On the day the new rule was announced, Beixing's official authorities released suggestions and warnings for handling this rule's challenge.
It is recommended that citizens start now by recording what they plan to do in the next twenty-four hours, then consciously engage in meaningless activities.
The so-called "meaningless" activities refer to things that, if deleted, would have no impact on one's life—like spending an entire day alone doing nothing.
The authorities did offer a specific suggestion: call on everyone to go weed together, clearing the proliferating vegetation left over from the previous rule.
That's right—if you write down "I'm going weeding for the next twenty-four hours" in your notebook, deleting that memory later will have no repercussions, while simultaneously contributing to the nation as a whole.
For past memories that must inevitably be deleted, it is best to follow the "principle of recency."
The principle of recency means that, compared to deleting memories from long ago, it's better to pick one or two days from the recent period to delete.
The reason is that distant memories become blurry and distorted, making it impossible to determine whether they are truly important or not. You might think a memory is unimportant when it actually matters, and deleting it could affect other memories, leading to major problems.
However, recent memories are clearer and won't affect earlier memories. Even if something goes wrong, because they're recent, they'll only impact a small number of subsequent days.
It is not recommended to purchase complete memory deletions from the "Memory Market."
This is because you can't be sure whether the purchased memory meets the rule's requirements. What if the seller has secretly spliced fragments together?
Moreover, since browsing someone else's memory involves first-person immersion, it inevitably affects your own psyche. Excessive immersion can even cause mental disorders or mental splitting, so it's not recommended.
After the announcement was released, it received widespread approval.
The suggestions were highly practical, especially the first one, which offered a relatively reasonable and safe method of handling the challenge.
However, because handling this rule is entirely dependent on individual discretion, the authorities could only provide suggestions and list risks—they couldn't force everyone to follow this method.
"Which part of my memories should I delete first?"
In the Pinglu canyon, Guan Tong hadn't left yet.
He planned to deal with the rule first before handling other matters.
And to handle this rule, he didn't intend to use the new page power of the Wordless Book. In his view, it was unnecessary.
He felt that the authorities' suggestions for handling this rule were excellent. As long as one followed them, most people should be able to pass the challenge.
But the method of "deleting yesterday's memories tomorrow" couldn't solve today's problem. At least for the first day or two, what had to be deleted were past memories.
"The authorities are right—it's best to follow the 'principle of recency' and not delete too distant memories."
Guan Tong felt that distant memories were like the "spaghetti code" in a program—you couldn't tell what was useful or not. Those few lines of code you thought were useless—delete them, and the entire program might crash and fail to run.
So, what recent memories could he delete?
Guan Tong thought carefully.
The first thing that came to mind was the time during the "A Bright Moon Rises Over the Sea" rule when he was hit by a high-energy laser and fell into a coma.
The entire coma duration definitely exceeded twenty-four hours. He could probably extract a continuous twenty-four-hour segment to delete, after all, what value was there in memories of being unconscious?
But on second thought, he felt that wasn't right.
It was true that he had been unconscious during that time, but within that period, he vaguely remembered hearing Shi Jingyi and Yelanka's voices through the Mind Network a few times.
Could he say that their calls had nothing to do with him waking up so quickly? He couldn't be sure.
Even if it didn't matter, he wouldn't want to delete that memory. Even if the only things he could recall from that entire memory were a few voices calling out to him.
So, moving forward—during the "Gamble – Hunt for Lives" rule period, was there any memory that could be deleted?
Of course not.
Not only was there none, but if they were competing for the ranking of "most important memories," the memories from that rule period would definitely rank among the top in all of Guan Tong's memories.
Because those memories were directly related to the greatest secrets: the Cosmic Cycle, the Authority, the sealing keys, and so on. Unless Guan Tong's head got slammed in a door, he would never delete any memory from that time.
So, moving forward again—during the previous rule, "Green Hell," were there any memories that could be deleted?
After some thought, Guan Tong found that there actually were.
That was the time when Adam told him about the Moon Key's plea for help, and he agreed to assist and went to rescue her.
Why did he think this memory could be deleted? First, during those twenty-four hours, he spent most of his time traveling.
He had never been to the Algan Grasslands, so there was no swap target available for "Body Swap." This meant that for such a long distance, he had to travel there purely on foot.
So by the time he arrived, it was already too late. Several members of the "Children of Argan" tribe had already died.
If he connected the period before Adam told him about the Moon Key's plea with the subsequent travel time, it would satisfy the condition of a continuous twenty-four-hour deletion.
And deleting this memory wouldn't affect his memories before or after.
Having made up his mind, Guan Tong opened a new document on his computer and recorded this memory in text. That way, after deleting the memory, he could just read the text record to know roughly what happened.
After recording it, he didn't rush to delete. There was still time before the midnight settlement. He planned to think it over carefully to avoid missing any details.
He also wanted to see how others were handling it.
That's right—even though many called him a "god," in the era of Doomsday Rules, whether god or ordinary person, once a challenge failed, the price paid would be irreversible.
So if someone became complacent and arrogant just because they had some strength, and didn't take the rules seriously, then flipping over and crashing out wasn't far off.
Logging into the Ascendant Home forum, he saw that the Casual Chat section was already filled with many related discussion threads.
One of them was particularly popular, titled "The Most Friendly Rule for Shelter Slackers."
Guan Tong curiously opened it. The poster claimed to be an ordinary Ascendant living in a shelter.
"I spend every day in the shelter eating on time, sleeping, exercising, watching shows, playing games. My daily life is monotonous, stability maxed out. Not to mention picking fifteen days of memories to delete—even if it were random fifteen days, I wouldn't be afraid."
Many people living similar lives replied below.
"Same here. Every day is pretty much the same. Deleting some wouldn't matter."
"Seeing this thread reminds me of a motivational joke from the peaceful era: Are you really living one year, or are you repeating the same day 365 times? If you're not making a change, quit your job now and go see the world!"
"Living in a shelter is basically a new kind of workhorse life in the era of Doomsday Rules."
"This rule is great! I just cleared a really fun old game. Last night when I was sleeping, I was thinking I wish I had a brain that never played this game so I could play it again. Today the new rule drops, and here's the opportunity! I'll just delete the memory of playing this game and replay it! Play it, delete it, play it again, delete it again!"
"...Dude above, you're truly unbeatable. I'm at a loss for words. But out of curiosity, what game is so addictive?"
"Brothers, what do you think would happen if I deleted the memory of the day the Fire Thief descended? Would I just jump out of the Three Realms and escape the Five Elements? If I don't even know about Doomsday Rules, how can they demand I follow them?"
"The guy above is purely plugging his ears while stealing a bell. If that worked, when the first rule, 'Sleep Deprivation,' was released, those people who were sleeping wouldn't have never woken up. They were the most wronged—they didn't know anything and just vanished."
"Speaking of which, I kind of envy those who went to sleep without knowing about the Fire Thief or Doomsday Rules... at least they didn't have to live through these messed-up years."
Guan Tong read the discussions in the thread and thought that some of them did have a point.
If you lived in a stable environment, did similar things every day, and had similar social interactions, then deleting some wouldn't really have an impact.
But for someone like him, who was always running around, it was different. He had too few days of rest and stability.
If he really had to say...
"In the first year after the Doomsday Rules were released, the time I 'lived in seclusion' on Mingdao Mountain was pretty similar to the shelter life described in this thread..."
Guan Tong remembered that back then on Mingdao Mountain, his daily life was incredibly routine. Apart from the time spent handling rules, most of it was eating, sleeping, walking, and watching online courses to learn Mind Power Flow.
But if he really had to delete it, he definitely wouldn't delete memories from that period.
The reason was simple—he couldn't clearly remember the daily progress from that time.
If the deleted period included a critical "moment of enlightenment," then whether it would affect all subsequent memories was really hard to say.
So even though his life during that period was highly stable, he still couldn't touch it.
Then Guan Tong saw another popular thread, related to the "Memory Market."
The title was "The Memory Market Is Terrible—Don't Get Scammed, Everyone!" The content was a furious rant.
"The OP just browsed the newly opened Memory Market and found a memory titled 'My Passionate Ten Minutes with Big Star Lin Weiwei.' I got so excited I spent 500 Ascension Coins on it! But inside, it was just a memory of the seller getting off to a photo. Absolutely disgusting! Why does the market allow sellers to post such fraudulent titles?"
Unlike the furious OP, the thread below was full of laughter.
"This thread made me laugh. If this were the peaceful era, I'd definitely be selling some supplements to the OP."
"Lin Weiwei was a top-tier actress in the peaceful era, right? Even if there was a memory related to her, it wouldn't be sold for as cheap as 500 coins."
"The OP is truly ridiculous. I remember Lin Weiwei died in some rule, right? It was on the news back then..."
"Too many celebrities died in the rules. I feel like the news only reported the early ones; later on, they couldn't even be bothered."
"Most memories in the Memory Market have titles that don't match the content. I noticed that a long time ago. This stuff is only suitable for private transactions, where you can hold someone accountable in real life if it doesn't match. Buying directly on the platform is a guaranteed scam."
"Speaking of which, that's a business opportunity! If someone has a memory related to a celebrity, couldn't they sell it and make big money?"
"That depends on whether anyone is interested... For celebrities from the peaceful era, aside from a few famous actors and actresses, nobody would buy the rest."
"Even if there's real stuff, the price is sky-high. Is it worth spending so many hard-earned Ascension Coins just to get a thrill?"
"Is the person above stupid? You can buy it, enjoy it, and then sell it again. There's no rule saying you can't resell memories you bought!"
"I really can't with you guys. Don't you take the authorities' warning about 'mental splitting from memory contamination' seriously at all?"
"Should be fine if you're careful."
"Does anyone have a memory related to the 'Shadow' god? I'm offering a high price, and I'm serious."
Guan Tong was already finding this thread ridiculous, but what was even more absurd was seeing someone in the thread offering to buy memories related to him.
This made him realize that in the current era of Doomsday Rules, he was indeed a "celebrity." If someone had a memory related to him, selling it could actually earn a pretty penny.