"If that's the case, then why didn't she just apply to resign herself?"
"Heh heh, Lady Jade Star, when it comes to labor relations, there are all sorts of tricks involved—but simply put, if Qingque applied herself, she probably wouldn't get this much compensation."
Looking up at Qingque's cheeks flushed with joy, Yanfei spread her hands: "Maybe Miss Qingque has been waiting for this day for a really long time?"
——
["Hehe, I also think I've been slacking around all day looking improper—playing cards while drawing a salary from the Divination Commission… it's really, what's the phrase…"]
["Way too satisfying?" Stelle finished for her.]
["It's wasting life." Qingque thanked the Master Diviner for giving her the push, forcing her to make a change. But before the change, she still wanted to help Stelle deal with the trouble in the Divination Commission.]
[Looking at the possessed Fu Xuan, everyone felt a bit troubled—because it neither planned to trap them in an illusion nor wanted to attack proactively. If the enemy wouldn't make a move, how were they supposed to counter?]
["Possessed? This seat is perfectly clear-headed—in fact, never more so." Fu Xuan stated firmly. "From now on, this seat will devote body and soul to deducing the fated future of the Xianzhou Alliance and proclaim it to the world, so that people may live with full clarity."]
["Saying that doesn't sound very clear-headed."]
[Deducing the future of the Xianzhou Alliance—the causal variables involved would probably overload even the Matrix of Prescience Ultima.]
["This seat knows what you're about to say. 'Man conquers nature,' 'free will'… but these are nothing more than illusions produced by the human brain. From the beginning, there has only been one path." Fu Xuan looked at Stelle with a cold smile. "You, Stelle—you're merely a pawn manipulated by the Stellaron Hunters."]
["All the choices you think you made of your own free will are merely tributaries that will inevitably converge on the path of fate. You helped the Xianzhou defeat Phantylia—the outcome was scripted long ago by that slave lurking behind the scenes."]
[Fu Xuan crossed her arms, brimming with confidence: "Just like right now, all your choices amount to only a few—'swing your bat and charge at me,' 'loudly but futilely refute me,' 'fall into silence without a word.'"]
[Stelle realized that her choices really seemed limited to those… she could only choose silence.]
——
Gintama.
"Suddenly feeling a bit envious—what's up with that…" Gintoki suddenly sat up straight on the sofa, a glint of envy flashing in his dead-fish eyes: "Is there a way to get this Rhinofire to possess me without it completely taking over my body and mind?"
"Gin-chan, if you want to daydream, I suggest changing your pillow." Kagura sat cross-legged on the windowsill, munching on pickled kelp.
"Like in Naruto—after some training, you can perfectly master the power of the Suiyang inside your body and make it yours. Then predict horse race results, stock rises and falls, even help rich ladies predict who their husbands are cheating with… wouldn't we get rich?"
"Hah? If you can predict the future, can't you aim a little higher?!"
Shinichi's voice rose an octave in complaint, "And normal Suiyang probably wouldn't cut it, right? It has to be Rhinofire—but this guy's completely fallen into the logic of 'the future is already decided, life choices are meaningless.' If it possesses you, Gin-san, you'd turn into a dumb puppet."
"Future decided? So the amount of pickled kelp I'm eating right now is also predestined?" Kagura suddenly went quiet, tilting her head as she asked.
Shinichi nodded.
She looked down at the bag in her hand, then dumped all the pickled kelp into her mouth at once: "Then I'll eat double… no, triple aru! That way it can't predict accurately anymore, right?"
"That logic actually checks out." Gintoki narrowed his dead-fish eyes into slits, thinking hard: "Even if the future is set, isn't the process of us discussing this right now also part of that future?"
Shinichi paused: "Gin-san, sometimes you actually say sensible things."
"Of course. Rather than thinking about that…" Gintoki stood up and stretched lazily, "better to think about what to eat for dinner. I predict we'll have beef hot pot tonight."
"Really aru?" Kagura's eyes lit up.
"Nope, because we don't even have money for tofu." Gintoki rummaged through his empty wallet.
"Gin-san, that's not predicting—that's just wishing, isn't it?" Shinichi sighed: "Sigh… this is the predestined reality."
——
[Seeing that the group wasn't convinced, Fu Xuan offered to demonstrate what predestination really meant.]
[She led them to an illusion where a Divination Commission game sandbox was set up. With pre-issued human commands, the mechanisms on the sandbox could accurately reach the exit as instructed.]
[Fu Xuan wanted to use this game to prove that humans were merely mechanisms within it—seeming to have choices, but in reality having none, simply advancing according to fate's commands.]
["Exactly—for a pre-set game, any choice is a meaningless error." Qingque calmly refuted Rhinofire without hurry. "But the universe isn't anyone's game, and there isn't a single solution. Being inside it, I can do anything."]
["Even on the same workday, I can hide in the library reading idle books or find people to play cards. That's freedom."]
[Sushang listened in deep admiration and gave Qingque a thumbs-up: "To say something so slacker-like so righteously and still make it sound reasonable… Divination Commission diviners really are cultured!"]
["Huh? Sushang, wake up—you're about to get your brain taken over by a slacking Suiyang!"]
[Rhinofire dismissed Qingque's words with contempt, viewing her so-called choices as meaningless idleness. But burdened with the heavy responsibility of the Xianzhou, she had to choose the one path—the optimal and only path—leading the Xianzhou to the best outcome. To her, any other choice was utterly meaningless.]
["Sigh, truly a classic Divination Commission-style zero-emotional-intelligence statement…"]
[Qingque let out a soft sigh and offered to play another, more complex sandbox game with Rhinofire, who readily agreed. But this time, Qingque not only completed the first route but also used Stelle and Huohuo's positioning to create a second route.]
[Yet this path only drew merciless mockery from Rhinofire: "Qingque, you're just playing with semantics. I can weave thousands upon thousands of such routes for you, but they all lead to the same end. What meaning do such choices have?"]
[At these words, even Stelle couldn't help but laugh.]
[Qingque slowly shook her head, her expression unusually serious: "You monster—you really don't understand humans at all."]