Translator: AnubisTL
Chen Mang smiled at the little fatty before him. They had met many times in the Cyber Mine, but this was their first time meeting in person. Seven years had passed, and the little fatty was now vastly different from his former self.
In fact, he was no longer particularly chubby.
One could see traces of exercise; he had transformed from simple fatness into a physique where muscle was layered beneath a layer of fat.
Chen Mang had initially contacted the little fatty solely to obtain information about the Nami Civilization. However, through repeated interactions, a genuine bond had gradually formed between them.
Meanwhile, the middle-aged man accompanying the little fatty appeared much more reserved. His voice, slightly hoarse, hesitated as he asked, "Are you the master of that thing?"
The little fatty, feeling relaxed due to their friendship, seemed at ease.
His father, however, was a different story.
He had personally witnessed the eerie phenomenon that once enveloped the entire Nami Civilization being resolved by this man from afar.
To this day, he still remembered that incident.
One day, everyone in the Nami Civilization suddenly looked up at a specific point in the cosmos, yet their daily lives remained unaffected. The scene was utterly bizarre, as if Hell's Gate had opened and otherworldly horrors had poured forth.
It was this young man before him who had resolved the crisis.
Even now, no one in the Nami Civilization knows about this event—no one realizes their civilization once faced an unimaginably terrifying calamity. This was a manipulation of perception far more profound than mere memory alteration.
Only a handful of them within the entire civilization were aware of the truth.
And after that incident, this young man had left him with a few words:
"I've already resolved the problem for you."
"Go back now."
"Take good care of that refrigerator. Don't lose it. It doesn't belong to you; its master will come to retrieve it in a few days. Rest assured, he won't harm you."
"Your life truly begins at this moment."
"The Goddess of Fate has withdrawn her claim. From now on, she will only bestow upon you gifts—unconditional gifts."
From that moment on, he never touched the refrigerator he had taken from the desk again. Instead, he sealed it away in an enormous vault and announced his semi-retirement, effectively withdrawing from public life. He began grooming his son to take over the business empire he had built.
Family members know their own affairs best.
His current success was entirely due to that refrigerator. The master of such an object must be an existence of unimaginable terror.
Especially since...
Just before Chen Mang arrived, he had received intelligence that the Civilization Federation had discovered a wormhole that had suddenly appeared within their territory. The other end of the wormhole led to the depths of the Cosmic Void, and the Civilization Mark imprinted within the wormhole indicated a Fifth-Tier Civilization: human civilization.
The Federal Government was currently holding emergency meetings and deploying all available resources to detect any entities emerging from the wormhole.
They suspected that a civilization from the other side of the Cosmic Void had crossed the entire void to reach them.
Coupled with Chen Mang's sudden arrival, even a simple deduction based on circumstantial evidence would lead to many possible conclusions.
Such an existence...
If he had remained ignorant, he might have been able to dismiss it. But now that he knew, it was impossible for him to approach Chen Mang with the same casual indifference as his son.
"It's me," Chen Mang said, smiling at Little Fatty's father. "But if you like it, you can keep it. It's just a little toy. I only need to take my Heavenly Palace, which this toy pulled here."
At that moment, Little Fatty excitedly chimed in, "Lord Mang, why don't we go upstairs first? The banquet is ready."
"Alright," Chen Mang replied.
Hearing Chen Mang's confirmation, a flicker of relief flashed in Little Fatty's father's eyes. For years, he had cherished this object as his most precious possession, even keeping it a secret from his own son, believing it to be his greatest secret. Yet now, it turned out to be merely a toy casually created by someone else?
He had assumed Chen Mang meant to take back the refrigerator when he spoke of reclaiming his property. But it was the Heavenly Palace he sought?
The master of the Heavenly Palace was Chen Mang himself?
If that's the case...
He recalled the words inscribed within the Heavenly Palace:
Time bows here, space warps here.
Causality is written here, Fate is decreed here.
Past and future converge in this moment.
All things shall return to nothingness, yet this palace shall endure forever.
"..."
Little Fatty's father's expression grew increasingly complex. If these lines of text referred to Chen Mang, then Chen Mang was far more terrifying than he had imagined, possibly originating from a Top-Tier Civilization, or even a God-Tier Civilization!
After the banquet concluded, Chen Mang dismissed Little Fatty and turned to the somewhat apprehensive middle-aged man sitting across from him. "Relax," he said softly. "Take me to see that refrigerator."
"Very well," the man replied, taking a deep breath and slowly rising to his feet. He led Chen Mang, Biaozi, and the others from the living room to his study. After pressing a hidden mechanism in the bookshelf, a dark tunnel entrance appeared in the floor.
The building appeared to be an ordinary residential structure from the outside, and the interior was equally unremarkable. There were no luxurious features; everything was utterly ordinary. The only unusual aspect was that the entire building was occupied solely by Little Fatty's family.
"Lord Mang, please proceed!"
Chen Mang followed the middle-aged man into the tunnel and stepped onto a conveyor belt, which swiftly carried them deeper into the passage. The tunnel walls bore clear signs of artificial construction, reinforced with thick steel plates, indicating formidable defensive capabilities. Even if a bomb exploded on the surface, the tunnel would remain intact.
"Of course."
"We're talking about small-scale ground warfare here. If a full-scale civilization war were to erupt, a single blast from the 'Arcanon Light Energy Main Cannon' would obliterate the entire planet, rendering these steel plates utterly useless."
"Quite modest," Chen Mang chuckled, looking around as he lit a cigarette and leaned against the conveyor belt railing. "The food's delicious, but after earning so much money over the years, you've kept your home so simple? No indulgences?"
"There's nothing to indulge in," the middle-aged man murmured. "As long as my wife and children are well, that's enough. Even with wealth, there's a limit to material comfort. Whether you have billions or trillions, the material lifestyle remains largely the same."
"No matter how expensive, it's still just money."
"Spiritual wealth is true wealth, and it has no limit."
"Besides—"
"All the wealth I've accumulated over the years came from that little toy of yours, Lord Mang. After our last conversation, I realized this fortune never truly belonged to me; I was merely its temporary custodian."
"I've already converted everything into tangible resources and stored them in the preservation vault alongside the 'refrigerator.' Now is the time to return what belongs to its rightful owner."
"Hold on."
Chen Mang frowned slightly and raised a hand to stop the man's words. "I came here with only one purpose: to see Little Fatty and retrieve my Heavenly Palace. I have no intention of robbing your home. You seem to underestimate my ambitions."
"Over the years," he continued, "I've always plundered civilizations. Since when does a mere merchant qualify for my attention? Your meager pickings wouldn't even cover my travel expenses."
"Of course," Chen Mang acknowledged, "I know you're wealthy and have accumulated considerable wealth. But that fortune should go to your son. Enough of this."
The middle-aged man hesitated, wanting to say more, but after a moment's thought, he remained silent. The conveyor belt came to a stop, and he immediately stepped off, approaching a massive vault door embedded in the wall.
He pressed his palm against the tablet on the door's surface.
A green light flashed, followed by the gradual grinding of gears.
"This is it," the man announced.
The vault door slowly swung open, revealing an almost endless expanse of iron ore, filling the entire warehouse. The horizon stretched beyond sight, like a boundless ocean of metal.
Chen Mang stepped off the conveyor belt and froze in place, his expression remaining impassive, though the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily.
The warehouse towered ten meters high.
Iron ore was piled up to seven meters, creating a breathtaking sight reminiscent of a massive logistics hub. Most importantly, every piece was Level 10 Iron Ore—the highest grade.
A single Level 10 Iron Ore contained one billion units of iron ore!
A thousand pieces would total one trillion units.
To put it bluntly, even if the warehouse were only three meters deep, the iron ore stacked here would amount to at least 8 quadrillion to 9 quadrillion units!
It was truly an astronomical figure!
And the warehouse was clearly much deeper than three meters.
Chen Mang suddenly felt speechless. He turned to Little Fatty's Father, unsure what to say. The combined wealth he had seized from the Extreme Evil Civilization and the Good Cat Civilization might not even equal the riches stored in this single warehouse.
Is this old man really a merchant?
He had seen wealth that could rival a nation, but this was the first time he had encountered wealth that could rival an entire civilization.
He suddenly regretted his earlier, overly decisive tone.
But what was said could not be unsaid, and spilled water could not be gathered. Despite the abundance of resources, he couldn't afford to lose face by retracting his words on the spot.
After a long silence, he lowered his head, lit a cigarette, and murmured, "Not bad."
At that moment—
Little Fatty's Father spoke again, somewhat embarrassed: "The Nami Civilization strictly prohibits private construction of high-tier trains and maintains exceptionally strict control over murphy stone. I have no way to spend these resources, so my wealth has simply accumulated over the years."
"It's all pretty much here."
"If possible..."
"I was wondering if I could offer this wealth as a dowry to Lord Mang."
"A dowry?"
Chen Mang froze, a flicker of shock crossing his eyes. This was even more shocking than the sheer volume of resources before him. Is Little Fatty actually a cross-dressing girl?!
Wait a minute!
It seemed…
He seemed to have never actually seen Little Fatty's pee-pee with his own eyes!
That might really be possible, but damn, who the hell checks if their new friend has a pee-pee or not when making friends!
"Not at all, not at all."
Little Fatty's father hurriedly shook his head and denied: "That's not it, my son is a proper man. A few years ago, my wife and I had another child, a girl, born beautiful. I was thinking maybe—"
"How old?"
"Three."
"What a sin, she's only three years old and you're already talking about matchmaking for her?"
"She could be a child bride."
"No need."
Chen Mang shook his head: "I don't really like marriage relationships that are forced or bound too tightly. Let's not talk about that. Where's your fridge?"
"In the deepest part of the cold storage."
"Let's check the fridge."
"Alright."
The next moment—
Chen Mang watched with wide eyes as countless mechanical arms stretched down from the warehouse ceiling, grabbing up massive amounts of iron ore and sending them toward the breach at the entrance. The ore then slid through pipes into a small pouch at the very bottom.
The pouch was remarkably small, yet its interior space was unexpectedly vast, seemingly bottomless.
The sight was utterly captivating. As Chen Mang watched, his gaze gradually became entranced, almost addicted. Meanwhile, the AI's calculations continuously displayed the resources being withdrawn on the screen outside the warehouse.
Little Fatty's Father appeared to be doing this deliberately.
Instead of simply creating a passage, he had the mechanical arms seize every resource in the warehouse and feed them into the Space Pouch.
In the end, the total resources withdrawn froze at an astronomical figure.
"29.8 quadrillion units of iron ore, 2.69 quadrillion units of copper ore, and 980 trillion units of titanium crystal ore."
Chen Mang took a deep breath and lit another cigarette. The warehouse was filled entirely with Tier 10 ores; not a single 9th-grade ore was present.
There were no fractional amounts.
After annihilating the Extreme Evil Civilization, he had seized 7.892 quadrillion units of iron ore.
After destroying the Good Cat Civilization, he had acquired 9 quadrillion units of iron ore.
These figures might not sound particularly impressive.
But—
That represented the entire resource reserves of the two most powerful civilizations within a million light-years, accumulated over centuries!
To put it bluntly, this stockpile could be considered the sum total of all resource accumulation within that million-light-year radius for generations.
Combined, the total iron ore amounted to 16.892 quadrillion units—essentially the entire harvest of recent times!
And now!
The iron ore in this warehouse alone had already reached nearly 30 quadrillion units, double the combined reserves of the Extreme Evil Civilization and the Good Cat Civilization.
This was far beyond mere national wealth.
"Hah..."
Chen Mang finally showed signs of losing his composure. This temptation would be irresistible to anyone, and he was no exception, especially since the offer kept being proactively presented to him.
A man might remain faithful in a relationship, refraining from pursuing extramarital affairs or responding to flirtatious advances during his marriage. This behavior stems from a man's sense of responsibility toward his commitments.
But if a Tier 10 beauty, extremely proactive and insistent, were to throw herself at a man, promising no strings attached and no disruption to his normal life, then, in all likelihood, that man would run even faster. In such cases, there's a 99.9% chance it's a honey trap.
This analogy isn't perfect, but it conveys the general idea.
Finally—
After all the resources had been moved out, Little Fatty's Father entered the warehouse and pointed to the refrigerator standing in the center. "It's here."
"..."
Chen Mang snapped out of his reverie and followed him into the warehouse, inhaling the lingering scent of iron ore—a truly intoxicating aroma. He spotted the solitary refrigerator in the corner.
It looked familiar.
It was his refrigerator.
The one he had manufactured in the future, boasting an overpowered effect. This wasn't based on Accessory Blueprints from the Mechanical Civilization, but rather on Accessory Blueprints developed by their own human civilization.
He pulled open the refrigerator door.
Inside were various miscellaneous items.
"This should be the Cosmic Forbidden Items the refrigerator has been collecting these past few days. Since our last conversation, I haven't opened it once," Little Fatty's Father explained, peering inside. But he quickly froze in disbelief, staring into the refrigerator without uttering a word.
For there—
Inside the refrigerator lay an elderly man—a male elder—whose face was identical to Little Fatty's Father.
The refrigerator was cluttered with miscellaneous items, and the floor was littered with food scraps.
Suddenly, the elderly man lying inside the refrigerator saw Little Fatty's Father and Chen Mang's group. A flicker of relief and excitement flashed in his eyes. Just as he was about to speak, a sudden wave of terror washed over him. He managed to wrench out a tooth and throw it out of the refrigerator before his body exploded into a bloody mist.
At the same moment, Little Fatty's Father, standing at the refrigerator's entrance, also exploded, dying instantly with eyes wide with terror and confusion.
It happened in an instant, leaving no time for reaction.
When the dust settled, a faint metallic tang hung in the air. The ground was strewn with shredded flesh—beyond any hope of recovery. The medical bay would be useless now.
"What the hell just happened?!"
Chen Mang glanced around, touched the brooch on his chest, and his expression darkened. Xiao Ai informed him that the radar detected no nearby attackers, nor could it pinpoint the source of the energy surge.
It was unclear who had killed Little Fatty's Father.
Nor was it clear why there was another Little Fatty's Father inside the refrigerator.
But now he knew one thing:
He was utterly unable to defend himself. How could he explain this to Little Fatty's Father when he returned? Would Little Fatty believe him if he said he didn't kill him?
Anyone would suspect he'd been driven by greed to commit such a brutal act.
At that moment, he glanced down at the "tooth" the dying old man had thrown out of the refrigerator. He picked it up, crushed it with a slight squeeze, and a tiny chip fell out. With a grim expression, he activated his brooch, summoning the train.
He tossed the chip to Xiao Ai, who had emerged from the locomotive cabin.
"Crack the information on this chip," he ordered. "If Little Fatty tries to come down, stop him. I haven't figured out how to explain this to him yet."
He took a deep breath, rubbed his temples to ease the headache, and glanced at the lone Space Pouch sitting nearby. It looked forlorn and isolated, despite being filled with vast resources.
He planned to give this resource to Little Fatty later and explain everything that had happened here truthfully.
His main concern was...
Little Fatty's Father might actually have been killed by him, but not by his present self—by his future self.
But...
He couldn't imagine his future self, no matter how deranged, using his friend's family as a contingency plan.
Soon, the information was decrypted.
Chen Mang stood rooted to the spot, his brow furrowing as he stared at the screen. The situation was growing increasingly bizarre. Could Little Fatty truly accept this information?
The chip contained...
The old man's final message, prepared long ago in the refrigerator.
And that old man, who looked exactly like Little Fatty's Father, wasn't a twin brother—he was Little Fatty's Father from the future.
The message consisted of only a few sentences.
Brief, yet packed with information.
"Greetings, Lord Mang. I am Little Fatty's father."
"Cosmic Forbidden Items are objects that have fallen into temporal rifts, possessing both a Present State and a Past State. At a specific moment, these two states can simultaneously exist in the same spatiotemporal location. If they collide at that instant..."
"...an extremely terrifying explosion will occur."
"The magnitude of the explosion primarily depends on the object's size, with the temporal distance traveled also slightly influencing its intensity."
"For smaller items, the collision would only produce a weak explosion."
"But for colossal objects, the resulting blast would be utterly devastating!"
"It was then that I finally understood why you had cast the Heavenly Palace into a spatiotemporal rift. Yet, despite dedicating my entire life to the search, I never found a rift large enough to accommodate it."
"Our first meeting occurred after you arrived at the Nami Civilization. I desperately urged you to accept their resources, but you ultimately refused. After that encounter, I never saw you again."
"Nor did I ever hear from you again."
"But..."
"137 years after your departure, the Nami Civilization was annihilated. A Tier 7 Civilization, with overwhelming force, crushed the newly ascended Sixth-Tier Nami Civilization. Had the Nami Civilization not advanced to the Sixth-Tier, perhaps this tragedy would never have occurred."
"The Federal Government was extremely cautious, yet they still failed to detect that the Nami Civilization was located within the territory of a Tier 7 Civilization."
"On my deathbed, I deeply regretted not being bolder and shamelessly insisting that you take that batch of resources. Perhaps the Nami Civilization could have received your protection, and perhaps my son wouldn't have died."
"My son has already fallen in battle."
"I refuse to await death passively. After you left, I continued researching Cosmic Forbidden Items and achieved a significant breakthrough. I discovered a method to transform humans into Cosmic Forbidden Items."
"This would allow me to communicate with my past self, essentially giving me a second chance!"
"As I lay dying, I transformed myself into a Cosmic Forbidden Item and deliberately jumped into a suitable temporal rift, hoping to be captured by the refrigerator Lord Chen Mang bestowed upon me."
"The odds of this happening are astronomically slim."
"Countless Cosmic Forbidden Items are born in the universe every day. I cannot guarantee that I will be captured by that refrigerator."
"But this is my only remaining option."
"I do not know what the outcome will be."
"I only hope that if I truly return to the past, you will accept that batch of resources. And if possible, I implore you to protect the Nami Civilization to the best of your ability."
"Though the Nami Civilization has many flaws, I love my civilization."
"I cannot bear to see it perish."
"Please."
This was the only message.
"."
Chen Mang stared at the tablet in his hand, his expression complex as he stood in silence, unmoving for a long time.
At that moment, he finally understood the origin of the inexplicable explosion. With no apparent source of attack, why had it suddenly occurred?
There was no enemy.
This explosion was the inevitable consequence of the Present State and Past State of the Cosmic Forbidden Item colliding.
Little Fatty's Father...
Had used this method to transmit information from the future to the past.
In truth, simply throwing the chip into the temporal rift should have achieved the same effect. Perhaps, in his final moments, Little Fatty's Father had reasoned that since he was going to die anyway, he might as well take the plunge.
He likely hadn't anticipated that while his Present State self was doomed regardless of his actions, his Past State self still had 137 years left to live.
(End of the Chapter)
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