When you gaze at me
my eyes are keys,
the wall has secrets,
my fear has words, has poems.
Only you make my memory into
an entranced traveler,
an inexhaustible flame.
-"The Awakener," Alejandra Pizarnik
The universe was not infinite, but to the intelligent life living within it, it was nearly so.
Since it was an infinitely vast world, it naturally held many different landscapes. Some planets were barren, some prosperous, some desolate, while others were as beautiful as an idyllic countryside in a dream, with scenery everywhere the eye could reach-the very kind humans instinctively loved.
Tianpu Star was just such a planet. After countless years of transformation by the Ancient Civilization, the entire planet's ecosystem could be called perfect. Even after the Ancient Civilization's extinction, it had maintained itself for tens of thousands of years without any problems. There was even a saying in the Galaxy Alliance: if you wanted to see the remains of the Ancient Civilization, you did not need to wait painstakingly on the Capital Planet; a single trip to Tianpu Star would do.
For these reasons, the Galaxy Alliance also protected the planet with extreme strictness, prohibiting all mining and heavy industrial development. Apart from traditional agriculture and tourism developments, the only things to be seen on this planet were sanatoriums and universities established by private financial groups.
Countless blue-green fields spread across the surface like felt, then were divided into countless small plots by roads for automated farm machinery, forming a patchwork of different colors as crop varieties differed and the seasons changed.
Northwest University, the foremost university on Tianpu Star and renowned even throughout the Galaxy Alliance, stood surrounded by endless fields.
Its old-fashioned, fortress-like buildings were particularly striking, much like Professor Gou's broad forehead.
Professor Gou was a very