Su Huilan was genuinely flustered. She stared blankly at Situ, unsure how to respond.
He's not human! He's a monster!
This was the first thought that popped into her mind.
She remembered that when her father mentioned this person to her, he only said that he was the youngest genius in the Alliance and the only one who could inherit or even surpass Master Nanke. However, her father never told her what his name was or where he came from.
Father didn't seem to care about that person's age. Logically, they were contemporaries; one was Master Nanke's assistant, and the other was Master Nanke's successor. Father was already very old when he passed away. Didn't he consider that the other person should also be old? And why did he have to be replicated in his daughter's dream, making her go to him?
The only explanation is that the father knew he wouldn't grow old.
Looking back now, Su Huilan suddenly felt a chill. She thought of John Oldman from "The Man from Earth"—the caveman who had lived for fourteen thousand years. He would not age, he would not die, and in different eras, he would appear before people with the same young face and different identities. If he did not speak of it himself, no one would know his past.
The successor of the Alliance whom Su Huilan's father knew seventy years ago, the young scientist who designed the cesium atomic clock with Essen Parry at the United States National Physical Laboratory in the 1950s, the Asian genius who rose to prominence at Princeton in the 1980s but whose talent was short-lived, the successor that Mr. Lester was eagerly searching for at the beginning of the new century... all these people are actually the same person—the one Su Huilan sees in front of her—he has never changed.
Even if he spends most of his time hiding in distorted space, using the effects of relativity to escape the aging process, he still can't stay young forever, right? Space can be distorted, scale can be contracted, and even time can flow backward, but human cells don't grow in reverse.
That's not the scariest part. The scariest part is that Situ seems to know everything, even her dreams.
In his presence, Su Huilan felt like a naked infant, completely exposed and powerless, as if he could strangle her with the slightest movement of a finger. She suddenly longed for a pair of large hands to protect her frail body.
In her mind, the two large hands that reached out in sequence were those of her father and... Qingmu.
"How do you know everything!" Su Huilan tried her best to hide her panic, looking at Situ.
"No, I don't know everything," Situ said.
"For example, the origin of the universe, does God have a few hairs?" Su Huilan teased.
Situ laughed, "Every scientist has a hypothesis about the origin of the universe, but God —has no hair!"
Su Huilan pondered the meaning behind his words—was God hairless because He only had a brain and no body? However, she didn't pursue this question, which was unlikely to have an answer, but instead asked, "You even know about God's hair, so what don't you know?"
Situ said, "For example... you just asked me my age, so can you tell me how old Qingmu is?"
" Qingmu..." Su Huilan suddenly realized that her understanding of Qingmu was actually quite limited. "I've seen his passport, he seems to be... born in the 90s?"
"Do you believe it?" Situ asked with a smile.
"Why don't you believe me?" Su Huilan countered.
"I also have passports, and more than one," Situ said. "Whether it's a passport or an ID card, they can be forged, but a person's Mental Power cannot be faked, just like the rings of a tree."
"So you saw his growth rings?" and book
"Yes, I saw it, but I didn't count it clearly."
Su Huilan didn't know if Situ's words were a joke or true. The number of rings on a tree is not difficult to count. People with good eyesight and mental arithmetic skills can count them at a glance, especially Awakened. They can memorize them after seeing them once and even retrieve the memory image in their dreams to count them slowly. Unless the tree is really old, with dense and indistinct rings, or even completely invisible.
"He's a dreamless person, what do you think of his Mental Power?"
"Even if he dreams, I can't hypnotize him. Observing Mental Power doesn't necessarily require entering his dreams, just like seeing how strong someone is doesn't necessarily require fighting them."
"You're right, but with his Mental Power, even if you're watching from the sidelines, he'd easily spot you, right? So... you're still stronger than him!"
Situ seemed to understand something. "No, perhaps he's just too lazy to know who's next to him."
"That's true!" Su Huilan wholeheartedly agreed. "Tell me about the Alliance!"
Didn't your father tell you?
"From the time I was old enough to understand, he was depressed, addicted to alcohol, and always hungover. All I know about him is in my dreams; only in my dreams is he lucid. I saw fragments of his life, but he didn't help me piece together these memories, leaving me to guess for decades. He replicated your image in my dreams, saying you were the only one who could bring dawn to the Alliance, yet he wouldn't tell me who you were."
Su Huilan stared intently at Situ, hoping to find some clues and answers on his face, but Situ remained as calm as a Dali statue, showing no sign of inner turmoil.
"My father said before he died, 'It's too late, the ark has sunk into the abyss, and God will abandon humanity that has sunk to the bottom.' I don't know what those last words meant. Did they mean that humanity has fallen into an even deeper dream?"
He Tushu Situ did not answer Su Huilan's question, but only said, "Your father has his own unavoidable difficulties."
Just as Su Huilan was about to ask what was troubling her, she suddenly felt the entire island tremble. She was startled, thinking it was an earthquake, but then realized it was just a hallucination caused by a mental shock.
She looked up and saw that the small Sun had completely emerged from behind the big Sun, and the two Sun had merged into a gourd. The gourd spewed out a flame, like a fire dragon, flying in the sky.
Hanran, who had been quietly dozing, Hanran opened her eyes, looked at the sky, and began to fidget restlessly.
In a daze, Su Huilan saw the shadows of some leaves and branches swaying in the high void. She rubbed her eyes, knowing it wasn't an optical illusion, but a mental hallucination. Faint fluctuations emanated from the distant Mental Power Field, like an invisible wind.
Situ glanced at the sky, then looked towards the enemy camp opposite, an incredulous expression on his face.
"I know what you want to ask, but we can talk about that later." He stood up and walked towards the high slope in front of the camp. "Now, I need to go see what Qingmu has been up to."
" Qingmu?" Su Huilan vaguely guessed what had happened.
Situ had only taken two steps when he suddenly turned around and tapped the cat in Su Huilan's arms with his scepter.
With a Hanran meow, it arched its back, its fur bristled, and stared at the scepter in Situ's hand as if facing a formidable enemy. One of its front paws was raised, its sharp claws already extended, stopping less than ten centimeters from the tip of the scepter, and it let out a low growl from its throat.
Situ merely gestured, not giving the cat a chance to strike, before putting away the scepter and saying:
"How did you get inside this little yellow cat's body? This isn't like your Old Madam Cuan. She's clean and would never want to be inside this fat cat with its yellow fur."