Chapter 17

A fierce wind whipped up stinging dust, the entire world shrouded by ink-black clouds, blotting out the sun.

Acid rain pattered down, hitting the cracked earth with sizzling white smoke. The air reeked of decay and burning, each breath searing the lungs.

Towering buildings stood riddled with holes, collapsed walls and ruins visible everywhere. Amid the unrecognizable rubble, a few black plants trembled in the gale.

This place had no vitality, only endless desolation and despair. Time itself seemed to have stopped here.

This was the lifeless surface world.

Yet beneath the surface, beyond a quantum barrier, an underground city glowed like a luminous beehive.

Inside the spherical core cabin of Lab 303, twelve phantasmal figures floated in antimatter cold light. Their forms twisted and warped constantly, like rainbows trapped in a prism.

They hung there silently, as if making no sound at all, yet they were communicating. This was a conversation between consciousnesses.

In an instant, they could make their thoughts known to each other. Just now, they had collectively watched a record.

【He’s been doing this recently?!】

【Can this place be accessed?】

【Ah! What is he doing?】

【…】

A jellyfish-like lavender entity suddenly extended fluorescent tentacles, tracing a holographic projection in the air:

【His consciousness fragments are currently in a primitive three-dimensional small world raising a child. He has sealed all entry passages to that small world and rejected all communications…】

【What?】

【…】

The thoughts in the shared link fell silent in that instant.

They truly could not understand. It was as if a perfect gestalt life form suddenly despised its own perfection, wanting to descend into a flat two-dimensional or one-dimensional world and interact with a tiny ant, treating one of those ants as its own child, developing an intense protective urge, fervent love, and excessive possessiveness toward it?

In their eyes, weren’t all ants the same? They simply could not comprehend why their kin would fixate on one particular ant.

What was he thinking?

This behavior was truly incomprehensible.

Normally, thousands of thoughts were processed in an instant, yet now they found themselves stalling for a full ten seconds over their kin’s bizarre conduct.

【Forget it.】

【Wasn’t he already not quite normal before?】

【True…】

【That’s fine too. Before, we constantly heard the unending signals from his planet into the consciousness link, endlessly searching for his child, day after day. So noisy. Now it’s much quieter…】

【Ah! No wonder I’ve been resting so well lately… Without his constant child-seeking voice in the consciousness link, it’s indeed much clearer.】

While all descendants of the Contaminated Civilization believed their evolution had reached perfection, “Mo Liang” kept breaking new ground, even using himself as a test subject, all to find his so-called “child.”

Although his other experimental results had indeed benefited their kin, that didn’t mean his “child-searching” behavior was understood.

Beyond this, he was inherently strange. He rarely interacted with his kin. Every time he entered the lab, he would shut off his perception and exit the shared link.

Now, to find him, one would have to go either to the planet he occupied or to the low-dimensional small world he currently inhabited.

The former was useless; the original body Mo Liang left behind had fallen into complete slumber, unable to establish a consciousness link, and he seemed determined to stay in that three-dimensional small world.

The latter was even more useless. He had gone there first and sealed all entry passages. Not even textual signals could get through, let alone anything else.

【…】

【Time flows differently in three-dimensional worlds anyway. Primitive humans have very short lifespans. Once he’s had his fun, he should withdraw…】

【Oh, right! There’s another urgent matter!】

The jellyfish-like lavender phantom that had spoken earlier waved its countless fluorescent tentacles as it transmitted its thought.

【He is utterly detestable! He actually traced back through my previous passage, attempting to contaminate my ●▄● planet… He actually attacked his own kin!】

【Did you provoke him?】

【I merely took a slight interest in that little human of his. I sent a wisp of consciousness through the passage, wanting to communicate with him in a notebook, and then I got found out…】

【…】

After a brief silence, a few perplexed thoughts emerged in the shared link:

【You…】

【What did you want to communicate with him about?】

【Could it be that you’re also…】

【■■■■■■?】

The fluorescent tentacles of the lavender phantom waved even more intensely, as if under violent assault.

【No! I don’t have that kind of taste!!】

【…】

【In any case, help me… Most of the inhabitants on my planet have died, and the survivors are gravely injured. They’re all constantly pleading for my aid…】

The number of Contaminated Civilization descendants had always been small. Their original bodies resided on various planets, but out of attachment to their homeworld, they still used Lab 303 as the place to house their shared link.

Their constant consciousness sharing meant disagreements among kin almost never arose. They almost never attacked each other—except, of course, for the “freak” Mo Liang.

By the same token, when one of their kin was in trouble, others rarely stood by. Soon, several thoughts in the shared link responded.

【I’m near you…】

【Send a ▄ coordinate. I’ll head over soon…】

【I happen to be free anyway…】

【…】

【Speaking of, what he said before…】 A slender grayish-white phantom flickered in a corner. 【Is it true? What if he really does have a child?】

In the next instant, dozens of thoughts surged into the link with crackling force, nearly overwhelming that slender phantom.

【How is that possible!?】

【Hahahaha, have you gone mad too?】

【There was a group of scholars before who said we originally came from primitive humans, but that was disproven. We did not come from them; on the contrary, we are an existence far older than them…】

【When I knew CT-●●●●, he was just a strand of mutated mycelium. Do you understand? I watched him grow up. How could I not know whether he has a child?】

【He was always a freak anyway…】

【Alright, alright, enough about him…】

【…】

The discussion was nearing its end. Just as the consciousnesses in the shared link were bidding each other farewell, the leading phantom—which had always remained dim—suddenly flickered to life for an instant.

A single thought appeared in the shared link.

【Hard to say.】

【Space-time is an entangled Möbius strip, nested together.】

When Li Zhuo came down from the Teacher’s Apartment, he glanced up at the third floor. For a fleeting moment, he glimpsed a dark shadow that vanished in a flash. When he tried to look again, it was gone.

Just a minor incident.

He withdrew his gaze and walked calmly along the tree-lined path. Dappled sunlight, filtered through the leaves, fell in succession upon his head, his shoulders, his arms.

He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, and the light fell upon it too, revealing a clearly recorded phone number. It was… Mo Liang’s.

Strange. Yesterday, Teacher Mo had been so solemn, making him think he was about to tell him something enormously important. But in the end, all he did was give him his number.

They saw each other three times a day. What couldn’t be said in person that required a phone call?

Nonetheless, his ingrained obedience to the teacher made him memorize that string of numbers, promising to save it in his phone’s contacts once he got his cell phone back during break.

Before he knew it, he had reached the Teaching Building. Li Zhuo suddenly looked up at his own classroom, then at the other teaching building directly across.

What a coincidence. Right across was Teaching Building No. 6, where Teacher Mo’s office was located. He could get there by simply crossing an internal corridor.

Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

The Experimental High School uniform was a classic blue-and-white design. Most students found it too plain and ugly, only wearing it grudgingly during class break exercises when the teachers made it mandatory. Otherwise, they rarely wore it.

In this environment, Li Zhuo, wearing the full school uniform, stood out glaringly.

Like a solitary rock jutting out in a stream, like a monochromatic flower in a garden bursting with color. He just couldn’t blend in.

A thought arose: he wanted to take off the uniform and wear his own clothes, just like the other students.

It so happened that neatly folded in the box under his dormitory bed were two new sets of clothes—the ones Teacher Mo had bought for him at the mall during the last monthly leave.

He thought, Teacher said we have to wear uniforms at school. But then he thought, Yet none of them are wearing theirs.

A stifling warm breeze blew past. Li Zhuo thought, The weather is getting hotter and hotter. His mind then shifted to something else he’d been hearing frequently in class lately.

It seemed… summer break was almost here?

“Summer break should be next month, right?”

In a simply decorated office, a young man in his twenties sat at ease behind the desk, his left hand resting casually on the armrest while his right gently tapped the desk’s surface with an unhurried rhythm.

Beside him stood his assistant, going over the day’s schedule.

The assistant hadn’t expected Li Xuan to shift from work inquiries to suddenly asking about summer break.

A bit baffled, the assistant still replied promptly, “Yes, breaks usually start around early July. The students will be on summer vacation next month.”

Only after answering did the assistant recall some half-true rumors he’d heard since starting the job—that Li Xuan supposedly had a younger brother attending high school out of town?

In truth, gossip about Li Xuan’s family ran wild. Some said he was the Li family’s biological son, others claimed he was merely adopted and that the real son was someone else. Some even said Li Xuan had driven the real son out.

As for anything more specific, a newly hired outsider like him wouldn’t know. Anyway, whispering about it privately didn’t carry any responsibility.

“Do you think they’ll remember?”

The assistant froze. They? Who? The Chairman and his wife? Afraid this was a trick question, he could only answer cautiously, “They probably… probably will?”

After all, he was their biological son. Even if he didn’t understand why Chairman Li had sent the younger son to a public school out of town, blood ties still counted for something, right?

The young man gently shook his head.

“Wrong.”

“You still don’t understand them well enough.”

Li Xuan was dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit that accentuated his tall, lean frame.

His features were soft and refined, with a faint, fitting smile tugging at the corner of his lips. At first glance, he gave off a warm, spring-breeze impression, but a closer look revealed the ambition smoldering in his eyes, ready to ignite.

His gaze passed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking the city’s tallest skyline and the distant horizon.

“To them, profit outweighs everything.”