Chapter 388

Chapter 389: The World’s Deep Secrets

The Phase Engine rolled up the space-time around the ship. Warp Space formed a Hyperspace bubble that wrapped the Otherworldly Hotel like a Giant Tower. Information from real space got compressed into a complete two dimensional membrane along the bubble’s edge. On that thin film, the secrets of the stars flowed like water and soaked into Yu Sheng’s mind and senses.

His spirit stayed in tight sync with the ship on its faster-than-light trip. No one else could really imagine this state. Because of that, no one had warned him that it is extremely dangerous for a human mind to contact Hyperspace directly.

Normally, anyone traveling faster than light sits inside a well-protected vessel. When the Phase Engine makes Warp Space, it also forms a special field that keeps the hull together. That field also keeps crew minds from touching the outside. The universe in a “complete mapping” state is so dangerous that the starlight mapped onto the bubble’s edge carries enough information to drive a person mad. Even a brief shine can melt a mortal mind in the stars’ whispers and flickers.

But who would expect this? A person’s mind could move into a ship with no barrier and even treat the ship as its own body.

Yu Sheng curiously “looked” at the star river flowing around him as it filled space like a river with no start or end. In that instant, his sense of his “body” grew fuzzy. The Otherworldly Hotel in jump and the flesh sitting on the Control Hall’s captain’s chair both turned into an abstract footnote used only to hold the concept called “Yu Sheng.” His true self seemed to slip free of that footnote and wander through the world’s most basic structures.

His gaze passed through the flowing star light. He seemed to see the grand frameworks that hold up the order of the stars and all time and space.

He could not touch them, but he could see them. He could not grasp them, but he could read the echoes between those huge frames, echoes left by some “eternal instant.”

After a long pause, Yu Sheng stretched out his senses again. He tried to touch those flickering “glints.” He tried to “read” the echoes among the world’s massive bones.

What a great act of creation. What a shocking project. The world’s deep secret lifted one corner of its veil, and in the next instant, he heard the Creator’s voice again when the world was rebooted:

“…How is this part even running?”

“…”

[Not sure. Listen some more.]

He pulled back, then touched another tiny glint.

“…There used to be a planet here, but it was useless so I commented it out.

“Why is this broken here?

“Why is this not broken?!
“Never mind, comment it all out and rerun… it actually runs?!

“…Why are all the stars in this region pointy?”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment and pressed that corner of the world’s secret back down.

[Enough. Looking at this is giving me a headache.]

He understood now what those “messages” were. He did not know how any of this was possible, but there was no doubt that the messages came from when this world was “born again.”

They happened in a moment before “let there be light.”

After a long time, Yu Sheng turned his “eyes” again to those untouchable, unreadable “foundation blocks” that hold up the observable universe, and he fell into thought.

He sat quietly and thought, while time wandered around the edge of his mind without meaning. Then in one more instant, he woke up.

That kind of “watching” and “touching” beyond a human mind ended. The flood of information faded like a tide. Real-world signals reorganized fast. He felt the steel body of the Otherworldly Hotel again, then his human body in the Control Hall’s captain’s chair. The rumble of machines boomed in his ears, loud at first, then calm again, back to a low background hum.

Yu Sheng’s vision swayed, and he noticed the little doll creeping up onto him, reaching a finger toward his nostril.

He blinked and suddenly turned his head: “What are you doing?”

“Ah!”

The doll yelped, tumbled off him, and landed on the floor spread-eagle.

Yu Sheng looked at the messy doll and reached down to lift her up, setting her in front of him: “You just cannot stop messing around for one minute, can you?”

“I was checking your breath. Checking your breath, get it?” Irene crossed her arms while Yu Sheng held her by the collar like a cat, her tone very proud: “What if you died?”

Yu Sheng broke into a cold sweat. The little dust-storm of a creature opened her mouth and his thoughts fell out of step: “Where did that come from? I’m fine, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, you are always fine right before you drop dead. That is why it is called dropping dead,” Irene said, then swung her body in midair, flipped with skill, hugged Yu Sheng’s arm, yanked her collar free, and scrambled up to his shoulder like a koala, “you sat here not moving. You looked okay on the outside, but then your mind went silent all of a sudden. I thought your brain died from flying the ship.”

Yu Sheng froze. He ignored the little jabs in her words and instead recalled what he sensed at the edge of Hyperspace while in tight sync with the ship, the grand frames that support all things at the information level, and those ridiculous comments.

He remembered what he had learned from Bai Li Qing about this world: the Ancient Holy Spirits, the old world destroyed by the Great Annihilation, the new world rebuilt on its ruins, and the creation feat called the second singularity burst.

Then he saw the doll’s hand reaching for his nose again.

“I just zoned out,” Yu Sheng slapped Irene’s little paw, “same as before, I just zoned out.”

“You zoned out so hard your mind went missing?” Irene stared wide-eyed: “Are you sure you’re fine? Maybe this ‘direct mind link’ way of flying is too much. When we get back, let the Special Affairs Bureau give you a better autopilot. If that fails, get you a long-term driver.”

“…”

Yu Sheng suddenly realized the little doll was actually worried about him.

“I’m fine. It’s just my first time in Hyperspace, and I ‘saw’ some things,” Yu Sheng said, this time serious as he patted Irene’s hair. Then he thought for a second and looked over at Immortal Yuan Hao and Xuan Che sitting nearby.

The two pretty boys did not really get what he and Irene were talking about, but they were getting used to the ship’s strange, slightly absurd style inside. Mainly, Xuan Che was getting used to it. Immortal Yuan Hao seemed born with crossed wires. They did not ask anything. They just watched.

Yu Sheng looked at them and asked a sudden question: “When a person is piloting a faster-than-light ship, do they see weird things?”

“Weird things?” Immortal Yuan Hao did not follow at first and looked puzzled: “What do you mean?”

“Like base-layer information of the world, knowledge the stars pass on, marks from when the world was born,” Yu Sheng said, careful not to give details for the sake of everyone’s mental health, “when the ship enters Hyperspace, do you see things like that?”

Immortal Yuan Hao’s face shifted: “That sounds frightening, like pollution from some unnameable thing outside reality. I have never seen it.”

Yu Sheng did not give up: “…Not even if the ship is very fast?”

“No. Not even then,” Immortal Yuan Hao said seriously after a pause, “the fastest I ever went, I only saw a warning.”

“A warning?!” Yu Sheng jolted. So you do see things. He rushed to ask, “What warning?”

Immortal Yuan Hao sighed: “A speeding notice from the local Traffic Bureau. Then the Celestial Ship got impounded. Two junior brothers nagged me for days after.”

“…”

After asking again and again, Yu Sheng finally confirmed that what he saw was not normal.

It seemed no one had ever touched those “messages” carved deep in the stars, or even noticed they existed.

A fluffy tail brushed his arm.

Yu Sheng turned to see Foxy watching him with worry in her eyes.

He smiled.

“It’s fine. I just realized… this world is pretty interesting.”

He stood from the captain’s chair and strolled to the giant Observation Window at the far end of the Control Hall.

Outside, the Hyperspace bubble still quietly mapped the warped projection of the real world. Everything observable was pressed onto that closed two dimensional film, tinted with the dreamy colors of red and blue shift.

But this time, it felt like more than a pretty view.

He felt as if he saw… a figure.

A figure busy at work in an eternal instant where all things were gone.

“Pretty interesting indeed.”