60 Tokyo Dream 01
◎That's not a prophecy, it's a curse, child◎
In Liu Qiaoer's memory, the place called hometown became blurred a long time ago.
She couldn't even remember whether she was a first-level civilization human or a second-level one. In fact, even the name "Liu Qiao'er" was given to herself later.
Liu Qiaoer came into contact with third-level civilized humans when she was very young.
It took them a lot of effort to bring her out of the place they called "hometown". From then on, she spent her short childhood in the third-level civilization era in the form of a spirit body.
It is hard to say whether Liu Qiaoer's praise of the "great civilization" was sincere praise or sarcasm.
After all, her hometown can hardly be called "civilized".
Liu Qiao'er was born in the bright and sunny month of March. Two weeks after her ninth birthday, a terrifying hunt swept through her hometown. The sheer number of people killed in this "trial," and the horrific nature of the deaths, shocked her time—and apparently, even the entire Third-Level Civilization.
The subjects of the trial include Liu Qiaoer's family and people similar to Liu Qiaoer - women who possess the power of prophecy.
This terrifying hunt had actually been foreshadowed long ago, and even without the use of prophecy, one could already predict what would happen in the future. Of course, this presupposed that Liu Qiao'er's peers were sufficiently alert to changes in their surroundings and had sound judgment.
At that time, the people of this land had already endured a severe drought, followed by a winter cold snap unseen in a century. Famine, poverty, and disease plagued them like an inexorable cloud. So, when spring arrived, many chose to end their lives in such a beautiful season.
The number of homicides has increased dramatically, people are constantly dying, more and more people are getting into conflicts on the streets, and what starts as a verbal dispute inevitably escalates into a bloody disaster.
It seemed like everyone had gone crazy, and they began to look for excuses and reasons for their irrational behavior.
So they went to find Liu Qiaoer and her kind in that bright March, because they were different from ordinary people and possessed the enviable ability of prophecy.
They said that it was this group of women who could predict the future who cast a spell on them.
The scary thing is that everyone believed this story, or maybe they did it on purpose.
They tied up this group of powerless women with ropes. The oldest of them was over ninety years old, and the youngest was only three years old. She was Liu Qiaoer's youngest sister.
At the age of three, when he knew nothing, he was tied up hands and feet by a group of evil people and thrown into the river.
I don't know where they learned this saying from, but it says that people who do evil will sell their souls to the devil, so their bodies will be lighter than normal people, and if they are thrown into the water, they will float on the surface and will not sink to the bottom.
Even though most of the people present were educated and had learned about the knowledge of buoyancy developed by human scientists long ago, when they saw Liu Qiaoer's sister actually float out of the water, they were so excited that they directly convicted the three-year-old girl and made her soak in the water until she swelled up into a flesh-colored round pancake.
The 90-year-old man was tied to a crude homemade rack and burned alive by the evildoers. They seemed to have forgotten that he had repeatedly warned a child who might be drowning to stay away from the river, and repeatedly stopped a driver who was not paying attention to the road, successfully preventing a car accident that would have happened minutes later...
They also wanted to burn Liu Qiaoer and her mother to death, but Liu Qiaoer's mother fought with them fiercely before her death. In anger, they peeled off half of their mother's scalp, but they were also exhausted and had no energy to torture Liu Qiaoer anymore.
They tied Liu Qiaoer and her half-dead mother together and set them on fire. Liu Qiaoer was held tightly in her mother's arms. Her back was burnt black, but her mother protected her front well and it was not burned.
When the humans of the third-level civilization found Liu Qiaoer, she was only breathing a little bit, but that was enough for them to pull her back from the gates of hell.
It took them a lot of effort to pull her away from her mother's arms. Her mother had already been burned through, her body melted and stuck to Liu Qiaoer, holding her tightly, like a shapeless hard candle.
They extracted Liu Qiaoer's memory and brought her spirit body to the third-level civilization world. She returned to her previous appearance, as if she had never been flooded or burned.
Liu Qiaoer later consulted many books and materials about ancient times. In the era of first-level civilization—to be precise, it should be level zero, as the level of development of civilization at that time was far from level one—there was a witch-hunting operation that lasted intermittently for several centuries, which was very similar to her experience.
But in the blink of an eye, Liu Qiaoer denied this era, because she and her kind did not look similar to the "witches" who were hunted down and killed, and they were not even the same race.
From this, she was convinced that she should be a human being from the second-level civilization era, and discovered that "lessons" were something that humans could never learn.
Before she fully adapted to life in a Level 3 civilization, she was kept in a laboratory and observed 24 hours a day by a doctor named Xu. They said that Dr. Xu was one of the greatest scientists of the Level 3 civilization era.
In addition to watching the serious Dr. Xu and her assistant busy in front of the laboratory glass cabin every day, Liu Qiaoer could occasionally see a few children about her age sneaking in to see her.
These children, like her, also lived in the laboratory, but they were not exactly the same as her.
They are the "most powerful weapons" of the third-level civilization era, bred by Dr. Xu by extracting the genes of humans from the ancient civilization era and integrating them.
This is the purest human gene that is not contaminated by technology, selected by all mankind.
When these "strongest weapons" grow up, they will be able to use the most precious thing of human beings - the brain, to complete the most thoughtful thinking and make the wisest judgments, without being affected by scientific and technological civilization at all.
Liu Qiaoer had overheard a conversation between Dr. Xu and her assistant, so she knew that one of the children, the one with dark curly hair and gray-blue eyes, had Caucasian ancestry from the first-level civilization era, while the other boy, who was often inseparable from him, had East Asian blood.
She also heard that the East Asian child once kept a butterfly as a pet, but the butterfly had a short lifespan, so he soon replaced it with a mechanical one.
Later, Liu Qiaoer entered the "Universe History" system and recognized Augustus almost at a glance as the gray-blue-eyed child from that year.
However, she did not see the East Asian boy who raised butterflies next to Augustus. Maybe she had seen him, but she did not recognize him; or maybe he was hiding in some corner, working together with Augustus, one in the open and the other in the dark.
Dr. Xu once stated publicly that she did not approve of the development of the "Universe History" system. At that time, she had been committed to preserving the ancient genes of ancient humans and organisms, as well as the research of some new species and new genes.
The reason for saving Liu Qiao'er was to explore her prophetic gene. However, Dr. Xu never imagined that the prophecy brought by Liu Qiao'er would sow the seeds for the birth of the "Universe History" system.
At that time, Liu Qiaoer was well-known throughout the galaxy because of her life experience and her predictive ability.
As a result, her first prophecy attracted considerable attention. Major media outlets across the galaxy were on high alert, broadcasting the event live 24 hours in advance.
The little girl in the camera seemed unused to such a scene, with a timid expression and a low voice, but all this changed when she spoke the prophecy.
At that moment, Liu Qiao'er seemed like a completely different person. She spoke in a tone that was far too mature for her age: "When the true master of Zhuang Zhou Butterfly arrives, civilization will be destroyed."
This remark caused an uproar.
A crack appeared on Dr. Xu's usually calm face. She bent down and placed her hand on Liu Qiao'er's shoulder. "Child, this is not your ability. You can only see the future within 10 minutes. Tell me, who taught you this?"
Liu Qiaoer looked up at Dr. Xu and said, "It's my mother."
Dr. Xu frowned: "As far as I know, your entire family can only see a short future of a few minutes..." Her words were suddenly stuck in her throat, and Liu Qiaoer hadn't finished speaking.
Liu Qiaoer recited the names of the women who died in the witch hunt, as if reading out a dish. "My younger sister, my neighbor's grandmother, the sister who gave me fruit cake... They said that when the true master of Zhuang Zhou Butterfly arrives, civilization will be destroyed."
Dr. Xu squatted down and looked Liu Qiaoer in the eye. "Did they tell you what Zhuang Zhou Butterfly looks like?"
"It's white, small, and glowing. It looks just like..." Liu Qiao'er looked at the East Asian child standing next to Augustus, "just like his mechanical butterfly."
Augustus, enjoying the fun, glanced at Helan with ill intent and said, "Oh, so that living creature you raised before was the real Zhuang Zhou Butterfly. So you are the one who brought civilization to an end."
Helan Dao said, "Augustus, stop making trouble."
Augustus was silent for a second, then continued, "Do you think this prophecy could be true?"
Helan Dao did not answer.
Augustus also asked Dr. Xu the same question. Except for being a little surprised at Liu Qiaoer's performance at the beginning, Dr. Xu was very calm at other times, and it seemed that she was not bothered by the prophecy at all.
In response to this question, Dr. Xu touched Augustus' head and said only three words: "Look forward."
Until now, Augustus still didn't understand the meaning of this sentence. He only knew that every time Dr. Xu brought up the topic of "Liu Qiaoer's prophecy" with others, she would always say this sentence and cast meaningful glances at children like Augustus and Helan Dao.
However, it seems that the reality has forced them to "go back."
Initially, people just regarded "Liu Qiaoer's prophecy" as a casual topic of conversation after dinner, until one day people discovered that things were going increasingly wrong.
For example, a historian who studies ancient humans opened an ancient book one ordinary morning, and then he found that a period of history originally recorded in the book had disappeared, and was replaced by a completely new record.
There are many discoveries like this, forcing people to accept the reality that human history has been tampered with. Although the prophesied owner of Zhuang Zhou's butterfly has not yet appeared, human civilization has already begun to see the signs of its destruction.
However, because the time is too long, those changes, big and small, have not yet affected the third-level civilization world.
But the plan to save civilization is clearly urgent.
Augustus, Helando and other children born in the laboratory had just reached adulthood at that time.
Augustus brought up the question he had asked many years ago and asked Dr. Xu again.
"Look forward, Augustus." Dr. Xu gave him the same answer. "You are children raised by all of humanity. Your every move is watched by the world. Your duty is to use your brain to guide the direction of all of humanity. And you must never, ever look back."
Augustus pondered Dr. Xu's words until He Landao said to him one day, "I want to develop a system called "Universal History of the Universe." What do you think?"
Augustus said nothing, only asking, "For all mankind?"
Helan Dao nodded.
Augustus joined Helan Dao, along with many others who shared the same goal as him in this civilization-saving project.
Augustus was in the open, and Helando was in the dark. They led an entire R&D team and jointly completed the recruitment of the earliest batch of players for the "History of the Universe" system.
The first player to sign the form was Dr. Xu's daughter, Xu Wenjun, who chose a completely different path from her mother.
The second one is Liu Qiaoer.
More and more people joined them.
These human players from Level 3 civilizations will serve as the first pioneers, establishing themselves in the "Universe History" system and paving the way for those who come after them. Helando stated that in the near future, humans from Level 2 civilizations, and even Level 1 civilizations, will also enter the game.
On the day the "Universal History" system officially launched, Augustus's speech to all humanity in the universe was repeatedly broadcast across the 498 billion radio channels, large and small, throughout the Milky Way:
We have always believed that humans can overcome everything. We are unwilling to admit that civilization will eventually become ruins; disorder and chaos are the true appearance of the world.
We are just a speck of dust that has luckily lived in an illusion of peace that has lasted for billions of years.
Perhaps this is a battle already lost, and we have lost the ability to resist. But looking back at history, we are amazed and proud that we once had such a brilliant civilization, which proves our existence.
If human beings are inevitably heading towards death, then we choose to resist with our mortal bodies.
Until I die, all will be over.
-
Dr. Xu turned off the radio and looked at He Landao who was standing at the door of the laboratory.
"Are you here to say goodbye to me, child?" Dr. Xu asked.
Dr. Xu's attitude was different from what He Landao had expected. He looked at her and asked, "Are you not angry?"
"All of humanity will be proud of you for moving forward with such careful consideration."
"...Thank you, Doctor." He Landao said, "I will take good care of Wenjun for you."
He turned and prepared to leave.
"Helan Dao." Dr. Xu suddenly called him again. She rarely used his full name. "The entire galaxy knows that child's ability to predict the future is only ten minutes. This is no secret. I think you should know this. This also applies to her mother, her family, and her kind. It's the same for everyone."
Helan Dao paused and looked back at the old man behind him.
Dr. Xu said, "I've never told anyone about this, but before you leave, I want to tell you the truth—that child doesn't have any prophetic abilities. The so-called prophetic ability actually has a very simple principle. If I explain it to you, you'll definitely understand."
Helan Dao's heart skipped a beat: "But the prophecy has been verified. Those civilizations that were tampered with and headed for destruction..."
"That's not a prophecy, it's a curse, child," Dr. Xu said. "It's the curse of an innocent soul."
【Author’s words】
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2022-10-04 19:47:14 and 2022-10-05 20:42:20~
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated the nutrient solution: Passer 10 bottles;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
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