The Two-Dimensional Painting Space

"I regret to inform you that you have lung cancer. If you undergo active treatment, there is still a chance for recovery. Do your family members know? We strongly recommend that you be hospitalized and cooperate with the treatment plan!"

"How much time do I have left?"

"This condition of yours didn't just develop recently, but there is still...!"

When Lu Zhiyu walked out of the hospital, his mind was in a daze. Everything felt unreal, as if he had just woken from a dream. The rushing crowd around him felt like a vast ocean, as if they were no longer in the same world as him; an invisible boundary had separated him from the rest of the world.

Lu Zhiyu had no intention of seeking treatment. It was cancer; there was no point in wasting money. Even if he were to die, Lu Zhiyu did not want to die in a hospital bed, riddled with tubes and in excruciating pain.

Lu Zhiyu's lungs had never been strong since he was a child, and he often coughed. After working in the Capital City for several years, his coughing worsened whenever the smog rolled in. Although he had long considered leaving the Capital City, his career was at its peak, so he kept putting it off. When his condition worsened recently, Lu Zhiyu had simply dismissed it as his old ailment and didn't think much of it, never expecting such a result.

He quit his job, bought a plane ticket, and dragged his suitcase onto the journey home. Lu Zhiyu was born in Jiang City. His ancestral home was a detached house that had been renovated and looked quite modern, but because no one had lived there for a long time, the courtyard appeared dilapidated and devoid of life.

Lu Zhiyu's parents had passed away long ago, and he had no close relatives left. The classmates he used to be close with had gradually lost touch as they entered society. When they met again, the old spark was gone; utilitarianism and estrangement were written all over their faces. It was better to cherish the memory than to meet in person. Even though he could laugh and joke with his colleagues, it was hard to open his heart to them the way he did when he was a youth.

Thinking about it, he really felt his life had been quite boring. It was as if a template of a life used by millions had been forced upon him. Aside from this cancer, he felt like a marionette, pulled along by others, by society at large, and by the inertia of fate.

The house hadn't been lived in for a long time and was covered in dust. He pulled off the covers and began to clean and organize, unearthing many old items from every corner: childhood toys, textbooks, and doodles, all filled with nostalgia.

"Eh, what is this?"

By chance, Lu Zhiyu discovered an old rosewood box sitting on a shelf in the storage room. Upon opening it, he found a collection of miscellaneous items: badges with a farmer's portrait, an inkstone, a little red book, and, most notably, a white scroll.

The scroll was so white it seemed completely untainted, and its texture felt as delicate as if it had been coated in a layer of oil. Considering that paper naturally discolors over time, this object must have been quite old. It was strange that it had been preserved so perfectly despite being tossed into a box like that.

These items must have been left behind by his grandfather. Lu Zhiyu was curious and wondered what was painted on the scroll. He took it to the living room table and slowly unfurled it, but the anticipation he felt instantly turned to disappointment.

"What is this? It's just a blank painting!"

Just as Lu Zhiyu was about to put it away, he noticed a black dot on the painting. Looking closely, he realized it was a tiny grasshopper. Lu Zhiyu couldn't help but chuckle: "A scroll this big, and all you painted was a tiny, invisible grasshopper? What a waste!"

Lu Zhiyu examined it carefully, then suddenly reached out to touch it. A shocking scene unfolded: Lu Zhiyu felt his hand pass through a gap, directly touching something.

Lu Zhiyu was startled and pulled his hand back, only to see a grasshopper clutched in his palm. Lu Zhiyu shouted in shock: "What the hell is this!"

The moment he let go, the grasshopper jumped up and began hopping around the living room floor. Lu Zhiyu stared at the grasshopper in disbelief, then scrambled up to look at the painting, only to find that the grasshopper on it had vanished.

"I pulled it out? It's alive?"

Lu Zhiyu looked at the painting, then at the grasshopper hopping on the floor, his mouth agape. He realized he had seemingly discovered something extraordinary.

Lu Zhiyu was a fan of web novels and read for an hour every night before bed, so he was no stranger to these kinds of tropes.

"Could this be a portable space? A treasure for farming?"

Even though he was a man facing death, Lu Zhiyu didn't have any thoughts of complaining or giving up on life. Life had to go on, and since he didn't have much time left, he had to make it fulfilling. Discovering something this interesting was, for Lu Zhiyu, a pleasant surprise.

Over the next few days, Lu Zhiyu conducted several experiments on the painting. There was indeed a space inside, but it was different from the spaces he had imagined. Lu Zhiyu called it the Painting Space.

Its space was planar. From a scientific perspective, this space was not three-dimensional, but two-dimensional. Anything that entered it was automatically sealed into a two-dimensional existence, suffering from dimensional reduction. However, once brought back out, it would revert to its three-dimensional form. Lu Zhiyu couldn't figure out how this magical phenomenon occurred.

This was his first discovery, concluded after placing various objects into the Painting Space. The second discovery was that there was no time within the two-dimensional world of the Painting Space. Entering it was like stepping into a river of eternal stillness; no matter how long an object was sealed inside, it remained exactly the same when taken out.

The third discovery was that the Painting Space seemed to be highly repellant to living things. Lu Zhiyu tried to place living creatures inside, but found that the current Painting Space could not withstand anything too powerful. The moment he put a chicken or duck inside, it was torn apart and vanished. Lu Zhiyu guessed that the entrance to the Painting Space couldn't handle them, causing them to fall into a dimensional gap.

Therefore, Lu Zhiyu caught a few ants and placed them into the Painting Space, and found that this did not happen. The images of the ants crawled quietly on the scroll, motionless, as if frozen by time.

Lu Zhiyu was very curious as to why time did not exist within the two-dimensional world. If time existed, it would be a true world, and the significance of the Painting Space would be much greater than its current use as a mere storage space.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity explains the concept of time as a separate dimension. From this perspective, the world humans inhabit should belong to the fourth dimension, but because humans cannot directly observe the fourth dimension of time, they are merely three-dimensional beings.

The same should apply to the two-dimensional world; even if time cannot be observed, it should still exist and not simply vanish. Lu Zhiyu decided to change his perspective to observe and verify this situation.