"Understandable."
Xie Anan nodded her head. The little girl who had a red face, a bit chubby, shy, and persistent in the past had turned into a tranquil, mature, and elegant middle-aged lady. The only thing that remained unchanged was the trust and admiration for Li Yao deep inside her eyes. "It is a problem that many long-term hibernators have to face. It seems that Master is turning into a 'leaper' just like Masteress."
"Leaper?"
Li Yao was slightly dazed. Looking at Ding Ling Dong, he asked, "What's that?"
"It is a brand-new concept proposed by Senior Gui Suishou, a veteran hibernator. After the 'Monument Plan' to preserve the civilization was transferred to Professor Mo Xuan, he has been working on the studies in that regard. Long-term hibernation was originally just a means for us to achieve a certain purpose, but Gui Suishou considered 'long-term human hibernation' as the purpose itself."
Ding Ling Dong explained, "Just like you, I spent most of the time in hibernation in the past hundred years. The total time that I was awake was no more than twenty years. Every time I returned to the Federation, I felt that everything was the same, but everything had changed.
"The first time, I missed the wedding of Wu Mayan and Xie Anan. The second time, I missed the birth and growth of their child … There were a lot of people and a lot of things that were slipping through my fingers like glittering sand. I could not grab them no matter how hard I tried.
"The feeling was exactly like what you said. After decades of nothing, the hibernators and the normal people lived in two different time dimensions, which gave rise to a weird … sense of alienation. It was like we did not make much contribution to the construction of the New Federation, but a beautiful and bright home had arrived on its own, and we only needed to enjoy the fruits of their labor."
"How is that possible?"
Xie Anan hurried to say, "Master and Masteress discovered three Sectors in total, plus the government-in-exile of the Star Ocean Republic in the past. They also made great contributions to the defeat of the expedition army of the Imperium. What do you mean by 'no contribution'?"
"I know."
Ding Ling Dong smiled and said, "I'm not being modest. It's just a very weird feeling that the 'reptiles' who have never hibernated for a long time can hardly understand.
"Actually, the reason I'm running for President of the Federation is partly to mediate the relationship between the Four New Worlds and the Three Old Worlds, so as to maintain the balance between our side and Jin Xinyue's side. However, the more important reason is my own selfishness — I really want to strengthen my bond with the New Federation in this way, so that I can rejoin the current Federation and return to the ordinary 'Crawlers' from the 'Leapers', which I don't know how to describe."
Li Yao sensed the rare melancholy in Ding Ling Dong's words. He was more and more puzzled. "What are the Leapers and the Crawlers exactly?"
Ding Ling Dong drank up a cup of red wine and said, "After a long hibernation, I traveled in the sea of stars by myself for a hundred years. After I returned to the Federation, I felt that I was out of tune with the world around me. So, I went to chat with Senior Gui Suishou, who was also a long-term hibernator. He happened to be doing research on the subject and told me a lot of things. He even gave me quite a few notebooks.
"According to Senior Gui Suishou, the universe is the continuum of time and space. In the three-dimensional universe that we live in, time and space are both continuous, linear, and stable. Time goes by second after second, and every second means the same thing. The civilizations that live in such a continuous space-time, such as the civilization of mankind right now, are like a turtle that is crawling slowly on the path of time. Therefore, they are called 'Crawlers'.
"But in fact, both the Pangu Clan, the Nuwa Clan hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the civilization of mankind today, have discovered a way to transcend the continuity of space, which is space jump.
"With wormholes and the four-dimensional space, it is possible to transcend the continuity of the three-dimensional space and reach a point millions of lightyears away from one point.
"Since the continuity of space can be transcended, can the continuity of time be transcended, too?
"To some extent, of course, it can. It is the technology of human hibernation.
"Before the technology of hibernation was invented and matured, the intelligent lives living in our universe were all 'Crawlers'. Whether they were beggars or emperors, ordinary people or Cultivators, one second was one second, and one minute was one minute. The best they could do was stimulate the cranial nerves and simulate the illusion that time was slowing down in the virtual world. But it was fake, and the flow of time in the real world was still the same.
"But that is not the case for the hibernators.
"Even in the Star Glory Federation, where the technology has just been invented and is still very shabby and inefficient, hibernators such as you and me can still sleep for a hundred years. Before we fall asleep and after we open our eyes again, we are faced with a completely different world.
"What about the civilizations whose hibernation technology is more advanced, such as the Pangu Clan?
"Li Yao, do you remember the Pangu you met on Kunlun? He had been sleeping for hundreds of thousands of years!
"Of course. He was executed by you the moment he woke up, and he did not have the chance to face the completely strange world.
"But if you open your imagination and put yourself in the perspective of the Pangu Clan, assuming that 'you' were not executed, how were you going to face the world that was completely different after hundreds of thousands of years, the 'descendants' who were jumping and yelling right below your feet, and the loneliness that there was not a single member of your kind in the entire universe?"
Li Yao was dazed and deep in thought.
"Senior Gui Suishou believed that, as the technology of hibernation became more and more developed, the damage to the hibernators would be reduced, and more and more hibernators would appear," Ding Ling Dong said. "Any civilization that grasped the technology would be divided into two parts sooner or later. The 'Crawlers', which were made of non-hibernators, and the 'Leapers', which were made of hibernators.
"The world of the Crawlers was continuous, stable, and linear. They burned their lives every second and every minute to build their home and civilization, and they enjoyed stable families, friends, happiness, and all kinds of feelings.
"But for the hibernators who can easily cross decades and centuries of light and shadow, time is discontinuous, non-linear, and fragmented. It's like a magnificent river. The river flows extremely slowly, but there are some stones on the surface of the river. The hibernators were originally fish in the river, but once they jumped out of the water and grew wings, they could quickly move forward with the force of their wings and jump. They could see the river far ahead in the distance. A brand-new world, on the other hand, was gradually being stripped of its original meaning in the seemingly frozen 'river' that they had left behind.
"You said it yourself. In the blink of an eye, tremendous changes have taken place in the Star Glory Federation. Your family and friends have all had different experiences and growth. Some have died, and more have been born. They are enjoying their slow, even, and steady joys and sorrows.
"That was only a hundred years. What if you hibernated again for another three hundred years or even five hundred years?
"Do your dreams, goals, moral system, worldview, outlook on life, and values in the past mean anything to you after you wake up again five hundred years later?"
Li Yao was rendered speechless. An indescribable picture that was both glamorous and bleak popped up in his head. While he was shuddering in fear, he was somehow … somewhat looking forward to it?
Ding Ling Dong said solemnly, "Senior Gui Suishou believes that, after some people grasp the ability to jump forward in the river of time, their understanding of values, morals, and even 'life' itself will be entirely different from other people's. It will be like a tortoise that crawls slowly on the ground and a bird that is as fast as lightning in the sky. They cannot understand each other. It is not a matter of who is more advanced or who is less advanced, but a matter of two different life choices. One of them is a 'continuous life, the reptiles', and the other is a 'non-continuous life, the leapers'. The difference between them is probably much greater than the difference between the Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators."
Li Yao thought quickly and had to admit that Gui Suishou, who had lived a thousand years happily, did have a point.
Thinking about it, it was quite funny. This old fellow's true form was clearly a green-furred old tortoise, yet he insisted on calling others the "Crawling Race", yet he called himself the "Leaping Race". Was this some sort of shameless act?
"Right. Why haven't I seen Master Gui?"
Li Yao asked. "Didn't he say that he would be a witness to all the major events of the Federation? Why didn't he come out to record such a major piece of news as the Imperium's counterattack?"
"Master Gui's level has improved again."
Ding Ling Dong said, "He has completely stepped into the realm of the 'leapers'. Perhaps there is nothing in the mortal world that is worth his pursuit and attention anymore. I haven't seen him for a long time, either. Perhaps he is lurking in an unknown corner and slowly 'leaping' to the next thousand years.
"When we last met, he was still saying that the individual 'leapers' were already so mysterious. What would it be like if an entire civilization chose to actively hibernate itself and unfroze itself every thousand years or ten thousand years, leaping forward in the river of time and evolving into a 'civilization of time leapers'? He was eager to find such a nonlinear civilization — in his own way.
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