I changed the world.

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In such a situation, if the outcome is not what he wants, or if he tries to change it, the cost he pays will be far greater than if he had never known this history or knowledge.

From this perspective, however, it seems that knowing more about certain key aspects of knowledge is not necessarily better. For him, neither history nor other forms of knowledge are unchangeable; it's simply a matter of what price must be paid. This is precisely what sets him apart from ordinary people.

Chapter 619 Considering the worst-case scenario

After realizing this problem, Zhang Jing was also somewhat conflicted, because as his cultivation level gradually improved, the difficulty of the wishes involved also increased. It was conceivable that if problems related to the "observer effect" occurred in some of his future wishes, the additional price he would have to pay would not be a small amount.

In particular, after realizing this problem, he suddenly had an even bolder idea: to use the "observer effect" to leave the result in an "uncertain" state before it is "measured," and to artificially set the outcome.

Take, for example, the question he was most concerned about: why did the ancient cultivators eventually leave Earth? At this moment, the answer to this question is clearly not yet finalized; it is in a state of "uncertainty."

In other words, the answer to this question is highly malleable. Based on his long experience using the Wish Book, there must be a "real reason" for this question in history. However, without knowing this reason, the points he needs to spend to modify it to his preferred outcome will be far less than the points he would need to spend if he actually learned of the outcome, found himself unwilling to face it, and wanted to change it.

Of course, another possibility is that after learning the ultimate reason, he discovered that the original reason was actually quite good. For example, the ancient sages simply discovered a better and more suitable place for human habitation and decided to abandon their homes and livelihoods to go there. Of course, in order to protect their kin who remained on Earth, they sealed off the void...

If that were all there was to it, then Zhang Jing wouldn't have needed to try to change anything after learning the truth.

However, although this possibility is not nonexistent, and even quite likely, Zhang Jing dared not gamble on it. His subconscious told him that it was not a good idea.

Ultimately, it all stemmed from a piece of advice his father gave him when he was a child in a past life: never take chances, and always consider the worst-case scenario.

Later he learned about something called Murphy's Law: if something can go wrong, it will, no matter how small the chance.

Therefore, Zhang Jingning would rather believe that a "bad" outcome existed in history than gamble on it, because that outcome is very likely one that neither he nor Earth's civilization can afford.

However, given his current level of cultivation, he is not yet capable of directly using the Wish Book to alter the outcome at his current stage.

In his vision, there must be a "bad" reason that rendered many powerful beings of ancient times unable to cope, forcing them to close off the entire solar system and abandon their homes and businesses. This matter would be no less than that of a "god," meaning that, in terms of cultivation paths, it would require at least a sixth-level cultivator to handle.

Before making a wish, there is no way to know how many wish points will be consumed, nor is there any way to give up a wish.

This means that if he were to make a wish with his current strength, it would most likely be a wish that requires an astronomical number of wishing points. If the wish fails, that would be fine, but if it barely succeeds, he would be devastated, because he would most likely be unable to avoid the backlash that follows.

Given Zhang Jing's consistently cautious nature, he decided to wait until he became stronger before gradually attempting to fulfill this wish. He had a hunch, though he wasn't entirely certain, feeling that the number of points required to make the same wish varied depending on his current strength.

Regardless of whether this speculation is true or not, at least he will only dare to truly test that wish when he is capable of withstanding such side effects.

Of course, before that, he could have made some other attempts to confirm his conjecture.

Zhang Jing's first attempt was to make this latest wish.

The incident at Fengsui Fortress, coupled with the emergence of supernatural events and even disasters in various places, has forced Zhang Jing to consider a more direct solution.

At the same time, as his control over the Heavenly Punishment Sword deepened, and his previous experiences led him to come into contact with the secrets of the gods themselves, he inevitably came into contact with the concept of "faith".

However, in his view, what many people consider "faith" today cannot be equated with the bloody sacrifices of ancient times. Furthermore, the materials he possesses are somewhat lacking in this area.

In fact, this kind of knowledge involving the gods themselves is extremely secretive. Much of it cannot be accurately described or recorded in language. However, this is exactly what Zhang Jing wants. He believes that because of this, he will have the opportunity to guide it in the direction he desires and ultimately obtain the desired result through the "observer effect."

If this attempt succeeds, it means he can replicate it in other directions in the future. He can use the wishing book to guide important conclusions he is uncertain about in the direction he desires.

His decision to approach the topic from the perspective of "faith" was based on his own considerations.

In his view, the Earth is already a religious world in a de facto sense. Although some people may be unwilling to admit this conclusion, in fact, according to data that Zhang Jing saw in his previous life, about 91% of the world's population believes in a certain religion.

In Zhang Jing's previous life, China was one of the very few secular countries in the world. Even so, there were still a considerable number of Buddhists, Taoists, and other religious followers. Southeast Asia was predominantly Buddhist, while most of the Middle East, West Asia, and North Africa were predominantly Muslim. South America was mainly Catholic, while North America, Western Europe, and Northern Europe were predominantly Protestant and Catholic. Eastern Orthodoxy was predominant in parts of Eastern and Central Europe... In short, when you scan a map, you can always find one or more dominant religions in most regions.

In this world, because certain world-shaking revolutions did not occur, the number of people who believe in religion is even higher than the figures mentioned above. Although, strictly speaking, the advancement of science and technology, the popularization of education, and the spread of evolutionary theories mean that most religious believers are only superficial believers, with their faith limited to the cultural level.

Chapter 620 The cats here definitely have a grudge against the surveillance cameras!

Even so, there is still a huge gap between shallow belief and no belief, because even the most shallow believer, once a miracle is shown to him, certain switches engraved in his cultural genes since childhood will be activated, making it highly likely that he will be transformed into the most devout believer in a short period of time.

In addition, the rich religious atmosphere accumulated over two thousand years in this world led Zhang Jing to believe that instead of trying to eradicate religion from such an unrealistic dream, it would be better to think about how to take advantage of the situation and make it work for us.

As for how to utilize faith, Zhang Jing's current knowledge is far from sufficient. However, this very fact gives Zhang Jing the opportunity to use the vow book.

Since I only have a vague understanding of this, I will use the wishing book to "accurately test" it.

In Zhang Jing's vision, "faith" itself should ideally be a usable resource. At the same time, it would be even better if some of the religious sites and religious figures scattered around the world could serve as nodes in response to extraordinary disasters.

He even tried to refer to the mature concepts in some novels from his previous life, regarding "faith" as a special renewable resource. Of course, given the special nature of this world, it is not possible to directly copy the concept of "faith" from some novels from his previous life. He can only say that he hopes to adjust it in this direction, but how it can be done in detail will depend on the power system of this world.

Of course, this does not mean that he will change his previous plans. As Fazheng said, he is prepared to pursue both worldly and otherworldly paths in parallel.

In a sense, this is not contrary to certain fundamental aspects of Eastern culture. Just as in Zhang Jing's previous life, many people were not aware that Buddhist studies in an academic sense and Buddhism in many people's religious concepts are two different things.

Taoism in an academic sense is not the same as Taoist rituals, incense offerings, and worship in a religious sense.

Aside from the reclusive sects that will always maintain an air of mystery, he will also attempt to construct a divine system that can bestow power. In his vision, this is a system somewhat similar to cloud computing.

However, while the idea is wonderful, it must be approached with extreme caution, especially since the system involves the concept of "gods" in any case. Although in Zhang Jing's vision, the system he initially established is far from reaching the level of "gods" in the true sense, it can at best be called a false god.

Even so, since it involves the gods themselves, and especially since he doesn't know whether this idea will involve adjustments to the rules of power at the level of gods or similar levels, then based on his experience, he will also have to pay a lot of wish points.

So, after much deliberation, he made this seemingly ambiguous wish. Instead of his usual "I'm preparing to XXXX," he began by saying, "I'm exploring XXXX."

Using the word "exploration" increases the uncertainty of the wish, thus reducing its difficulty. Subsequent wishes also primarily use ambiguous terms. In Zhang Jing's view, this wish is actually exploratory; even if the final result is not as desired, it doesn't matter. The real fear is the potential for side effects that are currently unbearable.

Therefore, at the end of his wish, Zhang Jing used the method of adding "definition" to further weaken the power level involved in the wish; at the same time, to be on the safe side, he only asked "I need some inspiration" instead of directly fulfilling the wish.

Shortly after he made his vow, he had this conversation with Faji. This wandering monk had previously been traveling to famous temples and ancient monasteries across the land, and Zhang Jing hoped he could gain a more systematic understanding of the current state of the Buddhist sect. After all, unlike Zhang Taihe, this monk had not held a high position in the sect during his lifetime, so his understanding of the Buddhist sect was inevitably somewhat biased. Therefore, Zhang Jing wanted to spend some time to make the plan more comprehensive.

It just so happened that at this very moment, Faji, who had been traveling around, had just completed his journey and had some ideas he needed to discuss with Zhang Jing...

..............................

Seeing the notification on the wishing book that his wish had been fulfilled, Zhang Jing carefully examined the 50000 wishing points deducted. This number wasn't small, but considering Zhang Jing's current accumulation of wishing points from lightning strikes, it wasn't exceptionally high. His total wishing points still stood at 1217653, and this level of loss would likely be quickly recovered given his current wishing point accumulation.

Clearly, this wish was fulfilled through Faji's suggestion. From the details described by Faji, Zhang Jing indeed gained a lot of inspiration, which took the idea, which was originally only at the framework stage, a huge step forward, or even a very important one.

From this perspective, Zhang Jing also realized that his previous idea might actually be feasible, that is, he could influence many important events, history, and even rules through the "observer effect"...

***

承和三十七年西历2016年3月31日20:11临州云山坊

The sky had completely turned dark, and a light mist shrouded the streets, making it difficult to see clearly in places a little further away. About two blocks away from the residence at No. 1603 Yunshanfang, a black 2011 minivan was quietly parked on the side of the road.

The driver was a young woman with a ponytail, chewing bubble gum, dressed like a professional white-collar worker. In the back seat sat a thin young man, holding a laptop. The laptop screen displayed a monitoring system divided into multiple small screens; however, many of these screens were currently black.

"Hey, Sister Yu, what kind of place is this? It's only been a day, and six surveillance cameras have already broken. Some have been gnawed on by rats, some have been knocked down by cats, and some have even had bird droppings covering the cameras... Are the animals here really going after the surveillance cameras? This is just outrageous!"

Just as the young man was complaining, a small screen in the upper right corner of his screen suddenly flickered, and then a curious cat face appeared on the screen. The cat then stretched out its little paw, one paw, then another… a third paw… and bumped the screen… and then it went black…

"Damn it! This is the seventh one! These cats must have a grudge against the security cameras!"

Chapter 621 A Strange Coincidence

The young man glared angrily, his eyes wide, as if he wanted to punch the screen and kill the cat through it.

"Sister Yu, this won't do! If this continues, our surveillance system won't last long, and no amount of surveillance will be enough!" the young man complained bitterly.

"Xiao Gu, do you think... these cats might have been trained by humans?" The woman sitting in the driver's seat frowned, turned around, glanced at the laptop screen in the young man's hand, and suddenly asked a question.

The young man was taken aback, then thought for a moment before replying, "I don't think so. Including what just happened, a total of seven cameras were damaged. Two of them were probably done by rodents, at least one by birds, only three by cats, and the situation for the last one is unknown."

"But I've observed that these three incidents of damage caused by cats shouldn't be the work of the same cat. At least from the current situation, it seems to be caused by a series of coincidences and the curiosity of small animals." The young man scratched his head and said with some helplessness.

The two were silent for a while, then sighed in unison. Judging from the current situation, it was simply bad luck…

"I think after this mission is over, we should go to the temple to burn incense," the woman said, shaking her head. "It would be good to improve our luck."

As she was speaking, the woman's phone rang. After a brief conversation, she hung up and said, "Gangzi and the others are on their way back. Miss's event is over, and they're heading home."

"Then let's hurry up and fix the surveillance camera." Upon hearing this, the young man put down his laptop, sighed, opened the car door, picked up a toolbox, and got out of the car.

The woman in the driver's seat also got out of the car. After getting out, she took two work uniforms with the words "telecom company" printed on them. She put one on and tossed the other to the young man, who then put it on as well.

Seeing her companion dressed, she instinctively glanced around. The fog seemed to have thickened, making it difficult to see clearly from a distance. She didn't like this kind of weather, as it caused considerable inconvenience to her work. However, upon reflection, it seemed that the fog hadn't dissipated since yesterday.

"Is the fog so thick by Yunhu Lake in Linzhou?" a question arose in the woman's mind. But despite her doubts, the two still headed towards the location of the surveillance camera where the incident had occurred.

Just as the two were walking forward, a gentle breeze blew in their direction. A branch of a roadside tree next to the young man, which was already ravaged by insects and was about to fall, snapped off in the wind, like the last straw that broke the camel's back, and fell from the sky.

A two-wheeled electric vehicle happened to be parked directly under it. The broken branch hit the electric vehicle directly, and the already unstable vehicle's kickstand snapped back, causing it to tilt and fall to the ground without support.

The young man had just walked to the vehicle when, in an attempt to avoid it tipping over, he instinctively took a large step to the right. Then, he slipped, lost his balance, and fell to the ground.

A muffled groan was followed by a heavy thud; just from the sound, it was clear that the fall was quite severe.

"Hiss...Fuck..." Along with a curse, there was also a heavy gasp.

The woman standing nearby was also startled. She didn't look at her companion immediately, but instinctively looked around. After observing for a while and confirming that there was no danger, she turned to look at her companion who was struggling to get up.

Then her eyes fell on a broken toy car lying nearby. It was a sturdy-looking metal toy car, about the size of a palm, gray in color, blending into the ground in the night, making it difficult to see. She wondered which careless child had left it there.

Clearly, by some coincidence, when the young man took a big step to the right, he landed squarely on the toy car, much like stepping onto a skateboard. He slid to the side, lost his balance, and fell...

It was clear that the fall was quite severe. The key point was that when he slid out, the young man did a split, which twisted his ankle. He squatted awkwardly to the side for a while before finally standing up shakily.

"Xiao Gu, are you alright?" The woman beside him felt a pang of sympathy for him and couldn't help but ask.

"N-nothing...it's nothing..." The young man kept gasping for breath; he certainly didn't seem to be alright.

He calmed down for a while and then seemed to be in better shape. He looked down and checked his toolbox. Fortunately, although the toolbox had been dropped, it was not damaged.

At this point, both the young man and the woman were certain that the fall was indeed an accident. However, it was precisely because it was an accident that they felt even more aggrieved, especially the young man, who kept cursing under his breath.

The two continued walking forward and arrived at a location across the road from the gate of Anzhai No. 1603 Yunshanfang. They stopped next to a green belt, observed their surroundings, and then the woman said to the young man, "Hurry up and do it, I'll keep watch for you."

Both men were wearing the uniforms of the local telecommunications company, and in the darkness, others would only assume they were telecommunications equipment repairmen.