The Primal Universe.
Tens of thousands more epochs had passed.
In the vast starry sky hung a crimson planet. Its surface was covered not in rock but in some kind of scalding liquid, flowing slowly, yet possessing a distinctive beauty.
The planet was only a little over a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter. It was much larger than Earth, but that was nothing remarkable in the universe.
Viewed from the planet's surface, there was a distinction between day and night.
By day, there was a great, disk-like sun. At night, three moons of different sizes appeared and disappeared in turn.
The planet's three satellites occupied different orbits, differed in size, and came in three colors: pure white, brown, and deep blue-green.
The nearest, pure-white satellite had synchronized its rotation and revolution, just like Earth's moon, so that only one side ever faced the planet.
On one of its craters, a figure sat cross-legged, gazing at the crimson planet in the distance.
Within the boiling liquid, the earliest changes of life were unfolding.
After exhausting the possibilities, complex macromolecular polymers had finally been built up.
Their constituent atoms were the three chemical elements most common on the planet's surface at present: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Thus, they captured particles loosened by the high temperatures and replicated themselves.
This seemed similar to the case of prions, but these were not viruses, because on that planet, this was currently the only phenomenon of life.
"The pulse of life, fate!" Dongguan opened his eyes, his gaze seeming to pierce space-time as he watched this scene. Strangely, this "life," which did not even qualify as a cell, actually underwent a change because of his observation.
Inexplicably, he sensed a trace of "fear."
"Even observation like this is still interference?" A hint of puzzlement appeared in