Zhu Shi paused for a moment, then let out a soft laugh. “You’re only asking this now?”

  It was a question I really should have raised much earlier—one that wasn’t exactly hard to notice. But when emotions take over, your field of vision narrows.

  Until recently, all my attention had been fixed on Alice. My mind had been consumed with the fear that without her, I would be permanently shut out of the anomalous world. Only now, with my heart finally at ease, could I broaden my perspective and see other possibilities.

  If the Great Impermanences suffered from the same rejection effect as my past self—unable to properly interact with anomalies or anything related to them—then they could never have come to rule Luo Shan.

  In the past, I had encountered Luo Shan members like Zhu Shi, yet I couldn’t perceive her as a demon hunter, and she couldn’t perceive me as someone with supernatural abilities. Even though she had once suspected I might be connected to the anomalous world, she never once used “Mount Buzhou” to observe me. If she had—even just once—she would have immediately realized I possessed powers.

  But she never did. Not a single time.

  That proved the rejection I experienced back then wasn’t merely a matter of “I’m too strong, so anomalies are afraid and won’t come near me”—some kind of dimensional incompatibility. There was also an influence operating on the level of fate itself. Even purely phenomenal anomalous events—ones that should have been impossible to miss—never once crossed my path.

  Humans who wield anomalous powers clearly fell within the scope of this influence. And Luo Shan was precisely the gathering place for such people. So how had the Great Impermanences managed to connect with them?

  Zhu Shi seemed to be organizing her thoughts on the other end of the line. After a few seconds, she answered, “Unfortunately, even the Great Impermanences have no permanent, once-and-for-all solution to this mutual-repulsion effect.”

  “No cure for the root cause, then—but at least a way to manage the symptoms?” I mused. “Do the Great Impermanences use the same method I did—associating with people who naturally attract anomalies? Or do they possess objects that can draw anomalies in?”

  “I don’t know exactly how many methods they’ve tried, but there is one they’ve all used—and are still using,” she said.

  “What is it?” I asked curiously.

  “It’s ‘forming bonds,’” she replied. “Most Great Impermanences weren’t born at that level. Unlike your past self, they all went through a journey in the anomalous world—from weak to overwhelmingly powerful. Along the way, they forged deep connections with the people of that world and left indelible traces of their presence.

  “A ship that wants to stay anchored must drop enough anchors. If the anchors are too weak, the waves will sweep it away. But with enough strong anchors, it can remain exactly where it wants to be.”

  The moment she finished, I understood.

  The repulsion effect severs the Great Impermanences’ bonds with the anomalous world—so they simply create so many bonds that severing them all becomes impossible.

  A simple, brutal solution.

  It clearly wasn’t something achievable overnight, but perhaps I ought to adopt the same approach.

  In the past, I had only viewed Luo Shan as a convenient platform for accessing the anomalous world. I had shown no interest in participating in the organization’s internal activities. That mindset might have been flawed. If I wanted to anchor myself the way the Great Impermanences did, I would need to forge a sufficient number of bonds within Luo Shan itself.

  Could that be the very reason the Great Impermanences established Luo Shan in the first place? Ancient emperors could mobilize millions to carve mountain passes and dig canals—monumental feats of human civilization. Beings as godlike as the Great Impermanences should have no need to gather crowds for raw power. But if the goal was to prevent themselves from being expelled from the anomalous world entirely… then the necessity of collective anchoring suddenly made perfect sense.

  Right then, a chilling realization flashed through my mind—

  Nowadays, the power of the divine seal no longer interferes with either the mundane world or the anomalous one. The latter can influence the former at will, and that influence is only growing stronger. In other words, the anomalous world and mundane society are steadily merging into one inseparable whole.

  Yet the rejection effect that keeps Great Impermanences at arm’s length from the anomalous world has not disappeared. The proof is me: the divine seal’s influence vanished three years ago, but until I encountered Alice this month, I still couldn’t connect with anomalies at all.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  In the past, a Great Impermanence who lost their anchors would at worst return to mundane society—losing only half the world. But if the same thing happened in the future, after full integration… they might end up rejected by both the human and anomalous realms entirely.

  Viewed through this lens, Luo Shan’s apparent ambition to dominate mundane society suddenly revealed far deeper implications.

  And if they truly were rejected by both worlds… how would the Great Impermanences continue to exist?

  How would I continue to exist?

  “Zhu Shi,” I asked, “have there ever been Great Impermanences who lost their anchors?”

  “A few, yes,” she replied. “Not every Great Impermanence has a compelling reason to remain tied to this side, and not all of them enjoy forming bonds with others. Over time, those who lost their anchors simply faded away.”

  “Can Luo Shan still locate them?”

  “No. We can’t even confirm whether they’re alive or dead.” She seemed to shake her head. “But most of them are probably still out there. In past years, the massive typhoons that swept across the globe, or those unexplained mega-earthquakes… those natural disasters are commonly believed to have been the work of certain anchorless Great Impermanences.”

  From Luo Shan’s perspective, it sounded as though an unanchored Great Impermanence was no longer truly human—more like an unpredictable force of nature, a divine calamity incarnate.

  Just as ancient people personified uncontrollable disasters and worshiped them as gods, once those “anchors” were lost, the gods reverted to being nothing more than raw, indifferent calamities.

  Zhu Shi had once told me that Great Impermanences were the prototypes behind certain mythological deities, but back then I hadn’t felt much reality in the claim. Now, from this bizarre and eerie angle, I was finally beginning to sense their divinity.

  Carrying that strange mix of awe and unease, I laid out all my earlier speculations to Zhu Shi.

  After listening, she fell into a long silence before finally saying, “…It seems my earlier thinking was far too shallow.”

  “What were you thinking earlier?” I asked, puzzled.

  “I was planning to persuade you to cut ties with Alice after this incident was over. Unlike the rest of us, you actually have the option of walking away from the anomalous world unscathed. But I knew you’d probably refuse, so I kept hesitating over how to bring it up…” She sighed. “But if the alternative is you being rejected by both the anomalous and human worlds, then maybe I should be the one persuading Alice to stay by your side—and helping you solidify your position in Luo Shan.”

  “Persuading Alice…” The words suddenly opened up an entirely new line of thought for me.

  Just moments ago, the idea of being rejected by both worlds had felt like an existential catastrophe. But very often, crises are also opportunities.

  I had once considered imitating No. 2—Little Bowl—by making Alice believe that I couldn’t survive without her. The problem was, in peaceful modern society, how could a perfectly healthy adult man convincingly act helpless enough to make her believe he was dependent on her? Now, though, this situation provided the perfect, honest reason. I wouldn’t even need to lie—just tell the truth!

  I could even frame it as my original motive for taking her in… No, that wouldn’t work. Before meeting her, I hadn’t known anything about the anomalous world. Besides, the entire approach depended on her believing I wasn’t a bad person to begin with… which meant I still had to resolve that issue first before anything else.

  Simply grabbing her around the waist and saying “How am I supposed to live without you?” felt like squandering the opportunity. Should I ask Zhu Shi to say it on my behalf? Or should I first feed her the necessary information and gradually guide her to reach the conclusion herself?

  There was no need to play this card immediately. I could think it over more carefully and figure out how to maximize the advantage.

  After a few more exchanges, I ended the call with Zhu Shi and carried the finished dishes out to the dining table in the living room.

  Alice was sitting on the sofa, closely examining the severed finger of the Swap Anomaly. When she saw the steaming food, she quickly stowed the grim object away and hurried over eagerly.

  She sat down across from me with practiced ease, picked up her bowl and chopsticks, and began eating alongside me. It was almost unbelievable—simply having someone sitting across the table made the whole space feel brand new.

  For the past three days, I hadn’t even had the motivation to cook. I’d just ordered takeout a few times to get by. At least I’d eaten something. But now I had this indescribable feeling—as though in those three days I hadn’t truly eaten a single proper meal, and only now was I finally tasting hot, real food again.

  When we finished, Alice’s face showed pure satisfaction. Just seeing that expression was enough to make me want to cook for her again next time.

  “Was it good?” I asked.

  She nodded vigorously. “Delicious!”

  After washing the dishes, I returned to the living room. She had gone back to the sofa and resumed studying the severed finger.

  “Last time, when you took that charred finger from my place, was it also to track the anomaly with your ability?” I asked.

  “Hm? Yeah… Speaking of which, that charred finger must have been part of the remains of the ‘human who turned into a monster’ you mentioned on the rooftop of the abandoned building, right?” She looked puzzled. “At first I tried using it as a lead to investigate the anomaly, but when I used my blessing power to trace it, all I saw was the original owner wandering aimlessly around the city. No useful clues at all.”

  It seemed Agent Kong had most likely delegated all anomalous actions to his puppets while he himself focused solely on his agent duties.

  “When you first found the charred finger at my place, you didn’t yet know I had supernatural abilities. Didn’t you ever suspect where it came from?” I asked.

  “Suspect… not really,” Alice said, as though recalling her state of mind at the time. “Back then, I figured you were probably just being influenced by my constitution. Picking up something strange from who-knows-where didn’t seem that odd to me…”

  I didn’t even know how to respond to that.

  Considering how she’d previously relied purely on her jinx constitution to “investigate” anomalies, was she actually the type who appeared highly vigilant on the surface but was really just someone who believed “things will work out when the time comes”?

  “Have you managed to learn anything useful from this finger yet?” I asked.