Chapter 302 - 66: Diary

He glanced around the church, but there was no sign of his brother.

BOOM!!!

BOOM!!!

BOOM!!!

A massive explosion suddenly erupted.

Fang Yang understood in an instant. There was a bomb hidden here!

Raging fire and rubble buried him... He couldn’t feel his limbs, couldn’t even feel the pain. His mouth was filled with the metallic stench of blood.

"Brother."

Suddenly, a cheerful, yet unfamiliar voice called out. Fang Yang’s eyes shot open.

The boy before him smiled.

"Brother, it’s been a while."

"You..."

Fang Yang was stunned.

"You’re not Ah Ze! My brother... what have you done to..."

Fang Ze pressed the muzzle of a pistol against Fang Yang’s head—

BANG!

Blood and brain matter sprayed from the back of his skull.

The world fell silent.

Fang Ze wiped the pistol with his sleeve and tossed it onto the ground.

"Before the Narrow Gate is chaos; beyond the Narrow Gate is eternity."

He lifted his head, gazing at the burning, shattered stained-glass window depicting the crucifixion of Jesus, and smiled faintly.

"But this narrow gate... only a few can ever find it."

The young man spread his arms wide and walked toward a mural of Maria weeping as she held the Holy Infant.

"[And that Narrow Gate... is my stairway to divinity!]"

...

Russia, Volgograd, Red Square.

"What in the world? Why did you bring me here? I’m freezing to death."

The beautiful, blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman pulled her coat tighter, glancing resentfully at the tall, powerful Chukchi man beside her.

"Dragging me out here all secretively... I thought you were going to propose! I even wore my prettiest dress for this!"

She looked around, completely baffled as to what was so special about this ordinary-looking square.

"Decades ago, this city wasn’t called Volgograd."

The tall man’s gaze was sharp as he looked up at the red flag.

"It was once called Stalingrad. The cruelest, largest battle in history was fought here. It was the turning point of the Second World War."

"Not a single man who died here was a coward. They were all heroes of the Soviet Union."

The woman’s breath plumed in the cold air.

"You’re going on about this again, but the Soviet Union collapsed ages ago!"

"Correct."

The man’s gaze never wavered.

"[If the great Soviet Union had survived to this day, the world wouldn’t be like this.]"

The woman huddled and shuffled behind the man for cover.

"Then what’s the use of talking about it now? Unless you have a Time Machine and can go back to before 1991 to fix the problems from the inside so the Soviet Union never collapses... But there’s no such thing as a Time Machine in this world!"

The man stood in the biting wind, silent for a moment.

"If I can win this game, I can do anything."

The woman’s eyes widened.

"Have you been drinking too much vodka?! You’re insane for even thinking it! Revive the Soviet Union in this day and age?!"

"It can be done. Winning this game grants the power to change anything."

The tall man stood proudly, his head held high.

"And then, I will change history so the great motherland never collapsed."

He watched the fluttering red flag and tightened his grip on the gold coin in his palm.

"[The steel Soviet Union has fallen. But the steel of the Soviet Union... still burns!]"

...

Australia, Melbourne University.

Applause filled the lecture hall as the professor on stage waved his hand.

"That was an excellent question from the student earlier. And it’s true, there are vast differences in intelligence between people in this world."

"Gauss, the ’Math Prince,’ was strongly against his children pursuing mathematics."

"Because Gauss knew that with such a massive gap in talent... his son could study mathematics for his entire life and still not comprehend a problem Gauss himself had written down in his courtyard one afternoon at the age of twenty."

"It’s a cruel reality. The heights a genius can reach are despair-inducing for others, but geniuses themselves are also exceedingly rare—"

"[Generally speaking, you might find only one genius for every ten thousand people.]"

The professor looked out at the hall full of students and smiled.

"So, the only question that remains is..."

"[How do we make the other 9,999 people geniuses as well?]"

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Volume Two, "The Diary." To be continued.