Chapter 103: The Causal Loop

Chapter 103: The Loop of Cause and Effect

How many steps does it take to push someone over the edge into madness?

The first step is to show them a faint, beautiful illusion of hope when they are at their absolute lowest point.

Instinctively, even if they know this lifeline is as flimsy as a spiderweb in the wind, they will cling to it desperately, refusing to let go even as they fall into the abyss and break apart.

The second step is to grant them what appears to be an all-powerful wish-granting device, stoking the secret cravings and desires in their heart.

Beyond that, no further action is needed—their own desires will burn fiercely enough to destroy everything, ultimately consuming them until nothing remains but a pathetic heap of dying embers.

"Heh..."

At this moment, deep within the pitch-black, icy cave, the creature that had once been Zhang Ming's father sat before the fire. It stared fixedly at the withered branches being consumed by flames, their edges curling, blackening, and crumbling to dust. Suddenly, it felt as though it was witnessing its own pitiful, decades-long existence trapped in the mountains. A series of hoarse, chilling chuckles escaped its throat, sending shivers down Zhang Ming's spine.

But as the one being sized up like prey, Zhang Ming had neither the right to refuse the monster's "heart-to-heart" invitation nor the ability to make it stop laughing.

He inched backward, pressing his back tightly against the stone wall, while his hand hastily grabbed a jagged rock fragment. Then, as quietly as possible, he began working at the climbing rope binding his wrists.

In his haste, the rubble scraped heavily against his hand several times, ripping chunks of flesh and drawing blood and bits of skin.

Zhang Ming clenched his teeth against the pain, not daring to flinch in front of the monster. His pale face strained into a forced smile, putting on an act of filial piety, listening to his father's heartfelt confessions.

As the deranged chuckling gradually faded, the monster murmured, "I begged It for three wishes."

"The first wish... initially, I only wanted my illness to stop worsening. But when I finally stood before Its remains, my greed got the better of me."

"Xiao Ming, your father was already forty-one years old that year. Even without the threat of the tumor, how many good years did I really have left? Twenty? Thirty? Forty?"

"Since time means nothing to an eternal being like It, and a year is no different from a thousand... why couldn't I ask for just a little more?"

"Isn't It supposed to grant wishes and reward Its faithful? And I went further than all those who came to the mountain to make their wishes. I suffered through hell to reach Its remains, abandoning everything I had in the mortal world to worship It—my job, my family, my possessions..."

It muttered like a madman, as if trying to convince someone else—or perhaps desperately deceiving itself: "I gave up so much, so much, until I stood alone at Its feet. Didn't I deserve more?"

"What I asked for was merely a trivial boon in Its eyes—just a little more than the ordinary, mediocre people at the foot of the mountain..."

By now, Zhang Ming could guess his father's first wish: immortality or eternal life.

Human expectations and desires escalate layer by layer. The moment Zhang's father encountered the unfathomable power of the mysterious, simply recovering from his illness was no longer enough to satisfy him.

"A little more"—but how much was that, exactly? Did this vague notion even have boundaries?

Zhang Ming suddenly found it morbidly funny. Though he and his father were virtual strangers, perhaps due to the ties of blood, he now saw his own reflection in his father.

Back when he gambled recklessly, burning through his life savings in one night, he had thought the same way—just one more chance, and he could win it all back. Just one more...

But in the end, he was left with an insurmountable debt, forcing him into a corner until he had no choice but to set his sights on that life insurance payout...

Of course, Zhang Ming couldn't expose his father's self-deception. Biting back curses, he focused on sawing at the ropes binding him, his face flushed with effort, his wrists numb from strain. Yet all he managed was a frayed spot on the rope.

He needed to stall for time!

So, Zhang Ming put on a perfectly sincere face, as if he truly cared about this long-lost father, and followed up with feigned curiosity:

"Y-yes, of course! We all know it wasn't your fault. You just wanted to overcome your illness and spend more time with us..."

"What were the other two wishes?"

The monster turned its head. Though it had no eyes on its smooth, blank, eyeless face, Zhang Ming suddenly felt the primordial fear of being hunted.

For a moment, Zhang Ming froze, not daring to move a muscle as sweat dripped down his face.

He was certain the monster would attack him in the next instant. But just then, he faintly heard the sound of something hard rolling again.

As someone who had spent time in backroom poker games, Zhang Ming found the sound unnervingly recognizable. A flash of realization struck him—

It was the sound of dice rolling!

Unconsciously, Zhang Ming held his breath, like a lamb crouching beneath the butcher's cleaver, silently awaiting fate's judgment.

The cave fell into silence, save for the crackling of the fire.

The monster studied Zhang Ming for a moment. For some reason, the killing urge surging inside it dissipated once more, causing its tentacles to spasm before finally relaxing.

Recalling the past at such a critical moment wasn't its usual style. If it really wanted to confide, it could have waited until after escaping the mountain's grasp.

But... why did it feel no urge to act?

Did it still harbor some lingering affection for its son?

Ignoring the dissonance in its heart, the monster calmly sat back down, displaying a sudden urge to talk:

"The second wish... I prayed for someone to see my distress signal and come rescue me."

"Anyone would do. As long as they could free me, I was willing to give them everything I owned," the monster's voice grew colder. "But It didn't grant my wish."

"Because watching me suffer and struggle was exactly what It wanted. It took malicious pleasure in toying with my life."

Zhang Ming remained silent, shame burning in his gut.

Before his eyes, the image of that weather-beaten journal surfaced—along with the words that had inexplicably appeared on its pages...

Technically speaking, this wish might have already been fulfilled. Zhang Ming *had* seen his father's distress signal, and he *had* come to the mountain. The only difference was that he had only set out after being backed into a financial corner by insurmountable debt.

Zhang Ming clenched and unclenched his hands uneasily. It wasn't his fault, was it?

Hadn't his father been the one to abandon his family all those years ago?

Years ago, a young Zhang Ming had wept as he chased after his father's retreating figure, never managing to catch even the hem of his coat.

Years later, Zhang Ming naturally wouldn't mobilize a search party for his father based on cryptic, broken cries for help in a notebook...

The roots of this tragedy had been sown long ago, destined to unfold as they had.

The monster paid no heed to Zhang Ming's silence and continued:

"All these years wandering the mountain, I never stopped thinking about how to escape."

"Gradually, I realized that countless versions of 'me' roamed the slopes—each one representing a single minute of my life."

"So I wondered... could it be that I can't leave because I'm incomplete? Like a fish trapped in an infinity symbol, the only way to break free is to leap out of this minute and reclaim my full span of time and fate."

Under Zhang Ming's horrified gaze, the monster voiced unspeakable thoughts with chilling composure:

"So, what if I destroyed and devoured all the other 'me's? If I merged their lives with mine, brought them back into my body..."

"Wouldn't that make me whole again?"

Zhang Ming recalled the human head boiling in the furnace, and a chill ran through his limbs.

He thought he now understood how his father had carried out his methods.

The scales on the monster's face parted, revealing a mouth-like fissure, its ends twisting upward into a horrifying smile.

It smiled and said, "To defeat the other 'me's, I chose to transform myself into a form more suited for hunting—one closer to him."

"This was my third wish... That's why I became what I am now."

......

The players pushed through the blizzard.

The increasingly frequent compulsory rolls left them mentally exhausted, and the endless expanse of white stretching as far as the eye could see gave them the illusion that they might be lost forever.

Suddenly, the Scholar stopped in his tracks. "Something's wrong. Our route is off."

The other players turned to him, urging him to continue.

The Scholar said gravely, "We've walked this same stretch three times now."

Eurus chimed in, "Like ghost walls in horror stories?"

"Worse than that," the Scholar adjusted his snow goggles and explained. "When we were ascending earlier, I roughly memorized the path. Logically, we shouldn’t even be on this route. Doesn’t this place look familiar? This is the windbreak where we rested before—it should lead downhill."

"—Congratulations, player, for discovering a new game mechanic."

A round of applause echoed in their minds. Eurus's mouth twitched, thinking Yi Fengchu’s tone sounded like a kindergarten teacher encouraging a child, but she didn’t dare say it aloud, biting back the remark instead.

Yi Fengchu announced, "Due to interference from an unknown force, your advance is becoming harder."

"From now on, players will take turns making dice rolls. The result will determine whether you advance smoothly—rolling above 3 means you move forward one kilometer; rolling exactly 3 means you walk in circles for one minute; rolling below 3 means you move back one kilometer."

"Good luck."

Yi Fengchu offered his sincere blessings.

This new mechanic wasn’t his doing—it was an inherent part of the dungeon.

His principle was to go lenient on them, but not *too* easy. Otherwise, the players would feel like they had no skin in the game. No casualties, no obstacles—what kind of dungeon would that be?

Yi Fengchu nodded to himself. The right amount of challenge should fully unleash the players' potential.

Among the group, Eurus reacted the most strongly. She scratched her head irritably. "At this rate, how long will it take to find Zhang Ming? If luck’s not on our side, by the time we find him, he might already be a stiff corpse..."

The Scholar stared at her quietly before suddenly asking, "You seem awfully concerned about whether he lives or dies?"

"What kind of question—"

Eurus was about to retort when she realized something—a crucial issue.

The normal mission only required players to uncover the truth. At this stage, Zhang Ming’s personal safety was no longer relevant; all clues could be found from his father and the fourth peak.

Only *her* hidden mission was to help Zhang Ming get the insurance payout. She didn’t dare gamble on whether the quest could still be completed if Zhang Ming died...

So her particular concern for his life might have exposed that her mission differed from the others’!

Had the Scholar noticed her anomaly?

How much could he guess?

Eurus paused for a moment, refusing to be led by his logic. Without hesitation, she flipped the script, teasing with a smile, "I didn’t expect *you* to be the type of player who uses up NPCs and then discards them?"

"How cold," she sighed. "Maybe it’s just different gaming styles. Compared to true endings, I prefer pursuing happy endings where everyone wins."

"NPCs are people too. If we can save them in passing, there’s no reason they *have* to die, right?"

The Scholar neither agreed nor disagreed, but Lena, nearby, eyed her suspiciously. "Since when have you been such a kind and righteous person?"

Faced with the blunt skepticism, Eurus calmly tucked her hair. "It might not be obvious on the surface, but I’m actually a very rules-following player. What’s wrong with that?"

Lena sneered. "Hypocrite."

The players moved forward.

As they passed the boulder that had once shielded them from the snowstorm, the Scholar, relying on his excellent memory, deduced that a time overlap was likely to occur here—where "now" would intersect with "the past."

The Scholar clenched his fist silently. This might be his chance to alter the past. If he could change the moment Zhang Ming disappeared and catch the unknown entity that took him, their mission would undoubtedly become much easier.

Sure enough, after a few steps, shadowy outlines of familiar figures emerged in the snowstorm—several people dressed in identical mountaineering gear, unmistakably their past selves from earlier in the ascent.

The Scholar looked at his past self. Suspicious of Eurus, he didn’t speak aloud, merely mouthing silently:

"Be careful... Zhang Ming will disappear at night..."

He wanted to relay more information, but Yi Fengchu interrupted with a reminder:

"The churning snowstorm obscures vision, and it may also block sound. How much of your message can they receive? That’s the question."

"Player, please roll the dice."

"..."

The Scholar sighed, rolling the dice without much hope—and unsurprisingly, it landed on a "2."

Yi Fengchu lamented, "Unfortunately, the howling wind drowns out your words. They can only catch broken fragments."

The Scholar understood now.

So that's why he'd only heard "Be careful... Zhang..." before. It had made him suspect Zhang Ming was dangerous all along.

Now he realized—it was just terrible luck.