14 Dayu's Flood Control (End)

◎Audience Rest Area◎

When Zhu Heng turned back to the sunny side of the hillside, no one had left and they were all gathered around the actress.

It’s just that the atmosphere was a bit heavy, and the expressions on their faces were sad and strange, with an indescribable weirdness.

Zhu Heng walked forward and saw that the actress lying on the grass had disappeared, and instead there was a human-shaped flower field.

The flowers that bloom are still those unknown little blue wildflowers that are dotted like stars. When the wind blows, they form a pool of blue land that connects to the clear blue sky, like a pool of water reflecting the skylight.

Zhu Heng walked through the crowd, came to the edge of the flower field, and knelt down with a thud.

Then they raised their hands above their heads and kowtowed deeply.

Everyone was surprised by his sudden action.

"Brother Zhu?" Tao Ran asked carefully, "What are you doing?"

Zhu Heng kowtowed three times and said calmly, "I bow to my mother."

Everyone: “?”

Everyone: “!”

Tao Ran also knelt down with a thud.

Zhu Heng frowned: "...What are you praying for?"

Tao Ran said incoherently: "I, I, I... my legs are weak. I hope you can continue."

The scholar narrowed his eyes and said, "Brother Zhu, you are not joking, are you?"

Zhu Heng stood up and brushed the dirt off his knees, then said slowly, "I'm an orphan and have no parents, so I'll just treat her as one for now."

The "Yin" summoned by his diary is a person fabricated according to his childhood dreams and diary descriptions, and it is unclear whether he is imaginary or real.

Kneeling down for her won't hurt anything.

-

“Sizzle——”

The system's voice rang in everyone's ears:

The first episode of "A General History of the Universe," "Yu the Great Tames the Flood," has officially concluded.

[Dear audience, please take your fragments of civilization with you and leave in an orderly manner. After a short break, the second screening will begin. You will now be escorted back to the audience lounge to wait...]

Everyone was puzzled: "Didn't we agree that we could go home after the game? Why is there a second game?"

Zhu Heng frowned. If that were the case...

He turned to the system and asked, "How many episodes do you have in total?"

The system tried to speak in a calm tone: [Ninety-nine million nine hundred and ninety thousand——]

Everyone: “?”

The system is broken: [100 million episodes.]

Just die.

Everyone: “???????”

As soon as the system finished speaking, everyone felt a dazzling white light in front of their eyes. They subconsciously closed their eyes, and when they opened them again, they found that they were back to the hexagonal building.

But this time it was different.

A brand new world officially opens to them.

The setting sun that seemed to be frozen in time is now a clear sky.

A cacophony of voices drifted into their ears. Listening closely, it sounded like the cries of babies, the hawking of vendors at a market, and the occasional hearty scolding of an elderly person. There was laughter, then noise, and a clamorous uproar. Occasionally, the clear cry of a seagull woven the chaotic, noisy atmosphere together, as if emitting a fragrance, even more fragrant than the grilled fish they had eaten before embarking.

"What is that!"

Tao Ran suddenly pointed to the sea and let out a scream.

Everyone looked out to sea through the gaps between the houses, and then their gazes became fixed.

Under the warm sunshine, the sea water rippled slightly, and its color was as green as jade. Various hexagonal buildings were inlaid on the green jade, and various bridges stretched across the sky, connecting these offshore buildings together.

In the air, suspended traffic routes crisscrossed each other. A silver-white bus carrying a full load of people whizzed past over the crowd's heads; another ox cart, pulling a few drunken passengers from the Wei and Jin dynasties, who were wearing loose clothes and big sleeves, slowly moved forward; turning around, there was another sound of camel bells, and several camels carrying guests dressed in different dynasties from the Han Dynasty to the Song Dynasty passed through the air.

Everywhere you look, there are people.

This is the audience lounge area.

The source of the noisy voices.

-

The system voice suddenly spoke:

[All viewers who find fragments of civilization will be sent here. You are the last group in the entire universe.]

The sound now had no carrier and came from nowhere. It was surrounded by 360 degrees and was almost everywhere.

The hexagonal building they were standing on shook violently twice, like a train that had just started, and slowly moved towards the audience lounge area.

Directly ahead of them, there was a group of hexagonal buildings on each side, with a very narrow gap in the middle. Tao Ran estimated the distance with his naked eyes and realized that with the size of their "train", they would definitely not be able to pass through it.

His heart was about to explode.

If this happens... it will be terrible.

However, the people on the two groups of hexagonal buildings did not react at all. Some of them ignored it without any panic on their faces; some of them had indifferent expressions and looked away after taking a look.

Tao Ran even saw a Qing Dynasty woman in Manchu clothing, holding her child who was less than one year old, poking her head out of the house, looking at them curiously with two pairs of eyes.

Seeing that the building they were in was getting closer and closer to the gap, Tao Ran cursed inwardly and waved his hands anxiously, shouting, "Go back! Go back quickly!..."

Zhu Heng suddenly raised his hand to stop Tao Ran and signaled him not to speak.

Tao Ran was stunned, and felt another violent vibration under his feet, like two carriages of a train being hooked up. The hexagonal building they were in was firmly connected to the left and right sides like a magnet, and the gaps were tightly closed.

The moving building suddenly stopped, and the inertia made everyone almost lose their balance.

When they looked up, they found that in addition to them, there were five identical hexagonal buildings around them, also firmly connected like this.

Every six such building units form a group, forming a circle; every six groups form a larger group, and the groups are nested one after another.

Looking down from the air, a hexagonal building resembles a family, six families form a settlement, six settlements form a village, and six villages form a town...

Until these small units are connected into one.

There are a total of 494,160 households, spread across the entire China like stars in the sky.

-

A man in a black uniform appeared on the bridge that stretched across the air.

He shouted into a loud speaker: "Everyone, pay attention! The civilized market will open in five minutes. Please line up in an orderly manner and don't crowd to avoid stampedes! I say again, don't crowd..."

"Market?" The little peasant girl was stunned.

By the time they reacted, a long queue had already formed at the bridgehead.

A group of five people followed the crowd and joined the end of the team. Five minutes later, everyone got on the sky bus and looked out through the glass window. The scene below had become completely different.

When they were there before, the buildings in the audience lounge area looked like black and white pieces on a chessboard, scattered in disorder. However, when they came into the air, they found that these buildings were actually like a tightly structured honeycomb, nested layer by layer, in an extremely regular manner.

The aerial bus passed through a series of honeycomb-shaped audience rest areas and finally stopped in front of a huge circular platform built in mid-air.

An arch was erected at the entrance with the words "Civilized Market" written on it. The black-uniformed administrator got off the car first, stood in front of the door, and held a loudspeaker to maintain order on the scene.

Everyone got off the car and looked around. The archway was crowded with people, stretching as far as the eye could see. People from all dynasties over the past five thousand years were all crowded together, like a big hodgepodge.

The administrator announced over a loud speaker, "Don't crowd. Enter one at a time! If you find something you like, exchange it with the stall owner for the historical information you know. Once again, please remember that this information must be completely consistent with historical facts. It will be verified by the system later. If it is found to be inconsistent with historical facts, the historical information you provided will be treated as 'counterfeit currency.'"

"It's quite interesting." Tao Ran sighed, not realizing that according to this standard, he himself was completely a "negative asset" person.

People going to the market were bustling about, walking and stopping, raising dust.

All sorts of grocery stalls lined the streets, selling everything from apricot blossoms covered in overnight spring rain from the Southern Song Dynasty, to the handful of sand Zhang Qian brought back from the Western Han Dynasty after opening up the Western Regions, to the specimen of the butterfly Zhuangzi saw upon waking from his dream...

Of course, the most popular thing is food.

Bai Juyi's sesame cakes, Su Dongpo's Dongpo pork, Kong Yiji's fennel beans... No matter how other stall owners shouted and hawked their wares, everyone seemed unable to move and gathered in front of the food stalls. The line was so long that you couldn't see the end.

"What's the point of arranging this?" someone sneered.

Zhu Heng glanced sideways. The person who spoke was a man with glasses and wearing a plaid shirt.

"It's fresh once or twice, and more times will do." The man with glasses took off his glasses and wiped the lenses nonchalantly with the corner of his clothes. "Huh, it's just so-so."

"Do you come here often?" Zhu Heng suddenly asked.

The man with glasses put his glasses back on, looked up at him, and said with contempt, "What are you talking about? Every time we audience members finish a play, as long as we successfully pass the level, we will get a chance to visit the market. This isn't your first time here, is it?"

Zhu Heng said without shame: "I just finished watching the first episode."

"You're this one." The man with glasses gave him a thumbs-up. "Did you fall asleep or something? I've never seen you so slow. I'm already up to episode five, and I don't know when we'll get to the finale..."

Tao Ran, who had overheard the man with glasses, immediately became excited and interrupted, asking, "What are the next few episodes about? Can you tell me?"

The man with glasses sneered, "Want to spoil it? I advise you not to waste your time. It's useless to tell you. The episodes are broadcast randomly, and each of us sees something different. Once we finish watching them all and collect all the fragments of civilization, we can put together a comprehensive history, and that will be the finale."

Tao Ran was a little dumbfounded: "Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine billion episodes, how can I possibly finish watching them all!"

The man with glasses rolled his eyes. "That's why we have to call everyone from the past five thousand years here to make up the numbers. Every extra person is a plus."

There was a bang sound above my head.

Zhu Heng turned his head away and looked towards the horizon.

Countless aerial vehicles woven like mycelium into a vast web, covering the dome. At the end of the road, blue circular holes shone, like doors leading to another world.

The vehicles laden with passengers passed through the circular hole with a thud and then disappeared. Others thudded out of the hole and were sent back to their respective rest areas along their designated tracks.

"That's the entrance for the audience to watch the show. After we finish visiting the market and taking a break, we can go in and watch the show." The man with glasses explained.

A silver disc-shaped spaceship whooshed out from one of the round holes and instantly flew over the market.

On the spaceship, a man was sitting in the cockpit smoking, his lips tightly holding the cigarette butt. He took a deep breath into his lungs, and wisps of white smoke floated out.

He held the cigarette between two fingers, put the knuckle of his thumb against the tip of his nose, and paused for two seconds.

"Is he here?" The man asked someone in a low voice with a hint of allure and temptation.

A calm female voice answered him: "Who are you talking about?"

The tone was somewhat uncertain.

Helan Dao took another puff of his cigarette. The sides of his cheeks were slightly sunken. His black hair was a little messy. His hair casually fell on his eyebrows. There was a light red scar where his brow bone met. From a distance, it looked like a very light and short red eyebrow tail was drawn, which made his light brown eyes look even clearer.

It's just that the ends of my hair are a little long, pricking my eyebrows and making them a little itchy.

He raised his hand and scratched it twice.

"It should be called... Zhu Heng."

After saying this, Helan Dao seemed to remember something. He held the cigarette between his teeth and used his free hand to gently flick away the ash that had fallen on his knees.

The female voice paused and said, "What do you want to see him for?"

He Landao glanced at the woman beside him and laughed. "Tell me, if a person's heart is stabbed through and they don't die, why is that?"

The woman seemed lost in thought and stopped talking.

Helandao tsk- ...

However, he and the woman were the only two living people in the cabin.

It looked like it was asking the air, but soon, an emotionless mechanical voice sounded in the cabin.

System: [Sorry, I don’t know]

Helan Dao stared at the air dimly.

The system gritted its teeth and added: […daddy]

"Good son." He Landao responded quite naturally, "It doesn't matter if you don't know."

There was an ambiguous smile in his eyes: "He bullied you, Daddy will teach you a lesson."

【Author’s words】

Volume one is finished. I have something to tell you. I recently ended my work from home, and because of my busy work schedule, I may have less time to write. I have only written 80% of the second volume so far, and I still have to revise it as I go before I can put it up. I will try my best to update it daily, but at the same time, the frequency of revisions will be higher than the first volume, so it may bother you a little. Please forgive me.

If the subsequent serials cannot be updated daily as usual, I will say so in the preface. Although not many people are following it, I will feel very sorry for everyone if I do not have enough manuscripts to update daily. To express my apology, I will send a small red envelope in the comment area. It’s not much, just one or two v-chapter. Bodhisattvas can use it to support other ladies’ genuine v-articles. Bow again.

So I wish you all good luck in the final exams, further studies, work and life!

The next volume is a puzzle of Confucius~