How Am I Still Alive?

Time rewound slightly, and just as the preliminary round had come to an end, on a nearby island, a little girl was also brimming with joy.

"One, two, three... nine!"

She joyfully gazed at a glowing orb, her posture that of someone eagerly awaiting a birthday gift.

"Make a wish time!"

Believe it or not, she really did seem to think this, and she acted on it too.

"Can I ask now?!"

With the ending of the first preliminary round, Eve playfully waved a mirror back and forth, and the features of "Fate Marker" began to unlock. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"...Yes, please ask. As long as My Lord is in Its Domain with Fate entangled, I can provide an answer. However, the fewer the interfering factors and the vaguer the ’keywords,’ the better the chances of a precise answer..."

In this regard, Eve was knowledgeable; among her "sisters," there were masters in this field.

If you ask a prophet, "What’s for lunch today?" she often gives you a hazy and strange answer, like "The young sprout of the sky’s faller (an egg) with the root of the great earth beast from the land of avarice (ham)," going around in circles (actually just eggs and ham).

But if you ask her whether today’s cafeteria has "eggs and ham" or "something else"... she can instantly give you a definitive answer.

Fate is a weaving of threads, the less it’s shaken or pulled, the clearer and more visible it gets.

So, in practice, a simple "yes" or "no" judgment, with a direct and clear "representative target," has fewer factors of disturbance, and the energy required to obtain an answer is lower. This also increases the probability of receiving a true and definite answer.

For seers, the cost of peering into Fate is immense, often accompanied by a heavy price.

Therefore, adopting a "vague" or even "intentionally misleading" approach when forced to prophesy is a time-saving and energy-efficient strategy... Many historically "misunderstood" prophecies may not result from the victim being foolish or making a mistake, but from the prophet’s active misdirection.

"Su Xi... or someone using the pseudonym Su Xi, can you show him to me?"

And the well-prepared Eve had her queries ready.

Within the mirror, the region where "Su Xi" was located appeared.

At that moment, Lu Ping’an was playing with Xiao Mu, oblivious to the pair of eyes watching him from behind.

So, Eve took a deep breath and spoke the question she had already prepared.

"Will the person in the mirror be the family member with whom I have the deepest entanglement of fate in my life?"

The question seemed vague, but it was actually very skillful.

The person in the mirror, this pronoun lowered the specificity of the intended subject, which reduced the cost of the prophecy.

An entanglement of fate, no explanation needed, as the term includes enemies, lovers, and other life-defining ties, but if future family members are considered, it seems there was only one answer...

"Yes."

After the answer, the mirror shattered, indicating the prophecy’s fulfillment.

This was a direct prophecy of Deity level, with its veracity beyond question...

"Ahhh... Ahhh..."

Immediately, Eve’s face turned red with shyness, and she rolled around on the floor with the broken mirror.

After a while, as the Emcee appeared in the sky and the victors were projected one by one, she quickly patted Eve and stood up.

While positioning herself to look her best on camera, the never-makeup-wearing Eve, for once, checked her reflection in the shattered glass for quite some time...

"I, choose... Su Xi!"

With a flushed face, she joyfully made her choice.

And then...

"I, refuse."

That man, he actually outright refused!

In that moment, the girl was completely dumbfounded.

Wasn’t everything preordained by fate, preordained to be future family, and I even had names picked out for our children... And you, reject! You dared to reject!

At once, a golden light shot up into the sky, and Eve became utterly engulfed in rage.

But this was only just the beginning...

"I choose Qian Xiaomu,"

At that moment, looking at the "good sister" who hid behind "her man"...

"Haha, hahaha, hahahaha...."

In that instant, amidst the deranged laughter, there probably lay true murderous intent...

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Lu Ping’an had no idea what he had done; he probably thought he was merely rejecting a naive invitation from a little girl.

"She should see that I was taking care of Xiao Mu," he thought.

But with his lack of practical experience in such matters, he probably didn’t realize that a woman in a rage not only lacks observation skills but also typically lacks reason... Eh, he might not even know that Eve was already angry, let alone the specific reason for her rage.

Right now, he simply had no time to think about those trivia; he was fully preparing for battle.

"This damn place...."

Lu Ping’an didn’t like the Secret Realm because he could continuously sense "pressure."

The will of the Deity hovered overhead, and the Divine Envoys serving as connection points and conduits flew back and forth, all giving him a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.

Having overly sensitive perception might not be beneficial at this time, akin to having a planet hanging over your head, ready to crush you to smithereens at any moment. Even if your rational mind tells you that it won’t happen, your instincts would still continuously signal danger and compel you to look up.

What made Lu Ping’an most uncomfortable was that he had to suppress this awareness. Gleaning "Knowledge of the Deity" might be beneficial, but that presupposed that It was as generous as a Firebird.

However, the good news was that there were only 32 pairs now, and by all estimates, it would only take a day or two to resolve everything.

"Why would the second round be about cooperation..."

Lu Ping’an tried to analyze the style of this Deity, but the more he understood, the more implausible it all seemed.

This Big Boss was an ultra-zealous advocate of dueling, where the Strongman wins and the Weaker perishes, almost as if it was written into its doctrine.

And cooperation... naturally implied that one party was strong and the other weak, that they could work together, complementing each other in all aspects, seemingly in direct contradiction to this Deity overhead.

But soon, as the two-hour countdown came to an end and the second round began, everyone understood.

After all, this was not a partnership at all...

"...Damn it, isn’t this just making them screw each other over? Are they upping the difficulty because it’s not challenging enough?"

When the first set of participants were thrown into the arena that had risen from the middle of the ocean, and they saw their opponents slowly emerging from the shadows, everyone sensed the malice involved.

And for the first time, Lu Ping’an also felt despair and helplessness.

"Lu Ping’an... just give up,"

This time, even Big Cat directly advised Lu Ping’an to give up.

Even though it would probably cost him the Divine Grace, and his gains would be greatly reduced, and it could even lead to loss of face, but it was still better than blindly participating in the challenge.

After all, this contest’s topic, for Lu Ping’an...

"...If this question is real, then I also think it’s better to give up."

This time, not even Lu Ping’an argued back or stubbornly persisted.

The reason? Everything happening on the field now said it all...

"Impossible, impossible! How can this be!"

The martial monk on the field was dead at heart until a moment ago, but when he saw his opponent, his face was filled with despair, why?

Why, it was just a woman, a woman holding a child...

"This test is just too much... It randomly copies ’the opponent you least want to face,’ or, the ’strongest opponent’ you’ve faced, or even, ’the opponent with the deepest entanglement in your Fate (who is capable of fighting)’"

For some, perhaps it’s just another tough boss fight, but for those who have suffered emotional trauma, it is a true predicament.

As for Lu Ping’an? If things were real, it would indeed be the despair of despairs because for him these three issues all have one answer, a most despairing one...

"The replicated version of Kerdalais... Uh, I want to live a few more years, how about I Escape?"