Eileenburg (15)
"What do you mean by living in the air?" Mi was stunned. Who doesn't live on the land? Humans aren't birds; they can't fly in the air.
"Oh, Mi, don't worry." Ailian hugged Mi's head to comfort her. Mi activated her senses again, and Ailian's head was filled with a cacophony of thoughts. "Oh dear, Mi, do you know that people are only buried in the ground when they die?" "Mi is so cute, so cute!" "People aren't fish; they can only withstand the pressure of air." "How am I supposed to explain this to Mi?" Ailian carefully observed Mi's complexion: "Mi, breathe, breathe."
"Ah, am I not breathing?" Mi was taken aback by Ailian's words. She had long since learned to set her body to look like a normal human, how could she have forgotten to breathe?
“Look—” Ailian took a deep breath and exhaled, creating a small airflow: “Air movement.”
"Yes, I know, the air is always moving."
"You're so smart! The whole world is filled with air, different kinds of air. Whether it's the Flower Kingdom or the stars, they all live in the air. Gas is everywhere."
"Do you know that there is a state called vacuum?" Mi was confused again. She seemed to have returned to the witch forest when she was learning from El. No, she seemed to have returned to her student days and was learning knowledge she had never known before.
“A vacuum?” Ailian shook her head. “An absolute vacuum does not exist. What Mi calls a vacuum is just a space isolated by a container. Look at the land of the Flower Country. There are places where there is no air, but when the soil is removed, air fills the space again. The origin of the world is air. Any object can vaporize. The land, trees, and stones you see are just small molecules in the air that have accumulated.”
"So the world is made of air? And the different components of air?"
"The air doesn't seem quite right either?" Ailian was a little troubled. The long-lived species had no teachers. This was the inheritance she received from her mother. The world was a constant process of splitting and recombination.
"So you're air too, and I'm air too?" Mi suddenly laughed, as if something had occurred to him. "You long-lived races just look for people who share your stinky nature when you're looking for your destined one?"
"Oh dear, it's not like that at all!" Ailian scolded playfully. "You smell the best, you don't smell bad at all, not bad at all."
"Hey, don't talk about me, keep talking about the air."
"You know the air is full of species, all the substances you can see in the world. The food we eat will go into the air, the water we drink will go into the air, and clothes will dissolve into the air if left for a long time. So will people."
“Oh, okay.” Mi had to admit that this was a very materialistic viewpoint: “Then are there places where there is no air, for example, where a person can create a vacuum using a container? Then can someone put air in a container?”
"Mmm, Mi, you're so smart!" Ailian praised Mi again, almost believing her if Mi hadn't kept the witch's threads on her. Ailian's head was filled with voices: "Oh dear, Mi doesn't know that everything eventually vaporizes? A vacuum can't contain it, and neither can air." "Mi's so smart, the smartest person I've ever met." "Oh dear, I can't explain it. Will Mi laugh at me?" "Xiaowei, Xiaowei, come quick, I don't know how to explain it..."
Mi pulled back the witch's threads; Ailian was being too noisy. She fell into deep thought again. If the entire world was gas, and solids were condensed dust and gas in the air, Mi suddenly thought of the sun as a fireball. Fire, in ordinary eyes, is just burning air. The Earth's core is said to be more than just lava; is it liquid or gas? Could the sun one day transform from gas to liquid and then back to solid? No, no, that's reversed. The sun was originally a solid, but now it's vaporized. So what about the Earth? Will it eventually become another sun? If so, the Wandering Earth would become a wandering fireball.
Ailian stared blankly at Mi, then quietly nestled against him, secretly wondering why Mi had so many questions. Her father always said she was a curious child, and now her destined one was also a curious child. Ailian smiled secretly, but she was also troubled, wondering if she should find another long-lived species with broader knowledge to answer Mi's questions.
Mi couldn't resist taking out the witch's headband. A gray cloud of energy wrapped around her wrist. Mi poked the witch's headband: "Are you air too?"
“Mi, you’re not air anymore, you’re already a condensation of air.” Ailian rolled her hands together, indicating that she had separated from the air.
Mi had to abandon her thoughts. If all of this was just air movement, then were there observers? Were there higher-level beings opening one experimental chamber after another? No matter how Mi thought about it, something still didn't feel right. Movement had its own laws, and the whole world was interconnected. Those with more advanced technology must have been conducting different experiments, just like humans—who knows how many experiments humanity has conducted in total? She looked at Ailian: "And what is the heart of the Longevity Seed? Is it the air that once lived with me?"
"Oh, is that so?" Ailian was also confused by what Mi said. "You're so smart, no wonder I like you so much."
This child is too naive; Mi couldn't bear to tease her any longer: "What will you do after you find your destined person and hand over the longevity seed?"
“With a heartbeat, life is completely different from before,” Ailian said. “Many long-lived species choose to have children just like humans. Children are second only to their destined partners in their attraction to long-lived species. Some long-lived species also choose to travel around and see the world.”
Don't you hate outsiders?
Ailian shook her head: "The seed of longevity is not something we want. The length of life is just a difference in the time of reincarnation. Some lives only last one day, just for that light. Moths fly into the flame for the light. The destined one is our light."
Light again. Mi couldn't help but drift off. Who said there should be light? Are all living things chasing after light? Mi looked at Ailian before her, a gentle green bubble shimmering with red, orange, and pink light. If one viewed Ailian through the lens of consciousness, she would be an overly vibrant ball of light. The world, in her eyes, was a collection of different lights. Mi couldn't help but ask, "What color am I?"
“Black, an incomparably brilliant black.” Ailian was overjoyed. She described a color that Mi could not even imagine. How could black and brilliance be connected?
"Black light?"
“Yes!” Ailian nodded vigorously again, and she suddenly said, “Do you know what a point is? It’s a point. You are a point, and I am another point. We are connected by a line. The longevity seed is a fixed point, and the destined person is another fixed point. We are destined to form a line.”
Mi reached for paper and a pen on the bedside table and drew many dots on them: "With so many dots, how can you be sure which one will be the one that connects you to the city?"
Ailian took the pen and drew a circle around the black dot: "This is the location of the dot." She turned the page and added another dot: "This is the location of the destined person." Ailian folded the paper so that the two dots could form a line. She said very seriously, "The long-lived species doesn't know where the destined person is." She added different dots on different sheets of paper, "We have no direction to search for, we can only stubbornly stay in place, waiting for different sheets of paper to be turned and folded, eventually forming a line."
Points, lines, planes, folds—are these space and dimensions? Mi was suddenly startled. What are the Long-lived Species? Are they one-dimensional beings? They draw lines in their own territory, fiercely guarding their birthplace and dwelling place. The intervention of outsiders causes many points to become other points, eventually connecting them into lines. The Long-lived Species stubbornly uphold their promise to their destined one, even if it means being killed for it?
"What use are longevity seeds to you?"
“Besides having a long life, it’s not very useful.” Ailian said quickly. “The seed of longevity is like a box that shuts down all our senses. Living is like a mission, and there is no difference between happiness and unhappiness. Mi, after meeting you, I am a human being with a heartbeat and the ability to feel joy; before meeting you, I was like Ailian Castle, just sitting there.”
What does "just there" mean? Mi suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the little girl in front of her. How could someone just be there, unknowingly and without awareness? Mi patted Ailian's head and asked her, "So, what are the effects of removing the longevity seed on you?"
Ailian lowered her head and remained silent for a long time. Mi had to let go of her thoughts; Ailian's little head was in turmoil again: "How can I tell Mi that not having the longevity seed isn't a loss?" "But removing the longevity seed will make me sick. Mi is so kind; if she knew, she definitely wouldn't want my longevity seed anymore." "I have two longevity seeds." "It would be best if Mi ate one now, then I could be sick for a very, very long time, and Mi could take care of me." "Mi is so smart; she'll definitely see through my act. What should I do?" Mi pulled herself together, watching Ailian's face change. She wondered if all longevity seeds were this innocent, or if Ailian was just particularly naive. Finally, Ailian blushed and said, "Removing the longevity seed will make us sick, but if our destined person takes care of us, we'll get better quickly." This clever longevity seed had revealed her little thoughts completely.
"Do your hearts only start beating when you meet your destined one, or do they start beating after you take out the longevity seed?" Mi ignored Ailian's little thoughts. She was already a witch with infinite life, so she definitely wouldn't need Ailian's longevity seed.
Ailian suddenly stared at Mi, and after a long pause, she said, "That's different. When you meet your destined person, your heartbeat is like a seed sprouting, and you can begin to feel life. If you don't meet your destined person, even if you forcefully use the longevity seed, your heartbeat will still start, like a forced activation. You will still learn to observe the world, just like painting. You will repeat some things, sometimes just seeing the instinctive repetition; sometimes you will ignore it, seeing it as if you can't see it."
"What does that mean? One is emotional, and the other is mechanical?"
"What is machinery?" Ailian's cat eyes widened, filled with curiosity.
“It’s like this—” Mi suddenly realized that the Flower Kingdom had no machinery; everything relied on human and animal power. She tried to explain to Ailian, “It’s like the sound of wind chimes. One is made by touching it with your hand, and the other is made by the wind blowing it. Although both produce a sound, the source of the force is different.”
Ailian blinked and thought for a while before picking up a pen and paper. She pressed the pen on the paper and drew a line, then a curve: "The destined person is like a straight line, we know where to go. Forcibly extracting the longevity seed is like a curve, we don't know why it turns or why it stops."
"Don't you hate the person who forcibly removed the longevity seed?" Mi felt that removing the longevity seed had changed the life trajectory of the longevity seed.
"But only by extracting the seed of longevity can our lives move from a point to a line."
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