The Heavens: A Qing, the Yue Girl at the beginning

Time seemed to fold, flow backward, and then straighten instantly. Hundreds of years of distance were shattered by a single address.

It shattered into the moonlight of the Mirror Plain River, which can never be pieced back together.

Tanmo seemed to have transformed back into that bewildered young monk scooping water from the riverbank, while she remained the same scarlet-haired girl who made his heart race. Only now, an insurmountable abyss, forged by time and choices, separated them.

The pure white light of the sanctuary stung his eyes.

I almost burst into tears.

"But for me, this is only a brief separation," Maple Butterfly—or perhaps she should be called "Red Moon Frija"—turned her head slightly, her silver-red eyes reflecting his unchanging bewilderment, "but when I came to my senses, I realized that fate had stolen too much time."

The sounds and colors were distant, as if seen through layers of water curtains, indistinct yet enough to cause a dull ache in the softest part of the chest.

“Fate?” Dhamma seemed to have grasped the key.

"Only when destiny begins to turn can time be given meaning. The memories left by heaven and earth are engraved on three bronze pillars, with the past, present, and future transformed into spirals and porticoes."

“You once said you would turn me into a key,” Red Moon sighed softly. “Now, the key has returned, and the door is ready.”

Upon hearing this, Dhamma could only manage a bitter smile.

He spent half his life climbing to this point, thinking he had reached the light of day, only to find that she was already standing on the clouds, silently watching his struggle.

……

The meeting proceeded in a strange atmosphere.

Tanmo's professional explanation was impeccable, but his gaze remained fixed on that figure. She, on the other hand, remained calm and professional, as if they were truly meeting for the first time.

After the meeting, the Empty Cicada Corridor, simulating the movement of stellar veins, was opened.

It is planted with breathing moonshine moss, its pale blue light rolling like shards of mercury.

The hem of his robe was damp, carrying a bone-chilling coolness.

Tanmo stopped her at the end.

There was no light at the end of the corridor; only the light from the moss reflected upwards, lengthening his shadow and casting it on the ground in front of her.

Like a crouching, begging black dog.

"Why?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

Red Moon stopped in her tracks, the tassels of her magnificent priestess robe standing still: "Minister Tanmo, what advice do you have for the project?"

"Why did you leave without saying goodbye back then? Why now? Why you?" Questions rushed out one after another, carrying with them a sense of grievance and anger that he himself was unaware of.

She turned around: "When conditions are right, things come together; when conditions are broken, things disperse. As for who I am, does it matter? What matters is that the 'Tree of Life' must succeed. The will of the White Emperor is the direction of the world."

"What about our past?"

Tanmo almost roared, "Were those days in Mirror Plain, those shadows beneath the Tower of Empty Sound, all illusions?"

A faint, cold smile curved at the corner of Hongyue's lips, like light flashing across a blade: "The past is like dew or lightning; thus should you view it. Tanmoqing, you are attached to appearances. How can you comprehend the great changes of life when you are clinging to the desires, anger, and ignorance of the ego?"

"Our reunion was written a thousand years ago in the seventy-three thousand two hundred and sixteenth cell of the prophecy."

"You are both a variable and a constant."

"What exactly is the Tree of Life?" Dharma asked. "Why me? Why am I the right key?"

Hongyue was silent for a moment, then suddenly reached out and pressed her hand against his chest.

“Feel it,” she said.

Tanmo focused his mind, but all he could feel was the increasingly rapid, burning, and "human" heartbeat pounding against his ribs, which had been repeatedly reinforced by the recycled metal, beneath his chest as she approached.

"It's this heartbeat."

Hongyue smiled, and in that smile, a trace of "Maple Butterfly" finally appeared, but it vanished in an instant, covered by a deeper nothingness. "What do you think is the commonality of life? It's not blood, not bones, not the gene sequence of dragons or humans, but—orderly 'pulsation'."

"The most primordial rhythm of the universe, an invisible string, strings dust and star cores together in the same lullaby."

She didn't wait for his reply; she withdrew her finger, drawing a graceful arc in the air.

In an instant, the surrounding light streams were drawn together, converging into a constantly self-iterating image that presented a complex topological structure.

"The life we ​​usually see exists in the spatial dimension. From birth to death, it maintains its own order on the forward-extending timeline and resists the erosion of entropy. Like ice to water, it is a miracle of brief solidification."

“But now,” Red Moon’s heterochromatic eyes suddenly lit up, “rotate your cognitive coordinate axis by ninety degrees.”

The light and shadow shifted, and the coordinate system rotated ninety degrees. The axis that originally represented the passage of time became the horizontal axis, while the spatial axis stood upright, transforming into a blurry, spindle-shaped halo.

A complete change of perspective!

Her voice was ethereal yet majestic: "If there is a kind of life whose essence is to occupy a period of 'time,' just as we occupy a piece of 'space'?"

“From the perspective of the spatial axis, it is also continuously carrying out low-entropy ordering activities—only this activity spans the past, present, and future, almost as one.”

Tanmo's pupils contracted sharply. As a top alchemist, he instantly understood the mystery and felt his soul tremble: "You mean... time itself... can give birth to life?"

“It is not time that gives birth to life,” Hongyue’s voice carried a solemnity that revealed the truth, “but rather this life, in its form of existence, is a period of ‘living time’.”

"They are the poems of the world's rules, the tiny neurons in the ocean of the universe's pan-consciousness; they perceive, transmit, and process all kinds of information, weaving the warp and weft of cause and effect."

“But now I must tell you,” her gaze suddenly became incredibly profound, “that life that exists on the timeline is more widely known by the name 'fate'!”

"Its 'life' lies in the condensation and awakening of a specific timeline; its 'death' lies in the dissipation of this timeline and its being swallowed up by the mainstream fate."

"In their world, there is no front, back, left, or right; there is only 'already,' 'current,' and 'not yet.'"

"The past, present, and future are to them what length, width, and height are to us—dimensionalities that can be touched and interacted with!"

The spindle-shaped halo gradually solidified, giving rise to endless fractal structures within it, representing the three virtual time axes that mark destiny, as if transforming into a lush, translucent tree like crystal.

Floating on it are countless tiny symbols—coordinates, formulas, and "laws" yet to be written down by the world.

Tanmo looked at that tree.

He suddenly realized that the "steps to godhood" he had wanted to carve out in the past were merely a section of roots at the very bottom of this tree; while the fruit at the top of the tree was already "higher" than he could have imagined.

The Tree of Life Project is not about cultivating some kind of powerful biological weapon, but about creating a fertile ground where "time life"—"destiny"—can take root and grow!

"...What should I do?" Tanmo asked blankly.

This statement no longer carries any doubt, but only reverence for the great creation and a desire to participate in it.

"By combining the four elements with ether, the 'Metatron Cube' is forged, encapsulating the nodes of destiny, and then connecting them to the entire web of cause and effect. In this way, time gains a 'heartbeat'..."

Red Moon replied, "With each pulse, the 'future' is pumped back into the 'past,' and the 'past' is injected into the 'future.'"

……

"So this is the true face of 'fate'."

Zhao Qing also sighed, suddenly understanding many principles and truths, seeing clearly the gateway to the next realm, and deducing that this kind of concept of destiny mainly affects the karma of the Alaya consciousness, and needs to be distinguished from the more grand, universe-level destiny.

This special fragment of cosmic light, which uses "neural connection" as a key to unlock a deep "heaven," is also one of the "fruits of life."

How was it created? In principle, one can refer to the self-sustaining Boltzmann brain in the Nibelungen fictional space.

In reality, "fate" is a fictional representation of time; its metabolic process involves gradually infecting and distorting the original external timeline.

……

Research on the "Tree of Life" is progressing with difficulty.

Time seemed to truly begin to distort. In this secluded sanctuary, at the heart of Eden, the boundary between day and night blurred, leaving only the faint light of the alchemical matrix in operation and the shimmering of the pure elemental torrents.

Everything seemed to have returned to the Mirror Plains hundreds of years ago, where the two spent every day together.

They were the most compatible partners in the lab, and also the most familiar strangers. However, their topics changed from cherry blossoms and moonlight to obscure spacetime topology, noise distribution calculations, and the weaving formulas of causality.

Countless years passed, and after expending unimaginable resources and treading over the remnants of countless failed attempts, a single giant tree finally grew under the gloomy sky. Its branches bore fruit, each fruit a pale human figure. They possessed wings, which drooped upside down, withered and transparent, yet their pulses pulsed with the glittering ticking of a second hand.

The will of the White Emperor descended, filled with approval.

With this result, He finally perfected the design of His own divine powers, and His strength soared to six-sevenths of the Black King's!

……

"Only six-sevenths?" Xiao Shi asked. "I've never understood this from the beginning. Everyone says that the Black King created the White King, who is almost on par with himself. How come the White King has upgraded again and is still far from being equal?"

"Sometimes, strength can be a heavy burden for those who have reached their limits."

Zhao Qing explained: "With the same basic panel, the difference in the degree of control over 'powers' is huge, so the outcome is already obvious."

"I think the 'six-sevenths' here refers to the fact that the White King has cultivated six supreme powers to a level no less than that of the Black King. In addition to the four elements and the spiritual element, another direction has been added."

……

An oppressive atmosphere of war began to gather across the world.

The Black King's dragon shadow hovered in the sky, responding to this naked declaration of challenge from the rebels.

Just as the storm was brewing, Tanmo once again found Hongyue beneath the now incomparably majestic and radiant "Tree of Life." He looked at her, his eyes revealing a flame that had been suppressed for thousands of years and had never been extinguished.

“Maple Butterfly,” he called out that long-forgotten name, “the war is about to begin. I know I may not be worthy…”

"But some things, if you don't say them now, it will be too late."

He took a deep breath: "Come with me. Leave this place, leave this war of the gods. We can go to the ends of the earth, find a place like we did back in Mirror Plains... just look at the moon, whether it's white or red."

"I just want to... hold onto 'this moment,' no matter what it takes!"

Hongyue gazed at him quietly for a very long time.

But in the end, she simply shook her head slightly, her voice as faint as a sigh: "Tanmo, you still don't understand."

"Fate cannot be escaped; the war between kings can only be ended by death!"

“My ‘Mirror Plain’, my ‘Moon in the Well’, were abandoned in the past and remain in the future, but there is no ‘shadow’ in the present, simply because its ‘now’ has died. The flower in the dream has been forged into metal and can no longer bloom with cherry blossom color.”

She paused, then handed him a black metal shuttle with an ancient design and engraved with reverse spiral threads: "If you still want to do something, go and complete it. A weapon that surpasses the 'Tree of Life' and is powerful enough to kill gods, the final forging of 'Gungnir, the Spear of Destiny'."

"These are the blueprints and the necessary core 'causal element'... Perhaps, it can bring a... change to this world."

Another task.

Another door of unknown purpose and immense weight needs his sharpened key to open it.

Or rather, to endure it.

A chill rose from the depths of Tanmo's heart.

He suddenly realized that he might never have truly understood her, or the full scope of the White Emperor's vast scheme. Was this gun a sign of hope, or another trap full of manipulation?

The seed of doubt fell, and under the nourishment of fear, it grew wildly. Having already ascended to the top of the Order, possessing the power of the Fruit of Life, how could he remain an unwitting object in the hands of others?
In a state of extreme anxiety, he made a decision.

In the darkest hour before dawn, Tanmo fled with his weapons.

He took away the unfinished gun prototype, half of the core data about the "Life Source Tree," and his semi-conscious self, leaving White Moon to join the neutral Elders Council.

Deep within countless forbidden archives, Tanmo unearthed the past of the "Shadow," buried by time—the lonely rebel nailed to the top of the tower, the being devoured—a story that resonated deeply with him.

Tanmo erased all traces of the past, calling himself "Alphale," meaning "the first cause," and voluntarily became the representative put forward by the elders, the third party second only to the Black and White Kings. He used an iron fist to integrate the internal divisions and consolidate his position as chief.

He thought that this would allow him to reclaim his own destiny, put "light" and "shadow" back on the scales, and give that flower that had been slow to bloom a second chance.

War, inevitably, broke out. The black and white legions, like two destructive tides, turned the land into scorched earth.

Maple Butterfly's final message crossed the moon and the earth, landing in his palm. The message was short, just a few words, but like a final flash of lightning, it cleaved through all the fog in his heart:

"The gun is fake; it's just for show."

“I am the White King, the ‘shadow’ she separated from, and also the Maple Butterfly. Oak Island was my former home. I once asked you, how can I hold onto this moment? Today, it finally has the answer—it cannot be held onto.”

"But you can make it never happen again."

"Take care." The message ended abruptly there.

At the end of the letter, there was a small cherry blossom, with a vermilion dot in the center to represent its pupil, as if it were peeking or saying goodbye.

How can it be?

This "Spear of Destiny," which was personally handed over by Hongyue, which he regarded as the final variable, and which he was even willing to betray to complete, and which had become the cornerstone of his position as a third-party force, was actually a complete lie from the very beginning.

An empty shell used for strategic fraud and delaying tactics?

Alpha could not accept this.

Regret overwhelmed him like a tidal wave—he finally understood that on that night before their farewell, what Maple Butterfly had solemnly told him was precisely the most clumsy way to hold onto "this moment":
The threat of the "Spear of Destiny" was used to postpone the decisive battle, causing the two major factions to temporarily cease fire out of fear.

May she and he have more time without pretense or scheming before this doomed war.

She is the White Queen, and also the Maple Butterfly. As the White Queen, she needs to buy time to perfect the final form of the Tree of Life; as the Maple Butterfly, she needs to preserve those "moments" that have been stolen by time and belong to them.

What she needed was not a gun that could kill a god, but the precious time that both sides needed to forge that gun.

Even if it only prolongs a moment of peace.

Even if those "moments" are just silent collaboration in the laboratory, or brief eye contact in the corridor.

It's just something I keep replaying in my memory.

The maple butterfly of that year was real, her "now" was real, and her waiting was real.

It was his ambition that crushed that truth, turning it into this irreversible situation.

He mistakenly took her redemption as another opportunity to exploit her; he mistakenly took his own obsession as the courage to break free from fate.

It's all too late.

Perhaps, from the moment he uttered the word "key" in the alchemy workshop, from the moment he chose to doubt and flee rather than trust and persevere, all the bitter consequences were already destined.

The gun's surface was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting his bewildered, regretful, and pale face, as if he were being manipulated by a cruel fate.

“No…it’s not too late,” Alphale murmured to himself.

He took a step and walked towards the light that illuminated the sky in the distance.

It's like stepping over one hurdle after another that you set for yourself.

The gun may be a fake, but it still retains warmth; the person may be a fake, but he still has a life left.

Its true nature and its mere appearance have not yet been exposed, and perhaps it still has some restraining effect, capable of interfering with the course of the battle.

Even if there is only the slightest possibility.

……

"So, this Dhamma is the prototype of Odin?"

Xiao Shi asked in bewilderment, "But 'Gungnir' really does have such great power, how could it be a scam?"

"In my opinion, there should be a bigger picture behind the whole story. Odin, who seems to have risen from the ranks of 'humans,' is probably not just an outstanding human, but more like 'Maple Butterfly.'"

“Yes,” Zhao Qing agreed. “As I said, they can be considered the same person, mirror images of each other.”

"If I'm not mistaken, the 'ultimate weapon' has been successfully forged, right at the end of this story."

"?" (End of this chapter)