In your daily life together, you discovered that A Ruan's hobbies differed from those of ordinary people. She preferred classical things such as seasonal pastries, poetry, and opera. Perhaps influenced by her, you too developed an interest in those exquisite confections. Of the many pastries, you favored plum blossom cakes made with lotus leaves, plum blossoms, and glutinous rice... Sometimes, you added tiny rice dumplings, candied fruit, and pine nuts, supplementing them with over a dozen ingredients such as fruit jam, red bean paste, and crushed nuts. The resulting plum blossom cakes came in many styles, with beautiful appearances and rich textures.
After trying your creations, A Ruan could not help but marvel at your skill. Sometimes, she even asked you how to make those pastries.
Days passed one after another, and in the blink of an eye, A Ruan welcomed her nineteenth birthday.
You had waited a long time for this day. Childhood sweethearts, innocent companions—you did not know whether these feelings had begun the day she rescued you from the battlefield, or whether they had sprouted from the very first moment you saw her.
But that no longer mattered. At A Ruan's birthday banquet, you confessed your feelings to her. Yet in the end, all you received was an ambiguous answer.
A Ruan neither explicitly rejected you nor accepted you.
Inside the starship docked on Million IV Satellite.
The girl removed her sleeve guards and pressed one pale hand against the cold porthole.
Her peerless face was reflected in the glass of a single-lens camera.
Though no expression could be seen on her reflection, she felt her heart grow slightly unsettled.
She did not know whether to attribute it to his confession or to the secretion of phenethylamine and dopamine.
As her research into the essence of life deepened, she realized that she truly had neglected to understand certain things.
Your confession received no response, but you did not become discouraged.
You decided to devote yourself to research in the field of life sciences, striving to one day keep pace with A Ruan and confess your feelings to her once more.
During your research that year, you happened to pass by a planet and acquired a manuscript at an auction. Its owner was Ilyasalaas, member No. 56 and second president of the Genius Society.
You had heard of the Genius Society, so you assumed the manuscript, purchased for 10,000 credits, was a forgery. But during a moment of leisure, you studied it at your desk and discovered that the concept recorded within, called "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing," seemed genuinely feasible.
Outside of work and field investigations, you began studying the manuscript that recorded "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing." But the thought processes of geniuses were simply too bizarre, and a year of research yielded no progress.
At twenty, you remained devoted to life sciences research and had not abandoned that manuscript.
At twenty-one, after more than two years of exploration, you seemed to have found the path to "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing." After three months of seclusion without rest, you successfully created an inferior version of "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing."
You quickly attempted to put this product to use in field research. You achieved the ability to communicate with other personnel aboard the starship while conducting on-site investigations. The other researchers soon recognized its usefulness as well. With mass production underway, all researchers were equipped with the device, making fieldwork far more convenient.
After "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing" was put into use and received a positive response, you decided to continue improving it, then apply for a patent and promote it across every star system in the universe.
However, this technology was brought into existence sooner because of the second great upheaval in your life.
At twenty-two, one day, the starship carrying the research personnel entered an unknown star system. An alarm sounded: the starship had been caught in an inexplicable gravitational pull, and at the current rate, it might be dragged into the gravitational field within a week. You tried using "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing" to call for help, but the signal was blocked within the gravitational field.
After discussion, you decided to send out a probe to observe the source of the gravity and search for a way out.
A day later, the probe transmitted images back. When you saw those inconceivable pictures, the meeting room fell into a long silence.
The image showed a planet made of flesh and blood—or rather, a ball of flesh, a monster.
The monster looked like a planet with a gigantic blood-red eye wide open. It drifted endlessly through the cosmos, drawing in and devouring every living thing around it, merging them into its own flesh.
All the researchers fell into despair. Seeing their expressions, you remembered the expedition into No Man's Land, when they had witnessed the frozen monster awaken with their own eyes. But this time, there was nowhere to run.
Without almost any hesitation, you returned to your laboratory and locked yourself inside. To the others, this looked like cowardice, but no one blamed you. After all, you were only a young man still in the prime of youth.
Over the following days, every crew member aboard the starship began thinking of solutions. Someone proposed bombarding the monster with tens of thousands of tons of explosives when they drew close, then using the recoil to break free of the gravitational pull. But calculations showed that the plan had less than a one percent chance of success.
Others proposed transferring fuel to small spacecraft and flying at full speed beyond the gravitational field. But after testing it, they discovered that once the small craft left the starship, its size made it easy prey for the pull toward the center of gravity.
Three days passed, and the pressure of the gravitational field grew increasingly intense, enough to nearly tear you apart. In less than three more days, every researcher aboard the starship would become part of that monster.
It was also that night that you finally emerged from your laboratory. Amid the chaotic starship, no one paid attention to such a minor matter anymore. You silently went to the kitchen and, as usual, kneaded dough. Using preserved plum blossoms, lotus leaves, glutinous rice, and frost sugar, you made a box of ordinary plum blossom cakes. Then you wrote a letter and placed it inside the wooden box.
The next day.
When A Ruan opened her cabin door, she found the wooden box sitting outside.
She seemed to realize something. Opening the box, she saw the delicate plum blossom cakes, along with the letter.
A Ruan picked up the letter. It read:
"Seeing this letter is like seeing you. Plum blossom season has come again. Alas, we have no fate to taste them together. I offer this poem to you instead:
When shall I make a tryst with the soul of plum blossoms, beneath the pale moon at dusk, whispering deep affection to her?
Do not worry. —Bai Heng"
The girl's hand began to tremble as she held the letter. She ran to the control room, her eyes reddening, and asked in a state of disarray she had never shown before, "Father, Mother, have you seen where Bai Heng went?"
The two of them, already overwhelmed with worry, looked at each other. They had spent the past few days trying to find a way to escape and had not paid attention to that child.
After hearing A Ruan's words, they checked the surveillance footage and discovered that Bai Heng had secretly taken a small craft and left the starship the previous night.
A Ruan's suspicions were confirmed. She activated "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing," found Bai Heng's contact information, and tried to call him.
Fortunately, the monster merely blocked outgoing communications and had not cut off internal communications.
The communication device connected, and Bai Heng's calm voice came from the other end.
"Hello."
"Bai Heng?"
"Mm... Were the plum blossom cakes good? The ingredients were a little lacking, and the plum blossoms weren't freshly picked. They might not suit your taste..."
"Is this the time to be discussing something like that?!"
Bai Heng chuckled from the other end of the communication device.
"It's rare to see such a strong emotional reaction from you. I always felt that the A Ruan I once knew had turned into a piece of wood that was warm outside and cold within. But seeing that you can still get angry, I can rest easy."
"I..."
"Don't speak yet. There isn't much time."
Bai Heng interrupted her. Looking at the vague outline of the ball of flesh already visible ahead, he spoke slowly.
"Actually, when I was young, a fortune teller said that I was destined for a short life and would not live long."
"Yet the people around me left one after another before I did."
"Perhaps I should have died on the battlefield... But you pulled me back from death's door. Over these past years, I saw sights I had never seen before and experienced adventures I had never known. I'm already more than satisfied..."
The communication ended.
Bai Heng pushed the small craft's power to its limit, greatly slowing its movement toward the ball of flesh.
In his final moments, he finished assembling the modified "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing" device and waited until he reached the maximum distance from the monster.
"Three, two, one."
You activated the modified "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing," transmitting your coordinates and message into the universe at the highest frequency.
But even if "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing" broke through the gravitational field and sent the words you wished to say along with your coordinates into the outside world, it would still not be enough for Them to hear.
Yet at the very moment you were devoured, you seemed to see several clown masks.
Aha, the Aeon of Elation, found it immensely entertaining. A Pathstrider of Preservation, before dying, had received a glance from Erudition, then falsely claimed to be one of the People of Abundance, provoking The Hunt before the entire universe in an attempt to borrow Their power and destroy the ancient beast of Voracity. Hahaha, this was truly far too entertaining.
Aha helped transmit the signal and coordinates of your "Hyper-Sensory Remote Sensing" to every corner of the universe. At the same time, a sentence rang in everyone's ears.
"I, Bai Heng of the People of Abundance, invite the Calamity-Bringer, Bow of Disaster, to draw Its bow!"
Before you continue