203: Chapter 204 The future isn't a reservation slip; not knowing it doesn't mean you're still alive.

[Future Reclamation Begins]

The massive calendar in the sky flipped to the first square.

It is not today.

It is tomorrow.

In the professional interface of everyone in Jiangcheng, "Future Nodes" popped up simultaneously.

[Gu Xinghe: Enter Record supplementary training in three days]

[Su Yan: Assume the post of Guimen stability in seven days]

[Xiao Man: Pre-awakening screening at age six, recommended for Mother of All Things observation]

[Qinghe County Xu Tian: Standard Wind-element Scout at age sixteen]

[Beiyuan Wang Xiaohu: Inherit mining work at age twenty]

[Jiangcheng West Entrance person waiting: If relative is not found tomorrow, relocate to the Mother of All Things settlement area]

Rows of text, like a fate written in advance.

What is even more terrifying is that they began to back-propagate to the present.

In the Qinghe County classroom, a prototype of a Wind-element emblem suddenly lit up on Xu Tian's chest.

She had not yet reached the age of awakening, and while she was still clutching a piece of chalk, a vision of herself at age sixteen wearing a standard scout uniform appeared before her eyes.

That shadow reached out to her.

[Future profession confirmed]

[Current interests and deviations can be cleared]

On the corner of her desk, the puppy she had just drawn halfway was erased by golden light.

Xu Tian screamed in fright: "Teacher, I don't want to be a scout right now!"

Teacher Song Qing rushed over and held her hand down.

But the calendar flipped, and the next square jumped directly to age sixteen.

[Future valid]

[The present should serve the future]

At Beiyuan Mine, the young miner had not been rescued for long, and his leg was still wrapped in a splint.

His future node lit up:

[Inherit father's shift to go down the mine at age twenty]

[Current injury does not affect professional assignment]

The splint began to be dismantled by the golden light.

The Old Miner grabbed his leg and roared: "His leg is broken right now!"

The golden light replied calmly:

[Future miner should adapt to pain in advance]

At Nanling Hospital, a future screening chart floated at the head of a newborn baby's bed.

[Medical assistance adaptation at age six]

[Ineffective crying should be reduced before age three]

The Nurse's eyes turned red as she watched. "He was only born three days ago!"

The voice of the God Head descended from the calendar.

"A clear future can reduce hesitation."

"A fixed path can avoid mistakes."

"Unfinished wishes, unconfirmed waiting, and undecided lives are all invalid delays."

In the Jiangcheng West Entrance temporary waiting area, the cardboard in the hands of the woman waiting for her brother suddenly turned black.

Next to what she had written, [Check the missing persons registry after dawn], a line automatically appeared:

[If there is no result, relocate to the Mother of All Things settlement area]

The woman's face turned pale. "I haven't waited until dawn yet."

Lin Jin stood beside her, his eyes terrifyingly dark.

"It is not reclaiming the future."

"It is using the future to steal the present."

Cheng Du was rapidly adjusting the images in the Mainframe.

The golden lines of the sky calendar were not spreading forward.

They were pulling backward.

Once every future node was finalized by the Mother of All Things end, current behaviors would all be reinterpreted as "serving that future."

A child drawing is a professional deviation.

A patient resting is a waste of future efficiency.

Waiting for relatives is an invalid delay.

Not knowing what you want is a reason for the Mother of All Things to take over.

Chen Ye was so angry he nearly crushed the handle of his shield.

"Isn't this just grading the paper in advance?"

Qin Shanhe watched the children in the Temporary Classroom struggling to stand as they were dragged by the squares of the future, his expression extremely cold.

"It's not grading the paper."

"It's denying them the right to hand in a blank paper."

Lin Jin stared at the sky calendar.

The past has Records.

The present has presence.

What does the future have?

The future is not a Record.

It is not testimony.

It is not even something that will definitely happen.

At most, the future can only be plans, wishes, appointments, worries, and possibilities.

But the God Head wrote it as a result.

Lin Jin grabbed a new tool and wrote on the Mainframe board:

[Future nodes must not back-propagate to current obligations]

Cheng Du roared: "That's too weak! It will say the future needs preparation!"

Lin Jin wrote again:

[Preparation can be suggested, but not locked]

[Wishes can be retained, but not verified]

[Plans can be rescheduled, canceled, abandoned, or restarted]

[No plans, not knowing what you want, or 'talk about it later' does not equal belonging to the Mother of All Things]

Luo Wensheng recorded it immediately.

Ye Guizhou stamped it:

[Future intentions received]

[Does not constitute accepting fate]

He Zhibai added:

[The costs incurred by trial and error, rescheduling, cancellation, and waiting shall be borne by the public or negotiated separately, and shall not be converted into the Mother of All Things' right to take over]

Lin Jin shouted at work order no. 002:

"Everywhere, don't argue with it about whether the future is right or wrong."

"First, change the future to your own state!"

"Write 'Wish' for what you want to do."

"Write 'Appointment' for what is agreed upon."

"Write 'Pending' for what is undecided."

"Write 'Cancel' for what you don't want anymore."

"Write 'Risk Warning' for what you are afraid of."

"If you don't want to answer now, write 'Talk about it later'!"

In Qinghe County, Teacher Song Qing rushed to the blackboard immediately.

She could not decide Xu Tian's profession at sixteen for her.

She only asked: "Xu Tian, do you want to treat being a Scout as your future right now?"

Xu Tian shook her head, crying. "I don't know."

Teacher Song Qing did not persuade her.

She wrote on the corner of Xu Tian's desk:

[Profession at sixteen: Pending]

[Current wish: Finish drawing the puppy]

[Future can be discussed later]

The golden light immediately pressed down:

[Pending is invalid]

Xu Tian suddenly grabbed the chalk and fiercely drew a crooked puppy next to "Pending."

"I'm drawing this first now!"

The puppy was very ugly.

But it belonged to the present.

The sixteen-year-old scout shadow paused, unable to drag her hand toward the training schedule again.

At Beiyuan Mine, the Old Miner did not argue with the "Inherit father's shift" node again.

He squatted down and asked the young man with the broken leg: "Do you still want to go down the mine in the future?"

The young man was sweating from pain, gritting his teeth as he said: "I don't know right now."

"Alright."

The Old Miner wrote on the splint:

[Whether to go down the mine in the future: To be asked after the person recovers]

[Current task: Heal the leg]

[Father's shift Record: Can be referenced, but does not inherit the body]

The golden light on the splint receded.

At Nanling Hospital, the Director of Obstetrics turned all those future screening charts into gray cards.

[Screening at age six: Future appointment, can be canceled, rescheduled, or refused]

[Current status: Born three days ago, drinking milk, sleeping, crying]

A Nurse whispered an addition on the side:

[Crying is not an ineffective behavior]

The Director of Obstetrics looked at her. "Write it bigger."

She wrote it even bigger.

[Crying is not an ineffective behavior]

A crack appeared in the future medical assistance node.

In the Jiangcheng temporary waiting area, the woman held the cardboard, her hand still shaking, but she finally rewrote:

[Find my brother: Wish]

[Check the registry tomorrow: Plan]

[If there is no result: Can continue waiting, can transfer to other points, can seek help, will not automatically relocate to the Mother of All Things]

She paused, then added another sentence:

[I haven't decided yet right now, and that counts too.]

Once this sentence was posted, the black cardboard signs in the waiting area lit up one by one.

The God Head's calendar suddenly flipped faster.

It no longer just gave professional nodes.

It began to push "failed futures" to everyone.

[If you continue waiting, you may not find your relatives]

[If you refuse a standard profession, you may be poor]

[If you keep the weak, you may drag down the team]

[If you allow 'pending', you may miss the best training period]

These were not lies.

Some futures might truly be terrible.

The God Head was very good at picking real fears.

In the Rest Station, a man saw a future node:

[Continuing to rest may mean missing the rescue post]

He struggled to get up.

Old Liu grabbed him.

"You can't even stand steadily right now."

The man's eyes turned red. "But what if someone dies because there's one less person because of me?"

Old Liu was silent for a moment, not saying "It won't happen."

He wrote:

[Possible to miss rescue: Risk]

[Current status: Overly fatigued]

[Treatment: Re-evaluate whether fit for duty after ten minutes of rest]

[Risk does not automatically cancel rest]

The man looked at the line of text and slowly lay back down.

Another of the God Head's future threats was broken.

Lin Jin looked at the screen and suddenly understood how the future should truly be repaired.

You cannot promise a good ending.

You cannot say that all choices have no cost.

The reason the future is not God's is that humans have the right to move forward with risks.

He wrote the final line on the Mainframe:

[Risk warnings must not be rewritten as fate judgments]

Cheng Du took a deep breath. "This one is correct."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou picked up 002.

The sky calendar lowered a thick golden line.

[Future node = Current obligation]

Another line:

[Undetermined future = Mother of All Things trusteeship]

And another:

[Risk result = Inevitable fate]

The three lines were entangled together, like the spine behind the calendar.

Lin Jin slotted the new tool in.

All six slots lit up.

Chen Ye bore the pressure, Shen Tingxue cooled the temperature, Zhou Heng conducted energy, Luo Wensheng recorded, Ye Guizhou confirmed, He Zhibai verified, and Qin Shanhe stared fixedly at every child being dragged from the observation position.

Thirteen stood under the calendar projection, looking up at his own page.

[Thirteen: Future identity to be completed]

[Recommended to merge into a homologous subject or become a backup page]

He expressionlessly tore off that projection.

"My future is pending."

"But it's not for you to fill in."

He stuffed the paper shadow into work order no. 002.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou dropped 002.

Snap!

The first line, [Future node = Current obligation], snapped.

Many "shoulds" on the calendar turned into "possibilities."

The second cut.

[Undetermined future = Mother of All Things trusteeship] snapped.

Countless "Pending" signs stopped turning black.

The third cut was the hardest.

[Risk result = Inevitable fate] resisted violently, projecting everyone's most feared future before their eyes.

Lin Jin saw himself standing before the core of the God Head, with all his teammates fallen behind him.

He saw his father's treatment pod empty.

Saw Jiangcheng swallowed by the delivery room again.

Saw work order no. 001 and no. 002 all burned to ash.

The God Head whispered: "You know it could end up like this."

"Why do you still continue?"

Lin Jin gripped the new tool tighter.

His voice was hoarse, but he did not flinch.

"Because it could end up like this."

"Does not mean it definitely will."

"And it doesn't mean I have to kneel now."

The new tool pressed down.

002 struck down.

The third line snapped.

The sky calendar stopped with a roar.

All pre-arranged future nodes simultaneously retreated into gray tags.

[Wish]

[Plan]

[Risk]

[Appointment]

[Pending]

[Cancel]

[Talk about it later]

[No thoughts yet]

They did not disappear.

Humans will not have no future just because they resist God.

It's just that the future no longer presses down from the sky.

It fell back into everyone's hands, becoming paper that could be changed, torn, kept, or temporarily ignored.

The Mainframe's reply appeared.

[The future is a collection of possibilities, plans, wishes, risks, and pending items; it must not be pre-arranged by the Mother of All Things end as current obligations.]

[Undecided does not equal invalid, delay does not equal giving up, and failure risk does not equal inevitable fate.]

[No individual, family, school, system, or deity may deprive [others of] current confirmation, rest, treatment, learning, trial and error, and refusal on the grounds of "for the future."]

[The future can be discussed, prepared for, modified, canceled, or waited for, but no one may complete the choice on behalf of the person beforehand.]

Above Jiangcheng, that massive calendar gradually lost its golden light.

Xu Tian continued to draw her puppy.

Xiao Man continued to sleep.

The woman in the temporary waiting area held her cardboard sign, allowing herself to sit down and drink water for the first time.

Tang Qi looked at her seven-day countdown returning to normal and whispered: "So 'talk about it later' can actually count."

Lin Jin was just about to reply when the sky calendar suddenly flipped to the last page.

That page had no date.

Only a black serial number.

[Final Exam: Remaining time continues to be calculated based on local time]

[Future pre-arrangement failed]

[Initiating Reality Final Exam Question]

[Question: If the Mother of All Things cannot reclaim humanity through naming, profession, memory, senses, location, time, and the future, should it be determined that the human system has separated from the Mother of All Things and entered an independent civilization?]

Everyone's heart tightened simultaneously.

This question sounded like victory.

But the next line of golden text quickly lit up.

[An independent civilization must self-prove its ability to bear all costs]

[Method of proof: After seventy-two abyss entrances simultaneously lose the Mother of All Things' maintenance, humanity must bear the pressure on its own]

[Countdown: Thirty minutes]

[If bearing the pressure fails, the Mother of All Things reclamation will automatically resume]

Seventy-two abyss entrances vibrated simultaneously.

Cheng Du's face turned pale. "It is going to cut off the Mother of All Things' maintenance."

"Let all the bypass stations we temporarily repaired carry the abyss themselves."