Everyone turned their gaze toward the Empress, unresolved questions smoldering in their minds as well.
In fact, as early as when 'Gospel Yaxiu' went on his rampage and invalidated most of the subsequent boards, they had faintly anticipated the possibility of 'Yayin.'
Even though they were mentally prepared, accepting the result was not the same as understanding it.
No matter how they looked at it, 'Yayin's emergence' broke far too many rules of the Weaving Ceremony. Moreover, the woven future this time was truly a tangled mess—inconsistent and contradictory. Mercury had been polite just by using the word 'fooling'; in their hearts, they all felt Gospel was making a complete mess of things.
"Are you unable to wait for the new sovereign to give you answers in person?"
The Empress sat back upon her throne and said calmly, "However, now that the weaving is complete, Ruiyin can answer for you as well."
"First of all, Yayin completely satisfies the criteria for the ranking," she said. "In truth, the Gospel Board does not impose a gender restriction. It is merely that maiden candidates have historically predominated, which gave you the wrong impression. There have been male First Gospels in the past; Yayin is not an isolated case."
Then what about prefixes like 'most pure, most innocent, kindest, and most wonderful'?! Look at the harem Gospel had reserved for him in advance, look at his conduct—had he redefined the meaning of those adjectives?!
If nothing else, he certainly wasn't pure, right? Could he possibly still be a virgin?!
Yet such subjective personal traits clearly did not make for solid points of attack, so people raised the more perplexing questions instead: "However, Yaxiu is not only outside the royal family, but he is also a person from an outside domain who arrived in Gospel mere dozens of days ago. Every previous First Gospel was a Princess of Yisu—why has this change occurred now?"
"Because the Princess of Yisu lost her qualifications," the Empress stated candidly. "Thus, Gospel had no choice but to select a new First Gospel."
"Why was Yaxiu chosen? Is there something special about him?" someone asked, feigning blunt curiosity. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the Empress to reveal some secret of Gospel.
"Naturally, it is because he meets the requirements of the Gospel Board: pure, innocent, kind, and wonderful," the Empress replied without leaving a single gap. "Furthermore, Gospel did not select Yayin directly; he was merely an alternate candidate."
At this point, Qinna raised her hand. "If Yaxiu is the First Gospel, wouldn't that make the preceding nine boards full of contradictions? Why did the first three boards imply that the future apocalyptic catastrophe was related to Yaxiu? Why were the rankings on the latter six boards invalidated by Yaxiu?"
"Because Yaxiu underwent changes significant enough to affect Gospel's judgment," the Empress explained. "Gospel can only achieve 'limited omniscience.' As someone from an outside domain, Yayin's future cannot be completely foreseen by Gospel.
"On the Art Board, Yayin was indeed regarded by Gospel as the origin of the apocalyptic catastrophe, which is why Nabistin issued a wanted bulletin for him. But in the interval between the Art Board and the Family Board, Yayin encountered a turning point."
"What turning point?" Evalin asked.
The Empress did not answer directly. "If Yayin was merely an alternate before, then from the Family Board onward, he became the sole candidate for the First Gospel. It could only be him; it had to be him."
Everyone could not help looking toward the Sennheisers. In the interval between the Art Board and the Family Board, Yaxiu had been staying with the Sennheisers. Therefore, he must have encountered that momentous turning point there, which made him Gospel's designated candidate for the First Gospel.
What treasure did you Sennheisers hide? And how did such fertile water flow into someone else's field? No, wait—thinking carefully, Yaxiu basically counted as their field already...
Nona looked at Qinna, who frowned slightly.
She remembered that Yaxiu had spent those few days playing video games the entire time, without encountering any abnormal events in reality. Where on earth could he have met that turning point?
"'The Family Board' and 'The Scheme Board' were actually the consequences brought about by Yayin's attempts to save Gospel," the Empress said. "Facing natural disaster, the living were no longer enough to resist, so everyone had to be transformed into undead. Facing man-made disaster, Yayin fell prematurely, which gave rise to the Rust Crow's journey of resurrection.
"By the time of the Happiness Board, another turning point appeared. But this turning point was unrelated to Yayin; it originated from the intervention of the Omniscient Weaver."
The Omniscient Weaver?!
Hearing news of that supreme being, everyone froze in place. They had never imagined that a mere once-every-fifty-years Weaving Ceremony could attract the gaze of a god—now, even the Mercury patriarch was thoroughly subdued.
Even if Yaxiu was a person from an outside domain, what of it? He had passed the gaze of the Omniscient Weaver. There was no endorsement more dependable than that.
"The reason for the intervention remains unknown, but the result is just as everyone sees," the Empress said. "The subsequent boards starting from the Family Board were actually the 'Brand-New Future' in which Yayin protected Gospel, having nothing to do with the 'Tragic Future' on the Art Board. But the intervention of a god was itself the greatest variable. With the gaze of the Omniscient Weaver, Gospel finally succeeded in weaving a 'Perfect Future' superior to the 'Brand-New Future.'
"In the 'Perfect Future,' the latter six boards, including the Happiness Board, can never come to pass, so they could only be discarded. In truth, the first three boards should have been discarded as well, but because they had already been promulgated, they were not retracted."
Anfiel murmured, "A 'Perfect Future' superior to the 'Brand-New Future'? What is the difference between the two?"
"The preceding nine boards were all founded on the premise that the apocalyptic catastrophe was unavoidable, even in the 'Brand-New Future,'" the Empress said. "Yet in the 'Perfect Future' under the gaze of the Omniscient Weaver, we shall nip the disaster in the bud and brush past the apocalypse.
"The apocalyptic disaster, the undead families, the Rust Crow's schemes, and everything that has already been invalidated by Yayin... none of it will happen.
"Gospel wove for us the most benevolent and virtuous Yayin, and the Omniscient Weaver pointed out for us the Noise that brings chaos to all living beings."
Right at this moment, the Book of Gospel, which should have fallen silent, popped up on its own once more.
The bright purple bookmark was completely different from the update notifications of the Weaving Ceremony, prompting an odd thought in everyone's minds: was this a bonus chapter personally added by the Omniscient Weaver?
"It is time." The Empress turned to the bookmarked page and gave an order to an unseen recipient: "Welcome Yayin back; eliminate the Noise."
...
"Ngh!"
Yaxiu suddenly lunged forward and slammed directly into the full-length mirror. The mirror crashed to the floor with a loud snap, shattering into countless pieces.
"Daddy?!"
Lisi rushed over to support Yaxiu, who was kneeling on the glass shards holding his head. "Daddy, what's wrong? Don't scare Lisi, Daddy!"
Yaxiu couldn't hear Lisi's words at all. His fingers dug deeply into his scalp like iron skewers, attempting to use pain to battle the inexplicable, chaotic memories flooding his mind! He wanted to shout, but all sound was lodged in his throat; he wanted an outlet, but his body refused to obey him!
In his vision, the shattered shards of mirror were playing memory fragments he had no impression of: he bewitched a young sorcerer, making him walk out onto a footbridge and leap off; he drained a siren of moisture and threw it into a plaza fountain; he walked up outside the washroom door, staring at Banjie washing his hands inside...
These memories were so crystal-clear, and the emotions within them so blazing, yet they were as distinct from his original memories as oil and water. Far from being able to digest these memories, Yaxiu felt as though his soul was being dragged into them!
"Daddy, Daddy!" Watching Yaxiu in such agonizing madness, Lisi panicked completely. Sobbing, she glanced down into her compact mirror, and her expression swiftly turned calm. Wiping the tears and snot from her face with her sleeve, strands of black and red somehow appeared within her soft white hair.
She cleared away all the mirror fragments around Yaxiu, merely flinching without crying out when a shard cut her hand. Then she guided Yaxiu onto his side on her lap, cradling his head and whispering into his ear: "Xiao Xiu, in the future we'll live somewhere with a garden, where you can see the sea as soon as you step outside, and keep a dog, and a cat..."
"Xiu, in the future we have to go to Happy World again, just the two of us..."
"Ah Xiu, pull yourself together."
"Daddy, I'll introduce four pretty older sisters to you, so wake up quickly, okay?"
"Yaxiu." 'Lisi's' tears streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks. "Don't leave me behind."
Yaxiu, whose entire body had been tensed and convulsing, abruptly went slack, collapsing into a heap on the floor like mud. 'Lisi' strained to prop up his back and help him sit up, asking nervously, "Hey, can you hear me? Are you feeling any better?"
"A little better, but not fully..." Yaxiu gritted his teeth and pushed himself up by the nearby bedpost. "The other me is way too good of a fighter..."
In Yaxiu's perception, two versions of himself had manifested in his mindscape: one was his true self, condensed from his past memories, while the other was 'Gospel Yaxiu,' coalesced from those foreign memories.
'Gospel Yaxiu' was brutally fierce, knocking the original flat on his back and calling for an ambulance with a single flurry of combos. If 'Gospel Yaxiu' won, he would claim the entire soul, and at that point, the world would only have 'Gospel Yaxiu' left, with no more original-flavor Yaxiu.
Yet just when Yaxiu thought he was going to literally 'start a new life,' his mental self suddenly shimmered with purple light, stood back up, and resumed duking it out with 'Gospel Yaxiu,' fighting almost evenly. That was how Yaxiu barely managed to reclaim control over his body.
Yaxiu naturally knew where that purple light came from—the 'Secret-Keeping Authority' of the Secret Incarnation.
Though the Secret Incarnation was usually not of much use, it proved irreplaceable in times of need. The 'Mysterious Authority' allowed him to blend naturally into any environment and assume any identity, while the 'Secret-Keeping Authority' boosted his mental resistance and divine adaptability.
If not for the Secret Incarnation, he probably would have been a goner just now.
Looking at the worried 'Lisi,' Yaxiu casually threw out a Joy Sword to heal the cuts on her hand, leaning against the wall as he muttered, "Let me sort out the current situation... First place on the Gospel Board is me, so that means I'm the First Gospel... Why me? How could it be me? It can't be me! I'll never accept this!"
The shock in Yaxiu's heart was not a fraction less than anyone else's—he remembered that the requirement for the First Gospel was 'the purest, most innocent, kindest, most wonderful maiden.' Leaving aside the wrong gender, could a corporate drone who had worked for several years really have anything to do with those prefixes?
If you praised me with those words, I'd even suspect you were being sarcastic!
Yaxiu was utterly certain that the Gospel Board had definitely not admitted him through standard channels; he just didn't know why it had opened a back door for him.
The Four Pillar Gods? The Blood Moon? He didn't have anything on him that was worth Gospel thinking so highly of him!
Just as Yaxiu opened his Book of Gospel to check his ranking status once more, a purple note suddenly popped up from the book.
It was a message from Annan.
"There is a god in the basement, and the god looks identical to you."
Those bizarre, alien memories in his head; the divine-looking version of himself within those alien memories...
A god. Governing a god with a mortal body...
The Secret Incarnation, the Secret-Keeping Authority...
"Are you all right?" 'Lisi' tugged at the corner of his clothes.
Yaxiu looked blankly at 'Lisi,' flashing a smile uglier than crying.
Chapter 496