Eric Turner also felt a slight pain on his neck—the snapped rope had actually struck him there. Although it didn’t draw blood, it startled him greatly. At this moment, his eyes were covered in foam, so he hadn’t opened them to look around. When the rope hit his neck, it shocked him into stepping back half a step. Unexpectedly, the shampoo bottle he’d left on the edge of the bathtub was knocked into the tub by the falling plastic sheet. As Eric Turner stepped back, he happened to step right onto the bottle, slipped, and fell, causing the rope around his neck to tighten even more.

In an instant, Eric Turner’s entire face turned blood red from the strain, and he was about to fall into suffocation...

Chapter Five: Countercurrent and Clues (Part Two)

At such a critical moment, Eric Turner managed to keep a sliver of clarity in his mind. He desperately tugged at the rope, but it was made of steel wire, and the upper end was nailed firmly to the ceiling—there was no way human strength alone could break it in such a rush. His efforts were in vain.

Just as Eric Turner’s consciousness was about to fade, the inner energy that had been circulating within him suddenly surged upward, merging into his body through his meridians. Eric Turner’s mind instantly cleared, and his body felt as if it possessed boundless strength. With a roar from his throat, he grabbed the steel wire with both hands and yanked hard. A tremendous force exploded from within him, and he actually tore the steel wire, along with the end nailed to the ceiling, completely down. The steel nail was now totally deformed, and the chunk of concrete it was attached to came down as well, leaving a fist-sized hole in the ceiling.

Only after he had completely removed the steel wire from his neck did Eric Turner begin to gasp for air, collapsing motionless in the bathtub. Several minutes passed before he finally touched his neck and slowly stood up.

(So that’s it... It’s the banana peel causality theory. No wonder, that’s how it is!)

Eric Turner truly felt both relieved and terrified. Only now did he begin to understand the possible consequences of using the Investiture of the Gods list. To be precise, this was just a kind of indirect speculation.

Afterward, Eric Turner quickly washed up and began to examine the broken steel wire. The break was covered in rust, clearly from being soaked in water often, and the paint at that spot had just happened to wear off. Over the years, the break had become mostly corroded, and the remaining bit of rusty iron was nowhere near enough to support the entire plastic sheet. Especially when he took a shower, the steam and running water soaked the plastic sheet, making it several times heavier, so the steel wire snapped, leading to everything that happened next.

But this wasn’t really an explanation for the danger he’d encountered...

(First of all, I experienced several coincidences in this accident. The first was that the danger happened right after I used negative points on the Investiture of the Gods list. Second, it happened just as I was washing my hair with my eyes covered. Third, when the steel wire snapped, it just happened to hit my neck. Then, the bottle just happened to fall from the edge of the tub, and I just happened to step on it, causing the steel wire to wrap around me. There are simply too many coincidences here—there’s no way things could line up so perfectly. If I hadn’t just condensed my inner energy, this accident really would have killed me...)

After his shower, Eric Turner didn’t dare go out right away. Instead, he hurriedly pulled some books from his bookshelf—these were books he’d read while self-studying, including several on quantum theory and relativity. He flipped through some of the content, then fell into deep thought.

(The so-called causality can also be seen as the beginning and the result. According to quantum theory, the outcome of any event is already determined before it even begins. The most famous experiment is the proton tunneling experiment: when a proton travels at the speed of light or even faster to another point, in a vacuum, the proton appears at several points simultaneously. Even after the proton has reached its destination, there are still several positions between the starting point and the end where the proton exists. In other words, although the proton’s endpoint is already determined, the process of reaching it is random and not unique. If the starting point and endpoint are far enough apart, you can even see countless paths the proton might take to reach the end...)

(So, it can be said that the result is predetermined. This is the most discouraging theorem in quantum theory: if the outcome in the future is already set, then what’s the point of striving in the process? Similarly, the banana peel theory infers the starting point from the result. If, at some point in the future, a time machine is created and someone goes back in time to kill their past self to change the future, then a random banana peel on the road could kill them, making it impossible for them to kill their past self no matter what. This is the banana peel theory, and it can be indirectly seen as meaning the future is unchangeable...)