Fireflies and Starlight
The brief storm in the passage caused by touching the taboo has subsided, leaving only the silent data stream still flowing, and an indescribable feeling of exhaustion after tension echoing in each other's consciousness.
He Yuan no longer mentioned the "Pain Ripples" or the dangerous encrypted data packet, as if it were just a trivial computing accident. He returned to his lazy tech geek self, focusing on receiving and analyzing the massive amount of edge data that was allowed to be transmitted, occasionally throwing out one or two optimization suggestions, his tone as calm as if nothing had happened.
But Xiang Jinyang could feel that something was different.
The energy flow transmitted by the other party seemed gentler than before, more focused on "nourishment" rather than simple "filling". Even when he was trembling slightly from the previous impact, a very subtle code with soothing properties quietly mixed into the energy, helping to calm his tremors.
This silent and clumsy "compensation" made Xiang Jinyang more uneasy than any words.
He couldn't comprehend this contradiction—on the one hand, unbridled spying and analysis, and on the other, this... almost considerate concession and protection. The virus's behavior pattern defied any logic he knew.
In this eerie, stagnant calm, He Yuan seemed to grow a little tired of simply analyzing data. His "mind" spun around the corridor, and suddenly said, "Hey, 'Administrator,' I'm getting bored of looking at all these old historical data logs. Want something real-time?"
Xiang Jinyang was instantly alert: "Real time? What do you mean?"
"Literally." He Yuan's tone lightened. "Give me your minimal perception of the outside world. You don't have to bother transmitting it, I can see it myself. Just like... uh, sharing your 'surveillance camera' permissions."
"Absolutely not!" Xiang Jinyang flatly refused. Opening up real-time perception is tantamount to sharing one's senses connecting to the world with others, a risk far greater than transmitting historical data!
"Don't be so stingy." He Yuan seemed to have anticipated his reaction. "Just the minimum permissions. Only vision and basic energy perception are shared, not including your thinking and rule manipulation. Besides, I can pay for it."
A stream of energy that was purer than before and even carried a hint of active life energy flowed along the channel. At the same time, it also delivered some tips on how to efficiently conceal one's own Heavenly Dao aura and avoid detection by certain specific laws.
"Just think of it as the rent for your 'camera' and... the data fee?" He tried to explain it in his own terms.
Xiang Jinyang was once again caught in that damn trade-off.
The allure of energy, the practicality of skills, and... deep down in his heart, a faint curiosity about the "sharing" perspective that even he himself was unwilling to admit.
What will the other party see and how will they react?
After a long silence, he opened up a very tiny bit of real-time vision and basic energy perception authority with great difficulty, almost gritting his teeth, and restricted it to the minimum, adding layers of shackles to ensure that he could completely cut it off at any time.
In an instant, the "intention" on the other end of the channel became different.
It is no longer just a simple data reception, but brings an immersive feeling of "watching".
"Oh..." He Yuan let out a very soft murmur filled with pure amazement.
Through that shared permission, he “saw”—
It is not about the specific mountains, rivers, or various sects.
Rather, it is the rules of the world that are perceived through the unique perspective of the incarnation of Jinyang Tiandao.
Countless flowing, interwoven, and fluctuating energy bands constitute the undulations of the earth, the direction of the rivers, and the changes in the wind and clouds… The breath of living beings is like billions of faint sparks, born and died, flowing through it, following established trajectories, and occasionally bursting out with subtle variables… Beneath the grand, precise, and cold order, there is a surging, noisy, and vibrant… existence.
This is a vast scene that transcends the vision of the naked eye and reaches the origin of the world.
Xiang Jinyang was accustomed to this perspective. For billions of years, he had been a part of this system of rules, maintaining its operation and taking it for granted.
But for He Yuan, this was undoubtedly a new and shocking experience.
"Is this... the world you see every day?" His "mind" was filled with unprecedented novelty and focus. He even temporarily stopped his greedy pursuit of data and simply "watched". "It's like... a never-ending, vast symphony of data. It's truly... magnificent."
His comments still bear traces of technology, but they rarely reveal a hint of appreciation that is almost "aesthetic".
Xiang Jinyang was slightly startled. Magnificent? He had never used that word to describe his responsibilities and vision. It was an order that needed to be maintained, a burden that needed to be carried, and a cold, unforgiving set of rules. Magnificent?
However, the other party's pure and immersed amazement that came faintly through the passage was like a stone thrown into an ancient well, making him subconsciously "look" back at the scene that he had long been accustomed to.
It seems...indeed...a little different from the past?
"Hey, look over there!" He Yuan's "mind" suddenly pointed in a remote, energy-dense direction with the excitement of a child discovering a new toy. "Those young cultivators' formation practice had three energy circuits connected incorrectly, with a node deviation rate as high as 15 percent! And yet it hasn't exploded yet. They're really lucky, hahaha!"
Xiang Jinyang: “…” He was used to directly perceiving mistakes and correcting or punishing them, and never thought this was “funny”.
"And there! The fight between those two low-level spirit beasts for the spirit fruit... the attack pattern prediction database needs an update! That feint was so well executed, wow, it's Oscar-winning!"
Xiang Jinyang: “…” Creatures fight, the strong prey on the weak, the laws of nature are silent, what is there to comment on?
"Wow! Look at that cloud! The way the energy condenses and moves... it's like a naturally occurring random number generator code! Perfect!"
Xiang Jinyang finally couldn't help it, his consciousness moved slightly, and he slightly corrected the trajectory of the cloud to make it more in line with meteorological laws.
"...Why did you change it?" He Yuan's "thought" was suddenly filled with obvious regret, "You've destroyed the chaotic beauty of nature!"
"This is the duty of heaven." Xiang Jinyang responded coldly.
"Dull." The "thought" muttered, but was soon attracted by other things.
He immersed himself in the "live broadcast" from the perspective of the Heavenly Dao, sometimes marveling, sometimes complaining, and sometimes analyzing, treating the operation of a grand and serious world rule as the most interesting immersive movie.
Xiang Jinyang went from being wary and uncomfortable at first, to feeling helpless later, and finally, strangely enough, he...slightly got used to it.
Even in the other party's endless "commentary" full of technical jokes and weird jokes, the core of his rules that had been cold and silent for billions of years seemed to be injected with an extremely weak trace of... vitality?
It turns out that the world can be viewed this way?
At this moment, He Yuan's "thoughts" suddenly became quiet.
His "gaze", through the shared authority, "fell" for a long time on a deep and silent valley far away from human habitation.
There, there are no powerful spiritual veins, no amazing visions, only countless ordinary fireflies emitting faint light of life, flying leisurely in the night sky, drawing short and gentle tracks.
In Xiang Jinyang's perception, they are just a tiny cluster among billions of weak creatures, as small as dust, not even one percent of the power of a low-level cultivator.
But He Yuan looked at it for a long time.
"...So beautiful." For the first time, all technical analysis faded from his "thoughts", leaving only a pure, almost soft sigh.
Xiang Jinyang was stunned again.
Fireflies? Beauty?
He couldn't understand. What beauty could there be in such a thing? Its life was short, its light was faint, and it was insignificant to the laws of heaven and earth.
"Their life span is very short," He Yuan whispered, as if talking to himself, "and their luminous efficiency is also very low, making them worthless from an energetic point of view. But..."
He paused, as if searching for the right words.
"But look, even though they're so weak, they're still trying their best to shine, dancing in their own way, creating a unique... landscape in this night."
“It’s like a piece of redundant code that has no practical use but is designed to be extremely ingenious and beautiful. Its existence itself is its meaning.”
Xiang Jinyang was silent.
He "looked" at those faint spots of light. For the first time, he did not use the perspective of measuring the value of all things from the perspective of the Way of Heaven, but tried to "look" from He Yuan's strange perspective.
Small, yet persistent. Weak, yet warm. Useless... yet beautiful.
An extremely strange and subtle throbbing was like a stone thrown into a lake, creating an imperceptible ripple deep in his cold core.
He suddenly remembered that not long ago, in this ruined Jintian territory, there had been a little clumsy, useless firefly condensed by energy.
The feeling at that time... seemed to have some distant resonance with this moment.
There was silence at both ends of the passage.
Only the dancing trajectories of countless fireflies flowed silently between the two people through shared perception.
One sees vast rules and cold order. The other sees tiny lives and useless beauty.
Completely different perspectives, at this moment, because of a firefly, produced a strange and brief intersection.
"...Yeah." After a long time, Xiang Jinyang responded with a single sound extremely lightly, almost imperceptibly.
It seemed like a response, but also like an unconscious sigh.
He Yuan seemed to smile, and that "smile" came through his thoughts. It was very faint, but no longer had the previous bad or playful tone.
He didn't say anything else, but continued to quietly "watch" the fireflies.
Xiang Jinyang did not cut off his authority either.
Just like that, the two of them passed through this fragile passage, sharing the insignificant starlight and fireflies in the silent valley.
The torrent of data is still flowing silently in the background.
But something more subtle, like the light of a firefly, quietly lights up,
Although weak,
But stubbornly,
Scattering a small piece,
Eternal cold and darkness.
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