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

Shi Yiguang looked at it very carefully.

She could easily discern that the scene condensing in the pool of blood before her, though vividly detailed, had inevitably been embellished and filtered by the narrator—or rather, by the memory itself.

Those primitive people who were trapped near the "Holy Mountain" by the wind and snow and struggled to survive should belong to a branch of the Denisovan lineage and lived in a brief warming period during the Ries Glacial Period, specifically the interglacial stage classified as MIS 6c (168~149ka).

The tribe's specific location was on the edge of present-day Sakhalin Island, in a region that has long since been completely submerged.

That is an ancient cape extending from the northeastern tip of Eurasia into the Pacific Ocean, with a climate far harsher than most human habitats.

Their faces should have shared the common characteristics of people in that era: poor tooth development due to long-term malnutrition, high cheekbones, thick brow ridges, chapped skin in the cold, and body hair that was much thicker and more rugged than that of modern people.

As for the silver-haired girl who was chosen as a sacrifice...

She was certainly not as pretty as she appeared in the pictures.

In reality, her skin would be roughened by the cold wind and hard work, her palms would be covered with calluses and chilblains, her silver hair might be matted together due to lack of cleaning, and her pupils would appear cloudy.

These details have certainly been embellished and simplified in some way—to make it easier for viewers to understand and to highlight the core conflict of the story, rather than getting bogged down in the trivial realities of prehistoric anthropology.

Like all myths passed down through generations, the truth, in the process of being passed down by word of mouth, has long been cloaked in the guise of legend.

Language is no exception.

The languages ​​used by ancient humans were rudimentary communication systems composed of simple syllables, gestures, and facial expressions, which were simply incapable of supporting such complex reasoning and negotiation.

The dialogues presented in the blood pool are all translations of meaning.

But the core facts will not change.

“You’re deliberately embellishing her image,” Shi Yiguang whispered.

“The truth is often hard to look at directly, and even harder to understand,” the other person replied calmly. “But the core—those choices, those impulses, those fate-determining moments—is real.”

"What I've kept is the authentic core."

Shi Yiguang did not press the matter further.

She could guess that what followed was a conversation.

But what kind of conversation will this be?

……

The image continues to flow.

The rushing river, carrying floating ice, crashed against the wooden planks binding the girl, carrying her downstream like a powerless fallen leaf.

The crowd on the riverbank held torches and ran and shouted along the riverbank, the flames stretching out in a long, swaying line in the darkness.

But soon, the water carried her out of sight, the torchlight was swallowed by the winding waterway, and her shouts were drowned out by the sound of the water.

It was icy cold.

This was the first and only sensation that entered my consciousness.

The force of the water was far beyond what her frail body could withstand; she was tossed around on the wooden plank, the ropes digging deep into her flesh.

River water rushed into her mouth and nose, carrying the fishy smell of mud, sand, and rotting water plants. She coughed violently, and her vision went black due to lack of oxygen.

But the will to survive overcame everything.

The almost numb calm he displayed in front of the tribe crumbled when he faced death alone.

She doesn't want to die.

She hated. She hated this winter, hated the merciless wind and snow, hated the tribesmen who so easily decided to sacrifice her, and hated the high and mighty "god" who never answered her prayers.

Why me?
The thought burned like wildfire in her chest. She began to writhe frantically, trying to pry open the knots tied around her wrists with her frozen fingers. The knots, soaked in water, had shrunk and tightened.

The plank struck the rocks hard, and she nearly fainted from the pain, tasting the metallic, rusty flavor of blood in her mouth.

I can't die here.

They cannot be like the previous sacrifices, silently bleeding and silently sinking, becoming a forgotten skeleton at the bottom of the river.

……

I don't know how much time passed—maybe a quarter of an hour, maybe an hour, in the extreme cold, the sense of time had long been blurred—the base of that majestic cliff appeared ahead.

Although it was near the estuary, the river became even more turbulent due to the constricted terrain, with waves crashing against the exposed rocks, splashing white foam and creating a thunderous roar.

In such a treacherous environment, it seems that all an ordinary person can do is accept their fate and wait for the future that has already been predetermined.

But the girl saw an opportunity.

At the foot of the cliff, a huge black reef juts out of the water like sharp teeth, right in the middle of the river. The turbulent current branches off on either side of the reef, forming a relatively calm eddy.

Her survival instinct drove her brain to work at an unprecedented speed.

She struggled to adjust her body angle, kicking the water with her feet to make the plank spin in the whirlpool, swinging towards it with all her might. One end of the rope was wrapped around the plank a few times, with a small section still remaining.

Trembling, she tied a slipknot with the rope and swung it towards the natural groove at the tip of the rock. Once, twice, three times…

My fingers were so frozen that I lost all feeling and could barely exert any force.

But she succeeded. The rope snagged on the groove. Using the force of the water flow, she wrapped the rope around the rock again, then through both arms, tightened it, and secured herself there.

She hung half-suspended on the reef, in the dark, icy river, amidst the ceaseless sounds of wind and water, waiting.

Like a flying insect stuck in a spider's web.

The soaked animal-hide robe felt as heavy as iron, and the floral crown was long gone. Hunger, cold, pain, exhaustion…

All sensations mingled together, turning into a numbing torment.

The first day passed.

Her body temperature plummeted to the brink of death, and her consciousness oscillated between lucidity and unconsciousness. Several times, she felt the rope caught in the crevice loosen, thinking she was about to slip into the water, but she didn't.

The knot held on stubbornly.

the next day.

She began to hallucinate.

She saw her dead father waving to her from the shore, saw her mother's blurred face, and saw the warm light of the tribal campfire.

I saw the white wildflowers blooming all over the mountains in spring, then I saw the priest raise his stone knife, the chief's indifferent face, and the mixed feelings of guilt and relief in the eyes of my people...

She licked the thin ice that had formed on the rocks to quench her thirst and tore at the animal skin she wore to stave off hunger—even though the fibers were utterly devoid of nutrition.

She didn't know why she was still persisting.

The tribe had already offered her up, but the gods never responded. Death seemed to be the only reasonable and easy end.

But something deeper than reason was driving this young body to greedily and stubbornly seize every breath of cold air, fighting against the weakness that was gradually spreading throughout its body.

The third day, the darkest hour before dawn.

The girl, curled up and almost stiff, began to hum softly the song she knew best and loved most: "The moon rises over the eastern hills, shining on my river bend. The water flows on and on, the stars never sleep..."

The sound was so faint it was almost inaudible, like the intermittent sobbing of a cold wind.

But she was singing.

With her lips almost cracked from the cold, and with her last breath, she sang the lullaby her mother had sung to her on countless winter nights.

It's as if singing itself is a confirmation of "being alive".

And at that very moment—

She felt a gaze fall upon her.

The weight of that gaze was indescribable.

It doesn't carry the warmth or emotion of a human gaze, nor the predatory desire of a wild beast's gaze.

It's more like... a mountain "watching" a grain of sand, an ocean "watching" a drop of water, vast and indifferent.

The Black Emperor noticed the little bug that had been struggling for three days and was still alive, hanging on the reef.

For Nidhogg, these three days were nothing more than a trivial intermission in his long, almost boundless life, too short even for the leaves on the silver-grey tree to complete a single breath.

He could have continued to doze until this mortal's life naturally ended in cold and exhaustion.

Just like all the previous sacrificial offerings that were pushed into the water.

But the little thing did not die immediately.

She struggled, she fought for survival, and she sang in her desperate situation.

It's interesting.

It was so interesting that it garnered even a fraction of His attention.

Take one more look.

This serves as a pastime during leisure time.

So, at dawn on the fourth day, as the first pale rays of light pierced the leaden clouds and illuminated the raging river below the cliffs, a force quietly swept across the water's surface.

Around the reef where the girl was, the turbulent current suddenly became as docile as a tamed lamb, calming down. The water level dropped rapidly, revealing most of her body submerged in the water.

The ropes automatically untied, and the soaking wet animal skin robe instantly dried.

The girl felt herself being enveloped by a gentle yet irresistible force, slowly rising, leaving the water and the rocks, like a real feather, drifting lightly towards the cliff.

It swept over towering cliffs and the branches of ancient silver-gray trees, drifting towards the black dragon that rested beneath them.

The process was slow, slow enough for her to have enough time to see the river stretching further and further away below, to see the outline of the distant coastline, and to see every seabird circling in the sky.

The wind brushed against her wet hair and robes, carrying away the biting chill and bringing a strange warmth.

She landed on the ground covered with fallen leaves and moss, before the black dragon's huge, clasped forepaws.

The black dragon slightly raised its head.

Her half-closed golden eyes opened completely, reflecting her small, disheveled figure, yet she stood tall, unwilling to slump down.

It wasn't because the girl was resisting the majesty of "God" or trying to maintain some ridiculous sense of self-respect, but because she knew that if her tense spirit and will relaxed too quickly, she might lose her last bit of life force and never rise again.

In other words, in order to live, even if it's just for a brief moment longer, she was willing to offend the great being before her.

"Interesting little things."

The Black Emperor's voice resounded directly in the girl's mind. It wasn't language, but a direct projection of consciousness: "Use your last bit of strength to tie yourself to the reef, waiting for a vague possibility... What are you waiting for?"

"Waiting for God's mercy?"

The girl tilted her head back, her silver eyes somewhat unfocused due to extreme weakness and facing unimaginable majesty, but a faint, stubborn light ignited deep within them.

Before she could answer, the black dragon continued, easily revealing the core of her emotions, a mixture of ice and fire:

“Hatred, and…the desire for ‘life’.”

"So intense, it's amazing."

"As a sacrifice, you should have accepted death calmly, using your flesh and soul to please the 'god' you imagined. But you used every trick in the book to struggle for survival, and even came before me."

The black dragon's voice was unreadable: "Then, sacrifice, if your performance is somewhat interesting to me... I can grant you one wish. Any wish—as long as it's within my current mood."

Any wish?! These words exploded like a thunderclap in the girl's shattered consciousness, jolting her back to reality. Wealth? Power? Authority?

Or... simply the permission to continue living? For example, being safely transported down the steep cliffs of this sacred mountain? Or perhaps, a prayer for the tribe's survival, that they may endure this harsh winter?
But all of this is predicated on first making God interested.

What should I do?
The girl was silent for a moment, carefully choosing her words, then mustered her courage: "Great God, you undoubtedly possess the ability to foresee the future. If you had already foreseen that my performance would bore you, then you wouldn't have proposed this deal in the first place, would you?"

She took a deep breath: "Since you have given me this opportunity, I will use all my intellect, all my emotions, and all the time I may have in the future to please you and add a different touch to your dull eternity."

In the eyes of later generations, this simple cliché and compliment seemed novel and creative in that ancient era.

At least for a primitive man, this was the most complex and "clever" clever response he could conceive.

"To borrow the possibility of the future from me? In exchange for the right to have this conversation now? Naïve and ridiculous, full of logical flaws," Nidhogg said slowly. "However, I accept."

After all, this can be considered a clumsy and amusing attempt by ants to understand the cyclical workings of time and space.

The game can barely continue.

The enormous black dragon seemed to flap its wings slightly, and the fire elementals surrounding the mountaintop were rapidly drawn in, compressed, and given commands.

Accompanied by the sudden release of intention.

The next instant, the earth within a radius of dozens of miles began to tremble.

The girl saw that at the far horizon, on the land where she had lived for fifteen years, hated for three days, and which held all her memories, the entire sky had turned dark red.

It's not the red of a sunset.

Instead, it was a murky, dark red lava churning deep within.

The mountains roared and cracked, the rocks melted into crimson magma, and the earth cracked open with countless bottomless fissures.

A pillar of blazing golden fire shot into the sky from the crack, staining the heavens a burning blood, and even scorching away the clouds.

The air distorted in the high temperature, emitting a piercing shriek.

The river instantly vaporized, rising into a white cloud of steam that blotted out the sky, only to be torn apart by the heat wave in the next second.

Trees, grass, tundra, permafrost...

All flammable and non-flammable substances were either reduced to ash or melted into liquid glass at incomprehensible high temperatures.

The tribe disappeared.

There were no screams, no fleeing.

The elders, priests, and leaders who decided to sacrifice her, the clansmen who watched silently or even secretly rejoiced, the companions she had loved, hated, played with, and worked with... all of them were gone.

The sea of ​​lava churned and boiled, exuding the stench of sulfur and death, completely erasing that area from the earth.

silence.

Deathly silence.

The girl stood frozen in place, her silver eyes reflecting the distant hellish scene, the land that had once been her entire world, now reduced to nothingness.

Her mind went blank.

There was no thrill of revenge, no relief of liberation, not even fear.

There was only a kind of near-vacuum, absolute bewilderment.

"Now, it's your turn."

Nidhogg's voice echoed in his mind again, as calm as ever: "I have fulfilled your 'desires and desires'—though you yourself may not be fully aware that it is indeed one of your deepest desires. So, according to the principle of reciprocity, you should also fulfill my deepest desires."

"However, I am magnanimous. Given that you are far from having the power to realize it, all I need is for you to... guess."

Guess?
"Guess what?" the girl asked dryly.

"Just guess what it is."

The dragon lowered its head, its molten gold eyes drawing closer and filling the girl's entire field of vision: "You guessed right. You can leave alive, and you can even take some... 'gifts' with you."

"You guessed wrong..."

The voice paused slightly.

“I will also ‘grant’ you utter destruction.”

"Remember, you only have one chance."

"Don't keep me waiting too long."

"My patience is not limitless."

The girl stopped breathing completely.

Helplessness, fear, and despair swept over them.

Trying to guess God's thoughts? What would the thoughts of a great being beyond comprehension be like? What would His desires be?
It couldn't have been just because they were well-fed and slept, could it? Although, in the limited records of the tribe, the gods did often lie prostrate under trees?
Is it really possible to guess the answer correctly with such an ordinary and unoriginal reply?

At present, the minimum standard for this game is that it should at least be something that God finds interesting and not boring, but God does not meet that standard.

So, is it about guessing those deeper, more abstract ideas?

But this is an almost impossible task.

The girl knew nothing about God, not His past, not His thoughts. How could she, a human girl who had only lived for a little over ten years and whose knowledge was limited to the tribe and the mountains, possibly fathom or understand such a vast and ancient "thought"?
How could she possibly guess that?

But if I don't guess, I'll die now.

If you guess wrong, you'll die too.

Only those who guess correctly will survive.

This is an utterly absurd gamble.

But the stakes were her life.

The girl closed her eyes.

She was thinking.

She immersed herself in extreme silence, recalling every detail from the moment she was chosen as a sacrifice until now.

Why did God spare her? Was it really just because she was "interesting"?
Why did God so easily destroy the tribe?

Why does God play this game of "guessing thoughts"?

Could it be that my sophistry just now, or my previous disrespect and offense, caused Him to harbor a mischievous intention, thus presenting Him with a hopeless problem? A delayed judgment?

No! Even if the judgment is already predetermined, I will forge a path through this desperate situation! There will surely be an answer!
Yes! If... if the gaze of this supreme being before her could truly pierce through flesh and blood, seeing into the deepest recesses of her heart, into hatred and desire that even she herself might not be fully aware of...

So, the answer He asked me to "guess" might not be something vague or elusive at all!

The clues to the answer may be hidden in everything I've just experienced! Hidden in all His reactions and choices towards me! Is He trying to get me to piece together and deduce the answer from these complex perceptions and memories?

Just like the elders of a tribe, sometimes they would ask the young people to guess the tracks of the prey, actually to test whether they had remembered the experience and rules passed down by their elders, and how much they had learned.

The principle of reciprocity? The principle of reciprocity!
One crazy and audacious association after another followed.

Time seemed to stand still. The lava sea churned slowly in the distance, emitting a low roar, like the earth's final lament.

The girl suddenly opened her eyes. Her eyes were bloodshot from extreme fear and pressure, but deep within her pupils burned a near-mad, desperate light.

Then, she gambled everything—including her life, which she had just barely escaped, and that future that was so slim it was almost nonexistent:

"The reason why... you so easily agreed to my 'advance payment' and instantly wiped out the entire tribe..."

The girl's voice was soft, yet carried a resolute determination: "Not because my words are particularly clever, nor because you are pleased by my 'hatred'."

"It's because... you 'empathize'."

The black dragon's pupils seemed to contract slightly.

“You saved me because you saw your own reflection in me.” The girl paused briefly, then uttered the blasphemous conjecture, word by word: “You are also a sacrifice.”

"It is a higher-level being, or... it is the sacrifice chosen by this world, this space-time, this destiny itself."

“You possess the power to destroy mountains and rivers, and have a life that is almost eternal, but beneath this boundless power and time... lies a similar sense of powerlessness over one's own destiny as when I was bound to the altar, and... a much deeper, billions of times deeper, yearning for ‘end’ or ‘salvation’.”

Her voice carried a hint of sorrow.

"Great God, what you desire deepest in your heart..."

"It is 'salvation'."

"You saved me from the river..."

“Then I will… save you.” She took a step forward, her steps unsteady and her body swaying, but her eyes shone with an astonishing light as she stared directly at the golden sun.

"For this, I am willing to give everything I have—my soul, my will, my time, and all the 'performance' you may need."

“I will find the ‘being’ that placed you in this position, I will find a way to untie the ropes that bind you. I will… free you from this eternal altar, from the reef beneath the cliff.”

"Or, until I burn out like dust first."

The mountaintop was deathly silent.

Even the wind stopped, and even the leaves ceased to rustle.

The whole world seemed to hold its breath, awaiting the Black Emperor's reaction and his final judgment.

The girl's heart was pounding, but she forced herself to remain calm.

"save?"

This word appeared only a handful of times in Nidhogg's billions of years of existence, and it was never associated with him.

He is revered, feared, prayed to, and occasionally despised. But no one, no being, has ever spoken to Him about “salvation,” and with such a clear purpose.

And this ant not only spoke, but also looked at it with an expression of sympathy that transcended fear.

It was as if she and He were... equal victims.

They were bound to different altars by different fates.

Absurd. Ridiculous. Unbelievable.

But... why is there a faint, almost imperceptible tremor in that area of ​​my heart that has long been frozen to absolute zero? It's like a fish gently sweeping its tail across the surface of a frozen lake.

The Black Emperor remained silent for a long time.

So long that the girl came to believe that silence itself was a form of rejection, a prelude to destruction, and in despair, she closed her eyes again.

Then, Nidhogg gave an affirmative answer.

It wasn't poured directly into the mind, but rather transmitted through air vibrations, low and slow, carrying a completely new, unfamiliar temperature: "Interesting. Quite interesting."

"I'm suddenly starting to look forward to it."

"We look forward to seeing just how far you, this arrogant, blasphemous sacrificial who claims to save the sacrifice, will go in the future."

"For this expectation..."

The Black Emperor raised its right forepaw.

...(End of chapter)