"Do you know about the Great Chiliocosm?" Pu Songchun asked.
"I've heard of it. Does it mean a very large world?" Ling Yiyi folded her arms.
"I read the specific story in the Jingde Records of the Transmission of the Lamp. If the world before our eyes expanded a thousandfold, it would become a Small Chiliocosm. Expand it another thousandfold, and it would become a Medium Chiliocosm. Expand it another thousandfold, and it would become a Great Chiliocosm." Pu Songchun said, "What does that sound like?"
"The universe?" Xia Wansan chimed in, then immediately shook his head. "But it's far too small to be the universe. The mere Milky Way Galaxy has four hundred billion stars, and its planets number in the trillions. There are more celestial bodies in the entire universe than grains of sand in this desert!"
"It is the universe, actually—the universe as understood by the ancient monks. But the world is vaster than you imagine." Pu Songchun changed the subject. "Do you remember the trilobite fossil Ling Yiyi picked up a few days ago?"
"Here it is!" Ling Yiyi pulled a pitch-black stone from her pocket. It was about the size of a ping-pong ball, with a yellow insect body embedded in it, each segment clearly defined.
"We all studied trilobites." Pu Songchun stared at the fossil. "This species survived for more than three hundred million years, from the Cambrian Period to the Permian Period. In the end, all it left behind were stones scattered everywhere—so common that you could buy one at a fossil market for a few yuan. The human species has existed for several million years, but civilization has only been around for a few thousand. To a trilobite, that was merely the blink of an eye."
"After all that, you're saying just