Chapter Seven: I'm Falling Apart! [Please Recommend and Add to Favorites]

Li Can originally thought the following pages would still be text, but what greeted him were strange and bizarre illustrations.

They resembled those mysterious and enigmatic murals etched onto stone walls in archaeological documentaries.

The images themselves were so blurred they could only be described as incomprehensible.

It was as if the artist had splashed the canvas with a riot of colors, yet highlighted white and black above all.

“What on earth does this mean…”

Li Can frowned deeply, unsure whether he should even call these ‘paintings.’

Could this be what people called art?

He turned to the next page—more ‘paintings.’

However, the second image was obviously more pleasing than the first, containing only two colors: black and white.

Each occupied half the space, strictly divided.

He turned another page.

The third painting was even more curious: pure white, not a trace of any other hue.

Li Can was completely baffled.

He turned the page again.

The fourth painting was still white, but now it was filled with countless tiny white dots, of varying sizes and scattered with no apparent pattern.

“Is this as far as my powers of comprehension go?”

Just as Li Can was about to be driven mad, the fifth painting brought him a glimmer of hope.

It was no longer a single color but was filled with an array of simple, unique symbols.

They formed a circle, surrounding a single white dot in the center.

The designs were highly abstract and mostly composed of lines, but Li Can could just make out a few.

“This one probably stands for ‘man.’”

“That looks like ‘fire.’”

“This... might be some sort of ‘animal.’”

“Wait, this symbol closely resembles the one we use for ‘lightning’ now.”

Li Can was utterly absorbed in this “puzzle game,” unable to extricate himself.

“There are also mountains, rivers, the sun, the moon, plants, birds, beasts—all things found in nature…”

He took a deep breath.

Despite the many symbols he couldn’t decipher, he felt he’d grasped the meaning behind the five paintings.

“If the first image is a world, then the different colors represent the various forces living in it.

One day, the white and black forces collide. They stand at odds, refusing to yield, until finally conflict erupts.

The white force triumphs over the black and claims all the territory.

That’s why the third painting is pure white.

In the fourth painting, the white force begins to break up, spreading outward and eventually forming various smaller forces.

These so-called ‘small forces’ are the abstract patterns in the fifth picture.”

Li Can was deeply shaken. How similar this was to the “Big Bang” theory he’d once come across online!

Around fifteen billion years ago, the universe exploded into being, producing matter and antimatter.

When these meet, they annihilate each other, cancelling out just like positive and negative numbers.

But, in an incredible twist, matter survived this contest and went on to create the dazzling diversity of the natural world—including humanity.

In fact, everything people encounter in daily life is made of matter.

Li Can’s frown deepened. Why would such a scientific theory appear in this strange, unscientific place?

A subtle sense of helplessness before the unknown crept in, threatening to overwhelm him.

Sensing this change, Li Can forced himself to calm down and let go, turning to the next page.

Again, it was an illustration!

And it looked exactly like one of the previous ones—filled with scattered white dots.

“Which one was it?” Li Can intended to check back, but as soon as he raised his hand, he froze.

All the preceding pages he’d seen had vanished, and this image had become the cover.

“When did they disappear? I didn’t notice a thing.”

He had no choice but to continue studying the current page. No matter how hard he looked, he saw nothing new—just specks, as if the page were dirty or moldy.

Pinching the corner, he turned the page slowly.

No change.

He held it upright.

No change.

Even when he flipped it completely, still nothing.

He was certain the page remained and hadn’t disappeared.

“Could it be that as long as I’m looking, it won’t vanish?”

His childish curiosity piqued, Li Can stared unblinkingly at the page, about to flip it again when—

The page vanished.

It wasn’t a sudden disappearance, nor had he lost focus; it just faded away as if it had never existed, as though he’d never turned it at all!

“So bizarre—bizarre enough to scare a man.”

Li Can lowered his gaze to the new page. This time, it held only a single line of text:

[Failed to comprehend the entire set of illustrations; no further content may be viewed.]

“Oh no! If I can’t understand, will I be trapped here forever?”

Li Can’s heart sank. He rapidly flipped through the next few pages. As he feared, each bore the same sentence, in exactly the same position.

“What exactly didn’t I understand?”

Reviewing his recent experience, if there was a problem, it had to be with the sixth illustration. Yet the sixth image was identical to an earlier one.

“Does the sixth illustration hide a deeper meaning?”

Li Can looked around.

The endless sea…

The ripples beneath his feet…

The cracked, weathered round table…

The vine-entwined ancient chair…

This bizarre place was wondrous, yet utterly devoid of life. He felt no sense of time’s passage, and couldn’t even recall how long he’d been there!

Had it been just a few minutes?

Or perhaps, several hours!

He stared at the water’s surface. Without the ripples, it would have been a mirror.

The reflection of himself was vivid and alive—he couldn’t tell who was watching whom.

“This place is too clean,” Li Can muttered absently, then suddenly jolted as if struck by lightning.

Yes,

This place was too clean,

Unrealistically so!

So, could the sixth illustration ever go moldy?

Clearly not!

Li Can returned to the round table.

“Earlier, my attention was totally caught up in the disappearing pages, so I didn’t examine the sixth illustration closely. Thinking back, those weren’t patches of mold but deliberately drawn black dots.

Their number was small and their size tiny, so I overlooked them.

In other words, in that contest, the black representing antimatter wasn’t completely annihilated—some remained.

So what would it go on to create?”

The words on the hide-bound pages had vanished. Eagerly, Li Can flipped to see what came next.

But what appeared was even more intriguing.

[You have passed the test. You are now the Agent of the Gods. This contract is permanent and can only be dissolved by death.]

“What the—what’s going on? Agent of the Gods? What contract? I don’t understand a thing!”

Li Can stared blankly at the empty tabletop. Suddenly, above it, a cluster of light gathered in midair, forming a white orb the size of a fist.

‘Darkness draws near. My power is fading—I cannot hold on much longer…’

“Who’s speaking?!”

Li Can distinctly heard an extremely weak voice echo through the world, but he had no time to react before the white orb shot straight into his brow.

His vision blurred again.

When he came to, he was back in his room, arm still outstretched for water.

The salty tang of kelp,

The yellowed lamplight.

His breath came quick and shallow, cold sweat streaming, his throat parched.

His body felt as if it hadn’t tasted water in days.

Li Can instinctively reached for the bottle of mineral water on the table—

And then,

With a bang, the brand-new bottle exploded!

(To be continued…)

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