Chapter 808: Destiny and Fate

I remained silent, quietly watching the old man. Saying too much now would only expose my weaknesses.

It took a long time for the old man to calm down. The shock on his face slowly faded, and as he looked at me, a hint of sympathy and despair actually surfaced in his eyes.

I stepped up to him and looked down at his wounds. "Tell me everything you know."

The old man offered a miserable smile. Exhausting every ounce of his strength to straighten his upper body, he pointed at me. "It seems you really don't remember anything. I've imagined our reunion countless times and devised thousands of ways to hunt you down. You're at your absolute weakest right now—a perfect opportunity—but sadly, it has already slipped through my fingers."

His smile held a complex mix of emotions; he seemed to be venting, yet also mocking himself.

The old man had already seen through everything. As a formidable existence second only to the First Anchor of the Live Show, no disguise could easily fool his eyes.

"You aren't quite what I pictured, either." I withdrew the Fate Ghost and sat down on the sofa next to him, as naturally as if I were in my own home. "Do you need me to help you with anything?"

The Live Show's optional tasks included an option to rescue other streamers. For the sake of earning points, I didn't mind lending him a hand.

"Help me? I was just preparing to kill you. To be precise, even if you save me, the second I recover a shred of strength, I'll attack you! Even so, you'd still help me?" The old man tilted his head to study me, his cloudy eyes hiding his true thoughts.

"I'm not helping you out of pity. Helping you simply aligns with my current interests." I leaned back against the sofa and admired the painted sea of rapeseed blossoms on the wall. The artwork was exquisitely detailed; no two flowers were exactly alike.

"Interests above all else. Even after vanishing for so long, your true nature hasn't changed at all." A sharp glint pierced through the old man's cloudy eyes. "Wouldn't you agree, First Anchor?"

The old man directly addressed me as the First Anchor. I had anticipated this answer, but hearing him say it out loud and confirm it still made my heart skip a heavy beat.

I stayed quiet as fragmented memories surfaced in my mind. They felt entirely alien, as though I were watching someone else's experiences unfold.

"You probably don't remember a thing." The old man's frail frame made the wounds across his chest and abdomen look especially gruesome, yet he paid them no mind, as if he had already accepted death. "A rumor circulates within the Live Show: save up ten thousand points, and you can break free from the Live Show and control your own fate. Everyone assumed your disappearance was because you hit that threshold, but I alone knew the truth. Even you couldn't have amassed that many points. It's an impossible task."

His gaze dimmed as his life force slowly ebbed away. "You must have used that item. You redeemed the complete Reincarnation Mirror, stepped into reincarnation, and returned to the starting point of fate."

"Why would you deduce that?" The old man's theory was remarkably similar to my own, though there was no evidence to prove it.

"Shortly before you vanished, the Reincarnation Mirror disappeared from the Live Show's redemption catalog. And right after you vanished, another item showed up on the shelves: a Reincarnation Mirror Fragment!" the old man said in a low voice. "A complete mirror turned into fragments; someone must have used it!"

He craned his neck, fixing his eyes squarely on me. "Reincarnation is not something to be entered lightly. You've forgotten everything, and judging by your current state, you must have failed."

I chewed over his words. He didn't seem to know about the Nine Dao Locks hidden within my body. This method of sealing my memories to evade reincarnation was likely my greatest secret.

Wrapping my fingers in willpower, I pressed down on the edges of the old man's wounds. The nematode-like things inside his body immediately snapped at my fingers, displaying vicious aggression.

"It's useless. My main consciousness was ambushed by Black Robe and the Traitors, and it still hasn't escaped danger. Even if you save this secondary consciousness, it won't mean much. All my abilities, accumulated treasures, and artifacts are with my main consciousness." The old man struggled to pick up his fallen jacket from the floor. The exertion tore his abdominal wound a fraction wider. "We both failed. We lost to Destiny."

"Lost to Destiny?" I used my own willpower to help suppress his wounds and asked patiently, "I've just forgotten a few things. To call it a failure is far too early."

"You don't even remember your greatest enemy. What will you use to fight back?" The old man scoffed, but I didn't know if it was just my imagination; I could hear a trace of disappointment in his words, as if his final hope had fallen through. "You've forgotten everything and become Destiny's pawn. Ultimately, you still haven't escaped the chessboard."

He clutched the wound on his abdomen, his voice turning ragged. "In the beginning, the will of heaven was composed of Destiny and Fate. Destiny is immutable, while Fate is turbulent and shifting. When the celestial stars dimmed and Fate plunged to its lowest point, Destiny gathered the collective will of all living beings and became the ruler of heaven's will. That was when the concept of being 'predestined' was born."

I listened intently as the old man revealed the true secret of this era. "I don't know when the Live Show was created, but I know its creation must be tied to fate. The Live Show itself might even be fate."

He jabbed a finger at his own chest, then at me. "Whether it's you, me, the Traitors hiding in the Deep Dream Layer, or everyone who can watch the Live Show's broadcast—we are all rebels against Destiny. Undeniably, every one of these people harbors an extreme desire in their hearts: they want to grasp their own fate!"

"It doesn't matter what they do for a living, whether they're a taxi driver or a street thug. For at least a fleeting moment, they have felt an unwillingness to accept their lot!"

"That fury against Destiny and thirst for fate lie buried at the bottom of their hearts. The Live Show exists precisely to awaken them. In a crude and simple way, it reveals the real world to them, telling them that their fate is right in front of them! The future is not set in stone!"

The old man had just stated his views on the meaning of the Live Show's existence. It was what he had gleaned as a live show streamer, and one of the reasons he remained so stubbornly loyal to the Live Show.

"Fate and Destiny..." The internal locks within my body trembled faintly. The old man's words had delivered a massive shock to me.

In fact, ever since I started streaming, countless people had seen their fates altered. Some were ground to dust, while others came into contact with the real world. During many of my broadcasts, I had experienced similar sentiments.

"Destiny rules the will of heaven, bringing various fate patterns into the mortal realm. Those seemingly brilliant lives were actually foreordained long ago; such a world is simply boring to the core. That's why everyone fights back in their own way. Yet, even now, not a single person has succeeded. Perhaps this is our Destiny..." The old man stared at me blankly, his expression bleak. "I once thought you were the one with the greatest hope. It's a shame you still failed."

He withdrew his gaze and stared at the sea of rapeseed blossoms painted on the wall. The wound on his abdomen continued to spread, and I could feel his willpower dissipating.

"Since we share the same goal, why can't we join forces? After all, Destiny is the greatest enemy." I tried my best to stop the nematode-like things in his wound from spreading, but it did little good.

"Everyone's thoughts are different. Nobody knows where the correct path lies, so how could we cooperate?" The shadow of death had already surfaced on the old man's face. "Take the fate usurpers, for instance. Those lunatics are the ones Destiny hates the most. They act lawlessly, plundering fate patterns, and their various schemes ultimately aim to replace the will of heaven; they want to become the new Destiny. Putting aside their chances of success, even if they succeeded, they would just become our new enemies. Usurping fate is not the right path. They're nothing more than a pack of thieves stealing lives."

"No wonder the Live Show dispatched me to ruin their plans several times." The mention of the fate usurpers naturally brought to mind my old rival, the Two-Faced Buddha. "Have you ever heard of the Two-Faced Buddha?"

"The Two-Faced Buddha is not a single person, but a massive organization of fate usurpers spread throughout the shadows of the city. Its leader is known as the Good and Evil Buddha."