Joyce really wanted to say something like, "A cat's body has limits to what it can endure, and too low a height won't give it enough time to react."
But with the precedent of bread always landing jam-side down near the ground right before her eyes, Joyce really didn't dare spout any "scientific principles."
Her first reaction was... why not try it?
Shu and Joyce looked at each other. Shu saw a strong desire to experiment in Joyce's eyes.
Shu fell silent again. Just as he was about to speak, Joyce had already stood up, intending to pull Shu outside.
"Let's go find Schrodinger. Little Sora should be with Schrodinger now. We'll know once we try..." Joyce said excitedly.
Wait, who?
Shu's eyes widened.
Schrodinger? You're going to use Schrodinger's cat to test if a cat can land on its feet?!
And you've got a piece of jam-buttered bread?!
For a moment, Shu didn't know what to say. The current scene was just a bit too mind-blowing.
Pulled by Joyce's hand, Shu was forced onto the street. After quickly navigating a few streets and several corners, Joyce knocked on the door of a house.
"Schrodinger, are you there?" Joyce's voice had an unexplainable vitality, like a teenager who had just discovered something fascinating.
The door opened quickly, and a brown-haired girl with a very tired expression poked her head out.
"What is it..." Schrodinger adjusted her slightly crooked glasses, her eyes, framed by heavy dark circles, glaring resentfully at Joyce outside. "I just went to sleep... I was up all night doing experiments... the stability of this space..."
"We're here to borrow Little Sora for a bit!" Joyce interrupted Schrodinger's monologue, her voice full of anticipation.
Schrodinger closed her mouth. She looked up at Joyce, then down at the jam-buttered bread in Joyce's hand, and finally glanced at Shu behind Joyce.
Shu put on a smile and greeted Schrodinger.
Schrodinger's gaze returned to Joyce. Then, she decisively grabbed the doorknob and slammed the door shut, catching Joyce's foot, which Joyce had preemptively stuck in the gap.
"Sorry... we really have something very important to do." Joyce smiled sheepishly, then pried at the door, gradually opening a path into the house.
Schrodinger shook her head, stubbornly refusing to let go of the door. "No... You absolutely cannot have Little Sora...!"
As it turned out, a girl who had stayed up all night was no match for Joyce. Joyce handed the bread to Shu, then used both hands to restrain Schrodinger.
"It's up to you, Mr. Shu!" Joyce feigned great effort, though in reality, Schrodinger had given up resisting the moment Joyce entered.
As Joyce spoke, Schrodinger immediately turned her resentful gaze towards Shu.
Shu suddenly felt immense pressure, but to verify his hypothesis, he still entered the house holding the bread.
"Apologies," Shu said as he passed Schrodinger and Joyce, then began searching for the cat named Little Sora.
There was no Little Sora here, only a black "gas canister."
"That black fat cat is Little Sora," Joyce reminded him from behind.
"...Little Sora isn't fat!" Schrodinger grumbled, dissatisfied.
Shu glanced at the "pig" sprawled out like a cat-pancake on the table, then gave Schrodinger another look before attempting to lift... couldn't lift, then scooped up the cat.
Little Sora remained motionless, merely blinking its small, curious eyes, looking confusedly as its first poop-scooper was restrained by its second poop-scooper, while its presumed nth poop-scooper was tying something to its back.
What's that? Smells like something tasty...
Just as that thought crossed its mind, Little Sora felt its four paws leave the ground. Then, this nth poop-scooper dropped it from mid-air.
And then...
Schrodinger's previously half-closed eyes snapped wide open, the drowsy aura around her vanishing without a trace.
Joyce's expression also turned serious. She looked at Shu standing beside her, a gleam in her eyes.
It's actually spinning... A cat with jam-buttered bread tied to its back actually formed a [Perpetual Motion Machine]?!
The [Setting] for jam-buttered bread also applies to cats?!
"Joyce, what's going on?" Schrodinger turned to Joyce.
She, of course, knew about the jam-buttered bread [Setting]. The moment she saw this scene, Schrodinger understood the reason.
But Little Sora had been with her ever since they entered the dreamscape, and she hadn't discovered that this [Setting] also applied to Little Sora. How did Joyce know?
Was it because of this person from the outside? The warrior from [Fire Moth]...
"If Little Sora had been willing to move around a bit more, perhaps we would have discovered this [Setting] long ago..." Joyce said, squinting at Little Sora, who was now generating a blinding white light near the ground.
Schrodinger: "..."
Are you blaming me or Little Sora?
Shu quickly reached out and, with pinpoint accuracy, snatched Little Sora from the blur of white light, then removed the bread from its back.
Schrodinger's eyes went wide.
She knew how fast those two pieces of bread spun! The wrench and hammer Watt brought from Future City had been shattered by it before, yet this person caught the much larger Little Sora barehanded?!
Schrodinger didn't even bother asking. She looked directly at Joyce, hoping for an explanation.
Joyce had already let go of Schrodinger and approached Little Sora, who had returned to its cat-pancake state. She reached out and petted Little Sora, then looked at Shu.
"How did you know about this?"
Shu pondered for a moment, then pointed to his head. "Fantasy... or rather... the fantasies of an insufficiently sharp mind..."
Joyce: "..."
Schrodinger: "..."
"I understand..." Schrodinger said suddenly, looking at Little Sora.
"Many things in reality need to consider multiple factors, so all things in reality can be said to be false propositions... a kind of superposition."
"We've been researching in the wrong direction all along... trying to hypothesize from various angles that some strange energy distorts the laws of reality, adding unknown variables to these constants..."
"But if we make a completely new assumption, if we change the addition equation into a simple subtraction... assume that in this world, there are no such false propositions, no unclear superpositions... only false propositions and true propositions, or perhaps even only true propositions..."
Schrodinger's eyes grew brighter and brighter. Then, looking at Little Sora on the floor, she stated her final conclusion.
"As long as the constant conditions are sufficiently simple, all conclusions become reasonable!"