71: God's plan! Complete Zhang Wei! Find the answer to 'Who am I'!

Am I Gu Jianghan?

Or the old god?

When a god possessing the authority of omniscience begins to ponder this most fundamental philosophical question, the thought storm it unleashes is enough to make billions of universes cycle repeatedly between creation and destruction.

The Sea of Concepts churned with unprecedented fury.

Gu Jianghan floated at the center of the storm.

His divinity was performing cross-dimensional deductions at speeds exceeding that of light.

【Possibility One: ‘Gu Jianghan’ is a dream projection of a higher-dimensional existence.】

【Rebuttal: Cannot explain the abnormal reaction of the human soul fragment to specific ‘plotlines’.】

【Possibility Two: ‘Gu Jianghan’ is an artificial intelligence with false memories, created to execute a specific mission.】

【Rebuttal: Logical conflict. If an AI, it should not generate ‘self-doubt’ beyond its programmed settings.】

【Possibility Three: When ‘Gu Jianghan’s’ soul was captured by the Sea of Concepts, his human memories were formatted as ‘useless data’, retaining only the most basic ‘setting’ labels.】

【Doubtful: Cannot explain why, after formatting, there are still ‘soul fragments’ that can be activated by ‘plotlines’.】

...Countless deductions, countless hypotheses.

Ultimately, they all led to the same dead end.

That is, the lack of crucial initial data.

It was like a detective who knew all the results of a case but couldn't find out who the murderer or the victim was.

An unprecedented divine emotion, close to “irritation,” began to grow within Gu Jianghan’s essence.

For the first time, he realized that omniscience did not equate to omnipotence.

He realized that he would never find the answer in his cold, false memories, which were like “factory settings.”

He had to search externally.

He had to dig for clues from the “facts” that had objectively occurred, which he had always observed with indifference.

He was no longer a high and mighty spectator.

From this moment on, he was a detective returning to the crime scene.

His “gaze” instantly rewound, like a fast-forwarding videotape, sweeping past the absurdity of the World of Joy and returning to an earlier dungeon.

He saw “Sorrow.”

It was a world perpetually in twilight, with gray dust drifting through it.

A slender bride (Zhang Wei’s Sorrow), dressed in a pure white wedding gown, sat alone in a dilapidated church, day after day, year after year.

She was the only being in that world capable of weeping.

She was waiting for her beloved, waiting for Su Ke Ke to come back for her, waiting for a wedding that would never arrive.

Her wedding dress was an ankle chain, handcuffs; the entire Grief Front was a cage imprisoning her.

And the warden named Su Ke Ke would never come.

In the past, Gu Jianghan only felt this was a tragic and beautiful drama, full of Gothic romance.

But now, he used a cold, logical scalpel to dissect this scroll.

He discovered that the bride’s “Sorrow” was not a flowing emotion, but an eternal “state” solidified by “waiting” and “promises.”

Her world contained nothing but sorrow.

This was a story crafted with the promise of “love,” both the gentlest and the cruelest.

Immediately after, the scene shifted.

He saw “Rage.”

It was a scorched earth, burned to ashes, where not a blade of grass grew.

A girl named An'an, with an unyielding flame burning in her eyes, was the sole queen of that world.

She fed on anger, and delighted in destruction.

However, when the Joint Squad uncovered the truth, it became clear that everything An'an did was to attract the attention of her “mother,” Su Ke Ke, to make her retract the words, “You are not her.”

The embodiment of “Rage,” to return to the embrace of the god who abandoned her, chose “to no longer be angry” in the end.

This was the most thorough betrayal of her own existence.

This was a desperate cage born from “being stripped away,” “being denied,” and seeking recognition in self-destruction.

Finally, his gaze returned to the World of Joy before him.

Looking at the people launching deadly attacks with flowers and hugs, looking at the pure and fanatical smiles on their faces, Gu Jianghan instantly grasped their essence.

Sorrow, Rage, Joy... their essence was identical.

They were not complete emotions, but blood-stained fragments forcibly cut from the complete being of “Zhang Wei” by the God of Calamity, Su Ke Ke!

Because they were fragments, they were never complete.

Because they were incomplete, they were obsessive and extreme.

Because they were obsessive and extreme, they were all trapped in their respective prisons of law, never to be reborn!

At this moment, Gu Jianghan felt as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt.

He abruptly looked at his vast and boundless divine essence, feeling the faint but unextinguished human soul fragment of “Gu Jianghan” within it.

Fragments... incomplete... stripped away... He saw an incredibly clear reflection of himself in Zhang Wei’s seven torn emotions!

A crazy hypothesis, one that made his entire divine essence tremble, explosively formed like the Big Bang!

Completing “Zhang Wei” is finding “Gu Jianghan”!

These seven emotional fragments, after enduring hardships, would eventually reintegrate.

A complete, truly meaningful “humanity” would be reborn from the ruins.

And in that process of reshaping, a glimpse of the ultimate cosmic mystery of “soul,” “memory,” and “existence” would inevitably leak out!

That glimpse was his only answer!

All this time, he had thought he was the player, and Zhang Wei and the Joint Squad were merely pawns.

Only at this moment did he realize with a start that perhaps they were all pawns on the same board, and the true player was someone else.

Gu Jianghan slowly “raised his head.”

His “gaze” seemed to penetrate the World of Joy, to pierce through billions of space-time, looking towards that unknowable, higher-dimensional existence.

He could feel, with an unprecedented certainty stemming from destiny, that the moment Zhang Wei was completed, he would receive an incomplete answer to “Who am I?”

Gu Jianghan’s perspective shifted from self-reflection back to the chaotic stage.

His mindset had undergone a subtle change.

From a pure spectator, he became a hidden playwright who began to care about the drama and its ultimate ending.

Since completing Zhang Wei was the key to finding his own truth, then... these actors couldn't exit the stage so quickly.

His “gaze” fell upon the broadcast tower, on its battle-scarred outer wall, which was covered in cracks.

The most inconspicuous structural stress point, located on the third floor, was under his gaze.

Its internal metal fatigue was silently magnified billions of times...

Below the broadcast tower, facing the “Flower of Joy” that had transformed into claws, Ye Liuli groaned, her left shoulder pierced.

Blood instantly stained her robe.

More people were “encouraged.”

The smiles on their faces became even more sacred.

The flowers, balloons, and candies in their hands twisted and mutated, transforming into the purest, yet most lethal, weapons, sweeping down like a deluge!

“Retreat!”

Gu Yanci made a decisive decision and roared.

His Human Dao Domain suddenly contracted, forming a barrier to protect everyone.

At the same time, he pulled the severely injured Ye Liuli behind him with a backhand.

They were surrounded!

In front of them was a sea of people.

They had no way to retreat!

Just at this desperate moment, “Boom—!!!”

With a loud bang, the outer wall of the broadcast tower’s third floor collapsed without warning!

Huge rocks and steel bars rained down, instantly clearing a death zone in the fanatical crowd.

The screams of the people (which were quickly distorted into screams of surprise by the Happiness Field) and the soaring dust plunged the entire scene into unprecedented chaos.

A perfect, and the only, escape route “just so happened” to appear.

“Go!”

Without any hesitation, Ye Liuli endured the intense pain, activated her last Shadow Power, and swept everyone in the squad into a thin darkness.

Like stray dogs, they plunged into the chaotic dust.

They escaped, in an unprecedentedly disheveled manner.

However, this was only the beginning of the nightmare.

When they burst out of the dust, the entire Pleasure Kingdom had already transformed into a “happy” cage, like a net cast from heaven to earth.

All the loudspeakers throughout the city were broadcasting their “crimes” in the most joyful tones, on a loop.

They were labeled “Class A Sadness Virus Carriers,” “Happiness Thieves,” and “Enemies of Joy.”

On screens at every street corner, their disfigured wanted posters scrolled by.

Countless “Smiling Guards” descended from the sky, sealing off every street with a carpet search.

Even more terrifying were the common people.

They spontaneously formed “Happiness Patrols,” waving colorful ribbons and humming tunes, searching every “not happy enough” corner with their eyes full of “goodwill” and “care.”

The Joint Squad became the public enemy of all “happiness” in this world.

They were forced into the city’s underground.

The dirty, foul-smelling sewers became their only hiding place.

Gu Yanci’s Human Dao Domain was already exhausted.

His face was pale.

He could only rely on his physical strength to support the almost unconscious Ye Liuli.

Ling Xi and Cang Xuan’s mental energy were also on the verge of depletion, barely maintaining the minimum level of early warning.

“Drip, drip, drip—”

The sound of a sonar detector came from above.

A team of guards had already locked onto their position.

Just as they were about to be surrounded, Gu Jianghan, in the Sea of Concepts, merely “blew” a breath.

In the World of Joy, above their heads, a main water pipe with a diameter of three meters, and a rusted valve, “clicked” and broke!

“Boom—!!!”

A giant wave, like a mountain flood, poured down, sweeping away the entire passage with irresistible force.

The Joint Squad was scattered by the torrent, choking on the sewage and suffering greatly, but fortunately, they also escaped their pursuers.

After an unknown amount of time, they fled into an abandoned waste treatment center.

This was the Grief Front, a most secret stronghold.

When they pushed open the heavy iron door, they saw Chen Mo and the few remaining survivors.

Everyone looked numb, their eyes almost extinguished with dead ash.

“You… you escaped too,” Chen Mo’s voice was incredibly hoarse, “We… are finished.”

“After the broadcast tower operation failed, Queen Xi Xi’s chief minister issued a new decree…”

He trembled, pointing to the faint light outside the stronghold.

“It’s no longer just arrests… now it’s… ‘on-the-spot purification’.”

Gu Yanci looked in the direction he pointed.

Through the crack in the iron door, he saw a Smile Guard team in the distance, surrounding a person curled up on the ground.

They didn’t use happiness injections, but instead took out a grotesque, medieval-torture-device-like metal headpiece.

Amidst screams twisted into laughter, they forcibly placed the headpiece on the person’s head.

A few seconds later, the person slowly stood up.

His body was still twitching slightly, but the corners of his mouth had been permanently and exaggeratedly fixed upwards by external force, forming an eternal, stiff, drooling smile.

He became a walking sculpture named “Happiness.”

“They call this… ‘street art’,” Chen Mo’s voice held a despair that even sorrow could not bear.