Chapter 93: Silver Pearl, Xuanze, and Hanming

Chapter 93: Silver Pearl, Xuanze, and Hanming

Picking up from the last chapter — the giant crystal ball, that silicon-based life-form, had taken my two green jade tokens, and then, unbelievably, two lines of tears had slid from its eyes.

I was completely lost. I couldn’t tell whether this was good news or bad.

My guess was that it recognized the tokens somehow.

But what exactly was its relationship to the person those tokens belonged to? I had no idea, and I didn’t dare ask.

The giant crystal ball extended a hand toward me. To my surprise, it actually returned both tokens, then spoke through cosmic force of consciousness:

“What is your relationship to Xuanze and Hanming?”

I had no idea how to answer that. Afraid a wrong word might land me in trouble, I told the truth.

“Who are Xuanze and Hanming? I don’t know them.”

The crystal ball said,

“You don’t know them? No. You must know them. Their aura is inside your body.”

Huh?

How was it that even I hadn’t known I carried someone else’s aura?

Could it be the Myriad-Dimensional Brain and the lotus-shaped green jade disk? Mother had told me I’d been irradiated by those two things more than once.

So I asked,

“Could you tell me more about Xuanze and Hanming? Maybe something will come back to me.”

The crystal ball said,

“Xuanze and Hanming were lovers on Cassiopeia HD Star — together for over ten thousand years. Then HD Star sent Xuanze out to survey a blue planet, and he never came home. Hanming was devastated. She built a craft of her own and went looking for him on that same blue planet. She never returned either.”

I asked,

“And what were you to them?”

The crystal ball said,

“I was Hanming’s playmate — her closest friend. After she vanished, I couldn’t bear to stay in the Han Estate any longer, so I came back to my own homeworld. And here, of all places, I’ve somehow sensed both their auras again. Did they find each other? Yes — they must have. How stupid of me not to see it sooner. Both their auras are on you.”

Wait. So this giant crystal ball was female? A woman?

Should I tell her that both the Myriad-Dimensional Brain and the lotus-shaped green jade disk were dead? But if I did, wouldn’t she get angry enough to eat me for real this time?

The crystal ball watched me stammer, then said quietly,

“They’re both dead, aren’t they?”

I hurried to answer.

“Well — it’s hard to say. I can’t tell you I don’t know, but I’m not certain whether they’re alive or dead. Their consciousness bodies may have transferred into something else — a quantum core supercomputer, say, the most advanced one on Earth. And because of certain… accidents, I carry traces of them on me too. So does that count as alive, or dead?”

The crystal ball kept bobbing its round body excitedly.

“Alive. Alive. As long as there’s consciousness, they’re alive.”

I said,

“You were Hanming’s playmate and closest friend? Does that mean everyone on your world looks like you?”

The crystal ball said,

“Oh — I got so worked up I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Silver Pearl. Just call me Silver Pearl. My true body is a crystal-condensed pearl. Xuanze and Hanming were both humanoid, and I’ve heard they closely resemble the people of that blue planet. That’s exactly why HD Star’s leadership believed the humans there might share the same origin as ours, and needed deeper study. Xuanze was actually part of the thirty-fifth survey group, not the first. Hanming was female, so she wasn’t chosen for the mission. I’m different from them — I’m not human. I was given to Hanming as a pet when I was small, and eventually neither of us could bear to be apart. We became the kind of friends who kept no secrets from each other. On HD Star, I would sometimes take a human shape. But now that I’m home again, I live as my true self.”

The moment she finished, the crystal ball transformed into a breathtaking young woman — large eyes, long lashes, dressed in flowing pink and violet, like a fairy stepped straight out of myth. Her skin was pale, faintly translucent, soft and supple in a way that seemed almost impossible.

I said,

“I never expected you to be this beautiful. So — is this HD Star, where Xuanze and Hanming lived?”

Silver Pearl said,

“Just call me Silver Pearl. You’ve already seen my true body — this transformed shape isn’t my original form. And no, this isn’t HD Star. This is only a satellite of Cassiopeia HD Star, four trillion kilometers from the main star. We call it Bixian Star. HD Star has another eight satellites besides this one. Bixian Star is only one of its moons.”

I looked around, hardly able to believe it, and asked quietly,

“Isn’t this supposed to be the virtual Future World? Why does it feel so real?”

Silver Pearl blinked at me, her large eyes puzzled.

“A virtual world? I don’t quite follow. To us, everything here is real. Our people have lived here for tens of millions of years. This has always been our home. But what you just said — that this is a virtual world — that actually clears up something that’s confused us for a long time.

“About eighteen years ago, people like you began appearing here, out of nowhere. But their bodies were never truly real. Our people tried eating some of them, and it did nothing. The moment they were eaten, they simply vanished. You’d be the same. If I’d eaten you just now, you would have disappeared too — you’d never actually have become food.

“This mystery has troubled us for eighteen years. But now, hearing you say this, I think I finally understand. What you call ‘virtual’ is most likely some kind of projection built on quantum entanglement. Entangled photon pairs really can produce a mirrored relationship — meaning to you and to us alike, the relationship is one of projection. We’re not truly occupying the same spacetime at all. After all, you’re twenty-one light-years from Cassiopeia. But quantum entanglement is a cosmic-scale phenomenon — distance means nothing to it. Ohh. So that’s it. I finally understand. And really, this isn’t so bad — at least the two of us can meet now, and I’ve finally learned something about Miss Hanming. I’m overjoyed. Honestly, this is no different from meeting for real.”

With that, Silver Pearl started crying again, quietly, to herself.

And inside, I couldn’t help but let out a long sigh.

So that was it.

I finally, fully understood what Uncle had meant: virtual is reality.

Entangled photon pairs. Of course.

No wonder the force of consciousness and martial skill I’d earned in the virtual world carried over into the real one. It was a perfectly synchronized paired relationship, plain as that.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So that was what “virtual is reality” truly meant.

But then — how on earth had human science and technology leapt this far, this fast?

I’d trained as an engineer. I understood science. I knew exactly how vast that gap was, how many nearly impossible theoretical and technical walls stood in the way.

Never mind the distance between the microscopic and the macroscopic, theory and practice, materials and manufacturing, hardware and systems — even the quantum core supercomputer alone shouldn’t have been capable of something like this.

And yet, here it was.

The proof stood right in front of me.

So was there a possibility — that all of this had been the work of Xuanze and Hanming’s lingering souls, driven by nothing but an unbearable longing for home?

From the moment my parents had brought Xuanze and Hanming together twenty-two years ago, the two of them had likely already gained control of the quantum core supercomputer. And this entire metaverse, designed by that supercomputer eighteen years ago, might be nothing more than their search for someone who could carry them home.

Silver Pearl’s words had struck me like a bolt of clarity.

No wonder Du Xiaoran had said the virtual Future World built by the Shadow Pavilion was a selection ground. Selecting for what, exactly?

What kind of person?

Could it be — someone capable of carrying their consciousness bodies and remains, back to their home world, Cassiopeia HD Star?

Suddenly, I felt like I fit the part perfectly.

The chosen one, as it turned out, had been carefully designed all along.

Even being swallowed by that giant crystal — I’d still been spat back out.

A cold shiver ran through me. Those two, infecting me again and again on purpose — could that really have been their intention from the start?

Did that mean this entire virtual Future World had been built for me?

Why had the entrance to this world been planted right on Bixian Star, where Silver Pearl lived? Wasn’t that so Silver Pearl could find me? Who else, besides her, could have known Xuanze and Hanming this intimately?

My goal was to grow stronger. Fine — Xuanze and Hanming had laid down countless paths to make that happen. From the Sweepers’ base, to the Soul Hunters, to the resistance base, to Du Xiaoran, Feng Du, the old woman, and everything inside the virtual world — I kept running into exactly the people who could push me further.

My goal was to break down the barriers of the Elite World, so all human beings could share humanity’s technological achievements. Fine — Xuanze and Hanming handed me the very tokens carrying their consciousness bodies, letting me claim cosmic consciousness with ease, strong enough to defeat Pu Liuqian and Xiang Bianfeng of the Shadow Pavilion.

And this whole trip through the virtual Future World — every monster I met seemed to be lining up to hand me a gift, feeding me cosmic force of consciousness one after another, sending my abilities skyrocketing.

Why had Du Xiaoran clung to me so persistently, helping me at every turn?

Why had Feng Du given me so much, asking for nothing in return?

Why, with the Shadow Pavilion this powerful, had the resistance never been crushed — and how had it kept feeding the Mundane World a steady stream of advanced technology?

Now, finally, I had my answer.

And now I seriously suspected that the old woman I’d once believed to be my father’s remnant soul might also have been some condensed consciousness state of Xuanze and Hanming.

Mother had told me long ago — even my father might not be entirely real.

God. Xuanze, Hanming — just what kind of beings were you?

Suddenly I understood what Feng Du had told me at our parting.

“The Shadow Pavilion intelligent entity transcended all of this long ago. If you insist there’s a god, then as far as I’m concerned, that entity is it. You still don’t understand it well enough. It can do anything.”

It was true. Human civilization had, in an impossibly short span of time, rocketed to heights it had no business reaching. And behind all of it, the whole time, stood Xuanze and Hanming.

Feng Du simply hadn’t spelled it out — that the so-called Shadow Pavilion intelligent entity was, in truth, Xuanze and Hanming. To us, to all of humanity, they were god. An omnipotent presence. No one understood. No one even suspected. No one knew.

No — Mother and Uncle seemed to understand at least part of it. They just never said it plainly. They wanted me to work it out myself. Because in the end, there would have to be a meeting between Xuanze, Hanming, and me — and a long journey after it.

Maybe they’d known all along. Maybe they’d simply been waiting. Waiting for me to grow stronger. Waiting for me to mature. Waiting for me to reach the final decision on my own.

But could I really say no?

And why would I ever want to?

Xuanze and Hanming had given so much to this blue planet of ours. Shouldn’t I be willing to give something back to them?

Silver Pearl noticed I’d gone quiet, lost in thought, and broke into a smile through her tears.

“Is it because I was crying that you stopped talking? I’m crying because I’m happy! Miss Hanming and I spent twenty thousand years together — we became inseparable long ago. I was her pet, her best friend, her confidante, her sister, all at once. Your being here has let me glimpse a future for Xuanze and Hanming. I owe you real thanks for that. Come on.”

With that, Silver Pearl grabbed hold of me and took off flying, straight toward the largest stretch of swamp. I was too terrified to even look down.

Damn it, no. I can’t swim.