Falling into the Microcosm

The Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish had originally lost one fish eye, leaving a hole the size of a bean.

But when Li Weiyi took it out from his collar again, the hole had vanished, and both fish eyes were somehow intact.

One fish eye emitted Azure Glow, while the other released Crimson Glow. Both shone brilliantly, like stars in the sky condensed into being.

"Whoosh!"

"Whoosh!"

Azure Glow and Crimson Glow intertwined like a Light Veil.

If one stood far away and looked on,

one would discover that the two-colored radiance had condensed over the boundless ice sheet into a Taiji millstone dozens of kilometers wide, slowly turning.

"It truly is the lost fish eye of the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish. So it is, so it is..."

Zhao Meng had long suspected it, but when the miracle unfolded before his eyes, his mind still trembled. Reverent and devout, he dropped to his knees and kowtowed.

Li Weiyi raised his head to study the Azure Glow and Crimson Glow. His pupils reflected their colors as he said incredulously, "There seem to be profound Dao inscriptions and Buddhist sutras flying within those two lights. Senior Brother, can you see them?"

Zhao Meng saw no Dao inscriptions or Buddhist sutras. Instead, he discovered in horror that the ice beneath him and Li Weiyi was cracking and sinking, and the two of them were plunging toward the Arctic Ocean thousands of meters below.

Earlier, Nine-Infant had shattered the ice cap here.

After it fled, the ice cap collapsed.

Seawater instantly surged over Li Weiyi and Zhao Meng's heads, dragging them down toward the cold, suffocating abyss of the seabed.

In the distance, the twisted and shattered Research Vessel was also slowly sinking beneath the water as it capsized.

"Splash!"

Though he had clearly sunk into the sea, Li Weiyi discovered in astonishment that the waters around him were filled with Azure Glow and Crimson Glow, bright as divine lamps that shone forever. Stranger still, he heard the vibration of canvas swelling in the wind, and clearly heard the deep wooden groan of swaying masts.

All of a sudden,

a vast, surging force from an invisible field descended upon Li Weiyi.

It then frantically tugged at everything around it. Zhao Meng, the Bear-like creature, seawater, the ice cap, and even the sinking Research Vessel in the distance were all swept up by the field's power.

"Whoosh—"

From his arms to his torso, Li Weiyi's entire body rapidly shrank, ring by ring...

The sensation was like falling from a great height, like weightlessness.

Yet it was a hundred times more unbearable than weightlessness.

The Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish hanging around his neck slowly floated up until it was level with his eyes, mysterious and unfathomable.

Soaked in the icy seawater, Li Weiyi entered a tranquil, profound, and bizarre state. His vision far surpassed what it normally was.

He clearly saw that mountain-and-river-like patterns had appeared on the newly acquired pale-red fish eye of the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish, as though a planet were displayed before him. He had only ever seen such a sight in high school, when he observed the moon through an astronomical telescope.

What shook him even more was this:

a Bronze Ship the size of a grain of rice flew out from the pale-red planet, setting sail beneath Immortal Radiance and Nether Mist.

"Whoosh!"

Li Weiyi's body abruptly shrank again, and weightlessness and dizziness washed over him.

When his vision returned,

the Bronze Ship, originally the size of a grain of rice, had become the size of a palm, right before his eyes.

"Whoosh!"

Weightlessness and dizziness struck again.

The Bronze Ship became the size of a fishing boat. Some of the strange sights aboard it—the mast and canvas, the Phoenix Corpse and Python Remains, the Sea of Tombs and Forest of Steles—entered Li Weiyi's eyes like artworks meticulously carved by master craftsmen, branding themselves into his mind.

Where had the Bronze Ship come from?

Why was it growing ever larger?

No...

It was not the Bronze Ship that was growing larger. He himself was becoming smaller and smaller, ring after ring.

Li Weiyi no longer knew how to describe his feelings. He could not distinguish reality from illusion, science from myth. Could this... be a hallucination born as he fell into the sea, at the brink of death?

Satellites above the Arctic Ocean were recording an abnormal scene capable of shocking the entire world.

Centered on the Dragon Extreme Research Vessel, seawater and ice caps across dozens of kilometers were pulled and swallowed by a strange force, rapidly vanishing without a trace.

This included the shattered Research Vessel and the giant beast Nine-Infant, which had fled more than ten kilometers away. Both were dragged inside.

They had not truly vanished into thin air.

Rather, affected by the Bronze Ship's field power, they had fallen into the Microscopic World.

The numb cold and suffocating sensation of being immersed in seawater seemed to last several days, yet also seemed to pass in an instant. Then, with a bang, Li Weiyi crashed heavily onto unfamiliar ground.

The repeated weightlessness and dizziness, combined with excessive blood loss and that heavy fall, left even Li Weiyi, whose physique far exceeded that of ordinary people, utterly disoriented, his vision blackening.

Fortunately, the air had noticeably cushioned his fall.

Moreover, the ground was not hard.

"Such soft soil... Where is this?"

Li Weiyi had fallen face-up, smashing out a human-shaped depression nearly a foot deep. Pain wracked his entire body, leaving him unable to move. Naturally, he had no idea that he had landed atop a grayish-white burial mound seven or eight meters tall.

The Bronze Ship was ancient and magnificent, nothing like a thing of the mortal world. It resembled a divine mountain lying on its side.

Its masts rose from the ground one after another like sacred wooden Celestial Pillars.

The canvas, vast as gray clouds, was hidden amid Ethereal Clouds and Nether Mist, billowing full in the wind with a majestic grandeur.

The Deck was broad and strange. It held stone steles weighing tens of thousands of jin, as well as towering burial mounds spreading in endless clusters, imparting an air of desolation and solitude.

Li Weiyi had fallen onto one of those burial mounds.

The piled earth was grayish-white, like ashes and also like lime, yet it was highly adhesive, possessing the qualities of soil.

His back, the back of his head, and his left arm, which the Bear-like creature had torn open, all hurt unbearably. His entire body was limp and weak; he did not even want to move his eyelids.

"No... I'm still alive."

The moment that thought arose in Li Weiyi's mind, his eyes flew open. The sky here was low and filled with dense Ethereal Clouds, leaving him utterly baffled.

He had clearly fallen into the Arctic Ocean. How had he survived?

He remembered that, before dying, he had experienced countless hallucinations. He had seen Azure Glow and Crimson Glow, seen the fish eye of the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish turn into a planet, and seen a Bronze Ship setting sail...

The instant that thought reached him, Li Weiyi saw the Dragon Extreme Research Vessel falling from the dark Ethereal Clouds overhead. Its huge hull tumbled as it descended, continuously shedding fragments and human figures amid screams and miserable wails.

Its descent grew slower and slower. The Immortal Radiance and Nether Mist enveloping the Bronze Ship had dissolved the Research Vessel's gravity.

"Rumble!"

The Research Vessel crashed down nearby, followed by the sound of metal twisting and snapping.

The entire Bronze Ship trembled, and the tremor struck Li Weiyi's heart as well.

Li Weiyi's scalp tingled. His heart was filled with absurdity and tension as he desperately tried to prop himself up, but failed.

The piercing, high-pitched cries of a baby echoed through heaven and earth, ringing with metallic sharpness.

From the thick Ethereal Clouds overhead, Nine-Infant's body, over two hundred meters long, fell downward. Its entire body was covered in scales, its torso like that of a giant ox, all nine heads shrieking and crying.

What turned Li Weiyi ice-cold was that he happened to be directly beneath Nine-Infant's descent path.

If that thing crashed down, even with some unknown mysterious force cushioning it, he would certainly be smashed to pieces.

As Nine-Infant fell, it saw the Bronze Ship below. Terror in its eyes turned to delight, and its crying became laughter, as though it had awaited this day for countless ages.

"Whoosh!"

A gigantic golden claw even larger than Nine-Infant's body suddenly tore through the thick Ethereal Clouds and seized it.

The claw looked forged from gold, brimming with metallic texture and raw power. It was incomparably sharp, easily piercing Nine-Infant's body.

Behind the Ethereal Clouds emerged an incomparably terrifying colossal shadow, exuding a vast aura that could swallow heaven and devour earth, like a giant beast capable of roaming the cosmos. Yet when it saw the Bronze Ship below, it beat its wings away in deep wariness, vanishing into the endless dark chaos.

"Th-this... What kind of place is this? Am I really still alive?"

Amid shock and confusion, Li Weiyi gradually lost consciousness.

Blood continuously seeped from the wound on his arm, mixing with the grayish-white grave soil.

Against all reason, that blood flowed thread by thread along the grave soil, accelerating into the tomb.

"Weiyi! Weiyi..."

Zhao Meng shouted anxiously through the Graveyard Forest, where the Nether Mist was thick. He ran and searched, finally discovering Li Weiyi atop the burial mound not long afterward and pulling him out of the human-shaped pit.

There was not a trace of blood in the grave soil within the pit. Only Li Weiyi's face was pale as paper.

After Zhao Meng carried Li Weiyi away on his back,

a string of bone wind chimes on the tombstone before the burial mound swayed in the wind, producing crisp, melodious sounds that added endless charm to the terrifyingly silent night.

Li Weiyi seemed to have dreamed a great dream for years. His exhausted consciousness, like a few drifting wisps, gradually returned.

He heard the sound of Waves and felt a gentle breeze brush across his face.

He slowly opened his eyes.

His vision gradually cleared from a blur.

"You're finally awake. I thought you wouldn't make it!"

Qi Shanshan smiled faintly, surprise coloring her voice. She then turned and headed outside.

Though Li Weiyi had only seen her graceful white silhouette from behind, he knew she was Doctor Qi, who had set out with the expedition.

"He's awake, but he's still very weak..."

Doctor Qi's voice came from outside. She seemed to be explaining something to someone, but he could not hear clearly.

Li Weiyi observed his surroundings. The hospital bed beneath him had likely been dismantled from the Research Vessel. The room he was in had been constructed from fragments of the Research Vessel, like a spacious sheet-metal shed, with plenty of discarded scraps still scattered across the floor.

A blood bag hung from a wooden pole.

The needle was in his right arm, and he was receiving a transfusion.

Six other people lay inside the sheet-metal shed. Some had broken legs, some had been paralyzed from the waist down by their falls, and some remained unconscious.

Through the crude shed door, he could see the Bronze Ship's Bulwark several meters away. The Bulwark was covered in thick verdigris, carrying both an ancient charm and the desolate feeling of having been abandoned for centuries.

He could hear the rhythmic sound of Waves and sense their faint vibrations as they struck the ship.

The wind came over the Bronze Bulwark and blew in through the doorway.

"So everything I experienced before wasn't an illusion. It was all real?" Li Weiyi murmured.

"Of course it was real. We seem to have fallen into an entirely unknown sea-world. Mm... most likely through the Extremely Microscopic View." Cai Yutong's cool voice arrived before she did.

She entered alongside Qi Shanshan, who wore a white doctor's coat. Both women were tall and striking.

Li Weiyi's heart jolted. "Extremely Microscopic View? What does that mean?"

"I don't really understand it either. That's what those leaders said. Something about Buddha's Sarira, microscopes, and the Bronze Ship. They seem to have known some of the inside story all along."

Cai Yutong still wore that icy expression. She placed her fingers against Li Weiyi's forehead and nodded in satisfaction. "It's good that the fever has gone down. My blood wasn't drawn for three days and transfused into you for nothing."

Qi Shanshan immediately exposed her, teasing with a smile, "Oh my, are you already claiming credit? When you were giving blood, I knew this vegetable of yours had ulterior motives."

Qi Shanshan and Cai Yutong had shared a dorm room as undergraduates. Both had been exceptionally dazzling Proud Daughters of Heaven in the Department of Chemistry. If one said their relationship was good, they were as close as best friends.

If one said it was bad, they had always been secretly competing with each other.

Later, one was admitted as a medical Graduate Student while the other continued delving deeper into chemistry. With no more competition between them, their relationship instead became even closer.

For this Arctic scientific expedition, Qi Shanshan had learned of the opportunity from Cai Yutong, then, as her best friend, "ordered" her to recommend her to the leadership.

She was practical and skilled at seizing opportunities, proactively fighting for chances to advance.