Volume 4: Spacetime Singularity Chapter 3: Eternal Loneliness
On the evening of May 9, a tired girl sat alone in a completely enclosed small flight cabin, rising slowly along a diagonal line to the east in the sky not far from the coast of the Yellow Sea.
She sat with her legs bent on the translucent floor of the aircraft, her arms looped in front of her ankles, her two slender index fingers pressed together, constantly fighting, tapping against each other like the keys of a telegraph machine.
Ai Bishui would only do this little action unconsciously when she felt nervous.
She saw that the scenery on the ground was becoming increasingly blurred . The pine waves and sea waves that were originally clearly visible had turned into shaking blocks of color.
It was sunset at this moment. She looked up and saw burning clouds in the sky near the horizon. Emerald green hills with a layer of gold edge slowly spread out before her eyes as the height increased. The waves under their feet were stirring the layers of golden scales, while the water surface farther away from the shore was as clear as a mirror, filled with the fleeting sunset.
The afterglow of the setting sun spreads out like brocade, and the clear sea is as still as a mirror.
When Fang Cheng was chatting during the break from the experiment, he had mentioned that the seascape in his hometown was beautiful. She had no idea what he meant at the time, so she could only politely agree. Now she was convinced. If you ignore the monsters crawling on the coast for the time being, this scene is simply breathtakingly beautiful.
Fang Cheng wouldn't have been able to see such beautiful scenery every day on the way to and from school when she was in elementary and junior high school. She felt a little jealous when she thought about it.
Thinking of this, she couldn't help but recall the scenery on her way home from school during her elementary and junior high school years. That scenery didn't seem to be anything special. She just walked slowly along the alley shaded by thick banyan trees, and bought one from a rice cake stall when passing by and ate it on the way home.
That kind of small stall is a common childhood memory for the children in her city. Usually, an old man would carry a basin of charcoal, and a flying saucer-shaped rice cake would be placed next to it. It was very soft and sticky when bitten, and the fragrance would spread in your mouth as soon as you took a bite.
Thinking of this, she licked her lips, took out the soaked chocolate bar from her bag, tore open the plastic wrapper and ate it. She hadn't eaten anything for nearly 24 hours since last night, and these precious carbohydrates were a lifesaver for her.
Ai Bishui was chewing a chocolate bar in one hand, while she was flipping through the remaining supplies in the small bag with the other hand. Before leaving the dormitory, she prepared a plastic sealed bag for her cell phone and other devices that couldn't get wet. After coming out of the pool, she opened the bag and found that the items inside were still usable.
After eating two or three chocolates in a row, she stuffed all the packaging into her bag and began to stare at the scenery in front of her again.
The light of dusk splashed on Ai Bishui, leaving a layer of white halo on her eyelashes. The pair of quiet and moist eyes underneath were originally dark brown, but under the sunlight they appeared a transparent enamel color, setting off the miniature world reflected inside.
The pair of eyes were staring at the bizarrely shaped rocky mountains on the coast. She remembered that Fang Cheng had mentioned to her before that the mountains in front of them were the places where immortals lived in seclusion in ancient legends. Various strange phenomena often appeared among the floating mist and warm green. She was quite interested at the time.
However, in fact, those strange phenomena are mostly optical phenomena caused by excessive concentration of water vapor in the air.
The curvature of the earth became greater and greater, the area of the sun's silhouette became smaller and smaller, and her vision became increasingly blurred. Her vision was obscured by the gradually thickening fog, because she was now starting to pass through the clouds.
Generally speaking, when an airplane passes through clouds, there will be some degree of turbulence, but when it rises over the surface, it is very stable, without making even the slightest sound.
The brightness around her suddenly dropped. Without any reference, Ai Bishui couldn't even be sure whether she was rising. At this moment, she seemed to see a thick sense of loneliness coming from all directions, swallowing her up in an instant.
Loneliness is also a kind of dark energy. It has no light, no sound, and no smell, but it can significantly change the surrounding space and make people feel clearly how small they are.
In the endless darkness and silence, the only thing left for human senses is the experience of the passage of time. It reminds Ai Bishui like a dull whisper that she is slowly flying away from the familiar life in the past and will never meet it again.
"Memories are a road with no return. All the past springs can never be restored. Even the most passionate and loyal love is ultimately just a fleeting reality. Only loneliness is eternal."
Suddenly, the blackness disappeared completely, and the entire field of vision was filled with a clear and bright deep blue, with only a hint of warmth left on the western horizon. There was no ripple in the sky that enveloped everything, only the cold stars at the far end were twinkling.
This is the cool stratosphere, where there are no atmospheric phenomena except the wind.
Ai Bishui felt that she was slowing down. She sensed this state of movement not through vision, but by relying on the forces acting on her body. After all, there was no reference object of acceleration around her.
Soon after, the surface ring stopped completely, and after some fine-tuning movements, a blue dot appeared next to the red dot in the center of her vision.
"Aiming is complete. Look at the blue light circle and give the command in your brain to fire the beam."
Then launch it.
The clear blue was divided into two by a very bright colorful light band emitted from the front. The light band extended smoothly downwards and only went under the clouds at a very far distance that was invisible to the naked eye.
Now all we have to do is wait.
Ai Bishui was completely relaxed at this time. After being freed from the tension, she began to realize the various discomforts in her body.
After entering the surface ring, she casually asked if she could dry her clothes. The remaining water on her clothes evaporated in a short while as the hot air surrounded her body, but the surface of her body became sticky and itchy.
And my shoes and socks were still wet.
She reached down to her feet and took off her sneakers, then pulled off the cotton socks that were stuck to her feet and put them aside.
In the dim light, she saw that her fair feet were full of wrinkles from being soaked in sea water for a long time. When she touched them with her fingertips, she felt numb and itchy, but her hands felt a cool and silky touch.
She slowly rubbed her fingertips through the gaps between the toes, slowly smoothing out the wrinkles. An electric shock-like feeling ran through the body, making people gasp in surprise.
The sun gradually disappeared completely into the ground, and the Milky Way had not yet risen. Ai Bishui raised her head and looked at the glittering Orion in the distance, recalling the not-so-distant evening when she and Fang Cheng went to the observatory together.
The stars today are much brighter than that day.
