. "Do you know where it went?"

*Oh!*

Now the little mushrooms understood!

*That bad neighbor!*

The small mushrooms began to accuse: "The worst, most annoying neighbor ever!"

"It always messes up our home. We just ate, and the next second we're hungry again. What a hateful bad neighbor! It keeps messing with us just to keep us from eating our fill!"

"Why won't it let us eat?!"

"Why make us eat again right after we've just eaten?!"

"The small mushrooms are going to eat the bad neighbor! Right now, they're setting an ambush for the bad neighbor's polluted underlings!"

Shen Ji: ...

He fell into deep thought.

He began to wonder if the small mushrooms attacked him because he carried the scent of the Prophecy Book. Perhaps it was the pollution from the Prophecy Book that made the small mushrooms climb all the way up to the hospital ward, ready to bite him hard, only to end up being devoured by Shen Ji instead.

That would be truly tragic, inhumane, and utterly miserable; it got totally wrecked.

"So we can cooperate," Shen Ji immediately decided to trick these small mushrooms. "I need to find it, and you hate it too. Let's work together to track it down, kill it, and then eat it!"

"Eat it!"

The small mushrooms began to cheer: "Eat that awful bad neighbor!"

So the small mushrooms cheered and ran downstairs, while Shen Ji thought to himself how gullible they were.

He felt no guilt at all about tricking children.

The small mushrooms led Shen Ji downstairs and onward to a new ward. They gathered by the ward door and began tattling to him.

"There's a big minion inside! Super fierce!"

"It eats small mushrooms, one bite each! So scary!"

Shen Ji followed the small mushrooms and peeked inside.

He saw a person in a white coat pacing inside, a stethoscope around its neck, its hands all bloody. Two people lay laid out straight in the ward, dead or alive, covered entirely by white sheets with only a corner stained red.

As if sensing movement, the thing turned toward the door. Shen Ji instinctively wanted to hide, but the small mushrooms pushed him back.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! Small mushrooms are very powerful! It can't see us!"

Finding no enemy, the pollutant turned back, still mumbling to itself.

"Save you."

"I will definitely save you."

"Now I can definitely do it."

It pulled back the sheets, revealing two highly decomposed corpses, their features unrecognizable, gender indistinguishable. It then inserted the stethoscope into the rotting chest cavities of the corpses.

Shen Ji: ...

His little bit of a cleanliness thing acted up; he desperately wanted to pack up these two corpses and cremate them immediately.

The small mushrooms were still chattering away, saying how fierce it was, and cursing the terrible bad neighbor for preventing them from eating. Those two corpses were supposed to be their meal, but the bad neighbor's minion stole them.

Shen Ji glanced at the pollutant, then looked down at his own hand.

If he were now an S-Class Mutant, though very unfamiliar with it, he should possess extremely high pollution talent.

The opponent was just an ordinary pollutant.

All he needed to do was use his pollution talent and then kill it...

But how to use the pollution talent?

Just then, the small mushrooms suddenly let out a shriek. Shen Ji looked toward where the sound came from and saw a strange shadow on the wall.

The shadow was quite tall, and the light made it look seriously creepy. The shadow began to split, gradually surrounding the entire ward.

Shen Ji raised a brow.

He simply pointed at the pollutant in front of him without saying anything. The shadows on the wall, as if receiving a command, detached from the wall. They were like thin sheets of paper, completely silent and without any presence. By the time the pollutant noticed, the shadows were already right in front of it.

Before it could even resist, the shadows quickly swallowed it up. In an instant, the shadows dragged the trapped pollutant underground.

It disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Shen Ji felt new pollution aura filling his body, and the small mushrooms swarmed in to devour the stolen meal.

After finishing, the small mushrooms danced around him excitedly.

"WOW!"

The small mushrooms were pumped: "Whoa, big mushroom, you're awesome!"

"Such a powerful big mushroom can definitely kill the bad neighbor!"

Shen Ji sighed softly. Out of habit, he patted the small mushroom's head, and after it tilted its cap confusedly, he walked into the ward.

He picked up the phone the pollutant had left on the cabinet.

The phone still had battery. When Shen Ji pressed the screen, it lit up, displaying content from the 'Prophecy Book.'

"Li Zhiyan's death is a grand carnival."

"No one knows why pollutants disguise themselves as humans. The Pollution Prevention Center concluded he was trying to infiltrate humanity to pollute all of humankind."

"Killing Li Zhiyan to protect humanity is a universal agreement."

"That's the consensus?"

Shen Ji murmured, "The plot of this novel is still so clichéd and hollow."

He turned the page, and after reading the next page's content, he gripped the phone tighter, his knuckles turning white from the force.

Shen Ji also frowned.

"The task of killing Li Zhiyan was assigned to S-Class Mutant Shen Ji. They were once friends, talked all night, but from today on, the divide between humans and pollutants puts them at odds."

"Li Zhiyan said: 'My wings are drenched. When will the sun come out?'"

"The sun will never come out again."

Shen Ji threw the phone to the ground. He even hesitated for two seconds before expressionlessly stomping on it a couple times, nothing like the steady, serious Reporter Shen.

Of course, it wasn't his fault.

Anyone would be furious if they saw their boyfriend killing them in the first version of the Prophecy Book, managed to change the plot, only for it to twist into them killing their boyfriend instead.

The small mushrooms watched Shen Ji's actions curiously, then turned their attention to the phone he had stomped on twice.

Shen Ji looked at them. "Do you know where this bad neighbor is right now?"

"Not its underlings, but its main body."

Main body? What does that mean?

The small mushrooms exchanged puzzled glances: I mean, not the spores, but the actual mushroom body?

The bad neighbor is always slippery; every time the small mushrooms try to ambush it, they fail.

No one knows where it's hiding.

So Shen Ji asked again, "Then do you know how I should leave this place?"

The small mushrooms thought for a moment, then left the hospital room and began descending the staircase. After a while, they turned back to look at Shen Ji, motioning for him to follow quickly.

Shen Ji followed them forward, and soon the small mushrooms led him to the entrance of the hospital room.

The small mushrooms bunched up and pointed him toward a direction for Shen Ji.

Over there.

The small mushrooms said: We can never get through that area. Every time we go in, the food we eat just comes right back up out of our bellies.

It's a very strange place.

None of the small mushrooms go there.

That might be the bad neighbor's home.

Shen Ji stared ahead. Years ago, for an interview report, he had stayed here for a few days, and he was somewhat familiar with the location the small mushrooms pointed to.

Not far from the hospital was a church with a large clock hanging on it—a popular tourist spot. As soon as the small mushrooms pointed in that direction, he remembered.

After thanking the small mushrooms, Shen Ji stood up and headed for the church.

The streets were empty of people, filled only with dense red fog and the occasional wandering pollutants moving through. Shen Ji avoided these pollutants and made his way to the church. He looked up at the large clock on the church; it was still working, as if the red mist hadn't affected anything at all.

Clocks of all sizes appeared before Shen Ji once more. As he looked at them, he felt as though something was calling to him.

The voice told Shen Ji: You can do this too.

Reverse time, return to the past he desired, and change the future he wished to alter.

Shen Ji reached out his hand.

He said: "Then let time match up with the reality of the outside world."

As the words fell, the clock began to spin rapidly, and the surrounding red mist started to disperse. It turned around and around, the area around it becoming covered in moss, which then died off as time passed. Until trees and wild grasses took over the land, Shen Ji finally saw the clock come to a stop.

Ding—the clock struck the hour.

In the next moment, Shen Ji heard a familiar voice.

"The Time Forest!" the system shouted, as if it had never left. "Shen Ji, we made it!"

"I've been here for a while," Shen Ji said with a laugh. "You're the one who's late."

"What?" the system wondered. "When did you learn to speak in riddles?"

Shen Ji: ...

You miss it when it's gone, but when it's here, you really want to stitch its mouth closed.

That's the system for you!

"So you accidentally entered the third timeline the Prophecy Book was trying to set up and became an S-Class Mutant who was never polluted?"

The system said in amazement and asked curiously, "Has your Talent changed then?"

/

"Without being polluted, there are no small mushrooms around," Shen Ji said as he walked. "It should just be a basic Devouring Talent now."

The small mushrooms curiously wrapped around Shen Ji's wrist, listening to him speak.

Though they didn't understand what he was saying, they loved hearing their owner talk!

They love their owner the most!

Shen Ji gave a little pinch to their mushroom caps and continued, "It was probably trying to trap me. Without the pollution from the Prophecy Book, it would be very difficult for me to find its main body through pollution."

"But they didn't expect you to still encounter the small mushrooms. The small mushrooms hate its guts and actively guided you."

The system said gleefully, "Small mushrooms! That's awesome!"

"But how did I return to the original timeline?"

Shen Ji was also curious. "Even if I let time advance, that would be thirty years later in that timeline. Yet you and the small mushrooms are back."

"The Time Forest has the ability to mess with time, but the Time Forest itself doesn't get affected by time. So within the Time Forest, there are two timelines."

"The first timeline is where Li Zhiyan destroys the Prophecy Book. The second timeline is the reality where you and Li Zhiyan meet thirty years later."

"The third timeline is a fake timeline made by the Prophecy Book—the easiest to deal with."

"Because it's a false timeline, you weren't completely affected. The small mushrooms could still sense the familiar aura on you, and you could still control time. The moment you manipulated time, this false timeline shattered."

Shen Ji nodded. "Basically just a dream."

"Exactly. Its power was so drained it could only create a dream."

"Its main body could be hidden in any timeline. Shen Ji, be careful. In the Time Forest, you are the only one besides the Prophecy Book who can control time."

Shen Ji nodded.

He closed his eyes and began to track the pollution's scent of the Prophecy Book.

The system went quiet. The current Shen Ji was no longer the young reporter who needed its guidance.

Now, Shen Ji had gotten back his memories of the corruption, and nobody knew better than him how to use the Pollution Talent to find the source of pollution.

In an instant, the surrounding time stopped.

The dewdrops on the moss no longer dripped, the leaves hung motionless in the air, the sound of flowing water nearby vanished, and all the clocks froze at their previous times. The stagnant air held not a trace of scent. Both the system and the small mushroom watched in astonishment.

Until the next second, time finally moved—but not forward. Instead, it spun wildly backward.

With a tick, the clock was struck again.

The system saw a black hand appear in the distance.

The black hand was like formless fog, dissipating abruptly, then coalescing again in the next instant. The condensed hand moved in a certain direction as the clocks ticked and clicked. With each tick, a black hand would freeze in place.

Even the system hadn’t expected Shen Ji capable of this.

The Prophecy Book was intangible; what had left was merely its consciousness, a mass of polluted air. Yet Shen Ji could track the Prophecy Book and materialize the pollution it emitted.

Whether it was the black mist or the black hands, they were all forms materialized under Shen Ji’s control.

To the system's surprise and relief, Shen Ji opened his eyes.

His pupils turned pale, his hair lengthened once more, and his gaze held only faint indifference.

He looked in the direction where the black hand had vanished.

"Over there."

The further he went, the more clocks there were, densely hung on the trees. Finally, Shen Ji saw a massive clock standing planted in the ground.

He could sense an intense pollution aura, stronger than any S-class pollutant he had ever encountered.

"The core of the Forest of Time," the system said. "Also the turning point of time."

"If you step through this clock-face, you’ll enter a new timeline."

Shen Ji frowned slightly. "You mean the previous one? The timeline where the Prophecy Book was killed by Li Zhiyan?"

"Yes, that timeline has already been altered, but the Time Forest stores all timelines, including this changed one."

"The Prophecy Book is hiding inside."

Shen Ji nodded. "Then let’s go see for myself."

"I’m also curious about how Li Zhiyan frightened it so badly in the previous timeline that it directly reset the timeline."

Finally, before Shen Ji entered, the system curiously asked a question.

"Shen Ji."

The system asked, "Do you think it’s better to be an S-class mutant than to be a pollutant?"

It was referring to that fabricated third timeline. "If you became a mutant, you would undoubtedly be the strongest S-class mutant. The entire Pollution Prevention Center would be yours to command."

"But I only want to be Shen Ji."

Shen Ji’s tone was gentle. "I don’t want to become something else."

"Both Hui and Shen Ji, both human and pollutant—that is who I am."

"Most importantly, I want to meet Li Zhiyan."

There was no need for a tragic story or a position of great power. Just seeing the stories in the Prophecy Book made his heart hurt beyond control.

Li Zhiyan’s question, "When will the sun rise?" made his heart ache uncontrollably.

Butterflies detest the rain because it soaks their wings, but sunlight dries their drenched wings.

Li Zhiyan loved freedom. He loved this world, always smiling as he planted seeds, awaiting their sprouting and blooming. He also planted a seed in Shen Ji’s heart, and under his care, from it bloomed a flower named love.

Li Zhiyan loved Shen Ji, so Shen Ji would love Li Zhiyan.

The sun might never rise again.

But Shen Ji would become Li Zhiyan’s sun, dry his wings for him.

So he could fly again.