Who Am I

Chapter 51

What did it feel like being stared at by more than a hundred living people?

—-It was on par to what they felt when they first ran into a group of zombies.

If they didn’t move, those people didn’t move either.

With the scorching sun above, the temperature was hot.

They stood on the air tracks a hundred metres above a lake. The railing that had broken off from the impact of the train swayed precariously. Light wind blew through their clothes and the ends of their hair. It was as if as long as they weren’t careful, this gust of wind could push them off.

The two faced the large crowd. For a moment, the world was completely silent.

Ji Yushi moved his foot slightly back.

The passengers began to move. They wordlessly started to move towards them.

The back of his waist was supported by someone’s hand. It was Song Qinglan who had reached over. He spoke with a subdued voice, “Get ready. We have to run.”

When Ji Yushi stopped, those passengers also stopped.

There was only a short distance between them. Their eyes remained fixed on those two people. All the panic, despair and crying from earlier was gone and they just stood in place, completely expressionless.

Run?

Ji Yushi clenched his fist. Yes, with the current situation, they had no choice but to run.

“Let’s try it first. Run in the opposite direction and go down when you see a construction barrier.”

As if he had given Ji Yushi enough time to prepare, Song Qinglan lowered his voice and counted down from three, “Go!!”

The two immediately set off.

The handcuff between them clattered along.

With footsteps sounding behind them, more than a hundred people chased after them.

The narrow air tracks couldn’t accommodate so many people at the same time. Amidst the running and pushing, there would from time to time be sounds of something falling into the water below. Humans fell from the tracks like dumplings.

“Give me your hand!!”

Song Qinglan shouted as he looked back. He grabbed Ji Yushi’s hand, their fingers interlocking. Without the pulling of the handcuff, they quickly sped up.

The crowd behind them continued to chase after them. It seemed like they would soon be able to catch up.

Ji Yushi felt that his legs were no longer his own. The tracks the suspension train had just travelled over at a high speed were still hot. They sweated profusely. It was as if they were in a sea of fire.

Song Qinglan’s explosive power and endurance were several times more than Ji Yushi’s. As they ran, Ji Yushi was practically being dragged along. He could only desperately try to keep up with Song Qinglan’s pace. The other party’s tall back was right in front of him, and his broad shoulders gave him a sense of security, as if as long as he was there, they would definitely be able to break through.

His palms were sticky and sweaty. Ji Yushi could only feel sweat dripping from his face.

He had never ran so fast in his life.

But the people behind them didn’t seem to feel tired at all. It was only a couple hundred metres, but those people had managed to touch the back of Ji Yushi’s clothes several times.

“Fuck!”

Even Ji Yushi couldn’t help but throw out a profanity.

Without weapons, with the road ahead unknown and also being unable to do anything to those people, their current situation was completely outside of their control.

There was no end to the air tracks and human energy was limited.

During this silent chase, Song Qinglan quickly thought of a second method. They couldn’t keep running like this!

Song Qinglan stopped abruptly, making Ji Yushi almost run into him. Before he could speak, Song Qinglan held his waist, “Go up!”

Ji Yushi immediately understood. Relying on their height advantage, Song Qinglan wanted them to climb onto the train’s phantom!

The phantom was about 1.3 metres high from the ground. Ji Yushi managed to find the train window from the blurred image and grabbed hold of it with Song Qinglan holding him up.

The handcuffs that saved their lives just now had now become a burden. The two were handcuffed together, making it almost impossible for Ji Yushi to use both hands.

The crowd surged over and surrounded them. Arms reached out and grabbed at their clothes and limbs in attempt to pull them down.

Song Qinglan’s face and arms were covered in bleeding scratch marks. He could only grit his teeth while supporting him, “Pull me!”

Ji Yushi managed to find a foothold. He bent down to pull Song Qinglan up.

The two cooperate like acrobats and managed to both climb up. There were however countless hands grabbing at their ankles, trying to drag them down. Song Qinglan kicked away a few and finally managed to climb onto the roof.

Song Qinglan flattened himself against the edge of the carriage roof. Behind him was the clear sky.

Before Ji Yushi could see his face clearly, his body suddenly lifted up. He was suddenly pulled up by Song Qinglan!

With the people below temporarily unable to get up to where they were and the two with nowhere else to go for now, they laid down on the roof to catch their breaths.

Song Qinglan cursed, “Dammit, my shoes……”

Ji Yushi was also breathing heavily, “M-mine too……”

Funnily enough, with that terrible chase just now, the only thing they managed to lose were their shoes!

The most frightening thing was that the moment they stopped running, the chasing passengers also similarly stopped.

Ji Yushi looked out and saw them surrounding the phantom of the suspension train with their heads raised. They looked like a group of zombies waiting for the best opportunity to strike.

In this silent yet eerie environment, the two who were covered in sweat stood up, but just as they did that, Song Qinglan’s phone rang. He took it out and knitted his brows, “Advisor Ji——”

“Boom——-”

Following a loud sound, their vision turned dark. They suddenly found themselves falling!

*

As if falling from a great height, severe pain struck their entire body and stars appeared in their vision.

“Ah!!!”

A woman screamed.

Ji Yushi sat up. The scene before him shocked him.

The clean and tidy suspension train carriage was full of passengers who looked at their phones, drank water, chatted or slept. At this moment, they were all looking at the two people who had suddenly appeared in surprise.

The place the two of them had suddenly appeared in was the aisle inside the carriage. A familiar train announcement reached their ears. Everything was neat and orderly.

This was a suspension train in operation.

But, wasn’t the earlier suspension train overlapped with?

What was going on?

Song Qinglan also sat up. He had also fallen quite heavily. As soon as he recovered from the fall, he found that they were like animals in an exhibit.

The phone in his hand continued to ring. The caller ID displayed was: Grandfather.

Song Qinglan answered the phone and stood up, “Hello?”

There was no sound from the other end.

Ji Yushi also stood up. The two standing in the middle of the isle with their messy appearance made the other passengers vigilant. They began to whisper to each other and some even said that they would call for security.

But more of them were curious. An old man asked, “Young men, where did you come from? How did you fall from the sky?”

Ji Yushi scanned his surroundings.

When he saw the electronic display screen inside the train, he was stunned. Unexpectedly…..

His shirt was tugged at. Ji Yushi looked down. It was a four- or five-year-old child.

The child’s round eyes were filled with innocence as he asked, “Big brother, why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

Ji Yushi who stood in the middle of the aisle with only socks on, “…….”

But despite seeing the handcuffs binding the two of them, the child wasn’t afraid of him. He instead asked, “Big brother, are you catching bad guys?”

Ji Yushi smiled at the child.

In PU-31, someone had told him what to do if he was discovered by the original residents.

He answered, “Yes, big brother is a policeman.”

At this moment, Song Qinglan’s phone call ended.

*

Everything was dark again. Soon following that, dazzling sunlight entered their eyes.

It was hot. In a blink of an eye, they had actually returned to the roof of the phantom suspension train.

Shocked, Ji Yushi opened his mouth to speak, “I——–”

Unexpectedly, Song Qinglan was also about to speak, “Just now——”

“You go first!”

Song Qinglan held his phone in one hand and stretched his other hand out towards Ji Yushi.

With the two handcuffed together, they were like conjoined twins. Anytime and anywhere, they had to hold onto each other to make it easier for them to move.

Ji Yushi held it and stood up with Song Qinglan’s support.

His sweat dripped down his chin and his pale face was flushed. He looked like he was on the verge of headstroke.

Finishing his words, Ji Yushi said, “Cap Song, I think the carriage we were in just now was the carriage below us!”

“The carriage below us?” Song Qinglan asked, “Did we go to another reality just now?”

As Ji Yushi had said, the two realities were now showing signs of overlapping. The suspended train they were currently standing on was proof of another reality emerging.

Ji Yushi nodded, “Yes!”

Even though they had already experienced the strangeness in two other worlds, the two still found it unbelievable — Just now, they had travelled back and forth between two worlds in just a few seconds.

This situation was unprecedented but with the overlapping reality right in front of them, they had no choice but believe it!

Ji Yushi’s tone was excited, “I think I know where we are now!”

Song Qinglan looked at him with his pair of dark eyes. He waited for him to continue.

“When we fell into the carriage in the other reality just now, I noticed the time on the train’s electronic display screen.”

Ji Yushi’s observation ability was as good as his memory and he managed to remember useful information in a very short period of time.

“The time was: 1456.05.17 10:00:03.”

Hearing the time, Song Qinglan immediately caught onto the important point, “This was the time when we set off for the A-level mission from the third command centre.”

He paused and added, “No, shouldn’t we be in our capsules at that time? Still in the middle of traversing?”

Ji Yushi’s thoughts were always clear. He calmly analysed, “Correct. We indeed should be in the middle of transitioning to our mission. Because of this, I have figured out what is going on!”

“The Grandfather Paradox states that a person cannot travel to the past to kill their own grandfather. Even if they really managed to do this, it will only create another parallel timeline without the existence of them or their grandfather which is the so-called parallel world. This parallel world is different from the parallel worlds in the usual sense —- because we have not crossed into the past, let alone changed the past.”

Didn’t change the past?

Song Qinglan understood the meaning of this sentence.

“Like your previous example, let’s suppose that the point where the Tianqiong Twelfth squad disappeared is point ‘A’ and the point where we arrived at Chaos to rescue them is point ‘B’.” Ji Yushi used Song Qinglan’s method to explain, “Having closed the crevice in time and space and allowed Cap Qi to return to point ‘A’, a new timeline was derived. This can be referred to as point ‘C’.”

Song Qinglan nodded to express his understanding.

Ji Yushi continued, “And this point ‘C’, after Cap Qi was in power for fifteen years, it has progressed to point ‘B’ where we rescued the Tianqiong twelfth squad…..”

On the point ‘C’ timeline, after the twelfth squad was rescued by the future seventh squad, Cap Qi became the Chief and then sent out the seventh squad to rescue the twelfth squad —- Only like this could the timeline form a complete circle.

Song Qinglan suddenly understood, “I understand what you mean. Following this train of thought, the timeline of the two points ‘A’ and ‘C’ will both inevitably progress to point ‘B’. Then, at point ‘B’, there should’ve been two of our squad rescuing the twelfth squad but in fact, when we really reached point ‘B’…..there was only one!”

In the Chaos mission, they didn’t meet their other selves and point ‘C’ was also caused by them closing the crevice in time and space so regardless of which timeline it was, there should only be one Tianqiong seventh squad.

Ji Yushi’s eyes were bright, “Correct! At first, I also thought that this place here was a parallel world following the butterfly effect, but I couldn’t be certain because there was neither another me here nor another you. Now I understand. It is because we are unique existences in the two realities and that is why we have the double memories!”

The double memories now had an explanation but what about the overlapping of the realities?

Song Qinglan remembered that Duan Wen had made contact with Chief Wang.

The overlap of reality was caused by Duan Wen’s actions.

Everyone in the Seventh squad had undergone different changes in this reality. Except for Ji Yushi with hyperthymesia, the others had no memories of their other reality until they saw Chief Wang’s photo.

This change started from Chief Wang. The root cause of it was the twelfth squad’s return.

As a squad that exists in both realities, Chief Wang was a common variable that allowed the seventh squad to be able to distinguish between the two realities. It helped them discover the existence of the two realities.

Song Qinglan was thoughtful, “In the other reality, right now is the third second after we set off for our A-level mission but in this reality, it is already one month later. Why are the two staggered timelines overlapping?”

“It’s a bubble world.” Ji Yushi said. “Like the time paradox produced by the time anchor, this place is actually a bubble world. It starts at point ‘A’ and ends at point ‘B’, forming a large time anchor. The time derived from point ‘C’ is a bubble in the timeline that shouldn’t exist and is extra, an additional existence.”

Below the carriage, more than a hundred passengers did their own things. Some cried, some called for help.

But as soon as they saw Song Qinglan or Ji Yushi, those people immediately stopped still. It was as if they had been cursed. They stood motionlessly in place, staring unblinkingly up at them.

Under the sun, it looked like a sea of expressionless faces.

Bubble world.

Cap Qi in power, overlapping memories……Everything seemed to have an explanation.

“This is also the reason why the suspension train in the other reality is at a standstill. Because to the other reality, we are still at point ‘B’ and time hasn’t moved forward. It is just like in the Ouroboros mission where we will return to the same point in time every time we die.”

Ji Yushi said, “But in this bubble, time continues. Our ‘observation’ and awakening was likely something similar to trying to burst the bubble. It’s still like the previous Ouroboros mission. If we leave this reality, the time here will stop moving forward and would return to the moment where it started. In order for it to continue progressing and for the bubble to continue existing, the world will inevitably try to stop us.”

There were still many questions that needed to be answered but the two of them needed some time to digest this new discovery.

After a short period of silence, Song Qinglan said, “Then I may know now why we entered the other reality just now.”

Ji Yushi raised his head, “Why?!”

“Because of my phone call.” Song Qinglan said, “That call was from a month ago.”

JI Yushi didn’t understand. His eyes showed confusion.

Song Qinglan looked down at him slightly, “After coming back this time, my grandfather said that he called me the morning I set off for my mission. The call connected but I didn’t say anything.”

During the phone call just now, Song Qinglan also didn’t hear the other party’s voice. It was probably because of the effects of the overlapping of reality.

“However, we would need to spend at least a few hours beforehand just to prepare before leaving for a mission and personal items such as phones must be turned off and turned in. It was impossible for me to have received that call.” Song Qinglan said, “I thought he remembered wrong.”

“Looks like he didn’t remember wrong. Advisor Ji, there is a high chance that people’s behaviours in the two realities would be the same, right?”

Ji Yushi had a vague guess about what he was about to say, “Yes.”

Song Qinglan, “Then in our original reality, my grandfather might have also made that call. When the two worlds overlapped, it was this call from a month ago that pulled us into our original reality.”