Chapter 293 Double Blow

Monica had only recently realized this point.

When she first met the two of them, she found them a bit strange, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint what was odd about them. So throughout this time, besides messing around with some cultural documents, she spent more time secretly observing Ling Mo and Xia Xinyan.

It wasn’t until this reset of the world went off course, generating a lot of information fragments that only she could perceive, that she finally connected all the dots.

Having previously reviewed similar cases of world reset programs, she knew well what would happen after a reset, so she immediately recognized that there was something wrong in this world.

However, it was clear that the entity capable of executing a world reset could not just be the world’s emergency protection mechanism—though that thing could barely protect the world, it didn’t have the power to reset it. The beings above wouldn’t grant such authority to a mere rigid mechanism.

Thus, after much thought, the only ones who could achieve this, in Monica’s mind, were the testing terminals belonging to Xia Xinyan and Ling Mo. But as for Ling Mo’s terminal, it was still frozen and basically non-functional, while Xia Xinyan’s terminal was operating normally.

Speaking of this, Monica needed to mention a problem she had discovered when she first encountered the two of them—these two terminals had identical serial numbers.

Theoretically, each terminal should have a unique serial number because it pertains to terminal management, and such things could only be created by true divine beings. Therefore, there’s no possibility of any pirated versions or anything like that.

So even if the two serial numbers were identical, it didn’t mean one was a fake—initially, Monica thought it was simply because the test terminals weren’t specifically numbered, but now… she had a new hypothesis.

These two terminals… should originally be one terminal.

Before executing the world reset, the terminal isolated Xia Xinyan from the world, and then the world was reset to a predetermined development point—according to the original program mechanism, even if there was someone with a terminal present at the reset point, the reset mechanism would destroy that data and replace it with the originally isolated data.

However, the programs involved were far more complicated than a simple world reset. As she mentioned before, time and space, to some extent, are one and the same, and to destroy and replace an individual after a reset is akin to forcibly isolating these two concepts and then taking action on one of them. Monica doubted she could manage it perfectly on her own.

Thus, a proper world reset program requires at least two formal investigators cooperating with terminals. Of course, in emergencies, a single investigator and terminal could execute the procedure, as the gods also considered that the replacement step might fail, so they specially set up a safety mechanism for the terminals. When a replacement fails, it executes another command—

Which is to withdraw the replacement program and create a new process to execute a substitution program, which doesn’t need to interfere with the timeline, making it a much simpler approach.

But the final result… theoretically, would show two entities both possessing the same numbered terminal.

And theoretically, after a successful world reset, both of these individuals would possess complete life permissions.

However, Monica had never encountered such a situation before.

Except for this time.

Her surprise made her a bit uncertain.

But seeing Xia Xinyan’s dazed reaction gave her confidence: “You weren’t Ling Mo in your previous life, were you?”

Xia Xinyan met her gaze for a moment, silently entered the room, locked the door behind her, and her expression became calm: “Did you figure it out?”

“Just guessed,” Monica smacked her lips, “Wow, I’ve never seen a situation like this in my life.”

“Well, I can finally ask you then. This is the mess that terminal and I created.” Xia Xinyan sat down on the sofa and briefly recounted the events that had occurred at her place of rebirth, finally asking the question she had always wanted to know, “According to what it said, will I be able to turn back into Ling Mo in the future?”

“…Uh,” Monica digested what she had just said, deliberated for a while, and then spoke, “I find your terminal rather unique.”

“…If you want to say it’s talking nonsense, you can just say it outright.”

“Indeed,” Monica shrugged and sat down in front of her. “Theoretically, you two are now completely different entities. Even if a god came, they wouldn’t be able to turn you back into Ling Mo.”

This was a major headache after activating the safety mechanism, equivalent to turning the same person into two people. Only the power given directly by the gods could achieve such a trick with the world’s essence—specifically, the terminal conjured by the gods.

But fundamentally, the real trick occurs the moment the isolated individual is replaced with that newly created process. Even in the next second, the world has already recognized the newly created entity, and even if it came from a blank slate, it would be indistinguishable from every other individual.

And in a strict sense, it wouldn’t even be the same person compared to the original individual—including the soul. Because in terms of soul theory, the soul of the same individual at different times isn’t necessarily the same, even if only one day has changed.

Thus, the only evidence Xia Xinyan and Ling Mo could have to prove they were once the same person is that their souls are remarkably similar—more similar than siblings. In soul theory, they could truly be called siblings of different parents.

As for the two terminals with identical serial numbers… that was an issue for Monica’s superiors to resolve; anyway, it wasn’t within her jurisdiction, and she didn’t know how to handle it.

After all, she had never encountered such a case in her life.

Moreover, it was unlikely that the higher-ups would easily allow such cases to surface; attempting tricks at the world’s essence level is akin to playing with fire, and a slight misstep could cause significant issues. Matters that merely involve ethics are still tricky… well, maybe not “tricky,” but definitely strange.

But the world is curious that as long as the probability of an event happening isn’t zero, it will eventually happen—what’s more interesting is that Monica later checked on Xia Xinyan’s terminal and then found out… that the world reset program of this testing terminal didn’t even include a destruction replacement process, meaning… this thing was directed toward creating a new process from the start.

It’s understandable, given that Xia Xinyan, as the terminal owner, didn’t possess investigator capabilities, making it utterly impossible for her to assist the terminal in executing the reset. Likewise, the terminal would have great difficulty completing the reset procedure on its own, so bypassing the most challenging part was a normal self-protective measure.

It’s just that… it made Xia Xinyan’s already terrible mood even worse.