Chapter 132: Shocking News

Morry pressed his solid, strong fingers onto the rotary dial—2…0…
One digit after another slid into place.
After verifying everything, the moment he pressed the pound button, a sobbing, howling sound came from the receiver, as if a raging flood was surging everywhere.
A dizzying sense of unease quickly swirled around his heart. Morry felt his thoughts involuntarily drift toward an unknown place, as if swept into the currents of time, or rather, toward a void where there was no time at all.
My timeline’s cancellation failed, and Ms. Maiya paid 3000 N for me.
{The future codes are synced in frequency.}
{Beep-beep-beep, I’m simulating a busy signal, hoping that a familiar sound will ease your waiting.}
With a soft click, all the strange sensations vanished, the only difference being that a faint breathing sounded in the earpiece, as if someone had already answered the call on the other side of the void.
{Countdown starts.}
“Hallo…”
{Hello, Past Me.}
“You…uh, I’m fine?”
His mind a bit fogged, Morris, unsure whether to say “Hello” to the other party or “I’m fine” based on that reply, cleared his thoughts and said, “Hi, Future me, did you find Julia?”
{She might be on Earth. She might be safe.}
Hearing this, Morris leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief.
So she never came to this world after all.
Good, good, the constant worry in his heart was finally laid to rest. But the longing and pain of losing his beloved surged anew the next second—at least this time, only he was the one suffering.
As long as she hasn’t entered this damned world, then everything is fine.
“That’s good. Future me, how are we doing now? Has Yang Zicang gotten stronger, and me, have I improved even a bit?”
Having his greatest wish answered, Morris had no other pressing questions. To avoid wasting time, he casually picked a topic, thinking it would be nice to get a glimpse of the future anyway.
{YangZicang has been missing for a long time, and I’ve become expendable to the new team. Our captain now isn’t him, but…}
“Huh?” Mori was taken aback, then said wistfully, “Yeah, he must have saved up ten thousand years of temporal sequence and went there, right.”
So that meant he himself must have followed his earlier plan and stayed in Hub Town all along. That’s why the team he met later treated him poorly?
It was probably because the future new team didn’t need a fighter like YangZicang—just small, petty temporal investments—so they didn’t care about his abilities.
But why didn’t he leave? Because he hadn’t found a more suitable team yet? Mori couldn’t help but feel a bit down as many thoughts raced through his mind.
However, the voice on the other end of the receiver said:
{No, past Mori. I’ve been waiting a long time for this call. Time is short, so please listen carefully to what I’m about to say.}
“What?”
Mori suddenly heard many voices speaking in English on the other line.
His mind raced, as if he had figured out why his future self had been using Chinese during their conversation up to this point.
Over the receiver, Mori said urgently:
{There’s an organization in the Depths of Lost Frequency called the Shifters. Their core was once a corpse—the very first Shifter. There’s a surgeon with a special ability, codenamed Bandages, who dismembered the original dead Shifter and grafted its organs and body parts onto himself and many others, allowing them to gain the power to extract others’ models!}
He spoke very fast, as if he had repeated this sentence many, many times, striving to get it out clearly and quickly in this moment.
“That ability is called 【Temporal Transfer】. It can fully transfer the user’s temporal model to the grafted organs for storage and trading.”
“What do you mean?”
Hearing the other party suddenly and urgently relay these unexpected matters, Morry sensed a loss of control.
His future instantly felt like a slippery fish, wriggling beyond his grasp as it began to break free.
“Unless they replace the ‘Temporal Transfer Model,’ the additional abilities they acquire can only be retained within their bodies for seven days at most. Apart from a seven-day trial, the Time-Shifters can also completely replace the model, but doing so will cause them to lose the Temporal Transfer ability.”
Morry froze. Being able to replace models was nothing short of a divine skill.
“Based on our current intelligence, during your era, the Time-Shifter team should still consist of about six to seven members. The one who ultimately obtains Yang Zicang’s power is named Chu Jun, also known as the Divine Wind Demon Chu Jun in the future now—he is too strong.”
“Wait! Did you say someone ultimately obtains Yang Zicang’s power?”
Someone obtains Yang Zicang’s ability?!
It felt as if Morry had been struck without warning.
The news left him somewhat dazed, both unsettled for Yang Zicang’s fate and confused about his own choices.
That person is named Chu Jun?
“There’s no time left,” Wheat Aphid said.
The fast-paced voice from the receiver left Morry no room to wander in his thoughts.
“The thief might not be this person, since we haven’t seen him use more model abilities than Yang Zicang yet. Anyway, watch out for a guy named Li Shangxiang—that image is the original look of ‘Shiqian.’ His likeness appears everywhere in the Frequency-Lost Lands. They all call themselves Li Shangxiang, and only by swapping models can they change their appearance.”
Mori listened to this news with mixed emotions.
“Shiqian gained Yang Zicang’s trust and then stole all of Yang Zicang’s temporal abilities.
Remember, any ability obtained through models is part of the temporal system—so the train, his White Shadow Thought-Dragon, and even the still-usable post emblem all belong to someone else now.
I haven’t seen Master Zicang for ages. Neither his convoy members nor the quadrilateral Luo Bin have managed to find him. Yang might be long dead.”
Sitting on the chair, Mori felt a chill run through him.
He had originally planned to ask if he had purchased a shop in Hub Town, only to hear such terrifying news.
This meant that in the future, Yang Zicang might become an ordinary person trapped in the Frequency-Lost Lands—and such people could barely survive.
“Thirteen seconds left,” the lady reminded him considerately.
“As for the time, if my memory serves me right, it would be soon after you finish this call—about half a month later—that I lost contact with him.”
“After this call ends, the future will be anchored, won’t it?”
Half a month? Mori spoke with a mix of regret and anxiety. Was this call reaching the future, or choosing one future among countless possibilities?!
He instantly regretted making this call.
{“The future will be anchored, and an anchored future is destiny—but that’s only for us! Morri, help Yang Zicang survive that crisis. The future me has already prepared to sacrifice myself. I don’t like this future; what I want is a future with Julia!”}
“She didn’t come over…”
{“She left with someone else, she doesn’t love me anymore! I want to change it; the man she chose isn’t worth entrusting herself to…”}
“What!”
Morri’s heart suddenly tightened.
“What are you talking nonsense about! Where the hell is she?!”
{“Anyway, if you succeed… about six months from now, you should be able to guess why… This is all I can reveal about Yang Zicang’s future. There’s still a chance to change it. I… cough… cough… I… Good, you must have made it… I’m free…”}
Clunk.
The call seemed to have ended. Morri felt a dizziness, as if his soul had been cut open.
That version of him must be dead.
No, not just dead—completely gone…
And he said he felt freed…
What was that new team like…? That future me actually wished for death?
Morri was dazed and disoriented.
Recalling the words, “She left with someone else,” Morri empathized deeply with the pain and heartbreak his future self had felt.
“What’s wrong with the future?”
He closed his eyes painfully and lowered his head.
“It seems I have another disappointed customer. Hmm, the call lasted exactly right—two seconds remaining.”
The woman glanced indifferently at the telephone.
The person on the other end had heard bad news, but she had seen many like him—most people weren’t very fond of their own futures.
With two seconds left, the line had cut off, meaning the future listener no longer existed.
This meant the person before her no longer had a future.
This gentleman who knew the future had likely chosen to change it, but doing so meant he would die inexplicably amid the interference in spacetime—that was the price of altering an anchored future.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Ms. Maiya smiled, her lips painted a vivid red.
Although this was the attack method of her own parasitic nightmare, it was not something she could control.
She hadn’t intended to attack anyone; they were attacking themselves.
Suddenly, the phone receiver, which she hadn’t yet set down, emitted a new sound.
{Hello, Mr. Mori.}
The woman across the table was taken aback.
In her perception, this call had truly ended, but the time that had just stopped began its countdown again.
“Two more seconds.”
Regardless, the service continued. The red model on the woman’s chest floated as a reminder. Although by the time she finished saying this, only one second remained.
“Hello, you…”
{My name is Hong Haocheng. I’m calling you from ten thousand years in the future. Tell Yang Zicang not to go for the kill against the new me.}
Ms. Maiya’s expression turned solemn as she stared at the receiver.
{From now on, we’ll be brothers in life and death. And you, my partner, let’s go together to that final possibility—bring Boppoli along too.}
Mori was stunned.
The woman across from him was equally stunned. The duration of the Nightmare Call’s communication with the future had increased—no, not increased, but after this one second was expended, it reappeared, as if this second were constantly resurrecting and repeating.
The voice was sped up, finishing a long string of words in almost a second, yet it made every single syllable clearly audible.
“We must design the ending from the very beginning… Hello, I might be speaking to you from over ten thousand three hundred years in the future… Tell Yang Zicang, the Great Transfer Plan is suspended… In ten thousand one hundred… the Lead Tower Plan also failed… Our…”
Before Mori could finish processing the first sentence, the second, third, and even fourth sentences overlapped as they transmitted.
“Hello, Mr. Mori from the distant past. It’s really hard to talk to you. Listen, the future that might be viable is… DNA.”
A cacophony of countless overlapping voices transmitted.
“Hello, Mr. Mori…”
Whoosh! A complex, three-tiered circular magic array suddenly materialized before Mori’s eyes.
[My spirit is vibrating.]
[I saw things I shouldn’t have. I can’t close my eyes; I am staring directly…]
[I smelled its odor,]
[I heard its sound,]
[I saw its form.]
Snap!
In less than a microsecond, the phone suddenly groaned, and the connection severed instantly.