That night, neither Xu Lin nor Qin Sang slept.
Xu Lin was waiting for all the suspects to be apprehended and for the official verdict. Only then could the final arrangements before the true apocalypse be announced.
Qin Sang, on the other hand, was left bewildered by that little orb.
Well, to be precise, that little orb had quite a story behind it.
Inside the roasted goose space, faced with Grandpa Goose’s dramatic questioning, Qin Sang explained exactly how she had come across the little orb.
“So it’s…”
Seeing his reaction, Qin Sang knew Grandpa Goose was about to be cryptic again. This time, she wouldn’t let him brush her off.
So she pinched the tiny orb between two fingers. It was so small it barely registered.
“Hey, hey, hey…” Grandpa Goose cried out in alarm at her movement.
“Gently, gently!”
Qin Sang let out a dry laugh. With her other hand, she unceremoniously plucked Grandpa Goose off her head. “This thing has a bit of energy, and it looks like a sago pearl. I happen to have sago in the pantry. How about I make some taro sago sweet soup for a late-night snack?”
With that, Qin Sang dropped Grandpa Goose and walked toward the pantry.
Grandpa Goose flapped his wings and chased after her, shouting in her ear, “Little Sang Sang, little Sang Sang. This little orb is very important. Give it to me—I’ll keep it safe.”
Qin Sang shook her head. “No, no, no. This thing has an unusual constitution—perfect for sago sweet soup.”
Seeing that Qin Sang was unmovable, Grandpa Goose steeled himself. He flew directly in front of her, turned around, and stared her right in the eyes with his little black bean eyes.
“Little Sang, this thing really is very important.”
“How important? Don’t try to fool me. I want the truth this time. Otherwise, I really will cook it and eat it.”
Seeing that Qin Sang was dead set this time and wouldn’t be as easygoing as before, Grandpa Goose hesitated on the spot for a long while. He even forgot to flap his wings and fell straight to the ground.
Qin Sang: …
It seemed this little orb really was important. Now she was curious. Since the appearance of people with precognitive dreams, the world had become less and less scientific. But she had never seen Grandpa Goose so unsettled.
The thought had barely flashed through her mind when she heard Grandpa Goose’s voice suddenly turn deep and solemn.
“This is a dragon egg…”
“Oh, a dragon egg…” Qin Sang repeated automatically. Then her eyes widened. “What? This sago-sized orb—you’re telling me it’s a dragon egg? Grandpa Goose, you’re really messing with me now!”
Qin Sang suddenly felt that all of Grandpa Goose’s previous secrets were no big deal in comparison.
Keeping secrets was better than lying through his beak!
She looked down at the tiny orb between her fingers, scoffing inwardly at the phrase “dragon egg.” If you insisted on calling this an egg, it would have to be an ant egg. Even a cockroach egg was bigger than this.
Seeing Qin Sang’s attitude, Grandpa Goose smacked his head in frustration. The last few times, he had been wrong—he was worried that revealing things would affect the future. But the dragon egg, which shouldn’t have appeared yet, had appeared. And in such a malnourished state. Grandpa Goose knew it was time to tell Little Sang some things.
And then Qin Sang heard something even more outlandish.
—
“You’re saying that the precognitive dreams that started appearing at the end of June, and the sudden abundance of jade spaces—all of it was arranged by the consciousness of Blue Star?”
Qin Sang recognized every one of those words, but strung together, they sounded utterly mystical.
The consciousness of a planet—wasn’t that something that only appeared in cultivation and spiritual energy revival novels? Was their world about to experience an energy revival?
If it was an energy revival, then a dragon egg didn’t seem so strange anymore.
Grandpa Goose knew Qin Sang had gotten it wrong and quickly corrected her. “It’s not that simple. All I can tell you is that the current direction of this world is the best possible outcome—one that the consciousness of Blue Star arrived at after tens of thousands of simulations.”
Qin Sang found that even more mystical.
She tried to put it in her own words: “So you’re saying that a disaster is definitely coming to this world, and that disaster might destroy Blue Star. So to save itself, the planet’s consciousness ran countless simulations. And eventually, it deduced that the current trajectory of the world is the best one for Blue Star’s future?”
Grandpa Goose’s head bobbed up and down nonstop. “Yes, yes, yes—that’s exactly right. You’re such a clever child.”
Qin Sang: “Don’t think flattery will let you off the hook.”
“Then why do jade spaces contain energy? And what’s happening with the energy that’s starting to appear in the outside world?”
Grandpa Goose shook his head. “Those things really can’t be said. Saying too much would make the future uncontrollable.”
That, Qin Sang understood. If the current path was truly the best for Blue Star, knowing too much might cause her to unconsciously change things. Even a small change could alter the world’s trajectory. She understood the butterfly effect.
“Fine. That’s barely acceptable. So this sago pearl really is a dragon egg?”
Qin Sang held the little orb up to the light. It looked like a completely ordinary little ball. It had a faint energy fluctuation, but nothing else special about it.
And dragon eggs—regardless of the dragon species—should be bigger than an ostrich egg. She couldn’t imagine anything else. No matter how much the genes mutated, an egg wouldn’t shrink to the size of a speck.
Grandpa Goose: “That’s exactly the point. It’s malnourished. It desperately needs to absorb energy.”
That remark made Qin Sang realize something. The ring encasing the little orb had shattered suddenly, likely because of its proximity to the jade pieces with spaces. Those jade pieces contained energy. As her space absorbed that energy, the little dragon egg had absorbed some too, which was why it had burst out of the jade ring.
Fine. Then a huge problem occurred to Qin Sang.
“Grandpa Goose, this little dragon egg is malnourished. Does that mean I have to find energy for it to absorb?”
Grandpa Goose’s little black bean eyes flashed with a “you’re so smart” look.
Qin Sang facepalmed. She suddenly felt that being a little dumber wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
That entire night, because of this little dragon egg, she barely slept. She built a nest for it, found a place to put it—the whole deal.
In the end, the nest was a small brocade box her mother had used to store pearls. The location was right next to the energy water pool, where the energy in the space was most concentrated. For now, she’d let the little dragon egg absorb energy there.
When Qin Sang came out of her space, she saw that dawn had already broken.
She wasn’t even that tired, so she didn’t bother going back to sleep. After washing up, she went into the kitchen and started making rice noodle rolls (cheung fun).
She had a home-use rice noodle roll machine—electric and very easy to use. She poured out the bagged rice flour, added water, and stirred until smooth. Then she ladled the rice milk onto the machine’s tray. She added prepared shrimp, lettuce, scallions, and eggs on top. Then she started steaming.
In just a few minutes, the rice noodle rolls were done.
For the soy sauce drizzled on top, her family had specially ordered it from a time-honored cheung fun shop. The owner had thought they were strange for buying so much of this special soy sauce.
They could make soy sauce at home, but it didn’t taste as good as the one from that shop.
After enjoying the fragrant rice noodle rolls, Qin Sang looked out the floor-to-ceiling window at the blazing sun and thought: when the disaster finally struck, how many people would still be able to eat cheung fun?
That said, knowing that the world’s path had been simulated and refined as the best possible outcome made her less pessimistic.
Whatever happened, the consciousness of Blue Star probably didn’t want humanity to go extinct.
Thinking of this, Qin Sang remembered Grandpa Goose’s reminder from the night before.
“That woman upstairs, Qu Meijing—you said she’s a reborn person. But I can confirm that there are no actual reincarnators or transmigrators in this world. What she thinks are memories of a past life are more likely data redundancies accidentally generated during the world’s simulation process.”
Yes, that statement had a scientific ring to it.
In Qin Sang’s own understanding: Qu Meijing wasn’t truly reborn. The “past life memories” in her head were more likely fragments left over from one of the countless world simulations.
From this perspective, Qin Sang understood what Grandpa Goose was trying to tell her.
This world might have more than one Qu Meijing. There were probably others like her. How many of these “accidents” had occurred across tens of thousands of simulations? No one could know—not even Blue Star’s consciousness itself, probably.
Just then, her phone buzzed. Qin Sang picked it up. It was Da Linzi.
He sent a message saying not to make breakfast for him—he had some things to arrange.
Qin Sang replied “okay” and didn’t think much of it. When her parents got up, she made a batch of cheung fun for each of them too. She also made over a dozen extra portions and stored them in her space pantry. Next time she wanted some, she could just take them out and eat.
Meanwhile, Xu Lin had already received some good news.
—
Overnight, every dangerous person he had flagged had been arrested. Interrogations were proceeding in parallel, and many had already concluded. No one knew exactly how many people had been mobilized across the country that night, but the results were remarkable.
The suspects were caught, confessions were obtained, and after certain things that had never been fully confirmed were finally verified, the authorities were ready to begin a new round of discussions—and the true pre-apocalypse arrangements.
Those discussions lasted an entire day. Not until evening did every phone in the country simultaneously receive notifications from mobile carriers and major apps.
Every single notification said the same thing: that night at 8 PM, the Disaster Response Administration would hold another press conference.
Qin Sang’s family was eating dinner when they saw the notification. They immediately started speculating about what it could be.
Ever since the last press conference, all official announcements had been made through the Survival app. For them to send out such large-scale notifications, and with such brief wording, meant the matter was extremely significant.
Everyone felt it.
Online, countless theories were flying around. Occasionally, a post saying something like “my neighbor disappeared last night” would appear, only to vanish quickly.
Qin Sang had a feeling Da Linzi knew something. She looked up at him.
Xu Lin didn’t keep her in suspense. “They’ll probably announce some of the events that have happened in the country since the end of June. And also—things related to safe zones.”
The moment the words “safe zones” came out, Qin Sang raised an eyebrow. Weren’t those places that only appeared in apocalyptic scenarios? The disaster hadn’t even struck yet, and they were already designating safe zones?
How could the authorities know which areas were safe and which weren’t?
Under a natural disaster, everyone was equal.
Unless… another “Qu Meijing” had appeared. And that person had a lot of apocalyptic memories.
Xu Lin didn’t know all the details of the authorities’ decisions. But he knew that tonight’s press conference would change countless lives.
No one went outside after that. Qin Sang’s family stayed home, ate their meal, turned on the TV, and listened to the various broadcasts while waiting for the press conference to begin.
Out on the streets, there was hardly anyone—just the official patrol personnel.
Everyone was waiting.
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