Chapter 118 A Promise Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold (Part Six) The Great Comet Fenglan and the Prophecy Longbeak...
The long, dark green leaves unfurl, interspersed with white flowers with six pointed petals, resembling six-pointed stars. Clusters of flowering trees, some a meter tall, grow either together or scattered, their growth pattern unpredictable, possessing a mysterious natural rhythm.
The rainforest climate simulation system had just finished raining, and the humid air carried the fragrance of grass and trees. If it weren't for the map given by the original owner indicating that this was a garden, Du Yu would almost have thought he had come to a tropical rainforest.
The stars on the cane shattered, and Du Yu reluctantly put away this expensive crafting tool, which was worth three elemental cores.
There was no other way; the security in the upper city was too tight, and Du Yu didn't have much time to waste. He had no choice but to use the only semi-teleportation item he had, the Star Staff, regardless of cost.
This [Star Staff] is Du Yu's attempt at a new feature. If you add materials from different ability users when using materials tainted with believer traits to synthesize it, will the synthesis be successful?
The answer is yes, but Du Yu doesn't dare to recall how many times she failed. In the end, the synthesis of the [Star Staff] still had an element of chance. However, she also figured out some patterns. The probability of synthesizing this kind of composite material is not random. If the "recipe" is reasonable, the chance of successful synthesis will be greater.
After completing this task, you can try it. A fleeting thought crossed my mind, and Du Yu took a deep breath and carefully examined the ridiculously large garden in front of him.
Contrary to its overly spacious area, the original garden had a very limited variety of plants, or rather, the original planted only one type of flower, with the rest serving as its backdrop.
Raindrops rolled down the translucent petals, the edges of the pure white flowers were blurred by the light, and a long, slender blue spur hung down from the calyx, swaying in the rain, like a wound in the atmosphere that had not healed for a long time after a comet streaked across the sky.
A flower so beautiful it seems unreal, countless white blossoms swaying in the rain, like being in a white sea of stars.
The Great Comet Orchid is a rare flower species said to have survived the Great Cataclysm. Apart from the seeds preserved in the laboratory, this is the only place in the entire City of the Sun that still has this beautiful but fragile orchid.
Surrounded by a sea of white flowers, Du Yu could understand why the original owner loved this kind of orchid the most, but—the clues given by the original owner ended in the garden, where are the element seeds?
Du Yu previously obtained an element seed from [Lost Heart and Eyes], which was a snail sealed in amber. However, before setting off, she asked 166, who said that element seeds might not have a physical form, making them even more difficult to find.
For some reason, although Tian Yinuo said that the original owner liked this garden very much, apart from a few occasional fragments, this garden almost never appeared in the original owner's memory.
It was so clean it was as if the memory had been erased...etc.
Du Yu suddenly frowned. After so long, she already knew that the novel's plot was misleading, and that many things were not as the author described on the surface. The original owner of this body was not a purely brainless villain.
If the original owner had already sensed the abnormality in the surroundings and tampered with the memories in advance, then the remaining scattered fragments of memories were also deliberately left behind by the original owner.
In the first scene, the original owner sits on a swing in the garden, explaining the name and habits of the Great Comet Orchid to Tian Yinuo.
The second scene shows the original owner of the body wandering alone in the garden late at night, staring blankly at a certain flower.
In the third scene, the original owner of this body is lying on the lawn with her arm as a pillow. She smiles at Tian Yinuo, who seems to have come looking for her, and says something.
Du Yu felt that the original owner's words to Tian Yinuo in the third segment might be very important, but for some reason, Du Yu pulled up the second segment and watched the details repeatedly.
There is a famous psychological experiment called "The Invisible Gorilla". Due to the deliberate visual guidance of the experimenters, nearly half of the participants did not see the very conspicuous gorilla in the picture. This is because people tend to selectively focus on what they consider to be the "important point", thus ignoring some very abrupt and strange details.
Du Yu watched the second segment again and again, noting the darkness of the sky, the position of the large comet Feng Lan, and the original owner's expression, but the fleeting inspiration didn't come to her. Du Yu suppressed her irritation, and suddenly her ears twitched.
Although the sound was very faint... it was a small sound in the background when the original owner was staring blankly at Feng Lan!
Du Yu subconsciously held his breath, focusing all his attention on capturing that tiny sound. Finally, on the third time he saw it, he found the source of the sound on another orchid next to the one the original owner was looking at—a gray moth struggling to flap its wings and squeeze towards the flower's stamen!
"The Madagascar long-beaked hawkmoth, that was its scientific name before the cataclysm."
Upon discovering the gray moth in the second fragment, Du Yu suddenly heard the original owner's voice in his ear—the very same voice from the third fragment he had been unable to hear at all! The original owner had indeed tampered with his memories. How did he do that?
His brain became active with excitement, and Du Yu pursed his lips, listening to the original owner's account of Tian Yinuo without missing a single word.
"—But I don't like this name. I prefer to call it the Prophecy Moth."
"The Prophecy Moth? Is this kind of moth also a mutated creature? A mutation in the [Fate] element?"
"No."
As if summoned, the grayish-brown hawk moth abandoned its feeding on the nectar from the long spurs of the orchid, and lightly landed on the girl's fair fingertips, only to be gently flicked away a moment later.
"It is very fragile."
Tian Yinuo sat down among the flowers, staring intently at the moths feeding on nectar, her eyes filled with such intense confusion they seemed about to spill over.
Amidst light laughter, a story drifted through the flowers: "Do you know why this orchid is called 'Great Comet Orchid'? Because unlike other orchids, it has a spur that's over thirty centimeters long—that's it."
The girl gently lifted the slender green stem beneath the petals of the orchid. "Its nectar is hidden inside. It is said that before the Great Cataclysm, this flower attracted moths with its nectar. When the moths drank the nectar, their wings would be covered with pollen. Once they flew to another flower, the orchid had achieved its goal of spreading pollen."
"But this orchid is unique; its spurs are so long that no known insect at the time could reach its nectar. So some people predicted that there must be an insect with a very long beak that helped the orchid spread its pollen."
"People at the time did not believe it until the prophet died. Locals then discovered moths with very long beaks, just long enough to suck the nectar of the comet orchid, in the area around the comet orchid."
"You tell me, isn't this a prophecy? There are flowers with long spurs, so naturally there are moths with long beaks. The workings of the world are so intricate, like a third-rate novel where the author racks his brains to wrap up all the foreshadowing."
"Huh? Why is it third-rate?"
"Seeing life reminds us of death, seeing the sun reminds us of the moon, seeing an orchid reminds us of a moth. Cause and effect cycle, fate turns. If the world were truly a book, then such a book, where you can know the ending just by reading the beginning, would be far too boring."
"I don't like it."
The girl clapped her hands, stood up, picked a frilly orchid, and tucked it behind Tian Yinuo's ear. The two walked together to the end of this fragment of memory.
Du Yu seemed to be deep in thought, feeling that the story of the comet Feng Lan and the prophetic moth, especially the original owner's last few words, vaguely pointed to something.
The Wheel of Fortune...
Du Yu recalled the original body's characteristics. 166 said that although it could not determine the form of the element seed, one thing remained unchanged: the element seed must be closely related to the "inclination" of the spawner.
In other words, the seed maker's understanding of the elements and its choice of tendencies will determine the form of the element seed.
The "Lost Eye," who is suspected of possessing the element of "mind," left behind a withered seed of the element, a snail encased in amber. This image represents his understanding of the element of "mind."
However, Du Yu knew too little about this fallen false god and was unable to decipher the meaning behind the amber snail.
Thinking of the original owner's characteristic name and the original plot, Du Yu had a feeling, but he couldn't grasp that inspiration for a long time, so he looked around to try to find some inspiration.
After the original owner died, although these great comet wind orchids were well preserved because of their rarity and preciousness, the prophesied long-beaked hawk moths, which were also numerous in the original owner's memory, were not so lucky. Du Yu searched for a long time before finally finding a wet hawk moth under a long leaf.
"Pop~"
The moment Du Yu's fingertips touched the scales of the scorpion, he heard a sound like bubbles bursting, and blurry images began to appear before his eyes. According to the game's interpretation, this meant that Du Yu had solved the puzzle and found the key item, and the story scenes began to play.
But Du Yu's expression suddenly changed abruptly. He twisted his toes and forcibly changed direction, retreating rapidly.
The long-beaked hawk moth, which had just been rained on and was lying listlessly on the leaves, suddenly swelled up as if inflated, growing to the size of a basketball before exploding with a "boom." Flowers and trees all around were scattered, white flowers were torn to shreds, and an indescribable stench spread out.
Amidst the swirling sand and gravel, a voice that Du Yu recognized all too well rang out:
"Hehe, long time no see—young new god."
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Author's Note: The story about the comet Wind Orchid and the Long-beaked Hawkmoth was based on Baidu and the National Natural History Magazine, but some parts were heavily modified for the sake of writing the novel.
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