Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1348: Listening to the Ancestor’s Story
Dingdang happily made her decision before I could react to what the little one was up to. She contacted the Divine Realm, and then this already somewhat tipsy three-inch Ding clumsily climbed back into the bowl, grabbing some rice grains to continue filling her stomach. She paused to give me a silly smile, "Ah Jun, everyone is so happy, oh, they’ll be coming over to visit soon!"
I was stunned for a moment, realizing that the "everyone" she was referring to was a whole bunch of three-inch Dings. Weren’t we just fretting over the insufficient yield of that green powder used for resurrecting the ancestors? Dingdang decided to call over her sisters from the Divine Realm for help...
I silently looked up, as if I could see a magnificent scene of a swarm of giant dragonflies flying across the ceiling. The green powder would fall like rain, covering every corner of the house. We’d walk around underneath, and everyone would turn green... Ahem, maybe I’m overimagining things a bit. The main issue is that one Dingdang already keeps things chaotic, and now she suddenly wants to invite a whole bunch of three-inch Dings over. I really can’t imagine how lively it would become. Of course, I’m actually quite looking forward to this—Dingdang often mentions her sisters from the Divine Realm, and these cheerful little ones coming over would probably make for a lively atmosphere... Well, theoretically.
The happiest about this was, of course, Qianqian. This girl, who doesn’t mind a fire when burning down a house or too much water when fighting a flood, loves excitement the most. She moved her chair over, poking Dingdang’s head, "Dingdang Dingdang, how many people can you call over?"
"I don’t know!" Dingdang waved a small clump of rice grains. "Dingdang sent a message to the whole Divine Realm, inviting them over, and many have agreed. The fastest could be here in a day or two. Ah Jun, Ah Jun, we need to prepare a lot of candy!"
Upon hearing the scale of Dingdang’s invitation, I immediately broke into a cold sweat. I initially thought she only contacted a specific group of Life Goddesses, so I was quite optimistic about the situation, thinking even if a hundred or eighty came, it wouldn’t be a problem. After all, these little ones are only palm-sized. Even if a large group comes, it would be at most lively and noisy, but I never imagined... Dingdang sent a broadcast to the entire Divine Realm, holy crap!
I know the relationship between the Life Goddesses. They all originate from the scattered power of the Supreme Life Goddess, so every three-inch Ding can call each other sister. Even if they haven’t met before, they become good friends after the first greeting, and it’s fine even if they don’t know each other’s names. They would still happily visit the home of sisters they’ve never met before. These are a bunch of little ones who love to gather, who would gather for any reason, and would make a racket for most of the day. I witnessed a small gathering of Life Goddesses in the Divine Realm before, but that gathering was at least organized, and only the three-inch Dings living near the temple were invited. But this time, Dingdang sent an invitation to the entire Divine Realm...
"Lilina..." I, drenched in cold sweat, turned to the cunning female Pope who was exchanging drinks with Bubble. "Head back and tidy up the temple immediately... no, not just the temple, but the entire Avalon, tidy everything up!"
"Why?" Lilina was so absorbed in her own affairs that she hadn’t noticed the commotion here and was immediately curious upon hearing my words.
"...In a day or two at most, all the Life Goddesses from the entire Star Domain will be coming over to visit..."
"Not all of them," Dingdang corrected me seriously, "only the sisters who are free will come."
Well, that’s stating the obvious. The Life Goddesses are famous mascots in the Divine Realm. They rarely have any serious divine duties. This cheerful bunch of little ones, apart from fulfilling their roles as Life Goddesses or World Guardian Gods, only play in the Divine Realm. The sisters Dingdang mentioned as "free" probably constitute eighty to ninety percent of this group...
Lilina was completely stunned, holding her cup in a petrified pose like a statue. The doll girl immediately jumped off her chair and poured the yogurt wine she made into Lilina’s cup before innocently returning to her seat. It was a rare victory, as Lilina was usually the one tormenting the little doll, but today the roles were reversed.
Anyway, apart from the not-so-little interlude caused by Dingdang, the celebratory family feast ended on a joyful and happy note. That night, I had a dream where my home turned into a botanical garden. Multitudes of little goddess Dings flew back and forth outside, blotting out the sky and covering the world with towering giant trees and vines as thick as a meter. Humans became tree-dwelling creatures, holding a United Nations conference in tree houses to discuss world peace. Qianqian leapt around in front of me, wearing a grass skirt of leaves. Xiao Xue was wielding a two-meter-long net, catching dragonflies, while I felt increasingly heavy, with Dingdang leading hundreds or thousands of three-inch Dings piling up on my stomach in a tower-building contest...
By the time I woke up from this strange dream, it was almost noon. The sky outside was clear and bright, a sunny day.
I thought I might have drunk too much yesterday. The brew from the Divine Realm shouldn’t contain alcohol in the conventional sense (of course, what’s commonly called alcohol shouldn’t affect me anyway), but its intoxicating effect is similar to ordinary alcohol. I shook my head, feeling no hangover headache or discomfort from over-drinking. The only post-drinking effect was a slight dizziness. It seems the Divine Realm’s brew has the benefit of not leaving you with a hangover, but the downside is it’s hard to use "drank too much yesterday, can’t get out of bed" as an excuse to skip work...
I lay in bed dazing, feeling a heavy pressure on my belly. A slight snore came from beneath my chest. If I just looked down, I could see a spread of silver in my line of sight: it was the doll girl’s hair. The little girl was still asleep, peacefully and quietly, though her sleeping position wasn’t great. She clung to me like an octopus. She actually only drank a little last night but was inevitably overwhelmed by the scientifically improbable kick of that peculiar brew. She spent half the night trying to open her box and eventually gave up, slept on my belly all night. I didn’t mind the little girl’s domineering move. We occasionally cuddle to sleep anyway—she sees it as a "reward" for me from her doll perspective. The only thing I mind now is she’s sleeping so soundly that a doomsday event might not wake her. I spent a fair amount of time trying to pry the little one off...
Luckily, I fell asleep muddled yesterday without changing clothes; otherwise, changing clothes today would be an issue—I was quite relieved about this.
So I went downstairs with the doll hanging on me, looking like a fusion form when I appeared in the living room. It was quiet on the ground floor, even though it was nearing noon, the time when the house should be bustling. The living room only had Big Sister chatting with Anwina. Seeing my appearance, Anwina commented with particular tact, "Master... your breastplate is quite unique."
"There’s a reason for this," I said awkwardly, prying off the arms of the doll girl clinging to my chest. "Let go—also your legs."
The octopus on my chest responded with a series of even snores and some incomprehensible short sleep talk.
"You see, it’s like this," I said, half-laughing, half-crying, waving to Big Sister and Anwina. "Where’s everyone else?" 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
"Most are still not up," Big Sister smiled. "Only Sandora and Bingdisi are awake. Sandora went to Shadow City, and Bingdisi should be out shopping by now—oh! Bingdisi left this before going out, said it’s for hangovers." With that, she handed me a cup emitting a faint golden glow, with a fragrant scent. Is this a hangover soup specially made by Sister Bing for the Divine Race?
Didn’t expect that female hooligan to be quite considerate—I mused, downing half the cup of this oddly fragrant "hangover soup" in one go. A moment later, I felt the dizziness quickly dissipate. This was really good stuff. I looked down at the doll girl still passed out from the hangover on my chest, thinking if I could pry open her mouth and pour some hangover soup in, I might finally be free!
I clenched my teeth, stomped my foot, "Sis, find me a straw! And a crowbar..."
Twenty minutes later, I was walking down the streets of Shadow City. The doll wasn’t hanging on me anymore: she had changed positions and style, now biting onto my left arm and hanging there. Anyone familiar who saw me on the way greeted me with, "Your Majesty, that shoulder guard is really unique..."
I realized using the straw should’ve been enough. The crowbar might have attracted too much antagonism from the temperamental doll...
The doll hung on my arm for quite a while before she finally seemed bored and agilely climbed onto my shoulder from my arm, swaying back and forth with my head, "Hey, where are you going?"
"Chatting heart-to-heart with the ancestor, Sandora should have already gone," I organized the two lace folds hanging in front of me on the alchemy doll girl’s dress and then fished out a Volks logo from the lace edge, "... Speaking of which, your figure shouldn’t be quite like a normal SD doll from Earth, how do you find suitable clothes online?"
"Custom-made," the doll girl replied matter-of-factly, "Anyway, spending your money doesn’t make me fret."
Me: "..." An SD doll has learned to shop on Taobao, learned to manage online banking, and now has learned to order custom clothes online! I feel that if she keeps developing this way, she’ll soon open her own online store to sell dolls!
The ancestor Anses was placed in the high-ranking officer area of the Shadow Fortress. I still don’t know how to position this ancestor—whether as a member of the Xyrin Apostle, a VIP of Shadow City, or a Leisure King; these are all hard to categorize, so Anses is temporarily housed there, and his future arrangements need to be discussed with Sandora—and, of course, we need to listen to the ancestor’s own opinion. When Little Doll and I arrived in the officer area, Sandora was already talking to Anses in the lounge, and it seemed Sandora had arrived quite a while before me. The lounge was filled with a somewhat subdued atmosphere.
The slight sliding sound of the lounge gate shifted Sandora’s attention, and she turned to see me, standing up with a smile, "Ah Jun, you’re here—Little Light too?"
"She’s just joining the fun," I said while casually placing Little Doll on the ground, who immediately ran curiously to Anses, sizing up the white-haired stranger. Anses, seeing such a tiny girl for the first time, seemed quite amazed. He probably hadn’t seen creatures like alchemy dolls before and had no dissatisfaction with Little Light’s bold observation, only clicking his tongue in wonder: "Oh, you all developed such members, huh? Cute little thing."
"She’s not a Xyrin Apostle, she’s my daughter. Don’t be fooled by her appearance; she can bite," I said as I sat across from Anses in the Xyrin military department’s lounge, filled with the apostles’ pragmatic style. There’s no decoration or any entertainment items here, only seating and low tables, besides some functional facilities: and even the seats were replaced with small sofas at Lin Xue’s request. This monotonous place seemed a bit inappropriate to me, "Isn’t this a bit too simple? Xyrin soldiers surely don’t care about enjoyment, but you should still be..."
"No, this is already very good," Anses said calmly, "Far better than those days of mine."
"Um," for a moment, I didn’t know how to steer the conversation—this ancestor seemed too tranquil. He showed no joy about his resurrection nor any visible desires, making it hard to engage with such a placid old master, "Anses—no issue calling you that, right? How do you feel now? Physically okay?"
"Just like the best days before I died," Anses said indifferently, "I’ve already heard Sandora tell me some history—what happened after we died. You’ve come a long way today, far beyond what I could have imagined."
"Still not good enough," Sandora slowly shook her head, "The Abyss still threatens everything, our greatest failures also come from the Abyss, the coordinates of our hometown world have been lost, and even apostles as a group have split... I’m sorry, ancestor, after so long a time, we let you see such a mess."
"I’ve said, just call me Anses," Anses waved his hand; on this matter, he was very insistent, "Don’t be so restrained, it makes me feel awkward too—you are this Empire’s current ruler, I’m just a ghost that accidentally lived from ancient times, excluding the billions of years in between, I’m merely your subject."
Sandora found this notion a bit hard to accept, "But you created..."
"You walked your own path. We handed over our entire civilization to you, hoping you’d completely, thoroughly, without any reservations replace us old folks. From that day, the relationship between the creator and the created ended," Anses turned to me after speaking, "Tell me how you all split—I haven’t heard this part."
Anses more or less forcibly interrupted Sandora’s insistence—ordinary folks wouldn’t have the nerve. I think I’ve guessed how the low-key atmosphere in the lounge came about, Sandora’s special treatment of the ancestors actually made Anses quite uncomfortable; it was clear he found it hard to feel the vast changes after all these years, struggling to adapt to being revered without reason.
Having endured hardships and finally resolutely decided to hand over their entire civilization to the Original Body, these ancestors perhaps had different qualities from ordinary mortal races.
"The split originated from a catastrophic accident," I glanced at Sandora, knowing she’d feel awkward discussing this topic, while I, as a half-baked Xyrin Emperor, had no psychological pressure telling the ancestor about past events, "It was during the Old Empire’s peak era, the Xyrin Apostles started trying to unravel the Void..."
For the next hour, I narrated the old events to the ancestor, with Sandora occasionally adding a few words, filling in gaps in my memory. Initially, we planned to ask the ancestor for information after awakening him, but now it seemed reversed: before understanding from the ancestor, we need to help him grasp the current situation.
"Is... this so," Anses nodded, showing a somewhat puzzled expression, suddenly revealing a complex smile, "Look, I barely understand what you’re saying, what use is it to resurrect me?"
"Why would you think so?" Sandora asked, baffled, "Do we need a reason to resurrect our creator?"
"You don’t need it, but I do," Anses sighed suddenly, "I need to know my value—Xyrin people can’t accept life without value, I suppose this aspect was inherited, imprinted deep in your souls. Actually, since waking yesterday until just now, I’ve been trying to understand this unfamiliar world I don’t know, struggling to relate it to the Original Body we created initially. Eventually, I concluded: you really don’t need ancestors’ resurrection, it’s a valueless action."
Sandora and I were stunned, exchanging glances. No one had considered this since the revival ancestor project began: whether the ancestor himself wanted to be resurrected. I merely speculated based on ordinary people’s general thoughts, thinking living is better than dying, never expected that the ancestor, after pondering overnight, concluded that living was pointless!
"An... Anses," Sandora rigidly addressed the ancestor by name. She adjusted herself and finally returned to the resolute Queen Majesty: only then could she convince herself to disregard the ancestor’s thoughts, "Perhaps awakening you rashly was a bit impulsive, but many things happened, and we have many mysteries we want to explore, to understand the hometown world, the apostles’ origin story, and the Abyss explosion that destroyed our homeland back then. Moreover, whether you believe it or not, we’ve recently gathered enough evidence showing the hometown world still existed at least twenty millennia ago, it’s still there, and we might still find it! Given the current strength of the Xyrin Apostles, purifying a world isn’t difficult, and completely annihilating an Abyss Gate is already a doable technique, so..."
"You say the hometown world is still there?!"
Anses interrupted Sandora’s words, expressing disbelief in this news and widening his eyes, "Are you sure? Back then, I personally witnessed space tearing apart, constellations in the shockwave extinguishing in groups, the destructive power exceeded light speed and grew stronger as it spread... That universe couldn’t have survived! When the last Ark departed, only one-tenth of that universe was still intact!"
"Absolutely," Sandora nodded vehemently, "In fact, our finding the Ark debris you boarded relates to this intelligence: we discovered large quantities of matter ejected from the hometown world, and these matters crossed world barriers less than twenty millennia ago, so we urgently want to figure out what happened back then—specifically, if you don’t know how to gauge an Abyss Gate’s energy level, just detail the disaster explosion’s scene, the Abyss Power’s spread speed, how vast the first infected range was; these are crucial intelligence. If we can precisely grasp the Abyss explosion’s scale and characteristics, perhaps we can find traces of the hometown world in the Divine Race’s database: the Divine Race always records every doomsday they observe, even for worlds they never paid attention to, as long as it’s confirmed extinct, they’d dispatch Observers, so your intelligence is vital."
"Alright," Anses finally exited that subdued state, slowly straightening his back, "Seems like I finally have something I can do. But I’m going to tell you a long story—starting from when the Xyrin Civilization was still on its Mother Star."
Sandora and I smiled at each other, attentive to listen. (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welcome to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations or monthly tickets; your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read at m.qidian.com.)
