I'm trapped in a block

Chapter 1272 The One Who Started the Fire
Martin never expected things to develop this way.

He originally thought that Lao Quan and the forces behind him were involved in some kind of huge conspiracy, and that even the Fire Seed Project might be a hoax.

So, it was all true?
Such a crude method was used simply to speed up the process and save time.

Martin pondered for a moment, then decided that he couldn't jump to conclusions so quickly.

It's still possible that Lao Quan is deceiving him, after all, it's easy to make up a price.

"Take me to see the fire. I need to dispel my doubts. If what you say is true, I can forgive and forget."

"Okay," Lao Quan immediately agreed.

"I'm letting you go now. Don't do anything unnecessary."

Martin loosened his restrictions on Lao Quan.

"I need to inform my superiors," Lao Quan said, pointing to his ring.

"can."

Lao Quan quickly explained the situation to his superiors, who did not reprimand him but instead told him that he could come over at any time.

"Let's go."

Old Quan led Martin toward the warehouse. When they arrived at a large box in front of the warehouse, he pressed a button on the outside of the box, and a door appeared on the box.

The two walked through the door and found themselves inside an elevator.

Pressing the button, the elevator quickly took the two deep underground.

The laboratory for Project Fire was actually located underground in the building where they had always lived.

"After sending the tinder into the warehouse, we immediately transported it underground and began the experiment without stopping."

As Lao Quan explained, he led Martin quickly down a corridor.

At the end of the corridor was a door. After Lao Quan's identity was verified, the door opened, revealing a huge underground space, roughly the size of a football field.

People were coming and going inside. There were lab technicians in white coats and government staff in suits and formal attire. Everyone was very busy, as if they were racing against time.

"Time is of the most important thing. Every second that the Fire Seed Project is delayed increases the possibility of an accident. We must complete all tasks according to the prophetic time."

The two walked down the stairs, through the bustling hall, and came to a glass panel.

"The spark is right there," Lao Quan said, pointing to the other side of the glass.

Martin looked in the direction Lao Quan was pointing, past the busy lab workers inside, and his gaze fell on something familiar.

It was a square.

Martin had seen that square countless times; it was a cubic meter in size and perfectly regular.

The only problem is that the cubes placed on the platform now lack "soul"; they won't float around or kill anyone or anything in their way...

Martin was somewhat dazed; he suddenly felt the intertwining of fates once again.

Did the things brought back from the Origin World ultimately turn out the same way?
Just as he had seen in the past, just as the future was destined to become, all the coincidences became inevitabilities, and the scattered tracks eventually converged, forming a "dream" whose ending he already knew.

Looking at the square, Martin gently shook his head.

He had already guessed the outcome when the guide explained the function of the "cube" beforehand, but he still felt that everything was full of surprises in the face of this destined encounter.

He knew Mo Ling would turn into a cube, he knew the final form of the container, he seemed to know everything, but he didn't know how things should happen. And in the end, the result he had long anticipated suddenly appeared before his eyes, like an apple falling from the sky and hitting him hard on the head.

He picked up the apple; it was indeed the one he dreamed about every night.

Gravity seemed to be pulling him toward a definite place, even though he couldn't yet calculate the complex trajectory of his motion.

The apple hit a branch and bounced elsewhere. Suddenly a gust of wind came, blowing the apple off course. He tripped over a stone, hopped a few steps to the right, and then slipped on the muddy grass...

"boom!"

It still hit the glass, no matter how you change it, it still hit the glass... Martin walked forward in a daze and stood in front of the glass, where the cube sat quietly.

Scenes of their past encounter began to echo in Martin's mind, as if he had returned to his innocent past.

At that time, he was still searching for the so-called "truth," and he was still frustrated because he could not escape his fate.

Now he knows many of the truths, but he still feels helpless because of the tricks of fate.

"There's no escaping it after all..."

When he first met the cube, he said to it, "You could be the protagonist of the world."

Now, when he sees the cube, he doesn't care who the main character is anymore.

"Every row and column is a character, and every horizontal and vertical line has its own logic."

Each person is the protagonist of their own chapter, and each chapter has its own reason for existence. All words are merely a part of a grand narrative; they can only accept the pre-determined orderly arrangement and obediently be written on the page when chosen…

"Old Quan, take me to see how you cultivate the fire."

"it is good."

……

Lao Quan put on a protective suit and wanted Martin to wear one too, but Martin refused.

"My body has no physical form."

Old Quan hesitated for a moment, then nodded and led Martin into the isolation chamber. After being disinfected, they entered the inner side of the glass enclosure.

Led by the researchers, they arrived at the outside of a monitoring room.

"Can't we go to the cultivation site to see it?" Martin asked.

"a bit difficult."

"why?"

"The cultivation site is in another world. Because cultivation takes time, we found a world with a faster time flow and placed the petri dish there..."

"Ok."

Upon entering the monitoring room, Martin immediately looked at the screens.

The screen appears to show a villa.

This puzzled Martin; how could the breeding site be a villa?

He scanned the screens and suddenly stopped on a monitor in one room.

Inside the room, a little girl was sitting obediently on the floor playing with building blocks. They were actually just different sized fire-starting blocks, which weren't fun at all, but the little girl was having a blast, even making excited sounds as the blocks collapsed…

The surveillance camera was positioned from top to bottom, so Martin couldn't make out the little girl's features; he could only see the outline of her chubby face.

But he felt a sense of familiarity, as if he had seen this little girl somewhere before.

"She's the human who was responsible for carrying the fire to the bottom of the abyss, isn't she?"

Martin reached out and pointed to the monitor screen, asking a question.

"Yes." The researcher was somewhat surprised: "How did you guess that?"

"I should... get to know her."

Martin hesitated for a moment, then looked at the researchers and asked in a serious tone:
"Her name is Li Luo?"

"Hmm, this is the name we chose for her, isn't it great?"

(End of this chapter)