[Later, the survivors turned all this into a ballad.]
[Ragged idealists sat around drying their wings, and some used their scarred hands to hold up the lost ship.]
[When I closed this thick story, the bonfire was still burning in the rainy night. ]
[——They will remember the nobleness and stature of the one with the white wings, as if he were the embodiment of a myth.]
[“Look, they really turned the long night into the prelude to dawn.”]
…
"Have you decided?" asked Captain Mu.
"Yes." Su Ming'an replied.
"You don't regret it?"
"No regrets."
"You will become the 'world tree' of the new world, equivalent to the planetary consciousness... or, in other words, a collective unconscious beneath the iceberg."
"Um."
"You will not have a true human form, and you will not be able to walk freely in the world. Your talent and future will be cut off, and you will never be able to run to the depths of the starry sky again... Is this okay?"
"Um."
"You will gradually lose consciousness and your own existence during the long watch, becoming a symbol, an incarnation of the origin, no different from eternal imprisonment and death... Is it okay even so?"
"Um."
"Why? You can have a future."
"Before answering this question, Captain Mu, I want to ask you, have you ever asked the World Tree... what the unknown pioneer of Lovasa thought before he/she became the World Tree?"
"...Heh, you idealists are all the same. For the sake of your twisted and paranoid ideals, you don't care how others try to keep you, and you don't care how you want to live."
"I will not allow myself to fail. The few hundred points of energy that are missing at the end may be the last shortcoming that causes the barrel to collapse, or it may cause all the efforts to go to waste... So, I will complete it, not abandon the old, weak, sick or disabled, and bring everyone on board the ark together. This is my wish. I once said that when the tram comes, I will neither pull the lever on the left nor the railing on the right, so I choose to stand in front of the tram."
"…Congratulations on keeping your word, Su Mingan."
"Thanks."
"...There is a question that has puzzled me for a long time. I have never been able to tell what you really want to do. Do you want to die or live?"
"I want to die. Death is a relief for me, an end to suffering. But I also want to live. I long to live without fatigue, I long to face everything in the future with passion, and I long to smell the scent of wild flowers and fresh breeze in my hometown. 'Living' is a weight for me. Compared with the situation I long for, this weight will make me feel shaken, but it is not enough to shake my choice."
"Really? That's your answer..."
"Um."
"Can I ask you one more question? What supports you to come to me? Is it your ideal or your obsession?"
"I can't tell."
"Can't tell?"
"I... forgot why I laughed sometimes, and why I cried sometimes. I pursued my wish, and regarded it as the only meaning of my survival... I told myself not to let down those sunk costs, those who tried their best to hold me up, those eager eyes cast on my back, my authority, and those friends who were waiting to go home... Once I lose all this, my personality and even my meaning will be completely dissolved. Gradually, I can't tell whether I am doing this because of my original intention and wish, or because of sunk costs and responsibilities, or both."
"People like you have very high moral standards."
"If I lose all of this, my personality and meaning will be completely gone. It would be better for me to die."
"The word 'ideal' runs through the beginning and the end of your story, but to this day, I still don't understand why this word drives you to do so recklessly."
"It's something... as precious as a crystal piano."
"Crystal piano?"
"When I was a child, I passed by a shop window at the school gate and saw a very beautiful crystal piano ornament, but its price was prohibitive. Every time I passed by the shop window after school, I would take a look at the crystal piano and imagine how beautiful it would be if it was placed in front of my window. But I knew that this thing did not belong to me."
“…”
"Then one day, Uncle Zhao noticed my sight. He didn't have money to buy the crystal piano, so he made me a piano out of straw. I carefully put the straw piano away and placed it in front of my window."
"And you think that a straw piano is better and more satisfying than a crystal piano?"
"No, I was a child, and I still thought the crystal piano was more beautiful. But every time I saw the straw piano, I would think of the beautiful crystal piano. I deceived myself and told myself that this was the crystal piano. I hypnotized myself and told myself that I already had it."
“…”
"So, 'ideal', to me, is the crystal piano. It is far away and difficult to achieve. It is out of reach for an ordinary kid like me. I shouldn't desire something that is too far away from me. But suddenly one day, I started to own a straw piano, which is my authority... I began to realize that maybe I can touch the piano. I began to hypnotize myself, telling myself that the 'ideal' can be touched. I began to deceive myself, telling myself that as long as I work hard in the world game, I will definitely get my 'crystal piano' in the future."
"...Then, in the end, was the 'crystal piano' or the 'straw piano' in your arms?"
“It’s currency.”
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