The Cycle of Fate

Chapter 22: Confession

It's another loop... Hearing Aurore's response, Lumian wasn't surprised at all.

Up to now, this was the third loop he could remember. Combining his own experiences with the hints from that mysterious lady, he had come to a preliminary conclusion:

"The time limit of the loop is the Twelfth Night;

"The spatial limit of the loop is Cordu Village and its surrounding areas;

"The character restriction of the loop is that the parish priest cannot be killed.

"These are the three key points of the loop..."

Thinking of this, Lumian looked at Aurore and asked thoughtfully:

"Sister, if you were to write a novel about a time loop, where would you place the key to breaking the loop?"

"Why are you suddenly asking such a question, and so sweetly calling me sister..." Aurore looked Lumian up and down, puzzled. "Have you come up with a new story to deceive people?"

"Something like that," Lumian replied sincerely.

Aurore frowned slightly, thought for a moment, and said:

"From a novelist's perspective, or from the perspective of normal logic, the most critical part of the loop would definitely be in the final scene, because it is both the end of the current loop and the prelude to the next one. It's the button that connects the end with the beginning; without it, the linear flow of time wouldn't be able to form a closed circle.

"Think about it, if you trace the loop back, there would always be a first time, and something must have happened at the last moment to cause time to reset."

The Twelfth Night? Lumian agreed with his sister's guess, nodding slightly, and then asked:

"Then why can't the most crucial part be the first day of the loop? There must be a reason why the loop starts from that specific point in time, right?"

Aurore smiled and said:

"Spinning a short story to fool a few people temporarily is your forte, but when it comes to something that requires tight logic and extensive knowledge, you're out of your depth.

"The first day of the loop is the first day probably because the power or energy that causes the loop, when traced backward from the last day, can only cover that day. It's similar to how the loop is likely not of the entire world, but rather just a specific area. It's not that it doesn't want to include more, it just can't."

Lumian had actually thought of this, but he believed that his knowledgeable and well-read sister might come up with a different answer.

Aurore thought for a moment and added:

"If the loop isn't a completely closed circle and there's interaction between inside and outside, for example, if information from within can be transmitted out, or outsiders can enter but not leave, then the first day of the loop might be counted from the day the outsiders happened to enter. This would prevent them from not having a 'place' in the next loop. Of course, you could also forcibly make the outsiders start from the first day of the original timeline and do things they were supposed to do later. There are many ways to spin this kind of story."

Lumian's eyes lit up as he listened, and he couldn't help but want to loudly praise his sister.

He suspected that the arrival of Liya, Ryan, and Valentine had triggered the loop starting from the afternoon of March 29th.

If that were the case, the Twelfth Night might have already become the Tenth Night or the Ninth Night, or perhaps it was originally the Thirteenth Night and had turned into the Twelfth Night because of the "intrusion" of the outsiders.