Chapter 103#
This Is My World#
Hearing this, Su Ruhui frowned slightly. “It sounds like you and Tantai Xun had a good relationship. Why have I heard since childhood that you didn’t get along?”
“Do you remember? I said that, in no sense of the word are you the child of Axun and me.”
Su Ruhui lowered his face and gave a helpless smile.
“What do you mean by ‘in no sense of the word’?”
Su Guanyu sighed softly and said, “Perhaps you should ask me when I discovered the truth of the world.”
“When?”
“Do you remember the explosion when you entered the Metaverse?” Su Guanyu said. “If I’m not mistaken, the servers supporting the Metaverse are right beneath that seabed. Correct?”
Su Ruhui was slightly startled and nodded, “Yes, a portion of the servers is indeed two thousand meters beneath the sea near the isolated island.”
His servers were scattered across server bases around the globe. These bases were highly concealed, kept running by the system, and only he knew their coordinates. The base two thousand meters beneath the sea was the largest among them, housing five thousand servers that ran day and night. The seawater served as their natural coolant, and nearly half of the Metaverse’s data computations were stored in this base.
Every spark of thought from a Metaverse resident was a computation. With such a massive population in the Metaverse, the computing volume was so immense that it was measured in millions per second. The grander something is, the more fragile it becomes. It was easily imaginable that the explosion must have impacted the base, affecting the servers’ operation. Even a single power interruption was enough to affect the entire Metaverse.
Su Guanyu told him, “The Isolated Island Paradise was attacked by missiles. Even though the explosion didn’t endanger the seabed, it sent a shockwave through the entire sea area. The massive shockwave affected your servers, causing a large-scale disruption in the data stream. It was at that moment that I saw through the truth of the world.”
On the day Su Ruhui was born into the Metaverse, the sky was dark and gloomy with rolling thunder. It seemed as if the entire world was about to end. The vault of heaven was so dark, as if pressing down on their heads. Su Guanyu kept watch by Tantai Xun’s bedside, holding her hand and straining with her. Tantai Jing waited outside the screen, frowning as he stared at it, his pale lips pursed almost into a straight line.
Tantai Xun labored all night, but the child delayed in coming out. The midwife whispered in fragmented voices, “Difficult labor… life in danger…” Su Guanyu’s heart almost stopped beating. Yet, at that very moment, he heard a strange, flat male voice.
【Error detected during the export of the Master’s consciousness data stream…】
“It’s born, it’s born!” The midwife carried the infant out, but just as joy washed over her, her face froze. “It’s a stillborn…”
Su Guanyu’s heart shuddered. Just as he was about to go over to the midwife to look at the child, the light and shadow around them suddenly froze.
【Error in exporting Master’s consciousness data stream. Time paused. Project Rebirth re-executing.】
Everyone ceased moving. The midwife held the baby, bent over, her facial expression frozen in shock. Axun on the bed maintained her expression of pain, the sweat on her forehead like beads, completely still.
【Model reconstruction in progress. Character name: Su Ruhui.】
A giant, six-pointed snowflake appeared in mid-air. A cyan stream of data gushed out of it, scattering into the air like fireflies.
The fireflies passed before Su Guanyu’s eyes and flew toward the midwife’s arms. He saw countless strange symbols in the shapes of 0s and 1s. The data stream infected his code, and the exchange of information was completed in an instant. He saw that this world originated from a few initial lines of code, which then continuously stacked, becoming more and more complex as computer graphics were generated one after another. In the grand scheme, there seemed to be the arrangement of a Creator; he first arranged the swirling snow that blanketed the world, then demarcated a region to establish countless cities and walls. He had the Snowflake settle into the world, and with the Snowflake’s help, the construction of the world continuously accelerated.
Su Guanyu saw the process of his own birth—the data stream flowed from the Snowflake and merged into his hometown, Jiangzhou. He was not born of parents; rather, like the child “Su Ruhui,” he had descended out of thin air.
In this moment, he knew the beginning and end of everything, the false reality of this world. The surging data stream passed through his body, converging to form the shape of a tiny infant. The stillborn broke into countless fluorescent lights and vanished into thin air, and the newly generated infant replaced the stillborn, resting securely in the midwife’s arms.
【Character creation successful. Consciousness data import successful.】
The infant opened his eyes and began to wail.
Because of the data disruption, Su Ruhui’s consciousness data had failed to transmit smoothly, and an error had also occurred in Su Guanyu’s character permissions. The system’s time pause failed to stop his time from flowing. It was precisely because of this error that he discovered the truth of the Metaverse.
At this moment, it felt as though a city in his heart had collapsed in an instant, crumbling into ash.
【Project Rebirth complete. Scanning other characters. Purging anomalous characters.】
The Snowflake began to weave between the people. The permission error had not occurred only to Su Guanyu; others had encountered the same situation, and the Snowflake was clearly aware of this. A midwife showed a terrified expression and stumbled away, shouting, “Monster… monster!”
The Snowflake judged ruthlessly: 【Anomalous character detected. Executing formatting program.】
The center of the Snowflake emitted a cyan light, and the midwife instantly scattered into fireflies, vanishing into nothingness. Su Guanyu immediately understood that the Snowflake’s method of judgment was to see if anyone could see it—only anomalous characters could see the Snowflake. Su Guanyu maintained his rigid posture, holding Tantai Xun’s hand without moving a muscle. The Snowflake maneuvered among the attendants and midwives, observing the changes in their pupils. Su Guanyu held his breath, not daring to make a reckless move. Finally, the Snowflake came before his eyes. Su Guanyu was like a wooden mannequin; even though the Snowflake was so close it was almost pressed against him, he did not budge in the slightest. The Snowflake hovered by his side for a moment and found no clues.
【Anomalous character purge complete. System offline. System online condition: Su Ruhui’s survival rate falls below 10%.】
Time resumed its flow, and surprisingly, no one noticed that a midwife was missing from the room. The midwife holding the child took a closer look and wept with joy, saying, “I must have seen wrongly! The young master is perfectly fine, and his spirit is robust!”
“Where is the other midwife?” Su Guanyu asked intentionally.
“What are you saying? There have only ever been the two of us midwives,” the midwife asked in confusion.
The person purged by the Snowflake had been forgotten, as if she had never existed.
He took the child, staring at his tiny face with a complex expression. The surging data, the tide-like symbols, all told him that they were merely this child’s playthings, and this child was the master of this world. And he could not reveal the truth, because such an absurd fact would only make others treat him as a laughable madman.
It was a month later when Tantai Xun realized that Su Guanyu had changed. It started when she discovered this fellow hiding in his room, stealthily cutting his own hand with a knife. Terrified, she quickly grabbed him and asked what he was doing.
He looked down at the blood gushing from the wound and said, “I want to see what I actually am.”
“Have you gone mad?” Tantai Xun frowned. “You are a human. Do you think you are some celestial immortal? What, have you been looking in the mirror all day and lost your mind over your own beauty?”
He said, “Have you ever thought that perhaps we are all nothing but ants? Axun, I must tell you another secret: Hui’er is not our biological child. He was created by the Snowflake. He is the master of the Snowflake, and you and I are merely tools to raise him.”
Tantai Xun was stunned. She grabbed his face to examine it closely. “Strange. I’ve only ever heard of women falling into low spirits and getting depressed after giving birth. How is it that men do too? Su Guanyu, are you sick? Don’t scare me. I’m heading to the Snow Realm in two months, and Hui’er is counting on you for care.”
He gripped Tantai Xun’s wrist. “Don’t go. It’s meaningless; there is nothing in the Snow Realm. Axun, why risk your life for those insignificant ants?”
He had never spoken such cold words before. Tantai Xun was startled and said, “What is wrong with you? You are kind by nature, unwilling even to step on an ant. How could you say such a thing?”
As if hearing some massive joke, Su Guanyu shook his head, laughing continuously. “Because that wasn’t me, Axun. That was the ‘me’ you liked. I, Su Guanyu, have always been petty, vengeful, and utterly selfish. It is you who have never known the real me.”
Tantai Xun frowned as she looked at this man whose shoulders were shaking with laughter. “Stop talking. You are sick.”
“Are you afraid of knowing the truth?” Su Guanyu smiled faintly. “Indeed, the truth has always been cruel. I, too, was once willing to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear just like you. But the truth is the truth; whether you accept it or not, it is a fact. Axun, think about it. I was a tutor for the Liu family of Jiangzhou for so many years. Why was it that only you noticed the clues in my makeup?”
Tantai Xun’s brow furrowed tightly, and she scolded, “Shut up.”
Su Guanyu insisted on speaking: “You are so smart, how could you not guess the truth?”
Tantai Xun pursed her lips. Even though she was unwilling to think deeply about it, she understood everything in an instant.
Everything had been designed. Years ago, on the day she arrived at the Liu residence, he had deliberately not painted his hands dark, revealing his flaw before her eyes. And the ambush on the official road—he was always intelligent, so how could he not know that the official road was dangerous? Yet he insisted on taking it, only to be blocked by the Liu family, precisely because he wanted her to play the hero saving the damsel in distress. Thinking back carefully, everything seemed to carry an unusual tint. When he suffered from rumors and shed tears over the zither, every single time he wept, a servant would see it and report it to her. He was clearly using her hands to punish those he detested. At the banquet in Lizhou, when she wished to elevate his status, he also harbored calculations. He hadn’t clumsily knocked over that young man’s bowl and chopsticks by accident; it was a deliberate act to force her to make a stand and elevate him.
On the surface, it seemed she had taken him by force, but as it turned out, everything had been within his calculations. He had targeted her long ago, intending to rely on her to live a life above others. He was graceful and elegant, and even his weeping was breathtakingly beautiful, because his every move had been designed in front of a mirror, solely to win her favor.
“With my appearance and my status, you were right—if I hadn’t met you, how would I still be alive?” Su Guanyu reminisced about the past, saying word by word, “So, from the day you arrived in Jiangzhou, I had already planned to enter your bedchamber.”
“Why confess now?” Tantai Xun’s smile grew cold. “You could have hidden it for a lifetime.”
“I once complained that heaven was unfair and that my life was cheap, but now I know that whether noble or commoner, all are but ants.” Su Guanyu caressed her cheek. “Axun, the expedition is completely meaningless. This is a fake world, and you are destined to find nothing. Do not bother with the ants here. Once I break through the celestial boundary and find a way to leave, we will go together, alright?”
“Nonsense.” Tantai Xun brushed his hand away.
Su Guanyu said, “If you don’t believe me, then I will cut this child open to show you his truth. As long as he dies, the Snowflake will appear.”
He suddenly drew a dagger from beneath his wide sleeve and plunged it into the left leg of the infant Su Ruhui. Instantly, blood gushed out, and the swaddled baby wailed. Extremely shocked, Tantai Xun snatched the dagger from Su Guanyu’s hand and scooped up the crying infant.
“Summon the physician!” Tantai Xun examined Su Ruhui’s leg. His chubby, lotus-root-like leg had a long gash on it, and fresh blood had dyed the entire swaddling cloth red. Fortunately, there were practitioners of healing mystic arts in the palace; otherwise, the child would likely have been crippled for life.
As she stood up and walked out, she instructed the attendants, “Watch him closely. He has gone mad, severely mad.”
He knelt on the floor, staring blankly at her retreating back, murmuring to himself, “A pity, you too are nothing but a puppet made by the Snowflake.”
In this world, he was the sole person who had discovered the truth.
Tantai Xun’s head throbbed as if it would split. With Su Guanyu going mad, her chronic migraine flared up again, making it extremely hard to bear. Enduring the pain, she went to find Tantai Jing to tell him about Su Guanyu’s illness, while deliberately omitting the past of Su Guanyu plotting against her. After all, she was no saint herself; if she hadn’t taken him by force, how could she have taken his bait? Her elder brother had never liked Su Guanyu, disliking his slow speech, his zither-playing and flute-blowing, and his overly beautiful appearance that enticed her. Her brother even detested his posture while eating and drinking, so it was best not to displease her brother any further.
After listening, Tantai Jing said, “Stay and look after him. Hui’er is young; they both need you.”
Tantai Xun rubbed her forehead and said, “Brother, you know that in the Mystic Sect, no one but me can shoulder this heavy responsibility. Those nobles are used to warm chambers and fine wine; they cannot endure the freezing wind and snow. I must go to the Snow Realm.”
She was right; the paradise of the Snow Realm was the only way out for the human world. As the Grand Sect Master, Tantai Jing had to put the lives of the people first, and he had no standing to stop her.
“Select the elite to accompany you,” he said.
“Hui’er and Ayu,” Tantai Xun said, “I entrust them to your care, Brother. Ayu has some trouble with his head, so please watch over him more.”
At the thought of that fellow Su Guanyu, Tantai Jing’s expression showed displeasure once more. Yet, in the end, he granted Tantai Xun’s request: “Alright.”
Su Guanyu spent his days immersed in the library, sitting there for entire days. No one knew what he was thinking, only seeing the books piled higher and higher by his side. Su Guanyu was so fanatical that the library became his residence. They had been sleeping in separate rooms for a long time, and as time passed, rumors spread from the villa that the Princess and her husband did not get along.
Tantai Xun had no mind to pay attention to those rumors. Every day, she went to the training grounds to select expedition soldiers and spatial gate mystic artists. Spatial gate mystic artists could perform long-distance spatial leaps, which was far less troublesome than trekking on foot.
Four months later, Tantai Xun led the expedition team to explore the Snow Realm. Su Guanyu and Tantai Jing stood together on the wall of the Snow Realm Great Wall, gazing out as the guard team, tiny as ants, slowly entered the vast Snow Realm. The world was a blank sheet of white, with chaotic fog filling their vision and obscuring the unknown path ahead. At this very moment, neither Su Guanyu nor Tantai Jing would have ever thought that Tantai Xun would never return from this journey.
“First spatial leap, one hundred li from the Great Wall. Nothing found, only snow,” Tantai Xun’s voice came from the compass.
“Second spatial leap, two hundred li from the Great Wall. Still snow, found some snow wolves.”
After the third spatial leap, Tantai Xun penetrated three hundred li deep into the Snow Realm, and the expedition team lost contact with the human world. They were too far away; the spiritual energy flow of the communication compass could not travel such a vast distance, so the Mystic Sect could only wait. On the snowy plains, Tantai Xun and her guard struggled forward against the wind and snow. On this boundless snow plain, snow wolves and snow foxes were not the greatest dangers; snow blindness, freezing hypothermia, and the disappointment of finding nothing after countless spatial leaps were the true chasms they had to cross.
More than half of the guard was dead or injured, and their dry rations were depleting day by day. For some reason, they could no longer hunt any snow wolves or snow foxes. The clamor to return grew louder and louder, but she held on, forcing herself to press forward. Finally, they reached the end of the sky. They saw a deep sea, with a giant Snowflake suspended above it. A massive city lay nestled in the snowy mountains, with a magnificent glazed dome enveloping it, shielding it from the wind and snow. Tantai Xun saw strange demons walking and flying within that city, but they never ventured out of the shelter of the glazed vault.
At a single glance, it was clear that they, too, were creatures imprisoned by the wind and snow, and their homeland was even smaller and more desolate than the forty-eight provinces of Great Jing.
Was this the boundary of the world? Looking at that snowflake, an infinite sorrow welled up in Tantai Xun’s heart.
She still had not found a paradise of favorable weather; the end of the world was actually a snowflake.
She recalled Su Guanyu’s words; he had said her expedition was destined to find nothing. Why was Su Guanyu able to foresee this outcome? A massive doubt rose in her heart.
Suddenly, a woman covered in wounds appeared at the end of the road. She was so beautiful, almost like an elf. The fluffy ears on her head also seemed to indicate her non-human identity.
The catwoman cradled a frail kitten in her arms and held it out, “Please, take my child away. He is a half-demon, with the blood of your mortals flowing in him. The Snow Realm Celestial Pole is the territory of our demon race. They have long discovered the warm human world and are determined to march south to contest your homeland. My child possesses the devouring mystic art, which is their greatest weapon.”
Someone said, “By that logic, we ought to kill this child.”
“For the sake of my betraying my own race to tell you this secret, please give him a home.” The catwoman looked up at Tantai Xun and said with tears, “I followed you for several days. I heard you muttering your child’s nickname in your dreams. You are a mother too; surely you won’t watch him die without saving him.”
Having said this, she collapsed from exhaustion and fainted. Tantai Xun picked up the kitten by the scruff of its neck from her arms. It was a snow-white kitten, so small and frail that it seemed a single squeeze of a hand could choke it to death. A soldier checked the catwoman’s pulse and shook his head at her. This cat demon was already at the end of her rope; that last burst of energy had just been her final rallying moment.
“How about we roast this cat and eat it?” Someone drooled from hunger.
She knitted her brows, hesitating on whether to kill the kitten. While she was pondering, a massive dark shadow appeared ahead. They saw five terrifying demons appear at the end of the snowy mist—a giant scaled python, a hulking black bear, and a giant three-headed dog. The soldiers trembled and froze on the spot.
“What… what on earth are those?” someone asked, stammering.
“What are you standing there for? Run!” Tantai Xun roared.
Pursued by the Demon Ancestors, they fled for their lives. After two consecutive spatial leaps, the spatial gate mystic artists had exhausted their spiritual energy and could not open a new gate. They hid inside a snow cave, not daring to make a sound. Those Demon Ancestors were clearly of a profound cultivation realm; in their group, only Tantai Xun was in the Pilgrimage Realm, which was simply not enough to fight them. Tantai Xun looked down at the kitten in her arms—it was the root of all this trouble. According to its mother, it possessed the devouring mystic art, and such a powerful art must never fall into the hands of the demon race.
Tantai Xun decided to kill it.
But a strange thing happened. This kitten seemed to be protected by some special power—blades and swords could not pierce its body, and fire could not roast it. Even when starved and deprived of milk, it still lived perfectly well. Tantai Xun at the time did not know that it was the Snowflake protecting the kitten. Because it had not yet completed the plotline of meeting Su Ruhui, the Snowflake had set an invincibility program to preserve its life.
Looking at this miraculous kitten, for a brief moment, Tantai Xun suddenly understood Su Guanyu’s mad ravings.
If there existed things in this world that transcended common sense, did it prove that this world might actually be fake?
Was Su Guanyu… really a madman?
“We can’t kill it. What should we do?” The soldiers looked at each other.
“Bring it,” Tantai Xun said through gritted teeth.
They fled, running wildly in the direction of home. Along the way, people kept dying, turning into food in the mouths of the demons, leaving no bones behind, never to return home. They passed the tombstones they had erected on their way there, where their comrades lay. They had originally intended to pick up their corpses on the way back, but now they had no time to spare.
Unable to distinguish day from night, they didn’t know how long they had been fleeing—days, or months? Tantai Xun kept swinging her blade, unleashing her furious blizzards to block the steps of the Demon Ancestors. The Demon Ancestors were too powerful; they could sniff out their drifting scents even through the wind and snow. With her spiritual energy exhausted, Tantai Xun’s entire body ached, and her deadly migraine flared up again, leaving her without even the strength to run. Her soldier helped her up, and the remaining two spatial gate mystic artists exhausted their body’s essence, working together to tear open a narrow space rift and transport them thousands of li away.
But the Demon Ancestors followed like shadows, and a giant spatial gate opened barely a hundred paces away.
“Your Highness, hang on! I see the Great Wall!” the soldier roared.
She made him stop, using her blade to support her body.
“The Snow Realm Great Wall is our final barrier. We must never let the demons pass the Wall. If they open the gates to let us in, it would be equivalent to letting the demons in,” Tantai Xun said.
“Your Highness…” The soldier wept, “We are home, we are almost home!”
She threw the kitten into his arms and pushed him away, “Run! I will buy you the time of a single stick of incense. Only that long. You must bring this kitten back behind the Great Wall.”
The soldier was stunned for a moment, then fell to his knees with a thud, shouting, “This subordinate will never be a coward!”
The demons appeared in the snowy wind, their towering black shadows enveloping Tantai Xun in a circular formation.
“Mortal, a single Pilgrimage Realm cannot stop five Pilgrimage Realms,” the dark shadows hissed.
Tantai Xun laughed wildly, “How will you know unless we try?”
“How weak you mortals are. Rather than risking your life to protect your frail compatriots, why not serve us?” the dark shadows said. “Kneel, bow, hand over the Saint Child, and we shall spare your life.”
“What a joke,” Tantai Xun said, enunciating every word. “My Tantai clan never bows its head.”
The soldier trembled violently, hugging the kitten tightly to his chest.
Tantai Xun wiped the snow particles from her face and barked, “Go!”
With tears and snot covering his face, the soldier hardened his heart, spun around, and ran toward the Great Wall while holding the kitten in a death grip. Behind him, a ferocious blizzard swept across the snowy plains.
In the study, Tantai Jing’s long-silent communication compass rang. Beside him, Su Guanyu lifted his head from the heavy volumes of books as if waking from a deep dream. The infant Su Ruhui lay in the cradle, crying loudly. Tantai Xun had instructed Tantai Jing to look after Su Guanyu and his son. Fearing that Su Guanyu would go mad again, self-harm, or kill the child, Tantai Jing had kept the father and son under his eyes whenever possible.
“Brother,” Tantai Xun’s hoarse voice came from the compass.
“Axun,” Tantai Jing pressed the compass. “Are you on your way back?”
“I’m returning. I’ve let you down—I didn’t find anything,” Tantai Xun’s voice leaked deep exhaustion. “Other than snow, there’s only snow. I saw a race living in the wind and snow; they live even harder lives than we do. At the end of the sky, there is a massive snowflake. What do you think that means? When humans die, do they turn into wind and snow and fly toward the sky?”
Tantai Xun was covered in blood, her vision dyed a brilliant red. She swung her blade, severing the arm of a demon.
The demon let out a sharp wail, and another demon charged over, its gaping maw filled with sharp teeth.
“What is that sound?” Su Guanyu asked.
“You’re there too,” Tantai Xun had one arm torn and mangled by a bite, blood gushing from the mangled flesh. “Su Guanyu, is your head feeling any better? You asked me before if the world was real or fake. On the road during the expedition, I actually gave that boring question some careful thought. If the world is fake, wouldn’t that mean you are fake, Brother is fake, and Hui’er is fake? I don’t accept that, so the world is real.”
Tantai Jing frowned, “Where are you? We will come to get you.”
“Do you think my logic is crooked?”
Tantai Xun laughed aloud. The blizzard danced wildly once more, and the spiritual energy throughout her body surged violently. Her meridians, unable to withstand the terrifying pressure, fractured inch by inch. The wind and snow turned into sharp blades, slicing into the hard scales of the demons, causing them to shriek miserably.
“Axun, where are you!” A grim dread rose in Tantai Jing’s heart as he suddenly realized that Tantai Xun had been fighting all along.
“Su Guanyu, don’t you understand yet?” Tantai Xun said softly. “I love you all. The world with you in it is my world. As long as it is my world, then it is a real world. Oh, right, I sent a cat back. You must teach it to be human, not a cat. It seems a bit difficult; if it really can’t be a human, then let it be Hui’er’s cat…” She gasped, her speech becoming fragmented. “I must go now. In the future, let my unlucky brother raise you two and that cat in my stead. Brother, do not grieve for me; you should be happy for me. The sickness and suffering of my life have finally come to an end here.”
They heard the roaring sound of snow swallow all noises, and the voice from the compass stopped abruptly.
Tantai Jing told Su Guanyu to stay at home and ordered the attendants to watch over Hui’er. He stood up, summoned the spatial gate mystic artists, and opened a spatial gate to the Snow Realm Great Wall. The soldiers inside the wall searched along the snow, finding the unconscious soldier and a kitten, as well as an ice sculpture standing tall in the snow ten li outside the Great Wall.
Her blood was frozen in the ice; the entire ice sculpture was almost crimson. Her heart was gone, and a massive gaping hole had been torn open in her chest, completely empty.
The soldiers remained silent; the snow fell in absolute quiet.
Tantai Jing’s legs felt as heavy as lead. He walked toward her and embraced her freezing body. Tantai Jing had not hugged her for a long time. Ever since she grew up, went on expeditions, and established her own family, they had never embraced like they did when they were children.
He thought he had been wrong. He shouldn’t have let her go so far.
Even if there were a paradise beyond the Snow Realm, would that truly be their world?
“Axun,” he said hoarsely, “I will take you back to our world.”
When the news of Tantai Xun’s death reached the study, Su Guanyu’s hand rocking the cradle froze. He knew very well that Tantai Xun was merely a puppet molded by the Snowflake. The Snowflake had designed her to be loyal, unyielding, and disregardful of life and death, so she was bound to sacrifice her life for righteousness. Her meeting this end was destined.
He shouldn’t have been sad for her.
Yet, he clearly heard something shatter within his chest with a sharp crack, dripping with fresh blood.