Anyone Who Steals Our Things Will Be Shaped By Us

The entire Louvre Museum unfolded before Shen Le.

The square central main building, the east and west wings, the great glass pyramid in the plaza.

Two levels underground, three aboveground, and above the rooftops, the raised vaults, clock towers, and other structures—all were revealed in minute detail.

Yet the Louvre Museum spread out in his meditative vision was not the grand, solemn edifice he saw with his naked eyes. Instead, it resembled the structural diagrams they drew with CAD software. All that grandeur, solemnity, and splendor—all its structures and decorations—vanished entirely from this perspective.

In their place were crisscrossing dotted lines, outlining rooms, walls, and floor after floor.

Within the rooms, upon the walls, and even throughout the buildings themselves, specks of spiritual light overflowed, flickering in and out.

They seemed to be breathing, and also to be responding to those who observed them, studied them, protected them, and loved them.

The lights varied in brightness and color. Some shone brilliantly, sparkling with vigor and pride, as though boasting of all the victories they had witnessed:

Others glimmered dimly and dejectedly. No matter how solid or weighty they were, they could no longer shine.

Shen Le cautiously extended his spiritual power and touched one of those points of light. At once, he felt a profound sorrow:

—It was gone.

Everything was gone.

Their homeland was gone. Their nation was gone. Their people were gone. All of it was gone—

The people now living upon that land were no longer its former subjects. They could not read the words upon it, nor did they remember its history...

Large and small, bright and dim, the points of light converged into a torrent, forming a vortex. And within that vortex, Shen Le sensed a familiar aura:

It was the same aura that existed