"Compared to your story, my story is not as colorful. It can even be called boring."
In exchange, the girl of the Nuwa Clan, 'Moon Gazer', also told her story to Li Yao. She told it through the combination of brainwaves and soundwaves. "I've been staying in the primeval relic since I was born. Of course, at that time, I did not realize that there was a vaster world outside at all, nor did I discover how complicated, bizarre, and unpredictable the world inside the primeval relic was compared to the vast and stable world outside.
"Perhaps you've already discovered that the space inside the primeval relic is a combination of parts of many Sectors. Or rather, the entire primeval relic is a 'wormhole condensation'. It is like a transportation hub that leads to all directions. Countless invisible tunnels that lead to the four-dimensional space are interconnected in this place, forming a maze and puzzle that a hundred civilizations have failed to completely resolve after billions of years.
"Such a feature endows the primeval relic with unpredictable features. In this place, the continuity and stability of time and space are broken. It is very possible that this place is a scorching summer, but it will be snow a hundred meters away. Or maybe, this place is a place where colorful flowers are blooming, but beyond a hundred meters, it will be a monotonous carpet of black and white, creating all kinds of dull and rigid images. In my childhood, I once chased butterflies through the flowers, only to discover that the butterflies turned into furiously burning flames in the blink of an eye. The flames then turned into countless stars that were blown away by the wind, as if they had been reborn in the form of fireflies. When I ignored the adults' advice and extended my finger to the place where the butterflies perished, my finger turned into colorful fireworks that completely blossomed in the swirl of time and space.
"All in all, this is how it is in this place. All the fixed, stable laws can be broken, and any bizarre things can appear. The experts who follow the rules and are most cautious may die miserably in the weirdest ways, and the lunatics may live longer.
"According to my father, the first batch of researchers and adventurers who entered the primeval relics had only two outcomes. Either they were faced with the unpredictable environment, the raging civilization relics, and the ubiquitous weird radiation, and were scared to death, resulting in a complete mental breakdown. Or, the laws, formulas, and theorems that they had studied all their lives were crushed by the things in the primeval relics that violated the conventions. Then, they dug into a dead end, trying to capture the unsubstantial laws in the primeval relics and find the objective patterns hidden in them. But like moths chasing the sun, they could never reach their target. In the end, they wasted their lives and died in depression.
"It's precisely because of this that the researchers and adventurers who entered the primeval relic later had no choice but to seal most of their emotions and will in order to survive in these nightmarish ruins.
"Of course, for innocent children, they have been in this kaleidoscope-like world since they were born. They are used to seeing all kinds of things that can't be explained with common sense, but they treat these miraculous spells and even magic power as objective existences. Before they enter the real research, they rarely have a mental breakdown. Therefore, before the abnormality of the brain waves is detected, they don't necessarily have to completely seal their emotions."
With the Moon Gazer's tireless explanation, the City of Silver in Li Yao's mind, the exterior of the tall buildings that were as smooth as mirrors, was also stained with circles of gorgeous patterns. It was like a bunch of alien flowers that were slowly blooming. It really turned this city built on the corpses of a hundred ancient civilizations in the depths of the primeval relic into a constantly tumbling, bizarre, and whirlpool-like kaleidoscope.
"In my childhood, there were two types of games that were the most interesting. One was to sneak out to the countryside with my friends to explore different spaces and worlds. The other was to study the corpses left behind by the ancient civilizations that had fallen here."
The Moon Gazer continued, "You know, when you spend your childhood with the relics and corpses of a hundred ancient civilizations, when you learn that a hundred incomparably glorious ancient civilizations were silently annihilated, when you see the hundred-meter-tall war machines become rusty wreckage riddled with holes, your worldview, civilization, and universe will be shaped very … strangely.
"Perhaps, in your eyes, time and space are stable. Civilization is the result of the incomparably glorious results of the joint efforts of billions of living beings over hundreds of millions of years, and the universe is a vast and boundless ocean.
"But in my eyes, at least in the eyes of my childhood, time and space are neither stable nor continuous. They don't have much meaning. If the worlds that are separated by hundreds of millions of light-years can be connected through wormholes, what's the meaning of space? If a civilization spends ten million years developing from hairless monkeys to the point where they can pilot starships, absorb the energy of stars, and change the environment of the galaxy, only to be obliterated in one second because they answered a question incorrectly, what's the meaning of time? If a hundred civilizations can die so silently, then, what's the difference between the essence of a civilization and a dry leaf in a wild wind or even an ant on a dry leaf?
"Living in such a universe, the universe may be a vast and boundless ocean, but the ocean is full of invisible traps everywhere. It's more like a cruel game that is destined to fail. In my childhood, I may not have realized the cruel truth. I only thought that the game was very interesting, but I did not have the slightest reverence and appreciation for life and civilization. I thought that I was living in a fragmented, mottled dream. I even thought that I was part of the dream, just a telepathic thought of the 'ancestor of the origin'."
When Li Yao heard that, he could not help but ask, "Was the ancestor of the origin the prehistoric civilization that built the primeval relics, the Supreme Tower, and … the 'black wall' that covered the entire Pangu universe?"
"Yes. It seems that you have discovered a lot of information on your own, which saves me most of the explanation."
The Moon Gazer said, "When I gradually grew up, I was forced by my father into the 'Temple of Mind' and received a tremendous amount of information. When the wisdom of various categories, fields, and civilizations left a deep mark on my young heart and even permanently changed my cerebral cortex, my dissatisfaction and confusion grew even stronger.
"Because in the eyes of my childhood friends and I, the world was like this. It was unpredictable, unexplainable, and even inexplicable.
"Hundreds of civilizations that tried to explore the ultimate secrets of the primeval relics all perished and were annihilated.
"Even among my father's colleagues, who were the parents of my friends, many of them sacrificed themselves in all kinds of strange and tragic ways while carrying out dangerous experiments and explorations.
"Among the victims, only about one-tenth of them were able to find their bodies intact. Among the remaining victims, there were even some who mysteriously disappeared for a hundred years, only to fall from the sky as a handful of bones a hundred years later and shatter into pieces. According to the research of the latecomers, the victims were very likely to have missed a step and fallen into a special space-time gap. Just like that, they kept falling in the gap for a hundred years. They starved to death on the way, and their corpses fell in the endless gaps for decades. They only reappeared when the energy that maintained the space-time gap was exhausted.
"Although I was still young at that time and did not have a particularly strong fear of death, such a way of 'missing a step, falling into a space-time gap, falling in the void for a hundred years, not falling to death, but starving to death or even being scared to death' was still too inexplicable.
"Therefore, I asked my father where we came from, where we were going, and most importantly, what were we doing now?
"Clearly, in my eyes when I was a child, we were rich in resources, technologically advanced, and we didn't have too many natural enemies or external threats. In the outskirts surrounding the City of Silver, the most dangerous and unpredictable areas were marked out. As long as we were careful and didn't seek our own deaths, our days could be very safe, comfortable, and stable.
"But why do my father and his colleagues have to challenge the taboos time and time again? To activate the rune arrays that have been sealed for thousands of years? To repair the primeval war machines that appear to be interconnected and glittering coldly? To release the fatal viruses that are very likely to lead to the extinction of the primeval civilizations? Even during their rare rest time, they have to sit cross-legged around the tower and stare at the top of the tower at the boundless space that they can never reach, as if their souls and vitality have been stolen by it. Why do they seem to be completely enslaved by it? What was the purpose of all of this! "
"When I was young, no matter how I pestered my father, he would often remain silent and unwilling to tell me the answer. He would even put on a gloomy face and squeeze out what little emotion he had left to throw a tantrum at me.
"In my impression, my father was gentle and calm most of the time, which made him even more hideous when he flew into a rage.
"It was only when I slowly grew up that I realized that once I learned the truth, I would inevitably have to devote myself to real research. I would have to burn my life completely like my parents and other elders. Then, my soul might be corroded by unpredictable forces and the unpredictable universe, and I would have to seal my emotions and will. My childhood would have been completely ended.
"My father hoped that my carefree childhood could last for a few more years, so he was unwilling to tell me the truth so early.
"But the day finally came.
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