Thus Spoke the Buddha: The Quantum Circus | Chapter 25 | Moving Mountains | Novela.app

Zhao Meiyou’s eyes snapped open. This time, what met his gaze was not a hospital ward or a sterile corridor, but a boundless void. Not far away stood an open door; beyond it lay a long gallery hung with lanterns, flanked by rows of specimen jars arranged in perfect order. He was back at Site 000. As his consciousness returned, his physical senses followed. Zhao Meiyou realized there was a weight pressing down on him. He looked up to find Qian Duoduo kneeling over him in a rather indescribable posture. There were red stains on Qian Duoduo’s lips—blood. Zhao Meiyou instinctively licked his own lips and winced at the sharp sting. His lips had been bitten raw. The person responsible had been fierce, their kiss like that of a wild beast—savage and violent. Hearing him stir, Qian Duoduo looked down, their eyes meeting. He let out a breath of relief. "You’re awake." "Brother Qian, you..." Zhao Meiyou was startled by his own voice; it was incredibly hoarse. "Don't speak yet." Qian Duoduo leaned in, sealing Zhao Meiyou’s lips with a heavy, slow pressure. Zhao Meiyou felt blood pour into his mouth, burning its way down his throat and into his stomach. It traveled through his system, surging through the corpus cavernosum before being fully accepted by the man above him, forming a closed loop of sensation. After an indeterminate amount of time, Qian Duoduo released him and began to clean up the mess between them. "When you first entered, the magnetic field here attacked your subconscious. You fell into a deep sleep. If no one had pulled you out, you would have stayed trapped in that dream loop forever." Zhao Meiyou lay spread-eagled on the ground, his brain still feeling like a firework display had just gone off inside it. He felt utterly drained. After a long moment, he cleared his throat. "Brother Qian, your way of waking people up... is certainly wild." Qian Duoduo remained composed. "I had to dive into your subconscious to pull you out. This was the most effective way to establish a link." Zhao Meiyou let out a breathless chuckle. "Our Brother Qian really is capable." Suddenly, a hand pressed down on his waist, making him yelp in pain. Qian Duoduo kneaded and pressed against his back, his bones letting out a series of sharp cracks. "Try to sit up." Zhao Meiyou did as he was told. To his surprise, the pain was gone. "My back doesn't hurt anymore." He looked around at their surroundings. "Brother Qian, where exactly are we?" Qian Duoduo snapped his fingers, manifesting a new pair of trousers for himself. "I don't know." It was the first time Zhao Meiyou had heard the words "I don't know" from Qian Duoduo. The place resembled a cavern or a pocket of void, devoid of any decoration. Qian Duoduo led him deeper into the darkness. "While you were unconscious, I ran some tests. Here, the abilities of an Archaeologist seem to be entirely ineffective." "Ineffective?" Zhao Meiyou said, surprised. "Didn't you just manifest a pair of pants?" "It’s not that I can’t use my abilities," Qian Duoduo explained. "It’s that using them has no meaning." He stopped at a certain point and raised his hand, pointing upward. "Look up." Zhao Meiyou followed his gaze. High above, it looked as though the ceiling had cracked open, letting in a sliver of light—grey and bright, like moonlight. "Let’s assume we are currently inside a museum, or some kind of structure," Qian Duoduo said. "Then that light is the only exit." Zhao Meiyou realized they had been wandering through this museum for a long time. The building had walls and ceilings, but no windows and no doors leading out. "I tried manifesting explosives. It was useless. I couldn't even shatter those glass jars outside." "Did the explosives lose their power?" "No. The shockwave nearly knocked me off my feet." Qian Duoduo shook his head. "It’s just that everything here is unaffected by an Archaeologist’s power." To demonstrate, Qian Duoduo snapped his fingers and produced a lighter. He held his palm over the flame until the flesh turned charred and black. Then, he led Zhao Meiyou back to the corridor where the angels slept in their jars. He took down one of the lanterns from the ceiling and tried to light the candle inside with his lighter. There was no reaction. Qian Duoduo shook his hand, and the burnt flesh restored itself instantly. "Do you understand now?" Zhao Meiyou clicked his tongue and caught Qian Duoduo’s hand. "So, if we want to leave this museum, we can't blow a hole in the wall or force an exit. We have to go through that crack in the ceiling." "Exactly." "Can you fly up there, Brother Qian?" "I can't. I've tried." Qian Duoduo shook his head. "No matter how high I fly, the distance between me and the crack remains unchanged." "Then we have to find a staircase." "Yes. We have to find a staircase." Having reached an agreement, they began to walk through the darkness. The space seemed circular; after some time, they returned to their starting point. Zhao Meiyou looked at the discarded trousers on the ground. "Brother Qian, are those yours?" Qian Duoduo gave a brief nod. "We might need light." They both thought of the endless sea of lanterns in the corridor outside. They returned to the gallery and began taking down the lanterns, attempting to illuminate the bottomless void behind the door. The lanterns came in a thousand strange shapes—miniature stars, flowers and goldfish, the brains or eyeballs of unknown extraterrestrials. The light within them seemed like a tangible living substance, with the lanterns serving as the wombs that birthed it, the cages that imprisoned it, or the coffins that buried it. Eventually, the lanterns they gathered formed a small mountain behind the door—a radiant cemetery where suns and moons were interred. Zhao Meiyou climbed the pile of lanterns, treading all the stars beneath his feet. "Brother Qian!" Zhao Meiyou’s voice drifted down from above. "I think I found a way out!" Qian Duoduo squinted up at the figure atop the peak. "What way?" "We have to build our own staircase!" Zhao Meiyou shouted. "Brother Qian, I’m jumping down!" He leaped from the mountain of light, and Qian Duoduo stepped back, catching him steadily. "What did you mean by building a staircase?" "When I was at the top, the distance between me and the crack in the sky seemed to get smaller." Qian Duoduo understood immediately. If everything within this museum was immune to an Archaeologist’s power, what about the objects that already belonged to the museum itself? *The human body is too short to pluck the stars, but the Taihang Mountains rise ten thousand fathoms high.* He couldn't fly, but he could move a mountain. "Come on, Brother Qian," Zhao Meiyou’s voice rang out, lighthearted and arrogant. "Let’s move a mountain." No sooner said than done. They began to traverse the museum, dragging specimen jars, massive skeletons, and even dead planets into the void to pile them into a mountain. Zhao Meiyou found a hall filled with porcelain; they added the slender-necked vases and wine cups to the heap. Some of the porcelain shattered, sending a rhythmic clatter echoing through the void—a mesmerizing sound that felt like both destruction and rebirth. Zhao Meiyou had read in the library about the ancient process of making porcelain, how earth from the mountains was fired in kilns to create brilliant glazes. Now, these beautiful creations were being smashed, returning to their state as stones and earth within a mountain. It was a grotesque peak: skeletons lined the slopes, angels were buried at the base, and those moving the mountain were no gods—just two humans trying to reach the sky. Finally, the two of them reached the summit. The crack in the heavens was now very close. Zhao Meiyou suddenly asked, "Hey, Brother Qian, how high do you think our mountain is?" Qian Duoduo considered it for a moment. "About 300 kilometers." "That close?" Zhao Meiyou was surprised; that was a distance you could drive in less than an hour. "How can you tell?" "According to the books, that is the distance between the earth's surface and outer space in reality," Qian Duoduo said. "Sometimes the sky isn't as far away as we imagine." Zhao Meiyou looked at the white light pouring down. From the ground, the crack had looked narrow, but now it was an opening wide enough for two people to pass through. "Looking at it this way, we’re like the people walking out of the cave." It was a metaphor Qian Duoduo understood. He replied, "Those who walk out of the cave must also return to it, to verify if they are walking the path of the good." "Hey, Brother Qian, give me some credit. It took me forever to memorize that line." Qian Duoduo thought about it and said seriously, "You memorized it well." "You're patronizing me like a child." "Then you memorized it poorly." "Now you're just looking for a fight." The Foolish Old Man moving mountains, the Jingwei bird filling the sea, the Babylonians building a ladder to heaven, Socrates exiting the cave—they were now a superposition of ten thousand identities. Zhao Meiyou tried standing on his tiptoes, but the opening was still too high for his jumping reach. He crouched down and patted his shoulder. "Brother Qian, come on." Qian Duoduo raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?" "What are you talking about? You're not that heavy." Qian Duoduo shook his head but stepped onto Zhao Meiyou’s shoulders. The man beneath him steadied himself and stood up. "How is it?" Zhao Meiyou asked. "Can you reach?" Qian Duoduo reached out. Even with both of them stretching to their limits, he couldn't quite touch the opening. He narrowed his eyes, gauging the distance between the white light and his fingertips. It was like Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel—God reaching out to Adam, the gap between divine and human wisdom reduced to a hair’s breadth. Qian Duoduo looked at the distance, withdrew his hand, and jumped down. "Zhao Meiyou, you go up." Zhao Meiyou: "Me?" "Your jumping ability is better than mine," Qian Duoduo said. "If you jump from my shoulders, you can reach the light." This was no time for sentimentality. Zhao Meiyou stepped onto Qian Duoduo’s shoulders and was hoisted upward. Zhao Meiyou reached out his hand. In the next second, a thunderous *boom* erupted from the base of the mountain. Likely due to an uneven distribution of weight, a massive firestone rolled down the slope. It was the star they had hauled from one of the galleries; Qian Duoduo had studied the sun-like orb for a long time before deciding to use it. The movement acted as a trigger. The entire structure of the mountain began to collapse. Qian Duoduo’s voice rose from below: "Zhao Meiyou, grab hold!" Zhao Meiyou lunged for the edge of the opening, pulling himself up while simultaneously reaching down to haul Qian Duoduo after him. At that moment, the sun set. And together, they saw the light beyond the mountain's peak. *** Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation --- | --- | --- 移山 | Moving Mountains | Reference to the Chinese fable "The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains" (愚公移山). 000号遗址 | Site 000 | The mysterious location where the protagonists are currently exploring. 考古学家 | Archaeologist | A specific role or class of person with reality-bending abilities in this setting. 走出洞穴的人 | Those who walk out of the cave | A reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. 海绵体 | Corpus cavernosum | Biological term for erectile tissue, used here to describe the physical/energetic link between the characters. 精卫填海 | Jingwei filling the sea | A Chinese myth about a bird trying to fill the ocean with pebbles; a metaphor for persistence. 巴比伦人造天梯 | Babylonians building a ladder to heaven | Reference to the Tower of Babel.