Luo withdrew her hand, picked up a small octopus from the pot, and placed it into Ye Jinyi’s bowl.
“What I meant with the broken thermometer is this—your heart resists change.”
“A thermometer needs time to calibrate temperature, and absolute zero ice, by its nature, is frozen time.”
“When you built this nation, the old world had already been completely destroyed once. But after the nation was fully formed…”
Luo continued, pulling another thermometer from her pocket. The display clearly read:
“-36.2°C.”
“You let the new world heat up, start to flow again—because deep down, you knew that in a zero-degree world, puppets wouldn’t even have the right to move. A world like that would be even more boring.”
“It’s already boring enough right now…”
Ye Jinyi added, glancing around at the people nearby.
Their mechanical blessings and empty praise just made her feel worse.
Luo went on, “That ice is your pursuit of absolute safety. And absolute safety, by nature, is boredom. The sky you see now—it’s all made of that ice, because the laws of space have already been rewritten by you.”
Ye Jinyi didn’t understand a word of that.
“What does that mean?”
Luo replied, “It means, if it were just pure absolute zero being released, this planet would’ve been finished already. But you forcibly rewrote the rules of absolute zero—what you created in the end was just a wall. A wall you stay behind, playing by yourself. And whatever happens outside the wall, it’s not your problem.”
“Now, do you understand the logic this world runs on?”
“Control others—so there’s no more betrayal.”
“Imprison the girl—so she can’t be lost.”
“Bind yourself—so you don’t have to choose.”
“Ban sadness—so you won’t feel pain.”
“Deny money—so there’s no more poverty.”
“You’re like a child locking their favorite toy in a glass case, terrified of breaking it.”
After saying that, Luo popped the last fish ball from her bowl into her mouth.
She rubbed her stomach, stood up from the sofa, and left her seat.
“Alright, I’m full. Thanks for the meal.”
“Oh, and since there’s no such thing as money in this world, I’ll leave this as my thank-you.”
Luo then placed the two dice she’d tossed earlier onto the table beside Ye Jinyi.
“Some things are exhausting to think about, I know. But I still hope you understand—this world isn’t just yes or no.”
“You’ve already been hurt to the core by what you believed were humans. So why keep clinging to their way of thinking?”
With that, Luo turned and left, leaving Ye Jinyi alone, staring at the food left in her bowl.
After finishing her meal, Ye Jinyi looked around at the countless threads crisscrossing the room, recalling what Luo had just said.
“So… this is what I truly long for?”
Ye Jinyi picked up the two dice. In a moment of haze, she felt like… there were more than just six sides.
Outside the city.
Chu Lingyun sat inside his prefab metal office, flipping through report after report—the supposed best analyses compiled by the nation’s top scientists.
But as he turned each page, all he could see between the lines were the same repeated conclusions:
- Don’t interfere.
2. Can’t interfere even if we try.
3. It’s structurally stable for now. Give us a few years to study it, maybe then we’ll be able to interfere.
After reading all those useless reports, Chu Lingyun flew into a rage.
He grabbed his lighter and set the entire stack of documents ablaze, burning them down to ashes.
He had read for hours, and the only remotely useful suggestion was to seal off the city—and that was where the proposals ended…
And honestly, if that were all, it might still be acceptable.
As long as the entire city was locked down, it wouldn’t endanger the rest of the country. Theoretically, that solution was viable.
But Chu Lingyun understood one fundamental truth: if you hand a time bomb to someone from ancient times—someone who has no idea what it is—and they carry it with them every day, it won’t explode… until it does. And when that day comes, who takes responsibility? The person who gave it to them would have long since vanished.
As he stared out the window at the massive black-wall domain covering the horizon, Chu Lingyun knew full well—this was his time bomb.
It could go off at any moment, yet it would take an extraordinarily long time to fully understand it.
Though many eager magical girls had come to help resolve the calamity, most of them had been turned away by Chu Lingyun.
Passion alone solved nothing. Righteousness could not change the reality.
Chu Lingyun understood—these young magical girls simply didn’t have the capability to handle something like this.
That’s why he allowed only S-rank and above magical girls to assist.
Creak—
“Governor Chu, I have some sad news… though I’m not sure if I should say it.”
A mature woman wearing glasses pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Chu Lingyun glanced at her, then quickly pulled out a chair for her.
“Ah, Madam Feng Jueryan, please—have a seat.”
“Thank you.”
Feng Jueryan accepted the chair and sat down.
Feng Jueryan, codename Phoenix Flame, was one of Shenzhou’s exceedingly rare EX-rank magical girls.
She was supposed to be long retired, now working in the capital training the next generation of magical girls.
But this calamity forced her to step forward personally.
That was her duty as a public servant.
But privately, she also had to come—for the great fire that claimed the lives of her entire family when she was twelve years old.
Chu Lingyun took a drag from his cigarette and asked, “What is this troubling news, Madam Feng?”
Feng Jueryan answered bluntly, “None of our existing technology has any effect on the Black Domain. None whatsoever.”
Chu Lingyun took another drag, then rested the cigarette on the ashtray.
He picked up the teapot beside him, found a cup, and poured Feng Jueryan some tea.
Feng Jueryan accepted the cup and gently swirled it in her hands to cool it down.
Once the temperature felt right, she took a small sip.
Chu Lingyun said, “Wasn’t that to be expected?”
“Sigh,” Feng Jueryan let out a long breath.
“That’s exactly the worst kind of answer—‘expected,’ yet still disappointing.”
She swirled the tea again and took another sip.
Looking at the slightly yellowish water under the light, Feng Jueryan murmured, “There’s a proverb from the Islamic world that rings very true right now.”
“Which one is that?” Chu Lingyun asked with interest.
“A person should never get angry—because the moment you get angry, you’ll reveal your true strength. And then everyone will know… your true strength is pathetic.”
After she said that, Feng Jueryan downed the remaining half-cup in one go.
“Haah—right now, we are that pathetic person. Everything we’ve got, every technique, has absolutely no effect on this disaster.”
“This is the weakness of humanity. We keep thinking we’re the smartest species on the planet—but after millions of years, we still don’t understand the world at all.”
