(Who am I?)
(I am YinKong… is it?)
YinKong jolted out from her dream. Her hand immediately reached for the side, where an invisible two-handed sword lay. As her hand clenched on the sword, peace finally returned to her heart, except for one tickled string inside that couldn’t come to still.
She felt she sensed it since waking up in The Mummy’s world, a feeling unable to be described in words. It was like a dream, yet further away than dreams were and at the same time more real than any dream could be. This hazy feeling confused her, like she was one step away from the truth but had no idea what the truth was.
The blanket slid off as she sat up on the bed. Then she glanced over the room. It was still unusually spacious with the bare minimum of furniture and decorations. Only the basement was filled with various instruments used for training. She had the simplest life among the team, simpler than even Xuan. She wouldn’t spend her time to research strange things after all. So, her room was spacious… and lonely.
YinKong was raised and trained as a typical assassin. Leaving the question of authenticity of her memories aside, what she remembered were the trainings, the techniques and the laughters of her former comrades. These memories of her comrades were her most valuable treasures. Yet, they made her feel lost.
A strange piece of memory appeared in her mind when she was in her sleep. It was like a dream. When she woke up, this piece of memory was gone. She could only faintly recall another YinKong in this memory… or perhaps, that was the real YinKong. She was merely an illusion fabricated by that YinKong.
How could she accept this being an illusion? She couldn’t, even though she was usually aloof. This possibility denied her existence. It would render all those treasured memories in her heart illusions along with her own existence.
YinKong sighed then put on her clothes. She pushed opened the door and walked onto the platform. Her goal was the quality sleeping pills from the exchange system. She began to subconsciously escape from the feelings of fear and lost. A sleep without any dreams was the best escape.
As she stepped onto the platform, she happened to see Xuan flung the door open and rushed out at the same time. The man’s body was covered in burn marks. There was a hint of smoke rising from his body, like he had been roasted. His actions seemed strange. The second he came through the door, he slammed it back shut. His held the door handle for a few seconds then pulled the door open again. YinKong was baffled at what the man was doing.
She didn’t have a strong sense of curiosity so after a few extra looks at Xuan, she walked toward the giant light sphere. Never did she expect to hear Xuan’s voice after a couple of steps. “Do you want to have a talk with me? About the other you.”
She turned her head around abruptly. Her eyes fixed on Xuan with the sharpness of a blade. She was normally quiet and aloof but she had never looked at the team with such piercing eyes. There was killing intent in her eyes.
Unfortunately, the man in front of her was Xuan, a man who wouldn’t care about her expression. He turned around and walked into his room. YinKong hesitated instead. Ten seconds after Xuan went inside, she paused to take a deep breath then followed.
“… That’s the basic situation. I indeed know of what happened with your memory, what happened in your past, and whether or not you are another person’s illusion. The glasses I gave Zheng contain a recording function. I need to have a hundred percent grasp on factors that may influence any plans. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you despite knowing them.”
The two people were inside the basement of Xuan’s room, a laboratory where he conducted experimentations. This place was of course… dangerous. In a certain sense, it was as dangerous as the movie worlds and bonus missions. One had to be prepared to risk their lives when they decided to observe his experimentations.
YinKong watched as Xuan brought out a little bronze bell. Several energy beams hit the bell and slowly lifted it up to the air. The beams’ brightness grew increasingly intense with each second. At the same time, data flowed down on a huge light screen. When the beams turned into blinding white, the brightness forced YinKong to move her eyes away. The screen was flooded with data for a few seconds but that was the end of it. Ding-dong. The sound suddenly echoed through the whole room and the blinding beams stopped. The lights in the room turned from bright white to a dark red.
“Run! The reactor overloaded! It’s going to explode!”
And so, Xuan repeated what he had done a while ago.
“You… have repeated this dozens of times already? If the reactor is overloading, why don’t you build a few more to offload the energy?” YinKong rubbed her slightly roasted clothes and asked.
Xuan looked to the bell with a frown. He shook his head. “The characteristics of the bell are alterations of energy, space, and time. Judging from what is known, it has the characteristic of causality weapons first of all. I mentioned the causality perspective under quantum theory before. The present determines the future and similarly, the present determines the past, which means cause and effect are reversed. The outcome determines the cause.
“I have been adjusting the energy output of the beams in these experiments. In the beginning, there were two reactors at thirty percent output each. Then adjusted to eighty percent, then five reactors, then ten. And the other way around with one reactor at ten percent just before. However, the outcomes remain constant. The moment the thought ‘energy capacity has reached maximum’ surfaced in my mind, the Bell of the East Emperor reached its limit and energy started to reverse. The overload has nothing to do with increasing or decreasing the amount of energy. The bell knew I was going to stop so it triggered the outcome of being overloaded… Is it because of the bell’s ability to alter energy, space, and time that allows it to trigger the causality effect?”
Xuan was growing increasingly excited as he went on. His fingers danced on the light screen. It seemed as though he had forgotten about YinKong. An image of the bell was zoomed in on the screen and data displayed next to each of its parts. At the same time, images of mechanical parts appeared and began assembling.
“Hey.” YinKong couldn’t hold it any longer. Not that she understood what Xuan had said. She was not here to talk about the Bell of the East Emperor with Xuan after all. She wanted to know the problem that occurred to her memory.
“I told you I can’t tell you. Her strength is important to the plan for the final battle and she is one of the most unstable factor in the team. I don’t want to engage in any conflict with her if possible. She will decide whether you can know the answers.”
“She? Who is she?” YinKong immediately asked. Her face blushed from the rush, tilting her neutral look to the feminine side.
Xuan didn’t answer. He turned around to her with a bag in hand. This was a spatial bag where he stored various items. He pulled a pair of glasses from the bag and handed them to YinKong.
“Just like Zheng said. You’re like Doraemon.”
“…”
Xuan gave her a poker face. Only because the opinion was not bad, otherwise she would see the face of a corpse. There was no other people here so he didn’t have to control his facial muscles. After he handed the glasses away, he turned back to his experiment.
“You have three hours. I won’t experiment with the items’ energy reactions during this time. YinKong, you are thinking and moving. Even if you are created by someone else, you are still you. What if I tell you we and everyone in our world are merely simulations inside a game created by beings from a higher dimension?”
YinKong stared at him, didn’t know what to think. All she could see what the figure of Xuan’s back, seemingly thin and weak. She paused in place for quite some time before she finally made the decision with determination and put the glasses on. She collapsed unconscious instantly.