The Path Toward Heaven

The black color was usually not easily noticeable, especially in the midst of thin fog.

Yet this black car was easily noticed because it was different from the discarded vehicles by the streets. It looked new, meaning that it had been maintained carefully on a regular basis.

The girl who had just walked out from the black car looked new as well, including the dress with embroidered small flowers she wore and the umbrella in her hands.

She looked like a doll that had just been produced in the factory, giving off fresh and eerie energy.

“The remnants here have been insulated under the crust of the plateau and preserved pretty well. Of course, it has gone through restorations for many years. These vehicles are all manufactured recently.”

The voice of the girl was very calm, devoid of any emotion, like the umbrella in her hands that didn’t ruffle in the least in the wind.

The umbrella blocked her face.

Jing Jiu gazed at her feet. He found that she wore a pair of common black leather shoes. The fluffy socks at her ankles looked adorable.

The wind picked up, blowing away some of the fog. It turned out that there was a river at the end of the street.

The girl walked onto the bridge, holding the umbrella over her head as she crossed the river.

Jing Jiu followed on her heels.

After descending the bridge, the fog in the city grew thicker, blocking the numerous buildings. The mountains up ahead looked clearer.

A courtyard was situated among the mountains, with black eaves and white walls. The flowering trees and remaining snow could be seen in it. The courtyard looked somewhat like the Scenery Garden outside Cloudy Town.

The hot spring at the deep end of the courtyard exuded a light warm mist. A tea table was placed by the spring, a chair on both sides of the table.

The girl came to the edge of the hot spring and sat on the chair. She closed the umbrella and put it on the ground.

The dress with small embroidered flowers was rather thin, resembling a sort of bathing robe that drifted up like a wing in the wind and dropped down like a cloud.

The small flowers on the dress were the sunflowers, which reminded Jing Jiu of the oil painting in the Art Gallery on the Stargate.

He sat on the chair opposite her and looked across.

The girl’s black hair was smooth and soft. The evenly cut hair covered her eyebrows like a piece of curtain. When it was tousled by the gentle wind, it looked like a piece of watermelon.

Her eyebrows were very thin, as if painted into existence with a pen. Her nose was very small and elegant; her lips red, looking like a plum.

Her face was white and smooth, resembling a peeled egg; to put it more precisely, her face looked like a perfect white ceramic, devoid of any defect.

…

…

Shen Yunmai had commented that Jing Jiu looked like a ceramic doll in the building of the military headquarters.

But this girl looked even more so.

The eyebrows, which looked like they were painted on, didn’t mean that they were pretty; not all the paintings were pleasant to look at.

Perfect skin didn’t mean beautiful skin, and that was because it could be fake.

Her snow-white face didn’t look full of energy, and the two thin eyebrows and the plum-like mouth didn’t add any life to her appearance.

This face reminded Jing Jiu of the young officer on the Scorching-Sun Battleship.

The girl took out two small ceramic bottles and two small semitransparent wine cups from the hot spring and put them on the tea table and began to pour the wine.

The scene in which she extended one of her hands out of the sleeve looked wonderful.

The way her fingers held the wine cups and poured the wine was quite natural.

The strong wine in amber color didn’t assault the nose so much after being placed in the hot spring for a while.

All the details gave off a natural and appealing sensation.

Yet, Jing Jiu found that these movements and details were too purposeful.

He knew that this girl sitting in front of him was not a real human, nor was she That One.

To put it more precisely, that one whom he wanted to talk to was not here today. She should be somewhere else at the moment, or even on another planet.

If he were another person, he would feel uncomfortable; but he was used to the conversation of this sort.

The spiritual communication between the Snow Girl and him back in the snowland was no different from this situation in essence.

It was necessary to find out the identity of the other party before the start of any conversation.

Jing Jiu was certain that the other party must have read his novel, but she still told him her name.

“Fly,” the girl said softly.

Jing Jiu didn’t know how to respond to this name.

The girl went on, “What do you wish to ask me?”

In the view of many people, Jing Jiu wanted to get the approval of the girl to become the new god so that he had to go through her examination. The truth was far from it.

It was he rather than the girl who was in charge of asking questions.

He raised the first question:

“Which world is the standard time based on?”

…

…

He had written some words in a slip of paper in the underground apartment.

And he added two more words later at the University of Stargate.

Those words included: year, mouth, standard day, among the other terms.

The humans occupied many planets. Each planet orbited its sun and rotated by itself at a different pace and therefore operated at different schedules of time.

However, the Federation of the Milky Way had a standard time regarding the calendar and the space travel.

Jing Jiu had checked time and again and found out that none of the planets that humans inhabited had astronomical rules consistent with those sets of standards.

The voice of the girl was not disturbed by the question, as if she was not surprised to hear it.

“The distant ancient civilization originated on a planet; the standard time was adopted from the rules on that planet.”

Hearing the answer, Jing Jiu didn’t feel surprised. “What about the month?” he asked.

“That planet had a satellite,” the girl said.

Jing Jiu prodded again, “I’ve read in those books about the eclipse of the moon and the eclipse of the sun, etc., and I saw them over there.”

The girl said, “They are exactly like what you saw in your world.”

Looking at the warm mist over the hot spring, Jing Jiu gazed through it and seemingly saw the huge snowball outside the gravitational field and the sky outside the snowball, the universe outside the sky and the space on the other side.

“Where is our world?” asked Jing Jiu.

The girl picked up the small wine cup with two of her fingers and brought it to her plum-like mouth to have a little sip. “God can’t even create the world. The most he can do is discover the new worlds,” she said softly.

Jing Jiu pulled back his line of sight and said while gazing at her snow-white face, “You have no intention of giving me a definite answer.”

“Everyone from your world has asked me the same questions. You’re neither special nor exceedingly smart; you’re no different from them.”

The girl continued, “Why do you get special treatment from me?”

Jing Jiu extended his feet into the hot spring.

This move must have a deep meaning rather than being a mere display of leisure.

As for what meaning he intended to convey, nobody knew; no one could ask him about it either because Zhuo Rusui and Gu Qing hadn’t ascended yet.

The girl gazed at the hot spring and asked while looking at his feet, “Do you feel anything?”

Jing Jiu returned without turning his head around, “Do you feel anything when you drink alcohol?”

The girl replied, “This body has enough perceptive cells, so I can sense more details than humans can.”

“But I don’t have those cells,” said Jing Jiu.

The girl said, “It’s a bit depressing.”

“The lava bath is pretty good, though,” said Jing Jiu.

The girl said after some thought, “Makes sense.”

“Look,” Jing Jiu turned around and said while staring into her eyes. “I’m indeed different from those other ascendants.”

The girl let loose an eerie smile after the corners of her mouth pulled up slowly, as she asked, “Do you intend to convince me that you and I are the same?”