"You can only choose to take one person away, right?"

After a long silence, Fatty suddenly spoke. Wu, who had been deep in thought, was interrupted. He slowly opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to answer Fatty's question subconsciously, but after a moment, reason prevailed, and he closed his mouth.

"You took me away, but abandoned him."

"Leaving him alone in this world."

Fatty didn't get angry; every word was spoken in a calm tone, but for Wu, it was a torment he had never experienced before. "It wasn't me, all this is..."

Wu controlled his emotions and fell silent. His gaze was fixed on Fatty's back. He couldn't tell the latter that all this was a decision made by the former him.

Moreover... Wu looked at the layers of thresholds. He didn't want to see Fatty again, because when they met again, the wheels of fate would restart, and now... he had a chance to escape, a unique opportunity.

Inside the main hall, Fatty looked at the Newspaper Man in front of him. That terrifying face, which hadn't even appeared in his nightmares, was tormenting Fatty's nerves, especially now that Wu and the Doctor were gone, leaving him truly alone.

"What did you do to the Doctor and Wu? Where did they go?"

Fatty pretended to be confident, but in reality, he was panicking. He didn't forget to add a few more sentences at the end, "Let me tell you, Wu is especially powerful, and you probably know how powerful he is. I won't go into details. How about this, you let me go, and I'll get him to let you off the hook too."

Stared at by the Newspaper Man's bloodshot eyes, Fatty didn't feel malice, but rather an undisguised complexity. Now the boy was placed on the ground, on a cushion.

The boy was still sleeping, with a happy smile on his face. Fatty's first feeling was that the boy must have seen his father.

Recalling the boy's treasure, that jade earring, the truth was already obvious. The Newspaper Man in front of him was the boy's father, and the jade earring, as a token, was probably like the River Goddess's bell.

The Newspaper Man sighed. A few seconds later, Fatty's eyes widened little by little, because he saw the cloth that had been covering the huge statue slowly sliding down, revealing the statue underneath.

Unlike what the guide had said, the statue in front of him didn't have its eyes gouged out, and... and most importantly, the person on this statue was him!

"I've been waiting for you."

The Newspaper Man looked at Fatty, the lower half of his face, ruined by the gold solution, trembling slightly. The voice came from there.

"Waiting for me? You..." Fatty looked at the man in front of him in horror, then looked up at the statue, a strange feeling spreading out. "What exactly is going on?"

"The part missing from him is on you."

The Newspaper Man's answer didn't address the question, but Fatty instantly reacted. He was talking about the Doctor. He had said before that the Doctor was incomplete, and the various strange phenomena that had happened around him during this time confirmed this. There was indeed an invisible Doctor beside him, protecting him.

"Separating a part of himself, I'm afraid only the former him had the ability to do that," the Newspaper Man said with a sigh. "But, it's a pity."

Fatty suddenly felt a little uneasy. "Pity about what?"

"If he could have seen today, I wonder if he would regret making this decision. I can feel his current feelings for you. You... are good, but for the former him, leaving you behind, or rather the other him on you, was just his contingency plan. He was worried about falling into the abyss, so he left behind a contingency plan."

"For the him of that time, your only purpose was to appear by his side after he was pulled back into this kind of world, to help him resist the repeated invasions, so that he wouldn't fall into despair and completely sink into the abyss."

"You are just a consumable. The longer you are by his side, the faster you will be consumed, and as you finally move towards the end, that will be the moment of your demise."

"You will disappear completely, along with the door in your body."

The matter wasn't very complicated. Fatty understood after digesting it for a while. "So... you let Wu see all this. That's why Wu insisted on taking the Doctor away, because he was worried that the Doctor wouldn't be able to bear all this and would be sad."

"Not entirely." The Newspaper Man slowly stood up, first glanced at the sleeping boy on the cushion, then focused his gaze on Fatty's face, his tone frighteningly formal: "Another reason is because of you. He doesn't want you to die."

"He knows that I can save you. As long as you hand over the door in your body, you won't die. You will replace me and live forever, but the price is to stay in this world."

"This main hall will be your final resting place."

Fatty was silent for a moment. "Then who will bear the door on my body?"

"He will."

Following the Newspaper Man's gaze, Fatty saw the boy on the ground, and the slightly upturned corner of his mouth in his sleep. If it weren't in such a place, the scene would be heartwarming.

"This child's disposition is very similar to yours. He is the person I could find who is most compatible with the door on your body. I have observed him for many years. He will replace you as the new owner of the door on your body, and in the near future, fulfill the obligations he should fulfill, while you stay and inherit my door."

"Your brother Wu also thinks this way. You have many good brothers. They all hope you can live, even if they can never see you again, they hope you can be well."

After a moment, Fatty nodded. "I understand. A life for a life. This child inherited my door, so he needs to stand up at the most critical moment and die for the Doctor."

"That's roughly the idea, but you don't need to feel guilty, because if it weren't for you, he would have starved to death in Wolong Town a long time ago. So you saved him and allowed him to spend the happiest days of his life. You don't owe him anything."

In the Newspaper Man's view, this was the optimal solution. The question below was the extent to which the child accepted the door. After all, he couldn't exert 100% of the door's power.

"The logic is there, but he's just a child, and most importantly, I don't trust him." Fatty stood up, his broad physique giving people a very reliable feeling, just like he used to be.

The Newspaper Man clenched the newspaper, a strange look appearing in his eyes. "Don't trust..."

"That's right. I'm not comfortable entrusting the Doctor's safety to a child. So, let me accompany them on this last journey."

Fatty smiled, bowed to the Newspaper Man who was standing still, and in the next second, said earnestly, "But thank you for giving me the opportunity to choose. Now... please open the door. The Doctor is still waiting for me."