304: Chapter 307 This is what it means: Choice is more important than effort.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the villa's study lay the silent deep space.

Jiang Chen leaned back in his swivel chair, the stack of liquidation lists he had just retrieved from the database lying quietly on the desk.

Wang Jianguo and his son, Lin Yao, and those former "classmates" who used to mock him in the class group chat, convinced that he would only ever be good enough to deliver food for the rest of his life.

This list recorded the current fates of those who had once trampled Jiang Chen into the mud.

Some were mining coal on mineral planets, some were serving in labor camps, and others had fallen so low they couldn't even afford the lowest grade of nutrient paste.

"Is this what they call the cycle of Law of Causality?"

Academician Chen Shuyin walked over, holding a steaming cup of coffee. She set the cup down and looked at the names on the list, her eyes dazed. "If you hadn't had that steamed bun back then, if you had given up on trying that app that night, what would we... be like now?"

Jiang Chen turned his head, looked into her eyes filled with curiosity, and smiled.

"If it were the Jiang Chen from back then, he would probably be screwing bolts in some electronics factory right now, arguing until his throat went dry with the foreman over a few thousand yuan in wages."

"As for you, Academician Chen, you'd probably be in some top-tier laboratory, being ostracized by those stubborn old men, pulling out your last strands of hair over a single experimental parameter."

Jiang Chen crumpled the list in his hand and tossed it into the wastebasket in the corner like scrap paper.

"Many people always like to talk about 'effort'."

"They say that as long as you work hard, you can make a comeback; as long as you work hard, you can change your destiny."

"But that is actually the most poisonous kind of chicken soup."

He paused, his tone revealing a sense of indifference that comes from having seen it all. "Look at Wang Kai. Did he not work hard enough? His father paved the way for him, and he spent every day mixing in those circles, wanting to climb higher. And the result? He chose the wrong opponent and the wrong rules."

"The greatest tragedy in life is never about not working hard enough."

"It is choosing the wrong frame of reference from the very beginning."

Academician Chen Shuyin picked up her coffee and took a sip, her gaze behind her glasses softening significantly. "What about you? How did you choose back then?"

"Me?"

Jiang Chen chuckled, a flash of reminiscence crossing his eyes. "How could I have had a choice back then?"

"I was just... starving."

"In that pitch-black winter, in that Wasteland ruin where there wasn't even a single whole brick, I just wanted to survive."

"Even if it meant begging, even if it meant kneeling, even if it meant trading my dignity for that half of a steamed bun."

"I had to live."

"So, I chose that system, and I chose cross-dimensional trade."

"This wasn't 'effort' at all, this was... the instinct to survive."

Academician Chen Shuyin's heart trembled slightly.

She looked at Jiang Chen.

This man, standing at the end of the universe, still remembered that most humble beginning.

"What if you hadn't chosen that back then?"

Academician Chen Shuyin asked softly, even feeling a bit curious. "If there hadn't been that steamed bun, would you really have... given up?"

"Give up?"

Jiang Chen turned his head, and in those deep, dark eyes, an absolute will belonging to a powerhouse erupted instantly, causing Academician Chen Shuyin to shudder.

"If there hadn't been a steamed bun that day."

"I would have gnawed on tree bark."

"If there hadn't even been tree bark."

"I would have bitten the creditor."

"In any case, no matter how I chose, there would only be one outcome."

"I would never have died next to that trash can."

This kind of overbearing, even somewhat pathological logic, if spoken by anyone else, would only make people think they were arrogant.

But coming from Jiang Chen, it was simply the truth.

In this cruel universe, Jiang Chen was the only truth.

No matter how the environment changed, no matter how the rules were reshaped.

That young man in the rental room who swore to survive remained the core of his inner being.

"So..."

Academician Chen Shuyin set down her cup and leaned gently against Jiang Chen's shoulder, feeling the temperature of his body that gave her such peace of mind. "All this glory now, for you, actually has no meaning at all, right?"

"Meaning?"

Jiang Chen pursed his lips, looking at the group of alien civilization envoys outside the window who were lining up to receive hot pot base.

"Look at these guys. Just a moment ago, for a bit of mineral resources, they nearly ripped the Commander's guts out."

"And now?"

"For a few packs of spicy strips, they are all kneeling more perfectly than anyone."

"Is this kind of 'glory' really what I want?"

"What I want..."

Jiang Chen reached out and gently wrapped his arm around Academician Chen Shuyin's waist, a rare, ordinary warmth flowing in his eyes. "Actually has nothing to do with these aliens."

"And it has nothing to do with these hundreds of billions of tons of gold either."

He turned his head, looking at Academician Chen Shuyin's profile, which looked exceptionally tranquil under the starlight.

"I just want those who wanted to kill me to know that they will never be able to do it."

"And then..."

"Take my people to a place where no one can find us, drink some tea, and have some skewers."

Academician Chen Shuyin smiled.

She enjoyed this moment very much. At this moment, this interstellar overlord was no longer the deity wielding the Causality Weapon, but a big boy who had finally learned to slow down and live.

Such ordinariness, in this universe filled with destruction, had simply become the most extravagant luxury.

"So we'll just keep going like this?"

"All the way to the end of the universe?"

"If that is where you want to go, then I will accompany you until the end."

Academician Chen Shuyin looked at him tenderly. "However, before that, can you first knock some sense into those few trading groups that want to rebel? They seem to be secretly hiding private funds."

"Private funds?"

Jiang Chen's eyes turned cold, and that originally gentle smile instantly transformed into the cunning typical of a profiteer.

"These good-for-nothing things."

"They even want to embezzle such petty profits?"

He stood up, strode to the console, and opened a communication channel to the trading group leader who was eavesdropping on the entire channel.

"Hey, you guy with the eight eyeballs."

Jiang Chen smiled incredibly amiably, but his voice was chillingly cold. "I just saw that the batch of blue crystal ore you transported in was mixed with at least three tons of rock debris."

"What? Do you think my receiving standards here are based on 'buy one, get one free'?"

On the other side of the screen, the alien leader who had been congratulating itself on successfully deceiving everyone instantly turned ashen.

It hadn't even had time to explain.

Jiang Chen had already hung up the communication and gestured to Zhao Gang beside him:

"Go."

"Confiscate their breach of contract deposit."

"In addition, pick out all those tons of rock debris and stuff it into the exhaust ports of their own spaceships."

"Tell them this is Chenxing Technology's quality return processing procedure."

Watching that group of trembling alien envoys who didn't even dare to breathe, Jiang Chen returned to the sofa and picked up the Milky Way Galaxy Infrastructure Guide that he hadn't finished reading.

Life is just like this.

Filled with trivial messes, filled with scheming, and also filled with this... pleasure brought by petty revenge.

Academician Chen Shuyin watched from the side and finally couldn't help but laugh out loud.

This is Jiang Chen.

No matter how high a dimension he stands in, he is still that "Village Chief Jiang" who loves to scheme the most and refuses to suffer any losses.

Time flew by during the interstellar voyage.

Just as the two were preparing to continue enjoying this rare tranquility.

"Ding—"

It was the special portable television that Academician Chen Shuyin had placed on the table, which suddenly popped up a news bulletin.

It wasn't about interstellar trade, nor was it about the territorial changes of some civilization.

It was a documentary about the "Origin of Earth" that was currently a global hit.

On the screen.

That wrinkled documentary host, facing the camera, spoke in a solemn tone and with a hint of fanaticism:

"According to our latest archaeological findings."

"In this remote corner known as the 'Solar System'."

"Before the birth of the man who is revered by all races as 'God Jiang'."

"There once existed a mysterious civilization known as the 'Pre-Era'."

"And the only clue left behind by that civilization..."

The host paused and projected an image that had been highly magnified and restored onto screens all over the world.

It was an ancient totem carved on the Far Side of the Moon, buried under countless dust.

Jiang Chen turned his head sharply, staring fixedly at the screen.

Academician Chen Shuyin was also stunned.

That symbol...

That shape...

Was actually a...

Extremely exaggerated, abstract, looking like someone had doodled with their fingers—

A self-portrait... of Jiang Chen.

The Jiang Chen on it was holding a... spicy strip in his hand.

"What the..."

Jiang Chen looked at the abstract painting from tens of thousands of years ago on the TV, showing himself holding a spicy strip, and the half-eaten noodle in his mouth slid straight onto the floor.

Which dynasty's prank is this?

Or could it be...

In the underlying logic of this cosmic cycle, was he, Jiang Chen, fundamentally the... greatest variable that could not be erased?

"Academician Chen Shuyin."

Jiang Chen pointed at the TV, the expression on his face completely collapsing.

"I am a transmigrator."

"But why does that host say I am an... 'Ancient God' from seventy thousand years ago?!"

On TV, the host's voice continued, with a kind of desperate piety:

"Historians believe that Jiang Chen is not a modern person."

"He..."

"Is the... only player in this cosmic cycle."

Jiang Chen stood in that brilliant light, looking at the screen, feeling a chill from outside the Law of Causality for the first time.

So.

He was not a successor at all.

He was the one who had been causing everyone trouble in these cycles...

The source.

"Let's go."

Jiang Chen pulled up Academician Chen Shuyin and strode toward the command center.

He didn't need to look at any legacy anymore.

He just wanted to go to that so-called end of the universe and see.

See how many heads that person who wove a seven-thousand-year chess game actually has!

"Since the whole world wants to see me act cool."

"Then I will..."

"Tear the truth of this universe wide open for them!"

He slammed the hatch open, and in that instant, the engine light of the luan bird completely illuminated the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

This is his legend, one that will never end.