"What are you standing there for?"
His companion ran past Al, slapped his shoulder, and turned back with a puzzled look. "Reyah and the others are leaving and you're not in a hurry? The space station is about to launch!"
Al snapped out of his confusion and looked at his companion: a black youth around the same age as him, with an extra mechanical arm attached below his right hand.
"Wells Smith."
His Chinese name was Shi Simin.
He suddenly remembered the name. He remembered it clearly because they had built that mechanical arm together. It had built-in network coverage, holographic projection, basic engineering functions, and even surgical capabilities…
"Why are you here?"
Al blinked, completely confused.
"My solar father, did you jerk yourself stupid last night?"
Wells slapped his forehead, took a few steps back, grabbed Al's hand, and started running forward.
"You just stood there like a big iron pillar. Reyah's leaving and you won't even see her off. Wait until she goes to Siberia and then you'll be crying about how tender she is."
His accent supposedly came from an eighty-year-old engineering expert from Northeast China during traditional folklore class. The expert had even helped choose his Chinese name, said to be after some famous historical general.
Al's birthplace matched the expert's— one Northeast, one Southwest.
"Wait!"
He slapped Wells' mechanical arm hard. It rang with a metallic clang, his palm turning red.
"This isn't right?!"
He stepped back, holding one hand out between himself and Wells.
"What isn't right?"
"You!" Al hammered his forehead with the other hand. "You shouldn't be here!"
Wells made a confused black-guy face. "Then where should I be?"
"No! No! I mean… you!"
Al stammered, unable to form a complete sentence.
"Fuck!"
"Enough messing around, let's go. We're really going to miss the launch ceremony!"
Wells came over again, trying to grab him. Al kept retreating until he hit the wall and slowly slid down.
The long gray corridor made of metal-like material had one side transparent, revealing the massive, majestic launch tower base that symbolized humanity's exploration of the universe.
"Unbelievable…"
"Enough, let's go!"
Wells reached for his hand again.
"N-word."
Al dodged his hand once more and quietly spat out the word.
"Fuck? What are you saying?!"
Wells was getting angry. His mechanical arm clenched into a fist as he glared at Al with wide eyes.
"I said n~~word, n-word! The cotton-picking n-word!"
Al provoked Wells like a madman.
"Fuck you!"
Wells lost it and threw a savage right hook. Al crashed to the ground, blood flowing from his mouth.
"You're being racist—"
"Racist your mom! Stop acting!"
"That word can only be used by the specific group. The unwritten rule that others using it is racist disappeared more than sixty years ago, even before the Great Reconciliation Movement."
"Only someone like me—who likes retro stuff, likes to browse the history, internet, good and bad information including garbage from seventy years ago—knows what that word really means to black skin."
"What do you want?" Al spat out a mouthful of blood. The burning on his face had vanished. "Trapping me in a dream space?"
Wells fell silent for a moment, brows tightly furrowed. He shook his head. "Al's gone crazy."
Then he turned and left, so decisively that Al briefly wondered if he had actually been wrong.
"Fine, keep playing."
He flashed a provocative grin toward the direction Wells had left.
"Where is it… where… here, there's a window."
After groping around for a while, Al indeed found the window's position and button. He was greatly excited.
He spread his hands to the empty air.
"Let's end this here. We can talk. I especially like what a public opinion commentator from the twenties once said: 'Talk, we can talk about anything. What can't be talked about?'"
Clearly the other party had no such intention.
Al could only follow his own random nonsense.
"Twist left three times, then twist right three times. Good, now the window is open."
Below the window was the vast launch field.
Logic?
Who cares about that in a dream?
"Fine, this is a dream, it's just a dream—even if it isn't, I won't regret it!"
Al flipped over and jumped out.
Falling.
Accelerating.
Wind howling.
Heartbeat pounding.
Just when he started to wonder if he had really gone insane and that the medieval world and the Four Gods were all hallucinations, he stopped.
He hung suspended motionless in the air.
The scene changed again.
Al found himself on a palace balcony with distinct tenth-century ancient Eastern characteristics.
He was still embracing a very beautiful woman. How beautiful exactly, Al couldn't be bothered to notice.
An ancient minister-like man holding an ivory tablet said with a sorrowful face: "Your Majesty! The Song army has already taken Caishi Ji!"
Al didn't want to waste time. He released the woman, let her sit on the throne herself, walked down the steps, and headed straight out of the hall.
"Give me your sword!"
He said to a guard-like figure, impatiently pulling the long sword from the man's waist and pressing it against his own neck.
"Your Majesty!" — the minister.
"Your Majesty, you mustn't!" — the woman.
"Your Majesty!" — the guard.
The guard panicked and rushed forward to seize the sword. Al shouted: "Nobody move!"
Everything froze, giving Al enough space. He cast aside his last hesitation and yanked the blade hard across his throat.
"Your Majesty!"
The world spun.
What would it be this time?
Al was curious.
While still retaining consciousness, he reviewed what had happened earlier and felt somewhat shocked that he had managed to do all this.
To openly spout nonsense in front of what was clearly Slaanesh—or at least a Chaos God closely related to her?
"I know everything." How ridiculous.
Al almost laughed out loud.
After laughing, he couldn't help thinking: exactly how far did he need to go, to what extreme, before he could earn—or at least qualify for—a decisive outcome?
Anyway, it still wasn't enough. Far from enough.
He refused to be a slave. Not to any person or god, not even for kink purposes.
Just like he had thought when he first arrived in this medieval world: better to die early and end it all than to be toyed with by Chaos.
Al thought this loop would repeat ten times, a hundred times, or even more, when a huge blood-red hand tore open a rift and pulled him out.
He actually felt a little touched.
Aside from the fact that she probably had some agenda together with the suspected Slaanesh entity, she really was like what Alina had described—his hot-tempered mom with a bad temper, but deep down she still loved her child.
He returned to the familiar place.
Star-filled sky, the path, the throne formed of purple mist.
Al stood exactly where he had knelt before. The pool of blood was still there.
"Either kill me, or explain everything clearly. At least tell me everything you can."
His head hurt. He was afraid the other party was one of those "riddle-speakers" popular on the internet sixty to fifty years ago.
"As long as I can find it once, I can find it many more times. Those tricks won't work on me."
[You consider this your punishment?]
The voice spoke irritably. Al's crotch immediately bulged.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to push his disobedient dick down while grinning and retorting:
"Isn't it? Infinite loops, repetition, being trapped on the same day and so on."
[Why don't you consider it a reward instead?]