What are you, really? (Part 1)
Hundreds of thousands of years ago.
At that time, Homo sapiens had just left Africa, and what they didn't know, and couldn't possibly know, was that with just a slight upward glance, they could see several "unidentified flying objects" soaring across the sky.
But even if they saw it, it wouldn't matter. Because even if they did see it, they would only think it was some kind of strange, large, grayish-black bird.
After a journey of tens of thousands of light-years, He finally had a moment to relax, looking down at Earth from the central control room. The eternal night of the home planet "Xuyuan" seemed to be a color that could never be returned to in his memories; in His "eyes" at this moment, there was only that breathtaking blue.
So beautiful.
Aesthetic appreciation is a frivolous activity unique to higher life forms. For example, a primitive human hiding in a cave right now, trembling from the roar of a saber-toothed tiger, would absolutely not have the mind to appreciate the boundless snowscape outside the cave entrance.
He "saw" the future of these lower carbon-based life forms. Hundreds of thousands of years from now.
Niche. He sighed, regretting that only he had escaped his doomed home planet. Otherwise, even with a greater number of these lower monkeys, they wouldn't be able to occupy this dominant niche at this moment.
So, if they don't compete with these monkeys for their ecological niche, where can they go?
Or rather, how can one "continue" their existence?
He turned his gaze to the blue expanse of water. On his home planet, water didn't exist, and he didn't need it. But for now, at least for hundreds of thousands of years—it was undoubtedly the best option.
"Hundreds of thousands of years..."
He sighed with all his information flow. In a lower-dimensional universe, higher-dimensional beings cannot use all, or even most, of their energy; there is not much he can do. Worse still, he desperately needs a carbon-based form to contain his gradually out-of-control dissipating information flow.
Hundreds of thousands of years is enough time for the monkeys hiding in the caves below to evolve world-destroying technology.
If you can't win, then lie low. This is the common instinct of all life to continue, and He is no exception.
Thinking this way, He no longer hesitated. The spaceship turned around and then disappeared into the void.
——————————
What a big room. And what a soft, comfortable bed.
well……
That feels fucking good!
Yunhe's first reaction upon opening her eyes was to let out a comfortable yawn. Only after yawning did she realize a very serious problem:
Wait a minute? Where did I get myself into this mess?
If I remember correctly, wasn't I dragged out of Jinlin's lair by Shen Huai'an at great personal risk? How come I was on the set of Avatar one second and turned into a melodramatic Chinese urban soap opera the next??
And where exactly is this? Whose room is this?
—Anyway, it definitely won't be hers.
After all, she was penniless. Not only was she poor, but she also had no taste. Such a large room, and a bunch of seemingly simple but obviously expensive ornaments, couldn't possibly belong to her.
...By the way, where's Shen Huai'an?!
Finally remembering her "important matter," Yun jumped out of bed like a rabbit and rushed out of the room. She already knew who the room's owner was, but she had to see him with her own eyes.
—Because only by seeing it with her own eyes could she confirm his survival and safety.
The house was huge, the kind of "presidential suite" style duplex she had only ever seen in movies and on television, with several corridors connecting different small rooms. Yunhe searched for the person in each room while frantically trying to turn on her waterlogged and unusable phone. But just then, a voice, all too familiar to her, suddenly echoed in her mind:
“I’m in the room to your left. Come in if you want to see.”
His voice was tired, but still coherent. Yunhe's spirits lifted, and without even bothering to reply, he immediately pushed open the door. Unexpectedly, he added:
"Be mentally prepared."
?
Yunhe almost laughed out of anger. What? She'd been with him almost every day for months. She'd seen him in all sorts of miserable and terrifying states. Did she really need to be prepared? Was he looking down on her?
But soon she regretted her "blind arrogance".
The moment Yunhe pushed open the door and saw what was inside, she almost vomited.
It wasn't bloody, nor terrifying. The Shen Huai'an before her was still just the same mermaid she saw every day in the lab—a beauty so captivating it was almost eerie. But…
However, only about half of him is "normal".
Shen Huai'an lay in the bathtub, which was at least three or four meters long, his huge, long fishtail covered in blue liquid. His face and body facing Yun He were as always, but from a slightly different angle, one could see—
It's less about "seeing" and more about "feeling." Because at that moment, the other half of his body was "completely transparent" to her!
Humans are three-dimensional beings, but human vision is always two-dimensional. To give a simple example, you can never see the back of an object directly from its front; the reason objects appear "three-dimensional" to you is actually an "illusion" caused by the principles of perspective. But right now, Yunhe could clearly see through his skin's surface every inch of his muscle, every blood vessel, and every internal organ; and from the surface of each internal organ, he could see all its internal structures…
That is, one can see the inside from the outside, and one can see the inside of the inside from the inside, and so on, until infinity.
Infinite detail.
Clearly, the human eye cannot withstand the visual impact of such "infinite detail." Or, to be precise, it's not a visual impact, but a neural and psychological one.
If this observation continues indefinitely, people will surely go mad. Just like the villagers who dared to confront the true face of the ancient god, there will always be a "price" to pay.
—So the consequences were quite obvious. She only paused for a few seconds, then lowered her head and began to gag!
"Feel sorry."
He heard Shen Huai'an's weak but still polite voice say, "I still scared you."
Yunhe gagged for a while before wiping his mouth and managing to reply:
"N-nothing..."
That being said, she still couldn't bring herself to look at him anymore. At the same time, she finally understood the deeper meaning behind Nixos's seemingly childish words.
—Because they aren't even carbon-based life forms. Understand?
"So..." Yunhe suppressed the urge to look again, his voice trembling slightly, "You... what exactly are you?"
"As you can see," Shen Huai'an said gently, as always, "I am not exactly a three-dimensional being."
This is absolutely shocking! It's so shocking it's unbelievable!
She understood every single word he said, but when they were put together, she seemed to understand nothing at all.
"Then, then you are... a four-dimensional being...?"
"I don't know."
"...?"
“Those are ancestral memories, not passed down to me.” His voice trailed off. “And you, are you feeling better?”
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Yunhe replied hastily. Shen Huai'an chuckled softly before saying, "Then rest for a few more days. I'll be in this state for another two or three days. Until then, you can go to the refrigerator to find ingredients and cook in the kitchen. If you don't know how to cook, you can order takeout using my phone."
Yunhe: "..."
Wait, buddy? How come you, a non-human who's supposed to be a four-dimensional being, are saying things that sound so down-to-earth?
——————————
He was said to recover in two or three days, and in fact, he recovered on the third day.
On the third night, Yunhe, who had been ordering takeout for several days, was eating snacks and chatting casually with his family (obviously, no one outside knew or cared about what was happening at the GI Research Institute) when there was a knock on the door.
"Please come in... um?"
Who's knocking?
Who else could it be but the homeowner himself?
As expected, when Shen Huai'an pushed open the door and entered, he had already reverted to his former "refined scoundrel" appearance. Although his clothes were casual, they were clearly very "human" and full of life. The only strange thing was that although his tail had indeed transformed into legs, his face and hair were still those of a mermaid—white hair, blue eyes, and inhuman beauty—completely incompatible with his human body, like some kind of failed cosplay.
"You've been eating takeout for three days straight?" What's even more infuriating is that this guy still couldn't resist making sarcastic remarks: "I remember you kept saying you wanted to lose weight."
Damn it, why bring up something I shouldn't have said! If this house weren't like a maze I couldn't get out of, do you think I'd want to keep eating pre-made food?
Yunhe couldn't help but roll her eyes.
At this moment, she seemed to have completely forgotten the terror of "staring directly at higher-dimensional beings," and said irritably, "Oh, so Mr. Chen is in good health now? What's up—"
Halfway through her sarcastic remarks, she saw Shen Huai'an's eyebrows curve into a smile. His normally ordinary expression, magnified under a microscope by his extreme beauty, became a weapon of mass destruction (a fangirl's version), leaving her speechless for a moment.
"I made some in the kitchen, Xiaoyun, would you like to try some?"
Shen Huai'an did not retort, but greeted him with a smile: "Homemade is always better than takeout."
...
After several rounds of drinks and several dishes of food,
It must be said, Shen Huai'an's cooking skills are truly excellent. Yunhe ate until her stomach was bulging, but she still didn't want to stop.
It smells amazing! This skill takes decades to master; even a Michelin-starred chef probably wouldn't be this good... Wait a minute?
"Um, Chen... Huai'an." She called out his name somewhat awkwardly: "Don't tell me that you haven't learned anything else in the past few hundred years in human society except cooking?"
Shen Huai'an smiled slightly. He seemed too lazy to answer such a foolish question.
However, he patiently and earnestly answered this foolish question: "If a person lives for hundreds of years and still can't cook, wouldn't that be too pathetic?"
Yunhe: ...
She suddenly blushed.
If it were her, even if she lived for a thousand years, she would probably only... order takeout.
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