Schr?dinger stood before the blinking red poison box, his fingers swiping rapidly through the void. Glowing mathematical formulas spun around the chassis like living sprites, arranging and recombining in real-time.

  Countdown: 00:15.

  "Professor, we're running out of time!" John yelled, staring at the screen where the kitten had stopped shivering and seemed to have slipped into a coma. He was burning with anxiety.

  "Time?" Schr?dinger didn't even turn his head, his tone dripping with disdain. "On the quantum microscopic scale, time is not an absolute linear concept. For the particles inside this box, a second could be eternity, or it could be an instant. Do not disturb me with your impoverished understanding of macroscopic physics."

  He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting infinite streams of jumping data.

  "Listen, kid. The design principle of this lock is actually quite 'crude.' It utilizes a radioactive atom as a trigger. If a particle decays, gas is released; if not, no gas. Right now, this atom exists in a superposition of decayed and undecayed states."

  "In other words, inside this box, the gas has been released, and it hasn't. The cat is both dead and alive."

  "It is the damn Schr?dinger's Cat!" He added through gritted teeth after hearing Holmes chuckle in the earpiece. "Although I hate to admit it, this maniac has indeed applied my theory in the most disgusting way possible."

  "So what do I do?" John asked. "Do I open it now?"

  "No." Schr?dinger rejected the idea instantly. "The conventional method is to open the box. But once you open it, as an observer, you will force the wavefunction to collapse. And this lock is set so that: the moment someone attempts to observe, the result will inevitably collapse towards 'decay'—which means death."

  "It is a trap. A logical deadlock set using the laws of physics."

  John listened, completely lost, brows furrowed. "Professor, can you speak in plain English?"

  In the earpiece, Holmes's voice came through, laced with a trace of hesitation as he tried to grasp the concept. "If I understand correctly... is this like a cursed Pandora's Box? Or... perhaps like holding a blank check that grants only one wish. While you haven't filled in the number, it can be infinite; but the moment you put pen to paper to write a digit, the check spontaneously combusts?"

  Schr?dinger paused, then hmphed. "Although the metaphor is clumsy and reeks of capitalist copper stench, logically... it is damn accurate."

  "Simply put, it is a state that cannot be intervened with. The box is currently in a delicate balance, just like that wish. Before you make it, it is omnipotent, but once you try to 'cash it in'—open the box—the wish becomes void and turns into the worst possible outcome."

  Countdown: 00:08.

  John understood now. His palms were slick with cold sweat.

  "So... we just don't look? We don't make the wish?"

  "No." Schr?dinger suddenly stopped his movements. He turned around, looking at John, a crazy, perhaps even slightly evil smile curling his lips.

  "Since a 'normal wish' leads to the destruction of the wish... then we simply edit the rules of the wish."

  "Since 'looking' leads to death. We switch to a different way of 'looking.'"

  Schr?dinger shoved the heavy notebook back into his coat. He extended both hands. He didn't try to dismantle the complex electronic lock, nor did he touch the box.

  He performed an extremely strange motion, like some kind of religious ritual.

  He held his palms flat, facing each other, about thirty centimeters apart, as if cupping something invisible, hovering on either side of the metal box.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  "Listen. What I am about to do will slightly violate the causality of the macroscopic world. Your brain may not be able to process this logical paradox, so... it is best you close your eyes."

  "Close my eyes?"

  "Yes. Close them!" Schr?dinger shouted. "Unless you want your retinas burned out by high-dimensional data streams, or your brain to go mad from seeing a 'dead-and-alive' monster, close your eyes!"

  John squeezed his eyes shut in terror. In the headset, Holmes went silent too, seemingly holding his breath.

  "Now, I will forcibly intervene in this superposition."

  Schr?dinger's voice became low and ethereal, as if transmitting from another spacetime.

  "Since it currently exists in the chaos of 'life and death,' I will, as a 'higher-dimensional observer,' simply erase the wavefunction branch representing 'death'... directly from this universe's timeline."

  "This is called... artificially intervened reality rewriting."

  As his voice fell, John, despite his closed eyes, felt a piercingly bright white light sear through his eyelids.

  That light wasn't illumination; it was a pure explosion of energy and information flow.

  The surrounding air began to vibrate violently, emitting a low-frequency hum, as if the spatial structure of the entire sewer was being twisted and reassembled in that instant. John felt his body become incredibly light, then incredibly heavy—a sense of weightlessness that made him want to vomit.

  "Observer Effect... INVERT!"

  Schr?dinger's voice thundered.

  He slammed his palms together.

  Clap!

  A crisp sound, like a balloon popping, exploded in the narrow space.

  Immediately following it was the brittle sound of shattering glass.

  Crash—

  All vibration, noise, and light vanished in an instant.

  Dead silence.

  John’s heartbeat echoed in his ears.

  "Done. Open your eyes." Schr?dinger's voice returned to that lazy arrogance, though now laced with a hint of exhaustion.

  John slowly opened his eyes.

  The first thing he saw was Schr?dinger. The old professor stood there, wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. His face was pale; evidently, that move had consumed a significant amount of his "spiritual energy" (or computing power).

  Then, John looked at where the poison box had been.

  He froze.

  The box... was gone.

  In its place remained only a few severed wires and a puddle of bubbling waste fluid.

  "Where's the box?!" John asked in horror. "Did it explode?"

  "Over there." Schr?dinger pointed to the side.

  John followed the finger.

  Two meters away from the original spot—safe from the deadly trap zone—the metal box lay quietly with its lid wide open.

  The poison gas inside had dissipated completely, as if it had never existed.

  And on the ground beside the box.

  The Cyber-Ragdoll cat, which had been dying with its fur falling out, was lying there.

  It was alive.

  Not just alive, its state... seemed to have undergone changes that defied common logic.

  Its shed fur had regrown, but no longer in that pure snowy white. Instead, it had turned into a semi-transparent, deep blue like a starry night sky. In the dim sewer, every strand of fur emitted a faint fluorescence.

  The two black holes where its corroded cyber-eyes used to be were now replaced by two swirling silver nebulas.

  Most absurd of all, on its back, a pair of tiny wings made of pure light particles had sprouted.

  "This..." John was completely dumbfounded, forgetting to breathe. "Is this... that cat?"

  "Sort of." Schr?dinger walked over and picked up the mutated cat by the scruff, eyeing it up and down like a freshly baked experimental product. "During the wavefunction recombination process, a bit of high-dimensional energy got mixed in. Probably a side effect of spatial folding."

  "Right now... it might no longer be a purely biological cat."

  Schr?dinger tossed the cat to John.

  The cat flipped lightly in mid-air, its light-wings flapping gently, allowing it to drift down like a feather and land steadily in John’s arms.

  "It is now in a 'semi-spirit, semi-mechanical' quantum state. Simply put, it is like a living ghost. As long as you do not stare directly at it, it can walk through walls, turn invisible, or even teleport."

  "Meow~"

  The cat cried out. This time, the sound wasn't a weak plea for help, but carried an ethereal echo, as if ringing directly inside John’s mind.

  "Mission accomplished."

  Schr?dinger dusted off his hands and straightened his suit. His body began to turn transparent like Ragnar's before him, dissolving into countless drifting mathematical symbols.

  "Kid, next time you call me, have a difficult problem ready. Do not waste my time with this kindergarten nonsense."

  "And..."

  Just before Schr?dinger’s figure vanished, he pointed at the cat in John’s arms. His eyes flashed with something extremely complex... perhaps relief?

  "Do not name it 'Schr?dinger.' It is cliché. Besides... I do not wish for another cat to suffer because of me."

  The light faded.

  In the sewer, only John remained, standing amidst a pile of chemical waste, holding a starry cat with wings.

  In the earpiece, Holmes's applause could be heard.

  "Brilliant. Although I don't understand the principles, that was indeed a perfect... magic trick."

  John looked down at the little guy in his arms. It looked back at him with nebula-like eyes and licked his palm.

  It survived. Changed, yes, but it was a vibrant life.

  John smiled.

  That 100 Merit Points was money well spent.

  "Let's go, little guy." John rubbed the cat's head and tucked it into his jacket. "Although he said not to, I still feel like... calling you 'Luna' doesn't quite fit you anymore. Since you came back from a quantum storm..."

  "I'll call you 'Schr?dinger'."

  "Meow!" (The cat seemed to agree, or maybe it just thought the name sounded cool.)

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