musicians of old

Chapter 854 Deep Space!

what! ?

What kind of corpse is this?!
Both the liquidator and the liquidated on the tower were completely frozen in place!

The inspector who had been holding Mr. F on either side suddenly let go, revealing a blissful, fearful, and foolish smile on his face, before collapsing to his knees.

The form and concept suddenly went terribly wrong, and these people's cognition was almost completely destroyed in an instant!
Morbid thoughts boiled up along with the sky, and the distorted world became both ugly and beautiful, both noisy and quiet. For a moment, almost everyone was completely immersed in that sun, sinking into the horizon along with their own congealed blood!

"Click——"

A clear cracking sound sounded.

Those few who have come into contact with true knowledge know that this is the sound of "Purema" shattering.

Mr. F's most substantial move was when the "Secret of the End" corrupted the "Power to Break the Stalemate".

Pogrerich's previously impeccable ascent was pierced by a tiny, bizarre opening because of this completely absurd, strange, and subversive message!

"Snap—" "Snap—"

Cracks began to appear in the cyan light curtain surrounding the tower.

A crack shaped like a serpentine vortex.

The light screen quickly shattered piece by piece, and the concrete control regulations flowing within it gradually turned into lines of incomprehensible and chaotic text. Fan Ning's stern and horrified face was raised at that moment!
"Above. Top of head"

Ruoyi's chest heaved with labored breathing, her face, severely deprived of oxygen, was a patchwork of red and white.

"Fan Ning, it seems unlikely that our plan to stargaze will be feasible."

At the other end of a narrow crevasse in the glacier, Fanning looked up at the horizon that stretched out before him, both above and in front of him.

So what, no matter what?

Fan Ning exhaled white steam.

We're about to reach the summit.

At most another hundred meters, the slope becomes the steepest part, and the angle of view also increases, making it impossible to see what is underfoot ahead.

But some unknown signs were that overhead, in the twilight, in the deep sky, the luminous Milky Way seemed to be thinning out, becoming thinner and thinner all the way.

It was even less impressive than the nights we had seen in the days leading up to the mountain camp.

If we consider "seeing the most beautiful starry sky overhead" as a kind of formalistic thought and goal, then this thought and goal is very likely to lead to a strange negativity and failure as soon as we reach the summit.

Fanning realized that he had already been aware of it, shortly after the cracks broke through the glacier.

During the time he and Ruoyi took their steps again, he also had other expectations. First, he hoped that the crack would narrow somewhere ahead, even temporarily. If he was more than 50% sure, he would jump across it with all his might.

This expectation has never been fulfilled.

The inexplicably appearing crack has maintained the same width.

Then, for a moment, Fan Ning's state of mind turned into a humble feeling of "gratitude for what is precious," and she felt that it was not bad to maintain the status quo for now. At least the glacier was not going to completely break into a "cliff on both sides" situation, and at least Ruoyi was always by her side, and her footsteps and voices could be clearly heard.

"I'm saying, according to your principle of 'synchronicity,' we're not now splitting into two possibilities, are we?"

“No, the possibility of this splitting off is ‘in the past,’ not ‘now.’” Ruoyi shook her head.

“In the past, not now?” Fan Ning was taken aback.

“Yes, what was once scattered is now coming back,” Ruoyi said.

Fan Ning wanted to ask more questions, but the two of them had already gone upstairs the next moment.

The sight before them nearly took their breath away.

The faint starlight poured down like liquid mercury, transforming the highest point of the secret mountain into a surreal realm. The crack that pierced through the ice field not only failed to close in the end, but instead burst open even more violently in front of it, turning into an ice lake under a volcanic crater with a diameter of over a thousand meters!
The lake surface is clear, transparent, and smooth, like the open cornea of ​​an ancient god. But the deeper you look, the more intense the iridescent halo becomes, because countless snails with brightly colored, thick tentacles are frozen in the lake!
In some permafrost fissures at the far end of the crater, geothermal steam hisses and rises, carrying the acrid smell of sulfur and metal. It collides with the cold air and condenses into patches of pale purple mist, with suspended ice crystals slowly swirling down like diamond dust.

The two stood there for more than ten minutes, feeling very cold and shivering. Their shapes were cast by the twilight and starlight onto some ice walls on the side bank, and then distorted with the slope, becoming a series of flowing, dreamlike projections.

Twilight and starlight.
Starlight?
Fan Ning smiled forlornly again. He habitually reached out to pull Ruoyi to the other side of the crack, but he still couldn't reach her.

"what is this."

Ruoyi also laughed out loud and looked up at the sky.

The deep space above the crater lake was completely black.

It is not pitch black due to low brightness, but rather "nothingness," nothingness in the truest sense.

If the sky beside us was studded with a few sparse and faint stars, the deep space directly above us was like an abyss containing an unknowable vortex.

The starry sky above?
Ha ha ha ha.
Can it still be like this?

Isn't it even worse than Fanning's rooftop in Tiannan City?
"That's probably how it will be then." The girl on the other side lowered her eyes. "Fan Ning, thank you."

Fan Ning withdrew his gaze from the vast, empty space. He met Ruoyi's eyes, opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.

"Wait and see?" he said hesitantly. "The possibility that 'Sol Ruby' is a fake drug is extremely low." The girl opposite him looked at him with her hands behind her back. "I already knew that, but I didn't want to say it so definitively before."

“There was more than one pill in that bottle. Several family members used it over the past few decades, either for their own use or at someone’s request. You know, Esterházy’s business is rather ‘shady,’ somewhat secretive, and can’t really be brought to light.”

"I understand." Fan Ning stood there, motionless.

"Hey, Fan Ning, don't be discouraged." The girl's voice softened. "I think that's what I was going to say earlier."

“Those branches in the long river of history, those countless branches, are not directly related in ordinary years and in life, and there is no such thing as past lives or present lives. Therefore, people live painful and confused lives, which is always the case, and mostly the case.”

"But beliefs, concerns, heroic deeds, small acts of kindness, the pursuit of beautiful things—all these things, the influence between oneself and others, the unseen forces—all accumulate and reach a certain point or a special moment."

The girl's deep blue eyes gazed at the inky black sky—

"There will eventually be a point where space and time intersect."

Fanning felt like she couldn't breathe.

The icy, dark river water was so deep that it pressed against my chest and up to my neck.

A strange narrative, a mysterious and profound dark tone, is prompting his heart to enter a state of calm yet intense contradiction. He is accepting a kind of "inevitability" in a desolate way, but on another level, beyond the concept of the rest of his life, this "inevitability" may contain elements of transformation and ascension, and may even become a seed leading to true "freedom".

Although this process is still filled with narratives of evil.

Although this process destroyed far too many heartbreaking things.

“Mr. Fanning, are there any other tiny possibilities?” Nancy looked up with difficulty; the water level inside the cave was still rising.

She's younger, she'll probably be afraid or regret staying. Fanning sighed inwardly, pressed her slightly raised knee against the sluice gate, and with a great effort, stretched out a hand to reach out and grab Nancy in the water.

“There must be other possibilities, and they are converging on us,” Fanning said with a smile.

Nancy cannot understand the deeper meaning behind it, and cannot understand it for the time being.

"If you could leave, Mr. Copyist, what would you most like to do?" she simply asked.

“Let’s build a little cabin,” Fan Ning said with a smile, closing his eyes. “Let’s find a secluded mountain stream or lakeside, build a composing cabin, and quietly write something. I’m not sure if Mertraun has such a place, perhaps the water flowing from the underground river this time is enough?”

“That should be enough, Lord Fanning.” Leridge stood before the protective shield, now riddled with gaping holes, and stared coldly at Fanning with his hands behind his back.

Lelic's mood and tone became unexpectedly calm, and in the following minutes, he seemed to have completely changed his personality.

What's even more bizarre is that despite the obvious "deficiencies" in Leicester's limbs, and even the fact that one of his eyes had been replaced by a scar resembling "paint washed away with water," he remained remarkably calm.

"You've seen the accumulated problems in the Vienna art market and philanthropy over the years. Tonight at the Van der Schaaf Collection, you made some drastic and seemingly resolute choices. And then what? Did you achieve your goal?"

Fan Ning calmly stepped over the rubble and debris, heading towards the last piece of her collection.

I don't know if he's listening.

The entire auction hall was swaying slightly, as many of the building's supporting walls had vanished into thin air as the first few items shattered.

Moreover, the number of damaged parts is increasing, and many other intact artifacts have vanished into thin air, as if they were illusions.

The audience was already horrified and in complete chaos.

"The Secret Realm of Apocalypse?" At the pneumatic communication control center, the leader of the guards searching for Nancy's body looked at the booklet in front of him, puzzled.

He had previously been ordered by Leridge to investigate Nancy's personal belongings, but he hadn't found anything unusual; it seemed to be an ordinary item.

But I vaguely remember it being some kind of demonic title.

“The accomplice above is dead, and the reckoning for the other below will come soon.” Leridge raised his left arm, which was still barely intact for the time being, and looked at the time on his pocket watch. “The price we pay is that this collection, whose management system has matured, will soon cease to exist, and your wishful thinking about ‘the aftermath of justice’ will also cease to exist.”

Yes, he's right.

The original intention was to expose the corruption within Leicester, returning these ill-gotten gains and art treasures to their rightful owners. Then, Nancy would donate the venue to generate funds and resources to provide genuine assistance to the poor and needy.

Now, the person who made the vow is dead, and the place will soon vanish like an illusion.

Ironically, the plan to "shatter the illusion" arose so suddenly and was judged so confidently that it seemed to have fallen into the trap of being misled by some people with ulterior motives.

"The management system is maturing? Ha."

Fanning continued striding calmly, stepping over a shard of broken glass at her feet once more.

Amidst the long, slow, and almost stagnant background music, fragments of a "utopian" melody still emerge from just a few bars.

Persistently, and occasionally, they break free from these constraints.

"Click."

Suddenly, Fan Ning frowned.

The handle on the auction gavel in his hand broke!

(End of this chapter)