What She Lost, What I Gained: The First Ten Years
There's nothing here.
... No, that's not entirely true.
There are five things here.
Heaven. Earth. Air.
Spiritual power. Stream.
Although,
The sky is a perpetually gray-white expanse devoid of day or night, sunshine or rain; the earth is an endless, flat white plane without any undulations; and the stagnant air cannot stir even a wisp of wind.
The only thing that wasn't still life was the stream, about two meters wide, whose origin and destination were unknown.
Moreover, it has no curves at all; it is a straight line that bisects this dull and colorless world in two.
The water inside is very clear, the flow is always slow and steady, there are no fish or aquatic plants, and the bottom is as smooth as a water pipe.
Women live in this kind of world.
Will I go crazy?
Whenever Haoyue looks at this vast, boundless, colorless world, he thinks this way.
Every night before falling asleep, I imagine waking up to find myself back in the world I was in before, but when I open my eyes, all I see is a gray sky and a white earth.
Of course, in this world without day and night, the length of a "day" can only be judged by one's own biological clock. But how accurate is that? Probably far off.
It's been so long, far too long.
So long ago, I've lost count of how many hairs Xiao Ye has left.
Although Xiao Ye might not know it, one of Hao Yue's greatest pleasures after each encounter was counting the number of hairs on the sleeping beauty beside her. She didn't know why she did this obsessive-compulsive thing; perhaps it was because she wanted to completely understand the person she loved most, not letting go of even the smallest details.
"Xiao Ye..."
Whenever she wove this name with her dry lips and tongue, her heart was simultaneously filled with honey-like sweetness and tearing pain.
"I miss you so much, Xiao Ye..."
I still remember my first day being locked up here.
When the Memory Loop and the Thought Loop are broken simultaneously, the side effects are not simply additive, but doubled.
Before I could recover from the hazy, intoxicating feeling of having inhaled a large amount of hallucinogenic drugs, I was suddenly attacked, and when I came to my senses, I was already here.
The gray sky and white earth resembled a construction sandbox with only a basic outline and no models yet added.
Without this stream whose origin and destination are unknown, I would never be able to tell which way is which. There is no such thing as east, west, south, or north in this world; there is only "upstream" and "downstream."
She grasped the situation in just a few seconds and then began trying to get out.
First, she ascended, using the Moonlit Step to fly ever higher. She had prepared enough water beforehand using solidified moonlight and protected her body with the Healing Moon Technique. After considering possible unforeseen circumstances, she began her attempt. She didn't know how much time had passed; she simply kept looking up at the greyish-white sky, upward... upward... upward...
One hundred meters, five hundred meters, one thousand meters, two thousand meters, three thousand meters. Although this altitude would have been enough to freeze someone to death on Spirit Star, the temperature here remained neither hot nor cold. Five thousand meters, seven thousand meters, ten thousand meters. When she reached ten thousand meters, she already felt quite uneasy. Even here, the surrounding scenery remained unchanged, forever a gray and white expanse.
At first, she planted many Light Gun of varying lengths, ranging from several hundred to several thousand meters, in the ground, using proportional conversions to estimate the altitude. However, she gave up after reaching several thousand meters and relied entirely on her sense of touch. When the altitude reached thirty or forty thousand meters, she almost stopped thinking. Finally, when she reached one hundred thousand meters, she gave up. In this alternate dimension, the sky seemed infinitely vast.
After falling back to the ground, she felt it would be foolish to immediately head downwards or forwards, backwards, left, or right, so she began to try unconventional methods.
First, Gold Moon Innate created a false moon and a matching false night sky, reflecting them in the stream. Then, he used the cheat skill "Mirror Flower Water Moon" to trick Raosen and Tian Lu.
By using the reflection of the moon in the water to reach the Golden Moon, and then returning from the Golden Moon to the Spirit Star, wouldn't that constitute a successful escape?
But reality slapped her hard in the face. When she jumped into the illusory scene in the water, she failed to land on the golden moon as she wished and was splashed with water, standing like a fool in the shallow stream.
Then she tried the finishing move, Moonfall, which transfers a portion of the moon—hundreds of millions of tons of lunar rock—to a predetermined coordinate. However, she quickly failed. She was able to use Moonfall back before the final battle in Gloria City, and her current strength prevents her from using it.
In short, she was certain that all attempts to contact the outside world within this alternate dimension were futile; further attempts would only be a waste of effort.
She needed to find something to do—that's what she thought.
If we can't get out, let's wait for rescue. Xiao Ye and the others outside must be trying to figure something out.
So she stayed in the same place for a whole week, spending each day reminiscing about her sweet life with Xiao Ye —taking care of herself with her hand when the mood struck—washing herself in the stream and taking care of her most basic physiological needs—daydreaming—sleeping—getting up—imagining the beautiful future with Xiao Ye —and repeating this cycle over and over again.
Superpowered individuals can maintain their basic survival needs by absorbing spiritual energy (though this is certainly bad for their health), but the feeling of hunger cannot be eliminated. Haoyue, on the other hand, is fine; she can just endure the feeling of hunger. Moreover, she can use the Healing Moon Technique to recuperate her body, so she doesn't need to worry about her health in the short term.
A week later, she still hadn't received any rescue. Since she was likely to encounter enemies as soon as she left this space, Haoyue had maintained a state of readiness for combat at any time. But with no progress made, she had to begin addressing some more practical problems.
For example, when it comes to sleeping, she can go without food, but she can't go without quality sleep. However, this endlessly stretching white flatbed is always rock hard. Without a mattress or blankets, what can she do? After trying some relatively normal methods without success, Haoyue had to resort to extreme measures—she cut off a large piece of skin from her body, from her chest to her back, including her breasts, and immediately used Yuyue to treat herself afterward. After simple cleaning and processing, she obtained high-quality bedding. It sounds very gruesome (and it really is), but since her experience at the Central United Academy, she has developed a high tolerance for pain.
After quickly packing her belongings (human skin bedding + regularly washed cheongsam + panties + knee-length black stockings + ladylike shoes + a sword), she began her hike along the stream. She pulled out her thumbnail, tossed it like a coin, and decided to continue upstream.
The first hike lasted longer than she had expected.
At first, she relied on her sense of time to determine day and night and adjust her schedule accordingly, but gradually even her biological clock started to get messed up. When she was tired, she would sleep, and when she woke up, she would use runes like Moonwalk to march quickly. No matter where she went, the scenery around her would never change, so Haoyue had to leave Moon Elf as a reference point every now and then.
Forward, forward, forward, as if by just moving forward, one could leave behind the restlessness and anxiety that had accumulated in one's heart from not being able to see the person one longs to see.
Forward, forward, forward. When I was so tired that I couldn't hold on any longer, I would spread out a blanket made of my own skin on the ground and have a good sleep. Before falling asleep, I would pray repeatedly that I would dream of Xiao Ye, although I never dreamed of him even once.
Forward, forward, forward, along the long road I composed many new songs, humming them as I walked, even though every syllable was off-key.
Forward, forward, forward. Since there was nothing else to do on the road, Haoyue kept using various supernatural abilities to train, and his strength actually improved a little.
Forward, forward, forward, sometimes flying in the sky, sometimes speeding on the ground, sometimes walking upside down on a whim, sometimes imitating professional models walking the catwalk.
Forward, forward, forward. Occasionally, we can find some corpses by the stream. They are probably people who were trapped here after being infected. Since there are no fungi in this alternate dimension, the corpses do not decompose.
Forward, forward, forward. Every time she encountered a corpse, she would remove the bones, clean them, and take them with her. Gradually, she developed the skill of making simple furniture from bones, even though the materials were very limited.
Forward, forward, forward! By constantly changing the arrangement and combination of all the runes he had mastered, he invented more and more new moves. Although most of them were useless, some of them were very practical.
Forward, forward, forward! I once thought of collecting all the long fingernails and toenails along the way to see how many I could gather, but I gave up because it was disgusting.
Forward, forward, forward! Her hair always grows longer and longer. When it reaches her thighs, Haoyue cuts it off, restoring it to the length that reaches the middle of her back.
Forward, forward!
Forward, forward...
Every day feels so long, but when you look back after it's over, it all seems to have gone by so fast.
If there were stars and a moon here, she would have witnessed the waxing and waning of the moon countless times.
If there were four seasons here, she would have witnessed the flowers bloom and fade many times over.
An inexplicable sense of calm.
Even though something was hidden beneath this calm, she herself didn't want to know.
"Ah..."
She suddenly stopped, took off her shoes, examined them closely, and frowned.
"The soles of the shoes are worn out..."
These are high-quality shoes with a retro look that's perfect for elegant ladies. They're actually quite comfortable to run and jump in.
Now it's worn out.
How far do I have to walk to get to this point?
"..."
Haoyue silently approached the stream, using it as a mirror again after a long time since the day she was locked up. Before, she had always deliberately avoided doing so, even when washing her face, she would close her eyes.
And now--
The reflection in the water was of an exceptionally beautiful woman.
Her hair was as black as ink, her skin as white as fresh snow, her face smooth and delicate, her eyelashes fluttering above her slender eyebrows shaped like willow leaves, her nose small and high, her lips cherry red, her proud breasts captivating, and her waist incredibly slender, forming a breathtaking curve with her chest.
The face of an angel, the body of a devil, beauty is hidden in coquettishness, intelligence is hidden in charm, and what further sublimates all of this is the mature temperament. The woman's appearance and body have completely lost their youthfulness, and have grown into a mature and attractive fruit.
"This..."
This is not myself.
I'm not the same person I used to be.
Not the person I was when I first turned twenty.
"Twenty-five... no, already... thirty?"
She touched her cheek with trembling fingertips, and the incredibly real sensation told her that this was not a dream.
In this empty space, in this barren land, the concept of time has long since lost its meaning.
Ten years have passed, tedious as chewing wax, yet it all seems to have flown by in the blink of an eye.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Has anyone read Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude?