Destruction and... Rebirth?

"Why aren't you eating?"

In three quick bites, Gu Ling sucked a Purple Sharo fruit dry, leaving only a cicada-wing-thin peel and a pit the size of a fingertip.

The little girl looked thoroughly satisfied, her cheeks flushed as though she were slightly drunk.

Patting her belly, she asked Meng Chao.

"...I'm used to Synthetic Food that tastes like chewing wax. This is my first time eating such pure, natural delicacy—the stimulation to my taste buds is so intense that I can barely take it."

Meng Chao said, "How about I eat slowly while listening to you tell me the history of Peach Blossom Paradise Town?"

"Sure."

Gu Ling waved, plucking another Purple Sharo fruit from an outstretched vine.

She also gently picked a serrated leaf from a branch entwined with vines, carefully rolling it into a hollow straw.

She lightly poked the "straw" into the Purple Sharo fruit. Holding it like a natural drink, she took a sip, cradled her head, and thought for a while. "That was a very long time ago. I didn't experience it myself—I only heard it from Grandpa. Where should I begin? Right, I'll start with Earth's destruction."

"Wait, what?"

Meng Chao's cerebral cortex, heart muscles, and writhing intestines seemed to freeze at the same moment.

In the voice of a wandering ghost, he confirmed, "What did you say? Earth's destruction?"

"That's right. Oh, no, that's wrong—not Earth's destruction. I heard Earth was a very, very large place, a thousand, ten thousand times bigger than Peach Blossom Paradise Town. How could human power possibly destroy it? It was merely the destruction of Earth Civilization."

Gu Ling spoke matter-of-factly, as though explaining common knowledge known to every woman and child. "It was precisely because Earth Civilization was about to destroy itself that Peach Blossom Paradise