Yama Reborn-Chapter 424 - 421 [The Cat Looking Up at the Stars]

Chapter 424: Chapter 421 [The Cat Looking Up at the Stars]

Chapter 421: The Cat Gazing at the Stars

When Chen Nuo found the Gray Cat, it seemed as if it had long realized it couldn’t escape and was calmly awaiting Chen Nuo’s arrival.

But this creature... lying on the rooftop, head tilted up at the moon, made Chen Nuo burst into laughter.

"You’re a cat, not a dog. Are you going to howl at the moon or something?"

The Gray Cat turned its head to glance at Chen Nuo, then licked its paw, but twisted its head back to the moon.

Chen Nuo walked over with his hands behind his back. "What’s so interesting about the moon?"

Surprisingly, the Gray Cat’s eyes revealed a hint of peculiarity. "Of course, it’s interesting—you wouldn’t understand."

Chen Nuo walked over, squatted down, and gently patted the Gray Cat on the forehead.

He also found himself instinctively turning his head to glance at the moon and frowned. "What’s there to see?"

"It wasn’t there before, but later it appeared," the Gray Cat answered seriously, then arched its back, stretching lazily.

"It’s already winter. Isn’t it cold lying on the rooftop at night?"

Chen Nuo simply sat down next to the Gray Cat.

The Gray Cat sighed somewhat helplessly. "I’ve been eating too much lately. Occasionally, it’s better to stay away from your wife."

Chen Nuo narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the creature. Indeed, it had become unacceptably fat. The entire cat looked like a fuzzy, round ball.

Chen Nuo didn’t beat around the bush. "What was that force that trapped Lu Xixi’s consciousness in her own Consciousness Space?" he asked directly.

The Gray Cat thought for a moment. "A sort of... rule."

"Rule?"

"Yes," the Gray Cat nodded. "Like before a butterfly’s larva matures, there’s a cocoon to protect it from entering the world prematurely and being harmed."

"What else?"

"And..." The Gray Cat trailed off, seeming somewhat uneasy.

Chen Nuo narrowed his eyes. "And it’s nourishment, right? It seems you’ve gained quite a lot of benefits."

"Mutual benefit," the Gray Cat replied, shrinking its head.

Chen Nuo contemplated in silence for a while, then suddenly said, "Lu Xixi’s awakened ability is different from mine."

The Gray Cat didn’t speak. It turned its head to look at Chen Nuo, then quickly averted its gaze.

Chen Nuo didn’t look at it either, talking to himself. "I’ve confirmed it. My awakened ability relates to the mastery of space... This... after much thought, is probably because I’m Seed’s Chosen One. Seed excels in spatial abilities, so as its Chosen One, my awakened ability is also spatial. But Lu Xixi is different. Her awakened direction is Life Force."

As he spoke, Chen Nuo suddenly scrutinized the Gray Cat. "What is Life Force?"

The Gray Cat remained silent.

Chen Nuo laughed, running his hand along the Gray Cat’s back. "You know, don’t you? You’ve absorbed so many benefits. How could you possibly not know?"

Seeing that the Gray Cat still wasn’t talking, Chen Nuo frowned. "What’s the matter? Can’t you tell me?"

SIGH.

The cat actually sighed. For a moment, Chen Nuo even thought he detected a hint of pity and sympathy in its gaze.

"I’m just considering how to explain it in a way you can understand," the Gray Cat replied frankly.

"Just say it. How do you know I won’t understand?" Chen Nuo was a bit discontented.

"...Do you know about spatial dimensions?"

Chen Nuo immediately nodded. "I do. Zero dimension, one dimension, two dimensions, three dimensions... We live in three-dimensional space, so we are three-dimensional beings..."

He suddenly paused, then frowned and looked at the Gray Cat. "Wait a minute... Then you... Mother, Seed... What dimension do you Spiritual Life Forms belong to?"

Indeed, Chen Nuo was somewhat confused.

According to his understanding of physics, the zero dimension was easy to understand; in essence, it was like a point. A one-dimensional space is a line. A two-dimensional space is a plane with length and width. Three-dimensional space adds height, making it a solid volume.

As for four-dimensional space... that existed only in human imagination.

Chen Nuo even knew that theoretical physics speculated the universe has eleven dimensions. However, those were purely theoretical speculations and assumptions, unverifiable and incomprehensible in detail. They could be disregarded.

But one fundamental understanding existed: lower-dimensional beings, such as humans, cannot truly imagine and understand higher dimensions. For instance, humans are three-dimensional beings. They can only guess at four-dimensional space through imagination but cannot truly understand it—although many hypotheses about four-dimensional space exist, none have been substantiated.

Seeing Chen Nuo stop mid-sentence, the Gray Cat chuckled. "You guessed it?"

"I still haven’t figured it out." Chen Nuo shook his head. "You... what dimension are you?"

The Gray Cat still didn’t answer, instead asking Chen Nuo, "Whether it’s Mother, or these Seeds who spend all day thinking about becoming Mother... what do you think is the goal of all the competitors?"

"To become the new Mother."

"To become Mother? And then what?"

"To repair the flaws, to mend the natural defect inherent in evolving life through this method of interaction, to fix it and avoid repeating the original Mother civilization’s extinction."

"You already know quite a bit. Indeed, as you said, everyone’s goal is to find a way to fix the flaws in the rules... But..." The Gray Cat looked at Chen Nuo with calm eyes and continued, "Suppose they find it! Then what?"

Chen Nuo was silent.

He thought for a moment and ventured, "...Continue... evolving?"

"Evolve toward what? In which direction? What is the goal of evolution?"

The Gray Cat’s three consecutive questions plunged Chen Nuo into silence.

Seeing Chen Nuo speechless, the Gray Cat smiled and changed the question. "Then, what do you think life is?"

Chen Nuo raised an eyebrow. "Isn’t that the question I just asked you?"

The Gray Cat’s tone was a bit petulant. "You asked me what Life Force is; I’m asking you what life is. These are two different concepts. To understand Life Force, you first need to understand what life itself is."

Chen Nuo glanced at the Gray Cat.

After all, Chen Nuo was an Ability User with extraordinary spiritual power, ranking at the pinnacle of humanity. There couldn’t possibly be a problem with his memory. So he recited effortlessly: "An array of phenomena that naturally arise in the process of cosmic evolution, characterized by distinct self-growth, reproduction, sensation, consciousness, will, evolution, interaction, and other rich possibilities. This can also include self-replicating amino acid structures produced by biochemical reactions, as well as fungi, bacteria, plants, and animals, including humans..."

Chen Nuo recited it all in one breath and said indifferently, "I don’t forget things I learned in school."

The Gray Cat listened calmly and then slowly offered its assessment. "That is how three-dimensional beings define life. To be precise, it’s not the definition of life, but ’the definition of three-dimensional life’."

Chen Nuo’s expression suddenly shifted. "You said ’your kind’! So... you mean, you, Mother, the Seeds—you are Spiritual Life Forms! You’re no longer three-dimensional beings?"

Now it was the Gray Cat’s turn to fall silent. It lay there, looked up again at the moon overhead, and replied softly, "No... we are, in fact, still three-dimensional life forms. It’s just that... we’ve reached the pinnacle of this dimensional life form. Our ultimate evolutionary goal is to develop toward higher-dimensional life forms."

Develop toward higher-dimensional life forms!

When it said this, Chen Nuo felt a tremendous shock in his heart. However, on second thought, it didn’t seem that difficult to accept or understand.

Simply considering Mother herself... if one were to disregard that so-called ’defect,’ Mother as a life form had indeed reached the peak within the framework of three-dimensional space. Her mode of existence, reproduction, perpetuation, and the length, breadth, and depth of her life all seemed to have reached the ceiling of the three-dimensional world.

"You mean, Four-Dimensional Life? Your evolutionary goal is Four-Dimensional Life?" Chen Nuo asked involuntarily, his voice dropping several notches.

Four-Dimensional Life—no, even four-dimensional space itself—existed only in human speculation and theoretical imagination.

And after the Gray Cat gave this answer, Chen Nuo immediately realized a key point: "You... you’ve already figured out how to develop into the fourth dimension? Four-dimensional space, the form of life within it—you’ve understood all this?"

However, the answer the Gray Cat gave was disappointing to Chen Nuo. "No... we don’t know."

"Huh?"

"Of course, we don’t know! We’re still in the form of three-dimensional life! Lower-dimensional beings cannot imagine or understand higher-dimensional spaces! That’s a fundamental truth. So, the path of evolution is one of groping in the dark, a difficult endeavor, perhaps even a desperate one! Though I don’t know for certain, I’m sure that throughout the long history of the three-dimensional universe, countless lives and civilizations must have attempted this after reaching their peak. And we are perhaps just another latecomer among those countless attempters. That’s all. Whether we can succeed, no one knows."

As the Gray Cat spoke, its tone grew somewhat desolate.

Chen Nuo, catching that hint of fear and desolation in the Gray Cat’s tone, suddenly blurted out, "So... that’s why you forfeited this competition?! You’re not a coward afraid of death... but rather, you feel this effort is too hopeless?"

HAHAHAHAHA...

The Gray Cat actually laughed, but its laughter was filled with resignation. "Hopeless? No, not hopeless. You’d have to diminish the word ’hopeless’ by a factor of ten thousand, then a hundred thousand, then a million, then even a hundred million... to even begin to approximate the probability of this endeavor succeeding."

Under the night sky, a scene unfolded before Chen Nuo’s eyes that sent a great wave of stillness through his heart.

The cat was gazing up at the starry sky, tears streaming from its eyes.

A crying cat.