Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 1023: The End of the Sky, the Corner of the Earth (Part )

Every time Jania came to this street, she not only scouted "Gun's Roses", but also went to the bakery that led her here and chatted with the employees. She suspected that this bakery was hiding something like "Gun's Roses", but later found out that she was suspicious, but the time she invested in scouting in the early stage was not completely useless. For example, she learned that the owner of the bakery had a van for transportation, which was usually parked in a public parking lot not far from the corner of the street.

She had no time to feel guilty about stealing someone else's car. At this point, this little theft was really not worth mentioning. However, after she unlocked the car door with the key, Chilabin still asked a slightly pointed question: "Boss, do you have a driver's license?"

"I can drive," Jania said. This was one of the bad things she and Malcolm had done without telling her mother.

"That's not appropriate. Besides, the traffic rules here are different from those in your hometown."

"Not much difference. I've observed the cars on the road before."

Chilabin still insisted: "Let me drive."

Jania weighed it over and finally agreed. It was easier to monitor the driver than to monitor the passengers while driving. She asked Chilabin to sit in the driver's seat and sat diagonally behind him. Before officially handing over the keys, she raised the shiny black thing in her hand, pointed it at Chilabin's head, and repeated what they said when they left Guns N' Roses: "Don't mess with me, okay, Captain?"

Chilabin also answered readily: "You have the final say, boss!"

Jania lowered her gun. Something cold and lumpy suddenly pressed against her leg. She glanced down and saw that it was Fina who had come in through the open car door. It was curled up on her leg like a warm cat, its tail wrapped around her wrist, and its small reptilian pupils, originally a yellow-brown color similar to the parking lot environment, slowly turned into a fine diagonal dark blue, the same tone as Jania's jeans. The change in skin color enhanced its stealth, but it did not reduce its ferocious appearance. From the perspective of general pet aesthetics, its jagged head and thorny jaws were not pleasing, but in Jania's eyes, it was very friendly and even safe.

She stroked Fina's head skillfully and scratched the base of the scales with her nails. Fina's eyes narrowed in enjoyment, and she looked like a spoiled kitten, but she didn't forget that she was actually very dangerous. In the past two months, she often learned some knowledge about lizards, and even expanded the scope to scintillans, trying to figure out Fina's specific species through various characteristics. But just as her brother's attitude suggested, Jania finally found that this was an impossible task. Her superficial research only made her understand how incredible Fina was. Its shape-changing appearance, ghost-like movement ability, barbed teeth and fast-acting toxins were unprecedented in the world, enough to make it a trump card to defeat the enemy. Fina's intelligence was also very high, no worse than that of a trained working dog - but Jania had to admit that it was not smart enough to fully understand human language. She never thought that Fina could speak human language until it actually spoke to her.

This strange thing happened at a difficult time for her. It was a few days after her brother disappeared, and she had begun to doubt the messages sent by his name, but she had no way to prove it. As she curled up in bed, wondering if she had made a mistake, it was Fina who quietly slid into her lap and looked at her intently. Its reptilian face was difficult to express emotion, but Jania thought it was trying to comfort her. So she picked it up and let it lie on her arms, gently resting its hard, prickly head on her cheek.

Then she heard the voice from Fina. "Something is not right now," the voice whispered in her ear, "I think you should be prepared."

Jania almost threw out the little elf who had suddenly learned to speak, but she controlled herself in an instant, not only because of her love for Fina or fear of being attacked by stress. In fact, she had a premonition before hearing that voice.

“Shh,” the voice from Fina whispered again, “Don’t make too much noise, you are safe where you are now… There are no cameras here, but you have to be careful about being monitored by your phone. Something is watching us.”

That was the first time Miffy spoke to her. At first, Jania thought it was Fina, but later she realized they were not one and the same, at least not with the same consciousness. Miffy was some kind of creature that lived in Fina's body and could think independently. Jania had imagined it to be a small ant or a tapeworm with a mouth, until she accidentally saw a few thin white tubes like grass stems sticking out from under Fina's scales. This discovery made her a little worried about Fina's health, but Miffy claimed that she was symbiotic and harmless to the host, at least on the surface.

Miffy revealed many secrets to Jania, but left her with more questions. It claimed that it was not intentional to hide it, but it was separated from its mother too early - yes, Miffy had a "mother" that once lived in her brother's house (she remembered the fish tank with a particularly sticky inner wall). It was the mother who quietly put it into Fina's nasal cavity one night, allowing it to crawl into the host's body along the respiratory tract. At that time, it was as light as a cilium, so its ability to think and act was quite low, and the memory information stored inside was also very limited. Although the mother made it independent, it did not want it to grow, so it kept releasing pheromones in the surrounding environment to keep it in a dormant state. It was not until the mother left that it was able to grow up slowly with Fina's nutrition and gradually understand what the information stored in its body meant... In other words, it began to have a "self".

Miffy likes the feeling of having her own self, but she is still curious about where the mother has gone. She has converted all the information stored in her body into her own mind memory, but the mass she had when she was split was too small, and the information she got from the mother was pitiful. She only knows that the mother came to this new habitat from a distant volcano, and the person who brought her here was Jania's brother. In addition, there is another dangerous observer who lives in her brother's safe.

The safe was not locked, but the contents were emptied. If Miffy was not lying, then the contents of the safe might have left with its mother. The reason and timing of their departure were hard to guess, but Jania quickly thought of the day before her brother disappeared. That day, she had just returned from "Gun Roses" and saw her brother sitting alone in the living room, leaving the door wide open. He claimed that he was dumped, and he really looked like a death row prisoner who had just been taken out of the dark prison, so she endured and didn't ask anything. It was a big mistake. She actually forgot how good her brother was at pretending to be pitiful. This fact was awkward to think about, but Jania had to admit that her brother had a talent for using sweet words to coax women to sympathize with him. To deal with such a man, you have to harden your heart and give him a real face.

What on earth was going on? She asked Miffy more than once, because she always felt that Miffy did not tell her all the information. But no matter how much Miffy concealed, it did not know where her brother was, and could only provide a few general clues: before it was split off, the mother body had just heard her brother and the things in the safe talking about an enemy they encountered. The enemy was extremely dangerous and was right next to her brother. Therefore, they decided to kill him once and for all.

Whoever her brother had discussed this with must have gone awry with this once-and-for-all plan, which led to her brother's death. If she wanted to do anything about it, she had to be very careful. Miffy taught her that it was best to avoid all cameras and microphones, and she insisted on meeting Anthony Kent during the day. So she and Fina (and Miffy with Fina, of course) always acted separately, so as not to let passers-by see her wandering around the city with a suspicious-looking lizard.

As a parasite in Fina's body, Miffy can not only talk to Jania, but also communicate with Fina through thoughts and act as a bridge of communication between the two. But it will emphasize to Jania from time to time that it is at best a reliable translator and cannot be expected to control Fina to do anything that the host is unwilling to do, such as hunger strike or suicide attack. If it insists on doing so, it will easily cause the host to have nerve signal disorder, showing symptoms similar to epilepsy. The duration of the symptoms and the degree of damage depend on how intense the confrontation between them is.

Jania had no intention of hurting Fina, so a translator was enough for her. With Miffy, she could already command Fina to do many things that a trainer could only dream of, and even develop a special tactical plan. This morning, she opened the window when it was dark and let Fina sneak out of the house and hide near "Gun Flower" in advance. She left enough time for it and Miffy to get going, and she didn't leave the house until almost eight o'clock. This was not the first time she did this. As her brother's disappearance lasted longer and longer, the ticking sound of the clock echoed louder and louder in her mind. She knew that she was exploring deeper and deeper in dangerous waters, so it was essential to prepare a safety rope.

During her last meetings with Anthony Kent, Jania had often met Fina in an alley and had her hide in her backpack, which was the easiest and safest way to do it. But yesterday, as she was leaving Guns N' Roses, she passed a few passersby and somehow felt that they seemed to be paying special attention to her backpack. It was possible that she was mistaken, but Miffy always insisted that something was watching them - she couldn't tell what it was, only that the message left by the mother warned it to avoid being detected by electronic devices as much as possible. It was conceivable that if Jania walked around the city with a bulging backpack, it would be unrealistic to avoid the surveillance of all private or public cameras, unless she and Fina could act separately. That way, if she was caught, at least Fina could do something with Miffy's help.

This might be her last meeting with Anthony Kent before she went to investigate No. 206 Dongyun Road, so she decided to be extra careful to make sure everything went well. Before entering "Guns N' Roses", she went to the alley where she and Miffy had agreed to meet, and found the folding gift box she bought online in a hidden corner. It was a dark green paper box with gold powder and a waterproof film on the surface. It was strong enough to be hidden inside the cake without collapsing. It was originally a surprise (or prank prop) for her brother's birthday. Now that the date had been missed, she would use it to do something else.

She hid Fina in a cardboard box and sealed it tightly with tape to prevent anyone from opening it and peeking. Then she carried the cardboard box into a bakery a few steps away from the alley. The owner of the bakery was a mediocre baker, but he was a small businessman with a strong sense of service and adaptability. There were no surveillance cameras in his shop, and the back kitchen was very soundproof. Every time she visited, Jania would buy a few of the most conspicuous and usually the most flashy small desserts in the cabinet, so she had already earned the right to chat with the boss when the business was not busy, and she could also ask for special value-added services with confidence. She asked the boss to complete a birthday surprise for her friend for her at a price higher than that of a normal cake, and he readily promised to help her make it more realistic and not let the gift box hidden in the cake be crushed or leaked in advance. Moreover, her birthday friend would never discover the secret hidden inside until the outer layer of cream was cut.

Jania paid half of the deposit first and promised to pay the rest when she came to pick up the goods in the afternoon; if she happened to forget about it or was too busy to come, the owner could directly send the surprise cake to the "Gun's N' Roses" next door. Her original plan was to discuss it with Anthony Kent first, then go to the cake shop and ask the owner to find someone to send the cake box to the vicinity of No. 206 Dongyun Road, so that she would not have to carry the box herself, and maybe Miffy's surveillance would relax its vigilance.

Things were moving faster than she had planned. Jania was chagrined to find that her pre-preparedness, which she had thought to be sufficient and even overly careful, could not keep up with the speed of events. Behind the clouds of suspicion that seemed to be her imagination, Maggie Wall was revealed and she was almost caught. Fortunately, she had kept such a birthday surprise and was quite lucky. In fact, she was worried that the owner had completely forgotten about her and would not remember it until he closed the store and went home in the evening. Fortunately, he did not forget, but came slowly, because Jania was willing to bet that there was some trouble among the group just now.

It would have been much easier if Marty had allowed the delivery man to come into the store, or had taken the items in to check them herself. Unfortunately, she was not as careless as Jania had hoped, and her reaction was surprisingly fast. When Fina escaped from the cake box, she threw the box into the street without thinking, then kicked the unfortunate baker down and stepped firmly on his neck. From her perspective, the guy who delivered the dangerous goods must be a potential threat that needed to be controlled first, but this misjudgment caused her to miss the opportunity. When she looked at the box she had thrown away, the black thing inside had already escaped, and it was running across the street at lightning speed, heading straight for the front door that "Gun Flower" had just opened and had not had time to lock. At that moment, Jania felt that she had definitely won.

Chilabin drove the car out of the parking lot smoothly and drove into the crowded urban road. No one jumped out to intercept them, which made the anxious Jania breathe a sigh of relief. She clamped the gun under her knees and checked whether Fina was injured. She did not find any obvious damage on its scales, only a few spots of white cream on the bottom of its chin. This greedy ghost must have secretly bitten the paper box inside when hiding in the cake box, and tasted the strange smell outside; but its body was clean, perhaps thanks to its ghostly speed.

Jania cleaned the cream stains for it. As she did so, a few white threads poked out from Fina's mouth. The threads were tipped with round beads the size of rice grains, a bit like the tentacles of a snail, and stretched out to Jania in an exploratory manner. She immediately pushed them back with her fingers, indicating that now was not a good time to communicate. It was better not to let the other person in the car know about Miffy's existence.

Chilabin was concentrating on driving, and showed no sign of noticing the little secret in the back seat of the car. This man always looked carefree, even more cheerful than the last time they met. While waiting for the red light, he suddenly said to Jania: "Your little friend is really special, head. Did your brother bring it home?"

"Yes," Jania said, "You know my brother too?"

"I've only heard a few things about him."

"From what your psychiatrist said?"

"Well, boss, I have more than one source of information. Of course, I shouldn't say bad things about your family in front of you, but at least you have to agree that your brother is a character worth paying attention to. He can always add some variables to things."

Jania didn't like the way he talked about her brother in such a playful way, but she didn't want to seem too critical. And, to some extent, she felt that she could understand what Chilabin meant. In order not to be outdone, she also pretended to be nonchalant: "Is that why your psychiatrist kidnapped him?"

The red light at the intersection was flashing, but Chilabin still turned his head and looked at her with an expression that made Jania feel uncomfortable. It was not an expression of gloating or watching a good show from the audience - like the attitude he had when talking to Maggie Wall - but a sincere surprise that was not concealed at all. This attitude of his was really rare in Jania's impression.

The car behind them honked at them to hurry up. Chilabin turned back and continued driving. "Hey, boss." He adjusted the speed gear skillfully, "I really don't know how to tell you this... To be honest, I think I'm a little touched."

"What?" Jania asked in confusion.

"You know, as a bystander, we usually don't like this kind of plot." Chilabin said without thinking, "People don't want to accept that their favorite characters make stupid mistakes. This mentality is very understandable. We can't bear to see a brave and upright soldier die because of pride, or a smart person loses his mind because of emotions, especially when it involves the conflict between justice and personal feelings... Of course, I don't want to see such a thing, but head, as we said when we met last time, I personally like your temper, just like I admire our red coat Maggie. If I have a choice, I will definitely let a little girl like you be the protagonist. Oh! How I don't want to hurt your feelings!"

"What exactly do you want to say?" Jania asked a little impatiently.

"I want to say that I support you from a personal standpoint, Boss," Chilabin replied solemnly, "but I never associate my admiration for you with your success or failure. I won't force you to do everything right, especially when you are so young. But I think you will find out sooner or later that you can't blame everything on the most convenient person."

Jania didn't like his tone, but she knew that this guy wouldn't make his words more clear, so she stopped asking and pondered his strange attitude. She felt that something must have gone wrong, and it was probably because of the sentence she had just asked.

"My brother's disappearance is not due to your psychiatrist?" she asked tentatively, "He has nothing to do with this?"

"Oh, I don't think so. It's about both of them. And Maggie, of course. She's a very respectable creature, and it must be a very difficult job for her to keep an eye on both sides."

"I heard you telling her about the end of the world and the Ark and stuff like that. What's that about?"

"The planet beneath our feet may be in big trouble," Chilabin said in a rare straightforward manner. "There is a time bomb - just imagine it as something a thousand times more dangerous than a nuclear bomb. It will soon fall from above our heads, or should I say from under our feet? Right now Maggie is trying every means to get rid of the bomb, but a dishonest person is threatening her. I bet she must have gone to find this person after seeing us this morning."

"So, my brother is also in this person's hands? Not your psychiatrist."

"Oh, his fate does depend on this man's choice." Chilabin nodded. "No matter what Zhou did before, boss, I guarantee that the trouble we are facing now is not him, but the person who controls your brother's fate. He is responsible for the fate of your brother, your hometown, and perhaps Maggie... Alas, people often say that they should take their destiny into their own hands, which is absolutely true." "Then we have to find this person too. Do you know where Maggie Wall went?"

"I don't know, Boss. And I suggest you stop chasing Maggie, because she must be having a headache right now. If you really want to see this person, then we're just on the way."

Jania raised her eyebrows. She had thought that she was the one who decided the itinerary, and Chilabin was acting as a friendly captive and adult driver. "Where are you going?"

"No. 206 Dongyun Road! I can guarantee that you can find everyone you want there."

This answer suited Jania's heart. Not that she believed in the integrity of her old friend, but she had planned to go to Dongyun Road today to find out. The place was unusual in many ways: Anthony Kent found it heavily guarded; Maggie Wall specifically emphasized that it was meaningless for her to go there; and most importantly, she first saw the address at the home of her brother's "good friend". At that time, she saw so many things that it was difficult to distinguish what was important, but she still noticed the address because it was one of the few Chinese parts on the entire donation contract. She didn't even have the ability to read it out in full at the time, so she chose to take a picture of it with her mobile phone.

That was when she first came to Lihai City. Could she have foreseen that things would turn out like this? No, she only had a vague but fierce sense of crisis, and she locked the source of this sense of crisis on her brother's "good friend". She decided to talk to the other party in private, alone, without giving her brother the opportunity to play tricks, so that she could find out what she saw on the green hill in Regenberg. In Regenberg, Jania could not find such an opportunity, so she had to go directly to the other party's lair. She must find out what that thing - the thing that talked to her on the green hill - wanted to do to her family. She thought that as long as she was alone with the other party, without her brother or anyone else, the thing would jump out and tease her, just like the monsters and elves in fairy tales that loved to torture people. She really felt that this thing had a similar nature.

But at least this time she was wrong. She never saw that thing again, and was only entertained by her brother's friend. When she tentatively asked the medical student if he knew about his "second personality", his reaction told her unmistakably that this guy definitely knew. Jania asked him what the invitation to Green Hill was all about, and he just looked at her thoughtfully and said, "It doesn't matter."

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" asked Jania.

"I will take care of the thing that was talking to you. You and your brother will be fine, but it's better not to tell your brother about this."

"why?"

"It's no good for him to come into contact with that thing. It's better not to let him know. This way it will be safer for everyone. You don't have to worry about it. If the time comes, I will tell him."

Jania was impressed by the nonchalant manner in which he said this. In her opinion, if a reliable person (such as her mother) could speak so calmly, it meant that the promise was a sure thing. This person did have some magical powers - he had appeared at her vacation place like teleportation, didn't he? Then he disappeared without a sound, and the people around him didn't react at all. Even if this guy didn't have magic, at least he was rich and powerful, and could travel around the world in private jets all day. So she believed him for the time being and let him slip away to her brother's house. But now, she realized that this might be a mistake. She really shouldn't have trusted him so easily just because he looked like a reliable person. This was a very obvious question: How could a truly reliable person be friends with her brother?

He asked her to wait. Wait until the right time to tell her the truth. This nonsense was clearly a delay, but even Jania herself could not explain why she obeyed the other party's request at that time. She felt that on that day, in that seemingly ordinary house, there seemed to be a trance-like atmosphere, and people would forget the reality when they stayed in it. She lost her usual sharpness and alertness, and seemed to obey the other party's request without thinking. Fortunately, even in that inexplicably confused situation, her curiosity about mysterious things still played a role, making her look through the documents on the desk after the other party left. This was probably not in line with the etiquette of being a guest, but since there was a strange owner in this place who would leave guests alone at home and flee in panic, Jania felt that everything on the desk that was not locked should be open to her by default. She looked through various journals on the bookshelf and found several English contracts in a most ordinary and cornered brown paper file bag. They were hidden so carelessly that they simply ignored her. But maybe it would work on her brother, who was the kind of man who wouldn't even bother to look at anything that was handed to him or placed right under his nose, even though he was familiar with the trick.

Now both of them were missing. Unlike her brother, the other man's disappearance was not just about not being seen alive, but also about not being heard from at all, like a stone sinking into the sea. Jania had a bad feeling about this. She wanted to ask Chilabin if he knew where the man was, but she didn't know if she could trust what he said. Now that Maggie Wall's accomplices were not present, the relationship between them became more delicate; no one could verify whether Chilabin's words were true, and Jania did take Maggie Wall's warning to heart. She also couldn't forget the look in Marty's eyes before she walked out of Guns N' Flowers, which seemed to want to say something to her. If Jania had doubted their intentions before, at least at the last moment, Marty chose to point the gun at Chilabin instead of Fina and her. So she took the gun as that look suggested.

"This could be a little dangerous," Chilabin said. "We should be careful this time."

Jania quickly focused her attention and put the previous incident in Guns N' Roses behind her. The word "be careful" sounded funny when it came out of Chilabin's mouth, but this time his tone seemed serious. "What kind of danger?"

"Well, what can I say? There are all kinds of dangers. There are Maggie's people watching there, there is no doubt; your brother and my psychiatrist are not easy to deal with either - oh, don't be surprised, boss, let's put your brother's problem aside, our psychiatrist will definitely attack me if necessary. In fact, I suspect that his hostility towards me is much stronger than that towards you."

"Would you mind explaining it more clearly, Captain? It would be best if we could start from the beginning," Jania suggested. She realized that it would be more confusing if she started from the middle. But Chilabin shook his head again and again: "Not enough time! There is definitely not enough time, Captain! I am willing to tell you all the truth you want to know, at least my version of the truth. But if you want to start from the beginning, I am afraid it will take three days and three nights to finish. We have to hurry up a little now so that we can catch up with the time."

"Okay, but can you at least tell me what's in that place?"

"Oh, that's exactly what I was going to say. What I told you before was all about the dangers of people, but whether it's Maggie or Zhou, their threats are insignificant compared to the place itself. Boss, when you get there, you'd better listen to my advice on everything. This is entirely for the good of both of us."

"I heard that it's a pharmaceutical company. So is there some kind of virus hidden in there? Or dangerous experimental organisms?"

"Viruses!" Chilabin said in a tone that was obviously fake and fierce. "Why would I be afraid of bacteria and viruses? Most of the bacteria and viruses here have no effect on me because my physiological structure is different from yours. You also saw the result of that Mattita shooting me with a gun."

He freed one hand and pointed at his forehead in the rearview mirror. There was still a shallow dent there, which was barely noticeable unless you looked closely. Janet silently stroked Fina on her lap, who was staring at Chilabin intently, eager to try. "Living things are never the most dangerous things," Chilabin continued, "What's dangerous is the environment, sir. It's always the environment. Think about it, isn't that the truth? It's so easy for you to kill a biting wolf, and it's not that difficult even if there are sharks flying all over the sky. But pollution, desertification, rising sea levels... they're not so easy for you to deal with, right?"

"Does this have anything to do with where we're going?"

"Let's put it this way: the place we're going to has a big plug hidden at the bottom. If this is an empty fish tank, as long as the plug is pulled out, water will immediately pour in, and the entire environment will of course change. In that environment, we may not be able to stay here for even a second."

"You mean we're going to die? Like, drown?"

"That's not quite the same." Chilabin said immediately, "The specific situation depends on luck. But since none of us has the ability to control luck, the situation is indeed not good. After breaking in there, we may encounter water, fire, or any situation you can imagine or can't imagine, depending on how long the plug is pulled out. If the time is delayed too long, even I can't say how the situation will develop."

"It sounds like the plug you're talking about is more like a portal to another dimension, or the entrance to hell."

"That's interesting, but we don't usually use words like 'hell' in Infinite Geology."

"What geology?"

"Infinite geology." Chilabin said slowly, "I know this term is a little unfamiliar to you, but it is actually not difficult to understand. It is like your cosmology. In the final analysis, it is to rely on various methods to figure out what those places we cannot reach are like, as well as the order of their generation and the final results. Of course, there is also the influence between them. There is a group of people, a group of people who have been wearing long robes and pointed hats since ancient times, who believe that there is a perfect place in the world we cannot go to. You can call it "heaven". As long as you reach there, it means understanding and mastering everything in the world. But that place cannot be easily reached. You can even say that it is impossible to reach it because it is surrounded by countless dangerous phenomena, like an isolated island floating high in the abyss. These The abyss with dangerous phenomena is very deadly in nature. People who believe in the theory of the heavens call them the Chaos Sea. They believe that the waves of the Chaos Sea will surge regularly and surge onto the dry land where they stand, bringing a small amount of properties of the heavens and the Chaos Sea into the adjacent world. They rely on this trace of properties diluted by the waves to reversely infer what the bottom of the heavens and the Chaos Sea is like. However, in some cases, some holes will be generated at the bottom of the Chaos Sea, natural or artificial; the phenomena on the bottom of the sea flow through the holes to other places, those random areas adjacent to them in the astral position. And this kind of hole, head, is what I said that the big plug hidden at No. 206 Dongyun Road is blocked. It is not difficult for you to imagine how bad it would be if the plug was pulled out. In your words: the gate of hell is opened. "

Jania listened carefully to his words. After what happened with Guns N' Roses, she wasn't surprised at all by what he said. She thought for a moment and said, "It sounds like we need to find a way to reinforce the plug and block the hole more tightly."

"You are such a reliable person, Chief," Chilabin said admiringly. "It's amazing that you are willing to take on such trouble. However, I think it's better for us not to wade into this muddy water for now. Your world has its own recovery ability. For small holes, you only need to plug them for a period of time to stop the bleeding and external bacterial contamination, and it will slowly heal; although it will be more fragile than before and leave some callus tissue, as long as no one pokes it again, the problem will slowly be solved. Time is really a good way to eliminate most problems."

"But now someone wants to pull the plug out, right?"

“We can say there is a trend.”

His evasive response immediately made Jania slightly suspicious. "Is everything you just said true, Captain? Did you happen to mix in a lie or two?"

"A lie! Of course not! But if you want me to assure you that it is all true... Well, that depends on how you look at it, Head. I am only repeating to you a known theory, the theory of those ancient people who liked to wear pointed hats. As to whether this theory is true or not, I can't say."

"At least you think it's true, right? Or many people believe it?"

"There are many people who believe in it, but there are almost the same number of people who oppose it, and even more people who are half-believing and half-doubting. It is not the only theory in existence, but it is the most intuitive, classical, and best accepted one among all popular theories. There are at least two other theories that are almost as important as it."

"Which two?"

"Overflow theory," Chilabin said very experiencedly, "This was proposed by a group of machine builders. They don't believe in the existence of such a thing as 'heaven', nor do they believe in natural perfection. At most, they only admit that different geology will bring different characteristics and performances. Moreover, truly perfect things can only be constructed and created by themselves. Through those wonderful machines, they will sooner or later create a perfect world, but before that, what they can create are some closed small ecosystems. The interiors of these ecosystems are already extremely ideal, but unfortunately they cannot exist independently. Instead, the parts with structural contradictions are excluded from their small systems, resulting in a balance in the overall system; their small ecosystems are completely ideal, and all unreasonable parts are confined outside the model by those wonderful machines, becoming deadly pollution areas - they generally call this the 'high spirit zone'."

Jania glanced at the central rearview mirror, a little confused, and exchanged glances with the driver in the mirror. "Oh, that's right," Chilabin said, understandingly, "This theory is quite difficult to understand. When they talk about it, they usually come up with a lot of formulas. That's why it's not as popular as the Celestial Realm Theory. But some people just like it, and they hate to admit that they are not the smartest and greatest ideas in the world."

"Any other theories?"

"There is another theory that I like very much," Chilabin said. He then added as if to clarify: "I like this theory based on romantic appreciation, but it does not mean that I support its correctness."

Jania raised her eyebrows: "This world was written by a playwright?"

"That's not romantic enough," Chilabin said. "This has happened before! The first time was fresh, the second time was good, but the third time was boring... Our universe itself is a living monster, but it is not like us that needs to absorb life from the outside world, but is self-sufficient. It constantly creates itself, causing various changes in its body; then it devours itself, digesting everything it nurtures as food, from birth to death, in an endless cycle, just like the snake that eats its tail. However, what it eats is not matter or time and space, but changes, events, history... From this perspective, it is not like eating, but more like dreaming. We are all small brain cells that provide material for its dreams, or should we say, the basic particles that make up brain cells. In short, when the time comes, it needs to digest and clear the dream. In this version of the story, we can say that the phenomena called "high spirit belt" and "chaos sea" are essentially its digestive juices."

(End of this chapter)