Lin Xiao was confused on what to do next. He checked the system missions and saw they were the same old missions that he had been ignoring for days.
That fact alone made his mind spin. If this was truly a new timeline or reality, shouldn't those missions have failed or changed by now? The missions were still marked as active, unchanged, as if nothing had happened at all.
"Am I in another world? A parallel world?" he muttered, scrolling through the list again, his brow furrowed.
Everything looked so familiar, and yet something was deeply off. His instincts screamed that this was no longer the same reality he once knew. The unsettling thought nagged at him—what if he had accidentally crossed into another dimension altogether?
"What should I do to return?" The question loomed over him like a dark cloud, but the answer wasn't so clear. He felt a pull—a longing for answers—but at the same time, he wondered if returning was really the right choice.
That world had been filled with chaos, danger, and unsettling mysteries: the red moons, the earthquakes, the alternate timelines where his very existence seemed fragile. Could he really go back to that world, knowing the dangers that awaited?
A new thought crept in, one that made him pause.
"Do I even want to return to that dangerous world with red moons?"
Here, in this bizarrely normal version of reality, there were no supernatural threats, no shifting timelines, no mysterious figures watching his every move.
It was a world where he was just Lin Xiao, living an ordinary life. Safe. The thought was comforting, but at the same time, he couldn't ignore the deep restlessness growing inside him.
But this place feels… wrong.
Lin Xiao felt torn. His curiosity, his thirst for answers was clashing with the temptation to stay in this safer world. But something in him—an instinct, a gut feeling—told him that this peace was an illusion, and the longer he stayed, the more difficult it might become to leave.
He looked down at his hands. "I can't just forget everything. I need to understand what's happening to me, to the world—whether it's real or not."
Lin Xiao stood up, resolve hardening in his chest. He needed to figure out if this world was real, and more importantly, if he could find a way to return to the truth, whatever that might be.
....
....
Lin Xiao was confused on what to do next. Everything felt too normal, too perfect, almost like the world had reset itself to some ideal version of reality. He couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that something was deeply wrong.
His mother had no memory of the red moons, the earthquake, or any of the chaos that had unfolded. And now, the supernatural association didn't even exist, nor did Li Jing's number.
It was as though everything connected to the strange events had been wiped clean, leaving him stranded in this disturbingly familiar, yet foreign world.
"What is happening?" Lin Xiao muttered to himself as he walked aimlessly through the quiet streets, the same streets he had known his whole life. But now, they felt like a mirage—a perfectly constructed facade designed to keep him in place.
The people around him were going about their day, completely oblivious to the insanity he had been living through just hours ago.
He couldn't shake the feeling that it was all too good to be true.
As he passed by a coffee shop, Lin Xiao caught his reflection in the window, his expression tense and thoughtful. Everything looked so normal.
His mind wandered back to the events with the red moons, the earthquakes, and all the supernatural chaos he had encountered.
The feeling of unease gnawed at him—why was everything so… peaceful now? Too peaceful. The red moons, the strange powers, the otherworldly encounters—all of it seemed to have been erased from existence.
"Am I really back on Earth?" Lin Xiao wondered aloud, his voice barely a whisper. "Or is this just another illusion?"
He continued walking, unsure of his next move. He could feel his paranoia growing with every passing moment.
If everything around him had changed so drastically, then what else could be lurking beneath the surface? Was this just another trick—another layer of the puzzle he had been thrown into? His instincts told him there was something more going on, something he hadn't yet uncovered.
Lin Xiao needed a new approach, a way to dig deeper into this unsettlingly perfect world. There had to be some clue he was missing, some thread of reality that would unravel this facade.
After thinking for a moment, he decided to head to the library. If anything about this world had changed, the history books would be the first place to show it.
The bus ride to the library was just as eerily normal as before. People went about their day, chatting, checking their phones, and staring out the windows.
The city looked exactly the same, but Lin Xiao's gut told him something was very wrong. He stepped off the bus and headed straight inside the library, the quiet and dim lighting doing little to soothe his growing anxiety.
Once inside, he immediately made his way to the history section. Lin Xiao grabbed a few books and sat down at a table, flipping through the pages as quickly as he could. His heart pounded as he scanned the text, searching for anything that might confirm his suspicions.
At first, everything looked familiar—the dates, the events. But the further he read, the more things began to stand out.
The United Federation of Pinglan?
Lin Xiao's eyes widened as he read the title of a chapter detailing the history of this so-called "United Federation of Pinglan" It was as if the country he knew had been replaced by something entirely different.
"What the...?" Lin Xiao whispered. He quickly flipped to the next page, and then the next. Everything about this country's history was different—the presidents were unrecognizable, and major wars hadn't even occurred. There was no mention of the World Wars or the Cold War, but instead something called "The Great Unification Conflict."
"No... this can't be right," Lin Xiao muttered to himself, feeling the panic rise in his chest. He pulled out more books, scanning through them in a frenzy. The historical records were wildly different from what he remembered.
Countries had changed names, borders were nothing like what he knew, and events that should've shaped the modern world seemed to have either never happened or occurred in drastically different ways.
Even the technology was off. The Industrial Revolution had started nearly a century earlier, leading to airships and steam-powered automatons dominating the world stage in the 1800s.
Lin Xiao leaned back in his chair, his heart racing. "This… this isn't my world."
The final book he grabbed sent chills down his spine. It was a book on the modern world, and in it, a chapter discussed something called The Harmony Accord, an event in which all the major powers of the world unified under a single global council.
The date? 2032.
"That's impossible," Lin Xiao whispered. "It's only 2024… how is this possible?"
He slammed the book shut, breathing heavily. Nothing made sense. Was this another parallel world? A different timeline? And if so, why had everything changed so drastically?