Chapter 57#
Five of Creation#
The world shifted. The pitch-black temple receded in that single faint flicker of candlelight, and the humid, bloody scent that had constantly surrounded them gradually disappeared. The countdown hit zero, and a sacred halo descended around them.
The landing spot this time was no longer the thirteenth floor of the Tower of Creation. Instead, as with Yu Feichen’s previous missions, they were teleported directly back to a random location in the Ice Crystal Square upon completion.
Bai Song was a bit surprised, but this was what Yu Feichen was used to. The meeting and conversation with the gatekeeper Claros the first time they returned was considered a novice guide; they were no longer newcomers now.
As they landed, a distant bell chime echoed from all directions. A grain of crystal-clear, brilliant timing sand fell into the central hourglass of the Ice Crystal Square. The golden light spots scattered in the square’s air stopped their chatter to recruit customers, fell silent for a second, and then issued a collective sigh like a cathedral choir.
“Distance—Resurrection Day—arrival is still—seven—days away—”
Cheers erupted everywhere. A flower-selling girl grabbed a large handful of petals from her basket and scattered them toward the golden sky. An exceptionally joyful atmosphere enveloped the entire square. The air was filled with the fragrance of honey, roses, and grapevines.
Yu Feichen looked around. Almost everyone was dressed in various styles of magnificent attire. Statues and plants were also adorned with garlands. Even the pigeons in the square each held a snow-white lily of the valley in their beaks, pacing steadily and no longer flying around and cooing.
This was the first time Yu Feichen had seen such an atmosphere. Although he had experienced countless dungeons, he hadn’t stayed in the Paradise for a long time; at most, he was just a bit short of completing one era. He looked at the hourglass in the center of the square—the crystal hourglass was slender and elegant in shape, and only seven grains of timing sand remained in the upper half. In other words, in seven days, one era of the Paradise would reach its end.
The last day of each long era was the Paradise’s grandest festival: Resurrection Day.
Sunset Street was very close to this place. Bai Song looked around curiously, not yet fully able to react.
Just then, a carriage pulled by a unicorn drove briskly out of Sunset Street and passed by Yu Feichen. A moment later, the carriage braked sharply, and a young man in a white robe jumped down from the roof.
“Brother Yu!” The person greeted Yu Feichen cheerfully.
Yu Feichen looked at that face, his memory a complete blank. Fortunately, the next moment the white-robed boy identified himself: “I’m Xia Sen. Two times ago, you, Brother Yu, led us through a mission.”
If looking only at faces, it would be hard for Yu Feichen to recognize five out of a hundred acquaintances, but he had an impression once names were mentioned. The last order he took before entering the Gate of Eternal Night was a mission in a zombie world. Xia Sen was a new member of that team. He still remembered that the team members were extremely good at repeating others’ words and heckling, and they had a bald leader.
As he spoke, Xia Sen walked closer, and Yu Feichen saw the dark red tear mole on the lower right corner of his eye—this was where a normal tear mole should be.
He said politely: “Where are your teammates?”
Xia Sen covered his face: “They were wiped out.”
Yu Feichen: “…”
This matter unexpectedly didn’t make people feel surprised.
“Fortunately, Resurrection Day is coming soon, so I don’t need to find a new team,” Xia Sen said.
At this time, his companion on the carriage said something toward them. Xia Sen let them go first and explained to Yu Feichen: “The Eternal Sleep flowers needed for the Resurrection Day ceremony only grow in my hometown, Langdon Warren. After my teammates died, I had nothing to do, so I took the initiative to help the God of Rituals and Celebrations transport flowers between Langdon Warren and the Paradise.”
At this time, the carriage began to move forward again. The mist-like gauze curtains were lifted by the airflow, revealing the silver-gilt carriage compartment filled with white long-petaled flowers.
Xia Sen said: “I didn’t have time last time. This time, can I treat you to a drink?”
Yu Feichen often received such invitations from employers; most of the time he would decline, but Xia Sen had already let his friends go first. If he rejected coldly again, it would no longer conform to the polite etiquette between people.
So the three of them walked side by side into Sunset Street. The taverns on both sides of the street were also decorated exceptionally beautifully, and every shop’s door displayed a sign saying “Resurrection Day half-price event in progress.”
Bai Song looked around and finally caught the main point: “What is Resurrection Day?”
Xia Sen said, Brother Yu, it seems this is a new companion you brought back from the Gate of Eternal Night. Yu Feichen nodded. Xia Sen hadn’t been in the Paradise for long, but he seemed very familiar with all the mechanisms of the Paradise.
He found that agreeing to Xia Sen’s invitation was a correct decision because Xia Sen began to actively explain to Bai Song.
The length of each era in the Paradise is 36,500 bell chimes, and “36,500” is also the number of timing sand grains needed for the hourglass to run out. There are three important festivals during these days: Wishing Festival, Homecoming Festival, and Resurrection Day.
An era starts from the “Wishing Festival,” passes through nine “Homecoming Festivals” in the middle, and finally ends with “Resurrection Day.”
Rather than calling Resurrection Day a festival, it’s more like a grand sacrificial ceremony. On Resurrection Day, their main god will walk down the thirty thousand steps of the Mountain of Long Day, pass through the road covered with Eternal Sleep flowers, and arrive at the center of Sunset Square. Everyone will behold the god’s flawless countenance and witness the supreme glory of the Paradise.
On this day, when a single drop of the main god’s blood falls into the sacred altar, creatures from thousands of worlds will look up toward the infinitely high sky. The power of resurrection will reach every corner of the Divine Kingdom and the Sea of Dust, summoning those souls belonging to the Paradise. Thus, the heroes of this era—those believers who sacrificed themselves for the sacred cause in the vast world—will return again and obtain brand new lives.
Living people will also reunite with their deceased teammates, friends, or lovers.
“After resurrection, they will appear on Sunset Square. At that time, there will be too many people on the whole square; after all, everyone from an era will come. So the Paradise will create countless overlapping spaces for this, to prevent the crowd from being too crowded—what kind of world are you from? It’s probably something like a server, magic gap, spiritual land, or parallel space. We hold wishing plates, ensuring we can meet our friends in the same space.” At this point, Xia Sen took out several plates from his pocket, with his teammates’ names and ID numbers written on them respectively, “This is it.”
Bai Song nodded, only half-understanding. Anyway, it means all the dead people come back to life; he understood that.
“So, believers never fear death.” Xia Sen held the wishing plate to his heart, a slight glimmer of tears in his eyes, and said softly, “Because God is with everyone.”
Bai Song let out a long breath: “I praise the main god. So I won’t die. Heaven knows how scared I was in the temple.”
Yu Feichen shattered his joy emotionlessly: “You will die very thoroughly.”
Bai Song: “?”
Xia Sen added a blow: “Of course, except for those who die outside the Gate of Eternal Night. Because the god’s gospel has not yet reached there.”
Bai Song was heartbroken.
As they spoke, they walked into a tavern.
Two people who looked a bit underage drank alcohol; Yu Feichen had fruit juice. He didn’t interact much with them. The content of those two’s chat was mainly popularizing Paradise knowledge—this was a more tactful way of putting it; to put it bluntly, Yu Feichen felt Xia Sen was preaching to Bai Song.
“It’s something you can’t imagine—even in fairy tales there wouldn’t be such a god.”
“I once climbed the Mountain of Long Day. Do you know? The god lives in the Sunset Temple at the peak. Near the pool in front of the temple, there are always innocent children playing. Adults rarely approach the temple because they don’t want the earthly atmosphere to disturb the tranquility there, even though God loves everyone.”
—“That’s great.”
“Yes, in my hometown, the very center of the Divine Kingdom—the Land of Holy Redemption, Langdon Warren, everyone believes in the main god from birth.”
—“Do you have consciousness from birth?”
“…This is just a metaphorical way of speaking. People in my hometown love poetry and rhetoric.”
“The color of your mole is so pretty.” Bai Song’s ability to deviate from the topic hadn’t regressed one bit.
But Xia Sen’s ability to combine it with the theme was not inferior at all: “This is a custom in Langdon Warren. Many people use Eternal Sleep flower juice to dot a mole under their right eye.”
Hearing this, Yu Feichen raised his eyes toward Xia Sen.
He saw the silver-haired, white-robed boy with a quiet expression, slightly tinged with sorrow, raising his hand to touch that miserably beautiful tear mole of his, saying: “In ancient legends, this is God’s first tear—back when he hadn’t yet become a god.”
Bai Song: “Why did he cry?”
“I haven’t seen related records,” Xia Sen said, “perhaps because of the suffering of all living beings.”
Next, Xia Sen spoke with increasing sadness and actually leaned on Bai Song’s shoulder and had a good cry, saying as he cried, “I love him.”
Yu Feichen watched all this quietly, thinking that the so-called His Majesty the Main God was so good at bewitching people’s hearts that it was outrageous.
Finally, this gathering in the tavern ended.
Before leaving, Xia Sen also gave Yu Feichen a bottle of raspberry juice and said to him: “Brother Yu, although you didn’t say anything, I can always feel an inexplicable familiarity from you. Perhaps it’s some kind of destined fate.”
Walking out of Sunset Street, Yu Feichen wanted to take Bai Song back to the Giant Tree Hotel and rent a room for him too, but unexpectedly he ran into another person related to them: the guide he had hired for Bai Song. Last time, just after starting the guide, Bai Song was pulled away by the Gate of Eternal Night.
“Little friend, why did you suddenly disappear! Fortunately, information on your direction appeared here again; otherwise, this guide service would be judged a failure, and I would be invited for tea by Mogrosh. Come on! Let’s continue.”
Bai Song: “It’s you! I missed you too!”
They reminisced, and Yu Feichen went to buy a knowledge ball to stuff into Bai Song’s head. The vast ocean of knowledge directly turned Bai Song into a dementia patient, his gaze dull and skewed, being led toward the Tower of Creation in a mentally challenged state by the guide, only recovering after a long time.
“Before you disappeared, we were talking about how the Goddess of Wisdom, Shivana, once forcefully kissed the Goddess of Strength, Ateja, in front of the hourglass. Next, I’m going to tell you a lingering and convoluted polygonal love story—do you know Painter? The God of Art, Creation, and Inspiration.”
Bai Song nodded.
The guide put an arm around his shoulder and said mysteriously: “The God of Art on the 9th floor and the God of Time, Morphy, on the 10th floor are best friends. They are soul-mates and have endless common language because what they govern are extremely abstract things. Oh, what a beautiful pair of soul mates! People often see them walking side by side on Twilight Street, talking and laughing. Do you know—every detail of Morphy’s face pinch, every single strand of hair, was meticulously carved by Painter himself. That’s simply the deep affection of carving a dream muse… Sometimes if you go find Painter, you’ll see on his canvas—you know.”
Yu Feichen, listening in, already had the thought of firing this guide.
The guide’s tone changed: “Unfortunately, unfortunately, Morphy has someone else in his heart.”
Bai Song was clearly obsessed with this polygonal love story: “How could that be!”
The guide shook his head repeatedly: “Painter accompanies Morphy for walks on Twilight Street, shopping, searching for the most interesting items in various worlds. Unfortunately, most of those carefully selected items were sent by Morphy to another god to relieve boredom. Almost all gods in the Paradise don’t associate with that one and are even very hostile toward him, but our God of Time always likes to linger on that floor. The feelings contained in this, you can understand.”
Bai Song: “Who is that detestable god?”
The guide’s tone became even more mysterious: “That—is the legendary God of Eternal Night, Claros.”
Bai Song: “…”
“However, that God of Eternal Night’s heart is even harder to fathom…”
“The next gossip is too dangerous. Quick, quick, quick, I’ll take you to see the official Morphy. On the eve of Resurrection Day, card drawing on the 10th floor is free. The opportunity is not to be missed, time will not come again!”
Yu Feichen coldly pressed the guide’s shoulder, prompting him to be more professional and do what he should. This guy, however, held his chest intoxicately: “Main God above, the legendary Yu God actually touched my shoulder.”
The guide was impervious. Yu Feichen wearily reached the 10th floor with the two of them.
The door opened, and the afternoon sunlight shone in through the wooden window lattices. Shimmering dust floated in the light. The God of Time’s residence was like a magician’s treasure room. Hundreds of hourglasses of various heights made a rustling sound. Clocks and watches of different shapes hung on the walls. Slender golden birdcages hung down from the ceiling, and each birdcage contained a snow-white feathered small bird skeleton in an elegant posture.
An elegant and mysterious robed magician sat in an armchair, looking at them.
He looked to be in his early twenties, with a thick, dazzling golden-chestnut semi-long short hair. His right eye was deep red, with strange patterns in the pupil, and he wore a golden monocle. In his left eye socket, however, there was not an eyeball but a cluster of golden-red flames.
“First meeting, you two.” He stood up, carrying a box and walking to them. Inside the dark wooden box were several stacks of divination cards facing down.
But he didn’t look at Bai Song, but looked at Yu Feichen: “A friend once mentioned your name to me. Glad to meet you. Want to draw a card? Perhaps you’re interested in seeing your past, present, and future.”