Wang Qian, along with his fellow disciples, had their bodies, wills, and even the aura of the "Mother of Spiritual Qi" imprinted deep within their souls completely sealed away by Hu Jiu.
The Mother of Spiritual Qi is a potential danger signal; this god-like being's nature far surpasses the comprehension of Wang Qian and his companions. Is it possible for Her tentacles to transcend the barriers of this world?
This is an unknown.
Therefore, Hu Jiu planned to give those "black gems" to Du Zhong, so that Du Zhong could act as a human buffer and a warning barrier.
If the Mother of Spiritual Qi really does catch up, and her strength is unknown, Hu Jiu needs to assess the situation and make the right response to gain a buffer zone with a split second to react. The most suitable person to take on this important task is naturally Du Zhong.
At this moment, Du Zhong was looking at the oily "black gems" with a puzzled expression. They were supported by an invisible force, and the faint aura they emitted carried a sticky feeling that made people instinctively uneasy.
"I sealed those cultivators inside and am giving them to you. Perhaps... they have some research value?" Hu Jiu said.
Du Zhong's eyebrows twitched very slightly, as if he had heard an interesting word, and he looked away from the black gems.
"Old Hu, how long have I known you?" He chuckled, the sound echoing in the void, tinged with undisguised mockery. "Your 'gift'... you might as well just tell me your purpose."
"Would I harm you?" Hu Jiu glanced at him. "Your current body is something I created."
Du Zhong chuckled. His true form consisted only of his brain, which had always been protected by the "jar." His body was sculpted by Hu Jiu, but his true form was completely unable to come into contact with Hu Jiu's Supernatural aura.
He could accept the body Hu Jiu offered, but those few black gems inexplicably made him uneasy, and he decided to respect his intuition.
Thinking of this, he stretched out his slender fingers, the tips of which were shrouded in an almost imperceptible Supernatural, and cautiously touched the surface of the black gemstone without making direct contact.
Buzz...
The instant his fingertips touched the fiery luster of the black gemstone, a faint yet seemingly soul-stirring hum suddenly rang out.
The Supernatural emanating from Du Zhong's fingertips rippled violently, a faint yet extremely stubborn force, carrying an indescribable sense of erosion, attempting to penetrate Du Zhong's fingertips. It was not a pure energy attack, but more like a kind of... pollution.
Du Zhong's fingers recoiled as if electrocuted, the Supernatural swirling around his fingertips vibrating violently before finally extinguishing and peeling away the stubborn corrosive sensation. He stared at his fingertips, then at the few black gems that floated silently, seemingly harmless, and rolled his eyes speechlessly.
"See?" Du Zhong's voice turned cold. "What did I tell you? They even skipped the packaging; it's just a virus."
He shook his hand, as if trying to get rid of a non-existent sticky feeling, and glared at Hu Jiu, "What exactly is this?"
Hu Jiu remained calm and replied perfunctorily, "They are indeed those cultivators, but I don't know what changes have occurred to them."
Du Zhong didn't press the matter, and Hu Jiu didn't intend to force the black gem onto Du Zhong. He realized that just now, the Mother of Spiritual Qi seemed to have caught up with them, or rather... the Mother of Spiritual Qi had always been there, and Wang Qian and the others had been deliberately released by her.
"Caution is a virtue," Hu Jiu said, as the black gems floating in his palm were gently brushed away by an invisible, supernatural Supernatural, like carelessly discarded trash.
They vanished instantly, abandoned in an underground shelter built by a group of dog-owning elites.
Afterwards, Hu Jiu adjusted his memory, separating out all the information he had learned from Wang Qian about cultivation techniques and the Mother of Spiritual Qi.
After dealing with the "trouble," Hu Jiu had a thought, and the space above the dark clouds rippled like water, the scenery changing rapidly. The cold high sky disappeared, replaced by warm light, a thick carpet, a dazzling cityscape outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, and a faint citrus scent in the air.
Mirage conjures up a penthouse living room brimming with modern art.
Hu Jiu's figure appeared on a large, black leather sofa with cold, hard lines. His body was in a strange state between reality and illusion, with the edges occasionally blurring, as if there was a problem with the model.
Du Zhong casually leaned back in the single sofa opposite him, a glass of amber-colored liquor now in his hand, the ice cubes clinking softly in the glass. He took a sip, his gaze fixed on the shimmering skyline outside the window, the light dancing and sparkling in his deep pupils.
"What a beautiful sunset view, it's a pity it's all fake," Du Zhong sighed.
In reality, the human transmigrators and the dog natives outside are locked in a fierce battle, with corpses everywhere.
"So what if it's fake? As long as it looks good," Hu Jiu said.
After a moment of silence, Du Zhong swirled the ice in his glass, then suddenly spoke, breaking the Silence. His tone was playful, as if he were casually discussing a trivial discovery. "Speaking of which, those cultivators... they're quite interesting."
Hu Jiu made no move, only silently focusing his gaze on Du Zhong.
"Their language." Du Zhong went straight to the point. He turned his head, a half-smile playing on his lips, his gaze sharp as a hawk's.
"The language used by those cultivators, in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and core vocabulary, is astonishingly similar to the Chinese we speak; it's almost identical, and it's even standard Mandarin."
At this point, Du Zhong paused, seemingly savoring the absurdity of this discovery, before saying in a tone that was half-joking and half-inquisitive, "What? Is Chinese perhaps the universal language of the entire universe? So that we can communicate without barriers even in some remote, obscure world?"
This seemingly casual question, like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, stirred up ripples in Hu Jiu's heart that were far deeper and more complex than when he faced the Mother of Spiritual Qi.
The worlds he has personally experienced all share highly similar national, political, historical, and socio-economic structures; the only difference is their names.
Now, even the world of cultivation is showing similarities.
Language.
This is the most basic, yet most fundamental, cornerstone of civilization.
Hu Jiu's half-real, half-ethereal body remained silent, his gaze shifting from Du Zhong to the city outside the window, a city created by dogs. Countless pieces of information surged, collided, were analyzed, and deduced in his mind.
Similar rudimentary social structures, converging desires and human nature, and... almost identical linguistic cores.
Coincidence? The probability of such a highly consistent form of civilization evolving naturally in the universe is so low that it approaches zero.
A hypothesis powerful enough to overturn all understanding, like an iceberg slowly rising from the depths of a data ocean, reveals a ferocious and magnificent corner.
No!
Hu Jiu had thought of this hypothesis long ago, but he was unwilling to admit it and subconsciously Neglect.
"Du Zhong." Hu Jiu's voice resounded directly in Du Zhong's mind, his usually cold and smooth tone carrying a subtle sigh for the first time, "Have you ever thought about...?"
He paused for a moment, his gaze seemingly piercing through the fragile atmosphere of this world, reaching into the dark, boundless depths of space dotted with cold stars.
"Perhaps, all the bizarre and strange worlds we have seen, experienced, and destroyed... are not miracles born of nature."
Hu Jiu carefully considered how to describe this shocking conclusion.
"They're more like..." He searched for the most fitting metaphor, finally settling on a cold, industrial-sounding term. "Mass-produced on the same assembly line, according to some pre-set 'basic template.'"
The cold words were like invisible hammers, slamming heavily into the air.
Du Zhong remained expressionless, diligently digesting Hu Jiu's profound insights. After a moment, he slowly said, "Perhaps there is a creator?"
His voice carried an almost cruel rationality as he continued to dissect this suffocating conjecture, "If such an existence exists, then when it shaped the 'world,' setting up a unified 'basic language package' and a universal, easily observable 'basic life template'—the human form—for efficiency and ease of observation, becomes... a matter of course."
He looked at Hu Jiu, his gaze serious, and asked, "If this conjecture is true, what's the essential difference between you, me, those humans who died in the apocalyptic catastrophe, and those intelligent dogs outside? The Creator created the world and then released 'apocalypse' into it. We're just lab rats placed in different petri dishes, operating according to different 'experimental parameters' (laws)."
"It's like..." Du Zhong added a more specific and chilling analogy at the end, "Different sections of the same ant colony. The worker ants may have slight differences in appearance due to their division of labor, but their core structure, their communication methods, and their 'ant nature' all originate from the same blueprint set by the queen ant."
After he finished speaking, the living room fell into a deathly silence.
Outside, the dogs and human transmigrators continued their life-or-death struggle, but the noise seemed to be blocked by an invisible soundproof wall, leaving only the extremely faint crackling sound of the ice cubes melting in the Du Zhong cup.
At this moment, Hu Jiu spoke up, "Actually, I have an even more outrageous guess."
"I'd like to hear the details." Du Zhong's voice was calm, clearly indicating that he had quickly adjusted his mindset.
Hu Jiu: "Is it possible that we are all two-dimensional characters?"
"Huh?" Du Zhong looked incredulous.
Hu Jiu: "Those beings in higher dimensions should be called authors, directors, or screenwriters, who create novels, comics, or films and television dramas, and we are the characters in them. So no matter how many worlds we travel through, the worldviews of each world are highly similar because the creators use 'reality' as a reference."
Du Zhong's expression froze completely. The wine glass stopped at his lips, the amber liquid swaying slightly, reflecting his suddenly contracting pupils.
He slowly put down his wine glass, his movements somewhat hesitant. His knuckles were slightly white from the force he had used.
"Paper doll... paper doll..." Du Zhong's voice was low, as if he was chewing on the weight of the word, each syllable carrying a metallic, frictional quality.
He abruptly raised his head, his gaze sharp, burning with an almost crazed flame, fixed intently on Hu Jiu's illusory figure. "So, we, including those dogs outside with higher intelligence, those ants, even the 'apocalypse' itself that will destroy the world... are all just two-dimensional characters?"
"No, no!" His voice suddenly rose, "If we're two-dimensional characters, we should maintain truth, goodness, and beauty. With personalities like yours and mine, we'd definitely be villains, and the protagonist should stop us from destroying the world."
"You said it yourself, he's the villain. Maybe the protagonist hasn't grown up yet. Everything we're doing now is creating a background—a villain who will stop at nothing to destroy countless worlds. Perhaps some survivors in those worlds are secretly developing in unknown places, and then they'll catch me off guard in the end," Hu Jiu said, and the more he talked, the more convinced he became of his point.
Du Zhong was somewhat speechless. "Could it be that our current doubts and speculations... these 'self-wills' that we regard as unique, these driving forces that keep destroying the world, pursuing power, and even guarding against each other... are all just pre-set 'character settings' and 'plot conflicts,' forced into our core thinking by the author for the sake of drama and tension... program instructions?"
As he spoke, Du Zhong felt as if he had been struck hard by an invisible giant hammer, staggering back a step. Below, the human transmigrators and dogs were still fighting, their joys and sorrows, their deaths, along with the churning horror and anger in Du Zhong's chest—could it all have been... a description from someone else's pen?
This conjecture made him feel dizzy and nauseous, as if the whole world was fading before his eyes, revealing the cold, pale pages behind him.
"No need to be so pessimistic," Hu Jiu said coldly. "It might not even be true."
Du Zhong frowned deeply. "But what if, all our efforts, all our pain, all our struggles... were all fake, all part of a pre-arranged plot?"
He abruptly looked up, his eyes flashing with an unfathomable light. At this moment, everything he had thought seemed questionable. "We're just... paper dolls? Puppet masters manipulated at will in someone else's story?!"
At this point, he suddenly pointed at Hu Jiu, his fingertips trembling slightly. "Old Hu, I think your current situation might be more dangerous than mine. After all, judging from your character, you are definitely a complete villain, but you are too strong. The protagonist might not be able to beat you, so the author might make you stupid and turn you into an idiot at any time, just standing there waiting to be beaten without fighting back."
Faced with Du Zhong's sharp questioning, Hu Jiu fell into deep thought for the first time. Supernatural power emanated outward with his thoughts, as if forming a dark torrent of curses, dripping onto the pale paper called "reality".
Despite it being merely a hypothesis without any empirical evidence, Hu Jiu and Du Zhong treated it with utmost seriousness, as if it were a formidable enemy.
Because something colder than anger—fear—is slowly creeping up your spine.
The utterly illusory fear of one's own existence—if this moment of contemplation and silence is merely a pre-written script of "being speechless"...