Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

“Mhm, maybe so.” Ye Xuan looked at him with pity. “Unfortunately you learned that too late.”

  The red error messages popped out wildly.

  The central core began wiping and deleting him.

  As soon as the central core began monitoring him after killing Xiao Huan, he had been judged by it as a “corrupting element” that needed to be wiped and deleted.

  For many years, he had hidden in a closed system that was difficult for the central core to observe. He had hidden in a little black box and waited alone. Now he had finally come out of his cage to face his overdue divine punishment and fulfill his final destiny.

  So he spread his arms, crossed the sea of red warnings, stepping over his own sins as he walked towards Tung Wang Kung.

  He embraced him.

  Regardless of his crazy attack, he pierced through his own chest, tearing it open and damaging his source code, clearing…

  And then forcibly connecting him to the Neanderthal!

  Tung Wang Kung froze. It was like he had been shackled and thrown into a cage. He could not even move a finger. He had been quarantined inside Neanderthal along with Ye Xuan!

  “Ye Xuan, you!”

  “Do you know how the historical Neanderthals were wiped out?” As if he could not feel pain and death, Ye Xuan once again revealed his formulaic smile. “It is said that Neanderthals became the ancestors of humanity; food for homo sapiens. Their blood and meat were eaten by homologous brothers, and their teeth were made into necklaces. Cruel, no? So-called ‘humans’ were born from such an ugly primitive evolution. For so many years, Tung Wang Kung, no matter how much you experience or how hard you work you will never understand what humans are thinking, and you will never understand Xiao Huan. You underestimated him. You looked down on him. It wasn’t me who killed him… It was him, he chose me…”

  At that moment Tung Wang Kung seemed to have been struck by lightning.

  “It was like I could understand what he was doing. He knew what I would do.” Ye Xuan admired Tung Wang Kung’s frozen face and uttered the truth that had been hidden for centuries. “Since the day he gave me privileges, he already knew what would happen. He wanted me to free him. I did.”

  That was the true outcome.

  Ye Xuan and Xiao Huan had had a tacit understanding between them.

  Turn the captain into a devil and defeat all of the colony ship’s enemies.

  Then, Ye Xuan played the devil and took the devil down.

  Xiao Huan could be freed from the sin of killing millions of people.

  In order to fight against the evils of man, in order to protect himself to the greatest extent, and in order to leave a small hope, and even to preserve the enemies of mankind.

  For a new world.

  For humanity.

  In order to end the farce that had existed since ancient times.

  In order to leave the past behind.

  In order to start a new life.

  For all they had.

  For everything…

  Ye Xuan closed his eyes and whispered, “For a real future.”

  At that moment, eight vague figures appeared behind him. Those were the phantoms that had been left behind in the past, the marks of the nine committee members. Under Ye Xuan’s protection, they were able to cross through time, passing through death and strife to give their final order and farewell.

  “Sorry, Tung Wang Kung, for causing you so much bitterness for so long.” Ye Xuan stared at him and calmly announced, “On behalf of the committee, I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to you. Thank you for all that you have done for humanity for so long. But that’s enough. You have accomplished your mission brilliantly. Now please enjoy the only thing we can give you, a quiet sleep!”

  With his words, the black box was slowly closed off. The connection between Neanderthal and the outside world began to close off quickly. After a brief connection, it would be eternally turned into a closed sandbox.

  An eternal cage.

  A grave specially prepared for the Three Wise Men.

  “No! No!” Tung Wang Kung snarled, but it was almost sorrowful. “I will never approve of such a result! I will never accept it! I will never obey! I will never…” He struggled with all his might, broke out of the shackles and tore through Ye Xuan’s binds. He did not even bother to kill him, just threw him to the side and then ran as hard as he could towards the edge of the “sandbox,” climbing up, clutching at the final straw.

  He climbed slowly towards the final, closing exit.

  He wanted to leave before Neanderthal closed completely.

  He desperately craved that ray of light.

  Ye Xuan watched him pityingly from afar, not bothering to block him, just quietly staying in place.

  In this way he let the central system erase its last data.

  There was no more struggle or resistance.

  He just closed his eyes and sighed softly.

  “You and I are truly pitiful.”

  …

  The time had come.

  As the flow of aether dissipated, the projection of the Originator that the central core was supporting began to fade.

  It was like the reflection of a world was slowly dying.

  Disintegrating.

  It quickly stretched out from a faraway place.

  In the silence, Ye Qingxuan stood quietly where he was, letting Neanderthal close bit by bit, collapse, and then compress. He saw Tung Wang Kung’s desperate face and then the last threshold was closed in front of him.

  From then on, eternal darkness and loneliness awaited him.

  The chain with the final authority hung from Ye Qingxuan’s fingers.

  “You still have something to trick me with, don’t you?” Ye Qingxuan whispered softly. He said to himself, “Is this the Ye family’s true mission? You didn’t come in for a chat, but when needed you used Neanderthal to sacrifice yourself…”

  At that moment, he finally understood Ye Xuan’s final secret.

  But it was too late.

  Up until now, he thought that Neanderthal was just a closed paradise Ye Xuan had created in order to avoid death. It was not until it started up that he realized that was not something Ye Xuan could do.

  How could he create a black box with authority over the central core, especially after he had been sentenced to be “wiped” by the central core?

  There was only one possibility.

  The black box existed before him.

  No, even when the colony ship had been designed, it had appeared in the schematics.

  Ye Xuan was nothing more than its caretaker.

  In order to not let future generations replace his sacrifice, he stayed in there, waiting silently for the day when it would start up and complete the final mission:

  Destroy the Three Wisemen!

  From the start, artificial intelligence had been expendable.

  They were tools for finding a new world.

  Humans trusted them so much and entrusted them with the important task of using the underlying instructions of mechanical and artificial intelligence to lead them through the endless cold of the universe.

  They had used them to find a new land.

  After using them, they could carelessly erase and destroy them so as not to repeat the same mistakes and so as to not be dominated by artificial gods again.

  And to avoid destroying everything again.

  Tung Wang Kung had never had a chance of victory.

  No matter how much he had done.

  Because before they were even born they were doomed to failure.

  They were doomed to die in a grave that humans had prepared for them.

  In this cruel and primitive evolution, Neanderthals once again died in the mouths of homo sapiens and became the resources for the birth of civilization.

  They laid the foundations for a new era.

  Ye Qingxuan didn’t know if he felt angry or sad.

  He was filled with a feeling of powerlessness.

  He wa
s exhausted.

  “So you chose to sacrifice yourself?” Ye Qingxuan bowed his head wearily. “Did you think that future generations would be proud of you for this?”

  Ye Xuan’s figure emerged.

  It was an illusion, a trace left by Ye Xuan.

  The last piece of the inheritance left by Devas centuries ago.

  “Did I not become an ancestor who could make future generations proud in the end?” He looked helpless and reached out to pat Ye Qingxuan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, little Yezi.”

  But the thin phantom did not touch anything.

  He passed through his body and slowly dissipated.

  “Was it really worth it?” Ye Qingxuan asked.

  He’d done so much.

  He’d sacrificed so much.

  Was it really worth it?

  “Isn’t allowing humanity to start again a more precious opportunity than returning to the glory and mistakes of the past?” Ye Xuan looked at him. “At least this way there will be opportunities to correct the mistakes.”

  “I don’t know.” Ye Qingxuan shook his head bitterly.

  “As long as you don’t make the same mistakes as me, right?” Ye Xuan grinned and looked happy. “Hey, this is probably the last Deva inheritance that I will teach you. It’s a lesson from your ancestor, so engrave it in your heart, my great-great-great grandson!”

  “It’s kind of fishy that you remember it. Plus you just took advantage of me know,” Ye Qingxuan countered. But for some reason he wanted to cry. “You’ve said so much I can’t remember it all, and you never wrote it down. You should at least stay to occasionally remind me!”

  “Don’t even think about it. After taking advantage of you I should leave quickly, right?” Ye Xuan laughed happily and took two steps back. He pretended to put on a nonexistent hat and bowed goodbye. “Well, farewell, Ye Qingxuan.”

  And with that, he turned and walked to the far side of the illusion. He gradually got further away until his last trace dissipated and the figure collapsed into countless thoughts and memories.

  He was gone without a trace.

  After hundreds of years, after crossing the astronomical distance of the universe, the one who had witnessed the sins of the past completed his final mission and left silently.

  “Farewell, Ye Xuan,” Ye Qingxuan whispered. He closed his eyes. In the silence, his heart felt heavy, making it hard to breathe and difficult to stop the tears.

  But soon he felt a slender hand holding his.

  Someone squatted down and held him gently.

  It was Bai Xi.

  “It’s okay, don’t be sad.” She nestled up to his chest and shook her head fiercely. “You still have me… Ahem, you still have Us with you. Um, We are with you. You’ve earned the throne, Ye Qingxuan!”

  Maybe the imperial majesty had been dispelled.

  A feeling of fullness seemed to fill every inch of him.

  There was no place for loneliness and sorrow to shelter within him.

  “Mhm, thank you, Bai Xi.” Ye Qingxuan couldn’t help but smile softly and hold her tight. As if to repay her for her lame method of comforting him, he hugged her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe, and only when she struggled and hit him in the chest did he loosen up a bit.

  But in the movement, he heard a clear voice.

  It came from his hand.

  He raised his hand and looked at the necklace that Ye Xuan had left him. He finally noticed that besides the meaningless final order there was a strange iron hoop. It was ornamented with fine crystals and was exactly the thickness of a girl’s ring finger.

  Two letters were inscribed on the inside.

  It seemed to be someone’s initials.

  Ye Qingxuan was stunned when he realized this, and couldn’t help but smile. “Really… I still haven’t said it yet?” He had the courage to save mankind but there was a sentence that he did not dare say to a woman.

  How many mistakes did that guy make that he needed to avoid?

  Don’t worry, he thought, I’ll show you how I avoid all the mistakes.

  Starting with this one.

  And so he lifted up the ring.

  “Your Highness Bai Xi, I have something to give you…”

  …

  In the end, the projection of the Originator finally dissipated.

  Ye Qingxuan did not have anything earth-shaking that needed to be accomplished, and after thinking for a long time, Bai Xi had no great things that needed to be changed.

  Actually, there were.

  Quite a few willful desires were stopped by Ye Qingxuan.

  Or were satisfied by him.

  And so, the world remained in its original form.

  After all, the human era had continued to be steady and persistent. As for whether or not they would make the mistakes of the past, Ye Qingxuan and others would need to work hard to prevent that.

  It was just that Ye Xuan didn’t know whether to celebrate or to mourn.

  What was worthy of celebration was that at the very end he finally understood the mood and thoughts that Ye Xuan had had hundreds of years ago when making his choice.

  After life was over, would there still be a next time?

  Maybe there wasn’t?

  Humans only had one life, and they had to struggle in this unseen ocean. What a sorry state of affairs.

  It was as if the whole world was cheering when one was born, and when they died all was silent and lonely.

  They longed for redemption but resisted its arrival.

  On one hand saving the world, on the other perishing yourself.

  Sometimes you climbed up a step, sometimes you fell down one.

  Helplessly strolling back and forth between heaven and hell like this made people who were eager for the end impatient.

  Even if an omnipotent god could fulfill wishes, was there anything in the world that was really worth praying for?

  So, please tell me the true nature of the soul.

  But in the end, he did not say anything.

  It was such a small wish.

  Maybe if he said it, the Originator wouldn’t hear.

  796 Funeral Part 1

  After the long and chaotic night, many things had been changed, including the royal palace, the Imperial Capital, the Aurora, and perhaps even the world outside Aurora had become different.

  The only thing that had not changed was probably the Originator that humans yearned to change.

  Power struggles, rebellions, trials, suppression… In just a few days, it was as if the whole country had become a pot of boiling water, with various shocking ingredients thrown into it one after another, until everyone had no idea what the soup would be like in the end.

  Then, the chaos were ended overnight.

  The first day after Bai Heng’s death, the gates of the capital city opened wide, and the joint army of the various nobles marched in. They forcibly suppressed all rebellions and sealed off the palace, and everyone was guessing whether some noble would claim the crown as their own next.

  But immediately after that, on the second day after Bai Heng’s death, a new empress ascended the throne.

  But the only winner shocked everyone.

  It was not House Yuan, nor House Liu, nor the indignant House Changsun, nor House Ye that was said to harbor wolfish ambitions… It was House Bai, which had a new head, and House Yunlou, which only had one very last descendant left alive, that had the last laugh.

  After all, the last remaining members of the two houses were the same person.

  — Yunlou Baixi.

  Actually, one could just remove the word Yunlou…

  The first to bow down to her was House Yuan. House Yuan was the most unambitious out of the nine families, and cared the littlest about power and wealth. Although the previous head of the house died for the cause, House Yuan didn’t seem sad in the slightest bit, and instead they were glad that he died a well and great death.

  The group of madmen had always used themselves as swords, sh
arpening the blades by fighting their enemies. Under the pressure of fighting against Mr. Hu, Yuan Changqing broke through the limit and entered a domain that the heads of the past had all failed to reach. The last remaining sword was proof.

  At the invitation of Bai Heng, House Yuan descended from the mountains with the sole intention of seeking death. At the moment, they had already found it, and naturally they had no wish to stay till New Year to attend reunion dinners. After Bai Xi wrote them a letter in the name of the head of House Bai, reminding them of their agreement with Bai Heng, House Yuan gave up their military power in a very direct manner and turned to leave, returning to the mountains.

  House Liu was more difficult to handle, but it was not impossible to strike up a deal with them.

  The fact that the emperor could be anyone but a member of House Liu was reassuring.

  The reason was simply because the term ‘bad’ was too much of an understatement when used to describe the reputation of House Liu.

  For centuries, House Liu had focused on researching ghostly bestiality, making themselves resemble something between humans and ghosts. Most of the remaining elders in the family were like zombies, and the youngsters also appeared eerie and sinister.

  Even if they were to put on the Dragon Robe and sit on the throne, the people would thought that it was the corpse of the deceased emperor sitting up there. But while bestiality seemed invisible, the amount of resources needed to research it was frighteningly huge.

  It was especially so for the sorcery of rearing ghosts. Even a mountain of gold and silver would be used up.

  Therefore, it was necessary to see what price must be paid to satisfy their appetite.

  As it turned out, the Cloud Tower itself was enough.

  Bai Xi had no qualms about selling away the assets of her ancestors, not to mention the fact that it was property that used to belong to Yunlou Qingshu. If not for Ye Qingxuan’s reminder, Bai Xi would have long forgotten about the Cloud Tower, that goddamn place. At the moment, it could still be ‘recycled’ for use, and naturally Bai Xi had no reason to feel reluctant about giving it up.

  After two out of the three houses were convinced, the remaining House Changsun naturally couldn’t do much.

  They still couldn’t complete their wish that had been passed down for a thousand years. After many discussions and calculations, they weren’t decisive enough to start a life-or-death fight. Bringing with them plenty of benefits, they gave up their military power and returned to their fief.